Like this:

Okay, so  my friend Tom (badbanana07) has motivated me to start a blog. This blog will mainly be about my adventures on the felt (online felt lol), but I will try to make it more. I hope and think updating this blog will help keep me motivated with my goals, my desire to continue learning the game, keep me off tilt (poker-related or not), and strive for greatness (cheesy i know).

After grinding it out for months and months (no idea how long) on pokerstars and fulltilt, switching back in forth between sites after going on horrible tilt and blaming each site for my misfortune, I managed to turn my bankrolls on both sites down to zero. I was even considering giving up the game until after I had completed college, or even for good. I thought I had developed good bankroll management, but looking back now I see that I ALWAYS deviated from the plans-for-anti-broke-ness I had set out for myself. I switched back and forth from cash to sngs, to mtts, looking for my niche but never really finding much success. I never blamed myself for losing and constantly bemoaned to anyone who would hear me out about how bad my luck was (mainly my girlfriend, sorry michelle!).

Well it’s a new year, and after having a brief but very motivating and inspiring conversation with Tom after reading his latest blog entry a day or two into the new year, I have decided to not give up on my dreams of poker greatness and was hungrier than ever.

2 days into the new year i busted the 100$ i had deposited on pokerstars (playing way higher than what I was rolled for) after I had busted my entire FTP roll. I deposited another 100$ (I could only deposit 100$ at a time due to the limitations of the echeck option) and started playing 10NL. After playing badly along with a rough run of cards, i managed to lose 42$ of what I had just deposited. This was very disheartening for me. I had just finished talking to Tom, ready to take on the world and I only had 58$ in my pokerstars account. I dreaded the thought of grinding 5NL. Just the thought of a winning 2 cents at a time was incredibly unmotivating. Pennies were just too attractive. Luckily, I was saved from having to experience 5NL any longer a day later.

I am a member of rakeback.com (for my FTP account) and they had a 10k freeroll for select members that earned enough fullt tilt points. It started @ 1:00 PM yesterday (1/3/09). I was DETERMINED to do well in this tournament and get some extra cash for myself. The field only had 519 players and I felt I had become a better than average MTT player these past months, with many deep finishes, but only a couple final tables. Well, even starting the tournament was rough. The previous day I had gotten into a huge argument with my mom about poker. To her, playing poker is pure gambling and is just as bad as snorting cocaine. My computer was relocated to the room right next to hers so that she would have an easy time keeping an eye on me while I was on. There was no way I’d be able to play the tournament comfortably and play for the necessary amount of hours an mtt requires, so 20 minutes after the tournament had started I grabbed my brother’s laptop (without pt3 and any kind of hud) and sped to the library. After having a rough time connecting to the free wireless the library offered, I finally got on fulltilt and saw that I had about 1200 chips of the initial 1500 chips remaining. I was not disheartened and was still determined to do well. I played what I felt like was the best tournament poker I’ve ever played, and after the 2nd break, I was in first place. I continued playing well right after the break and had about 54k in chips. I calculated the avg number chips at the final table to be around 67k and was close. I felt that I could guarantee myself a final table if I reached that number. This probably isn’t a good mentality to have, but I don’t know. Anyways, after the bubble popped and only about 70 people remained I took a huge hit. This one dude was 3betting me everytime I raised, and I just let him for a bit. By playing his style, his stack had reached about 3/4 of my stack. I picked up AKs in MP and raised, and as expected, he 3bet me. It folds back around to me and I 4bet him pretty big. Looking back, I should have just pushed to take away his next move but I didn’t….obviously he thought I was just fed up with his 3bet and 4bet him light so he decided to shove. I reluctantly called because I didn’t want to get into a confrontation with a stack of his size yet even though I felt I dominated most of his range. I prayed he had AQ. Not so lucky….he had 77 and flopped quads on me. hahaha. It’s pretty funny now that I think about it. Anyways I was now pretty shortstacked and had about half the avg number of chips. At this point I deeply regretted not 4bet shoving on him. I felt like almost all hope was lost and i was destined to finish close to the final table again. If not for Michelle, who was there watching me while she did some work, I definitely would have finished outside the final table. She cheered me up and boosted my morale greatly. My confidence grew again and as my confidence grew, so did my chipcount. I played a pretty good shortstack, and eventualyl got back to average number chips before I doubled up through another midstack 77 vs 33. We got it in preflop and he flopped a 3 (at this point I jawdropped lol), but I luckboxed a 7 on the turn. WOOT. I was back in it and before long I had reached the final table. I continued to gain chips until it was 4-handed. The payouts at this point was 1.9k for 1st, 1.2k for 2nd, 850 for 3rd, and 4th for 650. I had played with my 4 remaining opponents all day (1 was my 3betting nemesis who owned me with quad 7′s) and felt I had good reads on all 3. First or 2nd place felt inevitable, but sadly disaster struck. It was 5, and the library was closing. As soon as the library closed, I called my friend Simon (thanks a lot dude) to get on for me and stall while Michelle and I rushed over to starbucks only to find that they required us to subscribe to some kind of internet service before we could get online. At this point I was panicing and rushed back to the library hoping they had not turned their wireless off. I found that they had not, so I got back on in the middle of Simon playing a hand of kings for me. I was oop against the chip leader with my stack half of what it was before I started running around looking for internet access, not to mention the board being A82…so it went check check on the flop because I had no idea how the hand played out preflop and I was scared of that ace on the board. On the turn I bet about half the pot which turned out to be a mistake, because the chipleader called and rivered another 8 (he held 87) and shoved on me after I checked. I reluctantly put the last remaining chips I had in the middle and finished 4th for 650$. I was on megatilt after this because I felt if I would have played the hand differently if I was not forced to run around finding internet while 4-handed, and not finished 4th. How ironic is it that I just won 650$ for free and was complaining about it lol? Anyways, like the trusty and loving girlfriend she is, Michelle cheered me up and congratulated me on my finish. We proceeded to get wingstop and I was feeling better in no time.

When I got home, I was happy because I had a new roll and a new start. I got on and started 6-tabling 25NL, with new plans for success. I decided that I was NOT going to break my BR management rules again and bust my roll..AGAIN. I subscribed to DeucesCracked for their free 7-day trial as well. I haven’t started watching but I will very soon. I played pretty well and here are the results of my first 2 sessions of 25NL.

It’s a pretty small sample but I felt like it was good start. My roll on FTP is now running at 835$ and I plan to continue at 25NL until i reach 1500$. I just need to work on my bluffing and get that red line positive.

So far I’m running at:

Limit	VP$IP	PFR	W$WSF	WTSD	W$SD	AF	AFq
$0.25 NL (6 max)	19.49	16.02	44.41	22.98	59.46	3.71	51.29

3Bet	Fold 3B	Att To Steal	Fold BB to Steal	Fold SB to Steal	CBet F	3Bet PF	Att To Steal
7.87	55.41	26.04	76.67	92.31	77.21	7.6	26.04

BB/100	Call F CB	Call PFR	CCPF	Fold BB to Steal	Fold SB to Steal	PF AF	River AF
18.94	18.6	8.42	9.71	76.67	92.31	3.13	2.4

AF	Turn AF
3.71	2.73

I’m not sure how good this is, so I’m hoping my friends like Tom can help me out, and hopefully plug some leaks.

I felt like I’ve played well at 25NL including running well. The hands where I lost the most were coinflips preflop. All with me holding AKs in the BB and the button 4bet shoving me with QQ or JJ. They flopped a set on me each time too =/. Oh well.

Another couple of hands confused me too, such as this one:

Full Tilt Poker Game #9855048519: Table Early (6 max) – $0.10/$0.25 – No Limit Hold’em – 15:59:30 ET – 2009/01/04
Seat 1: Royal Jah ($60.65)
Seat 2: DJ boy56 ($32)
Seat 3: boxingcritic ($10.60)
Seat 4: TheZionLine ($27.15)
Seat 5: pwncakery ($26.10)
Seat 6: ponDragon ($30.90)
Royal Jah posts the small blind of $0.10
DJ boy56 posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ponDragon [8h 8c]
boxingcritic folds
TheZionLine folds
pwncakery folds
ponDragon raises to $0.75
Royal Jah has 15 seconds left to act
Royal Jah folds
DJ boy56 raises to $2.85
ponDragon has 15 seconds left to act
ponDragon calls $2.10
*** FLOP *** [Ts 4s Ac]
DJ boy56 checks
ponDragon checks
*** TURN *** [Ts 4s Ac] [4h]
DJ boy56 checks
ponDragon has 15 seconds left to act
ponDragon bets $4
DJ boy56 has 15 seconds left to act
DJ boy56 calls $4
*** RIVER *** [Ts 4s Ac 4h] [6c]
DJ boy56 checks
ponDragon has 15 seconds left to act
ponDragon bets $10.75
DJ boy56 calls $10.75
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ponDragon shows [8h 8c] two pair, Eights and Fours
DJ boy56 shows [Jh Tc] two pair, Tens and Fours
DJ boy56 wins the pot ($33.55) with two pair, Tens and Fours
ponDragon adds $11.70
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $35.30 | Rake $1.75
Board: [Ts 4s Ac 4h 6c]
Seat 1: Royal Jah (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: DJ boy56 (big blind) showed [Jh Tc] and won ($33.55) with two pair, Tens and Fours
Seat 3: boxingcritic didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 4: TheZionLine didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 5: pwncakery didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 6: ponDragon (button) showed [8h 8c] and lost with two pair, Eights and Fours

(I can’t seem to get the hand converter thing to work. It just keeps showing the html stuff even when I do it HTML)

I felt like he was just restealing from the bb (like he was) but didn’t follow through with a 4bet. I showed weakness on the flop which induced his hero calls with midpair on the turn and river. I got hero called quite a few times this session, maybe they’re just looking me up…

Oh well. I felt like I played well and never tilted so that’s good.

That was a longer post than I intended on making, so I’ll save the New Year’s Resolutions for next time!

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