Post Earthquake Hands

Been putting in some serious volume (serious compared with none) of late at 50 and 100nl since Feb 22 because I've got a broken leg and can't do fuck all else. Been smack on break even since the earthquake over 10k hands which is a little disappointing. I haven't been playing particularly well, calling too much OOP and making stupid moves. I always seem to treat any stake thats not the highest I play as play money which is really detrimental to my winrate. There are definitely still a huge amount of tards at 100nl so I think I can make it at a good clip there if I can keep to an A-ish game most of the time.

Some hands:

First off a bit of a cooler. Dude had a 3bet of 10% out of the SB so I think the call IP is good. Cound't think of many hands he could call two barrels with so I checked behind on the turn. Hand played itself.


Next is one I played badly. I flatted behind pre to keep the fish in. When he donks I'm thinking weak top pair or 2nd pair type hand. I think the turn and river cards improve his range too much so its a river fold. Raising the flop seems the obvious move in hindsight.



Prior to the next hand I had been folding tons of small pots to the fish to my left. I had seen him doing stupid stuff trying to take down 3bet pots so I flatted his 3bet and let him spazz out. It all went to plan until:



An then there are a fuck load of missplayed hands from 50nl which aren't getting posted.

Hopefully I can keep my inner donk under control and make some good plays. Want to put in a bit more volume over the next few days because I'm a rake back pro and thats how I make my money.

Part II: The Rebuilding Phase

Much like Christchurch, my poker career has become a pile of devastated rubble. Now it is time to rebuild. The plan is to crack back into the 25nl 6max and try and build a solid game to attack the low stakes 6max games. Im putting more focus on learning and improving than grinding for hours to build a roll. This is partly because mindless grinding didn't work last time and also that my roll has over doubled in the time I haven't been playing due to a couple donkaments. I'm going to put in somewhere between 10k and 20k hands at 25nl to establish a rough indication as to whether I'm winning or not then give 50nl another shot. Last time I was mentally under-rolled and bitched out after loosing 4 buy ins so I want to be a bit more prepared for another shot. So here we go:

Ive played 3300 hands so far over 5 short sessions with a bit of success. Having no worries stacking fish as I'm running nicely and I'm pretty much staying out of the way of any aggression. My red line is still shooting down pretty quick unfortunately, I think this is a product of my passive postflop game. Something Ive got to improve.

First hand is fairly straight forward. I don't think raising the flop is ever a good move here so I let the fish price me in. I think the turn is a good spot to fire one as I'm going to have trouble even getting a straight to call on the river with a 4 card flush on the board. What are your thoughts on river bet sizing?



The next hand is one that is closer than I first thought when I spazzed out and did it:



The fishes calling range on this flop is soo wide I raise the small cbet from the TAG for value and to protect against draws. I think the TAG is folding without a strong club. The fish check jams. Be interested to see how anyone else plays this.

Anyway, enjoying the game again and looking to really put a bit of time into learning how to play for a change.

The realisation of extreme suckyness

I feel like I'm playing better than ever but my bankroll would beg to differ. I'm bleeding chips like a haemophiliac shaving in non-showdown pots and can 't win much at show down. See below:

Enough complaining, I'm going to use my super web skillz to make a video and of some four tabling and hopefully embed it in my blog and for all to view/comment on. I will try make it short and sweet as to not waste your time. Might put it on Deuces as well in the members videos area for ridicule.

Another shot at 50nl

My roll is back to 30 bi at 50nl so I played a few hands on 6max. Things went fairly well, called one guy down really thin twice and got 2 stacks but tried a couple of ridiculous bluffs to negate any profit. The hand below is pretty interesting I think. I called in position basically for mining odds. Flopped bottom set on a fairly nasty board. The initial raiser is a passive fish, the 3 bettor is a 60/30 fish and the first cold caller is the guy I have picked off bluffs from and is pretty spazzy.



I don't think there is a +ev play here... Calling and all draws have odds to call. Raise and I am only getting called by JJ, KK, AQ + combo draws. Interested to here others views.

Death to rush

Played a $4.40 135man rush donkament. 30 Left, 15 pay. All in AQ v KQ. Bye bye. Play some 5nl rush. Down $25 on ev (33bb/100!). Now I know how Chris feels...

Weekend Round Up

Hit the casino and played a bit of 6max 25nl this weekend and finished up but with an hourly rate no even a Mexican sweatshop worker would be proud of. 4hrs at the casino for a net profit of $13 and 3hrs of 6max for $15.66. Nice.

Quite enjoying 6max for a change at the moment. There are losts of 3 bet pots and lots of spastic players. Put the two together for extra monies (in theory). Ran pretty bad over 2k hands and paid of some people where I possibly shouldn't have. Its not often you get it in with an OESD + flush draw and are completely dominated:



Casino on Friday was pretty fun. 4 people from out home game were there spread over different tables. Me and a couple mates jumped on a 1/2 NLHE table which was just opening. I continued my card dead ways from the cashy on Wednesday and bleed a few chips trying to see flops. Made 1 c-bet and 1 attempted float the whole night I think. Also had a go at bluffing into the nuts. I was down about 40 when I got Q10s in the small blind and completed. Flop down 68T and the big blind leads out for pot ($10). I call and the turn is a J. The small blind checks and some guy in mid fires out 25. I call and sb folds. Check the blank river and mp thinks for a bit and pops out another 25. I quickly/tiltishly call and he shows air. Thats how you play nice and passive.

Highlight of the night was the Welsh gambler to my left who kept going on about he had to meet some girl in town but he had to get a big hand first. He had his KK (or so he said) mucked by the dealer and had a massive cry. He was up a couple hundy at that stage and proceeded to blow it in about 10 hands straight after. It was a good night with none of us loosing anything after robs $50 double up on roulette on the way out.

Live Cashy + Online Donkaments

Been running ok online I tried 6max 25nl again on Wednesday. Just because. As usual either ran into the nuts or got sucked out on. Got it back to even after 1600 hands but was 2 buy ins down on EV like usual. From reading my blog anyone would think I'm the unluckiest guy in the world. Its because I am.

Wednesday night and back to the Wainui cash game. Its 6-7handed, I buy in for $75 and run card dead for ages. 83o, T2o, 74o over and over. I get Q9 and call Mikes raise in position. I like playing Mike in position. Flop comes down AQxr and he (Over) cbets 7 into 6. Call. Turn is a J and he fires again 16 this time. Call. River K and he tanks and goes another 20. I know I'm not in good shape against pretty much anything so its a pretty easy fold. He shows J10 for the scummy runner runner. Balls. 72 becomes my most winningest hand as I take down a cuple of pots with c bets and collect everyones 50c on top.

I fold pocket KQs to Chris's 4bet from the button. He shows AKs and fold 10's to Lukes 3bet from the blinds and he turns over queens. Its getting late and I raise it up with Jh10h from the cut-off and get called by Tim who has just re-bought in the big blind. Flop comes down 9h3h8 for the open ender, flush draw + 2 overs if you couldn't work that out. I really wanted to get it in on that flop right there. C bet, Tim calls. Turn a J offsuit and bet again. Time shoves over the top and its an easy call. He turns over A9 for 2nd pair. 2 aces and one 9 in the deck. Sure enough a 9 on the river. gg.

Read the forum below the other day. Worryingly truthful stuff in there:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/surefire-signs-internet-poker-taking-over-your-life-677240/

Had a few red wines and fired up a $26 tourney token on Tilt and a $50 double up on Titan.

3rd for $66 in on Tilt and double up on Titan. Get greedy, play another $50 and bubble it. Down $10 rake. Boo. Titan kindly gave me a $400 bonus I have until the end of May to unlock. What a joke, it gets released as a lump sum and I'd have to pay 3k rake to unlock it. I can't see myself playing 30k worth of tourneys in a month. Give it a go though for sure.

Momentary Career Resurection

April started off well, had a few decent winning sessions and was on track to get my bank roll back to it's former glory @25nl. Gone back to a solid (by comparison) 16/14 style with increased post flop aggression stats. Its been working well with far more valuetown action on fish and less spewing all over my keyboard.

I keep getting in the situation below where I play TPTK pretty standard and get too much action on fairly dry boards and don't know where I am.



His lines doesn't make sense for 22's or AQ which is what I initially thought. Some kinda 7 might play it like this but how many of them are in his range?

Despite this I've been running pretty nicely and getting a bit of confidence back which seems to help with making decent decisions.

Had a pretty funny hand will this fishy as guy who was doing some weird shit. Id say nearly 100% of the time my play is spewy except against this guy who I had a bit of a soul read on.


On review of that hand I played it terribly and sucked out.

Sunday session turned to shit to put me back in my place. I kept the non show-downs in the positives for 1200 hands but still managed to lose 2.5 buy-ins mostly due to crap like this:




If you can get away from that you are a champion.

March Recap (caution - a bit of a whine)

To put it bluntly, March wasn't good. Pretty much everything went bad 50nl, 25nl, live, online, everything. I have dealt with it pretty well I think. I have been listening to a deuces cracked mp3 series focused on tilt issues which has helped . 30k hands in March for -$600 (down 350 on EV), it hasn't been pretty. My play went a bit loose preflop and passive post which didn't help things, but neither did crap like this:




If I get it in with a good hand I am smashed by the nuts, if I get it in good It won't be that way by the river.




Had a decent winning session today though and I feel like I am getting on top of my game. Pretty sure I should have 25nl crushed again once variance sorts its life out again. Actually got some value for a few big hands and held:



I'm looking forward to getting back on the right foot this month and getting my roll back to its former glory. It would be nice to have something to show for the time I have put into poker this so far. 5 or 6k at the end of the year and something tangible from the FT or Iron man store would do this trick.

I just remembered me and a friend played the daily double on FT on Friday after I got a seat with FT points. Got donked out of the b tourney but hung around in the a for awhile. With the bubble approaching and a dwindling stack I started running down the clock to ensure I got my buy in back. The tourney starts playing hand for hand and I get 7's on the button. I see that the tourney is down to 179 ( 180 pay) and I jam and hope for a lucky double up. Little do I know, placings aren't done by on order of bust out but who had the smallest stack in the hand that busted. Someone else on some other table had a bigger stack so its 181st place for me! Hahaha ultimate bubble boy. I won't make that mistake again so I guess it was a cheap lesson at $15. For what its worth my friend goes on to finish 7th/1216 for 400 odd.

The Grind to Here

So this is a blog eh? Another poker blog. That no one will read.

I suppose I will start with my illustrious history.

March 09 deposit $20 on stars, my 50nl flatmate gave me an overview of the raise and c-bet strategy and I was away laughing. Dwindled my "roll" down to about $3.50 without a clue before the flatmate bankrolled me with another $10. From there I somehow ground up to about $60 and jumped to 5nl. Swung up and down with marginal skill to about $100 around August after 20k hands (playing around 5-8 tables at this time). At some stage I put $50 on titan for the Holdem Manager deposit deal. The titan software was impossible to deal with so that shit got the cut. Still got $100 on there after a drunken double up at 50nl a few months back.

At the start of August I decided the rake back option on Full Tilt sounded like a good deal and threw $50 on there and started back at 2nl. Gradually ground through the micros and am currently playing 25nl, looking to take some shots at the 50nl. Current FT roll stands at about $1100, $1250 being my min for 50nl. Playing between 12 and 15 full ring tables currently but making an effort to reduce that to work on my game at least once every 4 sessions.