Monday, March 26, 2007

Reno report

Not much to report. Same slot machine in Vegas airport paid me off $170 this time. Last time it paid me off $175. Overall up for the trip. Played 3 sessions of poker at the Atlantis hotel First won $13, 2nd won $40, and 3rd lost $100. Had my pocket Aces cracked by K2 and 22 when they both turned a straight. Then my KK got cracked by 22 when he boated up (he flopped a set)...but hey THAT'S POKER!!

Sunday, March 25, 2007

"That's Poker"

Okay... I have to get something off my chest.

When somebody wins a pot (and usually it's a huge pot) that they shouldn't have won and they KNOW they shouldn't have won, why is their first response ALWAYS, "that's poker"?

I'll tell you why...

Because people play horrible starting hands, call bets they have no business calling and get lucky and suck out... THAT'S WHY.

You call 3 bets preflop with 9-7, flop bottom pair call all the way to the river and hit your miracle set on 5th street, cracking AA on a Jack high flop? "That's poker."

You defend your big blind from a button raise with K5 offusuit and the flop comes down A55. Your opponent holds AK and you scoop a huge pot? "That's poker."

You hold 6-7 suited diamonds against your oppenent's 1010. The flop comes down 10-A-K with two diamonds. You call 4 bets on the flop, 4 bets on the turn and then hit the deuce of diamonds on the river to crack a set of 10s and top two pair. "That's poker."

You have 8-10 suited in the SB and call a raise because you "already have $2 invested, so what's another $6?" The flop comes down 9-6-2 rainbow. You decide to check-call 2 bets on the flop with your gutshot, turn an 8 for one pair, call another bet on the turn with a small pair and then river a 10 for two pair. Your oppents both hold pocket pairs. "That's poker."

I'm sick of hearing "that's poker" when a donkey gets lucky. Let's just substitute "that's poker" with "oh shit, I sure got fucking lucky there... but since I got lucky this one time, I will continue to play like this for the rest of my natural poker playing life."

...And it's always the donkey that is at the table for like 15 minutes top. The guys that insist that their "luck will change" if they stay too long.

So here's the truth:

If you play for 15 minutes against me, you will probably get lucky... I'd say a 15 minute session requires only 5% skill and 95% luck.

If you play with me for a couple of hours, I'd say you probably will still get lucky as that session only requires about 25% skill and 75% luck.

You play with me for a year, and your luck will run out. 50% skill and 50% luck.

You play with me for life, and you will lose every penny to me. 95% skill and 5% luck.

So go ahead... sit down for 15 minutes at my table with your $40 buy-in. Get lucky on a hand, say "that's poker" and get up and leave. I know that you don't stand a chance against me in the long run... and you know that too. That's why you leave.

So keep calling 8x the BB raises with tiny pocket pairs knowing your opponent is holding AA and hoping to hit your miracle card on the flop. Because you know what? When you hit that miracle card the first time, you'll call a 40x the BB raise the next time with the same hand and lose.

Keep calling all-in bets preflop with nothing but AQ offsuit. Sure, you'll get lucky, hit your 3-outer and crack AK the first time. But do it again another 8 times and you'll lose every time.

Go ahead and call my bluff bet on the river with a board of A-J-4-6-6 when you hold Q4. Because you know what? I won't be bluffing the next 5 times I bet that river and you'll lose every time.

What you donkeys don't understand is that winning poker is a lifelong struggle to understand pot odds, betting patterns and develop a winning strategy. It's not about "having a feeling" or getting lucky. That's lucky poker. So while you will frustrate the hell out me today when you get lucky and take down a big pot with a hand you had no business playing, when I see you tomorrow, or next week, or next year and you make that same play... I will win the big pot.

I've had one losing session in the last 8 months. I'd be willing to bet you've had 10 times that number of losing sessions in that same time period.

When we meet again, I can only hope you bring a lot of money and have a lot of time to kill. Because if you do, I'm winning my money back and taxing your ass for the rest of it.

Now, "THAT'S poker."

Friday, March 23, 2007

Black Thursday

So yesterday, I came back to reality. I got hit with a few cold decks and lost almost $400. The day started with me dropping $160 in less than an hour playing 2/4. Didn't play well. Decided to try getting my money back playing 5/10 and it worked actually winning $211 in less than an hour and was now up $51. I took a break and then came back and hit 2/4 again. Lost $160 really fast again. Don't really know what is going on with 2/4 now. Killing it at first, now not being able to win a pot.

So then I decided to "get" my money back playing 5/10 and proceed to be up $100 quickly and feeling good. Then before I knew it, I was down to $55 when the following hand happened. I limp with K6s, button raises and sb calls and I call. Flop comes 6A6 with 2 spades. sb checks, I check and button bets. SB raises to 10 and I reraise to $15 and everyone calls. Turn comes 7 of spades and sb bets, I call and button calls. River comes a blank and sb bets, I raise for my last $15 and button folds, sb calls and turns over 76. So dropped $360 like that. I then bought into the 3-6 for $120 and built that up to $250 very easily. Then had another sick hand. Folded to me on the button. I raise with K10 and get re-raised to 9 by the SB. BB folds and I call. Flop comes K9x rainbow. SB checks, I bet, get raised and just call. Turn comes another K. SB bets and I raise, get re-raised and just call seriously thinking AK. River comes another 9 so now I have a full house. We cap the river and he shows 99 for quads. Sick hand. Lost the rest of my buy-in and I quit to watch some TV.

After TV, I packed for my Reno trip and then against my better judgment I logged back on and played 5/10. I bought in for $200 and was quickly up to $330. I then continued playing and was now down below my buy-in when the following hand came up. I limp on the button with 86 of spades. SB raises again and bb calls along with another limper and me. Flop comes 6Q6 (once again I flop trips). Checks to me on the button and I bet. SB folds, BB reraises, limper folds and I call it. SB folds, BB calls. Turn comes a 5. BB bets, I raise and he re-raises. River a 2 and I call and BB turns over 96. His 9 plays. Lost a a $158 pot. I then played a little longer and actually finished up winning $46.50. So down approximately $380 for the day (largest on-line single day loss). I still have over $600 so I'm still going to try for my goal.

One positive thing is that for the first time I cleared the silver VIP level on stars. I achieved 1500 fpps for the month. The cool thing about this besides the free-rolls is that you accrue fpps 1.5x now so you accrue faster. I finished with over 2k fpps. Need another 2k for 4k and gold status. To maintain my silver status I need to get 1500/month but my status is good for the month of April.

Well a much needed break will be happening. I'm out to Reno till Sunday. Will try to hit up the Hilton and check out the WPT prelim events going on. Won't play but will pop my head in.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Goal Update

After a crazy day of poker, I finished up almost $150 today. I'm sitting at $941.15 in my account so in 9 days of play I have made $772 dollars. Over $80 a day. I started at 2/4 today and dropped $160 in about 2 hours of play. Pissed I ate some dinner and went back but instead of staying at 2/4 I decided to try some 5/10 action. Finished up $161. Thanks in large part to a nice rush started by this hand.




PokerStars Game #9025196042: Hold'em Limit ($5/$10) - 2007/03/21 - 23:48:10 (ET)
Table 'Menippe' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: illwyll ($136 in chips)
Seat 2: cardlogs32 ($374 in chips)
Seat 3: Stewman20 ($138 in chips)
Seat 4: ben456 ($231 in chips)
Seat 5: btruby ($157 in chips)
Seat 6: sejtam ($208 in chips)
ben456 is connected
ben456: posts small blind $2
btruby: posts big blind $5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Stewman20 [Tc 8s]
sejtam: folds
illwyll: raises $5 to $10
cardlogs32: folds
Stewman20: calls $10
ben456: folds
btruby: calls $5
*** FLOP *** [Ts Th Td]
btruby: checks
illwyll: bets $5
Stewman20: calls $5
btruby: raises $5 to $10
illwyll: calls $5
Stewman20: calls $5
*** TURN *** [Ts Th Td] [Qs]
btruby: bets $10
illwyll: calls $10
Stewman20: calls $10
*** RIVER *** [Ts Th Td Qs] [9h]
btruby: checks
illwyll: bets $10
Stewman20: raises $10 to $20
btruby: calls $20
illwyll: calls $10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Stewman20: shows [Tc 8s] (four of a kind, Tens)
btruby: mucks hand
illwyll: mucks hand
Stewman20 collected $149 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $152 | Rake $3
Board [Ts Th Td Qs 9h]
Seat 1: illwyll mucked [9s Ah]
Seat 2: cardlogs32 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Stewman20 (button) showed [Tc 8s] and won ($149) with four of a kind, Tens
Seat 4: ben456 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: btruby (big blind) mucked [2d 2s]
Seat 6: sejtam folded before Flop (didn't bet)

I was then up $1 after 2.5 hours of play. I watched Lost then came back and after 20 minutes of play in a 2/4 games, was up $141.50 for a total winnings of $142.50.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

On-line Poker Goal

So after vowing not to play on-line poker anymore, PokerStars had to go and start there wsop satellites. So I broke my vow (what a shocker) put in $200 and lost it all within a week. I then put in $300 and sent half to NBA so he could play because he cannot deposit any money on the site. I was down to around 70 bucks and then NBA won some money and transferred my money back to me so I was up to around $200. I then lost $100 in 5 minutes playing 5/10 so I was down to around $100. I decided to play 6-handed 2/4 and haven't looked back since. I have been playing mostly everyday, some days for hours but most days for less than an hour. In about 15 hours of play, I have built that $100 up to over $750. Now this game is crazy and I have been playing extremely loose and like a maniac but so far it has worked.

My goal is the following. Since I have made $650+ in less than 2 weeks, if I can keep that up, that is $1300/month. So my goal is to have over $4k by the end of June and hopefully 10k by the end of the year playing 2/4. Now I may bump the limits up if I feel confident but for now and the foreseeable future I will stick with 2/4.

Now this goal may be unrealistic but if I can continually play and stay with consistent results, I don't think it is impossible. One road block may be if PokerStars stops allowing U.S. based players.

I will post up-dates with my quest and dollar amounts.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

My First Ever Royal Flush

PokerStars Game #8777982912: Hold'em Limit ($0.50/$1.00) - 2007/03/07 - 00:05:39 (ET)
Table 'Thetis' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: NAT-NOOR ($13.30 in chips)
Seat 2: fotd ($18.30 in chips)
Seat 3: duecesallday ($8.35 in chips)
Seat 4: C0ACH K ($27.45 in chips)
Seat 5: meidlf ($17.95 in chips)
Seat 6: Stewman20 ($15.85 in chips)
meidlf: posts small blind $0.25
Stewman20: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Stewman20 [Qd Ad]
NAT-NOOR: raises $0.50 to $1
fotd: folds
duecesallday: folds
C0ACH K: folds
meidlf: folds
Stewman20: calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Jd 6s Td]
Stewman20: checks
NAT-NOOR: bets $0.50
Stewman20: calls $0.50
*** TURN *** [Jd 6s Td] [9h]
Stewman20: bets $1
NAT-NOOR: calls $1
*** RIVER *** [Jd 6s Td 9h] [Kd]
Stewman20: bets $1
NAT-NOOR: calls $1
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Stewman20: shows [Qd Ad] (a Royal Flush)
NAT-NOOR: mucks hand
Stewman20 collected $6.90 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $7.25 | Rake $0.35
Board [Jd 6s Td 9h Kd]
Seat 1: NAT-NOOR mucked [As Tc]
Seat 2: fotd folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: duecesallday folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: C0ACH K (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: meidlf (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: Stewman20 (big blind) showed [Qd Ad] and won ($6.90) with a Royal Flush