Epic Bump!

Holy bumpage. It's been almost 2 1/2 years since my last post but I figure I'd update my progress once again. In the 2 years since, I've built a roll on stars and bodog to where I could play 100NL, cashed out all but a couple hundred on the dog, had a huge downswing in cash games on stars, and finally switched to tournaments come this summer (yeahh no school/part-time workaments!). Kinda cool to look back on my posts from a couple years back and see where I've gotten from playing 5c/10c cash games lol. It has been a wild but fun ride and I have had my patience and skills tested time and time again, and they have improved by leaps and bounds. A part time hobby that can make you money, nothing beats that man.

Since I switched to tournaments things have been going fairly decently. As stated I kept a couple hundred on my beloved bodog (my first poker site), and so I had to start with some lower tournament buyins. Lately I have been crushing the 1k Gt'd donkaments which are generally either a $12 super stack, $11, or $5 rebuy tournament. These tournies usually get between 80-120ish players. It seems that these medium fields suit me much better than the monster fields on stars. As proof of this, I have had 5 final tables in the aforementioned tournaments, consisting of a 1st, 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 6th place finish (in addition to 13th and 15th), vaulting my roll nearly into 4 figures. I am a huge bankroll nit and so while skill-wise I could be playing 30's-100's (omfg sick brag!), especially on bodog, I choose to grind my roll up with these tournaments. Tournaments have a ton of variance and it is not uncommon for even great players to go through 15+ tournaments without cashing. My results are pretty sick considering that I have played about 18 of these tournies and made the final tables in 5 of them, with ~7 cashes.

Stars has been a different story, albeit nothing too terrible. The average field of the tournaments that I have played on there comes to about 3k, and I get pretty fkin deep a lot of the time but haven't broken through (yet!). For instance a couple days ago I grinded my stack real hard to 77k and raise in late position with 22. Some donk minreraises me and the pot is huge so I call. I flop a set, on a 276cc board, and I check-shove to his 15k bet. He thinks a few seconds and calls with AJcc. Unfortunately the 4c comes on the turn and the board doesn't pair on the river. gg. So I have basically broken even on stars while crushing on bodog.

Overall I really enjoy tournies a ton more than cash. Still debatable whether cash is more profitable or not, but I just felt like complete crap after losing day after day with the standard combo of run bad and play bad in cash games. Losing 1.2k in a day does not feel good, believe me! With tournaments, its like oh well, if I played bad or got a bad beat, I have only lost 1 buyin. It is harder to tilt and lose a ton of money because what am I going to do, buy into a ton of tournaments and tilt shove every hand? For instance yesterday I made a bad call and was a little ticked off at my play, but instead of tilting I just went to the gym because I knew grinding more tournies would probably be a bad idea (and take too long). Saves a ton of money imo. With cash its like "Ok I'm reloading I'm going to get this donk-motherfker's money! I practice sick bankroll management so on stars even with a roll that I could easily play 100NL with, I am playing like 5-20 buyins/rebuys with the occasional 30-40 mixed in. I have heard that 200 buyins for tournaments should be a minimum, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Today I placed 6th in a field of about 80 players in a superstack 1k Gt'd tourney on bodog. I first doubled up to 10k when some donk raise-called preflop with T7s, hit two pair, and I stacked off. Fortunately the board paired on the river, giving me a better two pair (T7494). Then I doubled to ~20k when I cold called with AQ, flopped a straight and stacked a guy with AA.

I doubled up huge again to 48k when I cold called in position with AQ, led an AJ9 flop when checked to, tank-shoved when I turned top two pair on a Q turn against a huge turn checkraise, and the guy called my shove with AJ for an inferior two pair. The very next hand bothered me a bit because I raised in early position with AKo and a guy 3bet me pretty big (999 --> 3275). I 4bet shoved and he called with TT and I couldn't catch an A or K. After the hand I kept thinking maybe I should have called the 3bet instead of shoving. While shoving is certainly fine, I think that since the fields are weak I should have just called because I have an edge postflop (and pre as well), and I could have kept my monster stack which is always valuable. It was a 14k hit but I was still chipleader (albeit now narrowly).

After that the blinds took their toll and I had to grind it out to the FT. I think I lost a couple small pots then had to shove a couple hands. I got to the FT 8/9 with a measly 14k, and a couple people busted. I then almost doubled (from 11.5k) after calling a minraise (tons of money in the pot) with 65o and shoving an A64 board (with about 8.5k behind) and then shoving another hand preflop. After than I shoved with A9o in the big blind against a small blind open, and he called with 77. I hit my A and held, and had 34k. The next hand I lost a flip when the same guy from the last hand shoved with 66 and I iso-shoved with AQs and couldn't connect. A few hands later I got 77 and shoved with 23k left and 1k/2k blinds, and the chipleader who was playing like a maniac happened to pick up KK and held. gg.

One of my teammates in undergrad has been going on a sick run. After cashing for about 20k in tournies this year he decided to buyin to the Super Tuesday $1k (yeah that's right, a $1,000 buyin), and shipped 2nd place for 45k. I remember maybe about a year ago him asking me for a $20 stake a couple times to play in some donkaments and now he has been crushing tourneys for huge scores. Pretty awesome. I personally would never play so high without at least 100 buyins (and that's taking a shot), if the field looked decent. It is pretty sick, but I am happy for him nonetheless. Risks payoff sometimes. Although every time I had tried taking a shot in cash games I ended up getting owned. Maybe donkaments are different. :)

Well that's it for now, I'm trying to check out CamStudio so I could put up a video one of these days. I know I've been promising to do it for about 3 years now, but it will happen sometime! Good luck on the felt.

Climbing the Mountain

Straight ownage this weekend. My last post was about a week ago, where I doubled up from 2 hundo to $400 playing stricly 10NL. Well, I got to $500 by this Friday, and after hitting $543, I decided it was time to move to 25NL. I was consistently beating the 5c/10c stakes and had enough buy ins to move up (20 buy ins minimum rule). So onward and upward I went, and I had a pretty good weekend. I had a couple sick pots to triple up, including a full house versus a Q high and A high flush, and two moster pots off of the same guy who everyone hated at the table (doubled to $50 with my 10 8 sooted trip 8s versus his 99 overpair, then stacked his remaining $43 five hands later with QUAD 10s to his QQ overpair. I did manage to take a couple bad beats, but I also got lucky myself in a couple instances (including QQ vs AA when the board went 58796 for the straight and a split pot). So I made like $200 or so playing 25NL over the weekend and my roll stands at about $750. It is progressing nicely and I am thankful for my overall good luck. It is just amazing having basically not had a losing day in over 2 weeks (cash games), and I am playing pretty well, although I am constantly learning new things about the game from playing many hands and learning from both my mistakes and successes. I am planning to reach a bankroll of 1k via 25NL by the end of this month and moving up to 50NL in the near future. I also had a lot of fun railing my buddy CavalaoMontoya (See Interview from December) during one of his deep runs (14th, 2k Guaranteed) in a tournament this weekend. Its fun having friends that you can talk poker with. On the tourney side, I've had a couple cashes but no final tables in the last week. I've sustained a couple cruddy beats, but I've mainly been focusing on the cash games as they are more convenient and higher EV+ (for me at least) when you don't have enough energy/time to play a tourney (i.e. only weekends). Good luck to all at the tables.

10NL Grindin'

Bodog has been real good to me over the past week or so. After dabbling in 25NL and even taking a shot in 50NL (quasi-tiltage) I decided after a walk with pops 2 Sundays ago that with my $200 roll I would grind 10NL (5c/10c) until I hit about $500. So with some discipline and a refreshed outlook, I tried it out. I was getting tired of the swings that came with playing out of one's roll. Plus, if I happened to get stacked on a bad beat at 10NL, it would not nearly bother nor affect my roll as greatly as getting stack at 25NL or 50NL. So after a little more than a week, I have doubled my roll to over $400. Yesterday was really the first day that a couple of my big hands didn't hold up (i.e. my top set vs bottom set vs flush draw which won a $35 pot). I made a couple huge laydowns (QQ vs AA preflop, AA vs set of Ks [if the guy was honest]). On the AA vs set of Ks, I was pretty sure the guy had me, because I reraised his $1.35 bet preflop to $4 and he called. The flop was 22K with 2 spades, and the guy though a while, then bet out only $2.50. Having put him on KK-QQ and maaaybe AK (but likely not, I believe only a very strong hand would call my $4 reraise pf, and he wasn't a maniac, having been the same guy with the AA vs my QQ earlier). I flat called feeling something suspicious, and the Q of spades (a third spade) came off. I pretty much knew I was done, as the range I was putting him on both would have sets at this point, plus a possible flush. I laid down my AA and he told me he had KK, which although he could be lying, I felt strongly about my read. I made some tough laydowns and perhaps one bad call against a LAG (loose aggressive player), but overall I played well. Down .99c yesterday, but up $200 in 10 days in 10NL, which is a pretty awesome result in my book. GL to all.

Weekend Recap

Overall I guess I can't complain. I pretty much crushed my goal of reaching two hundo on Bodog, and I went deep into some MTTs, altough not reaching the final table means that the cash is almost insignificant. Although about 10 minutes ago I just finished a 10$+1 90 man SNG and finished 5th for a decent 60$. Lost a coinflip when the bigstack pushed with 1010 from the button. I figured he might have been trying to steal and did not expect him to actually have a pair, although i called with AQo which was a coinflip. Winning that one would have vaulted me into 2nd place, but alas it was not to be and I got knocked out in 5th, a not so bad effort. I think there were a couple spots where I could have pushed my stack, but I really didnt want to get caught with a mediocre hand (K10s, KQo), and so I waited and occasionally pushed when I was closer to the blinds. I guess sometimes you have to be reckless to win a tourney, but I wanted to get it in with the best hand whenever possible. Been runnin like doodoo the past day and a half, but that's what you call variance. Hopefully I can keep my wits about me and keep the bankroll intact.

Merry Xmas Recap

Weekend Recap: Played pretty well this weekend, but unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to a final table (except for a 45-man SNG, 3rd place). Once again I went out with pocket queens, this time where I was in a dominating position to more than double up to be in the top 5 in chips. With 28 people to go in the 3$ rebuy, here is the hand:

Full Tilt Poker Game #4594222235: $6,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) (34221058), Table 41 - 3000/6000 Ante 750 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:41:35 ET - 2007/12/23

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Mehr10sAK [Qc Qh]

Mehr10sAK raises to 18,000

FullTilter20 folds

papanicks folds

superbird6 folds

IH8CallStations folds

thewood503 has 15 seconds left to act

thewood503 raises to 151,670, and is all in

MrNic2302 folds

Steemn folds

Mehr10sAK: so sick

Mehr10sAK has 15 seconds left to act

Mehr10sAK has requested TIME

Mehr10sAK calls 66,586, and is all in

thewood503 shows [Jc Jh]

Mehr10sAK shows [Qc Qh]

Uncalled bet of 67,084 returned to thewood503

AnthonyMaze (Observer): hey

*** FLOP *** [Js 7c 4d]

*** TURN *** [Js 7c 4d] [3s]

AnthonyMaze (Observer): :-)

*** RIVER *** [Js 7c 4d 3s] [8d]

thewood503 shows three of a kind, Jacks

Mehr10sAK shows a pair of Queens

thewood503 wins the pot (184,172) with three of a kind, Jacks

Mehr10sAK stands up

I think I played as well as I could have, and its just too bad that I got sucked out on, but hey that's poker. My Bodog Cash Game adventures are going pretty well so far, aiming to get to $200 by the end of the week depending on how much time I can get in at the tables. On one hand (25NL) I called a standard raise and flopped a set. We both got our money in on the turn and apparently he had a higher set (of Jacks) but I got a 4 on the river to make quads. I would have traded that one for the 3$ rebuy suckout (1.2k first prize), but it was still pretty nice to suck out on occasion. I'll try to post a vid this week. Happy Holidays!

Today's Tutorial: How to Flop a Straight

So, um, I flopped 5 straights today. Too bad I was only in three of them. In one of the hands that I wasn't in, I decided to fold 2h6h in early position, as I have been trying to avoid limping with them so early and having to fold to a raise/call one and commit myself if I see a nice flop. Well, guess what the flop was? Meh, just 3h4h5h. I merely flopped a straight flush, too bad I folded! But overall, I am simply glad that things went my way for the two huge hands that are illustrated below. Note: I tried my best to accurately display the hand histories; its a bit tougher to do so because of the way Bodog maintains their hand history database.

Here is a hand where I flopped a straight and more than tripled up (Bodog Cash Games, 25NL, $15 buy-in):

(1)

Community Cards 8c 7h Js Ac Kc

da rat Showdown Show card: Three of a Kind
7 7 7 A K

ShipItMehrAA Showdown Show card: Straight
J 10d 9d 8 7

regtufnel Showdown Show card: Two Pair
A A J J K

ShipItMehrAA Hand result $ 49.90


Here I flop a straight and flush draw, and call 2 all-ins:

(2)

Community Cards 5s 7c 6c Jd Qc

Ulvtand Showdown Show card: Three of a Kind
Q Q Q J 7

EvilRODemeus Showdown Show card: Two Pair
6 6 5 5 Q

ShipItMehrAA Showdown Show card: Flush
Ac Qc 9c 7c 6c

Ulvtand Hand result $ 27.49 (side pot)
ShipItMehrAA Hand result $ 30.71 (I win the main pot)


I also flopped a straight to the ace for a small pot, and would have quadrupled up in another hand had I limped in and called a 5.5xbb raise with my A5o (which you almost never should do), but the hands above were the 2 big pots I won this evening. I am going to continue buying in $15 into 25NL unless I get felted, in which case I'll move back to 10NL. Hope everyone did their Christmas shopping already (so that the stores won't be too packed when I go, lol)! Its the weekend baby!

Start Good, End Bad

After last night's tilt-fest I decided to formulate some super-strict rules to follow, and posted them right above my monitor. Things were going well in the beginning of my session today, as I ended up winning a 3-way pot with AA to triple up from $10 to $30 (Bodog Cash Games, 10NL). After that I somehow ended up multitabling trying to enter into tables with higher average pots. That didn't work out too well. I somehow ended up dropping my profits plus a couple bucks. Great. Fittingly, the last hand for me was getting felted with...AA, versus 78o. I raised 3.5x, got a couple callers, and one evidently flopped a straight draw. He, acting before me and to my immediate right, bet the pot (~$1.40ish), and I tripled his bet (~$4.20). But people love chasing their draws without knowing a damn thing about pot odds, and so he ended up calling and hitting his straight on the turn. When the turn came I immediately put him all in, not at all putting him on 78, and, hooray again, another draw had materialized for my opponent against my monster hand (see yesterday, AJ 2-pair vs heart flush).

Update: So I couldn't help myself, and i bought in short for one last hurrah for the night ($10 into 25NL). I had K10 and called a big stack's bluff on the turn and river on a 4 10 A A 5 board to double up to $20 before I called it quits. He checked the flop, bet half the pot on the turn, took a while to think, and then put me almost all in on the river. He interestingly also bet $5.55, which felt like a tell translating to "this dude's a deuchebag, $5.55: you are trying to intimidate me out of this pot." I made a pretty good read, called him down (he had QJ for squadoosh), and took the pot to double up. I feel a little better ending the day up $7.

A lot of times in cash games, I end up doing well in the beginning and then somehow giving it all away by the end, like I am renting a friggin car or something. I guess I am seriously going to A. stop multitabling and B. stop playing when i feel the slightest bit of fatigue. I really didn't think that I was tired, but I guess I was. Maybe I should just set an amount of time to play, and then get the hell out after that amount elapses. We'll see. I also just purchased Harrington on Hold 'Em Volume 2, which I plan on reading soon. I believe that this book will help me close my tournaments better and get to the final table/win, as I have gone extremely deep several times (see previous MTT posts), including one 3rd place for $300 and another 3rd in a live tourney for a couple hundred, but have not yet closed the deal. I need to spend more time studying the game. Particularly getting idiots to fold their draws...buts that's a whole another story. Enjoy your Friday folks.