Sunday just came and went and once again tournaments were extremely disappointing once again. The only good thing is that I got a big monkey off my back today. I finally cashed in a Sunday major which ends my 0 for streak.
I was able to satellite into the $215 WPT qualifier and the $162 100K guaranteed tournament using my gold chips (FPP points). No matter how hard I tried I couldn't win my way into the $109 50K guarantee tournament so I bought in directly.
The first tourney of the day was the $109 buy-in.
I lasted all of 75 minutes. I should've went out sooner but I play better then most of these morons. This was the big hand that screwed me.
I raise with A A. Get two callers.
Flop Q 2 6 w/ a flush draw.
I bet $800. Villain min-raises to $1600. I don't overplay and just call.
Turn Q. I have him on a flush draw at this point. He bets $1500 and I call.
River 6.
He checks and I check behind since I am only getting called by a hand that beats me.
He shows 2 2 for a full-house. He had me covered but since I didn't shove on the flop I was left with T2300 from my original T5000 starting stack. I busted when I shoved for only the first time on the button with trash and got called by KK in the SB. I was out.
In the second tourney which was the 100K guarantee I got screwed over the whole way through. I built a really nice stack early on and then this gem had to happen.
I have 16K and a guy with 6K shoves with K 3 and I call with A A. The board ends up looking like this. 9 10 2 Q J. This has never happened when I have shoved with crap and gotten called by aces. You owe me poker!
I got dealt no cards after that and for the next 3.5 hours I was subjected to play short-stack poker which is really stressful when you have to do it for that long.
I finally busted in 74/745 which was good for a cash of $200.00 Considering how far I went, it would have been nice to have actually been dealt something so I could have a chance.
Then the tournament that inspired me to write this. The WPT qualifier.
The very first hand of the tournament I lose 2500 off my 10K stack when some asshole calls my raise with A 7 and flops trip 7's. I had an overpair. I would go into the break with exactly 10K. I then managed to double up and gave half of it away when some asshole limped Aces. Moron. Back to my original stack. I then get no cards and the following happens.
I get J J and raise in early position. Same asshole who spiked the 7's on me raises to 10K on the button and I fold and show and he shows K K.
50 players left out of 200. 6 pay. 3 win the seat.
I have T4800. Blinds 800/1600.
I shove 3 straight times and don't get called each time.
Then with a stack of 12K I get all in with a guy who has A K and I have A A. Finally a little justice.
Then with a stack of 22K I get all in on a Q 6 2 flop with 10 10 and double again. he had 6 5.
Just like that I have 45K.
By this point there are 35 left and I have noticed that this is one of the worst tables I have ever played poker on and this piece of crap happened. From the same asshole who got lucky with the 7's and the kings.
Im in the SB in an unraised pot with 3 4. I complete and the flop is 2 5 6 all diamonds. We get all in and of course he flopped a flush. GG me. Out in 35th.
I made 2 more final tables this week brining my count up to 8.
I finished 9th in a $10 rebuy. I did myself in when I called a guy who I thought was bluffing with second pair and he had pocket aces. I raised pre and he just called me so I was shocked when he showed me aces.
I finished 3rd in a $33 freezeout and I got fucked over when we were playing 3 handed.
Chipleader min-raises on the button to 12K. SB and BB both call. I'm small blind. I have K J.
Flop
J x x w/2 hearts.
Check, Check, Chipleader only bets 6K. I only just call because something feels weird. BB also calls.
Turn 8 non heart.
Check, Check, and Chipleader bets 15K. I raise to 55K and the BB just calls. Flush draw. So obvious. Chipleader folds.
River 8 non heart.
I shove and he calls with Q 8 of hearts and I'm out. If the heart peels off on the river he gets no more of my money but the most harmless looking card ever peels off and it costs me $1000. 3rd was good for $900.
I have completely given up on cash games and here is my new plan of action.
I am going to withdraw everything I have on Cake except for $2000. I am going to keep playing in the tournies and use the rest of my gold chips to win satellites.
I am going to leave my UB account alone and mess around with it if I ever feel like playing cash or feel like donking off some money. I have decided to not grind out the cash games. I am just not in the mood to grind obsessively anymore. Especially at NL50.
I am then going to pay back Stars the $592 that I owe them and start playing the big tournies again. I am going to start off with $2000 and play very conservatively within my bankroll. No big tournies unless I satellite in or I make a bunch of money in the prior week. I plan on only playing freezeouts upward of $33 and will play in rebuys that are $5 and under. Since the rebuys are expensive, I will only play those occasionally. I will probably play the occasional sit and go. I am more or less giving myself a second chance on my stars account. I had about $9500 sitting in that account about 2.5 years ago and I really regret not playing it out.
The rest of the money will either go under the mattress or in the bank depending on the method of cashout.
This is where I stand:
Cake: $9538
UB: $700
Money floating in Cyberspace: $3500
I would also like to admit that I have a gambling problem. I don't consider poker gambling since I am far better then most of the people I go up against so poker is not my problem.
I have on the other hand, gotten really carried away with UB blackjack. I am not going to get into the details but I started as low as $550 yesterday and got as low as $100 and got as high as $1500. I ended at exactly $700 and ended there because that was my deposit and I figured there is no harm since I am even for the account. I am keeping the account open because I may need it to transfer money around when I make my withdrawals.
I say I have a gambling problem because I couldn't ever bring myself to stop. And thats a really bad thing. I have sworn off BJ and hopefully I live up to it. I really hate BJ and don't know why I got started in the first place.
As for the money sitting in Cyberspace this where I am at.
I withdrew $1000 using Quicktender and it says it takes 8 business days for it to hit my bank. This coming Wednesday will be 8 days so hopefully it makes it to my bank.
My other pending transaction has me more worried. I withdrew $2500 via E-wallet X-press. When I first initiated the transaction Cake asked me for all this crap to verify my identity. My drivers license, a scan of the debit card I used to fund the account, and a bank statement. There was an issue early on with my license/debit card because they couldn't make out my fax. I sent it back and they have since not gotten back to me. Meanwhile my cash-out is still pending and its been about 4-5 days now. I'm not too worried since that time has spanned the entire weekend. I am still worried though because I always hear it takes about 48 hours to process an E-wallet express transaction. So if in the next couple of days the money doesn't hit my account, I am going to be on pins and needles.
From there thats where UB comes in. Since the merger with Absolute poker I can now use both of them for cashouts.
I am then going to deposit the money on UB or AP and cash out the money via moneygram. That means I will get cold hard cash and won't have to worry about getting my bank involved.
As for the quicktender transaction I am going to send that straight over to pokerstars and get started over there.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Hello, My name is DrBadBeat and I am a gigantic DEGEN and damn proud of it
Well, I have some crazy tales of being a huge degen.
I have more or less decided to call it quits on Cake. I am still going to log on everyday for the promotions and for the tournaments but I am definitely done with cash. The play on Cake was so bad that it was too good to be true. Those players are pretty much gone now and all thats left are sharks who lay in wait. They won't be able to beat each other in the long run and will just pay rake. Only the best of the best will succeed. That's pressure that I don't need.
I made this decision after finding a quick solution.
They are giving away an exorbitant amount of free money on Ultimate Bet. I know all about the scandals but I am willing to take my chances. Plus, they are trying to rebuild their reputation so they probably won't try anything shady.
On the raketracking site that I use they are having a month-long contest for generating rake. 1st place is $2000! Normally when they have the weekly contests, UB is the site that has the weakest numbers. That more or less means that nobody plays there anymore.
Assuming it goes through I will also get a 30% rakeback deal. (If it doesn't go through, then I will quit UB after clearing my bonus.)
I am also getting a 100% deposit bonus on my original deposit.
They also have a promotion that if you collect 10K FPP points in a month, you can redeem that for $1000 cash.
I deposited $700 and am already grinding NL50.
I have learned the following about UB in the last two days.
1. It is the worst fucking site ever.
2. The graphics and interface make me want to puke.
3. You time out after only 5 seconds so multi-tabling is really hard. I can't tell you how many times I get put to a decision and the next thing I know I am sitting out on half of my tables. WTF? That never happens on cake. Ever.
4. They don't display pot amounts and you can never tell how much anybody bets.
5. I have about 50K complaints about how terrible this site is but I don't have the time nor the desire to write it down.
The pros:
All that fucking free money and the fact that the players on here might actually be worse then the ones I was playing on Cake when I first started there.
My degeness: There are 3 different stories.
1. To put money on UB I had to do the following.
I had already withdrawn 1K from Cake but that is sitting in cyberspace and as of right now it is unaccessible.
I just paid the rent so all I had left was a little over $700 so thats how much went into my UB account. I was willing to put in as much as I possibly could but $700 was all I could manage. After making that depsoit I officially had 98% of all the money I have to my name in cyberspace. If something bad happens I am going to be in some trouble. Luckily, my money is spread around somewhat nicely.
2. I discovered UB blackjack and horsed around on there for a minute. No harm, no foul. In fact I made $30.
A friend came over and we started screwing around on the blackjack and things got pretty stupid. I hate blackjack and never play it in Vegas but this was just too much fun.
I started off winning and losing every other hand and then the following happened.
I win a few hands and get up to like $80 and then lose a couple and get back to $48 and am even give or take a couple bucks.
I decide this is the last hand and put it all in.
I get 2 2.
Because I am true degen, I decided to split them against a Jack and had to go into my account to get another $48. For some reason I accidentally hit double down and got dealt a 4 for a total of 8. The dealer somehow busted and I just came up $98.
We kept playing and I finally quit when I hit about $220. I run hot at Blackjack.
3. This particular friend came over cause he wanted to go play live poker which I haven't touched in a really long time.
He ends up having to bribe me with some weed so we go to his house and he smokes me up.
We go to the Bike and we both buy in to the $80NL.
Note: I have no money. None at all. It's all online.
So he had to put me in the game.
It's about 11:30pm when we show up and we got on the same table.
I don't know what it is about me but everyone minus my friend had never played with me before. But that didn't matter because I got an unbelievable amount of action right from the get go. I would raise 7x the BB and still get 6 callers.
Throughout the whole night I played almost every single hand I was dealt because I was so far superior to everyone at the table with the exception to my friend who was the second best player on the table. If it was suited I was playing, if it connected or had a gap I played it, and I raised a lot like a madman.
My stack swung up and down like crazy just the way it does when I multi-table online and the table started to revolve around my action.
Twice, morons limped with A A only for me to make a crazy play and for them to get paid off.
I played the straddle almost every time it was my turn and made the table go crazy. I won some big hands in the straddle with some really bad hands.
In the end I came up about $170 and now have a little cash for the next couple weeks.
I didn't get to play at all today until the end of the night and played for a couple hours on UB.
Ran super super bad because I ran so well at Blackjack. I only dropped about 3 buyins at NL50 even though it felt like I dropped about 6. People were doing THE most retarded shit ever and of course getting lucky. Whatever, I am going to get paid a bunch of free money in about 30 days so these guys can suck out all they want.
Here's the story of my life.
Me and this guy have been going at it for a while and he is a HUGE fish. I'm up $60 off him and we're going back and forth in the chat and this happens.
Villain=SB
Hero=BB
Folds to Villain. He raises to $1.50
Hero raises to $11 with A A.
Villain reraises to $29.
Hero goes all in. Villain calls.
Board all hearts.
Villain has A J with the J of hearts.
I think of the 300K times I have had AK against Aces on Cake and how I have still never won and on the first time on this new site I get fucked. Instead of having a $160 stack I was back to almost even and he was talking about how bad I was, and how we're all bad cause we are playing NL50 and not higher.
This where I stand.
UB: $870
Cake: $11,243
Cyberspace: $1000
So far for August I am up $450 and have played hardly any poker.
I have more or less decided to call it quits on Cake. I am still going to log on everyday for the promotions and for the tournaments but I am definitely done with cash. The play on Cake was so bad that it was too good to be true. Those players are pretty much gone now and all thats left are sharks who lay in wait. They won't be able to beat each other in the long run and will just pay rake. Only the best of the best will succeed. That's pressure that I don't need.
I made this decision after finding a quick solution.
They are giving away an exorbitant amount of free money on Ultimate Bet. I know all about the scandals but I am willing to take my chances. Plus, they are trying to rebuild their reputation so they probably won't try anything shady.
On the raketracking site that I use they are having a month-long contest for generating rake. 1st place is $2000! Normally when they have the weekly contests, UB is the site that has the weakest numbers. That more or less means that nobody plays there anymore.
Assuming it goes through I will also get a 30% rakeback deal. (If it doesn't go through, then I will quit UB after clearing my bonus.)
I am also getting a 100% deposit bonus on my original deposit.
They also have a promotion that if you collect 10K FPP points in a month, you can redeem that for $1000 cash.
I deposited $700 and am already grinding NL50.
I have learned the following about UB in the last two days.
1. It is the worst fucking site ever.
2. The graphics and interface make me want to puke.
3. You time out after only 5 seconds so multi-tabling is really hard. I can't tell you how many times I get put to a decision and the next thing I know I am sitting out on half of my tables. WTF? That never happens on cake. Ever.
4. They don't display pot amounts and you can never tell how much anybody bets.
5. I have about 50K complaints about how terrible this site is but I don't have the time nor the desire to write it down.
The pros:
All that fucking free money and the fact that the players on here might actually be worse then the ones I was playing on Cake when I first started there.
My degeness: There are 3 different stories.
1. To put money on UB I had to do the following.
I had already withdrawn 1K from Cake but that is sitting in cyberspace and as of right now it is unaccessible.
I just paid the rent so all I had left was a little over $700 so thats how much went into my UB account. I was willing to put in as much as I possibly could but $700 was all I could manage. After making that depsoit I officially had 98% of all the money I have to my name in cyberspace. If something bad happens I am going to be in some trouble. Luckily, my money is spread around somewhat nicely.
2. I discovered UB blackjack and horsed around on there for a minute. No harm, no foul. In fact I made $30.
A friend came over and we started screwing around on the blackjack and things got pretty stupid. I hate blackjack and never play it in Vegas but this was just too much fun.
I started off winning and losing every other hand and then the following happened.
I win a few hands and get up to like $80 and then lose a couple and get back to $48 and am even give or take a couple bucks.
I decide this is the last hand and put it all in.
I get 2 2.
Because I am true degen, I decided to split them against a Jack and had to go into my account to get another $48. For some reason I accidentally hit double down and got dealt a 4 for a total of 8. The dealer somehow busted and I just came up $98.
We kept playing and I finally quit when I hit about $220. I run hot at Blackjack.
3. This particular friend came over cause he wanted to go play live poker which I haven't touched in a really long time.
He ends up having to bribe me with some weed so we go to his house and he smokes me up.
We go to the Bike and we both buy in to the $80NL.
Note: I have no money. None at all. It's all online.
So he had to put me in the game.
It's about 11:30pm when we show up and we got on the same table.
I don't know what it is about me but everyone minus my friend had never played with me before. But that didn't matter because I got an unbelievable amount of action right from the get go. I would raise 7x the BB and still get 6 callers.
Throughout the whole night I played almost every single hand I was dealt because I was so far superior to everyone at the table with the exception to my friend who was the second best player on the table. If it was suited I was playing, if it connected or had a gap I played it, and I raised a lot like a madman.
My stack swung up and down like crazy just the way it does when I multi-table online and the table started to revolve around my action.
Twice, morons limped with A A only for me to make a crazy play and for them to get paid off.
I played the straddle almost every time it was my turn and made the table go crazy. I won some big hands in the straddle with some really bad hands.
In the end I came up about $170 and now have a little cash for the next couple weeks.
I didn't get to play at all today until the end of the night and played for a couple hours on UB.
Ran super super bad because I ran so well at Blackjack. I only dropped about 3 buyins at NL50 even though it felt like I dropped about 6. People were doing THE most retarded shit ever and of course getting lucky. Whatever, I am going to get paid a bunch of free money in about 30 days so these guys can suck out all they want.
Here's the story of my life.
Me and this guy have been going at it for a while and he is a HUGE fish. I'm up $60 off him and we're going back and forth in the chat and this happens.
Villain=SB
Hero=BB
Folds to Villain. He raises to $1.50
Hero raises to $11 with A A.
Villain reraises to $29.
Hero goes all in. Villain calls.
Board all hearts.
Villain has A J with the J of hearts.
I think of the 300K times I have had AK against Aces on Cake and how I have still never won and on the first time on this new site I get fucked. Instead of having a $160 stack I was back to almost even and he was talking about how bad I was, and how we're all bad cause we are playing NL50 and not higher.
This where I stand.
UB: $870
Cake: $11,243
Cyberspace: $1000
So far for August I am up $450 and have played hardly any poker.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
July: Chasing 20K
July has finally come and gone and am I quite relieved it is over. I ran so bad most of the month in cash games and took a loss overall for the month. The games go up and down. Some weeks the games are really good and are potentially profitable and other weeks the games are full of regulars who know my style all too well. The last couple weeks have been the latter and it worries me. If new players never come then the games will dry up. I do not think it will happen but it is a fear I have.
Fortunately, I decided to go back into tournaments. Something that I thought I would never do. I ran the exact opposite in tournaments then I did in cash games. For one, I probably won 75% of my all-ins. The other big thing was I sucked out more times then I am usually allowed. I am not sure if those suckouts are what caused my hot run or if I am really playing this well.
Before I go into any details, go to my ballin sharkscope graph. It has everything except for FPP satellites and gold card tournaments which is another $2000. Search DrBadBeat and put in Cake as the site.
I didn't play in as many MTT's as I would have liked last week but I managed to make two more final tables.
If it weren't for those two final tables, the week would have been a lot worse.
I lost on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday in the cash games. The first 3 days were very small losses with Wednesday being a very small win. On Friday I was down $800 playing cash games, STT, and MTT. It was the first time that all 3 forms weren't working for me. At the end of the night I found myself going deep in the $5 rebuys. I ended up making the final table and got to 3 handed. There was one player who seemed decent and a guy who was horrible. I was basically waiting for the bad player to make a mistake and was pretty much playing for second since the chipleader had such a big lead.
The fish finally made his mistake and pushed all in with A 9 and got called by the chipleader who had A 10. A nine came on the flop and the fish doubled up. I got knocked out a few minutes later and that little 3 outer cost me about $300. I cashed for $656 and came up $200 total for Friday.
I didn't play much Saturday and broke even.
On Sunday I made about $200 in cash games and another couple hundred in STT's. I went deep again in the $5 rebuys and was short-stacked with 30 players left. When there were 18 left, I was in 16th and probably wasn't going to make the final table.
I somehow sneaked my way onto the final table and came in as the 8th place stack. I would have been thrilled to take 7th in this tournament since I was very short-stacked. I maneuvered my way around and made all the right plays and was able to exploit a fish for a lot of chips over the course of the final table. I finally took the chiplead when there were 3 left. The other two players were huge fish according to sharkscope and the tourney was mine to lose. I knocked out fish number 1 and took a big chiplead into heads up play. I ran well and took it down when my Q Q outlasted the villains A K. All in on the turn.
My first MTT win in quite some time. That little score was good for $1294. On the day I came up over $1600.
I have continued my winning ways each day this week and just like that July was my second best month ever playing poker.
Update: I wrote this yesterday and took a loss on the last day of the month. I dropped about $250 and didn't run very good. It didn't help that twice during my session my computer crashed and I was playing STT's which screwed me over big time.
I was a small loser in cash games and came up about $3400 in MTT's and STT's. I made another $1400 in rakeback and another $813 in tournament tickets. I have two tickets left and have yet to cash in any of the other tournaments that I played in.
I am really proud of the way I played in the tournaments. Of the five final tables that I have made I finished in the top 5 in all of them. I took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 5th.
I do not see myself playing as much cash in the future especially if the games keep being sour.
This is where I stand going into August.
Current Bankroll: $12147.57 for a profit of $4477
Although it may be unattainable I am shooting for 20K by the end of the month.
I have not made any decisions yet, but I am contemplating moving back over to Stars. If it happens I will probably go back and forth between both sites but will be playing on stars for the tourneys. This is a harder decision then it ought to be but I owe stars about $600 and I am not sure if I am willing to take responsibility for that debt.
Update #2: Cake recently upped the guarantees for the tournaments that I have tickets for and my tickets are no longer good. I emailed them for the third time about this situation and they just credited my account with $218. Score.
Fortunately, I decided to go back into tournaments. Something that I thought I would never do. I ran the exact opposite in tournaments then I did in cash games. For one, I probably won 75% of my all-ins. The other big thing was I sucked out more times then I am usually allowed. I am not sure if those suckouts are what caused my hot run or if I am really playing this well.
Before I go into any details, go to my ballin sharkscope graph. It has everything except for FPP satellites and gold card tournaments which is another $2000. Search DrBadBeat and put in Cake as the site.
I didn't play in as many MTT's as I would have liked last week but I managed to make two more final tables.
If it weren't for those two final tables, the week would have been a lot worse.
I lost on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday in the cash games. The first 3 days were very small losses with Wednesday being a very small win. On Friday I was down $800 playing cash games, STT, and MTT. It was the first time that all 3 forms weren't working for me. At the end of the night I found myself going deep in the $5 rebuys. I ended up making the final table and got to 3 handed. There was one player who seemed decent and a guy who was horrible. I was basically waiting for the bad player to make a mistake and was pretty much playing for second since the chipleader had such a big lead.
The fish finally made his mistake and pushed all in with A 9 and got called by the chipleader who had A 10. A nine came on the flop and the fish doubled up. I got knocked out a few minutes later and that little 3 outer cost me about $300. I cashed for $656 and came up $200 total for Friday.
I didn't play much Saturday and broke even.
On Sunday I made about $200 in cash games and another couple hundred in STT's. I went deep again in the $5 rebuys and was short-stacked with 30 players left. When there were 18 left, I was in 16th and probably wasn't going to make the final table.
I somehow sneaked my way onto the final table and came in as the 8th place stack. I would have been thrilled to take 7th in this tournament since I was very short-stacked. I maneuvered my way around and made all the right plays and was able to exploit a fish for a lot of chips over the course of the final table. I finally took the chiplead when there were 3 left. The other two players were huge fish according to sharkscope and the tourney was mine to lose. I knocked out fish number 1 and took a big chiplead into heads up play. I ran well and took it down when my Q Q outlasted the villains A K. All in on the turn.
My first MTT win in quite some time. That little score was good for $1294. On the day I came up over $1600.
I have continued my winning ways each day this week and just like that July was my second best month ever playing poker.
Update: I wrote this yesterday and took a loss on the last day of the month. I dropped about $250 and didn't run very good. It didn't help that twice during my session my computer crashed and I was playing STT's which screwed me over big time.
I was a small loser in cash games and came up about $3400 in MTT's and STT's. I made another $1400 in rakeback and another $813 in tournament tickets. I have two tickets left and have yet to cash in any of the other tournaments that I played in.
I am really proud of the way I played in the tournaments. Of the five final tables that I have made I finished in the top 5 in all of them. I took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 5th.
I do not see myself playing as much cash in the future especially if the games keep being sour.
This is where I stand going into August.
Current Bankroll: $12147.57 for a profit of $4477
Although it may be unattainable I am shooting for 20K by the end of the month.
I have not made any decisions yet, but I am contemplating moving back over to Stars. If it happens I will probably go back and forth between both sites but will be playing on stars for the tourneys. This is a harder decision then it ought to be but I owe stars about $600 and I am not sure if I am willing to take responsibility for that debt.
Update #2: Cake recently upped the guarantees for the tournaments that I have tickets for and my tickets are no longer good. I emailed them for the third time about this situation and they just credited my account with $218. Score.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Fuck poker and the lucky bastards who play it.
I am so fucking over this shit. I know that because I have been complaining more in the last two months about this stupid ass game then I have in my 7 years of playing. I could have easily predicted what was going to happen over the last 3 days before it even happened. It's the same shit every fucking time.
Every time in my poker career that I have either hit a milestone or am about to hit a milestone the same thing happens every time. I go on a fucking downswing.
On Monday I dropped $700 in the first 30 minutes of playing only to finish down only $250 for the day. So ridiculously standard. You will probably never see me write that I made $700 in 30 minutes. That will only happen when I start playing a $1000 buyin game. But that will only happen when I stop running bad at NL100. At my last count, I have played about 120K hands of NL100 and am an overall loser. I know who all the good players are in the game. I know who to stay away from and I know who the big fish are. I have realized some leaks in my game and some errors in my play and I have worked on correcting them. I have even stepped up limits and adopted some of the strategies of the players who I consider to be better then me.
The result:
Take a look at these 3 hands that I played perfectly.
Hero is dealt A 7. Both players in the hand have about $120.
Hero raises to $3.50. Villain calls. Other players call.
Flop A 8 7 flushing.
Hero bets $10. Villain calls.
Turn 2 offsuit.
Hero bets $23. Villain raises to $46. Hero goes all-in. Villain calls.
Hero shows A 7 for two pair. Villain shows A K for a pair of Aces.
River 8.
Fuck the world. I never hit when behind with one card to come yet it happens to me every fucking day.
Hand 2: (This was today. I know for a fact I am good player for the way this played out. But being a good player doesn't mean shit since its all luck anyway and the numbers that they claim to be concrete really don't mean shit.)
Both players have full stacks.
Hero is dealt 6 6.
Villain raises to $3.50. Hero calls.
Flop
K 6 7
Hero checks, Villain checks.
Turn 9
Hero bets $7. Villain raises to $18. Warning bells are going off in my head. Villain has a straight or a set of kings. Proceed with extreme caution. Hero calls.
River 2
Hero checks. Villain bets $16. Hero calls.
Hero shows 6 6 three of a kind 6's
Villain shows K K three of a kind kings.
Every time I have been involved in a set over set where I got screwed this is exactly how it has played out every single time. I knew exactly what he had and lost the minimum. I pat myself on the back for that one.
Hand 3
Limped pot. Both players have full stack. Hero is in BB
Hero is dealt 6 4
Flop
A 6 4 flushing.
Hero bets $4. Villain raises to $12. Hero calls.
Turn x flush hits.
Hero checks. Villain checks.
River 8 off.
Hero checks. Villain bets $15. Hero calls.
Villain shows 6 6 three of a kind 6's
Hero shows 6 4 two pair.
Gee, another fucking cooler. Once again I could have gone crazy and lost my whole stack but I didn't.
The last two hands are from today. Too start my session the first hand I was dealt was A A and I got cracked by Q 10 and 9 9. I folded on the river. Then I picked up J J and had to fold on the turn after 3-betting preflop.
Then those 2 that I just talked about and about 5 others that are similar happened and someway somehow I didn't lose $700.
Then this gem happened.
Villain and I played a big pot earlier. About $120. I had a set and he hit his gutshot on the turn. Jesus.
I have $140. Villain covers.
Hero is dealt A K
Hero raises to $3.50. Villain calls with others.
A x x all clubs. I have the K of clubs.
Hero bets $10. Villain raises to $20. Hero raises to $50. Villain calls.
Turn blank.
Hero goes all in for $71. Villain calls.
Hero shows A K for a pair of Aces.
Villain shows 10 10 for a pair of tens.
Someway somehow I dodged the river and avoided losing a hand where I am favored to win some 3% of the time.
After all that, I am only down $130 on the day. I should be down close to $1000 but I am so use to getting sucked out that I basically just fold every time a decent player gives me any kind of resistance.
I have also set up an account with an online e-wallet and just initiated my first cashout. $1000 is being pulled out of my account as we speak. I don't believe in cashout curses because I can't run any worse then I am now. In fact, I am using reverse psychology because maybe they will let me run better so I don't leave.
I know I'm fucking stupid but I can't help it because I am so tired of being pissed off all the time. I don't really want to play this game anymore but I am going to keep at it because it is what I am best at and I have certain financial goals that will never be attained unless I play this stupid game of luck.
Every time in my poker career that I have either hit a milestone or am about to hit a milestone the same thing happens every time. I go on a fucking downswing.
On Monday I dropped $700 in the first 30 minutes of playing only to finish down only $250 for the day. So ridiculously standard. You will probably never see me write that I made $700 in 30 minutes. That will only happen when I start playing a $1000 buyin game. But that will only happen when I stop running bad at NL100. At my last count, I have played about 120K hands of NL100 and am an overall loser. I know who all the good players are in the game. I know who to stay away from and I know who the big fish are. I have realized some leaks in my game and some errors in my play and I have worked on correcting them. I have even stepped up limits and adopted some of the strategies of the players who I consider to be better then me.
The result:
Take a look at these 3 hands that I played perfectly.
Hero is dealt A 7. Both players in the hand have about $120.
Hero raises to $3.50. Villain calls. Other players call.
Flop A 8 7 flushing.
Hero bets $10. Villain calls.
Turn 2 offsuit.
Hero bets $23. Villain raises to $46. Hero goes all-in. Villain calls.
Hero shows A 7 for two pair. Villain shows A K for a pair of Aces.
River 8.
Fuck the world. I never hit when behind with one card to come yet it happens to me every fucking day.
Hand 2: (This was today. I know for a fact I am good player for the way this played out. But being a good player doesn't mean shit since its all luck anyway and the numbers that they claim to be concrete really don't mean shit.)
Both players have full stacks.
Hero is dealt 6 6.
Villain raises to $3.50. Hero calls.
Flop
K 6 7
Hero checks, Villain checks.
Turn 9
Hero bets $7. Villain raises to $18. Warning bells are going off in my head. Villain has a straight or a set of kings. Proceed with extreme caution. Hero calls.
River 2
Hero checks. Villain bets $16. Hero calls.
Hero shows 6 6 three of a kind 6's
Villain shows K K three of a kind kings.
Every time I have been involved in a set over set where I got screwed this is exactly how it has played out every single time. I knew exactly what he had and lost the minimum. I pat myself on the back for that one.
Hand 3
Limped pot. Both players have full stack. Hero is in BB
Hero is dealt 6 4
Flop
A 6 4 flushing.
Hero bets $4. Villain raises to $12. Hero calls.
Turn x flush hits.
Hero checks. Villain checks.
River 8 off.
Hero checks. Villain bets $15. Hero calls.
Villain shows 6 6 three of a kind 6's
Hero shows 6 4 two pair.
Gee, another fucking cooler. Once again I could have gone crazy and lost my whole stack but I didn't.
The last two hands are from today. Too start my session the first hand I was dealt was A A and I got cracked by Q 10 and 9 9. I folded on the river. Then I picked up J J and had to fold on the turn after 3-betting preflop.
Then those 2 that I just talked about and about 5 others that are similar happened and someway somehow I didn't lose $700.
Then this gem happened.
Villain and I played a big pot earlier. About $120. I had a set and he hit his gutshot on the turn. Jesus.
I have $140. Villain covers.
Hero is dealt A K
Hero raises to $3.50. Villain calls with others.
A x x all clubs. I have the K of clubs.
Hero bets $10. Villain raises to $20. Hero raises to $50. Villain calls.
Turn blank.
Hero goes all in for $71. Villain calls.
Hero shows A K for a pair of Aces.
Villain shows 10 10 for a pair of tens.
Someway somehow I dodged the river and avoided losing a hand where I am favored to win some 3% of the time.
After all that, I am only down $130 on the day. I should be down close to $1000 but I am so use to getting sucked out that I basically just fold every time a decent player gives me any kind of resistance.
I have also set up an account with an online e-wallet and just initiated my first cashout. $1000 is being pulled out of my account as we speak. I don't believe in cashout curses because I can't run any worse then I am now. In fact, I am using reverse psychology because maybe they will let me run better so I don't leave.
I know I'm fucking stupid but I can't help it because I am so tired of being pissed off all the time. I don't really want to play this game anymore but I am going to keep at it because it is what I am best at and I have certain financial goals that will never be attained unless I play this stupid game of luck.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Week 14: Tournaments are my new savior
I am still having a lot of problems in the cash games. I have been very inconsistent now for a very long time. Fortunately, I have found that there are other avenues of making money. Avenues that aren't as much of a grind. Tournaments. Ah yes, tournaments. For some reason I am running like god in tournaments right now and it is growing my bankroll. I am playing everything from satellites to tournies to sit n go's. In the last week alone I made 3 final tables in MTT's with finishes of 2nd, 5th, and 5th. Those cashes were for around $2200. I have also proved profitable early on in $20 sit n go's because the fields are so soft.
After my second place finish the other day for $1375, I decided to reward myself with some shots in bigger cash games. I opened two tables of $2/$4 and two tables of $1/$2. I was introduced to $2/$4 very rudely. All I can say is that game is fucking hard. Every hand I played I was put to the test. Almost every time I raised I was 3 bet. I was definitely outclassed and that is somewhere I will not venture back in a really long time. Overall I ended up losing $500 during that shot taking endeavor.
Today I had my Sunday tournaments and it was very disappointing. I got knocked out during the first round of the 75K when my top pair top kicker A K ran into a set of 8's. I went a lot deeper in the WPT qualifier but was short-stacked from the very beginning and outlasted about half the field. I had no other cashes in MTT's but have cashed in all but one sit n go today.
Things have gotten so crazy in my account. $1000 swings occur daily and I can make or drop that much any day now. I have reached the highest I have ever played before and am entering uncharted territories in terms of the swings.
Although things are starting to look up, I am still way behind my projections although things are moving along nicely.
Currently I have $8894 + $1043 in rakeback + $218 in tournament tickets.
After my second place finish the other day for $1375, I decided to reward myself with some shots in bigger cash games. I opened two tables of $2/$4 and two tables of $1/$2. I was introduced to $2/$4 very rudely. All I can say is that game is fucking hard. Every hand I played I was put to the test. Almost every time I raised I was 3 bet. I was definitely outclassed and that is somewhere I will not venture back in a really long time. Overall I ended up losing $500 during that shot taking endeavor.
Today I had my Sunday tournaments and it was very disappointing. I got knocked out during the first round of the 75K when my top pair top kicker A K ran into a set of 8's. I went a lot deeper in the WPT qualifier but was short-stacked from the very beginning and outlasted about half the field. I had no other cashes in MTT's but have cashed in all but one sit n go today.
Things have gotten so crazy in my account. $1000 swings occur daily and I can make or drop that much any day now. I have reached the highest I have ever played before and am entering uncharted territories in terms of the swings.
Although things are starting to look up, I am still way behind my projections although things are moving along nicely.
Currently I have $8894 + $1043 in rakeback + $218 in tournament tickets.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Weeks 12/13 I think I am going to make a shitload of money
Although the title says what it says I have not been very profitable for the month of July. I'm actually running a lot like I did last month but not nearly as bad. I have made quite a few adjustments in my game and they have really started paying off. I have made quite a bit of money over the last couple weeks 3 and 4 betting with much lighter hands. I only make these plays against solid regulars because they aren't going to call me with anything less then AK or a good pocket pair trying to set mine.
I really feel that I am playing out of my mind right now and I have never been more motivated in my life to do succeed and do well. About 10 days ago I had the most money I have ever had in my life. It was short-lived because I then went on a standard downswing and paid about $1200 worth of bills. Fortunately, I am right back to that point and I am ready to start making some serious money.
To start the month I went on a $900 upswing and my account was at $8700. I then went on another one of those 20 buyin downswings and before I knew it I was all the way to down to $6700 and I was hating life. I kept struggling and then on the 11th I was paid my $450 bonus from last month and went on a big upswing. I got it all the way back to $8050 but I have since fallen off a little due to a couple of small losing days and tournaments that I have just started playing.
Although I haven't done it in the last few days I have also been taking shots at NL200. Unlike the other jumps there is not really much difference between NL100 and NL200 with the exception to bigger betting. Overall I would say that I am probably a small winner playing NL200. Maybe about 1-1.5 buyins overall.
I have also started playing tournaments again which I am really happy about. The tournaments on Cake are ridiculously soft. The satellites are a total joke and may as well be free money.
So far I have cashed in 5 tournaments with one final table and one near miss. On the final table I took 5th which was good for about $360 which occurred during my downswing so that was a nice little boost.
I have also won 5 satellite tournaments. 3 of the 4 wins were using only FPP points so I'm in free. (Not entirely free because they deduct those wins from my rakeback.)
The other two wins were cash satellites. 4 of the 5 satellites are for the $109 buyin Sunday tournament. I have played in it once and didn't do to well but I have several more shots.
I also won a $215 seat into a WPT qualifier. The winners of that get to play in the WPT North American Championship @ Niagara Falls. Several seats will be awarded and I expect to make some serious noise in that tournament. I am so confident going in to this that I actually expect to win the seat.
Overall this is where I stand. $7705+ $650 rakeback + $542 in tournament tickets.
My sunday is already planeed as I have the qualifier plus the $109 buyin.
I need to keep doing well in cash games because I am barely up money on the month and its time to start making some money!
I really feel that I am playing out of my mind right now and I have never been more motivated in my life to do succeed and do well. About 10 days ago I had the most money I have ever had in my life. It was short-lived because I then went on a standard downswing and paid about $1200 worth of bills. Fortunately, I am right back to that point and I am ready to start making some serious money.
To start the month I went on a $900 upswing and my account was at $8700. I then went on another one of those 20 buyin downswings and before I knew it I was all the way to down to $6700 and I was hating life. I kept struggling and then on the 11th I was paid my $450 bonus from last month and went on a big upswing. I got it all the way back to $8050 but I have since fallen off a little due to a couple of small losing days and tournaments that I have just started playing.
Although I haven't done it in the last few days I have also been taking shots at NL200. Unlike the other jumps there is not really much difference between NL100 and NL200 with the exception to bigger betting. Overall I would say that I am probably a small winner playing NL200. Maybe about 1-1.5 buyins overall.
I have also started playing tournaments again which I am really happy about. The tournaments on Cake are ridiculously soft. The satellites are a total joke and may as well be free money.
So far I have cashed in 5 tournaments with one final table and one near miss. On the final table I took 5th which was good for about $360 which occurred during my downswing so that was a nice little boost.
I have also won 5 satellite tournaments. 3 of the 4 wins were using only FPP points so I'm in free. (Not entirely free because they deduct those wins from my rakeback.)
The other two wins were cash satellites. 4 of the 5 satellites are for the $109 buyin Sunday tournament. I have played in it once and didn't do to well but I have several more shots.
I also won a $215 seat into a WPT qualifier. The winners of that get to play in the WPT North American Championship @ Niagara Falls. Several seats will be awarded and I expect to make some serious noise in that tournament. I am so confident going in to this that I actually expect to win the seat.
Overall this is where I stand. $7705+ $650 rakeback + $542 in tournament tickets.
My sunday is already planeed as I have the qualifier plus the $109 buyin.
I need to keep doing well in cash games because I am barely up money on the month and its time to start making some money!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
June: It was rigged
June has come and gone and all I can say is thank god! Seriously, this was the wosrt month of poker ever. To make things worse, I seem to keep saying that as the months pass. That cannot be possibly normal.
I ended up playing around 78K hands of break-even poker. For the entire month I only lost $210. Due to rakeback and bonuses alone, I have acheived something that I have never acheived before. I find it quite sad actually that I have never done what I did last month. For the first time ever I have had back to back $2K+ months. I guess that means I can never run well for two months in a row.
Overall, this is the way it breaks downs. At my highest point, I was up $1000 and at my lowest point I was down $1100. On the one hand, I was never really on the brink of losing everything but at the same time the swings in between those numbers almost killed me. Since I don't have a graph, I have to bo back and remember how it happened but I don't think I could forget.
I started at $5500 and these were my swings.
$5500-$6500
$6500-$6000
$6000-$5700
$5700-$6500
$6500-$6000
$6000-even for about 10K hands
$6000-$5400
$5400-$4400 in one day (Stopped playing 100NL)
$4400-$6000 in about 5-6 days playing 50NL mixed with 100NL toward the end.
$6000-$5700
$5700-even for about 10K hands
$5700-$5200
$5200 even for about 10K hands
$5200-$4850
$4850-$5290
End
In other words, the month sucked ass. Never in my life, have I gotten all-in, in so many huge pots where I only had to dogde one 3 and I could pick up $200 only for them to hit over and over and over again. I don't expect to ever see a run like that ever again.
After the rake and the bonuses all get added to my account (rakeback paid yesterday in full) I end the month at $7670 which is a profit of $2170. That was way below my expectation but considering the cards and frustrations I think I can honestly feel pretty good about way things turned out. These are the types of months where I use to spend a bunch of money and then get myself in trouble because my bankroll gets decimated. Long gone are the days of the cash bankroll.
For the first time in a long time I played 6 tables of NL100 since there were about 20 games and a lot more fish going around.
I did really well on my all-ins. I think I won almost every one but I got killed in my pots won without showdown. I got raised and 3-bet much more often than I normally do which resulted in me folding a lot which cost me a lot of money.
I started the day on a downswing (standard). Made it back, swung back down and was actually up for a little bit before taking one bad-beat from this one idiot who kept hitting against me and then paying everyone else off. I finished the day down $50 but made $60 in rakeback so I am still essentially even for the month.
Come on... upswing! I would really like to be at $10K in a couple weeks.
I ended up playing around 78K hands of break-even poker. For the entire month I only lost $210. Due to rakeback and bonuses alone, I have acheived something that I have never acheived before. I find it quite sad actually that I have never done what I did last month. For the first time ever I have had back to back $2K+ months. I guess that means I can never run well for two months in a row.
Overall, this is the way it breaks downs. At my highest point, I was up $1000 and at my lowest point I was down $1100. On the one hand, I was never really on the brink of losing everything but at the same time the swings in between those numbers almost killed me. Since I don't have a graph, I have to bo back and remember how it happened but I don't think I could forget.
I started at $5500 and these were my swings.
$5500-$6500
$6500-$6000
$6000-$5700
$5700-$6500
$6500-$6000
$6000-even for about 10K hands
$6000-$5400
$5400-$4400 in one day (Stopped playing 100NL)
$4400-$6000 in about 5-6 days playing 50NL mixed with 100NL toward the end.
$6000-$5700
$5700-even for about 10K hands
$5700-$5200
$5200 even for about 10K hands
$5200-$4850
$4850-$5290
End
In other words, the month sucked ass. Never in my life, have I gotten all-in, in so many huge pots where I only had to dogde one 3 and I could pick up $200 only for them to hit over and over and over again. I don't expect to ever see a run like that ever again.
After the rake and the bonuses all get added to my account (rakeback paid yesterday in full) I end the month at $7670 which is a profit of $2170. That was way below my expectation but considering the cards and frustrations I think I can honestly feel pretty good about way things turned out. These are the types of months where I use to spend a bunch of money and then get myself in trouble because my bankroll gets decimated. Long gone are the days of the cash bankroll.
For the first time in a long time I played 6 tables of NL100 since there were about 20 games and a lot more fish going around.
I did really well on my all-ins. I think I won almost every one but I got killed in my pots won without showdown. I got raised and 3-bet much more often than I normally do which resulted in me folding a lot which cost me a lot of money.
I started the day on a downswing (standard). Made it back, swung back down and was actually up for a little bit before taking one bad-beat from this one idiot who kept hitting against me and then paying everyone else off. I finished the day down $50 but made $60 in rakeback so I am still essentially even for the month.
Come on... upswing! I would really like to be at $10K in a couple weeks.
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