It's been a while...

 So we haven't spoken in a while. How are you doing? That's nice. Anyhooo...
The last time we spoke, I was on my way to Las Vegas and in the midst of some run bad (a.k.a. play bad, downswing, crap burgers). Right before I went to Vegas, my laptop decided to put a stop to my poker playing and overall Internet usage by having an aneurysm. I have been without Internet access (on my laptop) or over a month, 6 weeks to be precise and to be honest I haven't gone through the DTs. I think the time off from poker was good and gave me time to do other things, like reading, exercising, laundry...

  I will hold off from getting everyone caught up to date on my life.

  So a few days ago I received a new laptop and put Cake poker (juicy stakes) on so that I will be up and ready to roll in to the run good. My family and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of food and alcohol. Today I was given a day off and decided to make a trek out to the local casino for some hot 1-2 live NLHE action. The first 2 hours were quite stale and pretty soon I was down $180. I didn't lose any huge pots, just constantly missing flops and having other players call my c-bets. Finally I was dealt AQ suited in LP and raised 3 limpers to $12. I flopped top 2 pair and had the UTG limper donk in to me for about 1/2 the pot. I min raised and he called only to donk the turn which was a low brick card. the pot had grown and I just raised all in. He thought for a moment and called with his worse 2 pair. The river was kind and I got back to even. That's why you don't limp call a raise preflop with A5o out of position. An orbit later I pick up JJ in MP and raise to open to $10. I get one CCer on the button and the SB, a bad LPP 3 bets to $30. I have the 2 villains covered (SB just by a little) and decide to call and see the flop. The button obliges and WHAMO- Jc 6c 3s. The SB C-bets $50 and I am in no mood to call with a flush draw out there. I raise to $100 and the SB calls with a confused look on his face. I am now putting him on pocket 10s, or Queens through Aces. There's a chance he could have AcKc here because he's a passive player without the present nuts, but that doesn't matter because I flopped a monster.
  The pot now has $290 in the middle and there's no way I am doing anything, but shoving just about any turn if given the chance. The turn is the 5c and SB checks. I go all-in and he is dumbfounded. I can only put him on an overpair and more likely than not, he has a big club in his hand which must be the only reason he's even considering this call. By the way I have played this hand, I have a set or a King high flush at least. How can he consider this call with a non-club overpair? Well, he takes 5 minutes and even asks if I will show after folding. I don't respond and he unhappily folds. I give him a little consolation by saying that I had him beat. He tells me that he had pocket Queens with no club.

Anyways, I end my 4 hour session soon after and leave up $170 which is nice.

Hopefully this will be signs of good poker things to come because October sucked some major donkey balls for my NLHE game. The good news is that I am still learning and have been getting much better at not tilting. Just let the game come to you, don't force it.
Have fun and I will talk to you soon.

What's the Buzz...?

  So it's been quite a while since I have posted anything, but I have reasons. I haven't felt like writing. Well, thanks for stopping in, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Y'all come back now ya hear?!

  To be more specific, I was 85% finished with the 1st half of my magnum opus revolving around the hypocrisy of the government's policy towards online poker, but I became a bit worn out on the subject, so I am letting it sit on the shelf for a little while to see if I don't become more excited about it. So, even though I hadn't posted much in the last 2 months, I had been doing quite a bit of writing.

  Another reason is the fact that I haven't been playing much poker as of late, whether that be online or at a card room. The last live session I played was back in early January, if I recall, and I stunk up the joint as I was down $300 due to being on my D+ game. been getting in some hands on Cake Poker (NLHE & LHE), but nothing too serious. I had built my bankroll up to $72 once again only to see it take a quick nosedive back down to $48. I am now hovering in the middle $60s hoping to breakthrough the glass ceiling.

  I have also begun to (again) to practice singing on a semi-regular basis given the fact that my 3 sons are on a, more or less, regular schedule. I hope to have even more uninterrupted time in the fall when they will all have school in the afternoons. As I wrote before, I had been practicing singing a little over a year ago, but different interruptions caused me to suspend that hobby until now. I am looking forward to the fall not only because my kids will all be in school, which will be great for their social life and learning, but my wife and I have season tickets to the Opera which will be a nice treat each month of the year. I've been listening to a good idea of opera, not only for enjoyment, but to critique the singers I hear and pick out, from a technical standpoint, what I like and don't like. I hope it will help me in strengthening my abilities as well.

Poker Update

It's been a while since I have given any strong update on how my poker playing is going. The reason for that is because I haven't been playing much poker lately which is disappointing to me and at the same time, fuel for my writing. I've taken to Twitter in order to voice small sound bite opinions or pass on articles and opinions of others that I'm following. (I hate using slang and meme)
 First off, my dual poker challenge has basically taken an indefinite leave of absence. In case you haven't read my earliest entries which began right after Black Friday (that's poker related Black Friday, not the one right after Thanksgiving). The first challenge was to get experience playing NLHE live at my local casino. It started off well and then saw some bumps in the road. It then got harder and harder to find time to drive all the way to the Casino, especially being a Stay at home Dad. I played very little poker in Las Vegas a few month back and have yet to play live poker since then.
 My online challenge hit some rough waters as I had a major downswing/runbad/playbad  October. Finding the time to devote to playing A-game poker online has also become much more difficult. I've been using free time to either run or research my epic multi-post blog entry relating to online poker and Wall Street. I hope to have it done before Christmas and more importantly, before legislation is passed which would make my writing a bit moot.
Well, I will let you all go and hope that some of you who visit stay a while and read some past blog entries. Have fun!

So, how is the poker game going?

I haven't given an update on much of my poker playing for a good reason...

My poker challenge of zero to hero was going well up until the month of September when I focused primarily on NLHE. The easiest way to describe it would be...

...which was followed by  an uptick to breakeven over the course of another 3,000 hands followed by..

Much like the offensive line of the Chicago Bears this season, my poker game basically...

So this should give you somewhat of an idea of how my poker playing has been going for the past 45 days. There aren't many games online for the bankroll that I have and my NLHE attempt hasn't been an epic failure, but it is headed in that direction. I stopped playing NL4 on Cake poker just to let the wounds heal and get an idea if I have reverted to a complete fish. Some of it has been terrible run bad results, some has been calling down too much, some has been crazy cold deck, and some has been me just not being as serious as I should be when it comes to playing my A game. I haven't had much time to play live either, even though I went to Las Vegas (see prior posts). I was going to play more poker out there, but decided that I would just hang out with friends, which was a bit of a wash in terms of overall enjoyment. I should have just gone to the hotel pool each day and gotten girl drink drunk on Pina Coladas.
I am still technically a winner in both my online poker challenge (see first posts) as well as my transition to playing NLHE live. I was $78 in my one NLHE session at the Bellagio that lasted perhaps 3 hours.
I had one hand in which I picked up AhKh in EP and raised to $10 and got 2 callers, one OTB and the other in the BB.
The flop came--Kd Ks 9d. check, I bet $28, one fold, SB calls.
Turn brings--6s
Check, I bet $80, SB calls.
River is a low brick card and SB checks, I had a little over the pot left and bet 3/4 in the middle. The SB hemmed and hawed about me having a missed flush draw vs his mid pocket pair, but he folded. That was my poker highlight for the weekend.
Well, we'll see what the rest of 2011 brings. I don't expect alot in the way of action, but there's always hope...
I plan on finishing the 3rd installment of my poker history-2009 within the next week. Thank you for tuning in.

My poker history 2009 Part 1

2009 was the first year that I felt more confident in my poker game, especially when it came to LHE. I had been playing .50-1 online and knew that I was a winning player over a long enough sample size. I had built my online bankroll up to the point where I had a good amount of cushion for the next level up at 1-2 if I felt confident in the jump. Normally you want between 250-500 BBs at the stake you're normally at, depending on your winrate, your standard deviation, as well as your playing styles (and how it may effect the first 2 factors). I knew that moving up in limits would be obligatory as I had been playing .50-1 for 6 months with some success. My plan was to see how the first few months of 2009 went at .50-1 and then re access in March. That quickly went out the window as basically had a winrate of about 1 BB/100 over the course of 17,000 hands. I had opened up my preflop game a little, but wasn't totally confident in the adjustment to a hyper aggressive stake like 1-2 was in 2009. I had gotten to know quite a few of the regular .50-1 FR grinders on Pokerstars over the last 6 months and many of them were MMTers (a.k.a Mass Multi tables). When I would normally be playing 3-5 tables at once, they were playing anywhere from 16 all the way up to 30 tables. In addition to using Poker Tracker 3 (PT3) or HEM (Holdem Manager) poker software, they also had programs like Table Ninja(tm) and Hot keys so that they could play each table and not time out during a hand. There were alot of MMTers playing 1-2 FR LHE on Pokerstars at this time. The main reason was a thing called Supernova status. It has changed since 2009, but MMTers were basically looking to make a small profit if possible playing LHE, but accruing VPPs to use for cash back bonuses. If they hit their goals and maintained their Supernova status, they could make over $100,000 dollars, unless of course they lost a ton actually playing. One player that I had a lot of experience with posted a thread for this in the uLHE forums on 2+2.
Do you know Tyler Durden?

 This strong competition was a big concern to me with regard to moving up in limits. Many veteran 2+2 posters like playing against MMTers because they had flaws in their game due to the fact that they were playing so many tables at once and you could see a pattern of play over and over again. I actually had some success against Mr. Durden when I played against him in 2009 because his strategy became so apparent and once could sit on his immediate left and exploit him. Anyways...
 I had was playing alot of hands early in the year which was a luxury given to me for 2 main reasons. My son who was 1 1/2 years old at the time, was taking long afternoon naps which would give me 2-3 hours of free time which I used primarily to play poker. 2 hours of 4 tables at 60 hands an hour would be 450-500 hands a day which was twice as much per day as a live poker grinder in the casinos. The other big reason, or I should say reasons was the fact that my wife was pregnant with twin boys. Once they were born, I knew that my time would evaporate for at least 2 months if not longer. It would take a while for all 3 kids to be in a sleeping pattern that may allow me some time to play poker once again and even then it may not be my A game. Possibly not even my C game.
 As I said before, the first 2 months of 2009 didn't go exactly as I had hoped, results wise. That was until March rolled in like a lion, but in my case, a good roaring lion. Perhaps, I was the lion, roaring and marching into March...oh never mind, it went fucking good ok?
 I one $337 in that month and had a winrate of 3.10 BB/100 over the course of 11,000ish hands. I was stoked to say the least. Another moneymaker in that month was some 180 man SNG (sit N gos) that I played. I won another $310 playing those with a 3rd place finish and a 2nd which was quite profitable.
March '09 had been the most profitable tournament month for me in my online poker playing up to that time. At the end of 2008  I had discovered these multi table SNGs which didn't have a 3,000+ player pool and could be much easier to make money while not risking anything due to the fact that Pokerstars allowed you to earn Tournament dollars that you could use instead of your bankroll. There was really no downside.
After having such a huge month, dollar wise, I decided that April would be the time to take the plunge into the waters of 1-2 FR LHE on Stars. It's funny when something like "run good" follows along with you as things become more difficult, but leaves your side in the times when it seems most simple. I crushed the 1-2 tables (when I played them) in April '09 running over 3.0BB/100, but was almost breakeven at .50-1 at the same time. I took in over $500 in cash game play and added another $50 in the one SNG that I placed in that month. In March, my profits were enough to have 300 BBs at 1-2 and added to my April profits I was rolled for 2/4 if I wanted to take a shot. Of course I didn't as I am a curmedgeon at heart and would not want to risk losing what I had worked so hard for...

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.

short update

I have many different posts in the works, but they require more attention, research, and time which is why I haven't posted anything lately. A few very quick updates.

1) My online poker challenge has been a bit static this month, but is now moving once again in the right direction. Up. My BR on cake poker is not at $27 and hopefully in by the beginning of September, I will be able to focus on NLHE rather than LHE.

2) I had another disastrous live session of NLHE. Down $300 again, which I will go in to, just not right now as the wounds are still a bit fresh.

3) I am guessing that Amy Winehouse, died as a result of her addiction, meaning that she ODed. If she truly needed to be weened off of alcohol, then she would have been in an in patient type of care, or at least have a nurse coming in on a regular basis to make sure she was OK. I don't believe most all of what I am reading.

4) Debt ceiling is a bunch of horse shit to shit blame for the 2011 campaign cycle, but more importantly for the 2012 campaign cycle. The rich will not be effected while the middle class will be dismantled even more so.

Talk to you, who ever you may be soon. Have fun.

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.

It’s been a long time, been a long…

So, it’s been a while since last I blogged. That’s mostly because not much is going on in the way of poker and the rest of my life hasn’t been all that exciting as far as writing goes. I haven’t gone to the casino since my $300 losing session at $1-2 NLHE, but I have been playing quite a bit of the uber-nano stakes online at Cake. It’s been a rocky road type of month as far as results go. I had a great June and then when I moved up to some .10-.20 short handed LHE, I was cold decked hand after hand. Losing sets to flushes on the river, over pairs to runner trips, that ol chestnut. With rake back I am close to $20 in my BR, which as a reminder, began at .39 cents. I am dabbling a bit in some NLHE at the lowest stakes just so that I can keep my mind on that strategy in between outings to the Brick & Mortar.

There’s a new casino opening up about 15 minutes from my house, but I just learned that they don’t have any poker tables, which is quite disappointing. The good news is that I have gotten the green light from my wife to go to Las Vegas in a couple of months with some friends. I don’t plan on this being a big poker vacation as I would prefer to relax as much as possible which would be sitting by the pool with a nice libation in hand, preferably a Pina Colada. It looks like I will be going with 5 or 6 other guys that I am friends with which should be a lot of fun, unless they decide to act like they did when they were 24. There’s been a lot of talk of strip clubs and happily ever endings, if you get my meaning. I am a normal heterosexual guy, so of course I enjoy looking at beautiful naked women, but I just don’t feel right about it and I think that it would be personally disrespectful to my wife even if she didn’t know, so I plan on playing poker at those times.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been thinking of different poker and non-poker related subjects that I would like to talk about, but they’re quite in depth, which requires some research, which requires research time, which requires free time, which I don’t have being a stay at home dad of 3 boys under the age of 5. I’ve been disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm in the uLHE forums on 2+2, especially by the old veterans when it comes to strat threads. It basically resembles an abandoned tourist town with the exception of one bar where everyone hangs out. I can see why this is happening, obviously due to Black Friday, but I still want to be on my game when it comes to playing live and the little bit online, so I try to respond to threads that I find interesting and have started a few of my own in the past few weeks. MODs aren’t responding to obvious situations that they would normally take care of in a matter of hours. Old regs are only posting in the NC thread and new players are putting up a few hand posts each week, but they don’t get many responses as the situations have been discussed over and over again during the past 4 years. One thing that really sticks in my craw is a MOD who was all about the uLHE forum when they first started and became a self appointed dictator of sorts upon being MODed green a few years back. About 10-12 months ago he got sick of LHE and took up another variety of poker and basically packed up shop and moved on to what he considered greener pastures, I can only assume looking for a new wife. Most of his posts in the uLHE are either administrative or condescending in tone (IMHO). I think he’s a nice poster and did a lot of good work “Back in the day”, but I feel like he divorced us when he found a new younger model and just packed up one day, leaving with thought that it was our fault. Perhaps I am being petty.

It doesn’t look like I will be getting to the casino in the next few weeks, but whenever I go, hopefully it‘s in the black this time. If anyone has suggestions on great package deals to Vegas, please let me know. Good luck!

Some poker and some truth

Well, my online challenge was doing rather well as I had been running 9+BB/100 until I got greedy which always seems to be the morale of the story. I have been posting quite a bit in the SSLNL forums on 2+2 and I haven’t had a chance to go to the casino to play some NLHE lately. Due to my small online bankroll at Cake Poker, I haven’t been able to play any NLHE games even at the lowest limits due to the fact that I only had about 4 buy-ins and didn’t want to risk losing all that I had built up playing LHE. Like I said, I got greedy and started to play some NLHE with a buy-in of 50 BBs and like Louis jamming on the Riverboats…

So, now I am back down to a little under $8 and will begin grinding it back up in LHE like I did before.

I’ve been reading quite a bit of older archive posts in the 2+2 uLHE library as of late and I really like some of the old wells and I really enjoyed reading Aaron W’s and Scary_Tiger’s. I am rather envious of how fearless he is, especially back then playing all sorts of nosebleed LHE games. The other interesting aspect was that he didn’t really play with a poker bankroll at the time and just had a certain amount for the level he was taking a shot at with a little extra for the next level down in case he ran bad. Needless to say he didn’t run bad often and he went on to do quite well for himself in many poker variants. According to some poker tracking sites, he’s made over $500,000 playing tournaments online. Amazing. Unfortunately, the uLHE forums on 2+2 seem to be fading rather quickly and could be merged with the next level up if things to get better which are unlikely due to Black Friday. Oh well…

As I am sure many of you have read, one of the stars of the “Jackass” movies and TV show, Ryan Dunn, was killed in a car accident a few days ago. Apparently he had had enough alcohol to put him more than 2 times above the legal limit. He then got in to his Porsche along with a friend who had worked on the second “Jackass” movie and was driving down a Pennsylvania road going more than 130 MPH. He went off the road into a guard rail and plowed into a bunch of trees which ripped apart his car and set it on fire. Needless to say, Ryan Dunn and the passenger were killed.

I am in no way a huge “Jackass” fan, but I have seen the first 2 movies as well as the first 2-3 seasons of the TV show. It’s amazing what these guys were willing to do to themselves and not have one of them killed already. I also liked their sense of humor and how down to earth (as much as a crazy person can) they were. These guys have cheated death more than their fair share which makes this accident all the more upsetting. If you are Ryan Dunn and want to take your own life in your hands by attempting crazy stunts then more power to you, but forcing others into your real life stunts are comparable to shooting a gun into a crowd.   

Another aspect to this story that I don’t like is the whole Roger Ebert involvement. By involvement, I don’t mean that I disagree with what Roger Ebert had “tweeted”, but his message was lost given the timing of it being posted. Basically, Ebert said, “Friends don’t let Jackasses drive drunk.”

Now there are 2 ways that we need to look at this. First is on a more personal level and the other is a more macro level. On the personal side, Ryan Dunn’s friends and fans are most likely devastated that he was killed, especially in the way that it happened. His close friends and family are going through incredible shock and most likely are aware of the painful truth that what he did was incredibly stupid and irresponsible, whether they’re willing to admit out loud or not. They’ve got to be angry for many reasons and the last thing they want to hear is the obvious truth about how Ryan Dunn decided to conduct himself in the hours before he died. Roger Ebert then tweets his 2 cents the day after it happens and sparks begin to fly. I think if Ebert wanted to send some type of message, then he and everyone else has the right to do so, but I also think that it could’ve been done with some tact and sensitivity to those who loved and cared for Ryan Dunn.

Chapter #3

Things were running well in my challenge (see 1st post--basically trying to run .59 cents up to a healthy 1-2 bankroll or more) until today when I lost 30 BBs in an hour. Sometimes the ball goes where it wants to. I still have 7 golden tickets to sell if I need to. Back to the beginning...

Honeymoon bliss doesn’t always include poker results. I was reading Small Stakes Holdem and had it next to me at all times in the middle of a session. I felt as though I was gaining a better understanding of how to play LHE, but the results were still not there. Looking back this could be attributed to a wide array of reasons, which were mostly under my control. To name a few,

1) I was not taking any type of notes on my opponents which meant that I was not trying to assign any type of hand range to opponents in a general/specific manner.

2) I was not practicing any type of Bankroll management and would get upset when I lost, what I considered to be a lot of money relative to the stakes (2-4, 3-6).

3) I should have started at a lower limit in order to get my feet wet and not put myself in the situation of tilting when I lost a big pot. Losing 5-6 BBs at .25-.50 or even .50-1 isn’t as upsetting as losing that at 3-6.

4) I was playing too fit or fold type of poker at the beginning of a session and then go on tilt about half way through.

Another reason for the common occurrence of tilting on my part was due to the fact that I had unrealistic expectations. I would play 2 tables at a time for up to 45 minutes and get pissed if I hadn’t won any $$. This leads to #5…

5) I wasn’t keeping track of the specifics of each session (I think I mentioned this in my last blog), other than I knew I that I had won some money or lost it. I didn’t know what my winrate was, how many hands I had played in the session, how many hands I had played to date, what my stats were, seat selection, blah blah blah.

I was getting to the point that I didn’t think that poker was something I would ever understand or do well at. I wasn’t all that happy with my new job and it looked as if the company that I had been with for nearly 11 years was starting its freefall towards redundancy. Although I enjoyed my honeymoon 3 months earlier in Hawaii, I still felt as if my wife and I could use a vacation somewhere that I had never been before that would be fun. Have you said it yet?

It was my first trip out to Las Vegas and I was a bit stunned at the non-stop action of the place. There were 5 couples that went out there together which was nice for me because I could get a chance to try out some live poker which I hadn’t really done before. I went to the nearest 3/6 table and bought in for 30 BBs. I told myself that this was to be the barometer of how much I understood about the game and based my decision of whether or not I should continue online, on my results from that trip. The first session was identical to how my play on Paradise poker was going, a slow constant leak. It started to pick up a little and the trip ended with me being up $67, which was around 11-12 BBs for the stakes I was playing for the first time. As I look back on that trip, I remember how smart I thought I was and how much I acted like a dick towards other people.

“How could you call that? What did you think I had? How can you check raise that?” you know that ol’ chestnut. This poor etiquette is something that I have had to continuously work on.

After my Vegas trip, the Thanksgiving/Winter holiday season began and there wasn’t much time for online poker. I decided to give LHE one more try in late December of 2005 based on the fact that I was feeling more comfortable with basic strategy. I deposited $225 on Paradise Poker one last time and played only $2-$4 FR LHE with a max of 2 tables at a time. I must have been on Santa’s nice list that year because I ran hotter than Georgia asphalt in June. For anyone familiar with proper Bank roll management , $225 at $2-$4 is 56 BBs and it is recommended to have around 300 BB in your roll, so I was unintentionally conducting a 50 big blind experiment. I ran my $225 up to a little over $2,000 in 2 months. The only way I could describe how I felt at the time would be…

From the bottom up.

Since I have decided to run this blog concurrently on Blogger as well as Deuces cracked for the time being, I thought that it would be a good idea to re-post my background entries as well. Thanks for reading and please feel welcome to make any and all comments.

I am starting this blog as a result of the Black Friday shutdown of the Big 3 poker sites. Like all US players, I am not able to transfer funds or withdrawl my BR from online, so I basically have 2 major options.
1) Drive to a Brick & Mortar Casino on a regular basis
or...
2) Try to deposit $$ online on another US friendly site.
Neither one of these options seem all that good to me as I am a stay at home father of 3 boys all under the age of 4 and I no longer want to jump through hoops to get $$ online which I may not be able to get back if the DOJ keeps pushing the issue of online poker being illegal (which it's not). So therefore, I plan on doing 2 things, which are...
1) Drive to a Brick & Mortar Casino that has poker whenever I get the chance
and...
2) Sell some tickets on Cake poker and begin my own BR challenge similar to the famous 0 to $10,000 by Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. The only difference, is that I do not plan on having specific rules to play by, other than sticking to LHE at the moment so as to limit the degree of variance, or what I should say, losing a large % of my online BR in one hand. Bellatrix would rightfully argue the difference in variance between LHE and NLHE and how LHE, depending on what you're looking at, has more variance than NLHE. Anyways...I sold my 16 cake golden cards for .59 and then started playing FR LHE (under rolled, not only from the reccommended BBs to play at that stake, but for the table as well). In about 30 min I more than doubled my BR to $1.24. I plan on continuing to build up on FR LHE and may venture into some 6-max when and if I hit 300 BBs or close to that at my current stake of .02-.04.
Now going back to my B&M plan. A few days before "Black Friday", I planned on entering the Sunday Million tourney online for the sake of having the experience of playing in it. Most of the tourneys that I have played online, even deepstack ones, have been low/micro-stakes buy-ins and have not had the seriousness that I assumed would be in the Sunday Million (I could be way off on that as the nosebleed players who enter this look at $200 the way I look at a $2 180-man multi table SNG. Obviously by Friday, I was no longer able to enter the Sunday Million, so I went to my local casino and entered a $210 tournament. Each player received 6,000 chips with blinds @ 25-50 with 30 min levels. I was holding steady at 6,000ish chips, give or take for about 4 hours and began to fall closer to 4,000. Needless to say, I tripled up when I needed to and was able to finish in 4th place for a $1,500 profit. I plan on using that along with my frozen online BR (when and if I get back) to focus on 1-2 NLHE cash games at the casino whenever I get the chance. I am one session in for 3 hrs and I am up $75, or 37.5 BBs.
We'll see where I go from here, but I hope it's an interesting ride.