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.