Live poker update

Whenever my wife has some time off, I try to get an outing, or in this case, two to the casino about 45 minutes from where I live. There are a few closer casinos, but they don't offer the amount of poker tables that will allow me to get in a game soon after arriving. Last week while I got a chance to get out to the Hammond Horseshoe twice to play some NLHE $1-$2. The last time I had played any serious poker, let alone live, was in Las Vegas back in September when I joined a group of five other friends for a faux-bachelor party over a long weekend. I played poker a disappointing two times then which was basically nothing due to the fact that I was trying to be part of the group. I wish I had just gone to the pool and drank some Pina Coladas instead. Anyways!!!

  I made the trip out to the Horseshoe and quickly got into a 1-2 NLHE game. My first hand I picked up pocket Queens and raised a limper to $14. I got a drunken coldcall from a guy immediately to my left who ended up folding on the turn when I hit my set and bet $55 in to a $65 pot. NAILED IT!!
Next big win I had pocket Kings which took down a nice pot. Things evened out for a while until I hit a set of 6s which once again took down an nice sized pot to put me up almost $2oo in the first hour. Soon after that , I young reg joined the game who had fleeced me a 4 months earlier when he caught 2 pair on the turn vs my small flush only to hit a 4 flush on the river to beat me. I limped with pocket 3s and he iso raised me to $16. I called and hit quad 3s. He fired the flop and checked the blank turn. He folded to my large river bet even though the final board totally nailed his preflop raising range. I made it up to +$300 at one point and finished my 4 hour session at +$271.

  The next trip was a few days later which ended up being uneventful as I slowly lost $100 in the first 2 hours only to make it up in the last hour and cashed out exactly even for the shortened session. I was quite happy to have the positive results as well as feel the excitement for poker that has been waining, especially online due to the lack of games, post Black Friday. I am still working on the Part 1 of my magnum Opus which will ultimately have to do with online poker legislation. the first part is an extensive survey into the history of deregulation starting in the 1920's and then jumping to the modern era (circa 1980). I was hoping to have finished it before New Year's , but I feel as though I have to do more research in order feel comfortable with my facts. I hope to have it for you soon. Have fun!

Running log--Week #7

So another week down the drain. As you have already read, last week I only ran one day due to an injury. At the beginning of this week, my knee was still a bit tender. I didn't end up running at all, mostly because of it being Thanksgiving week and I knew that I wanted to eat, drink, and be lazy. Thanksgiving was fine and I was happy to have lots of pumpkin pie. Saturday I went tailgating with some friends at the NU game v.s. MSU. It ended up raining a little bit before game time, so we decided to just hunk her down under the 2 canopies we had and drink more alcohol. I tasted some Salmon flavored Vodka.

The only way I can describe it is to say that it's probably a little better than prison rape.  I will have to admit that I have never been in prison for that to have happened.
I am hoping to get back in the saddle of running tomorrow and start off very easy as not to injure myself again. I did get a quick trip to the casino last night and was up $37 after a little over 2 hrs playing NLHE.

I am still working on the opus that will be my hypothesis of the government's policies toward online gaming as well as the Financial Sector. I have finished about 40% of the 1st part which I hope to post in mid December. The next part will probably be up later that month or early January. I hope all is well. Have Fun!

Glory Days...

I just got back from a long weekend in Las Vegas on Sunday and was preparing to write a "Trip Report", but decided against it so that I can get my thoughts together and come up with a theme to my weekend. Instead I want to talk about something that has been going through my poker mind lately and that is my waining interest in playing poker. Without going into too much detail, I only played about 3 hours of poker over the course of my Las Vegas Extravaganza weekend for multiple reasons. One of which was the fact that I didn't feel an urgency or overwhelming desire to play. I wanted to hang out with my friends who joined me on the trip and I wanted to let go of having to concentrate. It's a bit disappointing to me that I may be losing the spark of passion for poker, but it makes a lot of sense given the times.
 Black Friday was truly a terrible day for poker players all around the world as well as the U.S., even though the elephant had been in the room since 2006. Serious online pros and hobbyists alike faced the  nearly insurmountable task of trying to get back home. The causal player wouldn't be bothered jumping through hoops to get money online which in turn only made the games that much more difficult. It was as if the ocean had just lost all of its lowered tiered fish and made the food chain much more competitive similar to the late 2006 when UIGEA passed and many online poker sites left the U.S. market.
Online poker in the United States might as well be dead, in my opinion. Hardly anyone is getting money off of the few networks that are running and the amount of games available are laughable. The entire community seems to be in a bit of a daze. I can only compare the sudden robust to busto shift online to Enron's collapse in early 2001. The big wigs at the top of the organisations (who don't go to jail), will be fine. They'll have other avenues to explore whether it be playing live, getting jobs other high priced jobs or retiring. It's the grinders and semi-serious hobbyists like myself who will ultimately be forced out, so to speak, which brings this back to my poker life today.

 Soon after Black Friday, I made the decision to take up NLHE more seriously than before and move from LHE permanently. Things started off well in the beginning and although I have hit some breakeven times, that is to be expected, especially when learning a new game. The overall problem is that being a stay at home dad of 3 kids 4 years old and under makes it rather difficult for me to concentrate on poker given the tougher conditions with respect to playing online. Combine that with the fact that the closest casinos that offer poker are all at least an hour away and it makes things all the more difficult to keep my poker brain running and well oiled. I've never been the type of person who can leave an activity for long stretches of time and then come back to them in good shape.
If online poker were to somehow go back to how it was pre Black Friday or even more so pre UIGEA, it would take me some serious retooling to get my poker game back to where it was and even then, I would still be improving from there.
As I went from casino to casino this past weekend I felt as if I was revisiting an old apartment or dorm room that I had lived in before. I recognised the tables and the layout. I looked up at the screens that show the wait lists and had a small sense of longing for 2008 through 2010 when I was in the thick excitement over playing poker. I loved discussing strategy on 2+2 and looking at stats on PT3. I loved the feeling when I knew that I had improved and was no longer a complete fish. As I mentioned before, I have been a stay at home dad since 2007, so poker was important to me because it gave me the opportunity to use my mind in a way that I didn't use as a parent. It was also something just for me. My man cave of sorts. There was an energy around poker in those 3 years that made it more than just a TV fad of David & Goliath on ESPN. There was a connection of people around the world. I was discussing poker with people in Los Angeles, Oklahoma, New York, Scandinavia, Australia, and more. I had become apart of a community that my everyday life friends didn't really understand. I guess you could say, poker was my 1960's. What was once considered a degenerate lifestyle, was...well still a degenerate lifestyle, but now more legitimate. Some of the stank had been washed off and febreezed which made online poker all that much more acceptable for the many everyday citizens.

 I walked by the Venetian casino where I had a great run in 2006 and where I met up with a great LHE player from 2+2 last year. It just seemed like a mirage to me. Everyone needs to take a break from things at different times. I hope that this is nothing more than a break. I am looking forward to a time when US players are back in the thick of playing online and not having to find creative ways to get funds into and out of their accounts. I hope that I get the chance to be apart of the second coming of online poker and mania that was born out of the Moneymaker effect. Most of all, I hope I still have that spark to play poker seriously regardless of the stakes. I got into poker with the fantasy of winning that big payday Ala Chris Moneymaker, but I'll settle for being a solid winning player at the grinder stakes.



Coming to you live in God's Country.

So I decided to learn how to play Backgammon a few days ago. I saw a Hoyle's rules book in the beach house where I am staying and took a break from kid duty to read the rules. There was a backgammon set, but I didn't have anyone to play with, so I downloaded a droid application and went on to play over 200 games at different skill levels. This may be the next thing I become hooked on, unless I try Baccarat, which I could possibly try out in Vegas next month. I have a pretty basic idea of Backgammon strategy and I am torn between going online and looking up advanced strategies or just taking this game as a chance to learn something without any external help, beyond the basic things I have read.
I haven't had much time for live poker for the past 3 weeks which is a bit dis concerning given that my last 2 sessions were terrible as far as results go. I am itching to have another live session before I go to Vegas next month, partially so I don't get too rusty with respect to live play as well as the fact that I don't plan on playing poker 24/7 for the few days I am there. This trip to Vegas is going to be with 5 other guys and will pretty much be a "bachelor party" of sorts in their minds, while I will be hopefully relaxing a majority of the time whilst always with drink hand. I'd like to play some NLHE as I have only played LHE in Vegas the 5 times I've been there. My friends are looking forward to "Sin City", if you get my meaning, and I have a different mind set at the moment. Being a stay at home dad, I want to time to myself to wake up whenever I like and do whatever it is I want while on vacation. I am not looking to get a happy ending or put $1 bills in G-strings so when the group goes off to those activities, that will be my best chance to go and play poker. I am also looking forward to having a nice cigar and some scotch at Casa Fuente.

The online poker front has been going rather well in August. I have mostly been playing NLHE .02-.04, albeit at the shallow tables, which means a maximum buy-in of 50 BBs. I plan on playing the 100 BB max tables as soon as my online BR gets to $80 which will be 20 buyins. my current online BR is at a little over $71, which $32 of that has been winnings in August, not including rake back. I haven't been posting much strategy in the 2+2 forums, but I have a goal of starting to frequent the micro full ring forums as of September 1st if my BR is at $80. I know, I know. This is all very exciting. Perhaps that is why I have so many followers so far. It is rather interesting to think that I started my online bankroll, post Black Friday, with only .39 that I got on Cake Poker from trading in Gold cards from 2008. I've won a total of $55 since BF and the rake back helped me early on.

It strange to think of how much money I put into online poker, or should I say lost, back in 2005 before I ran good. It's also strange to think how I have built a uber-nano stakes BR with nothing in the past 4 months. When I get back home, my first blog goal is to begin the 2nd part of my poker journey which starts up in 2008. Regardless of what happened before, I look at that year as when I truly began to learn about playing LHE. I like to glorify the pre-UIGEA online poker times of 2004-2006, but I really enjoyed 2008-2010 when it comes to my own development and results. I am no where near being a finished product when it comes to poker and probably never will, but it seemed like the golden years to me. Kind of like Baseball in the 50's and 60's while the pre UIGEA days were like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
Well, I will leave you with that for now and hope to hear from someone soon, especially with any suggestions on any of the subjects in my posts. Have fun, the summer is almost coming to an end.

Some more updates

I hope all is well with everyone. Things are going alright with my online challenge. Things were pretty tough for the first 3/4 of July as I got cold decked and dominated rather often, but then saw a some run good the last week which put me in the black. My bankroll is now up to $30 and hopefully I will be able to make it $50 by September 1st.
I mentioned before that I had my 2nd straight losing session at NLHE live poker a little over a week ago. I had been playing for close to 4 hours and knew that I would be leaving soon. I was down close to $150 at the time as I had seen a couple of big hands not improve or face alot of aggression which forced me to fold when I picked up Ace of spades and Queen of spades in early position. A poor player under the gun (UTG) limped for $2 and I raised to $15. all folded to the button who cold called, the small blind cold called, and then the first player who limped called the raise.
Now, AQ suited is a good preflop hand, but it's not that great against 3 other players. The flop comes down Q clubs, Q diamonds, 6 clubs. I have trip queens on a flush draw board. 2 players check to me and I bet $35 in to a $62 pot, which was a mistake at the time. I misread the board at first and didn't see the flush draw and bet 1/2 the pot which was too small. The button calls, the SB calls, and the player UTG reraises to $100, I quickly reraise all-in and the button goes into the tank which means that he has the nut flush draw most likely. The button finally folds, the SB folds and the UTG player sighs and calls. He has me covered by $20 and he flips over Q8s which puts him far behind me. He needs to hit a 6 for a split pot or an 8 to win. I am an 80% favorite to win the entire pot. This in my opinion, was a horribly played hand by the under the gun player. He limps with a weak Queen high suited gapper. Once I raise from early position and have 2 other callers, he should fold. He is easily dominated, even if he does hit top pair and will most likely be getting his money in behind if he does flop a flush draw and even then, there may be another better flush draw out there.
This villain had just sat down about 20 minutes earlier and had been stacked his first hand. to give you an idea of how poor this player was, he limped in late position with 56s and flopped top pair on a 6 4 4 flush draw flop. He bet out and I called with an overpair to the board. The SB check raised and this player reraised all-in with only top pair and a weak kicker. He ended up losing $100 on his first hand.
Back to the Q Q 6 hand. The turn card was a 6 which made it a split pot with one card left and of course I wouldn't be telling you this if it weren't for the river being an 8. That's poker.

I am looking forward to having another shot at the fish in my local casino and I only hope that things go my way if I get in to a situation as the one above. Have fun and I will talk to you soon.

Random talking points

Not much going on in the way of poker lately. I am a bit stalled in my online challenge. I said that I would not play NLHE until I had a healthy enough bankroll, but I lied. It's hard to learn something if you don't practice it on a consistent basis. I haven't been able to go to the casino as often as I would like, but when you are a stay at home dad with 3 boys ages 4, 2, and 2, it's hard to get to spend quality time with my wife let alone have time to myself. With that being said, I have had to play more online than what I had planned. I started to play some NLHE again so that I could try and practice some of the theory that I am learning in the forums as well as my reading. What I have learned is that the landscape changes where ever you go. How live players act at $1-$2 NLHE is quite different than how online players act at .02-.04. It's frustrating, but good to keep me alert and thinking. I've played more hands online than I have in quite some time, but it's all uber nano-stakes and I am running basically breakeven due to some early losses sustained at NLHE which I am now bring back to zero hopefully this week. I plan on taking a trip out to the casino in the next 10 days and hopefully erase the memory of my last session which was a -$300 day.
 Some new news is that I have booked my trip to Las Vegas in the fall. I was hoping to get a chance to stay at a new hotel on the strip, but will end up at the Mirage which is nice. They have one of my favorite sandwich places, The Carnegie Deli. It's a great location and I can relax with a Pina Colda at the pool. This may be the first trip that I play some live NLHE in Vegas. I have always stuck to LHE and my past few outings have been quite disastrous which was a far cry different from when my first 2 trips. I am traveling with at least 5 other guys to Vegas which I am sure will promise to be a rowdy time. I hope to steer clear of that as I am looking for some relaxation with some tasty drinks in hand.

Before I continue, I wanted to give a shout out to the person in Germany who may be my only repeat viewer so far. Tell your friends! I have a blog on Deuces Cracked which is basically the same blog with a few variations. The difference in viewers is night and day. Deuces cracked has a built in audience of sorts when it comes to blogs and you can easily see a new post at any given moment. I'm not so lucky here as of yet, but it's still early.
I also wanted to mention one of the blogs that I am following which is a very interesting read so far is you are a fan of Poker. It's called Supernova Elite Chase and follows the quest for Supernova elite status on Pokerstars by a successful player named Tony.
Well, that's all of the excitement for now. I am still working on a couple of longer blog posts that have to do with some recent news stories that have nothing to do with the Caylee Anthony trial. Have fun and I hope to hear from you soon.

Chapter #5-REVENGE!!!

Played some live No limit pokerz tonight at the local casino. I figure that I can now work on my NL game when I go to the casino since most all of the LHE games online have dried up, even at the new sites and live LHE stakes that I would be playing are like .02-.04 online at the moment. It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for a while as the game was filled with action and some LAGGY-ass players. I finished +$107 for the night after 5 hrs. I still have quite a ways to go, but I playing rather TAP at the moment so that my mistakes may limit my variance, although I’m sure that is possibly hurting my WR as well. It’s still the beginning.

There is one hand I wanted to post for any possible feedback from the crowd. A little over halfway through the session and I had a rather TAP image. I wasn't limping from EP all that much and wasn't calling without a strong hand or draw. The table was rather LAGGY and had gotten even more so when I drunk short stacker bought in for $50 and another LAGGY talker joined the table. There were 2 online guys there, one of which constantly used familiar online jargon and another young guy who was wearing a Full Tilt hoodie and sun glasses. Very subtle.

NLHE $1-$2--live casino--9 handed

Hero is UTG+2--$197

MP2--$350ish

BB--$300ish

Hero is dealt K K

2 folds, HERO raises to $10, one fold, MP2 calls $10, 3 folds, BB calls $8 more.

FLOP--A A 8

BB checks, HERO checks, MP2 checks.

TURN--4

BB bets $15, HERO...

I feel as though I misplayed this hand. To give you a little insight, BB was one of the online guys with the shades, who liked to cold call alot of one-gap, 2-gap, and 3-gap-suited connectors. MP2 was a LAGGY player who liked to cold call weak Ax hands, middle to high suited connectors, and any pocket pair from 2s-10s without a reraise. I was most concerned with MP2 having an Ace before I saw the flop, but looking back, I think I should have c-bet as this flop hits my range and I don't want to give either one of these players a free card if I am ahead. Any thoughts are welcome.

One Friday night in late January 2007, my wife and I were out to dinner with our group of friends which consisted of 5 couples and an occasional straggler. I was informed that someone’s brother-in-law had a friend who was throwing a big tournament in his house which had 5 full poker tables. All of the guys were going the following weekend and the buy-in was $75 each. 1^st place paid over $400 and the Top 3 players were in the money. Each player received 5,000 in chips and we were starting with 25-50 blinds. Each level would move up after an hour, which is quite a long time in between levels, but the NFL playoffs were on which was bound to slow things down and it was a friendly game, so people were going to start talking and eating, and drinking…yada yada yada…

I start off at a table with 9 other players I’ve never met. Most of them police officers, fire fighters or acquaintances of the host. I was set to prove to my group of friends that I knew how to play poker and even more so, finish in the top 3 and cash so that I could put to rest the shellacking I took a few years earlier during my friends Super Bowl Party. Things started off rather rocky for me as my pocket Queens lost to K10o, I missed a bunch of flops with hands like AQ, AK, KQ. Low pocket pairs were constantly facing a lot of action on flops that wouldn’t allow me to continue, the standard thing in poker. 3 hours in, I was down by half of my starting chip count and I was grateful that no one was paying attention to when the blinds should be going up which kept me in the game. Players started to get knocked out and it was nice to see my friend who had the Super Bowl party, we’ll call him Stan, to be one of the first players knocked out. Another one from our group joined Stan soon after. We were close to taking a break so that a few tables could be condensed and I picked up AKo in late position. It was folded around to me and I had a little over 12 BBs left. I wanted a chance to play after the break with more than 6 BBs, if it so happened that I missed the flop again, so I just pushed all-in. The Big blind tanked for a few minutes kinda smiling at me.

“I think we’re racing.” he half questioned.

I found a fixed point on the table and just stared at it so as to practice my “poker face”. This may be the closest I get to a serious live tournament poker moment, so I tried to be as blank as possible. The Big blind mucked 2 red 9s faced up and I was happy to go get a sandwich and beer. When we came back from the break I was one of the short stacks, not only at my table, but out of the remaining 30 players. I thought about it and I was going to have to start pushing preflop and hope to double up. 2 of my friends were still in it with rather healthy chip stacks. My strategy started to pay off as I was able to pick up some uncontested pots in order to keep from being blinded off and then had someone call my pocket 7s with A5o. I could see that there was still some loose play going on so all hope wasn’t lost. More players were being knocked out and now with the football game over on TV, the blinds were being raised much faster than before. Pretty soon we were close to being at one table and I was hoping not to get into any marginal situations with hands like KJs, A10, or small pocket pairs. The 11^th player was out and we started playing at one table. I was about 7^th in chips and I felt a renewed confidence about my chances. I had the chip leader on my left and some shorter stacks, who liked to talk a lot shit on my right. I took down a medium sized pot which gave me some more breathing room and put me up to 35 BBs or so which was about average at the time. No one player was head and shoulders above the others with respect to their chip count. One big hand was when I picked up AKs on the button and the CO to my right made a standard raise to 3 times the big blind. I reraised to 10 BBs with the blinds at 500-1,000. He looked at me, took a big breath and called. The flop came Ace hi ragged rainbow board. He checked and I put him all in which was about 14 big blinds left. He turned to me and asked if I had it and then called. I was astounded when he flipped over pocket kings. I kept my mouth shut and watched the turn and river seal the hand for me. I was now in 2^nd with a strong image as well as chip stack. Players were being knocked out every other hand and we finally got 3 handed. The blinds were rather high to the point that the 3 of us were just about equal in chips, yet had around 15 BBs each. After being blinded down a few times, I picked up 910o in the small blind. The button folded and I shoved for my last 10 BBs. My friend, we’ll call him Randall, looked at me and said, “I don’t think you have anything” and called with J6o. I was stunned. I still don’t know how he could have called me with that hand, even if he was able to look into my soul. That type of hand cannot easily connect to a straight or flush and the kicker is terrible, not to mention the high card strength is mediocre, IMO. Nevertheless he made the “right” call and the flop came down Q83 rainbow. I just took away a few of his outs with the gut shot straight draw, but was still an underdog with the turn and river to come. A 5 fell on the turn and a Queen on the river to put me out in 3^rd place. I was pretty disappointed, but happy for Randall who ended up winning the whole tournament. I was also pleased to show my circle of friends that I was not going to be pushed around in poker anymore.