Gotta get back in the game.....

So I made the announcement a while back that I was quitting poker. This disappointed a lot of people, but no worries. Rather than leaving the game, I just found myself pulling myself more and more into it.
I must recommend these books for anyone who wants to better there game; amateur or up and coming pro.

Kill Phil: a great book for beginning tournament players and those experienced who need to dial in their game.
Kill Everyone: Probably the best book on tournament poker. Read it.
Harrington on Cash Games Volume 1 and 2: There are no other cash books out there that could even come close to these. Just ask any pro.

Anyway, I will be making an appearance at the local Auburn games soon. I will also be running a game at my place on Wednesday nights for anyone who might be interested. Im obsessed with this game, and cant wait to start playing again.

Just be ready world...

Cash game updates

alright, so you all know that I just recently hit my all time high, 4600$ on my bankroll. So i decided to move up to 2-5, and here is how it went.

I brought 500$ to the game, bought in for the minimum, realized that there was about 8000+ on the table, so I went ahead and added my other 200$.

I get 8-2 about 30000 times, but still manage to still a few pots here and there, so Im roughly sitting on 475$.

I wake up with KK UTG, and limp it. We are 8 handed btw. Calls around to middle position who makes in 35$, and I goes 3 callers to me. I sit for a minute contemplating on how I want to play my hand. If I re-raise here, everyone might suspect AA, and fold, and I wanted a caller. Also, I would have to re-raise enough to get 3 of the four players to fold. Since there is already 155$ in the pot, I decided to go ahead and shove making it 475$ total(435$ more than the original raise).

Folds around to the original raiser who thinks for a minute and then folds. Small blind looks at me and says "Sorry ahead of time, Im pretty sure Im going to suck out on you." And calls for 390ish$.

Big blind sits there for a second, and says "Well shit, I guess I have pot odds". And calls for 345ish$.

Flop is 2-7-J....two spades on board.

Im loving that flop, the only thing I was really worried about was a set, but, I figured I was in good shape. (They do not turn the hands over until the river is out at this place).

Turn...Blank
River...9 Spade...

Showdown comes along, and the two guys told me that I have to show since I made the initial all-in. So I flip over my kings.

Small blind laughs, and flips over A-10 Spades saying"Told ya". Then cashes out. Big blind mucks his hand which I later find out was K-Q.

Total pot size was a little over a grand.....and A-10 took it down. Leaving me with with about 80$. The good thing about a 2-5 game though is that if you play a smart short stack, you can get back up easily.

So I get back to 455$....and I get my favorite suckout hand J-8 suited spades.

I limp in for the 5$ and and gets around to the BB, who makes it 25$ total

I call, and flop comes 2S-7S-JH. Big blind opens it up to 60$, which of course I call. Turn comes an 8...giving me top two. This is where the BB bets 60$ again and I raise 150$ more. Total pot so far is about 320$, him being committed with about 145$. He shoves here and I insta-call. He flips over QQ. Low and behold....

River...2H.

Knocking me down again to about 55$.....

And for the final 3rd grind, I get up to about 385$...keeo in mind that I started playing at 7pm, and played my last hand at 4:19 AM.

I pick up AKoff in the BB. Folds around to one of the loosest players in the game, who makes it 30$. I call. Flop comes K-QH-2H.

This guy checks!!!! I mean wtf? How do you check there, unless you flop a set, or you were definitely just trying to steal the blinds? Anyway....I bet 60$ and he just calls....

Turn card: Kh....
He bets 200$, And I am like? Are you kidding me? There is no way you have a flush there, the only thing you could have there is a set of Q's, which I had already threw that out with this bet of 200$....so I shove.

He flips over AA....of course....

River: 9h.....and of course he has the Ace of hearts giving him his 4 card flush on the board......

Overall, I do not think I could have played many of the hands any better. Plus I had to make some pretty good grinds with my short stack.

Anyway though...I will be back next week, and I know if I get a good run, I will get paid off deep.

HOLY EFFIN F!!!!

There is such a love/hate relationship when it comes to bad players in this game.....the story.....

So I decided to play the $340 tournament today. I was feeling pretty good about it as well. I was pretty much on my game. I folded hands after hands for the first two hours just waiting for my time. I get JJ finally, someone I have a read from raises, I fold and show them, they flip over QQ. Standard scenario for me. Last hand before the break.....AA in the small blind. 

1st position fires out with 3.5 times the big blind, which was about 650 chips. Well, the day before I had a guy hit a set of 7's to my AA, so I decided I was just going to take the chips right there. I shove over the top, about 9,000 more chips. This guy didnt even think....he snap called and flipped over what?????

77......I was like, "are you kidding me? You knew you were beat, I havent played a hand hardly since I have been sitting here...."

And of course a 7 hits on the turn giving him his weak set. 

That beat tilted me bad, and put me at around 3,000 chips. I fold around a few hands and get 6-7 spades on my small blind. It limps around to me, so I was like whatever, cheap flop.

Flop brings out 2-7-3.... With two spades on board.

It gets checked around to me, so I go ahead and shove all-in. I mean, I had top pair with the flush draw. 

Guy calls and flips over 2-3 giving him two pair, story of my life....

So, I can hit a 6-7-or Spade to win the hand...

Turn brings out a 5 giving me more outs for a straight draw...so 4-6-7-or spade....thats about 17 cards if all are in the deck...I mean....it had to come out.

River is a Q of clubs..no help at all. 

What sucks it that I was going to push pre-flop, and Big Blind would have folded his 2-3, I just didnt play my instincts.

It just sucks that a guy can hit a 2 outer with his pocket 7's, and I cant hit a 17 outer for a win......

Anyway though, I am going to try to play one more event tonight. Its the $125 buy-in NL. The pay-out structure is pretty weak, but I came here to play, so I just want to keep doing it. 

And hey....I leaving here $1275 profit so far....so for my first event I cant complain.

$2275 later....

I placed 41st out of 490ish. Not too bad for my first big tournament. And I played some of the best poker of my life. Too bad I wasnt catching the hands others around me were showing. I mean, one guy hit AA three times in  row....I saw AA twice, and it folded out once. It doesnt matter though. I played well, cashed, and had the a really great time. 

Im playing the $340 event tomorrow. We'll see what happens.....

Update

Alright guys....$530 tournament started at 12PM today. I decided to buy-in to it.....so here we go.

Early on I played maybe one hand the first hour...blinds come around and I get QQ in my small blind.

First position raised 11o0 or so, second pos. called, folded around to me. I had around 9000 chips, so I called. Big blind came over the top All-in. First and second position both called.....

I mean, what do you do here?

When considering a 4-way All-in, you are suppose to fold if its going to knock you out of the tournament. So I did.....biggest mistake of my life

BB flipped over K-J hearts..I mean, what a joke. 

1st pos. flipped 10-10

2nd pos flipped J-J.

After all of that respect I gave to them, the dealer had to make it even better by throwing a Q out on the turn. I mean.....what kind of players am I dealing with here? I almost called, but I am still glad I didnt. Any pro would have folded as well, so it isnt a big deal.

Anyway, I havent had a hand in a while, but I am sitting on 38,550 chips. Just a little over the average stack with probably 90 people left. 

Pay out begins at 45th place, starting at $2125. So....I am going to try to grind it out. If I could get a decent hand, then maybe I could strategically play a pot. But, they havent come so far.

I will update more later....

Ok, so I didnt get to play in the 125$ event due to a cut-off. So...I decided to try to satellite into the 530$ event tomorrow to save me some money. So 5 satellites later, I walk away with $1400 and some change. I brought $1600, so not too bad of a loss. If you were there to watch, you could really see just how unlucky I am. David can vouch for me, he was standing behind me in disbelief most of the time. 

Ex. I just lose an AK suited to KJ off race with the guy sucking a Jack on the river. Big let down, but I mean, it happens. Next immediate hand, I get KK. I raise under the gun and I get one caller. Soooo, flop comes K-rag-rag....Of course I instant shove. I mean, I was kind of tilted up from losing that race before, and my stack was about the size of the pot. Guy calls and flips over AA.........

anyway, to sum it up, the board ended up K-rag-rag-rag-A.....

yeah...I know right?

But, that was my baddest beat. Most of the players here are terrible though....luck just surrounds them however. I mean, there was one instance where a guy shoved all-in after my raise with QQ. I called and he flipped 7-3 suited, and of course, he turned a straight. 

Another time I raise UTG  five times the blind with AK suited, folds to small blind, so he shoves all-in. Now, normally, I would most likely respectfully fold....but, it was like 600 more chips to call, so I was pretty priced in. Dude flips over Q-3 off...

.....lets just say my AK didnt hold up.

So, as far as showdowns go. I legitimately lost 2 hands when I was not ahead preflop. The set-over-set hand, and a hand where a guy pushed and I put him on a week hand. So, I am not playing badly. I never won a race....it was pretty ridiculous. I am just not running lucky. 

That guy that said poker is 50% skill and 50% luck couldnt have been more correct. I just need about 10% of the luck part and I would probably be in good shape.

Anyway, there is a 530$ buy-in tourny that begins a 12PM, but I will probably have to get there at 9AM to get in it. So, I might way and play the one at 4PM. We will just see what is happening though. Im pretty sick, so that really isnt helping my game. Hopefully I will be feeling better tomorrow. I havent sat at the cash tables yet, probably going to wait until tomorrow night or Saturday for that.

Until next time.....

*oh yeah....internet cost $11.99 a day here......I mean....WTF?

My WSOP Blog

First off, I am in no means a writer. I never received excellent grades on my papers, so obviously a career in journalism was outlying my future. Please take that into consideration when reading. No big deal though, that’s not the subject at hand.

 

I have had many people ask me lately how my life has been and what all I am pursuing. I give the standard “Oh you know, going to school. Working to my degree.” You know, it’s just that generic answer people expect to hear. Every now and then, I have had other people ask me how my poker career is coming along. My response is always the “what the hell are you talking about” speech. Just to get everything straight, I am in no way pursuing a career in this game. The overwhelming stress and sleepless nights from the hours grinded away are not at all something you dream of one day succeeding in. Don’t get me wrong; I do have that dream of winning that final table. I, however it may be, live in reality. And if you happen to watch most final tables, the person that wins was never really expected to take it home originally.

 

But, I do make a decent amount of money in this game that helps pay for some of my other hobbies. So I can’t complain. I am now going to make an attempt to take it to the next level though. So, for those interested, then this blog is for you. After all, everything I have learned, you are the people who have helped me a long the way, so I contribute much of my success in this game to you…

 

This section will be a summary for those who do not know or understand my history with the game. I contribute just about all of my gambling genes to my Mom’s side of the family. I love to gamble, as does my mom and my grandmother. My first memory playing with a deck of cards was with my grandmother when I was really young. It was the one of the many easy ways to learn numbers. Games acquired out of this started out as Go-Fish which led to Rummy and then Five Card Draw.  This was my early way of making pennies here and there during Elementary School(along with getting hustled by my own grandmother). Not many people my age knew how to play the game, so there might have been a few times that I was bending the rules to always let me pick up the pot. Over time though, other kids figured out how to play, new games such as 7 Card Stud were learned, and pockets began to get a little deeper. A basic skill was needed, but, at my age was not yet known. New hobbies were acquired over the next few years such as paintball, wakeboarding, and rock climbing which pushed poker out of the way. In 2003, the poker boom began. 5$ buy-in tournaments were being hosted at friends’ houses multiple times a week. Those were definitely the best times I have ever experience with the game. But, as always, fads eventually die. It lasted for a couple of years with our group, but people moved off and the interest of poker basically wasted away. I moved off to attend UAB with a rather cocky aspect for the game. I had won a large percentage of the games that were hosted back home, and believe these new ones were going to be of little variance. Losing a little over $1400 the first week quickly made me realize I had a long grind before I was going to attain what knowledge of what it takes to be good at this game.

I must make a suggestion to all of the readers that want to pick up this hobby. Do not make the mistake I did and jump in the ring, guns blazing. I lost a lot of money before I realized that strategy, rather than luck, was needed. I learned the game by playing the game. It was just little that help refine by play. Reading articles and books helped me reinforce the style I had built for myself. I will say this…Books work, but…. as Phil Ivey said “When it comes to advice about poker, my attitude is very simple: seek it out, absorb it, but while you’re at the table, forget it.” I developed my own strategy. I believe it’s a decent one.

As for what is going on now. By “now” I mean exactly this moment in time. I am halfway to my destination; sitting here in the city of Tuscaloosa coming up with this random blog.  I will finish the drive to Tunica, Mississippi tomorrow where I will be playing in the WSOP circuit. I will be staying there Thursday-Sunday.

The schedule is as follows:

Thursday:

4PM: Check-in

Filler time: EXPLORE and probably hit a buffet.

7PM: 125$ Buy-in Tournament

Friday:

12AM: 65$ Buy-in Turbo

SLEEP

12PM: 550$ Buy-in Tournament

4PM: 260$ Buy-in 6-Handed Tournament

7PM: 125$ Buy-in Tournament

Studying inserted here somewhere……

Saturday:

12AM: 65$ Buy-in Turbo

SLEEP

12PM: 360$ Buy-in Tournament

2PM: Final Table from 530$ tournament resumes

7PM: 125$ Buy-in Tournament

Sunday:

12AM: 65$ Buy-in Turbo

SLEEP

2PM: Final Table from 360$ tournament resumes

 

I am obviously not going to play in every event listed here. These are just the options I have with of course the random cash game thrown in as needed. My personal goal is to cash into the Friday event; hopefully making the final table. Whatever happens though just happens. I am doing this for experience and to see the level I am able to compete at. I will update every possible minute.

I just thought this would be much easier than having to call 50 people every time I get a break.

Thanks everyone for reading.