So the last two nights I've played worse than ever. I've managed to tilt off all of March's profit. Therefore, I'm taking a break from poker and probably my blog too. If you're one of the few who read, it probably won't be updated anytime soon.

I need to do some serious self reflection, soul searching, and decide how important this game is to me. When the cards start affecting you personally, that's a pretty bad sign. I've never experienced this level of tilt in my life. I always sort of thought that people who complained of tilt problems were simply mentally weak. I know now what they really refer to. I didn't before.

I'll probably plan on taking a week or so off of poker, or at least, I wont play any higher than 200nl. maybe even lower than that, if I go into withdraw. The 2nd week of april my parents will be in town, so I probably will play very little then as well.

Aaron

Man, work has really been sucking lately. I'm trying to get some experience at the more advanced aspects of Cognos ReportNet and if it wasn't for my uncle helping me, I'd be 100% fucked. As it is I'm some debatable amount less than 100% fucked, so while things aren't as bad as they could be, they aren't that great. I like learning new work related technologies, (such as the Cognos Products) and it's defintely a +EV move for me, so I've gotta push through... Unfortunately, my manager keeps throwing me curve balls everytime another consultant quits. My firm is getting out of the Java biz, so each time a new monkey swings to another tree, guess who gets to take over their projects? Yup, Mr. former Java consultant Aaron. So why didn't I jump ship? I had delusions of becoming a re-trained chimp (see above) in the Cognos realm and striking it rich. Instead I'm just a code monkey for 3 new projects being left on my lap by the latest person resigning. So not only am I not getting a steady stream of Cognos experience, I get to take over a partially completed Java-ish projects. Talk about being dealt a bad beat...

Ok, so how about some poker content. I haven't updated in a week and thanks to my latest reader reminding me (wow, I didn't think anyone actually read this garbage...) I decided it was time to add an update.

So let's start off with some current March totals. I basically have sucked ass at NL400 all month. My first day at the new level was March 1 and since then I've played a new monthly record of 29,000 hands (broke my former online record, 15k hands last month) for a crummy winrate of 1.51 BB/100. This translates to $3,518.67 profit so far this month. To some of my non-online poker playing readers, this might sound like a decent month... but considering if I won at the same BB/100 rate that I did during my NL200 days, I would have been over $14,000 for this month. See what I mean? Too bad I'm no good at this game, otherwise this would be my mantra:

I started off playing just two tables, but as the month has progressed I've made it up to 6 tables during peak times where the fish are out in great numbers. Last Saturday was prime pickins where I was on 4 incredible tables and 2 above average tables. I handled 6 tables fairly easily, but I had to cut out some marginally +EV situations in order to better concentrate on 1 or 2 big pots I was playing at once...

I suppose since this blog entry looks like a picture book anyway, I might as well post an updated version of my graph (click to enlarge) :

Ok so how about some hands and worthwhile thoughts.

Here's a hand where I had to lay down top set. I've got KK UTG at an excellent table. Villain in this hand is 37/5 loose passive and pretty unremarkable.

Effective stacks $575

I open with KK UTG for $15, Villain calls, rest fold.

Flop ($36) Q T 3

I lead for $33, Villain calls.

Turn ($102) K

I bet $75, Villain calls.

At this point I'm putting Villain on either a slowplayed turned straight, or perhaps a heart draw with the J or so. Villain is loose/passive, but I think surely I would have heard from a set or 2pair by now.

River ($252) 6

Bleh, hearts made it. Now I choose between check/call, check/fold, bet/fold. I choose bet/fold and I figure 1/2 pot is good enough to maximize value from 2 pair or something like KJ which Villain could have played this way. If villain raises, I'm very sure my set is no good.

I bet $124, donk minraises to $248, and dispite the awesome price I'm getting, I muck. Some might disagree with this, but the donk minraise on the river just screams flush. Where's the 10 when I need it?

Ok maybe that hand was 'meh', let's find one a bit more interesting. Here's one where I can't fold TP because I'm stupid. Watch me donk some money. I can't fold to min-reraises when I'm in position. Blah...

I'm UTG+1 with A Q and open for $14, 1 fold, SB calls, BB min-reraises (basically) to $31, I call, SB folds.

Flop ($76) A 6 4

I'm feeling pretty good as I think AK would like to slim the field a bit more PF with a bigger raise and those small raises are often big pairs not wanting to "lose any customers" haha... Villain makes what looks like a scared continuation bet of $31. I'm feeling more confident of my read as I call.

Turn ($138) 8

Villain leads for $100. At this point I thought to myself "Dang, does he really have AK ? Would he make that bet with KK? What the heck, happened to my read? Villain has been aggro but not overly so. This is the point where I felt like I should fold. I didn't want to call as my hand is pretty damn transparent and Villain could make a big bet on the river and that would suck. I felt (at the time) this would be a good position for a min-raise turn for a cheaper showdown (folding to any further aggression). I raise to $200, Villain calls.

River ($538) 5

Villain checks, I check behind. Villain shows AK and MHING. Bleh.

In retrospect, this was a pretty crappy time for the turn minraise play. A better play would have been to either fold to his turn bet or call with the intention of not putting another dime into the pot. If a river heart comes, I can be pretty sure he's checking. If it blanks, most players at this level aren't making a habit of firing 3 barrels on a bluff. Would he really min-reraise worse than AQ from the big blind? Doubtful... I think folding this turn was definitely the play.

Stay tuned for more of my donkified hands...

So I've made a decent recovery since my last blog entry. I'm back into the green and ahead for the $400 games...albeit not by a ton. I've currently played 21,670 hands and won $1,665 since March 1, for a horrendous winrate of 1BB/100 hands. At least it's a profit though.

Friday night I decided to hit up the casinos for the first time in months. I first went to Ameristar and played some 3-6 limit while awaiting a seat in the $2-$5 blind NL game they have. With only one table running it took a while to make it in. They opened a second feeder table, which had some good action, but I was the first to get moved to the main game that had all the old farts who probably got the game started at 11:00am and had been there since. The game was horribly tight-passive, with one shortstack 3 to my left and the only loose passive guy two to my left. So basically I was in the worst seat in the house, as typically in a tight-passive game I'd really open up my raising range in late position, but with these two clowns in the blind positions while I'm in the MP3, CO, and the button, I was stuck "between the rocks and a soft player" (am I a poker comedian or what? :-).

I had two hands of note from Friday night. The first I had AKo in the CO. One EP limper, folded to MP2 who was a tight old guy who raises to $25. I call, all else fold. Effective stacks are around $450 or so.

The flop ($55) comes A 3 8.

Villain checks, I check behind. I'm not worried about giving a free card to spades. The only hand I really care about giving a free card to would be KQs, and I'd say it's only 50% likely he's raising it PF. So I'm in a typical WA/WB situation.

The turn ($55) Q

Villain bets $40, I call.

The river ($135) K

Villain bets $40. Blah... At this point I beat AJ and AQ, but I lose to QQ-AA which he would probably play the same. Getting such a good price at 4.5:1, I cannot fold top two. Raising would be spewing because it's uncertain if he calls AJ/AQ and he certainly calls with all the hands that beat me. I call the $40, he shows me AA for flopped top set. I was pretty happy to lose so little on this hand and I felt like I played it fairly well. I'm glad the flop didn't get bet, or it would have certainly cost me more.

The other hand that was semi interesting was at Harrahs. The game was juiced. One guy who had $2000+ in front of him was a complete maniac. He would constantly "bully" people by betting $50 into $12 pots etc. It was hilarious. He would snap people off, they would get mad. He had most of the table tilting. As I watched him, I knew there would come a time where he'd put a big river bet into me and I would have to decide whether or not he had it. I tried to pay close attention to get some sort of read as to how he bet on his different types of hands. After an hour or so, he appeared to be a "bet big when he wants you to fold, bet small when he wants action" type of guy. Now I'd just have to follow through with my read.

While this guy was a maniac, he did pay some attention. He would look noticably surprised when I got into a pot against him, so he at least recognized that I wasn't spewing money around like he was. That said, it didn't stop him from paying me off in a few spots where I called some pot bets with draws knowing that if I hit I would get paid. Twice he paid me handsomely when my OESD hit. By the time this hand came, I had managed to snag a seat two to his left, so I could hopefully isolate him and myself from the rest of the table.

I had 77 in EP and limp. One other guy limps, SB completes, maniac in the BB raises to $30 (standard). I call, all else fold. Villain checks dark. I tried to decide what this meant, was it strength or weakness? He looked visibly surprised when I called him preflop. I wasn't sure what his check dark meant. The flop was pretty tame:

Flop ($70) J 2 5

Villain checked dark, so it was on me to act. I opted to check behind and see what the turn brought. Villains raising range PF is pretty wide, but perhaps less so from the blinds. He had only raised from the blinds one other time that I remembered and his flop bet took it down. I was still confused what his dark check meant, so I decided attempting to get to showdown was the way to go.

Turn ($70) 6

Villain leads for $50. The turn was a pretty good card for my hand, I opted to call to reevaluate the river. If he checks to me, I'm probably good. If he bets again, I'll have to decide if he tried to get tricky with AA or air.

River ($170) 2

Another good card for me. Villain looks at me and sets out a stack of 20 $5 chips for $100 bet. Action on me, what to do? The check dark is still throwing me, and I cannot decide what he has. I think he makes the $50 turn bet no matter what his holding. I'm also sure his 2nd barrel range on the river isn't as wide as the first barrel on the turn...but certainly he does this with hands I beat. I had seen him fire two barrels with nothing in other hands... Ugh. His bet is right in the middle of what I had considered "big" and "small" for him. Eventually I decided he makes this river bet with too many hands that beat me... stuff like 88, 99, J4, etc and I needed to fold. I showed him my 77 as I mucked, he showed me his AQs as he scooped the pot. D'OH!

Thinking back on the hand, I think I could have made the hand a bit easier on myself by changing my action on one of two streets. Either a) bet the flop and see how he reacts or b) minraise the turn for a "cheap" showdown.

For option A, I don't like this as much because I think he'll call with many of his big aces in this spot to try to hit on the turn...So that play doesn't give me much info. I cannot infer much from his flop call, because he's such a loosey that he'll make that call with anything from a set to A high. Also there's a chance he'll checkraise hands that have me beat as well, which would suck.

For option B, he probably folds some hands I beat there, but that saves me from a tough river decision as I'm fairly sure it will induce a check from all of his 1 pair hands, and if he donk bets the river I can be nearly 100% sure he's got me. In retrospect, I think that's the play to win me the most/lose me the least in this hand.

Thursday and Saturday were the nights I played online and did well. Hopefully that trend will continue.

It's late and I'm tired so only a quick update tonight...

I'm still playing NL400 and I'm still not having very good results. Tuesday night I had a pretty good night and bounced back +$1200 for the night. That brought me within a few bucks of being back to even for the month of march and the $400 game on party. Unfortunately tonight it was back to standard operating procedure, as I got all in twice with the second nuts vs. the nuts. Another time I had flush over flush (3rd nut vs 2nd nut) and the cherry on top was when I had my AA cracked by another AA. Yup that's right...the board 4 flushed the board and had the A of trump. Lovely. So add that all up with some of the other good and bad plays I made, and we ended up -$900 for the night. Yippie.

I truly don't believe the $400 game on Party is THAT tough... there are tons of monkeys out there simply giving their money away...There are a few good players and some tricky LAGs, who may not be winning players overall, but they certainly increase the variance when playing against them...and they put you in very tough spots regularly. One of these nights I'm going to go on a major rush... hopefully it's soon.

In case you're interested, here's a graph of my play. I just downloaded Poker Patterns and generated this graph from my poker tracker database. It was surprisingly easy. Here you can see how I started off to a nice start but after 19k hands I'm horribly down about $900 or so. Blah.

Click the graph for a better view. Oh yeah, ignore the BB/100 figure, it seems to be not coinciding with what's in PT.

So I had another down night... -$300 over I dunno 1000 hands or something. I'm getting very frustrated with myself, as I find myself making poor plays and then getting sucked out on. I had 1 2-outer, 1 3-outer, 1 4-outer and 2 5-outers in various sized pots ranging from $75ish to $500ish. Add to that some donk plays like trying to bluff some guy who tricked me by slowplaying AA preflop (and of course, no one can get away from AA postflop after they slowplayed preflop!!!111oneone Right?!?!?!!111eleven).

So what am I feeling right now...primarily disappointment.

Disappointment in myself for playing poorly and allowing the suckouts to affect me mentally and my personal life. Not so much that I'm ready to jump off a cliff for losing a grand after just moving up in stakes, but more just finding myself truly annoyed and bothered by self imposed criticism. Losing myself in the cards and my play, and allowing a combination of how I play and the results I get to be a reflection of my self worth. That's pretty sad stuff when a leisure activity becomes something that induces feelings of stupidity. Seriously, WTF. Snap out of it already. Of course, anyone that knows me at all is well aware that I consider poker much more than a leisure activity. Hell, I actually had pipe dreams of this game becoming a significant part of my yearly income...maybe even allowing me to get a leg up on retirement someday...

Disappointment in the "poker gods" for my piss poor luck of late and Worthlessness for failing (over the last 17k hands or so) at something that I thought I was good at, Stubornness for not moving back down to the $200s yet...I'm sure there are some others. This is quite a learning experience about who I am and what sort of competitor this has made me. I've been trying to find ways to teach myself lessons... but I also fail miserably. For example, I broke the cardinal rule on Sunday while playing online... I berated a fish. The background of the hand was that he raised on the button and I flopped top set on an 7 4 5 board. It happened he raised PF with QT for the flopped flush... my set still has 35% equity in this spot, I got all in on the flop and managed to hit a 4 on the turn for the boat. He went off at his horrible luck and made a comment about my play, and I lost it. I made snyde comments such as "oh yeah how could I possibly want to get all in with top set against a preflop raiser. how dare I get all in with at worst 35% equity. At this point, he started arguing with me about how much equity I had on the flop...etc. Basically I fell into the trap idiots fall into... not only did I let my bad run affect me to the point that I was on edge in general, but I allowed a far worse player's opinion actually affect me...as if what he says makes any difference at all. The old Aaron would have simply typed in "yeah, I sure got lucky that time, sorry bud things will turn around for you". The new, running like shit Aaron, went on the above tirade. I think that says something about the person I've become through this poor run. If you want to look at the positive, I guess you could say that it's good that I at least recognize that I was being a douche bag...of course, that recognition doesn't change the fact that I was being a douche bag...

So what am I going to do to solve all this? Well first of all I'm going to certainly revert back to "old Aaron" and stop myself from saying anything except friendly remarks to the fish at my table...anything else is inexcusable. Secondly, I'm already in talks with BobboFitos (well respected 2+2'er) to do some poker coaching...I'd like to get his insight and fix some mistakes that I've been making as well as learn how to better approach the game from a person who is a winner at small-high stakes online NL...Hopefully that will start up this week. For a long time I've wanted to find someone who I really felt like had a significant knowledge edge compared to me, and become their friend...I had an opportunity at this with an internet pro I met via 2+2 in KC... unfortunately for whatever reason, we didn't really hit it off or he wasn't too interested in gaining a new friend. He is still, IMO, one of the best thinkers on 2+2 and I always search out his posts. It's too bad something couldn't have spawned there. Until some poker pro wants to take me under their wing, I'll have to settle for BobboFitos' rent-a-friend at $75 per hour.

Maybe I'll try limit myself to playing 2 tables at once instead of 4, and concentrate hard on every single play. this would probably do me some good anyway, even if it would take longer to get unstuck... I need to keep in mind that it's not a race, and even if I'm losing, it's money lost that was already won...it's not like I'm going hungry or anything...of course the feelings of failure is what stings so much worse than the money.

Hey all. So it's been a while since I've written in my blog. To be honest with myself and everyone, it's because I've spent most of my time trying to get "unstuck" from the NL400 game on Party Poker. As most of you who read this know, I tried moving up levels from the $200 6max game to the $400 game on March 1. Since moving up, I've played more hands since March 1 than I did the whole month of February. In that time, I've run worse than I ever have in my life. I'm running at -.75 BB/100 over 16,598 hands, for a grand total of -$995.12.

This bad run has been very tough on me mentally. Poker, as a hobby, has been something that I felt like I've worked very hard at over the past couple years. I've read countless books, magazine articles, and of course read/posted strategy at the 2+2 forums. Having this poor run has (wrongly) made me question many things I've thought I knew. I have, at times, hit a breaking point where I start questioning if I'm a winning player. I've got the bankroll, and the poker tracker stats to prove I am (at least, in the $200 games and below), but it's very difficult to come to grips with my results as I just moved up to the $400 games.

There have been other 2+2'ers, including many very respected ones, talking about going through 30,000 - 80,000 hand break even streaks. While I'm certainly not on their level of skill (or the stakes level), it gives me hope that perhaps my run is at least PARTIALLY due to the many nasty suckouts that I've encountered. Countless 2-5 outers, costing me anywhere from a small pot, to my whole stack...which brings me to a hand I played last Thursday night, the biggest pot I've lost in my life:

Villain in this hand is a semi regular in the $400 game, with stats of 66/44. He's one of the most wild and crazy players I've ever encountered. He seems to have a decent understanding of poker, but he makes far too many 'moves' at people. He is sooo loose and pounces on any sort of weakness with a hefty raise. He has position on me, and I've been limping my strongest hands, allowing him to raise and trapping everyone else in between us with a raise of my own. I've limp re-raised him at least 4 times before this hand.


NL$400, Effective Stacks: $900

UTG limps, I limp with QQ, Villain raiess to $16, button folds, very loose bad player calls in the SB, BB folds, UTG calls, I pop it up to $75 to go, Villain calls, SB calls, UTG folds.

3 of us to the

Flop ($245) 2 7 3

I check - with the reason that I've limp re-raised villain multiple times before and have always lead big on the flop. Previously he's either folded to my flop bet or called then folded on the turn. I am very sure that by checking, my show of weakness will prompt villain to stab at the pot with anything from AA to complete air. If I bet, and he decides to push, I'll be in a tough spot with 1 pair and a deep stack (2+ buyins). Villain's range here is any pair, any big Ace, and probably a multitude of suited connector type hands. Villain is in full maniac mode.

Villain complies and bets $200, SB folds and gives me the green light. I push all in for $826. My read is that I get a call here from 22, 77, 33, 88-JJ ( feel QQ-AA he would re-re-raise PF at least 50% of the time), and possibly some donktacular A7 type hand. Villain will fold all the rest of his huge range.

Villain insta-calls. He flips over JJ. Awesome. At this point, I'm 92% to win...I got Villain to put in > $800 with 8% equity.

Turn ($1884) J
River ($1844) 3

Villain collects $1844 with a turned set of Jacks to beat my pocket Queens.

So there's my new record... biggest pot lost: $1844. Also the record for most money I've ever lost in a hand. I've had an inordinate amount of suckouts in these last 16k hands. Certainly none as bad as this one, but it still stings with "only" $400 stacks.

There's been plenty of bad play too. I think my biggest mistakes in the $400 game have fallen into two categories:

1) Giving short stacks too much action. Starting at these stakes, a lot of people use a short stack strategy that revolves around playingwith about a 25% stack and basically pushing or folding. I need to tighten up my requirements, because paying off those $100 stacks with top pair adds up.

2 (and this is the bigger one)) Far too much bluffing bad players. It's like a disease I've acquired. I put these guys on a weak hand, and I raise their weak bets. Most of the time I'm correct, and they are extremely weak (bottom pair, middle pair, gutshot draw, etc), some of the time I'm wrong and they have top pair or better. In either case, they usually call. Lately, when they have shit and call, they suck out. When they don't have shit and call, I've put in a significant sum of chips with poor equity...which as we all know is a recipe for losing. The third, and most frustrating scenario is we've both got shit, I raise them on the turn, they call, the river blanks they check, and I check behind assuming that if they called on the flop and turn, they'll also call on the river. Then their A high busted gutshot or whatever takes it over whatever garbage or missed draw I have.

So there you have it. Hopefully if I get some time tomorrow, I'd like to make a post regarding the psychology of losing, and how I'm going to get my head out of my proverbial ass. Additionally, I need to document some (mostly obvious) thoughts regarding around the proper adjustments to some of the more common player types at NL400, that vary slightly different from what I saw at NL200. I'm going to keep on trucking... I'm still reasonably confident that I can come out of this month with a profit. We'll see.

Wow... 400NL is brutalizing me. I as the title states, I played another 1100 hands last night for a big winner of -$800. Some of the beats I'm taking are really rough... Here was my favorite of the night. This guy got put on my buddy list after < 5 mins of playing with him. He managed to beat me in several medium-big pots.

Effective Stacks: $400.

Villain was an uber maniac/calling station combo. If he had a draw, he was calling...if he had overcards, he was calling. Sometimes he'd throw in a raise. Other times he'd just call call call.

I pick up Q Q in the SB. Folds to villain on the button who calls, I raise to $18 in the SB, loose/bad BB calls, Villain calls.

Flop ($54) 9 J 3

I lead for $45, BB calls, Villain calls.

Turn ($189) Q

I lead for $100, BB folds, Villain raises to $300, I push my final $233 into the pot, Villain calls and flips over K T for the turned 2 outer gutshot that gives me top set. Lovely.

Ok, there are more bad beat stories I'd love to type out (including another 2 outer from the same villain) but I'll spare you. I very much don't want my blog to turn into a bad beat whine session.

So here's a hand I screwed up this past weeekend. I really should have played this hand better. Constructive self criticism. Here we go.

Villain in this hand is a 20/6 weak tightie...I've never seen him get out of line.

Effective stacks are $322

I'm in the BB with A 2.

Folds to loosie on the button who limps. Villain complets in the SB, I check.

Flop ($12) A 5 3

Villain leads for $10. I just call (some will disagree and say this is a must raise...I feel like in this spot with a very marginal hand, I'll call and keep the pot small to see what the donk behind me does and hopefully play a small pot in position against someone who is not leading into 2 people without a decent hand very often. A strong case could be made for folding here), donk folds.

Turn ($32) 4

So I hit my straight. Cool. He could have led the flop with any 2 pair, set, top pair, and some % of the time club draw. He leads for $20, I raise to $55 straight. He calls. This should have set off some major warning bells in my head. I must have memory lapsed to how tight this guy is. He's not calling this with a club draw, so he's either got the straight already or a set or maayyyyyyybe 2pair...but that's unlikely since I've got one of the Aces.

River ($142) A

Villain leads for $116 and I go into the tank. Doh... is he trying to knock me off a split? Would he really bet out on the flop with a hand that hit the straight on the turn? If he had A2 probably, but that's a stretch considering I've got an A and a 2... would he complete the SB with 52, 42, 32? Unlikely. He could perhaps have A5/A4/A3, but that's still unlikely since there's only 1 A unseen... It's much more reasonable that he's got 55 and 33 and he's betting to get value out of a straight holding donk like myself.

I pull out a lighter and burn $116 as I call. Villain shows me the obvious 33.

Really horrible. I beat nothing here. He's not betting something like AT in this spot for value. He's not getting crazy with busted clubs. He's not trying to knock me off a split here (even if he was, that's a poor reason for me to call on this board). Basically what it boils down to is I make a hugely donkified play and give him an undeserved $116 on the river. This is a really easy fold against this opponent, but I managed to mess it up. I must hate money.

I'll play some more tonight and see how I fare...

NL400 initial thoughts...

So since my last entry my one night heater has cooled immensely. I took some hellacious beats at NL400 on party, but I'm happy to report that I haven't been murdered as my last post was foretelling...however I'm sad to report I'm only a couple hundred dollar winner in my last 3500 hands *doh* :-( At least I'm getting some good experience at the higher game...

Last Thursday I played about 800 hands and was a $140 loser. On one hand I lost a decent pot when I refused to believe my opponent would call a pot sized flop bet with a flushdraw. Here's a different hand where I tried to squeeze some value on the river, and folded to a raise. I virtually never minraise, but here was a time that I felt like he might call a small raise with hands I beat, and he'll never push with hands I don't beat. I had been checking air a lot on the turn in position, so I felt I could get more river action from a marginal hand like 99 or TT if I checked the turn, whereas I feel this villain would fold those hands to a turn bet.

I've got A Q UTG. I open for $14. Folds to Villain in the SB who calls. BB folds.

Flop ($32) Q 4 5

Villain checks, I bet $22, villain calls.

At this point I put Villain on a hand like KQ, JJ, TT, 99, 44, 55.

Turn ($76) Q

Villain checks, I check behind, trying to represent missed overcards or scared of his possible Q. Some will say I badly screwed up the turn here, and I should bet for value. Sometimes I do, but I think I'm either way ahead/way behind on this dry board. I doubt Villain calls much on the turn with a hand I beat, unless he's got the case Q.

River ($76) 6

Villain leads for $45. Uh oh. Hmm... what does his bet mean. It looks like a typical 1/2 pot value bet. At the time I felt like I might be able to squeeze some value out of those hands I beat (JJ/TT/99) since I checked behind the turn, I opted for a minraise, and the reason is because I don't feel like he pushes anything I beat...so I don't risk folding the best hand. If he's got one of the aforementioned hands I think he's got, he can talk himself into a call based on pot odds and the fact that I checked behind on the turn. If he's got 44/55/66 he'll certainly 3bet me all in, and I can safely fold.

Hero raises to $90, Villain pushes, Hero folds. I felt pretty good about the fold here, however, some would argue that I screwed up the turn. I think my line, in the right circumstances, does the best job of winning the most and losing the least.

On Friday and Saturday, I played 3,650 hands. I'm pretty sure that's my record of most hands in a 2 day period... (which, to many online players, is routine). I had some pretty wild hands...Here are a couple.

One I got colddecked by having AK and villain having 55, when the flop comes A K 5. That hand was good for -$566.76.

Here's another fun AK hand. Two limpers, I raise to $22 with A K. Folds to second limper who is loose and bad, he calls.

Flop ($54) K 6 7.

Villain checks, I bet $35, He minraises to $70, I push, he calls with J 4 and spikes a on the river. That hand was good for -$204

Here's a hand where I got outplayed and made a really bad river raise. I'll give my opponent credit, he made a tricky play and got a nice board to take advantage of it. He's a TAG with a hint of tricky LAG mixed in.

Loose, bad player limps in UTG. Tricky Villain limps, folds to me with K J where I raise to $22. Loose, bad player calls (cuz that's what he does), Vilain calls.

Flop ($72) K 2 2

Baddie checks, Villain checks, I check behind. (WA/WB situation. Mixing it up. Usually I bet a wide range of hands here, this time I opted to check. Funny how when you deviate from the standard play, you get yourself into more trouble, eh?

Turn ($72) 2

Good card for me. They both check to me again. At this point I'm about 99% sure I'm ahead. My goal is to now get a call from a small PP or A high. I bet $33. I figure if they had a K or a 2, they would certainly lead this turn, if not the flop. Baddie folds. Villain calls. I put him on a smallish pair or A high. I figured he would isolate-raise most pairs and most big aces after baddie limped.

River ($138) T

Villain checks. I value bet $75. He checkraises me to $200 straight (he's got $146 behind, I cover). Here's where I get ridiculous. I should have been happy to call, and see a showdown. He might have somehow misclicked and had TT preflop for the rivered higher boat. He might have a K or a 2 that he somehow checked 3 streets with. I get donk-tacular and push all in over his checkraise. HORRIBLE. Someone shoot me now for being so dumb. He doesn't make this call with JT or something like that. I push, he calls and flips over A A. WOW. I didn't expect to see that at all... it shocked me he limped that hand after loose baddy. He obviously adjusted to my LP lagginess that I was displaying at this table, and he got a real fortunate flop to stack my donkaliciousness. Horrible on my part. I'm fine with my play all the way up to the river push. It's really terrible against this villain. (perhaps not so bad against loose donkey who calls w/ any pair). I'm still in shock that he limp/called pf, and checked 3 streets on this board with AA. He's lucky i'm such a donk, otherwise he wouldn't have maximized his profits against me.

That hand was good for -$401.

Alright here's my last fun hand I'll share. There were plenty more, but this entry is getting huge. Villain in this hand is really loose and really bad, and he's one of the two reasons I'm at this table.

Effective stacks: $485.

I've got 3 3 and limp in early position. Bad player limps behind, Villain raises to $15 on the button (this means any two cards), couple folds, I call, other baddie calls.

Flop ($51) 3 8 2

I lead for $45, hoping to trap baddie #1 in between myself and Villain. Baddie #1 folds, Villain calls.

Turn ($141) 4.

An innocuous card as far as I can tell. Villain can make that call with a wide range, including A high. I'm hoping he's got a pair TT+, because I know he's going broke. Also with a hand such as 89 there's a good chance I get a turn call out of him. I lead for $100. Villain pushes. Schweet. I insta-call.

River ($991) 6

I get ready to collect my chips until Villain shows 6 5 for the turned gutshot. Cute. He collects the money and I just shake my head. He calls the pot bet on the flop to hit a 10.5:1 shot. Nice. Unfortunately justice wasn't served by having the board pair on the river. That hand was good for -$485.

Ok so after all these hands, some horrible by me, others horrible by my opponents, I'm lucky that overall in the $400 I'm still in the PokerTracker green. My winrate sucks, but at least I'm still +$1,457 so far in the NL400 games that I started on March 1 (5,553 hands). I plan on trying to play a lot more hands this week, so I'm sure I'll have many more of my terrible plays for you to read about.

Until next time...

So February is over and I went back through PT to see how I faired for the month. I didn't play a whole lot of poker in January, so I set some goals for myself starting Feb 1st.

1) Play at least 3500 hands per week of 6max NL.
2) Begin the "blog" and write entries to induce more critical thinking about poker. I felt like I was plateauing a bit, and I wanted to keep pushing upwards.
3) Start preparing myself to leave my "comfort zone" of $200 NL on Party and move up to the $400 games
4) The more long term goal, make $30k this year in poker.

So how'd I do? Well I managed to get 15,091 hands in during Feb (3773 hands per week). 12,905 of those hands were on Party in $200NL. The rest were on Martin's poker spread across NL100, NL200, and NL400 with the bulk in the 200 Euro game. I ran much better on Party than Martins, but my overall my winrate was a middle of the road 3.9 BB/100. It's not where I'd like my winrate to be, but 15k hands is nothing in terms of winrate, and hell at least it's positive ;-)

Total winnings for the month came to be $2,721.93, almost exactly the amount needed per month to hit the 30k mark from 2/1 to 12/31. But again, these numbers are so meaningless at this point since my sample size is so small.

As for my player stats, I ended up being 23 VPIP and 9 PFR. My flop, turn, river aggression came to 2.59/3.13/3.45 for a total of 2.87. I think I'd like to get my PFR number up to 11 or so. Through my first 7000 hands I was around 11 PFR but after getting played back at so much when I had air, I started tightening up. I'm not sure how people get away with 15+ pfr %... they probably just pick their spots and play better postfop than I do. In any case, I think I'm going to add more suited Aces and smaller pairs to my PFR range. Before I was virtually always limping 77-99, but I think I'll open with these more often.

So looking forward, I decided to give the $400 NL 6max game a shot on Party starting March 1. I've started off running hot (as seen in the pic below, courtesy of my Uncle Jason):

(as shown with my lovely girlfriend Missy :-)

I finished up about 3.5 buyins after my first 1200 hands at NL400. My first 300 hands were pretty "meh" and after that I took a couple beats (twice got All In PF in a dominating position against some 50BB stacks in a dominating position and lost) and also a couple 3 outer rivers in medium posts (standard issue stuff) had me down roughly a buyin. After that, I started getting paid off and was the beneficiary of having a hand against a total lunatic that was on wild monkey tilt.

After that I felt like I was playing pretty well, and getting some good cards and using position to my advantage. The only time I got stacked, I had my money in as a 60/40 favorite, so I don't feel bad about that one.

One last thing...It's pretty amazing how much money some of these young internet pros are making. Take 2+2's captzeebo for instance. I took a peek at his updated blog and saw how he made 81k in Feb (nearly tripling my goal for this year lol, not to mention the $171k he made in Jan). I'll probably never be in his league as a player or a gambler... (how about that 90k+ drop on Feb 10th?) but it sure is fun to read what he has to say. I wish I could have one of these guys tutor me, but it's pretty obvious that their opportunity cost of coaching is not something I can mitigate. I would love to spawn a friendship with someone significantly better at poker than I am... unfortunately that opportunity really hasn't presented itself yet. If you're one of those internet hotshot poker players making tons of bucks and you feel like having a protege, email me!

P.S. It's so much easier to make a blog post after having a good night. Expect my next entry to be a crier's tale of how I got murdered and gave all my winnings back :-)