9/26/06 update

Today Sucked.

I played some really good poker today, but couldn't get lucky enough (and when I say lucky, I mean winning hands that are 80%+ favorite to win going into the river) to hold up. I must have played about 10 MTT's today. I think the only one I cashed was 15th in a stars $20 180 sng. I went deep in a full tilt double stack $30 mtt and went out on the bubble when I lost a big race that would have given me a lot of chips to play with.

I also took a shot today in the 35k gtd on stars, and ended up buying in for $60... ouch. but again I went deep in that one and lost a huge race with AJ vs 99. would have been monster chip stack, but instead got ousted on the bubble.

One thing that I am happy about today though, is that I am gaining some confidence back in my game. I am playing aggressive again and pulling off some really good bluffs for nice sized pots. I just need to win some key races and I'll cash in the big one soon enough.

bankroll at the end of today $2,313. On a side note, I'm also getting back into the whole 6 max nl ring games again... prior to last night and today, I made over $400 in 3 sessions playing .50/$1 nl ring games. I was playing great and hitting some hands. then last night and today, I lost all of the $400 to hands were I was at least 80% going into the river... If I win those hands... I'm probably up over $800 right now.

oh well, better luck tomorrow

9/20/06 update, +800 (50% of BR)

Today I played a bunch of Mtt's ranging from $22-$33. I played well in all of them, but again only mangaed to cash in one. But at least I made that one worth my while

It was a $22 180 man sng on stars, and I ended up chopping it heads up for a $900 cash. not bad considering I was shortstacked the whole time. I just held on and got lucky when I really needed too.

some important hands that I won deep in this tourney were my 1010 vs AA, J7 vs AQ (thought it was a steal and I pushed back). then in the bubble stages with only about 8k in chips with blinds at 300 and 600, I played this one guy like a fiddle. He was playing tight and pretty descent, but I knew he would attempt to steal the blinds with any 2 cards anytime it was folded around to him. He had been caught stealing twice now. I ended up taking this guy out, he was the chipleader at my table at the moment. I get A2 in the big blind and he raises on the button 4x the big blind, I push and he calls with Q5 and I flop 2 pair. next round, I get KJ in the BB and again he raises from the button 4x the big blind, I push it and he calls with J2. nice try buddy, gg.

not a bad showing today, brought my bankroll back up too $2,412. I desperately needed that one. Gonna cash out like $150 just to make sure I got something to show out of this win.

Gonna be playing the $22 180 sitngo's a lot the next few days, these tourneys are so juicy. Still gonna try the party and tilt 20-30 mtt's and hope for the big score soon. Probably throw in a bunch of $20 single table sng's as well. don't know if im ready to give the cash games another try yet...

The coldest/longest run of cards ever

I have been taking it easy for the last week or so, hardly even playing any poker at all. If I do, im either messing around trying to learn 7 card stud hi/lo, or trying to grind out a small win playing $20 sit n go's (single table). Every now and then, I'll throw in the MTT to see if I can cash some money and help to save my bankroll, but so far, I've had no luck.

Basically it has come down to this, Tight and very smart mistake free poker can only take you so far in tournament poker. Sooner or Later your going to need to get lucky and catch a hand/suck out in big pots to carry you through into the money or further.

Tonight my strategy was to only play my good big hands when in early position (eliminating hands like J10, QJ, KJ, AT, AJ, and all pairs below 88) and opening with any legitamite hand when in position and I am the first to enter the pot, and playing any big hand JJ-AA and AK like I usually would. I was going to be patient, disciplined, and focused the whole time and try to get into the money. And for the first time, I did just that.

My stats were ridiculously tight, seeing only 18% of my hands preflop. I never knew I was capable of such madness. My typical stats for seeing the flop are almost double that, something like 28-33%. Just goes to show you the crap starting hands I have been getting.

And out of 6 or 7 sng's, I think I cashed in two @ 3rd place finishes each. Terrible! I must have bubbled another 3 too. Then in the 2 late night MTT's I played, I got deep but never got that one big pot to send me deep.

In a $20 180 man sng, I took 9th place for $60 :/ I had no real hands the whole tournament and just stole a round of blinds every single round since the 200/400 level to keep my M above 4 and keeping my hopes of making the money still alive. My stack never reached an M above 9 and grinded my way into the final table, where in the first hand I lost with AK vs JJ. gg me, that cash took a lot discipline on my part.

then in the party $5 rebuy, I took 36th out of 200 something. cash was at 30 places..... what the hell. Again same strategy as the tournament above, and again, no hands what so ever. With an M of 4 i get dealt KQo in MP and push it allin, it folds around to the big blind who calls with AA. again gg me.

So for the past month, I have been running dead cold as far as the cards are concerned. It's ridiculous that I can't catch any kind of playing hands, can't win a race, can't get any 80%+ favorite hand to win, and can't hit a draw worth over 15 damm outs.

My luck has got to change soon... right?

current bankroll : around $1,500

have to stop the bleeding

bankroll = $2001

I'm so dissapointed in myself. I let myself blow over half of my bankroll again. Could of been worse I know, but this hurts like hell

I figure a good 2 week break is in order. That and I'm going to withdrawl at least $600 of my bankroll so if I go broke, I'll have something to show for all of my hardwork in my past 7 months.

When I come back, i'm going to play nothing but $4 180 sngs on stars, $5 -$10 sng's and MTT's, 1/2 and 2/4 limit (6 tables), and .10/.25 - .25/.50 NL ring games. back to the real grind for me, back to shitty stakes hold'em. See if I can rebuild all over again.

ahhhhhh fuck this sucks

I just remembered, this same time last year is when I went broke for the first time after turning $200 into a $6,000 profit in a few months playing NL ring games. bad run started in august, made some back, then in september, I lost it all slowly but surely. had to quit for good.

came back in December with a $180 bankroll and turned it into whatever I have now... So i guess theres still hope

damm you poker!

the last week in a nutshell, not so hot

It's been a while since my last blog entry, but I've had absolutely nothing good to talk about... So I figured why even say anything at all.

I forgot how crazy the swings in poker can be and how they really put you to the test. In the last week, I've had to question myself alot about poker, life, and where do I see myself going with all of this.

Believe me, I'd loving nothing more than to be able to play poker professionaly and live the simple life... But I am really beginning to understand what the pro's are saying when they say "it's a hard way to make an easy living".

The original plan was to have at least have about 5k put away aside from my bankroll so I could move out of home and out to the mainland with enough cussion to last me a few months while I get my feet on the ground and find a good part time job. That and have a poker bankroll of at least 7k to keep a steady income from poker.

Right now, I have about $1,400 - $1,500 saved up, and about $2,500 in my bankroll. I have got a lot of work to do if I plan to move out any time soon. Not to mention, I still have over 1k left on my dell credit card for my new laptop, car payments, cell payments, small kine rent, gas money... uggghhhhh. I don't even want to think about it anymore

Ok, some poker talk now. The last week was hectic, I don't think i've booked a winning session this whole week, at best, maybe once or twice, I got to break even. All of this has sent my bankroll from $5200 to a mere $2500.

I haven't cashed in a MTT in a while, though I have played a bunch of them and thought I played really well too. Only problem is I can't catch a hand when I need it most to send me deep. I go on rushes at all the wrong times, and card dead at the most crucial times. That, and I can't win a coinflip to save my life. But this is all just temporary, i know, It'll turn around soon enough.

For cash games, I have played nothing but 2/4 limit. Trying to grind it out the hard way... the disciplined way. And again, I've had a rough start, averagin a bb/100 of -.28 over 3,000 hands. But I know there are still a lot of leaks in my game that I need to patch up before I can become a better more consistent winning SSHE player. Going to hit the books hard and post in the strat forums so maybe I can identify and fix them as quickly as possible.

Right now, i think my biggest leak is having to call down and have a showdown to prove that the villian has sucked out on me. Costing me lots and lots of valuable bets in the long run. thats going to be the first leak that I fix.

Side notes: Tried out 6 tabling for the 1st time today and think I could get used to it It really keeps your mind busy and thinking all the time. it gets me out of trouble a lot of the time too when faced with a questionable decision, I'll usually just tend to fold and stay out of trouble.

Now if I could only figure out a way so that the donkeys couldn't suck out on me anymore...

Done with NL ring games

For now at least. And I also think I am going to take a break from tournament poker for a week or so. In the last few days I have been running pretty terrible in both of those games.

I think I have overdone the MTT thing these last couple of months and fried my brain trying too hard to beat the game. I'm beat and tired and need to find some motivation again to beat MTT's. I play them and I do alright, but my drive to really succeed is not there right now. Making terrible calls and reads, mostly just hoping that they are bluffing at me all the time. I just need a week or so to get my head back on tight

For NL ring, I did farely well last month making almost $900 for the month of August getting back into the .50/$1 game. September has so far been a whole other story, I'm down over $900 in a few days playing $1/$2 nl and .50/$1. I reviewed my play and I was getting outplayed left and right, if thats what you want to call it. All of my big hands were getting shot down by coolers and 1 uppers, and that usually cost me a whole lot of money when it happened, usually a buy-in + whatever little profit I made.

All this got me to thinking, I'm losing a lot of money because my big hands are costing me my whole stack. If I were playing limit, I could have saved a lot of money to see the cooler that beat me.

So today I gave limit a shot again playing the 2/4 6max on party and tilt and boy are those games juicy as ever. I played some solid poker and it also helped that I could suck out a few times and hit some miracle cards. I ended up making $251 over 900 hands, thats 7.16bb/100. Not too shabbie, helps the bankroll out a bit after the hit I took playing NL.

I know its just variance and my time will come again to lose. But I think until that time comes, I'm going to milk this limit rush I may have going on. Tomorrow, I'm going to give the 5/10 games a shot and see if I can make some real money :D

got to play some live poker

Felt good to finally get back on a real poker table with actual poker chips and actually interacting with real human beings for once. For the last year or so, I have played nothing but online poker. So you can imagine how excited and nervous I must have been going into the tournament.

It wasn't anything big, your typical home game tournament. $55 buy-in, 28 people, most of which have very little or any knowledge of tournament strategy, extremely fast blinds, bad structure, etc.... Basically, my strategy was to go in there and play just like how I have been playing online recently, tight aggressive, and loosen up a bit in position to try and steal pots.

In the beginning, nothing really happened. no big hands, lost to a 5 outer for about 1/3rd of my chips, but was still hanging in there and sticking to the strategy. one thing I should mention was that I had to fold KJ suited twice from early position, once from under the gun, and once to a raise from under the gun... you may be thinking so what? I do that everyday! but for a natually loose agg player like me, It was almost as bad as pulling teeth. But i knew it was the right play and laid them down.

middle of the tournament now and im really shortstacked with an M of 4. I get it all-in with 66 against AA and say good game to the players at my table. flop brings a miracle 6 and I double up, but still short stacked. I hang around stealing pots with no hand better than 33 or AJo and build up a descent stack.

final table now and I steal enough blinds to make me 2nd in chips, but still only with an M of 6 (I told you it was a bad structure), and I go on a crazy final table rush. First hand in, I get QQ in the big blind and take down a descent sized pot ( 2 people limped in). I never looked back from there and ended up winning the tournament for a $530 cash.

still got it baby :D

Took 2nd in a $55 party MTT

140 entries and took 2nd place for around $1,100.

heads up, I had 3 to 1 chip lead on this guy 3 seperate times. but everytime I got it in with the best hand no matter how big of a favorite I was, I lost and could not put this clown away. Missed out on an extra $800 for 1st place. AT lost to KT, JJ lost to AKs, and to put me away, 1010 lost to AT. I played as best as I could, but could not pull this one out. gg me

since sept 1 = +$1,210.91, not a bad way to start off the month.

total bankroll = $5,225.56 - $400 for personal expenses = $4,825.56.

edit: had to edit the original tournament report I made because i just got done reading it and it made no sense whatsoever, and was way too long. give me a break, I wrote that at 4am alright

Review August, Goals for September

So i've had a really up and down August. Starting off winning a lot and getting my bankroll all the way up to about 7k. The most money i've ever had to handle ever in my life. I was flying high and thought I was invinsible. I thought i couldn't be touched and let my confidence get the best of me.

Then I got crushed, by any and everything that had to deal with poker. I went on a terrible run and lost about 4k in a couple of weeks. What happened was after taking 5th in the full tilt 40k for $3,300, I wanted to really make a name for myself in online tournament poker. I started buying in directly to big online MTT's with buy-ins ranging anywhere from $50 -$150. and not just a few here and there, a lot of them... any chance i got, i played. Needless to say, I never cashed in a single one of those. I finally realized what i was doing was stupid and took a break from poker.

I've got my head screwed back on straight and I know I'm ready to play some great poker.

current bankroll $4014.65 (up almost $1700 from the lowest I remember it getting)

I've been grinding it out in the small buy-in MTT's ($20-$30), single table $30 sng's, 6 max .50/$1 nl ring games, and recently the $10 rebuys satellite to the sunday million (which i might add is a total donk fest, i actually feel bad that its so easy to win a ticket through this). I have been for the most part successfull in all of the games listed above.

SEPTEMBER GOALS

1. Get roll up to $5,000 so I can get back into the 5/10 limit 6 max game. Where I feel I have been the most successfull in limit games in the past. Averaging 3.5 bb/100.

2. Get back into $1/$2 nl 6 max. I know I have the roll to play both of these games, but my recent downswings have made me really skeptical about bankroll management, I feel like I need to have a lot more cussion to play in these games.

3. Have at least one $2,000 + cash in an MTT. max buy-in for MTT's : $50. Exceptions for if I satellite into a bigger $100 + MTT or use $T dollars through pokerstars

4. Net Profit $2,000. (50% of bankroll, I'm confident that I can get it done in 30 days)

Here's to a good September for all of us. Gl all