The Poker Boss

Tough Flops

2005-08-22T16:15:00.000-04:00

OK, so I found something to post about. Yeah, I'm pretty happy about it. Over the last few weeks work has drained my spirit out of me and I've only been a trapped animal awaiting my escape, which happens to be in 2 weeks. Anyway, on to poker.

I've noticed a really bad weakness I myself have been guilty of. Maybe one of the super bloggers will disagree and hopefully enlighten me. It regards betting on the flop. The weakness is in betting small on the flop "to let our opponents improve", and betting strong on the flop "to price out draws". These were sayings that I learned from playing limit poker at the start of my online career. In retrospect, I think that really may have done more harm than good, because a lot of limit rules don't apply in NL. For instance, let's say you have 20 BB left and it's fairly late in a 6-handed tournament, not too close to the money yet though. You get lucky in the cutoff to find AA with everyone having folded in front of you. You raise of course, can't allow the blinds to see a too cheap flop and grab two pair or better. Let's say we raise to 2.5 BB, which is called only by the button, so a nice start thus far. Flop comes QTs9s, with say 2 spades. Now this is where things get ugly. What's the correct play here? There are 7.5 BB in the pot, and your AA is still likely the best hand.I bet 7.5 BB here, the size of the pot, guy behind me goes all-in, I'm obviously committed, so a call is a given. Let's do something that I rarely do and look at the range of hands that you're likely to have been facing. He called a preflop raise, so unless he's the Gus Hansen type, he's probably got at least an ace or two face cards. Against KQ, you're about a 65% favourite, which is pretty good. Against a pair and an OESD, you're only about a 52-48 favourite, so you're still ok, but pretty much a coinflip from here. Against just the OESD, you're a nice 70%. Can't forget the flush, which gives you 65% to hold up. If he happens to have the Qs Js, well, you're kinda looking dim, with you being only about 28%. Wow, the more I look at it the more I find this a tough situation to play, one in which I've gone down in flames many a time. I've held up against weaker hands a lot too, but the question is, how do you play it with what you figure to be the best hand on the flop, and out of position. Seeing that this has me stumped, guess I'm not gonna be doing any enlightening, but, would be nice if you could enlighten me :-)

A quick note. I keep having to read about all the WPBT gatherings that I've never been able to attend. One of these days people, one of these days! I'd like to drop the hammer on Iggy, or even better, Mr. PokerGrub himself.

Until next time, good luck out there!

The Mental Quest

2005-08-19T16:19:00.000-04:00

So I know it's been a while, but I've found lately that I have nothing constructive to post about. I'm in a state of poker malaise. I'm not losing mind you, not particularly winning either. I'm in the final two weeks of hell, I mean work, before going back to school. The funny thing about that plan is that I haven't even found out if I'm getting into school yet. I applied for the M. Sc. Computer Science program, but I still have to wait for the result of that. I'm honestly working on removing emotion from my poker game entirely. I'm not a tilter mind you, fairly hard to get me upset to the point of playing stupid, but I do get affected by the cards. Knowing the odds makes a lot of the bad events easier to deal with, but still. I want to be the guy that wins a big pot, shrugs it off, and tries to play his A-game still. Even better yet, I'd like to be the guy that takes a beat by a 2-outer, congratulates his opponent and plays his A-game still. I read all the books that I had wanted to read for the summer, so my head is full of that theory stuff. I'm gonna focus on some psychology books to help in my new quest. Has anyone else noticed how tough it is to find any good NL strategy posts out there, DoubleAs is the king of those, but he's slowing down, probably cause of his book.

Nothing to talk about

2005-08-03T13:28:00.000-04:00

Oh wow, it has been a whole week since I last posted. I hate when I get that lazy. I spoke to that lady about what happened to the price will, apparently people have been sneaking chips in the tournament. Of course I didn't end up getting any extra money , but we put in place a few extra precautions. This Sunday , things seem to have gone a lot better. And yes I did win again, did I mention that I like this bar? I have a new toy for my computer, it is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. So far , it's not very bad , but still has its problems. So if there are many spelling mistakes, or grammar mistakes, or bits of stupid thoughts, then it all can be blamed on the software. OK, I realize I really have nothing to say, which is kind of odd for me. Sorry folks , nothing to doubt about nothing to see you today , and maybe something interesting will happen to me this week. I am actually out of town , and in Windsor again to the week off from work as a high had nothing to do as usual. And so now I'll just be in Windsor, being a bum. Maybe I will end up at the casino and lose a few hundred, or win a few thousand, will see how the week goes. Until then , good luck.

No Show

2005-07-26T15:14:00.000-04:00

So I go back to the bar yesterday to sort out what happened with out money. As it turns out though, she's not working, she doesn't return to work until Thursday. It also happens that she's out of town, an interesting coincidence yes, but apparently it's her normal routine. In truth I'm hoping it was just a simple mistake, something along the lines of the money being in the wrong pocket. There had been concern voiced by someone else earlier this summer about the prize pool being small, but I think we were the first ones to count and verify that it was fishy. I like her and I really like the bar (and the money I win there), I would hate to have to go to the owner and tell him that something shady's going down. In truth, he could lose his liquor license if workers from his bar are taking a cut of the prize pool, so I'll make sure to drop that little extra info if I have to talk to him.

Played in that other tournament last night, nothing exciting happened really. Got only 1 pair in the 3 hours I was playing, it was 99, flop was 752 rainbow, all-in against one competitor, who called with AT, she ended up with trip tens, sucked, but oh well. I was out right after that. I didn't misplay it, so I don't feel bad, just sucked. Played two side games, sitngo style, after that. Got in an argument with the same girl that busted my stack, she insisted on playing the tourney at 1/2 with 20 chips total. Yeah, I know, that's stupid, I tried explaining to her why that was a bad idea, but I could tell when a point is going nowhere. She acquisced in the second tourney though, and we played starting at 10/20 with 1000 chips. That game took way too long, over an hour long, and she was crying about it like you wouldn't believe. I won that one of course, but still, I'll admit it took far longer than I expected it to. I think a good compromise would be to make it a cash game, 1/2 blinds, $20-$50 buyin, just keep playing. That way, when you bust out 1st (like she did), you can just come back in, instead of waiting 1/2 hour for the game to end. I'd like that structure too anyway, seeing that I'm not a fan of escalating blinds when playing a bunch of drunk loose playing poker people, in which case I'm waiting for some decent cards.

Not Cool

2005-07-25T14:42:00.000-04:00

Finished reading Harrington on Hold 'em vol. 2 (HOH2) this weekend. That was an awesome book. I would recommend those two books (HOH1 and HOH2) to anyone serious about their poker. I would even be willing to argue that those books counted as one is the best NL hold 'em poker book ever written. The ideas from that book seemed to sink into my mind rather, something aided by the fact that I have a similar playing style to Mr. Harrington.
I made good use of that new poker knowledge yesterday when I went to play in the weekly poker tournament. I was able to control the size of my pots when up against other big stacks, stop/slow down with hands that are getting more action than they are worth, and even my hand reading skills. I was able to put my opponents on hands almost perfectly, which was sweet. The only times I went to the river with a weaker hand is when it was all-in preflop. Overall, I think I deserved to win that tournament, which I did, taking down $600.

This brings me to what made me upset about the tourney. The buy-in is $25 for 1000 chips. There are rebuys for the first two hours, each at the same $25 for 1000 chips. The tournament paid top 6 out of 30 players, all six-handed tables, which is a very nice payout structure in my opinion. When we were down to the final 6, we started noticing the small payouts going to 6th and 5th place, $75 and $95 respectively, so we figured they had made the tourney more top-heavy, something I don't have a problem with. The tourney is organized and ran by this lady who works at the bar, pretty nice lady. The tourney usually runs very smoothly, no problems at all. So we get down to the final two, and the main organizer had finished her shift and left. The second organizer asks if we were thinking of making a deal, so we ask how much is 1st and 2nd place. She tells us their is $975, $600 for first and $375 for second. That immediately seemed strange to us. There seemed to be a good bit more chips than that on the table. We were also looking forward to the final table because there were a lot of rebuys. So we decide to count the chips in play. After counting, we have 78.5K in play. I can understand the .5K as when she chips up players, sometimes giving a $100 chip to replace $70 chips. So that was upsetting, but $78K in chips is a $1950 prizepool, but after totalling up the prizes, we were looking at only $1600 being paid. We started talking about this with the second organizer, who was confused and just told us to we'd have to talk to the main organizer. To play it safe, we counted out the chips again, counted the prize payouts, wrote all these down, and had it signed by 5 of the 6 final table players (one had left already). We also had it signed by another of the workers at the bar, who verified the chip count to be sure we weren't trying to pull a stunt. The 2nd place guy and I are going back to the bar today to discuss what went down. In Canada, it's illegal for bars to take a cut of the prize pool, or for organizers to take a cut of the prize pool, which would be equivalent to taking a rake/entry fee. I wouldn't have a problem with the bar taking a cut under the table, or us tipping the organizer $100 bucks, but when almost 20% of the prize pool disappears, and I win that tourney, oh, we got a problem. Oh well, I'll let you folks know how the discussion went.

Hanging Out & Learning

2005-07-21T10:39:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the lack of a post yesterday folks, was busy doing nothing at work. Spent my night out though, which was pretty cool. Played another tourney at a bar, didn't get anything interesting, and went out after like 80 minutes. Went to another bar with a few friends, hung out, played poker, won $140...nice! Come on, what other hobby do you get to hang with friends, drink, and still take home more than you brought? I've managed to get so much respect from those that play me regularly that I find it funny. I'm not complaining of course, cause I don't see anything wrong with someone folding K9o to my raise, a lot safer for me that way. Saw people calling a half stack raise with 22 and 33! Still can't understand the reasoning behind that. One guy called my all-in on a AQJ board, with...A TEN! Yep, he was going for his gutshot straight. It thankfully didn't hit, thank you.

I got my two books in the mail. Harrington OH vol. 2 and Inside The Poker Mind. Started reading HOH2 and wow, I don't know shit! I like to think of myself as pretty decent, but the stuff I've seen so far is solid. I think I'll read throughout the book, then read the next book, then come back and read HOH2 again, then read HOH1 followed by HOH2. That should get it all sunk in, then I'll get to go pro like DoubleAs should. I've got 2 more books that should arrive sometime in August, one of them being Barry Greenstein's Ace on the River. He's a great player, so I'm sure he'll have some good things in that book. I love learning, so I have no problem with doing all this reading. I view it as an investment, I put $100 into a few books that bring me home a few thousand, seems like a nice return on investment to me. I also decided not to play much online while I'm reading these. First, the books have made me realize I'm not that good, there's also the fact that when I read up on poker or chess, my skill level takes a nice little dip, before climbing to new heights. I think I'd rather go through that negative phase with my tournament poker software and in live games, as opposed to dropping a few hundred online. I'll be playing about 3 or 4 live tourneys per week, so I figure I'll still be spending a lot of hours playing poker. I love how no one can perfect this game, there's always some new heights to reach, so I'll keep climbing.

The Emotional Factor

2005-07-19T11:31:00.000-04:00

Played in a live tourney yesterday. Got KK first hand, of course with the blinds at only 10/20 with a 1000 starting stack, I didn't end up getting anything from the one caller on the queen high flop. I was hoping he had the queen and would give me some chips, but no such luck. The structure of the tourney was extremely fast, with blinds going up every 30 minutes exactly, which is always a disadvantage to the tight player, which I am. I went card dead for an hour when the blinds hit 50/100 and then 100/200. Both levels I pretty much only got to the flop only when I was in the blind. That really sucked. I made a move on a shorter stack with 2 pair, but unfortunately she had the straight, ouch. Half my small stack gone. Right before the blinds were to hit me, and I surely wouldn't survive them, I decided Qd 8d was probably gonna be better than the next hand I would get. But then the guy after me goes all-in, 1 guy folds, then the other guy calls, then the girl calls. So on a table of 5 people, 4 just got involved in the biggest pot of the night. Talk about bad timing, second all-in guy had AK, caller had JJ, girl had KK, WOW! Am I an underdog or what? flop comes 8xx with the xx being two diamonds, so I'm feeling nice now, this could be it, I could be back in. Turn A, River x, thanks Lady Luck, thank you so much you damn stinking b----! Oh well, it was only $25 to play, so next time maybe she'll love me like I love her.

This brings me to my next topic. The difference between playing NL cash games and tourneys, on an emotional level. The advantage to cash games is that the reward is instantaneous. You have a good session by making such and such an amount, maybe equivalent to 5% of your bankroll, or whatever. A bad night is the opposite of that, you drop 5%, or even more if you're my friend SirFWALGMan, where you may drop about 30-50% (Sorry SirF). The fact is, at the end of a night, you feel some kinda of emotion about your play. 10 consecutive negative sessions should tell be heavy cause for concern in cash game play. You should be checking over your hands that you played to see where your leaks may have been. Chances are, you'll find a few there. This is the complete opposite of tournament play. A tournament player can go months, 30+ tournaments without doing well, and still, this doesn't particularly reflect on their play. I might be exaggerating there, so I'll show a numbers example. Let's say I'm a cash game player that loses 5% on a bad session. So 10 sessions would probably drop me down to 50% of my original bankroll, ouch. A tourney player can go 30 tourneys not getting in the money, then come say 3rd in 1. We're assuming these are modestly sized tourneys, say 300 players, so that 3rd is worth about 60 buyins. That tourney player is now up 29 buyins. If this is a player playing $100 tourneys, he's suddenly up $2900. That's a very positive result, even though he just had those 30 really depressing tourneys of getting nothing, he's still a winning tourney player. If he does that consistently, he's a long term winner even. As bad as going 30 straight without getting anything is, it can still be profitable. The emotional factor is that the cash game player isn't likely to go 30 sessions without an up night, so the few depressing losing sessions will be offset more frequently by the positive night. The tourney player on the other hand can go months without a good showing, even if that tourney player overall does better than that same cash game player. I guess what I'm trying to say is that 1) a tourney player better have a bigger bankroll, because they can expect a lot more in terms of a negative swing and 2) A tourney player needs to have more emotional fortitude. With Lady Luck being as fickle as she is, you need to play well and catch some cards to make it in a tourney, sometimes it'll feel like Lady Luck is out for you, she teases you with a great hand preflop, like AKs, then bring a 6 3 2 rainbow flop, just to hurt you, because she's mean like that. If you can't handle the meanness of our fair Lady, then stick to cash games, if you can, then hey, maybe you can be a tourney specialist.

Just a tidbit of math here: my small $425 second place this Sunday is enough to pay for my buyins for the next 4 months (it's once a week). So even if I don't win again for the rest of the summer, I'm still up. Tourneys are cool.

Stay Out Of People's Way

2005-07-18T09:55:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned before I play in a weekly tourney at a local bar. Usually about 30 people with rebuys. Pulled in a 2nd place finish yesterday, grabbing CA$425. I didn't rebuy at all, seeing I usually don't have to. In the 6 times I've played there, I've been 1st twice, with a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finish. I think I've mentioned that before, but oh well. When I was down the final four, a guy who had been knocked out asked me how I manage to get to the final group so often. I told him something much more profound than I meant it at the time, but upon thinking further, is pretty damn good. My answer: "I stay out of people's way". I figure that to be a great motto for doing well in tourneys. So many of these live players think tourneys are all about bluffing and making moves, but I disagree. I'll fold 80+% of the time these players bluff, but some of them have come to realize, if I'm still in the pot with you, then I'm taking your chips. If you bluff at me, you'll either grab a small pot from me, or I'm taking your chips. The few hands that I lose at showdown are usually due to being sucked out on for the river. I've really gotten into that zone where I can tell the mood of the table and instantly adjust. If the table is playing loose without many raises, then I'll come in with a less than great hand. The positive is that I still have this image with them of this extremely tight player. I had one guy lay down AJo (these are 6-handed tables mind you) because I was in the pot. You can't ask for more respect than that, to be fair though, I showed him my AK, gotta maintain that image. As Harrington said though, your biggest pots come when you play against your image, so I manage to take monster pots down with hands like 64s, which is now my favourite hand :-)

Hey, do me a favour, I wanna update my blogroll to include others who read this year little rantspot of mine. So drop me a comment and I'll add you. My apologies to the blogfather for me not noticing that I was on his blogroll. Sorry about missing on Charlie's tourney yesterday as well, I wasn't home. I've got the second volume of Harrington on hold 'em on it's way, and man am I psyched. His first book was great and I've heard the second one should be better. I've also got 3 other books on the way, so I'm gonna have a lot of reading to do for the rest of this summer. I better be a pro after all this reading. Does anyone have say a hand history of a NL pro? Maybe someone you watched on PartyPoker or something like that. I'd like to see how a pro plays his cards, and not just the hands that you see on WPT events and such where only the big hands are shown, or where it's only down to the final six. That doesn't give much insight into how those guys play a full game. I'd be willing to pay to get a commentated hand history of a pro during a tourney, that would be awesome, even if he doesn't win. That's something that's very often available for say a chess tourney/game, so why not for poker as well. I have another live tourney to play today, hopefully I do well in this one too, I'll let you know. Anyway, I'm off for now, hopefully my books reach today.

The Man I Used To Be

2005-07-15T14:58:00.000-04:00

So littleacornman mentioned that he had read some of the things in my archives and found some of it interesting. This lead me to go read some of it myself. Why not? what can I see that will scare me. Man, was I ever wrong about that. Who was that guy? I think I've grown in leaps and bounds since I started this online poker thing 9 months ago. I remember posting a list of items that I felt were leaks in my game, I've corrected all of them now for sure. Here was that list:

1) I had a tendency to play small pairs just to see the flop - I've sort of fixed this, now I only try with 88 or higher.
2) If I already called a bet pre-flop, say with 98s, and it is raised by a later player, I will always call this raise to get to the flop, is this a losing play? I don't usually call if it's re-raised again. I think I'm going to ask this at 2+2.
3) When do I fold? so many times I'll have something decent like TPWK and I'll bet the flop, get raised, which would suggest that this person also has top pair with a better kicker, but I'll check-call to the river to make sure. There's also other instances where I think I may be beaten, but I call to make sure.
4) Playing too long. This is a problem that a lot of people I know have. We'll play 3+ hours of poker straight, even though we know that we would start to lose focus after the first 1-1.5 hours. I think I'm going to try to force myself to maximum of 90 minutes of poker. Then maybe throw in a little chess. But then my brain would be too drained to play more poker. Any solutions?
5) Gary Carson recommends betting Second Pair on the flop, is this really a good idea when two people call after you, how do you know if you're beaten? just call all the way to the river?

Fishy huh? At least I know what to do in those situations now, figure most of you do too so I'm not gonna answer those.

I looked over how much I've made in poker in the 9 months since I've been playing. NOt a bad figure really, made US$6500 playing online, which isn't great compared to some of you guys, but not that bad anyway. Made about $1000 from my live game play, so that's nice too. My goal for the year would be to hopefully make it to $10K online. Almost scored in a big tourney last night on PokerStars, unfortunately, my KK ran into AA on a very well played (by both of us) 562 flop. Let's just say I was meant to go bust on that one. Those kind of things don't even make me angry anymore. Back when I started I may have gotten upset by running into that, but the times when I run into unlikely situations like that now, well, that's life. Wished Phil Ivey hadn't busted in the WSOP as he was the one I was cheering for. I think he's probably the best (or damn close to it) poker player out there right now, and I think he deserves to win his first big one. Don't have much else to discuss right now, so that's it.

Best. Night. EVER!

2005-07-14T11:44:00.000-04:00

I think I had one of my most fun nights playing poker last night, EVER! After my realization yesterday that skill only gets you so far, I stopped expecting to win with my best hands. I also started gambling more. QT 4 handed, I raise, he reraises, pfft...ALL-IN! My 60-40s, with me being the 40, were hitting like no tomorrow. To make it better, I didn't get upset at all when they didn't hit, why? because mathematically I was behind anyway. Fold equity started playing a big role in my moves, check-raise with a flush draw and overcard, why? I'm only 48% if he calls anyway, so I'll take that chance. If I lose? I was behind anyway. My AK vs his 72o, who cares, I'm ahead now, but I don't have to be by the river. Heh heh, the aggression steps to a whole new level when you stop being concerned that you need a group 1 or group 2 hand to play. I'm not saying I played stupid. I wasn't chasing gutshots and draws with bad odds, I was just factoring in other things. I also got the biggest compliment I've ever gotten since I've been playing online. After my KJ had demolished his AQ after our all-in preflop, he says, get this "You're a horrible player!". *Sniff* *Sniff*, I'd like to thank God...and my mother... *sniff*. To add to the joy, the same player challenged me to a heads up match for $50, but this is AFTER I demolished his 4-1 chip lead to win our SitnGo. I've never had a night where I was putting that many players on tilt. Not by trash talking mind you, but just by playing so strong. Made $100 from that adventure. Ahh, I've tasted ambrosia and now I demand more. Bring me the fishes...and I shall devour them...and spew them out...and stomp on their carcasses.

The Luck Factor

2005-07-13T12:34:00.000-04:00

Ok, figure it's been long enough since I last posted. It's been a long dry spell for me in the last two weeks. I was playing great poker, 90% of the time my money was in as a favourite, only to be sucked out on by whatever. AK vs K6, K on flop, 6 on river kinda thing. I was extremely frustrated at these things, I'd play tight solid poker for 2 hours, of course that's rarely the strategy if you want a big stack, so I'd end up with a little above average stack, only to finally run into one idiot who doesn't realize that AK isn't that good when it completely misses the flop, only to river his Ace. I've come to realize that no matter how good and accurate you play mathematically, poker is still a game with a large luck factor. According to Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, about 30% luck and 70% skill. That's a lot of luck, if I can't handle that I'm not always gonna win with the best hand, then emotionally, I should be doing something less stressful, like chess. The worse is when you realize that a donkey going all-in with 72o is only a 2.3-1 dog against your AKs. So 30% of the time, you'll be fuming about the obvious stupidity of his play, but still, it wasn't such a shock mathematically. Math is a bitch, that's right, I hate math, even though I use it to make most of my poker decisions.

I've dropped $500 in the last two weeks playing online, so July's been a bad month for me. I've considered switching away from the MTTs and playing either SitnGos, limit, or some NL cash games. I really don't know if I can convince myself to do it. Limit makes sense in a sense, but all you're doing is playing odds, playing math. You become a serious slave to variance and the like. Your results are rarely a result of your play, well, if you play properly. Your down nights are a lot of the time not your fault, as your mathematically correct draw just didn't hit. Sorry, but that doesn't sound very exciting. NL cash games are probably the best route for me to take, but it's hard to go back to averaging $5-$10/hr from a cash game when you were just making hundreds a week in MTTs. The fact that I only play about 20 hours a week of poker means that I'm potentially only looking at $100 a week, not the mention that two bad beats can easily result in that number being a lot less, like $20. Don't remind me of the fact that I've put in 40 hours so far this month and lost $500, I try not to think about it that way when I play tourneys.

On the upside to this so far rough month of online poker, I play in a small weekly tourney at a local bar.30 people, with rebuys. I've cashed 5 of the 6 times I've been there, 1st twice, 3rd twice, and 4th once. So I'm up about $1000 from that, so that's a positive. I like playing live games, things seem easier there, even though going card dead for 30 hands is twice as frustrating as online because of the time. The fun side is that it's so much easier to get reads on people, well, probably cause it's near impossible to do online. I've made big laydowns and even bigger calls due to this. Including calling an all-in from a guy who wanted to raise preflop, but screwed up and had to go all-in on a Q high flop, I had Q7o and had seen this play by him before, so insta call. I love it! I think blogging serves a therapeutic value. By letting others know what you face, it helps you to deal with your ups and downs, and reminds us why we truly love this game. Did I stop winning because I wasn't posting? Interesting indeed. Well, here's to winning lots more money.

Not Always Greener On The Other Side

2005-06-30T16:27:00.000-04:00

I have a friend who also plays poker. This guy is very aggressive,and very loose. He's got the guts to bluff players with absolutely nothing if he senses he can get you to lay it down. The three times I've played with this friend, I've seen him stack up a lot of chips, busting a lot of players and such. I've always admired his style, wanting to be that type of player. Yesterday, this same player told me he doesn't do that well overall. He does make money, but he doesn't tend to make that much. He does well in live games because he can control his facial expressions so well that people tend to give him credit for much better hands than he has, but online, he loses that advantage. His loose calls are picked off more often, and his bold bluffs are often exposed for what they are. I've realized that as tight as my own play is, and as dependent as my performance is on getting my fair share of good cards, my style is actually quite solid (good). Think about how a player who plays as tight as Dan Harrington does, and I think I play about that tight, makes money. We all know that Dan has made the final table in both 2003 and 2004 of the WSOP, when the fields were tremendously large. So playing tight has it's advantages, you're not likely to be the big stack in a tournament, but you're usually never too far below the average, even on a mediocre card day.

Haven't won anything big at all this month, which makes it pretty much a drought for me. I've still managed to get just enough to stay even, but that's not that fun when you're still putting in about 20 hours per week. Still have my day job though, as horrible as it is, and as much as I hate it, the measly money they pay helps somewhat. Ahh well, here's to winning another tourney!

Not My Style

2005-06-24T10:22:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in over a week, not cool. I've been following the events that have transpired recently in the blogging community. My condolences to Iggy and his wife's family. I also send my condolences the the friends and family of Charlie Tuttle. That story was so very sad, almost had me in crying. It's amazing though how his story has brought out so much positivity in the poker community though. I haven't had any big performances in the last two week, managed to stay even though with a nice $400 mini-tourney live event. I read through Doyle's NL section of super system 2 and realized something, I gotta stop reading people like that. That kind of play doesn't really suit my style, and I've got to start accepting and improving my style. Harrington is my hero, as it seems we think along the same lines pokerwise. I like playing logically, agressively, but most importantly mathematically correct. Doyle will make a play that would seem incorrect mathematically, but because he figures he can win a large sum if it works, then he'll do it. He's a very big believer in the mathematical use of implied odds. He factors them in greatly when he plays, because honestly, calling a 1/2 pot bet in hopes of picking up a n OESD(??), that's just craziness. I do play with bad enough players whereby the implied odds would be there to make gambling plays that will play off, but his level of aggressiveness surely would fail against the players I face. These guys aren't afraid to call you down with middle pair, and when you continue that aggression and they catch on the river, you're the one in trouble, not them. I find it better for me to have them know of me as the tight good player that actually has them beat when I bet into them, because that gives me the ability to bluff every once in a while, and get people to lay down a better hand to me. I'd rather have someone fold their TPNK because they fear I have TPTK (when I actually have something less) and know I'll push them hard than them think "oh, he's just bullying, but I got something, so I'll call him down". I've played against the guys who play the crazy-aggressive style, and I've broken most of them that I've faced. Simply get a hand, let them bet it for you, then raise on the river and take a bunch of their chips. I understand someone like Doyle knows when to stop pushing and slow down drastically, but most of his followers are nowhere near that level of skill, so they just push, and push, and push all their chips over to me. Well, that's enough ranting for now.

To Live, You Have To Be Willing To Die!

2005-06-14T12:20:00.000-04:00

I've noticed slight improvements in my game, which is good news. I am completely detached from TPTK these days. If I bet, and get called by more than 1 player, then I'm done, end of discussion. My mistake count has decreased too. Yesterday I played in two MTTs and I can't remember making any major mistakes. Busted out of the money in both though, only 1 of them as an underdog. Raised on the button to steal the blinds, get called, hit an OESD with two overcards, had odds that I couldn't fold. Unfortunately I didn't hit my draw and I was out. My mantra in these tourneys is still 'If you wanna win, you gotta be willing to die'. I'm not going to avoid confrontation with a great hand simply because I may bubble out. 40% of the time I'll bubble out, but 60% of the time I'll end up high in the final table. I think that 60% more than compensates for the buyins that I lose by taking that chance. I could play it safe and avoid that 3-2 shot, but then I'm only looking to finish just inside the money, and well, that's no glory at all. My bustout in the second tourney involved me pushing all-in with 2 pair on a T29 rainbow flop and getting called by QJ, with the 8 hitting on the turn. That sucked, and dropped me to 2.5 BB which I pushed with AQ, hitting the Ace on the flop was nice, until another guy flipped AK, which really sucked. Overall I'm happy with my play, and I still have nothing to complain about, I've been making good showings at the final table at least once a week since I got home from school at the start of May. Time to go get Super System 2, see what I will learn there, maybe I can learn to be crazy like Daniel Negreanu, crazy bastard that one, but great guy too. That's my goal in life, a crazy nice guy, who's made millions from poker. :-)

Where To From Here?

2005-06-13T15:09:00.000-04:00

Played in a live tourney yesterday, played fairly solid poker, still made a few mistakes, but nothing painful. Finally busted 3rd by some old guy who kept hitting rivers. He went all-in against AA in two consecutive hands, once with 87s, where he flopped trip 8s and the second time with J6s and hit the flush. He beat me out with a runner runner straight. I was indeed angry, but at least I was ahead there. I'm a very solid player mathematically, reading through Harrington's books I think I got 95%+ of the correct answers to the problems he posed in that book. That seems about accurate to how I actually play in tournaments, make 19 good decisions to every one bad one. I do well in tourneys, so it's not like I'm saying 'so why can't i win'. My problem is this: now what? I'm a player who has a lot of the basic theory down, I call it basic because if it was all that advanced I'd be a pro by now. I figure a lot of my additional learning will come from playing experience, which I intend to gain over my next 100,000 hands.

Here's something worth considering, back in the day, when the average live poker player would sit at the casino, he'd be lucky to see 40 hands an hour, so 100,000 hands is 2,500 hours for him. If he worked 8 hours per day, that's over 3000 working days, at 250 days a year, that's 12 years worth of experience. Being the online players that we are, we know that 100,000 can be played by 4-tabling at 50hands/hour/table, giving us 200hands per hour, meaning we can reach that same 12 year experience in 500 online hours, or about 3 months. Amazing isn't it? we can achieve 12 years of playing experience in 3 months. In addition to this, we have access to a boatload of online reading material, blogs, magazines (CardPlayer), books, TV shows (WPT, WSOP) among other things that those old timers didn't have. So we have a smashing advantage over those guys. I think I can go places with this poker business, gotta focus though.

This is more one for the few (and I assume very few) bloggers who read this, where can I find good NL material. As far as bloggers go, I can't find many that are NL players, and are good at it. I figure there are a few others out there, but I can't find em. DoubleAs is amazing, but there's only so much time he has for posting, not like we can force him to post daily (can we?), PokerNerd is another good one, but other than that, I'm missing out. There are a few others I read, but they mostly do both NL and limit, and I'm looking for NL specialists. Come on guys, I have a lot of learning to do, so I need to find the wisdom of the masters who are willing to share that knowledge. So, who else can I read out there?

$400 Mistake

2005-06-10T14:48:00.000-04:00

Had a decent night of poker last night. I'd mentioned in my last post that I was out of town for the early part of the week,so hadn't played much. Last night I get in on a small $10 MTT. Got no big hands at all, and I mean none. Miraculously though, I maximized my small hands for some sick chips. JJ got me a few thousand, so did TT. Those were my biggest hands. Thanks to the Harrington book, which I've now finished, I was betting just the right amounts to get people to call, while still causing them to make a mistake by calling, I was loving it. I think that book jumped my abilities up nice little bit, and the perfect thing is, the style of play he uses in the book is my natural style. I'm a conservative, mathematically oriented player. My hand reading ability jumped a lot from that book as well, and I only payed off one hand. I flopped second pair, and by the way it went around, I knew no one had the top pair. One guy bet the pot on the river, and it just didn't fit the pattern, so I called. TUrned out he slowplayed a set and bet big to get a straight to fold (???) I got to the final table fairly easily, staying in the top 5 chip positions after the first hour-and-a-half. Called an all-in for half my chips with AKs, which sorry to say, I'd probably do again. Turns out he had AA, which really sucked. I still don't understand why he'd push a stack of 15BB just to pick up the blinds. I continued outplaying the table and got down to the final 3, where one guy got caught blind stealing and busted out. That would be the point that I stopped playing smart. I've gotten used to so many idiots who are so happy just making the top two that they figure a coinflip should decide the winner. Guy raised me to 45K chips rom the button, he was a bad player, so I figured he had any two, I push, he calls, I have A3, he has KQ. A king hits on the turn and it's over. There was a $400 difference between first and second, and I couldn't stop berating myself for doing something so stupid for $400. I'm a pretty damn good heads up player, I should have known better. Ahh well, lesson learned, and in the end, that's the most important thing.

I Hate Gambling

2005-06-09T15:21:00.000-04:00

Went out of town last weekend, just got back on Tuesday night. Went to Windsor, love that place. Had a date, which was cool, ended up at the casino with her. I've never realized it before, but I hate gambling. It was killing me that we were sitting there playing all these -EV games and just watching the casino rack up money, our money. All this to make a woman happy, and yet it was worth it, women, trouble and a half. Guess I don't have much to post about, just figured I'd put something rather than nothing. Everyone who went to Vegas had fun, damn, I wish I could go to Vegas. I'm sure I'll go there someday, just not yet, maybe when I have money. Finished reading Harrington on Hold 'Em, which is a great book which I'd recommend to anyone who hasn't read it yet. Figured it helped refine my thinking, which is great. Stuck at work today, did I mention I hate working, God I hate working. Til next time, good luck at the tables.

Aggression And Confessions

2005-06-02T12:21:00.000-04:00

Strangely interesting night of poker last night. I've been reading Doyle's 'Poker Wisdom Of A Champion', which is mainly a collection of articles of Doyle's written back in the day. This seems to have had a slight effect on my, in a good way in the long run I think, even with short term negatives. My aggression jumped huge last night in my MTT. I was able to smell the weakness, it's as if there was a scream in my ear when someone was scared, and I wasn't afraid to test those instincts. I ended up seeing the flop 28% of the times, and trust me, I wasn't getting the cards to justify that, but I was able to lay down a few hands and bluff weak players off their hands. My stack variance was quite different than I'm used to though, I'd get big, finally get hit on one hand, drop back to a little above average, steal a few more, and this cycle would continue. I don't think I mind this pattern though, especially since I'm just starting with it, I figure I'll get better at
backing down when I'm probably beaten.

In one of those bad moments last night, I went against my notes to my detriment. I raised with KK got called by a player who my notes say is 'loose with aces', ace comes on the flop, and he checks (twice), a play which I didn't think he was disciplined enough to do, and then bets big on the river, which usually suggests a bluff, I called, and there went 1/4 of my stack, should've listened to my notes and fold. The stupidest decision I did make though was around the bubble,just 4 more to go to make the final table and get paid. For some stupid reason, I decided that A8s, which is a crap hand, was worth playing, limping in for 20% of my stack, how stupid. It got minraised, and called by 1 other player, so I said "Well, I put in 8000 chips already, might hit the flop perfectly", that was stupid decision #2. The flop missed completely of course, and I'd just wasted 40% of my stack. I was pretty much forced all in with K6s against 53o, a 5 coming on the flop sealed my fate. It was an expensive bit of stupidity, and a lesson learned.

One of the things I've realized about blogging is that it serves as something of a confessional. You do stupid stuff during your games, then you can confess to the world your mistake and work through it and move on. Even with that act of stupidity last night, I must say I'm proud of how I played the night. That actually broke even on the night because I played a little bit in a $100 NL cash game. I played loose, just looking at cheap flops to see if I could take someone's stack from them overplaying. I don't have a problem doing this now, as I figure I'm very sensible postflop, and with my new found aggression, I can outplay the typical weak-tight opponent. I would actually think when I was in a hand, as opposed to just automatically saying "Oh look, I've got TPTK, I should bet". This, in combination with my notes, gave me a very nice win. I had AQ, limped from EP, a few more limpers and it's raised in LP. I'm not very scared of that raise, as he was on the button and I figured he was trying to thin the field. I call and 1 other player call. Flop is AQ9, all clubs. Hhhm, I'm ahead of the raiser now, I'm sure of that, but my notes on the other player tell me he loves playing suited cards to see a flop. So what's the best way to find out if he has it? I check, knowing he certainly wouldn't bet it. Preflop raiser checks as well. Turn's a blank, here we go again, I'm almost certain I'm not ahead of flush boy, so I decided to check again and see what he does. He continues his slowplay, and the LP also checks (wisely). The river brings a beautiful Ace, giving me the nuts. I bet $20 into the $50 pot hoping he'd raise me. He thinks and just calls. I love idiots that slowplay that poorly.

Tournament Life

2005-06-01T11:45:00.000-04:00

Been sticking to my usual, which are small MTTs. Played 2 tourneys on monday, finishing 1st and 2nd, made a total of $900 profit there (as I said, small tourneys). Yesterday I played another tourney, got 4th place, which only made me $173 :-( I love top heavy tourneys, but it sucks when you don't make it into that top part. 1st place got $1000 in that tourney, and I wanted it. Final hand was my Ah 7h vs Kc 6c, he knew he was behind, but he had barely more chips than me and figured he had to gamble as well to have any hope. Flop brought 2 hearts, and that's all I got from that as he ended up with trip kings.

I had played a live rebuy tourney on Sunday. My God, are live players really this bad? I could tell these guys were just guys that played poker because they understood what the winning hands were. An A85 flop is checked to me and I bet out with my A2. I was only playing an ace too because I knew I could outplay these guys after the flop if I hit nice. The final board was A855A. He bet into me, which was an easy all-in push for me, considering he was extremely aggressive and wouldn't have been able to check that flop. He showed J7! for a jack two pair with Jack kicker, I was shocked as I raked in the donation. I busted out when the flop brought 442 and I happened to have 74 in the BB and the small blind happened to be lucky to have A4. I checked the odds of something like that happening, it's like 1 in 288000, that's just shitty luck. I wasn't even angry, as there was no way I could avoiding losing there, just sucked that we were the two big stacks and he had me covered.

Tournaments really suit me. I think I do that tourney strategy things that Sklansky and such recommend automatically. I play tight/smart early and then getting more loose/aggressive later when people start playing scared, backing down when they reassert their aggression. So I guess I'm pretty good at the switching gears required in tourneys. I'm seriously working on my aggression for ring games, as I have a really difficult time making a full bluff. I can make semibluffs, like if a 9 high flop hits and I have 88 against only 1 opponent, I have no problem hitting them up, or AK on a low flop, if I think someone's testing me, then I'll put them to the test back. That type of aggression is easy for me, but I want the aggression of players like DoubleAs, where I may have nothing, but I know you have nothing too, and I'm more willing to risk my money than you. I'm going to be playing a few live games this weekend, and I know I'll be pushing people around since the buy-ins will only be like $20, which don't move me as being much anymore, a side effect of up nights of 500+ online and down nights of like 200+ on a bad night. I've been having a lot more up nights than down nights, so that's good. Another thing I realized, I used to blame a cold deck for not doing well, but poker's only partially about the cards you get. I managed to come first in a MTT playing only 8% of my hands. I wasn't that tight by choice, I was just getting crap, of my first 50 cards, my best hand was A5s. I'd pick up pots when they were there, reraising players when my notes told me to do it. I keep detailed notes of my opponents, which helps a lot, especially when it makes decisions like folding QQ preflop easy, which isn't something easy to do with normal online opponents, but my notes screamed I should fold.

Improvement and Weakness

2005-05-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

I've been reviewing my game heavily lately, not because I've been doing poorly, but simply because I can see so much room for improvement. I think I could be a great poker player if I continue to apply myself. I remember when I started playing chess, I was a typical novice. I fully applied myself at that game and now I'm a master level player. Now I'm on to poker, I know I have improved immensely since I started in October. I started playing blackjack hands like KTo and Q9o regardless of position. I can't even recognize the guy that used to play the way I did 2 months ago. The books are on their way, the full application of self is on, let the learning proceed.

So here's a weakness I know I have. I have already mentioned that I'm not overly aggressive, based on the fact that I think of this game too logically. Let's say I have QQ in MP, I raise and am called by a LP player. If the flop comes out 962 rainbow for example, and I bet out the size of the pot and get called, what should that tell me about my opponent? I'm so used to playing loose players that I know they can have anything from A6 to A2 to K9 to T8. On a turn with a scare card such as a K, I'd bet out again, about 2/3 the pot, if they raise I'd fold. But then there's another call, so now what? Damn I hate people like that. On the river, do I bet again, these are the players where if you check they're bound to bet the pot and dance about how they bluffed you out, and how they're the man, blah, blah, blah. A small defensive bet here would also get pounced on by one of the good LAGs. Need help getting through this, hope Harrington will help.

Suited Connectors

2005-05-29T09:40:00.000-04:00

So after reading DoubleAs excellent article on inflection points, and duly following that up by reading PokerNerd's article, I've been noticing when it comes into play more in my games. What DoubleAs said about most of us teenagers already using it but not really realizing what we're doing, or using it to it's maximum potential is quite true. I've used it before, but never truly understanding what I was doing. I now have a thirst for additional knowledge that will get me out of this teenage stage, and into my early 20s :-) So I ordered Bob Ciaffone's book, along with the much praised book by Dan Harrington, can't wait for those to arrive.

I've been having a massive problem with my NL game. I'm the literal book definition of a tight-aggressive player. It does work I admit, I'm a winning player and all that, but people who play me often easily realize this. Everytime I do raise, it's pretty much only the sucker at the table that calls me. I had talked myself out of playing suited connectors on the basis that a good player wont likely give you the proper odds to chase. I've now realized that that's not quite true. Yes you wont get the right odds heads up, but in multiway pots, with a good flop, you're likely to be getting great odds to continue. So I've now added those back in, let's see how it goes.

I'M BACK!

2005-05-27T11:11:00.000-04:00

Hey folks, I'm sure everyone's stopped reading these, since I haven't posted in a good 3 months. It's not like I stopped playing poker or anything like that, I just got super lazy at school. I've been reading all the blogs I regularly read, good to see everyone still doing semi-well (SirF, you'll get back past where you were). I've been playing tournaments these days, and that seems to be my specialty. Sure I've played a few cash games, all NL of course, and made a bit there too, but tournaments, now that's where the money is. I've made over $5000 from tournaments this month alone, sweet. Make sure you read doubleAs blog, that guy just doesn't realize how good his posts are, gonna go work on convincing him to make a book out of it, I'd read that book twice, and then twice more.

Back at my summer job, did I mention that I hate my summer job?, so always working on getting fired, or quitting before that. Already worked out a math formula whereby I can justify quitting and spending the rest of my summer in Jamaica. I'm actually pretty close, I just need some more poker income. Unlike a lot of other university students I know, I don't work for the sake of working, I work only because I need money. With poker supplementing that income, there's no logical reason to spend my whole summer slaving to make some big corporation bigger. On the school front, I finished school, again, so now I have two (useless) degrees, and now I'm heading back for my Masters of Bullsh*t degree. I can't deny it, I actually love school, it's complete freedom from responsibilities, and people don't get angry at you, because hey, you're increasing your education.

Alright, I'll try to post regularly again, in the meantime, I'm off to peruse more blogs.

Out Of Position

2005-02-21T08:07:00.000-05:00

Think I finally understand why I shouldn't play many hands out of position. Normally I'm a pretty tight player, seeing around 15-20% of flops, including the blinds. But it finally hit me today. When a player behind me raises/reraises, he's not necessarily betting the flop will be kind to his hand, he's just betting that i'll miss mine. Statistically, I'm only going to hit the flop 33% of the time. Even after that, Let's say my hand is best 50% of the time i hit, since he raised, that means I'm likely to win that battle only about 17% of the time. Considering the raiser will probably raise at least twice what I've put in, I'm looking at spending a lot of chips with only a small chance of winning that hand. So it's now decided, AJo, just isn't playable unless I'm in late position, or we're shorthanded, even if I'm just limping.

Another thing I've learned from PartyPoker is this - Bluff raising is a horrible idea. Yes, your opponent's weak bet into a big pot probably means he has something very little or nothing at all. But on PP, people are willing to call that raise when they have as little as middle pair on the flop. If they have that 50% of the time, you are looking to lose a lot of chips trying to push them off that weak hand. Also, based on this, it's smart to bet big when you get a good flop, like top pair good kicker with no obvious flush or straight draw. Why? because the person with that second pair is going to pay you off. Of course there's the high likelihood that yes, they may just hit their kicker and go two pair, in which case you'll be hurting, but still, better to go out on their stupidity than on your own cowardice. Anyway, that's enough for now.

Check That Great Hand

2005-02-16T03:51:00.000-05:00

I figure I'll let most of my posts be about some sort of argument. Hence, there should be a point to each post. The typing out of the reasoning should be enough to ingrain the idea into my own psyche, helping me do it instinctively while playing. So the topic of this post is when not to continue betting. Let's say we have 800 chips remaining in one of PartyPoker's SitnGos. We get AsKs in middle position with the blinds at 50/100. We raise to 250, and get called by a semi-loose player in late position with 8d7d. The flop comes Ad 3d 6h. We can assume we are ahead and to protect against a possible flush draw we would like to bet above the size of the pot, which has 650, we have 550 chips left, so that isn't going to happen. If we go all-in, our opponent still has odds to call, since he only needs about 1.9-1 and he's getting about 2.08. So do we even bother going all-in? I think no, I say check it here, if he goes all-in then we have no choice but to call, but since he's only on a draw, the smart thing for him to do would be to check. If the turn is a blank, then that would be a great time to go all-in, as the odds for him then would be 4-1 of hitting on the river, while the pot is still only giving 2-1. If a flush card comes on the turn, the smart thing to do would be to check and fold. What if he didn't have a flush draw you say? Well, we can be sure that is in fact what he has if he does check behind on the flop. If he bet the flop, then my read would say he hit the ace as well, in which case I'd probably then re-raise all-in. This leads back into the same thing we tried to avoid, but that's ok, we took the right path to the bad situation, and I guess that's some consolation.

Poker Update

2005-02-14T02:12:00.000-05:00

How just like me. Big speech about posting regularly before I take another month to post. I'm sure this wont be read by anyone, so I guess it's ok. I stuck to my tournament specialist idea. I must say it's been working out great. My bankroll is now at US$1300, and I already withdrew CA$500. I've specialized in PartyPoker $20 + $2 SitnGos. I've been making it into the money 50% of the time, which is pretty nice. I was up more than that, but I decided to see if I was ready to move up to the $30 games, the results weren't very promising, so back to my $20s. My strategy is still pretty simple, tight early, wait for the drunks to bust themselves out calling down with A2o, then make my moves in the later rounds.

I want to buy a laptop with my poker money. I'm not sure whether I'm really fond of that idea though. I'm one of those people that hate parting with significant amounts of money. Maybe the solution would be to pay for it using debit, at least that way I'd never get to hold the cash in my hand. I met my perfect laptop two days ago, and I literally ran out of the store. The reason was that if I stayed I knew I'd buy it, and damn it, I'm just not ready to commit. Been reading up on blogs even though I wasn't posting. I have my favourite blogs, people I just can't stop reading, sorry to hear about what happened to SirFWalGman, that sucks, maybe I can use that as motivation to take the money and make use of it before I lose it. That actually does help, think I may just get that computer after all. Anyway, I'm out, back to being a lazy student.

Tournament Specialist

2005-01-12T01:34:00.000-05:00

Alright, the lack of posting has seriously gotten out of control. A result of the instability in my living situation and such. I've switched over to NL tourneys now on PartyPoker. I've mostly played $11 games, but tonight I decided to try a $33. Happened to have fellow blogger Negative_EV on my table. I played tightly throughout the early stages, watching half the table bust out. -EV started to play super-aggressive, going all-in on a lot of what seemed like obvious blind steals. I must say I can't agree with that strategy. Logic would suggest that when someone actually does call you, they are probably going to have something that they think is ahead. If they are wrong then chances are it's a coin-flip. He did this maybe 6-10 times. That's a lot of hoping that none of the players in the blinds will have something. Well, with 4 players left, no one seemed willing to risk all their chips to challenge him, so it worked for him. Using this strategy he went from being the short stack to being one of the big stacks, somewhat vindicating his strategy. It eventually got down to the two of us, which is nice, being heads up with a more experienced blogger. After passing the blinds around a bit, never actually going to a flop for about the first 8 hands, finally he went all in. Unfortunately for him, I just happened to have AKs, an easy call, especially when I saw him turn over Q3o. Now I'll be honest, I'm actually considered an aggressive shorthand player, but I can't picture myself going all-in with something like that preflop. I caught an ace on the turn and he was left drawing dead, a nice game overall, and not a bad debut for me to the $33 game. Maybe I can try to play at this level, it would definitely provide enough spending money at school, US$120 a day is more than enough for me, but that's assuming I win every one I play, and if not, at least I should win enough to be above breakeven.

As to my lack of posting, I promise to post once every day or two for the foreseeable future, so you should come check every once in a while to make sure I'm keeping my word. Short post, Until the next one.

The Return

2004-12-31T11:32:00.000-05:00

I'm back now. I won't lie, I hated having to leave Jamaica. It was perfection, except for when it got to a cold 21 degrees celsius, then I was complaining like everyone else. Been having a rough time since I got back, losing about $200 at my regular 2/4 games. Of course I should mention that $100 of that was my ill-fated shot at a 5/10 game.

I'm already feeling like this is going to be a short post. I've been completely frustrated with neteller recently. They spontaneously closed my account a few weeks back. I was out of the country and so was unable to call and talk to them. So here's the deal. My account was accessed from the US, but I signed up from Canada, of course it so happens that it was me that accessed the account from the Detroit International Airport. So they go through all the security questions, of course I get them, I am me after all. So then they insist on calling me at my home address, of course that's not possible, since I'm not living there anymore. So now they get suspicious. The guy goes to talk to his supervisor and comes back to ask me my chequing account number, I tell him of course, because I'm me. They say they need to call me at a phone number in my name. I don't have one, I just moved here. Oh, but your contract says you need to have a phone number in your name. That's interesting, you bastards let me sign up without my own phone number, now you're bitching at me. So he says all they can do is close the account and forward the balance to my address back home. I was so angry I didn't even bother asking how long this bit of stupidity will take. So anyway, I figure I'll be getting a cellphone while I'm here, so I'll just do that and sign back up. Arrgh, I hate those bastards.

Quick final note on the poker side. I think I'm finally going through one of those extended periods of bad cards. If the cards aren't horrible, say like AJ, then you can bet that someone is going to pick up their miracle card on the river. It's somewhat frustrating, but I haven't really felt angry yet. I figure I'll just keep on going, eventually, this period will end, and I'll take those loose-stupid players money.

Almost There

2004-11-29T13:48:00.000-05:00

I'm back in Windsor now. Left my job on Friday and now it's back to being a student. Leaving for my trip to Jamaica on Wednesday, plane's flying out of Detroit and I don't have a passport, but I hope my Canadian citizenship card will be enough. It wasn't a good last day at work. Started off wonderful, had lunch with my friends at a buffet, great time. But then, upon returning to work, the company, which has been downsizing, lays off two of my friends, one of which just got back from paternity leave. They both have solid talent and good backup plans, so I'm not really worried about them moving on.

Been playing a lot of live games here in Windsor. Our games are pretty cheap and are more about hanging out and such, cause winning $10 after playing for 2 hours cannot be considered profitable for someone who's been playing online, where winning/losing $50 in an hour isn't very shocking. Haven't had a losing game with them so far, so I guess this book reading thing is helping out. On the topic of which, I'm about half finished SSHE, I figure I'll have to reread it to make sure this stuff is sinking in. Anyway, I'll try to post from Jamaica, but not much in the way of promises, might be too busy eating coconuts and such.

Tilt Free Frustration

2004-11-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

Think I set a new personal record last night. Not a good record mind you, but the record for the longest string of losing hands. I went 100 hands straight without a win. My buy-in was completely spent and I had to rebuy. I didn't stick with my 60 hand schedule because I was trying to see just how far I could go without a win. I didn't get completely horrible cards the whole time, in fact, I got about 5 very good hands. my AA got cracked by someone with KK catching his third king, KK got cracked by someone calling two bets with A6o and catching his ace on the turn. QQ got cracked by someone getting two pair with J6o on a J high board. JJ got cracked when someone's King landed on the river.

I was actually amazed that I didn't start tilting and playing anything I could lay my hands on. I still folded most of my hands preflop, only going in 20% of the time, and about half of that was when I got to limp from the BB, in which case I usually ended up folding my K5o after the flop. After this test of faith I guess I do qualify to say that I'm now tilt proof. Even when people suck out on me with their 2 outers, I usually say 'nh' and I actually mean it. How could a winning hand be bad? It just took a $60 pot. I'm not saying I would play it, but it's not a bad hand, at least not at the point where it became the best hand.

I can't recognize my play from a month ago. When I look back at how I played then I'm amazed. Considering I said that last month about how I played before I'm quite happy. I think I've been improving at a very good rate, even though I guess my bankroll wouldn't say the same. Even though I don't have a lot of new money to throw around, my play has still improved. I couldn't have dreamed of competing with the bloggers in Grubby's tourney, yet I managed to place fairly well, in NL nonetheless, which I haven't played in a while. I've started noticing when people say stupid things during games. I have AK on the button, raise the pot, get called by a few. Flop comes J-high, I bet, get called again by two. Turn is a K, so I'm sure I have the best hand, I bet, called by one. River is a blank. Bet, Call, I show my Kings and the BB says 'nice catch' with his AJ. Now I'll give him that at the flop he had the best hand, and in that sense I did catch my 3 outs, but the fact is, preflop, I had him dominated, and HE was the lucky one catching his 3 outs. I was expected to win that hand, the order of the cards notwithstanding. I've also started to think like davidross about players berating bad players. I don't get into discussions about it because I know that would cause the room to tighten up, but I still dislike seeing it. I usually just say something simple like "he won didn't he?". Of course I know he played it stupidly, but next time he probably won't catch that runner runner straight, so let it go, he'll lose all his money soon enough.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I caught a few good hands and ended the night on a positive note. I only made about $30 in 3.5 hours, but that's still better than being down. I've gotten used to the swings that happen at 2/4. You may go a whole bunch of hands doing nothing, dropping to 1/3 of your bankroll, then with one good hand you're back over the top, with a nice profit. This is one of the reasons I don't panic when I get bad cards, because I'm sure the good ones will come.

Blogfather knows best

2004-11-24T10:21:00.000-05:00

So I tried my experiment yesterday, and it was a resounding success. Instead of playing the two 1/2 tables, on which I usually go up on one and down on the other, I only played 1 2/4 table. I also tightened my starting hand standards significantly. I forced myself to play 60 hands, then stop. I ended up playing 3 60 hand sessions between yesterday and this morning. First session, I doubled up. Within the hour that it took to play 60 hands, I went from $60 to $133, that's 36.5 BB in one hour, not bad at all. Not to mention that that includes losing a $109 pot when my trip Kings with Ace kicker was beaten by a guy with 9s full of kings. He had flopped the set and when my second king hit I was blindsided. I was putting him on a King with a lower kicker and was more concerned with the guy that was reraising me preflop. I put him on an a high pair. He finally left when the turn brought the second king. I lost a good $30 on that pot, but I still think I played it correctly. My second session didn't go that well. After my sixty hands, I was back to even, and I got up and ran.

So here's what I've learned from trying this strategy. Since I'm folding 80% of my hands, and not taking much in the way of luck-shots past the flop, I will slowly give up some money. A lot of the times I see myself going down to half my buy-in, then a good hand comes up and suddenly I'm back to 100%. As long as this keeps working then it's motivating. I can handle getting a seriously bad string of cards because I'm confident I'll make a lot of money when I get good cards. So I'd like to thank Iggy for suggesting I jump to 2/4. I tried this out at TigerGaming and it worked well, but I did get decent cards and the loose players there leads to pots that can easily make a buy-in when you win. I tried playing at Paradise with this and I'll admit I got horrible cards, only 15% of my hands went to the flop, and that included the 10% of times I was in the BB and got to limp, so I didn't get much. I won 3 hands of that sixty, not very impressive. The difference between the two sites were most highlighted when I picked up a pair of Jacks UTG and raised. Now seeing how loose online players are...they...all...folded! WTF?? So I'm not a big fan of this crazy folding when you don't have a hand, how am I to take your money if you fold? sheesh.

Got my delivery of SSHE yesterday and dove into it like a starving food addict finding food. I read 60 pages last night, which really is a lot considering I got home at 11. Let's just say I'm very tired today, wonder if my boss would mind me taking a nap under my desk? Not like they can really fire me since I'm leaving in 2 days. The hours don't pass fast enough for me to leave. Knowing them, there'll be some big going away party on friday, so lots of cake. That's one thing I wont miss about where I work. It's mostly middle aged women, who love baking, and love treats, especially for the young people such as myself, who they never think eat enough, even though I'm already 260 lbs. No I'm not a fat kid, I'm a genetically muscular freak that played college football, all natural too, so don't go there. Well, back to "work", which means reading blogs. Until next time, thanks for reading.

Regroup

2004-11-23T16:35:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try a new strategy tonight. Now usually when I play my 1/2, I have two tables fired up. That gives me the chance to lay down quite a few hands and still get to do some playing. This has the effect of me putting twice as much money on the line. So here's the new strategy: I'm going to play 1 table of 2/4 for 60 hands. However long those 60 hands take, that's exactly when I'll stop. Come to think of it, that might be 60 - a few since I'm not going to post a big blind if I'm going to leave after the next hand. For these 60 hands I'm going to stay focused, this means no TV, no chess, no reading, just simply paying attention to what's going on at my table, and taking notes like I usually do. These notes are going to be more constructive than a lot of the ones that I take right now, which say things like "IDIOT" for people who tend to call 3-bets with 43s. In addition to this, I've decided to streamline my starting hand selection. Currently, I play about 25% of my hands, which includes things like 98s, AT, KT, no more, those things are out. Well, let's not get crazy, I'll limp with those in the BB of course, maybe even complete in the SB to see the flop. Another new part of my strategy is to stop raising AQ pre-flop, yes, it is a strong hand, but considering this isn't NL and most players (idiots) will call anyway, I'm simply risking more money for a hand that could go nowhere when the doesn't hit me.

I learned something yesterday. I finally realized the reason why playing good starting cards is such a plus. Yes I already knew that the probability of my hand being the best was there, but I never really realized how to make that pay. Example, I have AJ and the flop comes J-high. 1 player bets, it gets around to me, and I raise! Normally I would call and go along for the ride, which explains why I could be considered passive, but now, when I hit a pair, chances are, my kicker will be best. Another thing about raising is the psychological effect it has on your opponent. When you raise, they suddenly don't feel their Q kicker is so strong anymore, and are thus more likely to check to you on the turn and river. This turns out to be cheaper for you in the long run. I already knew about the free card move, but I had rarely used it. Now I'm starting to understand, I'll raise those loose playing bastards on the flop when I have a strong draw, then grab my free card on the turn if I need it. Slowly but surely, I'm starting to get a hold of this poker thing :-)

By the way, this has been my first two-post day. See, already things are changing.

Lady Luck Is A B*tch

2004-11-23T10:59:00.000-05:00

Alright, Lady Luck owes me, and she owes me big. I've been playing 1/2 and you'd think that players at this level would have a minuscule more intelligence than the idiots I was facing back at .5/1, but no, they're just as stupid, just with more money. With KQs I raise in LP, get called by a few. Flop is K83 rainbow, so I'm still sitting pretty with top pair, I figure AK would've raised earlier. Turn is a blank, I think a 6. I bet, two call. River is a J, I bet, other guy calls. Would you believe what this idiot turns over, J3o. What the hell? he called a preflop raise with J3o? and a bet on the flop and turn with bottom pair? Can't believe this crap. Then there was the idiot that had a backdoor flush draw with two overcards on the board (with me having the highest one), and he stays in all the way, and wouldn't you believe it? the idiot got the runner runner flush. I didn't end up tilting from this bit of stupidity, but I did resolve myself to make sure that even though those will happen, those idiots will pay dearly for their stupid runner runner draws.

My book didn't arrive yesterday as I expected it to, but I'm hoping it reaches today. Iggy suggested I skip 1/2 and move directly to 2/4. That's a good idea really, but I figure if I'm getting so upset about losing $15 on a stupid play by my opponent, then I'd probably be twice as upset at losing $30 to the same kind of idiocy. I'll wait until I get back from Jamaica, then I'll be down for the 2/4. I don't have much else to write about today, but I will blow a secret. If you guys want players that are much worse than those are PartyPoker, i recommend you give TigerGaming a shot, but if you do, use me as a referrer (userid: dcoburn) :-)
Those guys will play everything, calling every raise and chasing their 2 outs all the way to the river, just in case it hits. They are growing at an insanely rapid rate, as they are the primary advertisers during CityTV WPT coverage in Toronto. The site seems to be mainly Canadians, and even though I'm Canadian, and I know we are generally intelligent people, these guys are idiots. With all the great libraries in Toronto you figure these morons would have the fortitude to pick up a book and read that Q6o is a really stupid hand to raise in a 10-person ring game. Thank you for letting me rant and for the first and only time I'll say this, God bless America's bad poker players, for you are at least a little less frustrating than Canada's bad poker players.

Rise To The Occasion

2004-11-22T10:07:00.000-05:00

I took part in the Grublog II tournament this weekend. I managed to place 5th, just enough to cash. There were quite a few players, so cashing felt rather nice. I was even the chip leader at one point early in the tournament. After calling a raise by DoubleAs and flopping top pair (JJ) I went all-in against his QQ, not a very good situation. But then the beautiful turn brought another jack, and that was sweet! DoubleAs managed to rebuild his stack though, but kept getting bad beats, he managed to bubble out in 6th place. I'm so proud to have done well against so many of the people the I really respect and look up to as poker players. These guys have taught me a lot with the great writing on their blogs, not to mention it helps me pass the time at work.

I learned another lesson about NL tournaments. It's something that Sklansky tried to teach me but I never really accepted it until now. Don't limp (call) if a raise (re-raise) will make you throw up . I called with QJs in MP, which is a pretty good hand, but then a guy in LP raised to about 5BB, well, that made me throw up, so I folded. I only played very premium hands, which meant I took some serious beatings from the antes and blinds. I was the shortstack by the time I reached the final table, and on my last hand I had to go all-in with J4o, because I'd be blinded out the next hand anyway. Let's just say I didn't get lucky.

Playing at 1/2. I'm handling it pretty well, or at least I'm not losing. I do have swings, so it's not like I'm on some lucky rush. I've also noticed that I no longer tilt. I haven't tilted since when i had just began .50/1. The reason I don't tilt is that I realize it's not personal. When my opponent pays $15 to win a $45 pot, when he really has only 2 outs, that's ok when he catches one of those two, because I know, the other 22 times (out of 23) he's not going to catch that card, and I'm going to take all his money. The times when I'm the one drawing, I already accepted that I'm going to miss my 4-1 draw for the flush, but the pot was giving me 4.2 odds to hit, so overall, I'll still make money. So in the immediate time frame I just lost $20, but I know in the long run, I'm still making winning plays. I still make mistakes though, and I'm still working on those.

My shipment of Small Stakes Hold 'Em is supposed to arrive today. I figure with the help of Mr. Miller, I should be able to move up to and do well at 3/6. I have a very good grasp of the mathematical concepts involved with this game, but I need to develop the logic and theory of it all, and I figure this book will help me grasp these things much faster. I've already started to phase out overcard draws after the flop (6 outs at best), I've dumped small pairs from my starting hands (<88), and I've cut back on playing one-gap or more connectors (97s). I'm still a passive player post-flop, something which I really don't like. If I bet out on the flop, knowing I have a pretty good hand, and I'm re-raised, I slow down drastically, checking-calling most of the way down. If I get a trip or a second pair, I will become aggressive again, but that's not likely to happen. At least I have the fortitude not to fold simply because I'm raised, but it's still frustrating when I slow down, get to the river and find that yes, my TPTK was indeed the best hand, and no, my evil stupid chasing opponent didn't have two pair or a set, like he wanted me to believe, jerk!

This is my last week of work. I'm off to Windsor this weekend, where I should get to beat up on my local poker friends. Next week I'm off to the beautiful island of Jamaica, which is the place of my birth actually :-) My mother and most of my siblings are still in Jamaica. I haven't seen them in about 3 years, and that's more than too long in my opinion. I wasn't able to afford a visit due to the expenses of university, but hopefully poker will help me make annual trips, or better. If I get really good at this poker thing, I may just move to Jamaica, get a decent job, and spend most of my time playing poker. I'll be in Jamaica for the whole month, returning to go back to school in January. That should give me a lot more poker playing time though, so that's a plus. I think this is probably the longest entry I've ever written, and you've probably stopped reading by now, so I'm going to shut up. Until next time, may the deck be with you. (Damn, that was nerdy)

Moving Up Again

2004-11-18T10:37:00.000-05:00

So I'm moving up from .50/1 to 1/2. My small bankroll is now $350. That's a small change from what it was at the end of October, but that's also due to the beating I took when I thought I could be a PartyPoker tournament specialist. $120 down the drain in about 2 days. Now I don't really think my bankroll is too small for the move up, 350 BB makes sense to me. A friend of mine got me into a 1/2 game at UltimateBet, I knew I wasn't really ready for that level, as it would be my first experience, and it didn't help that it was a 6-max table, which would be harder than a full ring game. I managed to go up $50 at one point, but duly returned that in my third hour of playing. These guys play just as fishy at this level as they do at the lower levels. I had someone cap the betting preflop with 43o versus my pocket aces. He capped the betting on every round after that too. That losing hand busted him out, darn, wish he had more money.

I bought Miller's Small Stakes Hold 'Em yesterday, it should be delivered by next week. I figure that should help my game a lot. I can tell where a lot of my weaknesses are, and I definitely want to filter them out of my game. Here's a small list, advice would be truly appreciated, with references if possible :-)

1) I had a tendency to play small pairs just to see the flop - I've sort of fixed this, now I only try with 88 or higher.
2) If I already called a bet pre-flop, say with 98s, and it is raised by a later player, I will always call this raise to get to the flop, is this a losing play? I don't usually call if it's re-raised again. I think I'm going to ask this at 2+2.
3) When do I fold? so many times I'll have something decent like TPWK and I'll bet the flop, get raised, which would suggest that this person also has top pair with a better kicker, but I'll check-call to the river to make sure. There's also other instances where I think I may be beaten, but I call to make sure.
4) Playing too long. This is a problem that a lot of people I know have. We'll play 3+ hours of poker straight, even though we know that we would start to lose focus after the first 1-1.5 hours. I think I'm going to try to force myself to maximum of 90 minutes of poker. Then maybe throw in a little chess. But then my brain would be too drained to play more poker. Any solutions?
5) Gary Carson recommends betting Second Pair on the flop, is this really a good idea when two people call after you, how do you know if you're beaten? just call all the way to the river?

I figure if I can fix most of those problems I should be able to increase my performance drastically. Let's see if that book can help me somewhat with this. I have a nice interest in matters of Poker Theory, the math is fun to work with, so opinions backed by references to material is cool with me.

Off Topic: played Canada's 83rd ranked chess player on Tuesday, lucky bastard escaped with a draw, next time, his King is mine! :-)

Progress, Wonderful Progress

2004-11-16T09:35:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned previously, I bought a book and decided to start over from scratch. I started playing low limits at .25/.50. I've surpassed that now, managed to move up to .50/1, and I feel I'm almost ready to move up to 1/2. Of course some may say I'm moving up too rapidly, but I feel that as soon as I can consistently do well at a level, then it may be time for something more difficult. My goal would be that I could make it to 5/10 sometime early next year. That's a high enough limit to make this a profitable hobby, while still being just a hobby.

I started playing at PokerStars recently, taking advantage of their deposit bonus. I normally play at TigerGaming, which is a small site. Their lack of size means they have few tables at each level. Now I'll admit, I have yet to find a site that has an interface better than TG's. I find it strange that such a small site has a much better interface than the big names such as PartyPoker and PokerStars. The cards at TG appear much more clearly during a game, which helps you see those flushes that your opponents love to outdraw you with. The players at TG are so much more loose aggressive than those at Stars, and I play somewhat too tightly, so it's hard not to get upset when someone's T3o beats your AQs when TAQ33 comes on the board. They will keep calling all the way to the river of course, because they have to know for sure that they are beaten. I've gotten used to the PokerStars interface though, and I'm now 3-tabling the .50/1 games there. About that book I bought, Imagine how stupid I felt after checking Gary Carson's website and finding out that I could have gotten an electronic copy of that book for $4.50, instead of the $25 I payed for it in the store. At least the book was good enough to pay for itself in my improvement.

As I notice myself improving, I have a difficult time when I think about how I use to play. Each level of improvement causes you to look back and say "wow, I used to do that?!" I know there are still a few obvious things I do wrong, and a few not-so-obvious things that I need to know that I'm doing wrong. One such thing is that I sometimes still bluff on the river, even though I know most people at limit tables are willing to pay that extra BB with their second pair, which my two overcards still can't beat. I also tend to be one of those people that will call all the way to the river with second pair, just hoping that my opponent actually didn't have that Ace. My choices of starting hands wouldn't fit perfectly with what S&M would suggest, but I like playing my 98s and my A6s, they definitely aren't premium hands, but I figure that if my flop hits, then it's definitely worth the BB that I invested. I have the demo version of PokerTracker, so I'll look and see how these plays have been performing. Anyone have a favourite hand they play that they are just attached to? I have this thing for JT, suited or otherwise. That hand wins me so much for some strange reason, again, I'll check PokerTracker to make sure I'm not just imagining it's doing well. I hear Daniel Negreanu has a favourite hand too, it's T7, which is even weaker than my own, but then again, I'm no Daniel Negreanu.

Book Knowledge And The End Of The Party

2004-11-11T11:15:00.000-05:00

Bought a book yesterday, it was The Complete Book Of Hold 'Em Poker - Gary Carson. So far I'm liking the book, there are so many things I don't know about poker. There were quite a few points in the section I'm reading where he tells of mistakes I've been committing thinking they were the right thing to do. For example, TPTK really isn't that strong when there's a flush draw on the board, it's certainly not a hand you fold with, but according to Morton's Theorem, overbetting that hand will benefit the person drawing for the flush. I've always figured I'd bet aggressively to discourage them from trying to draw, of course that just makes it a more profitable draw, Doh! I've mixed reading this book in with playing, I figure this way I'll get to put some of what I learn into practice as I go along.

The drawback to the book is that I started playing NL very timidly. After realizing that I wasn't as decent as I thought, I became scared of blowing my stack on bad cards. Of course, it didn't help that PartyPoker seemed determined to screw me over regardless. I'll give you an example. AJs in LP, I raise, one player re-raises all-in, everyone else is out. I call, having him slightly covered. He has A9o, wow, who does that anyway? He's clearly dominated, there's no straight on the board, no flush, but BAM! he rivers his 9, Son of a b.... It was that sort of night for me, of course I don't take it personally, I know sometimes my opponents will get lucky, so I'm taking that in stride. But my account at Party is now empty (again). I made the stupid mistake of depositing again last time, lesson learned, time to move on. I'll stick to TigerGaming, I know a lot of the big players don't play there, and that's fine with me. It's also a pretty small site, with only about 2800 players on usually, with a good half of those being play money. I started doing well at the .25/.50 tables there, so I'll do that for a while, after tripling up, I'll move up to the .50/$1 and give that a go.

No Limits

2004-11-10T11:59:00.000-05:00

Even though the title is no limits, I'm really referring to my lack of talent at limit games. As I've stated previously, I refuse to be bad at this. I've noticed something lately as well. I read a section of a book about gambling that talked about Hold 'em. My game has actually improved a good bit just by reading those few pages. I find that so amazing in fact, that I've decided that spending some of the poker money I've won to get a book would be a good investment. So today, I'm heading over to Chapters (Indigo) to buy a poker book. I'm not going to start a library, just maybe something to get me going. If this book can help me improve my game, it would obviously be worth the expense.

I tried some limit playing last night. I did okay, not great. I played at .25/.50, and yes, I know that's cheap, but it's fair for a start. After two hours, I ended the night up 5BB, which isn't very good at all. For the first 45 minutes, I had the worst possible cards, I was folding 80% preflop and hating it. Over this time I was down about 6BB due to blinds. The funny thing is that when I finally did get a hand, after all the betting that went on, I was suddenly up 4BB, that's a 10BB swing. So I guess playing tight/aggressive does pay off. You'll lose a bit on the blinds, but then getting a hand will make that money back easy. So I think what I'm going to do next time is play 2 tables for an hour, max. After an hour, I'll logoff, and go play some chess. It doesn't matter how much money I make/lose in that period. I'll stop at an hour. After that amount of time, my discipline starts to slip.

Cutting Back

2004-11-09T15:18:00.000-05:00

I play way too much poker. On a typical night I play maybe 6 hours of poker. That's pretty sad really. I guess I'd be able to justify it if I was good enough to make a lot of money, but I'm not. I also mentioned that I'm a big chess player, almost master strength. My chess has been suffering lately due to poker. I must admit that I love both games and I'm feeling torn. The point is that I think I need to cut back a bit. I've even neglected the gym because of all the time I've been spending on poker. I've dropped 15 pounds in two months, that's a whole lot of weight. So I'm going to force myself to relax a bit more. I'll spend my hour at the gym a few days a week, and at least 1 hour per day on chess. The rest of my time can be poker. I figure that's fair. The studying wont stop as I want to be a fairly good poker player, to the point of it paying for my leisure expenses while back in school in January. Here's to fighting the power of poker.

SitNGo To Jamaica

2004-11-08T10:19:00.000-05:00

It's been a few days since my last post. Actually had things to do at work. Yeah, I think it's weird too. I just passed one month of this online poker adventure. Haven't made as much as some of the other, better players out there, but it's enough to justify this hobby. I've decided to leave work and go back to school, I'm leaving at the end of this month. The reason for this decision is that I find work, or at least my current job, not mentally stimulating enough. My brain is slowly rotting and the stink is driving me insane. So it's back to the world of academia for me, who knows, I may just become a permanent student, or just a teacher of sorts.

Before going back to school, I'm taking a month off for myself. I went straight from high school to university, and straight from university to work. I figure I deserve some 'me' time. Away from responsibility and all that other craziness. I'm going to Jamaica. My goal is to pay for my $470 flight with poker winnings. I've already got over $300, so now I just need the rest. Anyone out there feel like donating to my trip? Just let me know...

Rejoined party poker recently, gave this limit poker another try. Of course with this new try comes another episode of utter failure. I just can't understand why I can play decently at NL, but fall on my face at limit games. I have QQ and raise, one caller, the blinds are pretty big as this is a tourney game. Flop is 642 rainbow, well that's not bad at all. There's a possible straight on the board, but I doubt my opponent has that. I figure he's got AK or something similarly high, and he's hoping to catch one of his cards. I make a big bet, making him pay for the shot, or at least trying to convince him to fold. He calls, wow, he's really holding out. A 9 comes on the turn, I bet, he calls. The river is another blank, I bet, he calls, and flips over the 53o for the flopped straight. Who the #$%^ does crap like that.

So that's it, I've given up online limit poker, I'm tired of trying, trying and failing. It's just too frustrating. I started playing Party's SitNGos, now these I like. I've been multi-tabling, two at a time, and I've been doing pretty well at it. I've tightened up my play a whole lot, and this usually gets me into the top 4 before I have to start taking chances. I only play S&M's groups 1-4 until about that position, then I loosen up a bit and start taking more chances. I think this will be what I spend most of my time on for the next little while, tournament games seem to suit me just fine.

Sleep Depravity And Other Issues

2004-11-04T14:44:00.000-05:00

Had my first losing night in a while last night. I'm not terribly bothered by it though, since it was really a losing night at the tables. I played tournaments almost exclusively last night, nothing big, the largest was the $5 + $0.50. I only placed in the money in one tourney, and that was only a 2nd place. In that tourney I went heads up and went all in on a really stupid hand and lost. I think I was just severely tired. I have some undiagnosed problem whereby I can't get myself to sleep more than six hours per night. I know I need more sleep than that, and there's really no reason for me to get less, but I can't make myself go to bed before 2am when I know I have to get up at 8:15. I go through my entire workweek in a trancelike state and then sleep through the weekend. Tonight I'm going to do the unthinkable, I'm going to (try to) force myself to take a nap as soon as I get home. Hopefully this nap will be at least 2 hours long. Of course I know that taking this nap will cause me to be unable to sleep until 3-4am, so maybe this isn't really a solution. I'm just getting frustrated with it all.

Poker problem, I've realized I'm way too quick to call big bets once I've already invested something in the pot and I feel I have a decent hand at the moment. I've improved to the point whereby I fold drawing hands to big bets, but still, I need to learn to sit back and re-evaluate my hands. Did I mention I also play chess? this is also a problem I have in chess, so it's obviously a personality problem. From reading my blogs you can see where I find my deficiences, but it's very hard for a person who realizes they have a problem to fix it by themselves. Oy, this is all so much to handle, thank God for poker and chess.

Movin' On Up

2004-11-03T10:37:00.000-05:00

As to my inquiry yesterday as to how to move this blog forward, I got one reply. Seriously, one measly reply, at least now I know I'm talking mostly to myself. But that's okay, yep, I'm okay with it all. You know why? Because the one reply I got was from a good player. So 'HA' I say to all who didn't reply. My thanks to HDouble for the reply and the advice. He recommended that I cut back on the hand histories and dollar improvements and stick to my personal improvement as a poker player. I like this advice and plan to follow it.

In keeping with the above, I'd like to say that I think I've improved a little more yet. I've been playing more tournaments lately, and I'm becoming better at it each day. I played 3 tourneys last night, a $5 + $0.50, a $10 + $1, and a $3 + $0.30. Placed 1st, 2nd...and negligible respectively. Still, finishing 2/3 in the money is pretty good. Here's what I think I learned. It is recommended that when you have a good starting hand, let's say AKs, you should raise. Now normally when I raise, I double the blind, but when you think about it, that's not much for most people to call with their marginal hands to see the flop. So here's what I started doing, when I have the strongest hand preflop, I raise a significant sum, usually to about 5BB, if I can afford it. That kind of raise managed to remove most of the people with marginal hands.

Another thing I had to deal with and I still think I need some advice on, betting post-flop. Sometimes after the flop I may have second pair, let's say with no flush draw, or top pair with low kicker. That's definitely not a hand worth doubling the pot on, but what's a reasonable bet? Betting $100 into a $500 pot after the flop doesn't do much at all does it? If someone's already bet $300 they may be willing to bet another $100 to see if their hand with a backdoor gutshot straight or their one overcard will improve on the turn. So what is a good strategy for betting post-flop? I'm a child of the internet generation, so a website is more useful to me than a recommendation to get a book. A minor improvement I had in this area is I'm now forcing myself to check in this situation instead of throwing in a meaningless bet.

Mixed Blessings

2004-11-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

So as I said before that I believe that I've improved my tournament play, I decided to play more tournaments last night. I played in two expensive tournaments ($10 + $1 and $20 + $2). I also played in two cheap tournaments ($2 + $0.20 and $5 + $0.50). That's a lot of tournaments to play in one night, but it's not like I had anything more constructive to do. I won the $2 tourney and came 3rd in the $10. I came 4th and in the $20. I have a lot more learning to do, so I'm not too concerned about that performance. I made up for the tourney monetary loss by playing at a NL table for 15 minutes and pulling in a quick $15. In a span of 5 hands, I got AK 3 times and AA 1, the other hand was 7 4. People kept doubting me, and called, being shocked each time that I wasn't bluffing. SirFWALGMan held a poll about whether he should keep indulging his addiction to blogging, so that made me wonder something. It's obvious that the money amounts that I'm playing with aren't significant, so do you my humble reader, care to hear about my wonderful wins of $20 and $30, or should I just stick to the hand analysis and discussions and leave out the meager monetary sums?

P.S. Big election day for my American friends. Good luck "Guy who's not Bush". That really should be his name, since that's the basis of the voting. But hey, George is working hard...cause it's hard work...he's even working saturdays (SNL). I really have to stop the political commentary.

Improvement And Revelation

2004-11-01T10:10:00.000-05:00

I think my game has improved somewhat significantly over the weekend. I realized that my play in online games has managed to carry over nicely into live play, which is definitely a good thing. More importantly, I've managed to overcome my weakness in tournament play. I did tell myself that I would quit playing tournament poker, as well as small stackes limit games. I of course, played both this weekend. I was actually up a bit of money in the limit games, but duly returned that to its owners. But in tournaments, I was on fire. I played about 4 6-person tournaments, I did poorly in the first one, coming 6th. In the other 3, I was dominating, I came second in the second tournament, and won the other two. A rather nice bit of performance. So I think I'll play more tournaments these days, might even jump up to the expensive tournaments ($20 + $2). That would give more swing to my small bankroll, but I could live with the excitement. I kind of previously mentioned my revelation. I am REALLY good at head's up play, better than most people I figure, not counting pros of course. With this revelation, I decided to play two heads up games ($5 + $0.50). I won both in convincing fashion. So I'm going to play a lot more heads up matches, and tournaments.

Another revelation I received, even though small, is rather significant. I figured out more reasons why I'm not good at limit hold 'em. NL play requires a lot of psychological play. A player is a lot less likely to call an all in play with J2o than he is to call a BB bet. This means that players are a lot more willing to play with nothing concrete but drawing possibilities. In all-in play, KK is a hand worthy of pushing all-in immediately, but in low-limit, it's only as strong as the flop, turn, and river, which could be considered all one thing since at such low limits, people will play their weak cards all the way because they still have 3 possible out. Having your KK beaten by a J2o when the 2 comes on the flop and the player stays in and catches his J on the river is very disheartening for a NL player. I'll do some reading on low-limit play, as I figure improvement there is necessary to my overall improvement as a poker player.

Alright, that's it for my weekend. Big shout outs to the peeps in Windsor. JJ, sorry I didn't get to take your money, so save it up and I'll take it next time.

Bad Beat Weekend

2004-11-01T09:36:00.000-05:00

This weekend was filled with so many different things that I figure it makes sense that I break this post up smaller pieces. Didn't end up going to Casino Windsor this weekend. My friends, who are also addicted to poker, told me that the casino doesn't have hold 'em tables. What's up with that? especially considering the game's popularity. So on friday night, we played poker, instead of getting drunk and rushing to the bar like normal school children. There were about nine of us, with a $5 buy-in, it's pretty cheap, so it's really considered just friends hanging out for about the price of a beer. I was getting crappy cards most of the night, I think I played about 2 hands post flop in the first hour. I managed to win one of those, so I was up slightly, even though the blinds had whittled down my stack back to almost even. So the game is down to the last 5 of us, and I get K T. I can't exactly remember positioning in the game, so bear with me. I bet high enough to get most of the people out of the pot. The flop comes A T A, ouch, scary if an ace is out there. I bet high enough to see where I am, all fold but one. He raises me, I know he doesn't have the Ace, I can feel it. So I move to re-raise, one of my friends suggesting I may as well go all in, which makes perfect sense to me, so I do it. This guy flips 99. Wow, why would he reraise with that after the flop. So I've got two pair, and am standing pretty good. When you think about the cards here, you realize that this guy only has 2 outs. Only another 9 can give him the winning hand, and that's IF i don't catch another Ten or Ace. Wouldn't you believe it, the bloody turn brings him the 9. That was such a bit of undeserved luck, I'm completely unhappy about that. Of course I don't catch a miracle on the river, and I'm feeling snubbed by lady luck. So with my tail between my legs, I decide to immediately buy back in. My friends managed to convince me that we were going to leave soon enough so it didn't make sense. I spent the next two hours being sorely upset about that hand. I'd rather be severely outplayed than to lose a large chunk of change to a bad beat. Like honestly, he had only 2 frigging outs! Still so angry!

So lady luck figured she owed me big for that cruel act she pulled on me. After the bar, we decided to play a little shorthanded. I figure this is normal behaviour for poker addicts. Three of us sat down to lose a bit more money. We duly eliminate one guy (Nick 1) and it's down to me and my former roommate (Nick 2). Nick 2 had managed to get most of Nick 1's chips, so he had a 2 to 1 chip lead, not a very comfortable situation. Now another realization I had this weekend was that I'm very good at head's up poker, but come on, I'm not exactly in a fair fight, almost as bad as Bush versus Saddam. Oh yeah, I had said no more political commentary, but I did have my fingers crossed when I said that, so in actuality I didn't lie. So I pull A 3, not exactly a great hand, but just good enough to make a last stand. I didn't really intend to make a last stand with that, so I bet about a quarter of my stack, Nick decides to raise that to a half of my stack. Like a bull that was just beaten with a red flag, I couldn't resist, so I pushed all in. Nick is a poker liar, so I figured he had crap. He flipped over JJ. Damn, that bastard tricked me. Flop comes x3x. A pair of 3's, well that's useful *heavy sarcasm*. The turn brings another blank, and Nick is feeling solid. Of course I said that Lady Luck owed me a good one, and she paid back in spades, an Ace came on the river, and Nick is now the shortstack. As I said before, I'm very good at heads-up hold 'em. I made very short work of Nick and his short stack. Made my money back and then some, very nice, gotta love them bad beats, but only when they go my way.

Home Game Hopes

2004-10-29T16:53:00.000-04:00

So I'm travelling to Windsor tonight to hang out with my friends for halloween. Back at school we played a regular weekly home game at some friends' house. Those guys are now duly addicted and that weekly game has become almost a nightly fix. Two of them have taken to play online at Pacific, which I'm considering joining for their bonus. I must tell you that I started playing with these guys knowing only the rules, and barely. One time the board brought a King high straight draw with Q, J, T, 9 with two of us still in the hand. I didn't yet realize that it was the best 5 card hand that won and thought my K 2 was useless because he'd have a higher kicker, so I folded in the $20 pot that would have been split. So now looking back on the whole year I spent playing with those guys, I realize I was the sucker at that table. Oh, payback is gonna be sweet. I hope that I didn't just jinx myself.

Since Windsor happens to have the big casino, I'm sure I'll 'accidentally' find my way there for a proper beat-down. I'll show those big bad poker players who's Diboss (get it? funny huh? or is it just me?). But just in case it doesn't go as well as I'm planning, I don't think I'll take my debit card or any other form of payment with me, seeing I actually want to be able to afford gas for the return trip home. The difficult thing about a weekend trip is when you decide you're not going to drink. I've been going the whole month without alcohol. Why you may ask? just for the sake of it, to prove I have the mental fortitude to refuse alcohol. Oy, the crazy things we kids do these days! Wish me luck, I'll need it.

P.S. Got a comment from FeliciaLee today! I've been noticed. Wonder if I could get a comment from Iggy, hint, hint. Maybe chatting these people up will get them to take it easy on me when I play in the next blogger tourney.

Hit Me, But Hit Him Harder

2004-10-29T01:06:00.000-04:00

Had another good poker night. Good by my low stakes standards that is. The night started off well, with me doubling up on the $5 NL table, again, that's good by my standards. So since I was already having such a good night I decided to play in some tournaments. I have a pretty bad history with tournaments, seeing that I rarely finish in the money. I also have this problem with a need to keep doing something I'm bad at until it distroys me or until I conquer it. You have no idea how many times I've told myself that I'm not playing anymore tournaments or limit games.

I did manage to keep a part of that promise. I didn't play any limit games last night, not even one. Of course it happens that the reason is because I didn't have enough time, and not by some strength of will, something which I seem to be lacking where poker is concerned. Again I had an omen of bad things to come. In my decision to play a tournament, I oh so wisely sign up for a PAN tournament. Right before the tournament started I asked myself what would seem the necessary question, what is PAN? It just happened to be too late at this point and bam, I'm introduced to this weird variant of rummy. It would have helped if I knew how to play rummy, but of course, I have no clue. The customer service guy that I immediately contacted to see if I could recover some of my money was an idiot. He took forever to figure out what to do, and would you guess his brilliant solution: quit the tournament, let the money go. Brilliant! wonder why I never thought of that. Now to be fair, most of the customer service reps at TigerGaming are very nice and knowledgeable people, I just happened to get the new idiot. So there went $3.30 of my money, down the drain. Of course I couldn't let it end there, so I promptly joined another tournament, and promptly lost more money. Guess I need a bigger rock to hit me over the head.

Last time I did some hand analysis it seemed like I was writing a book according to my friend Lxx (It's a girl, name should be easy to figure out from that). So tonight, to make Lxx's reading less strenuous, I'm only going to look at the best hand I played all night. Of course I'm sure it was probably misplayed, but hey, I won a lot of money from it, and anything that makes me richer, must be good. Is it just me, or do I sound like a Bush Republican? Alright, Alright, I'm sorry for the political comment, I'll never do it again, as long as you promise to ignore the fact that my fingers were crossed while apologizing.

So I'm in LP with AA, nice start. There's a small bet from UTG that I of course raise, I raise to $0.75, which is a big raise at this table where BB is $0.10. My logic is this, I can raise to $0.25, get called by 6 people, and risk getting beaten by a crappy flop. I didn't like that option at all. My raise is called by a player in BB and a player in MP. Perfect, the pot has $1.50 from two, instead of $1.40 from 7, so my raise worked out. The flop comes Ad Js 4h, wow, that gives the oh so nut set. I'm sitting very pretty. BB checks, MP bets $0.10, I do a minimal raise to $0.20, giving the idea that I have the Jack. That conclusion makes sense since someone who just flopped a pair of aces would want the other players to pay to play. They both call my raise and the turn is Kh. Ok, so there's a possible flush draw here, so that worries me a bit. I have to make sure anyone who's chasing said flush will pay dearly for the chance. Both players check and I bet $3 expecting at least 1 to fold. I must confess that I put a message in the chat saying 'This is how to buy a pot'. So fine, that's a little unethical, but hey, you're allowed to lead your opponents on. I was more than surprised when both players called, wow. The river is a beautiful Kc. I'm sure I've got the nuts here, only KK could possibly beat me, and I know they didn't have that. Continuing my aforementioned bad behaviour, I type 'Uh Oh' when the second king hit. Again, no rule against it. They both check, I bet $5, and BB wisely folds. Darn, I was hoping he'd believe my lie. MP calls my big bet because he had a big stack anyway, and I guess he didn't mind giving me a cut :-) He's not too happy when he sees the full house. Those two didn't talk to me for the rest of the night, I wonder what I did...

Stepping Outside My Cave

2004-10-28T14:02:00.000-04:00

Yippee, I got my first link from another poker blogger. My big thanks to SirFWALGMan for linking to me. Hopefully this will get a few other people who can help me improve. Who knows, maybe one day, I'll be a WSOP champion. Yeah, I know, I'm laughing too. I figure It's only fair that I link to other bloggers myself, even though I'd rather everyone who reads my blog becomes so addicted that they don't want to read any others :-)

There are far too many blogs for me to link to them all, or even a lot of them, so I'll link to the ones I read regularly. I'll give a small description/opinion of these below, I recommend you check them out. They pretty much link to other blogs, so I guess if you need to read even more blogs you can check their links out. The links are all on the right, so don't be afraid to give a click, it'll open in a new window.

FeliciaLee - The queen of poker blogging. She doesn't play much online poker, but she does a whole lot of reporting on events happening in the poker world. Very useful if you are interested in more than just hands and such.
Iggy - Another of the big shots of blogging. Iggy recently decided to quit his day job and become a full time blogger...uh I mean poker player. Iggy starts his professional adventures next week, so I suggest we all tag along. Good luck Iggy!
SirFWALGMan - A relatively new poker player. He's sorta like me, but quite a few months advanced. He's stepping up his game every day, and that's good. He's just made the leap to 3/6 games, so he's in the big money park now (remember I'm poor, so anything above $1 is a lot). I hope to catch up to him some day and take all his money :-)
HDouble - This guy has passed the one year milestone that most poker bloggers/players can't survive to. His site is very good, I must admit I got a bit from him. He likes to analyze his play a lot and that helps us newbies improve by seeing how better players play. Definitely worth visiting.
Double As - This guy has been around a while too. I recently just started reading his blog. He plays a lot of NL, and since that's the style that suits me best, I'll have a lot of reading to do to catch up. His style is very aggressive, which also suits my style. I guess the difference between him and I are his sometimes tendencies to play loose hands, which I rarely do.

There are a few more I read sometimes to catch up. Oy, there are a lot of these things, and only so much time when I'm not playing a game of poker. Check 'em out, visit their links, but whatever you do, don't get addicted. Save yourself before it's too late, poker blogs are addictively evil.

The Search For Meaning

2004-10-28T10:13:00.000-04:00

So I've come to realize that I'm terrible, and I do mean terrible, at Limit Hold 'Em. The question I have is, why? Why is it I can do well at NL and lose so much at limit. From what I've seen I'm a lot more aggressive when I play NL. Not saying that I play more loosely, because that is not my style at all. But I play more strongly, I bet harder, I make moves, I read hands better. All these things seem to come so easily to me at NL. I'm also figuring that it must be the fact that I don't get to determine the strength of a bet in limit, so I get less information about opponent's hands. The reasoning behind that is that when you can only make one bet, let's say .50, then the opponent can call that cheap bet hoping to catch his backdoor flush draw. I, of course, wouldn't really know he's after the flush draw because a call like that could also indicate he's playing his second pair hoping to catch two pair or a set. Then on the turn, a flush draw might show, in which case that player might bet ahead of me, and suddenly I'm thinking he's pulled the flush. So in the end, my lack of information up to this point makes me more timid here and I'm more likely to just fold or call, but then I'd probably fold on the river when he bets out again. In NL, If I have top pair top kicker after the flop, then a big bet, let's say 1.5 x Pot, would cause most people to fold. I don't know many players that would make a call like that hoping to pick up runner runner flush or with second pair.

In the end, I think I may have answered my question. NL allows more information to be gathered from an opponent's play and responses to plays. I obviously perform better with more information. This may be a side effect of my chess background, and that game was a game of perfect information, as compared to poker's partial information. So even though both games are logic based, I need to gather as much information as can be made available to be a successfull poker player. If you are a limit player and you have an idea how I can adjust to limit, or want to tell me to stick to what I'm better at, don't be afraid to drop a comment.

Hit Me Baby One More Time

2004-10-28T01:25:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the Britney Speers quote, but I think it makes a great title. I tried limit hold 'em again today. Played at .25/.50, and yes, that is pretty cheap, but hey, when you're learning to swim, you probably wouldn't want your first time in the water to be with Jaws and his friends. So how does this tie in to the title, well, let's just say that my ego was pretty badly bruised. I got destroyed, killed, creamed, and not by my opponents really, but by the cards too. I guess I should have sensed what was coming when I had K5o and flopped 10 K K, only to be disconnected. Some loser won that hand with two pair, Kings over Tens. It was a frigging $10 pot. Still so angry about that.
Alright, since I'm getting too angry just thinking about that, let's go off topic for a bit. Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on winning the World Series. Quite a comeback story from being down 3-0 to the Yankees, that's 8 they've won straight, definitely impressive. Negative to this is that I still couldn't get myself to watch even one single game. Baseball = YAWN!
Back on topic, so I had a few very nice hands last night (tonight?). They were so good that I MUST tell you about them, and of course the blog is going to have quite a few hand postings, it's a poker blog after all.
OK, so I pick up Jc Ad in middle position. First 3 players fold, player to my right(PTR) raises to $2. Remember, this is a .05/.10 NL game, so that's a pretty big raise, I'm expecting at least a high pair, KK or QQ. At the same time, he's given me the impression that he likes to steal, so I call, deciding to fold after the flop if nothing comes my way. Player to my left calls, all else fold. 3 see the flop of 9s Kd 9d. OK, so i've got a backdoor flush draw, but there's a pair on the board. PTR checks and that confirms that he's probably got a high pair, 9 was useless. So I decide to sell the 9 as my own. I bet $0.50, player to my left folds and PTR calls. Turn comes Jd and PTR checks again. Ok, either he's slowplaying me into throwing away my money, or he really has nothing here, so I'm thinking QQ. I have a nut flush draw here, he thinks I possibly have a 9, so i decide to stick to my story. I bet $3.80, he cold calls again. Damn, he's really hoping for that third queen. That's 2 outs, 20-1 shot, and that's if his queen isn't Qd leaving four diamonds on the board. River comes 8c, no flush, darn, but hey, he didn't get his queen. He checks, I bet another $3.80, he folds. Darn, woulda been nicer if he bet, but that's another hand.
Ok, second hand, another confrontation with PTR. Only 5 players still at the table and I get 10c As in the big blind. UTG limps in, two fold, PTR limps, and I decide to play this slow, I limp. Flop comes Js 6s 10s. Sweet, flush draw and second pair, I can handle that. PTR checks (can you say passive?), I decide to check let him think I have nothing and get to see if my flush hits, UTG also checks. Turn is 6c, not good, but not that scary. Only thing I have to fear is 3 sixes, we all check. OK, so I've still got the top hand, nice. River is 9s, oh heavens, it's on now! PTR bets $0.10, so I figure he has a spade, not that it makes a difference to me. I have some reputation for stealing pots every once in a while, I don't know what that's all about, sheesh :-) So I decide to bet light, since he probably wouldn't call a big bet, I raise to $0.30, expecting a fold or a call to see what I have. UTG folds and PTR re-raises to $3.80(!!?) Holy crap, could he have had JJ or 10 10 and slow played it all along? But there's also Ks Qs out there, but he would have bet that after the flop, so that's a no. so I re-re-raise to $5.85. I think he was expecting me to fold to his raise since it seemed like I had nothing. He thought for a second...and calls. My Ace high flush takes it, he mucks his cards, and wouldn't tell me what they were, how mean! I thought the game went I show you mine and you show me yours. I showed mine, I deserved to see a little sum'n-sum'n in return. Ahh well, at least I still have your money.

That was looong. I don't plan to make all my posts this long, but I thought that one just couldn't end much sooner. The lessons I've learned, stop playing limit poker, it's bad for your wallet. Play aggressive, yet don't advertise your hand, leave your opponents guessing and paying off your good hands. Oh, I lost $10 playing limit hold 'em tonight, but after my NL play, managed to end the night up $20. Not bad at all for a small stakes hobby.

Beginning Down The Wrong Path

2004-10-27T11:19:00.000-04:00

Ok, so everyone who plays poker seems to have a blog out there somewhere. So I figured join in on the fun. Another thing I noticed is that most people who start poker blogs don't make it past a year, so that's my goal, one profitable year of poker. I'm not all that concerned about how much I profit, since I consider this a fun hobby. That's translatable as I'm such a bad player that I'd be happy to make it out with money still in my pocket. So some background on myself is in order, I'm obviously not a poker 'boss' per say, but I've had the name 'Diboss' for so long that I figure I'd keep the boss associated with my blog's name. I'm 22, on a 8 month break from university, going back in January, graduating in April, after that, not a clue. I've known how to play hold 'em, which is my exclusive game, for about a year now, I started reading and playing online at the start of October, so I'm about 3 weeks into this. My online experience has been going OK, I've taken out my own money, so I've got nothing personally invested other than my time. I'll tell you of some hands I play, and some of you can hopefully tell me how bad I am and how to improve. This is also a way to keep track of my 'profit'. That's about as much as I'll write now, let's hope I survive this trip.