Posted By: hdouble

"We do not what we ought,
What we ought not, we do,
And lean upon the thought
That Chance will bring us through."
--Matthew Arnold

Well, my insane $3-6 winning streak finally ended on Saturday. And it didn't just tail off slowly, it came to a crashing halt, spun around and sent me spiraling into red numbers. But let's start with Friday...

Friday: Business as Usual
It had been a couple weeks since my last losing session, so long that I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to lose. So when I sat down and the big bets started sliding towards me, it was nothing unusual. In an hour and a half I managed to hit a couple monster hands, including a 22 Big Bet pot after flopping trip sevens. This helped push me to a ridiculous $250 win on one table in just over an hour of play. Between the other two tables, I lost $140, but it still put me up $110. I caught some cards (that set made my night), but still felt my play was top-notch, and felt untouchable.

Saturday: 4 for 4
Saturday was beautiful-- I can't remember very many sessions where I booked wins on all 3 tables... small wins on each table left me up $130 after a short $1 hour session. After I watched the Huskies steal the game from choking Duke (I'm from Connecticut), I hit up a quick $30+3 SNG, and led nearly from start to finish, cashing in another $120. I'm pretty critical of myself in tournaments, and this one of those rare tourneys where I couldn't remember making any mistakes. Replaying the hands in my head, I was happy with my play.

Sidebar: Warning, contains appalling consumerism
Something else happened on Saturday... I found myself convinced that with the winning streak, I could afford to upgrade my PC. I usually try to live a pretty spartan life, but I found myself thinking it would be nice to have a faster machine that I could use for work and home... yes, a laptop! I've always hated laptops, but I'm spending so much time in front of the comp that it would be nice to be able to sit outside sometimes (when I walk outside these days, I start squinting and looking for shelter like some cold-blooded animal). Plus, since I spend 14 hours a day behind the computer, it's worth the money to maximize my working/poker-playing environment. (That could have been the nerdiest thing I've ever written)

I'd been reading about other bloggers buying laptops, and didn't really understand the strange logic that was involved in such a purchase. BG and Grubby recently climbed on the laptop bandwagon, although I believe Decker has been talking about it for a while, and finally took the plunge last week (did I miss anyone?). Anyway, now that the thought has poisoned my brain, I'm convinced it's the right thing to do. So rather than trying to win my way into the WPT this weekend (Hollywood Park has 3 juicy qualifiers every night this weekend), I'm putting the money towards the laptop.
End Sidebar

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Waking up at 2 after the time change, my internal clock was out of whack. But no matter, I was as happy as a Varkonyi after a great Saturday on the tables. And then I missed some flops. My big cards weren't connecting, and 3 small bets were going down the toilet every hand. No big losses, but plenty of small ones, and after a frustrating 2 hour session, left for the weekly Poker Blogger Tourney (thanks for setting this up Felicia!) down $185. I knew that I was due for a day like this, and I was comforted looking back at PokerTracker to confirm that I was not playing badly, I was just missing a lot of flops.

I planned to win back this money by winning the tourney, even if the mighty Roy Cooke was sitting right across from my virtual character. I knew my Riddler-like attire gave me the edge, and I used my wacky table image to my advantage. Roy "I never" Cooke raced out to an early lead, accumulating some chips with a great call against Chris Halverson's AK. But when I raised it up with AQs in early position, Roy fired right back from the SB with a medium size raise. I put him on a big pair, probably JJ. When the flop came Q Q rag, I debated how to suck the chips out of the guy who'd made me plenty of money with this excellent article. To my suprise, Mr. Cooke immediately went all in, and I beat him into the pot. He later revealed he had AA, and the flop was a miracle for me.

I was doubled up and became the chip leader, and Roy was down to 700 chips. I did my Phil Ivey impression and stole a lot of pots and built my stack slowly. With around 7000 chips, I picked up JJ in middle position and raised it up, only to be reraised when some poor soul went all in from late position. I had enough chips and hoped he was on AK, so I reluctantly called, only to see two more jacks on the flop. Of course, the poor guy had rockets and I had dodged another bullet.

You'd think cracking AA twice would put you on the right path to victory, right? But alas, I got no cards for a while, and found myself in decent chip position at the final table. I finally picked up a playable hand, AJ, in middle position, and raised 3 times the BB. Roy had built his way back up to a medium size stack (around 4K) and came over the top of me again, going all-in this time. Great. I hoped that Roy was trying to get back to his regular $80-160 game and was trying to get rid of his chips, and put him on a medium pair. There was too much money in the pot, and I felt like winning this hand would give me a good shot at the tourney. So I closed my eyes and called, hoping I at least had two overcards. It's nice to be right, as Roy showed 99, but it's not so nice when the board doesn't give you any help (and the flop came 2 3 4 just to give me some extra outs). Roy's revenge was complete, and I was crippled. I ended up pushing in my shortstack with 87s, and finished in 6th when the board didn't help. It was my best finish, and I can't find much wrong with my play. I guess I was lucky to have survived rockets twice.

Stinkypants2 (a.k.a. College Boy) put on a brilliant show, eventually taking out Roy in the final heads up battle, after a shortstacked Rick Blaine valiantly tried to claw his way up to second. Check out Pauly and Stinky's blogs for a much better recap.

Blue Monday
After reading this cardplayer article about the huge skill edge that a no-limit player has over weak opponents, I was feeling the no-limit bug crawling around my skull. After chatting with Paulsburbon about the juicy NL games at Hollywood Park, I decided to give the $50 NL tables at Party a shot. It started slowly, but after two hours, I left bruised and battered. I need a little catharsis, so I'm going to share the brutality with you, my faithful reader.

1. I raise preflop with QQ, and face a reraise from a loose player. In true Felicia style, he shows AA. -$52
2. All in with my two pair JT on a flop of A J T with two clubs. I'm called, and of course the player who checked in EP has KQ. Terrible play by me. -$50
3. I reraise All in with AA on a flop of K 7 5, two clubs. The turn is another K, and the caller shows KT. -$50
4. All in with TT on a flop of J 4 2, 2 hearts. Turn is an Ace, and the caller shows A5-- clubs. -$50
5. I flop the nut straight with T8, but two clubs on the board. I bet the pot ($12), a club hits on the turn and I'm raised, I sacrifice my last $10 to be sure, and he shows K6 clubs for the turned flush. -$36.

Ah well. Back to limit, I suppose. The total carnage amounted to $260, and of course I had only one suckout (I caught my 9 on the river for Aces and 9s against AT) for a measly $50 win. If I had won just 2 of those 5 hands, I would have broken even, but "that's poker". My temprament just isn't quite right for NL yet-- I'm a little overaggressive, and risk my whole stack with the not-quite-nuts against players who are willing to sit and wait for the nuts before they go all in. I need to be more patient and turn down the aggression just a bit. Or maybe I just need a little luck.

So a small dent in the bankroll, but you can't win what you don't put in the pot, as the Rounder fan quoteth. I'll be back to the grind tomorrow, and days like today usually tighten up my game a bit and knock me back into my usual tight-aggressive style.

The Blogger Hand History Collection
After suggestions from Lord G and Stinkypants, I finally got around to setting up an ftp server for sharing hand histories. There are now a total of around 25K hand histories on the server, so generously donated by Lord G and yours truly. Knowledge is power, or in this case, profit, so I encourage everyone out there to consider uploading your hand histories. Everyone who uploads at least a few thousand hands will be able to download all hands on the server, so it's a pretty good deal. If you're interested in downloading the hand histories, send me and email and I'll explain how to use PokerTracker to export your hand histories, and upload from the server. You'll get the password and be able to FTP in and download all the hands on the server. Using PokerTracker's new export hand feature, you'll be able to generate notes on thousands of players, so when you suspect a bluff-check raise, you can look at the notes on the player and decide whether to call or fold. It's saved me many a big bet, so hop on the bandwagon and email me for the password and instruction manual.

I've gotten several requests for a PokerTracker review, and I'm currently working on a guide "How to Improve your Low-Limit Game Using PokerTracker". If you've got a specific question about PokerTracker, leave a comment or email me and I'll try to address it in the guide.

Thanks for reading and I hope your Monday was better than mine.

Posted by hdouble at April 5, 2004 10:20 PM | TrackBack

Maximize your profits: learn how to use the most powerful tool in online poker.