Rough weekend, on the comeback

Had a rough weekend, but I'm on the comeback. Still about $50 down from my peak, dropped out of the top 5 on ptr also. Really sucks. I didn't go on monkey tilt, but lost quite a few buyins playing back at the stupid monkeys at the table. Last night guy was 3 betting 20%, just a stupid monkey, of course when I play back and 4 bet light he has my AT crushed with AQ. Naturally, when I 4bet with AA/KK he instafolds. It's just ridiculous how lucky monkeys get sometimes. I guess I just need to be more patient, but it's frustrating at times when you play AK or QQ back at them and the flop either comes all garbage or AKK when you have QQ. And when you have KK/AA they fold everytime like they can see your cards.

I'm really thinking about making the jump to 25nl and just putting in massive volume. Even if I win at 1bb/100 I think the rakeback could be worth it. Just build my roll while collecting the vpps. I'll just have to see.

Epic bad day yesterday

Last night was an epic failure of a day at the tables. Seriously, I ran worse than I have ever run in my poker career. It wasn't even necessarily a ton of bad beats and coolers. I just NEVER hit on the flop or turn EVER. No top pair. Everyone calling my cbets everytime. It was just silly.

Nobody would call my pfr with AA/KK/QQ. I was actually opening up a bit looser to try to catch something, ANYTHING, but that wasn't working and people were still folding pre to my 3-4bb raise with these premiums. Of course they always called when I had junkier stuff.

I think I won a total of 5 dollars over 4k hands or something stupid with AK/AA/KK/QQ. Even filtering for AA/KK/QQ i won only 15 dollars over 4k hands. Normally I win at least twice that over that sample and sometimes 3 times that.

Then I lost a couple of 4bet hands against this aggro f'in DONKEY who was 3betting 45%. I caught AK against him once and tried to bluff him out but he was simply a station on a very dry flop. Of course I didn't catch an A or K (didn't catch it all night, and if I did I was facing a straight or a set) and he raised my turn bet so I was done with the hand. Overall, I am not really displeased with my play. I may have tilted away one buy in, but I ended up down 10 buyins. It was run-bad of epic proportion. The biggest pot I lost was only for 110bb, it wasn't like I was getting it in super light and deep and losing 2BI at a time. Just ridiculous, but whatever, it can't last forever, and I guess if this makes the fish think they can beat this game, the more power to them.

Back to running decent

I've won about $60 over the last 3 days after my 9 buyin downswing. Running halfway decent, not getting into really sticky situations the last few days. I did lose a 2BI hand with my JJ overpair vs an ace high flush draw on the turn, but my equity was only 65 vs 35 so not a terrible beat. Still sucked.

My roll is looking pretty decent, up to around $760 now after cashing out the $600 ($500 deposit + $100 reload bonus). I'm still #2 on the stars 5nl chart for the month, which is fine. I haven't had a lot of time this week to put in volume, working 12 hour days and getting home, the last thing i want to do is grind for another 3-4 hours. So I've kept my sessions to around 1.5-2 hours max. Just glad the run bad is over!

Run goot over

Okay, run good is over, and I blew a couple buyins from tilt, overall went on a 9 buyin down swing after staying break even for like 9k hands.  Last night was 3 buyin below ev, still won 4.  Kind of crappy.  Lost 3+ buyins in a single hand during the downswing:

Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

BTN: $17.13
SB: $7.09
BB: $7.73
UTG: $12.43
Hero (MP): $15.46
CO: $9.45

Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG raises to $0.15, Hero raises to $0.47, CO folds, BTN calls $0.47, SB calls $0.45, BB folds, UTG calls $0.32
Flop: ($1.93) T 9 7 (4 Players)
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $1.47, BTN calls $1.47, 2 folds
Turn: ($4.87) J (2 Players)
Hero bets $3, BTN calls $3
River: ($10.87) 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $10, BTN raises to $12.19 and is All-In, Hero calls $0.52 and is All-In

Results: $31.91 Pot ($1.56 Rake)
BTN showed T T and WON $30.35 (+$14.89 NET)
Hero showed 9 9 and LOST (-$15.46 NET)


Gross.  Another great hand vs. an idiot donkey.

Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
BB: $9.66
UTG: $10.18
Hero (CO): $16.38
BTN: $12.95
SB: $5.25

Pre-Flop: J J dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG raises to $0.15, Hero raises to $0.47, 3 folds, UTG calls $0.32
Flop: ($1.01) 4 J 2 (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.77, UTG calls $0.77
Turn: ($2.55) 5 (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.70, UTG raises to $3.85, Hero raises to $10.69, UTG calls $5.09 and is All-In
River: ($20.43) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $20.43 Pot
UTG showed 6 3 and WON $19.42 (+$9.24 NET)
Hero showed J J and WON $1.75 (-$8.43 NET)

Oh well what are you going to do, last night this hand:

Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hero (SB): $12.70
BB: $5.07
UTG: $5
MP: $7.24
CO: $4.86
BTN: $2.67

Pre-Flop: J J dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG folds, MP raises to $0.15, CO folds, BTN calls $0.15, Hero raises to $0.62, BB folds, MP calls $0.47, BTN calls $0.47
Flop: ($1.91) T 3 4 (3 Players)
Hero bets $1.46, MP calls $1.46, BTN raises to $2.05 and is All-In, Hero calls $0.59, MP calls $0.59
Turn: ($8.06) K (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
Hero checks, MP bets $4.57 and is All-In, Hero calls $4.57
River: ($17.20) 2 (3 Players - 2 are All-In)

Results: $17.20 Pot ($0.84 Rake)
Hero showed J J and LOST (-$7.22 NET)
MP showed Q A and WON $16.36 (+$9.12 NET)
BTN showed A 5 and LOST (-$2.67 NET)

Not much I can do when people play ridiculously and I lose to coolers/bad beats. I'll claw my way back up. I think i dropped down to 2nd overall for the month at Stars 5NL. I can still make #1 if I keep my head straight.

HEEEEEEEATER

Massive heater continues.  At one point i was running 35BB/100+ over around 1600 hands.

Love the weekends!

Thats the good news.  Now the bad news.. I traded 27.50 at PS for 27.50 at ftp just to mess around on rush poker FR since reading a thread at DC about how soft it was.  Whatever, I quit that site months ago to move to Stars because of the just absolutely sick run bad (I was like 20 buyins below EV it was just sick) and I go there, and the run bad continues something fierce.  F that site, I'm done with it.  Their rake system sucks anyway at the micros, I just figured if it was softer it would make up for it, but wth, I just made 30+ dollars an hour tonight lol, no way ftp will compare unless I play 25NL+, and I definitely don't want to transfer my roll over to that shithole.   I am just really happy my run good is continuing.  Hopefully I can clear another 100 over the next two days, will make for a $150 weekend... Nice pocket change!

Moved into #1 5NL Stars for the month

So I am now solidly #1 at 5NL (lol) on Stars.  Something tells me I should be able to beat the games at 25NL if I just made the jump and just dealt with whatever variance throws at me, and learn to adapt to the increased aggression.  I may make that a goal for January if I'm going to try to make a run for SN.  But 5NL is such easy money and it's not stressful at all, so even if I can make a little more at 25NL, maybe I just save that for when I'm not mentally drained (which I usually am after work).

10NL is definitely not worth my time, if I'm going to move up I'll just make the jump to 25NL.  For now, I think I'll just milk this gravy train til 2011.

First Time Goldstar

Made Goldstar for the first time this month.  Have been putting in some decent volume, but working like mad too at my day job is cramping my style, so not really playing as much as I'd really like to at times.  I guess I'm addicted to the grind.  Even though I make 3-4x at my day job what I make grinding the micros, I still find it a rather interesting game and it's a hobby that's fun and actually makes money.  How many hobbies do you know that MAKE money?  They are pretty far and few between imo.


Grafs for the month.

If you are on Stars, don't forget to purchase the 50 billion hand bonus, $50 for 3000 fpp works out to like .0166c per fpp, which is better than anything in the store.  I got the reload bonus this month ($100) plus $50 stellar awards, plus the $50 bonus, so I have already netted $500 for this month.  Gf's birthday is coming up and I really want to buy her a new laptop (yes, we're practically married so this isn't to extravagant imo).  But I've got a lot of bills since she's still going to school and I'm trying to pay off my debts so I don't have to worry about it and can take some shots at 25nl next year.  Maybe I can win the 30k freeroll this weekend? :)  Going to try for the 100k freeroll too now that I qualify for the first time.  I think my odds are better than 1:xxxx people entering, so realistically it's a helluva lot better odds than the lottery.  Just need some run goot!!!!

last two days ~5500 hands, $57 profit so over 10BB/100.  Not bad.  I am going to be #1 this month on stars 5NL.

Solidly in Top 3

Barring some sort of cosmic interference, I should be able to keep top 3 this month @ PokerStars 5NL.

Lets see if I can move into the top 2 after tonight.

Blocker Bet

 

So here was a hand I played last night that I can discuss how I could have played it differently.  

First lets talk about villain.. he was an aggro donkey that was playing 88/36 w/ 27.7% 3b over 150 hands.  LOL.  His aggression continued post flop as well, 3.8 AF, 47% ag frequency.  wtsd 22%, w$sd 16%. So he was blowing people off their hands a lot of time, but was bluffing so much that he was losing almost everytime he did go to sd. 

I don't mind how I played this hand through the turn, letting him hang himself is easily the best way to get value from this donkey, no need to scare him off.  Obviously this turn card is super terrible for me, otherwise I would have gotten it in right there.

So... river play is where I think I could have done something different.  This guy is so aggro, I know he's going to bluff me with all his Ax, Kx hands and also obviously bet out his Jx hands that have the nuts.  Knowing that he's going to bluff me everytime and there's just not a way I can call his bluff, I could have put out a "blocker bet" to try to get to showdown w/o putting the rest of my stack on the line.  Sure, I could still face a shove, but even an aggro donkey is going to think I have a J here 90% of the time if I lead out, so I think by making a $3 blocker bet, I could have gotten to showdown and won the hand in this case, or at least had a much greater chance of getting there.  Facing his shove there's just no way I can call here.  If I did have a J here, 100% of the time I'm checking to this idiot and letting him hang himself.

Winner's tilt

I was running so hot today that I went on winner's tilt and then these two hands happen right in a row yuck:

This is obvious spew, but not as spewy as this next one, I just felt like he was trying to push me around:

Guy is a rock but it wasn't just 2 hands previously that he pushed me off my tp so I felt like he was trying to take advantage.  This is why you need to trust your history and tendencies on an opponent, and not fall victim to their run good even if the hands happen back to back.  yuck.  I ran like shit today but still ended up for the night $28.39 over 4k+ hands.  My EV in HEM was 37.87 so I was running pretty bad.  At one point I was up 50 dollars but these two hands plus another QQ vs KK vs an aggro donk lost me a bit and I had to win back a couple buy-ins.  All in all, can't be too upset, but really, I need to be more disciplined even when I'm winning and avoid "winner's tilt".

Here's a hand where everything went better than expected!  I misclicked 3 bet vs an UTG raise on accident, it was terrible.  I was really hoping he'd fold, but the flop came.  this guy was running 33/12, was very aggro on the flop but gave up easily over a small sample.

:)  His terrible cbet reeked of weakness, either that or he's just that bad. 

Top winners 5NL

My goal this month is to make top 3 winners at Pokerstars 5NL.  I am currently #4 so as long as I stay on course I should be able to do it.  Supposedly Blackrain79 is no longer grinding 5nl due to being staked for 25nl, but depending on how that goes, he might be back. ;)  I may even be able to break #1 with some more run goot.

The sucky thing is I wish my run good had happened at 10nl instead of 5nl but such is the way of poker.

Abused some poor guy

So last night was pretty interesting.  Took a short stint at 10nl and of course, the poker gods frowned upon me again.  Here's one of the hands I lost, I knew he didn't have an A, but didn't expect him to have what he did so turned up as a surprise unfortunately.

Yea, kind of crappy. The other hand I got coolered on was AQ vs AK where we were all in at the turn for 50bbs against some silly fish. So there was this other player, G, that I absolutely abused last night.  I saw him at 10nl and after losing a buyin I dropped down to my usual limits, 5nl where I saw him again.  The abuse continued.  Guy is terrible, I had a few hands with him before last night where he got it all in against me KK vs AT and he sucked out on me.  Here's hand #1 at 10NL:

thought process "I HAZ GUTSHOT N OVERZLOL".

I drop down and the abuse continues at 5nl, won a pot for $2 w/ KQ vs his K7. Win another multiway where I check raise T67 rainbow w/ him on the button calling a .70 bet that I raise to 2.70 and both players folded.  By now this guy thinks I'm just some aggro monkey.  Then this gem of a hand pops up shortly after:

lol.  Guy is just bad. A little later in the night, AGAIN:

"OVERBET IS TEH BLUFFZ!!!1"

So yea, this guy must've broken his keyboard I am suspecting. Slaughtered him.  Getting a bit frustrating w/ the terrible luck at 10nl, but finished the night up $24.91, 3099 hands.  Let's see how tonight goes if I have a chance to get on.  I'm about to clear another $50 and also I'm only about 500 vpp from gold star for the first time ever, which will be pretty nice boost in fpp rate (1.5x to 2.0x).

Coolers

Here's one of the examples of a cooler I took when I moved up to 10NL.

Guy was playing 26/19 2.9af so pretty aggro post, so I didn't feel a need to raise the flop and just let him hang himself.  It was semi wet but i didn't see a need to make him scared of betting out.  I figured he might have something like AK, AQ, AJ here a lot of the time, but of course he showed up with the single hand that crushed me that he likely could have here.  I don't really see how I could've laid this down other than him telling me exactly what he had.

Here's another gem, yea I probably overplayed my TPTK, but wth, this fish is playing everyhand.

Villain was playing 75/4 1.9af 38% ag frequency. That may not seem too aggro, but when you're playing every hand that's pretty spewy. wtsd was 49% w$sd 44% so this guy wasn't afraid to be an idiot. Again, vs the villain just not real sure how I could lay this down, basically the nuts. Lol at his flat call oop with AA though, just tons of idiots at these stakes.

Here's a really funny hand. This was vs. a TAG who at the time I had a note that didn't bluff.. guess that's thrown out the window, I guess he felt I might have been abusing my position on him so it was time to make a move. He was running 17/14 11.0AF, 42%ag freq. 20% wtsd, 75%w$sd. So just an aggro monkey post, but he showed up with the goods against me previously so I had to give him some credit. Bad timing for him on this triple barrel.