It's been a long, long time since my last post. Mainly this is due to personal reasons that I won’t go into, since those who read this and know me will already know them, and anyone stumbling on this blog who doesn’t know me won’t care.
Anyway, after a reasonable, focussed run that put me into the mid-$60s bankroll-wise I went on a horrendous run where I wasn’t paying much attention or playing for any of the right reasons and duly dropped into just below $30! Realising that I wasn’t in any correct frame of mind, I’d deliberately avoided playing again… until now.
I played two sessions on Saturday and Sunday respectively which could not have been more different in the run of cards I had, and profited on both. Saturday I got hit by the deck, getting a good run of pocket pairs, making boats from marginal BB hands, and getting my money in and getting paid off on the premium hands. I ended up cashing out with $9 from a $3 buy-in.
It could have been much more, but sadly I got sucked out on a 3-way $13 pot. Fortunately the fish who called a large preflop bet with KTs then thought that a pair of Kings on an Ace-high flop with inside straight draw (other player had AK so fish was drawing dead to anything else) was worth going all-in with had the smallest stack of the three of us, so I still made a teeny profit when the Q hit and wrecked my set.
I have player notes on this player now - they simply say, 'Kick this guy in the throat'.
In fairness though, by the time I’d left he’d given me most of that money back.
Sunday’s session was the polar opposite. The highest pocket pair I was dealt during the whole game was Nines, and the best non-paired hand breakdown was as follows:
AQh once – on BB, all folded ahead of me acting.
AKo once – on Button, all folder ahead of me. Blinds fold to my 3xBB raise.
AQs once – mid-position, early raise of 4xBB. Raiser folds to my min-reraise.
Other than that, it was low pocket pairs and other fairly marginal hands all the way. I ended with a $2 profit, but I felt more proud of my performance on Sunday than Saturday. Without big hands, I found two things.
1) Playing fewer hands, I decided to watch hands I wasn’t involved with and attempt to put people on possible cards based on their betting. I found I’m a lot better at this than I used to be. Still though when I’m in the hand I sometimes second-guess or disregard my initial correct read and get punished for it!
2) Just playing position and having a good read on your opponents and what they might have and what they might be afraid of, you can still pick up some decent sized pots with nothing or very little.
Looking through my hand history, I only took part in a handful of showdowns, and won two. The best hand I ever made in the session was top two-pair and my biggest pot win was with pocket-8s on a 7-high flop/turn (taking a nice chunk from a guy with K7 who judged himself owner of top kicker). The rest of my wins were all through carefully considered betting.
So, a pretty positive session to get me back into the game.
Week's Profit: $7.90
Current Bankroll: $39.25
Showing posts with label hold'em. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hold'em. Show all posts
Monday, 21 January 2008
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Good progress, as befitting a Queen...
I've been fairly happy with my play at the moment, I've been reining myself in a lot more at playing marginal hands pre-flop and chasing draws post-flop. I won't say I've played perfectly, I've still had some moments of mental abstraction which have cost me, but in general I've been a lot more solid.
Last week I came close to ending around $12 up, but I made the mistake of playing on Sunday when I only had a limited amount of time and misjudged a big hand, running top two pair into a low set, then with no time to rebuild from that loss before I had to log off. So that left me closer to $6 in profit for the week, which isn't quite as nice. This week is also lookng good so far, I'm ending tonight $5-ish in profit.
In other news, turns out I'm a Queen! Was mucking around in the account part of Party Poker and noticed I'm in tier 2 of their Party Point scheme, which came as a bit of a surprise given the low level I play at. Still, it means I now get double Party Points (so a double pittance each session!) There's also a quarterly $5k freeroll which might be fun to take a crack at.
Here's hoping I keep up the current upward progress.
Weekly Total: $4.57
Current Bankroll: $60.45
UPDATE:
Ran into some horrible hands on Sunday which undid all my profits. Ah well...
Weekly Total: -$0.50
Current Bankroll: $55.28
Last week I came close to ending around $12 up, but I made the mistake of playing on Sunday when I only had a limited amount of time and misjudged a big hand, running top two pair into a low set, then with no time to rebuild from that loss before I had to log off. So that left me closer to $6 in profit for the week, which isn't quite as nice. This week is also lookng good so far, I'm ending tonight $5-ish in profit.
In other news, turns out I'm a Queen! Was mucking around in the account part of Party Poker and noticed I'm in tier 2 of their Party Point scheme, which came as a bit of a surprise given the low level I play at. Still, it means I now get double Party Points (so a double pittance each session!) There's also a quarterly $5k freeroll which might be fun to take a crack at.
Here's hoping I keep up the current upward progress.
Weekly Total: $4.57
Current Bankroll: $60.45
UPDATE:
Ran into some horrible hands on Sunday which undid all my profits. Ah well...
Weekly Total: -$0.50
Current Bankroll: $55.28
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
suddenly more focussed, hooray!
I've been bouncing around with poker recently without really feeling like I've been hitting my stride. I've hit some good streaks to just about make up for some of my less than stellar play and so i've danced back and forth around the break-even point without ever looking like actually making significant profit. I've actually cashed-out some pretty nice totals, but always it's come after first losing a buy-in or two, making the actual day's profit something less impressive.
Anyway, this week things have clicked back into place - I'm finding it much easier to tighten my game up, rather than just saying I'm gonna tighten up and then still playing marginal hands and chasing speculative draws. I'm thinking a lot more too, trying to put people on likely hands and picking up on particular players' styles and using that to my advantage to judge what size bet they'll call, when to bluff or when to just check it down.
I've ended tonight after a couple of hours just over one buy-in up ($4.88). It's a nice win because it was done wihtout any of the horrible swings I've had recently where I've dropped to a very short stack or even lost a buy-in before hitting that big win to bring me back into profit. It's made me think; If I can keep control of my game like tonight, then when those big pots do come then firstly, it will add up to a lot more profit overall, and secondly, I'll have more cash to throw into the pot when I've got the nuts and therefore potentially win an even bigger pot!
So, fingers crossed I can keep this play up and start having some more consistently profitable sessions.
P.S. I won some money in a freeroll for first time, woo! Party is running Surprise tournaments at the moment and I battled my way through a 4,500 player freeroll to win ... $0.02. I placed 428, and had a decent stack so I could have gone further and maybe even got into to $0.07 band, but it was getting to bed time. Still, I can now say I am a winning player at tournaments!
Anyway, this week things have clicked back into place - I'm finding it much easier to tighten my game up, rather than just saying I'm gonna tighten up and then still playing marginal hands and chasing speculative draws. I'm thinking a lot more too, trying to put people on likely hands and picking up on particular players' styles and using that to my advantage to judge what size bet they'll call, when to bluff or when to just check it down.
I've ended tonight after a couple of hours just over one buy-in up ($4.88). It's a nice win because it was done wihtout any of the horrible swings I've had recently where I've dropped to a very short stack or even lost a buy-in before hitting that big win to bring me back into profit. It's made me think; If I can keep control of my game like tonight, then when those big pots do come then firstly, it will add up to a lot more profit overall, and secondly, I'll have more cash to throw into the pot when I've got the nuts and therefore potentially win an even bigger pot!
So, fingers crossed I can keep this play up and start having some more consistently profitable sessions.
P.S. I won some money in a freeroll for first time, woo! Party is running Surprise tournaments at the moment and I battled my way through a 4,500 player freeroll to win ... $0.02. I placed 428, and had a decent stack so I could have gone further and maybe even got into to $0.07 band, but it was getting to bed time. Still, I can now say I am a winning player at tournaments!
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
tired play, and big pairs
With my girlfriend away off biting other men, I've seized the chance to play as much as possible. Which is great, except I'm stil not recovered from weekend's excesses as so have been playing while utterly exhausted. This was particularly apparent on Monday - I bust myself pretty quickly, rebought and worked my way all the way back up into profit, then lost it all again on the final hand of the night.
The only postive of the night was that I got some nice experience in making and playing straights. I've realised that I get rather too attached to the idea of drawing on an open-end or double belly-buster straight or to a flush, which costs me when they don't hit. But when it's been made cheap enough to draw to, the straight is a great hand because it's much less obvious than the flush. Any fool can count three of a suit on the board, but when there's [K, 9, 6, 5] rainbow there's not too many people holding a King who are scared of [8,7]!
So, my focus now is going to be maintaining discipline and assessing the actual pot odds when deciding on whether to call on a draw. Implied odds obviously matter here too, no point calling a bet if it's going to mean either myself or the bettor being all-in because then there's no extra turn/river bet to profit from. Chasing draws when I DON'T have good pot odds is definitely a leak for me at the moment, my last few stupid big losses were all from chasing straights and flushes that didn't materialise.
Tuesday, I was still pretty tired, but didn't actually play too badly. I didn't play as much as I could have, mainly due to connection problems on Party. Then when I finally got back on, every 3 hands the table I was on got taken down for maintenance! So, with the various hassles I kind of didn't realise that I'd made money until I added it up today. Sadly it wasn't enough to fully reverse the horrible loss on Monday, but at least I'm now quite as down as I could have been.
I've put up two hands from Tuesday, the first I thought was fun just from the fortuitous appearance of three big hands all in one pot. (click to see hand)
#Game No : 6439161545
***** Hand History for Game 6439161545 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, October 23, 15:58:45 ET 2007
Table Table 127739 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 3: x__BShark__x ( $4.55 USD )
Seat 5: LEKDJ ( $1.23 USD )
Seat 7: reno_man001 ( $5.10 USD )
Seat 8: TS99_87 ( $5.94 USD )
Seat 9: peck3r ( $3.18 USD )
Seat 10: DavidLarsen ( $6.98 USD )
Seat 4: e_r_c ( $2.92 USD )
Seat 6: Dixvins ( $2.68 USD )
Seat 1: Nextone7777 ( $1.92 USD )
Seat 2: HoneyJar ( $4.96 USD )
HoneyJar posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
x__BShark__x posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Ad Ac ]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
LEKDJ folds
Dixvins folds
reno_man001 raises [$0.08 USD]
TS99_87 folds
peck3r folds
DavidLarsen calls [$0.08 USD]
Nextone7777 folds
HoneyJar folds
x__BShark__x calls [$0.04 USD]
e_r_c raises [$0.46 USD]
reno_man001 calls [$0.42 USD]
DavidLarsen calls [$0.42 USD]
x__BShark__x folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4c, 8s, Tc ]
e_r_c is all-In [$2.42 USD]
reno_man001 calls [$2.42 USD]
DavidLarsen: QQ
DavidLarsen folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qs ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
e_r_c shows [ Ad, Ac ]a pair of Aces.
reno_man001 shows [ Kc, Kh ]a pair of Kings.
e_r_c wins $6.12 USD from the main pot with a pair of Aces.
DavidLarsen: grrr!!!
I think I played the above hand pretty well. On the flop I moved in for the following reasons. First, with a rags flop and with the level of preflop betting I didn't think anyone would have stayed in with a pocket pair below Jacks. I also didn't want to be second-guessing myself too much on the turn and river, so getting my money in while I was most likely ahead seemed the best plan.
It was fortunate for me I did, as you can see if I'd slowplayed the hand at all then DavidLarsen would have stolen it on the turn.
Another lesson in not slowplaying Aces was my final pot of the night, alonlu123's weak bet on the flop makes it worth me seeing the turn with my middle pair /overcard and I get some nice help and break him.
#Game No : 6439576391
***** Hand History for Game 6439576391 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, October 23, 18:55:37 ET 2007
Table Table 126296 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: Carsten1081 ( $3.65 USD )
Seat 5: JanssonJ ( $0.29 USD )
Seat 6: alonlu123 ( $1.54 USD )
Seat 2: geordie_dave ( $4.25 USD )
Seat 4: hansdampf101 ( $4.04 USD )
Seat 8: chrizbradley ( $4.28 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $5.04 USD )
Seat 7: johoy ( $3.29 USD )
Seat 10: LuxStyle ( $5.37 USD )
hansdampf101 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
alonlu123 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 6c Ac ]
johoy folds
chrizbradley raises [$0.12 USD]
LuxStyle folds
Carsten1081 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.12 USD]
hansdampf101 did not respond in time
hansdampf101 folds
alonlu123 raises [$0.16 USD]
chrizbradley calls [$0.08 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.08 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, 6h, 2h ]
alonlu123 bets [$0.24 USD]
chrizbradley calls [$0.24 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.24 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6d ]
alonlu123 bets [$0.48 USD]
chrizbradley calls [$0.48 USD]
Knifkator has joined the table.
e_r_c raises [$2.20 USD]
alonlu123 is all-In [$0.62 USD]
chrizbradley folds
** Dealing River ** [ Jh ]
e_r_c shows [ 6c, Ac ]three of a kind, Sixes.
alonlu123 doesn't show [ Ad, As ]two pairs, Aces and Sixes.
e_r_c wins $1.10 USD from side pot #1 with three of a kind, Sixes.
e_r_c wins $3.82 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Sixes.
This Week: -$1.17
Total: $53.57
The only postive of the night was that I got some nice experience in making and playing straights. I've realised that I get rather too attached to the idea of drawing on an open-end or double belly-buster straight or to a flush, which costs me when they don't hit. But when it's been made cheap enough to draw to, the straight is a great hand because it's much less obvious than the flush. Any fool can count three of a suit on the board, but when there's [K, 9, 6, 5] rainbow there's not too many people holding a King who are scared of [8,7]!
So, my focus now is going to be maintaining discipline and assessing the actual pot odds when deciding on whether to call on a draw. Implied odds obviously matter here too, no point calling a bet if it's going to mean either myself or the bettor being all-in because then there's no extra turn/river bet to profit from. Chasing draws when I DON'T have good pot odds is definitely a leak for me at the moment, my last few stupid big losses were all from chasing straights and flushes that didn't materialise.
Tuesday, I was still pretty tired, but didn't actually play too badly. I didn't play as much as I could have, mainly due to connection problems on Party. Then when I finally got back on, every 3 hands the table I was on got taken down for maintenance! So, with the various hassles I kind of didn't realise that I'd made money until I added it up today. Sadly it wasn't enough to fully reverse the horrible loss on Monday, but at least I'm now quite as down as I could have been.
I've put up two hands from Tuesday, the first I thought was fun just from the fortuitous appearance of three big hands all in one pot. (click to see hand)
Big Pair Three-way
#Game No : 6439161545
***** Hand History for Game 6439161545 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, October 23, 15:58:45 ET 2007
Table Table 127739 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 3: x__BShark__x ( $4.55 USD )
Seat 5: LEKDJ ( $1.23 USD )
Seat 7: reno_man001 ( $5.10 USD )
Seat 8: TS99_87 ( $5.94 USD )
Seat 9: peck3r ( $3.18 USD )
Seat 10: DavidLarsen ( $6.98 USD )
Seat 4: e_r_c ( $2.92 USD )
Seat 6: Dixvins ( $2.68 USD )
Seat 1: Nextone7777 ( $1.92 USD )
Seat 2: HoneyJar ( $4.96 USD )
HoneyJar posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
x__BShark__x posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Ad Ac ]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
LEKDJ folds
Dixvins folds
reno_man001 raises [$0.08 USD]
TS99_87 folds
peck3r folds
DavidLarsen calls [$0.08 USD]
Nextone7777 folds
HoneyJar folds
x__BShark__x calls [$0.04 USD]
e_r_c raises [$0.46 USD]
reno_man001 calls [$0.42 USD]
DavidLarsen calls [$0.42 USD]
x__BShark__x folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4c, 8s, Tc ]
e_r_c is all-In [$2.42 USD]
reno_man001 calls [$2.42 USD]
DavidLarsen: QQ
DavidLarsen folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qs ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
e_r_c shows [ Ad, Ac ]a pair of Aces.
reno_man001 shows [ Kc, Kh ]a pair of Kings.
e_r_c wins $6.12 USD from the main pot with a pair of Aces.
DavidLarsen: grrr!!!
I think I played the above hand pretty well. On the flop I moved in for the following reasons. First, with a rags flop and with the level of preflop betting I didn't think anyone would have stayed in with a pocket pair below Jacks. I also didn't want to be second-guessing myself too much on the turn and river, so getting my money in while I was most likely ahead seemed the best plan.
It was fortunate for me I did, as you can see if I'd slowplayed the hand at all then DavidLarsen would have stolen it on the turn.
Another lesson in not slowplaying Aces was my final pot of the night, alonlu123's weak bet on the flop makes it worth me seeing the turn with my middle pair /overcard and I get some nice help and break him.
Cracking Aces
#Game No : 6439576391
***** Hand History for Game 6439576391 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, October 23, 18:55:37 ET 2007
Table Table 126296 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: Carsten1081 ( $3.65 USD )
Seat 5: JanssonJ ( $0.29 USD )
Seat 6: alonlu123 ( $1.54 USD )
Seat 2: geordie_dave ( $4.25 USD )
Seat 4: hansdampf101 ( $4.04 USD )
Seat 8: chrizbradley ( $4.28 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $5.04 USD )
Seat 7: johoy ( $3.29 USD )
Seat 10: LuxStyle ( $5.37 USD )
hansdampf101 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
alonlu123 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 6c Ac ]
johoy folds
chrizbradley raises [$0.12 USD]
LuxStyle folds
Carsten1081 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.12 USD]
hansdampf101 did not respond in time
hansdampf101 folds
alonlu123 raises [$0.16 USD]
chrizbradley calls [$0.08 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.08 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, 6h, 2h ]
alonlu123 bets [$0.24 USD]
chrizbradley calls [$0.24 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.24 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6d ]
alonlu123 bets [$0.48 USD]
chrizbradley calls [$0.48 USD]
Knifkator has joined the table.
e_r_c raises [$2.20 USD]
alonlu123 is all-In [$0.62 USD]
chrizbradley folds
** Dealing River ** [ Jh ]
e_r_c shows [ 6c, Ac ]three of a kind, Sixes.
alonlu123 doesn't show [ Ad, As ]two pairs, Aces and Sixes.
e_r_c wins $1.10 USD from side pot #1 with three of a kind, Sixes.
e_r_c wins $3.82 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Sixes.
This Week: -$1.17
Total: $53.57
Sunday, 21 October 2007
sunday suckouts!
Sunday I sat down to play after quite a heavy night on Saturday, and wondered whether playing while tired and hungover was the best idea. I quickly got an answer when I rapidly destroyed my first buy-in with some horrible, horrible play.
I rebought back in and slowly, slowly inched my way back up to break even point, occasionally slipping back down a couple of dollars. To be honest, I never really felt like I got into the flow of the game. I was picking up small pots but never really connecting with a big hand.
Anyway, I eventually made my way up by about a dollar and was ready to call it a day, when I got dealt a pair of Jacks, and the player to my left pushed all-in on pre-flop. Normally I'd have dropped the hand, but the very hand before the same player had responded to my preflop raise by pushing all-in, so I was sceptical about the strength of his hand. This was a mistake on my part, as he turned over a pair of Aces! However, it seems the poker gods had decided I was due to some payback after getting sucked out on in previous occasions, see below...
(I'm experimenting with hiding the full hand history to reduce page length, click the link to show it)
***** Hand History for Game 6432882848 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, October 21, 12:58:39 ET 2007
Table Table 130758 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 6: e_r_c ( $6.03 USD )
Seat 3: gamerno ( $1.17 USD )
Seat 5: Schlotzinger ( $1.73 USD )
Seat 1: Hectorleduxe ( $1.41 USD )
Seat 10: Simply1303 ( $1.19 USD )
Seat 8: vonschlagt ( $4.80 USD )
Seat 7: vesa9800 ( $3.19 USD )
Seat 2: starbuckmaus ( $2.09 USD )
Seat 4: linkku70 ( $2.34 USD )
Seat 9: krzmn ( $2 USD )
gamerno posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
linkku70 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Jh Js ]
Schlotzinger folds
e_r_c raises [$0.12 USD]
vesa9800 folds
vonschlagt folds
krzmn folds
Simply1303 folds
Hectorleduxe folds
starbuckmaus calls [$0.12 USD]
gamerno folds
linkku70 is all-In [$2.30 USD]
e_r_c calls [$2.22 USD]
starbuckmaus folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jd, Jc, Td ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qd ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
e_r_c shows [ Jh, Js ]four of a kind, Jacks.
linkku70 doesn't show [ Ac, Ad ]a flush, Ace high.
e_r_c wins $4.58 USD from the main pot with four of a kind, Jacks.
Week's Total: $13.30
Total: $54.74
I rebought back in and slowly, slowly inched my way back up to break even point, occasionally slipping back down a couple of dollars. To be honest, I never really felt like I got into the flow of the game. I was picking up small pots but never really connecting with a big hand.
Anyway, I eventually made my way up by about a dollar and was ready to call it a day, when I got dealt a pair of Jacks, and the player to my left pushed all-in on pre-flop. Normally I'd have dropped the hand, but the very hand before the same player had responded to my preflop raise by pushing all-in, so I was sceptical about the strength of his hand. This was a mistake on my part, as he turned over a pair of Aces! However, it seems the poker gods had decided I was due to some payback after getting sucked out on in previous occasions, see below...
(I'm experimenting with hiding the full hand history to reduce page length, click the link to show it)
JJ v AA suckout
***** Hand History for Game 6432882848 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, October 21, 12:58:39 ET 2007
Table Table 130758 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 6: e_r_c ( $6.03 USD )
Seat 3: gamerno ( $1.17 USD )
Seat 5: Schlotzinger ( $1.73 USD )
Seat 1: Hectorleduxe ( $1.41 USD )
Seat 10: Simply1303 ( $1.19 USD )
Seat 8: vonschlagt ( $4.80 USD )
Seat 7: vesa9800 ( $3.19 USD )
Seat 2: starbuckmaus ( $2.09 USD )
Seat 4: linkku70 ( $2.34 USD )
Seat 9: krzmn ( $2 USD )
gamerno posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
linkku70 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Jh Js ]
Schlotzinger folds
e_r_c raises [$0.12 USD]
vesa9800 folds
vonschlagt folds
krzmn folds
Simply1303 folds
Hectorleduxe folds
starbuckmaus calls [$0.12 USD]
gamerno folds
linkku70 is all-In [$2.30 USD]
e_r_c calls [$2.22 USD]
starbuckmaus folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jd, Jc, Td ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Qd ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
e_r_c shows [ Jh, Js ]four of a kind, Jacks.
linkku70 doesn't show [ Ac, Ad ]a flush, Ace high.
e_r_c wins $4.58 USD from the main pot with four of a kind, Jacks.
Week's Total: $13.30
Total: $54.74
Thursday, 18 October 2007
taking all donations...
I've had some positive few sessions since my last post, with a particularly profitable session tonight. Over the weekend through to Monday I had a lot of fun, very swingy play where I doubled up a good few times but busted out almost as much! Some of it was horrible suck-outs and some of it was just my own foolishness but I turned a small profit and enjoyed myself while doing it.
The last two sessions I've played a lot tighter and so suffered a lot less in the way of swing. Wednesday I had a terrible run of hands, never really hitting a big hand throughout. In a way though, it was very good for me, because I still ended up in profit. I think I'm finally getting towards the point where I've got the confidence to go out and grab the small pots, but with the discipline to drop more troublesome hands. Well, mostly...
Anyway, the nice profit margin I have couldn't have happened without a few guys who decided to throw their money at me. So here's a few special mentions:
Firstly Dragoonee, who was a big contributor to tonight's $7.25 profit. Maybe it's just me, but when there's 3 of a suit on the board I slow right down. Just after this pot he said 'fuck you' and fled the table, and I felt a twinge of pity for him, thinking he must have been unlucky with a lower-card flush like Jack/Queen-high. Then I saw what he actually had and all pity disappeared.
#Game No : 6424315032
***** Hand History for Game 6424315032 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, October 18, 16:09:34 ET 2007
Table Table 129355 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: SteveWarris ( $6.44 USD )
Seat 7: Ryoken86 ( $5.81 USD )
Seat 8: Michel1804 ( $3.24 USD )
Seat 9: BigBobbel ( $4.98 USD )
Seat 10: jam27222 ( $1.91 USD )
Seat 1: e_r_c ( $6.63 USD )
Seat 3: GibMir23 ( $4.96 USD )
Seat 6: amber2007111 ( $2.42 USD )
Seat 5: jonez113 ( $1.68 USD )
Seat 4: Dragoonee ( $4.96 USD )
GibMir23 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Dragoonee posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Ac 5c ]
jonez113 calls [$0.04 USD]
amber2007111 folds
Ryoken86 folds
Michel1804 folds
BigBobbel folds
jam27222 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
SteveWarris folds
GibMir23 calls [$0.02 USD]
Dragoonee checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2c, 3d, Kc ]
GibMir23 checks
Dragoonee bets [$0.16 USD]
jonez113 calls [$0.16 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.16 USD]
GibMir23 folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6c ]
Dragoonee bets [$0.72 USD]
jonez113 calls [$0.72 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.72 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Qd ]
Dragoonee bets [$1.60 USD]
jonez113 folds
e_r_c raises [$3.20 USD]
Dragoonee calls [$1.60 USD]
e_r_c shows [ Ac, 5c ]a flush, Ace high.
Dragoonee doesn't show [ Ks, 3s ]two pairs, Kings and Threes.
e_r_c wins $8.74 USD from the main pot with a flush, Ace high.
But my 1st prize goes to Suisse444! Let's look at quite possibly to worst ever example of a time to get your money in:
***** Hand History for Game 6411081455 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, October 14, 09:28:10 ET 2007
Table Table 129296 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: allende5 ( $6.93 USD )
Seat 2: e_r_c ( $5.42 USD )
Seat 6: AlKuhl ( $5 USD )
Seat 8: Nightmare508 ( $2.06 USD )
Seat 10: Europa180g ( $4.96 USD )
Seat 5: kingelvo ( $2.51 USD )
Seat 3: Suisse444 ( $3.89 USD )
Seat 7: coccinella82 ( $4.92 USD )
Seat 9: PartyMaus20 ( $2.36 USD )
Seat 4: henri2912 ( $1.76 USD )
Europa180g posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
allende5 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kh Kc ]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
Suisse444 calls [$0.04 USD]
henri2912 folds
kingelvo raises [$0.20 USD]
AlKuhl folds
coccinella82 folds
Nightmare508 calls [$0.20 USD]
PartyMaus20 folds
Europa180g calls [$0.18 USD]
allende5 folds
e_r_c raises [$0.68 USD]
Suisse444 calls [$0.68 USD]
kingelvo is all-In [$2.31 USD]
Nightmare508 folds
Europa180g folds
e_r_c calls [$1.79 USD]
Suisse444 is all-In [$3.17 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1.38 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 2h, Td ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9d ]
** Dealing River ** [ 5d ]
e_r_c shows [ Kh, Kc ]a pair of Kings.
Suisse444 doesn't show [ Ks, 4c ]high card King.
kingelvo shows [ Qh, Qd ]a flush, Queen high.
e_r_c wins $2.62 USD from side pot #1 with a pair of Kings.
kingelvo wins $7.58 USD from the main pot with a flush, Queen high.
Now, as you can see, I get horribly sucked out on in this pot. But, luckily for me, I had Suisse444 to make sure I didn't leave empty-handed. Let's look - I'm UTG so I call and hope to get raised, which kingelvo obliges. With another couple of callers I know I can raise fairly large, and do so. Now, Suisse444 has a double raise to face, and he calls. I don't know what he's thinking at this point, since he has a trash hand. A big re-raise might have made sense as an audacious steal attempt, but a call? Things just get worse, as kingelvo moves all-in. I'm pretty sure I've got the best hand so it's an easy call from my point of view. But then Suisse444 pushes all-in too.
Now, what can he really gain from this? If I fold, there's no extra sidepot past what kingevol's put in, and you can't shove someone who's already all-in. He's a huge dog to pretty much any hand.
Of course with the way that board went, if he'd held the other King he'd have walked away with the whole pot, in one of the greatest suckouts in poker history!
So, thank you Suisse444 for my $2.62 donation, I really hope to see you again sometime!
This week: $10.04
Total: $51.48
The last two sessions I've played a lot tighter and so suffered a lot less in the way of swing. Wednesday I had a terrible run of hands, never really hitting a big hand throughout. In a way though, it was very good for me, because I still ended up in profit. I think I'm finally getting towards the point where I've got the confidence to go out and grab the small pots, but with the discipline to drop more troublesome hands. Well, mostly...
Anyway, the nice profit margin I have couldn't have happened without a few guys who decided to throw their money at me. So here's a few special mentions:
Firstly Dragoonee, who was a big contributor to tonight's $7.25 profit. Maybe it's just me, but when there's 3 of a suit on the board I slow right down. Just after this pot he said 'fuck you' and fled the table, and I felt a twinge of pity for him, thinking he must have been unlucky with a lower-card flush like Jack/Queen-high. Then I saw what he actually had and all pity disappeared.
#Game No : 6424315032
***** Hand History for Game 6424315032 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, October 18, 16:09:34 ET 2007
Table Table 129355 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: SteveWarris ( $6.44 USD )
Seat 7: Ryoken86 ( $5.81 USD )
Seat 8: Michel1804 ( $3.24 USD )
Seat 9: BigBobbel ( $4.98 USD )
Seat 10: jam27222 ( $1.91 USD )
Seat 1: e_r_c ( $6.63 USD )
Seat 3: GibMir23 ( $4.96 USD )
Seat 6: amber2007111 ( $2.42 USD )
Seat 5: jonez113 ( $1.68 USD )
Seat 4: Dragoonee ( $4.96 USD )
GibMir23 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Dragoonee posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Ac 5c ]
jonez113 calls [$0.04 USD]
amber2007111 folds
Ryoken86 folds
Michel1804 folds
BigBobbel folds
jam27222 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
SteveWarris folds
GibMir23 calls [$0.02 USD]
Dragoonee checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2c, 3d, Kc ]
GibMir23 checks
Dragoonee bets [$0.16 USD]
jonez113 calls [$0.16 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.16 USD]
GibMir23 folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6c ]
Dragoonee bets [$0.72 USD]
jonez113 calls [$0.72 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.72 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Qd ]
Dragoonee bets [$1.60 USD]
jonez113 folds
e_r_c raises [$3.20 USD]
Dragoonee calls [$1.60 USD]
e_r_c shows [ Ac, 5c ]a flush, Ace high.
Dragoonee doesn't show [ Ks, 3s ]two pairs, Kings and Threes.
e_r_c wins $8.74 USD from the main pot with a flush, Ace high.
But my 1st prize goes to Suisse444! Let's look at quite possibly to worst ever example of a time to get your money in:
***** Hand History for Game 6411081455 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, October 14, 09:28:10 ET 2007
Table Table 129296 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: allende5 ( $6.93 USD )
Seat 2: e_r_c ( $5.42 USD )
Seat 6: AlKuhl ( $5 USD )
Seat 8: Nightmare508 ( $2.06 USD )
Seat 10: Europa180g ( $4.96 USD )
Seat 5: kingelvo ( $2.51 USD )
Seat 3: Suisse444 ( $3.89 USD )
Seat 7: coccinella82 ( $4.92 USD )
Seat 9: PartyMaus20 ( $2.36 USD )
Seat 4: henri2912 ( $1.76 USD )
Europa180g posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
allende5 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kh Kc ]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
Suisse444 calls [$0.04 USD]
henri2912 folds
kingelvo raises [$0.20 USD]
AlKuhl folds
coccinella82 folds
Nightmare508 calls [$0.20 USD]
PartyMaus20 folds
Europa180g calls [$0.18 USD]
allende5 folds
e_r_c raises [$0.68 USD]
Suisse444 calls [$0.68 USD]
kingelvo is all-In [$2.31 USD]
Nightmare508 folds
Europa180g folds
e_r_c calls [$1.79 USD]
Suisse444 is all-In [$3.17 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1.38 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 2h, Td ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9d ]
** Dealing River ** [ 5d ]
e_r_c shows [ Kh, Kc ]a pair of Kings.
Suisse444 doesn't show [ Ks, 4c ]high card King.
kingelvo shows [ Qh, Qd ]a flush, Queen high.
e_r_c wins $2.62 USD from side pot #1 with a pair of Kings.
kingelvo wins $7.58 USD from the main pot with a flush, Queen high.
Now, as you can see, I get horribly sucked out on in this pot. But, luckily for me, I had Suisse444 to make sure I didn't leave empty-handed. Let's look - I'm UTG so I call and hope to get raised, which kingelvo obliges. With another couple of callers I know I can raise fairly large, and do so. Now, Suisse444 has a double raise to face, and he calls. I don't know what he's thinking at this point, since he has a trash hand. A big re-raise might have made sense as an audacious steal attempt, but a call? Things just get worse, as kingelvo moves all-in. I'm pretty sure I've got the best hand so it's an easy call from my point of view. But then Suisse444 pushes all-in too.
Now, what can he really gain from this? If I fold, there's no extra sidepot past what kingevol's put in, and you can't shove someone who's already all-in. He's a huge dog to pretty much any hand.
Of course with the way that board went, if he'd held the other King he'd have walked away with the whole pot, in one of the greatest suckouts in poker history!
So, thank you Suisse444 for my $2.62 donation, I really hope to see you again sometime!
This week: $10.04
Total: $51.48
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
a new goal, and some very swingy play
This week is the start of my new plan to try and set a firm goal to focus on in my poker. I figure that I'll never get anywhere if just allow myself to just splash around in the very shallows. With that in mind I decided to set myself a target. If I can get my bankroll up to above $100 then I'll move myself up to the higher stake tables. I reckon if I've got something to aim for it will give me a bit more drive and purpose.
So, I've played two sessions this week so far, both of them being profitable, although with the latter session it was a very close run thing!
Once again I've still not learned to get out while ahead, quickly doubling up from my $3 buy-in, then almost as quickly throwing almost all of it away again. A good chunk of it I lost in one hand by giving my opponent too much credit. I'd limped in on the big blind with 8-6o and turned a set of sixes, and lost my money not pinning someone on thinking J-6 was a worth paying to go in with!
As for how I bounced back from $1.50, I've got to hold my hand up and admit to a fair chunk of luck on my part. See below and shake your head at my foolish and fortunate play.
#Game No : 6400222027
***** Hand History for Game 6400222027 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, October 10, 16:24:07 ET 2007
Table Table 127105 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 3: DownHigher ( $5.88 USD )
Seat 9: rodrigoont ( $3.15 USD )
Seat 1: e_r_c ( $1.49 USD )
Seat 5: maestrul05 ( $5.57 USD )
Seat 4: sirexim111 ( $6.98 USD )
Seat 10: macalderini ( $6.54 USD )
Seat 6: tetraspack ( $5.14 USD )
Seat 7: MagicJ444 ( $5.04 USD )
Seat 2: Anagarih ( $3.90 USD )
maestrul05 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
tetraspack posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 9c Ts ]
MagicJ444 folds
rodrigoont folds
macalderini folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
Pract1ce has joined the table.
Anagarih raises [$0.20 USD]
DownHigher folds
sirexim111 folds
maestrul05 folds
tetraspack folds
e_r_c calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Js, 5d, 7h ]
e_r_c checks
Anagarih bets [$0.30 USD]
e_r_c raises [$1.28 USD]
Anagarih raises [$1.96 USD]
e_r_c is all-In [$0.01 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8c ]
** Dealing River ** [ Ah ]
Anagarih shows [ Ad, Ks ]a pair of Aces.
e_r_c shows [ 9c, Ts ]a straight Seven to Jack.
Anagarih wins $0.97 USD from side pot #1 with a pair of Aces.
e_r_c wins $2.89 USD from the main pot with a straight, Seven to Jack.
So, yep I pretty much had no more than 4 outs when I moved in and if I hadn't hit the Eight (or a Nine or Ten technically, since my opponent didn't have a made hand himself) I'd have been broke. My justification is that I was more betting on him dropping his hand, rather than betting on making the straight. Even so it wasn't the smartest play ever, even if it did get me back in the game on this occasion.
As for then doubling up, I had the help of a player who got very excited when his KQ saw a AKQ flop. Shame I had AQ...
So, I'm going to keep track of my wins/losses once more. I've started from a $33ish bankroll, so there's a good way to go to get to $100! Wish me luck...
This week: $5.25
Total: $39.09
So, I've played two sessions this week so far, both of them being profitable, although with the latter session it was a very close run thing!
Once again I've still not learned to get out while ahead, quickly doubling up from my $3 buy-in, then almost as quickly throwing almost all of it away again. A good chunk of it I lost in one hand by giving my opponent too much credit. I'd limped in on the big blind with 8-6o and turned a set of sixes, and lost my money not pinning someone on thinking J-6 was a worth paying to go in with!
As for how I bounced back from $1.50, I've got to hold my hand up and admit to a fair chunk of luck on my part. See below and shake your head at my foolish and fortunate play.
#Game No : 6400222027
***** Hand History for Game 6400222027 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, October 10, 16:24:07 ET 2007
Table Table 127105 (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 3: DownHigher ( $5.88 USD )
Seat 9: rodrigoont ( $3.15 USD )
Seat 1: e_r_c ( $1.49 USD )
Seat 5: maestrul05 ( $5.57 USD )
Seat 4: sirexim111 ( $6.98 USD )
Seat 10: macalderini ( $6.54 USD )
Seat 6: tetraspack ( $5.14 USD )
Seat 7: MagicJ444 ( $5.04 USD )
Seat 2: Anagarih ( $3.90 USD )
maestrul05 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
tetraspack posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 9c Ts ]
MagicJ444 folds
rodrigoont folds
macalderini folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
Pract1ce has joined the table.
Anagarih raises [$0.20 USD]
DownHigher folds
sirexim111 folds
maestrul05 folds
tetraspack folds
e_r_c calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Js, 5d, 7h ]
e_r_c checks
Anagarih bets [$0.30 USD]
e_r_c raises [$1.28 USD]
Anagarih raises [$1.96 USD]
e_r_c is all-In [$0.01 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8c ]
** Dealing River ** [ Ah ]
Anagarih shows [ Ad, Ks ]a pair of Aces.
e_r_c shows [ 9c, Ts ]a straight Seven to Jack.
Anagarih wins $0.97 USD from side pot #1 with a pair of Aces.
e_r_c wins $2.89 USD from the main pot with a straight, Seven to Jack.
So, yep I pretty much had no more than 4 outs when I moved in and if I hadn't hit the Eight (or a Nine or Ten technically, since my opponent didn't have a made hand himself) I'd have been broke. My justification is that I was more betting on him dropping his hand, rather than betting on making the straight. Even so it wasn't the smartest play ever, even if it did get me back in the game on this occasion.
As for then doubling up, I had the help of a player who got very excited when his KQ saw a AKQ flop. Shame I had AQ...
So, I'm going to keep track of my wins/losses once more. I've started from a $33ish bankroll, so there's a good way to go to get to $100! Wish me luck...
This week: $5.25
Total: $39.09
Monday, 1 October 2007
definitively on tilt
I haven't posted for a while, partly because I didn't play for a bit, but then latterly because I've finished most sessions feeling pretty despondent. The last half dozen sessions I've played I've ended up down, usually to the tune of at least one buy-in ($5).
Some of it I can put down to bad luck - getting Aces cracked on the river by Queens, or AK being sucked out by A5, but that doesn't explain away most of it. I've diagnosed a huge leak as getting into pots with 'trouble hands'. I was re-reading Brunson and had an epiphany that most of the hands I'd lost a big chunk on were listed in his 'trouble hands' section. In particular AJ - I think that hand alone has cost me about $10!
So, tonight I resolved to tighten up. I wrote down notes on playing each hand type and made sure to put a big box around all the trouble hands to remind me. With this new, sensible style I was feeling confident....
...I lost my stack again, plus most of almost all of a smaller buy-in. Fittingly a chunk of it was on AJ, but in my defense, I did have 2 pairs when I got nailed by the flush draw.
Weirdly, I actually seem to do worse when I tighten up - I think because by playing fewer hands I'm picking up fewer small pots when no-one hits on the flop. Although, crucially, I seem to have forgotten how to get value out a hand when I have one. I can't remember the last big hand that I was in where I got all my money in and got paid off, with the exception of when I've already been knocked down to a short stack and so 'all-my-money' is about $1.80. Twice I've had quads in the last two days and got not much more than $1 for them each time. A lot of the time that's just luck in not having an opponent with a good hand to bet at, but it still adds up to me losing big and winning small, which is not the correct way round!
Anyway, I clearly need to really look at how I play. I need to sit down and actually work out whether my bluffs are costing me more than they're making, whether I'm playing good hands too fast or too slow, in particular whether I'm paying too much on chasing draws. And I need to fix it soon before I run out of money...
UPDATE: A history of one of the last hands I played tonight:
#Game No : 6375758021
***** Hand History for Game 6375758021 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, October 01, 19:26:01 ET 2007
Table Table 130478 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 4: e_r_c ( $0.54 USD )
Seat 2: psycow777 ( $5.04 USD )
Seat 1: LeonOrellano ( $7.53 USD )
Seat 9: Ocean53 ( $5.82 USD )
Seat 10: neato451 ( $6.17 USD )
Seat 3: Jan145111 ( $4.94 USD )
Seat 5: Hurdy_G ( $4.94 USD )
Seat 8: akrde ( $5 USD )
Seat 7: Tante_Kaete ( $2.16 USD )
Seat 6: korningg ( $0 USD )
akrde posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Ocean53 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Td 2s ]
neato451 folds
korningg has joined the table.
LeonOrellano folds
psycow777 folds
Jan145111 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
Hurdy_G folds
Tante_Kaete folds
akrde calls [$0.02 USD]
Ocean53 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ac, Jc, 8c ]
akrde checks
Ocean53 checks
e_r_c bets [$0.12 USD]
akrde folds
Ocean53 folds
e_r_c shows [ Td, 2s ]high card Ace.
e_r_c wins $0.24 USD from the main pot with high card, Ace.
psycow777: cool
e_r_c: that was my homage to doyle brunson
Some of it I can put down to bad luck - getting Aces cracked on the river by Queens, or AK being sucked out by A5, but that doesn't explain away most of it. I've diagnosed a huge leak as getting into pots with 'trouble hands'. I was re-reading Brunson and had an epiphany that most of the hands I'd lost a big chunk on were listed in his 'trouble hands' section. In particular AJ - I think that hand alone has cost me about $10!
So, tonight I resolved to tighten up. I wrote down notes on playing each hand type and made sure to put a big box around all the trouble hands to remind me. With this new, sensible style I was feeling confident....
...I lost my stack again, plus most of almost all of a smaller buy-in. Fittingly a chunk of it was on AJ, but in my defense, I did have 2 pairs when I got nailed by the flush draw.
Weirdly, I actually seem to do worse when I tighten up - I think because by playing fewer hands I'm picking up fewer small pots when no-one hits on the flop. Although, crucially, I seem to have forgotten how to get value out a hand when I have one. I can't remember the last big hand that I was in where I got all my money in and got paid off, with the exception of when I've already been knocked down to a short stack and so 'all-my-money' is about $1.80. Twice I've had quads in the last two days and got not much more than $1 for them each time. A lot of the time that's just luck in not having an opponent with a good hand to bet at, but it still adds up to me losing big and winning small, which is not the correct way round!
Anyway, I clearly need to really look at how I play. I need to sit down and actually work out whether my bluffs are costing me more than they're making, whether I'm playing good hands too fast or too slow, in particular whether I'm paying too much on chasing draws. And I need to fix it soon before I run out of money...
UPDATE: A history of one of the last hands I played tonight:
#Game No : 6375758021
***** Hand History for Game 6375758021 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, October 01, 19:26:01 ET 2007
Table Table 130478 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 4: e_r_c ( $0.54 USD )
Seat 2: psycow777 ( $5.04 USD )
Seat 1: LeonOrellano ( $7.53 USD )
Seat 9: Ocean53 ( $5.82 USD )
Seat 10: neato451 ( $6.17 USD )
Seat 3: Jan145111 ( $4.94 USD )
Seat 5: Hurdy_G ( $4.94 USD )
Seat 8: akrde ( $5 USD )
Seat 7: Tante_Kaete ( $2.16 USD )
Seat 6: korningg ( $0 USD )
akrde posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Ocean53 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Td 2s ]
neato451 folds
korningg has joined the table.
LeonOrellano folds
psycow777 folds
Jan145111 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
Hurdy_G folds
Tante_Kaete folds
akrde calls [$0.02 USD]
Ocean53 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ac, Jc, 8c ]
akrde checks
Ocean53 checks
e_r_c bets [$0.12 USD]
akrde folds
Ocean53 folds
e_r_c shows [ Td, 2s ]high card Ace.
e_r_c wins $0.24 USD from the main pot with high card, Ace.
psycow777: cool
e_r_c: that was my homage to doyle brunson
Friday, 7 September 2007
Most. Frustrating. Session. Ever
Still pretty pissed off about last night's session, so will keep it brief.
Joined a table, found out it was quite aggressive.
Lost a little but adapted my game, tightened up and was slowly increasing my stack again.
#Game No : 6303999019
***** Hand History for Game 6303999019 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, September 06, 14:14:42 ET 2007
Table Table 125858 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: ksgv111 ( $1.86 USD )
Seat 4: epikor ( $1.84 USD )
Seat 6: StefanWuijts ( $5.24 USD )
Seat 9: LuLu5777 ( $3.46 USD )
Seat 10: sooldsogood ( $4.93 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $3.84 USD )
Seat 5: winny88 ( $2.92 USD )
Seat 7: Europa180g ( $4.94 USD )
Seat 1: pairof_aces ( $2 USD )
Seat 8: magic_hand89 ( $2.50 USD )
ksgv111 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
e_r_c posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kh Kc ]
winny88 calls [$0.04 USD]
StefanWuijts calls [$0.04 USD]
Europa180g calls [$0.04 USD]
LuLu5777 folds
ksgv111 calls [$0.02 USD]
e_r_c raises [$0.20 USD]
winny88 calls [$0.20 USD]
StefanWuijts calls [$0.20 USD]
Europa180g calls [$0.20 USD]
ksgv111 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5d, Jd, 5h ]
e_r_c bets [$0.72 USD]
winny88 is all-In [$2.68 USD]
StefanWuijts folds
Europa180g folds
e_r_c calls [$1.96 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]
e_r_c shows [ Kh, Kc ]two pairs, Kings and Fives.
winny88 shows [ 7d, 7h ]a full house, Sevens full of Fives.
winny88 wins $6.05 USD from the main pot with a full house, Sevens full of Fives.
StefanWuijts: WOW suckout
e_r_c: every goddamn time
Was dealt KK, raised preflop and got a few callers. The flop came 5-J-5. I bet and got moved in on. Thought for a bit and put him on two pair, so called.
He turned over Sevens, I'd got him trapped. Only 2 cards in the pack could save him.
Nothing to help on the Turn.
Then comes the river, and another fucking Seven drops. All of my money except for $0.90 gets pushed over to the idiot.
I know this shouldn't bother me, and that the odds were 11.5:1 against him. Which means we play that hand over again a few times and I'm going to bankrupt him over and over. But twice in two sessions I've been sucked out on like that, and it chafes.
I didn't rebuy because I thought I'd probably not be thinking properly after that. Managed to waver around the $1-2 mark for a while, then threw it all away on a silly bluff when my tea was ready! I do still have a bit of a fatalistic mentality when I drop below $2, I get like I need to win big or crash out, can't just walk away with that meagre amount. Which is ridiculous really, and will add up to quite a lot of unnecessary lost money over time.
Joined a table, found out it was quite aggressive.
Lost a little but adapted my game, tightened up and was slowly increasing my stack again.
#Game No : 6303999019
***** Hand History for Game 6303999019 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, September 06, 14:14:42 ET 2007
Table Table 125858 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: ksgv111 ( $1.86 USD )
Seat 4: epikor ( $1.84 USD )
Seat 6: StefanWuijts ( $5.24 USD )
Seat 9: LuLu5777 ( $3.46 USD )
Seat 10: sooldsogood ( $4.93 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $3.84 USD )
Seat 5: winny88 ( $2.92 USD )
Seat 7: Europa180g ( $4.94 USD )
Seat 1: pairof_aces ( $2 USD )
Seat 8: magic_hand89 ( $2.50 USD )
ksgv111 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
e_r_c posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kh Kc ]
winny88 calls [$0.04 USD]
StefanWuijts calls [$0.04 USD]
Europa180g calls [$0.04 USD]
LuLu5777 folds
ksgv111 calls [$0.02 USD]
e_r_c raises [$0.20 USD]
winny88 calls [$0.20 USD]
StefanWuijts calls [$0.20 USD]
Europa180g calls [$0.20 USD]
ksgv111 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5d, Jd, 5h ]
e_r_c bets [$0.72 USD]
winny88 is all-In [$2.68 USD]
StefanWuijts folds
Europa180g folds
e_r_c calls [$1.96 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]
e_r_c shows [ Kh, Kc ]two pairs, Kings and Fives.
winny88 shows [ 7d, 7h ]a full house, Sevens full of Fives.
winny88 wins $6.05 USD from the main pot with a full house, Sevens full of Fives.
StefanWuijts: WOW suckout
e_r_c: every goddamn time
Was dealt KK, raised preflop and got a few callers. The flop came 5-J-5. I bet and got moved in on. Thought for a bit and put him on two pair, so called.
He turned over Sevens, I'd got him trapped. Only 2 cards in the pack could save him.
Nothing to help on the Turn.
Then comes the river, and another fucking Seven drops. All of my money except for $0.90 gets pushed over to the idiot.
I know this shouldn't bother me, and that the odds were 11.5:1 against him. Which means we play that hand over again a few times and I'm going to bankrupt him over and over. But twice in two sessions I've been sucked out on like that, and it chafes.
I didn't rebuy because I thought I'd probably not be thinking properly after that. Managed to waver around the $1-2 mark for a while, then threw it all away on a silly bluff when my tea was ready! I do still have a bit of a fatalistic mentality when I drop below $2, I get like I need to win big or crash out, can't just walk away with that meagre amount. Which is ridiculous really, and will add up to quite a lot of unnecessary lost money over time.
Monday, 3 September 2007
Some (slighty expensive) experimentation
This is a week of experimentation for me. After a weekend visiting friends, suffering a courageous defeat in the first round of our poker night, and borrowing Doyle Brunson's Super System from Steve, I was in the mood to try mixing up my play style a little.
So, Monday night I put in a fairly long session, trying out a more agressive style, including trying to pick-up the smaller pots with a bet when I thought people were unsure on the strength of their hand. I also tried to play two tables at once for the first time. This was for a couple of reasons - I'd considered multi-tabling before as I means to stop myself getting bored and playing marginal hands just for some action, and also I'd received a $20 bonus from PartyPoker on condition of making a certain of party points by the 14th and I thought two tables would help build them up a bit faster.
So, a few different things that I tried, all of which added up to a fairly meaty $15 loss! A third of that was admittedly just on getting sucked out on with all my money in the pot while holding a pair of Aces. The other cretin was holding QQ, and called me on a rags flop with no flush or straight draws for him, only to hit a Q on the river! That doesn't account for the rest of the money I threw away though.
Looking back I think the following things were wrong with my play:
So, all in all not an auspicious start to a new playing style, but I persevered and played another session last night. This time I played just one table again (I looked at the amount of party points I picked up from my lengthy double table session and realised that making the points requirement for the bonus was pretty much impossible without taking the rest of the week off, or jumping up to a higher level table, which I'm nowhere near ready to do!) and I reduced the number of hands that I played in the first place. And, it worked pretty well, ending the session up by $4.70.
I really am appreciating the pick-up tactic, I've been taking down a good number of small pots, and even managed to win some fairly big hands by representing a flush or a straight.
So, feeling good again about my game overall, despite having another $10 to earn to make up for Monday's experiment! The only way is up!*
*DISCLAIMER: Poker winnings may go down as well as up.
So, Monday night I put in a fairly long session, trying out a more agressive style, including trying to pick-up the smaller pots with a bet when I thought people were unsure on the strength of their hand. I also tried to play two tables at once for the first time. This was for a couple of reasons - I'd considered multi-tabling before as I means to stop myself getting bored and playing marginal hands just for some action, and also I'd received a $20 bonus from PartyPoker on condition of making a certain of party points by the 14th and I thought two tables would help build them up a bit faster.
So, a few different things that I tried, all of which added up to a fairly meaty $15 loss! A third of that was admittedly just on getting sucked out on with all my money in the pot while holding a pair of Aces. The other cretin was holding QQ, and called me on a rags flop with no flush or straight draws for him, only to hit a Q on the river! That doesn't account for the rest of the money I threw away though.
Looking back I think the following things were wrong with my play:
- I carried over the very loose play of the weekend's poker game to the cash tables
- Playing multiple tables is a bad idea if you're playing more hands than usual, because then most of the time you're splitting your attention across both tables at once
- Putting in bets to steal the pots did work a surprising amount of times, but then when I got called or raised against I was far too reluctant to drop the money I'd already put in - not a good combination
- Because I was splitting my attention I kept rushing some of my decisions without properly considering my opponent's potential hand / outs
So, all in all not an auspicious start to a new playing style, but I persevered and played another session last night. This time I played just one table again (I looked at the amount of party points I picked up from my lengthy double table session and realised that making the points requirement for the bonus was pretty much impossible without taking the rest of the week off, or jumping up to a higher level table, which I'm nowhere near ready to do!) and I reduced the number of hands that I played in the first place. And, it worked pretty well, ending the session up by $4.70.
I really am appreciating the pick-up tactic, I've been taking down a good number of small pots, and even managed to win some fairly big hands by representing a flush or a straight.
So, feeling good again about my game overall, despite having another $10 to earn to make up for Monday's experiment! The only way is up!*
*DISCLAIMER: Poker winnings may go down as well as up.
Friday, 20 July 2007
feels good!
The last few sessions, although I've felt I'm improving in my play style, I've either been making a loss or just a small profit, so today it feels pretty good to leave with a nice profit which I feel like I earned!
In general I was happy with my play, though I noticed I've started over-using the shove, misjudging the committment of other players, which means I've lost more chips than I needed to when holding a weak hand.
The wins came from two big hands, one of which allowed me to do my first hero call and take the stack of someone trying to buy their way out of the hand.
#Game No : 6167951572
***** Hand History for Game 6167951572 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, July 20, 14:01:35 ET 2007
Table Table 126376 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: umpi1166 ( $5.60 USD )
Seat 7: NoRegretLife ( $5 USD )
Seat 9: Sciter ( $4.47 USD )
Seat 4: markusb0815 ( $2.76 USD )
Seat 2: snappyman ( $1.70 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $4.39 USD )
Seat 6: xsardas ( $7.17 USD )
Seat 5: Pokerlady701 ( $4.76 USD )
Seat 10: Vlim_Zarnas ( $4.88 USD )
Seat 8: Raistlin1976 ( $5 USD )
Vlim_Zarnas posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
umpi1166 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kc Kd ]
snappyman folds
e_r_c raises [$0.12 USD]
markusb0815 calls [$0.12 USD]
Pokerlady701 folds
xsardas folds
NoRegretLife folds
Raistlin1976 folds
Sciter calls [$0.12 USD]
Vlim_Zarnas folds
umpi1166 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4h, 7d, 6c ]
e_r_c bets [$0.20 USD]
markusb0815 calls [$0.20 USD]
Sciter folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]
e_r_c bets [$0.78 USD]
markusb0815 is all-In [$2.44 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1.66 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 2d ]
e_r_c shows [ Kc, Kd ]a pair of Kings.
markusb0815 doesn't show [ Qd, Ah ]high card Ace.
e_r_c wins $5.42 USD from the main pot with a pair of Kings.
As you can see, markusb0815 has a paltry three outs with an Ace after the turn (so that's roughly a 6 - 7% chance of winning the hand) So, he tries to scare me off. I had a moment's pause because I'm always overly cautious when there's any chance of a straight, but I bet on him not have weathered the betting this far if he was holding a low card like a 5 and took it to the showdown. It was a nice feeling!
#Game No : 6167954828
***** Hand History for Game 6167954828 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, July 20, 14:03:05 ET 2007
Table Table 126376 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: umpi1166 ( $5.54 USD )
Seat 7: NoRegretLife ( $5 USD )
Seat 9: Sciter ( $4.27 USD )
Seat 2: snappyman ( $1.70 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $7.22 USD )
Seat 6: xsardas ( $7.17 USD )
Seat 5: Pokerlady701 ( $4.68 USD )
Seat 10: Vlim_Zarnas ( $4.86 USD )
Seat 8: Raistlin1976 ( $5 USD )
Seat 4: Neidomu ( $5 USD )
e_r_c posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Neidomu posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 9c 9d ]
Pokerlady701 raises [$0.08 USD]
xsardas folds
NoRegretLife folds
Raistlin1976 folds
Sciter folds
Vlim_Zarnas raises [$0.16 USD]
umpi1166 calls [$0.16 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.14 USD]
Neidomu folds
Pokerlady701 calls [$0.08 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, 9s, Ad ]
e_r_c bets [$0.40 USD]
Pokerlady701 calls [$0.40 USD]
Vlim_Zarnas folds
umpi1166 calls [$0.40 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2h ]
e_r_c bets [$1 USD]
Pokerlady701 folds
umpi1166 calls [$1 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 3c ]
e_r_c checks
umpi1166 bets [$1.08 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1.08 USD]
umpi1166 shows [ Kh, As ]a pair of Aces.
e_r_c shows [ 9c, 9d ]three of a kind, Nines.
e_r_c wins $5.74 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Nines.
This hand I was quite lucky to get a fair bit of action, with some pre-flop raising and four of us seeing the flop which turned out really nicely for me. Not only did I hit my set, but the Ace there meant people most likely misjudged what I was holding and thought themselves to have a strong hand. To be honest, I was less concerned with the Ace than I was with the ten, because I was fairly sure no-one had pocket Aces, but a pair of Tens in the hole could have been possible. My check on the turn was again down to my irrational fear of straights, as if someone would have called those bets holding 4,5! When he bet I was THIS close to pushing all-in, but I just wasn't quite sure enough.
So, a really satisfying session, which ended doubled up at $10 and has pushed me back up into profit. Vindication! I'm not a terrible poker player after all!
This month's profit: $2.15
In general I was happy with my play, though I noticed I've started over-using the shove, misjudging the committment of other players, which means I've lost more chips than I needed to when holding a weak hand.
The wins came from two big hands, one of which allowed me to do my first hero call and take the stack of someone trying to buy their way out of the hand.
#Game No : 6167951572
***** Hand History for Game 6167951572 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, July 20, 14:01:35 ET 2007
Table Table 126376 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: umpi1166 ( $5.60 USD )
Seat 7: NoRegretLife ( $5 USD )
Seat 9: Sciter ( $4.47 USD )
Seat 4: markusb0815 ( $2.76 USD )
Seat 2: snappyman ( $1.70 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $4.39 USD )
Seat 6: xsardas ( $7.17 USD )
Seat 5: Pokerlady701 ( $4.76 USD )
Seat 10: Vlim_Zarnas ( $4.88 USD )
Seat 8: Raistlin1976 ( $5 USD )
Vlim_Zarnas posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
umpi1166 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kc Kd ]
snappyman folds
e_r_c raises [$0.12 USD]
markusb0815 calls [$0.12 USD]
Pokerlady701 folds
xsardas folds
NoRegretLife folds
Raistlin1976 folds
Sciter calls [$0.12 USD]
Vlim_Zarnas folds
umpi1166 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4h, 7d, 6c ]
e_r_c bets [$0.20 USD]
markusb0815 calls [$0.20 USD]
Sciter folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]
e_r_c bets [$0.78 USD]
markusb0815 is all-In [$2.44 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1.66 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 2d ]
e_r_c shows [ Kc, Kd ]a pair of Kings.
markusb0815 doesn't show [ Qd, Ah ]high card Ace.
e_r_c wins $5.42 USD from the main pot with a pair of Kings.
As you can see, markusb0815 has a paltry three outs with an Ace after the turn (so that's roughly a 6 - 7% chance of winning the hand) So, he tries to scare me off. I had a moment's pause because I'm always overly cautious when there's any chance of a straight, but I bet on him not have weathered the betting this far if he was holding a low card like a 5 and took it to the showdown. It was a nice feeling!
#Game No : 6167954828
***** Hand History for Game 6167954828 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, July 20, 14:03:05 ET 2007
Table Table 126376 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: umpi1166 ( $5.54 USD )
Seat 7: NoRegretLife ( $5 USD )
Seat 9: Sciter ( $4.27 USD )
Seat 2: snappyman ( $1.70 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $7.22 USD )
Seat 6: xsardas ( $7.17 USD )
Seat 5: Pokerlady701 ( $4.68 USD )
Seat 10: Vlim_Zarnas ( $4.86 USD )
Seat 8: Raistlin1976 ( $5 USD )
Seat 4: Neidomu ( $5 USD )
e_r_c posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Neidomu posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 9c 9d ]
Pokerlady701 raises [$0.08 USD]
xsardas folds
NoRegretLife folds
Raistlin1976 folds
Sciter folds
Vlim_Zarnas raises [$0.16 USD]
umpi1166 calls [$0.16 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.14 USD]
Neidomu folds
Pokerlady701 calls [$0.08 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, 9s, Ad ]
e_r_c bets [$0.40 USD]
Pokerlady701 calls [$0.40 USD]
Vlim_Zarnas folds
umpi1166 calls [$0.40 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2h ]
e_r_c bets [$1 USD]
Pokerlady701 folds
umpi1166 calls [$1 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 3c ]
e_r_c checks
umpi1166 bets [$1.08 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1.08 USD]
umpi1166 shows [ Kh, As ]a pair of Aces.
e_r_c shows [ 9c, 9d ]three of a kind, Nines.
e_r_c wins $5.74 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Nines.
This hand I was quite lucky to get a fair bit of action, with some pre-flop raising and four of us seeing the flop which turned out really nicely for me. Not only did I hit my set, but the Ace there meant people most likely misjudged what I was holding and thought themselves to have a strong hand. To be honest, I was less concerned with the Ace than I was with the ten, because I was fairly sure no-one had pocket Aces, but a pair of Tens in the hole could have been possible. My check on the turn was again down to my irrational fear of straights, as if someone would have called those bets holding 4,5! When he bet I was THIS close to pushing all-in, but I just wasn't quite sure enough.
So, a really satisfying session, which ended doubled up at $10 and has pushed me back up into profit. Vindication! I'm not a terrible poker player after all!
This month's profit: $2.15
Thursday, 12 July 2007
Playing better, losing bigger
Well, this month's total is now hovering somewhere around $9 loss, but I'm feeling fairly positive. I had a fun session on Monday where my friend Steve came down from the big leagues to play on the same table as me and give me some tips. To put it in perspective, the maximum buy-in on the tables I play on is the cost of a small blind at his usual level.
Anyway, with a bit of help from Steve, something finally clicked in terms of the betting. I'm being a bit more agressive with placing bets, so that I'm properly rewarded when called, and win a greater number of pots when my opponents are hesitant by taking them down on turn. The downside to this tactic is if my opponent sticks it out and hits something at the river, I lose a lot more than I would have done previously! The session with Steve ended with me losing a good chunk of money when the guy hit a flush on the river after I'd been ahead through the flop and the turn.
Tuesday I did manage to turn a small profit. It was just $0.60 but it felt good because I felt I'd really worked back up from low down (just $1.56 left from a $5 buy-in) to achieve it. I'd gone in and been a little loose and unfocussed at first, which combined with a new more agressive betting style meant I dropped money fairly quickly. Once I tightened up though, I felt a lot better, a lot more in control of each hand than I normally have. Just by assessing when people are not confident in the hand and putting in a small bet rather than checking I was able to arrest the usual slow bleed that I normally suffer from that eats away my money.
There's a couple of hands I'd like to put up for analysis, that nag me because I don't think I played them well. But I'm out of time for now, so they'll have to wait...
UPDATE:
Okay, here was one hand that bugged me a little.
#Game No : 6139485895
***** Hand History for Game 6139485895 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, July 10, 16:04:02 ET 2007
Table Table 126410 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 5: e_r_c ( $3.91 USD )
Seat 8: Black_Code1 ( $5.84 USD )
Seat 9: Cruzephyx ( $5.56 USD )
Seat 7: Oskaron ( $5.06 USD )
Seat 6: vatai_b ( $4.75 USD )
Seat 2: gabbyka ( $4.75 USD )
Seat 1: cbpoker75 ( $5 USD )
Seat 4: mad223 ( $4.83 USD )
Oskaron posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Black_Code1 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 7s 8s ]
Cruzephyx folds
cbpoker75 calls [$0.04 USD]
mad223 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
gabbyka has left the table.
vatai_b calls [$0.04 USD]
Oskaron calls [$0.02 USD]
Black_Code1 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9s, Jc, 5d ]
Oskaron bets [$0.16 USD]
Black_Code1 folds
cbpoker75 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.16 USD]
vatai_b calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4d ]
Oskaron bets [$0.32 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.32 USD]
vatai_b folds
** Dealing River ** [ 6s ]
Oskaron bets [$0.57 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.57 USD]
Oskaron shows [ 9c, Ad ]a pair of Nines.
e_r_c shows [ 7s, 8s ]a straight Five to Nine.
e_r_c wins $2.34 USD from the main pot with a straight, Five to Nine.
The table I was on was pretty passive, so I thought it was worth limping in and seeing what turned up. From the flop I had outs for a straight on any Ten, any Six and runner,runner on a flush. The turn nixed my flush draw, but I still had outs for the straight so I called to see the river and hit my hand. What bugs me is that I then just called the guy's bet. At the time I had some kind of vague worry that he had a higher straight than I did, but looking over it again I see how unlikely, or in fact impossible, that is. There's no reason for me not re-raising that bet.
UPDATE 2:
Played another session on Thursday night, and ended it $0.77 up. I didn't have any regrets with the way I played, the only thing that grated was again I always seem to hit a big hand when everyone else has junk. I get AA and put in a modest preflop bet, and everyone folds. I hit a straight flush, and everyone's already ticked the 'Fold to any Bet' button.
Most annoying though, I limp in with A2o, and turn the straight. I put in a bet and finally get some action. The river drops a 2 and the guy gets to split my pot because he's got an Ace!
Anyway, I've got into the habit of calculating my outs, but not yet got the knack of properly translating it and comparing it to the pot. My plan is to go back through the histories of my bigger pots, and retroactively work out whether I made the right call. So wish me luck with that, as I shake off the dormant part of my brain i once used to do maths with...
This month's total: -$7.97
Anyway, with a bit of help from Steve, something finally clicked in terms of the betting. I'm being a bit more agressive with placing bets, so that I'm properly rewarded when called, and win a greater number of pots when my opponents are hesitant by taking them down on turn. The downside to this tactic is if my opponent sticks it out and hits something at the river, I lose a lot more than I would have done previously! The session with Steve ended with me losing a good chunk of money when the guy hit a flush on the river after I'd been ahead through the flop and the turn.
Tuesday I did manage to turn a small profit. It was just $0.60 but it felt good because I felt I'd really worked back up from low down (just $1.56 left from a $5 buy-in) to achieve it. I'd gone in and been a little loose and unfocussed at first, which combined with a new more agressive betting style meant I dropped money fairly quickly. Once I tightened up though, I felt a lot better, a lot more in control of each hand than I normally have. Just by assessing when people are not confident in the hand and putting in a small bet rather than checking I was able to arrest the usual slow bleed that I normally suffer from that eats away my money.
There's a couple of hands I'd like to put up for analysis, that nag me because I don't think I played them well. But I'm out of time for now, so they'll have to wait...
UPDATE:
Okay, here was one hand that bugged me a little.
#Game No : 6139485895
***** Hand History for Game 6139485895 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, July 10, 16:04:02 ET 2007
Table Table 126410 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 5: e_r_c ( $3.91 USD )
Seat 8: Black_Code1 ( $5.84 USD )
Seat 9: Cruzephyx ( $5.56 USD )
Seat 7: Oskaron ( $5.06 USD )
Seat 6: vatai_b ( $4.75 USD )
Seat 2: gabbyka ( $4.75 USD )
Seat 1: cbpoker75 ( $5 USD )
Seat 4: mad223 ( $4.83 USD )
Oskaron posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Black_Code1 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 7s 8s ]
Cruzephyx folds
cbpoker75 calls [$0.04 USD]
mad223 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
gabbyka has left the table.
vatai_b calls [$0.04 USD]
Oskaron calls [$0.02 USD]
Black_Code1 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9s, Jc, 5d ]
Oskaron bets [$0.16 USD]
Black_Code1 folds
cbpoker75 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.16 USD]
vatai_b calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4d ]
Oskaron bets [$0.32 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.32 USD]
vatai_b folds
** Dealing River ** [ 6s ]
Oskaron bets [$0.57 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.57 USD]
Oskaron shows [ 9c, Ad ]a pair of Nines.
e_r_c shows [ 7s, 8s ]a straight Five to Nine.
e_r_c wins $2.34 USD from the main pot with a straight, Five to Nine.
The table I was on was pretty passive, so I thought it was worth limping in and seeing what turned up. From the flop I had outs for a straight on any Ten, any Six and runner,runner on a flush. The turn nixed my flush draw, but I still had outs for the straight so I called to see the river and hit my hand. What bugs me is that I then just called the guy's bet. At the time I had some kind of vague worry that he had a higher straight than I did, but looking over it again I see how unlikely, or in fact impossible, that is. There's no reason for me not re-raising that bet.
UPDATE 2:
Played another session on Thursday night, and ended it $0.77 up. I didn't have any regrets with the way I played, the only thing that grated was again I always seem to hit a big hand when everyone else has junk. I get AA and put in a modest preflop bet, and everyone folds. I hit a straight flush, and everyone's already ticked the 'Fold to any Bet' button.
Most annoying though, I limp in with A2o, and turn the straight. I put in a bet and finally get some action. The river drops a 2 and the guy gets to split my pot because he's got an Ace!
Anyway, I've got into the habit of calculating my outs, but not yet got the knack of properly translating it and comparing it to the pot. My plan is to go back through the histories of my bigger pots, and retroactively work out whether I made the right call. So wish me luck with that, as I shake off the dormant part of my brain i once used to do maths with...
This month's total: -$7.97
Sunday, 8 July 2007
ups and downs (mainly downs)
I played quite heavily this weekend, playing on both Friday evening and most of Saturday. Well, actually I'll revise that. I played poker on Saturday, on Friday I just sat in front of the computer and doled out money to anyone that asked.
I basically did everything it's possible to do wrong on Friday; I played with lots of distractions around (the window was open because it was warm and so the television was on ridiculously loud to drown out the noise of the city); I called big raises when I should have read from the board the danger I was in, twice I ran a Ace-high flush right into the jaws of a full house; when I did win it was for tiny amounts because I fluffed the betting; I allowed myself to get frustrated and into the mentality of 'winning my money back' with the consequence that I played on far past the point I was enjoying myself and just dribbled away further money.
So, pretty much an unqualified disaster, losing me $4.74 and putting me way down for July but more importantly erasing all of my previous profits and putting me in loss. It's only $0.64 down at the moment, but it's still a little disheartening.
Saturday I decided to try something different, and entered a couple of the Rookie Freerolls. It was my first time playing tournaments and it's very much a different game to the cash tables. I played three tourneys, each with just over a thousand entrants, placing 143rd, 743rd and 265th respectively. The relatively poor performance in the 2nd tourney came from being on a very aggressive table at the beginning. To survive it I really tightened up, but I didn't hit any 1st tier hands and so when I was moved to a new table full of big stackers I got flattened.
Although I placed lower in the 3rd tournament, I thought I played it very well. A couple of problems I've mentioned before is that I don't take notice of people's stack sizes when betting against them and that I'm far too reserved with betting when I'm ahead. With a tournament it's ALL about stack sizes and I felt it played well terrorising the small stacks and going all-in against big stacks when I had the nuts. I think I could've gone much further, but it was getting late and so I started playing like I didn't care if I got eliminated, which was true, and lucrative until I went all-in against someone with AA...
I'm hoping I'll be able to bring some of that back to the cash game tables, although I've got to be conscious that they're a very different game!
This month's total: -$4.34
I basically did everything it's possible to do wrong on Friday; I played with lots of distractions around (the window was open because it was warm and so the television was on ridiculously loud to drown out the noise of the city); I called big raises when I should have read from the board the danger I was in, twice I ran a Ace-high flush right into the jaws of a full house; when I did win it was for tiny amounts because I fluffed the betting; I allowed myself to get frustrated and into the mentality of 'winning my money back' with the consequence that I played on far past the point I was enjoying myself and just dribbled away further money.
So, pretty much an unqualified disaster, losing me $4.74 and putting me way down for July but more importantly erasing all of my previous profits and putting me in loss. It's only $0.64 down at the moment, but it's still a little disheartening.
Saturday I decided to try something different, and entered a couple of the Rookie Freerolls. It was my first time playing tournaments and it's very much a different game to the cash tables. I played three tourneys, each with just over a thousand entrants, placing 143rd, 743rd and 265th respectively. The relatively poor performance in the 2nd tourney came from being on a very aggressive table at the beginning. To survive it I really tightened up, but I didn't hit any 1st tier hands and so when I was moved to a new table full of big stackers I got flattened.
Although I placed lower in the 3rd tournament, I thought I played it very well. A couple of problems I've mentioned before is that I don't take notice of people's stack sizes when betting against them and that I'm far too reserved with betting when I'm ahead. With a tournament it's ALL about stack sizes and I felt it played well terrorising the small stacks and going all-in against big stacks when I had the nuts. I think I could've gone much further, but it was getting late and so I started playing like I didn't care if I got eliminated, which was true, and lucrative until I went all-in against someone with AA...
I'm hoping I'll be able to bring some of that back to the cash game tables, although I've got to be conscious that they're a very different game!
This month's total: -$4.34
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
gah
Bad day today. Very bad. Ended up a very depressing $7.42 down, more than wiping out my first two days play. I think what I learned today is that holding high pocket pairs are a very good way of losing lots of chips. I think about $5 of the $7.42 was lost while holding a high pocket pair. At least half of them I think I played correctly for what I had (there were some infuriating losses to people making unlikely straights on the river), but that doesn't really mean much when I'm dropping a couple of dollars because I can't let go of a pair of aces.
On the bright side, I'm still in profit overall, so I should probably consider this a learning experience. It's probably been a bit arrogant of me to just assume I'll win every time - this has brought me down a bit. Next session I'm going to focus more, try to tighten up and think a bit more before I call a large raise.
I don't like to end on a down note, so here's a song...
Turn around... Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round....
Okay, forget the song. Instead enjoy this hand where I take a nice amount from the guy who derided me last session.
#Game No : 6098461107
***** Hand History for Game 6098461107 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, June 26, 16:27:59 ET 2007
Table Table 126041 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 2: charli441 ( $4.76 USD )
Seat 3: frenkman ( $2.02 USD )
Seat 9: Phony333 ( $7.05 USD )
Seat 10: e_r_c ( $3.76 USD )
Seat 1: Chipie0711 ( $6.26 USD )
Seat 4: GreedyGold ( $2.51 USD )
Seat 6: BetFlopBoy ( $4.86 USD )
Seat 7: zana2003 ( $3.02 USD )
Seat 5: Insolent9 ( $5.11 USD )
e_r_c posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Chipie0711 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Ac Jc ]
charli441 folds
frenkman folds
GreedyGold folds
Insolent9 folds
BetFlopBoy folds
zana2003 calls [$0.04 USD]
Phony333 folds
e_r_c raises [$0.10 USD]
Chipie0711 folds
zana2003 calls [$0.08 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qh, Jd, Js ]
e_r_c bets [$0.16 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5d ]
e_r_c bets [$0.36 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.36 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 9s ]
e_r_c bets [$0.50 USD]
The_AKing has joined the table.
zana2003 calls [$0.50 USD]
e_r_c shows [ Ac, Jc ]three of a kind, Jacks.
zana2003 doesn't show [ Ks, Qc ]two pairs, Queens and Jacks.
e_r_c wins $2.21 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Jacks.
This month's profit: $3.75
On the bright side, I'm still in profit overall, so I should probably consider this a learning experience. It's probably been a bit arrogant of me to just assume I'll win every time - this has brought me down a bit. Next session I'm going to focus more, try to tighten up and think a bit more before I call a large raise.
I don't like to end on a down note, so here's a song...
Turn around... Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round....
Okay, forget the song. Instead enjoy this hand where I take a nice amount from the guy who derided me last session.
#Game No : 6098461107
***** Hand History for Game 6098461107 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, June 26, 16:27:59 ET 2007
Table Table 126041 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 2: charli441 ( $4.76 USD )
Seat 3: frenkman ( $2.02 USD )
Seat 9: Phony333 ( $7.05 USD )
Seat 10: e_r_c ( $3.76 USD )
Seat 1: Chipie0711 ( $6.26 USD )
Seat 4: GreedyGold ( $2.51 USD )
Seat 6: BetFlopBoy ( $4.86 USD )
Seat 7: zana2003 ( $3.02 USD )
Seat 5: Insolent9 ( $5.11 USD )
e_r_c posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Chipie0711 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Ac Jc ]
charli441 folds
frenkman folds
GreedyGold folds
Insolent9 folds
BetFlopBoy folds
zana2003 calls [$0.04 USD]
Phony333 folds
e_r_c raises [$0.10 USD]
Chipie0711 folds
zana2003 calls [$0.08 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qh, Jd, Js ]
e_r_c bets [$0.16 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5d ]
e_r_c bets [$0.36 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.36 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 9s ]
e_r_c bets [$0.50 USD]
The_AKing has joined the table.
zana2003 calls [$0.50 USD]
e_r_c shows [ Ac, Jc ]three of a kind, Jacks.
zana2003 doesn't show [ Ks, Qc ]two pairs, Queens and Jacks.
e_r_c wins $2.21 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Jacks.
This month's profit: $3.75
Monday, 25 June 2007
good... kinda
My third session, and I made a reasonable profit ($3.98), but ended the session feeling somewhat conflicted about how I did. I did my usual $3 buy-in and after the below mildly hair-raising hand I stayed in profit the whole time.
#Game No : 6095098623
***** Hand History for Game 6095098623 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, June 25, 15:39:17 ET 2007
Table Table 125954 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Dkotor ( $8.61 USD )
Seat 4: GREAEA ( $3.26 USD )
Seat 5: barra65 ( $2.64 USD )
Seat 7: jaybeegaybee ( $1.48 USD )
Seat 8: PokherGoed ( $3.75 USD )
Seat 9: ano_nym ( $5 USD )
Seat 10: JvanH83 ( $5.52 USD )
Seat 2: e_r_c ( $2.50 USD )
Seat 3: ultralord22 ( $1.92 USD )
Seat 6: JapaneseMind ( $5 USD )
ultralord22 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
GREAEA posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kd Jh ]
jaybeegaybee folds
PokherGoed calls [$0.04 USD]
ano_nym folds
JvanH83 folds
Dkotor raises [$0.20 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.20 USD]
ultralord22 folds
GREAEA folds
PokherGoed calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7c, 7d, Jc ]
PokherGoed checks
Dkotor bets [$0.36 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.36 USD]
PokherGoed folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ks ]
Dkotor bets [$1 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 3h ]
Dkotor bets [$1.08 USD]
e_r_c is all-In [$0.94 USD]
Dkotor shows [ Qc, Ad ]a pair of Sevens.
e_r_c shows [ Kd, Jh ]two pairs, Kings and Jacks.
Dkotor wins $0.14 USD from side pot #1 with a pair of Sevens.
e_r_c wins $5 USD from the main pot with two pairs, Kings and Jacks.
I felt proud of this hand just because one of my problems can be to be intimidated by large bets and bow out, especially when it's threatening to take me down to $0. I had Dkotor pegged as having maybe another of the Jacks or maybe a high pocket pair from his bet on the flop, but i figured I had a good number of outs. The turn gave me two pair, Kings and Jacks, and I called him, figuring I had him if he was counting on having two pair with either Kings or Jacks and the sevens. Turned out, he had squat.
So I was feeling pretty good about my play for the first part of the evening, but I think perhaps I stayed on too long and lost some focus. I pulled it back again towards the end, but left on a down note, losing my last hand to a guy with [2,9] for pretty much the same reason as I slated oldfellow for in last post. I made it too cheap for him to see the turn and he turned a set to beat my pair of Aces. This is still a big problem for me, judging how much to bet, when to call and when to re-raise.
The below hand I'm still not sure about, the chat comment from the guy I beat in the hand shows his derision at how I played it...
#Game No : 6095373197
***** Hand History for Game 6095373197 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, June 25, 16:37:22 ET 2007
Table Table 125954 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 7: jaybeegaybee ( $2.66 USD )
Seat 8: PokherGoed ( $1.20 USD )
Seat 9: ano_nym ( $8.71 USD )
Seat 2: e_r_c ( $6.90 USD )
Seat 6: JapaneseMind ( $5.64 USD )
Seat 10: MurkSteel ( $1.84 USD )
Seat 1: wonglee111 ( $1.90 USD )
Seat 4: zana2003 ( $2.48 USD )
e_r_c posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
zana2003 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ As Ah ]
JapaneseMind folds
jaybeegaybee folds
PokherGoed folds
ano_nym folds
MurkSteel folds
wonglee111 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.02 USD]
zana2003 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, Qc, 3h ]
e_r_c bets [$0.04 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.04 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ks ]
e_r_c bets [$0.12 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.12 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 4c ]
e_r_c bets [$0.16 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.16 USD]
e_r_c shows [ As, Ah ]a pair of Aces.
zana2003 doesn't show [ 8c, Kd ]a pair of Kings.
e_r_c wins $0.69 USD from the main pot with a pair of Aces.
zana2003: what cards you have and you played so bad :))
So, i was small blind with the best possible starting hand, and literally everyone else has folded out before it's my turn. I figure a preflop raise means most likely all I'll get is the blinds, so I call. Going through postflop I was trying to steer between sucking as much out of zana2003 without chasing him away, or losing big if he happened to have two pair. I thought I had made the best of a bad situation (everyone else having junk), but the guy's comment made me wonder.
So, comments from more experienced players welcome on that one.
Anyway, off to bed, my second day of new job tomorrow so should probably get some sleep. I swear it takes me longer to write these posts than I spend playing the game!
This month's profits: $11.17
#Game No : 6095098623
***** Hand History for Game 6095098623 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, June 25, 15:39:17 ET 2007
Table Table 125954 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Dkotor ( $8.61 USD )
Seat 4: GREAEA ( $3.26 USD )
Seat 5: barra65 ( $2.64 USD )
Seat 7: jaybeegaybee ( $1.48 USD )
Seat 8: PokherGoed ( $3.75 USD )
Seat 9: ano_nym ( $5 USD )
Seat 10: JvanH83 ( $5.52 USD )
Seat 2: e_r_c ( $2.50 USD )
Seat 3: ultralord22 ( $1.92 USD )
Seat 6: JapaneseMind ( $5 USD )
ultralord22 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
GREAEA posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kd Jh ]
jaybeegaybee folds
PokherGoed calls [$0.04 USD]
ano_nym folds
JvanH83 folds
Dkotor raises [$0.20 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.20 USD]
ultralord22 folds
GREAEA folds
PokherGoed calls [$0.16 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7c, 7d, Jc ]
PokherGoed checks
Dkotor bets [$0.36 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.36 USD]
PokherGoed folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ks ]
Dkotor bets [$1 USD]
e_r_c calls [$1 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 3h ]
Dkotor bets [$1.08 USD]
e_r_c is all-In [$0.94 USD]
Dkotor shows [ Qc, Ad ]a pair of Sevens.
e_r_c shows [ Kd, Jh ]two pairs, Kings and Jacks.
Dkotor wins $0.14 USD from side pot #1 with a pair of Sevens.
e_r_c wins $5 USD from the main pot with two pairs, Kings and Jacks.
I felt proud of this hand just because one of my problems can be to be intimidated by large bets and bow out, especially when it's threatening to take me down to $0. I had Dkotor pegged as having maybe another of the Jacks or maybe a high pocket pair from his bet on the flop, but i figured I had a good number of outs. The turn gave me two pair, Kings and Jacks, and I called him, figuring I had him if he was counting on having two pair with either Kings or Jacks and the sevens. Turned out, he had squat.
So I was feeling pretty good about my play for the first part of the evening, but I think perhaps I stayed on too long and lost some focus. I pulled it back again towards the end, but left on a down note, losing my last hand to a guy with [2,9] for pretty much the same reason as I slated oldfellow for in last post. I made it too cheap for him to see the turn and he turned a set to beat my pair of Aces. This is still a big problem for me, judging how much to bet, when to call and when to re-raise.
The below hand I'm still not sure about, the chat comment from the guy I beat in the hand shows his derision at how I played it...
#Game No : 6095373197
***** Hand History for Game 6095373197 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, June 25, 16:37:22 ET 2007
Table Table 125954 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 7: jaybeegaybee ( $2.66 USD )
Seat 8: PokherGoed ( $1.20 USD )
Seat 9: ano_nym ( $8.71 USD )
Seat 2: e_r_c ( $6.90 USD )
Seat 6: JapaneseMind ( $5.64 USD )
Seat 10: MurkSteel ( $1.84 USD )
Seat 1: wonglee111 ( $1.90 USD )
Seat 4: zana2003 ( $2.48 USD )
e_r_c posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
zana2003 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ As Ah ]
JapaneseMind folds
jaybeegaybee folds
PokherGoed folds
ano_nym folds
MurkSteel folds
wonglee111 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.02 USD]
zana2003 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ts, Qc, 3h ]
e_r_c bets [$0.04 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.04 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ks ]
e_r_c bets [$0.12 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.12 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 4c ]
e_r_c bets [$0.16 USD]
zana2003 calls [$0.16 USD]
e_r_c shows [ As, Ah ]a pair of Aces.
zana2003 doesn't show [ 8c, Kd ]a pair of Kings.
e_r_c wins $0.69 USD from the main pot with a pair of Aces.
zana2003: what cards you have and you played so bad :))
So, i was small blind with the best possible starting hand, and literally everyone else has folded out before it's my turn. I figure a preflop raise means most likely all I'll get is the blinds, so I call. Going through postflop I was trying to steer between sucking as much out of zana2003 without chasing him away, or losing big if he happened to have two pair. I thought I had made the best of a bad situation (everyone else having junk), but the guy's comment made me wonder.
So, comments from more experienced players welcome on that one.
Anyway, off to bed, my second day of new job tomorrow so should probably get some sleep. I swear it takes me longer to write these posts than I spend playing the game!
This month's profits: $11.17
Friday, 22 June 2007
A fun morning
Second day, and things have gone pretty well. I felt a lot more relaxed today, and a lot more able to let weaker hands drop this time. I probably won only as much as yesterday, it's just I didn't lose anywhere near as much. There was one hand that I almost fell into the same trap as last time, but fortunately this time I was able to let it go, and thus save myself from probably losing about $3 in one go.
I thought I made more of my good hands today as well. I've put the hand history for a hand I liked below.
#Game No : 6084617915
***** Hand History for Game 6084617915 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, June 22, 05:15:23 ET 2007
Table Table 125973 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: adamh9222 ( $5.60 USD )
Seat 2: lammz ( $5.45 USD )
Seat 4: pokerfly1704 ( $4.34 USD )
Seat 7: MegaYU ( $2.18 USD )
Seat 10: rastabit ( $4.87 USD )
Seat 5: e_r_c ( $3.05 USD )
Seat 6: McLeod7474 ( $4.82 USD )
Seat 3: Achill1908 ( $5 USD )
Seat 9: nonexttime ( $4.76 USD )
Seat 8: oldfellow222 ( $5 USD )
rastabit posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
adamh9222 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
oldfellow222 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 4c Kc ]
Achill1908 folds
lammz folds
pokerfly1704 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
McLeod7474 folds
MegaYU calls [$0.04 USD]
oldfellow222 checks
nonexttime folds
rastabit calls [$0.02 USD]
adamh9222 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8c, 4d, Ad ]
rastabit checks
adamh9222 checks
e_r_c checks
MegaYU checks
oldfellow222 bets [$0.04 USD]
rastabit folds
adamh9222 calls [$0.04 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
MegaYU folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6c ]
adamh9222 checks
e_r_c checks
oldfellow222 bets [$0.04 USD]
adamh9222 calls [$0.04 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Ac ]
adamh9222 checks
e_r_c checks
oldfellow222 bets [$0.08 USD]
adamh9222 calls [$0.08 USD]
e_r_c raises [$0.64 USD]
oldfellow222 raises [$1.12 USD]
adamh9222 folds
e_r_c raises [$1.12 USD]
oldfellow222 calls [$0.56 USD]
e_r_c shows [ 4c, Kc ]a flush, Ace high.
oldfellow222 doesn't show [ Ah, Th ]three of a kind, Aces.
e_r_c wins $3.84 USD from the main pot with a flush, Ace high.
In this hand, I didn't really have much at the flop, just a bottom pair, and if oldfellow had but in a large bet I would have ducked out. But I thought for the minimal amount he was betting it was worth seeing the turn and then the river. I reckoned I had a chance if either a king, another four, or two clubs-suited came out.
When the third clubs came out on the river for the flush, I decided to check/raise, counting on oldfellow being consistent and raising. Once he did I put in a fairly reasonable bet, not wanting to scare him off. When he re-raised, and then called my re-raise, I was sure he must have had a flush too, and thought we'd be splitting the pot. Sucks to be him, though because his set of Aces just didn't cut it.
To be honest, I don't think has anyone to blame but himself for making those pathetically low bets and so giving me a chance to see the river. I've noticed that there are a few people that seem to play the game without seeming to know how to use the bet slider. They'll have a great hand, and when you raise a large amount they'll call or re-raise it, but when they bet it will always be the minimum (the amount that shows up on the 'Bet' button before you move the slider.
Anyway, it was a fun morning, and I feel like I'm making progress.
This month's profit: $7.19
I thought I made more of my good hands today as well. I've put the hand history for a hand I liked below.
#Game No : 6084617915
***** Hand History for Game 6084617915 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, June 22, 05:15:23 ET 2007
Table Table 125973 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: adamh9222 ( $5.60 USD )
Seat 2: lammz ( $5.45 USD )
Seat 4: pokerfly1704 ( $4.34 USD )
Seat 7: MegaYU ( $2.18 USD )
Seat 10: rastabit ( $4.87 USD )
Seat 5: e_r_c ( $3.05 USD )
Seat 6: McLeod7474 ( $4.82 USD )
Seat 3: Achill1908 ( $5 USD )
Seat 9: nonexttime ( $4.76 USD )
Seat 8: oldfellow222 ( $5 USD )
rastabit posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
adamh9222 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
oldfellow222 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ 4c Kc ]
Achill1908 folds
lammz folds
pokerfly1704 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
McLeod7474 folds
MegaYU calls [$0.04 USD]
oldfellow222 checks
nonexttime folds
rastabit calls [$0.02 USD]
adamh9222 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8c, 4d, Ad ]
rastabit checks
adamh9222 checks
e_r_c checks
MegaYU checks
oldfellow222 bets [$0.04 USD]
rastabit folds
adamh9222 calls [$0.04 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
MegaYU folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6c ]
adamh9222 checks
e_r_c checks
oldfellow222 bets [$0.04 USD]
adamh9222 calls [$0.04 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Ac ]
adamh9222 checks
e_r_c checks
oldfellow222 bets [$0.08 USD]
adamh9222 calls [$0.08 USD]
e_r_c raises [$0.64 USD]
oldfellow222 raises [$1.12 USD]
adamh9222 folds
e_r_c raises [$1.12 USD]
oldfellow222 calls [$0.56 USD]
e_r_c shows [ 4c, Kc ]a flush, Ace high.
oldfellow222 doesn't show [ Ah, Th ]three of a kind, Aces.
e_r_c wins $3.84 USD from the main pot with a flush, Ace high.
In this hand, I didn't really have much at the flop, just a bottom pair, and if oldfellow had but in a large bet I would have ducked out. But I thought for the minimal amount he was betting it was worth seeing the turn and then the river. I reckoned I had a chance if either a king, another four, or two clubs-suited came out.
When the third clubs came out on the river for the flush, I decided to check/raise, counting on oldfellow being consistent and raising. Once he did I put in a fairly reasonable bet, not wanting to scare him off. When he re-raised, and then called my re-raise, I was sure he must have had a flush too, and thought we'd be splitting the pot. Sucks to be him, though because his set of Aces just didn't cut it.
To be honest, I don't think has anyone to blame but himself for making those pathetically low bets and so giving me a chance to see the river. I've noticed that there are a few people that seem to play the game without seeming to know how to use the bet slider. They'll have a great hand, and when you raise a large amount they'll call or re-raise it, but when they bet it will always be the minimum (the amount that shows up on the 'Bet' button before you move the slider.
Anyway, it was a fun morning, and I feel like I'm making progress.
This month's profit: $7.19
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Preflop
Today marks the start of my online poker career! And this blog is to record my thoughts and experiences as I start on the long, arduous road to gambling addiction.
I've started this as a kind of sister blog to my friend Steve's own poker blog - Cash Game Poker. I thought it be fun to record my own seventy-five cent wins alongside Steve's $2,000 pots!
So, my career has got off to a fairly modest start so far. I played No Limit Texas Hold'em on the lowest stake tables available ($0.02 / $0.04 blinds) for a couple of hours this morning and then maybe fours hours this afternoon. Checked out a grand total of $2.70 ahead!
That final figure kinda disguises how much my chip pile went up and down throughout - I've not quite locked down my play style yet, so I lost a lot of money (relatively speaking, obviously) chasing hands that I should have known I wasn't going to win. At one point I'd doubled my initial buy-in on a couple of decent hands, only to throw all of it away in one horribly mishandled hand.
I've only played Limit before online, so it's taking a little while to learn how to judge how much to raise in which circumstances, and what another player's raise amounts are likely to indicate. That, along with being a bit overcautious, meant I was selling my good hands a bit too cheaply.
One hand that until very recently I didn't appreciate the value of, but turned out to be a lifesaver today, is the mid-value pocket pair. I made most of my chips from taking a chance when there was no preflop raises to see the flop and really lucked out with a [9,9] and later a [5,5] that both flopped to a set, then rivered to a full house, then a [6,6] than flopped to a set, then rivered to 4-of-a-kind. I think the beauty is that people aren't expecting you to be holding those value cards as a pair so it catches them of guard.
Anyway, I've rambled far too much. I'll try and be more concise next time around...
This month's profits: $2.70
I've started this as a kind of sister blog to my friend Steve's own poker blog - Cash Game Poker. I thought it be fun to record my own seventy-five cent wins alongside Steve's $2,000 pots!
So, my career has got off to a fairly modest start so far. I played No Limit Texas Hold'em on the lowest stake tables available ($0.02 / $0.04 blinds) for a couple of hours this morning and then maybe fours hours this afternoon. Checked out a grand total of $2.70 ahead!
That final figure kinda disguises how much my chip pile went up and down throughout - I've not quite locked down my play style yet, so I lost a lot of money (relatively speaking, obviously) chasing hands that I should have known I wasn't going to win. At one point I'd doubled my initial buy-in on a couple of decent hands, only to throw all of it away in one horribly mishandled hand.
I've only played Limit before online, so it's taking a little while to learn how to judge how much to raise in which circumstances, and what another player's raise amounts are likely to indicate. That, along with being a bit overcautious, meant I was selling my good hands a bit too cheaply.
One hand that until very recently I didn't appreciate the value of, but turned out to be a lifesaver today, is the mid-value pocket pair. I made most of my chips from taking a chance when there was no preflop raises to see the flop and really lucked out with a [9,9] and later a [5,5] that both flopped to a set, then rivered to a full house, then a [6,6] than flopped to a set, then rivered to 4-of-a-kind. I think the beauty is that people aren't expecting you to be holding those value cards as a pair so it catches them of guard.
Anyway, I've rambled far too much. I'll try and be more concise next time around...
This month's profits: $2.70
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