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.

Life...Other Than Poker

I haven't really played much in the past couple of days. The little bit I did play, I was too impatient and a little to loose/aggro. I was up, then down, and ended up a small amount in the negative direction. I played a couple of hands really poorly. One of which I went against a read I had on the villain and the note I had written on him. I ended up losing a buyin on a dumb call when I made a defensive bet on the river with trip aces with a jack, when he shoved I decided to pay him off. From my notes and my read, I knew he had AJ beat and probably had either a flopped set for a boat on the river or the more likely hand, AK. GG me...way to trust your reads. So I haven't put in much volume the past two days. I'll get it going soon though, so stay tuned.
On other fronts, I started orientation for the new job. I'm starting with Macy's West as a divisional associate. When I got hired, it was under the assumption that I would eventually enter the management training program. So that will be exciting, especially since the future wife wanted me to get a "real" job and more regular income and hours. I love her and if she wants me to do it, I pretty much have to. The wedding plans are coming together. We just sent out the invitations and are almost done with the registry and most of the major tasks have been taken care of. Reserved the reception hall and church, hired the DJ and caterer, hired the photographer and cake designer, and hired the wedding day coordinator.

Some of the minor details have been taken care of, like choosing the cake design and flavors, wine and beer list, music selection for the ceremony, guest list and groomsmen/bridesmaids. There are some things that really need to get taken care of in the next few days though. First, I need to pick the suits and ties for the groomsmen, especially since she has already got the bridesmaids dresses picked out and delivered. We still have to pick out the flowers and decorations for the reception and ceremony. I still need to find some bartenders to do the reception and find people to do some of the different things for the ceremony (i.e. ushers, guest book attendant, etc.)

So all is going well on that front. I just finished reading Power Hold'em Strategy by Daniel Negreanu. It is a great book, probably one of the best books written on the subject of poker in a long time. There are some chapters that can be skipped or aren't that great, but for the most part, it is a great read. If you really think about the small ball section and try to approach the game the way he prescribes, you'll be surprised. I've been a big advocate of small ball for a long time, and have strayed from time to time, but really see the benefits from playing in that style. I started reading Professional Hold'em by Ed Miller. It's not a strategy book, per se. The book mainly focuses on decision making, odds considerations and some of the metagame processes to think about. It is a good book so far.

I have read a ton of poker books, and have continued to try to only add tools to my arsenal that I think are beneficial for MY GAME. I don't try to play like Goldseraph, Damnringer, Splitsuit, Negreanu, Chris Hinchcliffe, or any other player. I try to play position, sometimes I play out of position as if I have a monster, but for the most part try to play most of my hands in position. I think my reads are really great, I just need to trust my reads more often and not convince myself that they are always bluffing. Here's a great example from last night. I raised a few hands in position and the player on my left kept calling every raise. I started with AQ, he called, I bricked the flop and cbet. He called, I checked another brick on the turn, he fired, I folded. This happened again a couple of orbits later. Everytime I raised the same amount and cbet about the same amount. Everytime he would float the flop and fire the turn. I noticed a pattern and his data was horrific. He was running 56/12/5 over 326 hands. So the very next hand I pick up AA. I raise the exact same amount, and he must have thought that he could just keep doing what he was to me. It sucked because he had position on me, so I had to do what they always tell you to do with a Loose passive player pre and loose aggressive post. I cbet the flop again, it was 995 with two hearts, again, the exact same amount I had been. I don't like to vary my bets much to give away free information. Sure enough, he calls. I check the turn, just like I had been doing. He fires, like he was, it was almost robotic. I check raised more than the pot to make it look like a frustration play or bluff. He bit, but just called. A blank came on the turn, he only hand about 7 blinds left, so I pushed him in and he called off with J4 of hearts for just a pair of jacks....what a bad player. I made notes on him and can't wait to get him again on a table.

So all is going well right now. I'm getting plans together to build a poker room/poker office/game room. I am going to put a flat screen in there hooked up to my computer and different game consoles. It will also be used as the poker timer and info center when we get our home game together again. So I'm getting those plans together. So time to call it a night. Gonna hit the tables tomorrow, not sure for how long though.

Quick Update

The bankroll is still growing, and I'm almost ready to jump to the next level. I've been doing well at the current level, and have continued to have winning days. My big problem has been putting in volume. I just can't seem to get myself to sit in one spot and play for longer than an hour or two. I was playing in some really juicy games tonight, and I just didn't want to sit and play. I was up about two buyins for the hour that I played, but just wasn't feeling like playing. I don't know what my problem is right now. I love playing, but just couldn't put the time in. To be successful in this game, you have to put in the hours.

Ever since I switched to cash games, I have been doing really well. I'm still running into some coolers from time to time, but playing small ball has really helped to lower the variance. Here's one way to think about small ball. If you are normally betting the pot, you might get paid off by a really bad or inept player. However, when they do suckout on you, you are pretty much committed by the river to call off your money drawing really thin or dead. By playing small ball, you get a lot more value for your winning hands that may have been very marginal in other games, and are losing smaller amounts when they do get lucky. Another thing about small ball, is that you don't want to overvalue one pair, and you don't want to get in the habit of paying people off. If you think you are beat, or at best, in a very marginal situation, don't hesitate to fold. This is good for a couple of reasons. For one, it keeps you out of tough situations where you just don't know what to do. Secondly, it will make the other players think you were drawing at a hand or are a weak player. I don't know how many times I folded top pair or second pair to a check raise on the turn. Then in a later hand, they think they can run me over and pull off the same move....WRONG! Again, you have to know your opponents and know what they are thinking about and what they are capable of.

Whenever a LAG would make a move against me in a marginal situation, I would simply tighten up in pots against them and wait to drop the hammer on them. I try to remember how much I raised and what I did on the flop or turn in that marginal situation. I will then do the same thing and they bite because they have been trained like Pavlov's dog. So, things are going well, I just need to keep it up. A few more wins and I will be taking a shot at the next level. Hopefully I can be at the next level by the beginning of the month. Good luck at the tables.

Weekend Update

So I played a little this weekend. I didn't play the volume I wanted to, but I had some things I had to get done around the house. Friday night I put in a small volume, only about an hour or so, while 4 tabling. I won a very small amount, nothing to really mention. Saturday night I put in a little more volume and decided to take a brief shot at the next level. I only two tabled that session and was just testing the waters. I didn't want to play too aggro, and probably played a little nitty, but I thought it was the best way to play. Especially because it was a weekend night and most of the players I have played on weekends tend to play way too LAG.

I ended up about 1 buyin, which was a good result for the short session. I always wait for the big blind. I don't like posting, then feeling like I have to defend my money if somebody raises behind, especially with no read yet. So I try to come in late and watch the table for a few hands. I usually will play really tight when I first get to a table to see who the LAG's are, find out where the shortstackers and nits are. So the first hand out I get AK suited in the BB with the SB raising. I three bet him, and he four bets me. I flat call, again with no read yet. The flop comes K-K-9 with two diamonds. He checks, I bet a little less than half the pot, he folds. It was a really weird play. He put in half his money before the flop on a four bet, then folds on the flop to a small bet. I ran into a few tough decisions and probably made some good folds, not sure though.

On the other table, one guy kept three betting my raises. I would raise with a good steal hand in position and he kept three betting me. Again, I wasn't sure what kinds of hands he was playing. The only info I had was that he had solid numbers and seemed like a winning player. A few hands later I get AK suited and raise and the same player three bets me again. There was a calling station that was playing about 80% of the hands and flat calls in the SB. I four bet to iso the calling station and the three bettor folds. Then the calling station re-raises. It was a really weird play. He has a hand that's not strong enough to re-raise, but then five bet before the flop? The only thing I could put him on was 66-QQ, maybe AA or KK but not likely. He didn't have much left, and against a loose player like this, I'm not folding. SO I push him in and he calls. He has QQ and I have AK of hearts. The flop comes all hearts and he is left broke. So I decided to end the session a little later. I was up about a buyin, and considered that a good night.

I tried to stick to my small ball approach, and never raised more than 3X's the BB. I kept the pots small to keep weak hands in and was reading players well. One thing I noticed is that the players at the next level were a lot more aggressive on the flop then at the previous level. It led me to start to think about the different things you need to master as you move up the cash game ladder.

In the micro limits, the players are generally bad and the thing you need to master is preflop hand selection. You want to play your hand strong and play good hands in good position. The players do not really consider what you have and will usually only play their hand. If they have a pair or a draw they will call down or raise. They don't consider whether they are beat, they usually think they are being bluffed and will call down. That is one thing I have noticed about bad players, they put way too much value on bluffing and think it is a major part of the game. Yes bluffing is a part of the game, and can be profitable. But it should only be used in the right situations and usually heads up or at most three handed.

In the low limits, the players are a little better, but there are new skill sets you need to master. Again, you want to focus on preflop hand selection, but now you are also looking to play flops and isolate weak players. Raising in position with a good hand, and protecting hands on the flop are a big thing to master. Your opponents will usually play pretty straightforward. They will call OOP with top pair or better and they tend to try to slowplay a little too much. If they are OOP I have noticed that they love to check raise with strong hands. So you need to really focus on playing position and really start refining your hand reading skills. You will learn to spot weakness in checks and player profiling becomes important.

In the next levels, I have noticed that preflop aggression and isolating is becoming more important. Bluffing is rare and you are looking to play a hand in position against LAG's. So that's my brief observation so far. I'll keep the education going. But that is just my brief read so far.