Poker Blog – icemonkey9 on PokerStars

I have a prop bet going with Tygran over at Cardschat that either he or me will hit platinum. The idea was to motivate us to put in the hands to achieve this VIP level. Unfortunately for both of us, poker took a very nasty turn. At one point I was down about -$650 for the month, then things went well and I was +$300 for the month … then this weekend happened. Saturday went poor, got coolered a bit and didn’t get good action. Sunday went okay, broke even in 2k hands despite hitting, get this, one set all day.

Then the bottom fell out today and I hit the rare 5 buy-in stop loss. That’s right, -$500. For some of you, that’s a drop in the bucket. Yay for you lol … but for me it’s a stop loss and with the swinginess of 6max that’s the breaks. The good news is that I don’t think my game is horrible, I think there were some spots where I got my money in good and just came out horrible, From today:

• QJ with two pair loses at the river to straight.
• AJ for top pair in 3bet pot when villain had better (made what I think was a good fold, ChuckTs seems to agree from the HA thread.
• AT in bad cbet spot in 3bet pot, made the cbet and gave up when villain stacked.
• 33 for a flopped set to a flush on monotone board. Villain was a 40/5/2 type, I had outs to the boat and didn’t hit.
• QJ for top pair + flush draw to TPTK (AQ) with no draw as we both got it in at the flop.
• KK deep all in preflop vs AK and vs 47s and the AK hit 4 to a flush.

Anyways, I think it was WV that asked me why I am learning 6max at 100nl, but I feel with the 25k hands at 25nl, and I think 15-20k of hands at 50nl 6max I have adequate knowledge. I’ll leave it to the coach once we get started but even with all this bullcrap I still have 50 buy-ins in the bankroll. If the coach says I’m in over my head, I can live with that.

So the platinum run might end at 6,424 VPPs, almost 1k VPPs short of the goal. So close, yet so far. Obviously when I have such a disastrous weekend I have to examine my mental state and my game to see if anything has sprung loose. I feel terrible asking help from friends since I just asked for help recently, kind of like that miserable friend you have who is constantly down on his luck. It’s a very isolating feeling.

Anyways, wish I posted more when things are going well lol … but part of this blog’s purpose is to “get out the emotion via written word” and the good news is that I’m not ready to kill people left and right tilt-wise and recovered well after pretty much being at that point earlier in the day with the KK hand.

So if you’ve made it this far, thanks a ton for reading, I know these posts aren’t a lot of fun. Hopefully as I learn and discuss strategy I can post my thoughts and situations, which should be helpful and constructive for all!

This weekend really represents the first time I’ve ever played 100nl 6max on both Saturday and Sunday for 4+ hours each day.  I got in a good amount of hands today, and the good positive news in all this is that I’m not discouraged or tilted.  I did make one tough call at the river that was in retrospect a bad call, but other than that it was just “one of those days” where the villain shot ahead at the river constantly.  This hand was the “worst beat of the day” which is just ugly:

Just gross, but I got my money in good.  Normally I would have just raised again preflop but against the squeezer I’m trying to get action and a raise here totally announces I have KK or AA in this spot against these players.  What I hoped for was someone with a lesser hand like TPTK while I had overpairs would stack (which happened) and take it down … but I lose the 88-22% situation which will happen.

The rest of the day saw some bad river situations where villains hit their gin card, or more tragically, I’d hit a big river only to find out I was way behind.

• I rivered a straight … whoops he flopped and slow played a boat.
• AK suited gets it in as nut flush draw + overs, hits A on river, he had flopped a set.
• AK hits TPTK on river (all rag board) he hit set on turn (which he flatted).
• AA < KT , kinda gross.
• AK loses coinflip AIPF vs QQ (fair enough).
• AKs < AJo AIPF vs loose mid-stacked fish.
• K3 in steal spot on BTN hits 2 pair, villain calls to river with top pair, river pairs board, his two pair wins.

So, those were situations where things just didn’t go my way, and most of the time I got out of the situation losing a $35-$50 pot which is better than losing $100 pots I suppose.  Looking back at the hands, AA just got no action today (nothing new there) except for the one bad beat, and I hit sets at 7% which usually doesn’t help (although they haven’t held all month!).

Anyways, probably calling it a day and hope to come back tomorrow ready to rock n roll at the tables and “get in on that Sunday juice” as someone put it.  Like I mentioned before, I feel fine, where before if I looked at the results say at the beginning of the month I’d be bitching/tilting/quitting big time.  I just had an unfortunate day, it’ll happen, and I’ll be ready to go tomorrow.  See you then.

I’m not sure what the hell European Spa Music exactly is, but I sure know I really like it.  I mentioned in the last entry that I was listening to this tranquil music and I really like how it calms my mood and allows me to focus on the flowing nature of playing through a session without getting swept away in the rollercoaster of emotion that each hand has the potential to bring.  I’ve listened to my wife’s European Spa Music CD about 7 times and finally decided to look into some more, and found some songs for $0.99 on Amazon (each song is like 20 minutes) that weren’t “up to par” with the original CD but decent in its own right.  Anyways, I am highly recommending to you tilters out there (that means everyone) to look into meditation type music during your gameplay and try it out. I love it.

I have been enjoying my approach and had a very insightful discussion about some serious poker theory with ChuckTs.  To be frank, I’ve never really had such an in-depth poker discussion before and realize I have to exert more mental fortitude to take my game to the level I want it to be.  Fortunately, I am pretty sure I have the capacity, and am  trying to soak in a lot of great knowledge.  I am finding that turn/river value plays are really a big part of what I need improving on and a few adjustments in the last few days has meant some better played hands.

I really don’t want to get attached too much to goals, since my only goal is to play each hand to the best of my ability, but I am finding myself very compelled to reach Platinum Star.  I’ve wanted to hit it for 4 months but fortunately didn’t force the goal on myself during my bad stretch.  It looks like it’ll be close, but given the free time coming up this weekend it just might happen.

I hadn’t realized that the blog had gone so many days without being updated.  I’m a blog freak obviously and update my blog more than any other poker-player blog that I know of.  I think I enjoy expressing myself via the written word and like to look back at my feelings throughout the month so it’s both therapudic and construtive most of the time.

As the title implies, I’ve moved back (again) to 6max ring game poker.  For those of you that don’t remember I tore up 25nl 6max for a good 25k hands, and then barely was profitable at 50nl 6max and then when I moved to 100nl decided to just stick with Full Ring to get used to the level of money moving around the table.  I’ve watched some good Stox Poker videos and decided to get some formal coaching from ChuckTs.  If you didn’t know BW07507 has been a bit of a mentor for me playing 100nl full ring, but I didn’t want to take any more of his time without compensation especially in light of the fact that he’s trying to graduate college in the next few months and has so much on his plate.  As it is, ChuckTs is a 6max warrior and someone that I respect and trust and I’m looking forward to our sessions.  I think he’ll find there’s plenty of things to work on with my game, but that I might just be further along than he thinks.

I’ve done a lot of zoning-out tilt wise and really just try to keep a total mental level state where if I win a big hand I don’t get excited and at the same time if I lose a big hand, I don’t get upset.  In an ideal world you can shake off the negative and celebrate the big hands, but I’m not at that point and am progressing well with the whole balance thing.  It’s going to sound a little cheesy but instead of listening to my regular Beatles / Classical Music thing I listened to this “Spa Soothing Sounds” CD while playing which is basically soft tones and running water.  Outside of having to piss a lot more during the day, it actually has a fantastic calmning effect and allows me to constantly remind myself not to get too high or too low.

Here are some “zen” type of things I’ve tried to instill into my mental routine:

• There is no running good or running bad.  There is just running.  Everything breaks down to a perception of a subjective time frame.  Look at the big picture and focus on the immediate present.
• If you do not allow yourself to ride the emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows that hands will bring, staying at an even mental state will become easier as time moves forward.

Alright well that won’t be a published work anytime soon but it’s 2 solid things that have really grown on me.

In other news, I’ve started a prop bet with CardsChat acquaintence Tygran to see which one of us will actually hit platinum.  I have a huge uphill battle to climb in the last week of this month in order to hit the goal but if I do I’ll be able to reach this milestone for the first time as well as buy the $650 Platinum bonus (50k FPPs) instead of two of the $285 for GoldStars.  Plus I get an extra multiplier for May, and I’m hoping PokerStars runs another “Double VPP” week like it did in May of 2008.  Hopefully I can put in the necessary volume profitably and succeed in the prop bet.

Thanks for reading as usual, I’ll be posting again soon.

Funny thing happened the other day while online writing an article … on AIM someone IMs me and said “jake” and I assumed it was my friend Jurn8, whose name is Jake. So I said hi, and it turned out (after what had to be a full 5 minutes of confusing conversation) that the person that IM’d me was looking for Jake, and was actually noted DeucesCracked.com coach “Nolan” who wanted to say thanks to Jake for the plug of his videos on his blog. Somehow, he ended up accidentally IM’ing me. Weird! Anyways was talked about downswings and stuff, and he rifled through my blog. I don’t have the transcript but he basically gave me some quick tips:

• My blog reads tilted.  I’ve become really wrapped up in results.
• I need to get myself to a zen-like mental state and even convince myself “I deserve to run bad” if I have to in order to detach myself from downswings.
• 15-20 buy-in downswings will happen to regulars.

Although none of the information was new groundbreaking stuff that blew my mind, a lot of it I just had to hear one more time from a respected source.  I really appreciate Nolan for taking a few minutes out of his day for me like that, it was cool to briefly chat with him and get his advice.  I did take it seriously and made some alterations to my behavior.

I’m really going to just focus on playing smart and really thinking through every hand.  That means less tables.  Also I am going to play a consistent game free of distraction.  In addition I am going to hold myself accountable (as well as to someone else I asked for help) for my goals and game-play strategic improvement.

I have been using HEM 1.08 Beta 28 which has the slick features of Omaha plus the new Table Scanner.  The scanner is being built by the same guy that made the popular “Telescope” program and is almost identical in form and function.  It’s super slick and I really like using it after fooling around with it for a couple of hours.  If you haven’t checked it out – it’s a nice feature probably worth getting if you play regularly at 100nl or higher.

Well I played a ton of hands today at 100nl on stars and the tables were okay to me. LOL if ONLY I had shut down the last session right when I took down a stack. Instead I do what I normally do and take the free cards and hit the “Sit Out Next Blind” button. Anyways let me get this crappy ending out in the open and then move on.

Here’s Hand 1 … The villain is an idiotic 88/35/3.

Great right? Pretty standard stuff against that fish. Unfortunately … 5 hands later …

You’re kidding me right? And this douche bag wrote after the hand “Payback at you” which of course tilted the living hell out of me. I just sat out, I realized I was BOILING pissed off. Went from calling it a night with a nice buy-in up to being smacked with a $56 loss for the session. Ahhhhh the swings of poker. So yeah, screw him and what a bitter way to end what was a productive day.

I played about 1,700 hands total, and was in the positive for the day, so there’s really no complaining I can really do. I played well, ran okay and didn’t run into any sick coolers so that was good. It’s good to be able to sit down and play a session without thinking “omg what is gonna happen next to me” which might have been part of the problem.

Anyways, did some dicking around with a $5 MTT and an $11 MTT which of course ended with me shoving shortstacked as a favorite and losing. As usual, but that’s MTTs and I was having fun with Curtis, so no big whoop.

Tomorrow will see more time devoted at the tables and grinding it out. I hope for a good mental state and a centered/balanced attitude.

Today I returned back to the $0.50-$1 full ring tables on PokerStars after what had to be a week away. I haven’t been doing too much poker-wise outside of my usual slew of poker stories and editorials which has been a real blessing while my job and poker playing has been extremely slow. I put in two long sessions during the hours of 9:30pm PST to around 12:30am and hopped around 8-9 tables constantly and amassed about 1,300 hands. It was a big of good news and bad news so let me sum things up.

Good News
- I played a wonderfully patient game
- I made fantastic reads. Really happy about that. Made some gorgeous bluffs against TAGs.
- I played some hands perfectly, such as a flopped set that lost to a turned flush and I really was able to masterfully minimize the loss.
- Cleared the very modest goal of SilverStar already

Bad News
- Card dead. Double checked what I suspected with my HEM stats, and saw the premiums didn’t come as they should have during the small sample size.
- Didn’t get paid when I hit. I didn’t slow play anything, which was fine.
- Ended up -$23 or so over the 1,300 hands but that’s really not a big deal

So, that sums up my day. I did the smart thing and quit at the time time when the tables were just unplayably nitty. Instead of doing my work and freelance writing from 8am – 5pm like I usually do tomorrow I spent the rest of the night doing half of tomorrow’s work so that it frees me up from (hopefully) noon for the rest of the night to play cash game poker during peak hours instead of against the nightly nitty SNE regs. Hopefully tomorrow goes well and I can take the very positive momentum and upbeat feeling I have about my game into my next sessions!

Today I had a sweat session with pal BW who is one of 100nl’s ($0.50-$1 blinds) biggest winners. It’s really cool of him to help me out when things get tough and we had a session today where after losing the umpteenth hand and I said “I’m sorry I just really can’t continue this” and he responded (not exactly) of “I understand, it’s just bad luck” which he’s right. I just don’t know how to deal with it … because it just won’t end. Let’s get to the hands. Mainly with this session I got into some crappy situations and made the wrong move. I guess that happens … sigh.

Doomed

The villain here is an 11/7/2 over 700+ hands and I flop TPTK. The min-raise to my cbet is really bizarre and there’s no way I fold to that so I flat and catch another Q on the turn. Check-calling to that bet pretty much commits me at the river anyways, so the check-raise is an okay move here but it’s still a crappy spot, what does a nit like this do this with? KK hopefully but it just might be a set. Sure enough he flopped the set, turn the boat, and I hit the river Ace high flush which was meaningless.

Sucky Sucky

Again, not a great hand but a tough/bad spot to be in. The villain is a 60/0/3 over 44 hands and folds like never after checking his street stats. I flop top and bottom and he leads into me so I raise it up … probably not enough but it was a pot sized raise. He flats. The 9 on the turn doesn’t fill the flush. He leads into me again. Another set?! I give it a raise, he stacks, I tank. I make a case for both folding and calling and BW agrees that I have to call this against this guy. He shows 8To (WTF?!?!!) for the hit gutshot on the turn. So, he led into me and then called a pot sized raise with a double gutshot … and hit. Bleh.

Standard

Pretty standard stuff, unlucky to have AK suited and run into AA.

The title of this post probably won’t get many SEO hits but you’ll find this post interesting. Yesterday was another excruciating experience furthering my funk/slump/downswing to yet unexplored depths. But this post ends in a funny story, so you’ll want to keep reading.

The $15+1.50 SCOOP Heads Up Event
This might have been the most painful tournament I’ve ever played in. I played a bronze star who ended up being a 92/58 who folded exactly NEVER and ended up sucking out 4 different hands. The first one was an AK vs 58 on a Axx board where he called my cbet, 8 on the turn, called my bet again, and then hit an 8 at the river. Finally I fought my way back and pinned the SOB to 6 outs on the river with all the money in … and yes he hit a 6 outer to gain an chip lead on me.

Finally, for my life, I stack off with AK suited … and I get called…

I’m a 75-25% favorite at preflop and a 92-8% favorite at the flop. I lose and am done. Suckage factor = 90/100%.

Moved on to some 100nl 6max
I ran into a guy named “holtay” who played a 91/32/2 style over a bunch of hands at 100nl 6max. The guy was straight up an idiot and called down with Ace high and was paying everyone off left and right. I saw him raise the turn multiple times into an opponent holding bottom pair no kicker.

Holy crap. WHOOPS. So the other 50+ hands where he’s paying people off calling this bet with bottom pair (or WORSE) and with me he hits two pair. UGH.

After that I had this beauty:

Preflop here is pretty standard, you get it in at 6max with KK every time, and get called by AK suited, so no problem there we both did what we had to do. I think the flop is okay but the odds don’t change much since he has an over card (A), a gutshot (K), and the flush draw. In the end my 65-35% advantage through the entire hand doesn’t hold up. Yet another $150-below-EV session in the books.

So where’s this funny part you promised me?
I was on the phone with a very nice lady who represents the Ladies Poker Alliance, a group I’m hoping to do some work with in the future. I had briefly gone over how I have been going through a really rough stretch, so she told me the story of her friend (name excluded you might know him!) and how he got out of a 4 month slump.

What he did was hire a Voodoo Shaman who met him at the beach. After a “Curse Removal Ceremony” the Shaman cast his spells and then rubbed special secret oils on the guy’s head while chanting a song. Finally he “cast” him into the ocean for cleansing and afterwards gave him “magic leaves” for him to carry with him everywhere he went for 1 week for the spell to take effect. In the end, she said the whole thing actually worked and he went on to recover from his 4 month slump and continues to play to this day.

Obviously, there’s no way I could have made up that story and laughed at it when she told me. But the absolutely *sick* thing about it is that I’m actually wondering in the back of my mind if it really worked on some level, whether it be “mojo” or simply as a placebo. I say this as I head off to the Red Cross where I am going to donate platelettes for Cancer victims … I have a rare blood type and try to get in as often as I can. And just try to guess when the last time I went in was for a donation? Yup, you guessed it, about 2 weeks before this huge swong started.

Here’s to saving lives and gaining karma points!

I’ve started out this month and decided to look at my results and review hands and post them to the blog as a way of self analysis. So far the results suck, down three buyins. Hanging in there though! So I am going to take the 4 biggest losing hands and the 3 biggest winning hands and analyze them. I would absolutely *love* your opinions on the hands. Let’s go!

Hand 1: 66 Makes a Set

By the way you might notice the 4 color deck in the replayer – that was my idea Anyways, I open with 66 UTG which I’ve been told to do and not to do. So I do it. The big blind is a 16/10/1 who folds to 100% of flop cbets (I had 190 hands on him). So given that 100% fold figure I waited 1 street, yes a dangerous move but with the flopped set not a huge sin. He leads out with the 8 and the board’s a rainbow so I raise and his thin 3bet was a little scary. I get it in, and sure enough he has KK out of NOWHERE.
Final Assessment: Cooler

Hand 2: QK Makes Two Pair

The villain here is a midstacked 37/3/1 fish, but I only have 30 hands on the guy. I don’t really like my raise to $4.50 here and would have preferred an even $5 or $6 ideally. Anyways I flop 2nd pair and cbet and he flats. His fold to cbet figure was 0%, but again I don’t have much of a read on the guy. I hit two pair on the turn and he check raises all in and its $29 more into $87. I can’t really put him on a range but now that I think about it what is he doing this with that I beat? AJ? A7? KJ? Diamond Draw w/Pair? Maybe that was enough to justify a call … this might be a good hand to poast. I call and he shows a set and I lose.
Final Assessment: Small Cooler w/ Lack of Warning Bell Awareness @ Turn

Hand 3: Top Pair Okay Kicker vs Idiot

The villain here is a loose unknown player (only 9 hands on the guy). He’d pretty much been in every pot so far. He shoves over by cbet but I went with my gut that said draw or bluff and he turned over top pair, worse kicker and I’m an 88-12% favorite. I lose.
Final Assessment: Pure Cooler

Hand 4: AA All In Against Fish

No assessment needed, I got it all in preflop with AA against a 39/1/2 Fish (178 hands).
Final Assessment: Pure Cooler

Hand 5: QQ Flops Boat

Villain is a 24/12/1 with a 5% 3bet. I have position so I decide to flat the 3bet with QQ worried that we’re just in a pure flip situation. In full ring it’s hard to ship it in but if this was 6max the money would have gone in. Anyways I flop a boat, and just get it in.
Final Assessment: Pure Heater

Hand 6: AK suited in Position

Weird hand. I raise (i’ve been stealing a lot) and the small blind 3bets and the big blind, an 11/11/inf with 6% 3bet over 190 hands, shoves it in. Calling here seemed dubious since the SB could just go over the top so sticking it in here with AK suited seems smart. SB folds, I hit the A on a flip and win.
Final Assessment: I won a flip

Hand 7: TT on the Button

The big blind villain is a 44/3/2 with a 1% 3bet over 168 hands. However, he 3bets 8% when in the big blind, so against this shorty I don’t mind getting it in with TT and I hold up (and even hit a set).
Final Assessment: Good job recognizing he 3bets much lighter than usual out of the BB and winning when ahead.