$1 a hand

I played about 4,000 hands today and won $4k in total. I played two more sessions after my $3k win I posted to my blog earlier in the day. One session I won about $2k and lost $1k in the final session of the day.

I even got coolered a few times of course. I got oversetted twice and ran KK into AA AIPF for the loss. Standard.

Pretty decent result for today. Hopefully tomorrow goes just as well.

Uh oh, it's Duckslayer

Hopefully, all my opponents will say this when I sit down and fear D2K. Thought what he said was pretty hilarious... he's a small donator in the game so he knows what's up.

Anyways, making a quick update. I played a short 2 hour session and finished up about $3k. So far, today looks to be going pretty well. I defintely ran good.

Putting this hand up on the blog due to a request by the villain who got stacked. Yes, I do get lucky every once in a while. He had been 3-betting me a lot and AQ soooted looked like a pretty hand to go ahead and make a stand vs him.

This hand, I lost like 2 minutes before I was going to quit. The villain is really weird, he runs like 50/30 and donk bets a ton. I guess he's actually a regular or something, but he's pretty bad. Anyways, he had taken this exact line vs me about 2 other times and I have the top of my range here so I decided to look him up. Too bad I couldn't have hit on the river, I would have got all his chips.

I'm going to play a few more sessions today, after I give my younger brother a poker lesson and get something to eat. He just moved up from $0.05/$0.10 NL 6 Max to $0.10/$0.24 NL 6 Max. Here's a pretty hilarious hand he showed me the other day.

Nose to the Grindstone

I finally got my sleeping cycle back to normal, as I had to stay up about 24 hours or so yesterday so I could get to bed at a normal time, around 10:00 PM. I had been going to sleep in the early morning, like 9-10 AM and waking up at around 5-6 PM the past few days. This mainly came from about a week ago, when my friend Bill came to town. He just graduated from the University of Minnesota and was in town to visit his relatives for Christmas. He is a good friend of mine; we played hockey together in middle school and we've kept in touch since he moved away from Grand Forks just before high school.

Anyways, he also plays poker so we had like a week-long poker marathon. I taught him how to play 6 max cash games and by the end of the week he was doing pretty well. He actually had $0 in his account on Stars because he cashed it all out a few months ago for school expenses. He had enough FPPs to play two of the 5,400 FPP satellites to the Sunday Million. He won them both, sold the seats, and never looked back. He built his account from $0 to $2,400 in less than 7 days, which is pretty cool since I helped him learn 6 max in just a few days.

We ended up staying up pretty late most days, until like 6 AM a lot, so that's how my sleeping pattern got messed up. I think that might have had something to do with the inconsistancy I've had lately... I might not have been rested enough during the days when I lost.

So I'm all recharged now, and I'm going to put my nose to the grindstone for the next 48 hours and try and finish off the last two days of the year strong and see if I can salvage a half decent month for December.

Doomsday once again

Man, I don't know what is going on. I played some more and lost $4k over a mixture of $5/10, $3/6, and $2/4 NL. I am just having terrible swings and today it was primarily due to running like crap in all-ins + a few sick coolers for deepstacks. I ran $2.7k below expectation in all ins.

This was like a carbon copy of the session in which I dumped $3.3k a few days ago.

I'm not going to post any hands, mainly because there isn't anything to learn from them. They are just me shipping it in as a favorite and losing or just losing a flip. Looking at these hands make me sick.

I'm going to go over HEM and look at the hands from the session a bit closer to see if I can figure out why I'm having such ridiculous swings. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out what's going on so I can adapt my play to book wins more consistently.

Just as soon as I thought I was out of my slump, BAM I lose back everything I won in the previous session. Unreal.

My Persistence Pays Off

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.

After my terrible loss the other day, I made the decision to just keep grinding and emphasize my focus on making the correct decisions at the table. I ended up playing a few sessions at $2/4 NL and finished up $4k. Poker is such a sick game. One day you can feel like you don't even want to get out of bed and play, and the next day you're wondering how you could have ever lost the day before... lol

I'm glad I was able to jump right back at it and got the cookies that I lost earlier back right away. I went into the two winning sessions just pretty much expecting to get sucked out/ coolered so I wasn't that mad when it inevitably happened. This allowed me to focus on making the correct decisions at the table and I played pretty well for the most part aside from one pre-flop mistake with AK.

Looks like my persistence payed off over the past two sessions and I'll try and get in some more sessions like this over the next few days.

UB's Christmas Gifts

Today, I had one of the worst sessions I've ever had. UB gave me multiple Christmas Gifts, all of which involved me getting coolered or sucked out. I didn't like the presents UB gave me at all. They were generous enough to give me nearly every cooler, suckout, or set-up in the book.

I played about 4,000 hands and lost $3.3k all at $2/4 NL. Unbelieveable. I can't even begin to explain what happened. My friend Billy was playing along side of me and saw a lot of the hands. He couldn't believe what was happening to me either.

My three biggest losses accounted for -7 buyins. The biggest loser, which was for 3 buyins, was probably a bad river call by me and I should have been able to fold...

All the others, I don't think I could do a whole lot about. If you want to see what I went through, take a peek. If not, fine.

Hand #1: I had a very aggro image and villain was a LAG regular. My 2nd biggest loser on the day.

Hand #2: I could have played this one a bit better. I should have check-raised to a much larger amount, probably like to $280 or something. Of course, terrible turn but at that point the pot was so big and I had a pot-sized bet left and he can still have like AQ, AJ, other crap I just shoved.

Hand #3: No clue why this guy is 3-betting my UTG raises with KJ. I thought the only Jacks in his range would probably be JJ. Fk my life.

Hand #4: Same guy as in my previous KK vs AA hand. He took about $3k off me today.

Hand #5: Another pre-flop cooler.

Hand #6: I messed up here. Terrible river for me. I should have probably folded to his shove or just flatted his river donk as his range is probably weighted towards air/nuts. A small raise is ok too I guess as he might call with AJ or AQ.

Hand #7: Another bad turn in a 3-bet pot. This time I have re-draws and brick.

Hand #8: Set over set. Happened very early in session.

Hand #9: Against the guy who had been lucksacking me all day. So sick.

Hand #10: I suppose I could have played this one differently... I missed my flop check-raise and didn't feel comfortable about raising and getting it in on the turn since the FR33 guy could easily have JJ or QQ and he led into two people... he just cold called the raise and 3-bet pre-flop from the BB.

Hand #11: Standard suckout.

I got smoked this session. I definitely made a few errors but wow... nothing was going my way. Part of me wants to just take a break until January but I wanted to build my roll up towards the end of this month so I could start playing $5/10 NL full time in January. So I don't know if I'll take a break or not.

I'm pretty disappointed/ disgusted right now. One of the rare times where I actually don't like my job all that much. I got the wind knocked out of my sails a bit today.

Small Session = Small Win

Only played for a few hours today and ended up winning about $650. I actually stacked 4 different opponents but I lost a bunch of 50 big blind pots which resulted in me winning less overall.

I did run KK into AA all in pre-flop vs a reg's cold 4-bet from the blinds. He's a pretty big reg-fish and he's the same guy that set mined 77 vs me yesterday in a 3-bet pot and got there when I hit TPTK with AK. I wouldn't have minded getting coolered as long as I was giving my money to anyone but him. I dispise that person. We had a bit of a chat war today too, which I obviously won the chat war at least.

Anyways, other hands of interest would include me value owning myself here against a big fish who was supposed to have 8X.

Lost a flip vs a fish here.

The rest of the hands aren't too interesting.

OMG I won today

It's been a few days since I've booked a win but today I did it. I won about $2k over 2,600 hands at $2/4 NL. I played pretty well overall and didn't make any major errors.

I still had a few unfortunate hands occur however.

Here, a reg decides to set mine vs my MASSIVE 3-bet squeeze. Pretty much a cooler for me but I don't know how he justifies calling that much more pre-flop as he's not getting odds to set mine and I'm going to have a bigger pair than him a lot.

Here I made a small error with my bet sizing. I think I should have bet a bit more on the flop... closer to around $100 or so. However, I have no clue how this guy even gets to the turn with AJ here. I actually shoved turn for value because I thought he could have a hand like 67, 89, 99 as well as possibly random overcards. It was hilarious though that he nearly timed out and folded when I shoved the turn... he called with like 1 second to spare.

Pretty hilarious this reg doesn't get all my chips here. I think I played this pretty well even though I lost the pot.

I had just 3-bet this reg twice over the last 5 minutes and he takes a stand here.

I'm going to look to continue the winning trend and play solid tomorrow as well.

Falling...

Top of building = my high for this month. I'm nearly on the pavement right now.

I lost again today. Lost $1.4k over 2,400 hands.

Here's why.

I lost flip.

I flop boat and lose.

Tried to iso the 2nd player in by 3-bet squeezing here since he was a huge fish but once I got jammed on I pretty much have to go with it. The guy had a large 4-bet %.

Also made a few bad calls on the river when villains check-raised me to a medium amount. It's rarely a bluff from a player who isn't a regular/ solid player.

Add that to the fact that I never really got paid on my sets and I lost a bunch more medium pots and my downward drop for this month continues.

Another terrible day

Spew

I've had a pretty bad string of sessions lately. Today I dumped $3.1k over 2.4k hands. It was a mixture of spew, terrible calls, terrible value bets, terrible suckouts, and terrible coolers.

The run-bad started right off the bat. This one was pretty standard I guess, but this like identical hand has happened at least 3 times over the past 3 days.

This one was just ridiculous.

Actually think I probably should have considered folding the turn, as I think he has a flush here like almost always. There aren't many worse flushes really. I beat a 4 high, 5 high, 6 high, and 7 high flush and lose to a Ten high, Jack high, and Queen high. Also I guess there's a chance he could be spazzing with something like AxQh but I think he probably just c/c turn. I don't know. I just insta-called when he shoved but it probably deserved a bit of thought.

Bad turn here. I'm pretty sure I have to follow through though as he has AJ, KJ, QJ, just as much as JT or 9T probably.

Check/folding here just seems ultra- weak.... but I don't know if a CRAI is the best line. Maybe I should have c/c then c/c all in on turn or possibly even c/f turn. Kind of weird stack sizes.

I had another maniac on one of my tables who's style was bet pot on flop, bet pot on turn, and pot river. I didn't pick up a single hand vs him over like 2 hours of playing at his table.

One good thing that happened today was that I ordered my new computer, so I should get it in a few weeks. I really need to turn this month around to finish the year strong. I had a good 2nd week or so of the month but over the last 10,000 hands I've had a downswing of like $8k which is ridiculous. I shouldn't have this much variance... I'm simply not playing the best I can.

Losing day

I played about 800 hands today and finished down $2.2k. Much of the loss came from $5/10 NL where I lost a pretty big coin flip vs a 3-bet monkey. The guy's 3-betting stats were just off the charts. I had 1,100 hands on him and his 3-bet stat is 11%. His 3-bet stat from the BB is 20% so here AQsooted is at the very top of his range. I played my hand perfectly and it's definitely profitable to be felting JJ vs this villain, even 130 bbs deep.

My other big loser was another cooler. I lost with AA in a 4-bet pot. I 4-bet to a normal size instead of shoving to keep the BB who was a huge fish in the pot. I had a pot-sized bet left on the flop with my overpair and got outflopped.

Nothing else of note really happened. I don't think I played all that bad, as $1,800 of my $2.2k loss was from those two hands alone. I don't know if I'm going to be playing $5/10 NL much more this month. I want to make sure that I end the year on a winning note and I don't really want to take a high variance route to finish the month. I'm definitely a favorite in the games but I want to build my roll a bit on the site I'm playing on primarily now, so I have more buyins for $5/10 NL. If you add up my roll over all the sites, I'm actually over-rolled even for $5/10 NL but there's just something about having enough buyins on one particular site that makes me play a bit better I think.

One last thing, that's pretty exciting... today my friend Bill made it into town and we talked a lot about posibilites for making myself a new website. Also, we looked over some computers online and I think I have one picked out (Dell XPS 730x H2C). I'm going to call Dell in the morning to see if I can get Windows XP put on it and then probably order it. It's definitely an expensive one and it's going to be pretty damn sick. I'll be getting two 30'' Dell monitors for it as well.

Blah day

I played two separate sessions today and ended up down about $600. The first session of the day went really well, as I was up $1.3k in less than two hours. I decided to play again later on at night but then the pre-flop run-bad kicked in.

This was the worst of them.

Lost a flip AK vs QQ and I made a mistake 4-bet shoving really light vs a reg who was 3-betting me nearly every other time I raised it seemed like.

That pretty much accounts for the whole loss on the second session. I spewed a bit in medium pots but nothing too terrible. I also had people just fold when I had high pocket pairs like AA or KK countless times. So I didn't win many big pots the second session and I lost about $1.9k on that session to finish down $600 on the day.

Kind of a crappy day but a lot of the loss was out of my hands. I was a bit tired when I played my second session so I wasn't playing my "A" game either... I wasn't playing quite aggressively enough.

One of my friends, Billy, who moved out of town after middle school is going to be in town for the next week or so. We're probably going to play a lot of poker and I'll try and teach him how to play 6 max cash. He's a full-ring player. We also are going to look into making a website for myself. Something like a more advanced and organized version of Duckblog. Not sure how difficult it will be but he's the computer whiz so we'll see what we can do.

Discovered my biggest leak

Today, I would have been up a TON if I had made the right decisions on the river. I really messed up. Deepstacked $5/10 NL is tough. I absolutely CRUSH it 100 big blinds deep and that's what I normally buy in for. However, I normally win a bunch obviously and get 200bbs deep +. Then the sick spots start occurring.

One river situation was really costly. I am pretty sure I misplayed it but I posted in the CardRunners forums here to see what other think. The more I think about it the more I realize I should just check behind here because there isn't much that can call me that I beat anyways.

I also had another hand where I had top two pair and was put to a decision for my stack. CR link here.

This hand sucked. I have Ace high but I'm a favorite on the flop and lose. I don't know what he thinks he's ahead of here with QJ... obviously he's a fish.

This hand was pretty hilarious. The villain who ended up winning the pot here was a MASSIVE fish. I just stacked him about 10 minutes ago but I talked to him in the chat and convinced him to reload. Told him he was unlucky. So he reloads and felts my ass. lol. Payback's a bitch.

I also played some $10/20 NL today and won a bit on there. I also played the Sunday Million on Stars today and got 382/7549 for about $750.

I had an OK day but it could have been a lot better if I had timed out/folded on the river a few times. Darn. Maybe I'll learn from my mistakes and it won't happen again. If that's true, then I guess it's worth losing a few buyins to figure that out.

Expensive lesson, but I just hope that I will use what I've learned to my advantage in the future. I'm pretty sure that if I fix this problem I have I'll be nearly unstoppable.

More swongs and more $5/10 NL

I played a ton of hands today and I'm not really happy about how the day went. The major thing that disgusted me was that I was playing 5 tables for a lot of the time and during the second session of the day I had one of my old, classic, "marathon" sessions. I really need to follow my plan closer. I've been doing a good job about taking breaks until today. It's just tough to leave $5/10 NL tables when there are big fish because the big idiots are harder to come by than at $2/4 NL.

A few of my errors I'm sure stemmed from not taking breaks. I obviously wasn't thinking clearly on two river spots. I totally butchered them and there's really no excuse, because today I had just given one of my students a lesson on river play. If I would have followed my own advice that I gave her earlier today I would have avoided those two huge mistakes. I pretty much chose the worst line possible in both hands and my mistakes were costly. Those two terrible river calls alone probably cost me nearly $1.4k.

I finished up an OK amount but I actually should have finished up about 2xs or 3xs more than I did. I lost two buyins due to pure spew. I spazzed out in a 4-bet pot with 99 vs a monkeyish regular who just flatted my 4-bet. He had AA obviously. Then I tried pulling a bluff on a pretty terrible board which didn't work out because I got hero called by 2nd pair.

A few good things did happen though, to allow me to finish ahead. This hand was my biggest winner of the day.

I need to be more diciplined and really focus on the things that I outlined in my December plan. I'm straying from it a bit and my results are showing that.

I also went to a UND Fighting Sioux DI college hockey game tonight with my brother. It was a pretty good game and the Sioux ended up beating St. Cloud 7-4. I went last night as well and they won then too. Here are some pics from the game.

Center Ice Faceoff

Near the Sioux Bench

Sioux Victory

Good day

This is going to be a short post because it's late and I have to wake up a little earlier than normal to give a lesson, so here it goes.

I crushed today. I played some $2/4 NL and $5/10 NL and did really well. I didn't make any big mistakes for stacks all day. I only got felted once and that was with two overs and the nut flush draw in a blind vs blind situation... it was pretty much a cooler due to how aggressive the villain was. He had flopped the straight.

I'm playing really well now, so I'm going to work on being consistent and try not to experiment and change my play much since I'm winning.

The Comeback

Today, I had one of the biggest swings that I've ever had in a single day.

I had a terrible first half of the day, going from +$800 at my high point to being down $3.2k. I swung 10 buyins down over a span of 900 hands. I then just got off my computer and took an hour break. I was demoralized by losing so much over so few hands.

I decided that I'd play one final session of the day so I put on my rally cap...


... and I battled back to recover everything I had lost and actually finished up $91.86 for the day, over a total of 3,635 hands.


Wow. Talk about swongs.

This was the hand that started the downward spiral. The villain is a fish who I had on my buddy list.

Then, I got blindsided here by another fish with a VPIP of 50.

Then I started losing the all-in pre-flop hands. I got in TT vs KK when an aggro regular squeezed me. He was definitely squeeze happy and I know my 4-bet jam is profitable vs him in the long run. He just had me this time.

Another hand I got it all in pre-flop with AK vs another squeeze monkey who's JJ ended up winning the hand.

Then I got owned by a fish again. I was just saying to myself, please don't have KJ, please don't have KJ, please don't have KJ... have AJ, QJ, 67, 45, a flushdraw, etc. ANYTHING but KJ! What did he have? KJ !!!!!

I then got raped in countless medium pots which cost me 50 big blinds or so at least 10 times or so. Most were suckous. Some were cooleres. A few I value owned myself.

I'll post the winning hand that helped me begin my comeback. I think I played this one really well, as I got maxium value from it obviously. I was a bit worried about giving the reg a free card essentially for the flush but I didn't want to scare the major fish out of the pot with a re-raise. Pretty sure this is the biggest pot I've ever won at $2/4 NL online. I scoop a $2.6k pot.

Although it sucks to play that long and essentially break even, getting back to even was a huge accomplishment. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I was able to come back and play my "A" game despite being stuck nearly 8 buyins. That shows a lot about my will to win and determination.

I'm pleased with my effort today, but I'm going to look through my big losers again tomorrow to see if I could have prevented some of the losses.

Back on track

Today I put in two winning sessions, each with a $500 profit. So I finished the day up about $1k. I think I'm definitely back on track for the month and I'm nearly back to even. I just figured out that I was simply trying to do too much. Making too many moves pre-flop and post-flop. Bluffing too much. Value betting too thinly. Not playing standard and solid enough.

I was playing really well towards the end of my play today. I would have been up a lot more but I had some unfortunate hands occur.

This one really sucked, but it's just a cooler. I got oversetted.

This one was against a huge fish. I knew he had a 7 and I was getting his stack on almost all rivers except this one. So frustrating.

A few other standard bad beats/ suckouts/ preflop coolers that aren't really worth posting.

The downward spiral continues...

This picture sums up how my sessions went today...


It's so weird how in poker one day you can feel like you're on the top of the world, on your way to high stakes, etc. and then a few days later you feel like you can't even put in a winning session. At the end of last month, my confidence was at an all time high. Now, after a few bad sessions and about a $7k loss over a few days, I feel like I'm clueless.

I figured yesterday wasn't that big of a deal. I took a shot at $5/10 NL, played a lot of hands there that day, and it didn't work out. Oh well, it happens. So I figured I'd just rebuild and play some $2/4 NL to get on a winning track. Well, I wasn't able to book a win there either and proceeded to lose $1.8k today.

I need to figure out a way to stop looking at my cashier. I put it in my December plan, but I've been terrible at following that rule. I check it all the time still. It doesn't do much good.

Anyways, I think the past few days have been a combination of me playing my B or C game paired with me getting sucked out on/coolered a decent amount on top of just simply not getting paid when I have a set or other similar monster. Here were a few examples of some hands from today...

Here, I set up this reg by 3-betting him left and right for the previous half hour. Finally he snapped and 4-bet shoved a suited Ace but he gets there against my AK.

Even though we're 5 handed I think it's a bit thin for him to be shipping 99 on me here, I mean honestly, does he actually thing I'm going to felt a small pair in this spot pre-flop? We hadn't had really aggro dynamic going either. I just don't get it.

I did a 5-bet bluffshove myself that failed because I ran into AA. My timing is always way off whenever I pull one of these. It isn't too common for me to do, but I felt that the situation was just perfect for it. I had been 3-betting him a decent amount so I felt he was getting ready to go ahead and 4-bet me. Well, I was right he certainly did but he had my suited Ace drawing dead.

Weeeee, cooler vs medium stack.

I think I'm going to just switch sites for a day or something, just to get a change. There's a rake race that I'm trying to do well in but at this point making money is just more important. It's probably mostly psychological but I don't feel like I have a prayer right now when I log onto the site I've currently been playing a lot. Also, I've decided that I'm going to play strictly $2/4 NL until the end of the year. I don't want to finish the year on a losing note and I want to ensure that I'm profitable this month to add to my yearly total profits.

I've dug myself a $2.2k hole to get out of, but last month I was able to have numerous daily sessions at $2/4 NL that suprpassed that sum. So hopefully I can string a few of those type of good days in a row to get rolling for the month.

Bad day

Didn't go well today. I went against my December plan and had to peek at my $ stat in HEM and the cashier to see how badly I got crushed. Finished down $4.2k. Most of the loss was from losing 5 buyins at $5/10 NL. I didn't table select well enough. The tables I was at, most of time, weren't really worth sitting at. There wasn't a huge fish at the table all the time, like there had been in my previous $5/10 NL sessions. Most of the players were regs, with a few mediocre ones, a few bad regs, and one ridiculously good reg.

The ridiculously good reg gave me a shit ton of trouble. He has an insane style where he pretty much plays 26/20, c-bets a ton, nearly auto-double barrels, never folds to 3-bets, and doesn't ever fold if you try to bluff him. It's an impossible style to play against if you never hit any flops or get any hands, like what was happening to me vs him. I checked him out on tableratings.com and he's up $200k over 100,000 hands. I lost a stack to him on a dumb pure bluff I pulled against him before I knew he didn't have a fold button and lost way to many medium pots to him.

I just wasn't on the top of my game today. I made far too many mistakes and wasted a stack or two that I didn't have to. I value owned myself for a stack when I had an overpair and a fish took a weird line with turned trips.

I also got coolered like my 2nd hand of the session AA vs QQ AIPF, he spiked a Queen. That didn't start things out well at all. I find that I really struggle if I have a poor start... I think maybe my confidence gets shot down a bit and I don't play as aggressively as I should.

Back to even for the month... I am going to do my best to not look at the cashier from here on out.

I played like a n00b today.

Hopping around $2/4 to $5/10 NL

I think I'm going to spend the rest of the month just playing anywhere from $2/4 NL to $5/10 NL. That's kind of what I've been doing over the first five days of the month and I think it's an OK plan. I don't want to be playing $5/10 NL just for the sake of playing it... I want to make sure the games are good enough.

I played a mixture of limits today and ended up about 3 buyins at $5/10 NL and even at the other stakes. I had some rough hands though and got sucked out pretty hardcore in a big $5/10 NL pot. I guess it was going to be a cooler pre-flop but he played it in a way that allowed me to get the money in way good. Here's the hand.

This hand was pretty fun. I guess the villain in the hand is a CR pro, as I learned later on from Nute.

Some $5/10 NL action

I played some $5/10 NL today and won about 3 buyins on there, but lost a buyin or so at $3/6 NL. I had a few interesting hands of note.

This one was pretty cool, as it's interesting to see what this regular decided to flat my 4-bet with.

This one was pretty standard, but it felt good to rake in a nice pot.

It's pretty late so I'm not going to post any more hands.

One good thing that happened today, was that I got a new student. Noel aka Peten2toms from my poker group, Destined2pwn, decided to start taking lessons from me. He's going to be a lot of fun to work with and I'm sure that I can help him improve significantly. He's playing $1/2 NL now and had a long break-even stretch, so I'll be looking forward to helping him get rolling.

Did not run that well today...

I played around 2,000 hands and didn't run that well at all today. I think I played quite well for the most part, but I felt like I went into auto-pilot a bit at the very end of my sessions. My biggest losers were coolers/ bad beats. I did make one pretty marginal river call when I a set... I paid of a pretty obvious flush which cost me $100.

I got stacked at $3/6 for a buy-in with pocket Jacks vs. a regular who 3-bets like a monkey from the button. He had AA obviously.

This hand was just a bad beat vs a pretty massive fish. This was my second biggest loss on the day.

Got 2 outed here.

Shipped the money in good pre-flop but couldn't hold up to have the best hand.

This one was also pretty frustrating.


Despite all these pretty unlucky hands I was able to keep my cool quite well and continue playing my "A" game throughout the session. I'm happy I was able to do that, as that was one of the things I wanted to work on in December.

Hopefully this weekend goes better so I can get on a roll and start crushing again.

December Plan

I've decided to make a monthly plan from now on. I used to have monthly goals but they didn't seem to be worth much or seem to do any good. I believe that is mostly because some goals would be arbitrary monetary goals. These goals aren't worth much because you can't control how well you run or how much you make in a particular month. You can control some factors, such as playing well, but can't control other things... for example you can't control how well you run in all-ins.

So after a few months of having no goals or no specific plan, I decided to try and develop a monthly plan that could help me in many different ways. I think this will allow me to manage my time better, as well as allow me to focus on improving my play at the tables. I'm going to detail many different things that I want to work on and get better at, in this plan. It's going to be really long, so if you don't feel like reading all of it you can just skim through it and look at the main points (in bold).

1.) Play to the best of my ability.

• Minimize stupid mistakes
• Don't make huge bluffs vs fish
• Don't bluff solid regulars in situations where it isn't believable (bad board textures for bluffing)
• Avoid FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome)
• Pay closer attention to statistics, specifically, pre-flop stats. Don't ship in "contingent stackoff " hands pre-flop unless there is an aggressive dynamic between myself and my opponent or unless there is some other reason to.
• Take more time on big river decisions.

2.) Rock-solid session structure

• Only play 4 tables maximum. To ensure that I do this the entire month, I will not even open more than 4 tables at the beginning of my session like I normally do to table select. I will pick the four best tables I can find and just sit and play. This will allow me to start working on a dynamic or image right off the bat instead of auto-piloting 6-8 tables for 15-20 minutes until I drop tables and keep the best 4. Of course, If I'm playing at a table and realize that I'm playing with 5 other regulars, a bunch of nits, or a table with no fish, I will close the table and look for another one. I will 3-table until a 4th table is found. This process will be repeated, if necessary, until the session is completed. I will not search for even jucier tables while playing as long as all 4 of my tables are satisfactory and have a fish on them. Ideally, I will be able to play at the same 4 tables for the duration of the session.
• Session length will be 2 hours in duration, exactly. No more. No less. Upon completion of a 2 hour session, I will take at least a 30 minute, away-from-computer, break. Generally, I've found that watching a period of a hockey game on my TV works best as a break. Of course, I can use my break to get out of the house to go eat, run errands, play hockey, or do other stuff. It doesn't matter if a fish is throwing his money away or not, if the two hours are up then I'm done. This policy may change in the future, however, I want to strictly adhere to it this month so I can play my absolute best at all times. I will set an alarm on my Google calendar before I begin each session so I will be reminded when to quit playing.

• Turn off my phone completely or adjust settings to silent mode at the beginning of each session. Phone will remain disabled until completion of the session. This policy is in place to prevent me from getting distracted from playing. Talking to people on my cell phone or on AIM/Skype while playing has cost me thousands of dollars over my career. I just can't focus 100% on my games when talkin to someone else and I make big mistakes sometimes. Also, it feels like I'm being rude to whomever I'm talking to sometimes, as I may zone them out while in a hand. Already this month, I made a big mistake on the river when someone called me when I was playing poker. I have to remember to turn my damn phone off.

3.) Re-read the "Poker Mindset" book and follow its teachings.

• There are 7 different primary aspects of the poker mindset and there is something that I can work on for each of them.

1. Understand and Accept the Realities of Poker

• Realize that I'm going to lose 18% of the time when I get AA all in pre-flop vs KK and don't get frustrated when I lose.
  
• Focus my mental energy after big hands to determine whether or not I played the hand correctly.... not on putting the hand into pokerhand.org to see what % chance i had to win when the money got in and how unlikely it was that he sucked out on me on the river. Thinking about stuff like that is wasted mental energy.

2. Play for the Long Term

• Make the most +EV decisions possible.
• Continue to make plays that I intuitively know to be profitable in certain situations, even if the play hasn't worked out well the last few times I recently tried it.
• If I am having a rough streak or getting unlucky do NOT open up more tables to try and get even. This HURTS me in the long run and I must avoid it.

3. Emphasize Correct Decisions over Making Money

• Don't be disappointed if a play that I deem to be good and solid doesn't work out.
• Focus on making the correct decisions while playing. My attention and brain power needs to be focused solely on the hand I'm playing. This will give me the best chance to make the right play given the information that is available to me.
• If I get the money in good then I've done my job.

4. Desensitize Yourself to Money

• Don't worry about getting sucked out on, no matter how large the pot is. I have good bankroll management so I don't have to worry about things like that.
• Remove $ won and BB/100 stat from HEM for the ENTIRE month !!! Do not peek or check the cashier either. This will be very difficult for me to do, as I peeked a bunch of times last time I tried this. I must pull this off, however. I fell like constantly checking my account balances is one of the biggest obstacles that's holding me back from just absolutely destroying the games.

5. Leave Your Ego at the Door

• Normally, I don't have much of a problem with this one... but lately some regulars have done some really dumb shit that has worked out for them and resulted in them stacking me. This has caused me to talk shit in the chat to them. This does no good. I don't want to create enemies with them because many of those players I play with day in and day out. I don't want them focusing extra hard on hands they play vs. me just because they want to "get back" at me or whatever. Also, talking shit in the chat places my focus and attention on the wrong things while playing. I need to be nice in the chat box.

6. Remove All Emotion from Decisions

• Don't get upset when I get coolered or sucked out on.
• Don't swear at the top of my lungs.
• Don't smash my computer desk with my fist.
• Don't spam random letters rapidly in the chat box.
• Don't let previous hands adversly affect my decisions in future hands.
• Don't worry about if I'm up or down for the session. Don't let the fact that I may be ahead or behind in the session monetarily, affect any of my decision making.

7. Dedicate Yourself to a Continuous Cycle of Analysis and Improvement

• Perform at least 2 Reg CRUSHER sessions per week.
• Re-watch my lessons I took with Nutedawg. Watch two per week. Mondays and Thursdays.
• Watch Nutedawg's two newest CR vids.
• Post one hand on the CardRunners forum per day.
• Re-watch all of Raptor's CR vids. Watch 2 per week. Wednesdays and Fridays.
• Develop and follow a weekly schedule.

That concludes my strategic plan for December. I am going to follow it to the best of my ability and hopefully it proves to be effective.

November Results

Had my best month ever. I made $39k in total poker profits. Great result for me obviously. It feels really good to finally see all of my hard work and effort pay off big time.

Ship the cookies.

I know where da gold at

I had a breakthrough day today, finishing with a profit of $6k over about 4,000 hands. I played pretty well throughout the day and was able to recover from a poor start during my last 2 hour session of the day.





A significant portion of my winnings came from a new way that I discovered to beat two different "types" of villains. I am not going to talk about it here though. I'm only going to discuss it with my students.

I'm going to post this hand first, not because I have anything to do with it though. It was a hand that I saw played between two regulars... pretty interesting hand to say the least. Here it is.

I did have some huge losing hands even though I finished up quite a bit.

Hand #1: I pretty much get coolered for 200 big blinds at $2/4 NL. I'm pretty sure I played it perfectly, as there's a very good chance he can have QQ, KK, AK, or AA with a club.

Hand #2: Here, I'm facing the fish and I throw in a huge 4-bet pre-flop and he INSTA-calls me. I get a decent flop and just ship it all in... even if he has a set already I have decent equity. He did, in fact, flop a set and I brick out on the turn and river to lose a big pot.

That's about it for interesting hands. I won some pretty big pots at $2/4 NL. I won a $2.4k pot and a $1.6k pot, both with the nut flush.

One more day left in the month. I'd like to have another day like today on Sunday.

10/20 NL Baby!

I played some $10/20 NL 6 Max today. Normally I wouldn't even consider playing that high, but there were two fish that I had on my buddy list sitting at the table with a considerable amount of chips. I sat down and started playing... and got a bit scared, lol, so I called my coach and he offered to take half my action. That was pretty cool of him and it allowed me to treat the game like a $5/10 NL game, as far as the amount of money I had at risk.

Here are my stats for the day:


Just to give you an idea of how good the game was, look at this hand that happened about midway through the session.

It started off really well, as I was up about $800 just chipping up and hitting on or two hands. Then, the primary fish at my table smoked me for a $2k pot. The hand was pretty unlucky for me, as we actually had the same hand all the way up until the river. The river card wasn't great either, becuase it gave me a Q high flush and him a K high flush. I had to pay it off though, because I saw him bet a similar amount earlier on a 4-flush board and the hand wasn't shown down. So there was a good chance he was bluffing... also he was stupid enough to be betting a worse flush too.

So that set me back quite a bit and I lost some pots where I 3-bet with AK and whiffed the flop. I also got some c-bets snapped off and had to give up because the fish were just way too call happy to fire multiple barrels at as a bluff.

I finally got back to even and then some with this hand. It was against the secondary fish, as the primary fish had already left the table. Pretty LOL to see what he called me down with. Gotta love pure ATMs.

So that was nice, to be able to book a small win in the 10/20 NL game. I was able to win a massive pot at $2/4 NL towards the end of my session. Although I had AA, etc, I think I played the hand excellent. The fish was stabing and being really aggro so I figured he'd fire with any two cards if I checked the turn to him. I was right. Here's the hand.

I'm glad I was able to end the day on a winning note. Around 10:00 PM I was pretty distraught. I had just lost a big pot to a regular when I had JJ and he flatted a 4-bet OOP with QJo and outflopped me. It was pretty ridiculous. I took my frustrations out on my laundry basket and took a break to hang out at a bar with my friend, Brenton, who is in town for the weekend. Here is what's left of my laundry basket...

Bad session

I played terribly today. I lost about $2k. I made one horrendous bluff and stacked off once with an overpair on the flop when it was clearly a big mistake. I'm really disappointed in myself... I thought after yesterday I was going to finish the month strong. Now I'm not so sure. It was not a good day.

This hand knocked the wind out of my sails. After that, I just made some terrible decisions in huge pots that cost me my stack and many other spewy plays in medium pots. I also made a sweet misclick that cost me $250. I don't know what else to say. I probably played my "D" game, at best. I need to make sure I play my "A" game this weekend so I can finish the month on a winning note.

In the green today... also played some 10/20 NL HU

I played about 2,600 hands today and played decently. I finished up $1.7k. I played a bunch of different limits today; I played $2/4 NL, $3/6 NL, $5/10 NL, and a bit of $10/20 NL HU when chasing a fish. The main part about my day that disappoints me is the fact that I didn't take appropriate breaks. I just took a short break about halfway through my session but it wasn't long enough and I think my play definitely suffered towards the end. I really need to make sure I take my breaks no matter what. I chose not to today because I was on ridiculously good tables. I also ran into some cooler hands and lost a few flips towards the end so that didn't help matters either.


It was fun playing some $10/20 NL HU. There was a fish on my buddy list that I saw just sitting down at the table waiting for someone to join. He only bought in for like 40 big blinds so I bought in for the same and we started playing. After about 30 minutes I was down about $1.2k to him and I had to reload my stack to $2k so I had him covered. He was very random and really aggressive when playing HU. I'd played against him before in 6 max so I knew his tendencies.

One of his major tendencies is to bluff too much... well in 6 max it's a little easier to pick off his bluffs because when you're in the pot you generally will have a little bit stronger hand than an average hand of HU poker. He bluffed me a few times at the beginning, which is how he was up on me. I battled back though, and ended up winning all of what I had lost to him plus interest. This is the hand where I took him out.


He was saying stupid things in the chat all session and right before he shipped it all in he tried to confuse me or something or coax me into calling by saying, "NOW I BLUFF." Little did he know, he was the one who was about to get fleeced.

Losing streak...

I've had a bad string of days in a row. Lost again yesterday (Tuesday). This session, people were just hitting miracle turn and river cards when the money was going in whether they got there or not.

Examples:

Hand #1: This one was disgusting, as the villain was a huge fish and was going to pot the river whether or not he hit his 6.

Hand #2: A reg 2 outs me on the turn. I probably should have c/c turn because I don't know what he'd call me with that I beat, since that Q is like the worst card in the deck.

Hand #3: Biggest loser of the day. I can't believe he felted AQ here, vs this action, 150bbs deep. He's a regular.

Another breakeven day

I lost about $160 today over a two hour session. I didn't play my best and once again, bluff spewed off a stack to a regular. That really pisses me off when my bluffs don't work. I guess it's kind of stupid to be so disappointed when they don't work, because I'm always really thrilled when everything works out. I just need to be picking better spots.

I checked my cashier balance/ HEM $ stat and I made about $3.3k over the past week, which is definitely not outstanding. I played a ton of hands, so my winrate over the past week was terrible. Granted, I did run about $3k below EV but I can do better.

I'm not going to ban myself from looking to see where I'm at monetarily anymore, it was just too difficult to not peek and see where I was at every once and a while. In my Destined2pwn group meeting today, Noel aka Peten2toms had a lot of good comments about checking the cashier balance etc. I'm just going to follow what he said and just try to avoid looking still as much as possible, but I'm not going to ban myself from looking.

Anyways, had some pretty ridiculous hands happen today.

Hand #1: This was my biggest loser of the day. The guy had wild stats after about 30 hands and he like INSTA-4 bet shoved it in.

Hand #2: The villain seemed fishy due to his stats over the small sample I had. Sucks that he's felting 99, and probably 55-77 here too... I just hate it when people hit a set on me in a 3-bet pot. It's one of the worst feelings ever. I don't know if I can fold at any point either since he can have stuff like 67, flushdraws, worse pairs, etc. Just a sick spot because I feel he has QQ and JJ a decent amount here too.

I really need to be more disciplined with my bluffs and pick my spots better. I feel that since I'm more skilled than most of my opponents that I should be able to force a pot my way whenever I feel like it but that's not the case. I estimated that I spewed at least $600 today on unecessary bluffs that had a low % of success.

On a parting note, I believe UB and AP are going to be combining tomorrow. As everyone probably already knows, both AP and UB had cheating scandals in the past....


Special accounts known as "superuser" accounts that had the ability to see everyone's hole cards were used to cheat other players.



More information on the cheating scandals can be found here.



They claim to have fixed the problem and did return money to players who were cheated and since then the two companies have merged and are joining forces to become the "CEREUS" poker network.

Another poor day

I didn't play great today either. I made a lot of mistakes again and stacked off in a few really dumb spots. Once I felted K hi on a bluff when someone had a low set in a 3-bet pot! WHOO HOO! That didn't work out too well. I also made a really dumb play stacking TP 2nd kicker on the turn when the flush hit... obviously villain had binked the flush.

Of course, I had my fair share of standard coolers. I ran KK into AA AIPF like my 2nd hand of my final session of the day, so I got off to a great start there. I also got over-setted twice today for stacks.

However, I was happy with my pre-flop play. I was getting people to stack off pretty lightly vs me as I was splashing around a ton. I'm trying to work this into my game more and more as it's so advantageous to have this aggressive image. It's almost like your great but not nutz type pre-flop hands (Like TT, JJ, AK) increase in value so much vs regs who are paying attention it's almost like getting dealt AA or KK when you get one of those aforementioned hands pre-flop. This is because people will stack off to you with stuff like 88 or AQ.

I definitely was an aggro pre-flop MONKEY today!

Too many mistakes

I played quite a few hands today and I'm sure I finished down. I didn't run all that well but I made a ton of mistakes. I'm not that happy with the way I played. I can do better.

This hand really pissed me off because I think I made a pretty big mistake. I had the chance to make a world-class play but I messed it up. Villain in this hand is a regular on UB that I've played THOUSANDS of hands with. He's quite the pushover to 3-bets and I can generally read him like a fricken book. So in this particular hand, his pre-flop 3-bet is NEVER a bluff because he has to expect that the shortstack who flatted my raise on the button is going to just call off all in. So since I knew that + the fact that he 3-bet my UTG raise caused me to choose to flat his 3-bet pre-flop with AK. There was really no other option, in my opinion. His 3-bet stat is 7% from the BB but that number includes when he's 3-betting late position raisers as bluffs, etc. This situation is different. Because his 3-betting range here is TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, and AK (not even sure if he 3-bets TT and JJ all the time, honestly), a flat call is correct pre-flop.

I get my dream flop and bet out when he checks to me for value. He turned his hand face up pretty much by checking the flop, as now it's fairly unlikely he has AK or air, as he'd most likley c-bet the flop. Once he c/c flop, I know from playing with this guy so much, that he has squarely JJ-KK. The K is a bittersweet turn card. It increases my absolute hand strength to a higher two pair, but I think it actually hurts my relative hand strength, as one of the hands in his range (KK) now moved ahead of me (although unlikely of course, because it would have been a 1 outer). I don't expect to get 3 bets out of a hand like QQ so I check behind the turn for deception. The river is where I messed up. Up to this point, I played the hand perfectly. I was torn on what to do on the river. I decided to make a tiny bet, like 1/4 pot hoping to get CALLED by JJ or QQ. Once he CRAI on me it should have been appearant that he was slowplaying a boat on the flop or turned one. He's just not creative enought to bluff in this situation. period. I ended up calling in case he tried playing the same hand (AK) deceptively.

Conclusion: since I don't expect him to call a river bet, even $60, with JJ or QQ all too often since he's such a nit, I should have checked behind on the river. If I bet and he raises, it's a sick spot and I'm not sure what to do. And I'll just bet and he'll fold a ton. Or I'll bet and he'll CRAI with the same hand and we'll chop, just the same as we would have if I had checked behind.

There just isn't much he'll call me with on the river that I beat because it's so obvious that I'm value betting at least top pair or better and he's good enough to realize that and make a diciplined fold. Pretty interesting hand, however, but the main reason I didn't make the correct play is because I assumed that my small bet may have induced something and I ACTED TOO QUICKLY. I just snapcalled his shove without taking a second to think about it. If I had thought about it for 5 seconds, I would have realized that I have a good enough read on the player to know that he's NEVER capable of CRAI bluffing the river in this spot. Obviously pretty unlucky he actually 1-outed me on the turn... oh well, hopefully I can learn from this.

That was a long analysis, so I'll just post one more hand.

This is the bad beat of the day. I get it all in pre-flop as a 72% favorite but he flops a Royal Flush. I run goot !

The Cost of Poker is Risen

This was pretty funny... one of the fishier players who I've apparently played with before remembered me... and said "cost of poker just went up, Duckslayer is here" when I joined the table. See picture below, lol.


Today was a pretty decent day. I started out the day by giving a lesson to one of my poker friends, Josh aka Inverseparanoid. We talked mostly about pre-flop concepts and I thought the lesson went really well. It sounded like he got a lot out of it, so that's always good.

Then I played a few sessions on UB. I played a mixture of $2/4 NL, $3/6 NL, and $5/10 NL. The $5/10 games break often once the fish is stacked or leaves, so I left and joined tables a lot. I am not sure how well I did. My session was really swingy and I lost some big pots but also won a lot of big pots too.

A few hands:

Hand #1: I was playing aggro enough just over my first 35 hands at the table to get this otherwise TAG villin to ship AJ sooooted on me when I had QQ.

Hand #2: Lost this one when I a favorite when the money got in.

Hand #3: This one was vs a MASSIVE fish. If he doesn't bink a 7 on the river he still ships it and gets all in. That was relatively early in the session vs. him. I should have just bet the flop and shipped turn.

Hand #4: And last but not least, a pre-flop cooler at $5/10 NL vs an aggro regular. The table was actually 4-handed because two people were sitting out.

Dabbling in 5/10 NL

I played some more $5/10 NL today. About half of my hands were played there and the other half were played at $2/4 NL. I had a really rough start and was down a few buyins but I made a comeback to finish up probably a decent amount.

Depending on how good the games look this weekend, I may play all $5/10 NL.

Click HERE for the hand of the day. It's vs. a regular.

Another bad day

I'm sure I lost again today. Got coolered a bunch again. Lost a bunch of pre-flop all ins, all of which I was ahead or flipping. I also had a bluff get picked off as well as running TPTK AQ on a wet QXX flop all in on the flop vs AA. I had just raised the guy about 5 minutes before on a similar board and he folded, so I had to assume he could stack off lightly there.

I've been having really poor starts to my sessions lately, losing 3-4 buyins right off the bat due to unavoidable situations. Today it started off with a unknown 3/4th stacked player limp/calling with QQ from the SB when I raised in the BB with TT. Flop 952 rainbow. He insta-pots flop. I raise him to pot. He snapcalls. He has about a half pot-sized bet on the turn, which is a King. I just ship it in expecting to get called by 9X and win. He flips QQ for a better overpair vs me and owns my soul. Weirdest line ever. I was shocked.

Not a whole lot I can do really. I really hope I start running better to finish off the month, as I had such a great start.

Doomswitched

I did not run good today. Time and time again I got the money in good and lost. I played nearly 4,000 hands total for the day. The first session was pretty miserable, as I probably lost at lot. I think I regained a decent chunk of it in my final session of the night but I spewed a ton in that session as well.

I'm happy with my play though, as I really only butchered two or three hands. Also, I increased the pre-flop aggression and had regulars auto-staking off with AQ vs me.


I'll show some hands, although a lot of them probably are going to be bad beats so if you're not in the mood for that kind of stuff just look at this first hand, because it's a fun one.

Hand #1: This hand made me vomit a little bit inside my mouth after the cards got flipped. I knew the UTG player had a monster obviously, put him on precisely QQ or KK. He was a nit. I just flatted the 4-bet because I wanted to stack Goose as well because he was a huge fish. I figured he'd tag along if I didn't 5-bet shove and just called the 4-bet. I got an unfavorable flop as now they're going to be scared of me having AK. Ended up getting the money in as a 98% favorite and losing.

Hand #2: Pretty standard I guess here. Villain was a reg. I have the nuts on the flop and lose the hand.

Hand #3: Another flush crushes me.

Hand #4: Apperantly this reg thinks he needs to ship 88 vs my cold 4-bets.

Lost some more money on some boring pre-flop coolers, QQ vs KK twice, other standard hands. I also had some failed bluffs, one of which was a pretty terrible play on my part.

I'm going to get to sleep now as I have to wake up and give a lesson tomorrow morning. I have another one scheduled for the afternoon so I'll have a busy day tomorrow.

Experiment

I have decided to do a week-long experiment in regards to not looking at my $ won in HEM or in my poker Cashier window. I'm going to look next Monday at the same time one of my students, Rob, is going to look as well. He's doing the same experiment. I feel this will make me play more optimally and be less results orientated. Also, it should make it a bit less stressful as I don't have to worry if I'm down a bit because I won't really know the exact amount (although I'll probably have an idea that I'm down if I am obviously).

So I played about 3,000 hands to day and finished ????. I'm guessing that I was probably up an average amount for how long I played. My first session started out really poorly as I had these 4 disgusting hands happen:


Hand #1: This one I just got sucked out after getting it in good vs a Reg. pre-flop.

Hand #2: This one was also vs a Reg. and I knew he was 3-betting me light here so I figured my KJ sooted was good a lot pre-flop so I made the call, plus I have position. Then I got a dream flop and he can easily have something like TT, QQ, etc. that I'm flipping against. Also, he probably folds his c-bet a lot as well. Just so happens I was right about him 3-betting me light and this flop hit his garbage hard. I brick obviously, despite a 34% chance to win on the flop.

Hand #3: Another pre-flop cooler here. This reg is really tight, like an 18/14 but he nearly auto 4-bets me when I 3-bet him. If I had to guess I would say that he 4-bets me nearly half the time I 3-bet him. He doesn't do this against anyone else though. The other guy in the pot doesn't mean much except that there's extra dead money in there... he was a fish and would cold call the raise and 3-bet without big hands and would likely fold to lots of action.

Hand #4: This one tilted me. I played the hand so perfectly. I had a read that the fishy villain LOVES to barrel when checked to. So I plan on check/calling him down. He binks his 2 outer on the river. I'm almost positive he fires river even if he doesn't boat up.


My second session of the day went pretty well, as I don't really remember getting stacked that often. It was my best session of the day by far. Then my final session of the day I think I broke even or had a small win. I didn't get stacked but I spewed in a lot of medium pots which I think added up.

It will be interesting to see how much better or worse I do when I'm not looking up on my results from session to session or from day to day.

Lost a Benjamin

Finished down $100 on the day over approximately 3,000 hands. My first session of the day I was able to book a 2 buyin win. Then, it went downhill from there.

I played on Cake for my second session and ran worse than a midget with a broken foot. Some surreal hands happened. I never seem to have much luck on Cake. Here's the mayhem:

Hand #1:

This hand, the villain was playing half his hands. He was a 50/0 megafish. I shoved the river for value because I knew he had a Jack and would call with any Jack. I was just hoping it was AJ, QJ, JT, or J5-J9. But of course, it was KJ.


Same fish as the previous hand. I was taking him to valuetown on this hand as he has a weaker Queen like 90% of the time and I felt him... This time he had American Airlines. I get pwned.


I get outflopped with my overpair in an inflated pot due to my pre-flop 3-bet. This has happened to me countless times over the past few days. My high pairs are magnets for my opponents to spike sets.


Not much to say here, other than I found a way to lose the pot after getting the money in with a 98% chance to win.


Overall, for my Cake session, I was able to battle back to finish down only $80 despite the fact that I got ravaged in all of the above pots.

Then, to finish off the night, I had a mixed results session on UB and pretty much broke even. I think I played quite well, except for a few hands. A lot of my big losses were pre-flop coolers; I ran into AA a few times. Not a whole lot I can do there, I don't believe.

I just went over my big losing hands with my friend, John. He had some solid comments on the hands I played, and I definitely made a few errors. I probably could have saved 2 or 3 buyins if I had thought about stuff a bit more during the hand, instead of just acting and doing whatever.

I need to remember what my coach told me... I need to slow down before I act and take my time. It's a bit tougher to do on UB since there's no time bank. However, I'd rather time out contemplating making a marginal call or not than just call because I'm running out of time when I'm not sure what to do.

Another good day

I played just over 3,000 hands today and finished up $3.2k. I didn't follow my rules that well today, as I peeked at my cashier about half a dozen times and my final session of the day lasted about 3.5 hours. I really need to be disciplined and make sure that I follow through with my plan. It's so easy just to click the cashier button or add on the $ won stat onto HEM. I need to curb my curiosity, as it will be for the better if I don't bother checking how I'm doing all the time.


It seemed like I got in some unfortunate/ unlucky spots during the session, more so than normal. Really, the only reason I had a decent overall win on the day was due to running good in a tiny amount of $5/10 NL hands and winning a massive pot at $3/6 NL.

Here are some hands:

Hand #1: Villain in this hand has been running like GOD vs me over the past few days. He like never folds to a 3-bet... and has flopped sets on me multiple times in 3-bet pots when I hit TPTK or an overpair. Thankfully, I was able to felt him a few times later on in the session to make up for this loss. I don't know how people can call off that much pre-flop to set mine. So terrible. I also lost a pot to this villain earlier when I got my QQ vs his AA AIPF.

Hand #2: Here, I decide to randomize my play by not 3-betting AK pre-flop... I was planning to play top pair fast because it would be difficult for him to fold something like KQ or KJ since I didn't 3-bet pre-flop and there are draws out. Of course, he flopped a set and I get it in nearly drawing dead. gg me.

Hand #3: I made a nice play here. This is against villain in 1st hand, the aggro fish. I had a read that he liked to bluff big if given the opportunity... he would bluff when his opponents show weakness. I SNAPcalled river.

Hand #4: I had a rough time at $3/6 today. He was a huge fish who called 3-bets 90% of the time and just didn't like to fold pre-flop in general, so I decided to just 4-bet jam all in. This hand pissed me off, but whatever, he's going to get there 30% of the time.

Hand #5: I got kind of lucky here, to cooler this reg. This hand helped my $3/6 NL results for the day big time.


I'm happy with my play and the result. I just need to make sure I don't look at my cashier and keep the sessions to 2 hours in length. One of my students gave me the link to a pretty decent article that talks about trying to avoid being results orientated. I would suggest that all of my students read it. The article can be found here.

I definitely can eliminate some spewy things that I did today and be more willing to lay down good but not great hands. I'll do my best to crush tomorrow as well.

Solid day

I played pretty well for the most part today and ended up about $3.5k.

My last session of the day, which I played on Cake, didn't go that well. I lost 3 buyins on there due to a combination of running bad and not properly adjusting to my wild image. I was doing some experimentation on playing super aggro and it wasn't working as well as I would have liked. I ended up getting called down a ton when I had air, floated, etc. then when I had monsters everyone would fold... So I suppose that was just a form of getting a bit unlucky as well, but I felt that I spewed a bit too much.

These are my stats for the sessions I played earlier on in the day, on Stars and UB.


Hand of the day: I actually think I made a mistake on the river here... I should have just called because he wasn't fishy enough to call with the Ks, so there's no point in raising really.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3452786


I also experimented with taking the $ won stat and BB/100 stat off my HEM display while I was playing today. I wanted to remain completely focused on making the best decisions irregardless of what my results were. I was able to avoid peeking at $ won and avoid looking at the Cashier for the whole day, until I had my session on Cake. For some reason, I looked at the Cashier a number of times then and that was the only losing two hour session I had today... I wonder if I'm on to something...

I think that some people can get away with looking their cashier and not letting it affect their play... but I think it makes me play differently in some way. I think it's more of a subconscious thing than something you actually consciously think of. For example, if I looked at my cashier and saw I was down a few buyins, I'm not going to consciously think, "OK, I need to gamble to get even... so ship AK pre-flop no matter what!". I think that my play is affected in very small ways that are undetectable. These changes in my play that result from being aware of where I'm at for the day or session are hurting my overall decision making and quality of play, not helping it.

Along with the goal of keeping sessions to 2 hours in length, I'm going to tack on another "rule" I want to follow for the rest of the month. No looking at $ results until the day is completely over and I'm positive that I won't play another session.

Disappointing day...

I started off the day decent, playing for about 2 hours on Cake poker and making $1.5k. Then I played another session on UB and lost $2.3k to finish down $800 for the day.

I'm really upset about how my final session of the day went. First off, I went against my 2 hour session rule and played for an extra hour and a half trying to get back to even.... that didn't help any as I just lost a bit more over the extra time. Secondly, I just failed to make big folds that I should have made. Thirdly, I even multi-table tilted which I haven't done in over a month. I had 8-9 tables rolling for a period of about 45 minutes.

Two times I had an overpair, AA, and it was OBVIOUS my opponent had a set. One was in a 3-bet pot 200bbs deep where I got felted... the guy was playing half his hands, however. Another time was in a single raised pot where the villain miniraised my turn bet... so obvious that this passive fish had me beat but I shipped it in anyways. I was not playing my "A" game today, that's for sure.

To be fair, I also did run quite bad... not from all ins but just from running bad in the aspect that EVERYONE was hitting stuff against my AA and KK in big, inflated 3-bet pots. My top 4 losers for the day were AA, AA, AA, and KK.

The third AA loss I didn't talk about happened when someone called my 3-bet OOP with AdQd and flopped the nut flush on a raggedy board. My KK hand I 3-bet in position and the villain called OOP with TT and hit a set on a QTX board and CRAI. I had to call in case he had KQ or AQ or random spew.

I haven't played this poorly in a while. I'm pretty disappointed with myself. Hopefully I can snap out of it and play super solid this weekend.

UIGEA Given Stamp of Approval

A news report on the matter can be found here:

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/article/5511/uigea-is-finalized-rules-can-be-implemented-by-dec-2009

There is a chance that the new administration may reverse many of the "midnight regulations." This article was from the Politico newspaper reports on 11/12.


What can you do to make sure that the UIGEA is repealed along with other "midnight regulations?"

1.) Call your member of Congress

2.) Send an email to Obama

3.) Join the Poker Player's Alliance

4.) Tell your friends to do all three of the things listed above to help save online poker !!! Make sure you take action by calling, emailing, and joining the PPA as well !!! Go here to keep up to date on the most recent coverage of the UIGEA finalization news.


Do your part !!! Help to try and save online poker !!!