What a weekend!

Up another $200 before bed.  A LONG session where I was card-dead quite a bit, but the table had a few juicy players – so I stuck around until I finally got a monster.  They got lucky and I did the up/down thing for a bit, until I got QQ on the button vs an UTG limper who was prone to calling after the limp.  I made it $8 to go.  He flopped a gutshot and chased…while I floppped a set of Q’s.  He paid me off in full.  I thanked him for making my car payment and stood up from the table.

With that, I have to give some props to Jason and Adrian.  They set out together to play in a WSOP event (#49).  Jason has been near the top pretty much all day, and Adrian snuck into the money – enough to double his entry fee.  In the home game, Adrian is a feared player who cashes regularly and keeps an even keel throughout a session.   I personally respect his play tremendously.  Now, Jason stands to make a decent amount of money and if he continues his solid play, he will be at the final table tomorrow.  I really wish him the best of luck – though he doesn’t need it (well – maybe when his 10′s flopped a boat vs a few bigger hands).   Regardless of that, he’s a great player and tirelessly works for our league (and others) to maintain the PokerSoup.com website.   I can’t think of anyone more deserving of a good run at the WSOP.  Hats off to Jason and Adrian!  And may tomorrow’s final table bear a crap-load of fruit in the form of green pieces of paper and dead presidents!

Holy Crap

Just got back from watching Spain defeat Germany, 1-0 and decided to try to find a tourney to play in.  As has been the case over the last 2-3 days – when I want to play there hasn’t been many fish registering for the tourneys.  So I decided to give another go at the cash game.   $400+ in 34 mins and decided to call it quits.

I can’t say that there’s a secret, but my overall strategy is to figure out who the really loose players are and simply engage with them for large pots when I’ve got great hole cards – and I overbet the pot pre-flop.  My impression is that these guys can’t resist an opportunity to gamble – so big hands like AA, KK, and QQ get paid off…a lot!  They chase draws passively (by calling rather than raising).   They seem to have a tendency to think that other players are bluffing too much too.  If you have a monster hand an do the stop-go, they’ll often bet the pot.  I’ll smooth call if the board isn’t too dangerous, then come out for 1/2 their stack.  Often they decide to re-raise on a bluff or semi-bluff and I catch them.  By shoving all-in, they seem to back off and fold -so I don’t get the full pay-off.  By betting 1/2 their stack, they seem to look at the bet size in relation to the pot and say, “that’s a weak bet” – and they re-raise all in.  The key to this is knowing that your opponent does not take stack size into consideration when they engage.  You can pick up on this fairly quickly and it’s a great way to manipulate the donks.  They have $100 behind, the pot is $300, you bet $50 and they think it’s a weak bet, and re-raise all-in for their last $50…it feels great when it works, and it’s been wildly profitable recently.  

If there’s a remotely skilled player acting interested in the pot pre-flop, I’ll play straightforward poker with raising/calling hands from position.  Folding AJs and even AQo occasionally from the SB – depending on how I’ve profiled the aggressor.  Position REALLY has advantages in the cash games (which shouldn’t be news to anyone) and I’ll almost NEVER play from out of position.  If I raise to isolate pre-flop and get a smooth-caller from someone in position, I’m very wary and am willing to give up on the pot unless my hand improves to a set, etc.

Anyway – things appear to be going swimmingly and I’m quitting my sessions at a point where the anxiety of losing $X would outweigh the joy of winning another $X.  I’ve mentioned it in earlier posts after reading Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo, and I think this is going to be a key to long term success.  When I stand up and take that money off the table, I realize the income and the success.  I can go for a walk, do some exercise, call a friend, etc and mellow out before I get too far down the path of thinking that I’m the table captain and that I am invinceable.   That break brings me back down to earth.  Re-starting another session an hour or two later protects your bankroll because you buy-in for less that what you had at the table earlier, and it generally keeps you on your toes rather than getting too comfy and winding up sorry. 

I’m going to continue to quit more effectively than my opponents for the sake of my bankroll and because it’s a vital element of good poker strategy.

 

Long overdue update

OK – it’s a bit long, but there’s some worthy topics to cover (at least worthy to me).

1)  Zack passed away finally.  I had to put him to sleep.   It was a friday afternoon at 5pm when I determined that enough was enough.  If I’d done it the day before I’d have been uneasy.  And if I’d waited till the next morning, I’d have been uneasy.  It was difficult, but the timing was right.  He passed with his chin on my lap and it was as peaceful as that kind of experience can be.  I know he’s in dog-heaven right now chilling on some cool grass under a shady tree – his favorite thing to do.  I miss him a lot, but my neighbors have been kind enough to let me watch their dogs when they go out of town for an evening or a weekend.

2)  I’ve been playing poker.  And lots of it.  I developed some software that would help me track things and had little checkboxes for me to check off as I played to make sure I was doing the things I needed to be doing in order to be a winning player.  It worked for a while, but I think I became too obsessed about ROI and results.  I took a hiatus and stopped using the software.  One really good thing though, was that I was keeping meticulous financial notes.  Something I’ll need to do when/if I decide to go pro.

3)  Most recently, I’ve been on a friggin tear (online anyway).  I’ve had some decent results at the home game – but to be honest, I think I’m pretty much done with it unless it’s a super-cheap buy in and I need the social part of it.  It’s not as profitable as online play because the players all know each other and all we do is trade money amongst one another from week to week.   As for the online stuff.  A year ago I was playing $2, $5, or $10 SnG’s.  I’ve built up a bankroll and some skills and discipline and am now at SnG buy-ins of $20 to $100.  I’m starting to like the $69+6 45-player SnG’s.  I’ve played a few and it’s added several hundred at a time to my bankroll (a few $200 to $600 pay days).   They’re over in about 90 minutes too, which is shockingly nice.

There’ve been a few times recently where I can’t seem to find a good SnG with enough fish.  After all the reading and playing some micro-limit cash games, I have stepped up to $1/$2 6-handed ring games.  It’s been pretty profitable.  This morning, for example, I played for 90 minutes and cleared $640 after the rake (about $30).  I scrammed and took a bike ride, met a friend for lunch, bought some new shoes, and took it easy for a while.    I decided to play again and found another juicy game with just the right fish.  I played for just over 2 hours and cleared $620 after the rake $48).  That’s $1,260 for the day.

My bankroll is flourishing and today was the winningest day I’ve ever had.  Previous best was $1,100 in one day.   I haven’t kept track of ROI or anything like that recently, but it’s clear that I probably should. 

My internal “go-pro” date was July 1st.  While I’m getting more comfortable with my play and my bankroll, I’m not where I need to be in order to take the leap.  I’d like to have a few months worth of mortgage payments saved up AND have an adequate playing bankroll before doing that.  But I’m optimisic that I’ll achieve my goal someday soon and I have set a new target date.  I plan to keep it flexible though, as the time has to be just right!

I hope anyone else who’s reading this someday has the good fortune of having a remarkable poker day just like I’ve had.  It’s very satisfying to have the feeling that you are on the way to achieving a dream.