Poker Blog – icemonkey9 on PokerStars

Every month I go through a stretch where my poop stinks to high heaven … meaning I just run so bad someone from somewhere just says to me, “Dude you run like SH*T” or “Dude you run HORRIBLE” … and I actually appreciate it because it means I’m playing fine. Usually right after that I also find myself running pretty decent, so the theory will be put to the test later tonight and tomorrow.

Here’s the fun hands over the last few days. Enjoy

Ewww!

Well, guess I had to call the river

You just know he hit that river, ya know?


A 86-14% Favorite, I lose

How many times have I posted this almost exact same hand this month!?

I went through 8 of the top 10 loser hands yesterday to see what went wrong. Basically it was a combination of BAD river bets, villains hitting and showing top-end ranges, and a little bit of coolers. Here’s what I came up with I think it’s kinda interesting so hopefully anyone reading can follow the notes, but I put this here for the next time I go through a brutal day to remind myself what it takes to get through it.

Breakdown of WTF happened yesterday.

Hand 1. AIPF with KK vs QQ. Q hit the flop, classic bad beat.
Result -$100

Analysis: Pure bad beat, time to move on and not think about that one.

——====——

Hand 2: Overplayed pocket jacks. JJ I 3bet preflop from the BB (he called) as an overpair on a 5T42 board (2 clubs) stacked off, ran into QQ. A little bit unlucky here but I had to keep QQ-AA in his range I suppose. Pokerazor says my hand is best 79% of the time and my equity is 62.7%.

Result -$91

Analysis: Overplayed the pocket pair. QQ should have been in his range but I thought he had AK the whole time since he didn’t 4bet me. A little unlucky, but an overplayed hand.

——====——

Hand 3: QT limped in the BB and 1 limper in MP who is a 38/11/5. I flop top two pair. I stack off against him as a 58-42 favorite (he has AJ for the gutshot draw and flush draw). He hits the draw. When I stacked off pokerazor said my hand is best 98.7% of the time and I have 84.4% equity.

Result: -$89

Analysis: I like this stackoff in the 60-40 situation. I just got unlucky again. Even when he hit his draw I had plenty of outs to recover, but I airballed.

——====——

Hand 4: J2 limped against MP limper who is 44/14/3. I hit trips on the flop and he calls me down to river which fills a flush draw and he stacks. I called. Villain shows the flush and wins. Pokerazor says my hand is best 98.6% of the time and I have 94.5% equity.

Result: -$78

Analysis: Given the board it was probably a bad bad bad call, but I had put him on a J or even a pocket pair like 99. A player like this I am ahead so often, but when his runner runner flush was good. Even though Pokerazor might say I should overwhelmingly have called this bet, I have doubts that it was a good call.

——====——

Hand 5: J9 checks in BB against MP limper (55/13) and played to the river I hit a flush. He min-raises my river valuebet and I shove, he calls showing a fullhouse. Pokerazor says my hand is best 15.7% of the time and my equity was 31%.

Result: -$78

Analysis: Bad bad bad play at the river on my part. Big time boner.

——====——

Hand 6: I 3bet a TAG from the BB with AK and he flats ($11). Flop comes J97 and I check-call. He stacks the river 3 that fills a flush (I do have the A of hearts). I fold. he shows 99 for the set.

Result: -$60

Analysis: There was some metagame as this villain was someone I know from CardsChat (Irexes). I’m very surprised he decided to continue with 99 and feel he got lucky on the flop hitting his set, but made the right move by pricing me out at the river (I had put him on either QQ or JJ actually). The hand was fine though, if he wants to setmine against me without the odds, great.

——====——

Hand 7: QQ in MP makes a raise and a caller (22/18). Flop is T64 rainbow and he flats my cbet. Turn is a 5 and I cbet and he flats again. River 7 comes and I half-pot it, he flats and shows 44 for the set. Pokerazor says my hand is best 91% of the time and my equity is best 77%.

Result: -$49

Analysis: I really should have checked the river once there was four cards to the straight on the board. My river bet was bad, and even with a set he would have checked too. So that part was bad … but I just saw someone hit a set against me, that’ll happen.

——====——

Hand 8: AKs UTG I make a raise and a nit (14/11) calls in LP. Flop is checked at 953 two diamonds, Q turn I cbet, he calls, river is an A of diamonds, I pot-bet and he calls and shows AQ for two pair. Pokerazor said my hand was best 69% of the time and equity was 60%.

Result: -$30

Analysis: Again even though I hit my ace on the river the diamond draw hit and I should have check-called. Bad play at the river.

I just had the worst day I’ve ever had in over a year of playing poker. In fact I’ve lost more money today than I ever have. It’s “only 4.5 buys” or actually in “money” terms -$450. I kinda feel like I am sick to my stomach and it feels like my heart got crushed and I can barely lift my arms. Just bleh. This is the first real “HORRIBLE!” day I’ve had at 100nl. I’ve had the bullshit hands happen it seems but this is the first time where absolutely nothing went my way and cards hit my opponents and every draw for them hit. I think I was something like $275 below EV … but for the basic end-of-the-day shit I just ran right into a brick wall at 80 mph.

Now I feel like a total idiot “for the talk with the wife” since I just blew my buffer zone and am now well under my $5k line where I withdraw 50-50 profits. I also am deflated since it means that I will most likely have to wait longer to see my first poker paycheck.

Anyways I am not sure how to recover because I just finished the last of the 4 sessions and I am still in shell-shock. I probably shouldn’t be posting right now … who knows, who cares right? So anyways that’s today. I kinda feel like someone hit me in the head now too. This feels terrible. How about I share some hands.

I Run Horrible.

No Really, I run HORRIBLE.

Cooler … just ugh.

Why oh why?

Those are 4 hands I have a few more I can share but at this point I doubt anyone wants to see anymore if they even make it this far. Sorry for the rant post and yeah I know “it’s only 4.5 buyins” but fuckall I mean that’s a shit load of money to a guy like me.

I had planned to play until 11pm tonight but I am witting 2 hours early for obvious reasons. After I get work done tomorrow around 4pm I was planning on basically playing straight through until 8:30 but now I have no clue what i will do with myself. Talk about blowing my plans to holy heck!

I’ve been playing online poker for a year now. It started with a $240 deposit and now it is what it is – a healthy bankroll for playing 100nl hold’em. I’ve been building up the bankroll to basically get to 100nl or 200nl and start actually winning and withdrawing money. Now that I’ve hit the bankroll milestone of $5k, I’ve enacted my 2009 goal of once hitting said milestone to split my winnings 50-50 with myself. 50% will stay in the bankroll to pad it, and 50% will come to me so I can use it towards my life.

I have wanted to talk to my wife about playing poker a little more seriously. I want to be able to put in 20k hands without sweating it and ideally take a stab at 30k hands a month regularly. I showed her my HEM stats for the month, how much I’ve been making an hour so far this month, and historically my career graph. I put it pretty logical to her that I’d like her to know and support me and that I do NOT plan to have poker take the time of anything else in my life (our marriage, work, community service, time with family).

Fortunately my wife understands I love poker and knows I’m pretty good. She ain’t bad herself I might add, she does well when we have home cash games. Anyways she was supportive and stressed that she didn’t want me “losing the $5k I’ve made” and “letting poker take over my entire life” which of course wouldn’t happen. I was really happy and am constantly reminded why I married the right lady – she’s understanding, sweet, but stands her ground for what she believes in at the same time. The truth regarding all this is that poker will probably be no more of a commitment in my life than it is already, I can just play and get the hands in.

So this definitely makes for a shift in playing poker. I’m not just playing because I love playing the game and want to “level up” as a challenge. I’m playing as a part-time supplemental income now with the support and following of my spouse. It does seem like the circumstances around playing are a lot more “real” but I am not feeling any added pressure at all (is that odd???). Anyways my wife is going out of town Sunday afternoon and will be gone until Monday night, then she is gone for another 2 days later in the week, giving me 4 days of play … I’ve done the math and even if I played 8 hours per day I would still come up short of Platinum but I might give it a run just to see.

Of course after my brag from last post the doomswitch DID get pushed (just slightly to be honest) and I enjoyed YET ANOTHER AA losing to KK AIPF (all in preflop) and it’s been a wacky month … I can’t remember a month seeing so many KK facing to AA AIPF and AA losing to KK or QQ AIPF. Ah well, I only have little room to complain! Here’s my doomswitch hand from the session right after my brag post:

May the Poker Gods be appeased by me asking if it’s okay that I post this. I mean, it’s a big milestone and one day I’ll want to look back at it. I ran well. I played “pretty well” but wasn’t 100% on top of my game, but it all came together for my winningest day ever playing online poker. Usually these brags are immediately followed by posts of rants/raves/coveching about losing to horrible coolers/bad beats/etc … so … well … I’m keeping an even head about this and just plan the same mode of attack I’ve been using all month at the tables.

SO – on to the results. (click to enlarge)

I managed to run at a white-hot $85.92/hour pace. It’s pretty safe to say I am not making half of that at my current job (the good news is that I work for myself PLUS this win rate is totally and utterly unsustainable so I am not quitting anytime soon haha).

At 100nl Full Ring I put in 1,316 hands for +$382.05 which equates to 14.52BB/100. Yeah, I’ll enjoy that one for a while

I put in some time at 10nl and 25nl today for different reasons. I play 9 tables right now and BW (my coach) has suggested me trying to add some tables so I tested out a 12-table session at 10nl which proved to be too much for me to handle. I’ll continue to try to put in these 12-table 10nl sessions to get me trained to do it later on at my existing level of play. For 25nl I was trying to make a video to help the Acolytes (I have given a name to my stable of 10nl players that include people like King Curtis, Inscore77, Jurn8, and the Shrog) as they move up in levels since nobody has made a video for the underlings in forever. But when you’re seeing money like this it’s understandable to think why a 200nl player couldn’t make time for stuff like that. ANYWAYS – I was making a 6 table 25nl video and it didn’t go well at all, so I scrapped it and decided to try again (which I will do after this blog entry).

So it’s just back to the grind tomorrow. I am going to try to get everything squared away at work a little early by getting in early so I can quit earlier so I can get in another 1500-2k hands tomorrow. I secured GoldStar status today which was a cakewalk … unfortunately I’m less than half-way to Platinum so I’ll have to save that for another day.

The good thing is that after a year I pretty much know what will put me on tilt. When I’m on tilt I am not playing my best (also know as my “A-Game” for you Angelo fans) and my winrate spirals down, thus it isn’t in my best interest to play when on tilt. My remedy is that I take a big step back and breathe deeply, and get other tasks for the day done before returning.

So here’s what happens in a session that will get me to tilt:

Step 1: Idiot Enjoys Massive Heater at my Expense

Our villain here is one of the worst players I’ve seen at 100nl full ring. He just loses and spews and makes terrible calls. In this case he posts out of turn with his 75% buyin stack and we stack off … his 4bet % is 33% so … yeah … I can’t imagine a self respecting grinder not to get it in during this scenario.

Step 2: Same Idiot Enjoys Another Massive Heater Against a Big Pocket Pair

I’ve seen this guy play and I know he’d check with that Ace … obviously on the flop its a WA/WB scenario but the turn check was more metagame than anything since I’ve seen him check-call with TPTK type of hands … on the river my call was probably tilt induced. At the river I knew I had sorely underrepresented my hand so making a call there against him may not have been terrible but it was probably bad. Anyways he flopped quads so lucky me.

Step 3: Get a Walk in the BB with a Big Pocket Pair

At this point obviously my faith in AA and KK isn’t high but at least I figure it’s an opportunity to win a hand. Oh wait, nope.

Step 4: Massive Cold Cards
Just don’t get any more hands the rest of the way and sit, wait, and stew while the blood boils.

Anyways judge all you want, I’m just posting this so people know what makes me tilt during a session and the fact that something on here might tilt you too. The opportunity we have is to step away and regroup and fight another day.

Well for some reason nobody else at CardsChat cares to do blogging nor even posts their mid-month updates. I think the site’s new Monthly Chat threads are killing the site IMO … but that’s for another discussion. Here’s my mid-month update to kick off the new year…

• This year started really bad. As in 8 buyin downswing when combined with the last day of 2008. That really blew.

• Fought my way back and managed to get myself even. Decided after taking my 2nd ridiculous bad beat as a result of a 2 outer suckout that 50nl6max was done with me.
• Moved up and started playing 100nl Full Ring. The growth of my game and the “6max aggression from late position” was a key in a good start to playing this level.
• I’m having fun 9-tabling 100nl FR and that’s keeping my mind occupied while at the same time allowing me to follow the game to make isolated plays against opponents.
• I’ve been having a weird stretch playing 100nl FR. First, I am not “running bad” and seeing cooler after cooler. At the same time, I’m not hitting sets (the expected % is very low) and occasionally seeing the retarded bad beat or cooler, including my third KK AIPF vs AA and my second AA losing to QQ AIPF. And all of this has equated into me winning at a very impressive winrate!
• I’ve been trying to do more research on the regs of 100nl since I see them more often than I have regs at other levels, and find out how good they are and what they are capable of. There’s really only 1 I’ve been told to avoid.
• I got Tommy Angelo’s book Elements of Poker (link: Click Here) and am nearly done with it. It’d definitely a great book and one of the better ones I’ve read and an absolute MUST for any full time or part time poker pro.
• Goldstar is nearly in the bag obviously by 9-tabling 100nl the FPPs are piling up. Unfortunately I think Platinum is a pipe dream at this point.

So that’s it. The move to 100nl has been profitable so far and I’m obviously up on the month. I just hope that this click can continue and will look to continue my good mindset and good play through whatever might be in store for the rest of the month. Here’s the obligatory graph.

I think it was about six weeks ago I took a shot at 100nl and had break-even results but felt overwhelmed and bored with the full ring game. I had such a great time at 25nl 6max that I felt a return to the game would improve my post flop play, and ideally, improve my winrate. I spent quite a bit of time and hands at 50nl 6max and approached almost the volume I had when playing fullring. I’m going to post my winrates … somewhat sensitive data but I think for this purpose it’s fine.

As you can tell at 50nl I am more than doubly successful at full ring than I am at 6max. Maybe I’m a bad 6max player, or perhaps I went through a tough 30k hand stretch … both are conceivable. I didn’t see myself moving to 100nl as a 6max player and thought that it might be prudent to do what I did before – move from 25nl 6max to 50nl fullring – but in this case move to 100nl full ring.

The results for 100nl above are a total between my “original breakeven shot” at the level and the 3500 hands I have played this month which have been very profitable so far. I feel comfortable at the tables and I am adjusting back to dealing with super-uber-nits and those darn shortstackers that always have the nuts. But overall the play at the level is pretty predictable, and I’m hoping to do some research to find out who the handful of awesome regs are so I can just avoid them at this point.

So the numbers don’t lie … I win more and apparently play better at fullring. The sample sizes of 30k hands are basically what I consider to be the starting point of where you can start making some decisions. Although many would consider 100k to be the actual mark … however being rolled properly for 100nl and my current poker state definitely point to me playing at 100nl Fullring, and like I said earlier the short-term end results are good, but MOST importantly I feel like I can handle the regs and exploit the fish profitably.

I got a glimpse into why most top players don’t talk poker if they have a blog after my post where I show a hand I gruesomely misplayed. In fact, I got a glimpse why most good internet players don’t talk hands at all if they have a blog. After posting “You can tell how bad I played the hand” and “And yes yes yes I know I butchered this hand” I still got comments from 5 different people about my apparent (and sudden) bet-sizing problem and how I apparently suck at poker. I only posted the 1 comment (from the guy I liked the most) and to the rest I guess I can say thanks for making me refocus my blog. You won’t be seeing any more standard coolers, standard heaters, or botched hands anymore. I’m finding out that posting these hands are either super standard (meaning no strategy to talk about) or just put me on tilt (either comments get me pissy or I re-live a bad moment).

Anyways, it seems in late 2007 and in 2008 everyone that I know fairly well internet-wise kept a blog. Specifically two guys I really respect (names omitted) kept up a blog about twice a week and I really enjoyed watching their progress and thinking with hands as well their progress up the cash game ladders. Neither player has updated their blog in 3 weeks and only one has an entry in the last 4. Other guys are reviving blogs (Munchrs) which is great to see, but I’m finding blogs like Nat’s (Blog) a better read overall.

I don’t know some of the high stakes pros Nat knows so I tend not to read those blogs, but I’ll troll around from now and then to check things out. Some of the guys on 2+2 have some promising blogs as I’ve been crosslinked in the blog list for the beginner’s section, but reading about struggles at 5nl and 10nl are … well … less than dramatic if you can understand where I’m coming from.

Maybe blogging is a fad going out of style, and I can understand that. I like to blog for self reflection and if others find my rants/whining/occasional insights interesting, GREAT. If not, it was posted for myself anyways. In terms of me, since I got myself back above break-even for the month it’s been a nice horizontal break-even stretch. I’ll probably get an hour in tomorrow, and then I am hoping for at least 1.5k hand days on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We’ll wait and see where I am after that. For now just plugging away at 50nl 6max.

Bleh. Ever have one of those sessions where you pretty much airball everything? And then you hit like 2 flops out of 220 and both times you dont get paid? AND THEN as you are breaking even on basically guts and steal attempts these two hands hit you simultaneously?

KK against … wow AGAIN.

AA Disaster

So out the window went THAT session and a buyin and a half. It’s crap like this that is continually making me sit at the current level but “them’s the rules” and I’ll keep abiding by my guidelines for BRM.