4/19/10

So finally got out and tried out my new bike, was a great time but I'm really out of shape, and I picked a place that is very hard to ride, on the way out I noticed the no bikes sign...opps. I'm pretty lucky I parked next to a cop and when I left he was still there....haha

Anyway, got some exercise so that's great, played some online steps tournaments and got crushed, then finally did good, got to step 3, back to step 2, back to step 3, knocked out entirely. I didn't have much luck after that it all just went down hill. I'm considering giving it a break because it doesn't look like it's going to well but I really need to look at the prize. I think I'm going to chill for a bit and see how it goes. I may try some bodog sit and go's since I'm killing bodog cash I want to give that a try. I don't see how I can do better then cash but I just want to see how it runs and hey I have the time.

Today should be a calm day, going home and should have two poker DVD's today to watch, that will be my studying today. Tuesdays are always rough at work and mentally drain me so I need to keep it simple. Tomorrow I plan on reading some of Caro's book in less there is a live tournament/SnG and depending on the buyin. I'm trying to stick with lower buyings because of the size of my bankroll.

Poker results 4/18/10: Can I get back to good..

Ok a new day and I still have a few bucks left in my bankroll. Lucky me there is a smaller game a friend is hosting, $20 rebuyin tournament. I'm not much of a fan of rebuyin but it is slowly growing on me. After getting crazy lost finally sit down and play. My girl is playing and so is one of my best friends, he plays poker a lot. Then there are three others, random but appears solid tight, aggressive player that doesn't play another that is extremely solid.

So we are off, quickly the guy to my right busts out the player that is a novice, he buys back in and it happens again, he has a monster chip stack. I hit a good hand and tell my girl I have a set, of course I say stuff and sometimes I'm telling the truth sometimes I'm not. Well she keeps betting into me and I call, she ends up going all in on the river, I call and show the boat, I'm sleeping on the coach tonight..lol. Naah she rebought, my good friend has had some rough cards after starting out well. He ends up shoving, I had AT he had 99, flop missed me but runner runner AT took him out.

Few hands later I have AKo and I raise, the guy with all the chips shove on big blind, I have been very aggressive but this time I have the goods. I think about it for about a minute and if I want to win this I need to make this move, I'm going to have to get lucky and hope he doesn't have AA or KK. I call. He shows JJ, flop misses me, turn misses me, River...King. Nice, I just doubled up and he just got crippled compared to what he had. Next hand another guy shoves it's only 450 more to me and I have tens of thousands, so I call with 10/9s. flop comes out 10 9 2. I check to my girl, she goes to raise I tell her to take it easy, she raises anyway, I insta shove not giving her anymore room to make a move against me, this move looks very fishy, she calls and shows K10. She actually had a solid hand, my two pair stand and I take em both out. We are now heads up. I have about 4 times the chips.

First hand he folds, second hand I raise 2x, he folds, third hand he shoves, I fold, 4th hand I fold, 5th hand, he raises, I shove, once again I have AK, and he has...you guessed it, Q9. The hand that crushed my winnings last night. Did it happen again? Thank goodness no, the AK hit a king on the flop and held up. Payout was $120 we dealt ourselves so that saved me some money..lol. I added that with my $29 left (bought a water) so I should have $149.

I then went to a larger tournament about 40ish people give or take. I didn't get much sleep and didn't want to play in this as I was already tired and energy drinks were like drinking water. First hand Jacks got called with a nice raise, he hit a king, I could have got him off of it, but I decided to just check it down since I knew he would follow. Got good odds to call an all in, called and hit a flush with Qd Jd. So above where I started.

So I get pocket tens and raise it up, another person calls, and this guy is very solid and good. I have been waiting to take him out for a long time. Flop comes 10 7 5. So I hit top set, I check to set a trap, he checks behind, next card 10 7 5 8, I check again thinking I'm going to get paid off on this, he checks again. Ok, river card, give him something or let him stab at it or something. 10 7 5 8 2, I check the final stage of my trap, I never take it this far but he is a very good player there's no way he won't bet this. BAM, he throws 600 in the pot (early stage), I quickly grab 600 and another 1k and throw it in the pot. He pauses and sighs, instantly I know I'm beat, but wait...he didn't play J9 against me he's to tight. Wow, I guess I am tired, the river put a flush draw out there and I didn't even notice. I look at my chips and maybe have 700 behind. Only a flush beats me, well and a straight but he doesn't have a straight I'm positive. I look at him and said you have AcKc don't you? Nothing, no signs, it don't matter I already got my sign it was that sigh, when people are weak they act strong, when they are strong they act weak, he is making me think he is upset about that when he's actually just upset about not getting me all in yet. Ok, I'm thinking I'm committed at this point and I'm tired anyway. To much invested at this point, I call. He flips over Ace of clubs, King of clubs for the nut flush, my top set got crushed and I didn't even notice it.

To remedy this I'm going to download some software where it asks for "the nuts" and keep practicing for a long period of time. I know I was tired but man once I saw the set of 10's everything else became blank to me, and I knew he would cold call me preflop with a hand like that with out a raise I have to assume it's a hand like that. oh well I was tired I went home and played some steps, nothing to really report. Hopefully better today. Bankroll somehow ended up at $111. Still up $31 from when I started with all of the bad luck, lets see if I can keep it going up and keep it separate.

Poker results 4/17/10: You went all in with WHAT!?!

So after playing around on FullTilt today I was very excited about there new announcements of the steps tournaments. Winning 7 steps can get you into the WSOP, which is a dream of mine, so I will be grinding this out for sometime to see if I can achieve this goal. I have been either starting at Step 0 or Step 1, I need to beat Step 7. My highest step I am on right now is Step 3.

Well I was well rested and focused and there was a tournament at 7:30 for $30. My starting bankroll is currently $80 I have left over from fixing a computer for someone. It took me awhile to get started but once I caught a big hand, pocket kings, got a caller and flopped top set I started moving quickly. The guy to my left that was bullying calmed down as I heated up which was perfect because he was catching cards so hard I don't know how I would have got around him.

I always look for players to my left and identify there play styles to see if they will get in my way or not. Then I look at my players on my rights and see who I want to get in a hand with, I call them ATM's because I can just keep making withdraws =)

Went very well was 11 people in total, got down to heads up and the guy offered me a chop. I feel very strong about my heads up ability, I think playing online heads up games and the ICM manager (available on pokerstratgy.com) really helped me out. Knowing when to push, fold or call. Also, if someone is playing tight I flip my style which most people don't pick up, I raise my bad hands so they fold and I cold call my great hands so I get re-raised or can take em out on the flop. He had a good amount of chips but I had a huge lead. He was a passive player, well he either got really good cards or grew some b***s cause he went nuts and I kept getting bad hands, flops were missing me, and I quickly found myself in a tough spot. I wasn't upset about not chopping after he took me out, I was upset that I lost. I'm even more upset that I'm not sure why I lost, I can't find any mistakes I made and I'm sure I made some. I even stole some using cards as bad as 25o, I think he kept seeing me back down and he kept attacking. Last hand we were evenly stacked, He had A8o and I called with K7o, no one hit so he took it down. So basically a coin flip to determine an extra $75 and I must have called tails cause heads came up.

So I got 2nd place, I'm glad I got more experience with heads up, people ask to chop all the time and we never play it out, I need to get use to playing it out for when it happens, yes this group chops a lot but when I play other tournaments that don't chop what do I do then when they have more experience then me.

So it's Saturday night about 10 PM, they only play 1 tournament then that's it, well they started a cash game so why not. 2nd place got me $80 after tipping the dealer $20, so I went up $50. So my bankroll is now at $150. I put $100 in for the cash game (table min), my favorite dealer is dealing and very first hand she gives me Kings on the button. The whole table calls for $2 each, I raise to $17, one person calls the rest fold. Flop came 567 rainbow, he min bets, I shove and he calls. I show kings and he gets upset, next card don't help him, and river is another King, nice pot, I was all in but he was towards the end of his night and had about $52 left so I'm up $52 which is awesome, I quickly hit another $24 and $12 pot, then loose about that same amount.

So I'm at about $160. I'm looking around the table for targets, who I want to get in a hand with and who I want to stay away from. There is this one guy playing every hand and he just blasts off with pure aggression, double and triple barreling to take it down. Target acquired.

Well it's getting late and I still didn't get a hand since this guy sits down, I get pocket 7's UTG, I call for $2. You may say this is a weak hand, oh no not in this cash game where most people that take it down have middle pair and that's when it gets to the river! Gets to him and like clockwork, raise $11, I knew it was coming, so guy after him calls and so do I.

Hand (UTG) - 77

Flop - 4 5 6 rainbow

This is a great flop for me, other then hitting a set I can't ask for more. I know he's aggressive and this is where I may have made a mistake. I bet $35 first to act. He is up, he puts enough to scare the guy after him out and put the action on me putting me all in.

Here comes the multi-level of poker thinking. What does he have. I'm going through my mind did he hit one of those cards? Does he have an over pair? Is he bluffing? Ok lets break it down, I have been playing very tight folding to lots of raises. He never seen anyone play back at me since the game started, so knowing I'm tight and I'm careful with my money there is no way I will put my whole stack at risk right? Wrong! Yes, I'm tight with my money but I have been studying this guy like crazy, I see that his breathing pattern is different then before when I start to stack my chips as if I am going to push them all in. Well That's what I did, I called my remaining stack. His jaw pretty much hits the felt that I called and by his disguise, I'm already counting my bankroll rocketing up, he throws up his cards and he has Q9o. Wow, a total bluff, could I get luckier? Yes, in matter a fact I could have, as the turn hits it's a nine and a ten follows giving him top pair.

Wow, I just got crushed, he did all that with air, I knew it, I figured it out, I set him up and it failed. I just get up and leave, not making a scene because at this point I'm shaking. This is the largest pot I ever played as I'm more of a tournament player and chips play different then cash. That was a pot of around $320 which hurt badly. My bankroll is now at $50. I go home and try to watch a movie, as I really want to play online but said to myself I had enough bad beats for this Saturday night, even though it was only 1 beat it was enough to take all my hard work and lose it in one moment. I have to tell myself these two things, I got my money in right and that's poker.

He bought in with $300 I later learned he cashed out $110, after that hand he had over $700. That makes me feel a bit better, I can't help thinking what if I would have checked, he would have made a moder bet like $45, then I would have shoved and he would have folded.

So after the movie I went to bed...yeah right I went online and played 2 more hours of poker doing pretty well then I went to sleep about 4 AM.

Introduction

Hey! I'm Kevin, I have decided after playing poker for sometime to try and take it to the next level. Not meaning move up in stakes but to get very serious about it. Just in general I am a very good Texas Hold'em tournament player. Let me just say a very important word in that phrase, tournament! Just a quick note, if anyone does read this my strong point is math, not English so you will see lots of spelling mistakes...sorry.

My main goals is to start with a small bankroll and increase it practicing bank roll management once it gets to a certain size. It's tough with tournaments because most of them are around $40, but I will give it a try and if I go below my starting cash I will just add another till I can start to move in the correct direction.

Current weaknesses (leaks in game):

Playing cash games - I will no longer play cash games, I always win the tournaments then lose it in the cash games, this will need to stop since they are completely different games I'm going to stick with my strongest game which is tournaments.

Lack of focus, Not enough sleep - I have noticed if I don't get at least 8 hours of sleep and I try to play tournaments all day long I lose focus and miss things as obvious as flush draws. Energy drinks do not help as it just makes me play more aggressive which can cause issues. I also have this issue when I don't eat before a tournament, I get hungry and my mind wonders, need to make sure I leave enough time for food.

Drinking and lack of exercise - I never drink when I gamble to keep my mind clear, but I was drinking a lot from bad beats...etc It has become excessive so I have decided to cut it out all together. Today will be 10 days since I have had a drink. I have not started my exercise but I did go out and buy a mountain bike which I'm hoping to try out after work today. Exercise is by far the best way to work off those bad beats in poker and I know this, but for some reason this is one of the things I am not doing well, along with not eating properly. With just giving up drinking, I'm going to wait another week or so then start focusing more on eating correctly. I am very excited about a new way of life but I don't want to do it all at one time for the fear of moving backwards.

Dealing with bad beats/moves - I really beat myself up if I made a mistake, the majority of the time I am ok with a bad beat if I got my money in right, meaning I'm ahead then I just need to know that I played it mostly correct depending on the player..etc. If I make the wrong move I do play it over and over again, the mental stress on this is intense, but it is also a strength since I rarely repeat a mistake in less one of the above are true, tired/hungry.

Current Strengths

Playing live tournaments - This is a huge strength, I play very well live, I get very good reads off people and when well rested I feel I can break any game that I have been in. After playing online, watching extremely aggressive players play, learning the tricks, I feel that I can make moves whenever needed. I finally got the confidence I need this weekend, when a very good live player was worried that I was sitting as his table, I later went on to taking him out which just made me feel even better. I don't want to get cocky but I'm starting to think you need that mental state to pull off lots of moves, though I will keep my cockiness to myself and this blog.

Player reads - This is by far my best strength, I am very good at reading peoples body language and actions to put them on a hand. I have read some of Caro's book and it just helped me so much, I really need to finish reading it.

Not repeating mistakes - If I get knocked out by a mistake I made I repeat it over again and again in my head, walking myself through different ways of playing the hand. What could have worked better, what other lines I could have taken? should I have been in the hand at all? I go through these until I have an answer for myself, and these hands though they slip out of my mind after a few weeks the strategy of how that should have been played against that type of player does not.

Immediate Goals

Finish reading Caro's book

Rented some Poker DVD's through netflix, can't wait to watch them

Keep my poker money separate from my living/spending money.

Exercise at least 2 times a week (starting small)

No drinking

No cash games or slots, just hold'em tournaments

Practice identifying "the nuts" of each hand so I can very quickly identify it (3 seconds average).

Blog, lots of poker players blog so they can type out what happened, help get it off there mind or keep it on their mind, so I'm going to follow suite.

Long term goals

Live the dream in Atlantic City, Vegas or even near me since poker tables will be coming in a few months to my area.

Poker becoming my career.

Play in the WSOP

Well if anyone is reading this, that's enough to start off, I'm going to post my events from this weekend next.

Kevin