A Winning Day

Today's Results: $85 in 2.75 hours

Ran ok to start the day this time, had QQ once in my BB with a straddle by UTG, took down the pot preflop with a raise over 3 limpers.  Had AA an orbit later, but it folded to me in the SB.  Had QQ again about two orbits after that; open UTG to $10, get 3-bet by an older guy (everyone at the table was 40+ except me) who is on the button to $30.  I call with ~$105 behind, flop is KJTr and I check/fold to his pot-sized flop bet.  He seemed pretty aggro in general and had a massive stack the entire time I was at the table, but that was the only 3-bet he made all day, so I figured to be drawing slim.

Blind down to around $85, pick up black fives in MP.  Limps around and I limp behind, we see the flop 9-ways in a limped pot (lol, family pots).  Flop comes Tc9c5d, checks to me, I bet $10 (should have been 15 or 20 on a fairly coordinated flop 9 ways), get 3 callers.  Turn is 8h, not the best in the world for me as QJ just got there, but I lead for $35 anyway with around $40 behind and everyone folds and I win the pot.

Two orbits later I pick up black AA on the button.  3 limps to me, I open to $16, one caller who seems pretty fishy, though I hear from some other players that he typically plays $2-$5 NL and is one of the "bull-shitters" of that game.  Flop comes T93r, he checks, I bet $25, he calls.  Turn comes T putting up two clubs, he bets $100, enough to put me in, I insta-call.  He has JJ, river is Ah, and I'm finally up semi-substantially for the first time this summer.

Play for around another hour with nothing too significant happening and winning very few pots.

Summer Profit Total: ($149)
Current Bankroll: $351
Total Time Played: 9.25 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($16.11)

More Losing

Today's Results: ($59) in 3.25 hours

Ran pretty shit again to start the day.  Nothing happened for the first few orbits, just junk mostly.  About forty five minutes in, I pick up T7o in the BB and we see a limped pot 5 way.  Flop comes AT7 with two clubs, the small blind leads for 1/2 pot, I call, another guy calls, and the fourth guy raises and we all call.  4 way to the turn, which is the Qc, SB checks, I check, third guy leads this time for 1/5 pot, flop raiser folds, SB folds, and I call trying to spike a T, 7 or hoping to check down the river.  The river is the 3c, I check and the other guy checks behind and shows 89cc for the flush.

Hovered around that level for another 20 minutes or so, then get moved to another table.  Keep getting shit hands, folding for another 40 minutes before I pick up TT in the BB.  2 limps to the SB, he opens to $10 with ~80 behind, I cover.  I call, one limper calls, and we see a 542 rainbow flop.  SB leads $15, I call, limper folds.  Turn 4 completing the rainbow, SB thinks for a bit and then checks, I bet $25 and he calls.  Turn is a 7, he checks, and I shove the rest in, he thinks for a bit, sighs and calls, asking me if I have a four.  I say no and flip over my tens, he flips over jacks, and I'm now down to about $35.

The very next hand I pick up KK in the SB and slightly better than double up to $85.  For the next 20 minutes, I blind back down to $68 and pick up red kings again. I open to $10 from MP and get two IP callers.  Flop comes T87r, I lead $20 and both call.  Turn comes 8d, putting out 2 diamonds, I shove my last $38 and this time only get one caller.  I show my kings, and hold for the 3o river.  I'm all the way back up to $160.

Over the course of the next hour, I open TT, get 3 callers, and fold when led into on an A high two tone flop,  open AQo and check fold a KK8 two tone flop.  From there on not much interesting happened and I just hovered around $140 for a while.

Summer Profit Total: ($234)
Current Bankroll: $266
Total Time Played: 6.5 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($36)

Online Poker

I've gotten back into online poker a bit of late trying to regain some confidence after my live losses.  I recently got a 35% rakeback deal at Carbon Poker and so I've been playing a few hours here and there with some decent results.  It's a little to early to post any graphs because at the moment it's just a heater over about 1500 hands for the last 3 days, but if it keeps up and I move up in any significant way graphs will surely follow.

Rough, Quick Day

Today's Results: ($100) in 1 hour

Felt like I ran pretty terrible today, even though I got some premium holdings.  I played a total of four hands during the hour.  First hand at the table I'm dealt AQo in the CO and raise a limper, take it down pre.  Then I blind down to around $95, get AJo in the SB, one guy opens to $10, a loose-passive player calls on the button, and I call.  3-handed flop comes T76 two tone, and I c/f.  Blind down to around $80, pick up AA in the Cutoff, make it twelve over 4 limpers, everyone folds and I make $10.

Then blind back down to $83, pick up QQ on the button.  5 limpers to me, I pop it to $15, get 4 callers.  Flop comes 985 two tone, big blind leads for $15, the guy behind him raises to $40, two folds and I shove my last $68 (too short to consider folding an overpair with an stack-to-pot ratio of 1 after the preflop action.  Big blind re-shoves around $200, other guy calls instantly, and I'm essentially dead vs the Big blinds flop set of 9's and the other guys' flopped straight with a flush draw to boot 76s.

Gonna take next weekend off I think and try to get my head right.  I'm pretty sure I'm just running poorly, but it still messes with your confidence to lose 2 sessions out of 3, with the winning session not all that successful either.  Maybe I'll work on my game online some.

Summer Profit Total: ($175)
Current Bankroll: $325
Total Time Played: 3.25 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($53.85)

Take Two

Today's Results: +$25 in 2 hours

I started off well today, over-limping KQo the first hand I was dealt.  Flop rolls out QT7r and I lead $10 5-handed (3 checks in front).  One caller, who check/folds to my $25 turn barrel on a Kh, which put two hearts on the board.

Next orbit I find AQo and raise to $11 from UTG +2 8 handed.  One caller in the CO, same villain who called my KQ flop bet.  He folds to my $20 c-bet on KT7tt.

An orbit later I'm sitting on about $115 and pick up black AA in UTG and open to $11.  UTG+1, a competent but somewhat weaker female TAG flats, and the table hyper-LAG in UTG+2 squeezes to $31 (was probably playing close to 50/35).  Table folds around, and I could call, but we would go to the flop 3-way.  I probably should be ok with that and hope someone hits TP on the flop, but instead I elect to 4-bet, and the only option there is to ship.  Two folds later and I'm up to almost $160.

I reach my peak of about $180 about an hour into the session, and then I open once with AKo, flat a couple opens with AKo and 66 and miss all three flops and drop down to the $135 range.  Blind down a little further and decide to call it a day with a modest win so that I can prepare for the annular solar eclipse that will happen a few hours from now here in ABQ.

Hope next weekend treats me a bit better, but I do need to play a bit more aggressive during my sessions; this session was hampered significantly by the LAG two to my left.  I would have liked to take advantage of his style more, which a couple people who had position were able to do.

Summer Profit Total: ($75)
Current Bankroll: $425
Total Time Played: 2.25 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($33.33)

First Day Back in the Game

I went down to the casino today.  Unfortunately, I didn't stay as long as I would have liked.  I ended up only playing for about fifteen minutes and losing my entire $100 buyin.  Nothing special happened, I had gone through the blinds once and raised/4-bet shoved AKo into QQ against the most active player at the table (he had played 7 hands in the 12 or so hands I had seen, and at least 3 raising or 3-betting).  Not much you can do about that.  I'm planning on heading down tomorrow as well, hopefully it goes better.

Summer Profit Total:  ($100)
Current Bankroll: $400
Total Time Played: 0.25 hrs
Hourly Win Rate: ($400)


My next buyin will be for $100.

My NM Summer Plan

I will be returning to New Mexico for the summer this year before returning to California to finish my Masters' degree in the fall.  In addition to working, hanging out with friends, and everything else I plan on doing, I am also planning on trying to get back into the live grind.  The rake in NM is lower than here in CA, and I think that suits my style a bit better, especially since I will be playing on a short bankroll.  Below is an outline of my plan to get back into the game.

Starting Bankroll:  $500.

This is a predetermined amount that has been agreed upon as an acceptable amount to be willing to lose.

I plan on using a 5 Buy-In rule, with the exception that my buy-in never be less than $100, and applying that rule only in $100 increments of my bankroll.  The breakdown is as follows:

BR <  $600  -  Buy-In for $100.
$600 < BR < $700 - Buy-In for $120.
$700 < BR < $800 - Buy-In for $140.
$800 < BR < $900 - Buy-In for $160.
$900 < BR < $1000 - Buy-In for $180.
And once my bankroll exceeds $1000, I will buy in for the maximum, $200 at $1/$2 NL.
I won't plan on moving up at all during the summer months, I just don't think I'll have the time to generate the bankroll required (I'd want >$5k to move to $1/$3).

I'm hoping to play at least 10 hours a week for the summer, but that might be ambitious.  I will post an update for every session I play.  I plan on having my first session in the middle of May, something like the 20th sounds about right.

If things go well, and I return to CA with a roll of >$1500 or so, I would like to try to use some of it to play once in a while at one of the rooms in San Jose.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

3rd and Likely Final Session at Bay 101

I would bet you can guess where this is going from the title.  Pretty rough time for me to go on a "downswing" (I put it in quotes because anything below 3 buyins can't really be qualified as a true downswing, but it feels like a lot to me since I was on a sub 10 buyin bankroll to start with).  I played for just over 4 hours today and again lost $200.  I felt like I ran pretty terribly, but I think there are also some pretty clear flaws in my game.  I play far too tight on a limited roll, and that's not a good strategy for beating the games.

Can't really complain too much, I was at a much improved table compared to yesterday, I just never got anything going.  Not a single time in the last two days have I been even a dollar above my starting stack of $200, I just hardly ever won pots.

Just fold garbage hands repeatedly until I've dropped ~$20 from blinds alone, then see an ok hand, raise over some limps, and check fold the flop when I air-ball the flop.  As a fun example, I had 99 and about $95 in front (after folding a bunch for a few hours), there are a few limpers and I jack it to $30 expecting that I'm shoving most flops against one caller and probably half of flops against two callers.  Instead, I get two callers, the flop is AJT with two clubs, and one of the villains leads into me for 1/2 pot.  I fold and the eventually get it in after the other villain turned a royal.

I did double up after I had dropped all the way to $50 with AcQc against 7h8h.  Though in testament to how I've been running, I did this while not improving one bit throughout the hand.

My last hand of the day, and likely the last hand I'll play in California (unless I magically become better at poker without an online game to practice with, or I somehow come up with a significantly larger bankroll) was an AsKs with just over $100 behind.  A bad player opens to five, another bad player calls, I bump it to $30, get a flat caller on the button, everyone else folds.  Flop comes Q86 rainbow, and I can't c-bet without being committed, and I don't really want to give up after investing so much, so I open shove about 1.2x pot and lose to KQo.  Pretty pleased he called with that preflop, but hey, what can you do.  I play TT+, and AQ the same way, so I think he's losing money on the deal, but in this case luck was on his side.

I thought I was going to get more mileage out of posting after each live session, though now I'm quite sure this will be the last post regarding a live session in at least 12 months.  Until next time.

2nd Session at Bay 101

Played this afternoon for 3 hours and lost $40.  Played ok, never really had any good situations or very man bad situations.  Just a boring session with no major hands played.

The table overall was very tight for a live table.  I may have arrived too early in the morning (~10:30 am), but the table I was seated at had a bunch of nitty middle aged guys.  Weird that middle aged guys were as nitty as they were (typically these are the money guys since they tend to work 9-5 and are just in the game to gamble and get away, but apparently not the ones in my game).  In fact, the table was so tight overall that I don't think anyone at the table could have been a long term winner with that table lineup, meaning I think that the money would mostly just move back and forth and everyone would lose out to the rake.

Without rake, I think I could have beaten the lineup, but with the $5 per hand that sees a flop at the Bay, there's really no way to be a good lag unless you are deep stacked or playing in a 2-3-5 game.  So my game, even at tight tables like the above, is limited to playing tightly so as not to lose out to the rake as much.  With a percentage rake schedule allowed in most other states, I would loosen up considerably at a table like this and take advantage of people folding too much, but that is simply not a good option here, in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm planning on heading back over tomorrow around noon and hope for a better table.

First Session at Bay 101

So I played my first session at the Bay 101 this afternoon.  It didn't go as well as I would have hoped.  I played for 4 and a quarter hours and lost $200.

I wasn't really nervous at the start of the session (I usually am at a new casino or a new game), so that was good.  I started off the session poorly, loosing ~$60 in the first 30 or so minutes.  Then I came roaring back, starting with a JJ hand where I was one of the blinds, and had a raise to $13 and 3 callers to me.  I bump to $55 with ~85 behind and take it down.  This brought me back to about even.  Following this, I had a TT then beat AKs for ~$50 and an AKo that took down a $70 pot on the river w/o showdown.

And then it all fell apart.  Three hands did me in.  In two of them I had 99, and one was JTs.  I played them largely ok in my opinion, just bad spots.  Here is one of the 99 hands:

I have ~$280 OTB.
V1 has >$500 UTG.
V2 has >$450 in CO.

V1 limps for $4, folds to V2 who makes it $20, I flat, V1 calls.

Flop is 78Tr, V1 checks, V2 bets $50, I call (could have folded but I had quite a bit behind and thought a J or 6 peeling was likely to get at least some action), V1 folds.

Turn is 5d (2 diamonds out), V2 bets $100, I fold. V2 says good fold and flashes AA.


I played the JTs hand too passively, I should have led the flop instead of c/c'ing top pair, as villain likely would have just mucked his hand if I lead flop.  Instead he turns 2pr and rivers a boat with 95o on 9d6cJc5s5d.  I call down (I had him triple barreling boats and whiffed draws only, maybe AJ but not to the sizing chosen) and am sad.

Oh well, there's always the weekend.

Transition to Live Poker

So it's been a fairly long while since my last post.  In that time, a number of things have happened:

- I started playing on FTP in mid-March of 2011.  I wanted to take advantage of RUSH poker since my time available for poker is typically limited.  RUSH allowed me to play ~700 hands/hour playing just two tables, and I did not have to table select.  Instead of setting up a session of 5-6 tables on Stars, which typically took 10-20 minutes depending on the time of day, I just fire up 2 tables of RUSH and go to town.  My winrate was a bit lower but the volume made up for it, I was on pace to clear 40k hands/month, which would have been my record by almost 2x (previous record was 23k hands in Jan of 2010).  I was hoping to use RUSH as a signifcant motivator in my poker development.  I had never had an avenue through which I could reliably get good volume in, and this seemed like a great way to do that.  It would have been great for me to get in so many hands, but unfortunately:

- Online sites shut down in US by DOJ in mid-April 2011.  Known as Black Friday in the online community, this obviously sucked for me.  Even though poker is not a main income source for me, I enjoyed having something that was intellectually challenging as a hobby that I could do in the comfort of my own home.  Unfortunately, the government does not agree that I should have that ability (before this gets any more political or I get comments from anyone saying "F big government", etc.; you should know that the banning of online poker is largerly to entirely due to the conservatives in congress in their desire to legislate morality and "protect families").  Sorry about the rant there, I'm still a little bitter.

- I started playing live $1/$2 NL at my local casino.  I ended up playing 2-3 times/month over the summer for 3-5 hours per session.  I felt myself getting much more comfortable at the tables throughout my time.  The casino was actually fairly nice, with a non-smoking poker room, and by all accounts the best room in the state.  I gave myself a starting bankroll of $1,100, which was roughly the amount I was able to withdraw from Stars after Black Friday (still no money from FTP).  Through a combination of 2 tournaments and 8 cash game sessions, I increased my bankroll to $1,718.  I ran above expectation in my opinion, though I don't think I played poorly.  I just think that for my current skill level (was a big winner at $10NL and small winner at $25NL online) a $21/hr winrate at $1/$2 live is probably unsustainable.  That type of winrate is reserved for pretty good players in fairly weak games.  If I'm being honest with myself, I'd like to think I could sustain a $10-$12/hr winrate at those games.

- I moved to the SF Bay area in August 2011.  I haven't played a live session yet, but I plan on playing mainly at the Bay101 casino in San Jose.  This is because it has the most tables and is the most renowned/well regarded in the area from what I have read (though regs at other places tend to like their place more, typically Bay101 is high on everyone's list).  Plus, Matt Savage works there, and it is widely known that he is one of the best tournament directors in the industry.  I'll keep my bankroll at $1,718, which will be a little tight because the smallest game spread at Bay 101 for no limit is $1/$2/$2 with $4 min bring in (no limping for $2).  So my risk of ruin is actually higher than I'd like, but I also would like to think that my potential upside is substantial.

In the coming months, I will be updating this blog after every live session with session length, winnings (losses), monthly totals, and current bankroll.  I haven't yet decided if I should deduct travel expenses out of my bankroll or out of my other life-roll accounts under the premise that they would be the same if I drove to any other hobby I might have (hockey, golf, etc).

Embarrasing River Call

I butchered this hand.

Preflop is obviously fine. I think flop is ok too, I can't raise and fold to a 3-bet, and when he just calls a raise I am probably not doing that great against his range. Folding is not an option, so calling is fine.

On the turn though, I need to bet 100% when he checks this blank. I don't want to give a free card to draws, and I want to get value from worse Ax and 9x hands. I knew this was a mistake as I was checking behind.

When he overbets river, he polarizes his range to flushes/air. He's not doing this with 2pr because my range includes FD's as well, imo he'd most likely make a standard size bet with anything that a flush beats. I doubt anyone at NL10 is overbet bluffing nearly often enough to make a call correct here, he would need to be bluffing upwards of 37% of the time, which is just incredibly unlikely, especially on this board. I need to fold here always, and I knew that while the hand was unfolding. I make bad bad calls way too often. It really needs to stop if I want to be any good at this game.

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 569152
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $9.45
BTN: $7.45
SB: $15.25
BB: $11.80
UTG: $14.70
Hero (MP): $10.15

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is MP with A Q
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.30, 2 folds, SB calls $0.25, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.70) 9 A 2 (2 players)
SB bets $0.40, Hero calls $0.40

Turn: ($1.50) 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($1.50) 8 (2 players)
SB bets $2, Hero calls $2

Final Pot: $5.50
SB shows 7 6 (a flush, Ace high)
Hero mucks A Q
SB wins $5.25
(Rake: $0.25)