Hellmuth explodes at Viffer

Two weeks of a horrible cash game was saved by this hand and the last one I posted.

First Online Nevertilt Tourney in a year

Last night we had our first online tourney in a year for my crew of guys and had 11 people show up including an “outsider” who just looked thru and guessed the very easy to guess password along with a beggar begging for money! I had never seen beggar’s on stars only on FTILT, so for a while it was amusing but grew tiring. One of the boys emailed support and he was warned.

I played the tourney fast and loose, and in hindsight I wish I would have locked it down a little more. I folded two hands that turned out to be boats, and I got rivered twice to be crippled then eliminated. There is no small amount of pride amongst our crew, and we are very competitive with each other, so I would defnately liked to have played a little different. It was taking down by my buddy Tim, who won leg one of our live monthly tourney. Well done sir!

I played two abbreviated sessions sandwiched around the tourney lasting about 20 min each and managed to pick up 50 bb’s. I didn’t want to push it and go for more, so protecting my win I just shut er down and watched the end of the tourney, as well as watching another buddy play a 1 table sng. All in all, a fun tourney with my friends, and a good win at the low limit cash games.

I didn’t get the chance to look at pokerfox.net yesterday, but I did do some reading from “The Tao of Poker”. I am going to start either Read’em and Reap this week, or I may start Beyond Bluffs, which I picked up a while ago but didn’t read. I actually have a bookshelf full of books that I haven’t read cover to cover, and some others that I want to reread. I have a long winter of study ahead of me, as I really work to improve my knowledge and skill at this fun, yet sometimes frustrating game.

First Online Nevertilt Tourney in a year

Last night we had our first online tourney in a year for my crew of guys and had 11 people show up including an “outsider” who just looked thru and guessed the very easy to guess password along with a beggar begging for money! I had never seen beggar’s on stars only on FTILT, so for a while it was amusing but grew tiring. One of the boys emailed support and he was warned.

I played the tourney fast and loose, and in hindsight I wish I would have locked it down a little more. I folded two hands that turned out to be boats, and I got rivered twice to be crippled then eliminated. There is no small amount of pride amongst our crew, and we are very competitive with each other, so I would defnately liked to have played a little different. It was taking down by my buddy Tim, who won leg one of our live monthly tourney. Well done sir!

I played two abbreviated sessions sandwiched around the tourney lasting about 20 min each and managed to pick up 50 bb’s. I didn’t want to push it and go for more, so protecting my win I just shut er down and watched the end of the tourney, as well as watching another buddy play a 1 table sng. All in all, a fun tourney with my friends, and a good win at the low limit cash games.

I didn’t get the chance to look at pokerfox.net yesterday, but I did do some reading from “The Tao of Poker”. I am going to start either Read’em and Reap this week, or I may start Beyond Bluffs, which I picked up a while ago but didn’t read. I actually have a bookshelf full of books that I haven’t read cover to cover, and some others that I want to reread. I have a long winter of study ahead of me, as I really work to improve my knowledge and skill at this fun, yet sometimes frustrating game.

Tuesday

Had a pretty uneventful session at the cash game tables yesterday, came out up about 20 bucks or so. Went fairly deep in a 10 dollar multi, finishing about 40 from the bubble after being 24th overall with 1000 left out of 2500. I ran KK into AK, and JJ into AQ (three Q came down for the overkill, hehe).

I was able to look around at the pokerfox.net site a little more, reading a little on the forums there. It looks like a very supportive group, and is devoid of the usual braggart posts, and bad beat complaints you see at most of the online forums. I think this is going to be a great tool, and I look forward to viewing some of the video’s this week.

I should hit Gold on the FPP’s this month for the first time, as I have already gotten 2200 points this month thru the first 9 days. You need 4000 points to go gold on stars and I got Silver at 1500. I am using FPP’s to buy books right now, although was thinking of maybe trying to accumulate 25,000 to cash em in for 285 bucks. We’ll see. That’s a lot of points…and also like 10 books. I may just continue buying as many books as I can to feed my poker book addiction….haha.

Found two tools last night to help feed my anal micromanagement tendencies. The first is www.pokerlistings.com which allows you to see how you do in MTT’s, going back 30 days, 120 days I believe, and All. The second is www.pokercharts.com which allows you to make notes on players, keep session stats, and calculates ROI, wins/losses etc. The first is free, the second is 20 bucks after a month free. I will see if I get any use out of these tools and update accordingly.

Tuesday

Had a pretty uneventful session at the cash game tables yesterday, came out up about 20 bucks or so. Went fairly deep in a 10 dollar multi, finishing about 40 from the bubble after being 24th overall with 1000 left out of 2500. I ran KK into AK, and JJ into AQ (three Q came down for the overkill, hehe).

I was able to look around at the pokerfox.net site a little more, reading a little on the forums there. It looks like a very supportive group, and is devoid of the usual braggart posts, and bad beat complaints you see at most of the online forums. I think this is going to be a great tool, and I look forward to viewing some of the video’s this week.

I should hit Gold on the FPP’s this month for the first time, as I have already gotten 2200 points this month thru the first 9 days. You need 4000 points to go gold on stars and I got Silver at 1500. I am using FPP’s to buy books right now, although was thinking of maybe trying to accumulate 25,000 to cash em in for 285 bucks. We’ll see. That’s a lot of points…and also like 10 books. I may just continue buying as many books as I can to feed my poker book addiction….haha.

Found two tools last night to help feed my anal micromanagement tendencies. The first is www.pokerlistings.com which allows you to see how you do in MTT’s, going back 30 days, 120 days I believe, and All. The second is www.pokercharts.com which allows you to make notes on players, keep session stats, and calculates ROI, wins/losses etc. The first is free, the second is 20 bucks after a month free. I will see if I get any use out of these tools and update accordingly.

And just like that broke again

Well blew thru the whole 140 bucks just like that playing 1-2. It was the most cold decked session i can remember. I barely won a hand. I am sure I played bad in some hands towards the end as I was very pissed off and should have turned it off.

Mistake 1. Tired, after having 3 hours sleep last night and working today, yet still played.
Mistake 2. Playing 1-2 with only 140 bucks right til the end.
Mistake 3. Raising every street after flopping top two hard, capping some rounds only to lose 4 times to either a two or three on river. All four times the guy having suited cards, J3, 82, 93, and 93. But hey they were suited so really it makes sense. AK3 flop? no worries I will call and raise each bet every street with 93. Oh he’s got AK….no worries.

Well fortunately this will be my last bad beat whining for a bit cause I am busted online and I am broke as broke can be. I will buy in again but I don’t know when.

Back to the drawing board. So frustrated

And just like that broke again

Well blew thru the whole 140 bucks just like that playing 1-2. It was the most cold decked session i can remember. I barely won a hand. I am sure I played bad in some hands towards the end as I was very pissed off and should have turned it off.

Mistake 1. Tired, after having 3 hours sleep last night and working today, yet still played.
Mistake 2. Playing 1-2 with only 140 bucks right til the end.
Mistake 3. Raising every street after flopping top two hard, capping some rounds only to lose 4 times to either a two or three on river. All four times the guy having suited cards, J3, 82, 93, and 93. But hey they were suited so really it makes sense. AK3 flop? no worries I will call and raise each bet every street with 93. Oh he’s got AK….no worries.

Well fortunately this will be my last bad beat whining for a bit cause I am busted online and I am broke as broke can be. I will buy in again but I don’t know when.

Back to the drawing board. So frustrated

Channelling my inner Matesow

I am known amongst my friends for my Mike Matesow style blowups. In live games I often am able to build a big stack of chips in cash games only to lose it all in a couple hands, sometimes to beats, often to silly decisions, which are no fault of my own. Online, I have literally turned 50 into 150 to 300 20 times, only to lose it in a tilt fest 8 hour session. Last night was almost one of these famous blowups.

I started yesterday at 80 dollars. This will probably be the last post where I discuss bankroll levels, only because I am seriously starting to get very superstitious about even mentioning it, cause every time I get excited to tell one of the boys hey I turned x into 3x I freaking implode over beats and chase money.

I slowly worked my way up from 80 to 120 yesteday playing 50/1. Then the stinking 1-2 limit game started whispering in my ear “Come on, play a few hands if you drop to 100, you can shut me down” Of the 150,000-200,000 hands I have logged the last two years, I would wager a good amount that 60-70 percent have been 1-2 limit. So once again, I jumped on the horse and gave it a try. Last week, last Saturday I think it was I had run 75 up to 170, and was having a sick run. However it turned bad and I ended the weekend under 20 dollars. I was so mad at myself for jumping off plan, and once again allowing myself to not walk away after some legit horrible beats (which you are going to get playing limit, accept this or don’t play—-this is me talking to me, haha). I had nuked my roll.

So thru the week I scraped and clawed back to 80, which is where I started yesterday. I got as high as 127 and then the famous Leighton blowup started. This same piece of work, just called and called with any two, at one point seeing 58 straight freaking flops! I went on mega tilt for a few minutes and actually ran the 127 down under 20 bucks! It was happening again, right back to my old habits. Instead of leaving the table tho, I felt you know what I am playing well, make this money back. So I sat out an orbit and a bit, and then decided to play as close to perfect as I can, and either bust, or make my money back.

So over the next few hours I scraped and clawed and got all the way back to 120! I had brought er back all the way, but unfortunately this is not where the strory ends, of course! Haha. From that 120, I had two back to back nightmare hands that were so silly they were laughable, long story short, back down to 70, are you kidding me? Why didn’t I just quit after being at 120, 40 dollar winner for the day.? Cause, I still wanted to play that’s why.

So I refocused and tightened up a little preflop and managed to get very lucky in one pivotal hand and rivered in a huge pot, and then took down a couple more medium pot and managed to get to 140 where I shut down for the day. Now, as I said, every time I mention bankroll amounts I manage to tilt off the whole thing or most of it, so I will not be mentioning money amounts as much here going forward, if for no other reason that I am growing superstitious! I have a decent amount to continue with the 3 dollar sng’s, and to take shots at 1-2 limit, under bankrolled yes but the game I most like at this point.

I have a post I am working on regarding my poker goals for the immediate future but mentioning it quickly I have a couple that are my focus at this time, which are

1. Get back to even in my Sharkscope search for stars (down 300 ish over 190 tournies)
2. Get my miniscule role to 300.

So there it is, I will have my mid year goals post up by the end of the week.

Channelling my inner Matesow

I am known amongst my friends for my Mike Matesow style blowups. In live games I often am able to build a big stack of chips in cash games only to lose it all in a couple hands, sometimes to beats, often to silly decisions, which are no fault of my own. Online, I have literally turned 50 into 150 to 300 20 times, only to lose it in a tilt fest 8 hour session. Last night was almost one of these famous blowups.

I started yesterday at 80 dollars. This will probably be the last post where I discuss bankroll levels, only because I am seriously starting to get very superstitious about even mentioning it, cause every time I get excited to tell one of the boys hey I turned x into 3x I freaking implode over beats and chase money.

I slowly worked my way up from 80 to 120 yesteday playing 50/1. Then the stinking 1-2 limit game started whispering in my ear “Come on, play a few hands if you drop to 100, you can shut me down” Of the 150,000-200,000 hands I have logged the last two years, I would wager a good amount that 60-70 percent have been 1-2 limit. So once again, I jumped on the horse and gave it a try. Last week, last Saturday I think it was I had run 75 up to 170, and was having a sick run. However it turned bad and I ended the weekend under 20 dollars. I was so mad at myself for jumping off plan, and once again allowing myself to not walk away after some legit horrible beats (which you are going to get playing limit, accept this or don’t play—-this is me talking to me, haha). I had nuked my roll.

So thru the week I scraped and clawed back to 80, which is where I started yesterday. I got as high as 127 and then the famous Leighton blowup started. This same piece of work, just called and called with any two, at one point seeing 58 straight freaking flops! I went on mega tilt for a few minutes and actually ran the 127 down under 20 bucks! It was happening again, right back to my old habits. Instead of leaving the table tho, I felt you know what I am playing well, make this money back. So I sat out an orbit and a bit, and then decided to play as close to perfect as I can, and either bust, or make my money back.

So over the next few hours I scraped and clawed and got all the way back to 120! I had brought er back all the way, but unfortunately this is not where the strory ends, of course! Haha. From that 120, I had two back to back nightmare hands that were so silly they were laughable, long story short, back down to 70, are you kidding me? Why didn’t I just quit after being at 120, 40 dollar winner for the day.? Cause, I still wanted to play that’s why.

So I refocused and tightened up a little preflop and managed to get very lucky in one pivotal hand and rivered in a huge pot, and then took down a couple more medium pot and managed to get to 140 where I shut down for the day. Now, as I said, every time I mention bankroll amounts I manage to tilt off the whole thing or most of it, so I will not be mentioning money amounts as much here going forward, if for no other reason that I am growing superstitious! I have a decent amount to continue with the 3 dollar sng’s, and to take shots at 1-2 limit, under bankrolled yes but the game I most like at this point.

I have a post I am working on regarding my poker goals for the immediate future but mentioning it quickly I have a couple that are my focus at this time, which are

1. Get back to even in my Sharkscope search for stars (down 300 ish over 190 tournies)
2. Get my miniscule role to 300.

So there it is, I will have my mid year goals post up by the end of the week.

Few hours til gametime

I am writing this post a few hours before game 7 of season 2 of the little league I run with my buddies. I ran very well in season 1, but have come back down to earth this season and other than a second in game 2 I have not made it to the 4th round of blinds in the other 5 games. I hope to get my live tourney game back on track tonight but we’ll have to wait and see.

Poker for me thus far this year has been pretty rocky. Online and live it certainly has not gone the way I had hoped. Last year from may til Jan I booked wins in 24 of 28 live sessions. Sometimes only 15 bucks, once as high as 400. This year I started off very rocky, but have started to turn it around live, and have won the past 4 cash games I have played.

Last year when I was playing well, what was working for me was tight aggressive in the early stages, and Loose aggressive towards the end of tourneys. Somewhere along the line I stopped making big laydowns, I lost my patience, and I just abandoned the style that was working for me. I used to play with a swagger, a confidence bordering very very closely on arogance. I dunno, I guess I was a little uncomfortable playing this way and stopped, and ever since that time my results have gone bad. I have tried to get back to it, but only half heartedly.

No don’t get me wrong, I only played loud and cocky with my close friends, and would never act like that to people that would take things the wrong way, or would get worked up or that I don’t know. Should I get back to that? Trash talking, pushing chips (in position and with premium hands), showing a few timely bluffs? I had people chasing me with absolute garbage. I had a target on my back, and 8/10 I had them beat, cause i was playing tight, but when I played I played it loud and hard, working hard to appear loose.

The confidence is slowly creeping back, as I said. My cash game results have taken an upswing. In january and Febuary, I was getting out to huge leads, running over tables and having 3 times the stack of anyone close to me. There would always be a hand or two where I would bleed away chips and then often I would lose most of my stack at 4 in the morning with a few hands to go. Need to get back to what was really working for me.

The plan is to make solid decisions tonight, playing well, tight aggressive and working well from positiion. I will post tommorrow about how it works out.