I Hate When I Forget A Title

It’s hard to want to blog when you’re playing micro stakes. But when you have about $15 in your account, you’re stuck with .05/.10 no limit and $1 + $.25 Turbo SnGs. I did throw down the $11 to play in this week’s Mookie. More on that in a second.

...more...

Before that start I had about $5 left. I played a $1 SnG and brought the remainder to a .05/.10 full ring table. I managed to win the SnG, and only made about 2.50 at the table. I did triple up at the table. When I started it was full, but slowly the table dried up until it was just me and a monster chip stack (he had $30- max buy-in is $10- and I had $5). I won a few small pots. A third person joined in. A few hands into 3-handed play, this hand game up:

Full Tilt Poker Game #2918300137: Table Sunrise Skyline - $0.05/$0.10 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:14:24 ET - 2007/07/11
Seat 3: Unimpressed ($5.55)
Seat 4: Meyehar Izhevy ($23.75)
Seat 5: Fervus ($6.80)
Fervus posts the small blind of $0.05
Unimpressed posts the big blind of $0.10
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Unimpressed [Qd Th]
Meyehar Izhevy raises to $0.20
Fervus calls $0.15
Unimpressed calls $0.10
*** FLOP *** [8c Jd 9s]
Fervus bets $0.60
Unimpressed calls $0.60
Big Nate KW sits down
Meyehar Izhevy raises to $1.20
Fervus calls $0.60
Big Nate KW adds $10
Unimpressed raises to $5.35, and is all in
Meyehar Izhevy calls $4.15
Fervus calls $4.15
*** TURN *** [8c Jd 9s] [6c]
Fervus bets $1.25, and is all in
Meyehar Izhevy calls $1.25
Fervus shows [Ac Td]
Unimpressed shows [Qd Th]
Meyehar Izhevy shows [8h 9h]
*** RIVER *** [8c Jd 9s 6c] [3h]
Fervus shows Ace Jack high
Meyehar Izhevy shows two pair, Nines and Eights
Meyehar Izhevy wins the side pot ($2.50) with two pair, Nines and Eights
Unimpressed shows a straight, Queen high
Unimpressed wins the main pot ($16.15) with a straight, Queen high

Can’t really fault anyone’s play here. But this gave me a large stack. Unfortunately, as the table got full, I bled chips and ended up with only about a $2.00 profit.

Now at the Mookie I was a pocket pair junkie… Unfortunately, none of them improved and was usually 2 over-cards to the board. And I had to release them. I quickly lost about 1000 of the starting 3000 chips. I did make a stand on one hand with pocket 8s.

I’m in the cutoff (8c,8d). I started the hand with 1475.
Tripjax (started w/ 2970), UTG limps for 30.
Folds to MiamiDon (started w/ 3345) in MP. He raises to 110. I call and so does Tripjax.
FLOP: 9c – 4d – 3s
Tripjax bets 250.
MiamiDon folds and I push all-in. Tripjax thinks and finally lays it down.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get much going. In the end, blinds were 50-100. I have 1350. IronGirl01 has 3145, she’s in the small blind and UTG+2.

I have QQ, and at just over 10xBB I’m push or fold. I push and IronGirl calls. She flips over AQ and flops her A to knock me out. As she’s from the Albany area, where I went to college, I’ll let her live… this time.

Right now I only have about $6 in my account. Not much I can do with that. I’ll probably play that in the next few days (buy in short and play a $1 sng), and I if I lose, well I’ll take about a month off until I get my affiliate money in August.

So to my 2-3 readers, don’t be surprised if this blog goes silent for a while. Maybe I’ll try to find some non-poker stuff to blog about. I lead a rather boring life so we’ll see.

[insert witty closing line here]

A Turning Point

Katitude was recently talking about online poker:

"I'm falling out of love."

I think this best describes my feelings. But the other common expression fits. "It's not you, it's me."
...more...

I've had an epiphany. I'm no good at poker. At least not at online. And I haven't played enough live to get a grasp of my abilities (I do well at my homegames and I've done ok at Foxwoods- if I'm not playing limit). I play live poker, maybe 10 times a year.

Online I had a good run turning $20 into $400. But that was after I turned $100 into $0 and $50 into $20. I have since turned that $400 into $0. I've even made a few more deposits... all down to $0. The more I think about turning that cash into $400, I realize it was really just a run of luck (You mean you don't normally get Quads 4 times a week??? I thought everyone did).

Even recently in cash games, I've noticed any big pots I won... suckouts. I just can't seem to get my money in good, and that's losing poker.

I blew through my recent deposits playing bigger stakes (1/2 - .50/1) and even the micros again (I recently blew threw my final 3 buy-ins in 30 minutes @ .05/.10). I've had a little more luck at tournaments, winning the Blogger Donkament a few weeks back and final tabling some blogger tournaments too (unfortunately I didn't cash). But my luck at SnGs has dried up.

All that's sitting in my account is one 26 token and about $20 in rakeback and affiliate money that was just deposited. And that's what I'll probably stick with. Not playing much, accept when I get some affiliate money.

I'll continue to play live on occasion, home game and at Foxwoods (actually I think I'm going to enter a preliminary event at the WPT Finals this year- the $300 shootout). But don't expect to see me on the virtual felt much... unless I can change my game around.

Side note:
Congrats to my buddy Slappy, aka PokerBrian322. Despite not being a blogger, he took down the MATH this week. And he was at Foxwoods this past weekend and took down a $1100 pot @ 1/2 NL. Congrats you beast!