Splurging on books

I spent around $150 on books today, and also signed up for pokerxfactor.com. I've decided to take a break for a couple weeks, and when I come back, hopefully the cards go my way and I can start winning some of these damn tourneys.

Not to mention, a month ago the only books that Chapters had was Super System, Hellmuth books, and McEvoy books. I go today, and just about EVERY book that has gotten good reviews was there. Harrington, Esfandiari, ALL of Skalansky, it was insane. I'm definately gonna pick up Harrington on Holdem V3 when it comes out. I wish they had Ace on the River by Count Chocoula (Greenstein), but maybe they'll have it when I go back in a month to get The Workbook.

And now, the books I picked up:

One of a kind: The Stu Ungar Story
Positively Fifth Street
Theory of Poker (Skalansky)
Best Hands I've ever Played
The Making of a Poker Player (Matt Matros)

Most of these were just entertainment books, but I think I'm behind by not reading Theory of Poker. Any knowledge is good knowledge.

Also I've listened to just about every Hand history that JohnnyBax has posted on pokerxfactor. Man he is a beast.

Murphy's Law

PokerStars Game #4739331146: Tournament #23515205, $100+$9 Hold'em Pot Limit - Level VI (100/200) - 2006/04/25 - 12:27:42 (ET)
Table '23515205 2' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: leftyva (2310 in chips)
Seat 2: YURMAMA (9425 in chips)
Seat 4: MMIrish (5780 in chips)
Seat 7: thopra (3725 in chips)
Seat 8: tb17 (1276 in chips)
Seat 9: nordea (3024 in chips)
thopra: posts small blind 100
tb17: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to tb17 [Kc Ks]
nordea: raises 400 to 600
leftyva: folds
YURMAMA: folds
MMIrish: folds
thopra: folds
tb17: raises 676 to 1276 and is all-in
nordea: calls 676
*** FLOP *** [Ts 7d 7c]
*** TURN *** [Ts 7d 7c] [5c]
*** RIVER *** [Ts 7d 7c 5c] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tb17: shows [Kc Ks] (two pair, Kings and Sevens)
nordea: shows [Ah Qc] (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
nordea collected 2652 from pot


PokerStars Game #4749568659: Tournament #23515282, $20+$2 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2006/04/26 - 12:24:57 (ET)
Table '23515282 9' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: plug ugly (1165 in chips)
Seat 2: ChazDawg54 (2560 in chips)
Seat 3: AdorSoL (2960 in chips)
Seat 4: Jed-Forest (765 in chips)
Seat 5: tb17 (975 in chips)
Seat 6: charr (1665 in chips)
Seat 7: Yalah (70 in chips)
Seat 8: ledan68 (1580 in chips)
Seat 9: Boombasi (1440 in chips)
Jed-Forest: posts small blind 15
tb17: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to tb17 [5c 6d]
charr: folds
Yalah: raises 40 to 70 and is all-in
ledan68: calls 70
Boombasi: calls 70
plug ugly: folds
ChazDawg54: folds
AdorSoL: calls 70
Jed-Forest: calls 55
tb17: calls 40
*** FLOP *** [6h 5h 8d]
Jed-Forest: checks
tb17: bets 305
ledan68: folds
Boombasi: folds
AdorSoL: folds
Jed-Forest: raises 390 to 695 and is all-in
tb17: calls 390
*** TURN *** [6h 5h 8d] [9d]
*** RIVER *** [6h 5h 8d 9d] [4d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Jed-Forest: shows [7h 8h] (a straight, Five to Nine)
tb17: shows [5c 6d] (two pair, Sixes and Fives)
Jed-Forest collected 1390 from side pot
Yalah: shows [Ac 3c] (high card Ace)

PokerStars Game #4749580224: Tournament #23515282, $20+$2 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2006/04/26 - 12:27:05 (ET)
Table '23515282 9' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: plug ugly (1165 in chips)
Seat 2: ChazDawg54 (2905 in chips)
Seat 3: AdorSoL (2890 in chips)
Seat 4: Jed-Forest (1810 in chips)
Seat 5: tb17 (195 in chips)
Seat 6: charr (1635 in chips)
Seat 7: bigschulte (1775 in chips)
Seat 8: ledan68 (1210 in chips)
Seat 9: Boombasi (1370 in chips)
charr: posts small blind 15
bigschulte: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to tb17 [5s 5h]
ledan68: calls 30
Boombasi: calls 30
plug ugly: folds
ChazDawg54: raises 150 to 180
AdorSoL: calls 180
Jed-Forest: folds
tb17: raises 15 to 195 and is all-in
charr: calls 180
bigschulte: folds
ledan68: calls 165
Boombasi: calls 165
ChazDawg54: calls 15
AdorSoL: calls 15
*** FLOP *** [5c Jd Jc]
charr: checks
ledan68: checks
Boombasi: checks
ChazDawg54: bets 2710 and is all-in
AdorSoL: folds
charr: folds
ledan68: folds
Boombasi: folds
*** TURN *** [5c Jd Jc] [4d]
*** RIVER *** [5c Jd Jc 4d] [4s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ChazDawg54: shows [Ad Js] (a full house, Jacks full of Fours)
tb17: shows [5s 5h] (a full house, Fives full of Jacks)
tb17 said, "lol"
ChazDawg54 collected 1200 from pot

Bitchfest Supreme

I never thought with exams finishing I would NOT be playing poker, but the last 3 days have made me consider quitting for a long long time.

Played 4 $29 satellites to get into the big tourney, they ended up in the following fashion: The first 3 I came 3rd, the 4th I came last

Satellite 1: I pick off a bluff on a A-K-2 flop with 8-8 (Don't ask how, it was a weird feeling), 7 on the turn to give him his setzilla, good night.

Satellite 2: A-K vs A-Ks. I was drawing dead on the flop.

Satellite 3: 4-4 vs A-4. Flushzilla hit.

Satellite 4: Cooler. In the BB with K-9. Flopped a straight, and ran into a slowplayed A-K. I can't believe i used to limp with A-K, now it just infuriates me.

Then I tried a couple $50+5 90 mans, which involved me busting in the 20s both times.

Then I tried buying into the $200=15, and if the 4 satellites didnt tell me enough, I didn't even crack the top 5000.

Then I tried a session of limit, and lost a buyin in a record 10 mins. thats $25 per minute.

So when all is said and done, I'm done until at least mid May. I will try to update on poker shows that I see, because I need to cahnge the way I play.

Oh, and Tony Licastro makes me puke. The way he cheered harder than TheTakeover when Bill was just about drawing dead was disgusting. You don't do that shit. Yes I'm jealous, because the fact that he can be a card rack and do two things (1. Say all in and 2. Act like a complete jackass at the table) AND be a millionaire is just...wow.

Random

Saturday:

Wake up at noon, study till 3

3 pm - Go to the range
4 pm- Study more
6 pm - Burn my dinner, end up spending money on pizza
7 pm - Study more
12 am - Go play poker practicing squeezing cards.

Couple funny hands:

I squeeze out two non across and try to bluff at a 8c-9h-4h-10c-Jc. I end up having 2c-3c and busting out 4-9.

Squeeze out two nothing across, raise, no one calls, it turns out to be aces.

I get a none across and a paint, so I raise it up. 5 callers. Flop comes 5-6-A. I decide to look then and I see As-Ks. I push, EVERYONE calls, and I end up losing to A-8.

5 am - Get McDonalds breakfast

6 am - Study more

10 am - Go to church

12 pm - Play 5 heads up matches at $50+5 a piece. Win 3 of them

1 pm - Study more

4 pm - Play the 1 mill guaranteed, bust out with Aces got a setzilla to the face by 2-2.

6 pm - Study more

10 pm - Start the rebuy, rebuy in 6 times. Still get a shitty stack.

Grinding for that $70!

Isnt it the greatest feeling when you play for like 6 hours...triple your buyin, and walk away with chicken scratch? That's how it's gone the last 3 days

Wednesday

Amoutn Won: $374.50
Hands Played: 504

Thursday

Amount Won: $303
Hands Played: 302

Today:

Amount won: $-601.50!
Hands Played: 553

Die Variance. Die.

Backpedalling as fast as I can...

Bubbled out of 2 MTTs. What an awesome feeling. So awesome th at if I don't cash today I'm gonna stop for the rest of the month. I've dropped about close to 1g on tourney entry fees on stars and have had nothing to show for it. So once my 2nd $600 deposit goes to shit, I'll just make money back on limit (or fail trying). later!

I just want to run my head into the wall sometimes.

I totally remembered why I stopped playing tourneys. The same pattern happened again. Rape the first hour, and then the good old 2nd hour collapse

$1 mill guaranteed = SB vs BB battle (me in SB): 5-6 os, fold to me, limp, BB checks, flop 7-10-4, check/check, Turn is an 8, we get all our money in, he flips j-9. Ok fine, nothing I can do about that.

$11 rebuy = Attempt a steal with 8-6 os, get called by A-2 in the BB. Flop 8-6-A. Board pairs Kings.

$11 double shootout = Get it all in with 3 left with K-Q, get called by Q-J. Flop K-10-A. No chop.

$50+5 90 man SNG = Steal again with 7-9 suited, get called, flop k-7-9. We get all our monye in, he flips over K-J wha? (We were 3rd and 4th in chips with less than 20 remaining), turn 8, river 10.

$100+9 SNG = Pick up AA, Flop Q-2-4. I bet and he check raises me, I flat call looking to get all his chips in the middle on the turn. bad move by me, turn is a Q and A-Q gets me again.

Then today, I'm on a killer run on AP (Dipping to 3-6 short and clearing a bonus), when this happens:

Get dealt Q-10 OS in the dealer position, folded to me and I raise it, BB 3 bets and I call. Flop is:

Qh-10h-8d. We cap the betting, making it 4 each.

Turn is the sweet Q giving me the nuts. No possible way to lose right?

He bets, and boom, there goes my connection. Nope, that's no lie. I'm sitting there thinking there is NO way this can happen, and of course I get all in protection and win a little pot (when I got back the table said he had 8s!), so at least 5 more bets was coming through. The worst part was that I was browsing FCP and SRK at the time, so I KNOW it was just fucking Absolute Poker screwing me.

Another couple of disconnects, and I'm forced to shut off my session a little early. It was a winning one, but good god, the players were so bad. I know I shouldn't be whining after a 3 digit session, but still...I coulda made at least triple of what I did grinding it out.

AP Session 4/09/2006:

Hands Played: 542
Total Amount won: $111.50
BB/100: 3.43

Tourney Stats (4/09/2006):

-$215 -$55 -$22 -$11 -$109 = - $412

Tourney time...Really Frustrated.

Decided to play some big tourneys today, didnt really go my way. Most of them had a familiar pattern. Would triple up by the first break, win a race, then totally collapse before the second break. UB's $20k guaranteed, the $150+12 on stars, the $10 rebuy, and the $50+5 went that way for me. I cashed in only one event, the $100+9 event with the 20% structure (which meant a smaller payout if you didnt hit big), and of course I busted 33rd out of 290 (which wouldnt even make the money in a regular structure!). That one got me a WHOPPING $141, for $32 profit. Hoo-fucking-ray.

So add it up and I had a pretty big loss tonight. Oh well, that's poker.

Ok ONE more post: This won't have much content

Logged down another winner at limit, 3 1/2 hours of single tabling cuz I didnt feel like multi tabling today:

Hands played: 266
Amount won: $252.00
BB/100: 9.47

Add that up to the tourney win, and that's $1k won today. Gonna sleep well tonight :)

April:

Total Hands: 1012
Amount Won: $496.00
BB/100: 4.90

I sure hope this is attainable in the long run -_-

Took down a MTT!

Ok, the topic is misleading, while it was a MTT, it was a really really small one. A $100+9 6-Handed MTT. When I saw only 12 people and 2 alternates, I decided to take a shot. First off, I was insanely lucky to even GET IN THE TOURNEY. There was a min left in the second level (After the second level no alternates would be taken). The shortest stack was 2k with blinds at 10/20. No shot right? Well a straight ran into a flush, and boom I was in on the last hand of level 2.

My table was 5 handed by the time I got in. 11 people were in, and 11 people lasted through the first break. Gotta be a new record. Small blinds + small field = really boring play. It was quite obvious that I was the table captain, I won 40% of the hands, with 5 people, I was catching lots of cards but also stealing and re-stealing a lot.

I built my stack slowly and slowly to about 5k (everyone started with 2.5k), and it got cut in half when my A-Q ran into A-K. I kept jamming and jamming, hitting lots of cards, for example I raised with J-Q got called by 10-8 and the flop was 8-9-10. With 7 people left, I knocked out the shorty with 10-10 vs 5-5. I was now the chip leader going into the final table.

The FIRST hand of the Final table, I get my lucky hand (8c-8s). EP raises, a call by the person 2nd in chips (Button), and I call from the SB.

Flop 10-10-8. Yummy.

EP raiser bets, Button raises, and I re-raise, EP folds, button moves in with J-10, I call and my hand holds up. All of a sudden I am a massive chip leader.

I knock out someone with Aces, then with 4 left, I raisewith 9-10 on the button, SB calls, and we see a flop.

Flop is J-8-7. Seriously? SB bets out, I flat call. Turn is probably the worst card, a 10. Now the straight is really obvious. SB leads out again and I push expecting a chop. SB folds his 10-8 face up, and I'm pissed. If that 10 doesnt come I woulda probably had most of his money. However he was seriously crippled and busted out.

3 handed, I get Kd-3d on the button with a massive chip lead and the blinds were really small still. They were 100-200 and I had 21k, and the two others had 9k (SB) and 5k(BB) respectively. I pop it up to 600, and the BB calls.

Flop is 7-2-6 with 2 diamonds and we go check check. Turn is the Q of diamonds and he checks, I lead out, he pushes and I call instantly and he shows his Q-10 and I get a massive chip lead heads up.

Heads up was a nightmare through the first 10 mins, and I was getting pushed around pretty badly. His button raises were monstrous, with the blinds at 200 he would raise to 3200? I called him once with K-J and folded to a insta push.

We got back to even, and after i won a pot, this hand happened:

Blinds 100-200, stacks 18.5k (Me), 16.5k (Opponent)

I raise with 8c-9c to 900, and I get re-raised to 2700. He's been doing this regularly so I flat call.

Flop is K-9-9. Bingo bango bongo, showtunes going off in my head and all that crap VVP has to say. BB bets 3k and I flat call.

Turn is a 8, and he moves in, I call quickly and he shows K-8. My hand holds up, and I am the worldwide champ of 15 man tourneys.

1st for $750, not a bad payday for less than 2 hours of work.

Wow, Mr Rocks and Rings can play some good poker...

So I picked up Ep12 of High Stakes Poker. It was a good show as usual. Just wanted to give my thoughts on a couple subjects:

1. What the flying FUCK is up with Phil Hellmuth? I mean it's really hard to describe how he's playing, but he earned every bit of his reputation as an atrocious cash game player. A lot of his plays just absolutely baffled me. I'm kinad confused as to what he was thinking.

"Hey I have 6-7 on a A-Q-x board, lets bet $1,000 into a $8,000 pot and that'll surely be good enough to knock out TWO opponents!"

"Hey I have MIDDLE pair against 6 opponents, lets bet $3,200 into a pot of nearly $16k and then CALL a 25k raise from a set"

"Hey I finally hit a good hand. Lets just smallbet/check/smallbet to extract the LEAST amount of money possible"

And there were more. To be honest, I'm not much of a NL cash game player, but I know when there's a live one at the table. They aren't kidding when they said Phil stunk. He gets 0 value from his monsters, steals 0 pots with pathetic bets, and loses hand after hand to get him angry. Ugh. But he's worth a lot of money, so what the hell do I know.

2. When I first saw Antonio Esfandiari, the first thing I thought of was "douchebag". This was before I saw his wonderful website. Rocks and Rings. That pretty much sealed the deal for me. He's a dumbass. Well...till I saw HSP.

The man can play poker, he is constantly getting it in with the best hand, and he read Daniel as good as possible. (Granted DN did give it away thanks to his idiotic "I'll show you one card" comment) This is also a guy who got Eli Elezra to stick his stack in with just Jacks. And after being pissed for a couple minutes, he was back to joking around. He deserves a lot of respect. Not many people can lose 200k the way he did, and laugh it off.

3. Squeeze Plays: I'm kinda surprised more people weren't pulling these off the whole series. Johnny Chan put on a really nice one with my lucky hand. In a game like this where people are just flat calling raises, why not try a squeeze? You'll have position if someone does call you. I guess people fear the call/reraise or the original raiser actually waking up with something.

Anyways I'm glad this is getting another season. (Well, there are talks but nothing more) I've been watching a lot of cash games lately on UB. The NL ones are something I'd like to get into in the future. Till then, I'll stick to my grind.

Quick day:

3 tabled UB for about 3 hours tonight. Not much to say, I played too much KH2. Anyways:

April 3, 2006
Hands Played: 432
Amount Won: $326.00
BB/100: 7.55

TOTAL for April:

Hands played: 746
Amount Won: $264.00
BB/100: 3.54

I wanna play some tourneys sometime this week. I got that "big score" feeling.

So today I played with JohnnyBax...

Today I decided not to bother with limit, as I had tons of work to do so I decided to play just one huge tourney and cash in. It came between the 1 mill guaranteed and the 125k on UB, but I decided on UBs. Anyways the first hour went really well, I built my original stack of 2500 to about 4k, and after busting someone, I get moved to table 11.

Hey look! There's iMsoLucky0! Hey look! There's Shawn Rice! Hey look! There's JohnnyBax!

What kinda sick twisted UB tourney would have all those people at one table this early? Luckily, the two guys got moved after a couple of orbits so it was just Johnny and a buncha donks (including me). I picked up a lot of hands in hour 2, and built my stack up to 8k, till I donked off a couple thousand when I called a shorty all in with a-j on the button, and a shorty in the SB woke up with kings. Oh well, ended break 2 at 6885.

Hour 3 was insignificant, no big hands, but I made enough steals so that I could survive. Ended that just above avg at 6900.

Hour 4 was probably the worst hour of my life playing poker. It stank. The blinds were high enough so that I had limited moves, and the hands I got well...yea. I hit 0 cards and my steals were constantly getting picked off. I was totally outclassed. I made many steals going all in, but by the time we were at 300/600/75, I was down to about 4k with just about 40 till the money.

Then I pick up the Hellmuth (9c-9s), and move in, big stack calls with As-Qx. Flop comes Qs-Xs-Xs, and that pretty much just makes me gag. UNTIL THE SWEET BEAUTIFUL RED NINE came out of the sky...

No wait that was a red 8. Oops.

108th out of 628, yuck. Oh well. I guess I should stick to limit.

End of March Results:

I tried to do something new. Instead of playing long sessions for bonuses and grinding out, I decided to play shorter sessions. I felt burnt out after February absolutely raped me in the cash games (10 straight losing sessions of 1 buyin or more), and if I wasn't playing 2/4 short, I woulda been broke. I also told myself in March that I would play strictly tournaments, but after 5 days and 2 FTs, I got bored, so I went back to the limit cash games. I played less hands than I usually do (only 200 hands a day), but the results were really nice.

Playing shorter sessions makes me constantly play at my best, cuz like all poker players, my attention span lowers the longer I play. However, I still want to try and play 15k hands this april, 500 hands a day, so I can get around 1k in rakeback. It should cover for the downswing that's bound to happen this month.

Anyways here is the Results for March

Total Hands: 5,860
Total Amount Won: $1,553.00
BB/100: 2.65
BB/Hr: 2.15
VPIP: 25.53
PF%: 10.53
Agression Factor: 2.01