"This did not go well. I think I might be allergic to them."



Also check out his drink recipe video with David Cross.

Dont Stop Believing - Journey

Had another session with Jared, will post a fully thang soon. Lots to look forward to, and I'm foreal about actually applying myself this time.

Improvement!

This is by far the month with the biggest difference between all in EV and my actual winnings. Normally that would freak me out and send me on monkey tilt (ahem, see the beginning of this month...), but right now I feel truly good about my game.

At one point I even took a small 100 hand shot at 3/6 to try to win some quick moneys back. Something I haven't done since my Titan poker days where I was playing 2/4nl with a $2200 bankroll. That actually makes me laugh out loud now that I think about it. I truly thought I could make it back then :p

I think my work with Jared has done a lot for me. Unfortunately I've slipped off with my warmup/warmdown stuff, but I've been paying a ton of attention to my mental state and working really hard on keeping it on an even keel. Usually what happens after a bad streak is I hit a good streak, and voila! My tilt issues are solved. That of course was the problem since I never worked on my tilt issues, so the next time I hit a rough patch I would blow up just the same.

Not to say I'm some zen master now, but I do feel a lot better.

Another thing I've decided to take a swing at is heads up. It's been a nice test for my tilt control, to say the least. Lots of typical HU craziness like stacking an overpair in a 4bet pot with tiny SPRs, only to see my opponent has 78 for a straight. Tilting stuff in the moment, but I've dealt with it well. Take the beat, realize he's calling 4bets way too much, adjust.

I'm still in the red with HU, but am running at a solid 6.5bb/100 sklansky winrate which isn't bad for someone who used to spew stacks left right and centre.

One thing Jared's taught me is that money 'lost' to fish isn't money lost at all. They're borrowing it. You can look at them as a huge school of fish; they are all one entity, and they are unending. You get unlucky or make a bad play and they win your stack? Another one is just waiting in line behind him to give you his stack. Make those winning plays in the long-run, and you will make that money back.

So instead of looking at real dollars (which I still obviously can't help but do), I've tried looking at each hour, calculating my average winrate over my career, and figuring out what amount of virtual bucks I've made, which in the long run will converge of course.

In the past week, I'm up nearly $4,000 virtual bucks. In reality, I'm only up $1,300.

Another thing that's helped tremendously is actually studying and posting HHs again. It sounds completely egotistical and is just nonsense, but I thought I'd got to a point where I could just figure out my poker problems myself, and would only post if I found myself in a really, really tough spot. I've tried changing that recently and am pleasantly surprised at how much response I'm getting.

I've made some significant changes to my game too, mainly (and from solid advice from some material and former coaching) to semibluff WAYYYYY more in big pots. A quote from one source of material says (and I have to note this is about mid-higher stakes where you can actually get floated light and can fold out your opponents later) is that if you decide to bluff, unload the whole clip. Don't just fire a cbet, or cbet and turn cbet then give up. Fire all three. And that's helped.

I also made a video which some may have missed:



Other than that, not much happening I guess. I've dropped so much dough lately that I had to kind of give up on the apartment for now. I just don't have enough in the bank anymore to be sure I can hold up that one year lease. It'll still be there in a few months and by then I might even have changed my mind, but for now I'm fine getting back to grinding.

15,184 hands

Well as usual I haven't updated in a while, most likely as a result of running so badly in the late parts of December and early January. When I run ridiculously far under EV in all in pots and run into other types of bad luck I don't feel much like posting about it. No one wants to hear me whine.

I do feel pretty good with how I dealt with the bad run though. I've thought countless times about getting coaching from Jared Tendler, and while I have no doubt his $350/hr (if I rememer correctly) coaching would help tremendously, I feel like another really important aspect to maintaining a level head is simply to keep studying. When you play for a month and run a million dollars under EV, if you're not studying away from the tables, all you can think about is the run you're on. You stop playing hands with an objective point of view, and instead all you're reminded of is the fact that you're running bad and that you kind of expect to run into hands.

I started doing more work around the turn of the new year with stuff like pokerazor analyses, and I wrote an ongoing guide thing for HUD stats. Doing stuff like this keeps me off the tables when I'm tilting, and most important of all brings me back a step or two to rekindle my awareness for keeping my game simple. Not necessarily tag, but simple. Keep my decisions easy. I also had a fantastic opportunity to make a video with stoxpoker coach Stosh McConnell. The video is up, and thanks to a lot of support from you CC/stox members (myself included...), it's getting great ratings. The video was a replay of hands I played in that tough stretch I talked about, and there were some really interesting spots in there. A few of the hands were no doubt a result of my non-%100 state of mind. Not necessarily monkey tilt, but most definitely 'act too fast' tilt, or 'not check for alternative lines stat' tilt. Interesting video nonetheless. If you have a stox account you can watch it here. If you don't have one, I'd seriously consider getting one unless the cost is a significant hit to your bankroll. I signed up when I had just a few hundred bucks in my account for half a year ($190), and it's easily the best poker investment I've ever made. If you do sign up, please do so through the link at the right. [/referral whoring]

So I was running terribly through this late Dec/early Jan stretch, but I stuck to my guns, kept studying, and lo and behold, it turned around. I'm still like $4k under EV since the beginning of December, but it's really turned around in the last bit. My monthly graph looks exactly like last month's midway graph. Break even for what feels like forever, then shoot up out of nowhere to like 4k. Hopefully this time it holds, or better yet keeps rising. I feel great though. I feel like my game takes a leap every single day.

Two more things to tell you about:

1) I've cracked $30k in rings! Yay meaningless but fun milestones!

2) I'm finally exactly back to neutral EV for that same time frame. Guess I can't run like a god forever. Just another reason I can't complain about 'running bad' anyways.

Now my next big obstacle is getting the motivation to play some real volume! Only 12k hands this month! And the lady friend gets back from Cuba tomorrow! Eek!

DANCE, MONKEYS, DANCE!

Tommy boy!

Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker is my new favourite book. No, not just poker book, favourite book. And I'm only through about a quarter of it (ripping through it as fast as I can remember reading any book fwiw).

I have to admit that running well is helping lift my spirits and possibly instill some extra confidence, but this is the most confident I've been in ages. His writing style is pretty unique, and it's really hit home with me so far. He just makes everything so simple that it makes me want to drop the thousands on personal coaching from him to get even more out of his head. Anyways, I'm really excited and will no doubt reread the book several times. If you want to see a sample of what his writing style is like, check out his site above or look through his coaching bio page thingy over on deucescracked.

So like I said, I'm running well, but I'm also just gradually taking a different, more ideal mindset. Obviously we all know poker is about the long run, but I'm finally getting the feel that each session really doesn't matter. Not in the results category at least. Daily results, weekly swings, monthly reviews - they're all just kind of arbitrary. What really matters is playing each hand as best you can. Constantly reviewing the table conditions, your mental state, your opponent's mental states. Recognizing not only when you're tilting, but how close you are to crossing that line. Flat-out ending your sessions when you feel you're too close to it.

Naturally I'll still be posting monthly updates because I'm only human, but I really do feel like I'm progressing as a player, on and off the tables. Like I mentioned in earlier posts, my goals now are simply to progress as a player as much as I can, and make as much money along the way as possible. I knew I was going to make big changes this month and I'm starting to feel them :)

Unfortunately something else disastrous has fallen upon my shoulders. Left 4 dead was released. I'm just too much of a video game addict not to pick this up - it looks like such a fun multiplayer game. Cool thing is now that I'll have my laptop (still have yet to get the giftcard though), both my brother and I can play multiplayer games together, or maybe lan or whatever. This winter will be fun :) Unfortunately it's actually something that's going to dig into my poker time. Just got to make sure it doesn't take up too much.

1151 hands

I remember falling asleep last night thinking about my play, and thinking there was really only one hand I felt I played poorly. AK stacked from EP vs a tag. Aside from that, I played well, ran extremely well again, and couldn't be happier.

Obviously I've been running hotter than the sun, but I do feel (when I'm not tilting) I'm playing a very good game which definitely contributes to my winnings. My NSD winnings are on a steady incline for the month and just at the tables I feel like I'm really running them over the majority of the time. Running 24/22 which is also a lot of fun :)

Yesterday was especially fun though. I ran into a fish or two who were just terrible. One guy at first just seemed bluffy and bad, but soon started tilting after losing some pots to the point where...



and



and



All three against said fish. Within 270 hands I'd made like 1200, and about $1400 total on the day.



More nomnoms



Same guy as above, weak tagfish.



Floaty hand against a good tight aggressive regular. Kind of interesting.



Easy to start second-guessing yourself in spots like these, but this guy is pretty lag and even right after losing I'm pretty happy with a stack there.



AK hand against the tag. Not a fan of stacking here even though my image was like 30/30.



One more I could have made a bad call on, and probably did. I think there are enough smaller flushes, trips and straights in his range to make the call, but it's close. His terrible slowplay certainly earned him the max this time - it's got to work once in a while or else they learn and start playing correctly :)

1,758 hands

Another swingy one. I definitely tilted for a good 200-400 hands or so, but I was running pretty bad too. My biggest problems were playing oop against aggressive fish who fuck with me on like every flop I cbet (and naturally I try to cbet more, duh), and also playing deep with a pretty tough lag while on tilt from the former.



Villain had just sat down at the table, and after checking my HEM database and finding out he's a 40/30 over a good sample, I decide it's good enough to ship. He stuck around and was obviously very drunk with all his table chatter, but it was a pretty big pain in the ass playing against him oop. Basically in a situation like that it forces you to nit it up which I hate doing.



Against the toughish lag. If you read the HA on cc/stox then you know I called the river, which imo is terrible. I'm stopping it at that point though because I want to hide the results. Still a little undecided about the hand, but I'm leaning towards betting the flop, and check-calling the turn since his range is so chock-full of floats.



Kind of marginal hand. Tough to get away from given my image and the fact that the 4bettor is pretty good and can be in there with some JJ/AQs hands as well as the occasional bluff. A little optimistic but I don't think I can let that one go.



Fuck you, fish! Top of his range, meh.



Against that good lag, this is after I got stacked by him though. Nice result, turned my frown upside down!



Against a decent tag. Easy when you flop a set on a board you can rep a bluff-raise with, but it could definitely get a little tougher on rag boards or Axx/Kxx/Qxx boards.

Aaand that's it. -$200 or something on the session, thought I played pretty well aside from the tilting and the AKs hand, and there's always room for improvement.

2,126 hands

And the ball keeps rolling

I've been bragging incessantly and I think I'll save it for the end-of-month review, but this is just getting insane. That debate about going for fewer tables and increased improvement vs playing a kajillion tables and going for lots and lots of rakeback and rewards is definitely a legit one. I've thought a lot about that the last month or two and have yet to make a decision; right now though I'm perfectly happy playing 4 (or occasionally 6) tables now with my 24/22 style. I've improved the most in my newly found niche in 6max than I ever did before, and the results reflect that.

My only qualm is that I'm still playing a dismal number of hands, but a lot of that is a result of playing so few tables as well as the fact that my real life has been crazy busy lately. I could definitely plug more hands. Hell, I could just abandon sleeping if I really felt like it, but I don't think it would be healthy. I'm in a nice balance right now with my poker playing time, my cash flow and my real life. Aside from a few problems here and there I'd say my life is pretty damn good right now.

Enough bragging; here are some of the more interesting hands since my last post:

Wow. Checking my biggest pots lost, I don't even have a full stacked one. Biggest is $156, then $120, then $100 and under.



One of the many reasons squeezing dominated hands like AT is a dumdum move.



Gotta let them have one once in a while or they stop coming back :)



om nom nom



That was in my 6-tabling video actually. Villain is a reg.



Tight pf stats + superlow fold to any postflop street + super high wtsd = valuetown him!



AK high ftw!



That's about it, tons more coolers and flips I won, nothing too interesting. Last hand there is kind of a fun one I guess, but most of the hands are just boring to watch tbh. I'll be coming out with another video, next time 4-tabling for the forums, both cardschat and stoxpoker.

edit: oooh by the way, next thing on this consumer's list is a reclining leather loveseat :) Pics when/if I get it.

More mgmt, I'm just obsessed with these guys right now. Weeeeird youtuber video though:

A hand and a song

Because I'm lazy.



Villain has %100 vpip after less than 1 orbit and that's all I know.

And an unfortunately unembeddable song from mgmt.

4,800 hands

Still running like a god!


An insane 10ptbb/100 this month over the (almost) 10k hands I've played equates to about 2k profit. I'm kind of posting a half-month update here because I plan on being alcoholically handicapped for the next week or so, and probably won't be blogging. A handful of friends and I have birthdays in the middle of August, so naturally there's always a huge binge with tons of parties. Tonight is a lady friend's party and so the binge begins! I'll be posting whatever pics I can.

As for the poker, I'm still genuinely curious what I can sustain at 6-max. I've definitely made my share of bad plays this month for stacks, but have still managed an insane winrate. I guess only time will tell, but for now I'm perfectly happy with 10/100.

For the second hour of my coaching with Stosh I've played a 4-tabling session with commentary and he'll analyze it and basically give his feedback. I've recorded the video, but as it stands right now stoxpoker is down due to updates and upgrades to the site. Stosh's contact info is in my pm inbox at the site which I can't access, so I'll have to wait a day+ for that to clear up before I can ship him the link. I was initially under the impression that he was going to give his commentary over my video, but I'm not sure he's doing that. If he does make a video out of it, I'll be posting it at CC which should be fun.

So even through running like a god when I grind, I'm broke as a joke in real life. I'm owed money from a few people, but they're delaying the paybacks. So I had to withdraw another grand from my account which is ok because I'm overolled even for 200nl at the moment. As for right now though, I've got to go see if I can collect some debts, and if not I'll have to borrow money for the binge week :(

1,450 hands

Unfortunately I'm finding 4-tabling the 6-max tables makes for an incredibly hands/hour rate. I played 4.76 hours yesterday and only managed 1450 hands, something I'd do in well under two hours at full ring. Oh well, I'm not too disappointed in that as the FPPs are worth a little more per hand, plus the fewer tables I'm playing is really helping me play a good game. Unfortunately I still manage to make a few silly plays once in a while...



I knew this guy was floaty, and the turn makes for an easy check-call. The river however was one of those things where my hands acts before my mind can think, and I made a terrible call. I've been playing hands like these, marking them in HEM and going off to post them in HA after my session, but by the time I look at the hand history again, I 'solve' the hand. In this case, 'solving' the hand is just folding the river.



This one was definitely a result of me not being used to 6-max ranges. On the flop I'm putting him on a lot of overpairs, but basically only KK+, maybe QQ will stack if I ship it in there. Then again don't you think QQ- flat the flop? I dunno, this one had me a little confused. The turn brought an ace obv, but that card didn't concern me all that much since I didn't think he would raise the flop with any ace but AA or AKs/AQs. Turns out his range was much wider than I thought. Not sure about the river call either...



Blegh, against a fishy shortstack. Just spew, he probably doesn't fold AK there.



woops.



Interesting spot. Donk bettor is a chronic donk bettor....guy behind me is a nitty player, same guy as the A7s vs KK hand above. I like raising the donk because he'll have such a wide range there and I can often fold a lot of that out, but it puts me in a very tough spot if (when) the button 3bets or shoves on me.

fwiw I snapcalled that out of spite against the guy :p



Ship. Against that KJ vs 42s guy.



Why in the fuck are you leading?



Just love getting thin value with these guys' calling ranges.



moar value



I'd been very lag as usual and he'd started check-raising me a ton. Basically his ch-r here is an extremely polarized range, so either he's flopped a set or he's bluffing me. He's never got a big ace there, and would never take that line with it anyways. So anyways, a little bit of a silly bluff, but it felt pretty good getting that strong read on him.



Weee! I get lucky (for once in my life, I'm so unlucky, blah blah blah, whine whine whine).

So even through the retarded hands where I've played for stacks with KJ on a xJ345A board, or made silly bluffs, I'm still running at 11ptbb/100 in 6-max this month. I've only played short of 5k hands so far however and obviously realize with the extra variance in 6-max this doesn't mean dick, but I'm feeling good. I've heard about how 3ptbb is basically crushing any game (save like 2nl where you should be beating it for 100ptbb or whatever), but I really feel I can do better. Again, I guess only time will tell.

Off to have breakfast and start grinding. Stosh and I agreed our next hour of coaching should be a review of a ~45 minute 4-tabling video of my play, so maybe I'll record that today.

I don't know this guy, but he's awesome. Short but sweet...

Turning over a new leaf

Well I think this is it. I won't say I'm 'fully' moving to 6-max, that is I won't be playing strictly 6-max games from now on, but I can definitely say the majority of my play will be there.

Some of the issues that held me back were the increased tilt factor, my actual skill set, and whether or not it would actually be worthwhile in terms of hourly rate and fpp accumulation (which are one and the same, I guess).

I don't think the tilt and skill factors will really be a problem. I'll be in a constant state of progression with both, and I'll need to improve upon both in order to progress and move up, so why not take the harder, faster road?

My hourly rate is the other factor, and I'm still not %100 certain on this, but I think it will actually be another non-issue. I initially thought that playing half the tables I normally do at FR would kill my hourly rate in 6-max, but the combination of the higher-than-expected winrate I think I can achieve and the higher number of hands played per hour pretty much nullify that, if not overpower it. The FPPs also come in quicker due to the higher hands/hr.

I'm not sure what it is, but I just love playing a more aggressive game. I've gone so far on some tables as to reach stats that would be considered lag for a heads-up match. Profitably. I love it though - you can squeek out so much more value from spots I'd never ever bother to in a full-ring game.

Anyways even with several big mistakes (and bad beats) in this month's 6-max venture, I'm still running really really well. I really have no idea what my sustainable winrate is going to look like, but I guess the only way to find out is to grind out more hands. My guess is that it's going to be a LOT higher than my full ring rate...

First sweat

So I finally had my first coaching session with Stosh today. He's an awesome guy and I'm very happy I bought up some hours from him. We started off trying to set up a screen-sharing program, but his PC kept bugging out and quitting skype or just crashing. Eventually we got everything working, and he extended our session to like 90 minutes instead of an hour because of the problems we were having earlier.

I (we) ran like shit during the actual session, which was kind of balls. I think I dropped a couple buyins or something like that, but felt I played well. He touched on a few things he thought I could improve on, but overall what helped most was his 'in-between' chat about just general poker stuff. We talked about table selection, general strategy, tilt control, his experiences, books (Tommy Angelo's book wtf I have to pick it up already), and of course general strategy.

It's a little hard gauging how much the hour was worth, or rather if the $200 I payed was worth it. I honestly feel like what I got wasn't worth it, but at the same time I know this whole experience will be worth way more than the $800 total I paid him. I dunno, a little hard to explain. How about this...if he asks me to give some feedback on his coaching, I'll definitely say I'm a satisfied customer. Well that is if the next three hours go as well as this first hour went of course.

So, I've got like 100 vpps to clear in order to unlock my $650 bonus, so I guess I'll do that before I get to bed.

yarg.

Running like shit, playing like shit, and I can't pull myself away from the tables when I tilt.

Yesterday was a perfect example. Some full ring, some six max, and after several hands like these:







(posted this in HA for whatever reason; I know it's completely standard)



...I basically went apeshit and did all of this.

I surprisingly cooled down last night though and just enjoyed some Arrested Development, and feel fine today. Kinda sickening getting used to -$500 days. Sick sick sick.

Anyways I think one thing that's definitely been a factor in my monkeytiltedness is dropping the $800 on Stosh's coaching, but on the flip side I hope he can help cure that tilt. He's a pretty big monster in 6-max cash games and even if these four coaching sessions don't get me completely settled in to 6-max I'm sure it will still be worth my while. It's just the fact that I dropped $800 of my then $5k bankroll for him. That's a lot of moolah for me.

I'd planned on writing some big post explaining tilt and the effects of certain factors, but really it all boils down to bankroll management, how much you rely on your BR for your everyday expenses, mental toughness, and your ego. I play with a tiny portion of my roll, but even then, since it's my livelyhood, I live off it and it really affects me when I lose. As I mentioned before I seriously don't think I'll ever get over tilt until I play with like a 100-buyin roll. The ego is another huge part of it for me, admittedly. I can't help it. I have a big ego. I hate sitting at a table for hours setting a player up, then having my three big hands against him busted. I want to take that money back. I consider it "mine". And that's a problem.

So anyways I think today I'm taking a break from playing. Just got a call from my buddy who might drop by and play Risk, and if you know that game you know it'll take until 2010 to finish. Seriously it'll take all day, then that same friend is throwing a house party, so fuck poker for now. I can wait 'til tomorrow :p

As a lot of you know, music is a huge part of my life. I think I listen to music in some way or another about %90 of the time I'm awake (that's probably why I have bad hearing...). It can completely change my mood around, and listening to some upbeat, happy music yesterday helped me cool off. Even though sting is a cheezeball, he was great when he was leading The Police...

1,707 hands

Classic track from Pharcyde to kick it off:

Drunken flurry

I guess it was thursday night; I came home after a day of heavy drinking and decided I wanted to play some 6-max. Dropped down to 25nl (you know me and my 6-max history...) and went nuts. I actually tried to make a video of it, but the commentary was just incomprehensible. Not the funny 'omg he's so drunk lol!' commentary; more like "ok so I'm just raising any two on the button....oh I'll 3bet this guy light because....steal that too...because umm wait ok this is a spot I don't want to c-bet...wait what was I saying about this guy over here?". Just scattered.

I did play well though - and very aggro. I only played 200 hands 4-tabling but maintained a 35/32 style and ran at a completely sustainable 48ptbb/100.

So that was a nice way to end the night. Go get drunk, come home and play poker, make up for all your night's booze costs.

Setting records!

Brag: set a new record yesterday
Beat: it was for most money lost in a day :(
Variance: It doesn't hurt (anymore)

Long story short, I ran into some ridiculous beats, then tilted pretty badly for a few more buyins lost. I've been making it a habit of not keeping track of results as closely, but yesterday was a ~-$650 day which was no fun. I definitely ran bad, but I was very very rusty too, especially with my tilt control. I didn't take nearly enough time to think my decisions through and that resulted in a big chunk of my losses.

The hands:



Villain was statless at the time but I recognized him as a regular which meant he probably was tight enough either have 44/22/55 or a bigger flush. Regs just don't ever do this with a deuce, nor do they do it with 99 and other pairs. I guess if he had AA with the Ad or something it could make sense, but the majority of the time I'm seeing a monster here, and although I didn't manage to fold the hand that time, you could see my hesitation in just calling down.



Villain was very aggro and I have no qualms about getting AKs AIPF there, but I don't like my postflop play/bet sizing. Any other options?



EL OH EL. Villain was one of those 80/30s or something, and the cold caller was Coordi, a tight reg. Coordi can't really trap there with a big pair since I won't be 4betting often enough to make it a legit play, so I basically put him on a sloppy set mine hoping I would call behind him. I think pf I could have just shoved, although that's being a little results-oriented. meh.



Shortly thereafter against the same guy. People sometimes get too carried away with pot control and such, but the main factor in how big or small you want a pot to be is how strong your hand is relative to your opponent's calling range. This guy was calling basically any pair/any draw there, so my hand is basically a monster here; I was more than happy to get my whole stack in barring some bad turn/river cards.



Against a reg who loves to 3bet light; I think this is pretty strong here. I don't remember the exact numbers, but a stox coach was talking about how much less likely your opponent is to hold an ace in his hand when you have one in your hand vs when you don't, and it was surprisingly significant enough to make me start 4bet bluffing with small aces like this confidently. Of course villain having an ace in his hand doesn't mean all that much, but since bigger, more dominating aces will (or would normally) be a big part of his 3betting range, it makes 4bet bluffing pretty enticing in those spots.



Let the fun begin. I think this is when tilt starts setting in a little bit.



lol, against a fish. I still don't know what to think of this guy. 3betting KTo, then shutting down with a backdoored two pair? I don't like how I played the flop either. I think I'm getting a little FPS in there, but I figured if I bet, the only real hands that stick around are bigger pairs. If I check, I induce action from a much bigger portion of his range (AK/AJ/smaller pairs) and can then come over the top to end the hand right there. Would like thoughts on this one too.



Against a loose-passive pf player who's slightly aggro postflop. Just sloppy. Remember the $50 bet.



A little thin, but this guy was aggro enough to make it fine iyam. I was far more worried about the cold-caller in between.



Against a 12.5/12.5 shortstacking reg. I have yet to sit down and solve these situations and really should take the time to do it. The decision of whether or not to 3bet (and/or call a shove) is a function of his opening range, his stack size, and the range he'll call a 3bet with (or push over the top, w/e it's all the same when you're that short). If you're a member of stox, you'll recognize the StoxEV program, and I think it's absolutely perfect for these situations. I'll be looking into this situation and maybe others in the next few days and will probably make posts on my findings.



Just brutal. Obviously I'm not going any farther than the turn if he double barrels (he was tag and basically a pf/cbet type player), but the 9 helps. As does the ace, for him. Noted his inability to let go of AA without the spade there vs an obvious beluga.



Well at least these dipshits aren't getting ANY value for their hands. Starting to get pissed regardless at this point.



Remember that $50 bet? Same guy. Pretty terrible call-down and I think I should have double barreled the turn. He'll have 99/88/Tx/gutshots a lot of the time and I think that calls for putting out another bet. It turned out this guy was a lot worse than I'd initially thought - he would peel KT out of position on J8x flops for example. Awesome.



BSB against a somewhat aggressive reg; similar to my style. I think we have a little bit of 3betting history, but regardless I think this is standard.



Checking my HEM, this guy was 43/24 over a small sample size. I don't think there's anything to do other than shove on him.



Thin-ish valuebet against the guy who peeled KJ on the AT7 flop. Shows up with the top-ish of his range again, meh.



Against a 59/20...a little thin but I don't think this was that spewy either.



Now this was spewy. A7 guy was trash and I'm more than happy to get it in against him, but the other guy was a pretty tight reg. I was basically hoping for another big ace in there but really should have slowed down on the turn and check-called or something.



Cue the spew! This is against a very tight reg. PF is spew, calling 3bets without implied odds is something I do often when I'm tilting. I use the excuse "I can steal the pot from him enough of the time postflop to make it worthwhile", but as you can see I suck postflop. Villain's range is basically either AK/KK/AA/99 or QQ-TT, and off the top of my head I think the underpairs are more likely, so basically here I was betting to push them off. I mean QQ can't call a double barrel on that board. Unfortunately it looks like he was either slowplaying a monster or turned his pair into a really weird bluff.



This one against a fish. Really not sure what to think about this, but I'm pretty sure it's just spew. Maybe flat the flop and give up to a double barrel? I dunno.



Probably the only highlight of the night. The guy was aggro, but this was way out there. He instantly pushed the flop, just hilarious.



Just spew pf. (tilt)

And that's it. I went from borderline apeshit yesterday soon after the losses to being a little melancholy later on. Thankfully I had a good friend call me up for a friend-of-a-friend's birthday party. We hit up a bar downtown, had a few beers, then we all went pool hopping for like half an hour before getting kicked out. I hadn't been all summer and it was really refreshing, in a physical sense and a mental one.

I recently bought a $650 bonus with FPPs, so that's coming along nicely and should help me heal my wounds from yesterday. No longer pissed about the losses though which is great. I mean this was literally the single worst day for me in terms of money lost, but I'm already ok with it, and that means I'm progressing in my tilt-control. So believe it or not, I'm content.

Off to eat some (really) late breakfast and I'm gonna get to grinding later on. It's sunday, so I expect to see some sunday mil results out there guys, gl to whoever's playing in the big ones today.

A milestone followed by a great day

First off I just crossed the 10k mark in profits since starting rings in December. The landmark doesn't really mean anything, like in comparison to making a successful move to 200nl or something like that for example, but I think afit kind of signifies my semi-long-term succes thus far in the rings. Had I stuck to tournies and never joined stox back in Dec, I would probably still be stuck at the $16 STTs right now pulling my hair out from the bubbles and overall variance. Rings have been good to me to say the least.


Today was quite nice too. Hopped on the tables and 12 tabled for about two and a half hours for 1800+ hands and raked in a fat $562. At certain points in my session I was just picking up ridiculous cards. Like once I had 5 of the 12 tables with QQ or better dealt to me which would have made a nice screenshot. I played pretty well and obviously ran great, so I'm pretty happy right now.


Hands of the day:



Pretty 'standard' 3 barrel bluff. Either he's slowplaying the hell out of me with a set or straight, a (much more likely) marginal made hand like 68, A8 or 99, or a busted draw like 9T or a gutshot. Not something I do every time someone checks to me, but I think this was a pretty ideal spot.



Both opponents are fishy; I just wanted to see a raise on the flop so I could get it in. Pretty shitty spot. My flop erection turned into a 4th street softie.



Villain is lag and very spewy. PF is a little dubious, but I think it's ok since we'll occasionally take it away from him postflop. I won't argue if you say it's a bad call though. Just a set-up, but at this point this guy had taken a few small-medium sized pots from me and then this full-stacked one. Not happy, but I know if he sits there as long as I will, then his money is mine.



I was admittedly tilting here, but I don't see any other way to play this hand. PF is obviously loose and I should probably be folding since I'm steaming and will probably spew a little bit postflop without a draw like this, but as it played out I think it's just another setup. Pair+FD vs OESD+FD and I'm a 2:1 dog. Steaming a little at this point.



Against the KK vs my 77 guy. Finally set him up, and I think a river shove is a good option too. A lot of the time he'll have the Qs-As and won't let go. I think I played it fine, but unfortunately the guy ran away after this hand so I just forgot about him and stuck it to the other couple of 40/30s at the table with some small pots.



This is exactly the type of pot that probably costs me the most, and I'm glad I folded at least the river. I think maybe the turn should even be a fold. The guy was loose-passive-ish and is basically saying "HAY LOL I TARPED YOU WITH A SET" with his turn beluga, but I couldn't let go. Usually I can't let the river go either, so I patted myself on the back for pitching this one.



Call down against a lag. Not sure about this one - I of course had the best hand this time, but I think most of the time I end up seeing an overpair, set, or rivered straight here. Noted how oddly he played his AK with the small bets...



Check stack sizes next time, mmmkay?





Villain is a half-sane lag. Preflop is actually a little spewy since he makes so many postflop plays at the pot, but after his flop bet I seriously laughed out loud. He's just like never doing this with any made hand. The only thing that makes my raise possibly 'bad' is that he could have a draw that he's ready to get it in with, but I think most of his range is smallish pocket pairs that are turning their hand into a bluff, and outright bluffs with missed connectors etc.



Wasn't %100 sure about this one, but I think the best line is to just shove over the top of his raise. Sub in a full stack for his $60 pile and I think it becomes a lot tougher of a decision. As it is now with the flush draw out there I think it's a pretty clear jam and I think his fold meant he probably was either running a complete bluff or was turning some UI pocket pair into a bluff.



Blegh. Thank god he was a weak-tight player and didn't test me on the turn or something. Any thoughts on betting river to bluff out the 3h3x type hands?



Weeee, told you I ran good. Shoving AQ into a cold 4bet isn't standard for me btw, this guy was a maniac ;)



An *almost* blind call-down which makes this look more like the bad play that it really was rather than some genius soul read. Guy was really really floaty and I think there are enough naked tens/outright bluffs to call this, although I again won't argue if you disagree.



Both fish. 83h, sigh.



lol...another bluffy player, hence the calldown. I had him on 9x or a busted straight draw :/



Really random bluff against another semi-lag. Not all that much thought put into this one, but after I just basically gave up on the turn, I decided to bluff the river. Pretty sloppy bluff and I'm not surprised he looked me up with the 8.



I think this is really the only way to play this one too. We've got to 3bet pf, especially with the fishy limpers, but after he 4bets without us having much history and with our stack sizes, I don't see anything but folding being good here...



When in doubt in a big pot and not much showdown value, shove. Well that's what I say anyways, not sure if it's remotely correct, but I didn't like any other option on the turn. Maybe play the flop differently?

Almost done guys, bear with me...



Another setup vs a lag, this time it goes in my favour. I think this is about when the buyins just start rolling in...



Great river, but what do you make of the turn?



Against a seemingly tag player with a small sample size. These ones are a little tough for me and I'm not sure I played this well. This was like the most perfect result I could have hoped for, but most of the time I think we're seeing either JJ for the set, an overpair, or AK which should be folding. So I think either fold pf/call pf and call flop, give up on non-Q turn/call pf and fold postflop are the best options (?).



Top of a fish's range shows up. It think it's a thin valuetown anyways considering he'll have two pair a lot of the time, but I don't hate it considering he was like 75/0.



Yeah, AQo is good against a cold 4bet /END SARCASM



I liked my line here against a semi-light 3bettor. 4betting just doesn't accomplish much as it folds out the smaller pairs and possibly AK and other big cards. It's riskier calling, but we get a lot more value for when he's 3bet with 76s or something and has to cbet. I think I like the ch-r rather than the ch-c because of the flush draw and because I think we have greatly underrepped our hand and can maybe get calls from JJ/TT. Ch-raising a small amount is another option too though...

And that's that. Good session, some weird spots in there. Drop me some input if you actually got through all that. Peace out, hope July's going well for you guys.

Song of the day, always liked these guys. Unfortunately youtube is being gay, and this song can't be embedded, so I'll just link you: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9nz6Rq1Pvh0

Half time

The word of the month is slow. Getting car doored + spending more time with friends + trying more 6max and HU = less poker. I've only played 8k hands so far this month and although my results have been pretty good so far, I'm not really happy with the time I've put into the grind. Apologies for the lack of posts too. Fewer hands = fewer interesting things to write about.


Early on I was just grinding my usual 100nl FR, but I soon got the itch for something different and played a few different games; 50nl-200nl HU, 6max and FR. The first third of the graph is 100nlFR, the next few hundred hands are 200nlFR and 100nl, and then the rest is a mix of HU, 6max and FR again.

Had a nice talk with vanquish about HU and some other stuff. I've been thinking about what comes next in my poker career and he gave me some good advice: basically stick to FR until your bankroll is big enough to take the 'learning swings' of 6m and HU. I think realistically I won't be able to keep myself off the HU and 6max tables, but I'll be playing a lot more FR to pad my bankroll for the swings of the shorter-handed games.

Some random hands for you from the first half July:



Just a terrible call-down. Happened early in my first shot at 200nl, and is a perfect example of what I do when I move up: give way less respect for hands expecting to see everyone bluff me every single hand. Don't ask why, cause I don't know.



...I also tend to run more bluffs.



4bet bluffing an aggro reg.



Pretty standard, and a lovely river.



Standard I guess against a couple of fish.



Blegh.



Blegh.

Then some HU:





That was against that really weird random player I posted about in the forums.



I think I'll actually be posting full sessions at CC and stox which will put all these hands in perspective, so watch for that.

Anyways off to drink more. I've been just shit-faced the last few days and it doesn't stop tonight. Bust out the tanqueray.