Welcome Back to The Game

I got to go play last night down at the Muck in the $30/60 game and it felt good to be back. This has been a pretty light month for poker, in fact looking at my records I only got in four session this whole month, the lightest of the year so far. The session started out weak, I lost a few big hands right off the bat to get stuck about $600 but then I just went on a roll. I actually ran well, really well for about 3 hours in the middle of my session. I was playing well, reading pretty well, and my timing was good too. I was staying away from trouble hands, and laying down losers quickly. My patience was good, which was surprising given I have not played much. There were not any huge exciting wins, just lots of average pots that added up over the night. It is so much easier to play when you develop a good table image. People stay out of your way, they don't draw at you and chase, and you can bluff at pots and people will lay down. Then when they do chase they do not hit. Those extra bluff bets really add up over the course of a long session. I would say I made an extra $800 just from table image and bluffs last night. Funny how that works, winning breads more winning and easier wins.

The game was good, not any wild gamblers, but good nonetheless. It also helped that the usual best player at the table was running horrible and I was seated just to his left so I got to isolate him on a lot of raises and then either outfloped him on a number of occasions or just won the coin flip hands like 99's vs A,Q. I just punished him most of the night. Like I said I have not had a run like that in like 6 months maybe longer. Felt AWESOME. I ended up with a 52 Big Bet night, best BB session of the year. Not the biggest win, but biggest bets for one session. I actually called it a bit early as I cooled off around 11:00pm and could not get any hands to play, or hold on to the A,K or A,Q hands. I lost back around $600 and quit up $3169. Hope to play again this weekend. I will also have my pictures back from Alaska today so I will post them on Thursday or Friday.

You might have noticed that I have stopped talking about Aaron as well. He has pretty much burned out on poker right now. I hope he can find the love of the game again, but I don't think that will happen any time soon. Too bad as he is a great player going through a tough patch right now. He just does not want to even look at cards right now. Maybe I can get him thinking about it in a few months, but right now he is not going to play. His motivation is money right now and not the game. When you get to that point it just is not even fun. I have never played this game for the money. This is evident because I can go play $8/16 and $10/20 and even $4/8 on occasion and have fun. It is about the game, being better than the other players at the table, letting out some of those competitive juices, and exercising your brain on math and human psychology. Winning money is good, and I really hate to lose, but I don't really care about the money. The extra pocket money is just fun to have. It will not make a difference in my life, unless of course I won $1,000,000 in some WPT or WSOP tournament. If you play for the money it adds another level of pressure. I don't think I could handel playing for a living, I would not feel comfortable to have to win to eat or pay the rent, plus playing every day would get boring really fast. I love to play but playing 20 straight days would drive me nuts. Aaron just does not understand how I can have fun playing at the lower limit games, if he is not in the biggest game in the room it is not exciting to him, and that game better be bigger the $100/200 or he won't even play. Need to get back to playing for the love. Hope you have a profitable fall. Talk to you soon..SJ

Checking IN

Sorry I have not posted in a week or so. I went to Alaska last week to go fishing. That was about as far away from poker as I have been in my life. I saw 6 straight sunrises, I have not even done that playing cards. Needless to say I do not want to have that experience again unless I am playing cards. I will put some pictures up of some close encounters with bears later this week. I will be playing this week, hopefully tomorrow and will get back to poker soon. Hope everyone had a great summer and looking forward to a profitable fall. Talk to you soon...SJ

No Margin for Error

I went down to the Muck last night again and played in both the $20/40 and $30/60 games. My game continues to struggle a bit as I grapple with running so poorly these last few or more months, and only getting to play one day a week so I get a little antsy to get into action. I once again spent most of yesterday watching cards go by. It just does not seem right that this run of crap has to keep going on. I sit there and watch other guys pick up big hands left and right for weeks and I just want my one day. I had one run in the middle of my session where I had AA twice and they held up, but other than that I had no big cards. I had to start making stuff up again. I was doing that well, but then let it get away from me a bit. I played a few too many draws, that of course did not get there, and I played a few too many weak hands out of position. That thin margin of error slipped a small winning session to a small loss. I played for 11 hours yesterday and lost -$178.00. I am not pleased with myself for losing in what should have been a small win. I know better than to play like that, and I just keep doing it. I have to figure out a way to stay focused during this crappy run of cards. I know it will turn, I just don't know when. There were really no interesting hands to note this session, other than I did get beat on a one outer, but that happens not new, nothing I could do. I am going to take another trip next week so I will be out of the blog world until the 30th of this month. Good luck and I hope you are running better than I am. SJ

Just not Easy

One of these days I am going to have an easy session. I have not run well in over 6 months now. I want a day where I get good cards and they hit, and you make a ton of bets. All of my sessions are turning into grind it out slugfests where you are in pots with strong but not lock hands and you have to fade the draws and really focus to read whether your hand is good or not. It is just not easy right now.

I went down yesterday afternoon to play at the Muck. I got there at 1:30pm and the $30/60 game was already full with an 8 person list. I got into the $20/40 game after about 30 minutes of sitting around and started off dead even. I then got a seat in the $30/60 game about an hour later and proceeded to get 6 playable hands in the first round and lost all of them. All mid pocket pairs, one pair of QQ's and an AK. All lost. Stuck $800 right from the get go. Crap. I was patient and ground myself back to even and over the course of the next 4 hours proceeded to get every high pair cracked. I had Pocket QQ's 5 times, all lost, two Pair of KK's cracked, pocket JJ's Crack, Then Pocket AA's CRACK. I will not bore you with the bad beat stories because you have heard them all before. But I was getting frustrated. I kept getting pushed back down every time I got some momentum. I was just about dead even after about 6 hours of play.

Then the table started to get short, and the few gamblers(donkey's) left with money started to average out their draws(meaning they started to miss). I picked up my aggressiveness, started bluffing, holding on to marginal boards, and hitting a little finally. I did get pocket AA's twice and lo and behold they actually held up. In one five handed pot I was in the SB with AA's. Second spot entered the pot with a raise, third called, I three bet and the BB dumped other two called and we take the pot off three handed. Flop came down Q high, I bet right out, get raised, and called and I three bet and both call. Turn a 3, I check again, second checks, and now the third guy bets and I get to raise again. This time the second guy dumps, but the third guy calls again, river a 6, I bet out and get called. I turn over pocket AA's and he shows me his KK's. Perfect. Nice big pot. I was taking a chance that there was not pocket QQ's out there, but I felt pretty good about my read after the flop so I went with it. I also had the read that someone would bet the turn even after I three bet. I tried to play it like I had AQ, and that is exactly what he put me on when he bet the turn. I got an extra bet out of him for it. That one felt good. I proceeded to beat up the table for the next two hours, One guy left and we played 4 handed for about on hour until 2:00am when I finally quit up $1,755. Felt good to book that win after such a tiring day of getting cracked and having to really read well to make money. I wish I could have stayed as there was one donkey left who was going to loose the rest of his money in this game but I had to go to bed. I also love to play shorthanded. I am a huge favorite in these games up here short. No one really plays well short in Seattle except for one or two other players and they did not stick around in the game. O well next time. Good luck and talk to you soon..SJ

Dorking Around

I went out late (by my standards)on Tuesday up to Parkers where I have not been in months. I got there at 10pm and could only play for a few hours, so I did not want to drive all the way down to the Muck from my house. It is always good to see the familiar dealers and players that I used to play with. I jumped into the $8/16 game with the intent to play good poker. Well I actually did, it was very hard to both stay interested at this level, as well as to resist the urge to gamble with the table. It was a huge gamble table and everyone was playing everything. I stayed way tight as that is the only way to play these tables and even have a chance to win, but unfortunately for me I continued to see no decent starting hands. I sat there and talked and watched poker for three hours. I think I played 10 hands the whole night and lost 7 of them. No big pairs higher than 99's, and I think AK twice and lost. I did have fun however, and got a good laugh out of this hand: I was in third position and had 9/10 off, of course I folded and watched the entire rest of the table put in 4 bets to the cap. There were 8 people in the pot for a cap. Flop comes 2,6,6. I think 3 or 4 went all the way to the river with all kinds of raising and calling, really funny. At the showdown, someone actually had 6,2 sooooited for a flopped full, and cracked AA and one other big pair I think 10's or JJ's. Huge pot very funny stuff and typical Parkers $8/16.

One thing I did notice were all the new faces. Lots of really young kids playing and trying to work up the food chain of poker. I think it was good to go there, and I plan on doing this more often as it gives you a chance to see the new people coming into the game locally and start to get reads on some of the players who will eventually move up to the bigger games locally. There are some good young kids playing cards locally. There are some bad ones too. I just wish I could start to get some cards to play.

I am going to play today. I think I will bail at lunch and get a good long session in down at the Muck. By the way I lost -$242.

Back From Vacation

I did play on the 29th of July one last time before vacation in the $30/60 game at the Muck to see if I could stop the two day slide. Well I did, only $1,018, but at least it was a win. The game was good as usual. I was a bit tired from working and playing for 4 days straight but it was fun. I have not been able to go on a good poker bender for a while. I was hoping for some better results, but I will take the win and hope for better results next time. There was nothing of interest to write about from that session, at least not that I can remember 10 days later. I will not get to play much this week maybe once so I will post when I can.

I did get to read some good books on poker while I was in Montana. I read "The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King". This book was based on the Andy Beal games played at the Bellagio from 2001 to 2004. It dealt with all the big games, and people involved. There is zero poker in this book, but it is still a great read to see how the big game evolved. The money was just crazy, $20,000/40,000 up to $100,000/$200,000. Now that is BIG. I think there are still some facts missing as I know someone who was close to that game but it is pretty much how it went down. Beal did end up a pretty big net loser, and by the looks of it he will not get a rematch. I would like to say that Ted Forrest has big balls. He jumped into a $30,000/60,000 three handed game on his own bankroll at the beginning and won. Now that takes some balls. None of the other players played their own money straight up, and after that first session neither did Ted, but to risk $600,000 on one session is super crazy, and it takes some huge courage to play good poker feeling the pressure he must have felt. Killer stuff.

I also started reading Volume II of Dan Harrington's book. Good stuff so far. Much more interesting than the first volume. It is all no-limit tournament poker stuff but good. I would recommend both books. Good luck to all, and talk to you soon I hope. SJ