update 3-6-09

I haven't really been playing much. I've been on life tilt and have basically destroyed my roll from it. I will start playing again when I feel the inclination to destroy donkeys again. I'm playing in a live game tonight at one of my co-worker's friends' house. It's an uber-micro game; solidly uNL. I guess there's a $10 tourney or something. I'm not real sure, but it could be fun to throw some #$*% around.
They are supposedly a bunch of geeks from HP so maybe I'll get to learn something about linux.

I have finally done it.

PokerStars Game #24726854525: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2009/02/08 10:58:38 MT [2009/02/08 12:58:38 ET]
Table 'Asterope IV' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: THE SHR0G ($10 in chips)
Seat 2: Prokaz ($13.55 in chips)
Seat 3: Joyceschoice ($6.60 in chips)
Seat 4: TChad25 ($11.95 in chips)
Seat 5: Brown420 ($7.70 in chips)
Seat 6: Ralf Siegel ($10 in chips)
Seat 7: vinsanityno1 ($2.10 in chips)
Seat 8: anthony3936 ($9.55 in chips)
Seat 9: zafog ($22.95 in chips)
Prokaz: posts small blind $0.05
Joyceschoice: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to TChad25 [Kc Kh]
TChad25: raises $0.30 to $0.40
Brown420: raises $7.30 to $7.70 and is all-in
Ralf Siegel: folds
vinsanityno1: folds
anthony3936: folds
zafog: raises $8.60 to $16.30
THE SHR0G: folds
Prokaz: folds
Joyceschoice: folds
TChad25: folds
Uncalled bet ($8.60) returned to zafog
*** FLOP *** [2h 2s Js]
*** TURN *** [2h 2s Js] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [2h 2s Js Jc] [4s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Brown420: shows [6c 6h] (two pair, Jacks and Sixes)
zafog: shows [Ad As] (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
Brown420 is sitting out
zafog collected $15.20 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $15.95 | Rake $0.75
Board [2h 2s Js Jc 4s]
Seat 1: THE SHR0G (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Prokaz (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Joyceschoice (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: TChad25 folded before Flop
Seat 5: Brown420 showed [6c 6h] and lost with two pair, Jacks and Sixes
Seat 6: Ralf Siegel folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: vinsanityno1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: anthony3936 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: zafog showed [Ad As] and won ($15.20) with two pair, Aces and Jacks

back in action

my goal for February is 30k hands. I played a 2k session last night after I was basically ready for bed and I felt pretty good all session. I couldn't get paid for the FOUR (4) sets of quads I received and was set-over-set for a stack, but I still ended up just below even. And that felt pretty good. The first hit was when I bet/shoved a gutty SFD into aces. I know that is a slight fav on the flop, so I guess I can't feel too bad about it.
I feel like I need to push marginal situations a bit better and I'll have my coach look at them when I session with them. I also feel like there are a lot of standard situations that I'm screwing up too often.
meh. more later.

Winrate

When I talk about my winrate, I'm talking about how much money I have made over a given sample of hands. A small sample for when I'm talking about how many hands I've played vs a given player is like 500 or less. Any more, and I feel that I have a good sample on him and I can make fairly accurate reads.
However, when I'm talking about hands that I've played and I'm thinking about how I have done, the sample is much bigger. In a session, I can play between 1500 and 2000 hands (h). So I feel a good sample is 50,000h or 50kh. Here's how to calculate a win rate (WR).

Linux

So, I'm really looking/reading/learning about how I can go 100% linux on my home network. (Yes, this really is poker related) The problem I'm running into is that I'd like to see things running a bit more stable on Fedora in regards to virtualization and stars/PT3. Stars runs alright through wine, but I'm more concerned with PT3 and my database. I'm going to test it and generally screw with it until I'm confident that it will run smoothly. I'd like to do this before I dump my vista license and load everything up on my main workstation.
Has anyone done this before? I'd really appreciate a link to their story if anyone has one. I may be in new waters.

break

I've taken pretty much all of this week off. I might play again tomorrow, but I have some great news! I'm MOVING!!! My new roommate is a nice girl who is going back for her second degree. The place is smaller than the place I have now, but there isn't a dog to contend with. I'll probably setup my workstation in the dining room as there is no table there. I'm finally getting a little bit excited about this.

So, plugging leaks

how do I bring up the red line? I'm not exactly sure that I understand what it is.

10nl!

So, I believe that I've made the jump to 10nl. My first session ran even as I posted before. I feel a bit dependent on my HUD. I'm running meh now and I can see things evening out. I've had 1 bad session and several good sessions.
The bad session was simply bc I was exhausted. so, -3 bis. I took a two hour nap, had some food, and ran lights at church. I went back. +9 bis! yipee!

I need to work a bit more on situations where I have an overpair and I'm either behind a set or a bigger overpair.

I need to make sure I'm sleeping better too.

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

so break I guess?

I've played once in the past 9 days. My new job is a bit draining so I'm not at my best in the evenings. I might try to make Saturdays my new workday.

so yeah.... back to relearn the basics

Well after that huge heater in July, I found myself on a disgusting downswing that left me broke on tilt and only a small roll on stars. I was just plain old playing bad. I wasn't focuesed and I felt like it was just more for the fun of it. I wasn't trying. I left just enough on stars to play in a big (64-man) HU tournament. That was fun for sure! I walked over my first opponent and then promptly destroyed myself in the second round. To be fair, monkeyhat played very well. I just know that I wasn't in A-game mode and I feel like he would still have something of an edge over that. He was focused and made moves at all the right times. SO!
After my first match win, I took some of the "freeroll" money and sat into a cash game. I ran it up to like $18 or something. Then I lost my second match and had no more commitments from my roll. So I took it and started grinding 5nl.
Now, the thing I love so much about 5nl is that it is deep. Other than 2nl, 5nl is the ONLY stake that is deep by default. I love the fact that more sites are adding deep tables, but I feel that they are behind the curve in this regard. Anyway, I've put in about 24k hands since then. I bought PT3 and it has paid for itself. I'm wondering how much of teh munnies I've missed out on from not having it sooner.
Okay, so over my last 13kish hands, I've had a winrate right around 8PTBB/100. I feel that this is on the low end. I really think that over the next 10k my WR will be closer to 10 or even higher. I made a post on 2+2 a while ago that "if you are not beating it for at least 8, you're not paying attention." I think that WRs of 15 or 20 are not out of the question. I believe that they are at the top end for sure, but certainly attainable. I've had sessions 1k+ hand minimum where my WR was close to 30. Granted, I ran well in those couple of sessions, but none the less. I think that as you move up, WRs will drop accordingly. This is because the edge you have over the other players will decrese in size. Hopefully not too where it disappears! I remember hearing somewhere that a winrate of simply "1" in the big game is the equivalent to destroying it! Anyway, I'll grab a screenshot of things maybe over the weekend and get it up here. Until then....

horse FTW!!!

so I got wasted last night and had some fun...

play a hand with me...

donktard micro stakes

puke, I'm channeling Matt on the riv in this hand. play a hand with me.

25nl last night 100bb stacks villain seems lagtardish, hasn't really done anything crazy.

dealt to hero in MP2 Ks Kh
folded to me and I open for 5bb, folded to bb who calls

flop (10.5bb) Tc 9d 4d
villain snap checks as he has been doing, I bet 8bb, he calls fairly quickly (not a snap but in good time)
This bet was for two reasons - value and to find out if he had anything. hmmm, a draw or tpgk? I'm open shoving any non-T/8/diamond turn.

turn (26.5bb) Tc 9d 4d, 7d
#%$#% *insert more cursing here* he snap checks, #$%king everything got there with one pull I pound my desk with my fist and check behind.

river (26.5bb) Tc 9d 4d 7d, Th
villain thinks for a couple of seconds and leads for 10bb, hero makes a hero call WAY behind and mucks. I called here knowing I was behind for info. Note, villain calls very light out of the bb.

Thoughts on my line are more than welcome at derchad@gmail.com

Berating the fishy

I has a funny story. I was at the table the other night and an older gentleman who seemed new got into a hand with me. Well, long story short, he flopped top set and I flopped an OESFD (open-ended straight flush draw). He checked, I shoved (15 outs good right?). He called looked surprised when I turned over my hand. I don't know the numbers, but I think I was a slim lead (I could be wrong). Anyway, I "sucked out" a flush and he let me have it! I just sat there for a few minutes taking it as best I could. A little while later, he said he wanted his money back. LAWL. I kinda chuckled and said, "Well then you're gonna have to have me miss my suckout then!" The table roared with laughter!