I can't win on Fridays (6/17/2011)

I go into tonight with the realization that I can NOT WIN on Fridays.

I'm not sure what the deal is here.  The last Friday I won over a buy-in was 3/25/2011.  Friday is supposed to be a great action night, but if you're baglife during the past two months you would have been better off just partying on Friday like a normal person.  check out my last five Friday sessions:

5/6:  8 hours, -$880

5/20:  9 hours, -$1150

5/27:  9.5 hours, -$60

6/3:  8.5 hours, -$285

6/10:  6 hours, -$25

I really don't have a great explanation with regards to how this is possible.  I'm quite convinced it's just a bizare statistical anomaly.  I've always gone into Fridays really prepared and ready to play.  If I take a look at my notes there have been a lot of huge suck-outs during these last 5 Fridays. 

There is usually decent action.  However, the games really haven't been that great during Friday nights.  The last two sessions I had to switch tables over 4 times.  I think the night is getting saturated by weekend warriors who really aren't losing that much.  The type that are probably playing around 15% of their hands, and losing around -2 BB/100 if they ever played 100k hands.  They have some basic understanding of the game and will make money if surrounded by droolers.  Sure I have a skill advantage over them, but a table with 6 of them on it is horrendous.  They are there to win money just like me, if they lose their night is ruined.

So what am I doing this Friday?  Playing poker.  Yes I guess I just don't learn.  If you take detailed notes I think strange "streaks" like this will just happen.  The sessions above only make up 41 hours total.  That's just over a thousand hands.  Much can go wrong in a thousand hands.  I used to play 3,000 hands in 5 hours online.  I certainly didn't win 90% of those sessions.  I know this, but it's still a strange when compared to my other nights.  Especially considering my Saturdays have been absolutely phenomenal.  You think the two nights would be comparable, but it hasn't even been close.

Anyways, i'll be updating later.  I'll do my best to avoid 6 losing Friday nights in a row.

-bag    

Good June so Far... (6/14/2011)

I'm off to a great start on the tables this month.  I've played 70 hours and won over $50.00 per hour during that stretch.  That makes up for the break-even disaster that was May.  I've been trying to keep a clear disciplined focus during every session.  I'm not doing anything differently from May, just running better.

I've only ended up playing two small tournaments and I missed the money in both.  I was going to put together a grueling tournament schedule and aim to play in the $2700 championship event, but now I have sort of lost motivation to do so.

I feel tournaments are just such a waste of time for me.

Normally the buy-in and structure is not great.  For example, last night I could have played in a $180 buy-in tournament.  But instead I just decided to play a cash game and win $500 in 4 hours.

If I played the tournament there was a good chance I could have ended up playing 8 hours with no return on my investment.  Or 8 hours and finishing just outside of the final table with a profit of what?  +$300 maybe?

I was going to play a lot of these small tournaments to prepare for the championship, but not anymore.  I can just be making more on average playing the cash tables.  My job is to prey on the tournament players who bust and come to my cash world.  Why go into their world?

Also, I decided I don't want to get backing for the big buy-in tournament.  If I don't feel comfortable putting up the full buy-in on my own just screw it.  And $2700 to run bad and bust out is just not something I'm interested in right now.  It would be a great experience, but meh maybe next time.

That's about it right now.  I'm super happy summer is here.  It's great living a few blocks from the beach.  I'm looking forward to visiting home a week after the open is over.

-bag

Event #3 Recap (6/8/2011)

Buy in:  $450

Event:  Deep Stack No Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry).  100,000 Guaranteed.

Entries:  800ish

Finish:  200ish

Net:  -$450

Just finished up the deep stack re-entry today.  The only good news from a net-loss perspective is I didn't need to use a re-entry.  I ended up busting out well past the re-buy period around 200th after about 9 hours of play.  Started at 11:00 a.m, busted around 8 or 9 p.m.  My stack began to dwindle after I was situation dead for a while.  I lost a coinflip against a short-stack TT < AJo, all in pre.  That took my M to around 5ish where my only move was then to shove.  Two  hands later I picked up 88 and shoved all in from the CO over a late MP open.  He called and I couldn't have asked for a better situation, 88 < A8o all in pre.  That ended my day.  Two aces ran out to rub it in, ok I get it.

Anyways the tournament was a good experience.  I had fun and was happy with my play.  I enjoyed the change of pace.  I didn't feel at a skill disadvantage in comparison to any opponent encountered during the day.  Even the two better players (I noticed) made some pretty spewy plays in bigger situations.  Any player who accumulated a bigger stack pretty much luck-boxed a big situation to get them there.  Either a massive cooler, or a fish busting a stack into them obviously behind.

You had a lot of casual players open limping, even when the blinds got deeper and some b.s like that.  Lots of big fundamental mistakes.  Letting M's fall below 5 without making a move, defending with pathetic holding, and people calling 3-bets waaaay to light.  There wasn't any pure psycho spew-boxes.  The table was very tight a large percentage of the time, especially in the middle stages.  But then all of the sudden you would seem some dude take a heroic stand holding KTo getting 3-bet OOP, call.  Then commit all of his stack on a draw?  Uh ok? Where did that come from?

I never ran into a big situation to get myself in a position to build a lot of chips.  I was sort of hanging around all day, just working with what I was given.  I'd often steal a pot here and there to keep my M around 15-20.  But as the blinds increased I couldn't hold up in one meaningful situation.  I never gave up and fought hard.

I would consider throwing in a tournament into my schedule every once in a while.  I also want to keep studying MTTs.  It's just crazy how top-heavy the structures are.  I couldn't imagine playing tournaments for a living and losing 20+ in a row without a score, blows my mind how people do it.  I guess it's sort of hard to do that without online now.

So I was planning on playing the upcoming $450 tournament this Friday (standard structure).  Then perhaps the big-stack on the 15th.  After that It's the main event (6/19), which I'm still trying to get some money together to take a shot at.  I don't want to put more then 5% of my working roll in play at any time, so I would need some backing for the $2700 championship event.  I'm aiming to put up around 25% myself and get some backing from some family members.  Maybe I should just sell some stocks, not like they ever do shit anyways.

My cash games are going to take a hit this week, and my body is very confused by my current schedule.  It was extremely hard for me to get up and make the 11a.m tournament today.  I forced myself to wake up after 5 hours of sleep the night before so I would be tired Tuesday.  Tuesday night came around and I forced myself to go to bed at 12:30 a.m.  I woke up around 4:00 a.m starving and sweating (thanks for turning off the AC roommate).  I made something to eat and turned the AC back on, but I don't think I fell asleep again after that until 8:00 a.m.  So I am damn exhausted right now.

Schedule for the next few days:

Thursday:  Basketball, grilling with friends, having fun.

Friday:  $450 tournament event at 11a.m.  If I bust early I'm going to take a nap and play cash later.

Saturday: All Cash if I don't make it to day 2 (around 8 hours)

Sunday: All Cash (around 8 hours)

Monday:  Depends on how I feel, but at least a 4 hour session.

As always I question if the Friday even has enough value to bend my schedule around.  Probably not, but I made a commitment to play a few tournaments and I want to stick to that.  Also the brief change of pace is good I think.  Also practice is good if I stick to playing the main.  This has a similar blind structure.

Solid Win Update and Summer Open (6/5/2011)

I finally logged a big win last night, up +$2500 in 11 hours.  To put in perspective, I lost -$700 for the month of May combined in 160 hours.  About $1300 was won last night during one of my final hands.  With a $1400 stack I got AA all in pre-flop against KK.  It held up, so I guess I can stop complaining about running bad for a week. 

The hand started as a maniac opened to $20 from EP.  This guy was pure LAG opening about 40% of his hands pre-flop.  And not a bad player.  Actually one of the most scary 2-5 regulars to play against in Atlantic City.  He is the only person I won’t sit on a table with if he has position on me, it’s just not even worth the variance.  Anyway LAG opened to $20 pre from EP.  I 3-bet to $65 from MP2 with AA, MP3 cold calls behind, the button then 4-bets to $350, LAG gets out of the way, action on me.

I thought about just flatting and pretty much shipping any flop without a king or queen on it, but I elected to 5-bet ship my $1400 stack all in here.  It’s just so fucking deep at this point that I didn’t want to mess around, even if a king or queen flops can I really get away from this hand heads up?  Against this guy probably not.  Even though I’m 90%+ sure he has QQ or KK.  The only flop I can really get away from is a flop with both a king and queen on it.  I don’t know his range well enough here, he could have QQ or KK, maybe even AK.  Additionally, if a king flops and he has QQ I’m really not getting any more money out of this hand.  And if he has KK I don’t think he is folding pre-flop anyways.  I would have been fine just scooping the +$400 without a showdown there.  Villain snap called anyways. 

Here is a secret: I’m pretty much never 5-bet shoving my 300BB stack all in with anything other than AA here.  This was the first time I’ve played with the villain, but previously he shipped a thousand dollars in playing his over-pair KK on the flop (pre-flop was 3-bet to $120).  I’m pretty sure he was an exclusively limit player and out of place in the deep-stack no limit environment.  

I won around 1300 on the last hand thanks to the mega-cooler.  Over 2.5 buy-ins in one hand.

I think there is an important point from the cooler hand.  Immediately after the hand I calmly tried to put myself in the villains situation with KK and ask what I would have done?  I can honestly say I would have folded the KK there.  He had been playing with me for over an hour and I hadn't 3-bet one time.  I had been playing aggressively when I was involved in pots however and seemed like a decent TAG player.  My 3-bet could have been lighter than normal because there was a super-lag opening from EP.  However once I 5-bet I think it's safe to say "game over", your kings are not good here.  And in the not so distant future there will be a time where I'm holding KK in the same situation, and I'm confident that I will be able to make the lay-down.  And I will lose about $1100 LESS than 95%+ of my opponents in that situation.  Another question, what would I have done if one of the better TAG regulars in the city was making that same 4-bet from the button?  I think the answer is just assume he has KK and FLAT.  Then basically auto stack off on any none king flop.  If a king comes you have to fold.  The only way you stack on a king flop is if he has PROVED he can 4-bet light with AK super-deep.  I can count the regulars in the city on one hand that are capable of such a play, so it would be a fold the majority of the time.

Off to a good start for June, I really feel the pressure is off for the time being.  The break even stretch in May had me on a life-tilt

Upcoming Borgata Summer Open (June 8^th- 24^th)

Borgata has a series of tournaments for their summer open coming up:

Borgata Summer Open Main Schedule

As anyone who is reading this probably knows, I’m pretty much an exclusively cash game player.  However, I’m feeling a burn to take a shot with some of these tournaments.  There is massive value to be found in these live tournaments.  Also, there are countless pros who got to that next level by taking a shot in a live donkament and placing deep.  This is a well known way to get ahead.  I’ve talked to a few pros in AC who placed deep in a tournaments early in their careers, which immediately gave them the freedom play profitable 5-10 games.

The problem is my bankroll.  I don’t want to damage my live 2-5 cash bankroll in anyway by failing in live tournaments.  I don’t want to ever drop back to 1-2 and I am a huge bankroll nit.  I have around 25k ready for immediate 2-5 use at any given time (only 15k of it is in my room and casino drop box).  I also have a separate account for living/rent expenses (around 10k which I add a percentage of my winnings to each month).  And I also have a separate account for long term investments such as stocks, retirement, etc (around 15k).  I can pull from the other two accounts to put into my immediate live bankroll, but I haven’t done that since I’ve turned pro, and I don’t expect to do that.  However, I WILL DO THAT before I ever go back to corporate, but pulling from my other accounts to replenish my live “working” bankroll would be a desperation move.

I’ve targeted 4 tournaments during the summer open that I would want to play in:

1)  Deep stack NLH 100k Guarantee (Re-entry).  $400 Buy-in + $350 Re-entry, 6/8-6/9

2)  No Limit Hold’em 25k Guarantee.  $450 Buy-in, 6/10-6/11

3)  Big Stack NLH 74k Guarantee (Re-entry).  $230 buy in + $200 Re-entry, 6/15

4)  NLH Championship Event (500k Guarantee).  $2700 buy-in. 6/19-6/22

Total: $4330.00

Notice I want to focus on deep-stack tournaments as much as possible.  They are less bull-shit and I have more time to gain advantage by use of skill.

The problem is I don’t want to put up $4,000 out of my own working bankroll.  So I’m going to talk to family members who have a lot of money and hopefully they will be interested in buying a percentage of my action.  If someone put up a full buy-in for the championship event I would have no problem giving them 80%+ of the winnings.  I’m still working out the details and the right way to present it to my family members.

I don’t know if I’m going to get any backing for this.  If I don’t I may just cut the championship event and go for the other three tournaments which would total around $1600.

No matter what happens the cash tables should be awesome during the entire summer open and I’m looking forward to the action boast during every day of the week.  I will keep updated especially if I go for some of these tournaments.

Frustrated (6/3/2011)

+130 in 17 hours

I’m pretty frustrated right now, as June has started right where May ended; horrendous.  Just finished tonight with a small loss (-$240 in 9.5 hours).  The first 4 hours I grinded up +$300 or so.  Then the last 4.5 hours I lost -$565.  The last half was the typical session for me (during the past month).  The most card dead player on the table, if I do find a decent hand it generally has to be abandoned because villain X flopped close to the nuts.  Meanwhile various players have stacks that sky-rocket up in the thousands.  Just flop sets, get paid infinity, hold up, easy game.  Just mind blowing how shitty I can actually run.  Oh and the worst player on the table just distributed about $1500 before getting up, none to me of course.  But it would have been cool if I could have gotten in I don't know, maybe one meaningful situation with him during the past 6 fucking hours.

During the last orbit tonight I made a really high variance bluff that went bad, I’m still not sure how I feel about it.  That was another -$200 lost.  If I didn’t do that I lose only $50 on the night, instead it’s -$240.

I was dealt 89s in the small blind.  With two limpers behind I completed, the BB then raised to $25 total.  Limper 1 called, limper 2 called and I called.  So the pot is now about $100.  I had been card dead for so long that I was getting pretty restless here I think.  I normally fold this pre-flop.  I don’t have position on the raiser, who has only been sitting down about an hour or so.  I’ve seen him show down a hand that suggests he is a casual player, or not an amazing one.  His starting hand ranges certainly seem weaker than any "normal" 2-5 regular.  One of the limpers is a huge fish with about $250 in bomb off mode.  The other is a regular who will almost never play for a moderate pot against me.  I think the call pre-flop would have more merit if the fish was deep.  But I also thought I could play it OOP and still have the correct implied odds to get paid off by the pre-flop raiser.  Anyways, the pre call was questionable at best.

My image was super tight.  I had not been able to get anything going for hours, and I had not been involved in a big hand since last Christmas.

FLOP T, J, 4 rainbow

I check and the pre-flop raiser leads out $50.  The two other limpers fold.

I feel this is a very dry board and I can steal this pot a large percentage of the time.  And the bluff isn't suicidal either, at least I have some equity with the open ended straight draw.  I have this guy on something like 88+, AT, AJ, AK, AQ, or KJ.  QQ+ is not out of the question because his PFR was on the smaller side, but I can't conclude that theory because I haven't seen him make many pre-flop raises.

I then make a re-raise to $175 total.  HE SNAP CALLS.  So much for stealing the pot.  His call was extremely confident.  He must have fucking nailed it.  I was thinking about shoving pretty much any turn, but something about this call was waaaay to confident for my liking.  I think my fold equity is about 10% on the turn after a call like that.

TURN K

Pretty much the worst card in the deck for me, but I deserve it.  God forbid I make a move after being one of the tightest player’s on the table for the past 4 hours.  But this was not a regular who has seen me play tight for long stretches, against a player like that I think he folds anything but a set almost.  But perhaps this was not the right target.  I decide to check turn and give up on the hand.  He thoughtlessly goes all in.  I fold.

So there was my first big bluff in about 18 hours of play.  It’s a high variance play that I’m not really proud of.  I thought the fold equity was through the roof with my image, but that went terribly wrong.  I actually think he had TT or JJ there with the confidence displayed on the flop.  I was trying to rep the set, or two pair, blah, fml.  It doesn’t even make sense logically, I’d float a set there on such a dry board.  And I’m pretty much never completing from the SB with TT or JJ.  So what the fuck am I repping 44? Or TJ?  Two fucking hands?  But then again I figured that logic didn’t matter to him.  Most would think: “Oh man this super tight player just put in a massive check raise after not being involved for 2 hours, he must have a set or top two pair”.  My logic probably wasn't terribly off that hand.  He probably just happened to catch the top end of his range (TT or JJ) because this is the story of my poker life for the past month.

Most player’s can grind out 2-5 and make $30-$40 an hour without ever making a bluff (especially in the right game).  I think I lost discipline a little with the 89s hand.  It's just not a great spot, let it go pre-flop.  I don’t mind this play against a tighter regular, or if I was having a good week.  But now going into the weekend I’m up +130 instead of +330 for the first 17.5 hours this week.  That’s a big difference.  I’ll be a lot less confident going into the weekend because of that butchered hand.     

I need to really play mistake free this weekend and try to build on something.  Stay focused, keep my emotions in check, steal pots, remain aggressive, and do my best to make the optimal play in any given situation.  It may also be generally wise to avoid high variance check raise bluffs on the flop!

Tomorrow I will do something to clear my head before playing.  Probably basketball an hour or so, make a nice meal, relax, then hit the casino.  I'm in this for the long-hall, I know break even or even losing stretches can last a while sometimes.  Hopefully my lack of profit of late represents the end of the storm and not the middle of it.

-bag