OneGreenChip

March 18-23

1,006 hands
+8 BIs
40.95 bb/100

averaging 24/15/2 over this run. There's something to be said for having a goal -- as in, I want to be playing a 17/15 style, or a 30/25 style, but I'm dipping in and out of both.

Sadly, it's not due to table dynamics, game flow, or image, but just the run of cards I happen to be getting. I'm cool with that -- we can't even say for sure that your average 60bb donk at Absolute is paying attention to metagame, mining, using PokerTracker, etc.

Well, during this mini-heater, I need to be cognizant of What I'm Doing Correctly. Just so I can look back at this post in colder times and warm my hands on it :D

1) buying in at 100BBs. Thanks M0niker and malfaire. It keeps me out of really tough spots like this (villain: 18/13/3.5/2k). Villain had been cashing in on his image to splash around with some substandard hands in the previous orbit. This was a good opportunity to play back at him. He check/calls my Cbet, and leads the turn. Previously, villain has used this line to float OOP and take pots away from opponents with high Cbet frequencies. This time, he open-shoves the river; it's the first time I've seen this from him. I would LOVE feedback on this one.

2) Running hot. Really hot. Super hot. Deck smacking your face hot. It helps so much.

3) Playing AA/KK/QQ optimally. Unfortunately, every time I got these during this stretch, I got a walk. Frustrating. Except for this time, where I made a genius check on the river so the donk could bluff-shove me.

4) Exercise pot control with my medium-strength hands.

5) Occasionally overplay strong hands to set up big calls and big villain laydowns.

6) Don't play sets in multiway pots like this. I probably left a some value on the table, but I doubt either of the other two had a hand...

mt ratio ~3.25

Despite yesterday's spiral into oblivion, this hand made me happy.

Because I got to value-shove, and see my opponent nearly time out, obviously puking on himself, and make a crying-god-I-know-I'm-beat call.

LOL

Right after I came home from work. Fed. Rested.


Felt good. Got coolered twice in small pots so I called it a day. This was the first 4-tabling session I've had that I felt comfortable. It helped that I was running...well...warm.

Then I went to the gym, played some Smash Brothers Brawl, and decided to ADD TO MY WINNINGS. I could feel the fatigue when I sat down again. Maybe this isn't such a good idea...
Nope.

Not even coolers. Got JJ/QQ/KK/AK/TT and stacked off every time with them -- I would miss the board, and refuse to fold against donkeys, who would call me down with a weak A or terrible odds to catch flushes.

So easy to just stop after the first session!!!!

...I'll do something productive.

I'd like to dissect the 12 hands I picked out of my last 3.5K, but I CAN'T. So instead I'm updating my goals.

previous: run at 6-10 bb/100 at 400NL (at undetermined date)
current: be bankrolled for 50NL at date X, be bankrolled for 100NL at date Y.

Current bankroll is STILL at ~$750. Since moving a $500 roll to Absolute, I've profited $192 in 10K hands, at 5.54BB/100. I am not happy with this, but KNOW that it's 40% variance and 60% bad play. Really. Not exaggerating.

I've taken shots at 50NL before, and I think there are more fish at that level than at 25NL, probably because of the jackpot tables. As long as I'm sufficiently rolled, I don't see it being a real problem -- not that my game is ready now, but it will be by the time my bankroll hits $1500 total. (I'm happy with 20 BIs for this level, but I think it'll be that long before I'm ready to move up. Gotta withdraw sometime to pay myself back :D)

So where do I see leaks right now?

- playing deep in general.
- playing my AA/KK/AQ for optimal value. These three hands mess with me.
- not openshoving enough on the river
- playing suited connectors when PF odds or position don't allow for it.
- GIVING OPPONENTS CREDIT FOR MOVES THAT I HAVEN'T SEEN THEM MAKE
- semi-bluff timing with draws
- translating HUD stats into ranges (will link a great 2p2 post later)
- optimizing my lines for value. still trying to get fancy on people when i have a weak read

weaktight.com is now blocked from work.

I feel it welling up in me.

RAGE.

Unfortunately, I'm no longer going to be able to talk/think poker during the day. Here are the list of sites I can not view.

• Cardrunners
• 2+2
• LeggoPoker
• flopturnriver
• pocketfives
• deucescracked
• liquidpoker
• pokerhand.org
• weaktight.com

I don't think I've logged more than 2k hands in the past two weeks. Part of it is slowly coming off tilt. Part of it is due to increased hand analysis, leak-locating and -plugging, and reading poker books. In fact, I don't think I'm spending any less total time on poker.

I'm just not spending that time playing.

I guess that's a good thing? Since I discovered a datamining program for Absolute Poker, I've been letting it run (and run and run) on my computer. My database has finally cracked the million-hand mark...even though I'm only recorded in about 70K hands myself. LOL.

The flipside of this: I'm starting to hit a bottleneck for my rig:

hardware side
Since I got my new monitor, I've been plugging it in externally to the laptop, exporting the tables to it, and leaving the monitoring program on the laptop screen. This necessitates a 3-minute period of plugging in mice, A/C, and monitors into the laptop, then playing setup with the video. Slightly annoying, but I dealt with it, knowing that in the future I would get myself a desktop and simplify.

software side
It looks like the future is approaching more rapidly than I thought, as my lowly Athlon 6400+ laptop is starting to complain about DB crunching. GRRRR. I'm not sure if that's why PokerAceHUD is crashing my Absolute Poker, if it's Absolute itself, or some other unrelated issue, but I have -- on average -- a crash a session, where I must restart everything anew.

It could be time to format my laptop again -- I know it's always ultra fast whenever I clear out the digital algae, reset the registry, and go from there. Just a temporary solution, though.

so I'll soon be getting:

• new CPU
• new motherboard
• new graphics card

and i'll ram them into an older tower that a roommate has laying around. Probably a $250 investment.

then I'll worry about a 2nd monitor. I mean, I'm juuuuust starting to get 4-tabling under my belt. I've got a raging urge to drop down to 10NL and try 6-8 tabling, and start really sucking in volumes of poker.

wow, motivation. cool.

Villain is running 19/13/4 over 200 hands. Really aggressive on the first two streets, but won't triple barrell (River AF = 0).

I like my lead out on the first street, and I think the call is OK. Then I lead the 2nd street, and he minraises me. I'm behind AA/KK/JJ/AK/QT, and drawing dead to the sets. I'm ahead of AQ/AT/QQ/TT.

The problem is that I expect the villain to play his entire range of hands with flop and turn bets. AA and JJ are fairly improbable at this point. AK/AQ/AT/KK/QQ/TT are more likely, and the first 4 choices would fit his actions well, but I've seen him Cbet and double barrell every board he's involved in. I just don't believe him. I call the turn and prepare to check/call the river, but he gives up.

I'm very happy with my decision to NOT lead the river, and just check/call. I might get a call from AQ, but not likely.

Likewise, I was very happy with my decision to check/fold the river here, tough to do with a turned two pair.
-----------------------------------------------------

I wish I was as proud of the next series

Villain is 57/17/1.4. Seems like a complete and total retard.

The Setup:

• Standard line, I couldn't believe what he showed up with.
• Next time I tangle with him, I decline to play a big pot. Fish sighting confirmed.
• Look at the river play. He's really, really not a good player. I'm salivating.
• I'm not in this hand, but I've closed all tables but two and am waiting to crush him.
• I make a terrible play here, against a player whom I know can't fold. He doesn't protect his TPGK against the draws out there? MADNESS. HAS to be a donk.

The Delivery

Don't get your hopes up. I finally get a hand to catch the fish, and I screw it all up. Watching the previous sequence of hands turned me into Wile E. Coyote. He has the brains, but hunger regularly overpowers his superior intellect.

Fuckin' roadrunner. This is such a horrible board for me, but I'd see this guy 3bet with suited connectors, call river bets with A high and missed flush draws, and generally donk off chips like mad. His willingness to get it all in on the scary flop should have alerted me.

But I was too hungry.

thursday:

Dallas Stars Game. Brad Richards traded in from Tampa Bay. 1st game. 5 assists. I think he's the real deal. Apparently he has the record for game-winning goals in a playoff series. I was like, "wtf, fluke LOL". Nope. Natural center, great vision, good hands, and makes his teammates BETTER. A rare quality. I'll be watching

Mark Farina @ Ghostbar. My favorite house DJ comes to the ritzy ultralounge atop the W Hotel, conveniently located right next to my apartment complex. Even better, the party host comped me a bottle of Grey Goose and got us a table. $300 value. BALLA. We left the hockey game, annihilated Red Bull and Vodka at the apt, walked over & jumped the line at GhostBar, and rolled 15 strong to our private table at the edge of the dance floor. Awesome -- especially because GB is super-snooty and exclusive, exactly the type of place that I turn my nose up at...unless Mark Farina is there, garnished w/ a free bottle. I own that place on Thursdays. Bless you, Red Bull & Vodka.

friday

Pain at work. Like, all day. Damn you, Red Bull and Vodka.

Kaskade @ M'inc. Delicious deep house madness at the re-engineered "Men Inc". Yeah, it's a gay club most of the time. Yeah, probably a third of the men there knew what other men taste like. BUT...gay people are more fun to party with than straight people. They dance harder, drink more, talk more, and generally have a better time. We theorized that it was because of the homogenous mindset of both parties -- dating the same gender is EASY, because both people want the same thing. You don't have to play the Game (aka Martian-to-Venetian translation). Sounds like less fun to me. Anyway, the vibe was much better at this show, even if the music was only 95% as good. The crowd bumped, Kaskade's track selection was decent, and his mixing was A+. I got crunked, and found $40 on the floor on the way out. WIN.

saturday

Ran errands, bought some RollerBlades, taught Kim some moves, and went to a hypnotist/comedy show in Arlington. Not as informative as I thought it would be, but still entertaining. The hypnotist had excellent induction methodologies, and correctly chose his subjects from the audience, and had HILARIOUS stunts for them to do (smelling phantom smells, hearing phantom sounds, acting like a policeman, pole dancing / chippendale dancing, singing, spanking people, humping random people in the crowd, thinking the crowd was in their underwear) -- but his poor co-ordination with his audio guy gave the whole show a stop/start feel. Wait for the music, wait for it, wait for it....zzzzzzzzzzz. On the plus side, watching a girl rip off her blouse and be convinced that her titties are filling up with helium is GOT DAMN FUNNEH. ("help! i'm floating! get me down!")

sunday

Lazed / cooked / cleaned. Defended my champion belt in chess. I'm better than ever at this game -- I wonder if poker has had some effect on it? Possibly it's just greater experience and familiarity with certain situations. Still refuse to read a book or do any classical learning on the subject -- the only game that I have ever denied myself outside information on.

poker

NONE. Go me. Back on it this week.

Duck

Duck

Duck

Goose!

(BBV = beats, brags, and variance. no real thinking in these hands, i'll sift for better ones)