The Barber's Chair

To all of my loyal blog fans...

Hello? Is this thing on? 1...2...3.... testing...

Here is my last installment of my poker history for the year 2009. I have been writing blog entries on the some other topics at another site, so I apologize for the long delay.

After a bout with shingles, being a new parent of twin boys and being utterly exhausted, I decided to take the rest of July off. In fact, I hadn't really known whether or not I would return to playing online poker with the same interest or focus as I had before. As August rolled around, I started to feel the itch to get back into playing some poker. My wife and I had a night nurse 3 to 4 days a week so that we could have some sleep which was crucial now that we had 3 children all under the age of 3 years old.

Most of my sessions were around 11 PM after everyone had gone to sleep and I had an hour to myself. I moved back down to .50-1 so that I could feel a bit more comfortable and 3.27 BB/100 winner over the course of 5,100 hands which gave me a nice ego boost.

September wouldn't fair as well although I still ended up a winner with a disappointing .78BB/100 after playing 7,500 hands. I had attempted to stay on the LAGier side of TAG, but not to go crazy postflop. I was also trying to use seat selection much more carefully than before. I started off October doing fairly well and by mid month, saw some opportunities to move up and play a few 1-2 FR tables with some immediate rungood. I limited the amount of tables I played when at 1-2 to no more than 3 at a time and usually only playing 2. I finished that month at 2.58BB/100 over 4,900 hands. It was obviously a more successful strategy at the time than playing nearly 10,000 hands like the previous month. Even though that plan seems to be rather obvious in hindsight, I was still expecting a lot more out of myself which was one way for disaster.

November began much like October in that I was mostly playing .50-1 with a little dabbling in 1-2. That quickly changed as once again I saw myself as shark ready to feed. Much like June and July, I was terribly wrong. Near the end of the month I saw a lot of losing sessions without many winning ones. I finished the month down money wise, but technically up as far as BB/100 goes with my .50-1 sessions helping to stave off the big losses at 1-2. You can probably see where this road is headed can't you?

December was basically my first all 1-2 month, which was most definitely a mistake given the circumstances. Surprisingly enough I had a very good month with the exception of one day in the middle when had a 60 BB downer which hurt my BB/100. All in all I ended up at 1.02BB/100 which is ok, especially taking into consideration that I was not playing A game poker.

Much like the beginning of the year I had some other high notes in poker during this time that were not attributed to cash games. In August I finished 2nd in a 180-man SNG which brought in $144 and then in late December I netted my first 180-man SNG win in NLHE which brought in $108. I finished the year with $522 in tournament winnings and $1,433 in cash game winnings, which includes all of the holdem variants. It was a roller coaster ride at times, but I learned quite a bit. Not that I would apply all that I learned right away, but at least it was stored up for the next go around.

All in all I knew that I had a strong love for poker and wanted to learn a lot more. I learned that when I stayed in my game that I could reduce my risk and pick up the skills that were needed in order to move up. I was beginning to learn that moving out one's comfort zone didn't mean becoming a crazy aggressive player overnight, but that's another story for another post.

Thanks.

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...falling off a cliff followed by an uptick to breakeven over the course of another 3,000 hands followed by another cliff. 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.

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.

If I was playing like a lion in March, then I was definitely being showered in April as my rungood continued. I started off the month playing .50-1 and dabbled a little bit in NL10. How hard could NLHE be? After a few days of breakeven no-limit, I pushed the idea to the side and finally started to add some 1-2 FR LHE tables in to the mix with some nice success. My plan was to play my regular preflop game, but to be ultra aggressive postflop so the LAG/TAG and MMTers knew not to push me around. Since I was new to the stakes, many of the regular players respected my raises and the fish did what they normally do, regardless of how much the bet is. I didn't play many SNGs as I wanted to give most all of my attention to moving up and playing cash games. My wife was entering the last trimester of her pregnancy and I knew that there would be little time for poker when the twins were born.

I started to get a bit cocky with the quick success at 1-2 and tried some HU LHE as well (there is a side note story to this which I plan on devoting one entire blog entry to as it is an interesting memory for me.), with a tough introduction as I lost a little over 60 BBs in 20 minutes. Nevertheless in, my graph was steadily climbing as I won over $400 running at a touch below 3BB/100. I had visions of 2/4 and possible 3/6 tables dancing in my head for May as poker was an EZ game.

May was a little bit of a different story and a sign of times to come. My poker graph looked like a mountain range that fortunately contained one extra peak than valley to keep me in the black $110 with a winrate of a disappointing .58BB/100 over the course of 9,000ish hands. The players at 1-2 were catching on to me. June was basically the same as May except that my poker playing basically stopped after the first calendar week. My wife was scheduled for a C-section and there was a lot to do to make sure that everything was ready.

We had a night nurse hired to help 3-4 nights a week for the first month which was going to cost a pretty penny and the little time I would have when all of the kids were sleeping could not be for poker. I wish that I had decided to completely take time off from poker even when things calmed a little because I came back to early in July. I only played a little over 2,500ish hands and lost over $200 at a clip of -5.61BB/100/.

Another unfortunate experience away from poker was that I had shingles. I was obviously stressed with the expectations of twins, while being with my then 2 year old son and getting the house ready for the change. My wife was working up to the week before her delivery and if you put that all together with a sprinkle of insane family members, you get a rundown immune system which opens you up to shingles. I took some time off and moved back down in stakes just until I felt my head was more clear and I knew that I could be focused.

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 I had a winrate of about 1 BB/100 over the course of 17,000 hands. I had worked on opening 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  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 won $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...

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.

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.

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 (figuratively speaking--not literal). 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 and left. 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!

This summer is really flying by so far. My wife reminded me that next weekend is the 4th of July and I haven’t even put the air conditioners in yet. At least we’re saving money on the electric bill. My online challenge is moving ahead rather nicely. If you recall, I was moving in the wrong direction due to the fact that I took a few shots playing NLHE on a very small BR compared to what was required. I decided to stick to LHE until I have built up enough of an online BR to make the final and complete transition to NLHE from LHE. Perhaps I should think twice about that as I had my first losing session at live NLHE last night. I ended up down $300 which is 1 ½ buy-ins at $1-$2. In hindsight, I think I played rather poorly. There were so many things that I should’ve adjusted to better, but I decided not to. It wasn’t for not realizing, but I felt as though I needed to be in a sub-optimal situation and deal with it. Now this isn’t how I intend on playing in the future if I have anything to do with it, but I think I needed to feel uncomfortable and thicken my skin a bit. My previous 5 sessions were a bit too easy and things were just going my way.

One adjustment was seat selection. I had 2 intelligent LAGs on my right side (not directly) a bad LAG on my immediate left and some tighter players on the left side of the table. I would have liked to been to the immediate left of the bad LAG because he was straddling every orbit when I was in the BB and raising a very wide range of hands in limped pots because he wanted to gamble and get lucky. Time after time, I limped or call the straddle from the BB, the bad LAG to my left would raise with some hand like Q9s or A8o. I should have tighten up a bit with marginal hands and looked for a better spot. He was a bit of a showdown monkey, so I didn’t like the idea of 3! with a speculative hand.

Another aspect to my session that I felt I managed poorly was how I played preflop. The table was a bit LAGgy with a lot of limpers, cold callers and small raises. I became a bit frustrated with how things were going and started alter my preflop approach. I open raised some weaker Ax hands, cold called a few 3! preflop that I should have folded, and calling larger than normal raises after limping. I plan on rereading the NLHE: Theory & practice sections on preflop strategy again as well as going over the postflop sections too.

The other aspect to my game that I need to focus is playing scared when I have a big starting hand. On one occasion, I raised to $20 after 3 limpers when holding pocket Aces on the button. That was too much even though the table had been rather loose up to that point. Another example is when I raised $12 holding pocket Queens with one limper. I flopped top set on a flush draw board and made a pot sized bet which took down a smallish pot. Lastly, I raised pocket 10s from the button in a straddled pot and got one called. Once again I flopped top set on a flush draw board and made pot sized bet. I have a virtual strangle hold on the hand and should have bet less. My opponent in this last hand hemmed and hawed a bit before folding. Earlier he had cold called pocket Queens in the BB to my $20 preflop raise ( I had AKo with 4 limpers), so I was really hoping he had JJ-QQ and would either call or reraise me all-in. He didn’t. I feel as though playing with this fear/anxiety polarizes my holdings and basically gives away the strength of my hand. This helps my opponents to play perfectly against me which may be some of the reasons why I attempted to mix up my play which had some less than positive results.

One last thing that threw me for a loop was the overall bad LAGGy play which put me in spots that were quite uncomfortable and left me wondering if I had made the right decisions. 2 hands stick out in my mind, both of which were near the end of my session. Some new players had come to the table as we got short handed. I was in EP with AJo and I limp. WRONG!!! Normally I would either raise this or fold it with the latter being what I do the most. AJ is a very tenuous hand to play from EP. I thought that I had read in NLHE T&P that you should limp AJ from EP. I misremembered. Anyways, I limp and there are 5 of us to the flop.

The flop comes A 6 8 cc flush draw. The Small blind who is new to the table bets $40 into a $10 pot. I sit in complete confusion as to why he would do this. Does he have an Ace and a flush draw? Does he have 2 pair or a set? What hand would call that bet unless it has him beat? This was not a good spot so I folded. It serves me right as I shouldn’t have been in the pot to begin with. The small blind flips over A3o for Top pair bad kicker. Pretty soon he busts after raising mediocre holdings postflop 6 hands later and leaves. Thanks for giving my chips to someone else.

The other hand was, of course, the last hand of my session. I limp 67 suited diamonds in EP (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/170/live-low-stakes-nl/flopped-flush-facing-big-raise-turn-1058693/#post27318043). My opponent in this hand, flopped top pair and a flush draw, turned 2 pair and a flush draw and decided to reraise all in on the turn. I called and he hit his 4th diamond that wasn’t a 5 to give him the winning hand and send me broke. I am still feeling the sting from this today as I hate losing hands like that even though the true reply is, “standard”. Like the title says, it was only a matter of time. Any comments on this blog entry or the hands involved are completely welcome, even if it’s critical. Talk to you soon.

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…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQmDZNurtJU

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.

On the flip side to this is the macro level which deals with the everyday issue of drunk driving. Millions of innocent people have been killed due to the idiocy of drunk drivers who often are not critically injured or killed in these accidents. Not only could there have been other drivers on the road that night when Ryan Dunn was going 130 MPH down a dark road at 1:30 am, but there was a passenger in his car that was killed due to his arrogant and erratic behavior. He basically killed someone because he thought that he was invincible and that is something that can never be taken back or forgiven in my mind. For that reason alone, I applaud Roger Ebert for saying what he said and when he said it. I do feel bad for his friends and family and I hope that they cope with this tragic event the best they can, but this has to be shown for what it is and that’s the fact that drinking and driving kills people and causes pain to so many for a lifetime. I hope that Ryan Dunn’s family and friends are enraged at him for what he did. I hope that they publicly speak out about how pointless and sad this was and that the fans of “Jackass” should think long and hard about  their own actions. I also hope that the family of the other victim in this accident sues the Ryan Dunn estate for all that he has. Most normal people do not wish to gain financially from the death of a loved one, but in doing so would send a clear message that Ryan Dunn’s final moment in life was a selfish, arrogant, immature, self-centered, stupid stunt that will not go unpunished, even in death.