Predator314's Poker Journal

Ok, starting to feel the sugar hangover effects. This will be a tough couple days.

On to poker...

You know that great feeling you get when you just have someone's number? No matter what they do, you are one step ahead of them. I had that feeling today against a guy claiming to be 12. He was VERY aggressive, but too loose to be profitable.

Here are a couple hands where we clashed:

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (6 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is SB with As, Qh.

2 folds, CO raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, CO calls.


Flop: (7 SB) 8s, Js, 2s (2 players)

Hero bets, CO calls.


Turn: (4.50 BB) 2c (2 players)

Hero bets, CO raises, Hero calls.


River: (8.50 BB) Td (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets, Hero calls.


Final Pot: 10.50 BB


Results in white below:

Hero has As Qh (one pair, twos).

CO has 9s Ah (one pair, twos).

Outcome: Hero wins 10.50 BB.

Normally, this would probably be a -EV decision to call the river with Ace high, but I was pretty confident with my read.

Hand #2:

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (6 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is CO with Qh, Kh.

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


Flop: (7.50 SB) 3s, Kc, 4s (2 players)

UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG 3-bets, Hero caps, UTG calls.


Turn: (7.75 BB) 3d (2 players)

UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG calls.


River: (11.75 BB) 8d (2 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets, UTG folds.


Final Pot: 12.75 BB


Results in white below:

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

Outcome: Hero wins 12.75 BB.

In this hand, I purposely overplayed the KQs because I was still confident in the read on this guy.

Last hand:

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (6 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is UTG with Jd, As.

Hero raises, 3 folds, SB calls, 1 fold.


Flop: (5 SB) Js, 7d, 7s (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets, SB raises, Hero calls.


Turn: (4.50 BB) 5s (2 players)

SB bets, Hero raises, SB calls.


River: (8.50 BB) 9c (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets, SB calls.


Final Pot: 10.50 BB


Results in white below:

SB has 8h Jh (two pair, jacks and sevens).

Hero has Jd As (two pair, jacks and sevens).

Outcome: Hero wins 10.50 BB.

This hand pretty much played itself.

The kid is probably a winning player at $2/4. He is definitely one of the most aggressive players I've seen at the tables. He just overdoes it.

Day one of my new lifestyle began bright and early this morning. 6:25am to be exact. Damn, do I wish that I had went to bed earlier. I feel like shit today. I'm working on about 4.5 hours of sleep.

So far as for the diet, I'm doing good. I had some Special K cereal and a banana for breakfast. I had a turkey sandwich on wheat with mustard and some sugar free jello for lunch. Right now I'm munching on some carrot sticks as my afternoon snack. I haven't drank any water so far, but I'm grabbing a bottle as I type this up. I did have a diet Dr. Pepper for lunch because there wasn't any cold water available. That will be the only soda I drink today. It's milk and water from here on out.

It's been easy so far, but I've kept busy today. I had to be at a customer's office this morning. I haven't felt any effects of the lack of sugar in my body yet. However, I do expect to have some sort of withdrawl symptoms. Contrary to popular belief, food can be addicting. At least mentally.

One thing I've decided to do is keep a journal of everything I eat. No I'm not going to post it on this blog, because frankly I'm sure nobody gives a shit.

On to poker. I have no gameplan for this week or the remainder of the month. I figure I'll just stick to the ring games and play an occasional tournament. The tournaments are nice when you win. However, they are B-O-R-I-N-G. My first place finish took nearly 5 hours yesterday. That's with only 50 entries. Now, it was a rebuy tournament. Once we got to the final table, I had a blast. That's just because I had a nice chipstack and could bully people. Let me tell you people. It was truly a work of art how I used the chipstack to my advantage.

I had a friend stop by and sweat my victory. Actually, he came by to pick up his mail and got interested in watching. After about 5 minutes, he said "So, are you just going to raise every hand?". The next hand was something like AJ suited. I raised it again and replied "Scott, when you get cards like these, I'll raise every hand and there's no excuse for losing".

And now finally:

The True Story about My MTT Victory Yesterday

Yes, I did win the tournament, but there was a portion of the tournament that I didn't blog about yesterday. In fact it was a big portion. There were 19 people left in the tournament at the time I started blogging about it.

When the tournament first started, I took a bad beat right off the bat that cost me about 75% of my chipstack. I really went on tilt. So I figured I'd hit the away button and walk away from the game.

I put in a load of laundry and was checking out something on the TV and then the phone rang. I forgot all about the tournament in the process. After I remembered, I walked into my office and saw that I was still in the tournament. I only had 230 chips or so with an average of something way above that.

They were just coming back from the 1st break. I decided I'd just push with any decent hand. I think I pushed with 9-10 suited and doubled up. I worked my chipstack up rather decently after a while. Then I got the pocket 7's hand where I flopped a set against 2 over pairs and more than tripled up. That was my tournament right there.

So to be honest with you, I won a tournament that I forgot I was playing in. Beat that!

I'm currently about 3rd in chips with 19 remaining in a $2600 Empire tournament. Only the top 8 get paid though. Here is the sweet ass hand that put me up near the top in chips (sorry for the shitty hand history, but I can't get the converter to work on tourney hands).

***** Hand History for Game 2854992286 *****
150/300 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16461095) - Sun Oct 16 12:56:49 EDT 2005
Table $1500 Daily Guaranteed(485330) Table 2 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: GodsmackBLS (3693)
Seat 2: Edward57 (2988)
Seat 3: ShiptheChez (4930)
Seat 4: dragan_hemsk (4675)
Seat 5: Dan_Banan (9590)
Seat 6: st0rballe (10631)
Seat 7: Nada10 (7185)
Seat 8: zidane84 (5162)
Seat 9: jamie834 (12870)
Seat 10: biboune2004 (1316)
Nada10 posts small blind (75)
zidane84 posts big blind (150)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to GodsmackBLS [ 7c, 7h ]
jamie834 calls (150)
biboune2004 folds.
GodsmackBLS raises (600) to 600
Edward57 folds.
ShiptheChez folds.
dragan_hemsk calls (600)
Dan_Banan folds.
Nada10 calls (525)
zidane84 folds.
jamie834 calls (450)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 2s, 7d, 8d ]
Nada10 bets (150)
jamie834 folds.
GodsmackBLS raises (800) to 800
dragan_hemsk raises (2000) to 2000
Nada10 calls (1850)
GodsmackBLS raises (2293) to 3093
GodsmackBLS is all-In.
dragan_hemsk calls (1093)
Nada10 calls (1093)
Creating Main Pot with $11829 with GodsmackBLS
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 2d ]
Nada10 checks.
dragan_hemsk checks.
** Dealing River ** : [ Jh ]
Nada10 checks.
dragan_hemsk checks.
** Summary **
Main Pot: 11829 |
Board: [ 2s 7d 8d 2d Jh ]
GodsmackBLS balance 11829, bet 3693, collected 11829, net +8136 [ 7c 7h ] [ a full house, Sevens full of twos -- 7c,7h,7d,2s,2d ]
Edward57 balance 2988, didn't bet (folded)
ShiptheChez balance 4930, didn't bet (folded)
dragan_hemsk balance 982, lost 3693 [ Th Td ] [ two pairs, tens and twos -- Jh,Th,Td,2s,2d ]
Dan_Banan balance 9590, didn't bet (folded)
st0rballe balance 10631, sits out
Nada10 balance 3492, lost 3693 [ Qd Qc ] [ two pairs, queens and twos -- Qd,Qc,Jh,2s,2d ]
zidane84 balance 5012, lost 150 (folded)
jamie834 balance 12270, lost 600 (folded)
biboune2004 balance 1316, didn't bet (folded)

We just came back from the 2nd break and it's hand for hand all the way to the final table. I've been in this position many times before. I think I'm just going to lay low and try to slowly work my chipstack up to a good point.

I'm gonna blog my way through the rest of the tournament starting now:

- I'm currently 2nd in chips with 11904. #1 is on my right.

- I get 79 hearts. 118 limpers, I check in the big blind. Flop came A,7,5, with the 5 of hearts. MP bets minimum. Me and another guy call. Turn is 8 hearts. Now I have a flush draw with a straight draw and middle pair. I think about betting, but decide to check. It's checked around. Checked around on the river and I take the small pot to give me the chip lead.

- I lose a small pot with A5 against AA when he tried to slow play and the board got too scary for him to do anything.

- Tournament play is boring and slow. I was playing some $2/4 short handed on Stars, but decided to focus on this tournament. Not a lot of action so far.

- Uninvolved in a hand, I became 2nd in chips. Dude won a nice pot and took the chip lead.

- I raise with AJ from MP and take the blinds.

- Still 19 players, but there are quite a few short stacks. Avg is 6200, but there are 12 out of 19 below that. Most of those are extremely below that.

- We get one to bite the dust on our table. AJ rivered 2 pair, but lost to a set of 5's.

- Some asshole is stalling even though it's hand for hand.

- I try to steal from the button with KT offsuit. BB reraises 1000, I call. Flop came A,3,5. He checks, I bet 1200 as a stab. He folds. I'm back in the chip lead.

- I raise with QJ offsuit from late-middle position and take the blinds.

- I just noticed that this was a rebuy tournament. Shows you how much attention I paid at the beginning of this thing. Guess what? I didn't have any rebuys :)

- Another one bites the dust at our table. However, I've moved to 2nd in chips with 17 remaining.

- Chip leader went for a blind steal, but I called with QK suited on the button. Flop was all rags. He bet small. I raised and he folded. I'm back in the chip lead.

- They ain't doing shit on that other table.

- Down to 16. 55 lost to 66, I'm 2nd in chips as a result though.

- 15 remaining. I'm 3rd in chips. I'm not losing any, but the 2nd and 3rd place guys are just knocking people out. It's a close battle at the top though.

- Agggh. These people suck. Dude has the damn nuts and a short stack reraises him. The bigger stack doesn't put the short stack all in, he just called.

- I lost a small pot with the chip leader. His J8 beat my KJ. Still 3rd in chips though.

- Down to 14. 3rd in chips.

- Down to 13, AK beat AQ on the other table. Chip leader also had his KK cracked, but lost less than he should have. It's a 3 way battle at the top.

- I just won a very nice pot when I rivered a flush against a couple limpers. One of those limpers happened to be the chip leader with KK. They kept min betting, then I put in a huge raise on the river with the nuts and chip leader called. I'm new chip leader and have almost 2 to 1 advantage on 2nd.

- AK beats A3 and we are down to 12. I'm still 1st in chips, but the gap was closed after that last hand. 4 more til the money.

- I'm 2nd in chips. Chip leader is on the other table. He only has a couple on me.

- Down to 12. 2nd in chips.

- Down to the final table. I'm not sure where #11 went, but I don't care. 2 more til the money. I'm barely in 2nd place behind the chip leader.

- Still 10 left. Things are going slow and I'm card dead. I did get one blind steal with K5 suited from the CO. I'm still 2nd in chips though and the chip leader is on my right and he is a DONK! At least I got good position.

- I regained the chip lead when I caught a king high flush with 4 spades on the board. I should have won more, but I was playing it careful.

- Before I got the above typed I lost the chip lead when 2nd won a hand. However, I regained it by coming over the top of donkey 3rd place with KT suited when he tried a blind steal from the CO.

- By the way, we are down to 9. It's been like that for a while. 1 more til the money. There are 3 extremely small stacks. I'm gonna play it safe. Folded 55 from UTG. Of course the flop brought a 5.

- 2nd in chips again. Damn I'm starving.

- In the money. 8 left.

- Down to 7. I just won a coin flip with AK vs 99. I'm leader again.

- I just missed a chance to eliminate a guy. He limped and I checked from BB with 4-2 off. He had less than 1/2 a bet remaining. I put him all in. He called with KJ and I caught a 2 on the turn. He caught a J on the river.

- I had drifted back to 2nd in chips, but made a move on the chip leader with pocket 6's and it worked out. Back in the lead.

- All in from small stack, 2nd in chips calls, small stack win.

- big hand transpired between 2nd and 3rd in chips. 2nd just took 2/3 of 3rd's stack. Now I'm 2nd in chips.

- Down to 6. 2nd in chips.

- Almost even at top of chips. Had pocket 8's in the small blind. Chip leader limped from the button (he's a donk). I raise to 6 times BB. He calls. I push on a 7 high flop and take it down.

- Empire is getting ready to fuck up. My client is getting very slow for some reason.

- I just lost a pot to the chip leader. I'm still 2nd in chips though.

- Only the me and the chip leader have over 10,000 in chips. He has 59,000, I have 32,000.

- Down to 5 as teh chip leader takes another one out. He's playing every hand and catching cards right now. This will be tough. He's min raising every hand too. I'm gonna get that douche.

- This thing has been running 4 hours and only 50 entries. Rebuy tournaments suck. Even if you don't know it's a rebuy tournament.

- small stack went all in with AJ, BB went all in with 10J. AJ held up. Still at 5 people

- Small stack goes in, chip leader calls with better hand. Small stack catches a boat.

- I take out the 5th place guy when my A7 suited holds up against his K9.

- Down to 4. 2nd in chips. 2 small stacks.

- bridge between me and the chip leader has dwindled to almost nothing.

- I'm new chip leader after I hit a straight against chip leader's 2 pair.

- Down to 3, I'm 1st in chips.

- Still 3 left, I'm still the chip leader and punishing.

- 2 left. My QQ beat 10-10.

- 2.5 to 1 advantag in chips.

- I kept dwindling his chipstack until this hand:

#Game No : 2855117082
***** Hand History for Game 2855117082 *****
NL Texas Hold'em Trny:16461095 Level:13 Blinds (750/1500) - Sunday, October 16, 15:30:01 EDT 2005
Table $1500 Daily Guaranteed(485330) Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 1: st0rballe ( $20746 )
Seat 2: GodsmackBLS ( $97754 )
Trny:16461095 Level:13
Blinds (750/1500)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to GodsmackBLS [ Qd 6d ]
GodsmackBLS raises [3850].
st0rballe calls [3100].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7c, 4s, 6h ]
st0rballe checks.
GodsmackBLS bets [21900].
st0rballe is all-In [16146]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8d ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8c ]
GodsmackBLS shows [ Qd, 6d ] two pairs, eights and sixes.
st0rballe shows [ Th, 4h ] two pairs, eights and fours.
GodsmackBLS wins 5754 chips from side pot #1 with two pairs, eights and sixes.
GodsmackBLS wins 41492 chips from the main pot with two pairs, eights and sixes.
Congratulations to player GodsmackBLS for winning tournament $1500 Daily Guaranteed
Player st0rballe finished in 2 place and received $520
Player GodsmackBLS finished in 1 place and received $780
st0rballe has left the table.
GodsmackBLS has left the table.

Victory is mine!



That's MTT victory #2 for me. Victory #1 came some time last year after I busted out on the 2nd hand of a blogger tournament.

It's time to clean myself up and hit the grocery store. I'm fucking starving.

A day that will live in infamy!



I've embarked on this journey time and time before. A quest if you will. What is this quest you ask? The quest is to clear a Poker Stars bonus without losing my ass! Many times I've went on this quest. Many times I've failed. Not this time.

As you can see from the graphic above, I've cleared the Poker Stars bonus. I've also cleared it without losing. I deposited $600 leaving me a $600 balance and 750 FPPs to clear. I just logged off after clearing the bonus with a $34 profit plus an additional $150 bonus. I guess my letter to Lee Jones paid off. I tell you what, Lee, just for being such a good sport and not turning on my "We hate Wes" button, I'll keep that money on your site and try to build it up.

Here are some stats for my bonus clearing:

Hands: 2,277 all $2/4 6 max
VP$IP: 27%
Att. To Steal Blinds: 31.39%
Won $ WSF: 40.51%
Amount Won: $89.50 (I blew some on a few tournaments)
BB/100 Hands: 0.98 (bleh!)
Went to SD %: 35.83%
Won $ at SD: 54.48%
PF Raise %: 19.38%
Total Rake: 169.00

I also played a few sit n goes and tournaments. So the rake will be higher. It sure seems like I played more hands than that.

Anyway, I've been in a poker mood all weekend. I had a marathon session last night playing nearly 1500 hands. In fact, so far this weekend, I've played almost 3000 hands up through today. 3000 hands of break even poker. It would have been nice, but there was a 500 hand stretch or so last night where I lost around 100BBs.

I've spent most of my time playing the bad beat jackpot tables. They were extremely juicy. There's so many interesting hands that I'd like to post on this site. However, my brain is fried right now and I'm going to take a break.

I'll probably play some more later on tonight. I think I'm going to stick with the $2/4 6 max on Stars. I might just play some tournaments or a few sit n goes. It depends on how I feel.

Mind, body, soul, poker


The Party Poker jackpot is up to $555,000! That's getting pretty large. Let me tell you, the games were juicy last night too. I'm talking some horrible play here. Nothing too unusual.

I finished last night's session with a nice victory. Not the couple hundred thousand I was hoping for, but I'll take it. However, once again, I didn't get to take full advantage of the juicy tables by playing enough hands. I vowed yesterday to play 1000 hands. I got half that. My bad.

It all started with me getting home from work. I was prepared to get some poker played. However, I had 3 shiny new DVDs from Netflix in the mailbox. I gave in to temptation and watched Super Size Me. Pretty good flick that will wing you from McDonald's food. Although I believe it was a bit biased. The dude was from West Virginia which was pretty cool. If I learned anything from the movie, it's that I will never date a vegan.

I also watched part of Oceans 12, but was getting too tired to finish it. So I went to bed.

I had some time to play poker yesterday. I just couldn't make myself do it. I was just tired, my brain was tired, which pretty much put me in a foul/tilt-able mood. That's been happening to me a lot lately.

After watching the movie yesterday, I started thinking. Maybe the reason, I don't feel great anymore is the shitty food I've been eating. I'm out on my own now in a bachelor pad. My diet is for shit right now.

I know one reason that I feel bad anymore is my lack of sleep. Those of you that read my old blog may know that I constantly battle insomnia. I've never been much of a sleeper. However, I'm a night time person, so that is a brutal combination. I like to go to bed late, but I can't sleep good and I'm always up early.

However, I think a healthier diet and exercise, I could only improve my health and general feeling of well being. Here is a list of things I'm doing to try to improve my health.

1.) Cut out all non-diet sodas and limit to 1 diet soda per day

It feels weird to type the word "soda", but I think that's how most of the world knows it. Of course, in my part of the world, we call it "pop". Whatever you call it, I drink too much. I used to drink water all the time. I love water. For some reason, over the past year, I've started drinking more and more soda/pop. So, I'm switching back to water and milk.

2.) NO Fast Food!

This is the biggie. I'm not a big fan of fast food. In fact, I down right hate it. However, it's cheap and easy. Just like my ex-girlfriend. Now, that I'm out on my own, I don't have anyone to cook for me either. I think that if I can get past this hump, then things will pretty much get back to normal. I love salads and they are easy to fix, so I figure I'll start with that. I have some basic cooking skills and a George Foreman grill. I should be able to whoop up a meal that can beat these stats for my favorite foods by fast food joint:

McDonalds: Favorite Meal - 2 Double Cheeseburgers, Small Fry, Large Coke. 1,580 Calories and 62 grams of fat.

Wendy's: Favorite Meal - Spicy Chicken Combo with a Coke. 1220 Calories, 43 grams of fat.

Taco Bell: Favorite Meal - 2 Chalupas, 1 Soft Taco meal with a Coke. 1290 calories, 58 grams of fat

Hardees: Favorite Meal - Sourdough Burger with a Coke. 1801 calories!!!, 97 grams of fat! What the fuck!?! How am I still alive?

KFC: Favorite Meal - Twister Combo with Wedges and a Pepsi. 1080 calories, 50 grams of fat.

Burger King: Favorite Meal - Whopper w/ cheese, Fries, Coke - 1600 calories, 74 grams of fat.

Long John Silvers: Favorite Meal - 2 fish, 3 chicken platter with extra hushpuppies insted of slaw - 1690 Calories, 91 grams of fat!

Arby's: Favorite Meal - Giant Roast Beef with Curly's and a Coke, occasionally throw in some jalapeno kickers - 1161 calories 41 grams of fat, 1470 calories 60 grams of fat with the kickers.

Subway: Favorite Meal - Foot long Subway Club on Wheat (no mayo) with Baked KC Masterpiece chips and a coke - 940 calories and 12 grams of fat for just sandwich and coke. The Coke accounts for 1/3 of those calories. So this is a viable option for eating out. Maybe that Jared fucker is onto something. Cut out the coke, and I got a nutritous meal.

I also kind of like Pizza. Once slice of Pizza Hut meat lovers (my favorite) has 314 calories and 19 grams of fat. I usually eat 3 or 4 slices, so now we're up with the other meals as far as calories and ahead of most of the others in fat.

I knew the numbers were high, but never really paid attention to how high until yesterday. This food is dangerous if eaten in regularly.

So to replace my fast food meals, I'm going to have to cook for myself more often. I love chicken, so I'll probably fix a bunch of that on the Foreman. I also like rice, and salads. I'm not high up on other veggies, but I can stomach things like green beans in moderation.

3.) Exercise

Of course, you healthy fuckers out there know that food is only half the battle. The 2nd half is to get your fat ass off the couch and get some excerise. I'm way out of shape right now. However, I have a health club membership that I never use.

Also, my office where I play poker currently has a desk with my computer and the rest of the room is filled with boxes of shit that I've never unpacked. I'm going to spend this evening cleaning that room out and making room for a treadmill and weight bench.

I do have a friend that is willing to help me with this. I used to go to the gym 5 days a week. I had a friend that went with me all the time. We would work out and then hit the racquetball courts for an hour or two. Talk about feeling great. Unfortuantely, our friendship hit a bumpy road and it sucked going to the gym by myself. A few months ago, I started going back with a girl I was interested in. That shit didn't last long and it sucked working out with a girl too.

4.) Drink a shitload of water

I used to drink nothing, but water. Gradually, I slipped and started drinking more and more soda. Enough where I hardly ever drink water now.

Also, I'm on the lookout for the best price on Fiji water. That shit is the bomb. But the price is higher than camel cock. It's like $25/case or something like that. I tried eBay with no luck. If anyone has any tips, lemme know.

5.) Don't be results oriented

One thing that will drive you crazy in poker and in health is to be results oriented. This should be fairly easy for me. I don't own a set of scales. I don't know how much I weight right now either. The only way I can tell my results will be in how my clothes fit and how I feel health-wise.

6.) Don't treat this as a diet

I cannot treat this as a diet; this is the most important step in my outline. It's more of a lifestyle change. Something I need to burn into my brain. I need my body to know that this is my way of life now. Get used to it. So I'm sure with reduction of calories and suger, my body will go into shock. I'm expecting some sort of withdrawl symptoms. I'll almost bet $5 that I'll have a headache for the first couple days. We'll see.

Well, I guess that's all I have for right now. Hopefully with a healthier body, I'll be able to squeeze in more poker play time which will lead to more poker content on this site.

Quite possibly the worst played hand in poker. I lost IQ points just watching the hand get played:

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (5 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is UTG with Th, 3h.

2 folds, Button calls, SB raises, BB 3-bets, Button caps, SB calls, BB calls.


Flop: (12 SB) 8s, 5h, 3c (3 players)

SB checks, BB bets, Button calls, SB calls.


Turn: (7.50 BB) 9c (3 players)

SB checks, BB checks, Button bets, SB calls, BB folds.


River: (9.50 BB) Qd (2 players)

SB checks, Button bets, SB calls.


Final Pot: 11.50 BB


Results in white below:

SB has Ac Qs (one pair, queens).

Button has Td Ts (one pair, tens).

Outcome: SB wins 11.50 BB.

Brides Maids


Yesterday was our big day on the Wednesday night bowling league. We hit the final week of quarter #1 with a 4 point lead over two fantastic teams. Of course we drew the better team. All we needed to do is win 2 games to guarantee our victory.

In game 1 I started off really poorly, opening up in my first 2 frames. I finally get things lined out and finish the rest of the game clean with a couple strikes and a score of 172. However, a couple of our players also started out poorly and never could get things squared away. We lost the first game by 145 pins. Not good.

In game 2 I made an adjustment because I just couldn't get my ball in the pocket. The adjustment worked out great and I cruised to a game of 201. The whole team bowled better in game #2 and we had a nice score. However, the other team bowled their asses off and beat us by like 75 more pins.

At this point, the only way we can win the quarter is to win the last game by about 220 pins. We could also just win the final game and tie for the quarter with that team. We bowled our asses off in game #3. I had another good game and a score of 200 even giving me a 573 series. My best in a Wednesday night league. However, the other team bowled great again. But this time we beat them, but only by like 50 pins.

Ok...i'm pumped up for a tie breaker. I know I got another 200 game in me. Pffft. Remember the other 2nd place team? They took all 8 points against their opponents and squeaked in ahead of both of us. So we end up tied for 2nd place. It's still going to be a decent payday, but I wanted that win.

We bowled shitty in game 1, but games 2 and 3 were above par for us. We just couldn't catch any breaks. We kept tossing up splits over and over. The other team would leave a split and then one of the pins would just fall 5 seconds later. It was like that all night long.

We will win a quarter this year. Our team is too good not to.

Another thing that left a bad taste in my mouth from last night was the sportsmanship of the team we were playing last night. They really had a good time dancing around, hooting, hollering every time they would throw a shit ball and it ended up getting a strike. These guys were all in their 50's and 60's. Our ages are 25,23,28,28,33. Who do you think they cocky bastards would be? I finally got fed up to one point where I just told the one guy "You can dance all you want. You're not beating me tonight". And he didn't. I beat him all 3 games.

On to poker. Yesterday was a great day for me for poker. Not great because I won a lot of money. Although that would have been nice. Just great because of how I handled myself.

Of course we all know by now that Poker Stars hates me. That much is a given. Even though they hate me, I still play there. Right now I'm trying to clear the $150 bonus. I only have a few more hands to do that.

I played 800 hands yesterday. During the first 600 or so, I was getting hammered. You name it, it happened. Bad beats, dead cards, action flops, etc. Just one of those days.

I never tilted though. I did get mildly aggravated at some of the beats I was taking, but just for a minute or 2, then back to poker.

Then something happened. In those last 200 hands, the cards started to fall for me. Before long, I had taken my potential -100BB day and turned it into a +5BB win.

I think my short handed game can only get better after yesterday. Sometimes I wonder if my brain can handle the short handed swings. It's not there yet, but getting there as my bankroll swells. I cushiony bankroll really helps reduce tilt.

Tonight, I've got only one small errand to run, then I'm gonna fire up some poker. The bad beat jackpot on Party is at $475,000 and counting. So I figure I'll 6-8 table the BBJ $2/4's tonight. It ought to be nice and juicy. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky.

I also vow to play 1000 hands of poker tonight. I'll probably split it up and play 2 500 hand sessions.

Myself and a couple other affiliates were able to setup a special deal with Party. We are being allowed to offer deals at Party at this time whereas some other affiliates may not be able to since these affiliates went through different contacts. I've spoken to my contact at Party 3 or 4 times today and he has mentioned that Party is aware of the special arrangement myself and a couple other affiliates have. Before I had asked players to send me a message through my website if you were interested in a deal at Party. In about the last 12 hours I've received about 300 messages and at the same time I've been on the phone most of the day. If you are interested in a deal at Party (even if you have sent me a message already through my website) I ask that you please click on the Request Offer link at the top of this page. Please fill out that form and put Party as the site you are interested in. Also, please make sure that you enter your username at this website and also mention whether or not you have an existing account at Party in the comments section. I will then start getting back to players as soon as I can. Due to the tons of e-mails I expect to receive I ask that everyone please be extremely patient as it may take me 3 or 4 days to send you an e-mail back.

More good news from my affiliate on rake back at Party. I'll believe it when I see it.

In other news, Lee Jones is back to his old tricks. Dealing me KK 5 times yesterday and not letting me win a single one. Pokerstars hates me.

However, I move on clearing that bonus. I'm officially 1/2 way to clearing it. The combination of me not cranking out a large # of hands and having to clear it at $2/4 are making this thing take longer than expected.

To sum it up, I'm down $0.48 and I'm 1/2 way to clearing the bonus. Bah, I was up almost $200 while doing the clearing. Yesterday and today has taken a toll on that outcome. C'mon Lee Jones! You can do it! Let me win for Pete's sake!

I should have everything setup with Party Monday night or Tuesday. Shortly after that I will be able to start signing up players. If you have an existing account at Party there will be a solution. If you are interested in a deal at Party please send me a message through this website. I will then get back to you as soon as possible. Due to the # of e-mails I expect to receive my response time may be a little longer than usual but I will try my best to get everyone signed up in a timely manner.

Some more good news on the rakeback situation at Party. I'll patiently wait. I have a good feeling that this deal won't be as sweet as the 27% I was receiving, but something is better than nothing.

Until that dust cloud settles, I'll continue bonus whoring. I've been clearing the bonus at Poker Stars. I'm about 1/3 finished with it and I'm up quite a bit from just playing. I've been playing $2/4 short handed to clear the bonus. These games are absolutely insanely good. At least they were yesterday. They can be very profitable.

Once I get that Stars bonus cleared, I'm going to work on the Empire 100% bonus that starts today. It takes 1000 raked hands to clear it, but that's nothing. After that, I'll probably go back to Stars and play there full time until the Party situation gets settled. However, I'll probably still play a few tables on the Party BBJ tables. It's almost $340,000 right now.

Tonight I'm gonna watch the main event on ESPN. I also have to run to radio shack and pick up an AC adaptor. I bought a firewire card for my laptop, but it needs an external power supply. What a ripoff. But my iPod is just collecting dust in the corner.

After that, I'll hop on the tables for some bonus whoring and bad beat jackpot hoping. So far, this month has been quite profitable for me, despite losing over 100BBs on Friday night. If I could add a BBJ to my bankroll, that would be SUPER! It's been almost a year since I won a jackpot :)

Trifecta for the day.

Here's a couple interesting hands from my afternoon session. Maybe Lee read my letter already? I'll reserve judgement on that. He has a knack for yanking my nut hairs out.

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (6 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is BB with Jd, Js.

UTG calls, 1 fold, CO calls, Button calls, SB completes, Hero raises, UTG calls, CO calls, Button 3-bets, SB folds, Hero caps, UTG folds, CO folds, Button calls.


Flop: (13 SB) 2h, Kh, As (2 players)

Hero bets, Button raises, Hero calls.


Turn: (8.50 BB) 3d (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets, Hero calls.


River: (10.50 BB) 6c (2 players)

Hero checks, Button checks.


Final Pot: 10.50 BB


Results in white below:

Hero has Jd Js (one pair, jacks).

Button has 5s Qs (high card, ace).

Outcome: Hero wins 10.50 BB.

Who says only good players play at Stars. Limp re-raising with Q5s? I'm kind of glad he did because it let me weed out the over cards that had originally called.

Here's a nice heads up hand (for me):

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (2 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is Button with 8d, 8c. Hero posts a blind of $2.

BB raises, Hero (poster) 3-bets, BB caps, Hero calls.


Flop: (8 SB) 7d, 5c, Jc (2 players)

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


Turn: (7 BB) 8s (2 players)

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


River: (15 BB) 2h (2 players)

BB bets, Hero raises, BB calls.


Final Pot: 19 BB


Results in white below:

BB has Kh Kd (one pair, kings).

Hero has 8d 8c (three of a kind, eights).

Outcome: Hero wins 19 BB.

Nice suckout for my biggest pot yet. Anyone play that one differently heads up? He complained, but there's no way I'm not going to see a showdown with that hand and that board (even without the 8 on the turn).

So, my afternoon session went well today. I played a little $2/4 full and $3/6 6 max on Party and had a nice winning session. Then some $2/4 short on Poker Stars for a nice win.

I'm about 1/7th of the way to clearing my bonus at Stars. I should have that thing cleared either by tonight or tomorrow night. Then I'm going to start on the Empire bonus that begins tomorrow. 100% up to $100.

Just in time for Halloween. Pokerstars is offering a 25% up to $150 deposit bonus. It takes 750 FPPs to clear the whole bonus which doesn't take very long playing short handed 2/4.

I know the folks at Poker Stars will be checking this blog at some point to verify that I have my blogger tournament ad posted. So I'm going to post this letter:

Dear Mr. Lee Jones & Poker Stars:

I've been a good boy this year. I've played on your site multiple times and I'm sure you've made you some money in the past.

All I want is for you to flip on my win switch while I whore this current bonus. In previous attempts to clear a bonus on your site, I've lost considerable amounts of money on your site. Can you please let me win?

If you honor this request, I promise to leave a Poker Stars ad on this site forever.

Sincerely,

Mr Predator314

"Myself and some of the other affiliates are in discussions with Party and we will be able to offer rakeback at Party. I hope to have everything setup within the next couple of days. As soon as I have more details I will let everyone know. "

-- My Current Rakeback Affiliate

Well, I logged into my rakeback affiliates site and was greeted with the above information. So that's good news. We'll see how things work out.

Party must have read my site yesterday too. I had a pretty good day at the tables in some wild games. Those BBJ tables are fantastic. Also the jackpot is nearing $300,000. Which means that the games will just get more fantastic. Now I remember how I ran 3 BB/100 before.

Yesterday I also watched that 18 inning steaming pile of dogshit they called a baseball game yesterday. I didn't get as aggravated with the Braves back in the 80's when they lost 100 games a year as I do now. Win a fucking World Series already. It would be fun!

Due to the marathon ballgame, I almost missed my bowling tournament, but I showed up just in time. This was something new to me. It was a king of the hill format. Everyone bowls 3 qualifying games. They cut the field to the top 8 and then you work your way through brackets like a normal tournament. The good news was that they were using last years handicap which for me is 30 pins lower than this year's handicap. THe handicapping gives you 90% of 220 with a max of 55 pins. I got the max.

My buddy Moose (the guy that bowled 286 scratch last week) and I were on a pair of lanes with 2 powerhouse bowlers. I stunk up the joint in games 1 and 2, bowling a 147 and 148 respectively. With my handicap, it was up to a 202 and 203, but still pretty far out of the running. In game #3, I guess I lost all nervousness, because I knew I wasn't going to make it. However, something happened. I found a line I could use. I rode that line to 7 straight strikes to end game #3. I finished with a 231 (286 with handicap). This boosted me to 6th. I also won the high scratch and high handicap game sidepots. I'm freerolling this bad boy.

In match play, I didn't get a good draw. I was hoping to draw one of the scratch bowlers, but instead I got a guy with just 13 less sticks than me. We both sucked ass in our match. He sucked just a bit less. I went in to the 10th needing 2 strikes and a 6 count to win. I got strike #1. Ball #2 went brooklyn on me and I left a 9 count for a tough loss. It was a pretty shitty game and there was no reason that I should have been in that position.

I do have an excuse for my crappy bowling. The lanes were so dry and I was getting some shitty ball reaction. I'm also not used to bowling across the middle, but my ball was breaking so much, it was necessary.

So tonight, I'm going to play some more poker and try to hit me a bad beat jackpot. Or at least put some bad beats on unsuspecting fishes.

Ugh. I don't know what to think. My initial impression was that Party fucked a lot of people over hardcore by separating their cash game tables from the skins. However, I think it could be good in the long run.

Right now, the tables are overrun with rakeback whores. These are the guys sitting at your tables with a VP$IP of somewhere around 7.5%. Normally this would be a losing to break even strategy. However, with rakeback, people make a living sitting for hours on end clicking the fold button.

Now I don't make a living playing poker. I just use it to help pay bills. I've worked hard on my game and rely on my winnings to make me some money. However, it's nice to have that GUARANTEED money every month. For me, it was usually a $750 to $800 payment every month. Somewhere I gotta make up for that loss of money right?

I've almost fully convinced myself that the loss of rakeback will send some of these rakeback whores back to their shitty jobs and allow one more seat at the table to be open for a LPP type fishy. These additional seats that are open will hopefully make up for the lost wages.

Now, their are some TAGs and winning players that lost their rakeback as well. Some of these guys will be dusting off their resumes. The others will probably trickle back to Party Poker. I don't think this will make that much of a difference at the limits I play.

I think all that Party Poker effectively did was make it impossible for a $2/4 player to be a pro.

I have already cashed out my bankroll on Empire. I have just a few bucks left in that account for some of their tournaments. I put a chunk of money back into Party so I could 4 table the BBJ tables last night. Those things are always full of trout and salmon.

I have signed up for rakeback at Ultimate Bet. I'll probably also sign up at one of the prima networks. The rates are a lot better anyway.

Other than that, I'm just going to keep working on my game. I can continue building my bankroll by actually winning at poker. I've done it before. I am probably going to be doing a lot more bonus whoring too. I think I'm going to start with the Titan $500 bonus. I also haved $50 left at Full Tilt to whore. That should go very quickly. I'll probably do it first. Also, as I was typing this, I was offered a $200 bonus on UB. So that will most likely be my next victim.

My biggest thing though is where am I going to play when I'm not whoring a bonus? I think all roads are leading to Poker Stars. 1.) I love their interface. 2.) The FPPs are actually useful. I can use them to actually enter satellites and other tournaments instead of crappy freerolls where 3500 people battle it out for $150.

I just need to practice better game selection in general. If I find a good game on UB, I'll play there, Full Tilt, there I go, etc.

So in conclusion, you're probably going to read how this is the end of poker as we know it! I think it could be the start of something good.

In other news, I didn't play in that tournament yesterday. I slept late, didn't feel good, and the WVU game was on. I ended up washing dishes and cleaning a little house. I played in a few tournaments. I made it to the final 2 tables of one on Full Tilt for a decent cash. I should have made the final table, but dumbass me takes a stand against the chip leader when he actually has a hand better than mine.

Today, I'll probably get quite a few hands played. I'm going to stick with Party today because the BBJ is over $230,000. I'll just play those tables until the jackpot is hit. By that time, hopefully my Empire cashout will have hit my neteller account. I can then move from there.

Tomahawk Chop Anyone?



Congrats on the Braves for winning game 2 against the Astros last night. John Smoltz was amazing. I've been a Braves fan for as long as I can remember. I used to love watch Murphy and Horner jack home runs in front of 1200 fans as they cruised to a 50-112 record. However, this year's Braves team is one of my favorites. They have youth and a lot of charisma. I love to see a team get pumped up. Last night was the most pumped up I've seen the Braves in a playoff game since 1992 when Sid Bream scored on the Franc Cabrera single in the bottom of the 9th to beat the Pirates in the NLCS game 7.

Now, onto poker. I didn't play as much last night as I intended. I was just in a pretty shitty mood all around. It seemed like everywhere I turned, someone irritated me. This is not a poker mindset. Plus I had to do some grocery shopping and run a couple other errands. I also fixed my first burrito dinner for myself. It was scrumpdillyicous. By the time I did all this, all my play was done during the Braves game. I couldn't keep my attention off the game long enough to play.

I did manage to grind out 600+ hands for a loss of about $7. However, this morning, I was single tabling the $3/6 6 max using my tiltblocker software. After what I thought was a mediocre session, I closed tilt blocker to reveal a nice win.

I was just checking out the weather forecast for this weekend. Looks pretty shitty. This means more poker. I don't have any plans tonight other than washing dishes and maybe a few loads of clothes. So it looks like I'll have plenty of time for poker.

Tomorrow is a live Moose tournament that I haven't played in since last spring. I'm gonna run that tomorrow. However, I used to have a running partner in these things. Not anymore, he works Saturdays cleaning the scum off our streets :) Actually, I think he just puts on his uniform and cruises for chicks, but who cares?

This tournament is really juicy. 1.) There is no juice, 100% payout. 2.) There is not a single good poker player in the building. It's a pure donkfest.

However, there are a few downsides to this tournament. 1.) It's sort of a No Limit HORSE tourney. All the games are no limit, but it's dealer's choice. Dealer can deal Texas Holdem, Omaha (Hi only), 7 card stud, 5 card stud. 2.) You don't play until there's one person standing. You play until 6:00pm (tourney starts at 12:00pm). At that time, payouts are done by chip count. The good news there is that usually only 5 or 6 are left by that time. So if you survive until 6, you got a good chance.

Now, in this tournament, they pay the top 5 places. There's usually 30-35 entries. The good money, however, is the top 3 places. You gotta play for those places or you might as well not even show up. Entry fee for this tournament is $100 plus an optional $50 rebuy. I just give them $150 off the bat so I can outchip most of the crowd. About 90% of the entries rebuy as necessary.

My strategy in these things is to play it safe early and use position to my advantage. In the latter stages of the tournament, we usually are short handed. This is where I turn up the aggrometer and go into "steal" mode. These guys usually won't play back at you until they actually have a lock on the hand.

If I win that tournament, I could almost double my bankroll which would be SUPER! I'll post a report here this weekend.

Bowling news and a little poker:



Last night was my Wednesday night bowling league. We have a kick ass team on Wednesdays. Just the perfect combination of talent and handicap :) I fall in the latter with a few displays of talent every now and again.

We started the night in first place by 2 points (1 game). Behind us was a clusterfuck of about 4 teams. 2 of them were 2 points behind. A few others were 4 or 6. The most points you can win in a week are 8. You bowl 3 games. Each game you win nets you 2 points. The other 2 points go to the team with the most pins for all 3 games.

So off we go with game #1. I threw like shit in practice and wasn't prepared. Somehow I composed myself and threw a strike in the 1st 3 frames. I opened the 4th, but spared in the 5th and struck in the 6th. I pretty much just blew up from there only ending the game with a 162. Do you believe that shit?

Game #2 got even worse. I bowled like a pure ass for a 139. Bleh. My average on Wednesday nights is 171. So in game #3, I decided to turn it up a notch and actually knock down a few pins. I started out decent with some spares. Then I struck in 5 straight frames. I had a chance to finish with a 247 I believe. However, I fucked it up in the 10th and ended up with a 214. That gave me a series of 515. Which is an average of 171.667. Just above my average.

Anyway, we ended up taking 6 out of 8 possible points last night. While the 2nd place teams lost all 8 of their points. We go in to last week of the first quarter with a pretty comfortable lead. We don't blow up next week, we're in the playoffs at the end of the season for the championship. Personally, I'd like to win all 4 quarters because you get paid some many dollars per point at the end of the season too. That would be a VERY nice payout.

I'd also like to congratulate my teamate Moose for bowling a 286 last night. He ripped shit loose in game #1. He threw a 9 spare in the first frame. Then threw 10 straight strikes and finished with a 6 count for a 286. Add in his handicap and that's a 313 handicap score. Enough to put him on top of the high scratch game and high handicap game scoreboards. Because of that game, we just missed beating the high handicap score for a team by 6 pins. We got 2nd though.

On to poker. I played just under 400 hands yesterday. I ran good during those hands. Something along the lines of 17BB/100. I would have liked to played more, but I was getting pretty tired and ready for bed.

Tonight, I'll get a little more poker played. I need to go grocery shopping after work, but after that I figure I'll play a little poker while watching the Braves game.

A session with Tilt Blocker 2000!



I have seen some posts on 2+2 in the past about something called Tilt Blocker 2000. I just thought they were joke posts about some imaginary product that reduced tilt induced behavior after a bad beat. So I skipped over those threads. Come to find out, this product really isn't a parody or joke, it's real.

The concept is simple. The program is simple. What does the program do? Nothing really, but it's damn near genius. Sort of like Seinfeld.

Basically, all Tilt Blocker 2000 does is bring up a little grey box on your monitor that you put over top your dollar count when playing online poker. This box will always stay on top where you cannot tell if you're winning or losing. This supposedly helps reduce tilt. Hey, after last month, I'll try anything twice.

So I downloaded this little program and tried it out last night. I have to say, I'm thoroughly impressed with the concept. I played 4 tables with Tilt Blocker covering my chipstack on each table. After about 10 minutes, I had no concept of whether I was winning or losing. I did have Poker Tracker running so it could import my hands and update my Poker Ace HUD display. However, I never checked poker tracker until after I finished my session to see what the results where.

After about 30 minutes, it started driving me nuts. I couldn't tell where I stood at each table. I felt like I was losing big time. I had lost some nice pots. But I won some decent ones too. I was card dead most of the night and just not catching any flops.

After my session was done, just for shits and giggles, I made a guesstimate of my winnings. I guessed I lost $100 or $110. When I finally revealed my results: -$11. Even though it was a loss, I was pleased with that result.

I'm going to keep using Tilt Blocker because I like how it makes you focus on playing cards rather than focus on whether you're winning or losing. I really want to try it when I can put in a nice 1000 hand session. It's a great tool if you're subject to going on Tilt when things go wrong. However, I wouldn't recommend it to No Limit players. I think it's pretty important to know your chipstack size playing NL.

A reporter asked President Bush what he thought about Roe v. Wade. Bush replied "I don't give shit how they get out New Orleans"

I chuckled pretty good on that one last night. If it offends you, you are definitely reading the wrong blog.

Anyway, I didn't play any additional poker last night. I bowled... very poorly I might add. We got our asses kicked again. Monday league sucks.

I've had an afternoon session already today with pretty crappy results. I found some very good tables, but just couldn't hit any hands.

I had one table with 5 bonified fish on it. One was the turbo fish. If you got raised on this table, they had the fucking nuts. Everyone limped in on every hand. If you raise, they don't care, just call.

I hit some monster pots on this table, but took some monster beats as well. I ended up breaking even on that table. All 5 fishies have been tagged and are currently being tracked on my sonar.

Tuesday night has become MY night. Nothing to do except for what I want to do. No bowling, no pool, no obligations. So I plan on going home here in about 10 minutes, fixing some supper, firing up Empire and Party and crank out some hands until time for the WSOP on ESPN. According to Pauly, there is a good lineup tonight.

4th and I swear the final post for the day.

I was doing some accounting for the new month. It seems like I had a better month of September than I had originally thought. Thank the Good Lord for rake rebates!

The bankroll is healthy again. I'm withdraw half of my profit for the month for expenses. This won't cover everything, but it sure will help.

This month, I'm going to remain at $2/4 with occasional times at the $3/6 6 max. If I have another decent month, I should be able to move to $3/6 full time. In fact, I expect to have a decent $5/10 6 max bankroll by the start of November, but I'm going to play it conservatively.

I figure I can make enough playing $3/6 6 max to live. Plus this will give me a chance to find a coach and work on my game.

One more post for the day.

I put in an afternoon session on the $3/6 6 max. I did this because I'm sick and demented and like torturing myself during the day. I love these tables. It's pure entertainment to see the plays these guys make. Here is an example:

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


Preflop: Hero is CO with As, 7s.

1 fold, MP calls, Hero raises, Button calls, 1 fold, BB calls, MP calls.


Flop: (8.33 SB) 6s, Ts, 9d (4 players)

BB checks, MP bets, Hero raises, Button calls, BB folds, MP calls.


Turn: (7.16 BB) Ks (3 players)

MP bets, Hero raises, Button calls, MP calls.


River: (13.16 BB) Td (3 players)

MP checks, Hero bets, Button calls, MP calls.


Final Pot: 16.16 BB


Results in white below:

MP has Ad Js (one pair, tens).

Hero has As 7s (flush, ace high).

Button has Kh Qs (two pair, kings and tens).

Outcome: Hero wins 16.16 BB.

I was very fortunate to find this table. I was seated to the left of a complete donkey and then to the right was a more aggressive donkey who seemed to have preflop hand selection down (well, close enough), but no idea what to do after the flop (as you can see in the hand above).

My preflop raise was an isolation raise. I wanted to be heads up on donkey #1 with position. He's been donating to me already with some seriously dumb plays. One time he was in the small blind with a limper from Middle position, he limps with Aces from the small blind, I check with 6-10 offsuit. Flop comes 6,6,x. Ship it.

This time, he again limps with a premium hand. My hand, is not so premium, but being in the cut-off with 1 limper, it's worth a raise because I figure it's better than his most of the time.

So the flop is great for me. It gives me the nut flush draw plus an inside straight draw. I'm liking my hand. He lead into me without catching a piece. I raised to get my free river.

The turn is a beautiful spade giving me the nuts. He lead out again, I raised. I figured that would be all the free money I get from donkey #2. Amazingly, he calls too.

The river paired the board which made me unhappy. However, I wasn't letting up. One more value bet and I get paid off by 2 donkeys. That's how this game is supposed to work.

Oh yeah... notice that donkey #1 had Ace high.

Here's another hand with this guy:

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (6 max, 4 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is SB with Ts, 9s.

1 fold, Button calls, Hero completes, BB checks.


Flop: (3 SB) 9c, 9h, 9d (3 players)

Hero bets, BB calls, Button calls.


Turn: (3 BB) 6c (3 players)

Hero bets, BB folds, Button calls.


River: (5 BB) Kc (2 players)

Hero bets, Button calls.


Final Pot: 7 BB


Results in white below:

Hero has Ts 9s (four of a kind, nines).

Button has 8c Qc (flush, king high).

Outcome: Hero wins 7 BB.

No way I need to slow play this hand. If I could rely on the guy behind me to bet, I would have check-raised the flop. However, i figured it would be a fairly safe bet that one of these guys would hang with me to the river. Hey and guess what!? Super donkey caught a runner runner flush on me!

As you can see, I ran pretty well for my session and once again have recouped all my downswing losses from last week. Now, if somehow I could just figure out how to make it stay and have a nice upswing.

An idea I've been pondering over...

I think I'm going to hire a coach to help me with the short handed games. These games are just too soft for me to not be crushing them.

I'm off to a slow start in October. I just haven't played all that much poker so far. I've played maybe 300 or 400 hands of limit. I have played in quite a few tournaments though. I've been doing decent, getting deep, even a few cashes. There have also been some frustrating bubble outs.

The most frustrating was last night, we are getting near the money on the $5000 Empire tournament. I'm the the BB with 3 or 4 limpers to me. I raise it up to something like 10 times the BB. Some donk from late/middle position limp-reraises all in. I was pretty much committed at this point and had a hard time giving the guy credit for a limp reraise with pocket aces. I called, he had pocket 2's and of course they held up. That's got to be single handedly one of the worst plays I've seen in a while. This guy had quite a few chips and had he lost that hand, would have been close to the felt. He was tossing a coin AT THE VERY BEST!

Tournaments are boring, so I played some sit n goes to pass the time. I played 6 on Saturday and ended up with 1 first, 2 second, 2 third, and a 4th. I played a couple more yesterday and didn't win anything. Then I played in 2 more last night while sweating the final table on Pokerstars $500,000. I got 1st in both of those.

Tonight, I bowl immediately after work. I'll probably try to grind out 700-1000 hands after bowling depending on my mood.

PokerStars Tournament #12956968, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $1.00
2203 players
Total Prize Pool: $2203.00
Tournament started - 2005/10/01 - 23:30:00 (ET)

Dear Predator314,

You finished the tournament in 162nd place.
A $1.76 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 40.45 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Fear Me!

I had a buck left in my tournament dollars on Stars. Figured I'd blow it in a huge tournament. The hand that did me in was the table chip leader bullying the table making huge raises pre-flop. I defend my blind with JJ and push. He calls with AK

Flop: 8,9,T
Turn: rag
River: King (of course)

Pokerstars hates me.

October goals:

1.) STAY OFF TILT!
2.) Play 20,000 hands at minimum
3.) Re-establish my bankroll back to it's normal capacity
4.) Win that Pokerstars blogger tournament.

Easy enough. September was a pretty shitty month. I hate to see summer end and fall/winter time come. However, I'm sure glad to see this September end. It's been trying to say the least.

I almost took the night off last night. I did play in a sit n go on Empire. It was a $20/2. I figured I'd give it a whirl while waiting on some downloads to finish. I ended up getting 2nd in the thing. The key hand heads up was my AQ losing to his pocket 4's. We got it all in pre-flop. After that, I was so shortstacked, I couldn't do much.

I'll get back into it tonight. I'm going to the high school football game to brave the cold (it's a tit bit nipply out there today). Then I plan on going to Wal-mart to pick up some supplies and dvds. Then I'm going home to play a bit of poker.

On another note, as you can see, I'm signed up for the blogger tournament on Pokerstars. They are giving away a Caribbean WPT seat which would be super nice. I wouldn't mind winning that sucker and taking a nice vacation. They are also giving away some other nice prizes. All of which I would like to have. These prizes include 5 24" LCD Monitors from Dell, 10 Xbox 360s, 20 iPod Nano's. Count me in! Any of these would make a nice addition to my home too. Especially an Xbox 360 or one of those 24" monitors. Look for Predator314 during that tournament. I'll either be the guy raising your big blind late in the tournament or the guy that went out on the first hand.

Yep!

You know how you read about all the things that go wrong in poker? 2 outters on the river, AJ beating your AK, aces getting cracked by 5-8 offsuit, etc. Well, I've had all of those things happen to me.... TODAY! It's getting insane. My bankroll is really hurting right now. I've been getting my ass handed to me this past week. I pulled up Poker Tracker and filtered out to where only my wired pairs were showing. Take all my wired pairs and they are LOSING me money! This includes pocket Aces which are winning below 50% and costing me money. I'm not talking being dealt one time. I'm talking 14 times.

Enough of the rant. I'm taking a break for a couple days.

Poker is wearing me out lately. It seems like every time I turn around, I'm in the middle of a downswing. My buddy list has grown astronomically lately with all the retards I've found at my tables. Table selection is not a problem. Beating these fucks is a problem.

Here's an example:

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


Preflop: Hero is UTG with Ah, As.

Hero raises, MP calls, 3 folds, BB calls.


Flop: (6.33 SB) Qd, 2h, Jd (3 players)

BB checks, Hero bets, MP calls, BB folds.


Turn: (4.16 BB) 2d (2 players)

Hero bets, MP raises, Hero calls.


River: (8.16 BB) Kh (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets, Hero calls.


Final Pot: 10.16 BB


Results in white below:

Hero has Ah As (two pair, aces and twos).

MP has 5d 4d (flush, queen high).

Outcome: MP wins 10.16 BB.

This retard owned me over and over, then proceeded to dump off all my money to the others at the table. Meanwhile, I stand by helpless as I get dealt 62 offsuit 100 times in a row.

All is not bad, looking back so far this month, I've somehow grinded a $500 profit. Add another $700 of rakeback and I'm looking decent for the month. It's not quite enough to cover all my expenses, but it's close. My poker profits will cover my loan payment, electricity, water, cable, and insurance. That just really leaves my truck which I'll pay out of my regular paycheck.

I can't wait to start playign the $3/6 6 max full time. The players at this game are horrid. So are the suckouts though. I have to be convservative with the bankroll if I'm going to use it to pay bills. So I'll hold off until I have about 500 or 600 BBs for that game. Maybe next month.

I'm also so damn due for a rush, it's unbelievable. I've had some decent days and some mediocre days, but still have yet to have that day where the deck smacks me in the side of the head. Back in the good old days, it seemed like I had one of those days a week. Maybe I'm just saving them up so that I have a whole month like that. Yeah right.

What do you know, another big downswing? These things are weekly occurrences. My bankroll is going nowhere. I'll spend 2 days blowing through my bankroll, the other 5 getting it back to par.

I played over 900 hands last night and won almost $11. That was a hoot. I played in a tournament and bubbled out. Another hoot.

My tournament game is coming around. I got deep in a $1000 guaranteed on Empire last night, but bubbled out when I made a wrong move. Big stack had been raising my big blind over and over and over. I finally get QJs and push when he did it. Of course, he had aces that time. I had enough stack to probably dribble into the money, but all the good money was at the final table. That's what I was aiming for.

I really need to work on my tourney game. I played a bunch of tournaments this weekend and only cashed in one. I realized, that I'm a horrible player in these tournaments. I can't make a decent laydown. Every tournament seems to have the same story: I chip up nicely in the beginning. I get about midway in the tournament and donk off ALL my chips in one hand.

So, I re-evaluated my game and played the $5000 guaranteed on Empire last night. I made some pretty good laydowns (I think). These types of folds I made, would never had been made prior to yesterday. I don't have the exact hands because I'm here at work, but there is one hand that really left a bad taste in my hand when I laid it down.

Anyway, I ended up cashing for a small amount, placing 19th out of 200+. I probably should have been deeper, but I took a couple bad beats including one hideous one where I called a short stack's all in with A10 and he had Q10. He ended up making a king high straight on the river to beat me. The final hand, I was in the big blind. A big stack limped from middle/late position. All folded to me. I pushed with AQ and he thought and finally called with 44. The cards brought me no help, and I lost the race.

I also played some $2/4 over the weekend too. I made a nice score Friday night and then a decent score on Saturday afternoon which pretty much broke me even with my tournament play that day. Then yesterday, I lost a bit on the $2/4 tables, while pretty much breaking even on my tournaments.

Which brings me to tonight. I think I'm gonna play some $2/4 up until around 9:00 when I will enter the $10,000 guaranteed on Empire.

Payback is a motherfucker:

I'm not proud of the following hand. I just wanted to show you that I can donk it up with the best of them. Let's start it out with this jewel:

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (6 max, 5 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ad, As. MP =#A500AF(donkey)/ posts a blind of $4.

1 fold, MP =#A500AF(donkey)/ (poster) checks, 2 folds, Hero raises, MP =#A500AF(donkey)/ calls.

Flop: (4.66 SB) Kh, 7c, 9h (2 players)

Hero bets, donkey calls.

Turn: (3.33 BB) 4s (2 players)

Hero bets, donkey calls.

River: (5.33 BB) 8c (2 players)

Hero bets, donkey raises, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 9.33 BB

Results in white below:

Hero has Ad As (one pair, aces).

donkey has 6d Td (straight, ten high).

Outcome: donkey wins 9.33 BB.

M'kay... this was the reason that I was sitting at this table.

Now, time for payback:

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (6 max, 5 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is MP with 9c, Qc.

1 fold, Hero raises, 1 fold, SB =#A500AF(donkey)/ calls, 1 fold.

Flop: (5 SB) Ac, Ad, 4s (2 players)

donkey checks, Hero bets, donkey raises, Hero 3-bets, donkey caps, Hero calls.

Turn: (6.50 BB) 8c (2 players)

donkey bets, Hero calls.

River: (8.50 BB) Tc (2 players)

donkey bets, Hero raises, donkey 3-bets, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 14.50 BB

Results in white below:

donkey has As 5s (three of a kind, aces).

Hero has 9c Qc (flush, ace high).

Outcome: Hero wins 14.50 BB.

Initially, when I was check-raised, I had the feeling I was being bluffed. I've seen this happen before all the time. I'll re-raise when I actually have the ace and they'll fold. That's what I was hoping for. So then once I saw the turn bring me 9 possible outs, I had a 1 in 4.5 possibility of catching my flush. I was getting 7.5 to 1 on my money, so I called. What do ya know. I caught my flush. I was afraid of capping because of the paired board though.

Once again, I'm not proud of this hand. But yet, I'm proud that I was on the giving end of a bad beat.

Let's examine who the bigger donkey is though:

Hand #1:

Preflop:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=1237866
pokenum -h ad as - 6d td
Holdem Hi: 1712304 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Ad 1401728 81.86 303490 17.72 7086 0.41 0.821
Td 6d 303490 17.72 1401728 81.86 7086 0.41 0.179

I'm a 4.5 to 1 favorite pre-flop

Flop:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=1237869
pokenum -h ad as - 6d td -- kh 7c 9h
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 7c Kh 9h
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Ad 789 79.70 201 20.30 0 0.00 0.797
Td 6d 201 20.30 789 79.70 0 0.00 0.203

Still 4 to 1 favorite

Turn:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=1237871
pokenum -h ad as - 6d td -- kh 7c 9h 4s
Holdem Hi: 44 enumerated boards containing 4s 7c Kh 9h
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Ad 40 90.91 4 9.09 0 0.00 0.909
Td 6d 4 9.09 40 90.91 0 0.00 0.091

Now I'm a 10 to 1 favorite before the suckout.

Hand #2

Preflop:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=1237876
pokenum -h qc 9c - as 5s
Holdem Hi: 1712304 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qc 9c 737415 43.07 966560 56.45 8329 0.49 0.433
As 5s 966560 56.45 737415 43.07 8329 0.49 0.567

Just a small dog here... I win

Flop:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=1237883
pokenum -h qc 9c - as 5s -- ac ad 4s
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 4s Ac Ad
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qc 9c 28 2.83 962 97.17 0 0.00 0.028
As 5s 962 97.17 28 2.83 0 0.00 0.972

Ummm...ok... he wins?

Turn:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=1237889
pokenum -h qc 9c - as 5s -- ac ad 4s 8c
Holdem Hi: 44 enumerated boards containing 4s Ac 8c Ad
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qc 9c 7 15.91 37 84.09 0 0.00 0.159
As 5s 37 84.09 7 15.91 0 0.00 0.841

Only 5 to 1 dog now getting 7.5 to 1 on my money

OK...it's a close race on the biggest donkey. I was only a huge dog after the flop. And then just a pretty big dog after the turn. So basically, on Hand 1, he was a big dog before teh flop, after the flop, and a huge dog after the turn. Hand 2, I was a small dog before the flop, huge dog after the flop, big dog after the turn. I think I win by a small margin.

Ok, enough defending myself. I SUCKOUT G00T!

Another losing night for me last night. I played somewhere between 700 and 800 hands. I just ended up losing like $30 though. My friend came over again before he headed down to North Carolina to start his new job. He wanted to watch me play poker again. I was just getting my tables set up when he walked in the house.

One thing I really hate is someone talking to me while I'm playing poker because I just can't concentrate on both things at once. Another thing I hate is just someone staring over my shoulder.

I won some big hands last night, and lost some huge hands. The runner runner straights did me in for the 2nd night in a row. I also made some misclicks and some just bad call downs because I wasn't 100% focused on what I was doing. Lesson Learned.

Tonight I'm not sure what the plan is. Part of me wants to hang out with friends. Part of me wants to veg out at the house and play poker and watch TV. I'll probably do a combination.

I've been reading Pauly's Blog to keep up with the goings on at the WPT Borgata tournament. It looks like John D'agastino or however you spell his damn name is 2nd in chips going into the final table. I'm pulling for this guy. He's one of my favorite "young guns". I just like him because he's not a complete prick like most of the other younger poker players.

Once again, I didn't get to play much poker yesterday. The little bit I did get to play was pretty miserable.

I played a bit at lunch and pretty much broke even, although I haven't loaded my hands into my poker tracker database yet to see the final result.

After work, I had my bowling league. We played an excellent team which has the best player in the league on it. We ended up winning 6 out of 8 possible points against them. I bowled a 566 series. That's an excellent series for me, but it should have been more. My first game, I bowled a 225, 2nd game a miserable 142, 3rd game was a 199. The 2nd game was horrible. However, the 3rd game should have been much better. I through a couple tanks that left the 10 pin and in the 10th frame, I through a monster ball that shattered the pins and left a stone 7 pin. My bowling is really coming around lately. I've moved away from playing the gutter to bowling more across the middle. I'm much more consistent with this shot.

After bowling, I went home and met up with my friend. He's the guy I bought my home from. They had some more stuff that needed to be moved. So as of this morning, I no longer have any porch furniture :(

He wanted to watch me play poker. I fired up 4 tables on Empire and 2 on Party and played about 500 hands. I ended up losing about 45BBs during that session. I had some big hands lose on the river. I know of at least 4 times where my trips got beat by a straight on the river. There were probably more.

Tonight, I'm gonna eat dinner with my parents after work. After that I'm free to do what I want. I will probably end up playing a bunch of poker this evening. I'm in the mood for a tournament too.

Yesterday was a trying day personally. I woke up feeling pretty good. I had a decent night's sleep, so things started well. I got showered and ready for work. I go to my car and the battery is dead. That's aggravating. So I'm stuck taking my truck to work. This costs me somewhere between $20 and $25/day to take my truck to work.

Once I got to work, I had to train some people. I hate training. The only good thing about training is that it makes the day pass by faster. Not yesterday. Slow day + training.

I finally got home from work and decided to go ahead and fix my car. I pop the hood and have to take the damn windshield washer fluid reservoir off to even get to the battery. This is a VERY ignorant design. What if I'm stranded in a parking lot with NO FUCKING TOOLS and need a jump?!? So I took the reservoir off and jumped the car. I head to Advance Auto and get the battery checked. Sure enough... broke... imagine that.

So I drop $75 on a new battery. The guy was nice enough to put it in for me. Although I think that's their job. He was very appreciative of me leaving the reservoir off the car so his job would be a whole lot easier. Evidently he's changed batteries on these cars before.

I had planned on cooking some dinner, but by this time, it was getting late. So off to KFC for a Twister combo I go. I love Twister combos, but this one sucked ass. Oh well.

I got home and washed some dishes and did a little cleaning. By the time I got done with everything, there wasn't much time for poker. I missed the WPBT tournament. Although, I wasn't sure about signing up for Titan Poker to play 1 tournament.

I did get to play about 250 hands of $2/4 in a short time period. I was way up at one point, but my last few hands drained me a bit, and I ended my session up 21.5 BBs.

Tonight I have bowling directly after work. After that I plan on going home and playing some muhfuckin poker.

OK, somebody needs to smack me for the prior post. 50,000 hands is a lot of hands for a working man to pull off in one month. I would need to play nearly 1,700 hands a day to make that goal. I just don't have the time. Plus if I'm winning at a rate of 3BB/100, it would be stupid to stick around the $2/4 for that much longer.

So, I'm going to adjust the goal to 1/2 of initial goal. 25,000 hands by October 20th and hopefully a 3.0 BB/100 win rate. That's about 850 hands/day. I have been playing just over 1000 hands a day. If I can maintain a 3 BB/100 win rate, that will still be a $3000 shot to the bankroll. However, I'm looking for more.

I also stated in my last post that I wanted to play all the hands at $2/4. That's stupid. I'll probably move up and play some $3/6 too about 1/2 way through the challenge. I'll just scout for the good games.

Also, the rake return I get on Empire has really been a great shot in the bankroll. I'm making enough with just rake rebate to pay a lot of my bills every month. This money helps me grow my bankroll and pay bills at the same time.

I spent another portion of the day 6 tabling the $2/4 tables. I'm doing really well at these tables even with the additional 2 tables. Since I've been 6 tabling (2 days), I've played 2100 hands. I'm winning at a rate of 5.84 BB/100. Obviously, I'm running pretty well, but I figure $2/4 can be beatable for 3 BB/100 fairly easily.

It's really taking no time to play 1000 hands now. I figure I can crank out 1000 hands/night in my spare time. I'll try for a while, but I'm not going to over exert myself and burn myself out.

I'm going to go watch some TV now and chill out until work tomorrow. I'm thinking of quitting my Monday night league in bowling. We are having troubles getting people to show. It gets aggravating when you get off work 15 minutes early so you can make it on time and then people that don't have any schedule to work around cannot show up. Plus it's additional money every week that I can save.

So I'm debating going to bowling tomorrow night. If not, then I'll probably be grinding my way around the $2/4 tables. I figure I'll put about 50,000 hands or so at it. If I can sustain a 3BB/100 rate, that would be a $6000 boost to my bankroll. This will leave me plenty of options to move up. I can 6 table the 3/6 or 5/10 full or play a combination. I can also play $3/6 6 max without having to worry about the swings either.

That all being said, I'm going to start a quest. My quest is to play 50,000 hands by the middle of October. Lets say Oct 20th. That's a lot of poker. I think I can pull it off. I'll play all my hands at $2/4 and my goal is to sustain a 3 BB/100 win rate.

Until next time.

I got my computer all set up with internet at the new home. It's a pretty sweet setup. I'm using my Dell 2001FP 20" LCD to 4 table at 1600x1200 and I'm playing an additional 2 tables on my laptop screen. I'm running everything through my laptop. This dual screen crap is the shit. Hopefully one day, I'll have another 2001FP and will just use those. I'll post a pic of my setup once I get ahold of a digital camera.

So I spent a bit today 6 tabling the $2/4 tables. You can really rack up some hands with those additional 2 tables. That's the first time I've ever 6 tabled. It didn't seem all that difficult. I never really felt rushed. I feel that I could handle 8 tables with no problem.

The games are very good tonight. I found some nice tables. How nice you ask? Let's consult the hand history:

Hand 1:

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


Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Kh, Ks.

UTG raises, Hero 3-bets, 8 folds, UTG caps, Hero calls.


Flop: (9.50 SB) Kc, 5c, Js (2 players)

UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG 3-bets, Hero caps, UTG calls.


Turn: (8.75 BB) Tc (2 players)

UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG 3-bets, Hero caps, UTG calls.


River: (16.75 BB) Qs (2 players)

UTG bets, Hero calls.


Final Pot: 18.75 BB


Results in white below:

UTG doesn't show.

Hero has Kh Ks (three of a kind, kings).

Outcome: Hero wins 18.75 BB.

And a real winner, Hand #2:

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


Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Ac, As.

UTG calls, Hero raises, MP1 calls, 3 folds, Button calls, 2 folds, UTG calls.


Flop: (9.50 SB) Kh, 6s, Jh (4 players)

UTG bets, Hero raises, MP1 calls, Button folds, UTG 3-bets, Hero caps, MP1 calls, UTG calls.


Turn: (10.75 BB) Ad (3 players)

UTG bets, Hero raises, MP1 folds, UTG 3-bets, Hero caps, UTG calls.


River: (18.75 BB) Kc (2 players)

UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG calls.


Final Pot: 22.75 BB


Results in white below:

UTG has 6d Qh (two pair, kings and sixes).

Hero has Ac As (full house, aces full of kings).

Outcome: Hero wins 22.75 BB.

So I ended up having a pretty good night and a pretty decent week. It would have been a real good week, but last night kicked my ass.

I plan on getting some more poker played tonight, but I'm going to take a break and watch a little TV and do some housework.

Motherfucker. Does anyone know how to keep these assholes from spamming my comments sections?

Things are starting to go my way???? I don't know about all that, but this hand sure did. It's about time I get one of these:

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (6 max, 4 handed) converter


Preflop: Hero is UTG with 3s, Ad.

Hero raises, Button calls, SB calls, BB calls.


Flop: (8 SB) Qs, 6h, Ah (4 players)

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


Turn: (8 BB) As (4 players)

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


River: (17 BB) 3h (4 players)

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


Final Pot: 23 BB

Main Pot: 23 BB, between Button, SB, BB and Hero. > Pot won by Hero (23 BB).


Results in white below:

SB has Th 9h (flush, ace high).

BB has Qh 7h (flush, ace high).

Hero has 3s Ad (full house, aces full of threes).

Button has Ac Jd (three of a kind, aces).

Outcome: Hero wins 23 BB.

My thinking street by street:

Pre-Flop
A-3 offsuit. Not that great of a hand, but worthy of a raise 4 handed. I get 3 callers, oh shit.

Flop
OK, I caught my ace, but I got a shitty kicker and some asshole leading into me. I'm gonna raise for good measure to see where I'm at. The Small Blind has a tendancy to do the donk bet thing on his draws. The button cold called 2 bets, so now I'm worried that he has an ace which almost guarantees I'm outkicked. He could also have 6-6 and I'm still beat.

Turn
Another ace. This dickhead leads it out. We can't all have aces. I raise because I'm sticking with my flush draw read. The button 3 bets. Oh shit. I knew it. I get nervous and proceed to go into call down mode. Small blind calls 2 cold and I figure I might be in last place here. My weak ace against the small blinds not so weak ace, vs pocket 6's.

River
Sweet mother! A river card that helps me out. I'm pedal to the metal right now. I got the pocket 6's covered. The flush got there and I got it covered. The only aces that can beat me now are A-6 and A-Q which I don't think these guys had.

The guy in the small blind is the reason that I can buy $3000 DLP TVs for my parents. The reason that I can pay off my vehicle and insurance payments every month without using my paycheck from my real job. He is also the reason I get on this blog and bitch every other day because he just sucked out on the river again.

I had a good session this morning mostly because of the hand above. I love to suck out on the river. These fuckers cause me so much pain, it's good to reverse the tide on them.

I should have a working Internet connection at home this evening. No bowling either. I'll probably have to mow grass when I get home, but that shouldn't take too long. I hope to get some hands played tonight. I will need to hook up my internet to my computer. Plus I still need to get my monitor and hook it up. One thing that worries me is that I'm afraid my laptop's video card will not be able to support a 1600x1200 resolution. I'll keep my fingers crossed there.

I donated my old computer to my parents. I still need to get the 10gig or so of MP3's and my Poker Tracker database off that computer.

I probably won't get too much poker played this weekend, but you never know. Friday night, I'll be watching the high school football game and then probably go out afterwards. Saturday, I'm dedicating to my truck. It needs some TLC. First thing I need to do is get the exhaust fixed. 2nd thing is change the oil. 3rd thing is wash and wax that bastard. It's a beautiful truck, but it's had a hard summer.

I want it to look like this again:

I'm getting excited. The cable company is installing my television and internet tomorrow. I'll actually have something to do tomorrow evening. I need to get a wireless router so I can take full advantage of my laptop's capabilities which include playing poker on the front deck on a cool summer night. I'll probably wake the neighbors cursing the fuckers that catch their runner runner flushes.

I'm still running bad. I'm due for a huge frucking rush soon. I think once I get my internet set up at home and can play un-interrupted, the cards will treat me better. Twice today I had TPTK and was called down only to see my opponent hit running cards to make trips (314 to 1 shot or something like that... TWICE!)

I need to run by the old place and pick up my Dell 2001FP screen so I can 4 table the $2/4 games properly. I forgot to get it yesterday. But I did get my new mouse. It's a sexy Logitech Mx1000 wireless mouse. I broke my Mx700. Damn Party Poker! Wireless Mouse + Bad Beat = DUCK!

Tonight, I bowl. We are in 1st place in my Wednesday night league. I bowled great last Wednesday but sucked ass this past Monday. I hope to do good today. My goal is to win all my brackets (brackets cost $2/ea. I get $10 worth. You can win $10 per bracket. So I have a chance to win $50 for a $10 investment.) Last week I won 2 of my brackets.

I'm in the mood for some live poker too. I'm trying to set up a game for this Friday night after the football game. I'd like to play some limit hold 'em one time. However, it would probably be .50/1 or 1/2. Some of the people that play aren't comfortable losing $100 or so. My preference would be $2/4 or we should just do the $25/NL thing again.

I don't have a whole lot to report as far as poker goes. I finally got moved in to my new place. I'm not settled in yet, however. There's still quite a bit of unboxing to do. I'll probably spend tonight unboxing more stuff and hanging pictures, decorating, etc.

I think I'm going to have a huge ebay yard sale too to get rid of some of the crap I don't need. I have to wait for my internet to get hooked up.

The cable people are supposed to show up on Thursday evening to hook me up with TV and Internet. At that point, I hope to be settled in enough so that I can get some hands played.

My plan is to be conservative with the bankroll since I will be using to help pay expenses. I'll drop back to $2/4 for a while and try to build the bankroll while paying bills with my earnings. This is not going to be easy at the $2/4 level. I'd be happy making enough to pay some or all of my utilities with poker money.

I had originally thought that I wouldn't hook up a wireless network in the new place because I no longer play my Playstation or Xbox online. However, I have found the peacefullness that is the front porch. I have a front porch swing and it's very nice to sit out there. I think I could take bad beats more easily on the front porch.

This will probably be my last post until Thursday.