Recent Online Poker Log Blog Entries
January 7, 2008, 9PM:
Poker Stars Atlantis Bahamas
 Day 2 I guess. I'm not in the tournament area at all because I know what I am doing, so they stick me in high limit cash games. Mostly the 50-100 NLH which turns into a 50-100-200 game and the 10-25 or 25-50 PLO, all of which are fun to deal as I never image sitting in one of these games.
This limit is very entertaining as most these guys have nice sized rolls and are chatty little fuckers. Talking about anything from poker, golf, women etc.
The main event is down to about 200 players or so but whatever.
For those of you who play on stars, I recommend winning a seat sometime soon and coming here. There are many well knowns and pros and they are much more friendly then when they are in Las Vegas ;)
Last Update: January 7, 2008, 9:12PM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 3, 2008, 10PM: Played 3 hours, Made $205.00 at Pheonix
$3 No-Limit Texas Hold'em
Yahoo!! Broke the streak! I wanted to just go and play for a little while, break the losing streak and bounce. That's sort of what I did. I went into my sort of spiral drain like feeling of "oh shit, i'm losing, i can't afford to lose, i'm making mistakes, i'm going to lose what's in front of me, maybe more... etc" and got worried. That's how I've felt the last few times I played.
I started talking to a nice guy next to me and kind of got caught up in conversation, and didn't have the thought energy to stress about my play, or worry about my money. When I stopped trying to do what I'm told in books, I stopped trying to play ... all i can think of is how i'm told in books. F the books. I just relaxed and started playing my game again. I was in for 2 $200 buy ins, and after doubling up my second i was down to about $250 again. I relaxed, played my game, and won some dough, then left when I promised myself I would, even though I felt like I had a great grasp on the table. I'm happy.
Last Update: January 6, 2008, 11:58PM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 6, 2008, 11PM: Played 3 hours, Made $190.00 at Mardi Gras Casino
$2 No-Limit Texas Hold'em
 40 dollar max buy in table. NL with 300 pot-cap.
This was my first live table of this format. I don't normally enjoy NL holdem, but with everyone starting out with the same, it's easier for me to build a stack without having to risk a ton of chips early.
Made some great reads. Called some large bets with middle pair since the maniac alcoholic lady was ramming. She was on the draw and Ic alled her bluff on the river for a nice pot. Another hand, I have AQ and raise preflop with some callers. Flop comes 848 rainbow. I checkraise the button and the button calls. Turn is a king and I fire out. He mucks qq. Felt good to run a bluff through
Last Update: January 6, 2008, 11:46PM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 6, 2008, 11PM:
Poker Stars Atlantis Bahamas
Day 1B was today, I did not get to post about day 1 so I will give a brief summary.
Day 1A
The room was full with internet donks, pros, young kids etc. Not much to say other than they are poker and internet junkies. It is amazing how much they let this become their life. We all love poker though but you need a healthy balance.
In the lobby there are about 10 guys playing 4 games each online with their laptops, the other lobby there are about 30 more ;)
Back to day 1A, not much, the play was pretty interesting to see from a dealers point of view. I learned something new that may help some of us with our tournament poker play. It is called "leverage" and "fold equity". It means, unlike we are trained, to (when you have a big stack) to attack and seek out battles with other big stacks. The concept is this. Since the big stack wants to avoid another big stack that if you re-raise or put pressure on a big stack they are more likely to fold or not be contfrontational with you and give up the hand, hence, "fold equity".
Day 1B, not much to say, I was dealing the cash games. Highlight is the 50/100 NLH game. A friend was in the game I had not seen in a bit. He apperntly knocked off a WSOP event, a Bellagio event and plaed around 90th in the Main Event. Lucky guy.
Last Update: January 6, 2008, 11:24PM | Permalink (1 Comment)
January 6, 2008, 4PM: Played 2 hours, 8 minutes, Made $54.85 at full tilt
$0.50 Pot-Limit Omaha
 this is the session that could've been massive, but I ran bad in 2 key pots. the first one, there is this donkey I have been watching and he cannot lay down AA, so I trapped him once with it when I flopped nut straight and he called me down. later I have KK double suited I pot it to 2 bucks or something, he makes it 8, I call. flop is K 8 9...there is another player as well...he pots it, I go all in he calls...he has AAQ7, drawing pretty dead and the other guy had 88 something so I am WAY ahead...the A spikes the turn and costs me like 120. another pot I have the total wrap in...AKQ9 around J T 7 flop and I have 2 other people with big stacks get in there with me and it comes running 4 3 to brick me out. I win those two and this is probably 300+.
Last Update: January 6, 2008, 4:19PM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 6, 2008, 6PM: at Stars, Full Tilt, Absolute, Cake, etc.
$1/2 Texas Hold'em
 Warning: Long Post (comments welcome)
Well after a very long time not posting, I figured I would throw out an update. It is really a brag, so take it as that. After graduation and getting married - money was pressed. I had busted my UB account, but luckily I had a shitty rakeback deal that was paying me about 3 weeks late each month. I think I had something like $50 bucks in there, so I decided to do something completely out of character and play .05/.10NL. I played around 15K hands at that limit at UB running around 10ptbb/100.
A lot of times you hear people say that lower limits are unbeatable. I totally disagree. Both $10NL and $25NL were very easy. It was a grind and not very fun - but it wasn't difficult or impossible. Winning at those stakes involves playing a lot of hands in position. Cutting down on raising marginal hands and learning to value bet without bluffing hardly ever will easily allow a decent player to win at these levels.
After I reached a bit over $500 I began to take some shots at $50NL. I won a few buy-ins almost immediately and decided to take a couple buy-in shot up at $100NL. Fortunately for me, this shot went very well. I almost immediately went on a 10BI upswing when I took the shot and the level just stuck. In fact, I don't think I ever had any sort of substantial (3-4 buyins) downswing at $100NL.
Once I started taking shots at 1/2NL though, things were not as smooth. I remember my first shot was a 6.5 buying downswing. That hurt and it took a long while to break out of that. Then finally, last month I made the move up to $200NL permanently and have been taking shots at the higher games if I see a really soft spot.
Right now, I have a booked a couple 4 figure days in a row and the BR is looking pretty healthy. Right now, I decided to take a little change of pace and enter the Sunday Million on Poker Stars. My wife is not currently able to be stationed with me at the same spot - so I have had a lot of time to play poker when I am not working. I will try to post some graphs when I get a chance.
As for right now and what I am focusing on in my game - there is so much. It seems like no matter how much I play, I keep learning more and more. Mostly, I get a lot better feeling for the types of plays people make and for the first time in a long time, I have actually begun to be able to make some very carefully planned moves and bluffs. One thing that I have really enjoyed is the deep stacked 200bb games on Absolute Poker. It is really a totally different game. Plus, I don't think the regs there are nearly as strong as the ones on PStars.
Anyways, that is probably enough right now. Hopefully this motivates somebody to do better than they are right now. Trust me, if I can go from playing high stakes live cash games to .05/.1 NL micro stakes, anyone can do it.
Last Update: January 6, 2008, 3:06PM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 6, 2008, 11AM: Played 3 hours, Made $0.80 at PS
Free-Roll 7-Card Stud Tournament (518th out of 4654 Players)
This is the tourney I got the entry to. 800th gets $0.60, 1st gets $305. At first break I am 50 of 2977 with 7K in chips. Just waiting for decent starting hands and pushing hard when I have the lead. Got lucky and got moved to a table where 4 to 5 players were sitting out. I was able to used it to my advantage and pick up a lot of chips.
2nd break. 8500 in chips. 300 of 1000 left. 400/800 next level. I wasn't able to make a big move this hour. A couple of screwballs decided to chase me down. At least I am still relatively healthy. I will have to make a few hands next hour to get deep in the money.
As is the case in stud, 1 big hand changes everything. I got chased down with aces upfor a guy to make a str8 on 7th street. Crippled me and I didn't last much longer after that as I was left with less than 3 big bets.
Overall, it was fun and I played poker for nearly 9 hours to make 80 cents. Which in most cases would piss someone off, but since itis exponentially better than my current hourly rate :) I'll take it.
I have now officially started my bankroll on PS.
Last Update: January 6, 2008, 2:00PM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 4, 2008, 10PM: Played 4 hours, Made $35.00 at U of M
$0.10/0.20 Texas Hold'em
 First time we have played in a while and no one was willing to bust...one kid rebought 4 times :)....It was nice to get the game as deepstacked as a good cash game should be after people rebought enough times (most start with $5). I played ok but not great, missed bets on the river probably 2-3 times and paid off a kid in a spot where i KNEW FOR SURE he had me. But, i got my money in good 3-4 times and had it hold each time which was nice. An example of how soft the game is:
I'm UTG + 1 and raise pot with JJ, one weak tight player calls on my left and then a really loose player calls on the button. When it gets to the BB she min-reraised. I didn't know what to do because this was one of the tighter players at the table and i had one guy to my left who prolly would have called too. So I min-raise it back knowing the weak-tight player will fold and the loose player will most likely fold because "raise-reraise" is scary to him no matter the size. At the same time i will be able to find out cheaply where the BB is. It worked just like i was hoping with two folds and the BB just calling. The flop came T82 rainbow and the BB checked to me (i now thought she had AK or AQ) and with $7.50 in the pot and $11 left in her stack i decided to just ship it at pick up the $7.50 and not risk an over card hitting that turns me into a nit. She thought and thought and i told her she could pick either one of my cards to see and so i showed her the J she pointed to and then instead of realizing that i obv. had JJ she thought "probably AJ" and called with AQ. I dodged the 6 outs and won a big pot.....can't wait til next week.
Last Update: January 5, 2008, 9:51AM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 4, 2008, 8PM: at Absolute Poker
No-Limit Texas Hold'em Tournament (2,310th out of 5000 Players)
Tonight's tournament was just a bust for me. I wasn't getting any hole cards that I could work with and was getting blinded out early. I lost about $500 of my starting $1500 when I had to bluff to cover up not hitting the flop with my KJ.
Some more folds later I come across KJ again in early position with 30/60 blinds. One folds, one calls and one raises to $180. I'm already feeling pressure so I called the raise. Flop comes down 7c 9c Jh. Early position raised and then seat behind me re-raises to $1200. At this point I've let myself get more than a little annoyed at my cards so I called and went all in. Turn was 4c and then the river came... Qh.
Three hands were shown... my jacks, pocket AA and the winning hand: QJ.
The winner did comment that he couldn't fault my call and that it was just a bad river. I would've lost anyway even if that river hadn't come because the seat behind me slow played his pocket AA like no one's business.
Oh well, not every night can be good.
Last Update: January 4, 2008, 8:48PM | Permalink (0 Comments)
January 3, 2008, 10PM: Played 5 hours, 30 minutes, Broke Even at PS
Free-Roll Razz Tournament (18th out of 4856 Players)
Freeroll, top 88 get seat to $2K stud tourney
Just messing around when I jumped into this freeroll, but here I am over 2 hours into it and still playing. For some reason I just can't get myself to dump chips and go to bed. It could be that I don't ever play Razz. I wish I could play this well in my other tourneys. My starting hand selection has been good, I have been selectively aggressive, and I have been laying hands down early without chasing.
Whatever the outcome, it leaves me with the question: Should I look into playing razz, or was I unlucky and played a freroll on a night where I was actually playing poker well?
At third break there are 295 left, I have about 1.5 times avg stack. Even though this is a freeroll crowd (don't care, take chances, etc.), getting to the top 5% of any large field tourney is still pretty good.
Fourth break 111 left, I have over 2 x avg so won't play a hand unless forced to or below 6 starting. I guess I should read up on stud before Sunday afternoon.
Made the seat, now just playing for pride and waiting for the wife to get home from work. Just need to make sure I can get up and around Sunday by noon.
Last Update: January 4, 2008, 1:46AM | Permalink (0 Comments)
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