No I'm Not

This has nothing to do with basketball. Sorry. I just like alliteration.

When measured chronologically, it would appear that this blog is long overdue for an update. However, it being a poker blog, and there not being a whole lot of poker to speak of recently, well, let's just say you haven't been missing out on too much. I mean sure, I've been playing poker down the street for a few months now, and they recently started running a $2/5 game, but trust me, very little of interest happens there. Of the 70+ people I see over there, 20ish of which I see regularly, I respect the game of exactly one. Sure, other guys win. Some probably are doing better than me. But do I fear them? Hell no. For those of you who think no limit is dying, go to your nearest poker room. 

I've also started getting coaching even though I'm barely playing online. It's going well and although I have no definitive stats, charts, or graphs to back up my claim, I know that it's helped the way I play and really made me a more complete player. I was comfortable with my approach, and now I feel like it's gotten a pretty big overhaul but having someone to help me adjust has definitely sped up the readjustment process. And it's not like I was bad at poker, it's just that I'm not used to playing after the flop or having more than 30 BBs. Such is the life of a tournament player.

Anyways, life is pretty good. I remain cautiously optimistic that I'll be getting back into online poker full time in the near future. I hold out a shred of optimism that I will one day get my Full Tilt roll back. I mildly fear that if neither of the above two happen, a move to Vegas may be warranted, a town that I more or less loathe. But the thought that really haunts me at night until I'm eventually lulled to sleep by the snores of my 90 pound bloodhound is that I may have to once again find a real job and that every day I waste doing this is making me less and less suitable for the corporate world, which is probably where I should have been this whole time. Ah well, no turning back now. 

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I've been forced to play live poker, at least for the time being. I'm doing well for the most part, but I keep making fundamental mistakes that are killing me. I'm still confident I'm more experienced and studied more than pretty much anyone else in the game I've been playing. I can play lots of styles and I can change my game to fit the situation. But I can't stop fucking up. I do plenty of betting with the intention of folding, only to realize that my bet has pretty much put them all in. I gotta remember to always pay attention to stack sizes, especially in this game where people are often only buying in 50 bbs deep. I keep track of pot size well, but I am not charging them enough to draw. They don't need the correct odds because they want to call, so don't give them anything close to the correct odds. I also have to work on being more exploitable. Most people can't see beyond their own two cards and there's no reason not to play perfectly exploitably against these villains. When I happen to be in a pot against people I have more respect for, then I can worry about being more balanced. I'm picking the right spots to bluff, but my sizing isn't always there due to being a little gun shy because I'm working with a limited bank roll.

Overall though, I'm pretty pleased. I'm still winning about 13 bbs/hr over about 60 hours. Obviously, sample size blah blah blah. Nonetheless, I still haven't put it all together yet. Once I flip the switch and it becomes as comfortable and second nature to check stacks and bluff off chips as it was online, then I really hope to do some exploring in the live poker world beyond the $1/2 game 3 blocks from my home.

So I guess it's been a while. Haven't been playing much because I have most of my poker bankroll tied up on Full TIlt and didn't want to invest any more until I found some steady revenue. I've had a job for about a month now which I'm already pretty sick of, but it has given me the ability to set aside some poker funds. I went down to the local poker club and played about 150 hands of 1/2 over the weekend and finished up around $250. Saturday was an easy day of nut peddling and stacking people who were incapable of folding. Sunday I actually ran into a good player which is rare around these parts. Portland isn't exactly a hotbed for poker. He pretty much held over me and I'm really regretting how I played my first hand with him because I think it could have set a tone which would have made it much easier to play hands with him in the future. Given that he was getting involved in about 3/4 of the pots and just running over the table, I think even if I was wrong, just showing him that I could call with ace high may have actually saved me money in the future. So here it is. I have AQo UTG +2. The two old guys in front of me limp, I make it 12. It folds to the LAG in the small blind who flats, everyone else folds. Flop comes KT6 rainbow and I make a standard $20ish c-bet and he thinks for a second and calls. Turn comes the 7 of spades and it goes check/check. River is the 5, bringing a back door spades flush. He bets out 50 into 70ish and I really want to call here. At this point I knew he was loose but hadn't seen him do anything too crazy. I think he could have been calling with a random gut shot on the flop and just took it away on the river, but I also think he's good enough to go for thin value, certainly with a K, maybe even with a 10. Now that I think about it, I wish I could remember if i had the queen of spades, because it's possible he could have backed into a flush. 

Later on, I had KhJh utg and raised to 6. This is normally an easy raise in this game, but with him behind me, I should have just mucked. He had been 3 betting tons, and sure enough after 2 callers he makes it 12. This was really small for him, he'd normally been 3 betting in the 20s, and I wasn't really sure what to make of it. Anyways, I call as do a couple behind me so there's about $50 in and 4 players with me in worst absolute and relative position. Flop comes Kxx rainbow, no hearts. Checks to him and he makes it 33, I raise to 75. I hate everything about how I played this hand so far. I should have folded pre and I should have bet out on the flop, or even check/called down. The two in betweeners fold and he flats in position and of course I'm fucked at this point. I've over played a very marginal hand, raising UTG and then check raising 3 players on a dry flop. So when I check the brick turn and he bets all in for my last $150 how can I not fold? Of course the thought crossed my mind that I've pretty much done nothing but lay down to him up until this point and he's shown himself totally capable of double and triple barreling with nothing against other players, so maybe I'm giving him too much credit by thinking that he has to know that at the very least I have a good king here. Or not enough credit cuz he knows that I know he can't be betting with less than aces here... blah blah blah. Anyways, point is if I called him down on that first hand, I think I could have played this hand much better. 

Coming from tournaments, I know all about sizing your bets to make future streets easier to play, but this concept of playing hands certain ways in order to make future hands easier against the same opponent is somewhat foreign to me. I'm still adjusting to live and I'm still adjusting to cash games, but I know that I'm good. Or at least that I'm Portland good. Anyways, he was my nemesis and if not for him I would have killed the game. So maybe I learned a little something about game selection too. It felt good to be back though.

well, we can't wait forever, can we? obviously, if we're ever gonna see online poker prevalent in the states again, it ain't gonna be anytime soon. so i put on my goin' out clothes, took out some real cash money from the atm, and drove the half hour to my nearest casino. and then i waited. and i gave up on waiting for 10/20 limit and signed up for 4/8 limit. and i waited some more. and so i drank, because what else am i gonna do? and as i continued to wait and drink it became obvious that in spite of watching the excellent "dude, where's my mouse?" video series, i wasn't gonna be on my A game. but eventually i did get to sit down at 4/8, and probably my most +ev decision came when a spot at 10/20 came open and i chose to stay put. next time i'm calling ahead. next time i'm gonna bring a book so i don't drink out of boredom. it's not like i lost that much or that i even played super terribly, although i definitely shoulda laid a couple down seeing as how apparently no one in live 4/8 limit ever bluffs ever. hell, they barely c bet. i saw people check sets in position on the river because some obscure straight draw or back door flush came in. i did have a guy slow roll me, i don't know if he was trying to tilt me or just couldn't read his hand or what was going on. but it seemed kinda rude and everyone kinda gave him a you're an asshole look. whatever, i laughed it off. i feel immune to live bad beats or assholish behavior because online's taught me to stay zen through a suck out or two and it's usually not til i take the third or fourth in a few minutes that i'm yelling at my computer. aside from that, it was cordial enough, to the point where i was shocked at how much info people were giving off. not in that acting strong when they're weak or unsteady breathing subtle kinds of ways but in the saying "i got there" or "bring me a spade" or mucking when they missed their draw without someone even having to bet kinds of ways. maybe i'll learn to beat this game. it would be pretty sad if i couldn't. 

So I imagine that we're all a little nervous right now. I've been online a while now and have survived a few scares, but this one is a little unsettling. I still have a couple of checks that I received from FT that I deposited in my bank account that are stuck in pending. Guess I should have sprang for the wire transfer. Hopefully this will all be figured out by the weekend. The way I've been running, a little government enforced hiatus might not be the worst thing for my bankroll. Any kind of seizure of my money probably would be about the worst thing for my bankroll, so here's hoping that doesn't happen.

Stars gave me a little kick in the ass on the way out. I mean by the flop it was clear there was almost no way I could win, but I still gotta admire the creativity of the suck out. I was all like oh well, time to sign up for another and then I got the dreaded we don't want your money anymore message. Fine, let the FBI have it. Maybe they're smart enough to lay down AK.

Poker Stars $50+$5 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t75/t150 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 1281173
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BB: t15637 104.25 BBs
UTG: t4025 26.83 BBs
UTG+1: t7799 51.99 BBs
UTG+2: t10405 69.37 BBs
MP1: t1405 9.37 BBs
Hero (MP2): t1829 12.19 BBs
CO: t5035 33.57 BBs
BTN: t600 4 BBs
SB: t950 6.33 BBs

Pre Flop: (t225) Hero is MP2 with K A
3 folds, MP1 raises to t1405 all in, Hero raises to t1829 all in, 3 folds, BB calls t1679

Flop: (t5138) 2 K A(3 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: (t5138) 4(3 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t5138) 4(3 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: t5138
BB shows 4 3 (three of a kind, Fours)
MP1 shows A Q (two pair, Aces and Fours)
Hero shows K A (two pair, Aces and Kings)
BB wins t848
BB wins t4290

It's a hard thing to come by in this ridiculous game. So often we do the right thing only to be rewarded with a cooler or a suck out. The minor success I had today I will attribute to waking up on time, getting in the tournaments I wanted to get into, and playing fairly aware because I got a decent night of sleep for once. Of course if I were to actually do a statistical regression analysis of hours of sleep vs daily winnings I'm pretty sure there would be no statistically significant correlation. I have been known to fill my idle time with worthless activities like that before. For about two months I tracked my all-in luck which was an utter waste of time and was basically just me looking for rock-hard evidence to back up my belief that I really am the world's unluckiest player, a belief which about 90% of the poker playing population believes to be true about themselves.

Two hands today, same theme. I personally think I only messed the first one up, but maybe not. Both hands I flop huge and the rivered flush gets me. My thinking on the first was if he has Ax hearts he's putting infinity chips in on the flop, which of course turned out to be untrue. Even the KJ, KT, or JT hearts might want to get it all in on the flop, and if he doesn't have any of those then he isn't likely to have the flush.

Poker Stars $20+$2 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds + t4 - 9 players - View hand 1274692
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (SB): t2763 M = 41.86
BB: t2419 M = 36.65
UTG: t2893 M = 43.83
UTG+1: t2774 M = 42.03
UTG+2: t2916 M = 44.18
MP1: t3037 M = 46.02
MP2: t3379 M = 51.20
CO: t2833 M = 42.92
BTN: t2888 M = 43.76

Pre Flop: (t66) Hero is SB with 9 9
3 folds, MP1 raises to t60, 3 folds, Hero calls t50, 1 fold

Flop: (t176) 9 Q A(2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets t116, Hero raises to t320, MP1 calls t204

Turn: (t816) T(2 players)
Hero bets t520, MP1 calls t520

River: (t1856) 5(2 players)
Hero bets t700, MP1 raises to t2133 all in, Hero calls t1159 all in

Final Pot: t5574
Hero shows 9 9 (three of a kind, Nines)
MP1 shows K A (a flush, Ace high)
MP1 wins t5574

In my mind I can't fold as played, but if I did more of a blocker type bet on the river of like 400 then I could have gotten away. I only have to beat him 20% as played, 26% if I made it 400. Check call is obviously also an option but there's no way I can fold and it's just letting him set the price, and since I left about a pot sized bet an all in wouldn't be too suspicious looking. So maybe like 400/fold here. It's very villain dependent. I dunno. My dumb ass might be calling no matter what. Maybe I am just better off checking to keep the bluffs in his range.

This one I obviously could have checked through but I just felt that there were way more aces than flush draws in his range and it's not like he was folding an ace.

Full Tilt Poker $11 + $1 Rush On Demand No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t30/t60 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 1274707
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN): t1940 32.33 BBs
SB: t1340 22.33 BBs
BB: t3625 60.42 BBs
UTG: t2770 46.17 BBs
UTG+1: t1650 27.50 BBs
UTG+2: t1405 23.42 BBs
MP1: t825 13.75 BBs
MP2: t2000 33.33 BBs
CO: t2050 34.17 BBs

Pre Flop: (t90) Hero is BTN with Q A
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t120, 4 folds, Hero calls t120, 1 fold, BB calls t60

Flop: (t390) 3 A Q(3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 bets t120, Hero raises to t320, BB folds, UTG+1 calls t200

Turn: (t1030) 3(2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets t600, UTG+1 calls t600

River: (t2230) 6(2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets t900 all in, UTG+1 calls t610 all in

Final Pot: t3450
Hero shows Q A (two pair, Aces and Queens)
UTG+1 shows 8 K (a flush, King high)
UTG+1 wins t3450

A flush draw should be folding this turn, or at least jamming it. But I forgot about the stupid factor. My bad.

Playing awfully + unable to catch cards = -$480.

A million tournaments run on Sunday that everyone loves to play because all the prize pools are bloated by dead money from the weekend warriors. Rather than tearing through these, I think I like to play down to my level of competition. You wanna limp? Sure, let's limp. Wow you're only min donk betting into a 3 way hand that was raised pre-flop? Guess I have to call. You know, crap like that. I was also pissed because I didn't get to sleep til like 6 and by the time the dogs were walked and the coffee was drank it was like 3 pm and I missed most of the big ones. To make up for lost time and keep to my volume requirements I jumped into the $215 Stars second chance. $215 is a little out of my comfort zone unless I'm satelliting in. That tourney I actually played pretty well in for the hour or so I was in it, probably because I cared about it 10x more than the other tournaments I was in at the time But I took a bad beat with JJ against 99 and that was about all she wrote. 

So clearly I need to make use of my alarm clock. There's a rush tourney I love to play on Full Tilt that runs at 11:45 my time and I've been awake in time to play it like once in the past two weeks. That's pretty sad. 11:45 isn't exactly the ass crack of dawn.

So here's one hand that I played like crap:

Full Tilt Poker Turbo $10K Guarantee (Rush) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t250/t500 Blinds + t50 - 9 players - View hand 1272328
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: t9870 M = 8.22
SB: t10622 M = 8.85
BB: t10646 M = 8.87
UTG: t14787 M = 12.32
UTG+1: t28751 M = 23.96
UTG+2: t11788 M = 9.82
MP1: t14250 M = 11.88
Hero (MP2): t13710 M = 11.43
CO: t11710 M = 9.76

Pre Flop: (t1200) Hero is MP2 with Q Q
2 folds, UTG+2 raises to t1000, 1 fold, Hero raises to t2500, 2 folds, SB calls t2250, 1 fold, UTG+2 raises to t4500, Hero calls t2000, SB calls t2000

Flop: (t14450) 3 J 5(3 players)
SB checks, UTG+2 bets t7238 all in, Hero folds, SB folds

Final Pot: t14450
UTG+2 wins t14450


Not sure what I was thinking. Clearly a jam or fold pre. Most of the time I'd jam here, but I think this one was an easy fold. He 4 bets small out of position into a 3 better and someone who called 3 cold? Not deep enough to set mine, and even though no overs came, it's not exactly a perfect flop since either of these guys could have jacks and I was stuck between em. But obviously if I'm calling pre, I need to call the flop and hope for AK.

This is what busted me out of the second chance tourney after the JJ v 99 thing:

Poker Stars $200+$15 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t75/t150 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 1272350
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP2: t2997 19.98 BBs
CO: t7573 50.49 BBs
BTN: t7360 49.07 BBs
SB: t1095 7.30 BBs
Hero (BB): t2510 16.73 BBs
UTG: t4935 32.90 BBs
UTG+1: t5925 39.50 BBs
UTG+2: t1830 12.20 BBs
MP1: t2085 13.90 BBs

Pre Flop: (t225) Hero is BB with A Q
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t400, 3 folds, CO calls t400, 2 folds, Hero raises to t2510 all in, UTG+1 raises to t5925 all in, 1 fold

Flop: (t5495) 7 8 J(2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: (t5495) J(2 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t5495) 6(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: t5495
Hero shows A Q (a pair of Jacks)
UTG+1 shows A K (a pair of Jacks - Ace+King kicker)
UTG+1 wins t5495

UTG+1 was running tight numbers and I was thinking of just folding pre. Once the other guy limped along who I wasn't worried about at all, I went with a squeeze that AQ is neither strong enough nor weak enough to really pull off correctly in this situation. I wasn't even sure if I was bluffing or not which is pretty much never a good situation to be in. Obviously in hindsight I should have just stuck with my fold, but maybe this one was just unavoidable. Thoughts?

Let me start off by saying this isn't for you, it's for me. Should you happen to learn something or be entertained then that's great and all, but this is a purely selfish endeavor. For someone who calls himself a grinder, I completely lack discipline. I mean I put in a few hours a day and have been doing pretty well at it and all, but there are some things I could do, obvious things, that would step up my game and probably be reflected in my ROI. I need to focus when I'm playing and take more time away from the tables to study hands in order to try to pick up on tendencies of opponents and plug some leaks in my own game. That's what this blog is for. It's a way of forcing myself to put in some time to look at hands. Ideally, I will be posting every day that I play. Realistically, that won't happen. I'll be happy if I pop one out a week. Like I said, lack of discipline. 

So, about me. My name is Raif and I'm currently living in Portland, Oregon. I play primarily on Full Tilt as zegota and on Stars as porcelaingod. I recently re-discovered how truly bad players are on Ultimate Bet and have been playing a little over there as well recently, also as zegota. I play mostly tournaments in the $20-50 range but also play quite a few $12 Stars 180s and FT Rush tourneys. Those two sit and go's are kind of my bread and butter. I'm trying to play more cash games but they make me so frickin nervous. Even limit games that I'm well-bankrolled for. I have been playing a few of those recently because I'm kinda putting myself in training for a casino trip within the next few weeks. It was originally going to be Vegas, but a losing week or two made me scale down my expectations and now it's going to be beautiful Pendleton, Oregon. Not quite Vegas, but I've been there before and it was a lot of fun. I fully expect to have a huge skill edge on the field in their tourneys, but also to bust out uneventfully. I'm just hoping I can make my money back at the cash games. 

I also go back and forth on this whole poker thing. I kinda see it as a way to avoid the real world for a little while longer now that school is over. I also kinda think I could make it work if I really apply myself. Once I got out of school, I was all gung ho about getting a job and studying for the CPA exams, now all that stuff has been back burnered while I make one more run at poker. But I tell ya, even a coupla bad weeks and I could go right back to my half-assed job search. 

Anyways, like I said, the meat of this blog is going to be me looking at some poker hands that I run into during the day. Hopefully it won't just be brags and bad beats, but some actual analysis. So let's get into it, shall we? Today was ok, I finished up about $200. I only had three real cashes: 6th in a 180, 4th in a $26 rush, and 3rd in a $26 45. The 45 player actually went pretty well, but I didn't really like my play once it got down to three of us. The guy to my left was way tight, to the point that I did this:

Full Tilt - $24+$2|600/1200 NL - Holdem - 3 players

Hero (BB): 36,280.00
BTN: 11,640.00
SB: 19,580.00

SB posts SB 600.00, Hero posts BB 1,200.00

Pre Flop: (1800.00) Hero has Qc Ks

BTN raises to 4,800.00, fold, fold

BTN wins 3,000.00

Why? Well, I'm pretty sure I was behind and I was pretty much robbing them both blind with any two cards so I figure why race when I can just wither him away. Unfortunately, the plan backfired after I lost a flip to the other guy and then I did something stupid:

Full Tilt - $24+$2|600/1200 NL - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 18,350.00
BTN: 9,240.00
SB: 39,910.00

SB posts SB 600.00, Hero posts BB 1,200.00

Pre Flop: (1800.00) Hero has Ts Qs

fold, SB raises to 2,850.00, Hero raises to 18,350.00 and is all-in, SB calls 15,500.00


Flop: (36700.00, 2 players) 5d As 3c

Turn: (36700.00, 2 players) 9d

River: (36700.00, 2 players) Kh

Hero shows Ts Qs (High Card, Ace) (PreFlop 33%, Flop 18%, Turn 7%)
SB shows Jd Js (One Pair, Jacks) (PreFlop 67%, Flop 82%, Turn 93%)
SB wins 36,700.00

Normally, fine, whatever. But this one just smelled funny. He raise folded to my BB shove the last orbit and I just felt like he wasn't going to do it again. For whatever reason though I decided to do it. Makes it even stupider with how short the button was. I'm sure if I plug in the SB's ranges into Pokerstove and do the ICM calcs, there is no way this was a good shove unless I'm getting a fold like 75% of the time, which I just didn't see happening. Oh well. 

Did I mention I am loving UB these days? I've only played like 7 or so tourneys over there and only cashed in one, which I ended up winning. But god, the players are bad. So exploitably, wonderfully bad. Normally they're bad in the uber tight way, but this guy was pure maniac. I almost got it all in with him a few hands earlier when he 3 bet me pre-flop and I had pocket 7s on a 5 high board but decided against it because even though he was running insane numbers I decided I didn't have enough hands on him for a definitive read. However, a couple orbits later, with him still running numbers like 50/40 with a 3 bet of 75 we come to this hand:

Cereus Network - 150/300 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 5,475.00
Hero (BB): 10,093.00
UTG: 9,930.00
UTG+1: 5,714.00
MP: 4,230.00
MP+1: 16,190.00
CO: 7,871.00
BTN: 3,920.00

SB posts ante 25.00, Hero posts ante 25.00, UTG posts ante 25.00, UTG+1 posts ante 25.00, MP posts ante 25.00, MP+1 posts ante 25.00, CO posts ante 25.00, BTN posts ante 25.00, SB posts SB 150.00, Hero posts BB 300.00

Pre Flop: (650.00) Hero has Ks Js

fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 775.00, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 475.00

Flop: (1900.00, 2 players) 5c 2c Jd
Hero checks, MP+1 bets 1,200.00, Hero raises to 2,940.00, MP+1 raises to 13,200.00, Hero calls 6,353.00

Turn: (20486.00, 2 players) Ac

River: (20486.00, 2 players) 7c

Hero shows Ks Js (One Pair, Jacks) (PreFlop 36%, Flop 75%, Turn 11%)
MP+1 shows Qs As (One Pair, Aces) (PreFlop 64%, Flop 25%, Turn 89%)
MP+1 wins 20,486.00

Obviously, this isn't my normal line. I'm not sure what my normal line is here because I'm not calling with this hand out of the blinds too often precisely because you usually don't know where you are and you're out of position. But I knew against this player all I had to do was hit. Sure enough, he got it in there with no pair, no draw. Oh well. NH, GG. So much for this not being a bad beats blog. Obviously if anyone should be happening to read this, your feedback on the hands or on the blog as a whole are welcome.