My last hurrah

I'm done.  That's it.  I played my best, won some money overall, but I need to take a long break from poker.  I'm doing the most final thing I can right now, which is just taking my bankroll money and getting rid of it.  Depositing it back into the family bank account, and giving up.

I've been on a steady downswing for weeks, following a really spectacular upswing.  I was up over $7000 playing 1/2-2/5 NL.  In the last weeks though I lost $4000 or so of that, and it's just too mentally brutal to deal with for me.  Loss after loss for weeks.  I don't know if I'm playing really bad or just running bad.  My guess is that it's a combination of both.

I've gone through this before, usually not showing a profit.  I know I've thought that before in these kind of situations, the most important thing is to not freak out and just stay in action, keep playing, and it will eventually even out.  Right now though I don't even want to play at all.  I just feel like I could be doing better things with my time.  Getting in shape or focusing on my career.

Yesterday I played some poker at Aria.  1/3 NL then the tournament.  I don't really even feel like writing that much about it.  In the cash game I got brutalized and lost $600.  I was down $300 right away.  Lost some money where I had 10-5 on a straddle, flopped a 10, and the other guy ended up having K-10.  Then with a little over $200 left I got K-K in the big blind and got all-in on the flop against pocket aces.  I called $16 preflop.  Flop was T-5-4.  I check, he bets $35, I raise to $90, he goes all-in, I call, pocket aces.

I had K-K vs A-A again later in the day and only ended up losing $50.  I raised to $15 and got reraised to $50 from the big blind.  This guy had been raising to $50 a lot, and I had actually gotten all-in with him earlier preflop with K-K against K-K and chopped.  I just called the $50, flop came ace high and I check/folded.  He showed A-A for a flopped set.  Great flop for me.

Then I just played pretty loose, straddled a bunch, overall did not play well.  Just put a lot of money in with substandard hands and the outcome was as expected if you aren't hitting a bunch of hands - you lose a lot of money.  So I ended up losing $600.

The tournament started out pretty well.  I thought I played well through the entire tournament really.  I picked up some pots early and got my starting stack of $10k up to $15k.  Then I played a pretty big pot.

I picked up A-K, raised to $600 (blinds were 100/200).  Flop comes Q-10-8 with a flush draw.  I bet $900, he calls.  Turn is the perfect card, an offsuit jack.  Now I bet $1800.  He goes all-in.  I call.  I was thinking, I'm probably going to end up chopping this.  He has J-10 for two pair.  Sweet, I'm about to double up and be the chip leader at my table.  River, 10.  Brutal.  He didn't have quite as much as I did and I was down to $3k chips at that point.

I played really well from there.  Had K-K and limp-reraised all-in on one hand, stealing the blinds, antes, a raise, and a call.  Raised all-in from the big blind with A-J against a late position raiser, he called with A-7, and I doubled up.  Pushed in a few other times and got my stack up to about 9000.  Then with the blinds at 300/600/100 ante, I pushed all-in over a 3000 chip raise with 9-9 and got called by A-Q.  Ace on the flop and I was out.

I got home and collected all of my bankroll money.  I had it stashed in a small can.  I remember for a while it was all $100 bills and the can was so full that I was thinking about finding a new place to stash my money because it literally all wouldn't fit in there.  Now, it was a collection of some 100s, a bunch of twenties, and random tens, fives, and ones.  A sad poker bankroll, showing the signs of repeated losses.  All together it added up to about $2650 or so.  Technically I had more in my bankroll, maybe another $1000 or even $1500, since I had been taking money out of it to loan to my wife to play with me, and gamble (video poker, etc) while I was on vacation, and I just hadn't taken that money back out of our bank account.

Now I'm just going to deposit that money back into our bank account and call it a day.  Another poker cycle ends for me.  I'm sure I'll get started again later.  Maybe around Christmas or my birthday (in April).  I love the excitement of poker, the prospect of getting a bankroll together, the excitement and promise of that first huge win.  It's what makes poker great.  Right now I'm on the opposite end of that, feeling the depression of repeated losses over a long period of time.

The money itself doesn't bother me at all, and that's why I had a separate poker bankroll.  I always knew that if I lost it, I would be OK with that.  But after you lose for weeks and weeks, you start to doubt that you have any skills to begin with.  You start to think about past big hands, and how you got really lucky to win those to begin with.  You either coolered someone else, or you made a retarded move that worked, or better yet, you made a retarded move that didn't work, got called, and drew out in a monster pot.  I've had all of the above happen during my giant upswing for sure.  So then which side is the reality?  The winning side, where you have a huge upswing, make some good moves, and just keep winning?  Or the side where you try to play your best and lose over and over, with no hope to recover?

I honestly don't know.  What I do know is that I'm giving up on poker again, at least for a while.  Poker is an awesome game and there are a lot of exciting aspects to it.  In the short term, you can win money and play huge pots, which is exciting.  In the long term you can always dream of winning big, winning a huge tournament, or maybe consistently winning at cash games and turning that into a career.  I know I get sucked into that dream every once in a while.  At least the dream of being able to win consistently and make some decent money on the side.

I'll be back.  See you soon, and good luck at the tables.

- Mark

Clear cut tournament mistake

Played last night at Caesar's, at their 10 PM tournament.  $85 buyin, start with 7500 in chips, 20 minute levels.  The tournament was decent.  I think they got 40 entries or so.  Here are some of the hands I played.

Hand 1 : Blinds 100/200, I have about $7500 with Q-Q.  Raise to 300 from middle position.  Young guy who says he plays a lot of tournaments reraises me to 600.  I call.  Thought about reraising, but I figured he could easily have a big hand here and if he has a worse hand a reraise will just chase him away.  Flop is J-8-x with 2 hearts.  I check.  He bets $800.  He has about $4k left.  I think for a bit about what to do. Eventually I just figure, if he has aces or kings, so be it.  I don't think there's really any way I can fold this hand the way it went down.  I could have gone all-in, but instead I reraised to $2500.  He called.  He only had like $1300 left so I figured he was basically all-in at this point.  So I just put two 1k chips out in the dark.  Turn was an offsuit 9.  He tanks and eventually folds.

Hand 2 : I have K-7 in the big blind.  Check.  There are 3 people in the pot.  Flop comes 7-7-3 with 2 hearts.  Small blind checks, I check, other guy bets $300.  Folds to me, I make it $800.  He calls.  Sweet.  I figured I could call, but I might as well raise.  Especially if he had a flush draw, because I want to get some money out of him if he wants to draw.  Turn is a great card, an offsuit king.  I bet $700, he folds.  I guess I could have checked, but I figured that betting $700 was small enough to get him to call if he had a flush draw.  Maybe checking could have made it look like I had a 3 or something, but overall I think betting was correct.

Hand 3 : Later in the tournament.  Blinds are 400/800 with a 100 ante.  I have about $12k and he has me covered.  I'm in the big blind with K-10 of hearts.  Folds around to this asian guy with a lot of chips.  I've seen him do some stupid things earlier in the tournament, like putting way too much in with no pair A-K and hitting.  I call 800 more.  Flop comes Q-J-6 with 2 hears.  I check, he bets $1500.

I knew I was calling at least, but I wanted to be more aggressive with my draw, especially since I've seen this guy play more hands than average and his bet looked fairly weak.  I thought about going all-in, but I thought it might look stronger to raise less.  I ended up raising to $4600.  I think this was a big mistake, but let me just spit out the rest of the hand first.  He thinks for a while and calls.  Turn is a 4 of hearts, giving me the backdoor flush draw.  I put my remaining $5100 in, he calls with A-J, river is a jack, I am out.

If I thought about what the stack sizes would be on the turn after he called, I would have realized that 4600 was a terrible amount to put in on the flop.  If he calls the flop, there is zero chance of him folding on the turn.  So when I go all-in on the turn I'm putting all of my money in with a draw and zero fold equity.  Just totally gambling.  It was terrible.  If I didn't want to go all-in on the flop, it would have been much better to make it 6k or 7k or something.  Realistically though just shoving on the flop would have been a much better play.

Then on the turn, once I do make that bad bet on the flop, I should have just check-called (hoping for the check back).  I think once the heart comes, I'm not folding.  However, I have nothing and with zero fold equity there's no reason to bet.  So I should have just checked, hope he checks too, and if not, call any amount on the turn.

Then if I miss on the river, I guess I just need to give up (had it gone check-check on the turn).

Sigh.  That was disappointing.  I haven't had a clear-cut big mistake in a tournament so far (that I've been smart enough to realize, anyway).  This one was just clearly bad and it cost me the tournament.  Sure, I could have hit, and I definitely had a gigantic draw on the turn (any heart, ace, king, 9).  But still, it was a mistake to play it the way I did.

Going to play another tournament tomorrow at Aria, hopefully that goes better.

Soul read (aka I can see your cards)

I'm on vacation this week, which means I'm going to be playing a ton of poker!  I don't have much time to write right now, but I did want to write a bit about a couple fun hands.  I'm going to be playing some tournaments this week too to change it up a bit.

Played the Aria 7 PM tournament last night.  Buyin - $125.  I played pretty well I thought, but didn't have many hands at all.  Ended up never really getting over my initial stack.  Blinded down to $5200, blinds were $200/$400 with $25 ante.  Guy raised to $900, Euro guy raising a lot of hands and playing pretty crazy (although maybe he had slowed down a bit now that the blinds got this high).  I had A-10 suited and went all-in, got called (which I knew would happen), he had 8-8 and I did not hit.  So that was my tournament.  

What sucked was that there was a hand that I was about to triple up on, if the action went a little differently.  Guy raises in early position to $600.  Blinds were 100/200/25.  Gets like 3 callers.  I have 5-5 in the big blind and around 7k in chips.  With a little over 2k in the pot, I was going to just go all-in hoping to pick up the money in the pot.  The small blind took my idea first though and went all-in.  Original raiser called with A-K.  The small blind had pocket aces.  Flop K-K-5 and the A-K guy wouldn't have caught up.  The really blahhhhh part about it is that this guy doubles through with A-K vs A-A, and I see him in the tournament like 4 hours later, probably final table.  7% chance to win that hand, he wins, and he's in the money 4 hours later.  Oh well.  People were overall playing just awful in the tournament, but if you don't get anything to play, what can you do.  Nobody was big on folding either.  :-)

So I bust out and get on the list for 1/3.  Sit down at 2/5 while I wait.  And I get this pretty fun hand.  Guy to my right has 2 stacks of green, sitting with about 1200 or so.  I have $600.  Guy to my right has been pretty aggressive, raising a lot and reraising big on one hand, and I've played maybe 2-3 orbits.  So he looks at his cards.  I look over and I can see his cards, just on this one hand.  He has 9-6.  Both black, maybe suited.  He raises to 25.  I look down at 2-2.  

Perfect situation.  I get to see peoples' cards all the time, but never get a good chance to act on it.  This time, I totally do.  In position against an aggressive player, and I know his cards.  I want to isolate or just get him to fold, although I'd rather have him call.  I make it $65.  

Little wrench in the plan, the big blind cold-calls it.  :P  He is sitting with about $800.  Doesn't look like a guy who is very good, kinda middle aged middle eastern-ish type of guy.  Guy next to me asks if I have 4 bills, answer is yes, he calls.  

Flop Q-J-5 rainbow.  First guy checks, 9-6 guy checks.  I figure I have to bet it.  I already look super strong preflop.  So I grab a bill and $30 in chips.  As I'm getting my bet ready, I can see the blind is preparing to fold, so this is great.  I bet $130, they both fold.  What an awesome hand though, when do you ever see someone's cards and get to do something with it?  A little dicey but a lot of fun.  

Eventually got to 1/3.  Played this hand there, I think I played it really well.  Not a huge pot, but still.  I have A-8 of spades and call $12.  The guy that raised is pretty loose and I doubt he is very good.  And then this other tourist guy with a sleeveless shirt calls.  I'm in position.  Flop comes 10-9-x with 2 of my suit.  Raiser bets 12, I call.  Turn is an offsuit queen.  He bets 12 again.  

At this point, I think he's weak.  So I'm thinking raise.  However, I also know he sucks and won't necessarily fold to a raise here.  So I just call.  River comes out an offsuit 4.  Total miss.  He bets 12 again.  Now, I raise to 42.  He folds.  I thought it was a much better idea to wait to raise, just because he was probably not going to fold the turn.  And then what, fire out $80 on the river if I miss?  I am just trying to stay out of those spots if I can.

I ended up winning $92 at 2/5, and losing $4 at 1/3.  So overall including the tournament I lost like $30 yesterday.  No big deal.  More poker today.

Red Rock Monday

Played some 1/2 at Red Rock on Monday.  Nothing too exciting.  I tried to change up my game a bit by doing a couple different things.  First of all, I'm trying to bet more if I decide to bet.  Raising more preflop, betting more if I decide to bet.  I think that will do a couple things for me.  Number one, it will make pots bigger, which is good because it just makes the game play bigger overall.  Two, once the pots start getting bigger I think people will play more straightforward and easy to read.  That's just a hypothesis though.  As far as the other thing I'm doing, I was definitely staying with the theme of playing more hands in position and playing hands slower out of position.

As I started making both of these changes, it brought me back to when I used to play a lot a few years back. I used to do a lot of the same things.  I definitely raised more preflop (30 was my standard preflop raise in 2/5) and I definitely played more cautious out of position.

Few hands I played:

Hand 1 : Few people limp.  I raise to 14 with KQ offsuit.  Much bigger raise than I have been making in the past.  1 get one caller, this weirdo guy who has these rubber duckies all over the place.  I don't remember if he was in the blind or limped in early position, but I was in position.  Flop comes K-9-8 with 2 to a flush.  He checks, and I check.  In retrospect that was pretty stupid.  It would have been a much better idea to bet here because the flush and straight draws were there, so I could get a call with either one.  I wanted to slowplay a bit and sort of just remove a betting street because I didn't have a super big hand, but this was just the wrong time to try something like that.  Turn was an offsuit deuce, he checked, I bet 20, he folded.  Should have bet the flop though.

Hand 2 : This guy just sat down and raises to 11 in position on his first hand.  He has about $500 (max buy-in is 300).  Younger guy.  I have 10-10 in the blind.  I decide to just call.  I could reraise, but if he calls then I'm just in a really awkward position.  I have about $300 as well and don't want to get in some really big pot against an unknown guy with pocket 10s out of position.  So I call and an old guy who limped calls.  Flop comes A-Q-x and I'm done.  I check, and it checks around.  Turn is a 9.  I check, the old guy checks, and now the preflop raiser bets 12.  I call, thinking he probably doesn't have anything.  The old guy calls too.  I know he probably has a better hand than I do, so I'm going to have to bet the river to win.  I'm putting him on something kinda weak, maybe a weak ace or a queen.  River comes an 8.  I bet out $40, they both fold.  I guess I'm representing the J-10, but my real thought was just that they were both weak on the turn and I'd try to take it away on the river, assuming the river wasn't some card I thought would hit them.

Hand 3 : I limp with 9-7 offsuit in mid/late position.  4 people see the flop.  Flop comes 7-4-3 with 2 diamonds.  Guy in the blind bets out $6.  I don't totally love my hand but I figure if I'm going to play it I want to isolate and just play this heads up, and maybe win it now.  I raise to $18, he calls.  Turn is an offsuit king.  He checks, I bet $20, he calls.  River is the jack of diamonds.  He thinks for a bit and bets out $25.  I fold.  He was a middle aged guy, I don't think he was going to bluff here at all.  And really all I have is a 7.  In retrospect I like the way I played this but on the turn I should have bet more, like $35 if I was going to bet it.  That would have made it a lot harder for him to call.  If I thought he had something like 2 overs with a flush draw, I was giving him straight up odds to call the turn.  Plus there are so many cards that can hit the river where I have no idea where I'm at.

Hand 4 : Under the gun with A-Q.  Limp.  About 4 or 5 people see the flop.  Flop is 10 high.  Guy bets out 12, I fold.  Just figured I'd mention this hand because it's one of those ones where a week or two ago, I'd raise 100% of the time, and c-bet a high percentage of flops too.  Now I'm not sure that's really the best plan especially from under the gun.  I'm definitely limping more with big hands.  I figure I'll either flop a huge hand and can trap a bit, maybe flop TPTK and just call down for value, or if I miss I can just throw it away for cheap.  Whereas if I raise under the gun it just makes it harder for me to play, especially when people play bad and don't necessarily want to fold the flop that much.  I understand there are some good situations to double barrel boards, but I don't really want to get in a situation where I'm raising, cbetting, and double barrelling the turn out of position if I have to when I really don't know what the other person is doing.  I'd rather save that stuff for when I'm in position.

Not very many exciting hands yesterday.  I figure I just need to put the time in though, and eventually the wins will come.  I ended up losing like $18 over 2 hours, but I had almost no premium hands to play and didn't flop any big draws or anything either.  Just a really boring session for me.

Next week I'm on vacation and probably will play a lot of poker.  Hopefully I can start kicking ass again!  I think I'm playing pretty well, although definitely playing tighter than I was.  I'd like to loosen up more, but I can see how that can hurt me too.  I'll continue to play pretty tight, but loosen up a little more in position and hopefully that goes well.

Pocket kings, and some no chop situations

Played some poker this weekend at the Aria, Red Rock, and even Excalibur.  1/3 and 1/2 NL.  Overall I made some pretty big mistakes and I'm not super happy with my play overall, but I did end up winning over $200.

Aria

Hand 1 : I raise to 8 with KK (Aria 1/3 NL).  Get 3 callers.  Flop comes 6-5-3 with 2 spades.  Checks to me, I bet out 17.  Guy raises to 50.  He is on the button.  He has about 200 total (including the 50) and is racked up and about to move to another table.  I thought folding was too weak, and calling might put me in a spot where I didn't know where I was.  Overall it was an uncomfortable situation for me and I thought for a while.  Eventually I ended up raising him to 105, he went all-in and I insta-called (which was probably pretty stupid, I didn't really think about it at all).  He had 6-5 and I doubled him up.  Pretty brutal way to start the weekend's poker.  I just sat down and played this hand in my first orbit.  In retrospect, I think that even though folding seems REALLY weak here, since it is such an uncomfortable situation I think I can just fold.  I am probably folding the best hand sometimes if he has a smaller overpair, but his stack size puts me in a weird spot where if I call, it's going to be hard for me to get away from it.  And in general, I don't think people are raising very light at 1/2 or 1/3, so a fold here wouldn't have been terrible.  Alternatively I could have min-raised (to 80 or whatever) and if he pushed all in over the top I think I could fold a lot easier.  But by just folding I'm only losing the 17 I put in on the flop and it just seems like since the pot was so small, who cares if I fold the best hand there sometimes.

Hand 2 : I am in the big blind with K-Qs and check.  Red Rock 1/2 NL.  Flop comes Q-9-x with 2 spades.  I check, and it checks around.  Probably about 6 people in.  Turn is a king, giving me top two.  I bet 12.  Guy directly to my left makes it 30.  I know he's playing pretty tight.  Folds to me, I call.  River is the ace of spades.  I check.  He bets 25.  On the turn I already thought if the flush hits and he bets again, I should just fold because he obviously has a strong hand at that point, if he's not afraid of the flush.  But it was only $25 (that's how I justified it) and I called, and he had J-10 for the straight.  Was this just a cooler?  I don't know.  I feel like I could probably fold the turn a lot of the time.  If a tight guy had just A-K or turned smaller two pair, they might raise but a lot of the time I think they are just calling.

Hand 3 : Red Rock 1/2 NL.  I'm under the gun with K-K (and a little over $300) and limp.  Lately I've been thinking about playing my big pairs a lot slower out of position.  First of all, people tend to fold a lot if you just open raise from early position.  I'm definitely losing some value by not raising, but at the same time, people are MUCH more likely to make huge mistakes after the flop than they are preflop.  So by under-repping my hand I might be able to check-call 3 streets against a weaker top pair, or flop an invisible set, who knows.  Anyway, it's something I'm trying out.  Couple other people limp and the button makes it 8.  I just call.  There's nobody trapped in the middle that called his raise, and limp-reraising just looks super strong and defines my hand too much.  The other two guys call.  Flop is great for me, 10-2-2.  It checks to the raiser and he bets 30.  I raise to 75.  He calls.  Turn is an 8.  I bet 105.  He goes all-in (has me covered) and I call.  River is a 9.  He turns over Q-Q and my kings win a huge pot.  I felt pretty confident on the flop when he didn't reraise me.  His turn raise in my opinion was just one of those "well, its going all in anyway, so whatever" type of raises since I only had probably less than $150 behind after my $105 bet.

Hand 4 : Red Rock 1/2 NL.  I raise to 8 in late position with K-K.  Guy in the blind calls, big blind raises to 24.  He has been playing pretty crazy.  I just call, and so does the blind.  Flop comes K-9-7.  Now it checks to me.  I bet $22.  Blind calls, and the crazy guy min-raises to $44.  I reraise to $172.  He calls.  Pot is fucking huge at this point.  Turn comes a 5.  He checks and I go all-in for the rest, $184.  He folds.  I guess I could have bet like $125 instead and maybe he could have talked himself into calling or saying fuck it and putting me all-in.  The pot was so big though I really didn't want anyone to call, and at that point you're getting pretty good odds even with a flush draw.  Preflop = 75, and on the flop 360 went in.  So on the river I bet 180 into 430 or so, giving him 180 : (430 + 180) odds, or 3.4:1 odds.  So really I shouldn't bet any less than I did anyway, or calling with a flush draw would have been mathematically correct anyway.

Excalibur

Hand 5 : Excalibur $1/$2.  Under the gun with K-K, limp.  Few people call and the button makes it $16.  I thought about reraising but I figured I could get a lot more money in the pot by just calling and letting everyone else call.  I call, 2 or 3 other people call too.  Flop is 10-8-x.  I bet out $20 or $25, hoping to get a bunch of people stuck in the middle.  Guy next to me goes all-in for $80 or so.  Folds back to me, I call.  He has J-9.  Turn and river are a jack and nine.  Ughhhhhhhh

Hand 6 : Excalibur $1/$2 NL.  I raise to 6 with A-10 offsuit after a couple people limp.  Couple people call my raise, and this guy (pictured at right) limp-reraises all-in for $56 more.  He just lost a big pot and was steaming IMO.  So I call.  Board runs out and I don't pair up.  Luckily he didn't either and he had pushed all-in with 9-8 offsuit, so my A-10 held up.

Then I had a couple really interesting hands where I was in the big blind and did not chop.  :-)

Hand 7 : Folds around to the small blind.  I say I don't chop.  He calls 2 (Aria $1/$3 NL).  I look down at A-A.  Raise to 13, he calls.  Flop is A-5-4.  He bets out $15.  I call.  I figure I flopped the SUPER nuts and don't want to run him off yet.  Turn is a 3.  He bets out $35.  I don't love it, but I don't think I'm ever folding this hand here.  He might have a strong second best hand (set, A-K).  Plus people love to just spew money in blind vs blind situations because they're going to "teach you a lesson" for not chopping.  So I call.  River, 8.  He bets $50.  I don't love it but I call.  He has Q-2 offsuit.  Bet the flop with the gutshot, hit it.  :P

Hand 8 : Aria $1/$3 NL again.  Folds to the small blind, I say I don't chop.  He calls.  I look down at J-J and raise to $13.  He reraises to $30.  He has only like $75 or so total, and I push him all-in.  He insta-calls with A-A.  Turn, jack.  Fuck you.  Haha.  Ship it.

The weekend was a little frustrating.  I had some hands I should have played better, and they cost me a lot of money.  Overall though I won a couple hundred bucks and it's nice to get a win finally, so that was great.  Probably will play more during the week.