Ramble on

I finished my Red Rock hour grind by getting two massive sessions in over the last two days.  I made $21.  So much effort for so little reward.  I went back to Session Logger (a live tracker app for Android) and since August 15 I've put in 220 hours of live poker with a return of -$260.  I'm not sure what's going on.  I certainly don't feel like I'm playing poorly.  I suppose I can consider it like an online break even stretch of 100k hands if I was playing 500 hands/hour.  I know at some point it needs to stop.  All I can do is keep working on my game and keep playing.
Over the next couple of days I'm going to focus on what I want to accomplish with 2012 and get some goals and plans firmly developed.  I haven't started the So Fresh and So Clean series yet, so I'm going to take a look at that and perhaps start 2012 with a brand new outlook, database, clean slate, all that.  But for now, let's start the last few days of 2011 with some breakfast.

I've been breaking even for over 3 months now with my live play.  I know everyone can relate and I know everyone knows how frustrating it can be.  Station Casinos is running a freeroll in January for anyone who plays 50 hours between Nov and Dec.  All qualifiers get at least $75 and first place is $40k.  Since Red Rock is pretty close to where I live, I figured I'd make it my new home for a couple of months and get in some hours.  I haven't been doing all that well with accumulating hours and it's getting to be crunch time so I figured I'd play last night.  I had $200 in my pocket and figured I could play some limit or sit with one bullet for 1/2.  Turns out the 1/2 seat opened first and while I usually like to have more than one bullet, I really just wanted to accumulate some hours.

After being card dead and missing all kinds of flops for the first hour, I pick up AcTc in the HJ.  I raise to $10.  A fairly aggressive middle aged asian guy three bet me from the button to $25.  I had $135 behind and even though he'd sat down only a few minutes before, this was his third three bet.  My hand isn't strong enough to get it in, but I figured I could see a flop and check/shove any kind of flop goodness.  The flop came QcTd7c.  Yep, that's flop goodness.  I checked, he bet $50, I shoved the rest of my stack, he called and the board ran out Qs, 4c giving me the flush.  He didn't fill up so YAY pot to me!

A couple of orbits later the guy to my right is racking up about $700, I have just under $300 and he raises from MP to $12.  He's been very aggressive and playing and raising a lot of pots.  I've been looking for a spot to get involved with him and pick up QsJs.  Good enough to see a flop and there's one more caller behind me.  The flop comes JcJd7h.  Bink!  He c-bets $35.  His c-bets have been consistently pot sized of over pot sized bets and he doesn't disappoint here.  I flat and the other guy folds.  We're heads up on the turn.  Jh.  Super bink!  He bets out $70 and I call.  The river is an inconsequential 9d and he bets $95.  I pretty quickly shove and he tanks for about a minute and a half before calling.  No idea what he had, though I imagine it must have been some kind of pair.

A couple of orbits later I pick up KdQd in the CO.  It folds to me and I raise to $10.  The BTN is pretty new to the table but has already gotten his stack in three times, once he lost, once he won, and once he didn't get callers is sitting on about $100.  He calls.  The SB is brand new to the table and is taking his first trip through the blinds.  He also calls.  The flop comes down Ad5c7d.  SB checks to me, I c-bet $15 with my flush draw.  BTN raises all in to $74.  SB cold calls the $74 and now it's $59 to me.  I don't really know what to make of this spot.  The BTN could have a worse flush draw, a set, just a naked A, a straight draw...  There are a LOT of hands this guy would get it in with.  I don't know what to make of the SB though.  That seems like it has to be a very strong hand, but by flatting he's giving the exact hand I do have some decent odds to come along.  If I call now and miss the turn, I don't think I can fold pretty much ever since SB only has about $75 left.  If I raise, he's never folding.  Anyway, we got it in, he had A7 and filled up on the turn.  I did hit the flush with the Td on the river, but it made no difference.  Back down to $300 and change

About an hour later, I've won a few hands here and there and am almost at $400 again, a super loose old guy limps and I look down at the black Jacks and make it $10.  I get a call from a young guy who is racking up his $150ish stack and the old guy comes along saying "I guess 6 high is no good"  The flop comes 963 rainbow (I forget the suits) and the old guy bets out $15.  Me and the guys at our end of the table (of which the old guy is one of) have been chatting a bunch so I say "6 high might be pretty good now" and call.  The young guy looks like he is about to raise by the way he's handling his chips, but he elects to call.  The turn is a Jh and the old guy says "All in" for his last $50, I say "Me too" and put out a stack of $100.  I have the young guy covered easily.  I can tell he's not particularly happy but he does call.  The old guy had 63o and the young guy had AA.  I faded the 2-outer on the river and was back up to almost $600.

A couple of orbits later I cashed out $570 and added almost 4 hours to my total in the hour grind.  First good winning session in a while.  Feels nice :)

The marathon was by far the most physically demanding, mentally challenging, and emotionally draining thing I have ever done.  Pushing your body to its limits is tough.  The pride of crossing the finish line lasts way longer than the pain I put myself through.  Even if you're not a runner (and I'm certainly not) I highly recommend doing some training and running at least a half marathon.  When you cross that finish line, you're going to feel amazing.  I'm not sure I'll run the LV race again though.  The half course (second half of the marathon as well) was very crowded, the finishing area was a gong show, parking was ridiculous (they had staff manning the parking garages and turning away runners, happily when the guy asked why I was parking at Luxor I was quick enough to realize it and claimed I was there for some poker), gear check lines were terrible, the entry fees were high...  It was kind of cool to run the strip, but I've done that now, I'm not sure I want to do it again.

After the marathon I made a fitness prop bet with a friend of mine.  It's a long term bet, until June 1 (or somewhere around there) and the goal is simple.  Get ripped.  Even when I've been working out regularly and training for other things I've always been a heavy mofo.  I'm 6'0 and I just finished a marathon at 220 lbs.  My biggest leak by far is my diet.  I get a lot of casino comps which means I eat a lot of meals out.  I've also been known to regularly enjoy a beer or two, I like dessert (mmmm pie), I don't even think twice about grabbing a donut for breakfast...  Yeah.  Diet is a problem.  Two things that I think will really help me with the diet problem, I'm not going to shop when I'm hungry (as I find I buy a lot more terrible for me snack foods) and I'm going to plan my meals better so I don't get home from work and think "Hmmm....  What should I do for dinner?  I know!  I'll go get a hamburger!"  I'm also going to hit the snooze button on my alarm less so I have time to make some eggs or oatmeal or something rather than just stopping on the way to work for a couple donuts.  If anyone has other tips for a healthier diet, I'd love to hear them.

Today I'm running (jogging, really) in the LV marathon.  It kicks off at 4pm, we run around the west side of the strip for 13 miles, then do the second 13 up the strip then back down.  It should be a pretty cool atmosphere.  I'm a little concerned because I'm not the world's best runner.  I've run halves before, but never a full.  Training went okay, I was running 2-3x per week with a longer run thrown in there, but my long runs weren't ever as long as recommended by most marathon training programs.  Additionally I actually gained weight during all my training.  I think it's because I started weight training again as well, so it's "good weight" but still, I'd rather move 175lbs for 26.2 miles than my current 225 lbs.

The past couple of live poker sessions have been at 2/4 limit.  My last 1/2 and 2/5 sessions were pretty terrible and I felt like I was playing just awful.  So I made myself sit at 2/4 as a kind of punishment.  It did go fairly well though.  Finished up about $140 over 5 hours of play.  My next session will probably be at 1/2, and assuming I don't go back to paying like an idiot, I'll get back into 2/5.

Online I'm still grinding away at the PLO10.  I get up a bit, take a shot at PLO25, get bitch slapped, then head back to PLO10 to make it back.  It's a vicious cycle that I really want to break out of.

It has been quite the downswing.  I'm still barely in the 50k challenge sitting at -$67.82 after 6307 hands.  Over the past 3k hands I am -$127 with an EV of -$15.  It's hard to be happy when that's how things are going.  Tonight I got crushed by one of the most agro terrible players I've ever played against.  He was running 92/58/40.  I mean, I know it's PLO and all, but does he really need to get there every time??  BLAH!  Alright, enough of the bad beat whining shit.  No one cares and I know it.
In other news, I'm old.  My birthday was on Friday.  Had some sweet birthday pie.  Mmmmm pie.  To combat the feeling of old age I played some live O8 over the weekend where I was the youngest guy at the table by a good 30 years.  It didn't go particularly well.  I played for about an hour and a half and didn't win a single pot.  I don't even think I got to show down more than maybe once.  There was a lot of "This hand is playable!  Oh...  That flop didn't even give me a draw...  I fold"
It's a short week due to Thanksgiving so I imagine there will be a fair amount of poker coming up.  Hopefully I get some run good!

I looked at my rake stats today and I've been paying pretty much a big blind per orbit in rake at PLO10.  So I decided to take some of my month's profit and give PLO25 a couple buy in shot and see if I can make it stick.  It said "Thanks for the money, go back to where you belong".  So I'm back at PLO10.  I'm not too upset about it, running bad happens, I ended up -$67 for the day with an EV of +6.  Not what you want to see when you're trying to move up.  Just gotta grind a bit more to make that back and give it another try in a week or so.  My plan is to err on the aggressive side of BRM with two caveats: 1) I'm going to try to keep myself in the 50k challenge as long as possible and 2) once I start getting to where my roll isn't easily replenishable I'll go more conservative.  A few hundred dollars isn't a big deal, a few thousand becomes a bit tougher to get back online.

Getting 50k hands in is going to be tough.  According to HEM I get 230 hands per hour, which means I'm going to need to put in 218 hours to get 50k hands.  Over 12 weeks that is 18 hours per week.  Which I certainly haven't hit in these first two weeks.  I'm off pace, but not too concerned yet.  I haven't really done any session review or been doing any kind of learning so far this month, which I feel bad about.  A good part of this for me is about improving as well as getting my grind on.  Ideally I'll be well on my way back out of the micros by the time 50k hands rolls around.

3786 hands down.  $74.93 up.

My routine this week has been work, go to the gym, get home make dinner and chill for a couple hours, grind out some PLO online.  I've been playing PLO10 and it's been going alright so far.  Small sample size still though.  I've got 1700 hands in and I'm up about $20.  
Since I'm still a huge PLO rookie, I've been playing with starting hand rankings.  It was surprising to me how much even having one suit was worth.  I used to consider a middling rundown like 9876 unsuited a pretty top notch hand.  But apparently it isn't.  Hopefully I'll have some more revelations like this and my game will continue to improve and I'll make it to PLO25 in short order.
It's been a while since I've played live, but I imagine that will change this weekend and I'll grind the live scene a little.  Gonna have to load up my iPod with some new stuff.  Any suggestions for awesome live grind music?

So it's been a while since I've written anything at all...

Some random thoughts/notes and we'll consider this caught up.

I took 4th in a DSE event during the summer, increasing my BR dramatically.  After that I had a sharp peak playing cash and have since been running virtually break-even over my last 200+ hours.  It's annoying, but I'm okay with it as well as a fair number of those hours have been spent learning games other than NLHE.  I'm starting to consider myself moderately proficient at 2-7TD and O8.  I'm still pretty terrible at the stud variants, but getting better.

My dad was in town for the weekend and we got a few rounds of golf in.  Friday was great in the morning, but by the time we got to the 12th hole at Angel Park the wind was really blowing.  There were a number of times the ball would fall off the tee as I was addressing it and twice it even moved on me while I was lining up my putts.  Needless to say, I shot a lot better on the front than on the back.  Then Saturday we went out to Coyote Springs and played The Chase.  It was an incredible course.  Well worth the 50 miles we had to drive out of town.  I played a terrible round, but the course was absolutely gorgeous and very challenging.

I'm running the LV marathon in a month.  I'm starting to get a little nervous because training hasn't gone as well as I had planned/hoped.  I'm really going to need to stay motivated at this point.  That includes running, cross training, and diet.  Good luck, me!

I'm doing the baller on a budget 50k challenge.  I did the 1st one last year and went busto at some point along the way.  So far I only have about 500 hands in, but with having my dad in town for more than half of the days the challenge has been running, I'm not too concerned about that.  So far I'm down about $6.  I have a few hands in O8 and the rest are in PLO.  I've also played a bunch of 2-7TD, but HEM doesn't import those so they won't count.

Had some dinner then went down to Legasse's Stadium to watch the Canucks game.  I love Legasse's Stadium by the way.  But anyway, get down there right around when the puck is supposed to drop and there's no Canucks game.  I'm all like WTF!  Apparently Versus had the rights to the game, but they were sticking with the NYR/Washington game that went to overtime.  And rather than switch to the Canucks game while the intermission to OT was going on, they just went with the talking heads.  There were a bunch of Canucks fans there though.  One guy was calling out the Canucks goals from smartphone updates.  People cheered.  Ended up missing the entire first period, but got to watch the second and third.

After the game, I walked down the hall to the Venetian poker room.  I only had about $400 on me so I played some 1/2.  Highlight of the session was one regular tanking for about a minute after he was min-raised on the flop.  He shipped.  Tourist guy (I'm pretty sure, no one had seen him before) pulled off the angry fold.  Individually threw the cards at the dealer, berated the reg for tanking, then promptly raised up the next three pots to $25 pre flop.  I'm not sure if this was before or after he told me that I'll lose a lot of money if I'm happily getting QQ all in preflop.  Anyway, I played for about 2 hours and ended the session up $43.

I'm flying to Vancouver tonight.  I checked out tickets for the game tomorrow, but wasn't willing to pay $250 per.  Damn you, Canadian hockey market.