One of those sessions ...

Date: Tue, May 13, 2008 Professional Internet

So I had one of those sessions. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones that look like a smiley face but leave you filled more relieved than happy. It leaves you not wanting to think about poker at all - almost empty. You all know ... "The Swong":

So I think that there is more than just your standard variance at play here. Let's examine the session more closely.

A) At the beginning, nothing was going right. I my c-bets got raised, I would miss a lot of flops, and I even value-owned myself in a few spots where I just should not have. Right off the bat the session is not going the right direction:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602517

B) Ahh ... the dreaded "I get my money in ahead and you're drawing to two outs but you hit" play. Now I'm really starting to get pissed as I can't win a hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602511

C) Now I'm stuck 3 buy-ins and have only won one hand of remote significance. I pick up QQ and get 4-bet shoved. This is AK almost always and since I'm stuck, I welcome the flip:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602508

D) I hate the world. Here is pretty much tilt vs. a bad short-stack:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602506

At this point I decide to take a break and go get something dinner. I'm just having one of those crappy sessions and as long as I can SOME of it back I'll be happy.

E) Things are going a lot better after dinner. I'm winning pots, hitting flops, and slowly coming back. Then I flop a set and get it AI vs. TP + OESD:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602491

... and we're back down to being stuck around 5 BIs. So at this point I'm just NOT in a good mindset. The only thing that's keeping me going is knowing that I'm not tilting any more and that I'm +EV in these games. I'm basically hoping to get some of the money back and at least quit on a positive note.

The interesting thing is that I don't quit until I'm in the green. So ... why do we have this desire to note have losing sessions? When I got "unstuck", I was just happy to go to bed. Towards the end, I don't think I was playing my A-game, but I'm happy to have gotten my loses back. Is that really a good thing though? We will have losing days, so if my focus is to always get "unstuck" when I'm stuck then I'm bound to play a lot of sub-optimal poker.

I did have a 5 BI stop-loss set in mind though. I think if I play much longer past that point then I'm just really burning money. I flirted with that line but never lingered there. Of course if I stopped playing then this session would linger with me. "You just played horrible poker! You even tilted! You suck!" These negative emotions would stay inside my mind and wouldn't leave until I played what I consider "good, solid poker".

What I needed is just to cooler someone with a big and and that would get me on the right path. This is exactly what happened in point F. If that doesn't happen then I probably quit soon:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602494

After a while, I was happy to play some break-even poker. At least I stopped the bleeding and I know I wasn't tilting anymore. This is what happened between F and G.

In the end, I was simply playing good poker and winning.

G) I raise for value and then slow-play the turn:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602501

H) Huge calling station - he'll never fold and ace on the turn and I decided to make my line a bit bluffy:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602499

I) I took the guy of a hand last time in position and figured he's shoving JJ+ for stacks here:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602496

At that point I decided to not quit until I broke even. In the hand that did it, I decided to raise his donk lead and then just called him down when I had some showdown value:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2602498

When I did, I quit feeling more relief than joy. This makes me wonder if the whole thing was worth it. In the end, I justifited it that I need to grind anyhow and I might as well get myself in that mindset.

100NL on Stars Update

Date: Sat, May 10, 2008 Professional Internet

May at 100NL on Stars:

So I've been playing 100NL on Stars and am running at 8.48 BB/100 over the last 10,339 hands. What I'm most happy with is that I have been playing pretty low-variance poker there. I'm still running at 25/20 but a lot of that is from late position.

With school over in two weeks I'm not going to be able to start playing right away - I'm going to be working at a summer camp for a while, then Katy and I are going to travel to Washington D.C., then it's camp again, then it's traveling to Poland. I'm not going to be able to do much serious grinding until July. I think when I start again it will be a mixture of 100NL and 200NL to begin with. My hourly rate at those levels is comfortable enough to be worth my time and the variance is much lower than 400NL - 1000NL.

So that's my 1/3 of the month update ... I haven't been messing around too much with HU or PLO - just working on my 6-max NLHE game.

Traditional Education

Date: Wed, May 7, 2008 Professional Internet

I've been around education all my life. I've also been around traditional public education for as long as I remember. Next year I will not be teaching at the public school. In many ways, I feel like I have not been a very good teacher. I hate grading and I find it hard to teach the whole day. I'm low on energy and recently I've been very low on motivation.

I love teaching, but I don't like school the way it is right now. Ask high school students how many of them like school. Most will say they don't. Ask high school teachers the same question. I really want to be a good teacher, but I'm having serious doubts whether I want to be part of this system - a system which I feel is broken - again.

The traditional lecture format is alright for transmitting information, but obviously not ideal. A student-mentor relationship is much more conducive to learning, but also hard to have since there are so many students and not enough teachers.

One of the big things that I've been thinking about recently is whether high school should be mandatory. I see so many high school students completely indifferent to the classes they are taking. Just how much does Chemistry, Algebra III, and Lit Comp 11 have to do with what they will do for the rest of their lives. Think back to your high school education. What percentage of the time spent was spent well? I'm having a real hard time being part of this system. Just how much good is done in those 4 years relative to the cost of time and tax payer money?

Basically, I feel like the high school educational system is antiquated. It's like if all poker players were forced to learn from Super Systems for 4 hours per day.

On the other hand, I feel like CR is a much better learning environment. You can study as little or as much as you want to. Most of the teachers are excellent and very clear in communicating ideas. The forums are their for discussion. Blogs let you reflect. And you are paying for it so you are motivated to learn.

I wish more education was like this. I believe in what CR is doing educationally much more than what our public (and some private) schools are.

This won't happen at 6-max ...

Date: Tue, Apr 29, 2008 Professional Internet

Just before going to bed I saw this guy that I saw playing 50NL HU earlier today. He had some pretty big stacks so I sat down and 25 minutes later, as aejones would say "ship ship, mcgipp".

The guy was really aggro so I started doing things like limping the button a lot more and folding a lot more to his 3-bets. I also tightened up in general. Basically - trying to put myself in really +EV spots instead of looking for the small edge. Here are two key hands ...

In hand 1, I have huge odds pre-flop so I call with a hand that plays great post-flop in position. The flop is a clear value raise this deep. He shoves and I hold vs. his straight draw.

In hand 2, he's been calling a LOT of my 3-bets so I decided to just call pre-flop as I can check-raise a lot of flops and take him to value town with dominated hands. He calls me pretty lightly on the river - which is why you shouldn't try to bluff this type of player when playing HU.

Anyhow - it was pretty funny to make in 164 hands what took so long to make grinding 50NL. HU is uber-profitable as long as you can handle the bad beats and are able to table select well and adjust to your opponents.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $215.70
Hero (SB): $160

Pre-Flop: 9 8 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero raises to $3, BB raises to $9, Hero calls $6

Flop: ($18) 9 8 3 (2 Players)
BB bets $14, Hero raises to $38, BB raises to $206.70 and is All-In, Hero calls $113 and is All-In

Turn: ($320) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($320) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $320 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
BB showed 7 6 (King Nine high) and LOST (-$160 NET)
Hero showed 9 8 (two pair, Nines and Eights) and WON $319.50 (+$159.50 NET)

Full Tilt Poker, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $117.20
Hero (BB): $296.40

Pre-Flop: K Q dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $3, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6) 5 K J (2 Players)

Hero checks, SB bets $6, Hero raises to $18, SB calls $12

Turn: ($42) Q (2 Players)
Hero bets $24, SB calls $24

River: ($90) 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets $251.40 and is All-In, SB calls $72.20 and is All-In

Results: $234.40 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
SB mucked 9 Q (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$117.20 NET)
Hero showed K Q (two pair, Kings and Queens) and WON $233.90 (+$116.70 NET)

I think I am going to grind 100NL 6-max and still play some 50NL HU. I have some big leaks in my HU game that I would like to explore and 50NL is as good a place for me to do it as any. As I've told numerous people - I'm in no hurry to get to the high stakes. I think once I start playing full time it will be a combination of 200NL 6-max and 100NL HU ... but I think that even 100NL 6-max is profitable for what I'm looking for.

Done With 50NL Grinding ...

Date: Tue, Apr 29, 2008 Professional Internet

So I've been putting in the hours and hands at 50NL to make the 50NL video series and get a good idea for how some of the players play. If I'm ever busto I know I can grind my way back and I won't have to beg RodeoBlue or PrincesDonk to stake me :) Here are my final numbers:

PT Numbers:

Obligatory Graph:

I'm much happier with my play towards the end. For one, I started playing more tables and with it, more ABC poker. I think that it's the way to go at these stakes. My biggest downswing during that time was like 5.5 BI's and it looks like I had two of them which were 4 BI's. Crazy how all this is like one BB at the Phil Ivey Death Match table.

My 3 biggest winners:

1. Don't fold KK pre-flop: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2541775

2. No one can fold a straight: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2541777

3. I had odds to call pre-flop: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2541779

And the biggest loser:

Sigh ... I figured he might have a set, but this is a cooler with all the dead $$ in the pot and all the draws out there:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2541799

My MTT ratio was 4.37 during this (and much higher towards the end). I feel like there was quite a bit of spew in some of my hands. Meh. I also feel like I played too many hands - some of the hands upon review I just need to take out of my range.

So here is my question - how much interest would there be in me doing a PT review of the 12,540 hands and showing how to look for leaks in one's game for my next video?

Basically, I would start with the stats and then move positionally and talk about which hands were profitable, which were unprofitable, and what adjustments I should make for the next xxx hands that I plan to play.

Let me know what you think! I'm going to post this to the low-limit forum as well.

Table Talk

Date: Mon, Apr 28, 2008 Professional Internet

I played a really short session of 50NL today and here are some hands I saw and the chat that followed:

Hand 1:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $76.10
Hero (BB): $81
UTG: $49.35
MP: $50
CO: $76
BTN: $68.95

Pre-Flop: 7 Q dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG raises to $1.75, 2 folds, BTN raises to $6, 2 folds, UTG calls $4.25

Flop: ($12.75) 4 2 7 (2 Players)
UTG checks, BTN bets $11, UTG calls $11

Turn: ($34.75) 4 (2 Players)
UTG checks, BTN bets $51.95 and is All-In, UTG calls $32.35 and is All-In

River: ($99.45) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $99.45 Pot ($3 Rake)
UTG showed 2 2 (a full house, Twos full of Fours) and WON $96.45 (+$47.10 NET)
BTN showed Q Q (two pair, Queens and Fours) and LOST (-$49.35 NET)

KyleG2222: wtf
KyleG2222: you call reraises with 22
KyleG2222: so fukin bad
KyleG2222: your not even 100 BB deep
KyleG2222: no set equity
KyleG2222: lmao
KyleG2222: you fukin idiot
atr3124: sorry dude

Hand 2

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $50.25
BB: $50
Hero (UTG): $150.65
MP: $204.70
CO: $45.75
BTN: $22.55

Pre-Flop: 2 7 dealt to Hero (UTG)
2 folds, CO raises to $1.50, BTN calls $1.50, SB calls $1.25, BB folds

Flop: ($5) 2 A 7 (3 Players)
SB checks, CO checks, BTN bets $3.25, SB folds, CO calls $3.25

Turn: ($11.50) 8 (2 Players)
CO checks, BTN bets $8, CO calls $8

River: ($27.50) 6 (2 Players)
CO checks, BTN checks

Results: $27.50 Pot ($1.35 Rake)
CO showed 6 8 (two pair, Eights and Sixes) and WON $26.15 (+$13.40 NET)
BTN showed A J (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$12.75 NET)

enviouspoker321: no comment
enviouspoker321: calls without odds for flush, gets runners
enviouspoker321: . . .
enviouspoker321: lucky idiot
enviouspoker321: so terrible

Hand 3

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

CO: $50
BTN: $52
Hero (SB): $151.90
BB: $203.95
UTG: $68

Pre-Flop: 5 7 dealt to Hero (SB)

UTG folds, CO raises to $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, Hero calls $1.50, BB raises to $8.75, CO folds, BTN raises to $24, Hero folds, BB raises to $203.95 and is All-In, BTN calls $28 and is All-In

Flop: ($107.50) 4 6 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($107.50) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($107.50) 9 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $107.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
BTN showed K A (Ace King high) and LOST (-$52 NET)
BB showed K T (a straight, Ten high) and WON $104.50 (+$52.50 NET)

KephreN85: ...
KephreN85: MY GOD
xThugxLifex: yeah thats tough
Skarazza: lol what a suckoput
KephreN85: What an idiotic 4bet push
FishEaterSkiz: ha
KephreN85: gratz for being stupid Thug

So ... why do people feel inclined to berate the play of others? I'm sure you've heard the expression "don't tap the glass". If you think someone is playing badly just buddy list them. If they just sucked out on you, think about why they might have made the play they did and play them accordingly.

I can understand why all three players made the plays they did. Yes, in hand 1 UTG called w/o good odds to flop a set being OOP, but he wanted to see a flop and got lucky. The BTN's turn shove is a bad play IMO unless he's hoping to rep AK and wants to get called by some random pocket pair. Why is he shoving the turn?

In hand 2, people don't like to fold flush draws and on the turn once he picked up a combo draw he's not going anywhere. We can talk about the BTN's call with AJ on the button pre-flop, but sometimes that's fine. He played it fine and lost. Oh well.

In hand 3, the BB is squeezing and could put the BTN on 66 - 99 which is calling his "bluff". Yes, the BTN usually has a strong hand there and KT is a bad hand to 5-bet shove, but he had some read and went with it. He was wrong but got lucky. That's the beauty of poker though :)

Anyhow ... you won't see many long term winners/regulars going off on tirades about the poor play of others at their tables for a reason.

A few notes from 50NL

Date: Sun, Apr 27, 2008 Professional Internet

I've been thinking about two hands that I played. The first one is more interesting than the 2nd one just because the results suprised me a bit.

Basically, the guy flops the nuts on me in a re-raised pots and finds himself flipping:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2531907

In the 2nd hand, I flop a set and get check/raised min on a board which has a gut-shot SD + FD. I almost always like to 3-bet this type of board but here I elect to cold-call in position. Of course it doesn't make a difference, but I had no idea he was that strong. If I'm OOP then I'm 3-betting this like 95% of the time:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2531923

Other than that, I find myself calling too many river bets when I have 2nd pair and justifying it by saying "I checked the turn for pot control so now I have to call a bluff" whereas I really don't. For example:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2531936

And this one:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2531944

I feel like w/o a read calling here is usually -EV and is a leak.

Swong

Date: Wed, Apr 23, 2008 Professional Internet

I take a lot of pride in my work and one of the things I really like about working for CR is the feedback members leave you. CR members have a LOT of say in the direction that the company is going. This is not to say that Taylor and Co will bend to every wim and whine, but no one can't say that they don't listen and try their hardest to make sure members are happy. There is a lot of two way conversations that take place.

This is capitalism in its purest sense. The good stay and the bad go. The feedback process is key in all this. CR tries a bunch of things, members say "we like this" and/or "we hate this" and then at the end of the day you have a more refined product. Of course sometimes people might not like something due to its novelty and will learn to like it later, but for the most part, the process works.

This is something I've really tried to do with my videos and am pretty happy with the results. A lot of it has to do with listening to feedback and trying out different things. I looked at my seven videos so far and all I could think about was "swong".

This is kind of silly, but it illustrates the fact that we are trying to come up with the best possible product. I rember when I was in LA with the CR guys and Taylor started tilting because he was getting low ratings on one of his videos. It was really funny, but still - company pride = good news for members.

I think of all the adjustments and feedback and then incorporate that into the next video. Thus you are that much closer to getting the product you want. There is also a element of experimenting - sometimes you take risks and see if members like it or hate it, but that's life. You learn and move on.

This video series (even though it's only two videos) seems to have worked out well. I am currently at about 7K hands at 50NL which will give me a much better sample size to make the next set of videos. I don't plan on just making the replayer videos, but once I have right around 10K hands then I think I will have a pretty good sample size to make a good new series. I think 50NL is a good limit to do this as well - it's a bridge between the lower stakes and the higher ones (well ... so is 100NL, but they don't play THAT differently on FTP from my experience).

Anyhow - thanks for all the feedback - good and bad - it's helped to push me as a video producer and as a player.

A 50 NL Hand

Date: Mon, Apr 21, 2008 Professional Internet

I played this hand the other day which made me think of this idea of leaks in my game. I don't have the HH on me so I will just try to generate it the best I can.

Some Background Info:

I'm playing pretty aggressive and the villain in this hand is a regular - probably a CR member. In one of the previous orbits he called my CO raise with T9o and then raised my c-bet on a Q67 flop with a spade draw. I called and the turn and river went check/check and I took it down with KQo.

Thus, my read on him is that he likes to play tricky/trappy but will give up when his bluff is called. From his pre-flop numbers (19/16 or so) I also venture to say he's pretty solid and definitely not a level 1 thinker.

The Hand:

So ... this is a SB/BB situation. Everyone folds to me and I look down at

I raise and he calls. The flop hits me pretty hard:

Now - as exciting as this is, the whole idea is now to try to get paid with this flop. I think checking here would be pretty bad as checking here and then showing aggression on later streets screams monster, so I start out by betting $2 into the $3 and he calls. The turn is pretty innocuous:

So ... my options are to check or bet. Because one of my reads is that he's pretty trappy/tricky, I decide to let him try to push me off the hand. I think I'll still get called if I bet, but by checking I can potentially put more money into the pot.

So I check, he bets $5 into the $9 and now it's decision time. I feel like this is one of those situations that if I am not creative enough and miss out on value, it's a leak in my game. I've been thinking about this idea of leaks as not just money you are actively losing (shows up in red in PT), but money you're not winning by playin your hands incorrectly (much harder to spot).

Anyhow ... what would be your plan here? Bet again, check/call, or check raise? If you any of the above and get to the river, what's your plan there?

Rake and VPIP at 100NL

Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008 Professional Internet

Setting Up Paramenters

dispatch3d asked about the relationship between one's VPIP and Rake as it relates to bb/100 at 100NL. I've taken three players to analyze with the following conditions:

1. Similar winrate
2. Similar sample size
3. Different VPIP

Initial Results

Here is the raw data I compiled for 100NL (just looking at 3 pretty similar players)

(*) bb/100 (RK) is the effect of rake on the person's winrate - our key factor

Now ... as you can see, the winrates are pretty similar. Let's make some observations:

• There is no clear relationship between VPIP and MGR. This means that even if you are not getting that many hands in, you will still get the rakeback and FPP.

• There seems to be a clear relationship between VPIP and rake as it relates to the winrate. The correlation coefficient between VPIP and bb/100 (RK) is 0.997 - an almost perfect one.

• Using this data, the function for measuring the effect of rake on winrate as a function of VPIP is:

Looking to open up your game and fix leaks?

Date: Wed, Apr 16, 2008 Professional Internet

Edit: I found two people for the time being ... thanks for all the interest!

I want to do a 3-hour leak-plugging session with two 50NL or 100NL regulars. Here is what I'm looking for:

• Your VPIP is < 20
• You have at least 20K hands at 50NL or 100NL since February 16 (two months) and this is your current limit
• You are a marginal winner (<2 ptbb/100) or loser for those 20K hands
• You are able to do the session between 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. EST (US Time) and maybe between 2:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays.

That said, here is what I plan to do during the three 1-hour-ish sessions:

1. Session 1 (Leak Finder) - we will spend 1 hour reviewing your PT database, looking for leaks, places to open up your game, and discussing different lines you took with hands.
2. Session 2 (Live Session) - I will spend and hour watching you play and disussing decisions that you are making. Your more traditional coaching
3. You'll play 10K hands on your own and then we'll do another PT review for an hour.

The overall idea is to open up your game in a few places and plug some leaks which will hopefully become obvious from your sample size.

If you meet these criteria and are interested in doing this, please shoot me a PM giving me your VPIP, PFR, and winrate over the last 20K hands along with the limit and site you play on. I'll let you know what rate I'm charging. I'll take the first two people that I think I'll be able to work with. I've been thinking about this format and want to give it a shot.

50NL so far ...

Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 Professional Internet

I started out 50NL really rocky - broke even over 3,700 hands and then boom - started winning lots. Right now I'm running relatively well over a small sample. I will try to get around 10K hands before making the SSNL 50NL video series. If that goes we'll we'll do some more at 100NL and 200NL. I'm getting into a bunch of interesting spots which will make good discussion in videos though.

The thing is that aside for my winrate, through the first 3,700 hands or so all my other PT numbers were the same. Thus, I don't think PT numbers are all that important after you have the basics down. 25/20/3 seems pretty solid, but in the end, what matters is:

1. Are your hands holding up in big pots? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. The more often your 70/30's hold and the more flips you win, the better the winrate obv. This is just your standard variance though.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1760800

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1760813

2. Are you able to not tilt? Anyone will tell you that that's huge.

3. Are you able to foster an image which gets you paid off while at the same time not spewing? People will remember the really donky moves you've made and will forget that 95% of the time you play solid, aggressive poker.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1760833

4. Finally, are you able to play your big hands in such a way that you get max value out of them? Here is an example from today which I'm really happy with.

I played this JJ hand which I thought was pretty interesting (playing mid pocket pairs: 88 - JJ, is really tough in general). Here is the breakdown:

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Lombric ($49.25)
Seat 2: payoffwizard88 ($50) -
Seat 3: TheXC ($118.55) -
Seat 4: wfox ($73.75) -
Seat 5: KK_Reno_KK ($34.50)
Seat 6: albedo ($50.75)

PRE-FLOP:

TheXC posts small blind $0.25
wfox posts BIG blind $0.50
Dealt To: TheXC


FOLD KK_Reno_KK
FOLD albedo
FOLD Lombric
FOLD payoffwizard88
RAISE TheXC($1.50)
RAISE wfox($5)
CALL TheXC($3.50)

Pre-flop, wfox is playing really aggressive (46/35). We are also deep so I decide to see a flop. I think that he's going to fire out at 100% of the flops whereas if I re-raise, he's going to shove with QQ - AA, AK and maybe AQ and fold out a lot of other stuff that would come along and that I'm ahead of. So let's play some poker.

FLOP:

Pot: $10


CHECK TheXC
BET wfox($7.50)
CALL TheXC($7.50)

Great flop for me. No need to check/raise as I'm either WA/WB and he'll either shove or fold worse most of the time. Yeah, there are draws, but I am opting for pot control here.

TURN:

Pot: $25


BET TheXC($13)
CALL wfox($13)

Obvoiously a great turn for me. I decide that if he has someting like Ax with the Ah I don't want to give him a free card. Now the board is starting to get dangerous so I want to take charge of the hand. c/r here looks super strong and when he just calls me here I am pretty sure he's got some sort of heart. Probably the Ah.

RIVER:

Pot: $51


CHECK TheXC
BET wfox($28.75)
RAISE TheXC($57.50)
FOLD wfox
UNCALLED TheXC($28.75)
MUCK TheXC

The Ace comes on the river. Now I want to rep a hand like 99 or TT which went tried to take him off his high cards on the turn but is now giving up. The Ace is also a GREAT card for him to bluff if he puts me on some sort of pocket pair. I think he'll try to value bet his bluffs (a big part of a 46/35/4 player's range) here almost always when I check. Thus, there is the most value to be made by c/r. He bets about 60% pot and I shove. He folds.

TheXC collected $105.5 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $108 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: Lombric didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 2: payoffwizard88 button didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: TheXC small blind collected 105.50, mucked - Net Gain/Loss: ($51.25)
Seat 4: wfox big blind folded on the River - Net Gain/Loss: ($-54.25)
Seat 5: KK_Reno_KK didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 6: albedo didnt bet folded - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)

Investing

Date: Mon, Apr 14, 2008 Professional Internet

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about money, investing, retirement, and all that good stuff that goes along with it. The advice I hear a lot these days is “Max out your roth IRA”.

I don’t know much about them, but from what I understand, you can put in $6,000 per person and you don’t have to pay taxes on the interest you make when you take it out. But … at what age can I take the money out?

After reading “The 4 hour Workweek” book, I’ve been thinking about this idea of “Mini-Retirements” – taking time off from your regular job to do things that you would like to do when you retire. Two goals of mine that I’ve had since grad school have been to run the Boston Marathon and to hike the Appalachian Trail. I’ve had a lot of friends who have done both but I have not taken a serious shot at either.

Two foot injuries have kept me from serious marathon training and my job/life has kept me from taking a serious shot at the AT. That said, I feel like poker really gives me the freedom to do the things I want to do.

So … back to investing. I have very little experience with investing, but I want to have money available for different projects I take on. Thus, I don’t want to wait until I’m 68 or 70 to touch it. I’m going to start investing chunks of it and want to look into my options:

1. Savings account – very liquid, very small return.
2. Mutual funds – probably the best bet for a person like me. I will have to do some research into this.
3. Roth IRA – I just don’t know enough about those.

All that said, what would be my best bet for a medium ($25,000 - $50,000) sum of money which I want to start working for me?

50NL vs. CR members

I've also been playing a lot of 50NL recently and will put together a series of videos which will come out of those hands. I'm not recording any individual sessions, but will come back and use the replayer (i.e. verneer # 6). I've been faced with a lot of good players, but I have often had the feeling that people will try to 3-bet and 4-bet me just because they know who I am. This means that I will sometimes take a non-standard line because "I know that they know" etc etc. So ... it is what it is.

I've been playing something like 24/21 and haven't been getting out of line that much. I am trying out some different lines which might seem spewy at the time but I'll talk about that later on in one of the videos. I'm at around 6K hands right now and am looking to play there for the rest of April before making the series.

"In his new video, Verneer discusses how to spew massive amounts of chips at 50NL. 1 table, Full Tilt." :)

I remember specifically playing against two of Josh Gardiner (joshuadzlabceqqqaf or whatever his name is) students and thinking that they both play very well. At one point I remember being frustrated that one of them is getting the better of me and didn't realize that Josh is coaching him. Anyhow - kudos to his coaching as I felt that they are both very solid and very aggressive players.

Fixing a leak ...

Date: Wed, Apr 9, 2008 Professional Internet

Hookem and I were sweating Dice14 who was playing 400NL today. We were looking for potential leaks and evaluating his game at one point he gets it all-in with JJ vs. A8 on a T84 board vs. a short-stack. Joe yelled "got 'im!" just before an 8 came on the river.

This of course is a huge leak. It's like telling a pitcher "you're pitching a no hitter!" We berated him for like 11 minutes straight and he ended up yelling "got 'im" on numerous situations only after the river came and we in fact, got them.

So whenever you are going through some rough times, get some friends to sweat you and help you look for leaks.