guess i should move up. sigh really wish i wasnt such a spewtard

oh. most of these hands were from stars.

and now. to study for finals.

this blog is kinda meh to me. but today was so great and such that i just have to write it down somewhere.

i woke up remotely early today

1130am

thats pretty freaking early for me.

i have played 2 sessions today. 1500 hands for a small profit of 500 or something irrelevant. i ran hot like the sun. and sucked out in several spots even though they were pretty standard spots so if the money went the other way i wouldnt care so much either.

im glad, if not proud, to say that i DO NOT care what my ev is anymore. its a stupid imaginary line that is a crutch for most players to make them feel better about themselves. we are playing something where we are to be rewarded for making the right decision. if i flop an overpair on a J92fd board in a 3 bet pot and we get the money in for 100bb, im always happy and dont want it any other way. if some 50bb donk fish wants to go broke on KJ2xfd board vs my KJ, i fist pump get the money in. if im starting a table with a reg and get TT in preflop, thats fine.

so poker, thats wonderful. i havent been playing much lately, cause im in a hole that has a sign next to it labelled i feel sorry for myself. however. today. against all odds. i also went to the gym and worked out for 45 mins. im sore as hell and it feels good.

god what a wonderful day.

oh i saw terminator salvation the midnight screening. its the first movie i've ever had such mixed feelings about. i love the movies, with the exception of terminator 3. i remember terminator 2 so well as it was one of the best movies i ever saw as a kid. i just cant help but think the trailers for terminator salvation ruined the movie. seriously, so many mixed feelings on it.

anyways so long, till next time.

bit of insomnia tonight. might be cause i've been studying a lot for finals and wired mindless on caffeine. seems i blog more about school than poker these days but for good reason. i suspect i'll do extremely well once finals are over. its a pretty tough exam schedule, but i think i've allocated enough time to study and prepare for everything. once exams finish this coming wednesday, i get a few days off before summer classes start. school almost seems like work, its me crunching nmbers several hours a day while reading tax stuff and figuring if i can deduct my meals in vegas as a business expense.

unfortunately i have not played much poker this month. to be honest, while its on my mind, its at the back of my mind. not so much in a looming sort of way either, more like i know its there, and it knows i know its there. we have this mutual agreement to just relax for a bit and that the games arent going anywhere so there is no real pressure to grind.

i have accomplished less than nothing this month. however, in the past week i did finish 4 seasons of entourage. i've had friends tell me that californication is the most superficial show ever, but rave about how awesome entourage is. i have a totally different perspective on that comparison, where entourage is a pretty generic superficial show about nothing and californication is a show with substance. i dont hate entourage, but when it comes to tv, i feel its more of a guilty pleasure type of show.

obviously i have watched way too much television this month. but its been good. i have a few things coming up in the near future and am almost remotely excited. i've gotten a coach signed up for sessions starting in may. really excited about that, hopefully i can learn a new trick or two.

i had the chance to go golfing this tuesday. i am a terrible golfer, and my friends know this, but its silly to golf without betting on it. i managed to convince them that both friends had to beat me by 2.5 strokes on each hole par 4/5 and 2 strokes on par 3. now, i havent been practicing or nothing, but i managed to win 9 skins total which was pretty nice. they complained that the line was unfair from about the 5th hole onward, but i countered with the standard im running above expectation argument. lost both CCR and had to pay for the round of golf (180) and dinner (175) so that kinda sucked.

i am extremely frustrated at my friends from tuesday too. there were 3 of us for the golfing day and dinner. they demand, for some strange reason that when running CCR that its the first card out of the hat. personally i dont care how many people are involved, the last card remaining is the one that pays. i want to be able to celebrate when my card gets pulled and sweat the next pull if i didnt get yanked. somehow they fail to see the appeal of that. however im stuck to them, so i'm going to be eating a lot of steak and lobster in attempts to maximize ev or get even.

pokerwise, i think i've played 6000 hands this month? maybe a little more, maybe a little less? i think this is my first month in the red for a very very long time. however, i am up from poker, but i did pay for my coaching upfront and lose a variety of prop bets this month. a bit disappointing, but i dont think i've been this calm for a very long time. apparently people think im high strung or strung out like 24/7, which is absolutely not the case, but i can see why they would think that.

anyways, hopefully i find some time to get to platinum this month on stars. would be a bit disappointing to revert back to gold status, but i dont really care. ******** is nice and all, but at the end of the day its the winrate that matters.

someone gave me 4 seasons of entourage, 2 seasons of rome and 2 seasons of sarah connor chronicles yesterday. i've seen rome already, but its an awesome show and i somehow managed to delete it a few years back so obviously its an easy grab if someone is offering it up.

if i know whats good for me. i wont look at it. i'll put it into a folder named do not open till may.

in other news, i flopped quads vs a short stack today. i took the line of c/c flop. lead turn and timebank when he shoved.

had ufc night yesterday with two friends. made monies on prop bets. got some studying done today and put in 1000 hands of breakeven today, which is fine i guess. gonna be studying lots this upcoming week and tuesday is golf time!

cant wait, cause im such a golf fish but its fun times!

so i havent been around much. i wonder if i've been missed. i know there are a few people i need to get back to about some things, so this is my public apology for disappearing for a little bit. however, we can point fingers for this recent disappearance.

after grinding thru 3 exams in a short week last week, i went to have lunch with etown and he lent me all 5 seasons of the wire. this was last wednesday. now i told him i was going to hang onto it and get started on the show i have heard so much about in may or so. however friday rolled around and i wasnt really in the mood to play poker online so i popped in an episode of the wire.

well 5 days later im done all 5 seasons. im sure you can figure out what my routine looked like, despite the fact yesterday i did devote about 6 hours to doing homework. actually to be honest i finished season 4 yesterday and decided ok, we are going to watch season 5 slowly and savour it. once you get started though.....

cant say enough good things about the show. characters are awesome, well written, well acted, great humour. mind you, i am coming off a lost marathon that lasted about 7 days so the next show i dived into probably would have been the bestest thing ever in comparison to lost. i dont often rewatch tv shows, except for background noise, but this show might be worth splurging on again sometime in the future.

tomorrow is friday. i have all my assignments done for the rest of the semester. there are only 4 finals in the last week of april. again im hungry for the finals, if i could write them tomorrow all in a day i would just so i could have more time to do other things, but unfortunately things dont work like that. i'll probably hit the tables, making an ali-like return to the ring. i really enjoyed my time off poker, and while i did play like 3 days in the past 3 weeks. i feel refreshed and hungry for poker again. i guess after 8 years of playing the game you do get a bit burnt out at times and i think its great that i realize when im burning out and playing bad to just close up shop and do something else for a while.

in a completely random note, i was talking with a friend yesterday about how you picture people based on their writing style online. he was quick to comment that he definitely judges people on what he reads whereas i am more critical of how things are written. it makes me wonder, do people actually look at my current blog and go "god damn this random online poker palyer, i wish he'd learn to use the shift key and properly capitalize stuff"

so with that said, i'll be seeing some of you around more often starting tomorrow.

Samuel says:
would you like to rail the FT chipleader on the stars SCOOP 1500 event?

60 minutes later. he ships the whole thing.

worst part is, he was telling me about playing in a bunch of SCOOP events while we were at the hockey game. normally i take action, but because of my downswing and combined with the fact i am taking a % of him in all of his WSOP events this summer the thought just kinda slipped my mind.

fml.

he is buying dinner for all of us now. im going to get really drunk.

finished my homework too.

i ended march on a 10k downswing and it kind of crippled my confidence. while i reviewed the hands almost a week ago and felt most things were standard, i'll look to go over them again when the weekend rolls around and see if i still feel the same way.

march ended with me making about 4k. which is kind of disappointing. luckily i ran good on the stock market and i think i almost made 10k total for the month so whatever. shouldnt put too much pressure on myself to make an excessive amount of money or anything since making 5k and making 15k doesnt really change my standard of living but it does add extra stress and pressure.

no graphs cause its heartbreaking to look at. maybe after i get back on the tables and grind my way out of the downswing!

so for the past 4 or 5 days my routine has looked something like this.

0700 wake up
0800 get to school
1200 get home from school
1230 start watching lost
0030 stop watching lost

i've watched 73 episodes of lost since saturday and i have to say its the most frustrating terrible train wreck of a show that i cant stop watching.

i just finished season 3 and if it wasnt for the fact i have a huge assignment due on friday and an exam tomorrow i'd probably be a complete degenerate and sit and continue watching till i get completely caught up.

it was a feel sorry for myself feeling on friday or so and i decided ok lets start watching tv. so i watched a few episodes online via streaming and that caused massive life tilt as i didnt want to leave bed but wouldnt bring myself to my desktop so i could stream episodes on two computers. the silly megavideo site has a 72 min limit of free streaming every 2 hours so i'd be stuck watching 1 3/4 of an episode at a time. i gave in and just went to the store and bought all 4 seasons mid saturday.

buying dvds. what a waste of money.

however if i stop to think about it. its now april and me buying 4 seasons of lost was the first time this year i spent money on something that wasnt food or parking for school.

god i am such a life nit.

anyways, let me rant a bit about lost. it appears to be a good show and all. its been well reviewed over the years and people seem to like it. but i always have mixed feeligns about jj abrahms after he completely butchered and destroyed alias and turned it from a decently entertaining show into a huge pile of donkey poo. every episode of lost feels the same. 24 minutes of adventures on the beach and 18 minutes of flashbacks involving one of the characters showing us how tragic and crappy their lives were leading up the getting stuck on the island. i feel sorry for the average person who tunes into this show on a weekly basis on television as they are also exposed to 18 minutes of commercials ontop of the 42 minutes of drooling mess that is lost.

the show itself is kinda predictable. this might be because ive subjected myself to what would resemble a slow painful brainwashing technique. some of the plot twists are alright. some of them are terrible. im sure it is all supposed to make sense when you look at the complete picture, but right now, i want to cut my wrists.

i cant stop watching either. i have to use the trainwreck analogy. its like im driving down the street and there was a horrible train wreck on the side of the street. no matter how terrible or tragic or remotely moving the view might be, i cant bring myself to look away.

none of the characters are overly interesting. the lead female chick is remotely attractive, but unlike veronica mars and kristen bell, her character is so flawed and for lack of a better word, 'typical' that i dont even find her attractive. a few of the other characters have moments, albiet far and few between and with each passing episode i find myself asking more and more questions. among them include why the freaking hell did i start watching this show.

there are people to blame for this mess.

they know who they are.

it feels like im getting payback for that little prank i pulled online several years ago. where i went on this huge rant to everyone i know that the movie 'ultraviolet' with milla jovovich was the best action movie ever and that everyone and their mom should watch that masterpiece before they died. a lot pf innocent people feel for this and ended up watching that movie. may god have mercy on their souls.

im so so sorry.

well, i better pry myself away and start studying. despite march being a horrible month financially. school has been exceptionally well, so i guess i shouldnt complain too much.

today i felt started as a great day. school was fine. i arrived home to see that my adderall had arrived. this could be the most +ev drug for me ever since i truly think i have ADD but dont want to goto a doctor and be like hi, i cant pay attention to anything blah blah blah.

i pop one of these little pills that are supposed to be a godsend and hit the tables.

first session was 3h long, people were running super sick hot against me. i felt i was totally playing my A+ game, did a review session with a friend and he was kinda gross at how poorly i was running.

after dinner. i put in another long winded session. really feeling great mentally. i was shrugging off a lot of sick coolers and still playing my best game. i did 4 hours.

7 hours of poker, 7600 hands in a single day. for those that know me, thats like me doing 1/2 of my month in a single sitting. this adderall stuff is super sick.

unfortunately im down 6k today. 3 buyins at nl600 and 11 buyins at nl400.

i'd post the bad beats. but no one wants to read about them. i still feel super confident about my game, did a long hand history review and minus maybe 2 hands played super poorly there was nothing i could do.

i mean unless you want to be folding sets or stuff.

so im in bed now. tired. worn out. i sigh. my string of 17 winning sessions ended. not only that, this COULD be my march melting down. im still up a decent amount. but woah was this one disturbing day. im sure it could have been much worse. people were pretty bad in some spots.

i lost a pot where we were 200bb deep. i had bottom set, villian had middle set. and he managed to win 88bb from me. he was in position too.

i'd also like to start winning with KK AIPF vs AK. its my bane. this month alone i've lost in that exact spot 4 times and it pisses me right off.

i will prevail. there is no doubt. i will do another session tomorrow when i get home from school. it is a long weekend, so lets see what it brings.

ps, for all you ev whores who think ev is the end all and blah blah of how you are running. i was 16 buyins under ev today. ship that.

my house was busy today with a bunch of people singing karoke and playing mahjong that i couldnt be bothered to play poker at home. i find having a noisy environment makes it difficult to concentrate. usually i play with music on, but within 10 minus of starting my session the music fades into the background and is almost non-existent. i kinda use that to gauge when i have gotten into the zone and with a lot of noise around me i didnt want to chance being put on tilt by that. i have a win streak to maintain obviously.

after playing some halo, my friends decide they want to play at the casino. i have made pretty good with my intentions of not ever going to live casinos so far this year but figured what the heck, theres nothing to do, nothing on tv, no need to study, lets go out with the guys.

we get into a 2/5 game, which was the biggest game in the room. *sad face* theres 3 of us at the table to start, so we do the standard stuff, such as offer a bounty on each other, setup props and start flipping to drinks. the bounty for the night was if anyone else at the table could stack one of us, they would get 2 free drinks.

being live poker and all, im super rusty but really felt good about my game. i made a dreadful fold about 6h into the session and that hand is probably going to haunt me for the rest of the year, if not longer. im sure my friends wont let it die. i'll repost the details below. i butchered it too, so please dont flame the comments section, i have low self esteem and cant take harsh criticism.

effective stack is 850.

UTG who is a pretty tight, but blah type of player opens to 20. folds to the button who is your typical live pro. good enough to beat the live donkeys but definitely a huge dog in any half decent line up flats on the button. SB who was your typical spaz donk degenerate gambler calls. Hero wakes up to Ad Ac and after a short pause sticks in a 3 bet to 95.

UTG is not happy. my image is pretty solid, im up about 2 racks playing good, running good and jsut picking my spots but not getting overly out of line. this had to do with UTG+1 being a good friend and a high stakes player who loves raping me when we play live, therefore with im behind me i had to play pretty conservatively as he was 3 betting me with a good frequency. after some thought, UTG flats and button who probably has a range of any two suited/connected cards also calls. the SB fishie goes away.

flop rolls out Qc8s2s. the pot is 300. i elect to bet this dry flop for 135. its less than half pot, but i dont really think it matters so much cause live donkeys probably couldnt figure out how much was in the pot anyways. UTG thinks for a bit, and raises me to 335. Btn folds and im faced with a tough decision. it really felt preflop that he had a big hand and this wasnt exactly the type of board to be making a move on. my thought process is all messed up and after some thought, i decide i was going to call and see what happens on the turn. i didnt want to shove cause i felt he'd fold his bluffs obviously.

the turn bricks with a 6h and i take some time and check. he goes all in and i keep thinking god damnit, if this was online i'd just snap call and be too busy to worry about it as i'd have several other decisions to make. however this being live made me super uncomfortable as i felt my hand was kinda face up and he would be stupid to bluff this board and his value range was soooooo thin. his bet was 360 into a pot of 970 and i was thinking god i hate having 3 friends at this table cause if i get call and get owned it is going to suck.

i end up folding.

he tables AK.

my friends go nuts. the dealers head explodes. i proceed to go on a 15 minute walk outside wondering why the hell he would ever raise me on the flop with QQ with a deepstack still left to act. i also forget to weigh how if i fold and get owned it is probably worse than calling and getting owned.

**** my life.

i cool down, get back to the table where i have 3 friends seated now and they just go hard on me about the hand. im just utterly disgusted.

i do end the session winning a 4 way omaha flip for 100 a head and book a +980 win but it just sucks that the session should have been 2000+ easily. sigh. im so disappointed right now i dont know if i can force myself to play online tomorrow. i've logged a pretty short month so far but i just feel this hand gnawing away at my soul cause im very critical of my play these days.

pretty sure i finished up in props and got 2 rounds of drinks paid for so i guess the night was alright. i had fun so to speak and its good to know that i can still crush live donkeys. even though im never ever happy to sit at a live poker table, i should be grateful even in a period of recession people still feel the need to gamble.

oh yeah, battlestar galatica had its series finale yesterday. im going to miss that show a lot. while i didnt watch it from the get go, i did start watching it religiously from the 3rd season onwards. it is quite possibly one of the best all round shows i have ever seen and it was sad knowing that the show was over. i felt the finale was pretty good also, there have been a lot of series finales where it was just another episode and the show was over. i cant say enough good things about BSG so i'll just go with "so say we all"

so say we all

i am not pleased with the following hands that went down in my session

i went for the river check raise 5 times this session, with mixed results.

one other leak in my game that i've noticed when 15 tabling. sometimes i dont check stack sizes on the river, i just click bet pot and scroll up or down quickly and click bet. i left a couple dollars on the table today because we'd be almost all in on the river, but i'd end up leaving the fish with like 30 dollars or something stupid.

i gotta wonder if fish think thats stronger than just going all in. i'll have to ask this guy at school. he seems like a fish.

anyways, 3 hands below. complete with comments.

------------------
HAND #1
------------------

Party Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

MP: $600
CO: $375
BTN: $846.90
Hero (SB): $600
BB: $401.90
UTG: $1,285.30

Pre-Flop: T J dealt to Hero (SB)
4 folds, Hero raises to $21, BB raises to $48, Hero calls $27

Flop: ($96) A 5 5 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($96) 2 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $24, Hero calls $24

River: ($144) 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $90, Hero raises to $330, BB calls $239.90 and is All-In

Results: $803.80 Pot ($2.90 Rake)
Hero showed T J and WON $0.10 (-$401.80 NET)
BB showed and WON $800.80 (+$398.90 NET)

villian is some 50/10 fishy. i might be results orientated here. he had AA here. im convinced he can play AK the exact same way though. im pretty damn sure atleast. when i shoved the river i thought to myself, god if he slowplayed AA on me im going to vomit everywhere. sure enough.....


------------------
HAND #2
------------------

Party Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $349.55
Hero (BB): $427.90
UTG: $572.05
MP: $106
CO: $453.30
BTN: $484

Pre-Flop: 7 7 dealt to Hero (BB)
3 folds, BTN raises to $14, SB folds, Hero calls $10

Flop: ($30) T 3 6 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $24, Hero calls $24

Turn: ($78) 8 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($78) 9 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $66, Hero raises to $210, BTN raises to $446 and is All-In, Hero folds

Results: $498 Pot
BTN showed and WON $731 (+$483 NET)


i hate my life here. really hate my life. i dont know. i just hate the whole hand really. i should have either check raised the flop or donked the turn or just check/called the river. i cant see calling off my stack hoping to chop vs a wide button range who would 100% of the time play QJ like this. i just felt so silly check raising then folding when check call was infinitely better.

------------------
HAND #3
------------------

Party Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

CO: $347.55
Hero (BTN): $400
SB: $568.05
BB: $106
UTG: $459.30
MP: $731

Pre-Flop: K A dealt to Hero (BTN)
2 folds, CO calls $4, Hero raises to $18, 2 folds, CO calls $14

Flop: ($42) J A 8 (2 Players)
CO checks, Hero bets $26, CO calls $26

Turn: ($94) 9 (2 Players)
CO checks, Hero bets $76, CO raises to $303.55 and is All-In, Hero folds

Results: $246 Pot
CO showed and WON $470.55 (+$350.55 NET)

this was against some pretty loose but aggro fishy. he has shown the ability to check raise rivers. i havent looked him up yet, but again when a fish wants to play for stacks on a pretty coordinated board where the turn binks off a bunch of two pairs and straight draws. im glad i timed out in frustration, im pretty sure im calling to be 20% at best and occasionally dead in the water.


============

i have been pretty stingy this month, if people take lines that are just obivously strong on boards where they are representing a narrow range and my hand is semi face up to anyone who can read hands i've been leaning more towards folding. so far this month i have gotten it in with the best off it almost 95% of the time. i've sucked out 3 times with counterfeit equity and have been running reaaalllyy good when the money goes in.

again my friend has been harping at this for the past week. if you play super solid and always get it in with the best of it, dont look at the results, they'll get there. this month has been an outstanding example of that. combined with a little run good in winning 80/20s and 66/33s and boom, huge month. i am ontop of the world and mixing in 3/6 tables now with a bunch of 2/4 tables looking forward to posting my best month ever. i also make people get it in with 10% equity a lot too, always brings a smile to my face.

schoolwise im running the classes too. everything is clicking during lectures. i fly through the assigned problems in class with little effort. im actually excited for the exams next week cause i want to boost my marks in preparation for finals. how many students actually write that they are that confident they want to write the exam?

with regards to the summer and vegas plans, a lot of school stuff has to be dealt with this week. while i really really want to go have fun at wsop i know damned well that i hate live poker, i hate tournaments, i really hate live tournaments, but i like the weather and would like to meet a few people and be social. i might end up only heading down for a few days as opposed to moving down my desktop and grinding for a month. we'll see, i dont know yet. i do believe that if i take some extra courses in the...