Mid Month Update (Belated!)

Posted by icemonkey9 on Dec 18, 2008 in General | 2 comments

Sorry that I didn't update on the 15th as promised for my mid-month update. The reason I did not post was because I hadn't played so there really wasn't much to post. With some work things done, I have been using all my spare time today to get in some hands, and today has been nice and profitable. I think I am finally getting the hang of 50nl 6max, as well as I've not been taking quite as many nasty coolers so I'll definitely take the positive run I've had today.

There are some cool things happening with my poker life. I've added another site I'm writing for on top of PokerHandReplays.com, in the form of MacPoker.com . The sites don't compete at all, as I write strategy for PHR and I write about playing poker on a Mac for MacPoker. It's a nice supplemental income and I hope to do more with both freelance gigs. On top of that I have something cooking of my own, a little pet project that doesn't compete with anyone in the marketplace actually, so we'll see where that goes.

So here's the obligatory mid-month graph. It's be a real dog fight to .500 so to speak - meaning getting myself back to breakeven for the month.

So there you have it. A crazy couple of downswings followed by a great big upswing. Now I'm back where I started the month pretty much which I am happy about. I actually begin taking lessons from a 6max coach tomorrow and I am pleased. I got some advise from this coach today and it made a nice difference in my game, in addition to using a handy program in PokerRazor to analyze hands after I play.

Here's some fun hands to end the post. See you next time!

Wow I win a stack with a set! Woohoo!

KK Loses to ... OMG.

QQ Wins!!! Wow!!! YSY!

The Software I Use

Posted by icemonkey9 on Dec 12, 2008 in General | 2 comments

I was asked by a friend of mine what software I use for my daily routine. It's a good question, and so below I have listed the software I use for daily professional and personal use.

Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox 3
Best and safest web browser out there, and it's free. Be sure to use the google search bar at the top right, that's how Mozilla makes money

Email (Web): Gmail
Stripped down and quick, just like Google, Gmail is a very user friendly email client. I actually have multiple email accounts using gmail.

Email (Professional): Outlook
There's no escaping that MS Outlook is the industry standard for professional email. With the calendar and sharing features it's a very useful tool.

FTP: SmartFTP Client
I got stuck into this and probably should have moved over to FileZilla but SmartFTP has proven more than reliable over the years of using it.

AntiVirus: Norton Anti-Virus
An absolute must have for any PC user. Now that injection attacks occur from websites you visit (hackers get into them without them even knowing sometimes) getting Norton even WITH a hardware firewall is recommended.

Photoware: Adobe Photoshop CS3
Since my professional life revolves around design I learned and mastered Photoshop early on. It's too expensive and robust for 90% of users (thus the "Elements" version) but I use this piece of software almost daily.

IM Chat Client: Pidgin & Skype
I was using Trillian for the longest time but had many recommend Pidgin which I have found to be straight-forward and useful. Getting my MSN/AOL/Yahoo chat under one roof was effective for my purposes. I use Skype for video/audio and am very impressed with the quality.

Poker Sites: PokerStars
It's once every blue moon that I log into FullTilt Poker, and my UB account isn't used anymore. Stars is where I play.

Poker Statistics/Tracking Program: Holdem Manager v1.07
PokerTracker lost me once the HUD kept crashing and they put the software BACK into beta after the commercial release. HEM has proven stable and their progressive builds have added more and more usefulness and streamlining the process to improve speed.

Music: iTunes
Is there a choice? I certainly don't use a Zune.

Operating System: Windows XP SP3 (PC) & Leopard (MAC)
Don't even get me started on Windows Vista and what a horrible piece of monkey crap that is Vista. XP is the best OS for PC, and Leopard is just plain the best OS. The "new" version of Windows (version 7) is reportedly what Vista should have been ... beta builds are already being leaked.

Video Editing: Final Cut Pro Studio 2 (Mac)
Absolutely the best editing software I've ever used (Premiere, AViD, etc) and a very powerful piece of software. There's nothing like it and nothing else I could ever recommend.

And there we went.

Posted by icemonkey9 on Dec 11, 2008 in General | 0 comments

So yesterday I took 24 straight hours away from poker. I didn't think about poker. I didn't eat poker. I didn't sleep poker. No poker, I didn't watch a poker video, I didn't read any blogs, I didn't visit CardsChat, 2+2, or Stox. Nothing.

It felt good. Kinda weird but good. So after the 24 hours was up I got in touch with SavagePenguin, a standup guy who is winning steadily at 50nl 6max. He railed my session and with him he got me playing a little more nittish and 3betting just a hair more. The results were very positive. We really were in synch with things and HA threads on the forums assessed that I've been playing most hands pretty well too despite the results.

After my second session, however, I realize I really do need a longer break than just 24 hours. I was playing very tight, but there are about five things off the top of my head that prevented me from winning. I feel like listing them but they sound like excuses. Big loss hands came from two busted sets (I hit three sets in about 1000 hands) and one bad straight hand, and I ended up the day with another loss, although minor (I think like -$20 to $25).

To sum it up, basically I am going to totally pull the plug for a little while and not do anything poker related until after the weekend. I will, however, write articles for PokerHandReplays as that's a source of income but I can probably provide some good insight into making tough laydowns that will make you feel horrible inside

So - take care blog-readers and poker players out there. Like the story of the Phoenix, I plan to arise from the ashes born anew and fly blazing into the sky like before me.

And … HERE … WE … GO!

Posted by icemonkey9 on Dec 9, 2008 in poker, UB Scandal | 3 comments

I stole that title from the famous line in "The Dark Knight" which came out today on BluRay. I was actually at Best Buy when it opened up and picked it up for a good price. Best action movie, maybe ever, and certainly the best summer blockbuster I can remember seeing in the theater. The IMAX edition of that film was something to behold.

Anyways - I have been thinking since my last post which wasn't too long ago about my personal focus and the focus of this blog. I don't like how it's a whining session for me most of the time bemoaning the odd bad play and odd beat I take playing micro-stakes poker. Since when did I sweat losing $96?

From now on I'll talk about my progress as a player, things I am focusing on learning, and issues at the tables I am finding difficult to master. On top of that I'll try to broaden the horizon of this blog to a little bit more holistic viewpoints about poker and the people I meet and things that I do inside this strange world. I'm also going to try to liven up the blog with a few more pictures. For now it just might be me and sitting here in front of my PC which won't be terribly exciting, but I'll try to drag up photos with me at various WPT events or whatever I might find. I'll throw in the mid-month and end of month updates for you graph-lovers.

The 60 Minutes "Ultimate Bet Scandal"

Wow. For those of you that aren't aware of my opinion of the media basically it boils down to "don't believe what they tell you" and for you to try to find the truth for yourself. Sensational "journalism" like 60 Minutes, Dateline, and other shows like this are nothing more than tabloid TV wrapped in a nice professional network TV wrapper. Years ago they requested an interview with the WWE (the mega-mogul Wrestling organization) and interviewed Vince McMahon and Mick Foley specifically. They taped these guys, showed them footage of WWE broadcasts, and the got their reaction. When it aired they mis-matched (purposefully) the footage with the reaction shots to basically make these guys look like heartless monsters. Fortunately, Vince McMahon (as much as you might think he's nuts) is a pretty smart business man and had his cameras rolling there the whole time as well. After the 60 Minutes episode aired and showed the WWE in a hugely negatively light (which was a 180 degree turn from where they said the story angle would go about backyard wrestling), it was revealed that 60 Minutes had performed some shady editing. The industry reaction? None.

That takes us to the ugly blot on the face of online poker - the Ultimate Bet / Absolute Poker scandal. With everything said in the previous paragraph, I thought they could have been a lot uglier than they were, and fortunately enough found two very reputable people (plus one semi-shady guy) to talk about the incident and how in this case, the players ended up policing themselves because the industry is unregulated. I read a poker associate's blog (Nat Arem) and he had some good insights that coincided with my own.

• What the hell is 60 Minutes using these days for stock footage!? I think an intern at Cal State Fullerton could have come up with a better shot for "off-shore gambling" than a far off shot of what could have been downtown Buffalo.

• Nat mentioned that they did mention in the piece that online poker is illegal, and I didn't think about it at the time, but he's right - it's NOT illegal.
• Nat also mentions that the shot of the UB offices in the 60 Minutes piece is actually his local shopping mall in Costa Rica, and that the actual offices are in their own separate building. Leave it to 60 Minutes to make this company sound absoultely as shady as possible, aka "they operate out of a shopping mall"! Dispicable.

Anyways, of course I got the call today from my mom, who heard it from my uncle that online poker is totally and 100% rigged and anyone playing it is a fool and will have all their money stolen. Fortunately my mom has a master's degree and trusts my raw brain power, and I explained how old this incident was, and the circumstances around it. I also let her know that I seriously doubt (well, maybe I should more with my recent run lately hahaha) top-level sites like Pokerstars and FullTilt are rigged, but I suppose we'll never really know until regulations are in place. I gave what I thought to be a really good analogy:

Do you think that card games in old casinos on Fremont Street in Las Vegas could be rigged? Yeah, I bet some of them are.

Do you think the $5 blackjack tables at Caesar's Palace in Vegas is rigged? No way. It's too high profile a place PLUS the stakes are too low for anyone to care.

So that's my take on things ... hopefully this change of pace is received well.

Horrible Session. Confidence ZERO.

Posted by icemonkey9 on Dec 9, 2008 in General | 5 comments

Well I dropped more than 2 buyins just now in less than an hour of play which may not sound horrible but I think the wear and tear of over a month of breakeven or losing poker has finally wore me down. I've tried reading, I've tried taking breaks, and I even asked for help and tried to hire someone (unsuccessfully) to help my game as a coach (other efforts have gone fruitless). Seems like everyone is having their own problems and too busy to help these days and I get it. Someone once told me a wise saying, "Nobody in this world is ever going to feel sorry for you because everyone is too busy feeling sorry for themselves." I guess I shouldn't expect someone's help and advice to make that one magic tweak that will let me win and have my sets hold up or let my big hands get action and win.

Not sure what to do anymore. I feel like I've tried it all. I guess I could "play more" but things aren't fun now. I suppose I have all different kind of posts in this blog, from brag posts, to confidence posts, to rant posts, but I think the posts like this one (depression posts) are just the absolute worst.

It's been a while since I've felt like a winner. It's kinda weird because before I felt very much a part of a group (mainly to cardschat) and felt that group support flow. Not anymore. I think everyone is too wrapped up in their losses or their own goals and our group mentality has suffered a bit. Maybe it's the losses mounting that is making me feel this way, obviously I am posting this just after this session. I guess I should "feel fortunate" that it's only 2 buyins, but it's just more losses this month and I don't see growth or gain.

Well, you can enjoy today's hands. Nothing special just some bad spots I got myself into. Any pick me ups or advice on the hands would really be appreciated.

Stupid Flop Betting, Doesn't Matter

Actually I did a misclick on the minbet there but the result was the same. I get it in as a 66-33% favorite with a set and he's drawing to a flush or a gutshot and has to avoid a 4, T, or 2 ... and he hits and he wins and I lose a stack (this was at the end of the session).

How Do These Guys Just Always End Up Holding...

Our villain here is a 39/4/2 drooling zombie who has played in a totally bizarre manner since we've sat down. The call post-flop on 2nd look just seems like a huge spew move ... what am I calling here (outside of AK) am I beating? Nothing! Horrible play on my part.

Wow Really?

I'm faced with a huge river valuetown bet. I tanked on this one before I made the call with a made fullhouse at the river. What beats me here that he might have? A King or pocket Aces. A flush *might* make this bet, and certainly any Ace hand would make this bet. He's a 46/1/4 player so I'm thinking he's not the brightest bulb in the hardware store ... but sure enough he shows me the King. Just blahhhhhh.