KeepYourChips Blog Entries

The best and the rest

Leikman — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:06:31 +0000

Finally reviving my blog since i am going to work my way back to 25NL up from 2NL.

For those curious souls, who want to know the whole story, search for the user Leikman on 2+2 and read through my posts in the Build a BR thread.

Now onto today.

I figured i needed a way to evaluate how i feel emotionally before a session and after a session. See how i went from tiltfree to madtilted and how it reflected my results.

Need to do a few things outside and will report with the pre-session and post-session analysis once i am done.

Back to Blogging??

PokerWannabe — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:53:30 +0000

Meh, not that I every really started to do it on a regular basis but I may post something up here every now and again.

I have finals coming up this week, so I’m procrastinating right now. I actually started to study earlier and was told by a poker friend a big fish was sitting at 200NL HU and I should take a shot a play him. (My normal stakes are 100NL 6max, but I’ve played a decent amount of HU in the past) I decided to play him even though it was hard for me to break away from the books for a little while, yeah right. I ended up winning my biggest pot ever, and now I’m trying to find somethings to do to keep me from having to continue stuyding.

Sometime tomorrow when I’m procrastinating some more I’ll give an update from where I actually left off on this blog, losing 10bi at 10NL and being super emo about it

Absolute Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold’em – 2 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $621.95
BTN/SB: $433.15

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with 6 6
BTN/SB raises to $12, Hero calls $10

Flop: ($24.00) K 6 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets $12, Hero raises to $24, BTN/SB calls $12

Turn: ($72.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $46, BTN/SB raises to $92, Hero raises to $145, BTN/SB raises to $397.15 all in, Hero calls $252.15

River: ($866.30) 7 (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $866.30
Hero shows 6 6 (Full house, sixes full of threes)
BTN/SB shows 4 3 (Three of a kind, threes)
Hero wins $865.80
(Rake: $0.50)

I have a read on him that he spazzes out a lot when faced with min raises, so thats the reasoning for my betsizing in this hand

You'll just have to read it...

RIGGED! — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:03:46 +0000

Wednesday at about 4pm, Courtney and I were eating at the Fred Meyer deli when we decided that we wanted to go see her mom and grandparents in Roseburg, Oregon. It is a six hour drive. So we left at about 5:30 and everything was going fine. We forgot our cell phone chargers, but our batteries will last. Most of the drive was in the dark which I hate and about five hours into the drive I was super tired and struggling to stay awake.

My 2001 Ford Escort with about 120k miles was running fine as always. All of a sudden my car won’t accelerate. Ok that sucks. Then I here a thud and I can tell some kind of belt just snapped in my engine. I pull off onto an exit ramp and as soon as my car stops, it dies. It’ll be the last time it ever runs. I call roadside assistance and tell them what exit we are at and they wanted to know where to tow my car. I quickly realize that I have no clue where I am. I know of no towns that are with in 40 miles and it is 10:30 at night.

My fiance calls her grandparents which we find out are about an hour away. We decided that it would be best to leave the car and get it towed in the morning. When a tow service is open and I can actually find the nearest town. Her grandparents picked us up and they brought us back to their place.

The next morning I called a tow service based in Drain, Oregon that is basically five miles away from my car. He said he could go tow it and we can meet him at the repair shop. Then we got a call from him and he said that the car wasn’t there and that probably the police had it towed. Oh great I’m sure they are experts at finding the cheapest towing service. I called the state police and they said they towed the car and to call ’Jim’s Towing.’ He is based in Yoncalla which is just a few miles from my car. I called him and he sounded like a pleasant guy until he told me the price of the towing. 335 dollars. Wow, ok that’s gunna be a big hit. Oh and he wanted it in cash. Of course I have not a cent in my bank account cause I paid off a big chunk of my credit cards yesterday. Thank god that I found one of Courtney’s paychecks this morning and cashed it. There goes every penny that I had brought for the trip. Luckily I happened to have 300 bucks in my back pocket. Come to find out that he charged us $200 more than any other tow truck would have. He turned out to be the biggest jerk that I’ve met in years.

We went down to get my car and have it towed again to a repair shop. Of course that was another quick $65 dollars to tow it not even a mile down the road. I could have and should have just pushed it down the road in the pouring rain for an hour. At least the repair shop took a credit card…

The mechanic was a real nice guy and he owned and ran the repair shop with his wife. Very down to earth, small town friendly people. He informed me that my engine basically just blew up and he would need to replace it. A used Ford Escort engine would cost about $2500 with no warranty and a rebuilt engine would be about $3500. This trip is starting out great! My car Blue Books for about 700 dollars and that’s with a running engine.

Well the obvious decision here is to trash my car. We found a guy that would tow my car to his junkyard and give me 200 dollars. Perfect. Went and cleaned out my car which was freaking disgusting, something had leaked all over my trunk and all over my golf clubs. There was mold all over the bottom of my trunk. There was junk all over in my car. Typical messy car. Of course my future grandfather decided to help me clean it out. I am made such a great impression on him. Thank goodness he is a great guy and understood that people aren’t perfect, especially me lol.

We spent the next few days at the grandparents house and it was actually a good time, in spite of all the recent events. They drove us back to Portland this morning, which is about half way between our houses. My brothers wife (who lives about two blocks away from me)so kindly met us there and drove us the three hours back home.

So at least we are finally home and I can start the search for a new car. I cannot afford it at all. I have no job, have been living off of my parent’s insurance and have zero money. There is a slight possibility that I may have to cash out my poker bankroll to buy some sort of transportation. I’m definitely going to have to cash out a few hundred to repay some people for their help over the past few days. I’ll have to drop down in limits at poker, but at least I know I can win at those levels and maybe I can grind some real quick money.

I learned quite a few life lessons on this trip:
- Never buy Ford Escorts and drive them more than a 100k miles. The engines give out and the car isn’t worth the repair. I’ve had two Escorts and both ended the exact same way. The repair man and the guy that bought the car from me told me the same thing. “Escorts are just that type of car.”
- If you break down on the freeway, don’t pull off on an exit ramp. It will be considered a hazard even if it is on the shoulder. The police will tow it and the towing company can charge whatever they want. Instead, pull off onto the freeway shoulder and you will have a day till it can be towed.
- Keep your car clean as often as you can because you never know when you will have to clean it out with your fiance’s grandfather.
- And the lesson I have learned twice…SELL YOUR CAR BEFORE IT KILLS ITSELF!

Who wants to talk poker?

Schweig — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:01:43 +0000

Took the day off, didn’t really think about poker much at all, although I did have fun sweating a friend who came 2nd in the $215 8-game on PS.

Planning to get back on the horse soon but first off, who wants to talk poker? I’m looking to make a bunch of online poker player friends that I can regularly discuss stuff with, nothing serious like a team or anything.

Right now I’m concentrated on HU PLO but I’m willing to talk or think about just about any type of poker possible. Feel free to message me if you want to add me on skype, msn or whatever.

Some Gems

Lucid75 — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:37:20 +0000

Here are some fun hands I played today

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5267430
Pretty standard cooler. Villain could have possibly checked behind here, but I think cbetting is fine.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5267432
same villain as the first hand, I think he played his hand very poorly. C/ring the flop w/ top/bottom is such a bad play on this board unless you have the right dynamic (which we didn’t), it’s not like the board is super difficult to play on future streets, and w/ the king and jack in his hand, it’s not like he has dry top/bottom. As for my play, I decided to fastplay the flop b/c it happened maybe 2 rounds after the other hand I posted. My bet sizing probablyshould be a bit smaller on the flop when in 3b his c/r, just to make it a nice balance for bluffing. In a vacuum I like slowplaying my hand vs the c/r for the most part, and I get to use the spade blockers in my hand to lower the chances of a flush coming on the turn.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5267431
Here’s a fun hand vs a bad villain who was 3b too much oop. The small preflop 3b is almost never AAxx, so I feel like RR is super profitable as there are going to be a ton of flops that either make me or where I get to cbet and get a fold. Once the flop comes my hand plays itself. I really hate his play though. Calling the 4b is bad w/ his hand, and c/shoving this flop is really bad. This is the best case scenario for him tbh, and he’s not making me fold better hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5267478
I got berated for this hand. Although maybe a bit nitty I really like the way I play the hand. I don’t really feel the need to protect the flop, and doubt there are many hands that don’t cbet that can call on this flop. I suppose if he’s balanced when he checks he’s going to have AAJx and Q9xx and some rando traps once in awhile, but most people aren’t balanced. Once the turn comes and he checks again and doesn’t stab he usually has some sort of showdown value, and probably will call a bet some sort of a queen. River is nice for filling up the backseat w/ goldbars to go to valuetown.

Introduction

rpadrela — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:23:50 +0000

After a 2 month holiday period from Poker I’m back to the tables.

I mainly play 9-man SNGs at PokerStars. I started at the minimum buy-in of $1+$0.2 and have been climbing the SNG ladder from there for the last one and a half year playing part-time. It’s taking a lot more time to climb up than I thought it would but so far it’s been a profitable ride.

I’m currently 6-tabling at the $10+$1 level but have already played close to 1000 games at the $20+$2. Unfortunately, I’ve failed to establish myself as a winning player at the $20+$2 level and was forced to drop down to the previous level.

I have played more than 2500 $10+$1 games and I’m winning with a 7% ROI which I think isn’t good enough. I’m expecting to be able to increase it to 10%-15% range in the next few months. I’ll hire a coach if I can’t make it by myself.

For those that climbed the ladder all the way to the top, leave a comment about how your experience was, what levels were the most difficult, etc…

I’m expecting to post at least once a week with updates on my current progress, hand analysis and some other poker related random stuff.

I am thinking about quiting

SnappieVouz — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:41:08 +0000

Poker is stressfull, stress is related to pain. Stress is pain.
Since two weeks I haven’t won one session I played.
I know I am solid if I am on my a-game but the stress from all the losing makes me play my c-game way more often then my a-game, which ends up me losing more because im not on my a-game, which causes me to lose more which causes more stress.
This repeats itself over and over again. More stress, more pain, more anger, less joy in life.
I read this in the forum:

“the secret is learning how to handle and accept the fact that ALL poker winners are losing players 45% of the time too.
Trouble is, the pain of losing hurts about twice as much as the joy of winning feels good..
people can go on monkey tilt and spew off more money than the 55% of winning sessions in the 45% of losing sessions.
overcoming this, and playing your best, despite what your hard wired emotions are telling you, is the secret. imo.”

I can’t deal with it and haven’t overcome it. And if I have to deal with this fact for 45% of my sessions, which means like almost 6 months of a year.. I am not sure if it’s worth it.

I have tried everything. I watched Tommy angelo’s serie over and over again. I watched my breathing. I have tried playing shorter sessions. I have tried to play with a 100 bi bankroll but the stress just keeps coming in.

On top of that I have a great education where I could end up being somebody very important for society which I always wanted to be. Somebody who is there for people in society and I don’t have the feeling being a poker player will ever make me feel as good as I would feel having that task/job.

Nobody knows me in the poker community, only I know how hard I worked on my a-game to make it as solid as it can get, I studied my ass off. I wish I could change my C-game and I wish I could tiltless like Tommy calls it, but I just can’t, and only I know how hard I worked on that part. Hard, very hard.

I must admit that it hurts to look in the mirror and know its time to throw in the towel but at the moment I have great things ahead of me like the education I am talking about, and I just don’t want to ruin the run good I have in real life on a bad run in poker which has been going on from the beginning I started to play poker seriously and started to understand what it means to have a ‘bad beat’ and a ‘cooler’, and what it means to have 93% equity in a hand. Thats when the stress came in and the anger, because I couldnt stand all those fuckers that played so bad but won money of me by doing it.

I never played poker for the money. I am a man with money enough who plays 25nl because I wanted to start from the ground up like every other top poker player I have major respect for. I didn’t succeed, but it doesn’t feel like a failure. Ive moved from 2nl to 25nl in a couple of months, including running really bad and tilting away a lot of money.

Poker probably learned me some things about myself and I will see that in a couple of months when my head is more clear. Altough I must say I am in a very clear moment. I think the biggest thing poker taught me is that life is 50% what happens to you, and 50% what you make from the things that are happening.

There will be a day that I feel like playing poker again and I will pick it up. Now its time to work on other things in life.

Deuces cracked will have some great vids for me that will teach me poker again and maybe if the pressure of my education isn’t so demanding and I have my life the way I want it, I can look at poker in a whole different way.

Thank you DC for giving me confidence about my ability to learn poker the right way, thank you for Tommy angelo, thanks to him I was able to atleast work on my C-game.

There IS No such thing as fold Equity...............at 10NL

icechip — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:47:24 +0000

OK I fired up the old Dell “Granpa” Dimension" and started with session 2 after doing some careful review of my hands played at these limits. My plan was to tighten up a little more OOP but still open a pretty wide range from CO and BU. I also had to say F*** FOLD EQUITY because its a figment of my imagination here at these limits and only bet for value or c bet flop and lay down…….It sounds weak I know…….but successful. In my next session I managed to not stack off to any of the local fish and was not bleeding out from my 2 barrels getting called by 33 on Q95A boards. These guys just arent letting go of their hands and everything is going to showdown. My THIN RED LINE is taking a beating !!!!!I also realized that these guys just arent bluffing. 3 bets usually means strength and check calls are weak. For my next session Im going to take these principles with me and look for some better places to open up my game. I don’t think I will change the way I play against the fish but I think there is room to exploit some of the many TAGs that populate these tables Till Next Time.

Win a free poker book!

wellju — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:23:38 +0000

There’s a new, fresh and great website related to poker, specially mathematical and theoretic aspects. Check it out and win a free book there!

http://www.countingtheodds.com/2010/03/win-a-poker-book-of-your-choice/

A look at February from mid March

Icehockeyplyr — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:22:53 +0000

I didn’t get much time in during February. I did very little poker related anything really. I tried out Fulltilt’s rush poker, but I tried it with a "Fun video game’ out look that cost me dearly. Not so much in bankroll (a little but not much), it cost me more in my focus, as I consider “Rushpoker” more of a break from my 6max grind. The begining of March I found that my 6 max tables seemed to be plagued with a lot of tight, very tight Regs. It then dawned on me… sometime fish are known to swim to different parts of the pond! So at the begining of March, I started with fresh and much more focus driven out look toward “Rushpoker”. I also got some great news, I finally got approved for Rakeback at Fulltilt (Cheers). Now with rakeback, a membership here, and focus, I think making my goal of 25NL is going to be easy. I also need to keep up on this blog as its nice to go back and look at it to see where my mind set was or is from time to time and how I change.

Good luck to everyone here.

Big losing session

Schweig — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:20:58 +0000

Dropped about $3400 today at HU PLO. Wasn’t playing well in some parts of it, probably cost myself extra money in bad pay offs, bad bluffs, bad misreads etc. I think it’s the first time in ages I’ve tilted, though it wasn’t that bad still, but I was constantly fixed on getting even quickly, which you shouldn’t do as a poker player. Definitely should have stopped earlier but couldn’t, despite being a bit tired, hungry, thirsty and generally steamed. The opponents I was playing weren’t that bad either.

Anyway, it’s not the end of the world. This is what I signed up for I guess, and I’ve had so many winning days recently (I’m only down 800 this month after this) it’s about time I had a big losing one. I’ve spent the last couple months building up my own ego so much that this acts as a much needed reality check. I’m not invincible to downswings, variance or even tilt.

Nevermind. What I’m not going to do is jump back in and force out a win. I’m just going to take a couple days to cool off then come back, play my best and just see how it goes.

Disappointment and a new beginning

WaLkOfLiFe — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:23:12 +0000

*I’ll start by saying I am definitely in a rut poker wise. My ability to control my emotions has been almost nonexistent and I feel as though I have digressed as a poker player in the last month or two. It seems like I start to climb the poker mountain getting to an altitude where my discipline and overall game is in check, only to fall back down the slope ending up in the exact same spot over and over again. I have had a very short fuse as of late, letting myself get rattled by the most insignificant of results.

On the positive side I feel like I have learned more about myself in the last 2 months than ever before and I most certainly plan to take this in stride and grow from this inevitable experience.*

I am in tip top shape fundamentally and I know I am employing legitimate counter strategies during sessions, but standing in my path to carnal pwnage is my inability to control myself emotionally. It is no longer a secret and it cannot be swept under the rug again, I have to finally come clean and be 100% honest if to have any hope of containing this dollar shredding issue.

I don’t have a plan in place as of yet, nor do I expect to be a true tilt wrangler in the immediate future, but I can honestly say I feel like this is going to be the TRUE turning point of my tilt infested poker career. So for me it is a new beginning and an optimistic future and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it. The epic journey starts from this day onward. This is my new beginning.

25NL

BOEREL — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:45:20 +0000

Text Here

My attitude lately

Lucid75 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:27:05 +0000

I recently watched There Will Be Blood. It’s about a rising oil driller in the 1800s. During one scene he says:

I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people. There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone. I see the worst in people. I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need. (abridged)

This is pretty much exactly how I feel about people, and poker.

/emorant

The Bankroll Challenge Begins

daggermouth — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:56:09 +0000

Last month I withdrew from Fulltilt in order to move to Stars and start building a roll. Exactly two days later I get a lovely email from Rakebackpros.com telling me I was now finally eligible (oh how nice).

With only 5 bucks left on Fulltilt I said “Hmmm this will be a good challenge I will try to build from this ala Chris Ferguson method”. That was 8 days ago. At first things went… well south to say the least. My BR dropped to 2 bucks twice and I came close to busto.

Then it happened I begin to slowly roll it up taking bits and pieces here and there. Sadly I have not put in enough hours at Stars or Fulltilt (which is poor for my BR) but still its gone rather well (better than expected).

I am still unsure even after playing which direction I intend to take later cash or sngs. I have worked quite hard on my sng/mtt game and it shows.

Sidenote For new players looking to build a roll and don’t want to invest a lot I say go for it. Sticking to the smaller stakes and winning is rather easy it simply takes time.

The question has entered my thoughts as I am sure it has entered every poker players “How far can I take this?”. Well we will have to see.

Hahaha I suck (March week 2)

bananaconda — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:14:53 +0000

Playing rush trying to clear my $100 bonus, went from 5nl to 10nl rush…

just a mix of getting coolered and being spewy. with rakeback + bonus i’m not TOO far in the hole. theres always next week :P

Omahuh?

HotDiggy1121 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:35:59 +0000

Really just posting this for amusement – your amusement now….my amusement later :)

So, wanted to take a shot @ PLO. I watched the first 2 vids of Hellomaha…I’m thinking I missed something because I thought I flopped a boat here …good times :)

Full Tilt Poker $0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi – 6 players – View hand 585468
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $9.62
BB: $12.07
UTG: $15.66
Hero (MP): $12.91
CO: $12.88
BTN: $9.90

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is MP with K J J J
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.35, 1 fold, BTN calls $0.35, 1 fold, BB calls $0.25

Flop: ($1.10) 6 3 3 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.70, BTN folds, BB raises to $1.40, Hero raises to $5.30, BB raises to $11.72 all in, Hero calls $6.42

Turn: ($24.54) 5 (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: ($24.54) A (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $24.54
BB shows 3 A 9 T (a full house, Threes full of Aces)
Hero shows K J J J (two pair, Jacks and Threes)
BB wins $22.91
(Rake: $1.63)

What a Rush....maybe

Boomer — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:10:19 +0000

Well I finally broke today and made an account on Full Tilt…all that Rakeback and free training was too much to pass up…plus I wanted to try Rush Poker so I deposited enough to max out the bonus (Which I’ll more than likely have to recover off Stars but hey, fortuantely I live in a free country where I can use my debit card to throw money around between sites) and so far it’s been enjoyable except for one small detail…

FULL TILT’S SOFTWARE TILTS THE SHIT OUTTA ME!!!

So far I’ve had to uninstall and re-install it after every session becasue the bloody thing doens’t even have the courtesey of giving me an error message, just a blank Exclamation followed by a no-show…epic fail.

But the good news is I really enjoy Rush Poker, just as something new, and I think it’ll be great for helping me get some hands in during the month. Dunno if I’m profitable at it yet though, maybe a little nitty even for FR, but it’s something new and something I can split my time between, you never know I might have one of those 15k hand months I hear so much about at some point.

Nah, never happen :)

Smooth move FT...

2fouroffsuit — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:38:27 +0000

I open up FT and am greeted by the creepiest avatar I’ve ever seen:

Whoa now Full Tilt! No disrespect to whoever the FT pro is, but wow that is a creepy ass cartoon version of you!

Tough start

Djurhuus — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:41:31 +0000

Thought I’d leave an update on the progress of the project and how it’s been going since I started two nights ago. To start with the positive things first, I have more than fulfilled my goal volume wise, as I’ve been home both today and yesterday.

I’ve managed to get in 108 SNGs and 10 big field MTTs during the last two nights and this morning. This is good, and my new setup, cascading 10-15 tables at a time has worked excellently. No time outs and no decisions made due to lack of time or anything like that.

Result wise things have not worked out yet, well honestly they haven’t worked out at all (see the graph below). Seven total cashes, three final tables of which only one has been in a top spot (a second) is not acceptable so far, and it is hopefully not the way things are going to continue, as my ROI at the moment is at a stunning -47%:

Obviously 100 games is not a big sample size looking at such a top heavy game with much variance, but let me say that the tendency is not great, and not something I’m looking lightly at this early in the project. Thus I’ve used some hours analyzing some middle and late game situations to see if/where I could find any small/major leaks in my game. Overall I’m not too disappointed about my game as many my exit hands are as standard as standard gets, but I have found some spots where I find that I’m either being too passive not stealing blinds in late positions with legitimate hands seeing the stack sizes, or simply too loose and maybe a tan too aggressive in my push game when it is obvious that villain has the goods. I’ve also had some unlucky situations coming in with QQ being beat by AQ for the CL 22-23 handed and standard stuff like that. And, surprisingly enough, this doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would have and like it did earlier. After I started cascading the tables it just seems much more important to go on to the next game and focus on the next decision. So in that sense you can claim the “little” downswing has also improved something — if not my game then my mental focus and attitude towards what I’m trying to become: A grinder.

Oh, and as for the MTTs I’m not too afraid either, I have begun to continuously go deeper and deeper, but lacked the last bit required to hit that glorious FT. Take yesterday night where I finished 42/2200 in a 3.3 MTT, or last week when I got 62/2200ish; those were both deep runs, and with the right cards — and play, obviously — in the final phase, that big score is not luring too far away out there I’m sure.

So despite the bad start I’m still as motivated as ever to go out there and make the grind, and play my A-game. Hopefully this turn the graph and make me a winner soon enough.

Good luck at the tables—I’m off for a session more.

Edit: Okay… I must admit I’m experiencing some tilt tendencies at last. Just had another session without any results again, and I can’t at this time stop letting it get to me. I mean WTF? How the heck is this possible? I again ran into a CL pot at 22 players left holding AK to villain’s KK. In another one I was in one of the top spots with 22k stack when my tens get cracked by KT and after that hand I push with my 4k stack and am out in 14th. Zzzzz

Edit2: Woop!! Scoop!! New update: We all know ranting ALWAYS helps, and so I decided – stubborn as I am – that I’d taht another 13 tables. Well guess that was a good Idea, as I just took down two consecutive wins in the same session!

This is how it looks now:

I’m off for bed now, with the stomach feeling on top again ;-)
Good weekend everyone