Predator314's Poker Journal

Needless to say, this blog is dead, but not my blogging in general.

My poker blog: http://www.donkatlife.com

My weight loss blog: http://www.pickonthefatkid.com

Yea! I won the $1 rebuy blogger tourney... 1st MTT of the year.

In more important news, I have a big chipstack with 57 ppl left in the $75 Big Double tournament (B tourney). BBL.

New Website!

I've moved this blog to a different web host. The new address is:

http://blog.bankrollhelper.com

If you have my site linked, please update your links.

Snow snow snow. We got a few more inches of snow last night. I was really hoping we'd have a whole winter without this shit. It just makes bad drivers worse. So instead of braving the roads today, I decided to phone in to work. Fuck a bunch of work and snow and Monday.

So instead of work, I clocked into my other job. I fired up 4 tables on Party and proceeded to donate. I decided to move up after getting my bankroll back to healthier levels this weekend. I have a really healthy bankroll for $3/6 and even marginally healthy for $5/10, so there really isn't any other reason for me to play $2/4. I think I just felt more comfortable with the stakes.

Anyway, I had to do some research to find some decent $3/6 tables. I was able to find 3 juicy games and one decent one. I proceeded to destroy one table and then get destroyed on the other 3. Nothing really of interest, just one horrible hand I played. I'm not sure I would have made the mistake at $2/4, but I sure as hell did here:

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is SB with Qs, Qd.

UTG raises, 3 folds, MP3 calls, CO calls, Button calls, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, UTG calls, MP3 calls, CO calls, Button calls.

Flop: (16 SB) Kh, 2d, 6h (5 players)

Hero bets, UTG folds, MP3 calls, CO folds, Button calls.

Turn: (9.50 BB) 3c (3 players)

Hero checks, MP3 checks, Button checks.

River: (9.50 BB) Ah (3 players)

Hero checks, MP3 bets, Button folds, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 11.50 BB

Results in white below:

MP3 has Qh Ac (one pair, aces).

Hero has Qs Qd (one pair, queens).

Outcome: MP3 wins 11.50 BB.

Would someone please help me pull my skirt up and bet that turn? Also, the river call was horrible too. I just felt sick in my stomach about that whole hand. It was at that point, I decided, if I wasn't going to play right, then just quit right now. So I got in the groove and ended up breaking even for the session after being stuck a bit.

I'll be playing some more throught the day. I'm datamining the tables right now looking for some fresh fish. I always thought table selection was over-rated, but I'm starting to change my tune.

In other news, this could possibly be my last update at this address. I am moving my blog over to my own domain (for the new project). I'll post a re-director link on this page sending you in the right direction. I'm waiting for the DNS servers to update right now.

I'm going to just leak a little info on my new project. It's going to be a poker community/hangout type site. Some things I plan to do:

- Offer rakeback/bonus/bankroll help plans for various sites
- Poker Chat Room
- Message Boards
- Blog Hosting
- Full Blog Roll with a blog of the month each month
- Articles

I have a lot of work ahead of me before launching the site. I want everything to be as "automated" as possible. So, it will be awhile before it is launched. However, I'm going to go ahead and move my blog over there. You also might have to bear with me as I learn the WordPress application.

I played a couple more hundred hands this afternoon and ran well. I just wanted to post an update with a couple "interesting" hands.

Hand #1: I got a bit lost on this one and really didn't expect to win the pot. I figured the BB had JJ. Make sure you check what the villians were holding on this one.

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Kd, Kc.

4 folds, Hero raises, 1 fold, Button calls, SB 3-bets, 1 fold, Hero caps, Button calls, SB calls.

Flop: (13 SB) 5h, 8d, Jh (3 players)

SB bets, Hero raises, Button calls, SB 3-bets, Hero caps, Button calls, SB calls.

Turn: (12.50 BB) 7c (3 players)

SB bets, Hero raises, Button calls, SB 3-bets, Hero calls, Button calls.

River: (21.50 BB) 4s (3 players)

SB checks, Hero checks, Button checks.

Final Pot: 21.50 BB

Results in white below:

SB has Qh Td (high card, queen).

Hero has Kd Kc (one pair, kings).

Button has Kh Ts (high card, king).

Outcome: Hero wins 21.50 BB.

These next 2 hands were against the same retard. The first hand was my first run-in with the guy, so I was a bit lost. The limp-reraise is what had me playing so careful:

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9c, 9d.

1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 4 folds, Hero raises, 2 folds, UTG+1 3-bets, Hero caps, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: (9.50 SB) 3s, As, Ks (2 players)

UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls.

Turn: (5.75 BB) 8c (2 players)

UTG+1 checks, Hero checks.

River: (5.75 BB) Jd (2 players)

UTG+1 bets, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 7.75 BB

Results in white below:

UTG+1 has Tc 8h (one pair, eights).

Hero has 9c 9d (one pair, nines).

Outcome: Hero wins 7.75 BB.

This second hand, I should have capped pre-flop in hindsight. However, I decided, no matter what cards I had, I was just going to check-call down unimproved against this guy:

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with 8h, 8d.

5 folds, Hero raises, 3 folds, BB 3-bets, Hero calls.

Flop: (6.50 SB) Tc, 2s, Kd (2 players)

BB bets, Hero calls.

Turn: (4.25 BB) 6s (2 players)

BB checks, Hero checks.

River: (4.25 BB) 9d (2 players)

BB bets, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 6.25 BB

Results in white below:

BB has 5c 6d (one pair, sixes).

Hero has 8h 8d (one pair, eights).

Outcome: Hero wins 6.25 BB.

Here's my graph for the weekend so far:

Well, another 500 hands this morning. Although, not the results I was looking for, I still had a winning session. I was stuck big right off the bat. In the first 50 hands, I had kings cracked 3 times and Jacks cracked once. That's not a good way to start.

However, those hands don't bother me that bad. I even laid my kings down on the turn on one hand with a Jack high board. Nothing really brilliant, I just knew I was beat. One dude called down and I was right, dude had a straight.

I've been working on selecting better tables lately. I took some advice from TeddyFBI that I read in his blog (http://www.zbasic.com/pokerblog.html). He claims his 3.5 BB/100 win rate over hundreds of thousands of hands are due to good table selection and making good laydowns. If you haven't checked his blog, please do so. It's one of the best out there.

Some interesting hands from today.

Hand #1. How not to play pocket kings:

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (10 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with 5h, 3c.

UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 calls, 2 folds, MP3 calls, 2 folds, SB completes, Hero checks.

Flop: (6 SB) 4h, 2d, Ad (6 players)

SB checks, Hero bets, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 calls, MP3 folds, SB folds.

Turn: (5 BB) 7s (4 players)

Hero bets, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 calls $2 (All-In).

River: (8.50 BB) 2c (4 players, 1 all-in)

Hero bets, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls.

Final Pot: 10.50 BB

Results in white below:

Hero has 5h 3c (straight, five high).

UTG+1 has Tc As (two pair, aces and twos).

UTG+2 has Ks Kh (two pair, kings and twos).

Outcome: Hero wins 10.50 BB.

I had to double check to make sure I had a stright there. That hasn't happened in months it seems.

Here's a hand where I was totally lost and played like a fuckin 6 year old girl:
Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ac, Kc.

2 folds, MP1 calls, 3 folds, Button calls, SB raises, Hero 3-bets, MP1 folds, Button calls, SB calls.

Flop: (10 SB) As, 3s, Js (3 players)

SB bets, Hero raises, Button calls, SB calls.

Turn: (8 BB) 6d (3 players)

SB bets, Hero raises, Button folds, SB 3-bets, Hero calls.

River: (14 BB) 6s (2 players)

SB bets, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 16 BB

Results in white below:

SB has 6c Ah (full house, sixes full of aces).

Hero has Ac Kc (two pair, aces and sixes).

Outcome: SB wins 16 BB.

Shoot me now. I know I should have saved at least 2 bets on that one.

I'm not sure if I could have done anything better on this hand. It's just one of those things. Villian was a total lagtard. His stats were 50 VP$IP/30%PFR/~3 AF:

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Kh, Kd.

Hero raises, UTG+1 3-bets, 3 folds, CO caps, 2 folds, BB calls, Hero calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: (16.50 SB) 6d, 3s, 7h (4 players)

BB bets, Hero raises, UTG+1 folds, CO calls, BB calls.

Turn: (11.25 BB) 2c (3 players)

BB bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BB 3-bets, Hero caps, CO folds, BB calls.

River: (21.25 BB) 3h (2 players)

BB bets, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 23.25 BB

Results in white below:

BB has 7d 7s (full house, sevens full of threes).

Hero has Kh Kd (two pair, kings and threes).

Outcome: BB wins 23.25 BB.

Overplayed??? Against any other opponent I'd say yes. Against this guy, I figured him for A7 or something like that. Guess I was wrong.

That's enough hand histories for today. I'm going to go watch some bowling. I'm supposed to be sitting in that audience today on ESPN, but snow kept me away. Fuck a bunch of snow.

After bowling, I'm going to wash some clothes, play some poker, and work on my side project. Speaking of the side project, I'm going to try to have a full blog roll. So if any of you reading have a blog, then email it to me (leonardw@gmail.com).

Until then, don't let your meat loaf.

Challenge graph so far:

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.

I played another 400+ hands after my last update. Here are my stats so far:

Hands: 6,178 (23,822 remaining)
Pace: -1,822
Win Rate: 1.09 BB/100
Days Remaining: 22

I played 1,249 hands tonight. I still feel like I'm running bad, but I won at a rate of 1.98 BB/100 tonight. Not that great. I just keep losing some huge pots when my sets run into 4 to a flush and shit like that. Oh well. I'm off to bed to get some rest for the tournament tomorrow.

Stats:
Hands: 5,746 (24,254 remaining)
Pace: -2,254 hands
Win Rate: 1.29 BB/100
Days Remaining: 22

I'm going to move up in limits for real this time. I'll wait until after my challenge is over. My bankroll can really withstand playing $5/10 right now, but I'm overhauling my game and paying bills with poker money at the same time, so that's why I've been slumming it at the $2/4 tables.

The problem with $2/4 is that I can make enough money to pay all my bills, but my bankroll just isn't growing. Now that I'm back on the rakeback wagon and playing good poker and getting a bunch of hands in, I'll have plenty saved up to go to the $3/6 games.

One other reason, I've been playing $2/4 instead of $3/6 is because table selection is much easier. Good tables are more difficult to come by in the $3/6 level. However, there are plenty of retards in this world, so I'm sure I can find some decent ones.

I'm going to stick with the full ring game tables for right now. I'm burnt out on short handed play and the swings I endure. I was looking at my stats for $3/6 (full) last year. I had over 110,000 hands at that limit with a 2.87 BB/100 win rate. That's $18,000+. I need to quit cashing out and buying guitars and homes and shit.

So, I'm not going to make any cashouts unless it is an emergency. I want my bankroll to grow so I can play the higher stakes.... where they respect my raises (sarcasm for the humor impaired). I don't know if the $15/30 games are as juicy as they once were, but I want to give them a shot. That's a long way off though and I've got points in my game that still need work.

Here's a long term plan to summarize things:

1.) Finish my 30K in 30 days challenge
2.) Move up to $3/6 and play at least 100,000 hands
3.) Move up to $5/10 (probably 6 max) and take shots at the $15/30.

Right now I'm focusing on figuring out how to squeeze in 25,000+ hands by the end of this month.

This evening, I'm going to hit the tables as soon as I get home from work. I can get at least 2 hours of play in before I hit The Club for some musical goodness. I probably won't get to play any afterwards because I want to get a good night's rest for tomorrow's big bowling tournament. It all depends on how long it takes me to get fed up with the drunks. I'm too old for bars anymore. The only time I go is when there is some good live music.

Speaking of music, I want to plug these guys: JC/BC. They are an acoustical, classic rock cover band. However, some of the members are also part of the rock band, A Noted Author. There are some songs to listen to on the "A Noted Author" page and also on the lead singer, Bob Campion's page.