10nl?

Monday night I started mixing 10nl with my screenful of 5nl tables. I broke about even that session (-$0.22 over 1300h). Last night, I decided to play exclusively 10nl. Over the past few sessions of 5nl only, I've been pulling in 4 stacks and change. Last night seemed to make sense; just over 4 stacks. Well, I'm happy to double my winrate.
I def think it helped that I had a beautiful woman on my floor, reading.

I'm really looking forward to working on my lcd that is halfway across the country right now.

prop bet, my birthday

I got off work at noon Wed the 24th. I walked to Jackson's house to have some lunch with him. He was finishing a session and we drove to Whole Foods. At the beginning of the month, I set some goals in poker and life. I've accomplished all but one climbing goal. Early last week, I figured I could play 3k hands over the 4.5 days that I had "off" from work. I told him that I was thinking of upping that to 4k.

He immediately gave me 3:1 on $5 and I should play 5k hands. (pretty much anything that we bet on is for $5) I thought for a second and agreed. That night I pulled a good long session and dropped 3 stacks. The bet was to play at 5nl only (implied, not explicit). I pulled in 1800h. I thought that this might not work out at all.
total: 1800h+

The next day was Christmas and I drove to Wyoming to see my dad and step-family. After getting my ass kicked TWICE at Huskeropoly, they headed to see their dad in Nebraska. I headed home.
On my way, I got a call from Jackson saying that he was having a screw-off tournament and to get over there. I did and the car bombs flowed. I busted the hell out of them, but we didn't finish and I got a ride home. It was a lot of fun for sure!
I saw that I had a short session in which I tossed just under one stack. Note to self: don't try to win grinding bets while intoxicated.
total: 2200h+

The next day was my birthday. My first priority was to sleep in. Well, things didn't really work out that way. But I got a small session in for a little over one stack.
total: 2600h+, -3 stacks

That day I spent with Heather; lunch, a bit of climbing, and then she dropped me off at a poker tournament. It was a $20 with one $20 rebuy/addon. I got there about 15 minutes late and had to wait. There were two full tables and it looked like fun. There were 22ish people and most of them rebought (vs the addon, lol). I just sat and folded. My cbets were getting respect. I flipped a couple of times and won with high card..... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAA!!!! (shit like my AQ>ATo for stacks post flop ->942r, 884r, etc) I never busted anyone during the grind of things though. My first victim thought his bottom set was good vs me. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! j/k Steve! He played it well, but he was a short stack vs a guy who was running well. My JJ overset on the riv to bust him in 4th place. (they paid the top 4) My next victim was Carol Lynn. She is one of the nicest ladies I've met and I'd go hiking with her anytime she wanted. It was pushing 845pm and I needed to be at my favorite pub at 9pm to meet my friends; have drinks; celebrate my aging process. I started open shoving AT+, PPs, and anything I felt like. About 5 hands into this, I shoved 74hh on the btn. Carol Lynn called me with AJ. Board ran out J7627. nh and I'm gigantor stack (~85% of the chips in play). After a small suckout that I got mad value out of vs the station that defines stations, I shoved ATo after she limped the btn. She finally gave in and called with KJ. I flop an ace and boat the turn and river. Did I really just win that? So after that and the prop bet, I ordered a 22" lcd for my home workstation. Happy birthday to me!
back to prop bets

After going to teach climbing at the gym, I played two sessions that Saturday. I heard Jackson make a comment that he can only play for like 1.25-1.5 hours before he loses focus. I set a time limit for the first time. I thought about a hard ceiling at 2 hours and I'd start getting off tables at 1.9hr. I played two solid sessions of roughly two hours with a two hour break in between. 4+ stacks and 1300ish hands per session. Bet finished.
Official total was just over 5500h and +4ish stacks.

When Bobby plays, they move

I have read a great book by Micheal Craig called "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King." Anyway, I decided to reread it last week, because I enjoyed it so much. A friend of mine was in disaggreement with me over whether or not this happens and I could not remember where the text was. Here it is.
Page 166
"(Baldwin was not part of the group beacause of the obvious conflict of interest, which was also why the group played at Sam's Town, a casino mostly catering to low-stakes locals, whenever Baldwin joined the game.)"
The "conflict of interest" was the fact that Bobby Baldwin was (is?) the president at the Bellagio and the CEO of Mirage Resorts. So, the conflict would be him playing in his own casino. The big game would move to allow him to play.

Oh, some goals

I sat down the other day at lunch and didn't bring my book for some damn reason. Anyway, I set a couple of goals.
1. 5k hands by Jan 1. I've put in just over 2k in the last 3 days. I think this will go.
2. 2 500h sessions with Jackson. This I think I'm going to make 1x any #h session with him as he's doing a good bit of traveling and I'm working pretty much every weekend that he's in town.
3. Mess with the reports function in PT and get some good data to run off of as a baseline for my next 10-20k hands. This should be easy enough if I just friggin sit down and do it after my 5k hands are done.

huh? 12/8-12/10 and a hand I lost

I'm winning again and I'm not sure what the change was that made this happen. I'm really using my hud a lot more. Maybe that's it. People's ranges are becoming a lot more transparent. The hands just seem to flow by. I sat down last night and played 1100 hands. That's so weird for me. 9 to 10 tables seems the norm for me. Usually I'm playing 6 tables for 4 or 5 hours. I can't play that long now that I have to be up at 630am every morning. I can start at 830p or 9p to finish at 1030 or 11.

hmmm. I played a lot tighter last night (9/7) vs the last couple of nights (14/10). I didn't win nearly as much last night. I was a full AF lower than the previous two sessions as well. I know I was exhausted, but I was still playing probably my B- game.
One hand that killed my profits and put me into the red for the night (before I came back) follows:
I pick up AQdd in MP and raise 6x to iso the utg limper who was about 32/8/1 (like almost everyone else at my tables). I get 5 callers. The CO, BTN, both blinds, and the limper. Wow. I'm not happy. Flop is QQT, 2 spades. With the pot at $1.5, I lead for $0.60 after being checked to and I can only get the btn and blinds out. The turn is an offsuit (QQT) 3. Check to me again, so I lead again for $1 killing draw odds. I'm thinking that I'm up against another (hopefully worse) Q and I'm committing here. After calling the bet, the CO has just less than one PSB left. So if he calls, I'm shoving any river blind. The river is another offsuit 9, giving only straights and kickers made hands. I bet a red bird and he snap calls to show J8ss. Wow, didn't expect that. Then again, I'm getting that in on the flop if I can. So I drop little over a full stack there.
If I had to do it over again, I think that things would be going in on the turn. I'd make the flop bet like $0.90. (Hopefully the limper would call here at the bigger cbet) Assuming that the same two people called, the pot would be $4.20 instead of $3.80. I could shove into that and maybe have some FE too as CO would have like 1.3 PSBs left and no made hand. The call cbet % for most of that table was around 35-45%, so this would be as likely a situation to happen as what did happen. (I think CO's call cbet % was actually a bit lower at 25-30%. So if he was calling my flop bet at .60, then he was calling it at .90-1.10 (this is given that I don't know his hand)) Shoving $6 into $4 is more than $5 into $6.

hmmm down and up

So I had a bad session on Sunday night. I was running meh, playing well and then I ran head-first into a Mack truck. At that point, I was up about 350bbs. I was playing with a few regs, but pretty much everyone was terrible. I c/shoved with a gutty+NFD into a full (200bbs) stack and ran into QQ (simple overpair). Ouch, but meh. I take a couple of small pots. Then I pick up 33. Villain and I are 300 deep at this point. Of course it's raised, by me. Flop is Q73hhh. There are 4 people in the pot. A couple of checks, villain fires a stupid small (I almost saw it as a post-oak) bet into a meh pot and I call, isolating the two of us. Turn and river are Js and 6d. He checks turn to hesitantly call my 3/4 psb to check the riv. I think, and say no way would he play a flush like this. His AF was 4. He would've raised me on the flop, or the turn if he was "slowplaying." I shove. He tanks and calls with QQ. I think these two hands were the only two well played hands vs me the whole session. And they combined for just over -550bb. Kind of frustrating, but sessions like this happen.
Last night, I played and took roughly +450bb. I compared the stats and there wasn't too much difference. 14/11/4 I was slightly more aggro PF and slightly less aggro post flop. I might play again in the next couple of days, but my best friend's birthday is today. Her family is having some sort of a shindig and I'm invited. Until later...

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for a lot of things. Among them, I'm thankful for some time to play poker! I had 3 or 4 positive nights in a row. All of the sessions were short (<1k hands). But it was fun none the less. If by fun, I mean having top set of kings snapped allin on the turn by a nekkid nut flush draw. Insert more whining here. :D