Or at least trying to

Intro
After mostly lurking 2p2 for going on 8 years with very little posting, I'm going to begin a chronicle of my poker journey here. This is probably long overdue, but hey, it's better late than never, right? I've been reading a few of the other blogs here lately, and they have inspired me to finally get started on my own. For now, I'm going to try to use as little poker lingo as possible for the benefit of any friends or family who read this and wouldn't understand it.


A little about me
I will be 33 years old in about 2 weeks. I live in Charleston, SC, USA. I'm 3 years divorced with a step-daughter from that marriage who no longer lives with me, and I don't have any biological children. I have the least amount of responsibility that I've had at any point in my adult life, which is a nice feeling! It's quite liberating, though I still don't seem to have figured out what to do with it...


Some poker backstory
After growing up with a love for 5 card draw as a kid, and a feeble attempt at learning a couple of stud games during early adolescence, I got into (very) casually learning to play hold'em in 2005, inspired by World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour television coverage that I had recently gotten hooked on watching. I signed up on PartyPoker, and I literally remember reading the rules on how to play No Limit Texas Hold'em and thinking "Man, this looks so simple on TV. Where are the antes? What are these blinds?". Anyway, I didn't get very far with it at the time.

After just a casual interest for a few years, I started becoming more intrigued from watching it more and more on tv in 2008, and by this point, I had also discovered the show "High Stakes Poker", which I found fascinating, as I'd really only seen tournament coverage up to that point. Watching the pros play nosebleed stakes in these cash games fascinated me. I decided I was going to become good at Texas hold'em. I signed up on Pokerstars and began losing money right away! If I remember correctly, it was around this time that Daniel Negreanu launched his poker training site PokerVT. I subscribed and began absorbing everything I could. It was mostly tournament strategy at the time, so I played mostly tournaments on Stars around that time.

Several months later, I made a couple of trips to the nearest "casino" to me which was actually a cruise ship that would motor out to international waters, let you gamble for 3 hours and then return to shore. I played in cash games on these cruises and did fairly well. I then made my first pilgrimage to Las Vegas in early 2009 where I was like a child at Disney World. I played in some cash games there with mild success, but that trip had a lasting motivational impact on me. The incredible energy of that city had me even more determined to try to master this game.

Not long after that, I found local home games (mostly 1-2 stakes) that I began playing in regularly. Another player at those games recommended to me and subsequently let me borrow Dan Harrington's "Harrington on Cash" books, and I immediately read both Volume 1 and Volume 2. I finished them both in about 5 days. I returned the books to him, bought my own copies of them, and read them again to try to retain as much of the information as I could.

This made an immediate and noticeable impact in my cash game play, and I went from playing at or slightly above break even in those home games to performing very well in them. Before long, I was making more from playing in those cash games 5-6 nights a week than I was earning from my full time day job which was an IT support related position. This went on for a couple of years. During that time, I was still playing tournaments on Pokerstars and had begun playing cash games too. I also signed up on Full tilt for more of the same. I was around break even in the tournaments but was still struggling with the online cash games, and didn't really have the time to improve at them since I had a day job and was spending nights playing in the home games.

I did eventually put effort into my online cash game skills, but never really got above break even, despite logging around a million hands in PokerTracker. I attribute this to being more focused on my live game skills, since that was my bread and butter at the time. By the time poker's "Black Friday" hit in the U.S., causing a shutdown of Pokerstars and Full Tilt in the states, I had burned out on poker. I was playing very little online anymore and even less in home games. I took a break for a few months, but I lost my day job that summer.

I took that opportunity to go for it. I went to Atlantic City determined to play poker for a living. I'm not going to go into too many details right now on all of that because it turned out to be pretty disappointing. Not because I didn't do well - I did okay in poker. I just didn't take the best approach. I was putting in way too many hours - often 18-20 hours a day at the tables, even playing 25 and 30 hour sessions on occasion - and not sleeping (or eating) enough, and I really wasn't doing ANYTHING else. It was miserable and the city was miserable (if you haven't been there, much of AC is really bad ghetto). Borgata was great, but there weren't many other card rooms worth playing in. I was staying in a dump, which didn't help matters. It didn't take long for me to burn out in AC and return home.

I really needed time to recover from that burnout, and I ended up taking roughly 2 years off from poker. At the start of that break, I discovered on the morning after my birthday that my then wife, who didn't have to work for years because I'd busted my butt and burned the candle at both ends to support her financially so that she could go back to school, had been having an affair for as much as a year, and I left her. She'd spent my birthday texting him while beside me and telling him how she wished she was there right now. I don't want to spend much time on this. However, she soon moved away and tore my stepdaughter - who'd I'd been raising for 8 years - out of my life. I'd also just gotten a new day job.

After losing that job in 2014, I tried my hand at a couple of other things without much success, so I started getting back into poker toward the end of the year. It wasn't long before I was paying my bills with poker earnings once again. I spent most of 2015 doing so, and I also worked on improving my Pot Limit Omaha skills and am now very comfortable with that game as well.


Back to today
I've now decided to get back to playing online and see if I can win at that. I've been reading and absorbing a lot recently on the evolved state of the game and some of the current strategies that are being employed. I've played a very little bit (nothing serious) on ACR over the last year and change with very little success, but I was reading elsewhere on here about soft games on other sites.

As a result, I signed up yesterday at Intertops, deposited $100 and began playing $0.05/0.10 right away. I played 258 hands over 2 hours, and profited $40. I didn't run particularly good or bad, but the games are indeed very soft. I played a 4 hour session this afternoon, logging 807 hands (including 280 hands of $0.10/0.20), and finished down $10. I was up near the end of the session, but at one point, the .10/.20 table cleared out, and I played a few hands heads up. I ran KK into AA heads up, all in pre-flop and lost $35. I was lucky he didn't have a bigger stack, as I was sitting on a $65 stack going into the hand... For now, I intend to build this up to a $500 bankroll and then move up to .25/.50 and see how it goes.

Anyway, I'll post progress updates and narratives here along with interesting anecdotes, perhaps some hand histories, maybe occasional questions, and anything else that strikes me. Thanks for reading, and wish me luck!



^ Me and my beard

GL CRUSHING it

Good luck crushing it this 2016

Thanks spacehippie and Disciple!

Wow, running SO bad now... Started a session 2 hours ago, and in that time have had aces cracked by a guy who called me down with A high and a backdoor flush draw and backdoored the flush, and worse yet, I've run KK into AA *THREE TIMES*. 2 were AIPF. Then I made a tilty river call after the 2nd time which cost me too...took a short break after that to clear my head and un-tilt which helped, but wow, this has been a horrible session. Down several BIs at the moment...

Oh and I'm 0/3 in flips with AK in this sesh. Why is everyone so anxious to get it in with 99?

Not a good idea to flip with AK. We make money off of edges/advantages. If I remember correctly we're still behind when they flip over 99/88. If you haven't already, go and download equilab or poker stove and punch in some cards in there.

I completely agree. I hate flipping with AK...problem is once I've 4-bet or 5-bet them with it, I'm usually pot committed and can't fold when they ship their stack. I want to get it in preflop against AQ, AJ, KQ, etc., but I guess I should just start calling after a 3-bet instead of making continued raises? I think I'm overthinking things for this level.

And yeah, poker stove puts 99 at a significant advantage over AK, about 56/44 if I remember correctly.

I got friggin murdered last night. Lost about 8.5 buy-ins over 807 hands/4 hours. Instead of playing today, I'm studying and watching videos in order to work on my game. I'll have to move down to .02/.05 when I resume play tomorrow for bankroll management purposes. It's frustrating how bad I ran last night. I couldn't hit any draws, and every time I had a big preflop hand, it turned into a disaster.

hey man, hit me up on skype. I sent you a pm w/ my SN

Ok cool, sounds good

I haven't forgotten to update. I've simply played almost no poker the last week. I've spent a significant amount of time studying the game though, and I'm planning to put in solid volume this week.

$500 for 50nl is 10 buy-ins. That is not a good idea.

Haha I forgot that I wrote that. That's no longer the plan. I'm using 30 buy-ins as bankroll management strategy now. I'm crushing 5nl to build my roll currently. One I get it to $300 then I'll likely go ahead and move on up to 10nl.

It put in 8 hours at the tables today and had good results (finished up about 8.5 buy-ins).

I've got a little over 5k hands tracked in pokertracker now. Once a get a little more, I'll upload a graph or two. Currently, I'm at an average of 30.93 BB/100 in 5nl.

It's my birthday now!

I've been really, really sick (like barely left the bed sick) for a week now, and have only managed to get in about 1500 hands this week. I hope I'm better soon, so I can get back to grinding... Somehow I get this sick either the week before or the week after my birthday every single year. :/

Finally feeling better as of just a couple of days ago. Haven't played very much recently since I battled the sinus infection for 2 1/2 weeks, and when I did play, it didn't go well. Between running bad and not playing my best, I'm really down over that time span despite not having played very much. I finally had my first winning session the other day in almost 3 weeks, which felt good and was a real confidence booster.

I went a home game last night though (200nl) and had a nice score, which has me trying to remember why I'm grinding frigging 5nl online... I guess the idea of my online win rate only being limited by how many tables I can play at once is the appeal, but getting to that point at stakes where it can provide an income seems so far away.

I've started to ramp up the volume this week, and I think it's paying off. I've got about 3,000 hands in so far this week, which feels like a ton considering I'm only 4 tabling right now. I've been staying focused and feel like I've been playing really well. I've had a couple of good sessions in the last few days. Had a really good live score over the weekend too, so that was nice. I think I'm finally getting past the sheer monotony of playing online which has helped a lot. It's allowing me to stay more focused while being less concerned with results and instead concentrating on just trying to improve my game as much as possible. That's my primary goal right now - to improve my game as quickly as possible in order to start moving up soon.

solid beard mate will follow your thread just based on that haha. you should try and post some hands you found tough and get some feedback. do you use a tracking program at all like poker tracker/?

Thank you sir! You bet - here's one for ya (and yeah, I use pt4). This is a hand that I played last night, and upon reviewing it after my session, wasn't exactly sure how I could have played it better. I'll give you a chance to reply, and then I'll post the outcome of the hand later.



iPoker - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 483.4 BB (VPIP: 80.00, PFR: 29.09, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 57)
UTG: 95.4 BB (VPIP: 29.09, PFR: 3.64, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 55)
CO: 126 BB (VPIP: 35.00, PFR: 5.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)
Hero (BTN): 91.8 BB
SB: 100.2 BB (VPIP: 19.30, PFR: 15.79, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 58)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 9 9

fold, fold, Hero raises to 4 BB, SB raises to 7 BB, BB calls 6 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Flop: (21 BB, 3 players) 6 3 6
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 15 BB, SB calls 15 BB, BB calls 15 BB

Turn: (66 BB, 3 players) 8
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 69.8 BB, SB calls 69.8 BB, BB calls 69.8 BB


I think I had 2 alternative options here.

1) Bet smaller on the turn - perhaps bet $2.50 (about 75% of the pot) and check-fold the river. I don't like that option because even though my turn bet is a slight overbet, we’re not really betting for value here, and we're only saving 20 BB’s by betting 75% of the pot here vs. just getting it in which gives us a chance to take down the pot on the turn, which was what I was hoping for.

2) Check behind on the flop. Since the SB 3b preflop, we’re not the aggressor here, but we have the advantage of being in position. Instead of betting after it was checked to us on the flop, I think it would be a good idea to check behind here to control the pot size. We can then check/call the turn and see what happens. SB showed strength preflop with the 3 bet, and had solid stats (19/16/5 over 58 hands), so we have to give him credit for having a solid hand. Also, since it was a 3 bet pot, the pot is already big enough to get plenty of value on later streets if our hand improves.

It's been interesting week at the tables. After a month long downswing, I'm finally on the upswing again. This weekend has been solid especially. I identified some leaks Friday afternoon that I've been working on, namely calling too frequently on the turn and river, via a hand review session with Kounterfeit. Thanks to him, I'm learning a lot more about pt4 and how to find things like that. The fish have been abundant this weekend, and they've been abundantly bad. Throw in a little run good and you have the makings for a nice upswing.

Here's a graph of my weekend so far:

I ran really bad the last few hands including getting hit with boat over boat, but I can't complain about that after the weekend I've had. I stopped to take a break after that though and plan to play more tonight.

I'll post an overall graph tonight or tomorrow.

I'm a South Carolinian as well! If we ever cross paths at best bet jax or harrahs Cherokee I'll buy ya a beer! Good luck with the online grind.

Thanks! What part? Good luck to you in your endeavors as well!

99 hand is kinda weird - defo like the flop bet, turns meh spot would probs chk it back and make a river decision - you have position which is great in a multiway pot since people play more honest and it should be easier to get to showdown - it's kinda hard to find many worse hands that will call when you shuv turn which is always bad news

River: (275.4 BB, 3 players) Q
SB checks, BB checks




I like checking the flop here, since we're in position, to control the size of the pot. SB's 3b percentage is 5.26%, which is a range of 88+, AJs+, KQs, Ako. That includes exactly 12 hands, the weakest of which are 88 and AJs. BB was V 80 and v3 67, so by contrast, his call range here is very wide. If we're out of position here, I could see betting to find out where we are in the hand.

Based on preflop action and SB’s 3b range, we have to conclude that 99, though an overpair on this flop and turn, is still probably not the best hand. I think we should only be looking to set mine here. Based on that and the fact that we have position, I think checking behind on the flop is much closer to +EV in this specific instance than c-betting or betting for information.

I think even with checking the flop we can get the same information out of action on the turn as we would have from betting the flop and turn. For instance, if SB leads the turn, we can reraise to find out where we are, and it most likely still costs us less than a 3/4 flop bet and a 1/2 turn bet. Although, I’d probably just flat call the turn here after checking the flop, since I’m way behind 50% of SB’s range on the turn, tied with 99, and only marginally ahead of the remaining 42% of his 3b range.

Live in the upstate, Greenville/Spartanburg area.