Haha thanks.

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I'm going to bed after a good night at the tables. I'm up to 5.114 bitcoins.

I must have had 33 about 50 times in the past week. Three times I made quads and probably five or six other times I made a set.

However, I have been losing for the past few days. I've been putting up between 10-25% of my bankroll at a time and I'm feeling the variance. There's probably some play bad mixed in there too, but I'm not complaining.

I did make a game selection mistake though. There's this one pretty good tag that I played a few hundred hands with in heads up no limit. The first time we played, he took 0.6 bitcoins from me. Then I said to myself that I wouldn't sit with him again. Then the next day there were few games to choose from, and I was bored. I sat with him again. This time he took ~1.5 bitcoins from me. Again, I told myself that I wouldn't sit with him again. Then the next day there were few games to choose from again and he was sitting waiting for action. I played him for the last time and lost another ~1 bitcoins. Standard game selection tilt is standard. I should've just waited patiently for limit holdem action. I was impatient and I paid the price.

Currently sitting on 2.227 bitcoins.

I went on a pretty bad skid over the past week. However, I did make a modest cashout from swcpoker that I managed to build up from nothing but a few freeroll cashes. I'm happy with the results from the past three weeks and am looking forward to reinvesting real money sometime within the next few weeks at either Foxwoods, homegames, or both.

To be honest, it's getting difficult to keep my focus away from the beats. Seems like when I get hands, they're folding and when I'm bluffing they're getting hands.* Also, the big pots are standing out in my mind at the moment. QQ vs ATo all in preflop didn't go well for QQ. Nut straight vs 7 high flushdraw all in on the turn, which he check raised for pot and called my raise getting 11:4 with one card to come.

Ok that's all the complaining I'll do for now.

*This is most likely due to some tendency of mine when playing no limit holdem that I haven't figured out yet. It's either that or just variance.

I've been pretty card dead for the past few days, but I received my cash, some of which ended up going to a good cause. Last night I attended a Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser, which was an awesome time. I did not win any raffles.

I skidded all the way down to 0.015 bitcoins yesterday. So I figured I'd put 50% of my bankroll on a 5c/Tc no limit holdem table. About 30 hands later, I had tripled up to 0.026 bitcoins on the table. About ten hands after that, I was up to 0.04 bitcoins on the table. Then I lost a little bit back and the game died, which left me with ~0.03 bitcoins on the table and 0.007 bitcoins in the bank.

Then a .5/1 limit game broke out and I won some more.

Here's one that felt kinda fishy:

Cutoff limps, I raise A8o to .4, small blind folds, big blind makes it 1.5, limper calls, I call.

69T

big blind shoves for just over a pot sized bet, limper calls with ~3 behind, I call.

4

limper shoves 3, I call. I now have ~60% of my bankroll invested in this pot.

Ao

Big blind shows KQ. Limper shows 85. I show my lonely pair, which takes down the 26 chip pot. Had it the whole way.

For the record, the big blind is pretty bad loose aggressive as noted by the flop play, and the limper was obviously lol bad at poker, which I think justifies the preflop call. However, I could be convinced otherwise.

I played some 4/8 limit holdem at Foxwoods yesterday afternoon. It was an awesome game. I think that 4 out of the first 5 pots were capped preflop and had heavy flop action. I quickly noted that the two players to my immediate right were particularly loose aggressive.

To make a short story shorter:

It only took about an hour and a half, but the two loose aggressive players to my right busted their stacks. I got most of it and left as quickly as I came.

Then I went to a friend's house and we celebrated with steak and beer. I had a bone in ribeye. It was glorious. Then we hung out outside till about midnight. We debated going to the titty bar, but I chose to go home instead.

I played in a no limit holdem bounty rebuy tourney last night. It was fun and my friend took it down. I couldn't get anything going the entire night though. KQs<KTo, KK<TT, A5o<55, and J8o<AQo were the biggest pots of my night, and I lost them all with a smile on my face.

SwCpoker has not been kind to me lately, but I'm not complaining. I've been playing against some particularly bad opposition over the past two weeks, but have only logged a few winning sessions. I've been getting my money in pretty good, but it just hasn't been going my way.

I played in a 20 man tourney two nights ago on SwC for 25 chips. Here's my final hand, which was preceded by two open shoves by yours truly, neither of which was called:

utg shoves 8bbs, I shove 15 bbs with JJ, next in covers and calls, rest fold.

utg shows A7o, I show JJ, other guy shows ATo and I'm loving this spot.

flop: KQ2r

even better. I only gotta fade the two Aces left in the deck, running sevens, or a Jack, which will leave me with plenty of outs.

Ao

worst possible card in the deck. I'm drawing dead.

Jo

didn't matter and I'm out in seventh place.

Intertops was kind enough to invite me to play in the $5k facecard freeroll. Had to jump through some hoops to get registered, but I figured it was worth it cus the field was expected to be so soft.

The tourney started with 906 players. 117 spots paid $10+.

Within the first 15 minutes, I picked up AA and KK and tripled up both times to put me near the top of the leaderboard. I had some chips to play with and I made a couple speculative calls hoping to flop big and stack someone. I did not stack anyone and found myself down around 15 big blinds. Luckily in one particular hand, I rivered a straight. My lone opponent check called the river with a natural nine high flush after all I had done was call the flop and turn, which I thought was particularly bad poker with <20 big blinds.

I sustained my 10-15 big blind stack by shoving here and there in what I thought were pretty good spots. The bubble was approaching though, which was almost enough to make me fold this hand:

folds to me in the cutoff with A6s. I have 11 big blinds. Blinds and antes were 300/600 + 100, so I would be shoving to win 1800 in chips. If there were no antes, then I probably would've folded. I shoved and everyone folded, which was enough to get me past the bubble.

I shoved a few more times after the bubble burst. Got into a pot with a shorter stacked opponent, which left me with just a few big blinds. Then I was utg with 4 big blinds and holding J9o. I shove, next in calls, one of the blinds calls. Flop 8TK, not bad for my hand at all. Turn 4, river 4. One guy had TT and the other had KJs and I was knocked out in 79th place, which paid $12.50. /brag

I love this thread, it shows that poker's not just about money.

It must be bad poker if he didn't stack you with flush (presumably 2-card flush) > straight with <20bb.

A couple years ago, I found myself caring too much about the money and I reformulated my motivations for playing. My top motivation changed from winning money to having fun. That year, any time I was faced with what I thought was a close decision, I took the more aggressive option. I played a ton of hands very aggressively that year and had more fun than ever at the poker table. I even won some money over the course of that year. I probably could've won more had I taken more passive lines or folded in more close spots where I had called, but my number one motivation of having fun was righteously satisfied. I've since reformulated my motivations again, but I'll never forget that one year because it was so much fun.


Yup. When he just called my river bet I thought there was no way on earth that I would lose except for maybe a chop, but even that was highly unlikely. I had to go back in the dealer chatbox to confirm that I was beaten by a flush because I almost didn't believe it.

Since it's mother's day, it only seems fitting that my mother would challenge me to a game of cribbage. Naturally, I accepted.

Instead of crying about two outers, I've been working on my jump shot at the park. Over the past two weeks I've logged about six hours on the court. I haven't played anyone yet, but I got the jumper working. I'm almost ready to hustle the courts at Venice Beach a la Billy Hoyle of "White Men Can't Jump."

On the court, the wind is the variance.

I played some poker last night online. I lost. However, I feel like my play has improved very much over the past year or so in nearly every game I've played. The SwCpoker heater I experienced may have been just another rush of good cards. However, I like to think that it has a lot to do with the changes I made in my general strategy this year. I'm not in the mood to post links, but I started a few threads this year that I think produced some great discussion. My favorite thread that I started this year is titled "asymmetrical range stuff" and was my four thousandth post. I believe the ideas that I presented in that thread are somewhat applicable to any type of poker.

So I already lost the $12.50 that I won in the Intertops Facecard Freeroll. There were no interesting hands that I can remember. Just a bunch of standard coolers with the exception of this one:

10c/20c limit holdem 3 handed

button raises, small blind folds, I 3 bet KK, button 4 bets, I 5 bet, he 6 bets, I 7 bet, he calls.

T85r

I bet, he raises, I 3 bet, he 4 bets, I 5 bet, he 6 bets, I call.

2o

I check, he checks.

3

I bet, he raises, I call.

He shows 33, I muck.

I'm not complaining. In fact, I love how this hand went down.

----

I'm currently drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and jammin with the great Bob Marley and his greatest hits on youtube.

----

I'm gonna play some basketball today and I have a date for this afternoon. The weekend should be a good one. I'm hoping to fit in some steak and beer somehow. We'll see.

----

I may or may not lift some weights in the driveway today. On New Year's Eve we made resolutions. Mine was to gain 10 lbs and then go on a cut, but I've since lost about 15 lbs. 230 lbs is a bit far away at this point as I currently weigh about 205. Can I gain 25 lbs? We'll see.

I went to a friend's house yesterday. He hit a decent keno win and asked if I'd drive to Foxwoods. Of course, I said yes.

I sat in what turned out to be a bad 4/8 game. I think I only saw two limped pots in the 45 minutes that I played. There was lots of preflop raising and 3 betting, but little limping and coldcalling. I hadn't won a hand the whole time. Then this hand happened:

three limps, small blind completes, I raise the big blind with AJ, all call.

J83

small blind checks, I bet, only the small blind calls.

2o

small blind checks, I bet, he calls.

Qo

small blind bets, I call.

He shows QJ, I muck.

I quit after that hand, without winning a single hand the entire session. I ended up finding my friends at about 8pm and watched them play slots for a couple hours. I was bored so I put $25 into the video poker machines. I lost that as well. That's ok though. It was a fun road trip for a Saturday night.

I haven't been playing any poker this week. I haven't really been posting much either. It's not that I've lost interest, but rather that I've been putting more effort into dating.

"So she told me to come over and I took that trip."

"And I'm hiding in the grass, all up in her yard just to get a look at her ass."

<censored>

Kinda sums up the past two weeks.

I'm on day 7 of house and pet sitting. The dog is a sweetheart. The cat is asocial, yet he can be friendly sometimes. Today is my last day.

I've only played about 10 minutes of poker the entire time I've been here. I haven't turned on the tv yet since I got here. The animals are still alive and kicking and I'm kinda happy about a job well done.

I had my sister and her boyfriend over for steaks last night. They brought the beer and I cooked the steaks on the stove with butter.

Also, I've had lots of time on my hands and money burning a hole in my pocket the entire time I've been here, but haven't bought a single scratch ticket or done any gambling of any kind except for the 10 minutes of poker that I played.

I played some poker yesterday. It did not go well.

I haven't played any poker since my last update. Instead, I've been drinking lots of beer, eating lots of steak, working on my jumper, and generally having a great time.

A good friend of mine is coaching a summer league basketball team and she asked me to tag along one of these days. So tomorrow night I'm gonna help out at a practice with some of my favorite shooting and dribbling drills that I think can help improve scoring abilities. I have <2 years experience playing organized basketball, but I have tons of experience scoring on average defenders on the blacktop. This is my plan that I posted in the health and fitness forum's basketball thread:

Link to basketball thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/85...thread-562845/

In my eyes, there are a lot of similarities between poker and basketball. In both games, you gotta take what the defense is giving you. Of course, the execution of a plan is much easier in poker and you have lots of time to effect a strategy. In basketball, you gotta think quickly and act quickly. However, the exploitation of an opponent is the ultimate goal. Even great defenders must execute or be exploited on the court. Much like in poker, where even great opponents will have exploitable tendencies that we can exploit.

My favorite baseball player of all time, Greg Maddux, once said that he can spot the slightest changes in a batter's approach. If the batter crowded the plate in the slightest bit, Greg would spot it. He'd throw that knuckle curve right at the batter's face. Then, if the batter adjusted by backing off the plate even the slightest bit, Greg would paint the outside corner with a very modest fastball that flew at around 87 miles per hour. Some high school kids throw faster than that, but Greg was such a master of pitching that just a slight difference in speeds between his fastball and change up, combined with masterful control, made things very difficult for batters. So you might have the intellectual equivalent of a 100mph fastball, but without masterful control of that intellect, you're gonna end up leaving money on the table.

----

In other news, there's a friendly cribbage game today that I'm going to play this afternoon. It should be fun.

I won a freeroll the other night on swcpoker, which was good for 4.38 chips. I went to bed cus it was late when the game ended. The next day I started with some no limit holdem. No really interesting hands occurred but I did well enough to work my stack up to about 25 chips, which I took to the limit holdem table. I gamestarted and waited for action. Soon enough the game was underway and within about 15 minutes we were playing four handed. I did alright and just about doubled my stack. Then the game died, so I took my 45 chips to the 1/2 limit holdem table and sat with 30 chips, or 15 big bets. I waited for a while with no action. Then I got hit n run for ~6 chips. Then I waited for a while with no action. Then the same guy hit n runs me again for ~5 chips. I reloaded and waited. Then he came back a third time and I won a few hands in a row. This time he stayed, presumably chasing the loss. He quit after a few minutes of back and forth action, which left him up ~15 chips.

That night, I hit the tables again. I was in the mood for playing a tourney so I registered for the 20 chip no limit holdem tourney. I was out about halfway through, but it was fun nonetheless.

After that I played some no limit cash with my last 10 chips and ended up getting stacked a couple times.

Currently sitting on zero bitcoins.

I got a little bit of rakeback from swc last night. I lost a heads up no limit holdem 2 chip tourney, which left me with 0.91 chips. I took that to the 2c/4c limit holdem table. Got some action almost immediately from what turned out to be a guy with severe tilt problems. I handed out a few bad beats and he lost it. He started 3 betting preflop near 100% and going nuts after the flop with any piece. In about two hours, I had turned that 0.91 chips into ~6.5 chips.

I really like the way this hand went down:

heads up 2c/4c limit holdem

I raise button with Q3, big blind 3 bets, I call.

KJ6

he bets, I call.

9

he bets, I raise, he calls.

2o

he bets, I call.

He shows T5, I win.

----

Then I took those winnings and shortstacked 10c/20c no limit holdem. I won the first hand heads up on the button. Then I won the second hand 3 handed in the big blind. Folded a couple times, then I got AA and won a little pot with it. I was at ~8.5 chips when this hand happened:

overaggressive guy raises 3x utg 6 handed, one bad player coldcalls, I 3 bet AJo to 2.10 in the cutoff, small blind calls, utg calls, coldcaller folds.

AQ4r

checks to me and I shove just over a pot sized bet and immediately get called in both spots.

6o

small blind shoves ~20 chips and I know I'm in trouble. Utg folds.

no help for me on the river. small blind shows A6o and he scoops.

----

currently sitting on zero bitcoins.

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In other news, I started a log in the health and fitness forum:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/85...doing-1541108/

feel free to stop by and say hi and critique my lack of programming.

I cashed in a 2-7 single draw freeroll last night for 0.4 chips, which I immediately took to the 2c/4c limit holdem table. Soon enough, someone sat and I could tell almost immediately that he was very overaggressive, even by heads up limit holdem standards. The game filled up within 20 minutes, which isn't really my preference, but I thought it was the best spot for my chips on the site. Within the next hour, I had worked it up to ~1.8 chips, which I took to the dealers choice table and sat with a gamestarter. Within a minute or two, the overaggressive guy from the 2c/4c table sat in and weeeeeeeee away we go.

3 handed, overaggressive guy calls no limit holdem.

button raises to .30, I raise to .80, big blind folds, button calls.

AJ4

I shove a little more than a pot sized bet, he snap calls.

9o

Jo

I show AJo, he shows KT, I win.

After that I won a couple more big hands and was sitting on 12 chips. I thought about quitting because it was late and I was tired, but I stayed. Then they started calling lots of plo, which I suck at. I definitely shoulda quit, but I'm dumb. I lost all 12 chips, mostly by calling raises in the big blind with marginal hands and making lots of second best hands that I felt I had to pay off with given the guy's aggression levels. He was hitting big hands and I was broke at around 3:20 am. Then I went to bed.

I won a no limit holdem freeroll on swc last night, which paid 1.5 chips. I lost it all already playing 2c/4c limit holdem. I had a few particularly aggressive opponents that were really good at hitting flops. Shrug.

I had an awesome weekend though. I went to a birthday party for a member of my extended family. There were about 35 people there. To make a long story short, I got hammered and managed to keep my cool while the other three remaining party members wanted to get pretty silly. I was the last man standing at 3 am, at which time I crashed on the couch. Then a few hours later, I woke up, still drunk, feeling a strange mix of pride and regret which has not yet gone away.

Swcpoker has revived the krillroll schedule. Krill is basically their way of keeping track of how much rake a player has paid. I have enough to qualify for the 5k krillroll, which I played in last night. I placed fourth in last nights tourney, which paid 85 chips. Nothing really notable occurred during the tourney, except for when my antivirus update crashed my pc. I had to shut down the pc and restarted it just in time to start shoving my 10 big blind stack with reckless abandon.

Then I gamestarted some .5/1 and 1/2 limit holdem tables, but didn't get any action. I continued to sit, and I decided to shortstack .25/.50 no limit holdem full ring, which was playing five handed. One guy says to me, "sup dude?" I replied, "I'm only sitting cus nobody wants to play limit with me." He says, "that's prob cus your limit game is over powered as ****." I thoroughly enjoyed that compliment. I sat with 25 chips and within a matter of two orbits, I had doubled up twice and won a few smaller pots, giving me a stack of ~120 chips. I quit soon after that.

Then I registered late for a 40 chip no limit holdem deepstacked tourney. I was out in ninth place, while the top four spots paid. Shrug.

Then I sat in the .25/.50 no limit holdem cashgame again, this time with a full stack. I doubled up quickly when an opponent turned a pair of deuces into a bluff and I called him down with second pair. Then I ran into a cooler, which could have been avoided had I folded the T8s preflop. The guy was raising a lot preflop though and I expected some action behind me so I coldcalled. Flop came T84r. All the money was in the middle after the turn. He had 44. Shrug.

I'm going to chug some coffee now and wake up a bit more before hitting the tables.