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.

Hey, Bend Over And Grab That Bar Of Soap

FullTiltPoker Game #4549444139: Table Wilkes - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:38:07 ET - 2007/12/18
Seat 3: flydogg007 ($34.05)
Seat 4: Chewyjd ($31.75)
Seat 6: lifesagrind ($48.50)

Kacori posts the small blind of $0.25
Mr_R_Hand posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #8

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [Ac As]

tsduo folds
flydogg007 raises to $1
Chewyjd calls $1
SkiDooSledder folds
lifesagrind raises to $4
jausbrey folds
cladower folds
Kacori folds
Mr_R_Hand folds
flydogg007 folds
Chewyjd has 15 seconds left to act
Chewyjd raises to $31.75, and is all in
lifesagrind calls $27.75
Chewyjd shows [Ad 3s]
lifesagrind shows [Ac As]
*** FLOP *** [2d 4d 5h]
*** TURN *** [2d 4d 5h] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [2d 4d 5h Js] [Jh]
Chewyjd shows a straight, Five high
lifesagrind shows two pair, Aces and Jacks
Chewyjd wins the pot ($62.25) with a straight, Five high

Understanding Disappointment

The plan was to end my two month tournament sabbatical with the three big blogger tournaments last night. The Big Game, The Skill Game, and ThePokerGrinder. Alas due to familial obligations I only arrived back home in time for the last one on the list.

Much has been said, and many bloggers have bitched, about the quality of play in blogger tournaments. As of last night I have come to the following conclusions about poker bloggers. Just because you write about poker, doesn't mean you know how to play poker. At least not play poker well.

This is in reality no different than playing in any other tournament online. You have your good players, and you have your bad players. The problem lies in the expectation that poker bloggers should be, as a whole, skewed more toward the good player side.

The poker blogging community has within it, it's own microcosm of society. You have your elders followed by the middle agers and finally the children. Everyone must remember that these "children" play in the tournaments as well. Hopefully one day they will grow and learn but some, well some are just born with an extra chromosome. There is nothing you can do for them developmentally but be supportive of their endeavors.

These are the ones you often hear about, but not always. Everyone is capable of making that fatal mistake. Just try not to let it be you.

Dreamland

Have you ever awoken screaming from a nightmare? How about a nightmare that involved poker? Were you playing with monsters, or were you up against monster hands? How about every time you bluffed heads up, your opponent had the nuts? Did you blow off your entire stack bluffing into the nuts?

Have you?

You have had that dream... well welcome to my reality. I've made some piss poor decisions before but tonight takes the cake. I blew $80 at a $50 table. All heads up, and I had the 80 in front of me before my opponent bought in as a short stack. Sure, he got lucky and caught cards, but I also ignored the obvious signs of my opponent having me beat. Truly a matter of ego outweighing common sense tonight.

A Months End

Would you look at that? The graph actually ends at a point higher than it started.

I know... I'm amazed as well.

I took the NL cash game seriously this month (ie. not a single SNG played) and I have to say I enjoyed playing them. I've had a love hate, well... mostly hate , relationship with the NL cash game in the past but making the switch to full ring and not worrying about the money I may lose or win really seemed to help me.

Since I'm all about the money when it comes to playing this game, I've got to look at whether the SNG's or the cash games were more profitable for me. In the month of October I played 10.72 hours at the $24 turbos for a profit of $235.70. That comes out to $21.99 an hour which is nothing to sneeze at. At the .25/.50 NL game I played 16.57 hours in November for a profit of $338.60. That comes out to $20.43 an hour. That puts these two forms of poker at about dead even for me on the profitability scale.

With that in mind I'm going to stick with the cash games again this month. I didn't miss playing the SNG's at all which also surprised me. At least I have a backup if things turn sour for me.

The Streak Ends

After 13 months of straight Iron Man qualification at Full Tilt, I can no longer qualify this month. Having recently purchased The Orange Box I was engrossed in a game of Portal last night and completely spaced on playing poker. I had already taken to many days off from the tables and now I can no longer qualify for the month.

It's been a personal matter of pride for myself that I could keep the streak going so I'm a little disappointed right now. Fortunately when I make Iron Man status again next month I will be able to take in a pretty decent bonus. I will miss out on my increased bonus medal counts though which really sucks. I was wanting to collect some more to make a purchase from the Full Tilt store but now it will take a little longer.

At least I'm winning money at the tables this month (now that I've publicly stated that you can expect the obligatory "worst day ever at the tables" post)

I'll post and end of month recap and some numbers tomorrow.

My Will Be Done

There are times when poker just isn't about the cards...


Seat 2: wheaten ($81.45)
Seat 3: lifesagrind ($48.25)

lifesagrind posts the small blind of $0.25
Ruud27 posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [Kd Th]
Oak1974 folds
jcraw70 calls $0.50
Baschti84 folds
Glastoki folds
wheaten calls $0.50
lifesagrind calls $0.25 - Seeing a flop here is an easy decision
Ruud27 checks

*** FLOP *** [8h 3d Kc]
lifesagrind bets $1.50 - Top pair out of position, it's time to see if I can have this cheaply
Ruud27 folds
jcraw70 folds
wheaten raises to $3
lifesagrind raises to $5.50 - I know, what the hell am I doing. Problem is... he could put me on just about anything here, and I can put him on trying to take this away from me.
wheaten calls $2.50 - His call is telling

*** TURN *** [8h 3d Kc] [9h]
lifesagrind bets $11 - I have to continue considering my flop play
wheaten calls $11 - I know I'm beat here... but I also know he isn't 100% secure in his hand. Considering my play up to this point I'd have to put him on KJ, maybe KQ

*** RIVER *** [8h 3d Kc 9h] [2d]
lifesagrind bets $31.25, and is all in - I have two choices, check and fold, or push. I know he has me beat, but I also know he believes I could have him beat. I take the only reasonable choice left to me... push
wheaten has 15 seconds left to act
wheaten folds
Uncalled bet of $31.25 returned to lifesagrind
lifesagrind mucks
lifesagrind wins the pot ($33.25)

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $35 | Rake $1.75
Board: [8h 3d Kc 9h 2d]
Seat 2: wheaten (button) folded on the River
Seat 3: lifesagrind (small blind) collected ($33.25), mucked

Moral of the story: Playing the player can be more important than playing your cards. (Just don't get too carried away with it)

Sunday Tournies

Everybody knows about the Sunday majors.

Well here's the two I'll be playing in tonight.

The Poker Grind.net presents...
Date & Time - Nov 18th @ 10pm
buyin - $20+2
Where - Full Tilt , click Tournament > Private
Name of Tournament - The Poker Grind.net Bounty
Password - thepokergrind

and

The Big Game

A Little Presto Sauce

By far my most interesting hand since switching to No Limit Cash games this month.

Table Wood Plank - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em
Seat 1: anal_yzer85 ($92.45)
Seat 2: joepoker77 ($48.25)
Seat 3: drchad ($24.50)
Seat 4: drossxyu ($80.80)
Seat 5: electricladylnd ($49.05)
Seat 6: Quickfox7 ($43.15)
Seat 7: lifesagrind ($57.70)
Seat 8: cashinchecks1 ($36.70)
Seat 9: pete1974 ($15.40)
electricladylnd posts the small blind of $0.25
Quickfox7 posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to lifesagrind [5d 5c] - lets see a flop shall we
lifesagrind calls $0.50
cashinchecks1 folds
pete1974 folds
anal_yzer85 folds
joepoker77 folds
drchad calls $0.50
drossxyu raises to $2.25
electricladylnd folds
Quickfox7 folds
lifesagrind calls $1.75
drchad calls $1.75
*** FLOP *** [2c 5s 2s]
lifesagrind checks - Life doesn't get any better, let's see who has what here
drchad checks
drossxyu bets $4
lifesagrind calls $4 - Please call drchad
drchad calls $4 - YES!
*** TURN *** [2c 5s 2s] [9c]
lifesagrind checks - How bad does the bettor want this
drchad checks
drossxyu has 15 seconds left to act
drossxyu bets $9.75 - ohhhh he likes his hand
lifesagrind has 15 seconds left to act
lifesagrind raises to $20 - Here's an amount you can call
drchad folds
drossxyu calls $10.25
*** RIVER *** [2c 5s 2s 9c] [5h]
lifesagrind bets $31.45, and is all in - Smooth and creamy, all you can eat
drossxyu calls $31.45
*** SHOW DOWN ***
lifesagrind shows [5d 5c] four of a kind, Fives
drossxyu mucks
lifesagrind wins the pot ($119.40) with four of a kind, Fives
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $122.40 | Rake $3
Board: [2c 5s 2s 9c 5h]

Seat 4: drossxyu (button) mucked [2d 2h] - four of a kind, Twos - Ouch, sucks to be him

Seat 7: lifesagrind showed [5d 5c] and won ($119.40) with four of a kind, Fives

It happens, rarely, but quads over quads is always a guaranteed double up.

Robbing The Piggy Bank

errr... bankroll.

I've been watching for online bargains in an attempt to find a new laptop to replace my aging Dell. What I really wanted to buy was a Powerbook Pro but two things... cost and lack of Vista support meant I had to find a windows machine. With my new and hopefully successful career as a home PC support guy, most of my clients (when I get clients) will more than likely be on either XP or Vista machines. I needed to familiarize myself with Vista as well as be able to dual boot both it and XP.

I had settled on looking at refurbished machines as I felt that would give me the most bang for my buck and still be able to have a decent machine. This lead to spending a lot of time refreshing pages from wholesalers since this type of inventory moves quickly.

I've owned AT&T(yes they used to make laptops), Toshiba, and Dell in the past but I've heard good things about Acer and wanted to give it a try. As luck would have it I found the best deal on a new machine and oddly enough at a Best Buy. I now have an Acer Extensa 5620 and even though it's not a top of the line machine it is infinitely more powerful than my old machine and capable of running WoW just fine. (that was important criteria, my old laptop couldn't show all the texture maps. I often wouldn't see the mini map and the terrain was always just colored square patches, no roads, no nothing.)

At any rate I'm now enjoying my new toy and will be playing poker on it for the first time today.

SNG Maddness....NAH!

One would think that Full Tilt's SNG madness over the weekend would have played right into my strengths. I applaud them for the idea, but the implementation was poor. I simply wasn't prepared to devote four straight hours of multi-tabling. If I could have picked my own four hours it would have been easier but with their time restrictions I simply couldn't fit it in.

I really didn't want to fit it in either though. I've been playing the cash games over the past week (since Nov. 1) and been doing pretty well. I've gotten in 1,026 hands so far and I'm running at a very nice 27.5PTBB/100. This is well above expectation but I'll take it where I can get it.

October Meet November

Another month has come and gone and the older I get the quicker time seems to pass. I'm not sure what causes this phenomenon but I wish it would stop.

At any rate it's time to asses the previous months play and things went decently for me. I managed a 16.9% ROI on my SNG's and of the 4 multi-table tourneys I played in, I final tabled one. Not too shabby.

I'm looking to change gears in November and focus more on the cash games. The urge to play them has been building for a while so I'm going to give in. Abandoning my previously played 6-max cash games for the slower paced full ring should help ease the transition from SNG's. Beyond that there really isn't much to tell. See ya next time.

Still Have My Eyes

Even though I claimed the need to gouge my eyes out after my bad beat exit from the MATH last night, I did not follow through. Wanted to, just couldn't put my family through it.

I can't say I played as well last night as I did the night before, but I was still playing pretty good poker. I was well on my way to the final table when some player I've never seen before decided to make a monumentally stupid move that worked out for him by way of a three outer on the flop. Run on sentence withstanding this player was a pretty easy read. One of those players that was aggressive for the sake of being aggressive. Wanted to resteal at every opportunity and defended their blinds when it was completely unnecessary.

At any rate I went out in 14th and I can take solace in the fact that I played pretty well for the most part.

How To Lose $1,000

Before last night I hadn't played a MTT since August. Beyond that I hadn't seen action in a blogger tournament since June. (I did play the Pokerstars coop event for bloggers but I'm not counting that.) I expected a very rusty and poor performance but I can't actually remember when I had played better.

Everything was clicking for me yesterday. I decided to play one token satellite to gain my entrance for The Big Game. I won the token.

When the tournament started everything progressed well and I managed to be among the chip leaders throughout most of the event. By the time the final table started I was the chip leader and I continued to build my stack from there. Within a few orbits I had a 2:1 chip lead over my closest competitor. I truly felt this was my tournament to lose.

As play continued I took a back seat to the action and tightened up. I saw no need in giving anything away and I watched on as TripJax began to make a big move. As we reached the final four he and I would swap the lead several times.

This is where things went horribly wrong. Four handed and in the SB TripJax raises to 4,200. Button folds and I decided to take a flop with A6d, the BB folds. Here it gets interesting as the flop brings 345 rainbow. I have the open end straight draw and an Ace for a possible 11 outs. I figure this is a good spot to take the pot down since if I get called I have plenty of outs, and if he is stealing the blinds with say KQ or so he will have to let it go. I make a pot sized bet of 10,400 and Trip goes into the tank for a few moments. When he decides what to do he fires back at me with a bet of 23,000.

I know I'm looking at an overpair at this point. The thing is I was really only dead if he had 22, 77, or AA. I believed I was left with only 2 choices, fold or push. Folding left me with 36,000 chips and second place, but just barely. It also would have made TripJax a very big stack and he was the one player I didn't want to have chips. His bet was also an odd amount. If felt a bit like a "go away I don't want to invest anymore money" bet. I believed that a push could be enough to make him fold if he felt vulnerable. After all, with that flop I could have a lot of big hands if I'm willing to push.

So push I did. He goes into the tank and then calls showing me one of the three hands I really didn't want him to have. The 77. I can't hit one of my remaining 9 outs and I'm sent packing in fourth place. To say I was pissed would be an understatement. I didn't stick around to see who won, although if TripJax didn't win something went horribly wrong.

I had already spent the first place money in my head. I need a new laptop and I was going to take that money and get one. I'm calmed down now but I have to admit that loss bugged me for hours.

The one positive out of all this is my passion for the multi's in rekindled.

See you at the tables.