Just got done watching them play the Titans and I must say they looked pretty bad. Big Ben usually has one or two games each year where he just absolutely stinks up the joint and this was one of them. I suppose I can't really complain about his style because he usually wins a couple games each year cause of it, but he really does hold onto the ball for forever.

The Titans surprised me with how good they looked, especially their offense. I do think though that if we played them again in the AFC championship we would win. They seemed really cocky at the end and didn't seem to respect the Steelers much. I think that'd come back to bite them as its gonna be tough to beat Pittsburgh twice.

I'm glad I didn't go to the game though as I was thinking about it - Nashville is only a few hours from me in Memphis. Woulda been a miserable drive back after that game.

I'm flying to Pittsburgh with my fiance on Christmas Eve to spend a few days with my family. I haven't been back in a while so I'm really looking forward to it. Yinz know, gahn dahntahn for some Primanti's n'at. If you were from Pittsburgh you'd understand that last sentence.

Not gonna post a graph because I'm convinced every time I do I start to run bad...not very logical I know but whatever. Anyway, including rakeback I pulled in ~$23k which certainly isn't bad at 2/4, but I ran 6-7k under expectation so thats never fun. I'm staying at 2/4 this month to really grind out a profit with not too much variance (hopefully) and want to get my 'A' game back so I can start crushing 5/10 in the new year.

December I'm hoping to pull in a 30k month, but am not off to a great start... only up $1k so far. being 5.5k under ev already though has kinda strained my ability to log hands and stay off tilt. I'm planning on grinding out a bunch of hands this week though. I finally got a 2nd monitor a couple weeks ago so that has helped in the grinding process. I figured being a midstakes multitabler on only a 22" monitor is decidedly unballer so I needed to remedy that.

Watched the De La Hoya/Manny Pacquaio (sp?) fight Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it. Had some money on MP and he didn't let me down. He just absolutely went to town on DLH and the fight was never really in doubt.

After struggling to get consistent results the past few weeks, I've finally been getting my hands paid off the past couple days. It feels like I'm really playing at a high level and its nice to have results to back that up. Had a +12 buyin day today at 2/4, which is definitely nice. I can't even remember the last time I booked a +10 buyin day. According to HEM, I shoulda had another 2 buyins in all-in EV, so its also nice knowing the results came about from solid play and not just running super hot.

Of course its also nice when you can find players that do this:

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $406
BTN: $895.90
SB: $478
BB: $802.70

Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (UTG)
BB folds, Hero raises to $12, BTN folds, SB raises to $20, Hero raises to $62, SB raises to $104, Hero raises to $406 and is All-In, SB calls $302

Flop: ($812) T T 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($812) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($812) 5 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $812 Pot ($2 Rake)
Hero showed Q Q (two pair, Queens and Tens) and WON $810 (+$404 NET)
SB showed 6 K (a pair of Tens) and LOST (-$406 NET)

Normally I don't try to chat and tilt donks in fear of them leaving, but this guy was hyper aggro and I felt he would stay and spew even more if i got him a little riled up, so I chatted him up a bit:

ApobatesRacer: sorry dude
ApobatesRacer: cooler
wms1856: shut the fu.ck up..u shouldnt hav called when i re reaiseed yuou
wms1856: reraised
ApobatesRacer: yeah it was a misclick
s4tolly: ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
ApobatesRacer: just lucky i guess
ApobatesRacer: i meant to fold
ApobatesRacer: it was a bold aggressive call by you though

He goes on to swear and berate me a little more, but sadly I had to leave for dinner before I could take any more of his money. Interestingly enough, according to villain, I guess QQ is a fold to a 5bet from $62 to $104, but K6s is a call of a 6bet shove.

Seems like lately I"m just churning my legs and not making any headway. I've been playing a lot the past week or so but can't get my good hands paid off. Its pretty frustrating to say the least, but I can't complain too much, since I know its just variance. It'd be nice to feel the rush of a heater again since I'm starting to forget what it feels like.

I guess if you can't make big hands you just have to find some profit elsewhere right?

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN): $404
SB: $140
BB: $1,165.55
UTG: $503.85
CO: $394

Pre-Flop: 8 7 dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG raises to $12, CO calls $12, Hero raises to $52, 3 folds, CO calls $40

Flop: ($122) A 9 9 (2 Players)
CO checks, Hero bets $74, CO raises to $168, Hero raises to $352 and is All-In, CO folds

Results: $458 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed 8 7 (a pair of Nines)

Villain was pretty standard weaker player who would make moves without thinking about what he was representing. Here I think he check/calls almost all aces since if he had AQ/AK I think he repops preflop and he isnt the type to c/rasie a marginal A for value. I think he probably slowplays a 9 if he somehow shows up with one (not too likely I think) and if he had a flush draw I think he c/raises larger since he doesn't want a call. So I went with the read and turned out to be right. Felt good, although villain claimed I had the best hand. Of course I called him out on that since if I had the best hand his call preflop would have to be horrible. He then admitted I outplayed him so at least I've got a moral victory on the day.


My college football experiment predicting against the spread didn't work out as well this past weekend. Overall, after 2 weekends I'm still 5 games over .500 vs the spread and 17-10 in the games my model predicts is off by more than a TD. There may be hope for it yet... I'm gonna keep predicting for a couple more weeks and see how the data shakes out.

Well a couple of my biggest downswings have come after posting a brag graph showing how well I've done. So you'd think I'd learn to stop posting said graphs. No of course not. As soon as I posted my year to date graph on my Leggo blog I went into the worst downswing of my life. Overall I lost about 17.5k to start last month from 2/4-5/10 the net being about 25-30 buyins. I'd say the first 20 or so I maintained a somewhat decent game and was just getting constantly sucked out on/coolered. The last 5-10 were just absolute spew where I just go so tilted after one bad beat that I'd end up playing terrible the rest of the session. So I ended last month down about 5k, for my first losing month ever.

This was all kinda stressful since I just bought a house and also am planning a wedding. Since I couldn't afford to have any more 5 figure downswings I confined myself to grinding out 2/4 until I climbed out. I'm proud to say that I finally made it.



What have I learned from this? Well, certainly that it indeed is possible to run worse than you ever have before. I used to think that 20 buyin+ downswings were only for breakeven regs. Not anymore. While I probably could've contained my downswing to about 20 if I had maintained my 'A' game, its pretty tough to do when running so badly. I hope that in the future I can look back on this and it'll help me deal with another tough downswing that will inevitably happen if I keep playing long enough. Also, obviously I need to stop posting brag graphs. So when I tell you how sick hot I'm running in the future or how well I'm doing, you'll just have to take my word for it

Onto non-poker related material. I was somewhat intrigued by reading Bobbo's posts on how he can predict NBA lines/spreads better than they are being set by Vegas. I used to share the opinion of many that "You can't make money betting on sports... Vegas/Sportsbooks are too good". Now that I think about it, thats the exact mindset most have about poker which obviously isn't true. So I have decided to test how efficient the market really is in relation to college football. There are a ton of stats out there to utilize, so I went through and picked out some ones I deemed important and created a model to predict what the spread on games should be. I then compared that to what the actual Vegas/Sportsbook spread was and used that to predict a winner. My initial findings are very promising. Last weekend my model went 31-16 ATS (against the spread). In games that it said the spread was off by 7 or more it went 8-3. So far this week its 2-1, 2-0 in the games the spread was off by 7 or more. Hopefully this isn't all variance and I may have found another profitable venture. I currently have yet to actually bet on a game though and don't know too much about the legality as an American, so if any of you guys do bet, please let me know about it. According to the model here are some games this weekend that may be some good bets (again, I have yet to bet so I cannot guarantee the accuracy of these predictions):

Alabama vs. LSU (take Alabama -3.5)
Colorado St. vs Air Force (take Air Force -9.5)
Florida vs Vanderbilt (take Vandy + 24)
Georgia vs Kentucky (take Kentucky + 11)
Illinois vs WMichigan (take WMichigan + 7)
Michigan vs Minnesota (take Minnesota -7.5)
NC State vs Duke (take Duke - 3.5)
North Texas vs Florida Atlantic (take North Texas +22.5)
Ohio St. vs Northwestern (take Northwestern +11)
Southern Miss vs Central Florida (take Southern Miss -3)
UTEP vs Louisiana Lafayette (take LA Lafayette -9)
WKentucky vs Troy (take Troy -16.5)
Wyoming vs Tennessee (take Wyoming +26.5)

Those are all the ones where the line is supposed to be off by more than 7 points. There were a couple more on Monday, but they have since fallen under 7 as Vegas has adjusted. Hopefully thats a sign that I'm on the right track. Because my model is purely based on stats, it doesn't account for injuries or anything, so if a key player is recently out for one of the teams above it very well may be off.

Don't know if this happens for anyone else, but for me after a stretch of some bad luck my game inevitably turns to ****. For whatever reason if I'm not winning I get the subconscious urge to try to force myself to win, disregarding solid play that I know if I keep up over the long run I'll be a big winner. This bad play includes calling down too light when given odds I know I'm not good enough of the time, spewing off buyins by making insane bluffs that really don't make sense, and just FPS (fancy play syndrome) in general. Today for instance I flopped top set in a 3bet pot out of position on a pretty drawy board. The correct play here 100% of the time is for me to bet. However, in the short run the last few times I've flopped a big hand all I can remember is continuation betting and opponent folding. So what do I do? Of course I try to play cute and I check call the flop. Turn is fairly harmless and again I check. Opponent checks behind and river is terrible, bringing a 4-straight to board. Now I fear opponent having a straight and I don't feel like I can get value from worse so I check maybe looking to bluff catch. Opponent checks and flips over a rivered bottom pair + a flush draw. He had picked up a gutshot on the turn. So basically if I had cbet flop he's never going anywhere, either calling or raising. Again on the turn he's never going anywhere. Bottom line, I missed a ton of value by not playing the hand like I should have. This is something I have to work on if I really want to evolve into a great player. Short stretches of bad luck can happen, whether they are a week long or a month or two long. However, to keep these stretches of running badly as short as possible, I really need to make the best play possible regardless of the outcome.

To this end, I think it helps to talk your thought process out loud. I find I make fewer mistakes when I verbalize what I am thinking. If I actually say something out loud, I realize with greater frequency when I'm saying something that just isn't right. Like maybe if I had said out loud, "I'm going to slowplay the nuts in an already inflated pot hoping he'll just absolutely spew out and bet 3 streets for me with no pair no draw" I woulda realized how ridiculous that was. Here's hoping I can change that in the future...

So 3 weeks into living at my new house and already the a/c doesn't work. Not fun in Memphis where its pretty warm and humid. At least I've got a home warranty so I don't have to ship $2k for a new one cause apparently this ones busted beyond easy repair. Its been a sweaty grind the past couple days but as I type its being fixed so hopefully its back up soon.

Fun hand I played yesterday:

Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $1,256
BB: $2,357
UTG: $1,000
MP: $1,694
CO: $485
Hero (BTN): $1,145

Pre-Flop: A 3 dealt to Hero (BTN)
3 folds, Hero raises to $30, SB folds, BB calls $20

Flop: ($65) 6 Q T (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $50, BB raises to $170, Hero calls $120

Turn: ($405) Q (2 Players)
BB bets $280, Hero calls $280

River: ($965) 9 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $665 and is All-In, BB folds

Results: $965 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed A 3 (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$480 NET)

Not sure why the converter is showing I lost, but it should be won $480. Anyway, villain was very aggro and trying to take down a ton of pots. His W$WSF was in the high 50's and he c/raised a bunch on the flop so my goal was to float and take it on the turn. When he bets the turn again I decide to float again because I don't expect him to triple barrel bluff this board and I can play a full house or trips this way so if he checks to me on the river I expect him to fold if I bet. It worked out in my favor and obviously I showed so hopefully he'll think twice about playing back at me.

Well I've been meaning to start a blog on here but haven't gotten around to it yet. I guess nows a good a time as any. I've been having a great year so far:





+ ~20k in rakeback
+ ~15k in tournies/hands from other computer

So overall I'm up about $215k on the year which needless to say I'm pretty happy about. At the start of the year my goal was $20k/month so I'm on pace to surpass that. If I learned how to beat 3/6 I'd be even better off. Seriously, for the life of me I can't seem to win there. Lifetime I'm probably down almost 20 buyins at that level, but I've had decent success at 5/10 so I'm hoping its just variance. (and good variance - hopefully I've been running bad at 3/6 and not just good at 5/10)

Its a good thing I've had a good year cause its been a busy year for me expenses-wise. I got engaged a few months ago, have moved from two different places, and just bought a house. So from the engagement ring, moving costs, downpayment on the mortgage, and planning a wedding I've had to shell out a good portion of my earnings. Plus with the stock market sucking I've also lost a decent amount from there. I know, I know, it must be tough to make $200k plus. Guess I can't complain. Wasn't too long ago I was grinding 1/2 and was thrilled with a 10k month. Here't to hoping the rest of the year goes as well as the past 9 months. My goal is to consistently beat 3/6 - 5/10...whatver happens, good or bad I'll be at the tables doing my best to get better and to play as close to my 'A'' game as possible.

Anyway, certainly a long enough first post. Hopefully I'll keep regular updates and provide at least a little inspiration for those that are struggling up through the smaller stakes. Good luck at the tables.