still alive

i don't even remember what i posted about last ... here's what has been going on in a nutshell.

towards the end of last month i took a 3.5k downswing at 400NL and it tilted me to all end. i didn't play for about a week.

and came back at 200NL and did really well, and i was happy again. i started to get bored though. this caused less play and another downswing, which was around 15 BI's.

i won back 11.5 BI's today and got my head on straight, just need to keep working hard. i've started to play 5 or 6 cash tables and then have 1 or 2 mtt's running to help me get out of the cash grind boredom. of course i'd rather just grind out 10-12 cash tables for the best hourly rate, but i'm starting to realize that this isn't going to be possible month after month.

playing the mtt's on the side with a few cash games is still a decent hourly rate and it helps me stay sane, which is important.

i cashed out 5.5k and am planning to lease a car in the next week or two. getting money offline is a huge pain in the ass and FT should be shot for it, but whatever. i'm using the ULTRA thing ... baically what i do is withdrawal money to that account from FT which takes a few hours, and then i do a wire transfer from ULTRA to my bank account, which takes 10-15 business days (ughhhhh).

if i make fairly constant, or at least consistent, withdrawals i should still have a steady flow of money coming in though, so i guess it's only annoying when you start taking it out. in a month everything will be fine and i'll be happy and not stressed. right now i'm quite stressed though and i don't like it.

rawr.

i think i'm going to start playing a lot again like i did last month so i should also post here more often, like last month. weird how those go hand in hand. going to the gym for now, ok bye!

5 figures much?

yea, it happened. i didn't think it would happen this quick, i'm pretty excited. the sick part is that if i sustain how i've been playing, which i think is very achievable, i should have a brand new car by october! i'll go over all my money projections for the next few months as well as some updated ideas for stakes and what i'll be doing in the world of poker. here's the picture of course, i was crazy deep on a few tables as you can see :



so let's take a look at some winrates and see when i should be expecting a car. my hourly rate is at $220 over my first 20k hands at 200NL. we'll just round it and say i can expect 1 BI/hr, or $200. i'm at 11k now and i need 32k ... so 21k. that would take 105 hours at 200NL, less at 400NL obviously. seeing as my goal is 100 hours/month i should be going to look at a car at the end of next month!

as far as stakes, here's how i think it will go. we'll say i have another 30-35 hours to put in this month (which i'm going to stay at 200NL for) which should yield 6-7k more. that puts my roll at 17 or 18k. i'm not going to bother withdrawing because it's a pain in the ass. once i hit that 32k mark in september sometime i'll be doing a wire transfer for 2ok, leaving 12k in my account so i'm still sufficiently rolled for 400NL (which i should be playing at that point).

with this 20k i intend to put most of it as a down payment on my cat (most likely a VW GLI, but i guess it could change). probably something like 17k and finance to pay it off in a year. i'll throw the other 3k in the bank, save it for london i guess? idk, just nice to have money not locked up online.

i just got tired all of a sudden and don't have much else to say. that's how the next month looks for me though. if all goes according to plan i will be extremely excited come the end of next month! like always i'll keep updates coming, probably one later tomorrow after i see how i did on the 2p2 weekly 200NL list. i know it doesn't mean shit, but it's kind of cool i guess.

-geoff

11-0-1

that would be the official beer pong record over the last two times i've played with ian. we were 8-0 the first night, and then 3-0-1 the next day. the 1 tie came about because chels somehow made the rebuddle (pretty sure it was the first cup she made the whole night lol) and so we started to set up for overtime but then we got distracted by chicken dinosaurs and were way too high/drunk to care about playing anymore. notice the nice run-on sentence there? it was to paint the mood of being to drunk to care; i'm such a talented writer.

that was really all i wanted to say. here's a quick tangent: FUCKING FTP CANCELED CASH PICKUP SO THERE IS NO GOOD WAY TO WITHDRAW MONIES FROM MY ACCOUNT SO I'M STUCK PAYING ALL MY BILLS WITH ISLANDS MONEY WTF?!

i think the goal is to wait until i can cash out 20k through a wire transfer because all the other ways to withdrawal are a huge pain in the ass. i would want to have 10k left in my account, so i would do this at 30k total. i'm at 6.4 now, so i need to make 23.6k before i can get money. this 20k would go towards a car (10-15k ... depends what i'm in the mood for. i'll start shopping when my account hits around 25k because at that point 5k shouldn't take that much to make). with the rest i would probably get a nice TV and a ps3/xbox 360 or something of that nature. that all depends on the price of the car though.

nothing much to report other than that. 200NL is going nice, had another 4 figure session! i also increased my max tables on FT to 16 ... i'm going to experiment cascading 12 tables and see how that goes. back in the day on stars i was 18-20 tabling 25NL full ring, that's not quite that same as 200NL 6max though. i think being able to 10-12 table 200NL 6max isn't unreasonable though, maybe i'll be godlike at it and manage 16 but i doubts it. this should do wonders for my hourly though. i would be perfectly happy beating the game for 3PTBB/100 if i was seeing 1300 hands/hour ( 156/hour ... pretty sick job imo). oh yea, i'm like 6k hands through my bet with kidlover and i'm running just under 3PTBB/100, pretty bad. the bet is so small i could really care less either way though, i'll just feel gay if i lose. hopefully my last 4k hands i do some damage.

-geoff

i'm still alive -- 4 figure session!

been a bit since my last blog, i've meant to write another but just haven't got around to it. there were a few things i wanted to go on about that i touched on over at the forums, i'll go more in depth and indulge my OCD personality over here.

first off, new favorite song is 'time to pretend' by MGMT. i'm into the electronic rock crap right now, if anyone knows any good stuff like that let me know.

about poker, i guess i'll start with the last question in chappers thread over on CP, "what would you like to improve on in the 6 months of poker?". i think to always have a plan as far as what you work on is very important because with out goals it's very easy to become unmotivated and just not care that much. when i really thought about this here's what i came up with.

the most important thing i believe i need to work on is losing my ego as far as poker goes. nobody cares that i'm good at poker. i don't get some special medal if everyone hears about my greatness and how i own people's souls online. honestly, staying under the radar is preferable. i would very much like to not be known as a reg. it was cool to be on the 2p2 list that one week, but when you think about it i'd much rather just not be listed and have people think i'm just some random gambler.

if i truly want to take on this game as my profession for any portion of my life i have to treat it like one. it's not just some holiday from reality where i get to play around with lots of money, it's what i do. don't get me wrong, i still want to enjoy what i do. i love poker and i don't see that changing for a long time, that's why i really want to make this work. isn't that what everyone wants, to do what they love? i just need to realize that i'm very lucky to have found something i'm so passionate about and that i'm actually good at and have a chance at pursuing for a career.

this somewhat leads into my next little thing which has to do with staying motivated. i set up a (rather small) prob bet with someone over at CP for winrate over the next 10k hands. i'll be playing these hands at 200NL which i think will help me to focus a lot on my game because i want to win that bet strictly from a completive stand point, i could care less about the 25 dollars. if i just run fairly standard, which i consdider ~1 BI / 1k hands, i would be rolled for 2/4 at the end of these 10k hands (i don't think i'd take a shot right away though).

my choice to jump up to 200NL was based on two things. the first reason is i like making more money, obviously. i know i'm +EV at 200NL, why not play it? my bankroll is plenty big enough, if i run bad i can just jump down to 100NL again and crush the hell out of it. as long as i don't start taking shots with like 15BI like i did between 25NL-50NL and 50NL-100NL i should be fine. from what i've read around different forums the jump from 100NL to 200NL is the most significant change as far as evolving play. the jump from 200NL-400NL is more aggressive, but really not THAT much different.

the second reason to this was that, even though i have nothing but time and don't need to rush things, this doesn't also mean that i need to hinder things simply for the sake of taking my time. yea, it doesn't matter if i'm not playing 5/10 for another year. i would be fine with that and the world would keep revolving. there's also nothing wrong with putting in a lot of hands, continuing to move up stakes rapidly, and be playing 1KNL in a few months as a regular. as long as i'm taking money out monthly to help pay for expenses and to remind me why i play poker and not just bloating my bankroll and i'm strict to staying with the 20 BI take a shot method and dropping down if i lose 5 BI nothing bad can happen.

that said, my 200NL shot went extremely well. i stayed up all night and played a 5 hr session logging just under 3k hands. this resulted in a +5BI session, or $1,006. this is officially my first 4 figure session (and day even!) online and it just seems like a nice little milestone for me. here's my results for the month of august so far:



i should get the 10k hands down from the prop bet fairly quickly. it'll probably take less than a week, but we'll see. i'll probably wait until after that to post again. hopefully nobody flips the doomswitch over at FT, i enjoy running like this.

i feel like i'm forgetting to write about something, but whatever. if it's that important i'll remember it and write about it in a few days after my 10k hands.

-geoff

can't sleep -- corey snores a lot

my sleep schedule is absolutely horrible. i went to the gym late sunday and then slept for like 8+ hours which was amazing, then went to wild rivers/pool all day monday. i came home and took a 4-5 hour nap after that, went and got food with jess and then haven't been able to fall asleep. im starting to yawn and get a little tired, but i have work in 4 hours so i don't really want to go to sleep and then have to wake up and get all ready.

the book Professional No Limit Hold 'Em is putting me on life tilt. i've been reading it the past few days and most of what it says has been decent, nothing i don't already implement in my game though.

the beginning preaches what they like to call the 'REM' process, which stands for Range Equity Maximize. it's as basic as it sounds, i suppose if you were relatively new to the game and didn't really know how to approach NLHE cash games it would be useful, but i've pretty well got the basics down on assigning hand ranges and maximizing my equity against those ranges. here comes the part that tilted me.

the next chapter began to talk about commitment issues and making sure you have a plan in a hand as far as whether you want to get committed or not. while this is excellent advice it as also something i'm very well aware of and implement as well. in this section they give an example which i find absolutely absurd; it goes as follows:

"you have KK in mp in a 10 handed 2/5 NL game. the game is playing fairly loose, especially preflop. effective stacks are 500. it's folded to you, what should you do?"

basic, i know. first they run through an example where you make a standard 3x raise to 15, get the BTN and BB to call. flop comes down T75r and you make a pot size cbet (which i don't agree with but whatever). the BTN floats you and the BB folds. the turn peels off a Q. now they pose the question what to do? they say that if you bet and get raised you have to fold because you shouldn't be going broke with just an overpair in this spot and if you c/c you're making a mistake because then you're just setting yourself up to call off a big bet on the river which isn't a good idea for some reason. so they pretty much conclude that by opening KK for a standard amount and then making a cbet at a fairly dry flop you creating a difficult spot at 100BB. basically this whole explanation tilts me because i really don't agree with any of it, BUT IT GETS WORSE!

they run through the hand again, asking what you could do differently to make the hand play easier for us. the magical solution is to not open 3x preflop, but to 6x so that the stack sizes postflop aren't so awkward when you flop an overpair (which is obviously the most likely case with KK). they don't say raise to 6x because the game is loose or because that's a standard raise in this game, they simply advocate it because it makes it easier to play KK as an overpair OOP. WTF!? so varying your bet sizing preflop based on the type/strength of your hand is now a winning strategy?

like i said, the REM thing is a good, basic way to get people to start thinking about hands the way they should as well as the commitment issues that people should be thinking about instead of blindly throwing money into the pot because "i have TPTK, my hand is good", but the KK example has to be the worst thing i have ever seen. i'll probably end up finishing the book just out of curiosity and i guess i would still recommend it to someone new because it does a nice job of explaining the way you should look at hands, but just don't take everything you read in poker books to be good advice.

as far as how i've been running, i've cooled off a bit but i'm certainly still doing fine. if i had to guess i'd say i've been running at something like 5-6 BB/100 instead of like 10-20 so it's still very good. oh yea, i made the list on 2p2 as well. of course the datamine was missing like 2k hands and had my profits 700 lower than they really are, but whatever. being +1700 is amazing though, i'd be happy with half of that. hell, i'd be happy if that was my monthly on top of rakeback.

FT is still down for updates, hence i'm not playing. i think i'm going to run and get a bagel because the one i had yesterday was freaking amazing, and by the time i get back games should be running and i'll have a session before work.

one last little thing, looking into possibly moving my bankroll around different places. i know UB is supposed to be fairly good and they have 30% rakeback, but the VIP system at stars is also very nice. if i just played half my time at stars i would be getting platinum level, and thus supernova for the yearly thing (although i wouldn't be able to get it this year obviously, it's much too late). all the packages they offer on stars are amazing compared to the store at FT. saving up for a trip to an EPT would be well worth it imo, so i'm seriously considering splitting up my roll when i move to 200NL and playing half the time on stars. i really don't think the game is any less soft over there.

anyways, enough nonsense. bagel time, i is a hungry bear. hopefully i have another +1700 week (or more!).

-geoff

august ownage ...

haha, well this didn't take long. i guess my account really liked the new 1000th digit :)



and here's the graph bitches:



god i love table tracker, i never sit a bad table now. hence i take all kinds of LAGfish spew-monkies who sit at the deep tables for the full 200BB stacks.

funny story, i went to morongo today and took such a sick beat. i just played 1/3 for fun and ended up playing 2 hands. first hand i played was after a few orbits. i was on the button and had two limpers in front of me who were very weak and always limped, i made it 19 OTB and both limpers call. flop is K92 R, they both c/f to my cbet of 55. oh, btw, starting stack is 100 here :) so i committed 78% of my stack on bluff, i am an all-star.

second hand there are a bunch of limps, i complete the sb with A9s and BB checks. flop is AA9. checks to UTG+1 limper who bets 6, MP makes it 15, i flat the 15 with 105 behind. UTG+1 calls. turn is a J. i check, UTG+1 checks, MP tries to look weak and bets 20. at this point i know he has an ace and i go ahead and shove for my last 105, UTG+1 folds and MP snaps with AJ.

for some reason i'm feeling really emo right now and i don't know why. if i bring up wanting to talk about jess to anybody tell me no, i guarantee you don't want to hear it. idk why i'm being like this and i don't like it one bit, i'm sure i'll snap out of it.

i'm going to go fall asleep to harry potter 3 now like i did the other day. maybe i'll actually finish watching it tomorrow.

-geoff

$4,003.15 for a moment

i just hit 4k ... wheeee. always like making that big number change, but it didn't stay for long. i had told myself 4k was my goal to hit by august (and i kind of did it, only 90 minutes off) and then i would withdrawal 1k for the month ($1003.15 to be exact, i wanted my account to be a round 3k. i know i'm weird). i plan to use this money as follows:

600 for credit card -- (i'm late one payment for like a week and the bank has been calling me non-stop, i feel like ian.) btw, little bit of a tangent, but it applies. since i'm planning on withdrawing money from poker to pay for bills, i'm just going to start paying for my gas on my credit card and then pay 600/mo towards credit. this just makes gas easier and that way i take care of gas/cc debt with one stone.

200 for insurance -- i might as well just get it out of the way.

75ish for javier's -- yes, we're finally going. and we will not end up in dana point, we will not end up at another javier's, we are going to the javier's in laguna beach that i looked up on mapquest and then didn't exist. i'm finding that damn building and eating a meal there with that girl, period.

so i guess that leaves 125 to do with whatever, savings i suppose. yea, that sounds good. 125 goes into savings.

here's a graph of how the last few days have gone, i had a pretty good sized downswing but then bounced back from it the next day. it felt nice to be able to shake that off and just come back that much more motivated instead of just being in a losing mood and continuing to play like shit.



other than that nothing exciting. plan to play a lot this month, put in 45-50k hands hopefully and make some good money. if everything goes according to plan my roll should be close to 6-7k by september at the least.

if i play a lot that should in turn mean i have more regular updates on here about how i've been doing, so let's hope that's true. really going to try and kick it into gear for the rest of the week and see if i can get on the 2+2 100NL weekly list ... i should have been on it last week i have no idea how i didn't. i wouldn't even have been close to the bottom, i was top20 i believe. i guess he doesn't datamine much in the middle of the night for PST. anyways, that's about it. post back here later this week.

-geoff

hand review

i've been running really hot recently, but i just played a session the other day where i felt like i was tilting towards the end. i did quit, but i just wanted to review the hands from it to make sure i'm happy with my play and to see if the tilt effected me before i noticed it. there's only like 1k hands so there shouldn't be too many to talk about, here we go. btw, i'm reviewing the hands in order that way i can see if i did start to tilt at a certain point.

24o - i still really like how i played this hand. i think the flop raise is super standard because he is still calling with any decent J or any kind of draw. on the turn i think i still need to keep betting to get value out of the FD and i think i'm still getting called by like JQ type hands. on the river, i almost checked it, but i just couldn't see anything in his range that had me beat. another 2 pair hand didn't make sense in his UTG range on that board, and sets or slow-played over pairs would have gave some action at this point. pretty lame that he limps 56s UTG and then got runner runner 2 pair.

AQo - ok, this hand is spew. jesus this is dumb. pre is standard, i don't like 3betting with AQo v a standard TAG's UTG range. at 100NL i'm not worried about getting squeezed by many people. on the flop, i bet because so many regs just see flops like this and just tell themselves "my cbet won't get any credit, he'll just bluff raise or float me" and they go into c/f mode. when a semi-thinking reg c/c on this board and then decides to lead though it's generally some sort of strength and the bluff raise on the turn was just silly imo.

KQs - this hand was super standard. villain was a complete spaz and i think shoving if i got ANY piece of the flop is +EV against him. obviously when he shows down a 3bet K2s from the SB and the b/c AI on the AKQ flop my point is proven.

QTs - i remember this hand pissing me off a bit. on the flop i took a while debating whether to semi-bluff or just call and see how the hand progresses. i decided on calling because our stack depth was deep enough to where he could have been planning a bet/3bet and forced me to fold (or even if he 3bet small enough to give me odds to draw i wouldn't be thrilled getting this much in that quickly). obviously the turn is gin, i took a bit deciding on my bet sizing and he basically snap called which screamed set to me. i said something like "you have to be fucking kidding" when the river hit, and then something about the same when he donked it. if he had made a reasonable bet i think i would have had a pretty easy fold here, but getting 5:1 i would be an idiot to fold. after seeing his hand i was pretty amazed because i had thought this player was decent before this hand but he played it pretty horribly.

K4o - the hand literally right before this i had caused villain to make a big fold and he asked me in chat what i had and i told him 27. this little chat is what made me decide to just call the raise on the flop. i thought a lot of his range here was air bluffs and he was still all annoyed and would barrel off the turn as well. he did, but obviously the money was getting in one way or another anyhoo. don't slow-play them aces boys.

KK - standard, titled me a bit though.

JTs - and here's what i was looking for, this hand is tilt related from the KK hand before. pre is marginal at best, i can easily muck this. the flop i don't hate, A hi boards are generally good to c/r bluff on. the thing is, when i get called on this i really shouldn't be barreling off on the off-suit 9. also, when i do decide to barrel off the turn i think that kind of commits me to 3 barrel bluffing the river. i think all set/2 pair combos pop me on the turn because the 9 just puts even more draws out there that you need to protect against. i think the only real hand i'm getting called by is AK on the river, and i think he probably even raises AK on the turn (or 3bets the flop) so i think i will be taking this pot down quite often with a 3 barrel. so i should have either given up after he called the flop c/r or committed to barreling off the river when the board runs that well.

KJo - another super standard hand. villain was a huge station (as you can see by what he shows down) so to not be potting it after he calls the flop would just be stupid. it's nice to get paid off this easily.

KK - tilllllt. same retarded villain as the hand above. because he was sitting on a half stack i decided to just flat the 3bet and jam any flop instead of 4betting. obv he hit a 3 outer because he's really good at this game.

AQo - idk what i think about this hand. pre is standard, flop is standard. i think i remember having a read that this player was just stupid and bluffy so turn is fine. i decided to donk pot on the river because i didn't think he was ever bluffing in this spot and the only hand he VB's is a split, so i might as well try to look bluffy and hope he does something stupid. it's nice when shit works out the way you want it.

JJ - watch me lose a race ... this villain was super aggro pre so this is standard imo.

JJ - better result than last time. i don't remember why i chose to flat from the SB here, he must have been pretty tight. i still don't really like doing this, but i'm sure i had my reasons. flatting JJ in the sb is certainly not tilt related at least. the rest of the hand is pretty standard, i love my turn bet sizing and his river fold made me laugh pretty hard.

KTo - i actually i'm quite fond of this hand as well. villain was pretty aggro and i had seen him flat 3bets and raise them enough that he had to be doing it light at times. i remember making up my mind that i was just going to go with a top pair type hand against this guy, and that's exactly what i did. something i want to mix into my game is 3bet shoving as a bluff against the right players, because there are some people that will literally bluff every OOP cbet and it is insanely profitable to just shove on them with a huge range.

77 - ughhh, this hand is pretty close. i should go stove it but i'm lazy so i'll just leave it at that. i do know that this player was an aggro reg and def could be raising a wider range because he knows i'm doing an iso raise, but whether he goes ahead and cbets air/AK AQ AJ KQ on this board is questionable. if i knew he would go ahead and cbet all those types of hands that he 3bet me with then i like this, but i just am not sure he does that and without those hands in his range this play is pretty weak. and yes i do know my hand is a bluff at this point.

KK - god this hand sucks today. villain was a huge station and was calling down so light here that i just stuck it in. i don't even think i played it poorly, although the river has to be close seeing as the A hit on the turn AND the FD got there, but it's close. this tilted the shit out of me and is when i decided to end the session.

so that's the session, my net was -210. i didn't do anything overly stupid this session, although there were a few spots i could clean up. this makes me feel better about my game though, i remember worrying that i was tilting to much during this session and also thinking that i was just running hot before and this is how i should normally run. not true though, i'm godlike and should win lots and lots of money. not quite, but i can dream.

-geoff

HAHA

and here we go ...

17k gtd on FTP -- 50+5 buy-in

blind 25/50
effective stacks around T2200

HERO dealt AKs in MP

HERO opens for 150, BUTTON insta 3bets pot to 525, folds to HERO who 4bets 1250, BUTTON insta calls.

FLOP: Q x x

HERO shoves extra 900 into 2500 pot, BUTTON insta calls with QKo ...

i had a read on button that he was terrible so i really had no qualms about committing my life 40BB deep with AKs, obviously i had the right read too.

lunch and movie now, MTT's are the stupidest fucking things ever.

BIG pot ... and other news

i can't sleep so i figured i'd just blog, i'll start it off with my new biggest online pot to date. i might as well analyze the hand while i'm at it, my thought process was semi-interesting.



so here it goes. preflop is pretty standard when we're this deep seeing how well my hand flops. on the flop i obviously flop the nuts and would bet my life on it.

he had checked to me twice after 3betting preflop and had c/r'd once and c/c'd once. my thinking was that this board was just too perfect for him to cbet if he didn't have a hand, so he must be planning to c/r a monster because he knows i'm betting 90%+ of my range when checked to. so when he does c/r me (like i knew he would do) i decide to 4bet and just try to get it in because i really didn't think he was ever doing this light.

i like the min 4bet because it allows him to spaz out on the off chance he was buffing and decided i was full of shit, which is exactly what happened. feels good to pick off a 300+BB bluff, doesn't happen too often.

the sad part about this session overall is i only ended up like 1.5 buy-ins. i started off playing 6max but i was getting cold decked and no action on my good hands and ended up dropping ~2 buyins and decided to see if i could find a good HU match. but hell, i shouldn't complain. i'm just happy i'm having winning sessions and doing well.

more exciting news ... I CAN WITHDRAWAL EASILY! full tilt added an option called "cash pick up". all you do is wait 24-48 hours for them to authorize it, then they email you a verification code. you take this verification code to any moneygram location and just show your ID and the code and they give you cash. best part is my bank is a moneygram place, so i just have to run to the bank and can just throw the money into the bank.

as soon as i found out this new thing i took out 600, hopefully it authorizes sometime tomorrow so i'll have the cash on thursday. once i get the money i'm going straight to IKEA to get all the crap for my "office". i told myself i want to shop around a bit more for the monitor, but come thursday i'm sure i'll be impatient and just go pick up the nicest 22" at best buy and be satisfied.

i'm hoping having a desk and comfortable chair will allow me to focus for longer periods of times because i just get sleepy laying in bed and start to lose focus after an hour even. so with the coming of my "office" i've started thinking about how much time i actually want to play per month because i'm already really motivated from doing well this month on top of finally getting my desk that i've been talking about for 2 months now. here's how i hope the next few months work out as far as poker/school/work.

august - i'm debating whether i want to talk to dar about skipping a semester of school or not. i really am motivated to go to school and get a degree, but in the scheme of things having 5 or 6 months to get settled into a routine with poker would be incredibly helpful.

i plan on just sticking to 100NL through august regardless of how i run, hopefully i can run up my bankroll because idk if i'll be comfortable taking a shot at 200NL with just 4k. i'm really going to buckle down and try to put in 25 hours/wk, which is just 5 hours a day 5 days a week. i'm thinking those days will be wed-sun because the weekends are the best times to play and i like having mondays free for wild rivers :) my rakeback would look something like $1750ish if i actually 4 tabled 100 hours. my average hnds/hr is at 381 x 100 = 38,100 hands at a very modest winrate of 3PTBB/100 would be $2,286.

so theoretically i could be looking at $4036 if i just play a solid game and grind out the minimum next month, it's a bit harder than just saying it though. but i will put in the time and effort and really try to make that a reality because have a 4k month would be absolutely amazing. we'll say that my bankroll will end at 3500 this month, it should be higher if i keep playing but who knows how i'll run. so, i hit my 4k next month and this puts my roll at 7500. i withdrawal 1400 for my credit and my roll is down 6100. i still have 30.5 BI for 200NL which is incredibly comfortable.

september - this is when i plan to take my big 200NL shot. to me 200NL is kind of the start of actually making a decent living playing poker. i'm not saying 4k a month is something to sneeze at for a 20 year old college student, but i could be living fairly well off of 3PTBB/100 at 200NL. at this point i may or may not be in school, i'm not sure. if i am in school i won't be able to be playing 100 hours/mo, but i'll for the sake of this we'll pretend dar is supportive and understands i'm not just bs'ing and really do want to go to school and let's me do my thing.

so my thinking is i would still stick with 100 hours this month as well, same schedule as last august. at 200NL if we run the same numbers we are making roughly $2,500 from rakeback and $4,572 from grinding out the 3PTBB. so now we're looking at a 7k month and putting our total bankroll at 11k (except a very happy/excited blog post if/when my roll hits 5 figures btw).

assuming i run decent and don't have to drop down and have a huge meltdown i plan on taking out around 1k a month to pay for all my expenses as well (insurance phone vikki food gas and other stuff). this applies for last month as well, i'll just be throwing all my islands money in the bank as well. actually my roll would be at around 9k after i took out 2k (1k per month).

october - i plan october to look a lot like august, just keep playing 200NL hopefully and grind out another winning month. we'll just go ahead and say i run normal again and make 7k, minus 1k for life, which would put my total bankroll at 15k. fun fun, if this all goes according to plan i will be a pretty happy person.

november - ok, so here's when i want to start kicking things into gear. assuming i've been at 200NL the last two months and been doing well and winning i want to start pushing it. not in a bad way, but i just want to start playing a bit more to make it more like a full time job (because i'm hoping this will replace islands by 2009). so this month i want to play 30 hours weeks instead of 25.

at 120 hours we're now looking at $3,200 from rakeback and $5,486 ... $8,686. not that much more money, but i just want to be playing as much as possible. if i feel like i'm burning myself out at this point i may bounce back down to the 100 hours, it'll just be a feel thing.

anyways, total bankroll would be looking at 15k + 7500 = 22.5k.

december - so this month is kind of it, if everything goes according to plan up until this month this will be my last month before i actually attempt to be a professional player. obviously i turn 21 this month so that is a big factor in it because i love playing live.

i want to play my 120 hour again and we'll add another 7500, so that makes 30k. now i have to decide what i want to do with some of this money, because there's really no reason to have 30k tied up in the bankroll.

first thing is first, i want my own car. i'm perfectly fine living at home for now and don't have a huge urge to get out of the house (although come this time i may change my mind about this). i would be willing to take out up to 15k for either a fat down payment on a new car or if a find something used i like that should be enough to just buy anything i would want straight up.

this would leave 15k online, i might decide i want to take some of this money out and play some live 2/5 either up at commerce or down at morongo a few days a week. i'm not 100% sure if i will do this now or wait a few more months, we'll see at the time.

anyways, assuming all has gone well to this point, i should have saved up a few grand from islands money as well. this money should suffice as backup for losing months and whatnot. if everything is going well at this point and i've been a winning 200NL player for 4 months i plan on putting in my 2 weeks at islands, registering for classes in the spring, and playing full time while going to school.

ugh, this all sounds so nice but making a plan and actually doing it are two different things. i mainly write all this just to show myself what i could actually achieve if i put the time into this though. poker is just so draining on me mentally and i need to be constantly reminding myself why i'm doing it and what my goals are. i guess that's what this blog is for, right?

so yea, there's my plan. whee. maybe i'll throw a girlfriend in there at some point as well ... idk whether to wait for her to bring up talking about us or to bring it up myself. she still says she's not sure what she wants, but to me it's pretty obvious she's just torn between what she wants and what she thinks she should do. the last thing i want to do is be pushy though because ultimately i just want her to be happy and not bring more stress on her while she's busy with school and getting ready for london and everything. i'll give it another week then bring it up again i guess.

i think that's all that's going on right now, i'll update again after i get my "office" set up.

-geoff

i'd do cristian bale

what? he's good looking. that's not really the point of this post though, although that movie was pretty cool. best part is when the joker is driving the semi and batman puts the cables under it so it flips over, so fucking cool. anyways, just wanted to post quick about my recent endeavor at 100NL HU.

been running pretty hot, here's the official word.



nothing really special i've been doing, although i did watch a CR vid to refresh before taking my little shot over the last few days. i think my biggest improvement was that i was TRYING to find bad players and not just sitting with whoever with the mentality that "i'm good enough to beat them, why not just play them?".

i realized that not playing someone does nothing to my pride and it says nothing negative about my game, if anything it says that i'm an intelligent player looker for the best edge i can get. before i took it as a shot to my ego if i couldn't run over someone, but that's just not the case. i could be the best NL player in the world, i would still have a VERY marginal edge of the 2nd best player.

i'm slowly starting to shed a bit of my ego, i felt like for a while i was trying to prove something by being good at poker, and like i should just be leaps and bounds better than anyone i play. that's just not going to be the case, i'm sure there are actually a handfull of players that ARE better than me at 100NL (although it is me, god i'm arrogant) :)

so yea, new mini-goal would be to keep up checking my ego at the door when i sit down to play because it's only going to get me into trouble. think i'm going to jump back to 6max and focus there for a bit, see how it goes.

bankroll is at 2450ish, which is actually really good. i'm up 281 total for the month over less than 9500 hands, the majority of which are at 50NL. pretty much all my winnings are from the 100NL HU though, i'm up 1 BI at 50NL 6max and down 2.5 at 100nL6max, down 4 at 50NL HU.

my long term goal was to play 200NL starting september i believe, so i'm well on track for that. i would really prefer to have 5k+ when i take my shot, not just the bare 20BI minimum that i want for shot taking. like i said earlier, i am in no rush to be a high roller. off for a 6max session, hopefully it doesn't go to shit :)

-geoff

just a quickie ...

just felt like posting before i put in a session, idk why. here it goes ...

working out: i managed to run enough to burn off 211 calories in 20 minutes (almost 2 miles) AFTER drinking ~2 1/2 beers half an hour earlier. this is really just a brag post, lol. i don't recommend it though, my tummy wasn't exceptionally happy.

personal life: lol, this is the last thing i want to think about right now. in a way it's going well, but it's taking a really weird path. it's confusing, spence knows all about it. i'm pretty sure she just needs/wants space for a little bit and i'm should be good at doing that because that's generally what i asked for from caroline, so yea. we'll figure out what's going on sometime next week hopefully.

poker: bankroll kept hitting around 2k, so i decided to take a shot at 100NL. first sessions didn't go so hot, down 2.5 buyins at 6max. it was just coolers though, ran AK into AA twice pre, got JJ in against AQ and it didn't hold and other stuff like that. played a little HU 100NL session as well and was up around 80 so not so bad. should have been more but i dropped a buy in like an idiot, should have only lost around 25 on the hand. hopefully i can keep up playing 100NL, idk what it is but i like it a lot better. i don't think it's my ego because shoving around $50 isn't anything to sneeze at, especially to all of my friends, but $100 just seems like a much rounder number and the bet sizing becomes whole dollars instead of bet sizing involving quarters. it just annoys me to be betting quarter amounts all the time.
so yea, the plan is stay at 100NL unless i drop below 1500, then i'd have to go back down to 50. i'll make this poker thing work some day i hope :)

oh yea, that reminds me. i just wanted to do a quick budget thing to see how much money i would need to be making from poker to be able to move out by staying at islands and being a semi-professional player. this is all speculation and just curiously, i'm in no means saying that i plan on trying this anytime soon nor do i even have the desire. relying on money from poker is very scary to me right now.

income from islands:

monday st3 - avg 50
tuesday st4 - avg 35
wed st2 - avg 75
fri st? - avg 60
sun st4 - avg 70

total weekly tips = 290 x 4 = 1160

checks = 300 ... 1460 income on average from islands/mo

cost of living --

car+insurance 350
gas 250
food 350
cell 30
CR/gym 65
CC 100
random 100
fun 100
rent 700

total : 2045

diffrence is 2045 - 1460 = 585

this budget would keep my living VERY tight, there's actually some stuff i didn't even add in there (ie: internet, cable) and i made the numbers for food/fun/rent pretty liberal. so yea, i need to get a better paying job or just make more at islands :) not to mention i need to pay for school and save up for london. mehhh, hopefully i'll be a bit more financially stable in 2009.

ok, time for a session.

-geoff

been a while ...

so i've been really bad about updating this, i've wanted to post but have always gone off and done something else instead. oh well, not going to force myself to post.

been doing pretty well as of late with everything. just had the most amazing dinner i've ever had. i went to this french place in LA called Ortolan, it was freaking incredible. it was just me momma my uncle and chels and it was pretty fun. that place motivated me to want to make lots of money so i can go eat at nice restaurants often though lol.

i've been mixing things up a bit in poker and playing a LOT more lag, and i mean a lot. my usual stats before i mixed up my game were 18/15 with an ATS around 30. here are my new stats that i've been running over the last 1500 hands or so ...



saying i've kicked up the aggression is an understatement, and it's been working amazing. i've started to throw out multiple street bluffs more often including two 3 barrels that were successful, hopefully i keep up the 100% success rate in that category because getting those picked off really sucks.

i think my problem before was i was counting on too much of my profit to come from showdown winnings, and i'm just not going to win very much at showdown against the tight nit regulars that make up 75% of the players on FTP. now that i've kicked up the aggression i'm getting myself into more position to pick up the pot with good, aggressive positional poker. i'm very very happy with my play the last two days and i really hope i can keep up this style of play because it's proving to be amazingly effective at these stakes. i should get back into 100NL in the next week if i continue to bulldoze these games.

here are just some graphs showing my showdown v non showdown winnings to illustrate what i was saying above, and i'll leave it at that for now.





-geoff

the last second push :)

just booked a winner -- holy shit that felt weird. +368 in 2.5 hours (~1300 hands). 7 BI not bad for 2.5 hours of play, i'll take it any day. just wanted to post because it made me very happy, don't really have time to make a good end of the month post though. i'll do that when i get home from sushi/wanted (which better be good).

fucking cunt ass shit bitch ...

i couldn't sleep all night -- i need to shower for work in like 30 minutes. i just wanted to quickly say that i'm getting really fucking sick of poker. i'm up over 300 in non showdown winnings over the last 11k hands and down over 500 in showdown winnings. the coolers and beats seriously need to stop, i keep getting very close to breaking my computer and/or phone. i'm playing good poker, thinking about my decisions and as soon as i find myself on autopilot i get up and go to sleep or do something else. i seriously can't remember the last time i got action with a good hand and had that hand hold up, or when i got in a huge draw that had an equity edge and actually hit it. i miss the crazy heater i had between my 50NL start and 100NL start -- i was up like 40-50 buyins between the two limits over 3 or 4 weeks.

idk if i'm even going to play later today, depends how tired i am after work and if i can find something to do. i'd really rather go to the pool and gym and then jacuzzi later, i'll try to make that happen. i seriously am going to spaz out if i can't book a winning session soon. FUCKKKKKKKK.

-geoff

wtf is wrong with me?

ugh -- where to start? let's make the beginning of this a little happy. i'll just touch on what's been going on in everything besides poker (we'll get to that lovely mishap later). what else do i even do besides play cards?
work -- i've actually been making a lot more money now that i get opening/closing shifts. just having that one opening shift and the ability to pick up those shifts without john ladd being a spaz is helping out. money was pretty tight for a while, getting a lot better now though.
working out -- has actually been going really well. i think i've been 3 times since my last post, maybe 4 actually. running has been getting a LOT easier, i think it's pretty obvious i was fairly out of shape because running a mile shouldn't have been so tiring. my new thing is a walk/jog for around 1/2 mile to get warmed up a bit, then run an 8 minute mile, then walk it off for another 1/4 mile. it feels good being able to do that fairly easily, i need to work on a bit more of a routine though. the treadmill and the bike machine is basically all i do besides the like 2 or 3 chest/arm machines i use. i don't really care about getting ripped or anything though, just being in better shape in general is all i want and i think cardio is the best way to do that so what i do isn't horrible i suppose.
jess -- i don't do jess, but you get the gist. things are going well i suppose, nothing has progressed as far as a relationship but i'm pretty sure we're both ok with that for now. i guess i wouldn't know because we talk about pretty much everything BUT us, but once again i think we're both ok and prefer that. planning to take her out somewhere nice soon, i'll see if she has next saturday off next time i'm at work. either javier's or something like ruth's chris, i know she likes mexican but she likes steak too and i'd rather have steak. for some reason i've been craving really good steak recently. i guess it's not the weirdest craving, most people do like good steak, but i've just really wanted it for some reason. i think it's reading all the WSOP blogs and reading up on the vegas life and all the fine dining. i want that life really bad, hopefully one day. sorry, tangent, i guess that was it with jess anyways though. when we go to dinner i will bring us up for at least a little bit though and see where she's at. i think spence was right when she said she doesn't even think i want a girlfriend though, i really don't right now. i mean i really like her and in time i would love to date her, but right now it just seems so confining. caroline just moved away and i know i haven't been dating her for months but at times she still felt like a girlfriend up until she left, and just being able to put all my attention towards what i want (ie: not being f--cking horrible at poker) feels really good.

ok, on to poker. i'm not down as much as i thought i would be since i posted last -- not happy with myself though. i have some mentality thing where i think i just need to keep winning and winning and winning and if i'm breaking even for a stretch of over an hour i get all frustrated. i don't know how to teach myself that an hour is only 500 hands, there are going to be stretches where i can get the maximum equity out of every situation i'm in and be playing my A game and still be breaking even over 5k+ hands. i don't think 10k break even streaks are THAT rare for a professional, probably a monthly occurrence playing 40+ hrs/wk. i think if i can really just try to focus on not worry so much about winning i will do MUCH better, because my actual game still feels really good until i start to check PT every other hand and notice i'm not up any significant amount. i suppose being ROT in the long term since isn't as bad as being ROT hand for hand, but it's still a huge mental leak that i need to plug up. here's a ss of my last few days at 50NL btw ...



yes those are all the same thing, it would just be filled with white space anyways though and i'm a spaz so i pasted it onto paint 5 times. i'm not going to go through and actual review my hands because i'm lazy and i did do light review after my sessions and didn't find anything horrible except a few spots which were due to stupid tilt crap that i touched on above.

what i think i'm going to try to do is instead of putting in my late night sessions where i'm half asleep for the last half is try to put in long quality sessions on the days i don't have work. i think if i can keep myself motived and not long term ROT like i have been my late night sessions will def be +EV, but i think having 2 or 3 good solid sessions will be really good as well.

as far as the setup, of course i never went to kinkos and got withdrawals through checks set up. the new plan is take jess to dinner, then save up after that and buy the desk/chair, then save up after that and buy the monitor. should really only take a month, it's only like 500 worth of shit, i can easily save that up in a month. having the desk should be nice for those long session and will make me focus more at night as well.

i guess that's it for now, going to go put in a few hands, probably not too long. plan on putting in a good 4+ hr session tomorrow though when i wake up. i'll try to post again on monday or tuesday about 1) date with jess 2) my sat/sun/mon sessions.

-geoff

roygbiv

i've been meaning to make another entry the last few days. every time i got on the computer i wanted to play a session though, so i did.

i finally had my downswing at 100NL and let me tell you, it wasn't fun. i made a small post about it over on CP forums, don't really feel like touching on it too much. it was -8.5/9 buy ins over 3.5k hands which leaves me at -105ish over the full 10 or 11k hands i have at 100NL over the last week and my total bankroll is just over 1700.

i think it's important to always have certain short term as well as long term goals set for yourself to stay on track, and i've always kind of mentally kept these but i might as well right them down now. so my current short term goal is to grind out 50NL until i get my rakeback in the beginning of next month which should be around 600ish. i should get that transfer in like 2.5/3 weeks -- we'll say i average 10k hands/wk and i run at 5PTBB/100 over this sample (cross your fingers, although this isn't really that high of an expectation really) and that would be 1250 in profit. so between that and the 600ish i should get for rakeback it would put my account at 1700+1250+600 = 3550 total. sounds like a nice goal to aim for, very achievable. if i have managed to get my account to this i'll just into 100NL again, i want to grind out at 50NL for these 2.5 wk span though, think it will be good discipline and i like to have extra cushion for my bankroll.

as far as long term plans go, here's what i'm thinking right now. come fall, i really do want to register for classes and take 12 units. i honestly don't give a shit about school because i honestly don't see myself ever giving up on cards because i'm the most stubborn person i know, but to at least have an AA would be nice and i could have that by next winter without even trying. as far as poker, i hope to be playing 400NL by my birthday. that gives me almost just over 5 months. i also hope to have enough saved up to either just buy straight up or put a fat down payment on a car for myself, not 100% sure what kind yet. i still do like the GTI's, we'll see how i feel when the time comes.

anyway, here's a little timeline of how i'd like to attempt to progress in limits over the next 5 months. this is more for myself to have something to look at and keep me motivated more than for anybody reading, but here it is:

now/mid july - grind 50 NL until i get my rakeback in. hopefully be at 3500+ at this point and jump back into 100NL.

mid july/september - stick with 100NL over this month 1/2 ... i want to try and not move up through stuff too quickly. i have nothing but time, their is no reason to force anything. if i keep up with my 10k hands/wk and running at 5PTBB/100+ over this sample, my min income would be $5k for this 6 week period, not bad pay for online SSNL. that would put my total bankroll at 8500+ and i would be looking to make a decent sized withdrawal at this point and taking my 200NL shot. taking out 1500 and leaving 30 buys for 200NL sounds like a good idea. i would buy my desk/monitor if i hadn't already at this point. i forgot, as far as rakeback goes it should be around 2.1k/month.

september/december - grind out the 200NL. i think the play here will be the biggest change i've encountered online so far and i just really want to feel comfortable with the amount of money that i should be winning/losing on a somewhat regular basis. if i can maintain 5PTBB/100 at this level, which i'm optimistic that i'm good enough but who knows, i would be averaging $2k/wk or $8k/mo. that means in this 3 month period i could potentially make $24k if i put in the hard work and time and really make this work. that would put my total bankroll at $30k, and at this point i think i would take out $15k for a car and leave $15k in. depending on how my vegas trip goes for my 21st i'll either stick with 200NL for a while or take my shot at 400NL at this point. i actually might grind out 200NL for another month and set aside money for london at this point too. and also forgot here as well, we need to add an extra 3.5k/mo for rakeback, or 10.5k overall.

so there's my goals for the rest of the year, they sound lofty when you just say them but looking at the numbers this is certainly achievable if i try. i know i can run better than 5PTBB/100 at 100NL, and i can also put in more than 10k hands/wk fairly easily.

as far as reviewing hands i'm not so much in the mood, i want to get to a session. i did look over my big losing session and nothing stood out at me as exceptionally tilty/spewy -- just a lot of coolers and suck outs. having this happen now will just help me down the road, i'm definitely strong enough to handle it and that's what separates the amateurs from the people that can stick this out for a living in the long run.

try to post how 50NL is going sometimes this week, any hands that stick out i'll throw on an update as well -- don't need to overwhelm the 'ol CP forum.

good news and analysis

so the good news comes first, i can finally fucking withdrawal from FTP. i've decided just to stick with a straight 50/50 BR plan, meaning that i will be keeping 50% of my winnings in the BR and will be taking 50% out for other things (mostly savings). this ill accomplish two major things: 1) it will take longer for me to be able to move up in limits (ie: i go on a crazy sick heater and run +25 buy ins over a week and then decide to take my shot at 200NL and get crushed because i'm not ready) and 2) give me motivation and remind me why i play poker when i run bad because i can just look at some of the stuff poker has bought me (like my new monitor and desk that i'll have in 10 business days!).

so here's the official tally of half of my winnings since 5/25 (the Illinois trip):


so not being a mathematician, i get half of these profits to come out to 1,010 after some quick calculations. we'll subtract the retarded donkaments i played the other day (i NEED to stop doing that) and the 40 i sent to ian that he donked off in a few days and it comes out to 1,010 - 225 - 40 = 745. not bad for my first paycheck, hopefully we can keep it up.

on to the analysis part, i'm going to start giving feedback and all the 100+BB hands that i'm involved in and just make sure i'm happy with my play. i've got 9k hands that i haven't looked over, doubt i'll get through them all right now but here it goes:

88 - pretty standard 200 BB deep. hadn't seen V be very active and even LAG players have fairly polarized 3 bet ranges from the SB v UTG. his play on this hand is atrocious, if i were in his shoes i 3 bet/fold the flop, c/c any turn card, c/f the river if barrel again.

JJ - i thought his 3 bet could have been light given i was just raising to pick up the dead blinds, i don't really think this V was even on that level though. meh -- i'm never folding on this flop and stack sizes are kind of awkward to the point of if i c/c and c/r jam the turn i'm getting no FE so it's very apparent i have a good PP. my hand looks pretty bluffy as played and can see him looking me up with almost any PP if he has balls, i like this after a big of pondering. really i don't see another way to play it other than c/c down all the way and of course to suck out on the river. sets win money :)

AQs - ugh -- i think this is kind of spewy and i just got lucky he's bad. i don't think i have to cbet this flop. c/c and c/r AI a non diamond turn is better, obv lead if the flop checks through and a non diamond comes. i think V is always raising the flop with a PP because of the 3 flush board, and nothing hits this board hard except a flush obv. that said, when he jams the turn he never has a set (he's not floating me with 88 on that board with someone behind him) so he either has a flush which is not often, or i'm ahead. so as played i actually do like my turn line, i think i prefer pot controlling and taking the line i said above though in the future. maybe that's too weak? i'll post this on CP.

99 - standard, don't really know why i bother posting this. too late now.

QQ - also pretty standard, i think i should size my bet on the flop a bit smaller though to induce that bluff more often. V is never really flatting the flop and we're not folding the turn even if he does given the pot odds i'd be getting on his shove, so just make it like 26 and try to look weak.

AA - don't really remember if i had a read for trying to be trappy with my AA pre, doesn't hurt to mix it up a bit though. don't like the flop jam, no need. just call and shove the turn.

AKo - i don't tend to give the donks a lot of credit, esp on boards that are potentially really scary so i went ahead and decided to pop it up with my TPTK. i do this as a bluff occasionally too, so i have to when i hit hard. think V is calling with all sorts of pair + diamond hands. a little afraid he's slowplaying, but when he donks the turn again i think he still has a very vulnerable hand and decide to just get it in. didn't really expect a call TBH, i'll take it though.

JJ - just went ahead and cbet this because i didn't want to give anyone a free card on this board obv, fortunate he bluffed at it.

KTo - just trying to pick up the blinds, get a very fortunate flop and a very bad V. have to raise this because i'm raising as a bluff here a lot, same reasoning as the AKo hand. when he 3bets me he has so little behind and i didn't want to fold this so i just decided to stick it in.

77 - standard, V in this hand is a HUGE fish though. anyone reading this blog i advise looking up that name anytime you sit down, he will hand you lots of money.

T7s - raising pretty light OTB obv. i decide to just flat the flop because raising doesn't accomplish anything other than turning my hand into a bluff. the turn was kind of interesting, i was getting almost 3:! just calling and had a monster draw so i just elected to take the odds he was giving me and call, i do like raising here though a lot. his line looks so incredibly strong, which means he's generally weak at this level. people don't like to lose customers with there big hands, they make it slow. the river is pretty obv call with top two.

67s - standard flop to cbet with ATC, i happened to hit it hard. barreled off on the turn because i had so much equity and wasn't that afraid of getting c/r on this board. i think my river VB is a bit big, something more like 34 i like better. got lucky that he paid it off though.

JJ - pretty standard once again. check this back because there really is no value in betting, don't see a non Q calling here. you're either just taking down the flop or getting c/r by a FD/bluff. turn makes it less likely V actually holds a Q, and this V is the big fish from before that likes to bluff so i give him no credit. river is just a brick and i don't give this guy credit so i look him up, gg me.

ATs - preflop i've been flatting suited aces PP and SC in position like this just looking to outplay people post flop, and because these types of hands all play well multiway so if the blinds decide to come along that's lovely. this also opens me up to flatting my monsters here because i'm going to induce more squeezes due to my incessant flatting in position. my flop raise is standard, my flop call is close i think. i have to call 90 into 142 so i was getting 1.6:1 roughly --

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

33,660 games 0.016 secs 2,103,750 games/sec

Board: 5d 9d Jc
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 43.993% 43.99% 00.00% 14808 0.00 { AdTd }
Hand 1: 56.007% 56.01% 00.00% 18852 0.00 { JJ+, 99, 55, KJs+, QJs }

ehh ... easy call. having the Td really helps because it takes the combo draw crap out of his range like QTd JTd out of his range.

AJo - meh, i would never stack off to this guy now given the history we have. at this point i didn't have a read on him other than he was a regular so i assumed he was thinking. there were draws on the flop and A hi flops are good to bluff at, so i figured just stick it in with good FE. i don't hate this line against an unknown, just a shitty spot in general though.

AA - oh god, this hand. posted this one on the forums so pretty much done with it. the 3 bet on the turn was absolutely horrendous retard spew given stacks because i can't call a shove. just need to call the raise and c/c pretty much any river. V play makes me laugh so hard on this hand, doesn't get old lol.

QQ - ugh -- i could have got away from this. when the UTG player 4 bets over my squeeze and then the MP flat caller decides to get it in warning lights should have gone off that he had a huge hand. i think i was in auto pilot mode and just was thinking "QQ -- get it in pre". had petrochem not called in the middle i just stick it in with no hesitation and this is a standard cooler.

AJo - pretty standard squeeze OTB. i decide to just cbet and get it in on this flop if need be because of the NFD and gutter to the nut straight, again pretty standard IMO.

KJo - V in this hand had been pretty aggressive blind on blind. that said i was planning on bluff raising a lot of boards, a 3 bet pre is better with a hand like KJo though. i go ahead and bluff raise like i said on the flop, hit a fairly good flop as well with the gutter to the nuts + overs (should be bluff raising this to 15ish instead of 11). decide to barrel the turn trying to rep the flush that got there. the river 9 was another beautiful card to bluff at because now even if he just has a lone T he has to worry about that being in my range, which is certainly is. there was no conceivable hand in V range except 9T that could call this river shove -- 99 TT 44 CRAI on the turn, a flush is also probably putting in a CR on the turn and is taking a huge risk checking to us on the river. no one pair hand can make a profitable call on this river, but of course that didn't stop V from making the call. i really like my thought process about V range on this hand and my play in general, pretty sick he didn't fold.

K9s - obv cooler -- V is laughable for flatting A6s in the sb like that but more power to him.

AQo - cooler as well, don't like jamming the flop like i did though. i'm pretty sure i did it to look bluffy, that's just dumb though because nothing can call you. next time i just flat here, shove the turn.

AQs - standard again, nothing you can do and no other way to play this really.

QQ - haha -- this is just funny to post.

K7s - i don't think this is horrible, esp if i had a read V was weak. not sure if i had that read or not though. he's 3 betting TJ and any set on the turn, probably AJ KJ as well. there just aren't that many good hands in his range that can call this river shove. his call is marginal to say the least anyways, but i should probably just try to avoid spots like this because people don't fold that often at this level. against a more thinking player i like it.

JQ0 - didn't bother to cbet this flop because it's just going to get floated/bluff raised so often i don't think it's +EV. as for the turn CR, i think he's betting 99% of his range when i check to him twice so he doesn't have to have anything on top of the fact that there are a lot of cards i can hit on the river that make me very happy (a 9, any club, a J or a Q). river bluff is spew on the blank, he obviously has something and isn't going to fold when an offsuit deuce hits.

AJ0 - i don't always call this 3bet preflop with AJo, not horrible though. post is pretty standard IMO, river is probably closer than i thought at the time. pretty sick he VB QQ there, not many players at this level are doing that when the K hits the turn. i figured he'd be firing another bullet with a lot of PP though trying to get me to fold out a similar hand.

44 - just folding on the flop is standard, i decided to get cute and bluff here though. not bad to mix this into your game, i think it's def +EV.

AKs - this hand tilts me. how does he call a 4 bet with 77? how does he just float this flop? hindsight that cbet on the flop was probably -EV, this player had been super active and calling everything preflop though, just decided to try and take it from him. only 1 tilt effected hand out of all of these though, i'd say that isn't bad.

FUCK DONKAMENTS

so i decided to play some MTT's because i wasn't in the mood to grind cash, let me just say every time i choose to play tournaments i remember why i stopped playing them i'm done. i played in 3, the line up was:

$55 -- 50k gtd
$26 -- 28k gtd
$55 -- 1r+1a 18.5k gtd

the 50k was rather uneventful, my stack never got very big. ended up shoving A9s over two limpers OTB with ~11BB somewhere in the 3rd hour and got called by TJs and lost the race.

the 28k was looking really good, i had a 15k stack at 150/300/25 and was running over my table for the most part and had position on another deep stack, then this hand came up. i didn't cbet the flop because i figured he was defending somewhat light and looking to make a play on certain boards because i had been raising so much and he could certainly put pressure on me with that stack. with the 8 ball rolled off i figured i was gin because i didn't really put K9 in his range, esp when he donks 3/4 pot into me. i decided to continue with the idea that K9 wasn't in his range therefore we were obviously splitting or he was bluffing and i win. idk if he folds a set to this shove, my button opening range is pretty wide so a 9 can easily be in it, didn't really see the harm in shoving though because i had the nuts, so i thought. oh wells.

now on to the 18.5k ... what a fun roller coaster. i was fairly quiet the first hour, did manage to double up though with this hand. villain had been very bluffy and he was snapping off those bets, just didn't think he had anything and obv i was right. nice to go to valuetown off a gutter. chipped up some more off some pretty standard stuff, then get moved tables with a few bit stacks, one of them i have labeled as a huge nit -- solid though. first few hands at the table i have this hand ... pretty sick call if i do say so myself. i didn't think villain had many aces in his range just flatting OTB weak/med suited ones, his range was weighted towards SC and PP hands. that said, his line just look so much like a big combo draw (KQ QT KT of hearts) trying to get there, Ax of hearts certainly would have put in a raise, and i just couldn't figure out a hand that bets this river for vaue. his bet sizing was odd too ... very large for a VB, didn't seem like he wanted to get paid off. was feeling really good after this hand. continued to be aggressive, lost a 4k pot to the same guy when his 25s sucked out on my KK. then i made a retarded play with AK and got bumped down to 6500 -- still ok though with the blinds at 80/160. i hovered for a long time picking up a blind here and there, every time i got post flop my hands didn't seem to connect until this fell into my lap. idk if i've ever hit a flop so hard, fortunate the idiot just jammed into me. i of course proceeded to bust him the very next hand, a quick stove showed i had 41% equity against a random hand with T5o, who knew? i kept chugging along, started to get 3 bet by the two big stacks behind me because i was opening so much, but we were deep enough that it didn't really matter much and i was still chipping up in the long run. i pick up a nice pot in the BB thanks to pot odds and the free turn card ... think i should have just shoved the river. my stupid raise looks a lot stronger than a shove in hindsight. then this comes up, the bustout hand. this had to be THE most retarded call i have ever seen. i have no idea what his perceived range was that i was making this play with, he is getting 50% equity if i'm doing this with 55+,ATs+,KQs,AJo+,KQo -- which is very hard for him to put me on a range that wide, although he made the call so apparently he gave me NO credit at all postflop. this was the first time i had called a 3 bet and the first time i had made a move like this, there was no reason for me to be doing this light other than the fact that i was opening a lot of hands preflop? v v bad logic, but what can you do?

anyways, spirits were pretty low after that hand. just got home from getting some in n out and an ice cream cone from mcdonalds ... had to go out and try to cool off after that. even smoked a cigarette, i'm so weird. going to put in cash session now, not sure how big. we'll see how i'm feeling once i get into it -- hopefully i have better news next time i post.

my first entry!

so i've tried to make a blog before but i've never been able to stick with it. now that i've been taking cards a lot more seriously hopefully i will take this more seriously as well, i really think constantly writing down what's going on and just going over different stuff here will help my game immensely and also help the sanity of my friends who don't want me bugging them about shit they don't care about (ie: poker, or how weird i am with girls).

i guess first thing is first, i have been running AMAZING. i'm so excited about how well i've been doing. i know part of it is that i'm running well, but i really hope i can keep up this winning because it feels good. here's a little sneak peek at my stats since 5/25 (like 3 weeks ago give or take).



ugh -- i tried to upload the actual stats so the breakdown between 50NL and 100NL would be there, would only let me save the graph as a picture though. first thing i've been annoyed about from PT3 though, it's been a very nice upgrade so far. back to the winning quickly though, this bankroll has been very shaky. i'm down a few 100 at 50NL HU from played angry/tilted as well as playing in some MTT's that were way over my roll. long story short, my roll was down to 120. i bought into 5 25 dollar satelites for the 750K guarantee exactly a week ago (i had one token) and only got one seat, god i'm horrible. i end up going super deep and get 70/3500 and cash for 1125 (here's the bustout hand, would have been sick if it could of held up and gone even deeper) -- built that up to 2k within a few days at 50NL and then took my shot at 100NL which has been going great for the past 3 days. roll is now at 3450ish. the other night if this hand would have held up i would have broken 4k as well -- a 4k week at 50NL/100NL would have been insane.

so basically full tilt has been putting me on life tilt lately due to the fact that i can't withdrawal anything at the moment. i don't have a scanner and i haven't been anywhere with a scanner so i can't send them in the files they want to let me get a check, and the bank transfer option has been down for the past 5 days now. stupid fucking epassporte withdrawing from doing business with online poker sites.

once i can finally get some money out, i'll be taking out 1k and buying myself a nice new 22" inch monitor along with a desk and chair for my room so i can have a nice little office set up. playing while lying in bed is nice and all, but i think i'd stay more focused sitting up and it should be better for my back and neck as well. it'll be interesting to see how many tables i can play and still maintain a fairly good winrate. over the 5.5k hands i've put in at 100nL, i've been 6 tabling the whole time and running just over 10PTBB/100. with the new monitor i can obviously fit more on the screen making it easier to play more tables, i think i should be able to keep up the rate with 8 tables, 10 or 12 i may start to diminish though. trail and error i suppose, i will know in time. the monitor and desk/chair and other crap should come out to around 550, plan to take jess out somewhere nice with some of the rest and then just throw it in savings.

my god this is a long post, hopefully i can keep up the posts.