Don't Know What's Wrong

I have been writing e-mails and complaining for quite a while about not being able to get rakeback on my account. I finally get my wish and Full Tilt gives me rakeback, so what do I do? I haven't played a single hand since I got it. Go figure. I don't know what the hell my problem is right now. I'm just not motivated to play and have been reluctant to sit down and put in some volume. I can feel myself slowly getting back into grinder mode, so maybe taking a short break will be a good thing. So rakeback should start to help out a little, even if it just levels out some of the short term variance. I'm still playing at the same level, and am just a few buy-ins short of moving up. Again, if I take a shot at the next level and drop below 50 buy-ins at the previous level, I'll drop down and take another shot some other time. The brief session I did play at the higher session was productive, so I just need to stay TAG and keep my head in the game and read players well.

So poker is going great, outside of the lack of will to play right now. I got my check from Full Tilt last week and it hasn't bounced yet. So hopefully the checks will start to flow again. I just got the Harrington on Cash Games series, so I'll be reading that. I'm almost finished with Professional No-Limit Hold'em. So far it has been a great book. I really love how it has gone into aspects that other books really don't cover. It focuses more on the odds (pot, implied, tilt), SPR (stack to pot ratios), and other topics. It is more about the way to think through hands and about your opponents. It's not your typical, raise with XX in such and such position and how to play big hands or draws. Poker is so complex, yet so simple. Poker is a game that can make you decent amounts of money if you play pretty straightforward and mix up your game. It can make you ridiculous amounts of money if you can add exploiting your opponents and position to your game.

My plan is to finish the Harrington series, then get done with some of the books I have on reading players and the math behind the game. Then I will go through the books I have on Omaha and Seven Card Stud. Once I've finished all of these, I want to re-read all four Harrington books, Negreanu's Power Hold'em, and the Zen of Poker. So that is pretty much it for the poker front.

The wedding is coming along and only a month away. My fiancee and I talked about the reception and ceremony and such. We pretty much have everything planned and just need to get through the final details. I still have some things to get done. I do have a few secret projects and things I want to get done for the wedding. I want to get a photo slideshow together that she doesn't know about. It will feature pictures from us as kids to today. The best one is going to be the dance. I have a special song that really represents her, to me. We will have our first dance together, which we both agreed on. Then I want the DJ to announce to the crowd that I have requested this song for just her and I. So I have to coordinate with him to get that taken care of. We get fit for our suits this sunday, so other than that, all is well.

The job is going well. It sucks that to stay employed with the company, you have to join the union. But whatever. I'm not a big supporter of unions, especially for teachers and some segments that always seem to hijack production for wages. Boeing engineers and teachers are perfect examples of why unions are not what is in their best interests. The boeing employees threaten to strike every year. They get great compensation, and forget that the company needs to procure orders to maintain workforce. If the employees price themselves out of the market, it simply leads to layoffs and firings, usually the higher or more senior employees. Teachers unions protect horrible teachers and our school systems have way too many administrators.

Adminstrators are the ones that make all the money when you pass the levies. They might tell you that the kids need the money or the schools need to be refurbished. But a small percentage of that money goes to the kids or schools. My ex's parents were both administrators, and let me tell you, they both made over 100k a year. The average teacher makes about 45k a year. The administrator to teacher ratio is about 4:1 (T:A), you do the math. If we eliminated more administrators, we could hire more teachers, lower classroom sizes, and pay them more. But anywho. I'll get off my soapbox.

We need to get our priorities straight in this country. We need to value our money and our free time more. We need to stop paying athletes millions of dollars, and stop going to movies and paying actors millions to entertain us. We need to spend more time reading, instead of watching TV and movies. We need to spend more time with our kids, not just sitting with them in front of a TV. The average consumer has a lot of pull against the inequities of society. The only problem, is that one alone can't do it. It has to be a collective. We have to get together and decide what is important and what is not. If paying athletes $5 million a year to hit a baseball, or an actress $20 million for one movie is important, than keep doing what your doing. If making sure your kids have a great education and your neighborhoods are safe and clean, than we need to find a new solution. I can't wait for the new election cycle. HONESTLY, I don't think we could go wrong with either McCain or Obama.

I'm Such a Bad Player

I played incredibly bad tonight. I played about 1700 hands, and I'm down almost 3 buy-ins. I spewed pretty bad tonight. I kept running into passive, tight players and a ton of calling stations. For example, I raise in late position, first in the pot with A10. Guy behind calls. Flop comes 9 high, no flush draw and no straight draw. I cbet the flop about 2/3 the pot. He calls. Jack of diamonds on the turn, giving me a flush draw to go with ace high. I bet again, he calls again. The river brings a 10, I make a defensive bet, he calls one more time to show KJ off. UGH!!! It went that way most of the night.

During the first session, I ran like total ass. Way too aggro and way too spewy. I was leaking chips for the first hour. My hands never hit, and when I did get a big hand, some idiot would check raise with nothing. Here's another fun one. I have KK in the BB with the UTG making it 3X's to go. A shortstacking cockroach flat calls, leaving himself about 20 BB's. It comes to me, I raise more than the pot to isolate and get the shortstacker to committ. Sure enough, he pushes in and it's an easy call for 4 BB's. He flips QJ off, and hits two pair. GG me.

During the second session, I was running well and was slowly chipping up and was almost even. Then the wheels fell off and I ended up down for the second session as well. I get 55 in late position and the button raises. It felt like a squeeze from the button, so I flat call after the early limper calls. The flop comes 9-6-5, sweet. There's two clubs on board, and we both check to the button who makes a very small bet, around 1/3 the pot. The early player flat calls. I check raise, and sure enough, I run into the nuts. The early limper had 78 suited. The board blanks out and I lose my stack on a pretty dumb play. Sure there were a couple of hands he could have had, like J10 of clubs or two pair. But with the board coordinated, there were only a few hands I could beat. I should have been willing to take a card off and see what happens on the turn. There was really no reason why I needed to push with bottom set like that. But you have to live and learn.

The bankroll is at 56 buy-ins right now. I've been 6 tabling and lately I have been playing way too LAGish. I really need to buckle down and play position a lot better as well as get back to the small ball approach. I have run into so many bad players and calling stations, it's just sickening. Normally, I want those players at my table, they are the true ATM's. However, lately I just can't get my hands to hold against them. It doesn't matter if I'm a huge favorite or a slight dog, I just can't get a hand to hold or catch my draws with the right odds. Normally at the level I'm playing at, you can get players out with a simple cbet, sometimes you have to double barrel them. But today was quite different. Here's a tip. If you flop a strong hand and you have position, just check the flop on a benign board. Then bet the turn. If they have any pair, they will call you down or push on you. It's just amazing.

So I need to find the leaks in my game right now. Most of my losses have come from losing with big hands versus some very weak players who overvalue some very marginal hands in very marginal situations. So hopefully AK, AQ, QQ, JJ, KK, and 10's will hold for once. So here's a few things I need to work on before the next session.
1. I need to focus on 3 betting loose players IN POSITION.
2. Make better value bets with strong hands.
3. Stop overvaluing hands and thinking they are always bluffing.
4. Focus better at the table and trust your reads more.
5. Stop worrying about the money you are up or down. Just play and let the rest fix itself.
6. Work on your small ball approach and stealing blinds to set up plays later on.

So those are a few of the things I need to work on. I think today was just one of those downward spirals of variance. Hopefully tomorrow night will go much better than tonight. Time to get some sleep. GL.