This is going to be the 2nd time in my poker "career" that I've played over 100,000 hands in one month. Last time was in February when I had a prop bet with "carrotsnake" for $1,000 that we'd both play 100k hands that month.
I got 1 outed tonight with 1 card to come. Can't remember the last time that's happened. Still had a really good night tonight though, so I shook it off even though it cost me $800, and I didn't tilt at all.
I have family coming so I won't be playing as much after today, until I get back from Vegas. I definitely need the break. I don't want to get carpel tunnel.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
8 days till Vegas
Can't wait until Vegas. Been working really hard lately, so can't wait for a break. Last night's session was another real frustrating session. Was up about $3k within the first hour, then got up to about $4.5k at my high point a couple hours later. Was hoping that I was going to have a huge day. Then, literally within 45 minutes I got some ridiculous beats/cold decks and only finished the day up around $1,300. Realllllly frustrating. I was playing a bunch of tables heads up and heads up can be real swingy. Losing thousands of dollars within minutes isn't fun, especially when I get the money in ahead. One hand I was playing a tough/aggro player HU who had been playing too overaggressive with me. He min raises pre-flop and I make it $32 with KK. he calls. Flop comes 753. I bet $45 and he calls. Turn is a 6. I check because he was trying to bluff me out of pots everytime he could, so I check to trap, and he fires pot. Perfect! I push all-in, and he calls with AJ!!!! River: A wtf!?!?!?!? This was after I had just taken some sick beats on some other tables and I punched my table. My sound on my computer went off, so I figured that I somehow managed to break my speaker. Playing with no sound, and knowing I need to buy a new speaker for my computer tilted me even more. I rarely tilt when I play, but the last few nights have been crazy. I think it's stupid posting about bad beats in a blog, but figure it'd be interesting to people who read this blog who don't play poker, to understand what it's like. I wish I could give a good analogy on what it feels like. Picture you're a sales person and you've worked all month wining and dining a client, trying to land your biggest deal ever, and finally they decide they want to do business with you. So you have the deal just where you want it, about to be rewarded with a huge payday for your all your work, and then when the person comes to sign the contract with you, as you see him approaching your office coming across the street he gets hit by a truck and dies.
I really can't complain though about rough nights, as I'm hopefully going to have my best month ever this month. I stopped playing early last night since I didn't feel I was on my game since I was frustrated. I didn't want to blow any money to tilt. Turns out the punch I landed didn't actually break my speaker either, it somehow muted it. Weird. I didn't even know how to mute it regularly!?!? I think I'd like to buy something I can hit and keep it next to my computer. Maybe a mini-punching bag or something.(any suggestions?) People who don't play poker who are reading this probably think I'm some maniac. I really am probably the calmest/most non-tilting player I know. If you lose thousands of dollars within minutes to bad beats though you'll understand.
I think I might stay away from a lot of HU. I'll still play HU, but if I'm playing HU at a bunch of tables, and get bad beats/get real swingy it makes me want to tilt at my 6 max games, when playing 6 max I almost never tilt. I actually debated trying to play HU full-time because I feel that in heads-up play a good player can create a HUGE edge on their opponents if they are a very good heads up player. I think mentally playing HU full time would be more stressful than I'd want, since you go on more swings. That would make me not want to play as much. Not wanting to play as much would = less money.
Anyways, Vegas in just over a week so I'm going to work hard until then, and then it's vacation time.
I changed my flight on the way back from Vegas to stop in the midwest so I could stop by and see the duplex I'm buying. I couldn't cancel the 2nd part of my first trip or I'd have to pay like $130 for canceling, and then I'd have to book a new flight going to Vegas, etc... Since the roundtrip flight that I had booked was only like $300+, I figured it'd probably just be cheaper getting a new flight on the way back, which is like $400ish, than paying $130 to cancel and then having to book a new flight for when I leave too, which will be more now since the date is much closer. I hate wasting money though, which is what it feels like. I think I may be able to get a credit for the flight I don't go on though since I kept it and it was roundtrip, so we'll see.
I really can't complain though about rough nights, as I'm hopefully going to have my best month ever this month. I stopped playing early last night since I didn't feel I was on my game since I was frustrated. I didn't want to blow any money to tilt. Turns out the punch I landed didn't actually break my speaker either, it somehow muted it. Weird. I didn't even know how to mute it regularly!?!? I think I'd like to buy something I can hit and keep it next to my computer. Maybe a mini-punching bag or something.(any suggestions?) People who don't play poker who are reading this probably think I'm some maniac. I really am probably the calmest/most non-tilting player I know. If you lose thousands of dollars within minutes to bad beats though you'll understand.
I think I might stay away from a lot of HU. I'll still play HU, but if I'm playing HU at a bunch of tables, and get bad beats/get real swingy it makes me want to tilt at my 6 max games, when playing 6 max I almost never tilt. I actually debated trying to play HU full-time because I feel that in heads-up play a good player can create a HUGE edge on their opponents if they are a very good heads up player. I think mentally playing HU full time would be more stressful than I'd want, since you go on more swings. That would make me not want to play as much. Not wanting to play as much would = less money.
Anyways, Vegas in just over a week so I'm going to work hard until then, and then it's vacation time.
I changed my flight on the way back from Vegas to stop in the midwest so I could stop by and see the duplex I'm buying. I couldn't cancel the 2nd part of my first trip or I'd have to pay like $130 for canceling, and then I'd have to book a new flight going to Vegas, etc... Since the roundtrip flight that I had booked was only like $300+, I figured it'd probably just be cheaper getting a new flight on the way back, which is like $400ish, than paying $130 to cancel and then having to book a new flight for when I leave too, which will be more now since the date is much closer. I hate wasting money though, which is what it feels like. I think I may be able to get a credit for the flight I don't go on though since I kept it and it was roundtrip, so we'll see.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Cool story I heard
I heard this story last month from a friend of mine, who's another professional poker player. The story happened to his friend, who also plays poker professionally. There are all sorts of entertaining stories that happen with poker players. Heres one of them(I'll do my best to get all the details right):
So Zack(not his name; we'll call him this for the story) decides to move to Los Angeles to move in with some other poker pros out there. He's an online player, but decides he wants to give the live games a try for a while. The guys he moves in with are live regulars out there. He's only 19 years old, but he has a fake ID. So, he lives out there for about a month with those guys, and does really well. I think he started out playing 5/10nl, and played all the way up to 40/80nl by the end of the month since he was doing real well.
Anyways, he gets tired of the grind, and decides he's had enough of live poker in LA, so he gets set to head back home. He packs up his belongings, which now includes about $130,000 in cash. He thinks nothing of it, throws it in his backpack and heads on the plane. Or at least, that's what he intended on doing. During the screening at the airport security stopped him for having all that cash on him, and authorities ended up seizing all of his money!
They didn't believe him when he told them he was a professional poker player and he made the money at the casinos. It took him a few months to recover the money, with the help of his lawyer.
So Zack(not his name; we'll call him this for the story) decides to move to Los Angeles to move in with some other poker pros out there. He's an online player, but decides he wants to give the live games a try for a while. The guys he moves in with are live regulars out there. He's only 19 years old, but he has a fake ID. So, he lives out there for about a month with those guys, and does really well. I think he started out playing 5/10nl, and played all the way up to 40/80nl by the end of the month since he was doing real well.
Anyways, he gets tired of the grind, and decides he's had enough of live poker in LA, so he gets set to head back home. He packs up his belongings, which now includes about $130,000 in cash. He thinks nothing of it, throws it in his backpack and heads on the plane. Or at least, that's what he intended on doing. During the screening at the airport security stopped him for having all that cash on him, and authorities ended up seizing all of his money!
They didn't believe him when he told them he was a professional poker player and he made the money at the casinos. It took him a few months to recover the money, with the help of his lawyer.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Grinding away.......
I've been playing a ton of hands lately. I just checked and in the last 9 days I've played about 50,000 hands. I'm probably not going to play anymore tonight since I want to make sure I don't burn out. Been getting a lot of coolers lately, so that makes it easier to burn out. I think I've gotten 2 outed about 10 times within the last 72 hours, also lots of KK vs. AA hands in $1k+ pots. Amazingly, I've still been having really good results through it. Today was actually my first losing day since June 14th. I think I'm playing real well lately, but sometimes going through rough sessions you start questioning a lot of your play. One play today I raised pf with 34s. One of the blinds called. Flop was 2-3-2. He checked, I made a continuation bet, and he raised me. I decided to put him all in because I felt I was ahead of him(and he didn't have a full stack), even though the only hand that I beat is air. I thought he was making a move with overs. He's a regular and I feel he usually 3 bets hands like TT+ pre-flop, and he doesn't usually raise flop here with hands like 44-99 on the flop, I felt that he would normally just call. I felt that even if he did decide to do that this hand, I could potentially push him off 44-99 type hands, so I went with my read and I pushed. He calls with KQ. Turn: Q. :( A bunch of hands like this over a couple days span will make you lose your desire to play pretty quickly.
Although I've been taking some bad beats, I don't think I've taken any as bad as this guy:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1381587673
Although I've been taking some bad beats, I don't think I've taken any as bad as this guy:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1381587673
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Prodigys in the making
The student I mentioned in the June 12th post has been doing real well. After about a week or so he was already up around $5k. He's had some internet problems in the last week, but is still well on pace to hit the $15k goal we set for him. I can't take much credit, he's been grinding, putting a lot of hands in and doing real well. We've only done a couple sessions.
I've also started helping my brother get started in poker. Since we're living together this summer he's been watching me play some of my sessions and asking me questions, and I'm trying to turn him into the next small stakes superstar. I wrote him out a hand chart I wanted him to use, and I've been watching him play a bit to make sure he's doing okay. He just started up this last week with a bankroll of $90, and has already turned it into like $160. I have him just playing the penny tables. The plan is to have him play the .01/.02 tables until he reaches $200. Then I'm going to have him play the .02/.05 tables until he reaches about $300. Then I'm going to have him play the .05/.10 tables until he hits $500, where he'll move to the .10/.25 tables. When he gets to that point, that's when he can start making some decent side money. He's working a full time job this summer, so he's just playing a couple hours here and there when he's off from work. I'm hoping I can get him to the point where he's making a decent hourly rate so he'll have a good side income when he goes back to school in the fall.
Here's a couple hands with a fish that I played with the other day that was followed by some chat:
I'm playing this guy heads up at $2/$4 no-limit. One hand he raises, and I re-raise QQ to $55. He calls. The flop is 6-8-T. I bet, he pushes, and I call. I think he only had like $300ish so there's like $600 in the pot. He flips over K9 for the inside straight draw, and ends up hitting on K on the river. I think he says something, trying to taunt me or something. Then a few minutes later this hand comes up: I raise to $14 from the button with 66. He calls. He has just over $600 and I cover. Flop is QKJ. He checks and I check behind. The turn is a 6 and he checks. I bet $27 and he min raises me to $54. I call. The river is a K. He checks and I bet $135. He pushes all-in for $539. So I start wondering if he could have KQ or KJ here for the higher full house. He easily could since he check raised the turn, but it's doubtful he's checking two streets with hands like that since I was the pf raiser and he'd probably at least bet the turn. His hand seemed more like AT which he was slowplaying the flopped nuts. If I was wrong, he still might have pushed any K all-in on the river there. I called him, he showed AT and and I took down the pot. He was not happy:
snowbank wins $1,214.70 with Full House, Sixes full of
Kings
fish: fukc you
snowbank: ;)
fish: this site is full of $hit
fish: fukc you
fish: fukc you
fish: you ruined my life
fish: fukc you
fish: you lucky piece of s**t
fish: you cheat
fish: you piece of fukcin s**t
I've also started helping my brother get started in poker. Since we're living together this summer he's been watching me play some of my sessions and asking me questions, and I'm trying to turn him into the next small stakes superstar. I wrote him out a hand chart I wanted him to use, and I've been watching him play a bit to make sure he's doing okay. He just started up this last week with a bankroll of $90, and has already turned it into like $160. I have him just playing the penny tables. The plan is to have him play the .01/.02 tables until he reaches $200. Then I'm going to have him play the .02/.05 tables until he reaches about $300. Then I'm going to have him play the .05/.10 tables until he hits $500, where he'll move to the .10/.25 tables. When he gets to that point, that's when he can start making some decent side money. He's working a full time job this summer, so he's just playing a couple hours here and there when he's off from work. I'm hoping I can get him to the point where he's making a decent hourly rate so he'll have a good side income when he goes back to school in the fall.
Here's a couple hands with a fish that I played with the other day that was followed by some chat:
I'm playing this guy heads up at $2/$4 no-limit. One hand he raises, and I re-raise QQ to $55. He calls. The flop is 6-8-T. I bet, he pushes, and I call. I think he only had like $300ish so there's like $600 in the pot. He flips over K9 for the inside straight draw, and ends up hitting on K on the river. I think he says something, trying to taunt me or something. Then a few minutes later this hand comes up: I raise to $14 from the button with 66. He calls. He has just over $600 and I cover. Flop is QKJ. He checks and I check behind. The turn is a 6 and he checks. I bet $27 and he min raises me to $54. I call. The river is a K. He checks and I bet $135. He pushes all-in for $539. So I start wondering if he could have KQ or KJ here for the higher full house. He easily could since he check raised the turn, but it's doubtful he's checking two streets with hands like that since I was the pf raiser and he'd probably at least bet the turn. His hand seemed more like AT which he was slowplaying the flopped nuts. If I was wrong, he still might have pushed any K all-in on the river there. I called him, he showed AT and and I took down the pot. He was not happy:
snowbank wins $1,214.70 with Full House, Sixes full of
Kings
fish: fukc you
snowbank: ;)
fish: this site is full of $hit
fish: fukc you
fish: fukc you
fish: you ruined my life
fish: fukc you
fish: you lucky piece of s**t
fish: you cheat
fish: you piece of fukcin s**t
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Buying a duplex
I've been negotiating back and forth with a seller on a duplex in the midwest for the last couple weeks. Their initial starting price was $79,900, but they had recently dropped it to $74,900 since they hadn't gotten it sold yet after being on the market for a while. The property had good cashflow, so I decided to make an offer. I offered $58,000. They came back with a counter offer of $72,000, saying that was their final offer. I countered back again at $65,000, splitting the difference. They came back later that week and said they could do $69,200, but that was the lowest they could possibly go.(my realtor told me they even dropped the commission from 8% to 6% to be okay with this price- we weren't sure why they initially were paying their broker 8%) I waited a bit and decided to come back and offer them $67,500, although they seemed to be close to maybe taking no deal at all and just holding out. I figured that since it had been on the market for 100+ days and my counter was just $1,700 short of their last "final offer", they'd be crazy not to take it. If they really wanted to sell, I figured they should take the deal. I heard back a couple days later, and they decided to accept my offer. So, now I need to get out there and check it out soon. I may try and change my flight on my way back from Las Vegas and make a stop in the midwest to do a walk-thru, meet with some property managers and check out the neighborhood. Also, I'd really like to meet with the realtor I've been working with. She seems like she really knows her stuff, and if things go well with everything I plan on doing more business with her. It's very hard to find realtors who actually know about investment properties, and she knows a lot about them, and does a lot of investing herself, which seems to be rare with most realtors who just want to sell you whatever they have, regardless of whether or not it makes sense as a good investment. I wouldn't mind gearing my investment strategy towards cashflow properties if I have a good team(realtor, and property management) where I don't have to hassle with much. I can focus on making money, and I won't have to worry about all sorts of different deals, I can just buy something that will cashflow and have my PM deal with everything. That's the tough part though. Hopefully I'll find a good PM.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Vegas, staking update, etc.....
Been a while since I updated. I've been putting a ton of hands in, which is why. I'm going to Vegas the first week in July so I'm trying to make a lot before I leave, since I won't be working as much while I'm in Vegas. I'll be there for about 10 days. The main event for the WSOP(world series of poker) will be going on, but I'm not playing. I'm just going to hang out, party, and play cash games. My friend that I'm going with is playing, and I know a handful of other people playing, so hopefully they do well.
The person that I was thinking of staking came to meet with me a couple days ago. We talked some poker, talked over terms of the deal, and I told him I'd get back to him in the next 24-48 hours. The next time I talked to him he had received $400 in rakeback payment and turned it into $1,800 that day, so he didn't need a stake anymore since he only needed a couple thousand anyways. So, glad it worked out for him.
Just finished a long session and I'm going to try and get a coaching session in with a student tomorrow when I wake up, so I'll update more later.
The person that I was thinking of staking came to meet with me a couple days ago. We talked some poker, talked over terms of the deal, and I told him I'd get back to him in the next 24-48 hours. The next time I talked to him he had received $400 in rakeback payment and turned it into $1,800 that day, so he didn't need a stake anymore since he only needed a couple thousand anyways. So, glad it worked out for him.
Just finished a long session and I'm going to try and get a coaching session in with a student tomorrow when I wake up, so I'll update more later.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Staking proposition
I was approached recently by a player about staking them. I usually try to stay away from staking deals for the most part, since you hear a lot of bad stories about them, and it's so hard to track. Staking for those of you who don't play poker, is when someone invests, so to speak, in another player. They put up the money for the player to play the games, and receive a certain % of their profits for providing the stake.
I coached this player before, so I know he's a decent player. So it has nothing to do with him about my hesitation in staking him, it's just that I try to stay away from the business in general. There's actually a kid I know of who's like 18 and has supposedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars from staking players, so it can definitely be very profitable. It's just another thing to have on my plate/worry about. He only needs a small investment, probably a few thousand, so I may end up helping him out. We'll see, I'm still debating.
I coached this player before, so I know he's a decent player. So it has nothing to do with him about my hesitation in staking him, it's just that I try to stay away from the business in general. There's actually a kid I know of who's like 18 and has supposedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars from staking players, so it can definitely be very profitable. It's just another thing to have on my plate/worry about. He only needs a small investment, probably a few thousand, so I may end up helping him out. We'll see, I'm still debating.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Move up to the big games???
I've been debating a lot lately about playing high stakes games. I see a handful of online pros having $100,000+ months, and I think I have the potential to be there if I dedicated myself to beating high stakes games, instead of just grinding out smaller stakes games. I've really been debating getting a high stakes coach, and focusing on moving up to high stakes, rather than making money for a couple months. Getting a coach would help get me where I wanted to go a lot faster. I just haven't decided on whether or not I want to do this. I've been thinking of trying to get a successful high stakes player to coach me for a % of my profits. That's mutually beneficial, and I think coaches often want to see you succeed a lot more when they know what they make depends on what you make. It's tough to find someone willing to do this though. Most coaches would rather have variance free coaching rates, which is understandable. I'm going out to Vegas in a few weeks during the WSOP(World Series of Poker), so hopefully I'll have a chance to meet up with a few of the guys I'd consider hiring, and chat with them a bit in person.
I've been arguably the top player on the internet at my stakes for a while now, so some view my decision to stay at those stakes stupid, since I don't improve as much staying at the lower stakes, and my earn is essentially capped out to some degree. However I may give up profits for a couple months to play against much better players, and learn some new strategies/styles. So it's a tough decision for me, since I don't like the idea of potentially going a month or two with little to no profits, so we'll see.
On the other side of coaching, I did my first session with a new student today. I haven't been taking on many students since I'm trying to play a LOT this summer, and I've limited my students to players I know, or players who are already somewhat successful, since it was too much hassle dealing with players who expected to become superstars overnight with little to no effort. The student I took on was someone I've talked to a bit before, and has been asking me to coach him. He's already a good player, and seems like a good guy, so I decided to take him on. His best month so far has been $5-$6k. I talked to him today about his goals with poker, and what he wanted to achieve. I worked out some numbers with him, and I set his goal for the next 30 days to be $15,000. I think he can do this. That would be about 3 times his previous record in 1 month, so it'll be a challenge, but I really think he can do it. At the smaller stakes it's easy to tweak some things in a player's game, and increase their winrate relatively quickly, and have their earning potential skyrocket. I asked him to send me an e-mail each night so that I stay updated with his progress. I'll keep people posted on how he's doing if he's okay with it.
I've been arguably the top player on the internet at my stakes for a while now, so some view my decision to stay at those stakes stupid, since I don't improve as much staying at the lower stakes, and my earn is essentially capped out to some degree. However I may give up profits for a couple months to play against much better players, and learn some new strategies/styles. So it's a tough decision for me, since I don't like the idea of potentially going a month or two with little to no profits, so we'll see.
On the other side of coaching, I did my first session with a new student today. I haven't been taking on many students since I'm trying to play a LOT this summer, and I've limited my students to players I know, or players who are already somewhat successful, since it was too much hassle dealing with players who expected to become superstars overnight with little to no effort. The student I took on was someone I've talked to a bit before, and has been asking me to coach him. He's already a good player, and seems like a good guy, so I decided to take him on. His best month so far has been $5-$6k. I talked to him today about his goals with poker, and what he wanted to achieve. I worked out some numbers with him, and I set his goal for the next 30 days to be $15,000. I think he can do this. That would be about 3 times his previous record in 1 month, so it'll be a challenge, but I really think he can do it. At the smaller stakes it's easy to tweak some things in a player's game, and increase their winrate relatively quickly, and have their earning potential skyrocket. I asked him to send me an e-mail each night so that I stay updated with his progress. I'll keep people posted on how he's doing if he's okay with it.
Friday, June 8, 2007
quote
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Live games in Atlantic City
Like I mentioned yesterday, I didn't have a computer to play on for a few days, so I played the cash games in AC. I was dead tired the first day, so only played a couple hours since I was almost falling asleep at the table. (Still hadn't caught up on sleep. When I left AZ, my flight left at 5am on the 31st, so I just stayed up until my flight. I couldn't get to sleep on the plane, so when I got here(to NJ), I just decided to stay up for the rest of the day so I could get on a semi-normal sleep schedule. So I ended up staying up for like 40 hours straight- which has become almost standard for me every 2-3 months or so to adjust sleep schedules)
Anyways, about the cash games. The games in AC were good, as usual. I played the 5/10 ($1,500 buy in) games. I'll probably end up going once every other week or so to AC to get away from the grind of online poker since I'm so close. Live poker gets pretty boring, but is a good change of pace. It's soooo much slower though, so after a few days I'm usually pretty bored with playing live. Online I 8-table and play about 800 hands per hour, and live I play about 30, so it's a huge difference.
I'm always curious about the people I play with live, like what they do for a living and how they have a lot of money to gamble with. At the higher stakes games people are often throwing around thousands of dollars like it means nothing, sometimes rebuying several times, so I always wonder what some of the people do to get their money. Obviously you have your older crowd(businessmen, retired guys, etc...) - but I'm talking about the 20-something year olds who aren't other pro players. I'm always curious as to where they are getting so much money to be flashing around. Obviously some are into illegal stuff, but they can't all be, can they? I see some of the same guys there every time I'm in AC, pockets stacked full with wads of $100 bills, and they definitely aren't making their money from poker.
Here's a few hands from AC:
I think this was from the 2nd day I was there- I had been at the table for about an hour. I hadn't been picking up many hands at all, but had been trying to make some plays with any hands I had gotten to that point, so didn't have too tight of an image. I pick up KK and I raise it up to $50. Folded around to a player in middle position, and he makes it $100. I had seen him do this one time so far, and he showed down Queens. I hadn't seen him three-bet other than that time, and he seems relatively tight for the most part. He seemed to be a pretty good player, possibly a pro. A shorter stack called from the blinds. I decided to re-raise. It got back to the player who had three-bet me, and he made it another $1,000 or so. That would just about put me all-in if I decided to call. The shorter stack called, and it came back to me. I thought for a minute, and folded my Kings face up. The table reaction was hilarious. "what are you doing!!!!!!!" said the guy next to me. "wtf, did he just fold pocket kings!!" I would have felt like the biggest idiot in the world if my read was wrong. The players flipped over their cards, and he showed AA against the shorties AQ, so my read was right, and ended up saving me $1k there. In most situations with 150 big blinds or less I'm usually getting all my chips in with KK, but this situation I felt I was behind. I won't get into a lot of boring detail here, I'll do some strategy blog posts in the near future.
One interesting hand was against a rich guy who played extremely crazy.(I assumed he was rich because he played like money didn't matter, and when he went to reload he pulled out a ridiculous amount of money) A few hands earlier I busted him when I had AA. He reloaded and was raising pretty much every pot pf. He was a regular, and what a couple other players mentioned was that although he plays kind of crazy pre-flop, he definitely knows what he's doing post-flop. He did his standard pf raise to about $60, and I pick up AQ with position on him, and call. Heads up to the flop.
Flop: Q-J-9- rainbow(rainbow means none of the same suits)
He checks, and I bet $100. He thinks for about 3 seconds and pushes out $1,500, and goes all in. I definitely hadn't seen him overbet a pot like this yet, and although he played crazy, I didn't think he was an idiot, and I think in this spot I'm either way behind, or he's got a Ten and wants to draw. Maybe a pair + draw. Since there's no flush draw, I think it's less likely that he'd make a play like this with a draw, and I haven't seen live players do this much, as opposed to online players. He said, "if you don't have two pair, you should fold." I think for a while, and decide to fold my AQ. I had good position on him, so figured I'd wait for a better spot against him where I didn't have to call $1,400 with one pair, although I hated folding since he was playing like he was on tilt, constantly showing down bluffs, raising blind, etc... He said, "good fold" and showed me a Jack, but didn't show the other card.
A hand from the last day I was in AC- Tuesday, is just kind of a funny hand. This player it was against was literally one of the biggest fish I'd ever played against. I was playing very aggressively at the table, and raising a ton pf, and taking down a lot of pots on the flop. This player was getting very agitated by the way I was playing. "You don't even have anything, you are just betting every time. I'm going to catch you." He said, as he stared me down, and folded for like the 5th straight time on the flop to my continuation bet. I kept playing pretty aggressively, and he kept mumbling to himself and staring me down like an angry bear. He was maybe in his 40's, with a big beard and a baseball cap, and looked grumpy like he hadn't slept in a while. From what another person at the table told me, he had been at his table all day, and he was down about $3,500.
Anyways, fast forward a little bit. Over the next 30 minutes or so this guy goes on a ridiculous run. Hits quads, runner runner flush, full house, etc... Gets his stack up to around $5k, and we finally get into a hand heads up together, which I'd been waiting for. I raise QT from middle position, and he calls from the blinds, all while staring me down and mumbling(seriously.) I have around $4,200, and he has me covered.
Flop: Q-3-J
He donks out $400 into a pot that's only around $100. I literally started laughing out loud( I didn't mean to it just happened- wasn't like a loud laugh, more like a chuckle, but I don't chuckle) and called. The turn was an Ace. He takes about 5 seconds, and fires out $1,000. I fold, and he instantly slams down KT for the nuts and says , "ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! how did you know........man i play bad!!! i should have bet small again." I said, "no you are playing well sir, nice hand," trying to keep him happy, and at the table. Pretty much the whole table was laughing hysterically at this point. Unfortunately for me, he had $5,500 at that time, and it quickly dwindled down to about $2,000, before he got up and left, and I got none of it.
Anyways, AC was good, nice to play live for a couple days, but definitely happy to be back to playing online. I talked to a guy who plays the 10/25 in AC, and says the standard buy in is often $10,000+ in that game. I had been debating playing in it this summer, but I wouldn't want to buy in with that much. I'd want to buy in with like $2,500-$5,000(like I'd initially planned), but I don't want to be one of the short stacks at the table if the game plays real deep. I don't think I'd be able to play my game if that was the case. So when I'm in AC I'll just keep playing the 5/10 games for now.
Anyways, about the cash games. The games in AC were good, as usual. I played the 5/10 ($1,500 buy in) games. I'll probably end up going once every other week or so to AC to get away from the grind of online poker since I'm so close. Live poker gets pretty boring, but is a good change of pace. It's soooo much slower though, so after a few days I'm usually pretty bored with playing live. Online I 8-table and play about 800 hands per hour, and live I play about 30, so it's a huge difference.
I'm always curious about the people I play with live, like what they do for a living and how they have a lot of money to gamble with. At the higher stakes games people are often throwing around thousands of dollars like it means nothing, sometimes rebuying several times, so I always wonder what some of the people do to get their money. Obviously you have your older crowd(businessmen, retired guys, etc...) - but I'm talking about the 20-something year olds who aren't other pro players. I'm always curious as to where they are getting so much money to be flashing around. Obviously some are into illegal stuff, but they can't all be, can they? I see some of the same guys there every time I'm in AC, pockets stacked full with wads of $100 bills, and they definitely aren't making their money from poker.
Here's a few hands from AC:
I think this was from the 2nd day I was there- I had been at the table for about an hour. I hadn't been picking up many hands at all, but had been trying to make some plays with any hands I had gotten to that point, so didn't have too tight of an image. I pick up KK and I raise it up to $50. Folded around to a player in middle position, and he makes it $100. I had seen him do this one time so far, and he showed down Queens. I hadn't seen him three-bet other than that time, and he seems relatively tight for the most part. He seemed to be a pretty good player, possibly a pro. A shorter stack called from the blinds. I decided to re-raise. It got back to the player who had three-bet me, and he made it another $1,000 or so. That would just about put me all-in if I decided to call. The shorter stack called, and it came back to me. I thought for a minute, and folded my Kings face up. The table reaction was hilarious. "what are you doing!!!!!!!" said the guy next to me. "wtf, did he just fold pocket kings!!" I would have felt like the biggest idiot in the world if my read was wrong. The players flipped over their cards, and he showed AA against the shorties AQ, so my read was right, and ended up saving me $1k there. In most situations with 150 big blinds or less I'm usually getting all my chips in with KK, but this situation I felt I was behind. I won't get into a lot of boring detail here, I'll do some strategy blog posts in the near future.
One interesting hand was against a rich guy who played extremely crazy.(I assumed he was rich because he played like money didn't matter, and when he went to reload he pulled out a ridiculous amount of money) A few hands earlier I busted him when I had AA. He reloaded and was raising pretty much every pot pf. He was a regular, and what a couple other players mentioned was that although he plays kind of crazy pre-flop, he definitely knows what he's doing post-flop. He did his standard pf raise to about $60, and I pick up AQ with position on him, and call. Heads up to the flop.
Flop: Q-J-9- rainbow(rainbow means none of the same suits)
He checks, and I bet $100. He thinks for about 3 seconds and pushes out $1,500, and goes all in. I definitely hadn't seen him overbet a pot like this yet, and although he played crazy, I didn't think he was an idiot, and I think in this spot I'm either way behind, or he's got a Ten and wants to draw. Maybe a pair + draw. Since there's no flush draw, I think it's less likely that he'd make a play like this with a draw, and I haven't seen live players do this much, as opposed to online players. He said, "if you don't have two pair, you should fold." I think for a while, and decide to fold my AQ. I had good position on him, so figured I'd wait for a better spot against him where I didn't have to call $1,400 with one pair, although I hated folding since he was playing like he was on tilt, constantly showing down bluffs, raising blind, etc... He said, "good fold" and showed me a Jack, but didn't show the other card.
A hand from the last day I was in AC- Tuesday, is just kind of a funny hand. This player it was against was literally one of the biggest fish I'd ever played against. I was playing very aggressively at the table, and raising a ton pf, and taking down a lot of pots on the flop. This player was getting very agitated by the way I was playing. "You don't even have anything, you are just betting every time. I'm going to catch you." He said, as he stared me down, and folded for like the 5th straight time on the flop to my continuation bet. I kept playing pretty aggressively, and he kept mumbling to himself and staring me down like an angry bear. He was maybe in his 40's, with a big beard and a baseball cap, and looked grumpy like he hadn't slept in a while. From what another person at the table told me, he had been at his table all day, and he was down about $3,500.
Anyways, fast forward a little bit. Over the next 30 minutes or so this guy goes on a ridiculous run. Hits quads, runner runner flush, full house, etc... Gets his stack up to around $5k, and we finally get into a hand heads up together, which I'd been waiting for. I raise QT from middle position, and he calls from the blinds, all while staring me down and mumbling(seriously.) I have around $4,200, and he has me covered.
Flop: Q-3-J
He donks out $400 into a pot that's only around $100. I literally started laughing out loud( I didn't mean to it just happened- wasn't like a loud laugh, more like a chuckle, but I don't chuckle) and called. The turn was an Ace. He takes about 5 seconds, and fires out $1,000. I fold, and he instantly slams down KT for the nuts and says , "ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! how did you know........man i play bad!!! i should have bet small again." I said, "no you are playing well sir, nice hand," trying to keep him happy, and at the table. Pretty much the whole table was laughing hysterically at this point. Unfortunately for me, he had $5,500 at that time, and it quickly dwindled down to about $2,000, before he got up and left, and I got none of it.
Anyways, AC was good, nice to play live for a couple days, but definitely happy to be back to playing online. I talked to a guy who plays the 10/25 in AC, and says the standard buy in is often $10,000+ in that game. I had been debating playing in it this summer, but I wouldn't want to buy in with that much. I'd want to buy in with like $2,500-$5,000(like I'd initially planned), but I don't want to be one of the short stacks at the table if the game plays real deep. I don't think I'd be able to play my game if that was the case. So when I'm in AC I'll just keep playing the 5/10 games for now.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
update
Haven't had much time to update in the last week. I am in NJ at the beach for the summer, and just got my computer and monitors today. They cost me way more than I thought they would to ship here- almost $300. I need to find a better way for next time.
I put an offer on a duplex a week or two ago. It was listed at $130k, I offered $115k and they countered back at $128k, and said they weren't willing to budge since they recently sold one for $130k in the same area. Judging by the comps it seems they're probably justified with their price. I'm going to look around a bit, and possibly come back to it.
Another duplex I just put an offer on Saturday, and they countered back on Monday. I am going to see if they would be willing to meet somewhere in the middle. The property has good cashflow for being a relatively small investment. It's been on the market 100+ days, so hopefully I'll be able to negotiate a bit with them and get them to drop their price some more.
The tax sales I mentioned last week, I probably won't be doing, since some of my online cashouts are taking forever- which means I won't have the cash in time before the tax sales. That's okay with me though, since it would take some time to fly out, set up people to fix it, have someone manage it, fly back out, rent or sell it, etc.... It'll be much easier for me right now to get a good duplex that's already rented and cashflowing, and to concentrate on poker. I want to have a big summer with poker, so I want to stay focused and not get distracted by getting too many things on my plate.
Since I didn't have a computer, the last few days I've been "working"(aka playing poker) in Atlantic City. I'll post tomorrow a bit about it.
I put an offer on a duplex a week or two ago. It was listed at $130k, I offered $115k and they countered back at $128k, and said they weren't willing to budge since they recently sold one for $130k in the same area. Judging by the comps it seems they're probably justified with their price. I'm going to look around a bit, and possibly come back to it.
Another duplex I just put an offer on Saturday, and they countered back on Monday. I am going to see if they would be willing to meet somewhere in the middle. The property has good cashflow for being a relatively small investment. It's been on the market 100+ days, so hopefully I'll be able to negotiate a bit with them and get them to drop their price some more.
The tax sales I mentioned last week, I probably won't be doing, since some of my online cashouts are taking forever- which means I won't have the cash in time before the tax sales. That's okay with me though, since it would take some time to fly out, set up people to fix it, have someone manage it, fly back out, rent or sell it, etc.... It'll be much easier for me right now to get a good duplex that's already rented and cashflowing, and to concentrate on poker. I want to have a big summer with poker, so I want to stay focused and not get distracted by getting too many things on my plate.
Since I didn't have a computer, the last few days I've been "working"(aka playing poker) in Atlantic City. I'll post tomorrow a bit about it.
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