Beats.. All. Day. Long.

1) vs a loose nub.. Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 124979


2) vs a short stacker.. Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 124981


3) vs another loose nub. Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 124985


4) Shoulda bet more on the flop.. and put him in on the turn... wouldn't change the result though. Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 124989


5) .... Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 124990


6) ... yep. Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 124994


7) Yea.. ok limp with AA so in the off-chance that someone in the button picks up KKs, you can reraise them... you fag. Well played, nice luck. Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 125005


8) WOW! 77 APPARENTLY IS THE NUTS VS KINGS. Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 125003




This has been a fun, rollercoaster ride of a week. Finally when I start showing a decent win rate shit like this comes along. It's really like a slap in the face when you're playing solid and these droolers go all-in with random shit and you're 99.9% sure that your hand is a favorite to win. NOT ON POKER STARS THOUGH! Remember that feeling you got when Mark Walhberg in Planet of the Apes kisses the ape and not Estella Warren? It's like that.

A Status Report!

As you can see, my win rate has improved over playing at .01/02. .. for now. The $8 rake is a tad high for my liking, but the rake will become less and less as I spew less. Yesterday, I played a bit of .01/02. and .02/05. Overall, I ended up leaving the session $2 behind as I had to go to work. In actuality, probably about $5 up in .02/05... negated by two huge beats I took yesterday to the tune of that $5. (One of them was in .01/02.) Not just that actually.. but I made 2 failed bluff attempts. One of them was really costly and stupid. However, I am improving by not going on tilt when I receive bad beats. This used to cost me a few buy-ins and I could not play for long periods of time.

Looking at my stats, one thing stands out to me that I'm not quite sure about. All the time that I've been playing this game, my W$SD% has been lower than most TAG-style players. Now this either means that I'm being TOO aggressive, by betting people off hands, or folding too much. Looking at my aggression stats in the picture, I'd like to think it was being too aggressive. Flop Agg 5.82, Turn Agg 9.36, River Agg 6.14. Hmmm... which is the bigger leak, folding too much, or being too aggressive? Without much postflop skill, I believe the answer would be "too much aggression"... however, I'm quite confident that my postflop play is beyond beginner level, as I'm seeing a somewhat decent winrate now. I do have a few things I need to work on. One I see happen to me is when I bet on a scarecard that happens hit the opponent. I do need to check a little bit more. And, against weak-tights at $.05NL, when my bluff attempts fail, I think I need to fold sooner. A call or a min-raise and I think I should be done with bluffing.

In conclusion, I just think I need to get a larger sample size. Things that I'l work on include:
1) Knowing when to bluff, and giving up sooner in the face of a re-raise. Even Less Spew.
2) Realizing when a board hit an opponent, and check on the appropriate scare-card.

That's it! Time to test.

lolz thx for ur moniez

Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 120805

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



UTG+2: $4.43

MP1: $8.62

MP2: $10.20

CO: $10.07

Hero (BTN): $10.89

SB: $4.50

BB: $1.48

UTG: $4.30

UTG+1: $5.00



Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is BTN with Q Q

3 folds, MP1 calls $0.05, 1 fold, CO raises to $0.25, Hero raises to $0.75, SB raises to $1.35, 1 fold, MP1 calls $1.30, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.60



Flop: ($4.35) 4 Q 8 (3 players)

SB bets $2.50, MP1 calls $2.50, Hero raises to $9.54 all in, SB calls $0.65 all in, MP1 calls $4.77 all in



Turn: ($22.04) T (3 players - 3 are all in)



River: ($22.04) 2 (3 players - 3 are all in)



Final Pot: $22.04

MP1 shows 8 J (a pair of Eights)

Hero shows Q Q (three of a kind, Queens)

SB mucks A A

Hero wins $7.84

Hero wins $13.15

(Rake: $1.05)

Improving my winrate

So far... so so. .02/.05 isn't going bad. Actually, if I stop spewing... I probably could become a bigger winner than in .01/.02. I almost came away with a better winrate yesterday. It's about the same though... winning twice the rake. 5 hands I could have played better, and 2 hands that I actually got sucked out on.

1) Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 118292
lol.. I have no good reason for this one.. I knew one of the players was pretty bad.. he still ended up showing up with a better hand than I did though. I should have sized that raise bigger... and realized that when the decent opponent smoothe called it.. that something was out of place. OF COURSE he had the set of 9s.

2) Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 118301
Holy shit, that was a bad reraise on my part. I should have at least made it ~$2-2.5. That flop is somewhat dry, considering I have one of the Qs. I doubt he had at T, as he was somewhat tight in his range calling range. Turn comes a K.. bad card to see as it's an over to my Q, and J9/AJ got there. He shoves and it's pretty obvious he made his draw with AJo. He kindly shows that I was right as I folded. Gotta love people who give free information, and solidify your reads! What a nice guy!

3) Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 118310
This is spew. I should have realized that I was against a bad player... so most likely he didn't have a set when he donk bet my preflop raise. Usually they'll let you know if you reraise by shoving or reraising you again with a pretty big amount. If he called, I should have fired a big bet on the turn. Problem is on the turn he picked up a open-ended straight draw with his pair. 8+2+3= 13 out draw. Let's see.. i raised him 60 from his 20... so it's 40cents to go in a $1 pot. So he's getting 2.5 to 1 on a 2.54 to 1 shot... sounds about right. I let him make a correct call, and boom, river hits completing his straight. At least I got to see showdown for cheap... =/

4) Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 118319
Repeat, PEOPLE ARE NOT PLAYING BACK AT YOU. UNLESS YOU HAVE READS, STOP MAKING RETARD BLUFFS. Spew, like duh, obviously.

And that's it for the spew for the most part. All these hands cost me around ~$9 total. +5= 14-2.. yea I could be earning so much more. So what are the leaks in my game?
1) Playing back at people who have something. In essence, fold more when strength is shown by competent opponents. Who am I in the pot with?
2) Be aware of overcalls! (they're going to be the nuts 99% of the time, from "decent" passive players)
3) Bet more for value! I am the favorite vs a majority of these opponents, therefore, more money should go into the pot. This is mostly on the flop, reraising on danger boards... as shown in hand 3, and value betting the turn and river more.

FML: Sick of .02NL, Moving on...

Yep... still playing 01/02.... yippeeeeeeee! I think I'm about to say fuck it and move up. I mean I am bankrolled to play 02/05... I might as well stop being a fuckin' nit pansy-boy and take a shot, right? Here's just a little sample of what I've been dealing with over the past 3 months.


Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 115308

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $2.33
BTN: $0.93
SB: $0.87
BB: $0.89
UTG: $1.73
UTG+1: $3.70
Hero (UTG+2): $5.21
MP1: $1.10
MP2: $1.66

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG+2 with A A

2 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, 1 fold, MP2 calls $0.08, 2 folds, SB calls $0.07, 1 fold


Flop: ($0.26) K Q 2 (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $0.15, MP2 raises to $0.30, SB folds, Hero raises to $5, MP2 calls $1.28 all in
Turn: ($3.42) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($3.42) 6 (2 players - 1 is all in)



Final Pot: $3.42
Hero shows A A (a pair of Aces)
MP2 shows K 6 (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
MP2 wins $3.27

(Rake: $0.15)

Holy fuck my life?!? are you serious!? Well.. I guess he was, given that he was short stacked, called a preflop raise (PFR) with a K, hit top pair on the flop, and decided it was a hand he could ship it in with, despite my FIVE DOLLAR RERAISE, LOL. Sometimes I think this game is rigged. I saw so many retarded suckouts that day. Prior to that hand, I saw a fish call a large 20c raise from a nit with KJ, and flop AQTo, the nit of course had KK. And then that one time I got it all-in vs two fish, one with 55, and the other with AQ. Ok, so the 55 was a slight favorite over us, but I knew I had the AQ dominated... yet the flop comes something like.. J94, turn K, river T... sdlfkjasdfa

Good ole micro stakes. Analyzing my last session, after the two suckout hands, I tended to spew quite a bit. I've cooled down a bit now, but I think I should take a break and review my goals before I head off to gamble with twice the money I used to!

1) Take more notes. Reads are VITAL.
2) Table selection and seating position. Before, I wouldn't pay much attention to this, but I realized that this has a HUGE affect on your win rate. I'm paying more attention to this now.
3) Range+Pot control observation. This is just a combination of my previous two goals. In a previous blog post, I mentioned that my two goals were to develop reads/ranges better by asking questions and deducting what my opponent's likely holdings were. What type of opponent is my opponent? Loose-passive? (calling station) Tight-Passive? (weak-tight), Loose-Aggressive? (LAG, aggro-donk) Do I want to play a small or big pot with this hand? Given the board, my opponent's range, and reactions to my betting, what is his most likely holding? What are his tendencies? How does he play his draws? His top pair-type hands? His sets/made nut-type hands? What does my opponent think I have given my table image, and what will he think I have when I check, bet, or raise? What do I want him to think I have that he can beat?
4) Take a beat, take a breath. Man, as much as I hate to admit it, I spew pretty hard when someone calls with odds they shouldn't, or hits a 2-3 outer on me. Don't know quite how I'm gonna fix this. Maybe play more (after I cool down from the beats of course) or look into mediation or some shit. Yoga breathing exercises and the like! Don't laugh... I hear it's actually quite relaxing. ;) It's weird. I'm usually not the spewy-type. But I guess since this game involves real money, and I want to earn money in a quick fashion, that I make rushed, retarded decisions at times. This is definitely a last but not least.

Well, that's it for now! With these goals in mind, I'm off to 02/05 No limit! If I should for some reason go spewy, and lose some, I'll move back down to 01/02 at $175 left in my bankroll. Wish me luck!

Woo woo.. Revisiting Bad Beats and Tilt.

It's Sunday, soon to be Monday, the start of another workday for me. Normally, I'd probably get in a couple hours of Zs before going to work but a headache is keeping me up. Took 3 asprin, and still I feel as if the left side of my head is going to explode. No worries though.

I probably have swine flu. Everyone has it! It's the new plague. It's going to cause the extinction of the human race. Couldn't stay way from the pigs, could you, pigfuckers?

For real though.. as you may or may not have seen from my last post (if anyone is in fact reading this), I had a bad session from last you knew. Ended it down about ~$7 (including rake). I was playing earlier today however, and didn't do so bad. Won $4. So this month I'm down $1! But that's the norm. I usually have a "rocky" start at the beginning of every month. I expect good things from this month. I just need to focus on my own play, and be consistent. Switching styles can be beneficial, but only when the game dynamic changes.. not the card dynamic. -_-;

One of my biggest leaks is probably becoming impatient while i'm card-dead, and start opening up with a variety of random-ass shit like J4 suited. Why not? J4 suited or not seemed to be rigged in the home games I played over at a friend's in LA. Hit everytime. Fold J4? Flop would come JJ4, or 44J, or J4K, with a 4 on the turn, or a jack on the river. Fuckin' hax.

But I seemed to have gotten off-track. Not only did I open up and start playing too loose when I was card-dead, but also when I saw other idiots winning big pots. I literally saw a guy in a game a couple weeks ago with something like a 70% VPIP (voluntarily put money in pot, meaning he was playing over 70% of his hands) win ~$11 dollars in less than 10 minutes. I couldn't believe this idiot was running the game over. I opened up a little looser to get in a pot with him and ended up having to fold because he was betting too aggressively for me to get the right odds with my draws. He shit-talked me as I fold. I was getting a bit annoyed. Then I get dealt pocket Kings. I make a big raise ~20 cents(normally, it's ~8 cents) because i'm 90% sure he'll call it, and 90% sure he'll have jack and diddly when the flop comes. Sure enough he calls it, the flop comes.. Qc8cTd. I bet a little over 2/3rds the pot. He raises. (Now I probably should have bet pot sized, and reraised him here.) I'm pretty sure he has a flushdraw. Turn comes and puts another flushdraw on the board. 2 of diamonds. There's around 2 bucks in the pot, and I got 5 behind, he's got 6. Any decent sized bet is going to commit me here, so I shove my $5 into the pot. He calls and the river comes a Jc. OF COURSE. Practically the worst card in the deck, completing any straight or flush draws OR STRAIGHT-FLUSH draws. He turns over 23s, of clubs, and scoops the pot. I go looking for a barf bag. I had no choice but to quit playing thereafter. I couldn't if i wanted to. A player I'm clearly better than was shit talking me, and then taking all my money on a draw he head nowhere near the odds to chase, getting less than 2-1 on a 4-1 shot.

Situations like the above are things i've been dealing with all week. But with each day, I grow more and more knowledgable from this game. I figure with the growing experience at the table, I'll be able to develop a thick skin needed to deal with bad beats, and not go on tilt after. Most of the time I take an absurd beat, like the one mentioned, I stop playing. I realize that I'm going to be rattled by it and that my concentration is going to be off. I'm just thankful I'm able to realize that where others are not. I'm honest with myself, and I know myself pretty well. Poker takes supreme patience, and great observation. I believe that this long road I'm traveling with 01/02 micros at the moment will lead to shorter paths to higher limits in short time. One can only hope! ;) See ya tomorrow, kids.

My Day Off! : A Look At Ranges

Today was off to a rocky start! Early morning, in the middle of work, my car battery decides to die. So I spend hours calling a tow truck, talking with the tow driver,(it was very hard to understand his English)and finally arriving home at 7AM. I normally would have been home around 4:30.

Waking up at 12:00pm, and spending a few hours browsing 2+2, I think I'm ready to tackle a day of winning poker! ;D. I'm making it a habit now to set a list of goals for every session, so that I may build a foundation of things to think about while I play. So without further adieu, here they are!

1)[ ]Putting people on ranges. I think I could use some work in this area.. Although I feel it isn't too necessary at the stakes I play at because people play so poorly, I think practice in it will help as I move up. I feel I don't put enough thought into this. "What Villain type am I playing?" "Anything out of the ordinary? Villain tendancies?"

2)[ ] Planning the pot. Sometimes I screw up on this. This should be something I do after I put him on a range. (according to villain type) After I do that, I should think, "Do I want to see a big pot with this hand or a small pot?" "What will help me achieve this goal? Check, raise, or call? Fold?" "According to opponent's responses, does he want to see a big or small pot with his hand?"

I think I'm just going to stick with those two for now and see what comes out of this session. Just gotta keep it simple and build upon what I learn later! So let's give it a go!

**Pause** ( ~3:54pm)
**Unpause** (~8:38pm)

This is really frustrating. I took a couple of beats and now I'm down 5 bucks. I think I'm just going to take a break now because apparently it's "everyone flops the nuts vs Chris" day. My mindset is completely off now, and I feel like punching babies. I'll update this more later.