The Fish Bowl

I played with the boys from work again on Tues. night. My little fish, I like to call them. I went home the big winner as usual. I have played with these guys more than 10 times and have only once went home down any money and that time was to a river suckout 4-outer. I had the nut-flush and they had 2pr. I got him to put all his money in on the turn and the river brings the 4-outer. Yea. Sorry to rehash that. As you can tell, I’m totally over it. Back to it; damn I get side-tracked easily. I think that is also part of my illness. Damn brain. Easy game, just wait for a hand and bet it. Once they fear your raises, bluff at the pot. Rinse and repeat. The big hands that I usually rake in are the over-valued hands. They have a bad habit OV’ing hands in a few different situations. 1 – if a 4-flush hits the board, no matter how small their flush-card is, all they see is flush. Often 3 or 4 will call big raises. 2 – 4 cards to a straight or a straight on the board. Nut straight isn’t a concept that they have learned yet. And of course their good buddy Ash ain’t telling them shit. 3 – pocket pairs. This is probably where they suck the most. If they have a PP they think that means that they are supposed to win that hand and that they can bet or call all the way to showdown and have a truly genuine look of befuddlement at the big loss. It is almost sickening to watch. Ex: Guy with pocket 6’s bets all the way to the river then calls the raise of his bet on a board with 4 overs and flush and straight draw possibilities. And then he said that he had to see.

4 Days Away

Poker didn’t go as I envisioned it while working last week on nights. I put away my school books and checked all the blogs. They pumped me up, see how good some of the guys were fairing. Wes in particular has been rushing for a while now, almost to the point that I don’t think variance is going to kick in. I hope to reach that level of play within the next 2 years. OK, back to reality. I just knew I would put up some big numbers and hit my Nov. goal. But alas, I played like a donkey thru-out my days off. I made some horribly calls. I made some sad bluffs. I didn’t value bet when I needed. And just all around played like an ass. OK, I also did get slapped around with a few horrible beats. 2 and 4-outers were the crux of my misery when I wasn’t spewing chips into the dead money side of the pot. All in all I dropped $150 or so. I have one more week to step it up. A grand seems quite the apex now.

I don’t really know what to do, but lately I have really been making some stupid calls. If I can’t stop the madness, I might have to concede and cut back on the tables that I play simultaneously. I usually have 6 or 7 going. Plus currently I have 2 sites at 2 different stakes going. I think maybe with all the extra thoughts that I have to calculate constantly; it is just too taxing to make adequate competent decisions.

I going on vacation from work in a few days and will have 12 straight days off. I’m not going anywhere but away from work. I am burnt-out right now. Plus if I didn’t take the days before the end of the year I would lose them back to the company. I will get some poker in and see where to go by my results. I have to have at least 4 tables going or I get bored. And my bankroll can’t sustain Lady Variance at the stakes that I would be able to pay full attention to just one table. Anyone else have this patience/attention-span issue? If I’m not rushing on the amount of the stakes I need to be making constant decisions. I think that is part of my illness.

I took all my money off of WPEX this week because there just is never a game going. Plus with UB having this new weekly points exchange bonus deal thingy going, and my normal bonus dollars accruing perpetually as I play, I see no need to waste my time waiting for a game on World. Now only if I could talk UB into hooking me up with Rakebreak I would be raking-in, (no pun intended, it just worked out that way,) the fucking dough. UB offers a 28% rake back thru Rakebreak for new members to bring in player base, but if you are already a registered user Fuckoff. I guess the way around this is to sign-up under a new alias and e-mail address. This is more work than I feel like doing, so bonus dollars and conversion monies will have to do. Oh yea, the whole point of this paragraph was meant to bring up a bragging session. So with no more ado, I have my roll in just 3 places now. 1 – a small amount at neteller for a rainy day, just in case you know, if something horrible happens to my eggroll, and it also gives me a little security blanket that keeps me from sleeping in the fetal position at night. 2 – UB, where most of the roll is rolling. 3 – FT. Remember from previous post that I found that $4 on Tilt. Well I have been shoeclerking the shit out of that $4 and it currently sits at $42.

This Morn or Little-Big Big-Little

Goofy morning. I just remembered that I had an E-mail stating that I had a rake back of $4 at Full Tilt for the little time that I played last month. I got on and put all $4 on a $10NL table. I turned that into about $8 or so in the hr that I played before bed. I also had 4 50 NL UB tabs going. I ended about even.

I got up and got back on. I put $4 on 2 different tabs. I also got 3 $50’s going at UB. I played the same waiting shoe-clerk game. I hit my JJ on my raised pot and pushed the flop. I got called and doubled through. On the other table I limped in with my J2s on a multi-way pot from the SB. I hit my flush on the turn. I got some action and tripled up by slapping down the smaller flush. I ended up making $10. I ended even again on UB in the hr session before work. Due to the bonus dollars I made $5 for the day.

So we are talking $14 at the $10NL tables and only $5 at the $50NL. Hey at least it is in the right direction and after last week’s ass-bangin’, I’ll take any win I can.

Addendum to My Game

One thing that I have changed in my game this week on the road towards aggression is calling an average PF raise with small and mid-sized PP’s. [Aggressive poker is winning poker. This is a fact. A basic misconception believed by some players, is that statement means that aggressive is defined as loose. Aggressive doesn’t have a lot to do with starting hand requirements – OK, maybe a little. Basically it means that when you are involved in a hand you play it strongly.] I am obviously doing this for set value. I was talking with Rake about our current converse styles. He decided that he would tighten up a little until he gets out of his current rush. I decided that it was time for me to add this next weapon to my arsenal. It costs money to make money. In the long term this strategy should make me money in the long run for 2 reasons. Obviously foremost by hitting my set, but also by calling more raises people will consider me less of a rock and put me on a larger range of hands. So hitting my set – I miss it 7 out of 8 hands which sounds counter-intuitive to making money, but hear me out. That 1 time that I hit, if I play it right for the raiser’s holding I likely stack him or at least make a nice chunk of change. Therefore we are talking +EV for the new play. Plus the added bonus of players putting me on a wider range of starting hands, which in turn gets me more calls when I hit and raise that hand and successive hands. (+EV, for those that don’t know, means – Expected Value.) Example: 7 x $2 = $14. 1 x $25 = $25. $25 -$14 = +$11. So Expected Value for 8 hands with this play is $11. Let me break down how I came up with these numbers. Hitting your set is 7 to 1. Average Preflop raise is 4xBB, so at $.50 blinds, we are looking at $2. Then I estimate $25 for the 1 time that I do hit my set and considering in all likelihood what the average over time I would make on the set against a player’s hand, in my best summation. This includes me stacking him, me reraising and him folding on the flop, turn, or river, and the times when he stacks me due to SOS and hitting draws. I could be off quite a bit here in my estimations and it would still be a +EV play. This strategy might be considered basic to some people, but I have always been stingy with putting my money in the middle without pretty good odds of winning the hand. But hey, you must learn to walk before you can run – and I’m currently crawling. LOL.

I would currently consider my current style tight-semi-weak. OK, let me back up for a sec. My current game is based around easy decision making, that’s the weak part. I don’t make a lot of plays and my post flop game isn’t strong and I fold often to aggression if I’m not most-likely in the lead. Usually if I’m in a hand I am pretty positive where I stand throughout the hand, especially on the flop. This is accomplished by my starting hand requirements and how I go to the flop. If I likely have the best of it I pounce and don’t allow draws in cheaply. I make them make mistakes that ultimately pay off in the long term. The weak part can be broken down into a few parts: PF raising hands, and not CBing and otherwise betting without strong holds for folding equity often enough. I have loosened a little in these areas.

My current strategy is a proven money maker. (At least for me.) It is also a safe way to play. But it is also quite predictable to knowledgeable players which I will be up against if I continue to climb up stakes. My reasons for wanting to change my current lucrative style are because I want to grow as a player, maximize my profits, and because I want to go up in stakes. Adding the calling of raises with PP’s is only the beginning to my aggression goals. Growing or evolving as a player is essential for moving above the $200 NL game, and even will make the $100 and $200 NL more lucrative. I am wasting profits by sitting back and only playing safe. I should be the aggressor more often in the hands that I play. So I need to become less predictable, thus making me less easy to exploit. Plus playing all these different hands to the flop, I will have to strengthen my postflop game. My overall poker skill level will grow and I will become more diverse. Yah Me!

These are my future goals with aggression in my game. I believe them to work and have read that they work, but I want to go slowly. I believe in adding a new aspect only once I see and learn what my current change has contributed to my game or taken away from my game. Here they are.

1 – calling raises with PP’s for set value and table image.
2 – raising PF with TT and AQ.
3 – raising PF with PP’s.
4 – Ultimately adding position to my game.
5 – Limp less often and mostly go into a hand by being the aggressor with a PF raise.

I have recently added strong CB’s to my game and even firing a second shell on the turn when I think my opponent will drop. Watching how often players are folding to this aggression leads me to want to do it with a larger range of hands. So here’s where I want to be. Raising PF with a wider range of hands. I’ve noticed how many times I raise with the Big 5 and everyone folds - half the time or close. By adding in more PF raising hands I get 2 things: More chances to win the blinds and by playing more hands, loosening up my table image, thereby getting more calls with my premium hands. So basically win-win. And when they call my PF raise they will fold on the flop to my Continuation Bet at least half the time. (They will miss their hand 2/3 of the time, but will have an over-pr or overs to the board sometimes that they also just won’t fold. Majority of the time they fold un-hit overs though. So I estimate that they fold slightly over half the time, maybe 60%.) This makes these addenda to my game +EV. (Hopefully.) That is why I move slowly so I can watch the full effects on my game and make adjustments where deemed necessary. If it doesn’t do what I thought it would it least I know exactly what I changed. If I add lots of things I don’t know what has done what. This way I can easily go back to the drawing board.

So I am starting with my calling of average PF raises with small to mid PP’s. This still leads to very safe postflop decisions because either I hit my set or I don’t. So basically I just need to verify if I am making money by calling raises with losing hand the majority of the time. We shall see.

Double Ouch or Damn, Damn, Damn

Not a good week. My roll has taken quite the hit this last week. I probably dropped $350 or so. A major downswing that I wasn’t expecting, that’s for sure. A lot was due to bad beats ands suckouts, but I was also to blame. I made some bad calls. Some were really bad. I didn’t pay enough attention to the board a few times also. Maybe I would alleviate this tendency by playing less tables. I need to find that happy medium. Another factor was the hands designed to take your money. I.e.: SOS; flush to straight flush; and counterfeited bottom prs. I usually did some slow grinding, then a big hand would counterfeit all my hard work. Some of these were bad calls or plays, but most were beats where I was out-drawn; some big dogs and some just lost races. So basically I am once again halfway to my Nov. goal.

Ouch or The Shot

I played last night for around an hr. I was feeling frisky and decided to step up a level though my bankroll said no. Figured I’d give it a shot. I started up 2 $100 tabs on Px and 3 $100 tabs on UB. I held my own for close to an hr. I was up on 2 tables and down on 2 and the other 1 I was still even. Then comes the Big Slick. I raise it up and get 1 caller. K on the flop. I bet pot and he calls. Turn comes J. I bet big again. He pushes and I pretty much have to call that pot for the remainder of my cash. River is a blank. He shows down KJ. I don’t even wait for the blinds. I shout an expletive and go to bed pissed down a Hundo.

Played Live Again or The Mighty Resuck

I played live again Saturday night. Pretty much the same bunch of guys plus a few more. They all are horribly inexperienced. I almost felt bad about taking their money. Almost. It was actually kind’a aggravating having to tell everyone over and over who’s in the blinds and who won the pot. I had to explain that it is the best 5 cards over and over. Once 2 people went allin with the 4-flush on the board. 1 guy had the T and the other guy had the 6 plus an Ace of a different suit. They both thought that they were tied because they both had flushes and the guy with the Ace kicker was the winner. Not only was that sad but also that they both went allin with suckass small flushes. I once won a nice pot due to this on another 4-flush board. I had the Q and after seeing this first hand I had to raise the river. 2 guys called. 1 had and smaller flush and the other had a straight. They always say either that they had to see or that they had to keep everyone honest. Like I said, I almost felt bad about taking their money.

I also don’t teach too much at the table and give out too many tips. I figured that I will let them pay to learn. (What a friend, aye.) I once had to re-divide the chips. I didn’t see what was done until the hand was over. Phil asked his wife, who won the hand, to give her back the chips that he had loaned her for the river bet. I explained that the rest went in a side pot for the other 2 players that still had more money at the time of the bet. They didn’t gripe or anything and said that they now understood.

There were a few more things I noticed about the majority of these new players. One was that they would likely go all the way to the river with a hole Ace, just to see if it hit. (This you would have to watch out for if an Ace hit the board at any point during the hand.) And they would usually go to showdown with any pocket pair. Especially with the PP. They for some reason just figured that they are entitled to that hand because they likely started with the best hand. The other thing was that every once in a while these 2 certain players would throw out a huge raise, sometimes even pushing, with 2 paint or small pockets. I didn’t quite figure out why, only noticed that it was a pattern. Other times that they did this it was a total bluff. One more thing that they do is bet the same amount on every street. If they bet 4xBB PF they usually bet 2 again on the turn. Sometimes they raise it up on the river. Often they give me the odds to out-draw them.

Fast forward to the last hand of the night. It was down to 4 of us. It limps to me UTG+1 and I raise it up with my TT. SB pushes allin for 20xBB. BB folds. UTG waits for a while pondering, then calls. I figure by the reads I have on these 2 that I currently have the best hand. I figured that they both likely had overs or 1 might have A-rag suited. I truly believed that neither had me beat. I call. SB flips over 44 and UTG has KQ. All I could ask for really. I would have guessed 12 outs but in the end I only needed to dodge 8. But wouldn’t you know it, the flop came down with both a K and a Q. I audibly start lamenting my luck when the turn brings the resuck T. River is nice to me and I scoop in a huge pot.

It was late, so we called it a night instead of those guys rebuying. We divvy up the chips and I put $100 worth of bills in my pocket. Only real mistake that I made during the game was to try to bluff a whole hand with nothing. Every street I was called and lost a big pot to a boat. Once again no raise. They weren’t being tricky; just being passive.

As an aside, I plan on taking my $200 live bankroll to the casino my first day off and see what I can do with it. I will be playing $1/$2 NL holdem. I am willing to lose it all for the night’s entertainment. Hopefully that’s not how it goes, but so be it if it does. I have only played live a few times at a casino and am expecting to have fun.

November Goal or Good Fortune Continues

I played quite a bit this week. (4 days off. I go by this instead of calendar week.) I played mostly on UB, 6 tabling $50NL. I pulled down close to $400 bringing my roll to $850. I ran out of time before work last week and lost my UB bonus. I need 750 points. I ended up with 630 or so. I had to leave for work and was almost late at that. Sucks getting that close. They are running the points bonus again this week and I already have over 1000 pts. They are accumulating quicker now that I have moved up stakes. Plus the 6 tabling helps. Hopefully this is a new weekly thing. I wish I would have signed up for rakeback before I started my UB account. But when I started it, there wasn’t rakeback yet. They don’t like to give existing members rakeback; only to help bring new members over. I couldn’t imagine getting rakeback, deposit bonus money, plus this new pts bonus, all at once.

I played pretty TAG. (My passive version of TAG anyways.) I am getting more aggressive in my game. I used to worry so much about putting money in the pot in position or throwing out a CB or bluff. Now I just see this as a cost of the game like the blinds. I still don’t raise PF with AQ or TT often, even with position. I have started to with TT sometimes. So my TAG game is coming along. I even fire a 2nd shell sometimes now. That’s CB’ing again on the turn after being called on the flop. I am amazed how many pots I take down with aggressive. No wonder they say aggressive poker is winning poker.

I set a goal of getting to $1000 by the end of November. I was at $500 or so when setting this short-term goal. I am happy with how it is going. So barring any bad streaks I should definitely reach my goal.

Couple hands that killed my bottomline this week: The old SOS. Set over set. Flush to higher flush. Going in on the turn with the nuts and with just the river coming, they spike one of their few possible outs. That is always good for the mood. I got Aces cracked twice. AA vs KT. I can’t believe he got all his money in with that shit. And the usual AA vs KK. Oh yea, don’t let me forget the asswhipping I took while having KK. Flop comes AAK. We end up getting all the money in and he had AA. Pretty much a hand designed to get all the money in. Not that I’m suggesting that anything is rigged in online poker – I don’t put much stake in that crap.

One last thing that I noticed this week and before. By playing 6 tables at a time I see variance on a compounded, intensified scale. This is kind’a odd seeing the swings all in one session. You can go on a bad streak and lose a group of races and endure it a little better. So instead of losing 5 sessions in a row, where you would definitely start questioning your game, you end down for 1 or 2 sessions, and fell less of the ill- effects.

OK, one more thing. Bad beats and suckouts. The reason we feel the effects of bad beats so much is because we usually go into the allin with the best hand more often than not. Being a tight player or an experienced player you usually know when you are ahead. You also don’t go for the draw as often. You put these things together and what you get is the suckout ratio is in the bad player’s favor. Basically they suckout more often than we do. It’s not a bad luck thing. It is actually a testament to our instinct, solid game, and overall poker prowess. Often players don’t see this correlation and have the misconception that the RNG (random number generator) isn’t quite so random. So though a lot of poker players are observant enough to see the lopsided suckout ratio, they just don’t see the connection. So next time you get sucked out on just feel proud that you had the skill to get your money in with the best of it.

A Little Live Action

I played a small game with a 3 friends from work. They are all pretty inexperienced. The have the luck mentality where everyone puts their money in and watches to see who wins. They have played holdem a bit but still haven’t learned many of the essentials. I saw a lot of flops and then tried to out-play post flop. The only problem with trying to out-play these guys is that they like to see the showdown and see if their kicker or 2nd pr is good, even calling some nice raises just to see. This makes bluffing at the pot pretty unproductive most times. Knowing when to bluff isn’t that hard though from late position. They usually bet their hands. So if they raise you drop, because you are likely going to showdown. The other difference you have to adjust for is figuring out what they hold. They undervalue their nice hands. They will often just call my river bet with 2 pr, straights, and flushes. I will see my TP crushed and wonder why they didn’t value bet at some point in the hand. This has its perks and it’s drawbacks; they don’t get maximum profits with the best hand against me, but I also throw in to much money with the worst hand when I’m the aggressor. Productive game though. They only had $38 to play with and I put all of that in my pocket.

Cowboys or The Gunslinger

Great morning this morn. I got off of work, still felt a bit spry, so decided to put in about an hr or so. World didn’t have any $25’s open so I figured that I’d risk a little more and sit with my ol’ buddy Rake at a $50 table. While waiting for a vacancy I started chatting a little with Rake in the girly chat. I told him to knock someone out so I could get the seat. He said he’d love to but the table was really timid. Man was he right, just a bunch of sheep at the table. Maybe it was because it was so early. Rake had switched gears and was taking full advantage of their timidity. Just about every hand he was making it $2 to go PF from every position and then adding a CB on the flop. They just wouldn’t show the backbone necessary to counter his sheer aggression. He was running the table. It was pretty cool to watch, because he seemed to realize when he was beat, and would drop. He had $175 at the $50 table. He finally knocked a guy out and I take the seat. I win 3 nice hands and they were all from my boy Rake. He wouldn’t leave me alone. So be it. LOL.

I started off well right out the gate. I have AK and double Rake’s PF raise and a K hits the flop. Rake bets, I raise, he folds, and I take down a smallish pot. I play tight and wait around for something to actually call a PF raise with. I call another of Rake’s PF raises with a pr of 4’s. I hit my set on the flop. He raises I smooth-call. He senses my slow-play and we both check the turn. I raise the river and he mucks without showing. I nab another smallish pot putting me up over $70. I continue waiting are for a hand while Rake continues to dominate to action. I miss a few raised and unraised pots and have to drop to aggression over the next half hr. I start giving him some shit about always seeing my raised pots at least to the flop and that he was trying to spike something and stack me. He said of course that was what he was doing. I told him to stop hating. Then came my Cowboys. He raises and I triple his usual bluster. Everyone folds but him; he calls. Flop is T76 - he bets and I raise. He calls. I don’t remember what the turn was, but I think it was small. He bets to put my last $40 in. Think tank: So it’s $40 to call $100. There is a lot in there but if I’m beat? I don’t know. Man he has been hyper-agro. He knows I am tight and also willing to make a big lay down. Man I have a nice hand. Straight possibility, but no flush on the board. Would he have bet out with the made straight on the flop? Trips maybe? I don’t think he has it. He knows that I am betting if he checks, which in turn will pot-commit me. So if he wants my money in, why put me to the decision now, where I might lay it down. He doesn’t want a call. I don’t know. Fuck it, I call. In goes my chips. He turns over TJ. He had TP plus a gut-shot straight draw. Cowboys win! I turn off the Auto Blind button and wait for my exit. Rake types – great call. He knew I had him beat, but he was certain that I would muck an over-pr to his aggression. Honestly if he wasn’t in agro-mode I likely dump that and wait for a better spot. One of those Hero or Zero moments where if you make the call and are right you look like a genius; if you call and are wrong, you truly are a dumbass.

I also did OK at my UB tables. I made a total of $90 before bed. Nice. Feels nice going to bed a hero this day.

I get up in the afternoon and flip through the channels while I wipe the sleep from my eyes. WSOP poker on ESPN: cool that is what I will do until dinner and time to get ready for work. JV needed me to transfer money online again already; he decided to give online Black Jack a try and found out it harder to master than he thought. (Nerd.) BJ leads to the Darkside young Padawon. So much for watching poker. If I have to get on there anyways, mind as well open some tabs. I have less than an hr to play so lets make something happen, by Crom. I open 2 World $25 tabs and 4 on UB. I also notice for the first time while on my account page making the transfer, that there is a bonus going on. Details read: If I accumulate 750 points from Oct. 27th – Nov. 2nd I get $.03 per point. It’s not a lot but free money anytime is nice, but free money while having an eggroll is priceless. I have already accumulated about 600 points without even knowing about this deal. I wouldn’t normally worry about it with only being one whole day left and me having to work, but shit I’m almost there already. I kicked some butt on UB in that 45 min. I bet I saw Cowboys 8 times. (On both sites.) That is a corral worth of gunslingers my friend. I had so many good hands going at the same time that I was actually holding up the games a little. I really should of close one or 2, but hey, greed is a needful lover. Crap I actually timed out once PF with KK being my hole cards. Just when I was trying to raise the tables started popping up. Of course everything slows down long enough for me to watch the dead hand. And sure enough the raising ensues. Two guys go at it and when the smoke clears, I see that I would have won a huge pot. But don’t pity me, for the cards were flowing like wine in Rome, and like I said the Cowboys had my back the whole time.

I ended slightly down on World. (Which of course was where I missed the hand.) But I won over $50 at UB. I was pumped. Less than 2 hrs work and I cleared slightly shy of $150. Tomorrow morn I’ll be back at it for sure. I need to clear that bonus. Hopefully my good fortune continues. And hopefully the JV stays away from the BJ table and starts playing tight and knocking down some wins also. (Nerd.)