so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye
27 March 2008
Finally pulled the trigger and opted not to renew my CardRunners membership. I haven't been getting a whole hell of a lot out of their videos lately and have decided to give LeggoPoker a shot. I transferred the requisite $400 (thank you rakeback) over to them this morning for a year long subscription and look to hid the vids hard in April. Maybe this will help since I've dropped about 3 buyins since getting back into the swing of things this week. Running a combo flush+straight draw doesn't do so hot against a made full house. Such is life.
On a side note, btimm is gonna go down so hard in fantasy baseball next week he won't even know what hit him. Oh, and let's send out a prayer for malfaire, who is currently partying up a storm down in Miami -- I'd say that there is a 22.4% chance that he does not return alive.
Posted byM0NIKER at 5:43 PM 4 comments
non poker related junk
24 March 2008
As mentioned earlier, I haven't had a ton of time to sit at the tables over the past few weeks. A combination of corporate slave-labor, fantasy baseball, NCAA March Madness, and Easter holiday traveling have cut into my table time, and although it's not the best for my bankroll or development, I think the break has been good for me mentally. I'm excited to get back into the swing of things later this week, and will likely push to get in 3000 more hands prior to the end of the month. Let's hope for more green figures! Unfortunately, I will be going at it alone since the poker group I belonged to has disbanded. I guess I'll probably start looking for some consistent 100nl or 200nl winners to team up with, as being part of a group was extremely beneficial to me. I'll get on that in April and set a goal to have another group set up before the end of the month.
NCAA March Madness
Well, my dad is a Pitt alum and ever since I was a kid I've been a Big East fan (making a trip to the Big East tourney at Madison Square Garden for at least one of the four day even each year since 1992). Unfortunately, this bias translates into my bracket pickings as I just cannot pick against this conference. Every year Pitt gets a top 5 seed, and every year I am convinced that "this is their year" to make the Final Four. Every year they disappoint me and destroy my bracket. This year is no different. (On a side note, I did get the Nova and WVU Sweet 16 picks correct due to this bias... yay me.) Despite the fact that I did in fact burn my brackets on Saturday night, I love this time of year and the craziness that ensues. Here's hoping Stephan Curry takes his team to the Final Four and scores 8 billion points along the way.
Fantasy Baseball
A few years ago a colleague at work convinced my boss and me to join his fantasy baseball league despite our constant protests and complaining that "we don't know anything about MLB." Said co-worker played on our competitive nature and goaded us into joining his head-to-head league by mocking us and insinuating that we were not up to the challenge. Despite the fact that I had only ever competed in fantasy football prior, and hadn't watched any MLB outside of ESPN highlights for years, I had to accept and defend my honor. That year I autodrafted a team that consisted of 21 players whose names I did not know and could not pronounce (seriously, who is this Mark Teixeira guy I got in the first round?). Being the competitive person that I am, I piloted that team to a 1st place victory against some seasoned fantasy baseball vets and have been hooked ever since. For anyone out there who doesn't play, you should -- it's a heck of a lot of fun (especially the trash talking).
Anyway, I decided to do 3 different leagues this year with both friends and co-workers. The one that I'm most focused on winning is our 10-person H2H league (which includes BTimm this year). This league's format isn't the best, nor is it the highest buyin league that I'm in, but I want the win for bragging rights. Nothing is better than smack-talking your boss over the interweb via Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball (renaming my team name to "Cry Eyes" after he complained about a particularly demoralizing loss last year is a personal favorite -- subtle, yet effective). My team, as drafted, is below. I plan on dominating.
C: Joe Mauer (4)
1B: Adrian Gonzalez (10)
2B: Kelly Johnson (16)
SS: Rafael Furcal (8)
3B: Alex Rodriguez (1)
OF: Carlos Lee (3)
OF: Corey Hart (6)
OF: Matt Kemp (11)
Util: Ryan Zimmerman (9)
BN: Brad Hawpe (15)
BN: James Loney (17)
BN: Evan Longoria (19)
BN: Billy Butler (21)
SP: Jake Peavy (2)
SP: Brandon Webb (5)
SP: Francisco Liriano (12)
SP: Rich Hill (13)
RP: J.J. Putz (7)
RP: Matt Capps (14)
RP: George Sherrill (18)
RP: Jonathan Broxton (20)
Posted byM0NIKER at 10:42 AM 0 comments
weekly update #10
10 Mar - 16 Mar:
2,592 hands (100nl)
$137.69
2.66 ptbb/100
Nothing too stellar jumps out from this subset of hands but maybe I'll do a more in depth analysis if I get some time. Things have been really hectic lately and I haven't had the time to play let alone do proper reviews. Maybe things will lighten up this week.
Posted byM0NIKER at 10:34 AM 1 comments
weekly update #9
10 March 2008
3 Mar - 9 Mar:
3,991 hands (100nl)
$659.23
8.26 ptbb/100
Crushed the tables hard this week and ran pretty hot to boot. Really felt like I played pretty well, and deciding to 6-table really helped increase my volume of hands. I do feel like I am playing too tight at the moment, and after a discussion with Brian have since decided that I really need to look for optimal spots to loosen my game. I still stand by the fact that you shouldn't be targeting specific stats (ie: "I want to play an x/x/x game"), but agree that changing up your game to be looser in certain situations will certainly benefit you as you move up stakes. Hopefully as I migrate towards playing some PokerStars in the next few weeks I'll be able to target some villains with more standard stats and get into different situations (on AP it seems like whenever I try to isolate limpers in position all that happens is I get 3 calls and end up having a 4way $20 pot on the flop... fun times).
The Bad:
Hand 1
I'm getting frustrated with overpairs in multiway pots and am starting to feel like I shouldn't be felting this. However, I don't want to be too results oriented. There are a ton of draws out there and I think I just need to go with this hand. Whatever, keep playing 37s you retard.
Hand 2
Button is playing 24/7/0.8 (30% WTSD). I typically don't cbet into two villains with air but figured this was a dry enough flop that it didn't figure to hit anyone too hard. If called I'd simply reevaluate the turn and likely give up. Of course, the turn brings me a combo flush + gutshot and I chk/raise all in expecting to get a fold from weak Q's enough of the time for this move to be profitable. I didn't decide to get it all in until after checking the turn though, so this clearly wasn't good in terms of "planning out your hand." I don't hate getting it all in here, but what are your thoughts? Do I have enough fold equity for this to be profitable?
Hand 3
Not so sure I like how I played this hand. Should I even be calling this turn shove by the SB? SB caps the raising, but UTG+1 surely has a big hand if he's raising into 2 players here. Does that mean big flush draw, 2 pair, set? Or can I conclude that it's 89 enough of the time to fold. Thoughts... I just really do not like this situation?
The Good:
Hand 4, Hand 5, Hand 6
Nothing really to note here other than "flop big hands, get paid." Hand 6 is interesting because the villain and I were 130BB effective and he's a regular playing 18/15/2.5. If I flop a big hand here he is handing me his entire stack 90% of the time. By the way, he was none to pleased with the "ty sir" that he got after stacking off with AA.
Hand 7
Pretty straightforward hand... didn't really feel the need to push off our UTG friend off a hand so I just called UTG+1's 50BB shove. I guess he would have tagged along with QQ had I shoved, but what's the point?
Hand 8
Flop cbet was incorrectly sized by me (not intentional) but it worked out well. No reason to bet/3bet him off of a hand with no draws out there, so I decided to let him stack off with his Ax. K on the turn scared me in the sense that it might prevent him from calling another barrel, but I figured that if he wanted to chk/minraise the flop he's gotta like his hand. A chk/minraise on the turn as well must mean he really likes his hand now, and basically telegraphed that he either had AK, A2, A8, or 22. Good game son, let me relieve you of your chips.
Hand 9
Unknown villain here but min3bet PF typically means his holding is super strong; at the time I'm thinking TT+, AQ+, and maybe some random garbage because players are just so bad. Flop doesn't hit me so I'm just folding if he bets. Thanks for the free card, pal... 2 pair is good enough to continue for $5. Rivered my boat and obviously AK still has me beat (only 3 combinations), but I think a value shove here is correct hoping he was a moron with his JJ or KK. Thoughts?
Posted byM0NIKER at 11:51 AM 8 comments
weekly update #8
25 Feb - 2 Mar:
2,697 hands (100nl)
$153.56
2.85 ptbb/100
0ops, forgot to post my results for the ending week of Feb. Pretty swingy but ended up in the green and got in the requisite number of hands for BTimm's challenge... +EV. If I have a chance to peruse for problem hands I will post them up later.
Posted byM0NIKER at 11:42 AM 2 comments
February Results
03 March 2008
Built upon a great month for me in January with quite the solid February. Actually made the most total profit (rake/rewards included) in any month since focusing solely on cash games, even though I only got in 12,000 hands. I really need to try and carve out time to get in 15k-20k hands per month, but I don't want to detract from my personal life. It's really hard (in my opinion) to get in this volume with a 40hr+/wk job and an active social life, but I'll be doing my best.
One thing that I might be considering (now that my BR is sufficient for 100nl) is grinding out 6 tables of 100nl at a more "straightforward" play 2-3 days out of the week and playing a more focused "experimental" game at 2-4 tables the other 2-3 days. This should increase my volume while still allowing me to learn and grow as a player. I'm not 100% sure I'm going to try this approach, but the fact that I recently purchased SmartBuddy and can chase the fishies easier should keep 6tabling profitable even if I'm on semi-autopilot. (On a side note, my online bankroll has finally eclipsed the $4k mark, which has always seemed like an invisible hurdle for me. Now that I'm past it, I hope to never look back.)
February Results:
Table Profit: $967.75
ABS Bonus: $195.00
ABS Rakeback: $171.56
btimm Challenge: $125.00 (unofficial)
PokerStars Reward: Nintendo Wii (apparently on backorder -- still waiting)
February Goals Review:
- 2,500 hands / wk -- SUCCESS
- 100nl shots at least 2x / wk -- SUCCESS (now my normal game unless I see some juicey fishes at 50nl)
- Sustain > 8 bb/100 for the month -- SUCCESS (ran at a combined 5.13 ptbb/100)
- At least 1 sweat session / wk -- SUCCESS (3 Millennium Group sweats plus a few random others)
- Watch 2 instructional videos / wk -- SUCCESS
- Weekly reviews via blog posts -- SUCCESS
- Finish reading Professional NLHE -- FAIL (almost there, just need to buckle down)
- Begin reading The Poker Mindset -- FAIL (Ian is really pushing this for the group)
Posted byM0NIKER at 11:21 AM 4 comments