Full Tilt and a Few Leaks Plugged

OK, it has been a month since my last update. I achieved my gold status for the month. I only missed the 100 points on one day. I have played every day this month. I have had my ups and downs. I got that hoodie plus I’m back up around 3000 points again. I opted for extra points as my Ironman bonus.

I started the month at $350 and was playing 4 tables at the $50 FR tables. I lost a few buy-ins but stayed at those stakes and tried for the comeback. I went all the way down to $150. I started playing the $25 tables and slowly dwindled down below $100. I hit $80 and was forced to drop to $10 tables. I started playing 8 tables with my whole roll at 8 different hopeful seats. I decided to play my regular game but really go into the think-tank on all-in hands, which is really hard for me because it is only $10. When you have played $200 and $100 tables for months only 6 months ago and recently $50 and $25 tables $10 just doesn’t hold as much respect in one’s eyes. But I had to focus on the fact that I only had $80 and $10 was actually 1/8 of my total BR. I began my refined game and hit 2 bad beats where I was at least a 70% favorite. It just seemed that lady luck was being at total bitch to me. I was now standing at $60 and 6 buy-ins. I held the line and continued on that same strategy. The bad beats stopped for a while and I began to gain in money. It was difficult to fold some of the big hands, especially when guys at these small stakes will call your PF raise and if they hit any piece of the flop will shove and put you to a tough decision. Usually I would still call if I had and over-pr to the flop. Occasionally that had hit their sets and I paid the ultimate price, but more often than not it turned out to be a semi-buff at best. I did lay down some hands where I was likely the best, but I was winning tons of small pots with my semi-tight-semi-agro game. I figured why lose all those hrs of grinding to one bad call. It was hard for me. I continued to gain all the while getting my 100 points a day. I decided on a new BR management strategy because I had already surpassed the 1st 4 or 5 stakes. I be scared to move up when I’m not scared money at those stakes. I will now move up stakes as long as I have 8 buy-ins at that level and at that point be willing to stay at that stake until I lose 2 buy-ins or advance up the ladder to the next stakes. I hit the $200 mark not too long ago. (2 weeks or so.) I moved up stakes back to the .10/.25 tables. I was finally playing solid poker. I wasn’t gaining a lot on each session but I wasn’t dropping big amounts either. I was making less bad calls on big hands. I also gave up the nasty river bluffs with busted draws when if called I would lose big pots to due to the size of turn pots and the amount that one would have to put in to make it a tough call for my opponents. I actually gave that up back at the strategy change at the $10 stakes. This was definitely one leak in my game. When it was I well timed bluff I made a nice hand payout, but when I was off in my assessment I wasted all my hard earned money. Now that I have taken out the nasty bluff and the bad all-in calls I am playing winning poker overall. Most of my wins and loses each day were very small due to some daily horrible beats. All that grinding gone to shit almost every session. But when the bad beats didn’t come in a session I usually made a buy-in or so. I continued to grind it out and make my 100 points a day. I had a nice 4 session rush this last week and built up my roll to $380. I was about to make the move up when some ugly beats have been dropping my roll. I am currently at $280. I have lived right around $300 for a week now, with a $25 swing or so either way. The last 4 sessions have brought some ugly beats. My roll hasn’t suffered too bad because my current game is winning enough small pots to sustain most of these horrid suck-outs. I’m telling you when the money goes in and I watch the cards turning over towards showdown I call-out the perfect suck-out cards because I just know they are going to hit. Coin-toss – fucking forget it, it just ain’t happening. I know everyone gets hit with these hands, but currently it feels like the world is a little skewed against my accurate decisions. It just hurts when you get all the money in, thus out-playing your opponent, and they stick it in you ass – no lube mind you. Last 4 days here are a few. PF AA vs AJ and JJ. J comes on river. That was over a $60 swing instead of being up $45 or so I go down $25. I haven’t even looked that hand up but I really shouldn’t be losing that too often. And twice the normal pr over pr 2-outer loses. I call a raise with TT – flop comes T – all-in on flop vs KK – river K for a $50 swing in my roll. Once my set gets smacked by a 4-flush, but I did slow-play the flop looking for the CR, so the guy did have his flush-draw. And lastly this morning after work I had my normal 8 tables going and soon after getting on another guy and I get all-in with $30 apiece in chips with AA vs AA. I called it – I just knew it was coming: 4 fucking clubs on the board. God that just really hurt after 4 days of this shit luck. I looked it up. 2.17% that he was going to win. OK, lets put this shit into perspective. If we played this hand 100 times I would only lose it twice. So a lost triple-up pot to a pure 1-outer and today a 4-flush Aces vs Aces beat – it just am finding it hard to stay positive. Luckily I ground my way back this morning and only ended down $8 for the session. What will tomorrow bring. If no bad beats it should be a nice session. One solace is that I get rake back through rakebreak at 27% and I will have accrued around $500 total rake for Tilt (damn they are pulling the dough) so I’m looking at around $130 added to my roll around mid-month when they add it to my account. So If I can tow-the-line for the next little while I will get my shot at $50 very soon.

Overall I am currently happy with my game now that I have exposed a few leaks in my game that were killing my bottom-line. I still make bad calls here and there but I have alleviated the big pot mistakes. My current game holds me up on most of the 8 tables that I simultaneously play. Although I have been playing one superstitious sort of rule: If I hit over $30 at a $25 table I wait for the blinds and exit and start a new table. Not totally superstitious I guess, but I just don’t want to put that extra money at risk. I feel that if it is in my account balance, it is building my roll and can’t be taken from me. I know that I should actually have it at the table for the same very reason that I play max buy-in poker: To optimize my profit potential against the other large stacks at the table when I hit my monsters against them. So that is where I currently sit. I will try to update more often in the future since I am playing fulltime again.

Later, Ash out…

Where I'm at

Live is still going well. Last 6 games: +$21, +$21, -$21, -$15, +$94, +$39. I can live with that. Now if I can just get the ole lady out of my BR I’ll be rolled for whatever I feel like doing.

I started playing at Full Tilt again. It has been a while. Back when I used to play there was no Iron Man stuff. I plan on being gold this month. I only need 1000 more regular points to get a cool hoodie: red and black. I brought over most of my bankroll from UB. $350 total. I’m going to give $50NL a go but if I drop a buy-in or 2, it is back to the $25NL tables. I am doing 4 at a time.

I’m still not playing solid poker. I just don’t get it. I play pretty well and get up on most tables and then blow it all on one big hand where either I get sucked-out on or I just have 2nd best hand.

At least I started playing again.