Small Win or Making 3rd World Wages

I made $10 in around 5 hrs of my life. That equates to $2 an hr - 4 BB's an hr. It's enough to buy a Vietnamese child but still... Shit working for 5 hrs and not being able to buy a Big Mac - now that's a bitch.

Here's one of my leaks. The Blind Fight. I am sucked into this money-consuming ass-trap time and time again. How hard is it to realize that just because it's just you and the other blind left, that he isn't always stealing. Maybe he actually woke up with a monster under the bed. But no, my EGO (I capitalize because it big) gets all gravely and kicks out the De Niro from Taxi Driver,"You talkin' to me? No... No... You talkin' to me?) and I start firing back with starting hands that would almost always drop to a bet. When will I learn.

Folds around to ass in the SB. He raises to $2. "What, you talking to me... Make it $4." He makes it $6 and I call. Then I basically call the rest of the way with my pocket 2's. Yea that's right, pocket freakin' 2's. OK here's a wasted $15. What a leak!

Then comes the usual KOD. (Kiss of Death. KK.) I actually didn't lose much here but it just pisses me of when some fag calls my raise with shit and spikes his Ace. There's only one card that I'm really worried about on the flop (if someone sets it so be it, it was fate)and that Ace seems to come up often. I always pot raise anyways just to make sure. But so many guys play those A-rag hands and can't let them go. Away from the rant and back to the hand. He min-raises from EP. I reraise to $3.75. It folds back to him and he slowly makes the call. A96 Flop and he pushes for his last $10. What would some tard min-raise PF with, then call a over-bet-raise PF, and then open push. AQ or AJs or less likely 99 or 66. Would you push to the aggressor with a made set? Not I, I say. I let the aggressor bet then I push my last $10. So that leaves an afraid Ace IMO. If he pushed with QQ, JJ, or TT, I give it to him for having the balls and I tip my hat off to him, as I ask him to go outside for his ass-whippin'. "Head or Gut? It's your choice and be quick about it." I fold. Does anyone call this? Am I weak here?

Then comes the KOD again, but this time it's not the dumbass Suicide King. Limp-limp from UTG and UTG+1. Then I raise it to $2.75 with KOD. Folds back to UTG and he pushs his whole $8.50. UTG+1 calls. Holy crap, what do we have here. I push my $40+. He insta-calls. Board comes down all under Jack. UTG has A8o??? Only thing I can think is that maybe he was on tilt after losing a big hand, that I missed due to multi-tabling, which is why he only had $10 at a $50 table. UTG+1 turns out to be slow playing AKo or maybe he is just weak and I had him crushed. KOD holds up and I scoop in $50. 2 players fail to rebuy and there are 2 newly opened seats at the table.

Last hand of the night. I am so pissed that I decide to not even turn off the Auto Posts at my tables, I just X'ed out, took my sleeping pills, and headed for the bedroom, with thoughts of what if. This guy at the table is hyper-agro. He limps or raises every hand. He is in every hand anyways, limping more often than raising. He then mixes it up with calls, raises, and the occasional fold on the flop. He is basically running the table and I've watched lots of seats open up then fill back up as fish leave to find calmer water. (I guess, as to how I lost this the biggest hand of my night, maybe I shouldn't call others fish.) OK, I've set it up enough to try to Validate my play here. LOL. I'm SB with KQo. Limp to the flop. KJ6spades on the board. He over-bets. I call with TP, plus I have the Q of spades. X-small un-suited. He fires again and I call, just knowing that he is trying to buy this shit, but not brave enough to put him to the test. Blank on the river and I once again call him down. He turns over T2spades. Shit, Shit, Shit. Turns out he was protecting his small flush the whole time by betting. Plus the raises were him normal MO. I really played this bad. I'm not being results oriented either. If I was willing to call this fag all the way, I should have took that money and raised the flop to see where I was at. I guess unless I could go back in time I don't know if I would have believed his inevitable reraise anyways. I dropped like $30 on the hand.

So I made a measly $10 for the night. At least I see my leaks now I just have to learn from them.

OK, it's live poker tonight. Bro is coming over to Mom's house again for some Fam-tourney action. Let's see how JV's luck holds this time. I'm holding out and going for the kill with some check-raises tonight. Let's hope my luck holds and his Dago luck doesn't.

Round 2 or Ding Ding

I lost the 1st round to some gut-shots! No really I played good for the fisrt few SnG's and then when I went to the cash tables and lost the winnings and more. The cash game loses were my fault totally. I was calling big raises with shitty kickers and shittier draws.

... Cut me Mick... UH... I'm going back in there...

The jumped on UB and got 4 $50 tabs going. I played my normal game but with an extra dash of conseratisim. I soon found myself up on 3 and down on 1. I then started rat-holing when I found myself up over $10 at a table or down $15. Things kept rolling and I was playing in my usual zone. Cha-ching, Cha-ching.

I did make a few calls where I was beat, but I wouldn't classify them as bad. I won most of my races, though I was usually a big fav when the money went it. I don't think I can withstand too many coin-flips where I go in with the best and land on tails every time. I mentally really need Lady Variance to hook me up with some impartiallity for a while and let the fav when for a while. I need a confiedence boost and a down swing wouldn't be too helpful at this time.

I lost one big had for like $30 when my set got run-down by a runner-runner flush. Luckily that was the only real bad beat last night.

+$80.83 for the night.

What will tonight hold?

Ramblings of a Mad Man

Holy shit… we have a celebrity in the house.

Sir Waffles actually dropped by for a read.

Gasp and swoon… I’ve caught the vapors!

Introspective retrospection

I found an old journal from early last year, I think. It is funny as hell. This is when I first started thinking about how to improve my game. I decided that I would write down all the hole cards that I was seeing a flop with. I’m pretty sure that I was just limping with most of them. Hopefully anyways. I then started watching how often I won with these hands. I also started watching how often I was getting out-kicked. I also tracked which hands I lost big pots with and what beat me in those hands. Getting better at poker is a process just like any other problem or system. You just have to keep an open mind and methodically work your way through. The genesis of my poker knowledge. It is pretty fun to get a glimpse back.

AA, AKo, AQo, AJo, ATo. AKs – A2s.

KK, KQo, KJo, KTo. KQs – K2s.

QQ, QJo, QTo. QJs – Q8s.

JJ, JTo. JTs – J7s.

TT – 22

All suited-connecters

Holy crap – no wonder I lost my first $75 playing the penny tables. Good thing I got serious and started logging my played hands. Oh, do you see how I only played suited hands from A9 down, K9 down. And real conservative (LOL) Q9s and Q8s and J9s – J7s, for the flush and straight possibilities. From the notes it looks like I pretty much played anything suited, all paint, and most cards over 8. Good stuff. I wish I would have written down my philosophies and strategies at that stage of my game. I’m sure it would be a fun and insightful read.

Baby Steps - Again

I actually sat down and played a little poker these last days off – not much mind you, but it’s a start. I played 3 $5 SnG’s. I got a 1st, a 3rd, and a 5th or 6th. The 3rd I am still a little pissed about because when it got down to just 3 of us left I had 11,000 in chips, leaving 4000 for the other 2 to split among themselves. I made a few ify calls trying to knock them out. I the lost a race where I had AJ vs KT, and of course he hit 2pr on the flop. I then pretty much donked off the rest. The Sng where I didn’t cash, I ran a nice hand into a nicer hand. It happened and though I lost, I feel justified in my choice.

I downloaded some trial software that allows me to record anything on my computer screen plus audio. I will play something small to see if I can put it on here like I have seen some other bloggers do. If not I think I might be able load it on U-tube and post a link to it. We will is. If for no other reason than I think it will be fun to try.

I played a few tables of $25NL on UB for around 30 min. I really am not playing well. I lost a big hand, thus losing what I had won from the SnG’s. This got me frustrated and I got off. So I maybe put in 3 hrs total this week. Oh yea, the hand that I played poorly.

PF – guy to my right min raises to .50. I am sitting pretty with QQ and reraise it to $1.50. Dude to the right calls. Folds back around to min-raiser who calls. Flop – J92 rainbow. Guy bets $1, I make it $3. The guy to my left pushed for $20. 1st gut drops. I know that even though I have an over-pr that I’m pretty much dead here. But the push bothered me at the time so I call. He shows AA and I lose a buy-in. Very stupid.

I truly don’t know what my problem is. I have to figure it out. But then again I need to play to figure out anything, so I need to get it in gear and play. Later.

I'm Not Dead

Sorry everyone for the disappearing act. There are 5 reasons for the long sojourn: I have had some personal issues going on; I haven’t been playing at all or even getting on the computer often; hunting season; Final Fantasy XII; and I have been studiously enthralled in my Psych books. I will try to post more often that’s for sure.

I have really been dead and disinterested in poker. I just can’t get thrilled about sitting down in front of the virtual dealer. I haven’t played online in a month. I think what happened was that I got burned out after cashing out my roll. I cashed out most of my roll a few months back and then loaned out most of what I had left online. I was down to $30, then I moved down stakes drastically, and needed to make a comeback. I was down to $12 so I pulled out a strategy from my past, one Thrash coined shoeclerking. I played non-stop for a while and took that $12 and got enough of a roll to start climbing stakes and going back to my normal style. I took that $12 and at its zenith got it to $950. Then came Lady Variance from the depths of the maelstrom. She slapped me around time and time again. Going in with the best of it meant nothing to her. 2,3, and 4 outers were her weapons of choice. I honestly couldn’t win shit. My roll kept dwindling. My confidence dropped. I started second guessing my reads and plays. I went from playing solid poker with bad luck to playing bad with worse luck. I also started playing coin-flip poker, which is never good when you’re running bad. I began raising and chasing draws without the odds like the world owed me the outs to win big pots. I truly was playing bad the worse my luck ran. I said fuck it a month ago and decided it was time for a rest. My eggroll currently sits at $400 waiting for me to re-enter the ring. I still don’t feel ready, so I wait in the corner with the cut-man, listening for the bell to go, "Ding, Ding."

It Makes A Daddy Proud

I have been sitting with Ash-boy, who is 11, in my heated deer blind, with my bow. I haven’t even been hunting real hard this year. I have maybe sat 6 times now and it is already 2 and ½ months into bow season. I only have 2 weeks to go. Funny story, for those with a sense of humor, and aren’t Dr. Spock liberal nuts that love the FCC and the like. (Quick factoid: Dr Spock’s son committed suicide. I just find this funny – this guy writes a book telling the world how to raise their kids, yet obviously there must be some flaws in his techniques.) Let me set it up a little real quick. I let my kids cuss a little bit. It doesn’t bother me that much. They know that they aren’t allowed to cuss at school or in front of grown-ups. (If you think your kid doesn’t curse when they are with their friends – you have blinders on.) Anyways, I have a huge doe come in right before dark. I tap the boy and tell him that a deer is coming in. I grab my bow. I am shooting whatever comes in. This is the first deer that I have seen all season and it is going down – buck, doe, or fawn. It’s time for some jerky. The doe comes in and Ash-boy whispers it’s a big one daddy. I wait for a broad-side shot. There she turns, opening up those vitals for me. I draw back and let it go. Thwack. It hits her hard. (Actually I double-lung her, plus it went thru the heart also.) She tucks and runs. Ash-boy shouts loudly and all excited, “You smoked that motherfucker daddy!” I said wo boy calm down over there. Watch your mouth. But I couldn’t help laughing at his statement. It kind of brought a tear to my eyes. I was there for my boy’s first motherfucker.

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A Thanksgiving Turkey

Thanksgiving I went over to the in-laws after work to play a little poker. I had to work the next morning so this probably wasn’t the best idea, but damn it is hard to pass up a game. I played till 2 in the morning. We there were 5 of us playing mini-tourneys at $5 buyins. Nice friendly games. Mom played the first 4 then got tired. The rest of us kept drinking, playing, and talking shit. OK, final stats: Mom -$10, Bro -$5, JV and Mist -$5, and me the big winner +$10. We probably played 8 or so games. Though I did well, JV was the overall winner. We paid 2 places each game. JV was in the money more than not. I would like to see his variance over 50 games. I would guess he would be well in the hole. But the night was his night. He was winning all the races and sucking out often. He would put his chips in bad and need 1 card and miraculously it would appear out of the deck as if Johnny Angel the mind freak was dealing. It was eerie; he did it so many times. But don’t get me wrong, I give him respect for his game. He was hyper-agro all night long and talking shit the whole time that he was taking our chips. You never knew if he had it or not. He actually played pretty Tuff. And just to listen to his theories and philosophies on poker, betting, and gambling in general was well worth the price of admission. He said, “Boy I hate to fold those,” “I like to at least see a flop with those cards,” and, “Those hit more than not,” to the point that I realized that their aren’t any cards that the boy doesn’t like. He was a cool customer with his constant limping and barrage of BS bets and total aggression. Plus he always showed his cards, bluff or not. Basically he had the table half on tilt all night, making calls, bluffs, and raises in response to his overall lunacy. All in all, a great night of low-cost, high-fun poker. Oh yea huge argument on how often certain hands come up. He said that you will hit your pairs on 2’s and 3’s more than any other cards in the deck. He said our odds and outs are just math. It doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t take into account the shuffling of the deck and luck. Give him 32s any day. We can have our shit hands. He plays the players not the cards. He’s like the fucking retarded Yogi Berra of poker. Fun night. Oh yea, I lost one tourney when my 2 pr ran up against Mist’s Royal Flush. I actually didn’t feel bad about losing the tournament. Ain’t too often you get whipped by one of those live.

But hey, he won, so what the hell do I know.

The 4-flushes or Casino Action

I went to the casino Weds. night to play $1/$2 NL again. This time I went with a friend from work. (He just started coming to my fish game. He is really new to the game is a level 1 player at best. Some level 1 bad habits he really needs to break: Only sees his holdings. Not seeing the difference between a concealed 2pr, small hole pr in hand and 1pr on the board, and pr on the board + 1 pr matching 1 hole card. Doesn’t protect his hand. Doesn’t value-bet. Ect. Ect. Unlike the rest of my fish, I have begun to teach him the game. Mainly due to the fact that he wants to start playing often with me live. Damn I’m a saint.) We drove the hr and got there a little after 7 pm. We walk into the main slot room and I can see that there is not a table running. My heart sinks. What a bitch it would be to drive a freakin’ hr to only turn around and go home, ‘cause believe me I hate the slots and won’t hang around and put even a quarter in one. He hits the Head and I walk over and ask the Pit-boss or whatever you call ‘em what’s up. He has 5 on the list, but needs 6 to open the table. I sign in and grab a rake of chips and pick on of the seats on the end. (Goes to show haw much I know yet about the game. I can’t even tell you what seat I’m in. I’m 3 to the left of the dealer anyways. I’m going to guess seat 3. If I’m wrong feel free to hook a brotha up with some knowledge.) Chris shows up and takes a seat straight across from the dealer. The Pit-boss starts paging over the P.A. that the table is open and also calls the names of the players on the list. Oh yea, a quick factoid: the max buyin at table is $100. I don’t know if this is normal or not for live $1/$2 NL games. I know that online the rule on most sites is 100xBB max buyin.

We are sitting there waiting for the players to show. The dealer shows up and goes thru his pre-game checks, i.e. counting the chips in his tray, that for some reason he never touches and fanning the cards out and verifying one-by-one that they are all there. I already could tell that I wouldn’t have the patience necessary to be a dealer; all that meticulous shit, plus having to be nice to drunks and the tards that just don’t pickup on things. I could just see me forgetting my pills one day and snapping on some dumbass. “Hey stupid you are now the small blind. What was your first clue. Last hand you were the big blind dikshit, what don’t you get here. Every fucking round it’s the same shit with you. What don’t you understand?” I start whipping cards at the guy like Jesus Ferguson taking out a watermelon. The rent-a-cops with their slot-keys and Mag Lights dragging me kicking and screaming out the back door to kick the living shit out of me, because they watched Good Fella’s too many times. Son-of-a, zoned off again.

It’s like 8 min and 3 pages later before the players start showing up. First I thought they were just finishing up at the BJ tables or cashing in quarters from the slot. But no, they were just taking their time so the wouldn’t break a hip. To say that these were elderly people would be an understatement. The 2 men where ancient wayways. The geriatrics squad takes their seats. Only 4 of the 5 showed, so it was 6 of us. The other one likely keeled over and died of old age or liver spot poisoning. Just joking, I love the extremely elderly. Especially the ones that take forever to make any decisions. I know, my day is coming.

As we started playing I noticed a few things. Here’s the breakdown. They all called small raises PF. They would even call smallish raises post flop with marginal holdings and draws. They all didn’t have much care or regard for kickers. The 1 young-old lady would call ½ pot raises with A-rag all day long without hitting it, then on the river fold if she missed. I watched her take down a few pots over the night from Chris due to this sad tactic. It did catch up to her in the end and she had to rebuy once. Chris actually was the player, in a moment of poetic justice, to put the deathblow on her first baby stack because of this bad habit of hers. Basically they all over-valued their holdings time and time again. The young-old lady’s dad was the most competent at the table, other than ME of course. (Aforementioned statement possibly skewed due to hypersensitive ego.) No really I was the most solid player at the table. (Aforementioned statement possibly skewed due to hypersensitive ego.) Sadly, even though I had good reads on them all, I didn’t really know how best to change up my tight-aggressive style to extract the most profit from these guys. So much for being a good player aye? I was pretty passive and waited for semi-strong hands to exploit their leaks. But as fate would have it, most of the time they would be rewarded at the table for their flaws. Retirees with more money than skill.

I chip down a little waiting for a hand. Chris’ stack is steadily dwindling because he is seeing almost every flop. Plus he would see small post flop raises with overs and draws and he wasn’t often connecting. I look down at cowboys a few rounds in after I got my reads. I raise to $7 and get 3 callers. No respect for raises. Innocuous flop and I bet out $10. Chris and Father Time drop. The skinny old lady calls. Turn is a blank and I see no reason to slow down, so I bet out $15, which is fairly small considering the size of the pot. She drops. Damn.

I watch Chris lose a nice pot to young-old lady. Chris bets TP on every street after she checks it to him. River brings an Ace and she bets out this time. Chris calls. She shows A-rag-off-suit for the win.

Soon after I have AKo. I throw out $7 again. A few callers. AKx flop with 2 clubs. The skinny old lady bets out $5. I raise it $10 after a fold. Only the skinny old lady calls. Turn, another club-small. She checks, I have no club, but figure that she is checking to the aggressor more likely than slow-rollin’. I bet out $20 and she calls. River is another club. She checks. I check behind. She turns over A4o, but the 4 is a club. Kickers apparently mean nothing to her. She hits my stack pretty hard. Her dropping the baby flush is pretty iffy to a river raise. Anyone bet that 4-flush river? I think betting that river is –EV overall, but especially against her.

An Indian with a long rat-rail joins the table to my right. Right where I want him. He is a regular. I have only played 3 or 4 times ever and I saw him there every time. He is fairly aggressive but also tuff and crafty. He likes to see most pots and is hoping for the 2pr spikes that will inevitably come his way. I actually mentioned him in a previous post about the first time I played live. Things are looking up for some profits. Oh yea, one cool thing about this dude that I got off him a few weeks back; he sits down with a full rack of yellow $1 chips. I asked him why no red $5 chips. He told me that back in the day when they first started up the room that everyone always had to ask for change with their $5 chips so it just became a habit. He said plus the goal was turn all his yellow chips red. I really thought that was a pretty cool statement. He also never drinks alcohol like the rest of the table usually does. He makes lots of odd bets with his $1 chips and never is consistent with his bet amounts.

We both start getting our chips red. Mine because I got a few hands that the calling stations paid off; his because of his aggression and spiked hands. Then comes a bad hand concocted just to smack my stack. I am in the big with J4o. I complete and the flop brings K44 with 2 diamonds. The whole table limped here. The antiquated guy from the cutoff bet $5. The 2 regs called. I just called to see how many more callers I could get. 2 more callers. The turn brings another diamond. I check, as does everyone around to the old guy. He makes it $15 to go. The 2 regulars drop. This is where I made my mistake. I should have check-raised here to see where I’m at. I am weak here in my game I’ll admit. I don’t know if I just don’t think or if I don’t want to increase the pot. I call $15. Chris also calls the bet. River a 4th fucking diamond and I start lamenting my luck. Twice a 4 flush was going to kick my ass tonight I start to think. Thanks Lady Luck, you biatch. I check my cards. Ooh, the Jack is a diamond; this might not turn out too bad after all. All that beats my flush is the A or Q, and of course a boat. I check. Chris checks the old guy bets out $15 into the close to a $100 pot. I decide that I pretty much have to call. Chris raises it $15 more. Damnit I think to myself. If he would have done that instead of checking the first time around I could have folded no problem. Old dude calls. I know that I’m beat now but with it only $15 to call $170 I feel propelled towards this ass-whippin’. I have the Jd. Chris has the Qd. And the old guy shows Ad. He scoops in a monster. Even though Chris’ river raise sucked, at least he had a pr of Kings until the river flushed. The old bastard had A-rag-off-suit. He raised with A-high all the way and got 2 running diamonds to keep himself from a good ol’ ass-smackin’ that even his grandchildren would have felt.

Another regular shows up and sits to the right of the Indian and the dealer. I also mentioned this dude before in my “first time playing live” post. He was the regular that kept getting smacked around by the cocky “that’s one powerful 6 and a 3” guy. I don’t really like seeing another good player at the table. My greedy ass wanted money for myself.

I only have half my starting stack due to that big hand. Chris has $8 and pushes the next hand. He then commences to buy back in for only $50 this time. We had barely been there for an hr. 2 huge slaps from 4-flushes and I’m still only down $50. Can’t ask for much more than that. Yes I can. Maybe being up to over $300 in my stack would have been a bit better. But hey, Lady Luck gets bored sometimes and needs to get her jollies off.

Stagnation, and then about 20 min later I am in the small or big again and have T7o. I wimp along with other callers. Flop T77. BANG. I check and Chris bets out and there are callers. I slow played until the turn and the check raised the 3 or 4-way pot. All folded but Chris. I put him allin for his last little bit on the river and showed him the bad luck for his junkass hand with a 7 in it. He doesn’t reach for his wallet right away, so I asked if he was ready to go home. Even though we had only been there an hr and a half and the fact that I didn’t want to leave the likely lucrative table, I figured it was time to leave. Chris was down $150, we had an hr drive home, plus we had to both work in the morning.

So I grabbed my chips and cashed in for a $26 profit. I still can’t help to think that I could have made over $300 if those 2 hands hadn’t went horribly wrong.