Do I play tonight?

What to play? For some reason I never seem to do well on Tilt so that to play there I usually have to deposit. I have winnings on about 6 other sites but can’t seem to build a bankroll on Tilt. So now do I deposit a few more bucks to play the PFTR tourney tonight? I know I’m playing the Mookie this Wed. (and it is the fucking Mookie damn it, no matter what anyone else thinks. It amazes me that people are actually agreeing with Waffles.) but do I play in the VeryJosie tourney also. Maybe that’s my problem on FT, I don’t multi table much. Trying to concentrate on one online table usually doesn’t work out for me.

The good news is that I seem to be coming out of the bleak mood I was in last week. I finally finished the online story I was reading that I mentioned at the end of my last post though I haven’t gotten around to critiquing it yet. Still feeling too frikkin lazy to do a whole lot of mental work. Today I picked up a book I hadn’t read in years and started on it though if I’m playing tonight I have to make sure I put it down a couple hours early to give my eyes time to refocus.. If I’m reading I’m in much better shape as books have always been a major part of my life. If I’m neglecting them I’m in a really foul funk. Another good sign is that I’m starting to feel like playing poker again, another main vice. I played both BBT5 games last week but that and a couple of PA forum special games were about all I played and wasn’t really into them. Haven’t even played many league games. Have to take a short break every so often.

Yesterday I played some ring on Power and a tourney on AP to kill some time. Results were so-so. The tourney was HORSE. Main reason I played it was that except for the occasional league game that shows up don’t get to play much HORSE and I like it. This one actually had enough people registered to make it interesting, around 45-50 runners, so I jumped in. Poker gods obviously didn’t like me playing it however. Was doing ok in the top 7 or so in chips until the bets were up there and I pissed away all my chips in Razz. I learned quickly in the first round that this group chased because there was always one guy with two face cards up to my 9 high board who would keep calling me down. Bluffing wasn’t going to work with this crowd. Somehow I blew all my chips on two hands, a 7 high then a 6 high, almost back to back. Now someone has to be really pissed off at you to get trashed in Razz twice like that in that short a time. Ring however was a bit better. Played a bit of .10/.20 NL and picked up about $22. Hit one good hand, boat over flush, but mostly it was lots of small pots just adding up. That and avoiding the one big chip dump that usually kills me in NL ring no matter how good my session before it. Table was fairly soft, if anyone had anything they bet, if not they checked and a bet into them could usually take it down. Not even any calling stations. Picked up another $10 this morning, same type table but gave it up. It was so tight that even the small pots were too small to be worthwhile. Again hit one good hand, boat over trips this time, and some small ones but gave it up as too hard. I’m not that back in to the game that I can do that kind of grinding.

Reading Schaubs and Waffles blogs on the no shows at the Invitational and have to agree with them. Al spends a lot of time arranging this thing and Tilt is posting some great prizes and people can’t be bothered to show? C’mon, there are hundreds of us out here that would kill for invites and you guys are just blowing them off? Way to go people. Hope Al’s keeping a list and checking it twice. Come to think of it, dye that hair and beard and he might make a passable Santa though what the kids would make of the SoCo I don’t know. For that matter would he be able to tolerate the milk that goes with the cookies? Don’t know about you but I hate sitouts at online tourneys. It’s one of the features I appreciate at AP/UB. If you don’t hit the take my seat screen they pop up at the start by the end of the first level you are then removed from the tourney. That way you aren’t fighting the inertia of a dead table. They seem to be the only sites that do it however. Anywho, I know Sunday evenings can be a busy time for folks, especially the nice ones we’ve been having, but still think folks would jump at the chance to play these games. Of course I’m just a crippled up old fart with a lot of time on my hands so my point of view my be skewed. Either way, get with the program people.

Hey look, a whole post and no mention of Josie. Thanks or the listen.

Break Time

OK, last night told me that it’s time to take a few days off from poker, online style at least. Even though the hot streak continues with the Sniper on AP, cashed another one last night for a small amount, I made some real boneheaded plays in it, the Skillz and the Mookie. Time to give my eyes a rest. Some of the plays were pure dee jackass, others, at first glance, might seem to come under the category of “that’s poker” but upon further review I decided that they were plays I could, and should, have gotten away from. Been playing online every night for almost two weeks now, which is a long run for me, and during the run the last week has consisted of some late nights, so combine that with the aforementioned donkery and it means that, after tonight, it’s time for a few days off. Would start to night but there is a regular game I play in, more for the enjoyment than the win, so I’ll go donk off in that one before I shut it down. Maybe I’ll catch up on some reading, maybe go see Watchmen this weekend.

Speaking of the Mook, I found it a frustrating game last night (another reason I’m taking a break. Frustration is not good). The table was a tight as a bull’s arse in fly season. Typical deal went, fold, fold, raise, everyone fold. It was mostly a preflop game, seemed like very few pots were actually played and when they were they wasn’t hotly contested. Seems like the only time someone called my raises were when I was playing position more than the cards. Every time I raised with suited connectors one of the blinds reraised, usually big enough that I had to dump them. Yet I had A-A 4 times and got action once and the same for K-K and that was from a short stack. That kind of thing does nothing to lower the frustration factor. I’m not making any indictments here either, hell I was as guilty of the same style of play and did more than my share of folding to the raises rather than mixing it up though I did defend a couple of blinds with less than premium hands but which I considered playable enough to see the flop. Got lucky with them too. No. just stating a fact, that it was a slow table and not much could be done about it. Of course the general distractedness I have felt the last couple of days also plays into my feelings on the situation. Anyway, we’ll take a couple of days off, recharge the batteries and be ready to bounce back into the BBT in a few days.

The Sniper was also frustrating even though I did cash it. It was frustrating for the opposite of the Mookie. Instead of a TAG table it was LP. I think I was the only one raising preflop unless someone had aces or kings but once they limped they had a strangle hold on that bet. If I had 5 limpers and raised pre I had at least 4 callers to the flop. I was getting creamed coming and going. If I had A-Q in a late position and raised and spiked my A I would get some guy in EP have A-K, who limp called to start, and check called it all the way down. OTOH, I had aces and kings cracked a couple of times by guys calling the preflop raise with hands like K-7 or J-8 and catching 2 pair. Now obviously it wasn’t all the time since I lasted a while but it seemed every time I chipped up I’d wind up bleeding off a quarter to a third of my stack in that sort of situation. The water torture at the poker table, slow death, chip by chip by chip. I felt I was going crazy trying to figure what I could do to get someone off a hand and make my hands hold up but when I guy is willing to call off a third of his stack to a preflop raise with K-7 off just because he already limped in; there ain’t much you can do. Of course, what the hell he’s doing limping in OOP with K-7 when he has less than 10 BB left any way is probably a better question. I realize people do these things, especially in lower limits online, and have lately come to take a Zen approach to it. Learn to keep myself calm, accept that it happens and just hope my hands hold up. Nothing else you can do about these players. Trying to throw punches at them in the form of increased aggressiveness is like trying to punch Jell-O, it’s just going to give and do its own thing anyway. You can only play your game and hope they slowly slip away. If it’s their night to catch cards, so be it, move on to the next game, the next night the whatever. One game does not a career make and $4-5 ain’t gonna bust me. I’ve gotten pretty good at taking this approach and think it’s improved my game some as it allows me to think more about it without the “I’m gonna kill that stupid bastard” attitude screwing up the rest of my game. So the fact that I found myself in exactly that attitude tells me it’s time for a couple days away from it.

Of course I will admit that last night was almost the perfect storm on the frustration front. Between the tightness of the Mook when I actually have caught A-A and K-K at least 8 times between them in one game, the general ‘tardness of the Sniper, the fact I could not win one race when I was behind and my tiredness all combined to try and drive my BP thru the roof. I relaxed and didn’t go off the deep end but still felt frustrated and let it affect me. Timeout. So I’ll play the Shark game tonight, have some fun and spend the next couple of days relaxing and catching up on some things, maybe even getting out to an RPT game to have a few drinks and play a live game. Haven’t done that for awhile except for their team heads up match last Sunday, which, while fun, ain’t exactly your typical game. I mean after all, if one doesn’t notice CK sitting by one’s side something is definitely wrong.

More boredom later. Drop in again

Even more poker

What's this world coming to, some consecutive posts on topic.

On a mini run the last couple of days, mainly on AP but some on Tilt and even a few bucks playing ring on UB. Mostly they have been small cashes, $15 -20 with a few bounties added in but there has been a couple of wins for some bigger bucks also. The Shark game mentioned a few posts ago and the screen shot in the post below this. The Sniper was actually chopped so the payout was a tad less than the $300 shown. We got to heads up around 2 in the am and while I had him out chipped by better than 5-3 and think I was the better player (don’t we all) and could have taken him it wasn’t going to be easy or quick barring some ungodly big hand over big hand situation. Since I had to get up at 7, and had been up late the night before also when he suggested some sort of chop I was agreeable. Can only go so long on these 4 hour nights. Not as young as I used to be and my teeth are already weak enough.

The $4 Sniper on AP has been very good to me lately. In addition to the win I have another 4-5 middlin cashes in the last 4-5 days. Don’t sound like much and in real terms actually not a great amount but considering that it’s a $4 buy in and I have been making that back on the bounties, I’m getting a 400-500% return on my money. If I could get that on my Roth and 401K I’d be happy as a pig in shit. So while it ain’t a whole lot of bucks and the bankroll could probably handle a bit of a rise in level I’m going to stay where I am at for awhile, for various reasons. First, I want to see if I can keep consistently navigating these tourneys before making any changes. Second, I play online to have something to do, not to make money. While making money is all well and good and I’m trying my damndest to do it I am not going to pressure myself with it by playing bigger tourneys. I’m in my comfort zone right now and why make myself uncomfortable if the object is to enjoy myself. I much prefer the live game to online so I’ll save my money for the time I can start traveling to AC again and for those visits to the Manor. My run on the Cerus network has been so hot that I even went over to UB and picked up $25 playing a .05/.10 ring NLHE table. It’s been a bitch since the officially combined AP and UB. I used to like to play ring games on Ultimate while playing SnGs on Absolute. They kept me patient with each other so that I wasn’t making donkey plays out of boredom on one table or the other. Not to say I’m not still being a donkey, just that I wasn’t doing it out of boredom. Since they combined however you can only open up one site at a time which has left me reaching for other ways to multi. While I have been doing it somewhat with Tilt I don’t feel as comfortable with it, not to mention Tilt’s variety of low level ring isn’t as extensive as UB’s.

Speaking of multi tabling AP and Tilt I wound up doing a bit of that last night during the Skillz game. I am happy to say I got cashes in both the Sniper on AP and the Stud 8 Skillz. While I can’t multi table plain stud, need to pay total attention to the board, I find it really helps me with the hi/lo version. I have a tight range of hands I play in Stud 8 until I reach a certain point in the tourney and I try to be as robotic about them as possible. For this reason, while I think it is my best game, at least in tourney, I also find it to be the most boring. By playing another table I find I don’t keep justifying why I should play certain hands that might come along that I don’t feel I should not be playing. If I don’t see a potential playable hand right from the start I check the fold box and return to the other game. If I see something playable the other game is usually a low enough buy in that I can relegate it to the back burner for the moment without worrying I might miss something. If I do, no biggee.

I have to say that my play last night was distracted and not by the Sniper. While I was playing that I did fairly well in the Skillz but once I got knocked out I made some horrendous mistakes. The worst was at the final table when I failed to recognize the lovely CK. My vision was a bit blurry from the long hours, I was up early yesterday also, and the time spent staring at the screen and I saw her name as dk, not ck and the distractedness never put it together. Ooooopppps, sorry about that ducks. Almost as bad was a hand where I dropped about 5K into the pot and folded to a 191 bet on the river. Holding a pair of 9s from the get go and catching a couple of draws I did a bit of chasing against what I presumed was a pair of aces. When I saw I had missed my draws and heard the click of the bet I folded without even really looking and after I hit it I saw it was for her final 191. Now I still think I was beat but at that point another 191 didn’t matter, especially since I didn’t KNOW I was beat. Chalk one up to bone headedness. Considering how stupid I played I’m surprised I got so far.

I didn’t get to sit at the final table long. I grabbed split As on my final hand with a deuce to accompany them. So I complete the bet. And 125 Will was my only caller. I grab a Q on 4th street while Will has suited connectors showing. I bet out and he calls. On 5th I grab another 2 to Will’s 5 and I bet. Will doesn’t seem to believe my A is representative of anything but its self and decides to try and run me off with a raise which I promptly reraised and he caps. I’m thinking that there may be a 6-7 in the hole but by this time I’m too far gone to worry about it with only 2-3 bets left. He pops my 2 on 6th and thinking he might have the lo and we are chopping I check, he bets and I call. (Another boneheaded play. I should have bet out since I was already going to the wall with the hand. Don’t think it would have made a difference at that point since I only had a bet and a half left, not enough to force him off but I have to get out of the habit of checking down when I have the high and only think someone has the lo. There is always the chance it ain’t there.) 7th street brings me a Q for a higher two pair but will catches the card he needs, a 6 which completes both his straight and lo draws and I’m gone on the first or second hand of the final table. Well I’ll take the cash and the BBT points, I hope I got some there, and will be at the Mookie tonight to see if I can keep this streak alive.

Well the boredom hour is over for now and you can allow your eyeballs to breath again. Thanks for the attention.

Finally

Nuff said, for now

Some poker content

Have to start this off with two of the weirdest plays I have seen, both on the same night. In the first instance was playing a tourney on Full Tilt. Guy flopped quads and then proceeded to check them all the way down. In position yet. I can understand checking the flop, maybe even the turn but when your opponent checks the river how do you not throw something out there? Later, on AP, I watched another guy raise his A-A by 4 preflop and then proceed to check them down to two callers. WTF were these guys thinking? How do they think you accumulate chips in these games? Just when you think you’ve seen very bone headed move in the book.

Speaking of bone headed I’ve been playing the low limit 4 card hold em tourneys on Full Tilt lately. Nominally they are supposed to be Omaha games but I can’t call it Omaha when you have raise, reraise, all-in with 4-5 callers preflop. At the showdown you see one guy actually have an Omaha hand worth playing to the raise and everyone else has a pair of somethings. Been getting some small cashes but most nights are like last night where my pot sized bets on the flopped nut straight was called on both flop and turn by someone holding a pair of kings who winds up backdooring a flush. Or the guy who feels his trips are worthy of a repot with a suited board and of course rivers his boat. That was the two Tilt games. The one I play on AP the cards just sucked. Those guys are almost as bad but not quite though almost every hand is raised pre. That game is a turbo however so you eventually have to make a move and hope you catch. Tonight Omaha was a tad better to me. Played a $1 satellite PLO8 to a much bigger game and although I didn’t get the seat I came in second and picked up 20 some bucks, just a few less than the satellite buy in was worth. Couple more people and I’d have had the seat but the cash is cool. My AP bankroll growing a bit which is cool considering I’m still playing with freeroll money.

Speaking of AP and my bankroll it picked up a healthy addition last night playing standard 2 card hold em. Playing the Shark Tour home game on AP last night, $4 buy in .that added another $70 to the bank. I like these games, kind of like the blogger games. Lots of chatter, mix of players and donks, fun in other words. Fact I seem to do well in them don’t hurt. Will admit I got lucky heads up last night. Went in to H2H severely outchipped but caught one of those hands you need to in a situation like this. Holding A-J in the BB the SB raised and I shoved, he called. He had A-7 and when the J hit the flop I was back in the hunt. It helps when you even out the chip stacks head to head. Slows down the bully factor. There were a couple of hands that pissed me off in that game and one I pissed myself of on. Twice I flopped a flush and had someone bet into me on it so rather than push I just smooth called. When the turn paired the board I bet into the check and got called. When the river double paired it and the guy bet out I had to trash the flush. Not once but twice dammit. That sucks. The hand I got angry at myself over was a preflop all in by the button with a call by the SB and since the button was short and it was not quite a 3x raise I called with K-Q. I was involved in a hand on Tilt at the time and basically just checked down with the SB. What I didn’t notice was the 4 clubs, including A, on the board with my K giving me the nuts. If I had seen that I would have thrown out a river bet just to see if I could get a few more chips. At the showdown I noticed the SB had the J of clubs so more than likely would have called a value bet there. I started mentally kicking my arse but luckily those extra chips were needed. Wanna thank Mojo for the railing even though AP doesn’t allow comments from observers at the final.


AP being good to me right now. Playing a $4 sniper, a KO tourney as it were for those who are used to FT terminology, as I write this Have already made a buck over the buy in in KOs and am itm though not deep as of yet. Sitting about middle of the pack right now, maybe slightly better. No matter what I’ve added another couple of bucks to the bank roll. Right now I’m a bit on the tired side so I’m not going to put it past myself to make a stupid mistake. Sooner rather than later. We’ll see.

Update

it wasn't sooner nor was it really a mistake but again I go down before the decent bucks. Went out 20 something when I ran my A-K against a small pair and thought I hit the K on the flop he siked his set. Neither one of us was in great shape, about the same amount approx 10 BB left. With that much left I probably should have shoved his 4x raise but don't think it would have made a difference as he was pretty well committed anyway though in these tourneys you never can be sure. People will sometimes try and hang on to the last chip but you could say I did make a mistake there by not shoving. It's a hole in my game that I recognize but tiredness and habit won out last night.

Well I’m boring myself now and I can barely keep my eyes open as it is so I will thank you for your visit and wish everyone a good day or night or whatever it is when they read this.