"Excuse me sir, can I see your ID?"

                                            March 10th, Oceans Eleven Casino. $5/$5 NL, $300-$1500

    Main villain today is a black, drunk golfer names Mark. Mark is apparently a legend for being terrible all the way from south SD to north LA. I unfortunately play terrible against him in the two biggest pots of the night. Here it goes.

    Hand #1: Mark limps UTG, a lady limps UTG1, I open to $25 in CO with AT. BTN calls, as do the blinds and limpers. Flop is T22. Checks to me. I bet $45. Mark is the only caller. Turn 8. Mark checks, I bet $110, Mark raises to $310, I jam for about $90 more. Mark calls and shows 32. River 7.

Not much to say here other than I played this hand quite terribly. When a live player, even one as bad as Mark, raises the turn here, his range is polarized to exactly 2x with the very very rare turned combo draw with possible overs. Almost 100% of live players would check/call with a hand as strong as even KT, so his c/r should have warranted an snap fold from me.. whoops

   Hand #2: Limped pot to me in the BB with a $1.2k stack. I check K2. Flop is T42. I lead for $35, a balding player wearing an MMA shirt and sunglasses flats, as does Mark. Turn is the K. I bet $60. Baldy raises to $120. Mark calls. I call. River K. I check, as do Baldy and Mark. Baldy claims to much AA, and I drag the pot.

On turn Baldy's range is so amazingly strong that I think checking is fine. I expected his value range to be two pair+ on turn, more likely a set, and I was still planning on c/f river if he bet. The hand he had is likely the only one I could possibly beat that he'd play this way. Apparently if I bet river I would have likely gotten called by both of them, but whatever.

    Hand #3: At this point Mark is incredibly tilting and opening to $45 almost every hand. Mark and another player limp, I raise to $55 MP2 with KK. Mark calls. Flop is QT5. Mark checks, I bet $80, Mark calls quickly. Turn 5. Mark checks, I bet $110, Mark check/raises to $310, I call. River T. He checks, I check back. Mark shows 95.

This hand is incredibly similar to the 32 vs AT hand earlier, which is once again, why I should have gotten away. Mark is more the type of player who you beat by him c/c with worse than him c/r bluffing. Hand def tilts me to think about, but folding turn is def the best option.

    Hand #4: Mark opens to $45 like he had been doing with his whole range. I 3b to $165 with QQ. Mark Calls. Flop is 753. Mark checks, I check back. Turn 9. Mark bets $255, I call. River T. Mark checks, I bet $385, Mark folds J4 face up. 

Mark was tilting quite a bit at this point and we were playing over $1.8k deep, so I check back flop for pot control and to allow him to bluff some turns, not to mention I'm a little bitch. Turn call is obviously the only option, and river is a clear value bet.

    Hand #5: Open to $15 UTG, 3 calls including Mark. I call with 76 on the BTN, BB calls. Flop is QQ4. Checks all round to me and I fire $45. Mark is the only caller. Turn 7. Mark checks, I bet $110, Mark calls. River J. Mark checks, I bet $185, Mark calls with 33.

Definitely the thinnest 3 streets of value I've ever gotten at $5/$5. Flop is a pure stab and my bet into 4 other people looks strong and I don't have to risk much to get 4 folds if they do all have air. Once I bink a 7 on the turn I have 2 clear vbets since it's against Mark, and I expect him to call with 4x or 66 through 22 everytime, and even sometimes A high.

Was stuck 1.1k at one point, left +$35, 3 hrs and 24m

   It's about time. I haven't stopped playing since my last entry, however I totally lost the will to blog because I'm lazy. Since December, It's been incredibly swingy, live and online. It's felt like as I'm about to take my 2nd step forward, someone keeps pushing me back to step one. Luckily enough, I've been able to stay in the black for 2011, while ever so slightly, to the tune of +$5400. Starting today, I'm gonna start blogging after every session with notable hands and blog-worthy moments. Let's get started.

                                     March 9th, 2011, Oceans Eleven Casino, $5/$5 NL, $300-$1500

   Hand #1: I make my first open of the night to $20 with QT in the HJ. Bad middle aged player who I know for a fact is specifically only there for free lobster night flats in CO, as does shortstacking Asian fish on BTN and decent young player in BB. Flop is T87. BB checks, I fire $35, CO and BTN call, BB folds. Turn 2. I bet $110, CO folds, BTN calls, leaving himself with about $185. River 2. I check, BTN snap jams, I snap call. BTN shows    99. 

Flop and turn are almost always must bets here with the board being incredibly draw-heavy and the two players being calling stations. Once BTN calls turn his range is so heavily weighted towards draws, pair+straight draw hands, and very rarely Tx. Once river bricks, i prefer checking as he will be bluffing much more often then he will be calling my river jam, once again, because his range consists of more missed draws than Tx. Obviously his river play was beyond laughable.

    Hand #2: Folds to BTN, a decent young player who won a ~$200 pot from me the had directly before when he flatted AKo in BB facing my UTG open. BTN opens to $20, SB folds, I 3b to $65 in BB with AK, BTN flats. Flop falls KT7. I bet $80, BTN thinks for not too long and raises to $200. I have about $600 behind and eventually jam. He says "I guess you have a better King," and folds. 

Preflop is obvious 3b, flop is obvious bet. The only debatable decision in this hand is jamming over his raise. I don't know this player super well, however I don't expect any live player to be raising Kx for value on that flop very often, and I also doubt that I would ever get raised here by pure air. If you take out most of his air and most of his Kx, his range becomes almost exclusively draws and the occasional set. Since it's hard to flop a set and flatting vs a draw here is absolutely horrific(since he will check back turn), I think jamming is teh best option. 

    Hand #3: I forgot about this one when I first posted this. Raise UTG+1 to $20(he has $10 behind), CO flats, SB flats, I flat in BB with T8. Flop is T42. SB checks, I lead for $30, UTG puts his last $10 in, and SB calls. Turn 3. SB checks, I bet $45, SB calls. River T. SB checks, I check back, SB shows A5.

Confused? Well here it is. Preflop is fine, I'd fold here sometimes and call here sometimes, CO caller and SB caller are both deep and CO is particularly bad. I lead flop in order to avoid the weird situation in which I check, UTG JAMS for his $10 and everyone calls because of "pot odds," and I'm left with a hand too weak to raise when over half the deck is a bad card for me(any J+ or spade). Turn is another easy bet after SB checks because his range is still more weighted towards draws, some of which just picked up more outs. While the river appears to be a great card for me and an easy value bet, let's reexamine his range and the situation. The hands he flats pre, c/c flop, c/c turn and check river with are Tx, pocket pairs 99 or worse, a flopped or turned two pair, a set, a straight, and a lot of missed draws/random overs. While we may be slightly ahead of this range, considering we do beat the now counterfeited two pairs and his missed draws, we are NOT ahead of his range if he continues on river. If he has a set, T9+, A5, or 65, he will c/r. If he has Counterfeited two pair, missed draws, or pocket pairs, he will almost always c/f river. So even though we have trips here, our hand simply is not strong enough to value bet, not because I think we're beat often, but because he can't call with anything worse(with the very very rare possibility of something like T7). Hope you were able to wrap your head around that.

    Hand #4: Really bad, old, thinking player UTG opens for $20, I flat JJ in MP. HU to the flop of K84. UTG says "I check" very proudly as he stares me down. I check back. Turn 8. UTG checks, I bet $25, UTG flats. River 2. UTG leads $50 into me very quickly. I tank for a few moments and eventually call, UTG shows Q9.

I don't 3bet preflop for two reasons. First, this particular player's opening range UTG is polarized to very strong hands and very marginal hands, by 3betting, I isolate UTG and force the other players behind me to fold more of their hands that they would incorrectly call with, something you never want to do when the OR's range is so polarized to hands he'll fold to 3bets and hands he'll 4bet. Flop is close I'd check sometimes and bet small sometimes, however I felt I could get more value out of his lower pocket pairs if I check flop and follow up by betting turn and river. I bet turn small in order to encourage calls with Ax and pocket pairs, had the turn not be an 8, I would bet more, mostly because 8x is in his range and now Ax and hands like 33 will have trouble calling turn and river with the board paired. When he leads river it's a fairly easy call. Not many hands that he takes this line with beat me, and it could easily be a blocking bet. Occasionally he will show up with 8x or KK and I'll look stupid, but it's tough to hit trips, so I call. Had he checked river I would have fired ~$40, trying to get called by aforementioned hands.

3.5 hours, +$631  

***** Hand History for Game 26359728244 ***** (Full Tilt)

$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, December 13, 04:53:47 ET 2010

Table Cypresswood (6 max ante deep) (Real Money)

Seat 3 is the button

Seat 1: bong ( $184.65 USD )

Seat 2: Qd8s ( $200.20 USD )

Seat 3: Flowtation ( $631.40 USD )

Seat 4: earlgrey23 ( $214.40 USD )

Flowtation posts ante of [$0.20 USD].

earlgrey23 posts ante of [$0.20 USD].

Qd8s posts ante of [$0.20 USD].

bong posts ante of [$0.20 USD].

earlgrey23 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].

bong posts big blind [$1.00 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Qd8s [  7h 7c ]

Qd8s raises [$4.00 USD]

Flowtation calls [$4.00 USD]

earlgrey23 raises [$17.50 USD]

bong folds

Qd8s calls [$14.00 USD]

Flowtation folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 7d, 3s, 9s ]

earlgrey23 bets [$29.00 USD]

Qd8s raises [$68.00 USD]

earlgrey23 raises [$167.20 USD]

Qd8s calls [$114.00 USD]

earlgrey23 shows [Ts, Ac ]

Qd8s shows [7h, 7c ]

earlgrey23 wins $14.20 USD

** Dealing Turn ** [ 8s ]

** Dealing River ** [ Ks ]

earlgrey23 wins $403.80 USD from main pot

   I finally realized catching up on this blog would be pretty much impossible, so I will instead just continue to update normally.

  I've been playing quite a bit at Hawaiian Gardens recently, mostly playing the $300 buy in $3/$5 game. Obviously starting 60 BBs deep is ridiculous and frustrating, but it's just an aspect of the game you have to deal with. Not to mention if you are able to run up a 150 BB stack, you edge becomes even greater as people are clueless on deep stack play and they have obvious concerns about losing that amount of money. Here are some hands from December 6th and 7th.


   I have roughly $650 on the button. UTG($310) opens to $25, MP($350) and HJ($159) both call. I flat AJ, SB also calls. $130 pot, 5 ways to the flop, which is AJ9. SB checks, UTG fires $75, MP folds and HJ jams for $134 total. I think for a few seconds and say all in. SB folds and BB tanks. He starts staring at me and asking questions. Eventually I say "just fold, you're beat, AK no good." He tanks longer and eventually calls and shows AK. Turn and river brick out and HJ mucks.
   

I have about $400 stack UTG and open KK to $25. The two villains in the hand are Jeff, a good asian reg in the HJ, and a loose passive asian fish in BB who I will hereafter refer to as Shit. they both flat. Flop KQ6. Shit checks and I bet $45, Jeff and shit both quickly call. Turn 2. Shit checks, I bet $105, they both call. At this point I am positive Shit has JT. River 9, lovely. Shit leads for $200, I look up at Jeff and see he is eager to stick his last $190 in, I fold face up even though Jeff is still to act behind me as I say "I am folding top set, chop it up you both have JT." Jeff puts his money in, they both show JT, and I give myself a hug. 



  
 I am new to the table and open KQ UTG to $25 with a $295 stack. Button is a ~30 year old fish who clearly thinks he is better than he is, wears sunglasses and likely overrates physical tells. He flats, as does BB. Pot is $77, flop K22. BB checks, I bet $35, button raises to $70, BB folds. Button has roughly $155 behind his raise. If we were deeper, I would consider 3betting small to induce or flatting, but being so shallow I make an obvious jam. He tanks while staring me down. Now here's an interesting side note, this is the first time I've ever chewed gum while playing live, and during this pot, I had to concentrate extremely hard to keep the same chewing patterns in order to not give anything away. Needless to say I will never chew gum at the table again. He eventually calls, the board runs out T, 6, I show, he claims 88 and mucks.
    
  My stack is $575 in CO, 3 limps to me and I limp behind with 54. SB completes BB checks. $30 pot, 6 ways, 542. SB checks, BB bets $15, 2 folds, and a lady in HJ raises to $50 with a $130 stack. I raise to $150 total, everyone else folds and the lady calls it off. Turn T, river T. Not the best runners for her range, but she shows 33 and I scoop.

   
  My stack $480 in CO, 3 limps, including a black guy who I had played with the week before and was beyond terrible. I limp A9 on CO. 6 way flop, $30 pot, 963. Checks to the black guy who jams $90. I call and everyone else folds. I say "J9 is no good." Turn and river brick and he shows J9. His jam is pathetically bad and it makes me laugh.    


+$146 on the 6th, +$524 on the 7th
On a personal note, I have a new girlfriend named Kat, she is cool, and I like her.
Thanks for reading!  

It's been so long I almost forgot about this thing... Quick summary, I got sick/lazy towards the end of the Oregon trip and didn't end up playing much more, bricked the tourneys after semi deep runs, Matt and Brian didn't do anything super special in tourneys. The area was kinda annoying to be in, so I was glad to get out.

I haven't played a ton since my last update, about 40 or 50 online tourneys. In those tourneys I had 4 FT bubbles, the worst being getting 9th in a 6max $10 rebuy. First was 4.2k, 9th was $380. UTG tourney reg chip leader who I had been abusing quite a bit minraised UTG, SB flats and I 3b AQ in the BB with the second biggest stack. He flatted. On a Q82r, he raised my bet of 9 BBs, and I jammed over for little more, he called with KTo, turn 9, river K... gg. If I hold there I have 1.6m, 2nd has 800k :(

So aside from running bad on the FT bubbles, I've been playing a bit live. I put in 7 solid sessions since my last update, four of them at Hawaiian Gardens, two at the Bike, and one at Morongo, all $2/$5 or $5/$5 games. I will attempt to recall the important hands, but it's been a while so it won't be easy.

(to be continued, will edit later)

I originally said I would edit this later, but now realize there is no way I will ever be able to recall hands from weeks ago, so I will instead continue to update normally 

Touched down in Oregon last night, got about 2 hours of 2/5 in before we came back to the hotel and  zzzzzzzzz'd it up. I lost about $100, Brian won $22, and Matty won $400 because he's the best.

Today, $215 buy in tourney. I'm hoping to not have a single hand of cash game played by me today, because that'd mean I'd be busy binking the tourney.

Gl me and Brain, fuck you Matt

Dear Time Warner Cable,

I FUCKING HATE YOU. YOU HAVE COST ME OVER $1,200 SINCE SEPTEMBER ALONE. I call customer support and I am continually told "nothing seems to be wrong" FUCK YOU SOMETHING IS CLEARLY WRONG IF I DISCONNECT 4 TIMES A DAY.

Regards, 

Mike Brady

But seriously, how often can this shit happen? In the midst of the worst legitimate downswing of my entire life, I am continually disconnecting day after day in big pot after big pot and I just can't take it anymore. I finally got a manager on the line this morning, and as I was prepared to curse more than Debra Morgan in that one episode of Dexter(well, any episode of Dexter), a nice sounding woman's voice answers "Hello sir how can I-."  FUCK!!! So because this person has a smaller brain and a Y chromosome, I am forced to be polite and pleasant. Finally getting a repairman here in a few days, phew. Maybe this problem can be put to rest.

Oregon in 2 days with Brian, Matt, and Rick, gonna be off thaaaaaaaaa chain. 

Peace out girl scouts  

I didn't post yesterday because I was too sad, I had my biggest 24 hour downswing of all time, but whatever, pretty much over it.

No hands in todays blog, just a couple life things. I officially am saying "fuck it" to one of my classes. I'm sending the professor a "no disrespect to you but I'm never showing up again" email, and I'm takin the good ol' F. Then after this semester, I'm moving out of here and going to a community college and taking poker more seriously, as if I dont take it seriously enough already. 

Lastly, I decided along with Dr. Corey Jensen's help, I'm going to write an ebook on low stakes live NL games, with strategies, player types, and a ton of hand examples, which is where I need all of your help. If you have any hand, question, or general situation you can ask me that I can use for the book, contact me here, via facebook or on email at onelastmbrady@live.com. I'll give you credit in the book and a free copy if you're question or example is usable. Thanks a lot!   

Super long day. As always, I slept through class and woke up at about 3:30 pm. Watched TV for a few hours, then called Nathan over and we headed on down to the Hustler. I was forced to play 2/5, 100-300 buy in for the first hour, which was total torture, but I did get in one sexy spot. Here it goes:

4 limps, I have about $245 in stack and raise to $20 with 52 on the BTN, I get 5 calls, one being a black guy in BB who snap called my raise. Flop is QQT. 5 checks to me and I bet $55, black guy in BB snap calls and the other 4 fold. Turn 6, he checks and I jam for $130, he quickly folds and I show, table is very angry at me.

Now I get moved to a $5/$5 game where the chips seem to be flying rapidly. The main villain is an Asian man wearing a visor and a long sleeve button shirt in seat 5, who will henceforth be known as cocksucker, a nickname given to this player by Matt Hayes.. Early on there are 5 limps to me in the SB, I make it $45 total with QQ. Cocksucker is only caller. Flop is QJ8. I decide to check flop and he checks back. Turn is 5. I bet $45, he thinks for a moment and raises to $145. I sit there and pretend to think, but all I'm really thinkin about is Vegas and the fuckin' Mirage. I jam all in and he thinks for about 10 seconds and calls. I table top set and drag the 1.1k pot after the 9 falls on riv. He claims a smaller set, but I don't believe him. Also, props to me for that Rounders' reference tossed in that hand description.

Folds to me in BTN and I open 98 to $15, both blinds call. Flop is Q64. 2 checks and I cbet $25, BB quickly calls. Turn falls the 2, he checks and I check back. River 3. He checks, and I decided the only way to get him to fold anything here is to overbet, I fire $115 into $65ish and get a quick fold. I like it I do i do.

I open 44 in MP2 to $20, both blinds call, including cocksucker in SB. Flop is 622. SB checks and I get a feeling from him that he wants payback from the earlier QQ hand, BB checks and I bet $25. Cocksucker craises to $75, I wasn't surprised at all and already had a plan. I will call here, tank call turn in a weak looking manner, and snap call river, provided the board doesn't get ugly. Turn 3. Just about the perfect card to see, he bets $105. I tank and toss in one yellow, then a stack, the string call, something that I believe gives off quite a bit of weakness. River 9. He quickly says "$300" and I call before he can even push the chips in. "I'm in SB and you still be calling me when I can have dooooce?! Go ahead you got it no pair whatever." I show and he gets up, hits the rail, and starts pacing back and forth. Laaaaaaaaaaaaawl. Wasn't the first time I've gotten someone muttering to themselves. The entire table was pretty shocked, and I even got a fist bump from another player, lol poker.

2 hands later I open AJ in MP, cocksucker is only caller on button. Flop is T93, check, check. Turn J. Bingo. I check, he bets $45, I got a feeling of legitimate strength from him at this point, so I decided to just call. River 2. I check and he says "$200" similar to how he did 2 hands previous to this. I say, "wowwwwwww, there is no way you'd do this again... this would be a huge fold... wow. God, alright nice hand." And I toss my hand into the muck and say "Queens no good?" He shows me T9 and says "YOU CALL $300 WITH PAIR OF FOUR BUT FOLD $200 WITH QUEENS! WTF!" I can't hold in the laughter, God I got him sooooo tilted.

Unfortunately, due to Nathan's poor luck in the $300 game, I had to cut my trip a bit short and didn't get to see the conclusion to my battle with cocksucker. gg yall. Matt took my seat, hopefully he was able to finish what I started. Wow that line was way to epic and serious for a game where papercuts are the most serious possible injury. 

Anyway, Nathan and I make the obvious stop at the 24 hour Subway on the way home, I get my usual BLTA with 5 cookies and we head over to Anthony's house to hang out. To cut a long, long, awesome story short, I ended up playing HU with the two of them watching and nearly a dozen total people railing for almost 4 hours, the last 2 hours against Cardrunners instructor WCGRider, whose PTR is better than +$300k on stars and ftp combined. I roughed him up with Eric Li's help for about 7 or 8 BIs in 220 hands. I ran pretty amazing and as I type this, I'm the #2 winner for Full Tilt 50nl for the day of November 2nd. Weeeeeeeeeeee.

Poker is fun, for everyone! Except cocksucker like duh obviously   

Wow okay so I had this blog almost completely done, then somehow my back button was hit on my browser and it deleted it all.. So gross. Whatever, Gabe says I like to write so I'll like doing it again even though that's bullshit lol. Anyway, I woke up at 4pm and left to meet Matt at the Bike. I got there and was put in maybe the worst 5/5 game of all time. Everyone was a super nit and it was amazingly frustrating. I got into more interesting spots playing Angry Birds on my phone than in the game itself. I ended up winning about $200 with no showdowns and no noteworthy pots. It was a must move so I mozied on over to the main game and a seat on Matt's left. =D
Anyway, this game wasn't that great either, but I got into a few cool hands, here they are:

I open AJ in EP, BTN calls and BB calls. Flop is QJ5 and it checks around. Turn 9, BB checks, I check, and BTN fires $20, BB calls and I call. River K. BB checks. I am rarely gonna have the best hand here, if ever, and it's a decent spot to rep a naked T, so I fire $65 and get happy feelings when both players fold quickly. 

5 limps and I check 97 in BB1 and BB2 checks. Flop is A64, I fire $20, BB calls and UTG+1 limper calls. Turn 5, I bet $50 and BB raises to $175. UTG tanks and folds, once his cards hit the muck I instantly say "if I fold, show my hand, and give you $5, will you show?" He says yes and I toss him a yellow and table my hand. He shows me Q3. Phew.


Now I told a few people via text that I had a little, big surprise for the blog today. Remember that fat, dumb mexican donk from about 3 blogs ago, well he made another appearance at the Bike today. The second he was moved to my table, I downloaded a silent camera application with no flash and took this little gem:




There he is ladies and gentlemen, actually probably only gentlemen since there is no way girls read this. I give you, the mexican blob, fatty mc fat fat, J2, SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAT NIIIIIIIIINE!!!

Anyway, the game still wasn't that great, so Matt and I decided to go try out the Hustler for the first time. We were put in a 5/5 game with the same structure as the Bike, and the action was much, much better. Bombs away:


I open 88 UTG and get 3 calls, I'm oop on all of them. Flop is KJ5, and we all check. Turn is the 7 and I fire $30, BTN is the only caller. River is 6. My two options here are to either turn my hand into a bluff and bet about $85 to get him to gold Jx, or check and evaluate based on his bet size if he bets. I decide to check and he fires $100. With that bet size, this is a snap call. Mainly because his range that beats me is comprised of mostly Jx hands with a few random rivered two pairs like 76 or J6. Considering he will never bet Jx on river, especially not such a huge bet, it's either a flush draw, a pair turned into a bluff, or rivered two pair. 98 would normally be possible, but since I obviously have the 8, he can't have that. He shows me 74. 


In between that and this hand, an older gentlemen wearing dark, Elton John like sunglasses and a jean jacket. Because of this amazingly ridiculous choice of clothes, I will now refer to this person as JJ, for jean jacket. 


I raise A7 in LP and JJ calls in BB. Flop is AK5. JJ leads for $35 and I call, he had overpotted a few times earlier so I didn't think much of it. Turn T and he fired $60, I call again. River Q. He checks. Since my line looks so much like a flush draw and that is just about the worst card in the deck for his range, I decide to turn my hand into a bluff. I fire $105 and think "the only way he can call here is if he has a J somehow and is bad enough to check river." I get snap called and he shows JT for quite possibly the worst line of all time in the history of poker. I laugh and say nice hand. 



About an hour later, JJ opens to $25 in EP, 3 calls and I wake up to the gorgeous KK. I 3bet to $95 and JJ calls as fast as possible. One of the callers jams for $20 more, I call and JJ calls. Flop is 842. I grab betting chips, and before I have the chance to do so, he says all in and puts his rack into the center, totaling about $360. I say "umm.. call." Turn Q river K. JJ shows.... AJ! well plays sir! another genius line!  

I ended up profiting about $400 for the day, other than a few small, unposted hands, I felt like I played really well and I'm pretty psyched for the upcoming months. Thanksssss for readin