Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having a safe and happy thanksgiving!

And to my non-American readers, happy thursday!

Noticed something pretty cool

I was just perusing through PokerTableRatings when I got a silly idea to see how my performance in the CAP games over the last week compared to the rest of the world. The results were pretty surprising, and very encouraging...


Yep, thats me in 2nd place. I officially have the 2nd most money won in the CAP games at my stake on full tilt, and after only 2 days too.

Good luck everyone and have a happy and safe holiday!

Sweet smell of success

As I mentioned last post, I am trying to transition to the 25 CAPNL games on full tilt. For those that dont know, CAP is basically the same as NL but players can only put up to 30BB in the pot. Once those 30BBs are put in, the player is ruled all in. I played a bit yesterday, with an early session in which I ran horrendously and dropped 30 bucks, and a later session where I played pretty well and made it all back.

Today I got 2 nice sessions in (not really sure how many hands cause Copilot hasnt been working for my CAP hands). My first session netted me about 60 bucks (8 CAP "buy ins"), I played well and the play in these games is pretty horrible. The later session ended with me up 90 more dollars for 12 CAP "buy ins". In this session I ran like god. I sucked out on people some and all of my hands held, it was really satisfying.

In the CAP games, I play very similarly to my style in the NL games. But it is important to recognize the amount you have put in the pot so you dont end up leaving yourself in awkward spots. Its also important to know that people are willing to stack off lighter in cap games, so marginal hands gain a lot of value. Its a little tough to get used to, but CAP games can be pretty juicy.

Ill leave you with a pretty sweet hand but it kind of exemplifies the downside of cap games, in a regular game I probably gain two stacks. Money got in on the river.

Quick Update

Since I last posted I havent been playing much poker. My roommate just picked up FIFA 10 and I have been hooked, playing in almost all my free time. With Fifa and and a bunch of work this week I never really got around to poker. I plan on continuing to play at 10NL until I reach 400, maybe 500. I might also throw in some 25NL CAP because I have had alot of success at that stake. Wish me luck!

Good luck at the tables!

Renewed Faith

Since the beginning of my prop bet, I have played about 5-6 sessions of 10NL and none have gone particularly well. Other than the first session, none of the sessions have been particularly terrible with me losing on a buy in or two, but they all have been fairly frustrating. I couldnt get anything going and was unsure if I could actually beat the level. I definitely had some leaks but I felt I was outplaying my opponents just not able to get stacks from the donks.

After a fairly frustrating session on friday afternoon, in which I lost about 3/4 of a buy-in in 500 hands, I was seriously feeling doubtful about my ability. I had a free evening before I was to go out for the night so I decided to fire up some tables. Im sure glad I did. Everything seemed to go right, I was getting paid off, making good call downs and making some folds I dont think I would have made earlier in the week. One thing I have changed is going from the deep-ante tables to the regular 100BB stack tables. I dont know if this is making the difference but Im not going to change back until I see a reason to. The final tally for the day was 2700 hands and 8.5 buy ins.

With the big final day, I am officially done with my 7k hands and finished with a whopping ..........1.48 in profit!!!!! WHOO!!!!!

Beat that ferocious kitty!

Seriously though, the huge winning session has reminded me that I really can beat these games and I just have to be willing to put in the hands in order to do so.

Good luck at the tables!

Propbetaments

I sat down to my first session that would be part of my prop bet and it certainly did not go as imagined. The day started pretty good, I chipped up on a bunch of my tables at a good clip, picking up smallish pots on multiple tables (I was playing on 9). After only about 25 minutes or so I was up over 1.5 buy in and thinking that this prop bet would be a breeze. I was wrong. I proceed to get coolered in multiple 400BB pots (one with flopped top set vs a turned straight, and one with AA vs a set), have KJhh and bet out on every street on a Kc 7h 5h 9s 2h only to have my river shove get called by A4hh, and get KK vs AA twice in over 150BB pots. I dont think I played particularly badly, just got myself in crappy situations that I was likely not getting away from. I ended the day down 5 buy ins over 1600 hands, for a BB/100 of -32.05. Not a great way to start the bet (but if youre following on Ferocious Kitty's blog he hasnt been fairing all to well either).

Hopefully I can turn it around in the coming weeks. Good luck everyone!

I’m Back and Broker Than Ever

It has been a while since my last blog post, unfortunately there is not much good to report. Since I last blogged I fell victim to my recent nemesis and played him once again. This time at 1/2 and some 2/4, and again it did not go well. It was a while ago and still dont remember much how it happened, but I’m sure I didn’t play well. At multiple times, I had my entire roll on the tables, and there were times where my whole roll was in the middle. When the dust settled, I was down to 100 dollars in my account (with 240 dollars in T$). It was crushing, not only was I down to the start of my stake, but I was now down a significant amount of money in that stake. I decided to cash my T$ into real money and looked at my account to see $325.

Three hundred and twenty-five dollars. Ugh, it just hurts to write. I am so far away from where I was. I am down to .05/.10 stakes, and totally unmotivated. I haven’t played a good session in over a week and for a while thought poker was over for me. I think I was being overdramatic, but we will see. Stake doesn’t determine passion, just because I am playing smaller stakes doesn’t mean I should be less passionate about poker. I need to get back in the mindset of wanting to learn as much about the game as possible, trying to improve every day.

Luckily, my good friend, Ferocious Kitty has made me an offer that will hopefully get me back into the right mindset. He has challenged me to a prop bet in which we will both play 7,000 hands at 10NL from now until December 19th (when we both go home for winter break) and whoever has won more money wins a free dinner at our favorite restaurant. For both of us, the bet is not really about the dinner (though it will be delicious and free), the bet is about improving both of our games, trying to ensure that we are playing the best poker we can. You may have noticed that the hand amount is pretty small, but I think that this is for the best. First, Ferocious Kitty is a pretty busy dude. He’s out in London right now, studying abroad, and is working in freakin’ parliament, meaning he’s got a lot of stuff on his plate. 7k hands a good amount of poker, while not being enough to overwhelm him. Secondly, for both of us, only having a 7k hand requirement doesn’t force us to play when we don’t want to or need to. Forcing play is one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make. Forced poker is bad poker. By giving both Ferocious Kitty and me some leeway in choosing when to play, we can ensure that we will only play when we age going to play our best poker.

The climb begins now. Let’s do this