HA, I played anyway

I was not going to play on Tuesday this week, but after I got home on Tuesday I wanted to play anyway. I jumped in my car, late for me, at 9:30pm to head over to Parkers to play a little low limit again. To my surprise I got right into an $8/16 game. This was the tightest game I have been in up there in years. Everyone was playing super tight and no one was chasing. This was not going to be too much fun. I started to gamble a bit becuase I knew no one else was going to play, and I felt I could outplay everyone at the table, so I wanted to get into pots heads up. I used this to perfection and then the game got short, even better for me, 4 handed. I started to push the table and they quit on me after only two rounds. CRAP. I was only up a bit and now I had to wait to get into the main game. Lower limit players don't really like to play short. Most don't understand the game changes necessary, and get really pissed when you beat them with a K,7.

I waited for a short bit and then a seat opened up. I got to the table and realized there was an absolute mountian of chips at this table. What was going on?? After the first hand I found out. This table had two or three players that were just gambling on every hand. Not just calling but raising and re-raising with crap. I went from the tightest game ever to one of the most wild games you could play in. One dude rebought in to the game for $3,000?? I knew all that money was in play. This was going to be a great spot to make money. You just had to hold some hands. There was going to be no bluffing at the table. Some of these pots were $500-600 pots, in an $8/16 game!! I picked up a few hands and was up a good $300-$400, then right before I was going to go home I got a K high flush draw out of the blind on the flop and of course with all flops being taken 6,7,8 handed I was getting odds to burn chips, whiff. Then three hands later in late position I picked up A,Q raised pre-flop with only 3 players in the pot, one player called out of the blind and we took the pot off 4 ways with me in position. Flop came Q high two clubs. There was an early bet, a call, I raised, blind dumped, early bettor three bet, sandwich player called cold, and I just called. Turn another Q, no club. I checked, bet, call, I now raised, cap, cold call, I call. I guess the sandwhich is on the club draw. I know I have the capper beat, he has a crap Q. Bingo, club on river. Check, bet, I make the crying call into a massive pot and he shows me clubs. K,2 of clubs. Sweet hand sir!! That burned a few too many chips for my taste, and with the way I have been running I wanted to book a small win. So I did. Whoo Hoo $125 bucks. That game had the potential to make $1,000 in, and some did. The guy who hit the K,2 of clubs had at least $1,300 in front of him. Just not to be for me. O well at least it was a win.

To the comment on the last post why don't I try NL for a while, I whish we had a game up here. We don't, no real NL games. Tulailup runs a NL game with a $500 cap on bets, so not a real game. Once you hit the cap it becomes a $500 limit game. Plus they won't let you buy in for more than $500 anyway. How do you play $5/10 blind NL with only $500 on the table?? I just have not been focused on playing NL. I may try a bit when I go to LV or LA again, but the limit games call me too hard when I go there. I am going to go to LV in October to play in the tournament on the 7th. Hope you are all winning and I will be at the MUCK on Tuesday next week almost for sure..SJ

PermaFrost

It is getting to the end of summer and I am FROZEN. I decided to go down to the Muck on Friday night and I got into the $30/60 game after a 15 minute or so wait. Good to see some faces I had not seen in months. The game was pretty good, good line up of both good and poor players, good company. I took my seat, won my first hand, then never won a hand the rest of the night. Correct, NEVER won a hand the rest if the night. 3 1/2 hours of folding, missing flops, draws, and second best hands. I never even took a bad beat post flop. I had some pocket pairs get out flopped by overcards, but that is not a bad beat just some bad luck to have none of them hold up. I just missed everything right on the flop, mostly so bad I could not even think about trying to make a hand. I never put a beat on anyone. WOW, that was about as cold as it gets.

This summer had just been horrible. I am ready for the fall and hope I thaw out then. Someone throw me a lifeline. Maybe that was the run I needed to end it. I hope so, because poker is not any fun if you don't even have a chance to win or play. I was actually reading really well that night. I spent the whole night calling out hands and amazing people(after action on the river of course), sucks to not be able to use that skill for anything other than folding overcards and pairs when you know you are beat and drawing slim to dead after the flop. O well, poker life goes on. I dumped two buy-ins for those who care.

I don't think I will even play this week. Hope you are all winning, you are if you are at my table, and I will talk to you soon or maybe next week. SJ

Lower Limit Again...

So I have been unable to get down to the Muck or up north to play in any bigger games lately. Just too much stuff happening at work, and not enough time to play cards. I have been resigned to quick stops up at Parkers. So last Thursday I had time after dinner to head out for a few hours. As it turned out a few friends from a company we do work with happened to be there and they were playing a little $8/16. One is a more of a NL player and the other I think is just learning the game and not a very strong player. Good spot to play. I got the best seat in the house. Directly to the left of both players. I spent the whole night isolating them with strong hands, and the rest of the table seemed to cooperate with my isolation plays so I ended up having a pretty good night for $8/16. No great hands to speak of so I won't bore you with the details. I did end up winning more a little more than 2 buyins.

Since I have not had much to talk about, how about I talk about managing. You can be one of the best poker players in the world but if you can't manage your game selection, bankroll, and personal life to keep playing, you are not really one of the best poker players in the world are you?? Poker is more than just playing the cards, you have to play yourself.

If you are not in the right frame of mind to play, you will lose most likely, so the right decision is to not play. If you have many distractions in your life it makes it very tough to concentrate and play well. You need to recognize that, and maybe not play. If you have been up for a long period of time, or been playing for a long period of time and are sleepy, you need to quit and go to bed. Don't take a winning session and turn it into a loser because it was a good spot. If you can't concentrate because you are tired, you will most likely loose.

Let's look at game selection. There are many articles about this but I see many people make this mistake so I guess people are not reading, they are not comprehending, or they just choose to ignore the information and gamble. There might be the best $1000/$2000 game going in the world with 5 guys that have no clue how to play, or do know how to play and are drinking and gambling it up, but if you are not bankrolled correctly you can go broke. If you go broke you can not play poker any more. That is the worst sin of all. Tough to get even, when you can't even play. Poker does have a luck factor, duh? 90% hands do lose, lots sometimes. Take a 50 BB loss in that game and you just lost $100,000. Don't sit in a game that can break you. That seems obvious, but not well understood. Don't take shots with your whole bankroll, hell 50%. You take shots with 10% or 20% of your roll. It still hurts, but does not put you out of business. This applies to all limits. If all you have to play with is $1,000 don't play $20/$40. Play $8/$16 and give yourself a chance to win over many session. That might even be too big for $1,000 but I can't recommend $4/$8, you can not beat that game with a $4 rake. I don't care how good you are, you will not win in the long run unless you are super good, and lucky. If you are both then you are not in that game anyway. That is another post however.

The other mistake, one which I make too often, it to sit in a game with too many good players in it. If you are trying to make money, it gets tough when everyone plays well, and then it becomes a card catching contest. Now sometimes there is only one game going around my limits, so I just decide I am going to play. At that point however I put a stop loss in place. If the game is full of good players, and it looks like I am not going to run well, I just quit. Having that discipline is really important over the long run. Don't book a huge loss that will take you days to get out of. I made this mistake at the WSOP this year. There were only a few $100/200 games going down there, and most of the time they had some really good players in it. The game was tough for me and to add insult to injury I was in the middle of running really poorly. I did not lose much, but the $30/60 games were just awesome down there. I should have just decided to play those games. I know it would have been a much better spot to make money. Bad choices.

The most lethal combination is to take a shot in a big game when you are tired or your head it not right. That will kill you fast. Seen it done, far too often. I am sure there are more thoughts on managing, but I have to run off to another meeting. You guys add to my list. I hope you are all winning and I will talk to you soon..SJ

Easing Back into the Water

I went down to the Muck on Friday night because I knew that there would be a $20/40 and maybe a $30/60 game going. I did not want to play $100/200 as I am easing my way back into the bigger games and until I feel my game is better I don't want to jump back in.

I was lucky enough to walk in and they started a new $20/40 game within 5 minutes of me getting in the room. I got the last seat and we were off to the races. It was a pretty tight game for a Friday night, but that was ok with me. I would have preferred a little more gamble to try and make money, but a tight straight forward game is fine too. I started off playing tight as well until I could get a feel for the table, but I noticed that it was playing too tight and there were going to be some opportunities to steal and bluff. The flip side to that was that these players were not going to lay down hands if they hit top pair so you had to hit the steal attempts or really set up the bluffs well and only bluff at those guys that could actually lay a pair down. Which turned out to be about one person. I am still having a bit of discipline problems with playing a few too many hands, but kept adjusting all night and reminding myself not to push hands.

At the end of the night I had played in both the $20/40 and $30/60 games, and was overall satisfied with my game. I think I am ready to jump back in to the $100/200 game here and will do so next week. I can't this week as I have to travel again for work. I finished up the night up a little over a dime so not a bad night in that game for 4 hours of cards.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, just not playing that much cards, and nothing really interesting to say even there. Will try to come up with something soon. The WSOP is winding down. Hope everyone down there had a great time and came back a winner. Talk to you soon....SJ

Aaron Out

So Aaron went out just before the dinner break last night. He continues his string of really bad luck in big tournaments. The three big pots he lost were with KK's and AA's twice. All three times the money went in with him either being a large favorite or a HUGE favorite and ended up on the short end of the stick. Last hand he had gotten all the money in pre-flop with AA vs 77 and lost when a 7 hit the flop. This after building his $20,000 stack back up to $48,000 so he would have had a decent chip stack if he had held on. Not to be, on to the next tournament. Talk to you soon, hope you are all winning. SJ

Another Aaron Quickie

Aaron corrected the Card Player recount of his big hand. He said all the money went in on the turn. This is way worse as the guy with the double gut flush draw is now down to one card to come. Way worse play calling all in for all the rest of your chips with that hand. Same shitty result however. Aaron said he lost another pot to the same guy a little while ago and is now down to $21,000 in chips at this last break. Crap. Get lucky time now. SJ

Aaron Update

Aaron is still in Day two, but not moving up very fast. In fact he has taken two beats. He lost with AA vs. 33, don't know exactly how it went down. Then lost KK vs. 6d,7d on a flopped double gut, flush draw that got there on the river when all the money went in on the flop. Shit happens. Keep up the good fight. Can you tell he is pissed in the picture below??

Finally

Wow, I finally booked a real winning session last night. I have been going up to Parkers to work on my game as I feel a bit out of sorts with my game right now. I don't want to play bigger until I feel like I have it back under control, and I feel like I am starting to run better. These may be related, funny how when you play better you feel like you are running better??

Short session of $8/16 really fired up game, when is it not at Parkers? Nothing to write home about on hands, except I flopped quads and got paid off. Happy to book a win.

Aaron starts day two today of the marathon that is the WSOP. He finished day 1 with 72,000 in chips so he is in good position to have a decent run. Good luck today AK, go get-em. I hope YOU are winning today. SJ