Poker lately

I haven't had much time to post lately.  I've been playing a ton of poker and I've been loving it.  I've also just been working and working out a lot too, so my time is pretty short.  Doing P90X right now and I'm through the first week.  Hopefully I can stick with it through all 90 days and turn into a super beast!

Who cares about that though, let's talk poker!  After the WPT Boot Camp poker has been going really well for me.  I've been playing good, or at least following their system as well as I can.  I'm also taking select hands and running them through PokerCruncher to see if I made any mistakes.  I also quit drinking a couple weeks ago and have been playing decent since then.  Definitely had some insane drunken crazy poker nights the previous weeks.  Actually didn't do that bad during that time, but I'm doing pretty well since then.  I'm currently up $1153 over 42.5 hours of live poker in that time.  Just playing all 1/2 and 1/3 NL around the valley.  

We have been playing at SO many place.  Red Rock, Santa Fe Station, Wynn, Golden Nugget, Aria, MGM, Excalibur.  It has been a blast driving around and just "rounding", lol.  Also, we have been having a lot of fun at the table.  I'm playing with my wife a ton, and we also met a new friend that we are having a ton of fun hanging out with.  The 3 of us get on the same table and just get loud and have fun.  It puts me in a better mood and sometimes helps the other people at the table open up.  I think having fun at the table has SO many benefits.  You go on tilt less and get bored less.  You might get other people to open up and get information out of them, or even just talk to them and have a good conversation which makes the time so much more enjoyable.  And for the people that are 100% serious and refuse to open up, it puts them on tilt and they might play like shit.  Overall it's a good thing IMO.

I don't know if I've had that many super interesting hands lately.  I'm just trying to stick to this WPT Boot Camp strategy as much as possible.  It's awesome because I'm playing SUPER aggressive in some hands where I never would do that before, and I'm not getting myself in trouble in other hands.  And when I have a big hand, I'm hammering the pot and am winning bigger pots than I might have in the past.

Few fun hands (maybe not that interesting) lately:

Last night at Wynn.  It folds around to the cutoff and I say "I don't chop" just so the guy knows (I'm in the small blind).  Folds to me.  I look down, Q-Q.  Raise to 12.  Guy reraises me to $30.  I reraise to $100, which is basically his whole stack.  He goes all-in with K-10, I win.

Santa Fe Station, Saturday night.  I have about $300 in front of me.  I raise to 10 with AcKc in middle position.  The blind reraises me to $30.  I reraise to $90.  He thinks and thinks, and goes all-in.  I had about $200 left.  I called, he had K-K, and he flopped a set.  I figured his range was probably QQ+.  Maybe JJ, but I figured I would just rule that out.  I thought I had odds vs QQ+, since I was getting almost 2:1.  However, I wasn't getting even 2:1 on the call (only 1.85:1), and I needed 2:1 if he was pushing with QQ+, based on PokerCruncher.  It says I have 34.7% equity against QQ+.  That was interesting to me though because I didn't know my equity would be so high.  Also what was interesting is that being suited REALLY helps your equity a lot, especially if you are against KK+.  

Wynn last night.  I am in the big blind with Q-3, check.  Flop comes Q-J-3 with 2 hearts and we are 3 handed. Small blind checks.  I bet out 6 bucks.  Guy calls.  Small blind (old woman) raises me to $12.  I reraise to $36.  She just calls.  Turn is a blank, a 2.  She checks, I bet $55, she calls.  River is the 4 of hearts.  She checks.  I figured she was probably drawing, so I checked behind.  She had Q-J.  :P

Guy limps and I limp with 7-4 suited.  Flop comes K-7-7 with 2 diamonds, bam.  I bet $6, guy calls me.  Turn is a 5.  He checks, I bet $20.  He raises to $40.  I got a little lost here.  I just called and planned on calling the river.  Not really sure what I was thinking though.  River comes a jack.  I thought that was actually a good card for me because the kicker is not very likely to play.  He bets $75.  I thought about it and didn't think there was any way I could really fold.  I called, he had 7-5 for the boat.  In retrospect maybe I can just fold there.  On the river the pot was about $104 ($12 preflop, $12 on flop, $80 on turn).  I had to call $75 and I figured he had a 7.  So I'm calling $75 to win $50, and some percentage of the time he is going to have a boat.  So I think really I can just fold there a lot of the time.  Alternatively I could raise the turn and fold to a reraise, but that puts me in a bad spot if he bets the river too.  Overall it's sort of a cooler IMO.  I figured I chop with 8-7 and 7-6.  A-7, yeah that gets me.  I don't know, probably should just have folded.

Last night at Wynn at the 1/3 game.  Guy opens to $40 (LOL) under the gun.  I look down - pocket aces.  OMG.  I make it $120.  I only had about $250 total.  Comes back around to him, he looks at my stack and goes all-in, I obviously call, and win.  He had pocket queens.  

That's about it for me today!  I'm going to play after work today, and hopefully I can start writing more regular blogs.  I'm pumped though.  I feel like I'm playing good and making good decisions based on the game plan I'm trying to follow.  It's also a ton of fun.  I'm really hoping this year is THE year for me and I get back to being a winning player, and move up to 2/5 NL soon.  That would be awesome.  I would be in heaven if I am solidly, without a doubt playing 2/5 at the end of this year and sometimes taking shots at 5/10 games.  That would just be sick.