5k hand challenge today,

Since I am behind in my hands pre-Vegas, I have 2 goals for the day. 1. Work out. 2. Play 5k hands. I will update this blog periodically with session results and hands.


Update 1, 12:15

I am currently about 1300 hands into the challenge, and I'm stuck about $100. I've been running pretty shitty so far and have felt a little off balance, but for the most part I am playing my B+ game which is great considering that I am 6 tabling. The games are pretty damn good, and they are only going to get better as the day gets later. I am going to go work out after this session, so I imagine my game will improve later on as well. I haven't had too many interesting hands, but I have been battling it out with a couple of other regs who I have had setup for the kill, but can't get the right situation. Now that I mention it, that is probably a category that most of you guys are interested in. At 50 nl, most of the regs are clueless. At 100, you start to see guys who have a clue, but still have leaks. The key to getting an edge on these guys is metagame. Basically, metagame is just trying to stay one step ahead of him. It is more or less like a heavy weight fight. You will both be throwing jabs in an effort to get the big knockout punch. I will expand upon this concept later, just wanted to update.


Update 2. I have pretty much ran like shit all day long. I am currently at 3600 hands and stuck $25 or so, but I have spent the better portion of the day stuck $250 or so. It is currently 12:41 est so I doubt that I will get 5k hands in, but it is certainly possible (especially if I run hot this session.)

Here is a fun hand. This one is against a regular. Odd bet sizes can really throw your opponents through a proper mindfuck. Now, I may have stacked this guy regardless of my line, but I like to think that my unorthadoxed bet sizes confused him and made him go with it.

http://weaktight.com/100400



Update 3: I am finished. I totally dominated my last session. That weird bet sizing was fucking spectacular. It got action from soooo many regulars as they were confused and couldn't help acting on their calling instinct.


I am bushed so I am not going to post any hands, but I will post graphs and results on the day.

Total on the day: 5080 hands, + 1079.

Here is the graph from the session I played on my laptop:




Here is the graph from the sessions on the desktop:

Howdy strangers

Sorry for not posting in a while, my life is kinda hectic right now. I am currently living between two cities (well actually one city and one town) that are about 200 miles apart (thats 320 km for you Euros.) The reason for my doing this is because I have recently befriended Tony Popejoy through a friend from 2p2. My friend from 2p2 knows that I am somewhat knowledgeable on computers and referred me to Tony to get him a kick ass poker pc. I decided to build him one on Ebay that is totally loaded. For monitors, I got him a Dell 30" 3007wfp monitor and a rotated 20' 2001fp monitor that combine for roughly 42' of desktop space. I was also supposed to get him acclimated to online play since he really has no experience doing it. To make a long story short, Tony and I hit it off immediately and I am now living at his house teaching him how to play online, while he coaches me in mtts. Both of us had a difficult 2007 so we are basically striving towards similar goals. Both of us are out of shape (Tony had gastric bypass a year ago and has lost 250 lbs and is now down to 250, I am currently at 275ish and could stand to lose 50 lbs.) and Tony just kicked a bad painkiller habit while I had a very rough financial year in 2006 and 2007. Basically, we are both working on a 4 month plan that involves both of us grinding a ton of hands in an effort that culminates at the 08 WSOP. We are also looking to get in shape together (he has lost most of the weight, however, his muscles are majorly atrophied and he could do well to do some sculpting.)

Meanwhile, I am still in school in Columbus (Tony lives in Kokomo IN) one night a week. I stay with my cousins on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and those are basically my weekends which is fine considering that I don't party as much as I used to. Either way, the last few days have been dedicated to school, so I didn't get a lot of time to grind til today. What a monster day it was. I played a total of 2795 hands for a net profit of $738 plus another $75 or so in rb. With the exception of some spew that I ended up getting to work in my favor, I played unbelievably tonight. I am really starting to get sick good at this game. On another note, 100 nl has gotten soooo much easier lately it seems. There is no shortage of 50+ vpip players that have no problems sitting with $150+ As far as my pre Vegas hands goal, I am currently at 8848 hands, +$1674 ($195 of which is rb.) I am definitely happy with it, and given that I am playing on Tony's 30' I can 6 table pretty easily so I should be able to knock out 3k hands a day pretty easily while I am here. I have a final exam in my Finance class (all my classes meet 4 hours one night per week for 6 week periods) and a pretty big project, so I doubt that I will get in many hands towards the middle of next week. If I can get 3k hands Friday, Saturday, Sun, and Mon, that will put me at 21k hands. I think a good goal would be to get to 23k hands by the time I go to bed Tuesday morning. That way, I can primarily focus on school Tues-Thurs and possibly get 1k hands in each night. Then I can get 2k on the 15th and 16th which will get me to 30k for the month.

I do have a few interesting hands from this evening, but I'm getting tired, I will edit them into this post tomorrow morning (well, afternoon actually.)

Done for the evening

I was sick last week, and my new business demanded that I pay a lot of attention to the Superbowl, so I am a little bit behind on hands, but I think that I can make them up. So far, I am off to a great start. I am running well, playing good (not great) and up quite a bit so I can't complain. Unfortunately, I can't post any graphs as I have played on multiple computers but I can give you the unofficial break down.

As of Jan 3: 4134 hands, +$496 from poker, +$75 from bonus. I haven't cashed out any rakeback yet, but when I do, I will update with that, and I believe I have about $100 so far on the month.

Here is really the first interesting hand that I played in a while. Villain in the hand was a decent player, prolly a winning player, and he prolly thought a bit. I maxed value here because he expects me to check somewhere with AA/KK/AK.

SHIP SHIP

Quick Update

This is going to be a tough goal to accomplish as I basically stumbled at the starting line. I've been sick all week, and am just finally feeling better. I only have 2k hands in, and I'm stuck $100ish. I just finished a session and played really really badly which ended up with a quit by me. Today is the Superbowl (obv.) and there looks like there are a lot of players on tilt, so Im going to take a break and hit it in a few.

Grinding like a mofo

I am going to Vegas on 2/17 with 2p2er and good friend Daliman, mostly on his dollar as he plays high limit neutral ev blackjack that ends up being +EV after comps are factored in. My goal is to get in 30k hands in by then which will end up being roughly 2k hands per day. Hopefully, I can get about $3k together which would make for enough of a roll to play 2/5 on, go to strip clubs, do some shopping/boozing with. I will obviously update my results throughout this blog, and post hands.

A quick update

It has been a few days since I have posted, so I will post a quick update. Yesterday I finally got in the black for the month as far as cash games are concerned with and $808 day. Here are my results since my last post.



Since this was a quick update, I am not going to post hands, but I am about to do a video, so be on the lookout for that.

Ship the $1/hand sesh!

Just got done with a 538 hand sesh in which I made $546, and EASILY could have made
700+. It is nice to finally run well, and I have nothing but high expectations for the rest of the month. I will post some hands below, but I want to discuss this swing a bit more. First off, I ran like shit. A player of my caliber (not saying that I am good, merely just a marginal 100nl winner) needs to run like shit to lose as much as I did in that period of time. However, I also played poorly throughout. I tried to make far too many plays, and couldn't find folds in spots that I should have been doing quite easily. I have always had difficulty folding. The ability to fold is really what sets us (winners) apart from losers. This statement is really quite obvious if you think about it. We have all had a million discussions in which we say how bad a player is, he never folds preflop. This concept doesn't just apply to preflop though. Folding goes against everything that is embedded in our psychological framework. As humans, we are naturally curious animals. Folding doesn't allow us to satisfy our curiosity. Furthermore, when we are playing poker, we want to do just that. We want to play, not withdraw. When I am playing like shit, I am simply not folding. I imagine a lot of you are the same.

On to some hands:

Villain in this one was pretty laggro/maniacish. I had 3 bet him a few times already, and since he only had $50 on the table, I simply wasn't folding to his shove. To be results oriented, I am crushing his range anyways, so it doesn't much matter.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982480

Villain in this hand was a standard 16/12 tag with a high ag factor of 4. I decided to flat call the flop to give him some rope since he was very aggressive. I think that I got close to maxing value over the rest of the hand, but I probably could have bet a bit more on the river. I am not sure if checking this turn is best though and would like to hear some opinions on it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982482

This one was a little fancy, perhaps too much so, but I like to get sexy, and no one folds a boat.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982488

This one was questionable, and possibly bad. Villain was 26/20 and I had been 3 betting him a bit. I could see him doing this with a pretty wide range from the button, but utg not so much. I pretty much let my emotions get the best of me in this one.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982495

Villain is a pretty solid player here and I knew he was on exactly 8T. This line is so uber standard for me. Jared has got me milking with bigger hands, and it works a lot at 100. At 50 nl, people are sooooo bad that you can bet whatever size you want and still get action. On a side note, last night during a sweat sesh with Jared, it was remarkable how well he interpreted bet sizes. One thing that I realized is that as you move up, the more important being able to interpret bet sizes becomes.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982495

Villain in this hand is like 36/8 and pretty bad. His play here is really really bad as he is a coinflip at best here.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982508

Villain in the next two hands was some 18/13 tagfish swede. Calling a 3 bet with T7ss is just going to be trouble in this spot, he is lucky I played it like shit. This is a bad spot for me to induce a raise. I really need to be betting much more on both the flop and turn in retrospect.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982515

Same villain, awful play by him. I am simply never playing a pot this big with JJ. Ever.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982518

There are all of my winners, here are all of my big losers.

Villain in this one was another tagfish. I got him to put his money in as a 3:1 dog, but thank you turn.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982519

This one may have been a bit on the aggro side. I basically ran into one of the worst hands possible. Oh well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1982525


In all honesty, I played pretty well this sesh, but not fantastic. I don't like two hands out of this set. It feels damn good to finally run good for once though.




Ps, do you guys like the pokerhand.org format? I really would like to be able to figure out a way to show the actual hands here, but can't figure out a way to do that.