Don't have time for a huge post today, but I think I'll be posting a lot more frequently soon. I'm definitely getting back into poker in a big way.
First off, I attended a WPT Boot Camp 2-day cash game thing a few weeks ago. My wife actually won it for me in this online contest. That was great, because it costs almost $2000 and I would never have bought that for myself. She was looking into getting me a 1-day thing, but entered and won the contest.
The camp was actually really good. It started off slow. The one instructor was not enthusiastic. He started the first day a few minutes late, complained about how early it was, it was weak. And the course material looked really basic. I was thinking, I'm glad we didn't pay for this.
Luckily throughout the day it got much better. The second instructor Nick Brancato was fantastic. He was really insightful. The slides were worthless, but as I listened to Nick I was frantically writing down notes so I could remember everything he said. He talked about some CRAZY things that I would never think of. And it wasn't crazy like, crazy aggressive (although they do recommend playing pretty aggressive when you are in pots, which is what I figured). He had a lot of out of the box ideas, even about folding or not playing hands that you would ALWAYS play. Also just talking about the mental aspects of the game, having a game plan and just executing on that. It was really awesome. The first guy got better as well, but he just wasn't nearly as good as Nick. By the end of the first day they lay out a strategy for you and it was pretty exciting.
The second day was even better. No slides, and we just sat around a table playing. They would deal out hands, we would play them, and we would walk through the decision making process for all players at the table. I was again frantically taking notes. I took literally 2 small notepads full of notes, and ended up writing on the back of some of the pages too. At the end of the second day they talk about PokerStove and how to use it, which was also great. I never really learned much about it or how to do things with hand ranges, so that was really insightful.
Everyone else in the class was clueless, except for a few people. It was mostly old people. That surprised me, but then again it's not too surprising when you take into consideration that the class costs thousands of dollars. It's crazy though how you can tell NOBODY is going to get anything out of the class. I took TONS of notes and I'd say 99% of the useful information I got was from listening to these guys talk and writing down their thoughts.
Watching people play the hands was insane. They lay out a SUPER simple strategy to follow - raise with 5% of your hands in early position, 15% in middle position, etc. But from hand 1, people are doing things like raising with Q-3 suited, calling raises with hands that you should clearly not be playing, etc. I couldn't believe it. I thought there might be mistakes later in the hand for sure. But especially when they give you a VERY simple strategy, like only raise with X hands, and you aren't even playing for real money, how do you not do it 100% right or at least try to do it 100% right? Same thing with betting. They said if you are going to raise, raise this amount. But people would be betting/raising WAY different amounts for no reason. Just try to do it the way they are suggesting! If you aren't even going to try, why did you put up the money and come to this thing?
I'm really hoping that this turns my game around. Results have been good so far, and I have been having a lot of fun playing which is really important. I've also been reading a GREAT book called "The Mental Game of Poker" that they recommended. It's really helping me stay off of tilt and understand a little more about how I can improve my game.
Playing the Aria tournament tonight! For now we're just having fun and I'm drinking a lot while I play, which I know is bad. But after this week my wife is getting back to school and I'm going to really focus on playing sober, sticking to this strategy, and trying to execute perfectly. We'll see how it goes!
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Online Golden Nugget tournament
It's actually pretty fun playing these tournaments. Since online poker is dead in the US, it's nice to get any chance to play. And maybe I can win something! :-)
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
A new approach
Last Monday I went to Red Rock and played some 1/2. I thought I played OK, but I did get into some very questionable situations. For example check out this gem of a hand:
A-Q in the small blind. I call a small raise. Flop is J-7-7. I think "that's a good board texture to c-bet" and call a $6 c-bet from the preflop raiser. Turn is a jack. I think "that board doesn't hit the preflop raiser very often". I check, he bets $25. I say to myself "I'm going to raise him off of his hand, he doesn't have a jack very often here". So I raise to $60, he calls, I check-fold the river, he shows A-J.
Then just a couple annoying hands - guy raises to 12. I reraise to 30 with A-K. Flop misses me, like 9-6-4. He checks, I bet 50, he raises me all-in for $100 more, I fold. Then someone raises to like 7, I make it 20 with A-Q, he calls, I miss the flop, it goes check-check, he bets the turn, I fold.
I also just got into some spots where I was confused about what to do post-flop. Like after listening to these podcasts and they're talking about ranges and this and that, I flop an ace with ace-rag suited and I'm like, I'm going to peel and see what he does, and of course the guy bets again and I have to fold, etc. I just ended up playing like shit.
And then, that puts me on tilt. Making moves that don't work, putting money in the pot when it just feels wrong, etc. It annoys me.
Then I was listening to some more podcasts, the "Deuce Plays" ones, and sometimes they'll have people on that play the live 5/10 games at Commerce. And a common theme is, these guys aren't paying attention to what you're doing, nobody ever folds anything, nobody is ever bluff raising you. And you can value bet pretty thin because nobody ever folds, etc.
I lost $270 at Red Rock last Monday and it was really frustrating. I didn't play the rest of the week and I was just like "fuck this" overall.
So yesterday I said something I have said in the past, although maybe more to the extreme this time. I came up with a new plan. Over the next 100 hours of live poker, I'm going to play this way:
- Never ever bluff.
- Never even semi-bluff, even with huge semi-bluffing hands.
- Never c-bet unless I hit the flop.
- Pretty much never reraise preflop except with huge hands.
- Pretty much only raise preflop with huge hands, limp with everything else, and check/fold unless I really have a monster.
- Bet big with my big hands.
- Play 100% straightforward.
- Basically play like the biggest nit ever.
So I did this yesterday at Red Rock for 3 hours. It was an interesting experiment because I played some hands in ways I would not usually play them. Some examples:
I have K-4 suited in the blind. Check. Flop comes 10-7-4 with 2 of my suit. Sick flop. Check, lol. Turn, check, river, miss, check/fold.
In blind with 6-5. Check. Flop is 2-2-5. Checks around. Turn, 8. Checks around. River, 9. Guy bets 10. I raise to 30, he calls with 9-8.
Open-limp with Q-10 suited (I dont think that was a good idea, but whatever). Flop A-x-x with 2 of my suit. Checks to me, check. Turn, blank. Checks around. River, miss, someone bets, I fold.
I had some big hands too. Reraised this guy Kenny that plays crazy preflop with AA. He raised to 10, 2 callers, I think this is awesome because it looks like I'm trying to steal, I make it 45, he calls. Flop I kinda spaz out and he checks, and I check. I sort of didn't know what to do. Flop was 6-5-4, just not the best flop. Turn, jack. He bets 60, I insta-call because I know this guy can do some weird stuff. River, 5. He checks. I check. Should have bet though because I think he would never check a big hand there, so that was a mistake.
Call 8 with A-Q. 5 way. Flop A-Q-5. Preflop raiser bets 20, I call, heads up. Turn, 9. He checks, I bet 60, he calls. River, 5. He checks, I go all-in, he folds.
Just couple others:
Bunch of people limp. I have K-K on button, make it 15. 3 callers. Flop ace high, 2 hearts. Checks to me, check. Turn, check around. River, check around. Guy made two pair with running jack and 9. Could have won this pot with a c-bet obviously, but whatever. This is my new nit strategy.
Raise to 10 with Q-Q, 2 callers. Flop 7-5-2 with 2 diamonds. I bet 25, guy calls. Turn, 4 of diamonds. I check, he bets 45 right away, I just fold. Old guy, probably a great fold there. But good fold or not, I'm just going to fold there 100% of the time.
Anyway I ended up winning $224. Really good session, I was super happy with the results. As far as the play, I feel like its super weak and exploitable, but maybe these guys are right... at these limits (and maybe even 1 or 2 levels up), nobody is going to be good enough to exploit me, so whatever. I can play super predictable and just rake in the money from all the terrible players out there. And maybe one day when I'm playing high enough that there are not as many bad players around, I can adapt.
For now, I'm going to stick to this strategy for 100 hours of live play and re-evaluate. I like doing this in big blocks of time so I can ignore the short-term and just focus on the long-term results. And not think about moving up in stakes or changing my strategy for a long time, just ride it out and see what happens. If it's profitable, maybe I'll sign up for another 100 hours.
More poker tonight I think!
A-Q in the small blind. I call a small raise. Flop is J-7-7. I think "that's a good board texture to c-bet" and call a $6 c-bet from the preflop raiser. Turn is a jack. I think "that board doesn't hit the preflop raiser very often". I check, he bets $25. I say to myself "I'm going to raise him off of his hand, he doesn't have a jack very often here". So I raise to $60, he calls, I check-fold the river, he shows A-J.
Then just a couple annoying hands - guy raises to 12. I reraise to 30 with A-K. Flop misses me, like 9-6-4. He checks, I bet 50, he raises me all-in for $100 more, I fold. Then someone raises to like 7, I make it 20 with A-Q, he calls, I miss the flop, it goes check-check, he bets the turn, I fold.
I also just got into some spots where I was confused about what to do post-flop. Like after listening to these podcasts and they're talking about ranges and this and that, I flop an ace with ace-rag suited and I'm like, I'm going to peel and see what he does, and of course the guy bets again and I have to fold, etc. I just ended up playing like shit.
And then, that puts me on tilt. Making moves that don't work, putting money in the pot when it just feels wrong, etc. It annoys me.
Then I was listening to some more podcasts, the "Deuce Plays" ones, and sometimes they'll have people on that play the live 5/10 games at Commerce. And a common theme is, these guys aren't paying attention to what you're doing, nobody ever folds anything, nobody is ever bluff raising you. And you can value bet pretty thin because nobody ever folds, etc.
I lost $270 at Red Rock last Monday and it was really frustrating. I didn't play the rest of the week and I was just like "fuck this" overall.
So yesterday I said something I have said in the past, although maybe more to the extreme this time. I came up with a new plan. Over the next 100 hours of live poker, I'm going to play this way:
- Never ever bluff.
- Never even semi-bluff, even with huge semi-bluffing hands.
- Never c-bet unless I hit the flop.
- Pretty much never reraise preflop except with huge hands.
- Pretty much only raise preflop with huge hands, limp with everything else, and check/fold unless I really have a monster.
- Bet big with my big hands.
- Play 100% straightforward.
- Basically play like the biggest nit ever.
So I did this yesterday at Red Rock for 3 hours. It was an interesting experiment because I played some hands in ways I would not usually play them. Some examples:
I have K-4 suited in the blind. Check. Flop comes 10-7-4 with 2 of my suit. Sick flop. Check, lol. Turn, check, river, miss, check/fold.
In blind with 6-5. Check. Flop is 2-2-5. Checks around. Turn, 8. Checks around. River, 9. Guy bets 10. I raise to 30, he calls with 9-8.
Open-limp with Q-10 suited (I dont think that was a good idea, but whatever). Flop A-x-x with 2 of my suit. Checks to me, check. Turn, blank. Checks around. River, miss, someone bets, I fold.
I had some big hands too. Reraised this guy Kenny that plays crazy preflop with AA. He raised to 10, 2 callers, I think this is awesome because it looks like I'm trying to steal, I make it 45, he calls. Flop I kinda spaz out and he checks, and I check. I sort of didn't know what to do. Flop was 6-5-4, just not the best flop. Turn, jack. He bets 60, I insta-call because I know this guy can do some weird stuff. River, 5. He checks. I check. Should have bet though because I think he would never check a big hand there, so that was a mistake.
Call 8 with A-Q. 5 way. Flop A-Q-5. Preflop raiser bets 20, I call, heads up. Turn, 9. He checks, I bet 60, he calls. River, 5. He checks, I go all-in, he folds.
Just couple others:
Bunch of people limp. I have K-K on button, make it 15. 3 callers. Flop ace high, 2 hearts. Checks to me, check. Turn, check around. River, check around. Guy made two pair with running jack and 9. Could have won this pot with a c-bet obviously, but whatever. This is my new nit strategy.
Raise to 10 with Q-Q, 2 callers. Flop 7-5-2 with 2 diamonds. I bet 25, guy calls. Turn, 4 of diamonds. I check, he bets 45 right away, I just fold. Old guy, probably a great fold there. But good fold or not, I'm just going to fold there 100% of the time.
Anyway I ended up winning $224. Really good session, I was super happy with the results. As far as the play, I feel like its super weak and exploitable, but maybe these guys are right... at these limits (and maybe even 1 or 2 levels up), nobody is going to be good enough to exploit me, so whatever. I can play super predictable and just rake in the money from all the terrible players out there. And maybe one day when I'm playing high enough that there are not as many bad players around, I can adapt.
For now, I'm going to stick to this strategy for 100 hours of live play and re-evaluate. I like doing this in big blocks of time so I can ignore the short-term and just focus on the long-term results. And not think about moving up in stakes or changing my strategy for a long time, just ride it out and see what happens. If it's profitable, maybe I'll sign up for another 100 hours.
More poker tonight I think!
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
$0.50/$1 NL home cash game
Last night we went to a cash game someone was hosting at a local house. 50c/$1 NL. I should look out for these kind of games more often really, as I think they are going to be much better than casino games. The game last night had a couple people that were somewhat competent, my wife who I think is decent, and a bunch of others that were just bad.
I ran really good and ended up winning $120. I had a bunch of huge hands. Flopped a set twice, including one where I got all in against the nut flush and rivered a boat. In that hand, I had K-K in the small blind. A bunch of people limped, and I raised to $8.50. Really big raise in that game. 2 callers, so the pot was relatively huge. Flop K-x-x with all 3 diamonds. I bet $15, guy goes all-in, I call. I probably should have paid more attention to how much he had because it might not have necessarily been a insta-call, although I did call. Thinking about it now, I think he could do that with:
AK with the ace of diamonds.
Flush with a suited ace, although what suited aces is he calling 7.5x more with? ATs+ I think, at most.
Flush with a suited connector. Although again, what suited connectors is he going to have? T9s+, and since I have a king that takes away a lot of combos. So only T9, JT, QJ, let's add in 89 too, why not.
Lower set.
Against all of those, let's run it in PokerStove and see how my equity works out.
Whoa, sick! I don't remember the exact board cards, but assuming it was K-6-4 and he could have the hands I mentioned, I'm a big favorite! Then I took out the non-flush AK combos, and it only changed it a very small amount which I find confusing. I thought I might have had to factor the pot size in to determine if I was right, but no - I'm just straight up a huge favorite against that range. Probably because I'm crushing the lower sets, and even against the flushes I have decent equity. I'm actually really surprised that this is a no-brainer call regardless of pot size.
Yeah, sometimes he might be calling with a lower suited connector too, or lower suited aces. But overall I think especially with the huge size of my raise, and the fact that nobody else had called yet, my range estimations really aren't that bad here.
OK - PokerStove is the bomb! I can't believe I've never used this tool before, because I've heard people talk about it so much. But now after watching just a couple videos and watching how they do the range calculations, I'm starting to figure it out.
Another one I wanted to look at was this one. I had AKo and raised to $3. Lady next to me, pretty tight old lady, reraised to $13. She only had $10 more, so she was essentially all-in.
I was thinking OK - this lady's range is incredibly tight here. I think she would probably do that with aces, kings, queens, and maybe AK/JJ. If everyone else folded and I got all-in with her, I would have to put in another $20 to win $47.
Against that range, I'm not quite as bad off as I thought. 60/40 dog.
I ran really good and ended up winning $120. I had a bunch of huge hands. Flopped a set twice, including one where I got all in against the nut flush and rivered a boat. In that hand, I had K-K in the small blind. A bunch of people limped, and I raised to $8.50. Really big raise in that game. 2 callers, so the pot was relatively huge. Flop K-x-x with all 3 diamonds. I bet $15, guy goes all-in, I call. I probably should have paid more attention to how much he had because it might not have necessarily been a insta-call, although I did call. Thinking about it now, I think he could do that with:
AK with the ace of diamonds.
Flush with a suited ace, although what suited aces is he calling 7.5x more with? ATs+ I think, at most.
Flush with a suited connector. Although again, what suited connectors is he going to have? T9s+, and since I have a king that takes away a lot of combos. So only T9, JT, QJ, let's add in 89 too, why not.
Lower set.
Against all of those, let's run it in PokerStove and see how my equity works out.
Whoa, sick! I don't remember the exact board cards, but assuming it was K-6-4 and he could have the hands I mentioned, I'm a big favorite! Then I took out the non-flush AK combos, and it only changed it a very small amount which I find confusing. I thought I might have had to factor the pot size in to determine if I was right, but no - I'm just straight up a huge favorite against that range. Probably because I'm crushing the lower sets, and even against the flushes I have decent equity. I'm actually really surprised that this is a no-brainer call regardless of pot size.
Yeah, sometimes he might be calling with a lower suited connector too, or lower suited aces. But overall I think especially with the huge size of my raise, and the fact that nobody else had called yet, my range estimations really aren't that bad here.
OK - PokerStove is the bomb! I can't believe I've never used this tool before, because I've heard people talk about it so much. But now after watching just a couple videos and watching how they do the range calculations, I'm starting to figure it out.
Another one I wanted to look at was this one. I had AKo and raised to $3. Lady next to me, pretty tight old lady, reraised to $13. She only had $10 more, so she was essentially all-in.
I was thinking OK - this lady's range is incredibly tight here. I think she would probably do that with aces, kings, queens, and maybe AK/JJ. If everyone else folded and I got all-in with her, I would have to put in another $20 to win $47.
Against that range, I'm not quite as bad off as I thought. 60/40 dog.
So even without anyone else calling, here is my expected value in that pot:
($47 * .397) + (-$20 * .602) = $6.62
So even if everyone folds, it's way +EV to call there. So I guess the analysis really ends here. But I was actually going to fold if nothing else interesting happened. As it turned out, this other TERRIBLE player called $13 cold. I put her on basically any pair, and probably not a huge one. And maybe like AK/AQ. She had about $60 or so more, so I just reraised all-in to push her out and go heads up with the dead money in there. I reraised all-in, the lady with $10 left obviously called, the other lady folded. We both had AK (although hers was suited), nobody got a flush, and we chopped it up.
I played pretty well overall I thought. I also did some things like not c-bet into a bunch of people. For example in one hand I raised with KQs, got 3 callers. Flop came T-6-7 with the 10 of my suit. I'd generally c-bet here, but I just thought the board was pretty drawy and there was no real purpose to betting. So I checked. Not a very interesting story I know but in the past I probably would have bet that a high percentage of the time even with a bunch of people in.
I also did some things that were looser closer to the button. Like I raised with K-7 suited in the HJ. Got 2 callers and I had to check-fold the flop, but not the worst move I think. And then later on the button or one off the button I raised with Q-9 suited. Again lost the pot (got reraised to $13 from the big blind, folded, she showed QQ) but I think those are reasonable moves.
I'm just really looking forward to playing some more poker and trying to really think about ranges, board textures, etc. Should be fun!
Sunday, November 11, 2012
I'm back bitches
Poker career reboot - version 12 or so.
I'm back fuckers. Last time I did the best I ever have done since I quit. Got my $1500 or so bankroll up to about $8k, was playing 2/5 NL for the first time in forever, it was awesome. I thought I was playing pretty well for a while there. Then I did the usual - went on a big downswing, got frustrated, and quit. Donated the bankroll back into the checking account and said fuck this.
 |
| The Bankroll |
Well I'm back. $1000 in the new bankroll and I'm going to start out by playing some 1/2 NL. Play tight, pay attention, hopefully get lucky, and kickstart the poker career again.
I'm also going to try some new things, specifically watching some poker tutorial videos online at someplace like Deuces Cracked. A lot of it might not apply directly to what I'm doing, but I can at least figure out how to think about hands differently. I tried a free trial at Bluefire Poker and it was OK, the video quality was a little sketchy but I downloaded a few and have been watching them. Just watched one so far about reading people at pretty low stakes NL online. Some interesting tips about putting people on ranges, which I have heard of but haven't really done before. Not in that exact way anyway - of course you're thinking about what people might have, but not "putting people on ranges".
That's all for now. Not playing today, but soon.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
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
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
Friday, August 17, 2012
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.
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