Archive Mode

This blog is now officially entering Archive Mode...

For new content please redirect your links to the new home of Life's A Grind http://lifesagrindpoker.com

Bye Bye BBT3

**This blog has moved over here**  Updates will cease on  March 21

Alas I simply no longer have time to spend playing tournaments.  Getting the business off the ground is my primary concern and I'm spending all of my free time doing that.  I am playing SNG's during my scheduled live times because I enjoy that but I won't be playing much else for the foreseeable future.

I've placed a new post up on the Poker Tech Reviews blog welcoming EasyCure as a partner.  He has proven to be a hard working person who embraces the entrepreneurial spirit.  Please stop by and help me welcome him to the team.

Link Exchanges

**This blog has moved over here**  Updates will cease on  March 21

I'm adopting a new approach to my blogroll.  Leading up to this point I have only listed in my blogroll the blogs that I had time to read.  That list is now populated by some blogs that are no longer updated so I will be cleaning house tonight to get rid of them.  I am also looking to expand my blog reading so if you link to me, I'll link to you.  Leave a comment to this post over at my new home with the address of your blog and I'll link you up post haste.

Enhanced Chat

**This blog has moved over here**  Updates will cease on  March 21

Ok, I've solved the problem I had with the design of the livecasting page.  I just did away with it.  If you go to that page you will be redirected to the new page which is now built inside the blog.  There is also now a "chat" tab located in the site menu which will lead you to the chat room (see how clever that is).  In addition I've decided that whenever I'm online I'm going to have the chat room open.  This way no matter when you stop by you can say hi!

If you need to update any bookmarks you have done the new URL is http://lifesagrindpoker.com/chat

Life Happened Already

A friend from out of town called and he's in town.  He'll be bringing his family over tonight so no poker play for me.  Catch ya later.

LiveCast Schedule - Now With Hole Cards

I still need to give the livecasting page a good redesign but I do have most of the kinks worked out on the broadcast side.  I  know the audio is a bit weak but I don't want to spend the money on a USB mic. right now.  If I get enough interested viewers then I'll readdress that.

The live schedule will be as follows barring any unforeseen instances of life getting in the way.  In that case I will post something here letting you know I won't be on.

Tues-Thurs. 9pm - 10pm central time.

I will be on more often than that but I can only commit to the times above for now.  I will also on occasion be broadcasting my screen when I'm doing development work on PokerTechReviews.com.

If I'm playing in a blogger tournament I will not be displaying my hole cards.  This would of course just be stupid on my part.  During all other times though my hole cards will be up for everyone to see and comment on.

So come hang out and make fun of me to my face.  I'll be on tonight.

PS - I see a lot of the RSS feeds have not been updated to my new site yet.  Git'er done.

Livecasting Now

Missed The Mookie due to familial commitments.  Playing the 9:45pm Knockout Tourney instead.  See me here.

My First Poker Video

I'll probably do these every now and then.  This is the type of stuff you get when you watch my live feed while I'm playing.  This represents the highlights from my play on Sunday night.  I had a pretty funny reaction to a bad beat in there.

Genesis

A few posts back I mentioned I was starting a new site.  Moving my blog to it's own URL wasn't it. 

The announcement is I will be launching a Poker Software and Hardware Review site at PokerTechReviews.com.  You will notice that I used the word "will" when I mentioned that.  This site hasn't gotten far past the very initial planning stages at this time.  I will however be chronicling everything having to do with the planning, implementation, and launch of the site at the PokerTechReviews Blog.  I encourage everyone to check this blog out as I will be looking for feedback from all of you.  After all, the site will be catered to you when it launches.

I also ask that anyone who reads this also mention it in your own blog.  I'm looking for a bit of a viral ground swell as I hope to solicit some very specific help over the next few days.  The first post is already up and I'll be writing a few more in rapid succession.

Thanks in advance for everyone's help in spreading the word.

P.S. Don't forget this site has moved, so update your feeds and bookmarks.

Blog Move Finished

I've officially moved into my new blogging digs.  I will be cross posting here for a few weeks but then this location will transform into an archive.  I can now be found at LifesAGrindPoker.

Thank you to all my readers for putting up with my drivel through the years.  I promise more of the same along with the added live casting I'll be doing every time I play.

Call For Help

I am in the process of starting up a new website.  This website will be poker related but won't involve strategy posts or affiliate stuff.

I am looking for someone with Wordpress theme knowledge.  I am finalizing what I want the site to look like and I need help.  I could take the time to learn how to do it but I really need to concentrate on content at this point.  If anyone knows how to do theme development and can help build the site please contact me.  All I can offer at this point is credit for the work as payment.  We may be able to work something out for future compensation but we would have to discuss it.

I also am looking for logo and banner design.  Again I have an idea of what I'm looking for but I'm far from an artist.  If you can offer any assistance It would be greatly appreciated.

I may also be soliciting some writing help. If their are any aspiring writers with an eye for good software design and some technical know how let me know.

As always I can be reached at lifesagrind@gmail.com

New Site

This blog will be moving. After a few years of doing this I've decided to take a bit more control over my blogging. All of this blogs content will soon be moving to lifesagrindpoker.com. This transition will take a few days and when complete their will be cross posting for a few weeks. This will allow everyone time to update their RSS feeds.

In the meantime my new home for livecasting is up and running at live.lifesagrindpoker.com. This page will present the live feed plus an IRC channel for us to chat in. This is a different chatroom than I've been using so far so stop in, say hi, and spend some time talking about the Mookie.

Chat Live Now!!!

Streaming The MATH

Join me in the Chatroom!!

Scott Fischman Causes Life Tilt

A quick perusal of the poker bloggershpere today reveals that Scott Fischman (pro poker player) induced a large amount of life tilt last night.  During the Blogger Big Game (which was livecast here at LAG) Scott made some, shall we say, suspect plays.  These plays gave him a huge chip stack and the eventual win.

I myself induced some life tilt on Sirfwalgman.  During the second hour I rivered a straight against flopped trips and his vitriol spewed forth.  When Sirfwalgman raised and another player smooth called I knew I was going to push the flop before I even completed my Big Blind.  Nevertheless perceived donkery is still donkery no matter the reasoning.

I should be home from work in time for the Math tonight so I'll be livecasting my play again.  Join me here and then head over to the chatroom for a discussion of the game.

Streaming The Big Game

Join me in the chatroom.

Streaming reminder

Don't forget I'll be live streaming tonights Big Game. That's at 8:30 central.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I Will Streaming Video!!!!!

Starting with tomorrow nights Big Game I will be streaming all of my poker play via uStream.tv

 

You will be able to see my tables and stare at my ugly mug.  There is a chatroom associated to the feed that will be open on my page at uStream.  You will also be able to watch the video live from within this blog page.

Come join me and see if you can read me.  Am I bluffing?  Can you tell?

See you(me) then!

SNG Stats For February

I went back to what I know best for the last few weeks and I can tell you it sure feels nice to actually win. 

With the BBT3 upon us I had to take a hard look at my bankroll.  I'm playing pretty thin and unless I won an event early I wouldn't last long.  With that in mind I've decided I'm not going to play any of the events unless I can win my buy in first playing SNG's.  I'm happy to report that I have already registered for the Big Game on Sunday and I plan on making some noise.

Here are my SNG graphs for the month.  I've only played 50 so far but I'm outpacing my previous ROI when I played this level in the past.

I like this finish distribution.

Changing the Rotation

I've got to put some bankroll building back into my play. The MTT's have been slowly draining my resources so it's back to SNG's play. They can be a grind but I've got to play into my strength and that is the turbo SNG. I'll be working a new rotation which will cut down on the MTT's.

Started this by playing a few steps SNG's last night at Full Tilt. Took me two step one's to win a step two token. Turned the token into a third place finish for a little profit. Feels like my game hasn't dropped off too much so I should be able to hop back in without too many growing pains.

The steps will be my focus for the short term.

OMG?!? i could be wrong

In follow up to my previous post I have to say I just listened to the most disturbing poker podcast I've ever heard. This was the Feb. 21st episode of the Pocket Fives podcast. During the interview a player not only professed the virtues of smoking pot while playing, he practically encouraged it by saying most of the top players smoke.

I've never been a real big fan of this podcast but I will now never listen to it or visit their website again. The target audience for them are teen and young adult males so I consider the interview to be wholly irresponsible. If they want to claim journalistic integrity by not censoring the interview then they also need to present the other side and point out the dangers and side effects of the drug. The interviewee himself said he hadn't smoked for a few hours so he wouldn'tbe stuttering through the process.

Most of you may say, "who cares." But I've got to tell you, as a parent, that is some scary shit.

WTF?!?

This is the most asinine advertisement I've ever seen. Brought to us by the fine state of Washington because as we all know poker leads to pot, heroine, alcohol, smoking, (bondage), and guns.

Hell I just finished shooting up and now I'm going to go shoot someone as I smoke and drink.

A Misunderstanding Spouse

My wife asked me what my bankroll was at last night. So I told her.

She was confused as to why it hadn't changed since the last time she asked me. I tried to explain to her that I had been playing mostly tournaments and not the cash games that would slowly build up.

Her response:

"What happened to winning a tournament every month? You used to win one every month. You need to win another cruise. It's time to go on another one."

If only it were that easy.

Input Wanted: Conclusion

I want to thank Klopzi, Fuel, and $mokee for replying to my call for input.

I wish Fuel would have expounded a little on his reason for folding.

In the moment of play I had the exact same thought process $mokee had. So exact it's scary. I decided to push to force out the other two players. The original player had pocket 5's for the flopped set. I hit my K on the river for a bigger set. Still didn't manage to win though because the chip leader called preflop gambling it up with Ad7d. His flopped nut flush was enough to win the hand after he called my all in re-raise.

Second guessing myself afterwards I was convinced I made the wrong play here. With four of us seeing that flop and since I wasn't re-raised a set or straight draw is very possible. That flop should have been scary even if their wasn't the three diamonds. Since I had the second nut flush draw I figured it was worth the play at the time. I'm still a little undecided on what the right course of action should have been.

I guess that's why this game hasn't been solved yet.

Input Wanted: Hand Decision

This is a hand from a tournament I played in the other night. I've been debating with myself whether I played this hand right postflop so I've decided to ask for input.

The hand occurs after were already in the money but it's still early after the money bubble.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5221922500: $5 + $0.50 Tournament (38945611), Table 16 - 600/1200 Ante 150 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:00:58 ET - 2008/02/12
Seat 1: delmop (25,759)
Seat 2: Dannydm (39,903)
Seat 3: williams1 (82,255)
Seat 4: Jhouse1968 (38,512)
Seat 5: Montezuma67 (29,326)
Seat 7: dooce_kikker (32,450)
Seat 8: Jordan4523 (29,720)
Seat 9: lifesagrind (34,505)
antes 150
dooce_kikker posts the big blind of 1,200
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [Ks Kd]
lifesagrind raises to 3,600
Dannydm calls 3,600
williams1 calls 3,600
dooce_kikker calls 2,400

As you can see my raises were getting plenty of respect.

*** FLOP *** [9d Td 5d]
dooce_kikker has 15 seconds left to act
dooce_kikker bets 28,700, and is all in

This guy took all of his time to make this play. I'm next to act so I have a tough decision to make.

What do you do?

I have plenty of options here and I'm not sure I made the right one. I'm not troubled about the decision because of the outcome. I'm troubled because it was a tough spot. I also feel a little lost on what the correct play is in this position.

The Social

I've just joined the Poker Players Social Network or PPSN as it's called. Think of it as MySpace for poker players. Sign up and visit me. As always my username is lifesagrind.

Deal Or No Deal

Well I just finished watching the new poker movie Deal.

My Thoughts:

It's better than Lucky You
It must have been financed by PokerStars and The WPT
Color Of Money meets poker
Would have been better if Shannon Elizabeth got naked

Indicators

Indicator that your playing above your comfort level: How about losing 2 1/2 buyins in 621 hands. I then dropped down 2 levels and have since gone up 2 buyins in 687 hands.

Indicator that your finally hitting your groove: MTT's can be a drain on the psyche as well as the bankroll. The level of variance is well documented and my experience has been no different. The key is to feel secure in your own play and believe that you are making the correct decisions. I finally reached that feeling this week. It's taken a few weeks of play but I definitely feel I'm back in form after my extended MTT absence.

Indicator that you didn't play much in January: I received my rake back payment for January, it was $6.41. 'nuff said.

January

After a month (well two weeks anyway) of nothing but Multi Table Tournaments I have 39 played and an ROI of -51.53%. In Satellites I have 3 played for an ROI of 321.49%. Overall that means I lost money this month.

I've managed to learn something about the low buy in events. I learned my "normal" style of play is a losing style. I have a tendency to be very erratic overall in my play. I can move from tight to aggressive and vice versa very quickly and I do so often. Presently, that's a recipe for disaster.

I would surmise that in order to consistently cash in these events, and thus give myself a shot at winning them, I'm going to have to aquire a very rigid straight forward approach. This approach is three pronged.

First, during the initial hour of play I will need to be tight and play straight forward ABC poker.
Second, during the next hour I will step up the aggression and begin open raising more liberally.
Third, If I make it into the money I will look for large trapping opportunities.

I'm not sure this will be a good final approach but over the next two weeks I will give it a try and see how everything is meshing out. I'm also going to start rotating some cash game play into the mix. I keep trying to deny that part of my game since I suck at it but I simply can't fight the urge. My work schedule for the rest of the week will also prevent me from playing tournaments so I'll need cash game play to take up the slack. I've resigned myself to playing only one cash table at a time and also stepping up stakes. I'm hoping that will force me concentrate more and take the game more seriously.

That last sentence sounds stupid, but it's true. My brain is just fucked up that way.

On The Poker Docket

My sporadic vacation from poker has been nice but it's time to once again join the fray. Starting this week I'm going back to five days of play but I'm going to start with nothing but MTT's. I will be looking to play four tournaments at a time and joining new ones as I bust out of earlier ones. I will not be playing all of these events but this is the schedule I plan on using each week.

Schedule:
Sunday
(varied) Sundays are a family day and I don't plan on playing any of the majors so the tournaments I play will be random whenever time permits.

Monday-Thursday
8:00 pm - UltimateBet 5K bounty
Full Tilt Daily Double A & B
PokerStars $5.50 NL

8:45 pm - UltimateBet $11 NL
Full Tilt Token Frenzy

9:00 pm - PokerStars $16.50 NL
Cake Poker 2K
Full Tilt 28K

Friday-Saturday
OFF

Blogger tournaments will be thrown in sporadically whenever the mood strikes.

See you at the tables.

Asshats - The New Cool

I decided to play 6 MTT's at the same time last night. This was the online poker equilavent of throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The results were well below expectation as I managed to cash in the lowest buy in I played and I managed to win the one with the smallest payout.s
During The Math event I noticed a trend that I'm becoming very concerned with. I believe that as a "community" poker bloggers should be supportive and cordial to each other. Instead the trend has fallen to, who can berate and belittle the most effectively. If this was merely a form of trash talking or good natured ribbing I wouldn't care. Sadly it just doesn't seem like this is the case. There are even polls where everyone is vying to be the most "hated" blogger. Do you really want to be the biggest Asshat? Is this something to aspire too?

I don't get it. Then again, I'm probably not supposed to.

It won't stop me from playing the events. I'm secure enough in my belief, perhaps misguided, that I have game. None of it gets to me on a personal level. My concern is for the new players wanting to join in. My wife is a nurse and they have a saying that "Nurses eat their young". This talks to the fact that the experienced nurses treat the inexperienced nurses like shit. Giving them all the dirty nasty work. I just don't want the blogging community to turn into an equivalent where the inexperienced players are discouraged and shunned from playing and participating in the community.

My Fourth Night

Had some time to play last night so I fired up four tournaments and set out to make some money. I played the 28K., a 2K, a FTOPS sat., and a $5 event.

It was a night of bad cards as I only managed to squeak into the second hour of the 28K and the$5. The satellite went really well as I won the event and my seat. The seat wasn't into the tournament I thought it was though. Turns out is was a "Super" satellite and not a "true" satellite so I get to play again in February for my seat into the FTOPS event #8.

In the 2K I made a bad read and went out just barely in the money. I put my opponent on a pure steal because his reraise was just too big. I decided to re-steal against him but he called with his middle pair and I couldn't hit either of my two overs.

If you count the seat win as money then it was a profitable night. If not... then it wasn't.

I've had almost a full month off from the tables now as my playing time has been very sporadic. I plan on going to a five day schedule of tournaments Sunday-Thursday starting in two days. No cash games.

Playin' The Tourney's

Finally took the time to play some tournaments last night. I went online around 9pm central and signed up for a $5 on Cake Poker, a $5 on Full Tilt, and the 28K Guarantee on Full Tilt.

Even though my mtt game is very rusty I was extremely happy with my play last night. I found the Cake field to be full of very bad players that loved to overcall with second pair and the Full Tilt games were populated with better players overall, but still their were some pretty bad ones as well. In an odd but somewhat common occurence I busted out of both $5 events at about the same time. I was out in one after 78 minutes of play and 83 minutes in the other. The guarantee was a different story and I lasted 266 minutes, or 4 hours 26 minutes. Not long enough to get the win but I did manage to finish 29th out of 1,310 players.

I enjoyed a top ten chipstack for most of the latter stages but managed to have three hands that caused my downfall. The first hand in question I held 140,517 in chips with the blinds at 2,500/5,000/600. I was in the small blind with JcTc and a short stack who had 41,096 in early position pushed all in. It folded to me and I really considered folding my hand but then re-evaluated. If I lost the hand I would drop to just below an average stack, but if I won I could really solidify myself for a final table run. I decided to call considering his range could be large in this position and he showed me two Jacks. I was pretty well sunk but then I picked up an OESD on the flop and a flush draw on the turn. Alas I didn't hit any of my 15 outs.

The very next hand I lost 13,900 more chips when I held AcQc on the button. The flop came 8KK and I really felt my opponent held a small pair so I couldn't call his flop bet.

The death blow came at 4,000/8,000/1,000. I was in the BB with 66,021 and 9s8s. It folded to the SB who raised it up to 24,000. He was a player who had been playing tight earlier but had changed gears and had begun raising me on a regular basis when we were heads up. His range was big in this spot and I had a nice drawing hand so I pushed on him. To my amazement he instacalled me with KdJc. Granted he's ahead here but I had tightened up substantially and his call put almost half of his stack at risk. I obviously don't like his call here and the flop came out 5hKs3s. I liked my chances but the flush didn't come and I was sent packing.

I wouldn't have changed my play on two of the three hands but I probably should have pushed preflop with the AcQc hand. My opponent had about the same stack size as I did and he was capable of making a lay down. Overall I am happy with my play regardless of the outcome so that's always a good thing. That also makes me up on the year and it's also always good to start the year winning.

Introducing...

I finally played some poker on Monday night. Not much, only two low buyin tourneys, out before the first break in both. I'm still riding the X-Box 360 Christmas high so playing poker has taken a backseat.

That doesn't mean I'm not writing about poker though. I've been wanting to do more writing lately, but I didn't want to use this blog as that outlet. This is supposed to be a poker diary blog and I'm going to keep it that way.

I've been leaning toward writing more op-ed pieces so for that my writing home will be pokersift.com. My posts can be found here. The first post is already up so I encourage you to to go check it out.

This blog will also continue as it always has so don't stop that feed.

No Play...No Post

I haven't played a hand of poker since before Christmas. Haven't missed it either.

I didn't set any 2007 goals so I'm not going to bother setting any 2008 ones either.

As far as a year in review, well... 2007 was my worst full year of poker. If it wasn't for my SNG play during the third quarter of the year I would have lost money. As it stands I barely finished in the black. The missing link this past year was a lack of tournament wins. Tournaments have accounted for over 90% of my profits in the past but this year I finished down $83. I simply didn't have the time needed to spend in front of the PC. I played less than half the number of tournaments that I played in 2006. I also spent $5,000 less in buyins.

Morale of the story... play more tournaments in 2008.