Monday, February 27, 2006

A New Chance and A Memory Relived

I was gonna play a couple SnG's tonight, but Ultimate Bet was down upgrading their servers. Oh well, I'll probably just write. Now that I took a break and am just coming back, I'm not playing as much as I used to. When I was playing regularly I was going up to the local casino (Chumash) 3 or 4 nights a week. Now I'm doing this whole SnG thing I'm not playing as much as I was, and it kinda sucks. When I get my bankroll up to where it needs to be, I'll be playing the higher limit cash games on a schedule. I can't wait, cuz I hate not playing all the time. I don't really care so much about not playing the SnG's, but I'm trying not to play more than I should.

And although UB is down tonight, Joe and I did head up to the casino to sign Darsky and ourselves up for the March 11th tournament at Chumash. Here's a little info:
March 11th, 9:00 AM
700 registered players, 100 waiting list
$200+20 Buy-in
$50,000 1st prize
Last tournament like this was in November. Same buy-in, same field. I coulda went huge, but I ran into some bad luck. They paid 100 players, and I finished 107th. Since I haven't played online in a couple days, I'll recap the last Chumash tournament.

I showed up at 8:45AM and I was prepped and ready to go. I hadn't gone to bed as early as I had planned (I think it was like 2:00AM), but I really felt like I was fresh and ready to go. My starting table was very, very weak, with the exception of Uncle Paul (who hosts our Saturday home game). He stayed out of my way though, as I had told him before the tournament that I would be playing loose aggressive to take advantage of all the dead money and bad players. Things started off ok. I took down the first 3 pots I was in, with 9-high, 4-high, and 6-high, all post-flop, and I felt confident that if I got dealt some hands I could do something with my stack. The starting was $5000, with the blinds at $25-50, so I had room to splash around for the first hour. In the first hour I built my stack up from $5000 to $7000 just from buying pots, and I had showed a couple bluffs so my image at the table was pretty loose. Now if I could only get some big hands, the whole tournament was mine.

Unfortunately, my big hands were few and far between. I picked up A-Qo in middle position in the second hour, and I got stuck in a raising war preflop and let it go with minimal losses. But other than that the big hands just weren't showin up, and when they did they just weren't holding. The plan was to play lots of weak hands aggressively, give some up for cheap, and take down big pots with big hands. Well for most of the day I was taking down medium pots with weak hands, and giving up my big hands for big pots. That's not the way it was supposed to work! I survived though, and I was doing alright. Right before the lunch break I was down to $5000 in chips after a rough hand in a SB/BB showdown. I was confident in my comeback ability, so I went to eat lunch with a fresh mind. We came back from the lunch break with the blinds at $600-1200, so I had some work to do. But in the first two hands I was back up to $12000. And had some shoving power again. Half an hour later our table broke and I took about $10000 over to the new table.

The first half hour there I was up to $26,000, and nothin was going to stop me. After a pretty active hour at that table, the field had narrowed down from 800 total players to only 120. 100 places were getting paid, and I was with a little under average stack hovering between $25,000 and $30,000, and with the blinds now up to $2000-$4000, those swings weren't bad at all. I got stuck in a medium size pot and passed through 2 rounds of unplayable blinds when the field was at 107 players. I had $15,000 left and was waiting patiently for a big hand to push, considering that even picking up the blinds at this point was big. The big blind was about a 9th of the average stack, but thus is Chumash blinds. It folds around to me and I have KK in about 7th position. I push in for my last 15,000 expecting to get called only by another PP or any medium-strong Ace, either of which I was a huge favorite to. It folds around to the BB and he asks how much it is. "Fifteen-thousand," I say confidently. He shakily calls and turns over an Ace. Perfect. He struggled lifting the other card up, and as he turns it over and I see another Ace my heart drops. Seven players to go and I run into KK vs AA. I stand up and start to put my jacket on, and just then the dealer turns the flop and the door card is.....a King!!! I hesitate for a nanosecond as he slides out a third Ace on the flop and now I'm drawing to one King. The turn and river (obviously) don't produce my miracle King, and I'm sent home with nothing but a Kings versus Aces story.

I'm really feelin good about my tournament play lately, so I should make it pretty far into this one on the 11th. In other news I started roamin FCP again today, and I found a new safehouse in the HIDEOUT!! I reunited with a lot of people from FCP, and a few from the FCPPC. It was great to talk to these guys again. I've added a couple of their blogs to my links. It's good to see none of them have lost their badass-ness.

Also, I got my golf clubs back from my dad's house, and it's been a long, long winter away from the course. I keep wanting to hit the range, but the weather is so shaky. Bright and sunny one day, and cloudy and rainy the next. I'll make it eventually, though, cuz I really am eager to get out there again. On a note of crazy weather, I'll end this entry with an oh well, just like it started.

Bankroll: $686

These Rat Bastards!

K so maybe I can still get riled up a bit.....I've tried very hard in the past not to get upset at the dumb things that happen in poker, but sometimes it just happens. I get very frustrated sometimes with the level of stupidity and horrible play that I see nowadays.

BUT I have been making a conscious effort not to blow up when I lose. I was getting pretty bad, but I realized that not only was it not doing ANYTHING AT ALL, but it was also irritating those around me. Sitting there yelling at a computer screen or berating bad players in live games was causing those around me to lose concentration on their game, and it also made me seem like a whiny little girl. So, with my re-entry into the poker world I've been on a mission to remain low key.

One of the things I admire about Darsky is his ability to control his emotions at the table. Whenever someone makes a horrible play and gets lucky against him he kinda makes a face like "Why would you do that?" and moves on to the next hand. And that's only if he hasn't already read them perfectly and folded!! He never exhibits any kind of negative reactions. He's completely calm almost 100% of the time and makes light of many situations people would normally get upset over, which makes his game nearly always profitable.

What does this have to do with anything? Yesterday when I was playing, more minimum raise madness was happening. It always frustrates me to see that kind of stuff, because it is just level -one knowledge that min raising in NL hold'em is probably the worst move you can make. The same person kept at it the whole tournament, and by the time we got down to 3-handed I was going nuts. I wasn't making a lot of verbal commotion, but my brain was overheating because of all the stuff I wanted to say! Not to mention the cursing at the screen by the person next to me didn't help my mental implosion. Anyways the guy just wouldn't let up, and instead of winning the tournament (which was easily in my range), I blew it by being too aggressive to the culprit.

After that I didn't verbally blow up. I gave it one if those "Oh my god are you kidding me?!?!??" which are so often heard throughout various poker rooms or computer rooms and then I tucked my head inside my sweatshirt and rested for a minute. During the play I didn't verbally explode, but I beat myself by letting myself get worked up over dumb play. That is definitely something I need to work on, but sometimes it's just so frickin hard!! As Hellmuth would say "These guys don't even know how to spell poker. P-O-K-E-R, poker!" But I just have to not let it affect me. Through the week I've been listening to mellow music and trying to rest easy while I play, and it's been working so far! Now if I can only keep it up!

In case you all were wondering how I blew up, I held 5-7o with the board showing 3-7-9 rainbow. I bet half-pot on the flop. Button called. Turn was a blank. I bet pot and got called. River was a blank, I push all-in and button calls with J-9. I was only 1000 chips behind him at the 150-300 level, so it was a terrible, terrible play that I made out of pure tilt. And not only did I lose money because of it, but I was also upset with myself for quite some time afterwards for letting it get to me. I took 3rd for $40 , which profited $18...........oh well better than losing $22. I only played 1 SnG yesterday, so I'll just add it onto another day. Tonight I won't play cuz I stayed up late watching weird crap on TV, so I will be tired after work and I won't be up for it. Instead I'll stay home and work a little on my short story/book. I haven't decided which it'll be yet, but it'll be somethin.

Bankroll: $686

Sunday, February 26, 2006

So, the dryspell is over it seems......

From the start of December, after getting rear ended to start off my birthday weekend on the way down to Morongo Casino, it seems as if a dryspell had taken over. The whole weekend was not good, resulting in a loss of around $1200. Since then the cards have been laughing at me, spitting on me, kicking me, etc. etc. But after taking a month or so off, I think I'm finally back in the game. I put some money online, won a little bit, and I also took second place twice consecutively at Paul's Saturday night.

Let me start off by saying the $20+2 SnG's on UB are pretty bad, and it seems like min raising is sweeping the nation. In the past week I've seen more min raising than I do at the limit tables!!! It's sick! Last week I played 2 SnG's a day from Thur-Sat, and out of those six I've placed 1st twice, 2nd once, 3rd once, and made a couple bad moves to get knocked out early in the other two. I think I'm done making stupid moves now :)

But seriously, people are getting terrible. I dunno if there are just so many people playing now that have no clue what they're doing, or if stupidity is just contagious and it's affecting all the previously mediocre players. People don't even know how to play poker, let alone proper tournament strategy. Take this hand for example:

lou pinella has 1505
kidcrash has 7440
yurdaddy00 has 6055

lou pinella posts the small blind of 100
kidcrash posts the big blind of 200

yurdaddy6055 is a complete retard, has moved in a couple times in the worst situations and got lucky. Not a real great tournament player, not even a mediocre tournament player.

lou pinella: -- --
kidcrash: Qc As
yurdaddy00: -- --

yurdaddy00 (on the button) raises to 700
lou pinella goes all in for 1505
kidcrash calls
yurdaddy00 calls

The reason I flat call here is if yurdaddy is only making a position raise here and sees me call as the chip leader, he might fold. Not likely, cuz he's a terrible player, but if he pushes I'm prepared to lay down and outplay him heads up. I'd only seen him RERAISE with AK, and KK so far this tourney, so a reraise could definitely mean he's got me even if he's not a good player.

Flop: 3h 6c Ts
kidcrash checks. yurdaddy00 checks.

Turn: 4s (Board: 3h 6c Ts 4s)
kidcrash checks. yurdaddy00 checks.

River: Qs (Board: 3h 6c Ts 4s Qs)
kidcrash bets 2000. yurdaddy goes all-in for 4550.

Time to hit the tank. Like I said, I'd seen him push in the worst situations twice already and he managed to survive by means of the river card. And also, he's not a good tournament player and has no tournament strategy. So here, he might be either 1) pushing a lower Q or 2)pushing a worse pair. It's a possibility that he slowplayed something big, like maybe a straight on the turn or something, but since he raised preflop and called a reraise, I highly doubt his hand could hit the low straight. Also, if he had a spade draw I'm pretty sure he woulda tried to bet me out of it on the turn, not understanding tournament play. Hence the 2 options I was looking at. Either of the 2 options I had beat, so as the clock began to tick I called.

kidcrash calls

lou pinella shows Ac Js
kidcrash shows Qc As
yurdaddy shows Ah Td

lou pinella has Ac Js 6c Ts Qs: ace high.
kidcrash has Qc As 6c Ts Qs: a pair of queens.
yurdaddy00 has Ah Td 6c Ts Qs: a pair of tens.

kidcrash wins the main pot 4515 with a pair of queens.
kidcrash wins the side pot 9100 with a pair of queens.

So with the win of the hand the SnG was over and I took the $100. And although $100 is practically nothing, it's a small victory in a sea of others about to come to start my comeback to the game. As long as I can keep dodging dumb luck, I'll be able to take these donkies all the way to the bank. And after the last 2 months of all the dumb luck, hopefully I used all of it that I could, so a path of good luck should be on its way.

Bankroll: $668

PS - I'm not counting Paul's game in my bankroll, cuz.....well frankly cuz I don't feel like it. But on a side note, I won $405 from the 2 tournaments, minus $120 back to Darsky for putting me in the first one, and minus $50 for the buy-in for the second one, resulting in a $235 profit on the night. Sweet.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

So who in the hell am I?

Hey now. My name's Chris, and I play poker. Writing is another passion of mine, but I have yet to do anything with it. In general I'm a gambler at heart, I'm willing to put it all on the line if I think I can win. Basically this blog will follow my rigid flight as I take off into the world of semi-professional poker playing. Looking around today I see that there are plenty of younger players out there who are making a living playing poker (both live and online), and although I make a living humping a 9-5'er and doing some schooling along the way, I think I got what it takes to grind it out on the felt. I'll start with a small BR and will see if I can't work it into something meaningful.

Now on to a little of my poker playing background. I started playing a little over 2 years ago, first time at a home game tourney (as the story goes). I won the first home game tourney I ever played in, and I was instantly hooked. I started playing at the local indian casino as soon as I could have after that, and after locking up a first casino session of $150+ I felt that I might actually be good at the game. I started playing more and more with tip money, as I had worked in a restaurant at the time, and I was grinding away at the 2-4 on a consistent basis. I then had to move away from the area in which the casino was located, so I only played the occasional home game and took a trip back up to the casino maybe once a month. I played my fair share of online poker during that time though, but I hated it. I profited from it, but I hated it. I'm much more of a live player. I love to talk at the table and it helps me profit emensely. Also, I'm just a very sociable guy!

I finally got to move back to the area a few months ago, so I started playing again, but this time with no bankroll, purely out of pocket. I started playing 4-8 at Chumash and occasionally the 2-5NL $200 Max game (the only NL game hosted there), and whenver there was one going I'd jump into the 6-12, but it rarely runs. I have a poker buddy (of course) who lives here as well, and we've become family to the dealers practically. There are semi-regulars, and then there are regulars who all the dealers know by name and say hi to, and then there's Joe and I. We're friends moreso than regulars to the staff in the Chumash poker room. But, since the start of December the cards have been laughing at me, and there have been a few points where my play has been less than optimal, all of which totaled in losses of over $2000 out of pocket. I've taken a month off to recoup and to think over my game, and I'm finally ready to go again.

I'll be taking on this long and arduous journey to the top along side a most trusted guy I like to call Darsky, who's chronicling his own life here, and I'm sure he'll be the most qualified person to do so. I have played more poker with Joe than I think I've spent time doing anything with anyone else ever, but Darren is a friend on a different (perhaps higher in some respects) level than Joe, and they'll both influence my path in different ways. I have no girlfriend currently, but after a 3 year "run" with my ex, I'm not looking to jump into anything soon anyways. I'd rather concentrate on poker, drinking, friends, and school.

Now onto the plan. I will deposit $500 online into a site I shall choose at a later time and I will be playing solely $20+2 SnGs and $20+2 MTTs. I will only play a set amount every day, and from there I will gauge my rate of success. I realize that is barely a bankroll at all, but I feel as though I should be able to beat those games at the level of skill that I'm at. Should I fail to profit from this plan, I will be saving until December when I go to Vegas, and I will then have a BR for a regular 5/10 limit game. I trust my limit game more than I trust my own mother, and I am doing the SnG strategy only as a way to build my BR a little. So feel free to check up on my progress, as I should be updating regularly.

BANKROLL: $500

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The first blog, eh?

I'm about to embark on a journey into the world of the unknown. What you are about to see is the mind of a person with no fears, no plans, and no worries in the world. Come along with me, won't you?

Give me about a week, I need some material first