Poker Blog – icemonkey9 on PokerStars

Well today is the big day! Today is the World Poker Tour’s Celebrity Invitational at Commerce Casino, and I am one of the participants. It’s a thrill and an honor to be going, and every single pro poker player that I know has simply said “take it down” so I guess that’s good advice to take.

The “bad beat” in all this is my current health. Thursday night I cam down with a cold and yesterday I was in really bad shape. I went to the doctor and sure enough I have a sinus infection. Of all the days right? So after all the OTC stuff failed on me, I told the doctor about this professional gathering I am going to, and she put me on the craziest anti-biotic regiment ever. I got a good shot in the ass (yes, cute nurse) and am on the 3-day pack of pills. The good news is that I turned a corner last night and feel a lot better today than I did yesterday and my head is a lot clearer. Hopefully after some rest during the day and a nap after lunch I’ll be in good shape for tonight’s festivities.

I plan to bring some meds of course, but professionally speaking I was able to get two people press credentials so we can do a story for Gaming Illustrated Poker. I hope to get a bit of video and definitely some stills. Also I am going to take a small notepad and pen to take notes so I can remember all the people I sat with.

The tournament structure is really solid, we start with $10,000 in chips and 50-100 blinds with 40 minute levels. There’s a one time rebuy (contrary to what the website says) for $200 which is a charitable donation that gets you another $10,000 in chips which I plan to take advantage of. It’s a three day event so I am hoping to show up, have fun, and play my best. Hopefully that means the final table!

I know, I know. I’m about to play in my biggest tournament of my life on Saturday and here I am posting that tournaments suck. Obviously, I haven’t been running well in them and am not used to walking away a loser in 5 straight events. I have been playing tournaments the last few days as a warm up of sorts and basically have seen the same formula in every single tournament:

- I’ll double up early against a donk
- Table Luckbox goes into Godmode
- I go card dead
- I win some hands after finally getting some cards
- I then get seriously coolered to exit

After 6 tournaments and no ITMs, I’m once again stepping back from this form of poker mainly because I am not used to the mindset of “No Cashes then 1 BIG cash” that playing to win requires. Although I don’t expect the level of competition to be any good at the $5-$15 buyin range, I am just tired of losing with the best hand.

Brilliant Tard in the $15k Guarantee

That hand really sucked. I was about half way through the field with an average stack and thought this double up would seriously give me some momentum. I had just suffered a loss shoving QQ into AK earlier against someone so … yeah … balls.

Lose a Coinflip to die in the $70k Guarantee Rebuy

This one was a coinflip through the hand until he spiked his flush at the turn. Pretty standard but to exit after 2.5 hours of play and walk away -$33 kinda sucked. I just really hate putting my life on the line (albeit the right play) on a flip. But that’s poker!

Did That Just Happen – The $10k Guarantee

I’m really in a pinch here with a woeful stack that’s almost exactly at 10 big blinds and considering the antes it was definitely time to shove. Again, a cooler.

Final MTT Thoughts
Although I’m a little bitter at tournament play I am really surprised how soft the fields are out there in the sub-$20 tournament world. I really have zero respect now for anyone that regularly cashes in these things … it seems like the theory for success is to make a deep cash 1 out of 6-10 times and the rest is just you eating crap via coolers. Is this how people make money? I don’t think I could handle it, and I’m heading back to the cash tables to grind out some money hopefully.

It feels like an enternity since I have played online at all, whether it be cash games or a tournament. As many readers out there know, I don’t like playing tournaments. I wanted to give rebuys a crack this week to emulate the experience in store for me on Saturday at the World Poker Tour. There weren’t any running tonight but I did play in a $5 45-man SNG. I picked up a few small pots, got to about 10 big blinds, and shoved with AQ. Here’s again why I dislike playing in MTTs:

So that was that. While I was playing that 45-man SNG I played 5 tables of 100nl full ring to get back into the swing of things. I ran okay, made good laydowns, and found myself taking my time which is always a recipe for success. Hit one big hand against a regular, and actually I remember playing this guy at 50nl too when I was there. Guess we’re moving up the ranks together.

That was nice. Anyways I have a ton of work on my plate tomorrow, so yet again I’m in the tough spot of not knowing when my next session will start!

On Friday I was at Commerce Casino getting content for Gaming Illustrated Poker.  We got to meet a lot of big name poker pros and did video interviews with tournament director Matt Savage, as well as pros Michael Mizrachi, Maria Ho, and Tiffany Michelle. The video with Matt Savage is up and can be seen by clicking here.

After the interviews were done the kind folks at Commerce Casino (and some top flight PR people) took care of us in the food department and we played the annual Media Poker Tournament.  This year the field was as good as I’ve ever seen it.  Some pro players from Vegas (they write for PokerNews or CardPlayer, etc) were playing in this 45-50 5-table tournament.  What was up for grabs was a winner-take-all grand prize of a seat at the WPT Celebrity Invitational tournament.  The tournament is technically a freeroll, but there are only 250 seats, and the invite list is extremely exclusive to Hollywood stars, Poker Super Pros, and me.  Go Figure.

Needless to say I am tremendously excited about this amazing opportunity.  We’re playing for a $200,000 prize pool, a seat to the WPT 5 Diamond Classic (worth $25k), and the final table is taped for TV and will air on Fox Sports Network later in 2009. Watch the video of me taking it down!!! >>

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You might have noticed a small difference here at icemonkey.com, in the form of a new blogging software – WordPress.  Blogger proved to be too confining for my needs as well as managed to get me banned (ironically) from Google’s search engine.  Bad stuff!!!  Anyways, I’ve made some changes to the links section by deleting out a lot of blogs that only get updated once a month.  I hope that doesn’t hurt some feelings, and if you were one of the ones that got deleted out, you can feel free to delete me out of your blogroll.

The great things about WordPress are all the addons and how it’s so open ended and has a huge community offering many different plugins and tools.  So far I am extremely impressed with the software, and have installed it here as well as at GIP.

Anyways, thanks for checking in and I was glad to be able to import all of the old blogger site into this one.  The only negative is that it did not bring in the PokerHandReplays code, so all the old hands I had posted in the blog are now gone … and I don’t feel like backtracking so I’ll just be using it moving forward.  Thanks for staying on board here!

So the poor run at the Hold’em tables continues. After a 4 day hiatus I went back for a session and played 600 hands and played marginally well but came out -$75 which isn’t even one buyin. I was card dead for a long period, never saw KK, and had AA twice but once got a walk. Unfortunately I sat next to a LOT of LAGs to my left so my steal opportunities were diminished and the shortstackers were just out in force tonight and ended up at all the tables I was at that weren’t 50BB required (which were so nitty nobody was giving anyone action). I didn’t hit any big flops … cbet fine when I had the chance and actually won quite a few of the hands at the flop/turn that I was in, which was kinda rare.

I broke down my 4 big loss hands below … they equal a grand total of -$117 …

QQ hand, -58 = After analysis, I was clearly behind the whole way, took a stab at the flop, got away while I could. Glad I didn’t lose a stack.

————

AK , -34 >> Made a bad cbet but not horrible on a raggy flop, but folded when i knew i was beat when he shove-raised my cbet.

————

QT, -21 >> villain flops boat and check calls to river where I hit top two pair on a 4885Q board (I had raised PF). Villain makes a river small 2.5x raise on my probing bet so I call and he wins.

————

KQ , -17 >> Made top pair at the flop but villain with 1 AF goes agro at the river insta-potting it, so i fold. Pokerazor says to call … but i think i was losing to a two pair or A5 straight like hand. It just felt terrible either way.

So that is that … one session in the books, and I am close to clearing GoldStar. February is a big bust poker playing wise which sucks but given all the stuff that has gone down this month from personal life variance to the crap at the tables, I’m glad I’m keeping an even keel and hanging in there. I have confidence things will turn around soon.

A good friend online, Bob_Tiger is a real solid Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo player and has been trying to get me to play the game for months. On top of that a neighbor of mine has recommended the game as well as Razz. So, I caved in because I was sick of NLHE and watched a few videos from DeucesCracked (site review coming) from Vanessa in help learn. Vanessa is a WSOP champ in Omaha and one hell of an instructor. Watching the first two videos basically gave me more insight into the game than anyone I have played against at the ultra-micro stakes tables. That’s not a huge brag but I feel good about it.

After Bob_Tiger did a teamviewer group sweat of him playing a turbo SNG of PLO H/L three of us bought into a SNG and sure enough two students finished HU – me and The Shrog. Guess who won?

Yay for me! A first place win in a SNG is something huge for me because I generally either SUCK or BLOW at them. Either way the result isn’t comfortable. So this made me curious about PokerTracker Omaha edition, so I downloaded it, and apparently my key for Pokertracker 3 made it work because I didn’t have to register it. Bug in the program? Who cares.

So in order to get Pokertracker Omaha to work I had to:

• Download and install the program. Clunky and outdated to say the least.
• Configure the program. Took about 5 minutes total, not bad.
• Download and install a program called “Poker EV” so that I could generate graphs and use a much better replayer. That took about 5 minutes.

So the process wasn’t painful. I am going to play 90% of my hands at NLHE still but will reserve 10% for Omaha, whether it be PLO or PLO H/L remains to be seen.

In other poker news ….

I’m a news story! Woo! PokerSoftware.com has brought me on as a writer and put up an expose on me on the front page of their site. You can read the full story by clicking here.

Last night I had insomnia so I put in a marathon session. I was motivated by two things really to play a session twice as long as I normally do: 1) The ridiculous milestone bonus thing … I just keep saying to myself I’ll play until one more is awarded and just keep saying it over and over … and … 2) a drunk Canadian guy at one of my tables kept me pretty darn entertained. The tables were also extremely fishy and I went back to my normal 9 table routine. I feel like I played well and I also made a couple of sick reads with great hands knowing when I was behind and letting them go – fortunately villains showed by showdown in the hand so I got validated each time.

If you start counting at midnight I’ve put in 1,600 hands today for a couple of buyins up which is nice. It’s been a lot less swingy and more just good solid steady poker which has felt very nice. I like the slow steady climb at a reasonable winrate rather than the flashy-dashy way down then way up brand of poker.

Also I’ve been tweaking my HUD around and realized I really hate avatars and how the Hyper Simple theme looks with pictures in it, so I decided to try out the “no pictures” theme (or whatever it’s called) and within 2 minutes instantly brought it to all my tables. I definitely like it, the HUD is much better looking and this lighter theme seems easier and friendlier for whatever reason.

Reading a now revived blog from ChuckTs has me focusing more on my Zen like mental state when playing poker. ChuckTs (an awesome guy and player) posted a great checklist for Warming Up and Warming Down which I blatantly stole and copied into a word file and keep on my desktop. I thought the next time I played a session, I’d use it and see if I like it.

I have to say the difference in my mental state from the last time I played to this time is a dramatic turn around. I had time to let the steam cool off, as well as do breathing exercises and write down goals for the session. The goals I set for myself were:

• Only play 6 tables of 100nl Full Ring, not 9. Just get back into the swing and give your brain time to ease back into playing.

• Play tight in EP, and look for good steal situations in the CO and BTN.
• Look for good 3betting opportunities in late position.
• Take your time making solid reads at the turn and river.
• Play 45-55 minutes once 6 tables are up and active.
• Stay positive and level headed.
• Stay focused and only have tables open on the computer.

I really liked being able to set goals like this for each session and it’s a habit I’m going to invest time and money (via paper notepads!). The results were good, the first session I took what I thought was a bad cooler, but turns out I just made a marginal river call and lost. I stayed calm, focused on breathing and staying positive and playing one hand at a time. Fortunately that paid off, and I focused on playing well and not slow playing anything and got paid off for a couple of great hands and ended the first session up 1.5 buyins.

The second session went pretty well in my opinion in terms of my gameplay and mental state. I pretty much went card dead for 40 minutes and ended up -$15 but what helped is that I hadn’t looked at my results at all until after the session was over, so I really don’t know how that might have fluctuated. Anyways I wrapped up the night happy about my game.

In other news regarding March …

In March PokerStars is changing their VIP program and attaining PlatinumStar will only be 7,500 VPPs, which makes it very attainable for me (playing approximately 23,000 hands in a month) so I am definitely going to go for it. Once that happens I’ll probably just save up for the 50k FPP bonus instead of the 25k, because this one is worth $650 and by the time I clear my recent deposit bonus I’ll be closer to 50k than 25k (specifically once I hit Platinum and that bonus becomes available to me).

Writing News …

I got word that I’ll be part of the team for a new website called www.DurrrrChallenge.com, which will follow the hotly contested challenge that Tom Dwan put out and was taken by Ivey and Antonious. It looks like my part in the site will be breaking down hands and getting some analysis from some top internet heads up specialists. Should be fun.

And finally …

I am headed to Commerce next Friday to interview a few poker pros, and plan to really just interview anyone I can get my hands on. The video interviews will appear on Gaming Illustrated, and other interviews will show up around the internet on the various sites I write for. There’s also a media tournament I get to play in, so winning that would be AWESOME because it would get me a seat at the WPT Celebrity Invitational.

Today I hit my stoploss mark, meaning I lost so much today I am at the point where I force myself to quit. I think I have only hit this mark one or two other times in the last year. I feel horrible, and I know I can no longer play a rational poker game, so I am calling it quits for today and probably through the weekend … and maybe next week.

I might just play later on to just clear goldstar for this month and take a break. I realize I am incapable of sustaining more bad results. My profits are wiped out for the month, so I’m pretty much at a big fat $0 now after starting +$900ish … so yeah … I am pretty upset and don’t know what to do with myself. Very sad. I feel horrible … I hate when I go through this, it happens every month.

Hands that make me puke:

KK … I have to call the river … not happy about it …

This hand sucked. Just blows.

Hard to imagine that this keeps happening over and over …

Prettty crazy right?

Again. Really? Yeah.

You can see these pots typically aren’t huge, but I keep losing these $50-$60 pots and it just eats away and eats away … until the next thing you know I’m on a 8 buyin downswing.