FINALLY... I ran good in a session!

I played about 1,300 hands today on Stars and ended up winning about $1.9k. I played pretty solidly and even played some $3/6 NL. I recorded about an hour of the session for my lesson with Nutedawg tomorrow. The most amazing part of the session was that I ran ABOVE expectation for once!!! It feels like a miracle, because before this session I had been running terrible in nearly every session this month.

Here's today's stats:


A few days ago, I just was curious to see just exactly how bad I was running for the month. So I looked at my HEM for my monthly stats up to 9-28... result? I realized that I was running $13,200 below expectation... roughly 33 buyins at 400NL below expectation.

Here's the HEM screenshot from that discovery:


Screenshot of the graph:


Hopefully today's session is a sign of good things to come for me... It would be nice to run $13k above expectation in October.

Opening weekend of Duck Hunting season

Not much to talk about as far as poker goes for Sunday. I played about 1,000 hands and broke even on Stars. I probably shouldn't have even bothered playing as I am pretty tired and not very sharp right now.

Anyways, we went hunting again Sunday morning and shot 13 ducks between the three of us. My dad and I shot 5 ducks out of a single flock: I got a triple, hitting one with each of my shots and my dad got a double. My brother also shot a Canadian Goose but he couldn't find it in the reeds. Overall it was a really fun weekend.

Here are some pics:

Me holding a Mallard



My Dad and brother



The weekend's kill



Decoy spread on Sunday



The Duck slough

Quick post

My battery is dying on my laptop, so this is going to be quick.

I played 2,300 hands today on FTP, won $200 and ran $1,800 below expectation obviously. I suck at winning all ins when I'm way ahead...

Anyways, duck hunting went well today. We limited out and ended up killing 15 ducks between myself, my brother and my dad.

We'll be going out again tomorrow, then coming home.

Played a bit more

Amazingly enough, the internet works pretty well out here in the middle of nowhere... right next to the duck slough. I ended up playing some more hands and lost about $300 in that session so I finished the day up about $900. I didn't run that good this second session, and ran $1.2k below expectation like normal.

I played really well for the most part. I made one bad call with AA overpair on the river against an opponent with a tiny AF over a big sample... I should have made the fold but since I didn't 3-bet it pre-flop I guess it was pretty tough for me to lay it down as he could have been shoving AK... board was KQXXX and he was UTG I flatted in MP because there were really aggro squeezers behind me. He three barreled all in and I made a stupid call of about $250 on the river and he had a set of Queens.

Here's the HEM stats for the day. Very solid W$WSF stat.


I'm gonna get to sleep now, as we have to wake up pretty early... probably like around 5:30 AM. We can begin shooting ducks at 7:00 AM tomorrow... let the slaying begin!!!

Short session

I played a pretty short session on FTP in the Suburban on the way to where we duck hunt. I stopped because the internet with my Verizon card was getting pretty sketchy... it's somewhat worrysome when playing in a moving car because at any time you could hit a dead zone in cell phone coverage... which results in a disconnect and timing out and folding of your hand.

Anyways, I ran at expectation so that was nice. I played 330 hands and booked a $1.2k win. Not bad for such a small amount of hands... I am pretty happy with the result.

I don't know for sure if I'll be able to play when we are camping out near the duck slough tonight, so I'm making my blog post now.

I feel sick about winning $1.1k...

I played 2,600 hands on Stars today and finished up $1.1k. Not a bad result normally, however, I totally CRUSHED my competition and lost tons of pots once again as a huge favorite.

I had a pretty poor start as I had three big bluffs that failed. The first two cost me my stack and the third one cost me 50 big blinds.... on each of the two bluffs that were for 100bbs the villains nearly folded and time banked down to their last few seconds before making their hero calls. I'm going to just stop bluffing these stationy regs because they can't fold anything really, no matter how crushed they are by my river shoving range.

I was able to recover from this mediocre and spewy start to start annihilating villains and getting it all in as a huge favorite on numerous occassions. I ended up running about $3k below expectation in all ins this session, which is just ridiculous. I have average luck and I'm up $4k instead of $1k... oh well, MAYBE one day things will start to even out for me. Oh, and now I'm running $10k below expectation for the month... which is not ideal.

I'm still proud of my session because it's actually pretty cool that I was up at all considering how bad I ran. It's just disgusting to know that I could have had a 10 buyin day if my doomswitch had been turned off.

Here's the HEM stats:


I'm just going to stop worrying about all in EV after today. It seems like it's becoming a standard for this to happen to me, so I'll just expect to run below expectation during my sessions. That way I'll be happy if I run at expectation or above and I won't care as much if I run below expectation. The only reason I really have been looking at it is because it reassures me that I played OK and didn't lose a lot of money just due to bad play... If I can see the reason I lost pots was because I got sucked out on it reassures me that I did my job of making correct decisions.

I'm not going to post any hands, because they are all pretty much me getting raped in all in pots when I have the best of it.

I hope this doesn't come across as complaining or whatever, but I just need somewhere to vent about this. I understand the realities of poker and have read the poker mindset so I'm not letting running below expectation effect my play at the tables.

I can't be so worried about this though, because there are lots of jobs where people aren't compensated properly for how much work they do or for the quality of work do. I suppose this is poker's version of that idea... I'm not always going to be compensated fully if I make perfect decisions at the table, at least not in the immediate future.


Duck Hunting opens this Saturday!!! I can't wait!

Here's a goose hunting pic from last season:

Back to running like shit in all ins...

After three consecutive days of running at expectation in all ins I'm back to running like total dog shit... (all three of those days were winning days, since I actually won most of the pots I should have). Maybe I need to start going to church so I run better in all ins... lol

Anyways, I played 2,100 hands on UB, DOMINATED EVERYONE, and finished up $146.45 !!! I really hate to bitch about stuff, as I don't think it does anyone any good. But honestly, when is this going to end? It's getting pretty ridiculous... I ran $1.5k below expectation in all ins today which is pretty much the sole reason I was unable to book a nice win.


I got stacked 7 times during the session.

#1: AK all in pre-flop vs AQ: got it in with 70.1% equity

#2: QQ vs JJ all in pre-flop. He obviously flopps quads. Got it in 82% to win.

#3: QQ vs. KK AIPF against a fishy type player. I was 18.4% to win.

#4: A really retarded bluff I pulled against a calling station fish after he block bet 2nd pair on the river OOP and I shoved it in repping top trips on a KKTXX board... and he snapcalled. Got it in with 0% equity.

#5: Got it AIPF with TT vs AKs against an aggro player in a button vs SB war and he ends up nailing the nut flush on the turn. I was 54.1% to win.

#6: KK vs A4sooted AIPF he rivered an Ace. 67% equity when the money got in.

#7: QQ vs 88 all in on a rag flop, he binks a 2 outer on the turn. 90.1% to win when the money went in the middle.


Here's one good hand I played from the session. Villain was a HUGE moron, running like 85/40 with a very high AF. He had been playing ridiculously crazy and very errattically, once shoving all in on the turn with 78 high earlier. I think I played this hand very well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3237115


So the session didn't go as well as I had hoped, but I was very happy with my VPIP and PFR stats. They were both a bit higher than they normally were and I think having those two numbers higher makes my game much more dangerous to play against. I'm going to try and play like this again tomorrow, as I think it worked quite well. I would have won a lot had I run better and avoided a few situations where I spewed.

Duck hunting pic:

Booking a win

I played for a few hours on Cake Poker today and finished up $1k from that. Then I took about an hour break and decided to hop back on the tables. I logged onto Ultimate Bet and I played some of the best poker I've ever played. I think I played as closely to flawless as I ever have. I had very solid stats and was able to book a $1.5k win in about 1,000 hands. So that makes for a total win of about $2.5k for the day.

Here's the HEM stats for my UB session:


I think a big reason for my super solid play today was the fact that I took my 10th lesson from Nutedawg earlier on in the day. We had about a month break from our last lesson, so I definitely needed to be told where da gold is at again... HOWEVER, now...


I had forgotten.

Nute also has his first video put up on Cardrunners today. I'm going to be watching it sometime tomorrow and I'm sure it will be an excellent video. I definitely recommend that each one of my students watch it ASAP. It will be worth your time, I know, even though I haven't even watched it yet.

I'll look to continue my solid play throughout the end of the month.


Daily duck hunting pic:

Plus 3 buyins on Cake

I played for about three hours today on Cake Poker and made about $1.2k. Decent result and I definitely could have been up a bit more but I tried to move a donkey off of second pair by making a large river raise of his 1/4 pot blocker... bad idea.

I also stacked off with JJ in a 3-bet pot against a player who seemed pretty aggressive and had 4-bet me before... but he just called my 3-bet in position and let me barrel off all in with my over-pair on a raggedy board. I might start being a little more cautious in spots like these... I feel a lot better felting this if we had some decently aggressive history but I don't think my play is terrible because he can easily have TT here and call that off probably.

Here is that hand:



This hand happened at the beginning of the session... pretty sick suckout just for the fact that he had A6o and snapcalled my CRAI on the turn.


This is going to be a relatively short post, as I don't have much else to talk about.

Here's the daily duck hunting pic:

Back in business

I limited myself to 4 tables the WHOLE session today, always making sure to dump the worst table if I had 5 or 6 open due to waitlists popping up. The result? A win of $1.2k over 1,300 hands. I had a pretty good session and played fairly well throughout. I had an excellent W$WSF stat... it was 50% for the session.

I only can remember possibly messing up in one hand. An unknown 3-bet squeezed to a very small amount from the button... I had JJ and just 4-bet called it off but I think that was a mistake. The smaller 3-bet squeezes often times are monsters that don't want people to go away. Without a read, I should have just called probably and taken a flop. Oh well... here's the hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3223648


This is my other big loser for the day... just got sucked out here vs a regular.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3223656


I lost a few other pots of significance that I lost but they were against players with 40-50 big blinds... and I had a hand that I really couldn't lay down for the price I was getting.


Here's a winning hand. The villain in this hand wasn't the brightest, plus I had a great avatar read on him because he had the WPT logo for his picture. His username also gives it away that he's probably an idiot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3223664


I played solid this session and that's all I'm going to focus on in future sessions. Just play super solid poker. Also, throw in some creative plays against the regs that I know and try to avoid bluffing idiots or unknowns.


Opening day for duck hunting is coming up soon... It starts this SATURDAY!!!

In anticipation of the upcoming season, I'll be posting one duck hunting pic from previous years in each of my blog posts up until Saturday. Enjoy the photos of dead animals.

I got smoked on Stars today...

To make a long story short, I had one of my biggest losing days ever... dumping 10 buyins at 400NL. I ran countless buyins below expectation, and am now currently break-even for the month for my playing profits. I'm still up about $5k from rakeback and other poker-related activities... but I'm really disappointed right now. The most frustrating thing is that I'm $7,000 below expectation in all ins this month. If I run average, I'm up $7k from playing profits instead of even. It's pretty surreal.

I played well to begin with, got sucked out/ coolered a bunch... then I proceed to just open a bunch of tables to find some huge fish... well I found a lot of fish so I ended up playing too many tables, which didn't help. I should have just minimized it down to four and picked the best ones but it was tough to decide which ones to drop.

Anyways, I'll post a few hands so you can see what I went through...

This one is against a monkeyish villian, 3-bets like a bandit on the button. He SNAPcalled my shove... I'm actually a favorite here on the flop, but lose.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3219267


Against the same reg as the hand above. So sick.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3219271


Obviously I can't ever have a medium to high pocket pair here when I 4-bet so villain shipped it in with 55 and outraced my AQ.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3219274


I go all in with KK pre-flop, villain flops the stone cold nuts.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3219278


Great flop for my AA overpair, right? He could easily have TT-KK... NOPE! he's got me drawing dead.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3219279


I think that's enough hands.


Hopefully tomorrow goes a bit better than this. This is pretty disheartening.

Won on Stars today

I played 3,000 hands and ended up winning $1,150 which was a decent result. I also accumulated enough VPP points to hit the 200,000 VPP milestone for the Stars VIP program... so I'll be getting a $2,000 bonus within the next week sometime.

I only got felted for 100 big blinds twice. Once was just a flip loss AQ vs JJ all in pre-flop and the other one was sort of unavoidable.

I ended up turning the nuts and just shoved the river because the opponent was a pretty big idiot... he probably has a lower flush here the majority of the time so I still like my play. I can never really know that he had a set on the flop since he didn't even raise my flop bet... the board was super wet too on the flop so I would have thought even an idiot would raise a set there... guess not.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3215282


This one was also kind of unavoidable. Villain is a fish again, so I did a stupid looking 3-bet on the flop to make him do something spewy/ build the pot if he has a King with a weaker kicker that he might fold to a bigger re-raise... once he bets the river it looks like he's blocking with something like KQ so I shove it in and somehow he has two pair. Value owned myself here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3215294


Now for a winning hand:

I played this one definitely non-standard because he was a reg who would probably expect me to play it more standard... also he was somewhat nitty and could get away from a one-pair type hand sometimes to a big checkraise. I dont' really like his shove there because I'm only calling with hands that beat him.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3215299


All the other hands were pretty standard. I guess this was a pretty average session overall, with nothing too out of the ordinary going on. I'll be hitting the tables hard tomorrow as well.

Lost on Cake today...

Wow, I'm really having pretty sick variance... I ended up losing 1.6k today on Cake over about 5 hours of play. I really got screwed over a ton and was like 1/5 for AIPF coinflips. This month has been nuts. It seems like I'm winning $2k one day, only to lose it all back the next day, and then continue the cycle. Maybe it's just because I'm running bad or possibly playing a style that is just too high variance.

I did experiment a bit today while playing, mostly trying a few sophisticated bluffs. The thing is, almost every single one of them worked! I was losing money in my monster pots... I got sucked out on like 3 or 4 times for stacks, lost some flips, and made two pretty big mistakes that cost me my stack each time.


Here's a few hands:

Got sucked out here, villain was a monkey.



Even sicker suckout...



Villain insta-ships in JJ pre-flop 150bbs deep... I lose flip



This one was the most tilting pot of all that I lost... so sick I lost this one. I owned him so bad. I was 68% to win on the flop.


I've always done the stupid min-bet thing against donks, but I picked up a few new spots to use it in from Vital Myth's vids on CR.

Here's an example of a sucessfull min-bet triple barrel:



Minbet to induce:


Too many hands posted already and all the other ones are just some stellar bluffs which I don't care to post. I'm saving up some of these types of hands and will probably put them all together so I can give a lesson to my students that is just focused on bluffing and move-making.

Successful Day

I played poker for around 8 hours today... MTT for 6 hours and cash for 2 hours. Nutedawg talked me into playing the WCOOP Event #26, which is a $320 buyin MTT 6 max event. He was right... the players were brutal, so I'm somewhat happy that I played in it.

But I really dispise MTTs because it always seems like you play for so long, play so well, all to just get screwed in the late stages. I ended up getting 308th place and making a profit of around $200... I don't know how MTT pros make enough money to live off of but I guess some of them do. But every time I play an MTT and suffer through it, I'm reminded of how lucky I am to be able to beat cash games... I don't think I could be a professional MTT or SNG player, even though I have the skills for it. It's just so frustrating because it seems like you have a lot less control over your fate as compared to cash games.

Of course I got busted out when I got it in as a huge favorite with AK vs AQ all in pre-flop. The situation was just dumb as I 3-bet this guy's UTG raise and was OBVIOUSLY pot committed as I had put in 1/3 of my stack... yet he ships in AQ on me (obviously I should be happy he did) but he binks a Q and I'm out of the tourny and have no shot at the $150k first prize (there was $1 million in prize money total in the tournament).




The sad thing is, is the guy that busted me is actually supposed to be a good MTT player. He has won $200k career from MTTs and writes articles for Cardplayer magazine... but he's still an idiot! Just goes to show how clueless most MTT pros are. I don't even consider MTT tournament poker actually "true poker." It's more like a form of poker that people can play if they don't have a clue of what to do... and they still have a chance to win. You throw most of these players that were playing this tourney into a 6 max cash game and I bet the majority of them can't beat 25NL, which is pitiful.

I did really well in my two hours of cash play though. I ended up making about $2k from that while playing on Cake.

Here's a pretty funny hand from my cash session:

I don't know if my shove is any good or not.. It probably isn't terrible since I'm get getting called by JT, 9T, QJ maybe, and some other hands. But it's hilarious that he folded the best hand and confidently showed it!


It feels nice to have a day where I crush pretty decently. I think switching sites really messes me up, because the game flow is so different. I'm going to try and stick to the same site for a decent period of time from now on and not keep switching around so often.

First time I've felt like I got "pwnd" in a while...

I ended up losing about $750 on Cake today. I had my standard losses... losing flips, suckouts, etc, but what REALLY pissed me off is this one reg absolutely CRUSHED me for two huge pots.

I don't know if I could have gotten away at any point in either hand because we had an insanely aggressive dynamic between us... but I really felt like I got owned really bad. I don't think I've ever felt like I've gotten completely owned twice by the same player in one session before. The two hands make me sick.

I'll start with those two hands... There is no using Poker Tracker or Holdem Manager on Cake, but if I had to guess this guy's stats, they were probably something like 28/24 AF 6 and a 3-bet % of about 12. We were 3-betting each other back and forth a ton. He seemed like a pretty good player, and perhaps just ran like GOD against me but I think I could possibly gotten away at some point in these hands... I just don't know.

First hand against this reg: He had made this EXACT check raise size before when he was OOP in a 3-bet pot on either an Ace or King high flop and I snapfolded. I don't know if I can ever consider laying this down, as even if he does in fact have two pair on the flop I still have decent equity... also he can easily have JJ, QQ, or KK that he didn't 4-bet pre-flop. It sucks that we are deep though, because if we were 100bbs deep there wouldn't be any question as to whether or not stacking off here is good or not. It would be a pretty obvious auto-felt IMO 100bbs deep.



Second hand vs the same reg about 30 minutes later: this one was pretty sick... I think he played it perfectly and took a really different line that totally threw me off... I should have just 4-bet jammed all in pre-flop instead of making the 2.5xs 4-bet... because I don't know for sure if he ever 5-bet bluffshoves or not. I probably should have folded after he CRAI on the river but I thought at least a decent % of the time he may have the same hand as me so we would chop.



I think I played this one OK, except I didn't have to 3-bet this pre-flop and inflate the pot. There are a lot of hands I don't mind getting it in with on the flop... hands like KcKs, JcJd, AdJc, etc. Of course he has one of the worst hands possible and I have nearly zero equity. I think he stabs $100 sometimes and folds to my checkraise all in too, so I don't love my play here but don't hate it either.



This hand is worth posting here just for sheer enterainment value, lol



I used my loose, squeezy image here to get it all in good with JJ on a rag flop... The Ah3h hand was the hand directly before the JJ hand.



I also pulled off a few nice bluffs, but I've decided not to post too many hands like that. I'll be explaining the bluffs to my students during future lessons.

I was playing a lot on Cake pretty much just so they would let me cash out because I wasn't able to a few weeks ago... they said I had received too many player to player transfers and could not withdraw. I'm going to give cashing out another shot now since I've played on there almost every day for a little bit, for the past week or so.

Day off

I took a day off from playing poker today, which I guess is definitely rare for me. I seem to be somewhat of a "workaholic" I guess, as normally I put in at least some hands every single day. I don't want to become lazy just because I'm my own boss... and I think I've had a really great work ethic so far as a pro. But there comes a time where a day off is just necessary.

I spent my time sleeping in, running some errands (bought some new Bauer Vapor XXXX hockey gloves!), and played an exhibition intramural hockey game tonight with my team, Blue Steel.

I also watched a Cardrunners video. I ended up watching "Exploitation vs Exploitability, Part 3 of 4" by Vital Myth. The video was fantastic. I've also watched part 1 and 2 and I think that he is one of the best instructors on Cardrunners. His videos are so much more clean and professional than all of the other vids. Also, he has novel ideas that he discusses that can be easily applied to anyone's game. He explains his thoughts very well and does a great job making videos. I definitely recommend watching this video series as soon as you can.


At the end of the vid, he had this quote on his powerpoint:

"Don't avoid tough spots. Jump into the fire and learn how to walk on embers."

- Corwin Cole aka [vital]Myth


I really believe that what he said there is excellent advice. Before I got lessons from Nutedawg, I definitely played in a way that allowed me to avoid tough decisions. I didn't take any risks by playing hands in more optimal ways and that really hurt my development as a player. However, Nutedawg said something to me that was very similar to what Vital Myth said. Since that revolation, I've become a lot better player. It's definitely something I'll be talking to my students about and trying to help them understand what that means.

Miserable session...

I lost $2.5k today on Stars over 4,600 hands...


A surreal session, hard to even believe some of the things that happened. First off, my all in EV was terrible... If I run average I lose 800 instead of 2.5k. That means I lost $1,700 just due to bad luck in all ins... that doesn't even count some miracle cards that people hit on me on the turn or river before we got all in.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start with the hands. I guess I'll just put the biggest ones first and go down from there... you're probably going to get sick of looking at sick beats or whatever but I have to post some of these to let off some steam. Look at as few or as many as you would like.

Ok, here we go.

Biggest loser of the night: This one was very annoying... villain is the donk at the table, getting hit by the deck. Villain was 65/33 AF 1.7 over 800 hands. Check raises turn 11% and folds to 3-bets 11%. I knew what he had, but I just couldn't lay this down because it was just so hard to believe that he actually had A9 in this situation but it's really the only hand that makes sense.. that and pocket 9's. I posted this on the Cardrunners forums so I'd like to see what they say. I don't know if I can ever get away from this on the turn or not.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3193340


This one was sweet, he binked a 2 outer on me on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3193347


Runner runner madness here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3193358


This one is one of my favorites. Villian was a huge donk and could have almost any pair here and stack off with it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3193360


Got JJ in good here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3193362


I ran QQ into KK all in pre-flop in unavoidable situations twice.


Lost two flips; all in pre-flop with AK vs QQ CO vs BTN and AIPF QQ vs AK CO vs BTN.

There are more, but I'm not going to post any more because I think the general theme of what happened is pretty evident.

I was on some perfect tables with huge clowns for most of the night and still wasn't able to get a good result. In fact, when I quit I could barely even bring myself to leave my tables because they were so good. The one dude with A9 was still hanging around, boasting a 3k stack. I guess sometimes it just isn't your day and there's no point in banging my head against the wall if nothing is working right.

Days like these are what make poker so frustrating... I work my hardest, play my best, and get owned.

Solid Session

I did OK today. I played 3,000 hands on Stars and finished up $1.2k.

Here's the HEM screen shot:


Not sure why my W$WSF stat was so low... probably because I got a lot of unfavorable turn and river cards when I was playing.

A few hands really stand out and made me sick.


Losing Hands:


This hand was gross... terrible river card against this guy, who was the fish at the table. I decided to bet a bit smaller to get value from AQ and QJ and other random hands like KdXd and fold if he shoved, because he had a really low AF and would never bluff on the river. If it doesn't come a King I probably shove and stack his ass.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3188651


This hand was pretty annoying, as I can easily snapcall his shove with AQ or AK here leaving him in really tough shape. I still had him crushed but he got there.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3188653


Winning Hands:


I played this hand perfectly. This guy was a total moron, so against complete fish sometimes I like to bet over the pot on the turn because they seem to call no matter how big you bet and it also sets up a perfect river shove.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3188659


Got a terrible turn card, then a perfect river card! This fish SNAP-called my overbet shove.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3188662


All the other hands were pretty standard. I had my AA get run down a few times on some brutal boards which cost me half a buyin in two separate hands.

I ended up getting the AIM of one of the better regs on $2/4 NL on Stars. We talked for a bit and he seems pretty cool. He's living in NY right now where his expenses are really high. I told him that I will have an opening for a roommate in my house, starting the beginning of December so there's a chance he might move up to ND. This would be pretty cool to have another full-time poker pro in the same house.

I feel like killing something right now...

I wish it were duck season, because I really want to kill something right now. I had two sessions today... my first one I played solid and was up $1.3k. I took an hour break and decided, "well, I'm not really tired... and Friday night IS the best night to play.... so I'll hop back on the tables."

BAD IDEA. I played OK again, but proceeded to get fucked multiple times and lose back everything I had won earlier in the day to finish up $80 bucks. OMFG.

My keyboard after my session:


I shouldn't really be this pissed off, but it just is really frustrating to have a nice win booked for the day, then go back and play and give it all back. It really doesn't matter I guess anyways, since poker is a long run game and theoretically my cash game session lasts until I croak. But either way you slice it, I had a nice day going and it ended up turning sour.

Here are some of the hands that led to my demise:


This one was just splendid, and happened right away in my second session of the day. It was against a reg so pre-flop etc, is pretty standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184896


I got pissed off on this one because the dude just SNAP fucking called. And I mean INSTA-CALLED my shove without even thinking about it. I have AQ or AK or even sometimes a bigger pair than TT so his call is terrible IMO as he's either crushed or flipping. My play is not standard here, of course, but the dude was a 3-bet and squeeze monkey.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184899


Another reg insta-ships it in on me pre-flop bad.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184904


I also lost KK vs AA AIPF to an aggro reg who 3-bet on the button, and I lost with TT after I squeezed and got an OK board to go with.


This one was the icing on the cake though. The villain in this hand was a HUGE fish, as he had called off a 3-bet squeeze pre-flop for 200bbs with AJ about 20 mintues ago, also stacked off with AK TPTK on a AQXT board to a turn jam, and done all sorts of other retarded stuff.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184906


I think I played all of the above hands well... I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes, you lose 3 flips in a row, get coolered a few times, etc. it's going to be difficult to come out way ahead.

Hopefully I can book a huge win tomorrow. I plan on playing a lot of two hour sessions, and when I'm taking breaks I won't be looking at my results from the previous sessions. I'm going to wait to look over my results until I've decided that I have played my last hand of the day.

Solid win

I made about $1.7k today. I played for a few hours on Cake earlier on in the day, winning $500 there and made $1.2k on Stars over 1,000 hands.

My steal % is way too low, but I think that was due to having some shortstacks to my left during most of my session.

I should have been up a lot more on my Cake session, but I made some really terrible river calls... I need to start giving passive fish credit for MONSTERS when they check raise all in on the river because I don't think they are ever capable of pulling a bluff there... I called one of them with top two pair, but the fish had turned a gutterball and took the really weird line of: donk flop with gutter, c/c when he hit gutter, then CRAI on river with the nuts...

I never got felted once on Stars for a full 100 big blinds, but I did lose a few bizarre pots.


Here's one of them... I figured I was scooping this up against this donk all day... the pot started to go the other way and I was like... WTF?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3180221


Other than that hand, my only other notable loss was when I spewed and decided to double barrel bluff in a 3-bet pot. I had to fold after putting about half my stack in.


This is my favorite winner from the day... he never saw this coming, lol. It was against a reg.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3180227


I felt really good during this session, and played pretty well for the most part. The only pot I could have really prevented losing a lot was just shutting down after my 3-bet bluff because the board made it really tough to represent anything and he didn't believe my two barrels.

I played 4 tables for the whole session and really tried to focus on making the correct decisions in every hand. I should have taken a break a bit earlier though, as I played for about 3 hours straight which might be a bit too long. I think I should be taking a break around 2 hours, as I found myself starting out playing like really LAG on a few tables, nearly 30/20, but toward the last hour I was just kind of auto-piloting and nitting it up a bit.

Feed me the CAKE !!!

I played on Cake Poker today, just for a change of pace. They don't support any type of Poker Tracker or Holdem Manager (they don't even have real hand histories). This means I am playing stat-less, which I think is good for my game to just really focus on image, board textures, and other non-stat related things.

I had a pretty good result, as I played for about 5.5 hours spread over two sessions. I ended up winning about $1.8k.

My first session I played during the day sucked pretty bad right off the bat, as I lost about 2 or 3 flips getting it all in on the flop. Here is one of them that I saved.

This hand is pretty standard I guess.


That's the only HH I saved from the session that I want to show.

I did pull a sick bluff which I'll show to any of my students if they want me to explain it to them. But it's too "Top Secret" to post here really, as it's a really advanced play I don't think anyone is using.

I'm gonna get some shut eye as I have to wake up pretty early, at least for me, to have my first lesson coaching an established 200NL and 500NL player who regularly posts on Cardrunners. I've read a lot of his posts and he definitely seems to be a really solid player, so I look forward to trying and help him plug some leaks and learn some new tricks.

Depressing session...

I didn't play my greatest... I spewed a buyin or two but I did get it all in good a LOT of times and lost nearly every time. So sick.

All in EV says it all here...


I lost KK vs 99 AIPF, lost AA vs KK AIPF, also ran into a cooler KK vs AA AIPF, lost with TPTK AK when KQ backdoored a flush on the river and had the two disgusting hands below happen almost simultaneously.

This one made me want to vomit.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3166046


In the hand below, he's like betting this flop with like his whole range... why does he have to have top set??? of course I miss everything.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3166047


These two hands below I messed up in pretty bad...


I made a pretty bad call here on the river... I shouldn't have paid this off, even though he's a solid reg and is capable of bluffing here a certain % of the time because my hand is pretty face up.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3166053


This is a pretty terrible flop to c-bet so once I decided to do it, I thought I would probably have to fire 3 barrels to have a chance to win it... well, I guess I shouldn't assume an unknown can fold TEH TOPPEST OF PAIRS.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3166057


I did have one nice hand, I soul owned this regular. Bluffed him on the flop and showed it. It was a pretty sick bluff, I want to do it with made hands and pure air... but I decided not to post the HH. I'll show it to my students if you want to see the bluff, just email me and ask.


Ok, last hand. This one is pretty LOL, and is against the reg I owned in the above hand. Maybe he was tilting or something after I bluffed him... who knows. But in his viewpoint, OBVIOUSLY I had AK, so he decided to ship it in with 22 and take his "flip." ROFLAMO! (by the way, this was the dude the sucked out eariler my KK vs 99 AIPF AND my AA vs his KK AIPF)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3166111


My month is not starting out as well as I would have liked. I don't want to complain but it seems pretty standard that I'm always running way below expecation in all ins. It's so hard not to look at this stat, because it makes me feel better when I realize that I actually wouldn't have lost if I had average luck. But really, there's not much point in lamenting over it, as it won't do any good or change anything. I'm up $3k now only for the month.... I should be up $7.4k if I run average in all ins. It's a bit frustrating to have such a discrepancy there.

Bad session

Nothing really went right today... I lost 1.7k over 2,700 hands. When I had QQ in a blind war vs a reg he had AA (2xs), when I had an overpair on the flop in a 3-bet pot I lost the flip, when I got it in good on the flop with two pair I got sucked out on, when I got it in good pre-flop with a big pair the smaller pair binked a set, etc. etc. the list goes on and on.

I don't think I played my greatest either, in all fairness. I made one really spewy bluff in a 3-bet pot... it almost worked though as the guy tanked down to his last second or two on his time bank but made the hero call. I said I wasn't going to look at the EV thing but I had to peek anyways just to make me feel a bit better... and if I have average luck in all ins I break even on the session instead of losing 1.7k.

I guess it's probably inevitable that I was going to have a bad session sometime... I had 6 winning sessions in a row before this one.


I'm slightly behind pace now for the month, so I need to kick it into high gear and start having flawless sessions. I'm up about $5k after 7 days, so I'll need to make up $2k somewhere which shouldn't be too hard at all.

I absolutely HAVE to start breaking up my sessions more... I'm so used to just playing for like 6-8 hrs in a row it's tough to break that habit, but my play really deteriorates towards the end of these marathon sessions.

OK session

I did OK this session, considering that I was even for a vast majority of my hands, then managed to get some profit towards the end. I played about 3,600 hands and finished up $1.1k. I also unlocked a $1.5k bonus on Stars, so that is kinda nice as well. I ran into a few really weird spots and bluffed off two buyins, which I'm not too proud of. I spewed much more than I normally do.

Here's the stats:


A few hands:

Losers:

This one pissed me off, as he doesn't have odds to set mine against a 4-bet when he has 99. I had to go with it obviously, in case he just called with AQ or QX.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3156364


This one was a really bad river play by me. I messed up this river really bad... There's no value in shoving the river here. He either has me beat or is bluffing. Looking back on it my turn check is really retarded as well, but I thought he would auto-fire turn as he was a floaty type player. Villain was 27/21 AF 3.7 over 191 hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3156367


Winners:

I can't believe that guy stuck it in there with AK, I mean if there is ever a time to fold that pre-flop... it was probably then. Crazy action pre-flop. This is a good example of why you should never really fold KK pre-flop in an aggressive 6 max cash game.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3156375


This one is pretty standard I guess. I have a ton of outs, even if he has a set and I have decent fold equity on the flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3156387


I was able to work a bit more 3-betting into my game today, but I need to be careful not to get caught up in trying too hard to win pots where I was 3-bet bluffing. I don't mind firing a barrel or two, but bluffshoving the river... which I did once today and got owned.. is probably not going to work that well in an average situation.

Solid session, but slipped a bit

I had a good session today, finishing up about $2.5k over 3,000 hands. I am a little disappointed though, as I was up over $4k about 2/3 of the way through the session. I made the mistake of peeking at my cashier to see how I was doing for the session. I saw that I was up $4.4k and I was like, "wow! I'm doing really great! Maybe I can have a $5k day!" LOL! Wrong frame of mind after that, as I was not focused on making the correct decisions. I made a few mistakes in big pots after that, and nothing really seemed to go my way, so I lost a bit back from what I had won.

Here's the HEM screenshot for the session: when I peeked at my HEM and cashier my W$WSF stat was sick good, it was like 49%...


Here's the graph:


I don't understand how looking at my account balance can have such an effect on how I play, but it always seems to cause me to have worse results. Maybe it is just a coincidence, but this type of thing has happened often for me and I've heard other players talk about it too. I am really going to work on not looking at any results AT ALL until I'm COMPLETELY done for the day.

Here are a few hands:


Hand #1:

I'm kind of disappointed about this one because we were deepstacked... I don't know if I can get away from it though because this hand happened prior:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3152313

- so I know he floats flops OOP with overcards now...

Then about 20 minutes later this hand happens... villain is 50/21 AF 1.9 over 150 hands, check raises the turn 13% (happened 8 times), turn AF 2.1

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3152237

I don't know if I can find a fold there or not, I'm going to post it on the CR forums and see what everyone says.


Hand #2

The only reason this one is even debatable about that to do is the fact that the villain is so damn passive. He was running at 29/14 AF 1.7 over 761 hands, with a flop AF of 1.6. I really think I made a mistake and should have folded this on the flop... it seems stupid but I don't really beat anything here and he's like never bluffing. I ended up talking myself into shoving because I was like "well, I 3-bet this pre-flop and hit my hand... so I have to go with it." That's not correct logic because I 3-bet for value thinking that I might get CALLED down and get value... once I'm raised I have different information and need to re-evaluate from that point on. I'm going to post this hand as well and see what others think.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3152324


I got stacked two other times, losing coinflips all in pre-flop. I also lost a few big pots due to my still lingering inability to bet/fold the river. I also value owned myself pretty hardcore a few times as well.


Here's a few winning hands:

Hand #3

This hand was pretty LOL, as it was against a 87/43 AF 2.4 over 80 hands. I had lost two hands against him prior to this hand... I had shoved TT on him pre-flop and he called with AJ and hit. Then, the very next hand I picked up AQ but only had 50 bbs so I shoved again and he snapcalled with A5 and won that one too. I got my revenge here!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3152340


Hand #4

Very interesting that this reg doesn't 3-bet KK PF on the button and then is willing to get it in on such a low, connected flop. I like getting it all in with a 97% chance to win!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3152346


The other winning hands aren't really all that interesting.


Ok so I am trying to make $30k this month, so up to this point I'm +$5.4k. So I'm on pace. There are thirty days in the month, so the math is pretty obvious... if I can do $1k per day or more I'll get there. I'll try my best, but I'll probably have to make more than $1k in a few of the upcoming days to make up for me taking the last weekend of the month off... why am I taking the last weekend of the month off you ask?

BECAUSE DUCK SEASON OPENS!!!!

Great comeback

So I was able to have a great session today and make a nice recovery after my last session. I played about 4,000 hands on Stars and finished +$3k. It was nice to be able to get back everything I lost from the last session, and I hope the trend will continue upwards from here on out.

Here's a pic of my HEM stats, I think my numbers were very solid except for the fact that my W$WSF was lower than normal. I'm guessing that the marathon session had something to do with that. I'm going to make sure I take at least 15 minute breaks ever 3 hours or so tomorrow.

Getting back on track...

I had a great talk today on AIM with Noel. Noel is in my poker group Destined2pwn and a really great poker friend, always willing to discuss hands and other stuff too. I think having great poker minds you can talk to about hands, concepts, etc. is very important to being a solid winning player. Also, it undoubtedly speeds a poker player's skill progression.

Anyways, I mentioned to Noel that I got crushed yesterday and he asked me a few questions that really made me "wake up and smell the coffee." He asked me if I had been checking my results during my sessions... well the answer to that was "yes". Every time I lost a big pot yesterday I was frantically refreshing Holdem Manager to see where I was at for the session and checking my all in EV. Noel commented that checking results during a session is the worst thing to do as a professional player, because we use bankroll management so we don't have to worry about how much we are up or down. What he said next is a perfect way to approch poker and is the ideal mindset for playing the game... he said, "(having bankroll management) allows us to focus on decision making and let results take care of themselves."

This is exactly what the book I've read, "The Poker Mindset," preaches. It's a great book, and I'm going to re-read it as soon as I can. Noel also pointed out that all in EV is pointless to worry about, because so many things are not accounted for (like set over sets). There is nothing we can do about how our all in EV is turning out anyways so it isn't worth wasting mental energy on. And he made another excellent statement, saying "but the simple fact is, all me and you can do is make the correct choices when we have to make them... with the info we have, and what happens after that is out of our hands." This statement is so true, and I think in order to be the best player I can be I must follow this "decisions are the only thing that matter" mindset.

We also briefly talked about amount of tables to play at once, and Noel mentioned that anything more than 6 tables is going to be spewy, at $2/4 NL or higher. I definitely agree with him, except I think that his statement is probably true for all levels. It's just simply not possible to achieve the highest winrate you possibly can, if you are playing more than 4 tables. That is why I have decided to only play 4 tables this month.

We also looked over a few of my big losing hands from yesterday, and I figured out a few spots where I had made mistakes.

I'm going to grind like crazy over the next few days, but I think I'm going to just play in like 2 or 3 hour blocks, then log off and take a 30 minute break. When I play, I end up putting in marathon sessions of like 5-10 hours straight just sitting at the computer and just getting up to go to the bathroom. This is very bad for my winrate, because after playing for that long in a row, I am sure that I enevitably start playing on auto-pilot and probably am not playing my "A" game. There is plenty of month left, and I'm starting at even right now since I lost everything I had won the first few days of the month, during yesterday's session.

Terrible Session

I just had a 3,000 hand session on Stars, losing $3k. I ran $1.5k below expectation, ran into a bunch of coolers, and just generally didn't play all that well.

I'm going back to the drawing board to revisit my strategy at this level... I think I'm playing way too high variance, and will be looking for spots where I can reduce the swings I have to take. I am not very happy with my play or results right now over the past few days... I can do much better.

SWONGS

Just had a ridiculous session at $2/4 NL 6 max, finishing up $110.40! I played a marathon session to get un-stuck... and ended up playing 5,000 hands. I spewed WAY too much this session, and it's obvious to me that I'm unable to fold to small turn raises or river CRAI's.... From now on, I'm going to be much more willing to time bank it and consider a monster laydown, especailly if the villain has a low AF.

I also ran $1,400 below expecation in all ins, so that doesn't help matters much. I also ran so terrible post-flop it wasn't even funny... people's flushes would get there on the river and I'd have to fold, when I had KK or QQ an Ace would flop, etc. Only reason I was able to recover was because I was making sick moves to gain me a bunch of additional monies that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten.

I'm not gonna post any hands, at least not right now, because I'm dead tired and it's 6 AM...

Here's the graph of the session:

Good start to September

I played 3,737 hands today on Stars at $2/4 NL 6 Max and finished up about $4.4k. Another solid session. I am feeling really good about my game now, it feels like I am in complete control of almost everything that occurs at the table. I think I'm ready to progress and rapidly move up the levels in the next couple of months, if things continue as they are.

Here's the stats from the session (I'm really proud of my W$WSF stat here):




I think the reason I seem to be doing so well at $2/4 NL is because I stayed at $1/2 NL for an extra long time, even when I was way over-rolled for it. I stayed there because I still felt I had major postflop leaks... so I took some lessons, practiced a bunch, and refined my game at 200NL. I don't feel like I make many huge errors that often anymore, and this is obviously helping me win.

On a side note, I sat for the first time in a $10/20 NL 6 Max game for about 20 hands... one of my fish at a 400NL table moved up in stakes, but once he got up higher his game tightened up so I just left.

Empiremaker2, who is a Cardrunners member and has made a vid or two for them was at the table. He's a huge douchebag though and if you have ever read his blog you will know exactly what I mean. I've been waiting a few years to finally take a pot off him... he's probably one of the most cocky, worthless person I'm aware of ... can't really explain much more, just go to CR and read his blog, he's ridiculous. Here's the hand against him (nothing too fancy, lol):

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3133617


I only got stacked 3 times total in this session, which is a big improvement over last session... where I got felted multiple times. One of the times I got felted was in a CO vs SB war vs a reg and his AK was > than my QQ. Also lost another flip, I was btn and 5-bet shoved JJ and lost to the CO's AK.

This hand I lost, it's debatable of whether I played it well or not. Looking back on it I think I should have bet smaller on the river, then folded to a raise. Problem was, when I was playing the hand I just couldn't think of any logical hand that beat me, because I thought he would raise a set on that wet of a flop... I guess I didn't really even consider that he may have turned a set. I posted this hand on the Cardrunners forums so I'll get some other players' advice on the hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3133634


Here's one of my biggest winners for the session... basically a gift from DC, not sure wtf he was doing, but I suppose he put me on "AK" just like every other donk does when there is a 3-bet or 4-bet pre-flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3133638


So I'm actually only up $2.7k so far for September, because I lost a bit towards the end of my session in the early AM hours of Monday which I didn't count towards August because since it was past midnight it was technically already September.

One of my best poker friends, Ryan, predicted that I would have a breakthrough month in September. He suspected that I might hit the $30k mark, which I really hope I can do because that would be ultra-cool to be able to bank that much $$$ in one month. We'll see if he's right, and I'll do my best to make his prediction come true.

August results

I ended u playing about 58,000 hands in August and finishing the month + $13k from all poker related activities. I'm pretty happy with this result, as I was stuck over $6k about 8 days into the month. I made a hell of a comeback. Here's my monthly graph:



Here is the Holdem Manager screenshot of my playing results. I'm not thrilled about my winrate, but I guess since I ran about $3k below expectation in all ins it isn't that bad. My BB/100 adjusted for running average is 4.62, so I guess that is decent.



I'm going to 4 table all of September to see if that boosts my winrate at all. I'll also be looking to make my stats much more aggro and solid.

I played two sessions on Sunday, one where I ended up $1k then I played some more right past midnight and lost it all back and then some... finished the past 18 hours or so down about a buyin. I got oversetted twice (once in bad, once I got sucked out on after getting it in on the flop), lost three huge flips, and got coolered a few times... don't think there was much I could have done.


Here are a few hands:

This one kind of pissed me off, just because it was against Dodgyken and it was right after he told me it was him... just can't wait until I have a set here. I was actually a favorite vs his AA, I was 51% to win so I got sucked out on even though I had 9 high...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3129368


This hand tilted the shit out of me just because of how retardedly the guy played it... I thought I was raking this pot like 95% of the time by the river, as played. I thought he had AxJh or something....

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3129371


This one is kind of crazy... villain is 20/16 AF 2.3 over 1.2k hands... I wonder if I can ever consider folding the river??? I called because I thought he could have had 78 or TX that wasn't a boat. I bet he was pissed though that he didn't stack me when I had the nut straight here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3129372


The rest of the hands are just sick beats or coolers, not worth showing.