Another Tough Day at Pokerstars

Posted by admin on Mar 11, 2009 in 100nl, coolers | 2 comments

This blog is definitely getting doom and gloomy. Kind of depressing, sorry about that. I do like to write about non-results type of stuff, but for those of you that remember, one of the purposes of this blog is to allow me to vent. Maybe you feel like commiserating and that's fine too. Anyways another long day at the tables. Three hideous coolers and one botched hand played horribly. It's been a while since I've played a hand that badly, so I can't feel too horrible but it is a wake up call.

Let's Get the Bad One Out of the Way ... Ugh ...

Good grief, this is easily the worst hand I've played in 4 months. No question ... just brutal. The villain is an idiot who plays a tight passive 13/4/2 style. I had just suffered two coolers where people flopped sets on me in 3bet pots so I am definitely seeing tilt play it's part in my thinking process. I remember at the time I put him on KK or AK and figured to test his raise one time by calling his flop raise and re-evaluating. The Q on the turn puts me way ahead of AK or KK so I did the dumbass thing and decide to stack off. Holy cow what a bad decision ... folding that flop is the 100% best move and I just refused to believe that a third person in a 100 hand stretch hit a set against me.

3bet Pot against a 22/17/4 Loose Aggressive Player

Against a player like this that's kinda loose and definitely aggressive (he folds to a 3bet only 20%) that I have plenty of hands on, getting it in on the flop with TPTK after I 3bet squeezed preflop is the right move. He just hits a set and got it in way ahead.

Getting Limp-3bet from a 36/11/2 Fish and I have QQ

Every time I play I see the donks all do some manuever. Last week was all about donk betting flops. This time I see the donks limp-3betting hands. They've done with with ATs, AK, KK, AA ... but mainly has been with the big hands. So I have QQ in this situation and he's a half stack so I get it in, and he shows KK.

AK Suited vs a 30/17/3 Maniac (700+ hands!) hits TPTK

I first pull off the mother of all squeeze bets, and get the one caller from the one maniac at the table. He plays a 30/17/3 style over 700+ hands so this guy really could have anything because his range is so wide. I hit TPTK in this 3bet pot, and of course I'm stacking off. Wow he shows AA and I lose another stack.

Hit a River Boat against a 36/0/8 Fish

The pure definition of a cooler card right there in the form of the river 9 giving me the 3rd nuts with the 99988 full house. He shows up with JJ for the second nuts. Another stack gone ... another small piece of my heart died.

OMGBentley is a Superuser (and tilted me!)

Posted by admin on Mar 8, 2009 in 100nl | 1 comment

Okay, so OMGBentley isn't a superuser. He is a ridiculously nitty regular at Stars (and other sites) who 20+ tables and runs at 13/9/3 and usually I can outplay this guy postflop because he's just nut peddling. Well, that all came crashing down yesterday as I put in a rare Saturday session ... and yes I continue to run poorly (3 weeks and counting). Anyways here's the three hands that put me on such tilt I had to immediately close all windows and swear off poker for a few days ...

Hand 1: Battle For the Blinds

This guy steals 35% of the time and folds to a 3bet 40% of the time, but his 4bet range is only 2%. Anyways he and I have a bit of history but does a 24 tabler remember that? I figured he'd lay it down and he tanked for a good amount of time before making the call. I was at least slightly ahead, but he wins the coinflip and I lose a stack. Fair enough.

Cooler Hand ... Fun

This hand happened about 6 hands later. Again the min 4bet kinda pissed me off and I certainly wasn't going to lay it down so I flatted. With the A flopping and him donk betting it I 100% figured he had KK it just reeks of that. So I shoved, and he calls with ... yes ... a set of Aces. With the turn K I was still dead, but certainly I was doomed to lose no matter how each of us played this hand. Another stack gone.

The Tilt Master 2000

This is the hand that put me on Ape-Shit-Monkey-Tilt and really pissed me off. I can't explain his actions other than he put me on tilt and decided to set-mine with HORRIBLE odds .... and hit. I didn't slowplay my Aces, that's for sure, and his call of my preflop 3bet defies explanation. Anyways, it's obviously his day and not mine ... so yet again I lose a stack.

So?

No sense in being really pissed off, I think I played each hand okay, the AK hand maybe a preflop shove was in order but overall I just ran into a nitty regular who went into Godmode. What else could I have done? Anyways, -$300 sucks ass obviously and my epic crap run continues. Eventually it'll turn around but I'm at the point wondering if it's been 3 weeks of this stuff, when will it end? I've had 3 of my last 4 sessions where I ran $150 below-EV which is getting depressing. I guess the best remedy would be to remain positive and just play as best I can.

Super Poker Tuesday – 2,500+ hands!

Posted by admin on Mar 4, 2009 in 100nl | 0 comments

I was feeling anxiety all day today and wasn't motivated to use the free time I had in the afternoon and evening to put in an uber-amount of hands. So I prop bet myself with a friend and gave him a whopping 20-to-1 odds that I would put in 2,500 hands. If I didn't he got $20, and if I did, I get $1. Fortunately I hit the mark and called it a night - profitably.

Today had some super ridiculous hands. Early on I suffer this heartbreaking 4-outer when I get it in with a set and hit a boat at the river:

That really could have made today profitable. Instead I get to bemoan how my "Below EV" numbers suck and that the fates still hate me. Big deal. Later in the day I was able to pull this off ... I hope people appreciate how well I set this guy up to think that he was stringing me along by representing a set or a Q here:

Just stunning as to how bad his play, but I am real glad my plan at the turn paid off by not getting it in with the virtual nuts and letting him feel that the only way to win was to bluff his stack at the river. Unfortunately for me this happened shortly afterwards:

What's the deal right? Right. That didn't feel great either. I took a break for about 1.5 hours to walk the dog, make myself some dinner, and relax. I came back refreshed and enjoyed this hand:

Awesome right? Gotta love when that happens. Anyways, I got in my 2,500 hands for the day and have almost 5,000 this month now which is darn near half of February's total! I am also only 700 VPPs away from unlocking my $250 bonus which means if I play 2,100 hands tomorrow it'll be a done deal. I have quite a bit of work to do in the morning and possibly a meeting in the evening so who knows what's going to happen. I was looking at my graph for this year and realized I've almost made more money in 2009 already than I did in all of 2008. Obviously playing 100nl 9-tabling makes a world of difference from playing 4 tables of 10nl which was the case a year ago. Still, awesome to look at that graph!

My health has dramatically improved since Saturday so that's been tremendous. I'm hoping to work out again on Friday, and until then will either be working my butt off for work or grinding the tables (which I guess is work too now). Anyways, catch you next time.

March of the Grinder

Posted by admin on Mar 3, 2009 in 100nl | 0 comments

March has begun and as previously revealed in a spoiler thread at the 2+2 Forums, Pokerstars has changed their VIP program to make it easier to attain their VIP levels. Most importantly to me the Platinum Star requirement, which I have never met, has been decreased 25% down to 7,500 VPPs, which should take me approximately 23,000 hands to attain. This is well within my regular month playing capacity, and I'm actually aiming to hit 27,000-30,000 hands this month and hit a new all time high. This would allow me to unlock my $250 bonus from last month, achieve Platinum Star (and get the better FPP multiplier), and also buy the $650 bonus using my 50k FPPs which I will have accumulated around the end of the month. Should make for a lot of fun!

For my first day I put in almost 2,200 hands and ended up about 2.5 buyins for a solid 5.87BB/100 winrate. I definitely came back with a little rust but the good news is that I didn't come back nitty! I came back with the same aggressiveness that I had when I first got to 100nl and had lost around mid-February. It felt good to be making and dictating the action rather than simply being a part of it, and it paid off more often than it cost me. There was plenty of goofy play from the fish, and some of them hit big against me but again in the end I came out with a good winrate and finding a lot of confidence in my game to move forward for the next session.

Good Line Against a Fish

In this hand I really like my line against the 69/13/2 fish. I think any fish with any Jx or QQ hand stacks off against me. Obviously if he has an A (unlikely) I'm coolered but that's fine. This was the right play and I got him to spew off his chips. Stunning what he showed up with!

Good Line Against a Nittish Player

The villain was a 15/13/2.3 over a small sample but you get the idea. I don't 3bet the AQ and simply call behind because a player like this only calls with something like QQ, KK, AA, or AK (or raises) and folds everything else. The flop is real pretty and I do the obvious check/raise maneuver but instead of sticking it in I flat. I like this move because hands I have beat just won't go away with whatever hits the turn, especially if it's a rag. My guess was right and he shoves the turn in what might appear as a really bad attempt to represent AK or a set of some sort. It's a no brainer call on my part and I come up a winner.

February Month Recap

Posted by admin on Mar 1, 2009 in recap | 0 comments

Well in terms of how did my part time professional life as a poker player go in February, the answer isn't something that many could read aloud in a crowded room. I'll just use the word "bad" and attribute the lack of success mainly to my failed health in February, with the horrible stomach virus that pretty much kept me in bed for 5 days to start the month, to the current sinus infection I have now. I just can't play when I am sick, and I played the least amount of hands this month as compared to the last six. I also spent a lot of time last week focusing on some MTT play to warm myself up for the WPT event which took away time from the ring games.

Anyways to sum some thing up:

February was such a crap month ....

Only played 12,000ish hands due to illness, work, etc. Started red hot, ended crappy, and never got to play enough hands to see "the final upswing" to redeem the month.

NLHE Ring Games = +$501
Bonuses = +$0 (nothing unlocked)
PLO Ring Games = -$10
Tournaments/SNGs: -$31

Total Month Profit = +$460

Well, that makes it the worst month I've had since September 2008 when I was playing 50nl. Again I contribute this to the lowest amount of hands I've played since ... I think August of 2008.

Month Highlight: Winning the media event & Playing in the WPT Celebrity Invitational.

Lowlight: Puking guts out for a week (stomach virus), going card dead at WPT Celebrity Invitational for an epic 4 hour run.

Obligatory Monthly Graph: