What is "being stuck" to you guys? Down 3+ buyins? Down a dollar? I left an 8 hour live session yesterday down 1/2 a buyin. I hated the feeling. I had to pick up my girlfriend from work at 6:30 and I seriously sat at the table until 6:20 knowing full well it could take me 20 minutes through traffic to get to the hospital to meet her. I created some action on the last 10 hands of the day positive there was no way I was coming back to the casino later. I hate that feeling as well.
I played at the only 1/3 table at the start of the day and stayed there the whole day. The good tables are in the evening but I clawed my way back from a couple earlier coolers, so instead of thinking I was stuck a 1/2 buyin (less actually, more like $100) I like to think I just ran out of time.
Overall my play was pretty freakin' LAGgy. I pounded some guys for pots which is good as long as I keep it on a leash. I ran into trouble with TPGK full house vs. Aces and full house and missplayed a QQ hand on the turn.
Right now I'm watching Nolan's FR series and really liking it. In my next session I have a few goals:
1. Count the number of hands each hour. Make some general stats from that. 2. Keep track of my tips. 3. Tighten up in MP with loose LP players. 4. Understand my image and make some better bets. 5. Make them pay.
Some day, with enough buyins this will be mine. From the air show last weekend.
I have been playing live about 2-3x per week at my local casino. Each time I've gone I've easily had something to take away from my visit; be it money or my player interactions. I've decided to keep a written playing journal to informally track my bankroll and to capture the experiences for note taking and for the memories, because there are many. Hopefully I'll get to share some experiences from the journal in the future.
First: live bankroll. Quite frankly, I have none. The absolute first time I went there I admit I lost money, I think a buyin at 1/3. I don't recall the session at all other than I was pretty scared about sitting with so much money in front of me. I remember a 30BB ss hitting a flush and me losing the minimum, but then losing with TPGK with an OESD to a set miner.
My next visit went much better. I was in town for an interview and took $120 out of my ATM (pre-casino and pre-surcharge) and shortstacking 1/3 until I left with $750. That was the highest feeling in the world since I started playing poker. Throughout the past month or two, this has turned into what I believe is about 40 hours of poker and probably $50/hour. I should be 3 buyins higher but learned the hard way about not quitting "good" a few weeks ago.
All of this has turned into a 1.5 months of rent, some good food again, all of my utilities on, and finally a meager bankroll. I really wish I was a more serious writer because I could have documented almost 2 weeks without hot water and not knowing where rent was coming from.
Right now I feel the screws tightening again. It's the end of the month and I don't want half of my BR swallowed up by rent and monthly b.s. so I'm planning to go down on Wednesday again, hopefully for the entire day and taking 5 full buyins (or 7 65BB buyins). This past Saturday into Sunday morning I walked with $550 + a full 100BB buyin and knowing I was leaving money on the table.
Second: player interactions. Live play has been very relaxing. I've enjoyed talking to the players, interacting with the dealers and wait staff, and had some good laughs for sure. I've met a few new friends, stared down a few aggressive regs, and snap called with a good 3rd pair for a 100BB pot. But it's the bad times that stick out right? Thankfully I've only had one really horrendous experience and it was against a fraternity of 3 regs in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seats in a 5 AM 1/3 game.
As the nights go on, tables break down until there are usually only 1-3 tables going most of them 1/3 NLHE. This particular table had some stuck 2/5 regs and 1/3 regs who just thought they were God's gift to poker (players who were also stuck, I found out). For 5 hours I was openly called names to my face and talked about amongst the 3 of them like I wasn't even there. I could tell the first few dealers were embarrassed for them or me, I'm not sure, but they did little to keep things quiet. This went on until after I took my walk to take a break. When I came back they started calling me Donkey Dick among other things including their favorite Slap Nuts. Apparently me showing the nuts every time was too much for them to take. I jumped on them right away this time, flying off at the guy who seemed to be the instigator. I really wanted to berate him loudly but I kept it pointed and angry. It didn't last long but the dealer calmed things back down again. My pulse was racing. I was pretty jacked tbh. I folded for the next half hour just to get calmed back down. But the abuse stopped and I think I gained some respect from everyone at the table, bad guys included. My greatest joy was 2 of the 3 falling leaving after getting stacked and the 3rd leaving still stuck and being replaced with 2 morning donaters. It obviously didn't ease the memory of what happened, but I was very proud of myself for staying cool and level-headed, even getting some laughs at their expense and for sticking a dagger in once and keeping my high ground.
Lastly, before I go off to one of my last days working at the golf course, I want to thank all of DC again for more than just the RLMSNG series, but for 1. support 2. answering questions 3. coaching/vids 4. long-term friendship. I've truly met friends from around the world that I would not have had it been for one March day in 2009 http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/25-Tournament-Poker/17160-Casting-call-for-new-SNG- I've re-upped for a month and really enjoyed the threads13 vids as well the high stakes 6max ones I've never taken the time to watch.
Keep on grinding guys. I'll let you know how the hospital world is and for sure everything else. Maybe even include some pictures of my garden.
Breaking heads, and then fixing them,
velo
vandweller (6:49:24 PM):If I were to pick you... vandweller (6:49:31 PM):could we start right away vandweller (6:49:33 PM):like this weekened veloblank (6:49:38 PM):yes definitely vandweller (6:49:42 PM):ok vandweller (6:49:44 PM):You're the guy.
I had been blogging elsewhere, so seeing 2010 as the last time I posted on DC's blogroll shouldn't be all that shocking to me, but it was. In six months time a lot has happened, although I feel that in 2 more months time even more will have happened.
I safely got everything off my poker sites. I was lucky to pull off everything from UB a few weeks before Black Friday (thanks to rent and some bills). I'm still working in my school's hometown but have put my notice in and am on my last month's rent. I'll be moving to Pittsburgh to work in a hospital full-time. I'm looking forward to the poker games there in the casino. I have been playing 2-4x a week lately; playing 1/3 cash game with the occasional $60 SNG thrown in. On Wednesday I put my name on an SNG waiting list as soon as I got there at noon and played 1/3 NL for 10 hours without one SNG going off.
Cash is fun though. I have re-upped my DC subscription and d/led a lot of cash series and math stuff. I want to move up quickly but feel that I am beating the games. The extra money has helped tremendously. In about 30 hours of play I have paid for rent and a few other nice things. I enjoy playing live a lot. I like talking to the players, watching the Pirates play on the TVs around me and just being around poker again. Plus 30 hours of play = $30 "rakeback," good for a lunch or 2 each week.
No redline because it's, well, F the Redline today.
Played much better today than many days of yesteryore. I concentrated on making big +EV decisions and then switched it over at times to manage my micro stacks and push against the right opponents.
First 15 STT games are from UB, rest from Stars; which makes me smile and my bankroll dance.
I'm done with chat at the tables. Sorry in advance for everyone that is in one of my games and says hi and I don't respond back. I have been called so many things in chat the past weeks, both in-game and from the rail after I bust someone, and today on UB was the last time. If this were live I'd have cut these fools outside or maybe beaten them with their own chips they just shipped. So good luck getting through. Tired of being mired in this shitty grind AND baby sitting the game. I hope my suckout ratio sores. I'll continue with my +EV shoving thanks. You worry about your call. And gtfo out of my way.
So I withdrew almost everything, again, to pay off a few things. I was convinced I wouldn't ever regrind microes again, yet here I am again.
I'm starting with $100 of my own money and going through the $3.40s again to grind a roll for $6.50. By the end of the first week of January I hope to have $1000+ in my account for probably the first time ever. This break will help me tremendously to focus on just grinding, and not to worry about anything but what the SB's shove range is.
So far, so good. I thought I might have to do $1.75 18 mans for awhile but I quickly saw that was not a good plan. The rake was terrible there, and while I backed into a bunch of 3rds and 4ths and even won one, I might go crazy playing with those people.
Playing underrolled doesn't really bother me as much as it used to. I know there will be stretches where I'll be losing and cutting it pretty close, hopefully through no fault of my own, but I'm hoping most of that is behind me. I have worked hard on my game, and I plan and working harder. Knowing the regs at my table inside and out and feeling comfortable with my table load is probably my next step. Hopefully all this goes as planned and I'll have a successful and quick climb up to and through the $6.50s and then I can decide what to do from there.
We are getting about 3 inches of snow right now. It's 6 AM and it's so quiet outside my window. They rarely cancel university classes so I'm sure they won't postpone any exams this morning. Hopefully everyone drives safe.
This is how passive I am sometimes: rather than getting my host to put up my Word Press blog again, I'm just go to start blogging again on DC until I grind enough (ok, $12) to buy a domain on GoDaddy and blog there. The design here isn't as cool as WP, but it works, and there's readership.
I have been playing a lot. I play $6.50s on Stars. Have had ups and downs with them, slowly securing more and more information about 9 mans, my opponents, and SNGs in general. A few days ago I decided to play the 18 mans. That decision resulted in this in one night:
And then this right after:
I loved how I played my first 18 mans. I played tight early, played aggressive later, and then took it down in many of those times I went into the money with a healthy chipstack.
I don't call that running good. I don't call it "new depositors luck" (since I may have played 5 18 mans in my life) I just call it playing in a good frame of mind.
The crash afterwards I blame on being tired, and moving away from my tight style early on. There are so many more bad players in these games that it's easy to get caught in postflop shenanigans and cripple your stack. I even was "limped" into some busto hands by just being the BB in the hand, flopping some kind of draw, and then pursuing it like a maniac. I also struggle with players who have caught a piece of the flop and not letting my hand go on multiple streets.
So I'm pretty sure that was just an experiment for me. I'll continue to play them because I think they are pretty profitable. I don't know if it has exactly helped my 9 man game, although JtX tells me the play pretty much the same around the bubble.
My 9 man game has struggled though. I went on a disgusting streak of non-cashes; not really getting it in good and mixing it up with regs who I knew had better hands than me and I just wasn't paying close enough attention to the table.
It's hard to say if I'll make 18 mans a priority. They last slightly longer than 9 mans, but they play so close to 9 that my table count doesn't really take a hit, so my tables/hour is pretty much the same and my ROI is higher. But I don't just want to run from STT without fully grasping my potential at them. I think what I'm in need most of all is some coaching, probably from Skitz0frenik because of the familiarity I think he has with the Stars structure, and then I will enjoy the grind again. I feel I'm missing just a few more keys things in the SNG realm and then I will move up the stakes quickly. I understand a lot a lot a lot about hand ranges and equity, how to calculate etc. on the fly, but I fail to implement it sometimes. Would be great to have Vandweller back to put the cap on the micro grind for me since I've pretty much learned his STT ways.
Money is tight right now living off of my roll and the small stake I had. I'm looking forward to 2011 being on my own completely with poker and doing some great things with it.
Last but not least, good to see the series with Rigged! is going down. Time to move from the micro grind for a lot of us.
I'm going to start completly new. Purge most of my DC blog posts and just blog from my new site. Going through a phase right now of deactivating Facebook, etc. and just streamlining my life--online and IRL, mainly for privacy reasons and to some degree security.
Thanks to everyone for checking this out since last year.Â
velo
EDIT: Woke up this morning to camera flash in BR window and people running from my porch and into a car. On porch this morning "Bikes are Gay" on the steps, along with some other crude stuff on the cement. Just a little wake up call to how we throw our security/privacy around. We are being lulled in by media that is creating a melting pot of individuals, granting accessibility to our thoughts, likes and dislikes, photos, day-to-day living, at the expense of our safety. Bring back individuality please.
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