January Hand Histories

I finally moved all my past hand histories from my desktop to my laptop so I could get everything migrated into my Poker Tracker database. After looking over my past month, as expected, my results for were looking pretty good. I've logged right around 4k hands since the first all at the .50/$1 HU level and in the span I've netted roughly $645. Now I know the variance in this HU game is crazy insane and the swings could have me in the red tomorrow but to be almost 3/4 of the way through January and to have about a black number is great in my book. Not to mention the rakeback I'm now receiving from playing on Tilt puts me well over $700 for the month!

Here are some hands that were pretty crucial in my past few sessions. I will try to give as much background as possible seeing as much of the rational behind the play comes from the way the match was shaping up, player tendencies, and my overall image.

The first hand I want to look at comes from a session I played where I instantly got down to my opponent about 2 buy-ins and was struggling to dig my way out of a hole. There was a lot of big betting going on and it looked as though I was tilting coming off a big bluff gone wrong.


Seat 1: tortuga0981 ($121.65) -
Seat 2: Darkstar9 ($303.70) - -


PRE-FLOP:

Darkstar9 posts small blind $0.50
tortuga0981 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: tortuga0981


RAISE Darkstar9 ($3)
CALL tortuga0981 ($2)


FLOP:

Pot: $6
   

CHECK tortuga0981
BET Darkstar9 ($4)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($18)
CALL Darkstar9 ($14)


TURN:

Pot: $42
    

BET tortuga0981 ($33)
CALL Darkstar9 ($33)


RIVER:

Pot: $108
     

BET tortuga0981 ($67.65)
CALL Darkstar9 ($67.65)


SHOWDOWN:
tortuga0981:

MUCK Darkstar9

tortuga0981 collected $242.8 from main pot with a flush, King high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $243 Rake: $0.50

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: tortuga0981 big blind showed [Qh 7h] and won 242.80 with a flush, King high - Net Gain/Loss: ($121.15)
Seat 2: Darkstar9 small blind mucked [8s 9s] - a pair of Eights - Net Gain/Loss: ($-121.65)



So this player actually made a good read and put in his money with a slight favorite but like I said we were playing back and forth at each other so much that there was no way I was letting this hand go. After the flop I check raise my opponent for a couple reasons....a) because I feel I could have the best hand with the best draw and b) to see where I stood in the hand. Well my opponent calls my raise which doesn't make me happy but given our history could mean he's holding anything. After his call I put him on something under a pair of kings (he would have pushed with top pair given the flow of the match) something like a pocket pair or a 7 or an 8. Making this read I feel I can push him off the hand barring a crazy turn card. Well a 4 peels off on the turn and I lead right into him with a 3/4 pot size bet. I was kind of scared of the open-ender hitting but all I could do was evaluate his move and go from there. He just calls again and I'm now praying for a heart, knowing there's no way I'm pushing him off his hand given what he's already invested and what I have left. A Jack of hearts rivers the cyber-felt and I instapush and induce a call from the his mediocre hand. After I look back at that hand I feel I played it correctly and had the right read. For him to continue to call down with second pair, shit kicker is crazy enough, but then to call the push on the river when the flush hit just tells me he's a calling station when he's got a stack.

So we both now have 200+ bb stacks the play is now getting nice and heated. My opponent then gets a nice rush of card and gets about $100 back taking the lead in stack sizes when this hand come up. He's won 4 out of the last seven hands to take this lead back and looks to be pumping up the aggression.


Seat 1: tortuga0981 ($173.40) - -
Seat 2: Darkstar9 ($238.25) -


PRE-FLOP:

tortuga0981 posts small blind $0.50
Darkstar9 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: tortuga0981


RAISE tortuga0981 ($3)
CALL Darkstar9 ($2)


FLOP:

Pot: $6
   

CHECK Darkstar9
BET tortuga0981 ($6)
RAISE Darkstar9 ($18)
CALL tortuga0981 ($12)


TURN:

Pot: $42
    

BET Darkstar9 ($38)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($152.40)
FOLD Darkstar9
UNCALLED tortuga0981 ($114.40)
MUCK tortuga0981

tortuga0981 collected $117.5 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $118 Rake: $0.50

Final Board:
    

Seat 1: tortuga0981 small blind collected 117.50, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($58.5)
Seat 2: Darkstar9 big blind folded on the Turn - Net Gain/Loss: ($-59)




In this hand I make a standard raise from the SB and my opponent just calls. I flop well with my mediocre holdings and feel like my gutshot and flush draw is ahead of the majority of his range. I get check raised on the flop and have to think about things for a second before making my decision to just call. Now, ordinarily I would re-pop most players given this situation but since I've seen my opponent make this "check raise" play numerous times I figure more often than not he's simply bluffing at the pot and a call might induce another bet on the turn. Well, the turn pairs my 6 and as expected my opponent leads right out for a pot'ish sized bet. At this point he could be holding a king but I felt given his check raise that was highly unlikely. The lines that I've seen this guy take lean towards betting when he has it and making moves when he doesn't. So given the cold call pre-flop I can rule out most kings with a bigger than average kicker and any pocket pair (he re raises with a wide ass rage). My gut and my read lead me to believe that I could push him off his hand so I made a huge push on top of him for another $115 and he instafolds. Knowing that I did have some outs if I got called made me stare a little less intensely at the screen but it was still a marginal move at best that ended up working out. Against any king or a pocket pair above above six I'm roughly a 60/40 dog, I thought he wasn't in that rage and I pushed...and won!


This last hand was sheer insanity that ended up working out due to a good read but isn't something I advocate trying on a session to session basis.



Seat 1: Dirk DiggIer ($119.50) - -
Seat 2: tortuga0981 ($185.80) -


PRE-FLOP:

Dirk DiggIer posts small blind $0.50
tortuga0981 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: tortuga0981


RAISE Dirk DiggIer ($3.30)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($11)
CALL Dirk DiggIer ($7.70)


FLOP:

Pot: $22
   

BET tortuga0981 ($19)
RAISE Dirk DiggIer ($42)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($174.80)
FOLD Dirk DiggIer
UNCALLED tortuga0981 ($132.80)
tortuga0981:


tortuga0981 collected $105.5 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $106 Rake: $0.50

Final Board:
   

Seat 1: Dirk DiggIer small blind folded on the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-53)
Seat 2: tortuga0981 big blind collected 105.50 - Net Gain/Loss: ($52.5)




This is a new opponent and we are roughly 50 hands into our session. TO preface this I want to say that on about hand 12 we get it all in pre-flop JJ vs. 99 and I hold to jump out to a 200 to 100 bb lead. This player looked to instantly go on tilt and I fully took advantage of this with huge re-raises and applied pressure in key spots. My opponent raises the standard $3 and I make my standard re-raise to $11. He calls and instantly checks the flop. This instantaneous check played a lot into my decision when I got min raised after betting $19 into $22. So he min raises to $38 and without a second thought I make a huge push on top of the $38 and he doesn't think about it for a second before folding. A few things to look at in this hand are his past lines, his table image, his range, and lastly the situation. First and foremost I've never seen him make this min raise play before so I found that odd and unorthodox. I've logged a fair amount of hands with this player and feel like I have a good read on the lines he takes. If he had a hand like a Jack with a decent enough kicker to go with, given his tilt factor and the aggression he's been showing a push or a call would have been more in line. I obviously felt the min raise was more of a probe type bluff and that there was no way he was calling a push. The thing that also made this hand so great was the aftermath. I usually don't show my hands but given the circumstances I knew it would more than likely be a profitable show...and it was.

The following hands are how the session finished with this player.



Seat 1: Dirk DiggIer ($101.50) -
Seat 2: tortuga0981 ($236.80) - -


PRE-FLOP:

tortuga0981 posts small blind $0.50
Dirk DiggIer posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: tortuga0981


RAISE tortuga0981 ($3)
RAISE Dirk DiggIer ($13)
CALL tortuga0981 ($10)


FLOP:

Pot: $26
   

BET Dirk DiggIer ($21)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($223.80)
CALL Dirk DiggIer ($67.50)
UNCALLED tortuga0981 ($135.30)


TURN:

Pot: $203
    



RIVER:

Pot: $203
     



SHOWDOWN:
tortuga0981:

Dirk DiggIer:


tortuga0981 collected $202.5 from main pot with two pair, Eights and Threes

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $203 Rake: $0.50

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: Dirk DiggIer big blind showed [Jc Ac] and lost with a pair of Threes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-101.5)
  
Seat 2: tortuga0981 small blind showed [8c 8d] and won 202.50 with two pair, Eights and Threes - Net Gain/Loss: ($101)




And to top things off, here is the finally hand we play.



Seat 1: Dirk DiggIer ($116.90) - -
Seat 2: tortuga0981 ($323.50) -


PRE-FLOP:

Dirk DiggIer posts small blind $0.50
tortuga0981 posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: tortuga0981


RAISE Dirk DiggIer ($3.30)
CALL tortuga0981 ($2.30)


FLOP:

Pot: $6.6
   

CHECK tortuga0981
BET Dirk DiggIer ($5)
CALL tortuga0981 ($5)


TURN:

Pot: $16.6
    

CHECK tortuga0981
BET Dirk DiggIer ($13)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($26)
CALL Dirk DiggIer ($13)


RIVER:

Pot: $68.6
     

BET tortuga0981 ($44)
RAISE Dirk DiggIer ($82.60)
CALL tortuga0981 ($38.60)


SHOWDOWN:
Dirk DiggIer:

tortuga0981:


tortuga0981 collected $233.3 from main pot with a straight, Queen high

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $233 Rake: $0.50

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: Dirk DiggIer small blind showed [8h 8s] and lost with three of a kind, Eights - Net Gain/Loss: ($-116.9)
  
Seat 2: tortuga0981 big blind showed [Qd Tc] and won 233.30 with a straight, Queen high - Net Gain/Loss: ($116.4)




Something else to note is that I was playing two tables with this opponent and I can't stress enough how much I love doing this. I feel as though you gather information quicker on your opponent and can then use it to manipulate he/she on two fronts. Some of the best second and third level thinking comes up when you are in situations like these. Let's take for example a situation I had come up in this past session. On one table I had just taken down a nice size pot having shown down a marginal hand after his pre-flop re-raise, and while all this this going on I pick up KK on the other table and 3-bet him pre-flop. Now what's a player to think in a situation like this...to me it almost an increased tilt builder. And don't get me wrong it can go both ways because there have been times where I've been on the raw end of the deal.

We have about 8 more days left in January and I'm crossing my fingers that things continue to roll the way they are. I should get in some more HU play tonight and hope to also get in on the Daily Double tourney's as well. Updates will probably come early next week but if something crazy happens I know I'll be on here ranting or celebrating!

Mediocre week

I got quite a bit of poker in this week. I played roughly 2K hands at the HU .5/$1 level. I don't have my poker tracker numbers in front of me but I'd wager to say that I was about even or maybe up around a buy-in after all those hands. I would have been a good winner on the week if it weren't for some beats last night. At one point I have the BR close to 2K but ended the week right at 1.5K.

I also played a few tourneys yesterday across 3 different sites! Yeah that's very unlike me but my buddy shipped me some $ to play on Stars and I deposited $100 on Bodog so I could make some bets on the football games yesterday. I think in all I played 7 tourneys, cashed in 2, and overall ended up losing like $10 maybe? I made it fairly deep in the 2 that I cashed in, one being a $4 Bodog tourney that had 100+ entrants and the other a Full Tilt $10 tourney that attracted 600+ people. In the bodog tourney I won a huge 3 way pot early and was able to grind that out for a 11 place finish :(. First in that tourney took $150 which would have been nice seeing as it would have doubled my roll on there. The tilt tourney was a typical "grind and push" tourney where I won some key races late to get me a 32nd place finish. Overall I feel like I played good poker and was just another tourney day...what are you going to do?

So it's definite, I'm going to Vegas in early May...I think the 9th through the 12th! It's for a buddies bachelor party and I can't wait for the trip. I've got a little plan to start building a roll for that trip and hopefully by the time May rolls around I'll have between 1k 1.5k to take to gambol with. The kinks aren't all ironed out as to exactly how I'll accumulate this roll but I know I'll have it by May. I've already checked into the tourney scene and what I'll be able to play. The thing that might hold me back is the amount of time a tourney would take for me to fit it in. This isn't exactly a gambling trip so I don't know how much time I'll have so we'll just have to see.

Ok, well I feel like I'm rambling so I'll wrap this up and get back later this week with some of the big hands I had from this weekend.

1/7 - 1/13 Week Review

I got to play a little poker here and there but really the majority of my play came on the weekend. During the week I dabbled in some 100NL HU play and really raped the competition! I want to say I won close to $700 in about 4-6 session (600 hands) playing off and on throughout the week. I really favor HU play and feel like given enough time with a player I'm able to figure out enough to manipulate them and win some good money.

Something I've come across and I still have mixed opinions about is siting down against short stack players HU. I have a good understanding of the way they play and feel I can counter with widening my ranges pre flop and pushing more edges when I feel I have them. I haven't moved all of the hands from this past week over to my laptop for poker tracker analysis but when I do I think I'll find that SS players tend to have my number. So like I was saying, I think this is something I need to study a little more before I continue to sit against this type of player.

So the weekend came and I was able to get 2 tourneys in on Sunday...the daily double on Tilt. I really like the value in this tourney given the added bonus for cashing twice and all that jazz. I started off kind of shaky in one of the tourneys after flopping top two when another player flopped the nut straight....what are you gonna do? I ended up playing a great short stack in that one and battled back to grab an above average stack by the first break. The play in these tourneys is unbelievably ridiculous in the early stages. First off you start with 2K in chips so there's added play, but players insist on pushing and pushing so all you can do is risk it early and hope to get a big stack. And that's exactly what I did in the second daily double tourney. The hand that did it for me was a flopped set with 3-way action where we all got it in on the flop. One guy held top two and the other had and open ender...they bricked off and come first break I had a top 20 stack. From there I played my usual tight aggressive style and made it pretty deep.

It was right around the money bubble that I busted in the first tourney...my A8 couldn't hold versus JJ. It was folded around to me in the CO and I jammed w/ only 10bb and got snap called obviously by the JJ....gg me. In the other tourney I busted in 82th place when a player called my raise in the BB w/ J10 and flopped top two and played it well checking to me and inducing an all in bet from my A10 and that was game over!

Over the week I want to say I'm up around $350 or so. It was a good week and I ran well in the HU cash games. Hopefully I can get some time this week to play more tourneys and have opportunities for some big scores!

A little something to think about

Coming off the big tourney win the other night I'm on all sorts of "poker highs" and again my confidence is beaming! I'm beginning though to see a trend in my poker career that isn't all that good but given my situation can't really be helped.

Tournament poker, my bread and butter, is all about volume and consistence. In my past I've had great success in tournaments but they've all been spread apart by lengthy time periods. Why is this? Well, given the amount of variance that comes into play when trying to maneuver though these tourneys it's hard to expect great results when you only get to buy into 10 or so tourneys a week. 10 or even 20 tourneys just isn't enough of a sample size to expect greatness, especially given the ever increasing learning curve players posses these days. It's been said many times and I'll reference it again....poker is a game of longevity, persistence, and consistent results. Sure any John Doe can come in a win a few thousand dollars on any given night, but the kicker is what he then does in the next few months with his newfound income. Well the REAL poker player would continue to grind it out and probably go on to win another tourney and then another while John Doe would probably see dollar signs in his eyes and play over his head only to lose it all in a moment of inexperience.

What I'm getting at here is this...I feel I'm a good enough poker player to make money here and there given the way the cards fall. But in tournament poker I just don't play enough to maximize my investments. If I were to look at a graph of my BR over my career it would probably look something like a mountain range...high highs and low lows! This is not what you want to see though if you are a betting man, more of a happy medium or a graph that looks like a never ending plateau would be a little better.

To fix this I can do one of two things. I can either make a conscious effort to play more tourneys a week and therefore increase my odds or I can switch to cash games and cross my fingers. I say this because cash games have been my nemesis for years now. I'll win a bunch of money in a tourney only to see it lost in a heated cash game session. I guess it's just something I need to work on if that's the road I wish to travel down.

As for now I think I'll begin to work both into my regiment in an effort to try and see what I'm leaning towards. Wish me luck!

p.s. I had a 1K hands session two nights ago with great success 4 tabling .5/$1. I'm not 100% with these numbers but I think I roughly won $200+ and should have made another $20+ in rakeback. Some hands from the session are coming soon.

BADA BING....BADA BOOM!

It started off as just another normal Sunday filled with football, beer, and poker. I fired up Full Tilt around 3:00 to see what was going on and noticed that there were a few low limit tourneys that looked enticing so I registered. A $5 double stack and a $3 180...nothing to big but something to keep my attention while the chargers romped the Titans. I particularly like the double stack tourneys for the added play and more maneuverability throughout the early stages.

I doubled up very early in the $5 tourney with aces which was very vital to making it deep. Having a 6K stack when the blinds are so low allows you to see so many more flops and apply a lot of pressure on most players. This helps to continuously chip up and last longer in these things. It was then around the 2nd break when I went on one of the biggest heaters I've ever seen! It consisted of 7 hands which I won 6 of and improved my stack from 4K to 34K! It was rather smooth sailing from there to make the cash bubble which was 118 people or so. The payouts were obviously very top heavy and nothing but 5th place and up was going to bring me satisfaction.

I don't have the entire hand history in front of me but I do remember one hand from deep in the tourney that netted me some much needed chips. I was on the button w/ Qs10s and limped along with two others. The flop came 10 high and it was checked around...the turn brought another under card not making any straight possibilities and first to act fired about a 3/4 size bet at the pot and it was called by second to act. I was pretty certain that with the ranges these players were limping there was no way someone who flopped top pair was checking behind on the flop....unless it was a disguised 2 pair or something like that, but even then it would have been a very obscure holding. So I felt my top pair w/ an above average kicker was ahead so I squeezed on the pot and induced a really bad call by the player that was first to act. He was holding 97 for second pair and I shipped a monster with about 30 people left.



From there I feel like I played a great end game applying pressure around the bubbles and chipping up for the final table. One big hand that sticks out from the final table was when we were 3 handed and I pushed on the player 3rd in chips for a good bit of my stack w/ AsKs...he flipped QsJs and won the race:(. That crippled me 3 handed and I saw all hope of shipping the tourney dwindle down the drain. But little did I know I was going to pick up AA vs. QQ to get me right back into the mix. After that grace from the poker gods I moved into 1st place with well over a million chips and ran great from there on out. The last hand I want to talk about was a monster call I made heads up versus this hyper aggressive player. Just a little back ground on how this player had been playing HU first. We were sitting with pretty close chip stacks but he had the lead...1.5m to roughly 1.2m. First hand of HU I raised and he pushed with about 40BB. He continued to make donkish plays like this risk way too many chips way to often to be playing a solid style IMO. So this hand comes up....I raised my standard 2.5x w/ AhQh and he called from the BB. The flop comes KQ10 rainbow and we both checked. I didn't want to bet into such a draw heavy board in fear of him making one of those donk pushes on top of me. I wanted to rather see a turn w/ outs for the nuts and still a pretty good hand HU. The turn brought another K making the board now read 10QKK. He checked to me and I fired a 3/4 pot size bet at and he insta pushed putting me all in. My thought process here...he would have re-raised preflop w/ any hand that hit that flop (AK,AQ,AJ,KQ,1010+) so my only worry was that he had a hand like K10 or J10. I think with K10 he would have fired at the flop on such a draw heavy board so some like of jack like J10 was all that I could put him on. So I made the call and sure enough he flipped J8off and the river blanked and I shipped a MONSTER. The very next hand I picked up QQ and of course he pushed w/ his remaining 300K and I shipped it! I finally got the monkey off my back and won another tourney. This one netted me 1K and was very gratifying!

So now I'm back and look to be on the tourney train again! We'll see if I can make anything of this run and chip away at some of my goals for 2008!

It's been a while.....2008!

So poker hasn't really been all that good to me lately :(. The second half of December and now in early January has seen limited play and the little play that I did get in was just ehhhhhhh. With the holidays and a girlfriend now occupying much of my time it was hard to get in any poker at all in these last few weeks. Kind of sucks but I know I'll get back into a routine here in the next week or so. I came into some money via the holidays and through winning a fantasy football league so I think I'm going to ship some more $$$$$ onto one of the sites. I really don't know exactly which one yet but most likely it will be Tilt, simply for the rakeback perk.

So with everything that's been keeping me down over the past 4-6 months surrounding poker I can't help but take a step back and look at what poker has done for me in the past year. First and foremost are my tourney stats in 2007.

Year 2007	Prizes	Profit	ROI	ABI	R/A	ITM	ITM
Hold'em No Limit	$24,204	$10,774	80%	$20	23%	118/668	18%

---

In 2007 I had four 4 digit cashes and one that was a 3K score. I put myself into position to win big money numerous times but just really never played consistently enough to continue to build a BR. At my high point of 2007 I had a 9K BR and things were great! It was at that time that I pulled off around 5K and took a trip to Europe with 2 buddies of mine. It's things like this that I look back on and smile about knowing that playing poker got me to that point! Not to mention the 47' plasma , the 80GB video IPod, and the bad ass tickets to the Texans game that I was able to purchase with Poker Stars points from playing in 2007. So after all is said and done 2007 ended on quite a bad note but looking back I having nothing to complain about!

Well 2008 is here and that means new outlooks on poker and life itself. I've slowly but surely adapted to the job now and that's not such a big deal anymore. I like what I'm doing and I'm making money so I really can't complain. The girlfriend is great and you know how early stages of a relationship can be....quite consuming. Things though will slow down and work into a routine which will help with poker.

Some poker goals for 2008 are the following:
1) Cash for more than 25K in 2008
2) Have a 5 digit cash in a tourney
3) Play a WSOP event...any one will do. Just want to experience it all.
4) Make a name for myself. I know I can play so show it!
5) Stay consistent with my poker playing.
6) Keep getting better. Study the game. Learn more.

Getting back on track

So I decided to make the changes I felt necessary to revamp my current poker situation and things have actually been going quite well lately. I'm still grinding out the micro limits but to be honest I think it's better for me in the long run. The few changes I've made are the following.

1. Rearranged my room to have a better office/poker playing setup where I could focus solely on playing poker and nothing else.
2. Stuck to strict BR requirements and have not been getting in over my head.
3. Moved some money to Full Tilt so I can receive rakeback to help out with the growth of a new BR.

I wanna say I've logged close to 4K in hands at the .10/.25 6max NL level and have been playing well. I don't have poker tracker up and running on this computer so I don't have exact numbers to show but I would bet over the 4K hands I've had a win rate of close to 7 bb/100 which is great but over way to small of a sample size to really mean anything. The thing I'm happiest about is the rakeback that is filtering in left and right. I want to say on the month of December I have already amassed $30 or so, which given my BR is HUGE! If I'm able to get a buy-in or 2 every month I will be stoked!

So things are going a little better than the last few posts have alluded to. It still sucks to be playing at suck small stakes when I'm use to playing .50/$1 and $1/$2 but ya know....that's what I get for being a dumbass! Some goals I have set for myself here in the next few months are reachable but will take some discipline and hard work.

Currently my BR sits at a little over $200 on Tilt which is just about 8 buy-ins at the level I'm currently playing. Now I know this isn't the proper BR management I've been talking about but I've beat this level before and know I can do it again. I plan on playing at this level until I reach a BR of about $1200 - $1500. That will then give me roughly 25 - 30 buy-ins at the .25/.50 level which would be my next step. I figure with rakeback coming in and how my play has been shaping up I should reach the .25/.50 level by the end of February. That will take some doing, but I think it's feasible if I put my mind to it. A little more of short term goal is to try and play each and everyday so I can keep my skills spot on.

More than anything I'm loving the new setup in my room where there is no distraction. I have been able to completely focus on each and every table I'm sitting at and feel like I'm back to my roots when and where I first began to make money playing this game I love. More updates to come soon.

I'm back on Titl!

So in an attempt to mix things up a little bit and give myself a change of pace I split my BR across Full Tilt and Poker Stars. I now have about $150 - $200 on each site and can now start receiving rake back again from Tilt! I'm excited to be back on Tilt and hope good things come of this. Oh and I also changed my avatar back the the monkey which is what I began with and just feels like home to me on Tilt.

A New Outlook

My recent downswing/bad run on Poker Stars has got me to thinking about what I truly want to get out of the recreational play I submit myself to on a daily basis. I feel as though I have such high expectations for myself and my results that it's hard to feel good about a win if it's not significant. When I say significant I mean winning 10 - 25% of my bankroll in a single session. At times I've had such good fortune in poker that it makes these current times (when the BR is low and grinding is the way) hard to stomach.

Take for example living on Steak and potatoes and top notch sea food for a given time frame in your life and then abruptly having to scale down your lifestyle to ramen noodles and boxed mac and cheese. This is a major lifestyle change and one that doesn't kill you...but definitely slaps you in the face with reality. Not to mention makes you take a step back and question how you got yourself in this current situation.

My story can easily be followed over the duration of this blog but to give you the cliff notes of the tortuga0981 story...I've always had a passion and understanding of the game, made money, used profit to pay for trips and gifts for others and myself, but in times of vulnerability I've shown immaturity in making bad monetary decisions. Decisions like playing over my head or pulling off money and then with a lower BR continuing to play at the limits I am use to. These are obvious red flags in terms proper BR management and I know this. Why then do I make these bad decisions? Well for one, because I've played above my head many times and won money before.

So what then is this sudden epiphany or new outlook that I speak of? Well a few days ago I was reading two different articles on 2+2 that opened my eyes to what I really should be looking at in terms of where I'm at in my poker career. I was down on my luck and thinking nothing could go my way until I read these. The two articles were by Ireguy and Gigabet and can be found in the links below.

Ireguy's Article
Gigabet's Article

Both of these articles really put things into perspective for and gave me this new outlook that I speak of. Yeah times have been bad, both due to my doings and not, but regardless I know I love the game and can win while playing.

Becoming very discouraged :(

I think since my last post I've depleted my BR to almost nothing. Currently I'm sitting with around $350 in my PS account. I know pretty pathetic for the caliber of player I honestly feel I am.

Things just really haven't been going my way and the beats and unmanageable situations just keep rolling in. I'm now reduced to the lowest of the low limits which isn't the end of the world to me, just frustrating. I've been backed in this corner many times before and have always found a way out, but for some reason I get this uneasy feeling that I'm gonna go busto this time. Thats such a bad attitude for a poker player to have and to be quite honest that mentality probably has some correlation to my recent shityness!

I've spent the past few days doing a lot of forum reading and listening to tons of P5's podcasts. I feel like the game to me just isn't all that exhilarating right now as it used to be. In the past I thrived on those 12+ hour sessions where I would win 10+ buyins at whatever level I was playing at or finishing off that tournament for a nice sized score. These days my time to play is so limited that when I have time I feel like I'm forcing myself to play.

This really fucking sucks because I love poker and the challenging obstacles it presents. I know that this new job that I have is the main factor in my poker demise but monetarily things are going so well for me now that it's taking away from poker.

Who knows what will become of this? By no means am I giving up on poker and by no means have I lost that edge that I used to posses. I think I just need to let everything work itself out. To start anew I plan on having a better outlook on poker and the beats/wins that come my way. I am too young and life is too good right now for me to be stressing and I need to remember that. Having the ability to play online poker with regularity is a blessing in itself, not to mention the success I've had. I need to remind myself of these things and not worry when poker throws a cure ball at me; rather learn how to sit on that pitch and hit it out of the park.

Cash Game Update

I've been trying to get in 500+ hands in a session playing 4 tables...still at $50 NL of course. Things still aren't all that good but then again not all that bad. I haven't been playing on my laptop so don't have exact numbers from poker tracker to key you in on the specifics of how I've been playing. I recently hooked up my desktop to my 42' plasma which is soooo sick. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse so I can play from my couch! Talk about being about as lazy as possible! I don't think it's going to be my primary computer to play on, I just wanted to see what the resolution would look like and try it out. I think I will use this setup for hand/session discussion, video viewing with buddies, final tables, and the occasional session.

So back to the point of this post. I have mixed emotions about dropping down to $50 NL in that going in I thought making money would be like taking candy from a baby but after a few thousand hands I can see that I'm a moron for thinking that. There is no such thing as a free lunch...right? Well here is how I evaluate my play at this level so far. I don't seem to have a problem accumulating money at all, but it's keeping it around that gets me. Like I said in an earlier post, I seem to be spewing chips left and right and more of a conscious effort needs to be put into protecting my stack once I have it.

Let's look at a hand that I played last night.
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 2: cracksito ($193.35)
Seat 3: Neoblitz727 ($50.05)
Seat 4: tortuga0981 ($64.60) -
Seat 5: birdiemobile ($37.55) -
Seat 6: kevark ($66.05) -


PRE-FLOP:

birdiemobile posts small blind $0.25
kevark posts BIG blind $0.50
Dealt To: tortuga0981


FOLD cracksito
FOLD Neoblitz727
RAISE tortuga0981 ($2)
FOLD birdiemobile
RAISE kevark ($4.50)
CALL tortuga0981 ($2.50)


FLOP:

Pot: $9.75
   

BET kevark ($5)
CALL tortuga0981 ($5)


TURN:

Pot: $19.75
    

BET kevark ($8)
CALL tortuga0981 ($8)


RIVER:

Pot: $35.75
     

BET kevark ($25)
FOLD tortuga0981

kevark collected $33.55 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $35 Rake: $1.70

Final Board:
     

Seat 2: cracksito folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: Neoblitz727 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: tortuga0981 button folded on the River - Net Gain/Loss: ($-17.5)
Seat 5: birdiemobile small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.25)
Seat 6: kevark big blind collected 33.55 - Net Gain/Loss: ($16.05)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Ok, so I call the smallish min raise from the player in the BB and see a flop where I flop top pair/top kicker. Before we continue I want to talk about what I figured for this player's range. Given that he had been playing 24.32% / 12.16% / 2.20 through 74 hands doesn't tell me all that much but for the most part I peg him as a TAG'ish type player. So I give this weird raise the range of 77+,ATs+,KTs+,QJs,AJo+. Having said that how the hand plays out is weird on my behalf. Looking back I feel I should have raised the flop to find out where I stood. My reasoning for simply calling the entire way was to try to control the pot given what I floped (which I thought could was good) against his weird 3 bet pre-flop. But then the bet on the river just reeked of strength and kind of push me off the hand. And not to mention that the river card filled the one card straight if he had been bluffing with 10 10 the entire time.

So I plugged some numbers into poker stove and they basically called me a pussy which is what I figured.
--------------------
79,200 games 0.005 secs 15,840,000 games/sec

Board: 7c 7s Jd
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 69.488% 65.57% 03.92% 51933 3101.50 {AcJc}
Hand 1: 30.512% 26.60% 03.92% 21064 3101.50 {77+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AJo+}
--------------------
I needed to see the numbers to reassure myself that I knew what correct play was, which I did, but the river bet just kind of scared me. It looked like such a "call me" bet after 1/2 pot sized bets on the flop and river that a fold just felt like the right play.

Let's look at another hand I played.
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Alfparis ($69.25) ( 62.11% / 27.37% / 0.92/ 95)
Player Notes: Plays a very wide range of hands pre-flop.
Seat 2: tortuga0981 ($92) ( 13.68% / 11.11% / 4.67/ 117)
Seat 4: shanks686 ($47.25) - ( 34.48% / 10.34% / 0.87/ 87)
Seat 5: underdogggg@ ($82.85) - ( 55.29% / 27.06% / 1.33/ 85)
Seat 6: FRUIT_BAGEL ($50) - ( 16.22% / 4.05% / 0.42/ 74)


PRE-FLOP:

underdogggg@ posts small blind $0.25
FRUIT_BAGEL posts BIG blind $0.50
Dealt To: tortuga0981


CALL Alfparis ($0.50)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($3)
FOLD shanks686
FOLD underdogggg@
FOLD FRUIT_BAGEL
CALL Alfparis ($2.50)


FLOP:

Pot: $6.75
   

CHECK Alfparis
BET tortuga0981 ($4)
CALL Alfparis ($4)


TURN:

Pot: $14.75
    

CHECK Alfparis
CHECK tortuga0981


RIVER:

Pot: $14.75
     

BET Alfparis ($15)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($85)
FOLD Alfparis
tortuga0981:


tortuga0981 collected $42.75 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $44 Rake: $2

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: Alfparis folded on the River - Net Gain/Loss: ($-22)
Seat 2: tortuga0981 collected 42.75 - Net Gain/Loss: ($20.75)
Seat 4: shanks686 button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: underdogggg@ small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.25)
Seat 6: FRUIT_BAGEL big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.5)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

In this hand, the way the cards feel dictated my play on the river. The loose player limps behind me so I make a pretty standard raise from the CO w/ 99. We see an ace high flop and C-bet in position like I would do 100% of the time in this situation. The player calls and I start to think...the turn brings a Jh and we both check. At this point I put him on a smallish pocket pair or a weak ace. So the river brings the 10h filling the heart flush and the broadway straight. This player is not limping KQ nor would he have called the flop with 2 hearts so I'm not scared of a mate hand here. He leads into me for a pot sized bet of $15 but given my rational here he can't call a push. So I push and he folds. Damn poker can be so easy sometimes!

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

So I've logged around 1,200 hands @ the $50 NL level and my stats aren't all that impressive. I think I'm basically even over all those hands. I don't want to say that I played bad in those few sessions but I also don't think I played my best either.

Looking back through some of the hand histories the other night I kept thinking to myself "damn you spew chips like a mo fo". And to be honest it's the truth! I think it has something to do with the lower limit play and the monetary value not really hitting home but that all has to change!

In these few sessions I quad tabled $50 NL and didn't really think the competition was all that good but still gave opponents way more credit than I should have. After all this is a $50 buyin and thats pretty freakin low and does attract many of the super donks. I did take some pretty horrific beats in fairly large pots but that only to be expected. I guess I'll just continue to grind it out and see what happens over a larger sample size....hopefully when I approach 10K in hands I should be closing in on my BR requirment of 2.5K so I can move up to 100 NL.

Well it might take a little more time now:(. I got into a heads up debacle last night with a player who pwned the fuck out of me for $500. Yeah it killed me! So my BR sits at 1.3K meaning I need another 1.2k now to reach my 100 NL step. It's so freaking frustrating when I let shit like this happen. Whatever, the cards aren't really falling my ways these days but I know when they turn around I'll be ok. For now I need to stick to my methods and practice what I preach. I'm thinking realistically we're looking at having to log closer to 50K in hands to get to that next level. Thats a shit ton of hands and will probably take me a good 5 months .


Thats it for now. Wish me luck at the tables.

Rethinking my approach.....

I've had a little more time to sit down and get those much needed hands in. Over the past month or so I've been in a rut in regards to making money though. Normally this would be a red flag and would be something I should worry about but things "in my eyes" aren't really what they seem.

My game is by no means "air tight" and I know where I need to improve. I think where my problem lies though is in my indecisiveness to stick with a certain game and grind it out. I'm constantly switching back and forth between cash and tournament play and this really makes it hard to focus on a specific game and work to become the best you can be at that game. I know I've talked in previous entries about this "indecisiveness" and I think it's reached a point where a permanent decision needs to be made. That being said I want to talk about this whole "rethinking my approach" outlook.

I've been a member of cardrunners.com for about 2 years now and throughout that time have learned a tremendous amount of information in regards to the higher level thinking that goes along with poker. I take time to think about the moves I'm going to make and analyze what I think is going on in hands in order to extract the maximum value from each and every pot I play. Here though lies what I feel to be my biggest problem. I'm a low limit player playing with low limit donks and often I 2nd and 3rd level think hands when all I really need to be doing is playing my hands for what they really are. I know I’m better than the average player and that’s not a question. I’ve been a winning player for 5+ years now and I think it's time to get back to the basics.

My new philosophy in regards to poker is going to be to the KISS method. For those that aren't familiar with this, it’s an acronym meaning Keep It Simple Stupid. I want to make it a point to focus on the lower limit short handed cash games, specifically $50NL and $100NL, and try to just grind out 5 - 10 BB/100 hands. In these sessions I’m not going to get out of hand or try to make moves on players and rather play my hands face up and grind out those dolla-dolla bills yo!

Currently my BR sits at 2K and with using proper BR management methods of having 50+ buyins to play at each level that makes me about $500 short of 100NL. So there is my first goal in this new regime!

I hate to say farewell to tournament play, especially since it's been so good to me in the past. But to me cash games are way too lucrative to pass up. I know I'll take the occasional shot at the Sunday Million and that’s fine, but for now I think I'm going to have to switch gears to try and see a steady increase in my BR.

Poker....it's a son of a bitch!

So I've tried to make an effort to find more time to play poker here in the past week and I've actually gotten to play everyday! Now that should be a good thing...right? Well in this limited time I think I'm leaning towards a losing mentality that I need to stray myself from. Knowing that when I actually get to sit down and play could be the only session I get for the next few days or even weeks makes me want to up the stakes and win it all right then and there.

This is poker 101 and I should know better than this. Sitting with at that time a 3K bankroll I thought I could play the $109's and multitable 1$/2$ NL. What in the hell was I thinking? I know these stakes are quite a bit over my head and that I don't have the proper BR to sustain the losses if they do in fact occur. Well they did occur with a nice slap in the face, and you know, I'm glad that I lost what I did. It takes punches in the gut like this for a poker player to realize what really is at stake here...loads of cash! Just to get it out of the way, I lost a third of my BR in an hour playing heads up and 6-max 1$/2$ NL.

Here is my take on the situation revolving around realizing what is at stake when you come to the table each and every day. It's really hard at times to grasp what you are really striving for when it's only numerical values that fluctuate when you win or lose. When I say numerical values, I mean the dollar value in your "cashier". Only being able to click a button and look at a number after winning a tourney or having a great cash game session isn't enough sometimes. If you received checks weekly from your poker site that would be one thing, but it doesn't work that way. When it's you who has to have the will to withdrawal the money instead of gambling with it, it really becomes a test of self discipline.

Getting back to where I was going with this.....I have to constantly remind myself where I started and how far I have come in poker to not let downswings like this bother me. Knowing that currently I'm a winning poker player makes me secure with the choices I make and the way I play. Yes downswings are brutal and take the breath right out of you, but it's how you bounce back from these pitfalls that make you the poker player you really are.

Remember what you are really playing for. Reward yourself when you win with something nice....I've found this to make the loses sting a little less. If you are a constant BR Nazi then what is it all for? Sure winning loads of cash is nice, but having something to show for winning is what its really about. And above all have fun when you are playing and let your talents dictate your moves. Don't get wrapped up in the monetary values or you will turn gray way too soon.