Predator314's Poker Journal

Here you go folks... an up-beat post. I actually had a good day on the tables. It's been awhile. I've forgotten the feeling. It sure is nice putting 75BBs back in the wallet though.

As you can probably tell, I've fell in love with this Poker Patterns software. It really helps on a downswing. You can pull up a graph of all hands and see the ever-rising slope as the line moves right. And that downswing? Well, it doesn't look so big in the scheme of things.

Here's my graph and stats so far for this challenge:

Hands: 10,453
Pace: -4,547 (ugh)
Winrate: -0.34

This game is mean as hell. Up, down, Up, down. I'm really starting to loathe it.

Here's my graph for yesterday and this morning. This is typical of most of my sessions this month. Steady rise, then lose a couple huge pots on the river, then up, then lose big pots.

Yep... this is ulgy:

I'm about to wave the white flag. Over 1000 hands yesterday and another 90 big bets down the shitter. Hi, my name is Wes, and I'm the biggest fish on Party Poker.

Here's the hand of the day:

I get AK in middle position. Folded to me and I raise. BB is the only caller. He's a loose aggressive nut.

Flop comes 663 (suits unimportant).

He checks, I bet, he check-raises, I re-raise, he caps.

Turn comes a 2

He checks, I bet, he calls

River comes a Q

He checks, I check.

He turns over AQ and takes down a nice pot.

Now, I'm not saying I played this hand great or anything, but I made a decent read based on this donkey's past play. And there's my reward. This is the way it has constantly been since early December and it's really starting to take a toll on my brain and my bankroll.

It looks like there might be some good news on the horizon. Evidently Party Poker has bought Empire Poker. Now I have an account on Empire worthy of 27% rakeback. It would be oh so sweet to see the Empire tables rejoin the Party network and me get my rakeback.

I came to a realization today. Maybe I haven't been running as bad as I think. I was thinking about my play today and going over some hands. I realized one big thing. I'm giving these donkies way too much credit.

I'm just now going back to the full ring game world after spending over a year playing only short handed poker. I don't think I've fully shifted gears. It all comes down to the fact that I'm making horrible call downs. There's a small... teensy weensy ... maybe even non-existant percentage of players at these low limits with the ability to pull off turn check raise bluffs and river raise bluffs.

My problem. It seems so many times, I'm getting raised on the river. Especially during this run where my dominating hands are getting dominated. For instance:

Let's say I'm on the button with AK. Middle position raises and I 3 bet and we get heads up going to the flop. The flop comes A-x-x. He bets, I raise, or he checks, I bet, then he calls or raises. Flop action doesn't matter. I'm taking control of this hand regardless. Now the turn comes a blank. The action goes check, bet, call. I'm feeling good about my hand. The river comes a Jack. The action goes, check, bet, check-raise. Uh oh. Now we've got a good size pot here. I'm about 99.9% certain I'm beat here. Now I'm about 100% certain, I'm making a crying call here. But honestly, what do I beat other than a bluff? I still think it would be a mistake to fold here just because of the pot size and the odds it is laying you.

Now, let's change the action again. Same hand as above except this time I get check raised on the turn... now it gets interesting. Again, what do I beat here? I have TPTK, but the average and even above average $2/4 players just don't have the balls to check raise me on the turn with just TPGK. I think I should be laying these hands down. The problem is that I'm calling them down, which will cost me 2 more bets just to "be sure". A huge percentage of the time, I was right and just wasted at least 2 bets. Occasionally, I will luck out against them.

I guess it's all situational and depends who you are up against. All I know is that I'm calling down too much when I KNOW I'm beat. What good is working on your reads if you never trust them?

I'm going to work on trusting my reads and not calling down so much.

Yesterday was a decent day. I did decent bowling (shot a 221 in my 2nd game), we took 6 of 8 points to remain in first. I only played a couple hundred hands of poker where I won about 15 BBs.

Some bad news came yesterday. Party shut down my rakeback account. They had closed both accounts and I was told that I could tell them to close the old account. They had none of that nonsense. My only option was to close the new account. So, as the rakeback nazi says, "NO RAKEBACK FOR YOU!".

Tonight, I'll get back on track. I don't have any plans other than poker. I'll also get you an update on this trainwreck of a challenge I have going on.

No poker content today. I didn't play any at all yesterday. I took a much needed break.

Yesterday was a simple, but decent day. I worked (actually a calm day where nobody bothered me), went to my mother's house and ate dinner, went home and watched That 70's Show and then American Idol (can I have that hour of my life back?), then popped in the movie, Go, and fell asleep watching it.

Lazy days...

I hope everyone noticed the free $50 post from yesterday. I'm gonna keep this blog as spam free as possible. I just wanted to get word out.

I'm actually starting up a side project to hopefully help both my bankroll and those struggling poker players out there who need a boost to their bankroll. This project is still in the design phase, but will be rolled out soon. I'll make an announcement here when it's ready.

I got an email from Belle Rock Casino about my cashout. Turns out I had already wagered like $975 or something like that, so I had exceeded the necessary wagering requirement for a cashout. All I had to do to make it official was deposit $50. So I deposited $50 and immediately cashed out almost $450. Kickass. I hope that doesn't turn me into a slots junkie. Whatever it is, it helped recoup 100 BBs back into my bankroll.

Tonight is my bowling night. So, I'll be tied up with that until around 9:00 or so. Then I'm going to try to get in a few hands of poker. I probably won't get the desired number of hands in because I'll be washing clothes at the same time. I think every piece of laundry I own is dirty. One more day and I'll either have to start re-using dirty underwear or go commando.

Peace out.

Offer for people that do not currently have a Full Tilt Poker account:

If you do not currently have a Full Tilt account, I will give you $50 if you sign up under my account.

To get your free $50, you must follow these steps:

1.) Click on the banner at the top of the page and download the software
2.) Sign up for a new account
3.) Make a minimum $50 deposit
4.) Aquire 100 Full Tilt Points (can be done in as little as an hour)
5.) Email me with your Full Tilt screen name

or if you would rather have 20% rakeback instead of the $50 free dollars, you can email me.

Another day, another loss. I had every intention of not playing any yesterday. I just wanted to take a break and clear my head. That didn't happen. I held off until I watched High Stakes Poker on GSN. Then I got that urge. So I fired up Party Poker and proceeded to donk off another 30BBs.

I started off slow, not really getting any cards. I was down 25BBs in about 100 hands. Then I hit a few good pots all in a row and got back to even. I thought I was going to go on a run, but it was just a tease. I got beat to death. It's not really bad beats technically. It's just crap like my Queens getting out flopped by KQ. Or, I'll flop 2 pair and my opponent flops a set, or I'll flop a set and it get counterfeited by 4 to a flush or straight. Just hands where I can lose the maximum amount of money. I'm just cold-decked as hell.

I also tried to bonus whore me some bankroll money yesterday. I deposited $90 into Intercasion to take advantage of their 100% deposit bonus. I tried to work it off playing blackjack. Well, I can only remember the dealer busting twice. So, I busted out there before even working off 10% of the bonus.

However, I also signed up for River Belle casion to take advantage of their free $25. I've run it up to almost $400 playing the Big Kahuna slots. I think I still have to deposit $50 and play some more to be able to cash that money out. Their terms aren't very clear, so I'm waiting on a response from their customer service team to see what is required there. The way my luck is going, I'll never be able to claim that money.

The highlight of my evening was watching High Stakes Poker on GSN. I feel for ya Danny boy. His run of cards is about as bad as mine. I also learned that "Farha" is Lebanese for "Luckbox". I love the show and I have newfound respect for Todd Brunson. His comment on that Sheik fucker was priceless. Something along the lines of "Sheik is an idiot and I think he will lose all his money". Jerry Buss has no business in that game. He's not going to ever get paid off unless he runs into a monster vs. monster hand. I think Jen, Todd, Daniel, and Eli are just waiting on Farha's luck to run out. Sheik's got the best seat in the house, sitting to the left of Farha, but he's not good enough to take advantage.

Tonight, I'm just going to grind out some hands. That's really all I can do. Sooner or later, these cards are going to turn around and allow me to win.

... with visions of bad beats running through his head.

I've never had a real problem with going on tilt. I get steamed once in a while when the cards are not running right for me, but it's usually short term. And always when I close out my tables and go off to do my own thing, I never think about my bad session again. Not yesterday though. I'm not sure what happened to me. I guess it's just a combination of the insane bad run of cards I had and running bad for a month and a half. There was really nothing I could have done yesterday other than not play.

I played somewhere around 900 hands before I finally gave up. During those 900 hands there were two separate "mouse chunking" incidents. Wireless mice and online poker do not go together. In my computer room, I have a Scarface picture on the wall that I won at a fair. On one hand, I lost a HUGE pot to a runner runner flush and I went off taking my mouse and actually aiming for my Scarface picture. Luckily I missed and my mouse hit the wall just below. Also, my mouse luckily didn't break. Good thing I'm not John Smoltz.

I let yesterday's session get too me too much. It carried over to when I bowled in a tournament last night. I just couldn't focus. All I could think of was the bad cards. Then when I got home, I played some more (like a dumbass), and more of the same happened. That carried over and affected my sleep. I had the hardest time getting to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, one of those hideous hands started streaming through my head. Once I finally got to sleep, I woke up 3 or 4 times to the tune of a bad beat dream.

I'm not so sure why yesterday bothered me so bad. I've had worse days. I was down almost 100BBs at one point. I did get it back to only lose 70BBs for the day though. I guess it's a combination of the pressure of this challenge, the month and a half long bad run, lack of sleep, and who knows what else.

I feel much better today after a good 3 hours sleep. I had told myself to take the day off today from poker. However, for some damn reason, I'm in the mood to play again. I'm not sure why either. I figured this challenge would burn me out on poker for a while. However, it's just fueled my craving to play even more.

There was some good that came out of yesterday though. In my ever advancing old age, I have been trying to keep a positive outlook on life and not let things bother me. If I do poorly in something, at least try to learn something.

For instance, on Saturday, in my big bowling tournament, I had such high hopes of winning some good money. I bowled good in the first 2 games, but just didnt' have any pin carry and didn't score well. However, on the 3-6 games, all the oil had burnt out on the lanes and I just haven't bowled those conditions very often. My scores dipped way down in games 3,4, and 5. However, in game 6, I went seeking some advice from a pro. The dry lanes were destroying me mentally. He noted how good I was throwing the ball, but just wasn't getting it over on the right side of the lane to give it a chance to break into the pocket. After a few pointers, I went out and bowled my best game of the tournament and it felt good.

So what good did I find in the yesterday's poker session? On the tough hands, where I got beat at the showdown or had to lay the hand down, I was 100% correct on my reads. These are just hands that I can confirm what my opponent had (whether he showed, or went to showdown with another opponent or something like that). It was scary. 100 fucking percent I knew what my opponent was holding. You'd think that would translate into a winning session? In all honesty it did. Making those reads saved me so many bets. So a 70BB losing session could have easily been 100 or even more.

I haven't decided whether I'm going to play tonight or not. If you would have asked me last night, it would have been an emphatic NO! However, I'm in the mood right now. Who knows how I'll feel this evening when I get home from work. I'm going to eat with my parents when I get off work, then I'm going home. I'll just "wing it" from there. I know I'll be tuned into GSN at 9:00 though to watch the High Stakes Poker. I love that shit.

Ever have one of those days when you feel "lost" at the tables? So far, it's been one of those weeks. I couldn't do anything right today.

I'm not going to bore you with details... I'll just say it was the donks' day to win. Let's just show you stats so far for the challange:

Hands: 7,128
Pace: -1,872
Winrate: +0.03 BB/100 (Yeah!)
Days Remaining: 21

Fuck, what a horrible day on the tables. I got beat to death. I can't say I'm not on tilt right now because I just busted my mouse into a few pieces. Bad cards, Bad Beats, and Bad flops. That sums up this challenge so far.