Poker Blog – icemonkey9 on PokerStars

Well I decided to be different and play in the Bodog Freeroll sponsored by CardsChat. 70 people, 5 paid, and I’ve never tried the site out.

Bodog Impression: I like the table and layout. I hate that HEM doesn’t work (no HHs!?), hate the bet slider, and was chuckling at the traffic. Decent graphics. Heard mixed reviews about payouts when I asked about it at the tables.

Freeroll Impression: I had a lot of fun playing with CC regs that I normally don’t play with, like Eagle Jim, Buckster, DJ11, and more. Outside of that some idiot “mclarkj” decided to trash talk to me *after* I was eliminated after two straight coolers. It left a VERY sour taste in my mouth to think that is normal in CC freerolls.

So how’d you lose? Well, I finished in 11th place … Eagle Jim had half my stack (I had about 8.5k and blinds were 200/400) and pushed AIPF and I have KK. His A6 hits the straight. Ugh. Next hand I get QJ in the CO so I shove and sure enough KK is on the BTN and I don’t hold up. The end.

Will you ever freeroll again? I doubt I’ll ever MTT again! Man everytime I play an MTT I’m reminded how horribly lame they are. I might play in a super secret CC MTT but I have no idea when the next one is.

So I had Google Ads on here for 2 months I think … and accumulated a cool $8 for my efforts of pimping out my blog. I get about 50 readers a day on here so I thought it would amount to more but apparently times are tough for the tofu-eating Northern Californian sad-sacks at Google. Anyways long story short, I found out through a friend (thanks KD!) that they were feeding ads for flipping poker bots! W – T – F! So as soon as I saw that myself today, I took the ads off and replaced them with banners promoting a site that’s not even up and running (but will be in late January).

Also I think today might be “mafia day” or something. Maybe some 3betting/4betting article got out and EVERYONE on Stars read it because over the 1 hour I played today I was seeing 3betting stats globally 300% higher than I normally see them. Yes, I checked the stats.

So I did something smart, I adjusted and just waited with good hands (played tighter than normal) and got KK AIPF against QQ. I won, and came out a nice winner for the session.

Today started out with two banner sessions each worth +75. There were some really nice heater hands that were able to squeek in this month so that I’m not totally hating December! Hooray! The bankroll has definitely swelled the last week, and it was overdue … and with the blessing of the coach, I dipped the toe into 100nl 6max today for a quick 45 minute (200 hand) session. The 100nl game seems to have slightly more people who know what they are doing, but that’s about the only difference from my first glimpse as compared to 50nl. And FYI I ended up +$9 at 100nl today

I’m not sure if I will be able to play at all tomorrow. I have no set plans but if I am feeling better (and my wife) I think we will end up getting out of the house for a while, and there will not be time for poker. Plus I need my rest, so I am not sure if I will play that “one last session” before the year is done. If I don’t I can be happy that I secured Goldstar for next month and had a good month profit wise after it looked *very* bleak early on.

The end of year post (which I am hoping to make rather long and retrospective) will come once I am sure I have played my last hand of the year. After that on the 1st I will write my 2009 overall goals (although I keep having trouble figuring them out due to the nature of the UIGEA legislature being up in the air). I played 3 210fpp and tanked in all three. I hate them now.

AK Hip Hip … Hooray

You’ve Seen The Fish Suck Out 37 Times in December. Chalk 1 up for Ice (finally!)

The biggest pot won during my short 100nl session

Today was Super Donkfest Sunday and featured two of the largest online poker tournaments ever (I did not participate), and the most traffic I have ever seen on Stars (at one point 250k). I also enjoyed a FullTilt Poker flashback when Stars crumbled underneath the weight of the traffic and the ring games got shut down basically (nobody could sit down at a table once someone left).

Once that all got taken care of and before and after the Chargers decimating the Broncos, I got in 2,132 hands and also had another coaching session. This time my coach brought along another one of his students, Jesse, who is a pretty smart guy and a good player. During the session, Jesse said the sentence I hate to hear the most (no offence against him, he dind’t know):

“You run horrible” – direct quote (twice during session)

It’s well documented that my coolers are definitely from the twilight zone but today definitely takes the cake for “top 5 all year WTF hands” … and somehow I ended up in the positive. The good thing is that my coach was very impressed that I didn’t tilt at all during the session. Yay for me.

You would like to see some of these hands? Okay. First I have a pretty section just for KK!

Standard KK Cooler Part 1

Standard KK Cooler Part 2 “Revenge of the Shortstacker”

Standard KK Cooler Part 3 “Cardrack 76/26/2 player hits”

That one really bit but she had been hitting EVERYTHING within the last 30 minutes there which is why I slowed down. Can’t believe her PF play with AT off. Unreal.

KK … OMG WTF ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Again, I can’t believe the preflop play of the villain here. The stats just don’t matter but I take pride in getting it in way ahead here. Just a bad cooler.

So that is it in terms of just KK coolers, but I got a 1 more that you’ll love…

Worst Cooler IMO of my entire career

Yep. I was being sweated during this hand too and all of us just said “NO F’ING WAY” all at the same time. I think we were even in harmony when we said it. Pretty unreal to have a boat and lose to the straight flush.

Anyways I imagine after all that negativity you’d like to see one or two hands where I win. Sure, no problem!

Huge Win for KK

Yes yes yes, turns out I can win ONE hand with KK afterall. Yay.

AA Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I liked this one, I can watch it over and over again.

So after all those ups and downs I ended up a winner today. Kinda amazing! The good news personally is that I somehow managed to retain goldstar for the month. I really wanted to keep goldstar, the FPPs are definitely worth something (right!?) and who knows what promotions are in the works at Stars that I might benefit from.

Anyways, that’s today and the crazy up and down day I had. Hooray!

So I just played in my first 5400fpp satty to the millions, and boy did it SUCK. On my right was JohnSmiley1 (arguably the best HU player on stars), a SuperNova, and a SuperNova Elite. Man did THAT suck. Everyone played super tight, ridiculously tight … and I got 1 hand.

My Biggest Hand

Yeah … I guess getting action isn’t exactly my game.

Beginning of the End, Part 1

A gorgeous 3 outer on the river caught by the villain spells the beginning of the end for icemonkey9.

The End of the End, Part 1

Preflop I’m only a 38% favorite “against the field” but I hit the turn with my Queen. I have to avoid any Ace (2 left), a Jack (3 left), or a 3 (2 left) for a total of 7 outs plus whatever clubs are left (just noticed that). Just not my day.

Today I got in 2 sessions for about 625 hands. Came away +$22 which is nothing big but hey I’ll take a winning day and day I can get it! I made a good laydown although it wasn’t a very hard one given the board.

AA Laydown

Given the board, like I said earlier, it wasn’t hard at all to let this go, in fact I snap folded. Unfortunately it came after I learned my lesson. Take a look at this beauty …

KK … ack!

Villain in the hand is a 45/18/2 player over about 100 hands. Obviously, he’s showing up with a wide range here. I get check raised for double the pot but only half a stack (not even) so I snapped call this putting him on a combo draw at best. I put the numbers into Pokerazor and saw that my hand is best 91.8% of the time and our equity versus the villain’s range is 71%. Pretty compelling evidence to say that I made the right move. BTW the straight represents the top 3.4% of his range. Peachy

Sprint Toward the End

Well I like the fact that PokerStars is doing a bunch of fun free end of year promotions but they all don’t affect me at all. I don’t have $600 laying around to deposit to get a $150 bonus just to withdrawl back the $600 so I won’t be doing that. There’s a fun “random person” giveaway where they pick someone at the ring tables (could be me) and give a nice big fat amount of money to that person. I guess my odds are 1-40k on any given moment, so I am not counting on that hitting. I don’t play in the millions (I never have time on Sundays) so the super duper $2.5m prize for the tournament doesn’t excite me either. Sigh …

Anyways I am 510 VPPs away from retaining goldstar … so that’s tremendous and I will be grinding my butt off the last few days to clear it.

Random Thoughts

Chuckts put me on to Pokerazor (go to www.pokerazor.com, it’s freeware) and I’ve been using it after my sessions to confirm that moves I make in hands are +EV essentially. For some hands I’ve actually been surprised how far ahead or behind I really am when I thought it might have been a coinflip spot. If you’re into improving and analyzing your play it comes highly recommended, and it’s fun to give yourself problems to solve.

Personal Stuff

Christmas was spent with my wife and mom. We opened presants and I got some nifty clothes. My wife got nifty clothes. My mom liked her CD and the fact I got her tickets to a basketball game.

So finally I ran well for the most part today … hit some hands and won some money. I was at +160 for the day and decided that one more session would be a great thing … and then “it” happened and of course I get fucked again (warning … on tilt). So I just “quit while I was ahead” and for such a great day it’s so crappy that I just get hit by two gross coolers, one of which I can’t even explain his thinking – I had an overpair and put him all in, he called with Ace High (air) … and hit his 3 outer on the river for about $40. I finish the day +100ish.

ANYWAYS – no whining right? Sorry. At least I can say I am at $200ish below EV the last week or so. Yay for that.

I can’t believe how dramatically my mood just changed lol … this was going to be a brag post! I really wanted to try to get in another 350-500 hands as I try to make a late surge to keep Goldstar which is in serious jeopardy. But I recognized I was very tilty from the two beats (the other I flopped trip Kings, put him in, and he had a gutshot+bottom pair and hit the gutshot on the river) just now so I stopped playing.

Again – sorry! Sheesh! Sometimes you have to get it out of your system though – right? Right.

Okay now that I’ve moved on from my piss poor ending, I can say that I played well and did make great moves and good reads and got myself out of bad situations and put my opponents in bad ones. That felt good. It felt good to hit some big hands, but I did lose with quads once today. Crazy I know.

Finally … here’s a screenshot of a HUGE hand I hit. It’s such a big hand there’s not even a name for it!

Today was more of yesterday unfortunately. I don’t have the strength or patience to write anything interesting. I feel beat up. I got asked a good question – how do I feel about my game, and the answer is that I feel more in control, and I feel better about my play. My stats are more “6 maxish” but the wins/loss thing is on my mind. I’m just not winning. Am I trying to get better? Yes. I am analyzing hands, looking at equity, and running through the hands in pokerazor trying to understand whats happening in the hands once they are over to see if my moves are right.

Anyways, 4 of 6 sessions today were losers. Lost a good chunk of money. I’ll spare you the cooler and bad beat stories, they’re tiring and sad.

I looked at 6 hands I lost a good amount of change with and here’s what the numbers came out with.

Hand 1: 98% best. 80% equity. (showdown lost)

Hand 2: 75% best. 62% equity (showdown lost)

Hand 3: 86% best. 72% equity (showdown lost)

Hand 4: 86% best. 70% equity (showdown lost)

I guess my moves were good… anyways not sure if I will play anymore this year, I might call it quits for now… or just play a little tomorrow if I feel good and get the dozens of things I have to do get done.

Yesterday I got in three sessions for a total of 739 hands. The good was that I was very happy with my play and felt that out of those 739 hands I only played 1 or 2 poorly, meaning my game was on the ball for sure. I had a second coaching session and my coach said that I’ve learned and progressed from the last time we worked together and that was a reassuring notion. Again to reiterate, I felt good about my game and I still do. For you results oriented people (I have to admit I might be a little bit of one haha) the bottom line was very disappointing.

There were a few coolers and a couple of times I saw the villain show up with the top 1.5% of their hand range, as confirmed by Pokerazor. I’m hoping yesterday was the “crappy” day and that today is the “hero” day because I’m planning one of the longest poker days of my entire poker life today – basically from rise-n-shine to nighty-nighty. Wish me good play and good luck!

Here’s some of the highlight hands from yesterday…

AQ Against a Big 85/39 Donk

AJ and my big hero call at the river

AA … my 4bet size was small, but probably wouldn’t have changed results.

QQ Squeeze Move Here against Btn 15% 3Bettor

AA Might Be Overplayed @ Turn against 31/10 Villain, BUT I Had Great Equity

As many players at the 100nl and 200nl levels will typically tell you, getting a 1-on-1 coaching experience can be the best investment you can make in your poker game. Getting key concepts (even complicated ones) is best learned by joining a site like StoxPoker where they make the presentation and show you real hand examples of what they are talking about. However to plug those small leaks a personal poker coach can mean all the difference in the world.

I’ve finally jumped into the poker coaching arena and had my first lesson last night. Before getting this first coaching session I had finally gotten myself to breakeven for the month, and last night I just shot through the moon while being sweated. Here are some thoughts about my coaching experience ….

- For someone who is overrolled at 50nl I understand that paying for coaching at 50nl might not be worth the $/investment it would be at 100nl or 200nl. However the coaching last night really helped me out and will lead to tweaks in my game I will want to master before moving up a level.

- The cost of the session was reasonable in relation to the buyin of the level I got coaching for. I think that’s an important key selling factor for people.

- I’d easily make this a once a week regular regiment of my poker life … forever. I think this could really prevent downswings from getting worse due to tilt / bad habits cropping up.

- I was very impressed with my coach’s ability, communication, and approach to the whole experience.

I haven’t released my coach’s name for a few reasons and I am sure he understands. Once a few things fall into place I’ll reveal the total details of the experience but for now I’m tremendously happy with the investment I made. There are a lot of guys that are super hesitant about paying for a coach but there is a different feel than a simple sweat session and at the worst you pay for one session and stop it there if you don’t like the experience.

Anyways, that’s my 2 cents about coaching for now. I was glad to hear the feedback I was hearing about my game – basically I was making the right bet sizes, had a good pre and post flop game, and just had about 2 or 3 things to work on (basically opening up my game a little bit) overall.