2K Monster Tournament, Satellite Madness, and Stingy People

Well, it has been quite some time since my last blog entry, and that has mostly to do with me being away for the month of July for my annual Army Reserve training exercise.  Since getting back home on 6 Aug, I’ve played live a couple times down at The Rivers and only online once or twice.  surprisingly, I’ve only put in 3 live cash sessions and a ton of tournament play.  Being out in the middle of no-where for my training in July granted me the time to read some important tournament strategy books that I’ve put off reading for way too long of a time, such as Kill Phil/Everyone and the Harrington Series.  Needless to say, I’ve been itching to play a tournament now, and fortunately I got that chance here this past week and weekend.

I played in the 2.2K “Monster” tournament at The Rivers this past week, and on thursday and Friday nights, I played a “steps” satellite tournament to win my seat.  on Thursday, I paid $270 to enter the 4th step of the satellite, and I outlasted 50% of the small field to earn my spot in Friday’s 5th satellite step.  On Friday, we had a total of 35 people show up, and the top 20% won seats.  6 people won seats, 7th place pait $1760 cash or something like that because the buy in for step 5 was $500.  In Thursday’s Satellite, I played very well and pretty much rode a big stack to easily finish in the top 50%.  I more than doubled my stack in a huge pot where I had QQ on a 3QTT5 board where an older player made the nut flush on the river and paid me off.  That hand helped me to easily finish in the top 50% and earn my seat for Friday.

On Friday, this Satellite was a different story because this thing lasted 6 hours long, which was really brutal for just a satellite!  I really couldn’t get anything going the entire time, as my stack stayed around the starting stack of $10K as the levels went up.  However, as the blinds went up, I really played my short stack to perfection by picking my spots to shove and forcing people to fold.  I can remember being all in and not wanting a call with Ace high junk type hands at least 6 times.  I only got called once when I had A4, and a guy with A6 called – we ended up chopping.  I think that what really helped me to play well and make this work as the blinds increased is because I never let my stack dip below the 12-15 BB range, and my M never got lower than about 5 or so.  I remember when I used to play tournaments several years ago, I would let my stack dwindle down to nothing and then when I doubled up, I wouldn’t have any stack to play with anyway.  This satellite really taught me the power of having at least 10BB’s at all times because it gives me a chance to double up for an amount that matters, and 10 BB’s actually does have some fold equity.

When this satellite got down to the final table with 9 left, I was 1 of the 3 short stacks against 6 other big stacks.  After a few rounds of play where all the big stacks pretty much just folded, we had another 10 minute break.  during the break, when I came back from the restroom, the other 2 short stacks tried to make a deal with me.  They offered me that between the 3 of us, whoever came in 7th would take home about $960 or so, and that person would then pay the other 2 people $400 each.  I quickly told them that i appreciate the offer, but I was not interested because I didn’t play for 2 nights straight in this satellite to basically win my entry back plus another $100 or so.  It was not worth it to me because I wanted a tournament seat, or at least a $1700 payday.  i know that I’m not the most “tactful” or friendly person in situations such as this, but I thought I was very nice and professional when I turned down this deal and told them that I just wanted to play it out.  The middle aged man next to me didn’t have an issue with my decision and was very cool about it; however, the other short stack, an older gentleman, really started berating me pretty bad, saying that i was making this satellite drag on too long.  After berating for a few minutes, he then changed his offer to a straight 3 way split, to which my response was “why then are we just giving the other 6 seats away to the 0ther 6 big stacks?”  So anyway, this went on for about 30 minutes or so during the break because the casino staff made an error when chipping up the chip denominations, and this older gentleman just would not leave it alone.

Fortunately, I was able to block this idiot out and focus once we did start playing again.  Even more fortunately, in the very first hand after break, I got it in with AQo against a big stack’s QJs.  The flop was a rainbow, but the turn brought a 4th spade to give the yound lady with QJs a flush draw.  When the dealer was about to deal the river, this immature gentleman berating me yelled at the top of his lungs: “spade!”  Unfortunately, for him, it was not a spade, and I doubled up and instantly was not a short stack anymore.  So much for his deal.  After another orbit or so, to my surprise, the 2 biggest stacks at the table played an all in pot with each other, and we had one of the big stacks get eliminated – just as I hinted earlier, this possibility came true because people are sumetimes just not smart.  LOL, you have to always account for the moron factor.

After that, the other short stack (not the idiot) busted out in 8th, and the immature gentleman then busted in 7th to claim the money.  I easily qualified for my seat in the top 6.  As we were all getting our tickets printed for the main event, I walked up to this man and asked him very politely if he was now happy that I didn’t take his deal.  He quickly grunted that no, he was not happy, and he didn’t understand my logic in not taking the deal.  I told him that it was over and that I meant nothing personal, and i extended my hand, only to watch him not shake my hand and continue to rant on.  I’m not sure what I ever did to this guy, but some people just don’t get it.  They would rather play 6 hours and win back their entry buy in instead of making some money or winning a seat in the big tournament.  Pathetic, conservative, STINGY, and absolutely stupid if you ask me.  Stingy, conservative people have been bothering me a lot lately.

Aside from all the stinginess I’ve been witnessing lately (like how several people told me they can’t play in a measly $100 fantasy football league because that’s too much money), I had a blast playing in this $2K monster event!  It was unfortunate that we only had 24 runners in this thing (6 of us from the satellite), but then again, people are stingy and don’t want to put up the 2K.  I don’t blame them here because I had already resolved to buy in to the tournament if I didn’t win the satellite, but i don’t know  how quick I would have been to buy in if I knew there were under 30 players.  Regardless, the structure of this tournament was outstanding!  1 hour levels and a 25K starting stack!  you can’t really ask for much more from a non-Vegas and non-WSOP tournament!

I lasted about 8 hours in this tournament before busting out in 15th place.  During the first 2 levels, I built my stack up to about $35K, but when I came back from break, my wheels came off.  First, I called off a turn and big river bet with 3rd pair in what I felt was a good spot, but obviously wasn’t.  I had 88 on the button, 3 people limped, and I made it 800 to go.  I think the blinds were 1-2 at the time.  The second limper surprised me and limp raised me about 1200 more.  I called, and he checked to me on a flop of Q73.  I checked behind.  The turn was a 10, and he bet 2K, and I called.  The river was a brick, I think a 2, and the board had no straights or flushes.  he bet 4k into me.  i tanked for a long time and ended up calling, and he showed me KK.  I know this was in hindsight a bad call, but that might be results oriented.  Since he checked the flop, I felt there was a decent chance that he had air here, but in reality, he was probably scared that I had QQ – or he himself had QQ maybe.  Unfortunately, after that hand, I went on a cold spell and couldn’t win a pot for quite some time.  Later, I 3bet someone with AKo, and he shoved over me for like 20K more.  i didn’t like it, but I h ad to fold that as i can’t be calling off my stack that early with AKo for like 20K.  Push yes, but call no.  Soon enough, I found myself coming back from the dinner break with a $15K stack and blinds of 400-800 with a 100 ante.  Needless to say, I picked a coupld spots to shove, and after a few orbits, a rock called my shove with AQo vs my A6o.  Good night me!

All in all, even though I may not have played my best, I learned a ton in these 3 days playing tournaments.  I was not the best player at my table, not even close, and I can admit that.  However, I learned a ton from some of these guys, and I’m excited for the next tournament I play.   The next tournament for me will be the Mario Lemieux charity tournament on 17 Sept for $500+ buy in.  Until then, it will be back to the cash tables for some much needed grinding!

Until next time – don’t be so stingy that you can’t play in a friendly $100 fantasy league!

– Formerly “6 Deuce Suited”

Interesting Spots

I played live down at The Rivers for a good session on Thursday, and another short session yesterday afternoon.  I plan on relaxing tonight and then playing a monster session tomorrow night and going to work on Monday tired as hell.  The important things, right?  Anyway, mentally, I think I played really well, didn’t tilt, and I’m stayed very much in control.  Results-wise, I’m just up about 1 buy-in from the past 2 days, but I’m not upset about that – results will continue to come with volume.  Its just hard to put in a lot of volume live.

Anyway, I had 2 very interesting hands I want to discuss.  I think that I played both optimally, but I’m not sure.   I’ll discuss them chronologically because they were both at the same table.  Here goes.  In the first hand, I have about a $500 stack, I’m in MP with 4s5s, and 3 players limp in front of me.  I could have jacked it up here, and I probably should have, but I elected to just limp behind because I had been getting some of my Cbets picked off.  Everyone else folded, and the BTN limped behind as well.  The BB made it $15 more PF, and everyone called except the SB, so it is 6 handed, and the flop came T67 rainbow with 1 spade.  It gets checked to me, and again, I probably could have taken a stab at this, but I didn’t, I checked, and the BTN checked as well…..free card.  Turn is the 2s, giving me an OESD and FD.  The BB bet $25, and one of the limpers before me called.  The BB was a decent player also with a big stack, but he wasn’t great.  I put him on a very wide range, but without any monsters in his range.  I thought for a second and made it $125 to go.  I think that this move would have worked perfectly, but unfortunately, the old man on the BTN thought for a minute, showed his hand to his buddy next to him, and flatted my $125……Woops, that wasn’t supposed to happen, but it’s not the end of the world.  The BB thought for a minute and folded, and the other guy snap folded.  The turn brought an offsuit Jack, and I thought for a minute or 2 and was very close to putting the old man all in, but thank god I didn’t.  He quickly checked back and tabled trip 2’s – the hand I was repping.  Obviously, without the old man in the hand, this move would have worked, but such is life!  I still think this was a solid move, but others may disagree.  Not completely sure.

So now that I have that image at this table, I played a few more pots and lost another pot where I Cbet with air and got looked up.  My image was loose and bad.  In hand 2 a few moments later, I open UTG with JdTd.  I get 5 callers!  The BB, who was a good internet player who knew what he was doing, tanked for a minute, and then just flatted me.  Flop is Js 6d 7d…..GIN!  I Cbet $45, and the old man next to me (who did not suck, but was tight), flatted me.  Everyone folded to the BB internet kid, and he check/raised me to $125.  I had him covered, but he had a full $300 stack.  I tanked for a moment, and I realized 2 things.  First, yes, his range did include sets, but it also included overpairs and many draws, especially since I had a bad image.  Second, the old man to my left had either QQ, KK, or AJ, nothing else becaus he was so tight.  I decided that I did not want the old man in the pot, and that I had some (probably little) fold equity, and good equity in general against the BB’s range.  So I shoved.  Old man folds, BB sighs, says that he’s on a draw but is priced in, and makes the call.  Turn Ah, River 5d.  Cha-Ching!  Unsure what he had though, my guess is 89, but I’ll never know.

Again, I plan on playing a monster session tomorrow night.  Hopefully I can make something happen!

– “Formerly” 6 Deuce Suited

The Mental Game of Poker by @jaredtendler

I’ve finally worked my way through Jared Tendler’s new book “The Mental Game of Poker” (TMGP), and I am excited to say that this book is an absolute MUST READ for anyone who takes poker seriously.  Casual players and players who play just for fun need not read this because its not a book that you just read, it requires much thought and effort aside from simply reading the book.  It took me about a month to work my way through it and to really think critically about the many leaks that I have in my mental game.  So finally, I thought it appropriate to take some time to write up a little review of this book because I believe it to be very unique in that it is really the first of its kind.  Or at least, it is the first of its kind that I have read.

Let me start by saying that I ordered this book around the middle of April when it first came out, and after a shipping mixup that delayed delivery of the book for about 2 weeks, Jared was kind enough to personally sign a copy for me and mail it himself.  Very cool and very professional!

I was a little leery and skeptical about even ordering the book in the first place because the only other “mental game” book that I have read before this was “The Poker Mindset” (TPM) by Matthew Hilger and Ian Taylor.  I read TPM several years ago back in ’07 when I was deployed to Iraq, and TPM is really the one and only book that I have relied upon over the past 4 years to understand how I should be thinking about the big picture as a poker player.  I dabbled from time to time with some of the Alan Schoonmaker books on psychology and your worst enemy, but I found these books to be not up to par with TPM.  Therefore, when I had bad runs, I would routinely reflect back on TPM to get my head straight.  So when TMGP came out in late April, I ordered it for 2 reasons: 1, it was post Black Friday, and I felt that since I couldn’t play online, I would try to learn as much as I could and really make an honest effort at improving my live game, and 2, I heard Jared talk about some of his tilt concepts on the Cardrunners podcast “Cash Plays” a few times, and his chats about tilt intrigued me.  Right as Black Friday occurred, I was in the middle of probably my worst online downswing, as documented in this blog, so this also caused me to have some interest in TMGP.  Unfortunately, the timing of Jared’s book being released just after Black Friday is absolutely terrible, as I believe if it came out a year or even 6 months ago, most online grinders would have got their hands on it and spread the word on how ground-breaking it is.  However, the timing of TMGP’s release really was perfect for me!

Once I got the book and started reading, I was immediately overwhelmed with the amount of information and the amount of effort it would take me to get through it.  I really did not know where to begin, so I resolved to reading it through from cover to cover and to complete every exercise along the way about some of the mental flaws that I have.  After doing this, or really after reading the first 4 chapters, I soon realized that this is not a book to read just 1 time.  It is a book that I will have to read again and again as well as reference the different exercises when I am experiencing the different mental game lapses that I experience.

In the book, the first 4 chapters lay the foundation for consistent learning and self development, and then it gets into what Jared calls the 4 central areas of every poker player’s mental game: tilt, fear, motivation, and confidence.  I think that the main source of marketing for this book came directly from Jared’s chapter on tilt where he is really the first to break tilt down and divide it into 7 separate types of tilt: Running Bad Tilt, Injustice Tilt, Hate-Losing Tilt, Mistake Tilt, Entitlement Tilt, Revenge Tilt, and Desparation Tilt.  This chapter definitely intrigued me about the book because at times, I often experience all 7 kinds of tilt.  However, the chapters on Fear and Motivation really struck me personally as important to my development as well.  I have benefitted mostly from these 2 chapters in the short term because I am applying the concepts learned in the fear chapter when to go down to the casino to play live, and I have been surprising motivated more and more about poker with every day since Black Friday.

One thing that Jared stresses throughout the book is the importance of writing and keeping notes/stats about poker.  When I used to grind online, this “light content” blog is literally all the writing I did because I had HEM to rely on to keep all my stats.  Well, now that I play live about twice a week, I don’t have that anymore.  So I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of all my live results, stats, notes, and critiques.  I’ve also been typing out all of the mental exercises that Jared recommends in the book.  One thing that I kind of developed from some of the examples in the book is that in my spreadsheed, I am now assigning my performance a score from 1-10 for each session on how well I do in the following areas: tilt, fear, total mental score, and strategic score.  While my results are still varying (over of course a very small sample), I will say that this exercise is extremely useful because it gets me thinking about my performance and allows me to learn from it.

There’s just something about using this book that kind of hits home with me because as I read the book, Jared describes many situations that make me say to myself “Wow, this really applies to me” or “Wow, I’ve been there before many times.”  I think that overall, this is a book that is going to really help me in the long term to get my head straight while I can’t play online.  I have not heard of these concepts anywhere else before, and I truly believe that when the time comes for online poker to be legal again, I will have the right mindset from the start to maximize my performance.  Again, I recommend this book to anyone, and I welcome any questions that anyone might have about my experience with the book.

Until next time,

– “Formerly” 6 Deuce Suited

 

 

 

Ace High Call

I would never post this in the BBV forums, so I thought I’d write about this brag here.  As I said before, I’ve played 1/3 down at the casino several times now since Black Friday, and overall I’m happy with my play.  A few nights ago, the following hand came up.  I was playing for several hours at what was your typical loose/passive live table, and I really wasn’t getting much of anything for cards.  I had managed to double my stack though just by gradually chipping away at small pots, nothing big.  The only other formidable player at the table was an aggressive young guy who was also an internet player.  Over the course of 3 hours, I saw him blast off at least 1 buy in, and he was steaming pretty badly and iso-raising weak players at just about every opportunity. 

So in this particular hand, there was 1 limper in EP, and he iso-raised the limper from MP with a larger than usual iso-raise – I believe he made it like $22 or $23.  Everyone folds around to me, and I wake up in the BB with AsKc.  Naturally, I 3bet, but I made the mistake of 3betting him pretty large.  I’m not sure if it is that bad of a mistake, but I remember making it about $78 to go.  (Effective stacks were about $350 and I have him covered)  He tanks for a moment or 2 and then flats me.  Flop comes down: Ts 7s 2d.    With the pot at about $160ish, I bet out $110.  He immediately stacks his chips, calls the $110, and goes all in for $183 more.  As he does this, he makes a comment something to the effect of: “Well, I’m doing this because I know you have Aces or Kings, All-In.”  After he does this, I immediately announce “Nope, I have AK, man”, and then I think for a moment or 2.  Decision time. 

So let’s break this down.  He’s a good, solid, internet player, but he is tilting.  Obviously, when he calls my 3bet, I think his range is pretty wide because he’s playing most pots.  The top of his range here is QQ and JJ, IMO.  I don’t think he does this with a set of tens or sevens, and I definitely don’t think he does it with a smaller pair like 99 or 88.  However, the board has 2 spades, but I have the Ace of Spades.  So I sat there for about 3-4 minutes, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that he had a flush draw, perhaps QJs, J9s, or unfortunately 98s.  I just did not think that there was much of a chance that he was doing this with QQ or JJ because it seems more likely that he’d flat me with those hands.  Plus, I was also thinking to myself, even if at worst he does have QQ or JJ, I might even be priced in anyway.  Probably not, but it could be close enough. 

So as I sat there contemplating, me gives me the classic live comment: “I’ll show you if you fold.”  At the time, I honestly didn’t even consider his comments, but in hindsight, I should have.  Anyway, after about 5 minutes or so, I was convinced that he had a flush draw, and I was slightly ahead or slightly behind his range.  So I called…………  As I expected, he immediately says, good call and tables the Js6s!!!  J6s….Really???  Wow, great call!  Thank god the turn and river bricked, and I raked a $700 pot with Ace High!  The table was stunned that I called, and a couple hands later, I folded a TP hand face up on the river to another player’s flush, and I got comments from the guy next to me saying: “How can you fold a pair but call that much with Ace high?”  Hahaha.  All I could do was shrug and say that I was ahead of his range. 

Looking back, it was a great call and all, but there are  lessons to be learned: 1 – Don’t bloat the pot against a full stack.  2 – Take into consideration some of the table talk and comments!  I remember a hand I played at Bellagio back in February where it was a similar situation, but I folded my AK high, and the villain was nice enough to show me an OESD.  In this same hand, the villain told me “I’ll show you if you fold” while I was tanking as well.  I’m not saying that this phrase is a “say all do all” phrase or anything, but I should at least start to consider these things while making decisions.  I never consider this stuff online because I ignore chat boxes. 

Well, that’s all I have for now.  I’ll continue to share interesting hands that I play down at the Rivers – which is surprisingly a great casino and poker room, btw.

Good Times

I got a flat tire this morning on my way to work, so I’m sitting here in Starbucks typing this Blog instead of sitting at work – fun times.  I’m also sitting here reflecting and just thinking about how happy I am that we finally hunted down that scumbag, Bin Laden.  I have kind of a guilty feeling sitting here being extremely happy that this dirtbag is dead, but then again I know I shouldn’t feel bad at all because he was responsible for so much death himself.  However, after browsing different opinions and rants about this on sites like FaceBook and Twitter this morning, I saw a couple interesting opinions that have made me skeptical of what will happen in the coming year. 

One such opinion led me to believe that even though most of America feels great about this death today (myself included!), I’m wondering if the after effect of Bin Laden’s death is just going to cause more problems?  By more problems, I don’t necessarily mean more violence, but I think it gives the impression to the general public that the wars on terror are over and that the troops will be coming home.  This is simply not the case, as any of my military friends will agree.  The wars are going to go on, they may or may not become more violent, and the US will continue to dump billions and billions into these efforts.  I kind of stole this following thought from something I read this morning, but I think it is very true: “Americans get excited about news like this, but we are simply numb to the slow bleed that is to come.”  Again, I am the first one to jump up and down and get excited about this, but I’m aware of the problems facing this country over the past decade.  Let’s just hope that somehow things get better instead of continually becoming slowly worse.  Part of this “slow bleed” is the soldiers that will inevitably get killed this week, next week, next month, and next year.  The “slow bleed” will continue folks – let’s hope we can endure it with minimal damage. 

Well, I rambled a little there, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not fully educated on the topic even though I served in these wars.  We’ll see what happens.  Anyway, onto a topic that I know a lttle bit about……

I’m also sitting here in anticipation of receiving an email from Full Tilt – hopefully sometime today – hopefully saying that US players can finally cash out their accounts.  I’ve listened to all the podcasts and radio shows in the poker media over the past 2 weeks, and I am confident that I will get to cash out my money here very shortly.  However, I’ll feel much better once I click that cashout button!  I’ll hopefully blog more in depth about what my thoughts are going forward for online poker, but I will say that I do think it will be regulated and taxed in the US in the near future.  I obviously don’t agree with the government one bit on how it tries to “legislate morality,” but the government made up for it a little bit today with the news on Bin Laden!  haha. 

Hopefully, the government can get its act together and realize that it can actually  make some money off of online poker as tax revenue instead of prohibiting it and trying to tell Americans that they cannot play online.  Guess what boys, I am still playing online right now, you didn’t stop anything!  You actually made it less safe for me to play online because the site that I am playing at now is much less secure than Tilt or Stars!  Anyway, I’m not saying that taxing online poker will fix the national defecit, but an extra $5-$10 billion in revenue sure wouldn’t hurt. 

Oh well, this is like anything else in life, and hopefully I’ll be able to learn from it and make myself a stronger player from it.  I’ve been down to the casino 3 times since Black Friday with successful results, and I’ve learned a great deal from these sessions.  I’m going to focus on some mental aspects of my game in the near future, and I’d also like to get some experience playing PLO live at the casino.  I can tell that PLO is quickly becoming bigger and bigger down there, and I want to get in on this action. 

Well, the car shop just called, and my car is ready to go.  Thank God I’ve been driving around with a spare tire in my trunk.  It’s good to be prepared……

US Government Crackdown on Online Poker

I’ll be sharing my thoughts on this hypocritical government crackdown on online poker in the coming days, weeks, and months once I calm down about it and collect my thoughts.  As a wise man once told me: “Calmer heads prevail.”  Unfortunately, right now (and quite often), I do not have the calm head necessary to share any good solid thoughts on what happened, what it means, and what will happen. 

All I can say right now is that if you are a poker player, you should feel obliged to visit the following link and support the cause.  Even if you are not a poker player, take a look at the following link as it supports the basic human and American freedom of choice: http://theppa.org/takeaction/

Red Line

Well, it’s mid-April, and I’m still running like hell with an EV-adj of $441 and total winnings of -$1951.  Just slightly under $2500 EV, which is horrendous over 18.6K hands.  However, after a solid database review tonight, DR helped me to identify a key way to mitigate the suckout fest by focusing on my Red Line winnings.  I can’t affect my Showdown winnings right now as that will come with volume, but what I can do is take measures to affect my Non-Showdown winnings. 

So we took a look at my Red Line over the past 2 weeks, and just as suspected, I’ve been bleeding money at a higher rate than what I should at around -$2K.  So I really focused on that tonight as I played my session, and I played 1K hands with Red Line winnings of right around $0, which is outstanding!  Going forward, this will be my focus right now – just be more aggressive and play well in small pots until the negative EV straightens itself out over a larger and larger sample size. 

HAHA – unfortunately, I did manage to lose AA to AKs PF for stacks tonight!  So no luck changing EV yet.  However, I did grind out a solid profit tonight, so hopefully I can keep the momentum into my 3 day weekend as I play a ton of hands. 

On a side note, life ain’t so bad sometimes, as I do occasionally get my share of lovely suckouts, just not in All in situations.  Enjoy:

http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/session/304262/replay/

Highs and Lows of March

So I’m only supposed to make Blog posts when I do good in poker, right?  Well, at least i’d like to only do that.  Unfortunately, I can’t do that now because March was a little rough to say the least.  I know it’s terribly brutal and corny to use this phrase (and anyone can feel free to berate me for doing so), but March for me came in like a lion and out like a lamb.  I’m honestly on one of the worst 2 week swings that I’ve ever been on right now.  I started out March up over 10 buy ins and ended down about 2 overall.  See below:

The good news is that my stats are improving with coaching right now as I’m running 15/11/3.1, which is much much better.  Also, the better news (err maybe not better news) is that during March, I managed to run at a horrific EV$ Adjusted rate of $2278.14 while losing $282.40 total!!!!  For those that don’t understand this, the EV$ Adjusted stat means that this is the dollar amount that I should have won based on my equity in All-In pots with 1 or 2, or all 5 cards to come.  Since I lost about $282 this month, add that amount to the $2278, and I ran about $2500 under what was expected!!!  Absolutely brutal. 

Anyways, I could share some bad beats here (including a 1 outer!), but I will resist the urge to complain!  In all reality, I’m happy with my play in March, and I’m looking forward to running good for a change!  The key right now is to not tilt and just understand that variance is a big part of the game, and I will overcome variance with one thing and one thing only – more volume.

Am I a NIT? Apparently…

So it’s been almost 3 months since my last blog post.  I always vow to update this more regularly, but then life seems to catch up and the blog among other things become forgotten – ho hum.  Perhaps by posting a few days before the end of the month, this may serve as a reminder to post my March results here in a couple days.  I haven’t looked yet, but I anticipate my March graph to look very, umm, jagged, as in many ups and many downs.  I know that I started the month off on an absolute tear, and I also had about a 6 buy in live score early in the month, but then I underwent an unfortunate mid-month crisis.  Anyway, I digress – I’ll write about this more in the next couple of days. 

So this week I finally started getting coached once again by none other than trustworthy FTP FR guru Eric “DamnRinger” Burtzlaff.  It’s been about 8 months or so since he coached me last, and it’s absolutely unbelievable how my game literally backtracked during that time despite the fact that I was a consistent winner.  We analyzed my play since the start of the new year, and I’m embarassed to say that my stat line looked something like this: 15/10/2.0 with a 24% steal% and 50% Cbet% over about 58K hands.  Absolutely Pathetic!  What a NIT! 

That being said, it’s obvious that Eric had me work on 3 specific things this week: 1) Increase my Steal pct – especially from the BTN, 2) Increase my Cbet pct, 3) Stop flatting with all suited connectors, and 4) Fold to 3bets more and do less 4bet bluffing.  So far this week so good after 5.3k hands: 14/11/4.3, with a steal of 31% and a Cbet of 69%.  This is not where I need to be yet, but it’s much more solid.  The unfortunate things is that i can’t win a flip to save my life this week as I’m only up 2 buy ins playing like that.  But whoa is me, I refuse to tell bad beat stories on this blog. 

Next coaching session is this Wednesday.  Maybe I’ll win a flip before then and have some profit to show for my strategic changes in my game! 

March graph coming in a couple of days!

December Results

It’s always nice to see a 45 degree angle on my poker graph for the month (with the small exception of Dec 31st, of course).  Like November, I didn’t miss a beat as I cashed in 20 buy ins over 23K hands at 8.55 bb/100.  Again, this is nothing more than simply solid play at 14/10 without trying to get fancy, just like last month. 

Unfortunately, I have continued that bad day on Dec 31st into the new year, and I am currently down about 5 buy ins to start January.  However, I think this is a result of watching a few videos and actively trying to increase some of my stats.  My PFR, 3bet, and 4bet numbers are all up over these past few days, so I’ll try to tone it down a little and grind out a nice month. 

Hopefully I’ll be able to document a nice comeback over the rest of the month.  Check back in February to see!