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On a Roll

I am on a roll right now. Not running hot, but playing really well, I am in the zone right now. I am betting while in the lead, checking when behind, and laying down when beat. I am getting the most out of my pots, and not putting in dead money or extra bets when unnecessary, and getting most of the extra bets when I see they are available. I could still use a little work on value betting the river, but I am not going to quibble with results right now. As usual I went down to the Muck on Tuesday night. But unusual was that there was a $50/$100 game going on. Unfortunately I did not get down there until after work and the game was full with no one moving out of the game. There were two people in the game that had been there since 2:00am the previous day when the game started. I took my seat in the $20/$40 game looking longingly at the game next to me waiting for my shot. I ended up playing a few hours in the $20 game and then I finally got a seat, I left the $20 game up $600. I should have been a little more careful for what I asked for, this game was tough.

The game was started by Chris, who I mentioned a few posts ago as a high limit player in California, and a damn good guy and damn good poker player to boot. Pete had come back from the commerce to Seattle, and Barry who has also been out of town was in the game as well. There were almost no soft spots in this game. This whole game was built around one guy who was gambling like a fish and had a nice chunck of change to lose. I sat down and focused on playing my game. I went no where for hours, basically up and down within a $1,000 of even all night. Then down about -$1,200 I made my move to the plus side and never looked back. I looked down and had pocket 55's in the SB, there was a raise in second position, and by the time it had got back to me there were already 5 callers. I announced to the table that this is my get even pot and if I hit I will let you know. The Flop came 5,Q,6, no suits. I check, BB checks original raiser bet, two callers, I raise, BB calls all others call. I announced that I hit it, but no one believes you anyway, and I did not announce what I hit. Turn a J which also puts two suits on the board. I bet out, and still get called by two players. River a big fat ol' 5, GIN. I did not need the card but it sure was nice to lock out the deck with that card as there were a few draws and I am sure either KK's or AA's out there. I gave the old hesitation move like that card might have hurt me and then bet out anyway and got called by the original raiser. I showed my QUADS and took the nice big $2,000 pot. I never looked back from that point, but I never got much above $1,500 until late in the night when.......

It got short handed, which will tend to happen in a bigger game as the weaker players eventually go broke. At $50/100 if you play poorly you will pay dearly. You can and will lose thousands of dollars in a short period of time if you are playing loose and in every pot. The good players will extract all those extra bets out of you and you will never get a free card when you want one. In the lower games you can just go back in to your pocket to get more money. It's not that bad to buy in 40 or 50 BB if you lose that much at $4/8 or even $10/20 that only $1,000, but at this game that is $5,000. Not that many people travel around with $5,000 in their pockets in Seattle. Hell even I only brought $5,000 as that is plenty for a $30/60 game, if I had known we had a $50 game going I would have brought $10,000 just to feel safe. There were people in the game for up to $12,000 just for perspective. So back to the short game, which if you read this blog you know I love, and I consider myself a favorite over almost any player in Seattle. The good players started breaking the weaker ones as the game got short. We went from seven to six all the way down to just three of us left at around 1:00am. Some just left as they got even or up a little and others went flat broke. I busted the guy who the game was built around at about 12:00am and then some of the other good players left as they did not really want to play with Barry, Chris and myself. I played with those two for another hour or so and did fine. More for fun than for money, as both of those guys are good players and really none of us had an edge. It was going to be a game of who could get luckier than who was better. I was the lucky one and ended up getting another $1,000 during that hour.

All in all the roll continues. I most likely will not play again in September and I did not book one losing session during the month. I have not done that in a while, maybe two years. Feels good and my bankroll thanks me. I ended up the night a positive $3,141 6.28 BB per hour. Not bad. Good luck and talk to you soon...SJ

No Look back...Finally

I went down to the Muck late on Friday. I got there around 9:00pm and waited around to get into a bigger game. I got into the $20/40 game and sat there for about 1/2 and hour before I got into the $30/60 game. The game was typical for a Friday. Some had been there all day and were stuck, some up big, and some were drinking on a Friday night and having fun. Overall game was primed to win. I started out focused and ran well right off the bat. I picked up a few nice pots, and never looked back finally. I have been getting off stuck for the last few months. The good part was that I always have come back and won, today I started off winner, and grew the win. I must have picked up pocket KK's five times, and I won all of them except for one which I let myself get outplayed. I was in the BB with KK's, It was raised on the Button, I three bet, he capped. Flop came A,Q,7. I checked he bet I folded my KK's face up. I figured it was not time to play a big pot, and I had not played a pot with this guy yet so I did not know what he was capable of three betting. I put him on an A, but I also could not beat QQ's at this point, so I figured I would get away cheap. He showed me JJ's. If I had been really thinking and on top of my game I would have bet out and see what happened. As it was I gave up the pot by checking. My mistake, live and learn.

I would also like to pass on a word of wisdom that continues to peve me when a player makes this mistake. There was a good young player in the game who was stuck pretty good. One of the drinking gamblers was putting him on tilt with bad hands and this kid could not/was not handling it well. When you have a good aggressive player on tilt you do not want him to leave the table. Especially when you know he can not get his game righted that night. So what happens. He gets a set cracked by the drinking gambler when he hits a gutshot. The kid takes about $1500 off the table to go play Baccarat and clear his head. He proceeds to lose this money in the pit and comes back to the table. Now the rule is that you are supposed to replace the chips you take off the table when you come back. He clearly did not have them as he lost them in the pit. He still had over $2,000 on the table and no one cared if he put them back. The rest of the $2,000 was in play, and he most likely had some more cash in his pocket. One guy next to him, who only had like $600 in front of him, and was a losing player, proceeded to ask the dealer to remind him to replace the chips. Everyone else said no big deal, but he insisted. So the dealer called the floor, and the floor ruled correctly that he had to replace the chips. Well this just pissed him off to the breaking point and he quit. The guy claimed that if he had to do it then everyone should have to do it and since it happened to him before he thought it was fair. What a stupid position. This guy was going to blow off the rest of his chips and still had $2,000 in front of him, why do you care. Keep your mouth shut if you don't know what you are talking about. You NEVER want a player on tilt to leave the game. I repeat NEVER, even if he breaks the rules. Players need to see the whole picture before doing something that is bad for the game. If he was winning and playing well then I may want him off the table, not likely but as least maybe. This was a clear cut mistake, and this guy was a donkey to boot.

Well I ended up playing well and running pretty well to the close that night and quit at about 1:30am. Not a long session but I made $2,382 or 8.8 BB an hour. Good win rate for a live game. Hope everyone is winning, talk to you soon as I will play on Tuesday this week. SJ

Day of the Donkey

Well after reading the post from Iggy's blog on Tuesday I went mentally prepared to play some good poker. I have a little bit of a drive from work to the casino and I use that time to think about poker and how I am going to play that day or what I want to work on during the session. Lately I have been getting off stuck and then working my way out of a hole and getting winner. Yesterday I got right into the $30/60 game no waiting, cool. I sat down prepared to win and play good cards right from the start, and I did play good cards, I just got run over by the Donkeys at the table to get stuck $1,200 at the low point. I did not win a hand for the first hour or so of play and $800 straight. It was Donkey day. All the bad players were hitting, all day long, it was just funny the hands that were winning. The Donkeys took tons of money out of the table and then they were replaced by more donkeys who then would win as well. It was a very trying day for me. I was getting my usual run of mediocre cards, but I was playing good poker. When there are that many bad players in the game you see 5,6,7, and sometimes 8 way flops. It does not take too many of those pots to get up winner. I just stayed in my game and did not go on tilt. I knew that the Donkey money was in play and I would get my share of it if I were patient and did not play their game. It can get really hard however when your A,Q looses to 2,5 soooooted after you have raised preflop and they call when an A hits the flop and it comes runing 3,4. Good stuff.

It worked. I played a pretty long session and quit at about 1:30am up $1,221. That was a small win relative to some of the big wins people booked in the game, but I was happy with it somewhat. I would have liked to win more. If I would have had some cards to play I would have won more. But I stayed out of pots with all but the strongest of hands when there were more than 4 people in a pot, or I was in early position. I do have to relate one hand just because it worked out so beautifully. I had pocket AA in third position. I just limped, I almost never do that, but just wanted to play them a little different for once. Huge risk in this game letting people in, but I thought what the hell. I get raised from middle position, and two callers, then I back draft raise it to three bets. All three people call. The flop comes with an A,7,6, no color. I bet out, I get raised, and the other two players fold, I call. Turn a K, I check, player bets, I just call. River, 9, I check player bets, I now raise, he calls. I win nice pot. Got to love it when you actually get paid all the way down with a big hand. That was the only time I saw AA all night. I did see KK only once and they did get cracked. It happens. I will take the small wins as long as they keep coming.

On a side note I just booked my trip to Vegas for the Bellagio tournament for the weekend of the 13, 14, and 15th. There are three no-limit tournaments that have buy-ins from $1,500 on Thursday to $2,500 on Saturday. I might play in all three, but two for sure. The cash games are always fun and I am looking forward to a poker packed three days. Talk to you soon..SJ

Great Post

Iggy's post yesterday was so good I had to tell you to go check it out. www.guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com. For some reason my link won't work so go to the left and hit the link there.
The two articles are awesome. The zone article is dead on and the pro article is great as well. The topper is the three pics of Jessica Alba in a bikini. If I may steal one here it is...
Holy shit, what an ass.

I will play tonight, talk to you tomorrow. SJ

Grind it out

I went to the Muck last night after I missed my usual Tuesday night session. Games are always good on Tuesday and Thursday as they have a tournament that attracts lots of players. I don't play in the tournament anymore as the structure sucks, and your average win in the $30 game is better than the average cash in the tournament. I don't get as much practice playing tournaments, but I would rather play and win money than just practice.

So off to the tables I went. I got in the game late for me on Thursday 7:00pm, and took the lay of the land. Not too many of the regular good players but mostly solid players, not too many soft gamblers tonight. I also proceeded to get off on my lately to usual foot of not picking up any starting hands and running poorly to get stuck $600 right off the bat. I will give you just one bad beat story as I found it rather funny. I three bet a late raiser from my position of one off the button with AA. The flop came 10,8,6, two hearts, he checked I bet, he called. The turn the K of hearts, not the best turn card for me, but he checked, I bet anyway, and he just called. The river was the A of spades, perfect I make my set and win, I thought until he came right out and bet. I initially put him on two pair, but slowed down before I raised. Then I got this funny feeling like he actually did have Q,J but thought this not likely enough to fold top set and just called. He showed me Q,J of Clubs. Wow what a crappy call on the flop, no heart and a gut shot heads up, there goes $240 down the drain.

I then went into grind it out mode. The table was playing very soft, not a lot of raising pre-flop which allowed you to make steals from late position, and see flops cheaply with draw hands in late position. I used this to my advantage and raised almost any un-raised pot with just one caller in it from late position and then bet the flop and won almost 80% of those hands. I just kept winning small pots and near the end of the night I was up over $1,000. I then proceed to get KK cracked by JJ on the river, and decided to call it a night. Tough session but another win. Finished up $882.

The other interesting news of the night was that two people I almost never get to play with both came into the casino last night. I convinced Aaron to join me for a bit. I thought it would be good for him to just get his feet wet with poker again as he was burned out. Bad idea. He played for 45 minutes, lost every hand he was in, and quit $1500 loser. That is no way to get you grove back. He is probably really done for a while now. Then late in the night Chris came in. He is moving to LA in two weeks, but essentially lives there right now. Awesome person, great player, good to see him. He spends his time in the $100/200, 200/400 or 300/600 games and up at Commerce. He just stopped by to see what was going on. We talked about stuff and stories of the WSOP, his night with Phil Ivey and pro basketball players form the Heat. We also talked about how a lot of the big name players are all broke or really low on cash right now. The games are just too big now in Vegas, and if you loose $1,000,000 or more a night, most can just not fade the loss. I knew Gus Hansen was low, but Chris said he is flat broke right now and borrowing to play. Too bad. There are a lot of name players right now borrowing to play, not a good position to be in. Much like Aaron, ego gets in the way and they can not play at the low(not for you and I) limits $300/600 or $400/800. Man what a wacky game this is, really screws with you head. Hope everyone is having a winning fall and talk to you soon, GO IRISH..SJ

Note To Self....

Skip Wednesday night at the Muck. Last night was really slow. I went down to play after work and there was an open seat in the $30/60 game. That should have been the first bad sign. I took the seat only to see the game break about an hour after sitting down. We then converted the game to $20/40 to try and attract some new players. We did, but man was it the wrong kind of players. I don't mind a game with a few donkeys in it, but last night we had a full table full of bad, suck out, players. It started as me and one other good regular and 6 crappy players, then the other good player quit because the game was not all that fun and I was left alone to fend off the fish. It was me against 8 other REALLY bad players. I thought I was sitting in a $4/8 game except the people had some decent money to lose. At one point in the middle of the evening I actually had a Cow farmer from Oregon on my left, and he even looked the part. He had on a Stihl chainsaw hat, and farm clothes. He proceed to tell the table that he owned 150 acres of land with cows on it in Oregon and he was up showing cows at the State Fair near the casino. At least he did not stink like cows. Then I ended up with a huge fat guy who did stink on my right who said he was a mortgage broker and just closed a deal and was out to celebrate. He was absolutely terrible. I don't think he has played more than 5 times in his life, but hey, he had the money to play and let us know that as well. The moment those two donkeys sat to my left and right I announced that I am not chopping. I usually chop in a rake game because it is not worth the effort to win the pots heads up and try to beat the rake. These guys were so bad and I knew I was about a 10 to one favorite or more in any hand I was in I had to play. So now that I have painted the somewhat ulgy picture let me tell you about the evening...

This was a typical passive suck out game. You almost could not bluff because if anyone caught even the smallest piece of the flop, or had a runner runner draw, they were going to see the river. I don't mind a few at the table like that, but a whole table makes the swings HUGE. Needless to say I went through my somewhat usual mediocre run of cards where I had nothing to play. In this game it was super important to play good cards because people were calling with anything. I had people calling my raises cold with 6,2 suited, 2,3 off, J,7, Q,3, you name it. All hands were playable hands tonight for the table. We were taking flops off 4 to 7 handed most of the night. I am really in a $20/40 game?? No one would raise pre-flop but me, or the occasional raise from these wonderful players. Pretty easy to put them on a hand as they would only raise with really big cards. I went up and down all night as I just could not hold hands. I would go in with A,K and get called by A,7 and the 7 would hit and he would call all the way down. I got away from a few hands as it was obvious what they had, you know you just got beat by K,2 the way the aaction would go down. The other problem with seeing big multiway pots is that it prices you in to see draws that you would not typically have the odds to call. So you play the draws, miss the hand and muck the river because it was so obvious what the other players had you could lay down with almost absolute knowledge you were beat by a stupid hand. Besides there was going to be someone curious to see the hand anyway, so in most cases you go to confirm you were just beat by 6,3 off.

All in all a very frustrating night. These games can be profitable, but you need to run pretty well and actually get some cards to play, two things which were not high on the list tonight. I swung around even all night, which I consider great for the cards I was getting, then the beautiful short game started happening. Most of these recreational players never bring enough money to play with so they buy in for $500-$1000 and lose, then leave. Some just need to go home because their wife called at 11:30pm and told them to get home. Also when you play poorly at this level the leaks cost you tons of money. You will get eaten alive protecting every blind you have and seeing one or two other hands a round with weak hands. You start with a $1000 and you look down in a hour and you have $100 left, what happened? So the game got 6 handed and I proceed to break one, then two, then after about another hour the third. When we got to three handed the other two quit me because they did not want to play me three handed. Don't really blame them, they had no chance unless the deck just hit them the rest of the night. As I said most players do not play well short handed and these bad players to start with had no chance. I ended up making a small profit of $623 for the night. I will chalk it up as a moral victory because the way I was running it could have easily been a loss. I actually felt good about the win because I had to manufacture it, it definitely did not come easy. This was a game that had high tilt factor and I fought it most of the night, but I won the battle and stayed within my game to squeeze out the win. Note to self don't go back on Wednesday.

I won't get to play this weekend and there is a lot going on, but I will be back at it next week. Talk to you soon..SJ

Quickie

Went up to Parkers for a quickie on Friday night. I spent the day in LA for work, Down and back in one day for a quick trip. I had to fight the urge to stay that night and go to Commerce and play, but I had stuff I needed to do on Saturday in Seattle so I could not swing it. The urge to play was planted so I went late night for me(10:00pm) to get in a quick session and see some friends I don't get to play much with anymore because they don't travel south to the Muck. It is fun to see peoples reaction to me in the game that don't know me. I am a fresh face to them, the regulars at Parkers today.

I jumped into the 8/16 game, and I told myself to concentrate and play well. I managed to do that pretty well. As I said it is also fun to see people's reaction to players they have not seen. It is the default position of most people to think since they have not seen me I must be new to the game and not know what I am doing. They invariably try to run over me on the first few hands that I am in with them. Then they kind of figure out that they should give me some respect, and look down and I have $200 of your money. I always default to respect until you give me a reason to think you are gambling or a bit loose. Otherwise I will give your raises meaning and respect your bets. It costs too much money otherwise and you end up with the same information, yet that is what you see most in the middle to low limit games. Never underestimate your opponents, even in small games. There are great players at all levels, just not big bankrolls for one reason or another that allow them to play bigger games. Someone may just decide to sit in a small game for fun. That can go both ways however, some players sit in a small game and gamble because the money means nothing to them, but you can figure that out quickly. I also did not show many hands that night either, which was kind of weird. People just kept getting out of my way, one even made the comment I want to call you just to see what you have been playing because no one has called you hands down tonight. They called and I happened to have the nuts this time, and that helped cement the table image. It went great from there and I ended up booking a small win for a three hour session of $295. 6BB an hour, not too shabby. No fun hands, just good pots, so I will not bore you with any details.

Hope you had a good Labor Day Weekend. I will not get to play until Wednesday as I have to work today so I will play tomorrow. Will be a new night at the Muck but I doubt I will see any new faces there. Talk to you soon. SJ