Live poker, and then a great night online...

I waited a day to post just because I wanted the embarrassment of asking my wife to transfer me 15 dollars to pass... Argghhh

Anyways we will start with the live poker then get into how I have been doing in Micro cash land. As everyone that reads my blog should know I play in a weekly live tournament that draws about 120 ppl on average and on average I finish in the top thirty to forty... This week was no different. I don't know what it is about live that makes it hard for to adjust to different players. Live single table games I will place ITM 3 out of 4 times, but once two or three people change or god forbid I have to get up and move BOOM! an internal I suck at poker grenade goes off... i really need to work on this one...

Micro cash has treated me well I am up to 78.97 from the original $15. I haven't went below the 15 dollars but it has been a bit up and down. Luckily this morning a guy gift wrapped 22 dollars for me. 5 limper go in with me the bb. I cringe when I see 67o. The flop came out 67K 2 diamonds. At this time I really felt I had the best hand here so I bet $1.50 which was the size of the pot with 6 ppl in. The guy to my left goes all in. Now this is the third time in ten hands this guy has came over the top of my pot sized raise. I decide it is time to make a stand so I call his 20 all in which left me with 3 dollars. blank on the turn third diamond comes on the river. I am actually concerned here. However he had pkt 4's and I took down a pot 1/3 of my current bankroll. Hopefully that will provide some padding for this weekend.

Any way here is the chart from this weeks micro cash games...



Also I am playing in my biggest live game EVER!!! this weekend I am playing a $100 Rebuy tournament... Wish me luck...

What a rough week/weekend

Well everyone I took a beating over this week and the weekend. I just could not get past the bubble in my SnG's. I kept getting beat 2 and three outers. It was killing me. Then if I moved up in price my mistakes cost me too much of my bankroll. I felt like I was constantly trying to play catch up every time I looked at my poker office charts the horrible sloping graph made me play weird at times, and when I did play good someone would hit a hand that either I failed to see or just should not have been there. I understand I made a lot of mistakes, and the further down I went the worst my mistakes got. Anyways I ran out of money and in this time of no netteller I really thought my online career was over. Then I thought my wife plays 5 card draw tourneys. She is pretty good and even though it killed me I asked my wife to transfer me over some money. Pause while all of you stop laughing.

Are done now? Oh come on it is not that funny...

So anyway after hearing my wife say things like "you need me to do what? can you say that again? hmmm.... She transferred me over 15 dollars. I kinda thought that it was a bad idea because the way I had been playing recently I was just going to donk it away. I quickly opened up a single table SnG game and right before hitting register. I decided I would try something new. So I tried out a cash game. anyways it is only a $10NL game, and I played only 1 table at a time. but I made a profit and am up to $31.96 if and when I get 60 I will send my wife back her money. I am playing for the most part careful. I did have a couple instances where I felt I could push someone off a pot., and when I did not push them off I kept trying and it cost me about 10 dollars total.

So since restarting at 15 dollars I have played 244 hands of $10NL and am up to 31.96.

A bad run, and beats, and bad play...

So looking at the title I bet you can guess how my week has went. Wait I better not bet the way my luck is going you would just say "you did great" and then take more of my money...

I guess the title is misleading due to the fact that I got good cards. The problem was the other guys crap cards where hitting like crazy. I went out in 4th every tourney I played. The cash games did know better I would get all my money in with the best and BOOM! all my chips would go across the table. I should have stopped playing but I couldn't. i got angry, I then played like crap. i honestly don't even want to look at the stats for the last two days. I know I am down 48 dollars from what I started with so I am actually down like 60 since my last post. I am going to try one more three dollars tourney and if I don't make the money I am moving down to the 1 dollar 18 man ones to try to build back up.

What a terrible way to begin a blog. I want to get people here to discuss hands and such and I go and get decimated at the micro tables. Let me leave you with the last hand I played. blinds 75-150 QQ LP i raise 5x BB leaving me with approximately 1250 guy re raises me to 900 I decided since I am willing to be all in to push. He turns over T3 clubs and of course 3 clubs quick and painless... Well kinda... That is how my whole week has been...

Oh well I guess I will be hitting the tables once again to try to recover from the last two days...

Me try a cash game...

Well I read a post by one of the other bloggers"Mains Domain That really had me wanting to try out the cash game scene. I decided tonight I am going to try it, and maybe send my hand histories to him for some examination. I will be back before the end of the night and tell you how it went...

I am ahead, and out at the bubble...

Ok Just wanted to log on real quick and give the account of the rest of my weekend play. First off, I played 1 more 3.25 45 man turbo. I took second in this but it took a lucky bubble hand to keep me in the game. all in all though I was happy with my play, and the fact of it was blinds were at 1k/2k at the bubble so I went all in with my 3.4k with AsTs unfortunately scary big stack guy called with K4. The flop came 774 the Turn J and the river a J. So I won with my two pair bigger kicker. oops. Anyway, other then that hand I felt I played pretty good. in this game and was rewarded with a $30.00 prize. I also played 4 more 3.40 10 man tourneys. Now the first one I played I decimated my table. First hand JJ raise 4x bb from the button get 3 callers flop JAK checks to me I bet 2x the pot. 2 people called the turn is an A giving me the full house. First to act go's all in, other guy calls I happily call and at the end of the first hand i have 4500 in chips. Needless to say I won that one. Unfortunately the next three did not go nearly as well. I went out in 4th each time. I am started to get really annoyed with the fact that I keep going out at the bubble. I cant seem to find the right aggressive/passive combination here. I really need to work on bubble play.

Ok despite losing the last 3 tourneys I played by one spot. I am over all very pleased with my play. I mean I did not have finish over 5th in any of my single table games, and made it to 12th in all but one of my 45 man games. I also made to 14th in the 180 man game I played. I really felt this was my most consistent weekend yet. I definitely was not my most prosperous, but I have learned it is about the long term not the short term.

When I got into work this morning the first thing I did was go look at my site meter stats for the weekend. I was happy to see 72 reads to my blog. Unfortunately only 15 of them where for any duration but I am still pretty happy with the first weekend. I am guessing most the people the actually read are frequent visitors to other blogs as most of them exited via a link to Guinness and Poker or Bill's Blog. These are without a doubt two of the best blogs out there. If you have a blog of your own let me know I will check it out and link back to it if it is active.

Speaking of inactive blogs anyone who reads a lot of blogs needs to comment in Hdouble's Blog and tell him we all need some great thought provoking post.

Anyways since the last post I am up $26.00 which puts up $13.00 total.

Finally a real update...

Well after two days of playing poker. I finally decided to sit down and dissect my weekend. I know I did not play as well I could have most of the weekend. I let people playing crap cards and beating me with them get to me. I usually don't let it get to me, but I find it hard to gauge how I am doing. If I am playing correct poker, and still getting beat does that make me a bad player? I don't know I personally feel like once your play reaches a certain level you should be able to beat the pros, and the donks all the same. Am I wrong here, or do I really just have a long way to go on the road of being an average player?

Well I guess I will go through the good the bad and the ugly stats for the weekend.
First off I have had some people express concern over getting e-mailed hand histories. So I am going to post them on to another blog that I am setting up tomorrow. I know that doesn't do much now, but once it is all set up it will work out nicely. So unfortunately this summary is the best I can do for this weekend. Damn me, I got off track... I will finish off this post with what I want to include in this blog at the end. OK here is the run down of the weekend.

We will start off with the-

"3.00 + .25 turbo 45 man SnG."
When Stars first came out with these games I was really excited, because normally I can do fairly well in the $1.10 45 man. These have proven to be more difficult for me. I played 4 of these this weekend. I only placed ITM once but I wasn't completely disappointed in my play. I made deep into the final 2 tables every time, and actually every time I got put out it was because I overplayed a medium pocket pair while on the button and got beat by a higher pocket pair. I really feel like with a couple meaningful adjustments. I might can conquer these games and pad my bankroll...

Next I guess well will talk about the previous games evil sister the-

"$3.00 + .40 turbo 10 man SnG"
These games I seem to be very inconsistent with I have won quite a few but lost just as many. This weekend proved to be different in the sense that I could not win 1 of these. My final tally for these was as follows. I played 12 of these and placed first 0 times, second 1 time, and third 2 times now no matter how bad I talk about my play this is not normal for me to get completely dominated in these games. Hopefully my next few games at this level will be different.

Alright moving on, lets talk about the-

"$4.00 + .40 180 man game I played"
This game in particular has been my vice for sometime. I have played quite a few of these but never cashed. This weekend I am proud to say that I made it to 14th finally cashing in one. I was very pleased with my play here. I started this tournament right after spending a couple hours away from the computer. I think it really helped me focus. I also believe that was my biggest mistake of the weekend. On Friday night I started off pretty bad with three or four really bad beats and I spent the rest of the time trying to catch up.

Alright I have two types of SnG's still to talk about. The first is the-

"$5.00 + .50 9 man SnG"
I used to play these a lot but stopped plying them so much as I would usually build a chip lead and then dwindle it off. I decided to try a couple this weekend since my play has improved a little since I stopped playing them. I played two of these and placed third in one. I was not terribly disappointed in either one of these SnG's. It was a tough change considering the bubble in these is about three- to four times longer then in the $3 turbo's.

Last and not least the-

"$15 + 1 9 man turbo SnG"
I know what everyone is thinking. "why the hell are you playing something for 15% of your bankroll. Well I did this on Friday night during my tilt filled excursion. Anyway I got lucky and was able to ignore the previous bad beats and take third in this tourney. I am not going to discuss this one any further as I should not have been playing it in the first place.

Real quick thought over my play. A few months ago when I would play these SnG's it was all or nothing for me I either won or I went out in 9th, 7th, or 8th. Now even though I did not win one tourney so far this weekend. I am actually pleased with my play as I made it to the bubble almost every one that I played. I felt I was playing more consistent I just have to work on my bubble play a lot more. I am going to log online this week and really look for some good bubble play hints. I am especially looking for info on how to play medium pocket pairs.

Make sure to check back soon as I will have a section dedicated to all my hand histories, as well as a photo album section that will have misc photos, and pics from around my life, and the internet.

Thanks to everyone that has visited... Be sure to check out the blogs that I have linked to they have all been preapproved as good by me...

So far this week end I have played 20 games and lost 13.75 and and ROI of -15%.

Lets hope for some improvement :)

day one update

Well the first day or trial of my "quest" did not go as planned it started out well enough when I managed ot to take 2 and 3rd in my first two SnG's. Let me explain I was playing 3.40 turbo sing table tourneys... Now the best I can describe my play is some what like hacking through a briar patch of psycho players. I mean I know I make my fair share of mistakes but I am talking guys calling crazy bets seeing 60-70% of the flops it is insane. After the first two it kinda wen down hill from there. So far I have played 12 SnG's and am down 5 dollars. When I am done playing later today I wil be giving a more detailed account of my play

I have grown as a player...

First off i was to share a hand history with everyone. The reason I want to show this is because 3 months ago i would not be able to make this lay down. I think this shows I have grown a little as a poker player. Well without further hesitation here is my first hand history posted on my blog.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t20 (10 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Hero (t1920)
MP2 (t1580)
MP3 (t1470)
CO (t1280)
Button (t1140)
SB (t1220)
BB (t1500)
UTG (t1990)
UTG+1 (t1480)
UTG+2 (t1420)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with Kd, Kc.
3 folds, MPA raises to t60, 1 fold, MP3 calls t60, 1 fold, Button calls t60, 2 folds.

Flop: (t210) 7c, Ad, 2c (3 players)
MPA bets t100, MP3 raises to t300, Button calls t300, Hero folds.

Turn: (t910) 5h (2 players)
MP3 bets t340, Button calls t340.

River: (t1590) 7h (2 players)
MP3 bets t400, Button calls t400.

Final Pot: t2390

In case anyone was wondering he did in fact have the Ace. Was it a good play i like to think so but if you have a differing opinion let me know. Well i am actually still in the middle of day one of my quest so expect an especially pokery blog as soon as I finish playing, or at least whenever I wake up.

Random Stuff

Ok I am on the eve of my "quest" to become a better poker player. I have spent the last few days really working on how I wanted this blog to work. Also I wanted to reflect on my play. I really want to keep the discipline this time to play the way I know I can. I am not trying to say I can beat or even sit at the same table with the "best" of them but I know I can play better then I have been. Anyway tonight will be the first time I played online since restarting my blog.

I plan to make a post everyday if possible and if not every other day. I lost interest last time due to low numbers of readers, but at the same time i did not advertise my blog at all, and to be honest there was not much worth reading anyway. I plan to change that I am going to be e-mailing every blogger I can to see if they will link to this blog. Hopefully in the near future I can have the nice discussion here.

I want to end this post with a pimping of a few blogs the i find helpful/fun.
First there is the blogfather "IGGY" from Guinness and Poker


Then there is Bill Rini's blog. Without a doubt I visit his blog daily for the latest news involving the industry.


Even though it has seemed to be dead for sometime. I cannot leave out HDouble's blog which influenced my love of poker.

I know there is a lot more great blogging going on out there I will post links as I find it. i am just now trying to enter the the world of the poker bloggers and hope that i am accepted...:)

My weekly live game...

Well tonight was Thursday which is when I play in a game at the base club. On average we have about 120 ppl playing every week. The play there is not very good and it has proven really hard for me to beat. The blind are set at ten minutes and by the first break we are at level 9 which is 50-100. Now I usually have plenty of chips ny this point but feel like I have to make a move to catch up with people playing 82 suited and catching a miracle flush on the river beating someones flopped set. Every week I always seem to pick the wrong spot to try to buy a pot.

Tonight was no different when I looked at AQs on the button and raise it up to 4x bb which was 600 four limpers fold and then I have one caller the flop A9K rainbow not a great flop but not a horrible one either. Now i know i missed played this hand by moving all in trying to end it right there. I get called and she has pocket nines giving her trips.

The messed up thing about this hand happened after I slid my chips across the table. the started to gather the card and thats when a card flipped over and it was another nine of spades. Now it is obvious to everyone there where five 9's. My question is what do you do in this situation?

Oh yeah during my recent redesign of the blog I accidently turned off comments. They are turned back on.

The rules to my quest...

I have decided to start an experiment thingy which I hope will help discipline my play, and such. I have came up with a few guidlines that I go by. They will be at the bottom of this post. Also if you would like to see a copy of my starting hand requirements shoot me an e-mail and I will send you a copy.

My goal in this quest is to build my bankroll from 100 to 1000 dollars. Although this would be easy fo some, especially those in the blogger community it will be a true test for me. If I accomplish this goal my second long term goal is to be able to win a seat to the WSOP in 2008. but i am currently miles, and miles from even feeling like I am ready to enter a satellite for it.

I really hope that I can get the bloggin community behind me, as I thik the input I would recieve would be outstanding. Well I guess I will be back on later to post, but for now here are the guidelines i have came up with.

Rule 1-Bankroll Management: each participant starts of with $100.00. They will start out a level where they have 500bb in the bankroll. If they fall to below 400bb for that level they will move down until they are on a poker sites lowest level.They will move up when they have 750bb at the next level.(this will allow for variance.)

Rule 2- Buy In: Participants will buy in for exactly half of the maximum buy-in. This will allow plenty of chips to play but will not give most stacks the implied odds to take risk at a chance a doubling up of the participants.

Rule 3- Keep you winnings: Participants will leave the table upon tripling up from the original buy in. This will ensure they keep the money they won and then once again not be a target for suspect calls with drawing hands.

Rule 4- Avoid Tilt- If at any time a participant loses 3x their normal buy in for that level they will log off and play another day. This will help limit huge swings of variance.

Rule 5- No slow playing – Participants will bet for value their hand at all times unless they have the highest hand possible with a particular board. Also when holding AA and KK participants will raise no less then 4x BB plus 1x for each person in the pot. If re-raised participant will move All-In putting there opponents to the test.

Rule 6- Avoid coin flip situations- Participants will not call an All in bet pre flop unless they are holding AA, KK.

A fresh start...

First off anyone who was regularly reading my blog will notice all my original posts have been deleted. i chose to do this in part because I felt a fresh start was needed and the easiest way to do this was to well... Start over...

Anyway I stopped writing in this blog originally whne Neteller stopped taking money for deposits. Knowing I struggled to stay even, I figured it was only a matter of time before I would run out of money and would not be able to play anymore.

At first I started playing less and less and online poker became fun again. Not only that but my play was forced to become more disciplined. So I teeter tottered from almost broke to 50 dollars in my bankroll for about a month. Then about two weeks ago I was down to my last ten dollars since that day I have carefully built that back up to $100. I feel this is a decent amount to start a new online poker quest.

Now I am going to leave the details of the quest out until my next post. Which hopefully will be later today. Now my next post will include stipulations and rules that I need to play by. Also, I am hoping to get the poker blogging world behind this quest and really tear apart my play. I am going to send e-mails to the bloggers who have been most influential in my love of this game. In these e-mails I am going to request permission to e-mail them hand histories for them to comment back to me on. I really hope this will take me from struggling to staggering in my poker play.

I will be posting the rules and guidelines of my quest later. now of course I will take any suggestions to edit these rules and guidelines. I will post back in the next couple of days once I have contacted my hopefully "soon to be mentors".

1 year ago I wrote this....

The Beginning of something special...

In the beginning I had a little bit of extra money thought it might be fun to try out this new fangled poker thing. I mean I watched celebrity poker religiously. So, how hard could it possibly be? Right? So I entered into a poker tournament they were having at the club here on base. I quickly learned we were playing Texas Hold ‘Em not poker I guess poker is not allowed on bases, but Texas Hold ‘Em is. This rule is just another example of Military geniuses at work. Anyways, I walk in and get my big bag of chips and sit down at my assigned table. I did not make it to the first break which was in 60 minutes. The sound of the chips the people speaking in what seemed to be tongues was a little overwhelming, or maybe my hands shaking so badly I could not hold on to my chips tipped someone off I was a new player. Who knows? After that stunning performance I had a revelation I had learned from watching celebrities who did not really know how to play. This is the moment when I decided I needed to download as many WSOP events as I could to watch those. I swear to you in my head this logic was in- fallible. So 1 month 23 hours of TV poker later I enter the same tournament again, and would you believe the same thing happened to me, but this time I went all in and stood up as the horn for the first break went off. I now had a new goal I would make it to that damn horn. It was no longer about trying to get the to money I wanted to go outside and smoke with the knowledge I had to go back in to keep playing I have played 5 of these tournaments and finally in the last one I made it to the third break!!! That’s right I actually outlasted 112 other people. Pause as the trumpets sound in triumph.

Anyways after this monumental success I patted myself on the back for being smart enough to watch WSOP events instead of celebrity poker. To reward myself I decided to open a Pokerstars.com account. I know that there are other sites out there that people swear by but from what I read prior to starting was Pokerstars.com had the highest level of competition, and of course any guy who can make it all the way past the third break in a tournament needs good competition. On top of that I hate change so I have many a times sat staring at full tilt, absolute, titan, or other various poker sites. Convincing myself it is just too much of a hassle for me to switch to a different site. Too sum up my experience in my first couple days of online poker let me say this.“Do you have red or white wine with Scott for dinner?”That’s right I was eaten alive so I immediately think I must be playing at too low a limit (yet another moment of shear brilliance). So I move up to the $2/$4 tables and actually triple my money then halved it then doubled then almost zero then well you get the picture. Finally after being brutally pummeled with a steel bar for about five days I decided maybe some research was needed. That’s when I came across Hdouble’s blog. As I read his post learning to beat the game I became obsessed in learning this simple yet complicated game that had me eating ramen noodles for a week. The rest of this blog is going to be my journey from idiotic poker playing moron to maybe hopefully one day me saying.“Did you see the guy walking away from Phil Gordon with his head down on TV last night? Yeah? That was me!”Anyway thanks for reading and new posts will be frequent. If you have a blog please link back to me and send me an e-mail and I will link to yours. Also any helpful hints, articles, maybe you need a new protégé (hopeful glance). Just shoot me an e-mail.