Updates (8/25/2011)

It’s been a while!  I’m still alive yes!

I was out of the country a while vacationing in St. Martin.  I missed two full weekends because of that.  Back to the grind now.  I was really ready to go back home after 4 or 5 nights.  7 Nights on vacation was a little long for me.  The group of friends I went with were all dreading going back home.  I realized I was probably the only one who wanted to go back home.  I missed playing 2/5!  I think it’s a rare thing to miss your job while on vacation.  I feel fortunate in a way.

The action in St Martin was pretty non-existent.  They averaged one "2/5" game per casino, and the casinos are not close to each other apart.  I have 2/5 in quotes because it was the only game offered that one table.  Therefore it was basically a 1/2 game with the incorrect blind structure assigned.  People would buy in like $150-$300.  I only played about 15 hours total.  I did scrape out about +$400, which at least paid for going out a night or two.  A few times I went they didn't get a game going until 11 p.m, then the casino closes at 4 a.m.  It's like uh what?  So I had better things to do on vacation then wait until 11 p.m for a "2/5" game to materialize.  Also, PLO has become just as popular as hold em' there.  Usually the casino would have a hold em' game and a PLO game.  Or a game that ran half NLHE and half PLO. 

I didn't care about playing much, I went on vacation to take a BREAK.  The beaches were absolutely beautiful.  The nightlife was also very cool.  The European girls were also very pretty.

I had a decent session last night winning about $1200, which is rare for a Wednesday.  Ok let’s be honest, rare for any day.  Hopefully it will boast my confidence and focus going into the weekend sessions. 

I’m feeling comfortable and pretty focused right now.  Looking forward to playing tonight and this upcoming weekend.

-bag

Schedule Massacred (8/12/2011)

I put in a bit of a marathon session last night.  First I put in 4.5 hours and lost -$500.  During the 4 hours I made one horrendous lay-down with AA.  Against a regular I know I smooth called with AA to keep his range in pre.  I call flop (T 7 x), Turn King he barrels and I call, river brick and he puts me all in for 270 something more.  HE barrels 3 streets and I laid the river for some reason.  I think he only has AK and KQ there.  I forgot I was live and not online for a second.  The all in river threw me off a little, I was like ok why so much?  The only thing that beats me there is sets.  So I screwed that one up for sure.  It's amazing I only need to do one thing well in my life (play poker), and I still manage to screw it up sometimes.   Then I played from 11:30 p.m to 7:30 a.m putting in 8 hours, for a loss of -$50 (lol).

The 2nd part 8 hour marathon session had some of the best action I've seen in the past few weeks so I felt obligated to stay.  I understand you can sit with the worst players in the universe and still finish down sometimes, that's what happened last night.  Probably 8 out of 10 times I finish over 1k in the same game.  

I forced myself to wake up 4-5 hours later.  I'll get to my parents house eventually, pass out a while,  and then leave for the airport at 5:30 a.m.  Time to head home and getting ready for vacation for a week.  It's been a shit month so far, still down a buy-in, 70 hours of play.  I feel good right now, things just aren't coming together in the form of any profits.

That's about it for now.  Hopefully I can play a few sessions in St Martin.  They have casinos and get a 2-5 game running every now and then.  That's about it.  I'll be back in a week or so!

-bag

Updates (8/5/2011)

I haven’t been posting a lot I know.  I go through bad stretches where I don’t feel like posting as much.  It’s been an uneventful week.  July was terrible.  I won 4 buy-ins for the entire month.  Actually enough to pay rent and cover living expenses, but this was obviously not the result I had in mind.

Looking at my last 10 sessions (38.5 hours), +$905.  Six of the sessions I finished with profit, one was break-even, three were losses.  The main problem with this stretch was there wasn’t a single session where things really went well for me.  The most I won during any of the past 10 sessions was a buy-in.  A large percentage of my winnings seems to come from that odd day where I win 2-3 buy-ins. 

My typical pattern during the last 40 hours was:

A)  Table select.  Continue to table select, while being baffled at the amount of nut-peddling nits now infesting much of the 2-5 games.

B)  Finally find a really good game around 2 a.m.

C)  Sit there card and situation dead during the most profitable game for 3-4 hours.  Meanwhile, any other regular gets clubbed with the deck as fish deposit money into their bankrolls holding any two cards.

D)  Continue folding 94o.

E)  Get up and leave around 6 a.m completely mind-fucked.  Finish around break even or a slight loss.

I know I sound like a whiney loser here.  But yeah that is my last 40 hours of poker, what else can I say?  I don’t think like this while I’m playing, I can usually hold all of the negativity in check.  But after I leave the table and think about things it all just comes pouring out sometimes, and that’s what you hear above.

I try to keep in mind what other regulars would have lost during the same stretch, or the average player for that matter.  That helps a little.  Knowing I really couldn’t do much during that stretch, but usually manage to steal out a slight profit or break even.

I have a big Friday and Saturday ahead of me.  I’ll do my best to stay mistake free and remain in emotional control, no matter what happens.  I want to play 4 or 5 out of the next six days (around 8 hours minimum per day).  I’m going on vacation August 13^th- August 20^th, so I’m sort of busting my ass.  I’ll be able to play some while on vacation.  But probably only 2 or 3 nights.  So I’m missing two full weekends with this trip.  Very +EV I know!  I’m running like shit so let’s take off two weekends in August! 

I realize a lot of my profits come in small waves.  When that next wave will come I have no idea, it could be a day, it could be a month.  But I know it will come eventually.  The only way I can get there faster is the keep up my volume and stay focused.  In a way I feel like a side goal is to just somehow manage to survive until the next heater.  I know many wouldn’t be able to survive during the same stretch.  And by “survive” I mean still be profitable no matter how bad you run, no matter how card/situation dead you are each night.

I'll be back to post about my successes or failures before I leave country for a week!