Good couple of days

So, it's back to $0.50-$1.00, which really feels like penny ante but which still can pay the bills for now.

I couldn't sleep on Thursday night, and so Friday morning I woke up and decided to hit some tables. I played about 1,200 hands and had a very successful run, gaining about $500, and slept well last night, waking up today at a reasonable time. I 8-tabled for about 7 hours, playing 4,200 hands, and earned just over $300. Oof. That was a bit like work. But the tables were just too good to quit, and I felt I was quite unlucky.



Two hands I felt were worth sharing:

Bluff attempt #1. I bluffed throughout this hand because I was about 80% positive this monkey was on a heart draw. I was right, but failed to realize that he'd also paired up his monster 3. Even though my money went in as a dog on all 3 streets, I'm convinced I was unlucky in this hand: unlucky in that I didn't realize I was up against a complete monkey muppet that apparently doesn't believe in overpairs.

Bluff attempt #2. A bit later. The way I played this hand may seem a bit strange but I had my reasons. For one, I felt that in addition to the gutshot giving me the nuts, either of my overcards was usually going to be good. The K probably gives me the best hand, and the Q I can bluff at if it doesn't. Instead, a 7 hit, giving my opponent a gutshot that he probably thought was an 8-outer. I rep that I have the 10, figuring any monkey would fold without one, and would raise with one. He calls and I figure I can bluff the river, only to see him make a staggering call with an underpair. Just what the FUCK.

After this hand suddenly everyone started playing in this guy's hands, lol. It's been a while since I've played against anyone that bad, and unfortunate that I got caught in bluffs here, even though they were ridiculously high percentage. None of the hands I got called down by and won were anywhere near as bad as these two hands where I happened to be bluffing. I almost typed "GREYCAT?!?!" into the chat after the 2nd one, but figured the reference would be lost on the table (it's a reference to one of the Absolute Poker names that was cheating with a superuser).

In any case, those are some expensive damn DNB notes.

I probably hit the tables again hard tomorrow afternoon, but now I think it's dinner time, maybe followed by some Rock Band.

NL100, then more NL200 and more losing

So, as I promised myself, I took several days off after the disaster a couple of Fridays ago, and then got back in lightly, playing NL100. After a run of 15k hands at NL200 I found the NL100 games very soft and beat them easily, although I ran fairly poorly. I played about 8000 hands and won about $400, a shitty winrate, but I was running terribly. Then yesterday I took another shot at NL200, playing 1k hands and losing another $800. Not much to say, just the usual coolers. A hand with AsQs where I flopped a flush draw, float-raised a cbet, ran into kings, and lost the flip. AA cracked by 33 on a 355 board against a highly aggro player. KK losing to AA against a fish. And a losing session besides those coolers, with no big ones going my way and no real traction. Just an ugly session.

After, I needed to take a break from the tables but wasn't sleepy, so I joined up at a $69+6 tournament, probably not the wisest move in history, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. As it turned out I cashed deep, 14th place out of 311, for a payout of $210, digging me a bit back out of the hole I once again put myself in. A disappointing result to go that deep and not get more for it (particularly since the hand that knocked me out was J2, all-in preflop against my 66). That puts me at just about even for the month, meaning I have one week to try and salvage something for February.

It's certainly NL100 for the rest of the month, and I might consider staying there through March to firm up my game before another shot, regardless of results (unless I lose badly at NL100 and am forced to move down).

The good news is that I really feel my tournament game is very much clicking. I've cashed in something like 4 of my last 5 tournaments, and gone deep in a couple, the only reason I'm not $1,000 in the hole for the month. NL200 has just been a fucking disaster so far. The play is definitely better there but I don't feel outclassed in the slightest.

Decent recovery

As I promised myself, I took the weekend off of poker except for the two tournaments I was already enrolled in. In the iron man freeroll I cashed for $90 (not too bad) and in the FTOPS #9 that I satted into, I cashed again, 360/5637 for $625. Lost most of my stack just pre-bubble with AK vs 88 on a A87 flop, hit the bubble with 5k or so, pushed with AA, was called by 99 from a just-barely-smaller stack, 9 flopped. Down to 2k, 2 hands later I catch KK and triple up. I double again a rotation later with AQ vs AJ, and call a button all-in from the blinds with A6s; pusher had K4s and I hold. But then, I go completely card dead for several rotations, and eventually pick up AK in MP against an UTG limper. I push, limper calls with 55, the pair holds, and I'm out.

Still, after dropping >$1,500 last Friday, getting $700 of it back in tournaments is a very nice score. I'm still going to drop down to NL100 for a bit, but can move up to NL200 again after a decent run.

Brutal day yesterday

Yesterday was among the most brutal days of my life, 2000 hands of pure torture in which I dropped a disgusting $1,566 over two sessions. Some examples of how it was lost.

Idiot limp-calls from EP with K9s, flops the second nuts against my set of queens. Sick but it happens.

Set vs. TPTK. This is a tough one to get away from, but I probably should have. Not much he can show up with after that raise but a set. At the same time, I fail to understand why he pushes this dry board with such a strong hand. I gave him atrocious set mining odds in any case.

QQ turned big bluff, fails. Opponent is a good reg and I had him on AK when he called the flop bet. I really don't like his call of the all-in here. I show up with this sort of bluff maybe 5% of the time, and my hand screams AA-KK. At best, most of the time, I think he's praying for a chop, but it's a hard hand to get away from, and maybe he realized I was getting frustrated and figured the hand was set up for FE. He used up a lot of his time bank making the call and I was convinced he was folding.

Ugly 3-card race hand. Opponent is a reg that is a bit of an FPS donk and his 3bet range from the blinds here is massive. I'm tempted to 4bet AIPF, as I feel he's going the distance with 88-TT and AJ a ton here, but my committing 4bet pre is fine too. Flop bet is mandatory; if I check he pushes me off with a ton of worse hands on the turn, from 88-TT and QK. Unlucky.

Ugly AA vs. KK hand. Opponent was good and very aggressive and so it's hard to contemplate getting away from this one. I didn't expect a smooth-call with KK and felt he was on AK the whole time. In my defense in stacking off, I'm pretty damn sure he stacks off to me with the exact same action if the board is, say, Q high. His smooth-call on the flop was probably made with the intent of getting it in. Maybe I bet/fold the turn and don't lose it all, and there's some frustration setting in, but it's hard to imagine. This hand tilted me hard and I immediately left all of my tables after an $1,100 loss, but then lost $500 more later in a night session.

This one is just fucking disgusting. C-bet turned semibluff turned pure bluff, figuring him for a naked As or maybe some pair. The thought that he would call off his stack with AQo on this board, with no spade, totally blew my mind. I'm pretty sure the note I made on this opponent after this hand was "DNB DNB DNB DNB DNB DNB DNB". Ironically I would have abandoned the bluff had a spade come, which was the only way I was taking this hand down.

Preflop call with 5Jo is standard, right?. Double-dominated hand catches a miracle flop. I stacked off eagerly here, figuring I'm facing 66-TT against this player a ton in this position, and there just wasn't much beating me. Except for 5Jo, obviously.

Standard to stack off with bottom pair and a 3-high one-card flush draw, right?. This villain put the superfish in "superfish" and thankfully gave all this and more back in later hands. He literally could not be pushed off of any pair, and I had some sick valuetown hands later. Unfortunately that means suckouts, too.

Here's one of my valuetown hands. Against the average player I'd be scared shitless when he called that turn bet, particularly deep-stacked. Here I was praying for a call. Chances are pretty good he had 96o.

Here's another one. Ordinarily that river value bet would be different. Interestingly, the player on my left kept insulting the guy and hurling racial slurs about. Interestingly enough, he was every bit as bad a player as this other guy.

Anyway, you get the idea. Those were the big, major hands, and the problem is that there are no hands where I'm stacking people to offset them. I couldn't catch a break, and while there are definitely some marginal spots, and a couple of hands I probably should have gotten away from, my play wasn't THAT terrible.

Nevertheless this is a pretty serious blow to my bankroll, and while I'm only down $500 for the month with it, and I'm still technically rolled for NL200, I think I'm going to step down to NL100 to get some of my confidence back.

I'm also taking the rest of the weekend off, with the exception of the Iron Man freeroll, and the FTOPS #9 event that I won entrance to with a satellite (hey, a good cash there could make me completely forget this loss). I just feel a bit shell-shocked and wouldn't be playing my A game. Days like this are rougher than I imagined, but I'll stick through them.

Very Nice! [/borat]

+$228 in ~1100 hands of 1/2 yesterday, and +$312 in ~2100 hands today, nothing overly notable but the nice sort of consistency I crave in this living.

Then for shits and giggles I entered a $24 satellite to FTOPS #9 ($300+22 NLHE, $1M guaranteed) with 29 entrants, paying two tickets (and a measley cash prize for 3rd), and won it! So now I'm playing in a $300 tournament in 3 days! I think I should even be +EV in the thing and hey, I got in for $24. Any kind of cash would be a nice boost.

1000 hands today

As per most Mondays I took a light day today, playing about 1000 hands and winding up +$581. Nice day, reinforcing that my play at NL200 has been pretty damn good and that I've been getting some pretty ugly luck. I was owning today, getting my money in good 90% of the time or so, bluffing when it was profitable and getting out of the way of most land mines.

I'm still a little pissed as I was up $970 at one point and could see my first $1,000 cash game day on my horizon. I dropped 2 buyins past that point (one of which was on a terrible suckout, my 33 vs opponent's QK on a 3QK flop; opponent hit a runner-runner flush).

Still a good day, and I can't complain too much about erasing yesterday's losses and then scoring a nice winning day on top of that.

Super Bowl Sunday

So, I started off on Sunday afternoon by losing a bunch of pots and going down $580 before stopping to watch the Super Bowl. The SB was tough to watch knowing I'd had such a bad day, but in the end the game was so damn spectacular so as to make me forget. I make a point of rooting for whoever is playing against the Patriots, and I've always liked the Giants. More than anything, though, it was just a spectacular game; people seem to like games with tons of offense, but this was a perfect, tense battle, staying 7-3 for most of the game before explosions in offense.

I also love that it was an imbecilic call by Belicheat that cost his team the game. I'd say that his decision to go for it on 4th and 13 would be second-guessed for a long time, except that there is no second-guessing whatsoever. It's first-guessing that tells me that that will go down as one of the dumbest calls in Super Bowl history. 4th and 13 on the 32 yard line in a low-scoring game where your offense hasn't been clicking AT ALL, you've been gifted good field position on a turnover, and you have a chance to make it a 7 point game, and you GO FOR IT? I don't think teams go for it enough on 4th down as a rule, but it's 4th and freaking 13 for Chrissake, you're in field goal range (albeit long field goal range), take the shot at 3 points and be happy.

But he went for it, and I think that will be seen for a long time as a moment where Belicheat's arrogance got the better of him, as though he honestly felt that his offense was so good that he had plays that would reliably gain him 13 yards. Instead Brady throws a duck to a covered receiver and has it sail out of bounds. That was the moment, I felt, when the Giants realized they could win, like the moment in "Searching for Bobby Fischer" where Ben Kingsley's character looks at the monitor out of the corner of his eye, perks up, and says "That was a mistake!"

And then, of course, there was that final drive, and that single play that will go down in Super Bowl history as one of the greats.



After the game, I was bereft of things to do and so eventually decided to hop back online and play a little more. I had a good session, winning about $300 back and, combined with a random $75 bonus, only losing $100 or so on the day. That's a manageable loss, although I'm a bit perturbed that I've been breaking more or less even at NL200. My play hasn't been particularly good, but at least most of my mistakes have been aggressive ones.

One of the best football games I've ever seen, followed by a decent recovery. Not a bad day.

The pain!

I was playing some serious Rock Band yesterday before poker, and managed, after a few days of working on it, to beat the Drum solo tour on expert for the AN-I-MAL achievement. Ho, le, shit. What a royal pain in the ass that was! Beating the final tour was a workout and a half - I was literally drenched in sweat, and treated it as my cardio for the day. I could barely walk; after "Next To You" I thought my leg was going to fall the hell off.

Amazingly I sight-read passed several of the final tier songs, including "Next To You", "Tom Sawyer", and "Flirtin' With Disaster". "Won't Get Fooled Again" required 4 tries, "Run to the Hills" required 2 (I roxorz!)

By far the most problematic song for me was "(Don't Fear) The Reaper"; it took me FOREVER to get that roll down combined with the ending. Tough damn song!

Rough Friday session

Wasn't playing well last night, and got overly cute in several spots, turning what should have been a substantial win into a ~$200 loss. One of the more nerve-racking sessions I've ever played, with two recoveries from $300 downswings, only to drop back down $500 and recover back to $200. Not a complete disaster but definitely not the result I was looking for from a soft Friday night.