Back to Pokerroom

So after a 4 month hiatus, I'm returning to the website that got my very first online poker business almost two years ago now. That's right, I did the GOLD reload bonus at Pokerroom. I've always liked PR because of their aesthetically pleasing software and the ability to use the Function keys. The latter is something that I think is highly underrated and I would love to see more sites adopt it. If you don't have a Pokerroom account, this is a great and lucrative time to get one. If you decide to, make sure you sign up through Klopzi. He's been the most supportive blogger to my journey so far, plus his blog is always a great read.

In addition to all this, he officially became a hero of mine when he announced his sink or swim challenge. I have a ton of respect for anyone who chooses to this kind of thing. Now, its not like his house is on the line or anything like that, but it still takes balls to step up a few levels and see if you really have what it takes.

I would like to tell you that I'm almost ready to play 2/4 exclusively, but I just haven't been profitable enough in those games to make myself believe that I can be comfortable playing 5-7 2/4 tables like I am with 1/2 tables. I have the 300BB for 2/4, but I'm going to keep playing mostly 1/2 for the time being.

The best part of this last weekend was finishing 72nd in the Stars 100k freeroll, good for a cool $160. This is the first time I've ever cashed in a freeroll, it was all due to taking advantage of the donks at the right times. Basically 4 all in calls was all it took for me to cruise that far into the money, AK vs. J2 JJ vs. JT AJ vs.72 and AQ vs. A8 with yours truly holding the first hand each time.

My two roommates, who I am happy to say, were corrupted by me into playing online poker a month and a half ago are both doing very well at FT. Its pretty amazing how well two nice guys but fairly inexperienced poker players can do playing as high as .5/1.00 NL. They both have lots of live experience, but neither exactly dominated homegames. It almost makes me want to take on a nickname like Men the Master or something.

mmmmmm, ego
--Alex

Pulled groin, kicked junk

There weren't too many bright spots in our first flag football game, which ended in a 40-something to 20-something loss. Until that game, I had never felt a "pulled" muscle in my life. I have new respect for all pro athletes that ever missed time because of a pulled groin. It was probably inevitable, what with the mid 40s temperature, slick field, me only having tennis shoes, and a good amount of reckless abandon. It only took one failed cut, and I could feel it in about 5 seconds.

Speaking of being in over my head, I finally deposited onto my Full Tilt account yesterday and began to play some 1/2 and 2/4 along with my usual amount of tables on Stars. A few problems arose pretty quickly.
1. I couldn't find a way to resize FT tables.
2. Suddenly I was playing 9 tables at once, something I didn't really plan on, but kind of just happened.

All last month I've been working my way up to playing 5-7 tables, which I think I can do without letting my play suffer, but it definitely did suffer when I was playing 9, and this all being done on a 15.4 inch laptop screen. Sad to say, this resulted in a near triple digit setback. It was one of those nights where you dread the third suited card coming on the river because you *know* your opponent is on the flush draw. Oh well.

I'd love some feedback on this "play" I "discovered" last night.
UTG or UTG+1 you limp with a small pocket pair. It folds around to the button or CO, who makes the standard blind stealing raise. If the blinds both fold, or only one calls, you reraise, representing enormous strength. Then bet and raise to whatever comes on the flop. I think you will convey so much strength by doing this your opponent, if respectable, will have to laydown overcards or maybe even a middle pair by the turn.

I was 3/3 with this last night.

dont knock it till youve tried it
--alex

4-digit month!

I am proud and happy and excited to announce that I broke $1,000 for September already on the night of the 22nd. I did this completely at Stars and playing about 85% 1/2 limit and 15% 2/4 limit. I think the total was around 16,000 hands which works out to around 50 playing hours 4-5 tabling on average. I really feel like I have turned a corner because of how consistent my results have been.

As good as my results have been, there are still some things that in my mind are glaring weaknesses. One of them is my blind defense. I really think I need to start folding and raising more, and calling less when I have a medium holding in the BB and I think the person on the CO or BTN is on a steal. I have read a few post about blind defense strategy, including the lawschool dropout's, but I just don't think I'm doing as well as I could. I've even thought about just giving only raising when I have a hand and folding everything else, including suited connectors, small pairs, and other things that I would call a raise with.

I'm currently in the computer lab at the library at school, and PartyPoker happens to be installed on this computer. I've never played at Party, but I just opened the software and I see that there are over 20 tables of full ring 1/2 limit going on!! At 3 on a Monday? Is this kind of thing normal? I would definitely consider playing at Party if the games are good. Can anyone vouch for the quality of the 1/2 or 2/4 games on Party?

They don't seem to list the % Players to the flop like other sites do, that might make it tough to see what tables are the good ones. Bonuswhores.com gives their games a C, and gives Stars a C-. Even if the games are slightly worse than at Stars, I def. would consider playing at Party. I don't get rakeback at Stars, so I wouldn't really miss it if I switched sites.

hmmmmmm
--alex

Medley

I promise to post more. I promise to post more. I promise to post more.
Seriously though, school really kicked in this last week, I even had my first "late" night (up past 2 am) of schoolwork last night.

Nothing but good news on the poker front however, I cleared the $120 Stars reload almost completely in one session. All this play the past month has earned me a crapload of FPP on Stars, and I am now part of the Gold Star club, how will I contain my excitement. The Stars FPP store leaves quite a bit to be desired in my mind, though, especially compared to Full Tilt. I've bought a book, but not much else really looks that good to me, I really don't want to be walking around advertising thier site for them. I am definately going to try my hand at one of the FPP sats to one of the WCOOP tonight. I think a SHNL or SHPLHE would be best for me, possibly even a PLO8. I thought I saw some sats Stars was running for 650 FPP that gave 1 seats for a $215 event for every 5 entries to the sat? That really seems too good to be true.

If I do win a seat, is it possible to sell something like that? I would probably be willing to sell it for considerably less than face value, because I really don't love tourneys. Its probably not possible, but hey, I can dream.

I've been running well lately, erasing all the setbacks that happened last week and then much more. I've been poking around different blogs to see what people think is the minimum sample size to form conclusions about their long run BB/100, I would hope its not much over 50k, because I would like to be able to make those conclusions pretty soon.

The only way I could be more excited about the baseball playoffs is if the Brewers were actually in them. I am getting sick and effing tired of Minnesota bandwagon jumpers talking about how the Twins are sooo good. One guy actually compared Justin Morneau to Lou Gherig. Well sure, hes only about 500 HRs and 6 World Championships short. Yes Santana is amazing, but 1 pitcher does not a champion make. I'm picking the Yankees, they're offense can beat anyone, save Santana, and their pitching is sufficient. Not to mention they have the human saftey net, Mariano Rivera.

thats all for now folks
--alex

Days off and stepping up

On Tuesday I did something I had never previously thought of. I took a day off completely from poker. I could have played, I really didn't have a lot to do. I just really didn't feel like playing. That may not sound profound, but if you knew me, that would come as a huge shock. When my friends and I play homegames, they don't even ask me if I can play, or if I want to play, they just tell me when they are playing, because they know I always want to and will always make room for it in my schedule.

I'm absolutely positive this day long disinterest was mostly caused by me having two consecutive losing days. Also, as the cliche goes, it wasn't that I lost, it was the nasty way in which I lost. I should tell you that I pride myself in taking bad beats better than anyone else I know, but there were a couple strings of beats on Monday that just made me want to punch a hole in the wall.

I also reread a few parts of SSHE (the bible, as I call it) on Tuesday, and am happy to say I think there are a few obvious leaks in my game that will be fairly easy to plug, and should show an immediate difference in my bottom line.
One such leak is my play of small pocket pairs. I thought I was doing pretty well mixing it up using the two styles outlined in Hellmuth's book. Sometimes limping and hoping to hit a set, and sometimes raising from any position, then c-betting whatever came on the flop. However, in SSHE, they make the point that small pocket pairs are often only profitable when there are usually 5 or 6 players to the flop, so that you are virtually guaranteed to win a huge pot when you flop your set. Unfortunately, the 1/2 and now 2/4 games I've been playing in at Stars the last few weeks are usually only 3-4 players to the flop. I think this may be pretty big leak in my game that I look forward to plugging.

Another obvious leak I have to plug is learning to fold KK and QQ on the turn. My standard play is to bet the flop no matter what comes with these hands, even if the flop contains an ace. When I get called, and raised, though, I have a very hard time folding, mostly because its "only" two big bets to call someone down. I've realized though that this is definitely costing me a lot of money, especially when I look at my PT stats and money won/lost with KK and QQ is much less than it should be.

So enough about how bad I suck for now. Yesterday and today I've gotten back to winning, although they've been small wins both days. I've been mixing in a few tables of 2/4 recently, and have found the play to be almost identical, if not more loose most of the time. Even with a couple losing days, my bankroll is above the "300BB" recommendation to play 2/4. So for once I am stepping up but I'm not playing above my bankroll.

School is kicking in though, so it will be a little bit tough playing as much as I have been.

hoping your bankroll is growing

Back from the dead, still sucking

Well I was going to write my first blog post in a couple weeks about how all last week I thumped the 1/2 game at Stars.

I was going to write about how I was well on my way to becoming the next lawschool dropout (even though I'm not in lawschool). I was going to write about my 8k hands last week when I made around 3.8BB/100 and how much ass I kicked and how great I was feeling about myself.

I played as focused as I ever have, I used PT and PAHUD better than ever and it was great.

Unfortunately I completely bombed yesterday, and on into today the shit continued.

I lost around 90 yesterday, and already 60 today, wiping out around 25% of last weeks gains.
The gory details are pretty boring, just the usual beatings delivered by 4th suited cards on the river, paired river cards, and set over setting that hurts just as much in limit as it does in NL.

I wonder if this feeling of loving grinding while I'm up and hating it when I'm stuck is a permanent thing or just something I have to work through.

I'll write more tomorrow, I just have no heart to think about poker right now.

Back to the blog

Sorry for the little break early this week, I'm done with my summer job and writing a blog entry was one of the ways I passed the time at my desk every day.

So we're all moved in to the apartment in Madison and its actually a pretty nice place for how little we're paying for it. I already got one of my roommates bonus whoring too. He doesn't play limit, and doesn't have a huge bankroll, so I thought SunPoker was the way to go for his first bonus.

As for myself, I am still unsure of what site I want to plant myself at for awhile. I've had continued success at Hollywood even though my bonus is up. I finally got PAHUD, don't ask me why its taken me this long to get it either. Seriously, PT and PAHUD should get together because I can see now that PT is almost worthless without PAHUD.

At Hollywood I've focused more on my full ring limit game than ever before, although occasionally I need some action and jump on a 5 or 6-max limit table. Unfortunately, this warps my PT stats a bit, as I know my VP$IP for full ring is nowhere near the 25% PT says it is. Anyone know if there's a way to separate stats for full ring vs. shorthanded? I don't think there is, but hey, I suck with PT so I wouldn't be surprised if there is.

Once again, if you don't have PAHUD, GET IT NOW!! If you're serious at all about online poker, this program is worth its weight in gold. I'm sure everyone who even reads this already has it, but maybe not.

I don't exactly love the grind of full ring 1/2, but I don't hate it at all either. I think one of the most difficult things to adjust to from NL is the bad habits of playing "speculative hands" like low suited connectors, suited aces, etc. I really don't think these are profitable hands in full ring limit because you can't get paid as well on your "monsters".

secretly and probably foolishly trying to replicate the success of the lawschool
dropout
--alex