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 !!!

Somewhat uneventful day

I played about 1,800 hands today and made just slightly under $1k. Most of my profits came from medium pots, as I did not felt very many opponents.


I had one unfortunate hand happen where an opponent called my 3-bet with 84 sooted OOP and backdoored a flush on my top pair.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3441432

Looking back on it, I should have shipped the turn all in since the board was so wet.


I'm going to get in a ton of hands over the next 3-4 days, hopefully everything goes well.

Solid day at the office

I played about 2,500 hands total today and finished up $2.8k.


I played a bit on Cake too which isn't included in the stats above. Here's one hand from the session on Cake.

I set this up perfectly. About 15 minutes ago I had just bluffraised his c-bet on a raggedy board with KJ high to the same amount, $80, and hit my K on the turn and got it to showdown. He is a pretty solid reg but I had just been giving him a hard time.


Here's a few fun hands from my other sessions of the day:

Value owned myself here. Bad turn card apparently but I thought that his most likely holding was something like KQ or KT... didn't expect him to have K9 and I missed all my outs on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3438831


This hand was pretty funny. It was against an aggressive donkey. He turned his TT into a bluff appearantly... didn't work out too well for him.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3438835


I'm not sure what's going on with my poker group, no one showed up last week for our meeting. I know some people had other stuff going on a few weeks ago, but hopefully we're going to start meeting up again regularly because I think that those meetings were very valuable to everyone.

Broke even today

Thanks to a bunch of unfortunate hands today I ended up breaking even over about 2.5k hands.

I saw some pretty ridiculous stuff.


This was towards the end of the session. The villain calls off 1/3 of his stack with 4 high and hits a miracle flop which gives him essentially a flip vs my top pair. Obviously, he gets there.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3434283


This guy was a pretty aggressive donkey, so I figured I was likely to be ahead on the turn and I shipped it in. Well, I was correct... I was ahead but he still had a lot of outs and binked one of them on the river. Oh well, I got it in as a 64% favorite.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3434287


I'm still confused by this hand, I really have no clue how to explain what my opponent did or was thinking in this hand...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3434289


This hand was fun.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3434295


I think I may start cashing out some money from my poker accounts... I don't really want to have that much online, especially if there's talk about the government passing another bill that is supposed to hurt online poker. I pretty much have the roll to play $5/10 NL online right now, but I probably want to stay at $2/4 NL and $3/6 NL for at least a month or so to hone my game before I move up to $5/10 NL.

Action Alert !!!

Please, call them ASAP and let them know that you do not want these regulations to pass !!!

You can also go to the website below and fill out a comment forum there instead of calling.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/ElectronicCommentForm.cfm?doc_id=R-1298&doc_ver=1&name=Prohibition%20on%20Funding%20of%20Unlawful%20Internet%20Gambling&date=20071001a

If you wish to know more about what our government is attempting to pass, you can go to the website below. It is a report from Dow Jones Newswires that explains what the regulations are about.

http://www.nasdaq.net/publicpages/NewsDetailPublic.aspx?symbol=&storyId=20081106\ACQDJON200811061856DOWJONESDJONLINE000987.htm


Act swiftly ! The future of online poker is at risk !!!

The day of the cooler...

I played 2,600 hands today and lost about $1.3k. I think I played OK, but failed to make a few sick laydowns that I probably could have made if I was playing perfectly. I guess I just can't expect to win all the time obviously and today was a wake up call. It was a frustrating session because each time I started to hit some hands and win pots and build momentum, shortly thereafter I would get felted due to a cooler.




A few of the coolers were pre-flop. I ran QQ into AA all in pre-flop vs a regular who was squeezing and is very squeeze happy and has a very very high 3-bet stat.

Another pre-flop cooler when I 3-bet, got 4-bet, and shipped in AK sooooted on the button vs a regular and he had American Airlines.

This one takes the cake though. It was right at the end of the session vs a massive fish. What can I do?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3429737


This one pissed me off. Again, another pretty big fish. He had a pretty low 3-bet stat but I had just iso-raised him a few times before this so I felt that he was nearing the point of being fed up with me. I expected him to pot the flop with any 2 cards but I'm not sure if he would continue to pot the turn with a hand like AK. It seems like the limp/3-bet by a fish is normaly a massive massive hand, but I guess here I'm only beaten by KK and AA... it just sucks as those are probably two very likely holdings for him to have. Had he been a bit more passive I think I could think about folding the turn possibly. I just don't know for sure though because it's really odd that he's betting full pot when there are no obvious draws out there. That seemed suspicous to me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3429739


Normally, I try and avoid going broke in an unraised pot... but I think there's a chance that he could play a set like this, especially 555 so I'm not sure if this is foldable at any point. Stupid thing was though, once he re-raised to $360 like INSTANTLY I knew he had 64 but shipped it in anyways. This is why I don't like to go broke in an unraised pot... you have no clue what anyone has.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3429745


Value owned myself here vs a fish. No clue how he has a set here. I thought for sure I was valued towning a weaker Q or a draw on the turn and expected him to c/c my river bet with something like QJ or KQ.... guess he c/c with sets too...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3429749


Last one. This one was right before I ended my session. This fishy player had donked into me a few other times over the past 10 minutes or so. I was sure that he was either bluffing with air or valuebetting top pair. So I was just going to let him bluff off his stack. I guess I can shove turn but I don't think he's comitted at that point and I took the line that would get me the most EV possible.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3429752


That's enough hands for now. I'm sure you get the idea of how the session went by now.


Overall, I had a decent weekend thanks to my big day on Friday so I'm pretty happy with the results of the past three days. First 1/3 of the month has gone well. I'm going to try and play my best for the rest of the month. Also, I'm going to make sure that I stick to playing 4 tables and taking a break every 2 hours when playing. That's going to be my November goal starting from now until the end of the month. I think if I'm able to do those two things 100% of the time I'll have a great result for the month.

Great session turned average...

Played 2,500 hands and finished up $1.2k.

I took breaks towards the beginning at the two hour mark roughly each time. Towards the end of the session I just kept on playing and didn't take my break because I felt the players were just too shitty to be away from the computer for a break for more than 5 minutes.... so I paid for it.





I made one stupid bluff vs a fishy type player which started the downward spiral at the end of the session. I tried to bluff him when he has a set... so yea, that didn't work out too well.

I also got coolered twice right at the end vs a MASSIVE fish. He was playing 75% of his hands. The reason I didn't re-raise the $44 on the flop was because I wanted kkarate, the huge fish, to tag along. I wasn't liking the turn card obviously and I decided to try and take a free card and boat up. Once I was checked to on the river I felt I was ahead and needed to value bet it. He had check-raised all in on the river two other times vs me so I was fed up with it and snapped him off here with a set.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3424740


This one happened shortly after. I can't believe this.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3424730


This hand happened earlier on in the session... just plain ridiculous.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3424772


I decided to just stop playing because I was getting frustrated and not playing my best. Kind of a disappointing session even though I ended up with a solid win, as I was up about $3k at one point. Oh well, I'll just make sure I play even better tomorrow.

Shorter sessions work: Best cash game day ever!

Today, I stuck with the plan of having shorter sessions that were approximately 2 hours in length... and I got results. I broke my personal record for the most I've made in a single day for cash games. I made approximately $6,900 over 4k hands. I played a mixture of $2/4, $3/6, and $5/10 NL 6 Max.

I was running poorly for the first 2,500 hands and I also made a few bluffs at $5/10 NL that failed miserably. I managed to flop a few monsters to get back to even and then up about $2.5k... then I took a break. I went to an open-skate that the wellness center was sponsoring at the Olympic Ice sheet at the Ralph. This was a great way to get my mind off of poker for about an hour and a half. It was also pretty fun, as I talked to a few friends that were there.

After I finished with the open skate, I hit the tables hard again. And, for once, I ran pretty hot. I ended up running about $1k above expectation for the session, which isn't super hot, but I made a lot of monsters when people were flopping 2nd best hands.

Ship da COOKIES !!!

Ok, I lied

Planned on doing the two hour session thing today, but there was a HUUUUUGE donk roaming around UB playing an average of 3 tables at a time. He played for nearly 5-6 hours straight and I kept playing while he was.

I ran sick bad for the first 3/4 of the session. I was down $1.7k at one point. I battled back to finish up about $1.3k, so I'm happy with the result. I don't know if I can ever remember a session where I've been coolered + sucked out on so much. It was disgusting. I was over $2k below all in EV (yes, I had to peek at it) until near the end of the session. At the end of the session I ran KK into AA all in pre-flop and managed to suck out both times, so it was shitty that I got coolered KK vs AA twice but nice that I managed to win the pots. So that evened out my all in EV so I only ran $600 below expecation.

I played some $5/10 NL when that fish was on the table and doubled up with KK vs AK AIPF vs a reg.


Sickest beat of the day (since I have way too many bad beats and coolers to post all them) :

I had the guy dominated pre-flop and he's drawing to 2 outs to win the pot outright and there's a decent chance we'll split the pot if the straight comes... but I'm a big favorite to win the hand on the flop and get sucked out on.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3417276


This hand I can thank UB's stupid software. I'm typing in a 3xs the BB raise size and somehow a 0 gets in there after I type the 12... so this guy's shoving probably big aces, pairs, a decent range here since he's a reg (dunno why he's medium stacked though). I had to call because of his odd stack size and he has KJ !!?!?!?! I raised UTG so it's not like I was on a button steal. I think his shove is pretty suspect as KJ is probably not even ahead of my UTG range. Funny stuff.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3417287


I'm going to get a ton of hands in this weekend. Also, I'm going to just have to force myself to do the 2 hour session thing. I'm going to download google chat tomorrow so I have the calender thing to remind me when to quit.

Experiementation gone sour

I played terribly for the first 2,000 hands I played today... I was experimenting with a bunch of new stuff and it wasn't working... I lost far too many stacks on bluffs and I picked a few terrible spots to follow through and also just simply ran into the tops of people's ranges a few times which didn't help matters either. I think, however, that may have helped me get paid off later on in the session.

I can remember one hand where a reg stacked off with top pair, K's with a 6 kicker vs me, lol. To be fair to him, I play a decent amount of bluffs this way and semi-bluffs (like 4h5h) I would probably do the exact same thing so I guess his ship on the turn isn't terrible... but now that I know he's willing to stack off this light vs me it's going to be a lot of fun taking him to valuetown in the future. Here's the HH:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3412727


I ended up winning about $1.6k over 3,000 hands today, which is a pretty good result considering that I was down about 3 buyins over halfway through the session. I would have been up a ton more if I had just played my normal game right away and not spewed off a ton of chips at the beginining.





Today was my last "marathon" session. I had to have one final hurrah I guess before I change it up. From now on, I'm going to do what my coach, Nutedawg, suggested. He said that I should break up my sessions into like 2 hour blocks and make sure to take a break (away from computer for about 30 mins to an hour) in between.

He said this will actually allow me to make more money with less hands played and be more efficient because I'll be playing more optimally all the time. I'll be the first to admit that during a marathon session I'm probably not playing my "A" game towards the end of the session. Hopefully, I'll be able to avoid a lot of mistakes because I'll be more focused during each session. I'm looking forward to trying this plan out, as I think it could improve my play significantly.

United Socialist States of America

I'm pretty bummed about about the election results... I don't feel like giving away my hard earned money to people who just sit around and do nothing. Obama admitted that he's a socialist during the whole "Joe the Plumber" debacle, and they have already lowered the "rich" number for people they plan to rape on taxes from $250k individual, to $250k combined for a joint filling (marriage), then $200k per year from an Obama commercial, then his VP Joe Biden was caught saying $150k a few days later. So I'm sure that as soon as he gets into office anyone who's making over $50k or so is going to be considered rich and will be forced to fork over their hard earned money.

Oh well, nothing I can do. I voted against socialism. Not enough people did.

Another negative of this guy getting into the Oval Office is the fact that he's extremely anti-gun. There are other things, such as him being buddies with proven terrorists, not having any experience, not explaining this so called "change" very well, etc. the list could go on and on. I'm sure in a few years everyone will realize that this guy just conned his way into the White House.

Anyways, enough politics. Poker went pretty well today, but I didn't get in many hands because I gave a lesson and had an intramural hockey game tonight. The hockey game went well, as we came out ahead by a score of 2-1. I ended up winning $1.2k on the day.

Back on track

I donked around on UB today, winning about $2.8k over 2,300 hands. I played a mixture of $2/4 NL and $3/6 NL 6 Max. I played pretty well for the most part, getting good value on all my great hands.


I've been amping up the pre-flop aggression with more open-raises and a bit more 3-betting and it's working great. I'm getting a lot more action.

I got felted a few times at $2/4 NL.... once when I had a set and someone turned an unlikely straight. It was an Ace high board so I was definitely getting value from a ton of hands by shipping it, just so happened that he had the OESD on the flop and hit it on the turn.

Lost another hand where I flopped trip Q's in a 4-bet pot.

I made one possibly spewy bluff at $3/6 NL in a 3-bet pot... I'm not sure if it was a bad bluff or not... I'm going to need to ask my coach about it. At the time, I thought it would be a good idea but in hindsight after examining the board I'm not quite so sure it was a good spot for me to try and win a pot with air.

With today's win I'm now in the green for the month. I was successfully able to avoid looking at the cashier page while playing, which improves my play significantly. I'm going to try and make sure that I don't peek at my results while playing for the rest of the month.

Not a great start to the month...

I played about 1,600 hands today and finished down about $1k.


I was down today pretty much just because of this one hand I got sucked out on at $3/6 NL.

The hand was against a regular and I decided to 3-bet bluff him when I was on the button... his call pre-flop is horrendous, in my opinion.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3400385


I also lost an all in pre-flop flip JJ vs AK at 400NL.

So I'm down about $400 for the month so far. I peeked at my all in EV for the month and I should actually be up $2.2k (adjusted winrate of 13 BB/100) so I'm running $2,600 below EV just over two days of play. Hopefully this doesn't continue as I don't want to run like I did in September...

Another night out

Tonight, I decided to go out again. It's been kind of nice taking a few days off and just relaxing and having fun.

I went to a party downtown... and wow... there were TONS of people there. I'm guessing that there were 200+ college kids crammed into the 2 or 3 level building. It was packed in there. They had live music, 12 kegs (which ran out about midnight), and nearly everyone was dressed up in their Halloween costumes. I normally don't go out and drink a whole lot, but this was a pretty cool party and I'm glad I went.

I ended up staying there for about 3 hours or so, but the whole party got cut short by the Police. They entered the building and all of a sudden there were cops at every corner in the place. The pretty much told everyone to move out and exit the building. Oh well, at least that happened towards the end of the whole deal instead of at the beginning.

My Halloween Costume



Video clip of room with live band

Everyone wandering around outside after party got broken



The Police cars that arrived at the scene



For some reason, a fire truck and ambulance decided to show up too

I did play a little poker before going to the UND hockey game tonight (which they blew and lost 5-2 after being up 2-0 to start the 3rd period). I played for about an hour and a half and made $600. I would have been up a ton more, but I lost a pretty brutal hand.

Here, I got the money in so good it was sick. I was 92% to win on the flop, but I get 2 outed to lose a $1.2k pot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3395627

Oh well, nothing I can do.

I'm going to try and get in a lot of hands on Sunday, as I want to have a solid November as well. I haven't decided if I'm just going to grind $2/4 NL this month or maybe move up to $3/6 NL sometime soon. I kind of want to have a month of $2/4 NL where I just absolutely kill it for a huge winrate, so maybe I'll give that a shot first before I move up.

October Results

October was the best month of my poker career thus far. I made about $27k from total poker profits. Approximately $20k of that was from playing profits and the remainder from rakeback and coaching.


I made about $5k on Cake poker which doesn't show up either on the graph or HEM stat screenshot. So the Cake profit plus the money I won on PS, UB, and FTP combined equals approximately $20k playing profit.



Overall, I'm very pleased with how the month ended up. Especially considering the fact that I didn't have much quality time to play on the weekends due to duck hunting. I did play a bit on my laptop while I was out of town on hunting trips, but I just don't play nearly as well on my laptop due to slower internet, overlap, etc. being somewhat annoying.

Two more months to finish up the year strong.

I went out to the bars tonight for Halloween. I ended up meeting some friends at Joe Blacks for a few hours and it was a lot of fun. Tons of creative costumes and some people were just simply acting ridiculous/ hilarious. I dressed up as Al Capone. Definitely glad I went out. I will be going out Saturday night as well... Halloween seems to be like a 2-3 day event apparently, lol.