well it happened.

I just played six 6.50 sngs on stars and didn't cash in one.

i made one donk play where i rr all in out of the blinds with AJ when i should of folded.

Made another donkish play when i raised from the button with q-10s to 300 with 50-100 blinds, got min raised from the bb. and i called. we both have over 3k. flop come AKX with 2 of my suits. I push for some reason, and get called by AQ. missed my 13 outs on the turn, but got a 10, missed my 15 outs on the river. really i should of folded the hand pre-flop. I felt the guy was strong, and i am in trouble with tons of flops. Also i had plenty of chips.

lost all in pre-flop with my A-X vs KQ twice. Lost a 4200 chip pot with AK vs K4. so really...i don't think i played horrible. I am sure i wasn't playing my best...but really i got put out 4 out of the 6 when i was ahead.

such is the norm for me. I do well in something for a bit, and then hit a wall. But i have learned from my past mistakes. i am not going to play anymore online today. Odds are i will not play online tomorrow. If i do i will probably play the 3.40 sng's on stars. The thing is i play well, but get unlucky for a bit. that's all normal, but after i get unlucky for a while i start kind of leaking. Its not full blown tilt, but playing passive, calling too much, and making donk plays. So i am going to take it easy for a few days.

Usually this is the time that i change to a different game, but really i think sng's are what i need to focus on. I am positive i can maintain a 10-20% roi in them, and they fit my playing habits perfectly (short burst, laggie) I just think i took a normal bad streak. I am positive after a short break i will be playing well, and hopefully the cards will better than they have been.

I will have this all turned around soon enough.

Take's a SNG grinder?

Apparently so.

I am a lazy guy. no denying that one. And with poker i am the same way. Online i rarely put in monster sesions, and i am not really good at playing X hours a day. Poker is just a hobby to me, but i would like to clear some money from it. At the rate i am going with my MTT, and Cash games, it would take forever. but not with sng's

Turbo sng's.

last under a hour...so it keep my attention.
Able to multi table them easily...$$$
Lets me be the lagtard...yusss

Its the perfect fit. The perfect game for me to spend most of my time.

As of right now i can 4 table turbos. I am very confident that when i get a larger monitor/better at turbos, i will be able to 6-8 table. This will be great, because i can stay focused for that long, and i will be turning a decent profit. I like playing sets also, so its easy to stop if i am doing bad. I am sure i could put in 2-3 sets during the weekdays, and play a lot more on Friday nights and Saturdays. Also sng's are a lower variance form of poker.

As of right now i am playing the 6.50's on stars. The play is bad for the most part. There are still some guys that somewhat know what they are doing, but its not that bad.

I don't know why, but i am scared of "Regulars". I use to think i could kill any poker game, but now i am worried about playing better players. But i think i will be fine if i just jump in with them. granted i am going to have the proper bankroll before i move up the ladder, but i think i will be fine. Just try to avoid them, and learn from them when i do end up at the same table. Someone has to beat these things, might as well be me.

Today i played 4 6.50s and got out of the money in 3 and won the 4th one for a big 1 dollar profit.

sng's

did another round of sng's

started 2 5.50 9 man. busted out of one on some draw outs, so i opened up 3 6.50 turbos.

I have kindof avoided turbos before because i thought my edge was in the early part. After playing a few i found my edge was much larger when the blinds got bigger. I am not scared to push, or to bust out before the money. so, i thought i would give the turbos a shot.

things went pretty good. Granted i think i am running a wee bit better than normal, but it isn't some crazy heater. I think i am learning with every sng i play. I have always had a pretty good feel for pushes, and with a little bit of work i should be good to go. Also the 6.50's are full of donks, and 4 tabling them should make me some nice money. (when i upgrade to a larger monitor i think 6 tabling will easy)

nice money untill i get tired of them and move to a different game. I will probally end up being profitable in every single form of online poker (if it is still around) eventually. It helps me to move around. avoids the leaking type tilt i am bad about. All tho the downside to me moving around is i probally could be making more money by just playing/learning one game. But eventually when i get good at all these things i will have all sorts of freadom to search out good games, and play what i am feeling like.

5.50-0$
5.50-22.50
6.50-0$
6.50-10.80
6.50-16.20

oh yes. i run good.

I think i am in for some Variance

well beings i have won every pot for the last 2 weeks, its about time for me to lose a few.

Yesterday i played some 10.50 heads up matches, went win, win, loss, loss. The last losses were against a player i think i have a nice edge against, but i just couldn't do anything right. every bluff got min raised, every value bet got folded. oh well.

Beings FTP is running the 50 dollar bonus thing, i decided to 4 table some 9 man sng's. The idea was to play 2 5.50s, and 2 11 dollar. but some how i entered 3 11s and 2 5.50s. EEEKKK. there is a decent amount of overlap with my current set up on ftp with 4 tables....with 5 its horrible. But regardless i busted out of the first 3 and got a 1st in a 5.50, and 2nd in a 11. the second in the 11 hurt, because i had him all in 2 times for all of his chips. both were 50/50's, but the thing is i got him down, and he won a coinflip. so i have 3-4k, claw my way up and we do another coin flip, he wins, and i am down to 4k again. blah. ended up making a small profit. But i think it could of been more had i not opened the 5th sng. i made a few errors that wouldn't of happened.

Today i have lost about 7 bucks in cash games. I have probally played less than 100 hands, but i am getting in that mood where i am wanting to get back the money i use to have. This is how my last downswing happened. I had around 500 online and pissed it down to 300 in a couple of days.

Thats not going to happen this time.

i would like to put in some hours so i could get the 50 dollar bonus, but its not good if i piss away 70 dollars to get it. So i am going to run one set of 5.50 9 man's and see how things go. If i do well, i will probally keep on doing that, or do half 5.50/half 11. If things go bad i am going to take the weekend off, then come back monday and grind it out on the omaha hi-low, and razz tables.

NOOOOO GLUE TILT THIS TIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...i hope.

Short Stack Live

Yesterday i finally got in the mood to play poker again. Just havn't really felt like it. guess because i am running good. <--lol. Anyways i got off of work, and thought about what to play.

This is important for me to give my self a bit of time to decide what i want to play. because if i am feeling laggie, and go decide to 4 table hi-low, i am getting smoked. Taking 10 mins or so to decide what my best choice in games is very critical.

Decided I wanted to play some NL sng's. cool beans. But with is the wierd part. ususally i play 6 max sng's, or heads up. But i decided i wanted to try and 4 table 9 man regular sng's. The most i have ever played was 2 sng's at once, and have always had trouble with it. But the last time i tryed it was ages ago, and on my laptop with tons of overlap. sooo....i decided to do 4 tables, and do them in a set. Play 4 untill they are all done. That way i don't skrew up while getting use to the sng's again.

Things went great. I got off to a decent start in one, and pretty well folded untill the blinds hit 50-100. From their i made a few hands and had 2 of the sng's up to 2500+ in chips, and the others were around 1000-1500. Ended up busting out of one, getting a 3rd in another.

Getting the 3rd in the second sng was really a boost. This ment even if i bombed out of the other 2 i was only going to lose 13 bucks. MUUUCH better than droping 22 dollars on what is pretty much a test run. So by now i am 4 and 5 handed, and bust out in 5th in the 3rd sng.

meh, really wanted to get in the money on both of them, but alas we don't always get what we want. So on the final sng, i played pretty good. Was the big stack at the bubble with the shortie in the bb while i was sb. This ment i could 3x the bet on the button/cut off and usually get folds. Then if i didn't have a good hand i would just fold my sb to the short stack.

There was a interesting post about this on pocket fives. Giving up chips to the short stack, so you could take more chips from the other players. While i don't agree with doing this in a MTT, but in a sng i have had a decent amount of luck with this stratagy.

So the bubble burst, and i pretty much had a cake walk to first place. whee.

22.00 in buyins
9.00 for 3rd
22.50 for 1st.
So ended up =9.50 for a ROI of 40 something %

Ok from there i went to the Live 20 dollar re-buy here in mason. 20 bucks gets you 5k in chips, and you start at 50-100 with 30 min blind levels. The structure is really good. nice and slow. So i was staked into it, 17 players. I made a actual ARI move that worked. 6 handed before the we moved to the final table i raised it 3x bb to 1800 at 3-600 blinds with 44 from utg. had around 10k in chips. table had been somewhat tight, but still a bunch of donks. So a player moved all in for around 5k. this guy could be doing this with a somewhat wide range. Then this lady that had only played poker 4 times before called the all in for less than 5k. so it gets to me and there is 300+600+1800+5k+~3k in the pot. I thought for a bit and decided there was too much in the pot for me to fold, and i also thought there was about a 60% chance i was up against overs. the guy had AQ and the girl had AK. I was really happy, untill they hit, but oh well. I was still really happy i called off a lot of chips with way the best of it.

Called a 3xbb raise with 10-6 suited, having about 14 bb's, and thinking the guy was 1) on tilt 2) re-buy period was almost over, and i am looking to maybe take a few chances to get some chips. flop comes 7-8-2 with 2 of my suits. pot has 6.5 bb's in it, i have 12.5 left. I push. He calls with 7-9. Thats about the best i could hope for. I have 3 outs with the 10, 2 with the gutshot, and 9 flush outs. and some random runner runner odd ball crap. spike the 5 of of my suit on the turn, and 4 of my suit for a strait flush. oh yes, i run good. untill i drop 8 bb's on my next hand. blah.

All tournament i had around 10X bb. never had a stack for very long, and just played shortstacked all day. ended up getting down to 4 players and with me as the short stack with ~10X bb. 3 players get payed, but i thought i would try and get some money out of the deal. These guys often make deals that are horrible. 2-1 chip leads will even chop heads up. So i suggested we take 20 dollars a piece out of the pot. everone agreed. wheee. that was horrible on their part, but oh well. We played 2-3 hours with 4 players and most of the time with me and another guy around 8-10Xbb. It didn't bother me, because they were folding to my pushes, and i was treading water easily waiting for a big hand.

Then the blinds go to 2000-4000 and the short stack had ~15K, i had ~20K, 2nd in chips had ~25K, and the chip leader at maybe 35-40K. the other players were getting tired and bored, so i though i would at lease take a shot at making a deal.

After a hand was over i sayed that this was basically a crap shoot, and even the chip leader is gone if he loses 2 hands in a row. With 460 in the pot after we took the 20 dollars out, we could all walk out of here with 135 dollars total, avoid all the luck involved with blinds so high, and we could go home.

well they kindof were quiet, but then it was a "well whatever everyone else wants to do" fest, and i got them to agree to an even chop. WHEEEEEEEEEEEE

That was just a great deal for me. If we had played it out...
0$ for 4th
40 for 3rd
126 for 2nd
294 for 1st.

getting a little less than second place money, while on in 3rd chip position with a 5Xbb stack. I will take that all day long. even tho i think i have a decent edge over them in a situation like this due to all of my sng play, i think this is a great deal.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE again,
-Take

gg online poker?

Neteller bailed on the US kiddies. So the main e-wallet is gonskie. Looks like online poker is taking some pretty big hits. here is my take on the situation...

We will still be able to play. Just going to be a pain in the ass for all the fishies to put 50-200 dollars online every now and then. Still going to be a whole world of people playing, and still going to be some people willing to go to the trouble here to put monies on the sites. So i think this is just going to really hurt the big time players. Its going to be harder to turn a profit when there is less money, and less fishies. Also i think ego is going to eat all but a few of the best players, because they are going to keep fighting it out in hard ass games, just to give a lot of the money to the house. Someone once said the Big Game was like that. Just a group of people taking money from one another when on tilt. Just a back and forth thing.

I think there will be plenty of action down in the micros. i am willing to bet i will have all the 5-20 dollar heads up action i can take, untill they somehow shut down the sites. Also beings i mainly withdraw money by transfering it to buddies 10-20 dollars at a time, its not that huge of an issue to get money off. Granted if i ever started making some major cash i would have to figure something out. but thats nothing to worry about now. (hope i get to make a post about the troubles of getting large sums of money of on-line poker some day) So it looks like i will still get to plug away.

But to be honest...Online poker and me have a love/hate relationship. one week i love it, and then i hate it for a week. even with the good times lasting longer than the bad these days, i still can hate online poker. So even if they did shut down to the US, i really would be somewhat releaved. There is the 20 dollar re-buy every tuesday at town, and JUICY .50-1.00 nl game on most saturdays. also, 100 buck tournaments + side action every month close by. I could get a decent amount of action without the online games. I play better live, and get way less frustrated about it. I was stuck 120 dollars tuesday in a live cash game, and was fine. Clawed my way back to only -72 bucks before i left. if i drop 40 dollars online i am bonkers. Just would free up a lot of time for other things. not that i am complaining. I love playing poker. but if i could only play those 1-2 times a week, i could be doing other things. there is more to live than making my sharkscope roi look good, getting skilled enough to 5 table, and learning how to beat tournaments with more than 20 people in them.

So i am not worried at all. nothing changing, it changing a little, or online poker going away for good. I am ok with it either way. Kindof nice to be able to laugh at the guys shitting bricks on pocketfives over all of this.

ON A SIDE NOTE....i am killing the heads up sng's on Poker Stars. I know i will not be able to keep this kindof winning up over a big number of games, but its nice to play/run good. I am up to ~90 dollars on my Stars account, up 40 from the 50 i put in. Also this is nice because i am putting a decent amount of mony into MTT buyins, with little to show for it. I am getting better tho, and expect some 4.40 final tables soon. But i am thinking of making the move to the 10 dollar heads up matches soon. I am going to give it another week or 2 before i give it a shot. I have around ~350 dollars online after transfering 20 to Jester_cky (he blew it all in 40 mins :-) so i have 70 buyins for the 5 dollar level. I like having 50 buyins, but am comfortable taking a shot at the 10 with 30+ So i think if things keep going well i am going to give the 10 buck matches a shot. Will be playing half 10 half 5 to start with. just so things are not that rough if i were to hit a downswing, or play bad.

I am sticking to the regular speed matches for the most part. I like the turbos, but they take away a lot of the edge i think i have in the middle stages of the match. Granted i think i play well at the end of turbos, but they are more of a crap shoot, where i am going to be getting my money in a lot of the time as a 20% favorite, or dog.

ok done rambling.
-take

ramblings...

So the past few days i have been thinking about poker. Not so much stratagy, but what the game means to me, and what i should be doing. I kindof came to the realization that i am not looking to be some big time poker king. I am not driven enough to get to those levels, and honestly, i don't think i could handle the emotional load. If i could one day max out a Roth IRA, and buy something nice once every couple of months, i would be the happiest kid on the block.

Also i realised that there are way to many people that are decent at low limit NL cash games. The .05-.10 nl game on UB is harder that the 1.00-2.00 FTP games was 2 years ago. Turbo SNG's are also filled with push bots playing 234543 tables at a time, making 10-20% roi. there are too many good players in some forms of online poker. if i was dead set on being a high limit player, i would just have to learn to beat them. But i'm not. So i am moving my play, and focusing on where i think the most fishies are.

1)Limit cash games such as razz, omaha hi-low, and 2-7 triple draw are going to be a good spot for my money. The play is horrible, and much less variance (except for 2-7, and that is always played with a stop-lost, or lower limit). I think past the 2-4 level it will get tougher, but i am a long ways from being bankrolled for that. But with my bankroll, i can play 4 tables of Razz, make 2 BB per 100 hands, and make some decent money when i get to the 1-2 level. It wouldn't be that hard to play 6+ tables of 1-2 limit and make some decent money just by playing ABC poker. Great action, and less variance that my other forms of poker i am going to focus on. Guess this will be my "Base Camp" ala Graps.

2)Heads up SNG's. I have always been good at these. Played 50 dollar heads up matches with great results a year ago, and i am a much better player now that i was then. Getting in some heads up helps your reads, picking up betting patterns, and just generaly helps your game. Also the games are pretty weak. I rarely run up against a player that i wouldn't want to play all day long. I am hopeing to play these, and move up in stakes untill i start running into too many regulars. Heads up is a mental game, and keeping emotions out of the game can be hard. So i will probally stay well within my skill level. If i get to where i can beat the bigger levels, then i will play them, but i really am not looking to move up fast. Just plug aways making the monies off the fish.

3)MTT's. If there is one form of poker i have had the most trouble with, its tournaments. Always played poor, and felt lost in them. But when you enter a 10 dollar MTT, you are probally up against 80%+ of fish. sit down at a .50-1.00 nl game on stars, you are going to have some fish, but there also will be plenty of decent players and odds are 1 or 2 regulars. MTT's have their sharks too, but mostly its fish. Watching replays of 100r shows some very weak plays. I really think there is, and will be tons of money to be made in MTT's, without having to good players at every table. The stars million is probally one of the weaker fields around, and if you win it you get 100k+. Just seems like MTT's are always going to be donkaments. So this being said, i am spending a lot of money i make lately on tournament buy ins. I am trying hard, and think i am on my way to being +ev in low buyin tournaments. Even if i just play the 4, 10 dollar 180 man sng's a win every now and then will be great. Making it threw the 3, 5 or 11R on stars and you are talking about some really good money.

So here is the plan...Play Fixed limit games 60% of the time, with some heads up sng's probally around 20% of the time. Spend 30% of the time learning MTT's and getting better.
My dream poker situation would be playing 2-4 limit games as a nice lower variance money maker, 20-50 dollar heads up matches when i feel like playing a lot (gamboooling), and up to 50 dollar mtt's with some satalites into the majors every week. This will let me make some nice money regularly, and possibly hit a huge score.

Thats the plan for now. Will probally change in a week, knowing me.

-take

Poker Stars = Yumm

So i have been playing mostly on Poker Stars, beings it works well while i am at my house. The games are great. Really kicking my self for not moving some money back on earlier. I really am not going to be playing as much as i usually have been. To be honest, unless i go on some super rush on the learning curve, and stakes, i am never going to sit at the high stakes tables. If if were to happen, whoooo hooo, but I am going to be spending less time playing. I really think it will cut down on the emotional attachment to the game that i have had problems with.

Really all i would like from poker is to have some extra money. If i could make enough money to max out a Roth IRA, just from poker, i would be the happiest kid on the block. So i am not going to put so much into what is basically a hobby. And i am very lucky that poker is my hobby, and it doesn't cost me anything. Fun will be when my hobby makes me money :-)

55 free bucks...o rly?

I just got off the phone with a friend, and we havn't been in touch much. so we were doing the generic chit chat, when he asks if i still play online. I say "uggg yes..." and he tells me that i can have his account, because he isn't going to use it, or really want it. I say cool...thinking it maybe has 4 or 5 bucks in it, but i check it out and its got 55 dollars. 55 bucks!!!!!!!!!! thats a 1/6th in my bankroll!!!!!! for freeeeeesssss. THANK YOU GOD. the last few weeks have kindof been a downswing. I really can't blame luck for much of it. I have been playing horribly, and too long when i should stop. This 55 bucks isn't going to replace all i lost...but it will cut the losses by a nice margin.

I was thinking of droping down to the .25-.50 level for all my limit games, but now with the bankroll boost i won't have to. Granted i will still be playing these games becasue most of the time there isn't enough action at .50-1.00. I need to get some money on Stars so bad. I could 4-5 table at .50-1.00 between FTP, UB, and Stars. Also, the micro MTT's are attractive there, becasue you could possibly win a nice chunk of money, for a very small investment. (providing i don't IRA off my chips when i am deap)

So todays plan is to hit the Hi-Low, Razz, and maybe the H.O.R.S.E tables. If the action is slow, i will probally do a couple of 5.50 90 man tournaments. I am probally -EV in MTT's but i think there is tons of dead money in tournaments, and i could possibly luck box my way to a huge score in them. Also i really enjoy live tournaments, and getting practice online will help with that. So i will gamble it up here in a little bit, and give you the results. (hopefully a better figure than yesterdays. Was really hoping to start of the blog with a nice score, but oh well)

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

OK the results....

started the day with 293.52
added the 55.00 gift

OK i started playing and just ran bad in razz on FTP. Played well except, had 2 bad reads on hands, and ended up down ~30 bucks. (great way to start off)

Took a break, came back and put 50 bucks on stars. 50 might not be much to play .50-1.00, but if i go busto its no biggie because i have money on the other sites. The extra action stars has to offer is too much to pass up. Hooked up a 17" monitor to the laptop and started 5 tabling omaha Hi-Low, and was pretty much broke even over a hour. I should of just played 2-3 tables untill i got use to stars again. but oh well. Took another break, made little coffee, splashed some water on my face, turned 3-6 Mafia on, and fired up three .50-1.00 Razz tables, and one .50-1.00 omaha hi-low table. Ran well and scooped a huge pot in hi-low where i floped a set of 6's on a board of 664, and i had 6-5-3-A, and ended up spiking a 5 on the turn, and a dOooooOoce on the river for some nut high/nut low. wheeee. Later in the night i ended up winning some decent money at a shorthanded Razz table, and i just quit for the night.

total bankroll = 372.87

even tho i really didn't make any money from poker, i got unstuck from ~30 to a few bucks. I am really happy with my play today. I put in a lot of hands, and i am playing with confidence again. Tommarow i am going to try to get into town before i have to go to Austin and get in some hands. I fully expect to CRUSH the games tommarow, and really kill when i get back from Austin. The games on Stars are kindof like the Party Poker (R.I.P.) games were. It might be becasue it is friday night, but there is some money to be made. Really going to put in some hours on Friday and Saturday nights. STARS ROCKS. I LOVE YOU LEE JONES!!!!

-take

1-11-06

Today i am thinking of hitting the limit Razz and Hi-Low tables. If there is decent action at the .50-1.00 dollar level i will stay there, but odds are i will be playing some .25-.50 due to availability. I actually like playing a table or two below my bankroll, just as a variance reducer. Also i will probally try one MTT or maybe some 24+2 token sng's on Full Tilt.

My bankroll to start the day is...
115.62 in UB
177.90 in Full Tilt

hopefully it will be biiiiiger when i am done. but i am going to try some token sng's and some other things that are not money makers in the short term, so really i am not expecting huge numbers. Breaking even, or a small win will great.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ok, so i am done playing poker for the night. omg this laptop + the internet at my house = TILT
i guess i am done playing at home untill i get the desktop pimped. gurrrrrr
so here are the numbers....

entered a 5.50 mtt on ftp, and got 48th out of 378. so a big fat -5.50 to start the day.
entered a UB 1 dollar mtt with my ultimate points, 70th out of 504. IRAed to blow off a top 15 in chip stack. so that didn't cost anything and i didn't make anything.

121 hands at .50-1.00 limit Omaha Hi-Low and ended up -8.70 bucks
12 hands of .25-.50 Omaha Hi-Low and ended up -.45
32 hands of .50-1.00 2-7 Tripple Draw and ended up -1.65
Lost a 5.25 dollar heads up match due to the interent connection -5.25
^^^that blows
Cleared out 1.30 dollars in bonus

SOO the grand total for today is -20.25

not a huge loss, but still. I think i am going to hit the limit cash game's tommarow and try and get a lot of hands in. Grind back some of this loss. If i start doing good in the cash games i might throw in a 5.50 90 man sng of FTP.

-take

Micro Grind

Takeover_inc's the name, micro griding's the game.

Bankroll is around 300 bucks, half on Ultimate Bet, half on Full Tilt Poker.

more later.

-take