First Hold’em Session in 4 Days. Didn’t Go Well.

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 19, 2009 in General | 1 comment

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Playing Omaha + Writing for PokerSoftware.com

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 17, 2009 in omaha, pot limit | 0 comments

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.

New Table Theme + Playing Update

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 15, 2009 in General | 2 comments

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.

Zen In

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 14, 2009 in poker, wpt, writing, zen | 2 comments

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.

Wiped Out

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 13, 2009 in General | 2 comments

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.