Finally some luck...

PokerStars Tournament #65195004, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $4.00/$0.40
180 players
Total Prize Pool: $720.00
Tournament started - 2007/10/25 - 20:55:22 (ET)

Dear biakkax,

You finished the tournament in 2nd place.
A $144.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 154.48 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html


Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

Bubbles, and bad luck....

I guess today was another rough day. Fortunately for me the roughness was subsided a bit by me winning one $13 6max game. However I managed to lose a $16 18 man, and 3 $6.50 18 man, and then I played a $6.50 45 man. All of these seem to play out in the same fucked up manner. I start off well get a decent chip stack then late in the game I push something like AK/AQ and sure enough they have AA/KK, but don't fret when they do have something like J9 they will make a straight. It is getting harder and harder for me to chock this up to variance. There has to be something to this. I just don't see it...

In the 45 man I was the chip leader until we were down to 9 ppl the sure enough some half wit was able to suck out on a medium stack to cover me by 100 chips. I get AQs and JAM and sure enough KK. Immediately I think... Well its not that bad... I could still hit an A and I do first card and trumpets in my head sound... K K cruel cruel world lol...

Anyways I know you don't want to hear me rant and rave about bad beats and I am trying not to. This is serving a purpose though. I tend to be on a cycle of in poker so to speak. I have a good run then a bad run. However I tend to let the bad run get to me and star playing bad poker. Anyways the last two days have been particularly brutal, and I am trying to prevent myself from making bad poker decisions, and if I cant prevent it at least I am documenting the complete cycle.

Also this is a perfect time for me to share the article that I always go to when I am down on my luck. It is by Mene Gene and if you want to read more of his stuff go here.

SO if you want to read a great article that look outside the box of variance. Check this out. Statistics and Luck.

A rough day...

I played above my head a little yesterday. Which is good because it gives you a feel for the other guys at a higher level. I tried a 3 16's total I made a bad bubble play in one. Got second in one, and fought hard through the toughest bubble I ever played in but went out in 4th. The thing that bothered mew as it it seem i continuously caught someone with their pants down being 60% - 80% favorite for all their money they would hit on the river. In one of the 16's I put people all in with an advantage in that range 9 times and 9 times they would dbl up off me. The other thing that seemed to wrok against me was it seemed if I jammed from the big small blind when folded to me I ran into a monster. SO I checked 4 times I jammed with one person left behind me and the just happened to have AK/AA/KK/AQ what kinda chances of that.

Anyways I am not trying to be a bitch and whine, but I do have a purpose to this post. I read up on the Random Number Generator for stars and Half of the equation to build the shuffled deck comes from random user inputs such as mouse movements and such. Is it possible that a users computer/mouse/equipment maybe even posture could affect the shuffle in a way to cause more bad beats on themselves. I dont know but I have 100,000+ hands in my database and I have lost 35% of my 80% to win situations. A quick look on e-bay has ads for software that can affect the RNG. I doubt they work. but is something your doing possibly causing the other guys to get lucky.

Just some food for thought...

Wow....

Well I sat down at 12:00 and thought I would read what the latest was on RtR. I made a quick post checking to see who all was playing the 100k Guarantee on stars. Quickly Kennl and BurnleyMik responded and kennl asked if anyone wanted to swap 5%... BurnleyMik was the first to respond saying anything over 100 to swap 5%.

Now I read this and go look at my account balance... I laugh and think this an easy way for me to win part of my money back... LOL <<<--- I mean I actually cracked up laughing at the thought of two good players swapping % with a donk like me...

THen it happened magically I guess... I learned how to play... I started out doubling AK vs AQ in the 3rd hand and I never really looked back... I played as good as I could I made my reads and stuck with them. I mae a few great folds(imho) and suffered a couple bad beats. I was only behind when the money went in a couple of times, and then it was normally a coin flip. I ended up out in 77th for a score of 211 dollars... I then went and transfered the money to BurnleyMik and kennl. So guys although it was not supposed to work out that way I am happy with the result.

Oh and I think this might highest finish in the 100k by a member of Raise the River.

This game means so much to my playing online poker. I was on the verge of giving in I had dwindled my hard fought bankroll to nearly nothing. In fact I almost unregistered at the last minute but by the time I thought about it there was only 9 minutes left.

I did have a realization though I had stopped playing poker all week, I was trying to outplay poker so to speak. I realized that a good poker player finds the right spots, they dont try to create them on his own... IMHO I played well today... I have a nice score under my belt I truly feel like I might be better then the average player...

In other great news Pokerstars did what they have always done. They listened to their players and the last step in the PCA steps have been changed to include cash payouts as well. I started step one again as I typed this and placed so my goal for this week is to make to to step 6 and cash. We will see right now I feel like could do just about anything...

100th post...

WoW to be honest when I started this blog I di dnot think I would ever have that many readers and now I am part of a community of bloggers that i rate as good people.

Ok todays online poker went a little bit better and I ended up cashing in enough sats to pay for what i plan on playing tomorrow.

I had a live tournament at a casino...

We started off ith 36 ppl and the first blind level i owned more then doubling my chips. I then went card dead for two hours. I ended up all in with qq vs aj the a hit on the flop and I was out in 11th.

I played well enough though and I had fun which is the most important thing...

I did see the most amazing thing happen though. A guy rode to the casino with us had never stepped foot in one before. As we are leaving he decideds to spend 10 dollars on black jack. So his first hand played of course he hits black jack. But he went on to do this 5 times letting his bet ride everytime... I do believe he ended up with over a grand in five hands. hitting 21 or black jack each time. It was amazing to watch. YOu guys better watch out becaus eI have invited him to come watch me play the bloggerment. Maybe his luck will rub off...

just playing around

With training in full swing I have not been focusig on any one part of my play/game instead I have jut been playing what I thought might be fun. It has hurt my bankroll a little, but I have enjoyed myself. I am trying to come up with an appropiate steps substitute to use on poker stars until the get off they 're collective butts and make the steps more then satellites

I am registered for the bloggerment already I am hoping to play the deep stacks on sat for sure, but have not decided for sunday since I want to play the hundred grand and the bloggerment and I am not good at doing three games at once...

Anyways I think I will play a 180 man game tonight and then who knows what else I am capable of...

Tried out the steps...

Well I tried out the PCA steps on pokerstars. I actually really enjoyed the steps and made it to step 4 before realizing i could not go to the PCA and pokerstars policy is if you cant go the first ticket you win in forfeited...

I am really hoping that stars adds the steps to the normal SnG's soon. Played a few 3.40 games and placed in each I won 1 and got second in two. I updated my stats to the right. I probably wont play any w.40 games tonight as I am playing Sunday hundred grand satellites. I want to play in the two deepstack tournaments as well as the sunday hundred grand so I need to place in 3 - 4 of those satellites between now and Sat.

Considering my own steps with Single Table SnG. If I win some extra money I might try it. Right now I am just trying to make sure I dont run out of money during this training. Hopefully a decent score this weekend would rectify any concerns that I have.

PokerStars issues and such

Well I had paused my 3.40 1K SnG challenge for a bit due to the fact that my poker office was screwing up the new stars client. I have however downloaded and installed the latest patch. So I should be good to go. Although I am not playing 3.40 exclusively right now. I will be playing some sats to the sunday hundred grand.

Hoping to the get the RtR gang together in the yahoo conference again for the sunday hundred grand. It was a lot of fun during the WBCOOP. I also want to win enough money/T$ to play the two low limit deepstack tournaments... I love these tournies.

My only concern is that I dont over extend my bankroll which is why I will be playing in some sats this week. Hopefully will end up ahead enough to play these without concern.

117th in the WBCOOP

Although I did not ge tinto the money or the duffel bag... I played my best in the WBCOOP. I lost abig pot deep in the event leaving me ith only 1 BB i came back for a brief moment when my 99 got taken down by KQs.

Although I did not place I felt I made a good showing and although disappointed I am also very happy with making it deep in the WBCOOP. I figure a lot of the players were pretty god and faired well enough against them.

I dont know if I am going to play more today though as the loss so close to the money to a lot from me...

What a long starange trip...

Well I am in the USA after 23.5 hours of traveling I finally entered my room last night. I forced myself to sleep almost 11 hours to recoup. I just woke up and have some major poker on my agenda. Here is my plans

I am playing in the WBCOOP, I want to sat into the sunday hundred grand and play it, as well as play the bloggerment if it is still going on.

I will get back on tonight to let you guys know how it all went...

sheer craziness...

Sorry for the long delay in posting. Real life has gotten in the way of online poker. I am still playing just not as much. First off I had a class last week so not a lot of time. Secondly I am getting ready to fly to the states(where I plan to play a lot of online poker.

The big thing that is going to affect my playing time. Well in the military you take promotion test to make rank. These test are very difficult and the average score is like 55 out of 100. now most ranks take most people several times before they make rank. THe first one I took i made it. Now I am eligible to test again. SOmetime in Feb/Mar. This means if I want to make I have to score extremely high. I wasn't even going to try, but decided I could not live with my self if I did not.

I am not stopping playing I will still play a decent amount. I will continue to updte the blog no less then weekly and hopefully much more then that. the 1k 3.40 challenge will continue. It will just take longer then it was.

Thanks to all those that read...