Results from 1/26-1/28

It was a great weekend for cash game poker, yet a horrible weekend for MTT poker. Overall for the weekend I won $3300 which brings the bankroll to a new alltime high of 28.6k. I am extremely happy about that despite the fact that I did not cash in any tourneys this weekend. I had a couple of bubble finishes and two heartbreaking bad beats in the Full Tilt 50k tourneys. Here are a couple of interesting hands.

Hand 1 - I was playing at the 4/8 NL deep stack table. The max buyin for this table is $1600. I bought in for the max and I had about $2000 when this hand shows up. I raise from middle position with 7d6d to $30. Everyone folds to the big blind who calls. The flop comes out Ks3h5h and the big blind checks. I bet $60 trying to take down the pot right there, but the big blind calls. The turn is a 4d, and the bb checks and I bet $120. The bb calls. The river is a 10s and the bb checks again. Now I have the nuts and I want to figure what he will call. I bet $300 into the pot and he reraises me allin. I call instantly and win a $3800 pot. He shows K10 for top two pair.

Hand 2 - I am playing againt David Chiu at a 5/10 table. I raise with 88 and I am reraised by David who is in the sb. I know he plays aggressive preflop so I call. The flop comes 832 rainbow. David bets $80 and I just call. The turn is a 10 and David bets out $150. I reraise allin for another $500 and David calls. He shows QQ to my set. The river comes a Q and David escapes my trap.

Hand 3 - I have KQs and I raise from late position. I was reraised by someone holding AQ and I called. The flop comes 910J rainbow and I flat called the bb bet. The next card was an 8. The bb bet out $150 and I reraised allin hoping the guy had a Q. He calls my allin bet and shows AQ. The river comes up a K and I lose.

I was happy that hands 2&3 did not put me on tilt. I kept playing my game and ended with a winning session.

Well that is all for now. Best of luck out on the felt.

Results from 1/25

Well yesterday went much better for me. I four tabled 1/2 and 2/4 NL on Full Tilt and ended up winning almost $1100. That brings the bankroll back to 25.3k.

What did I do differently from the night before? I did attempt less semibluffs. Unless I had a huge draw I tried to keep the pots small. I paid much more attention to see where the raises were coming from before I reacted. Sometimes I do not do that when I am playing multiple tables. This time I made sure that I took the time needed.

So today we will be at it again. Maybe I can finally turn a profit this month besides my rakeback payment. Best of luck to everyone out there.

Results from 1/23

I took several steps backward yesterday. My cash game run was horrible. Six times I flopped top pair/nut flush draw. I lost all six. Once I flopped aces full when the other guy flopped quads. It was just a sick run of cards. Now I will say that I probably semi-bluffed way too often considering the run that I was on. My table image was probably a touch too reckless and thus I did not get the laydowns I needed, nor did I get the draws that I was betting.

I also suffered a heartbreaking defeat in the $5 rebuy. I ended up bubbling in a tourney that had 1900 people in it. I had a better than average stack the entire time when I get QQ in the big blind. The button did a standard raise and the sb called. I go allin over the top which was a rather big reraise. The button called and the sb folded, but the button turns over KK and I am out just short of the money. If I win that hand I would be in the top 10 in chips. Of course I always play to win, which hurt me in this situation.

So for the day I dropped 2k and that puts the bankroll at 24.3k. I went to bed early since I just did not have a good feeling at the table. Hopefully I can turn it around tonight.

Another up and down day

Well last night I played a ton of tourneys and some cash games. The tourneys were aggravating to say the least. I bubbled out of two of them and did not cash in any of the five that I played. The most heartbreaking was the $10 rebuy on Stars. I finished 65 out of 795, when the top 63 paid out. I was always about the average chip stack until two bad beats and one horrible call shortstacked me.

The good news is that I won about $600 in my cash games at Full Tilt. The profit for the day was $485 overall, which brings the bankroll to a little over 26.3k. I decided that come February I will be playing in the FTOPS on Full Tilt. Most of the buyins are in the $200-$300 range, and as long as I continue to do well I will enter those.

Anyway best of luck everyone. I will post tomorrow. Take care.

Weekend Update

Well this weekend was good for me in a card sense, but bad for me otherwise. I hurt my back in a interesting little story. For those of you that do not know, I am a husband and father of two kids. Well on Saturday I am taking a shower when I hear screaming downstairs. This is not my wife yelling at the kids because they are not listening. This is screaming as if there is an intruder or something. Finally I hear my wife yelling, "get Daddy, go get Daddy now". Well I jump out of the shower, hit the tile floor and slip and fall. I get up, and rush to get pants on, and then run downstairs. I see my 5 year old daughter standing on a chair screaming, my 7 year old son crying, and my wife yelling. I also see one of my Iridescent sharks laying on floor. He is about 9 inches long and about 2 to 3 inches thick. His fin is caught in the rug. I finally get him unhooked and put him back in the tank. He is fine. By the next day I cannot move due to severe back pain. I am on painkillers and I am seeing the doctor today.

On the poker front, I won $1600 this weekend. Most came from cash games, though I did cash in both halves of the Full Tilt daily double last night. I almost won "best finish" which would have been worth $420.

So the bankroll is at 25.8k now. I will play a few more tourneys tonight provided that the painkillers do not put me to sleep. Best of luck to all of you out there.

1/18 update

Well last night was an aggravating one for me. I bubbled out of two MTT when I put my chips in with the best hand. Now I play to win, so I do not question the decisions that I made, but it would be nice to win with the best hand in a key pot every now and then.

The good thing is that my cash game more than made up for it. After tourney fees and such the profit for the day was a little over $300 which brought the bankroll to 24.2k.

I am looking to attempt a few $100+ MTT a week. I am hoping to start that tonight after my son's basketball game. We will see how they go.

Best of luck to everyone out there.

Moving forward slowly

Well after the bad start of the year I have been moving up very slowly. Part of that is due to tightening the play, and part of it is due to bad fortune in some tourneys. The good news is that it is moving in the right direction though. I am at 23.9k overall, and I will continue to play a couple of cash games and tourneys each night.

I have played the Daily Double tourneys on Full Tilt. If you have not played these tourneys you should go check them out. They have a progressive jackpot that pays out a % for each person that cashes in both tourneys. The tourney structure is pretty good as well and they get 1000+ people for each one. It is worth a look.

Best of luck to everyone out there.

Results from the last couple of days

Well this past weekend was good to me, as was Monday. I have placed in the money in four tourneys over the last couple of days, and the cash games have been treating me well. I have succeeded in tightening up my play, and a session consists of one or two 1/2 NL games, a 2/4 NL game, and then some tourneys. I usually have four tables up at once now, and I feel very comfortable with that amount. Of course I do not chat as much as I used to via ICQ, but I can concentrate, play, and win on four tables at once.

Overall the bankroll is at 23.5k now. I still have a way to go in order to make this month profitable, but I am back in the right direction.

Tonight is bowling night, so play will be limited. I will try and post the results tomorrow (both bowling and poker).

Take care and good luck.

Results from last night 1/10

Well I played two tourneys and then I four tabled 1/2 NL for a couple of hours. I did not cash in the two tourneys, but I did finish up $100 overall for the day. I took a couple of wicked beats, and I still made two questionable calls, which bothered me more than the beats. I would like to have a session where I make all the right plays, regardless of the results. When I can put enough of those days together, the bankroll will grow.

So $100 for a day does not sound like a lot, but it is not bad for less than 3 hours of work. I did notice that four tabling kept me playing much tighter though which was a good thing. If I could resize the tables I would have no problem doing that in the future. I will do it for a couple of hours again tonight after I finish a tourney or two.

Some changes made to stop the bleeding

Well Monday was yet another bad day of cash game play. Yes I am running poorly, but I am also making some poor decisions that are killing me. Here is an example of just one...

One limper comes in and I have KQ in the small blind. I limp in and the bb just calls. The flop comes KQ10. I check, the bb bets $10 into a $12 pot, the limper calls, and I raise it up to $50. The bb folds and then the limper pushes allin for another $150. Now I know top two pair looks good, but it is obvious that I am beat and drawing to four outs more than likely. He could have the other two kings or queens and slowplayed preflop, but more than likely he has AJ or J9s. So now I have a decision to call $150 to try and win a $272 pot. I should fold easily, but I dont. He of course flips over AJ and I do not suck out, and lose the pot. I deserve to lose my money there. The play is just horrible.

So with bad luck and bad plays comes terrible results. The bankroll is sitting at 21.7k, and now I have to make some changes. So I am going to drop down to 1/2 NL, and I am going to tighten up the game a bit. When I can show myself that I am making the right decisions and start winning again, I will move back up.

In the meantime, I will continue to play and learn. Best of luck to all of you. Take care.

A disaster of a weekend

Man this poker game is rough. Every time I take a step or two forward, I take five or six back. I lost buyin after buyin playing 2/4 and 3/6 the last two days. I could go through all the hands, but they would be too painful. I would say 80% of my losses was variance, and maybe 20% was due to bad play. The problem is that is way too much due to bad play. My bad plays were mostly in the form of calls when I felt I was beat. I really need to stop that.

Also I am starting to find that most of my losses are coming on the weekends, especially during the day. I have to make a concentrated effort not to play cash games during the day. I know that I have said this before, but I keep repeating this process. I am going to just play tourneys during that time from now on.

So the bankroll fell to 23.5k. I told you it was bad. The good news is that I do well at night, and that is all I can play this week. I hope to post a great report tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Best of luck to all of you!!!

1/1 and 1/2 results

I played some on 1/1 and won about $850 playing a couple of tourneys and some cash games. Most of the profit came from my 2/4 NL game and my 1/2 PLO8 game that I have started to play.

Last night things were going well when disaster struck. I lost a buyin when I flopped top set and put a guy allin. He called with a flush draw, not even the nut flush draw. When he hit that cost me about 300 of the 500 that I was up. I lost about 50 in just general play over the next hour and then I quit for the night.

So overall for the two days I was up $1000, and that put me at 27k overall. The year is off to a good start, but I know not to get too caught up in quick starts. Just play solid poker and the bankroll will grow eventually.

The good news is that I found out that I cleared over $900 in rake for the month of December which will make my $1000 monthly payment for home improvement projects painless. I hope to continue that run with my rakeback. If I can keep it at least in the $800-$1000 range then I do not have to worry about withdrawing the $1000 for the projects.

Anyway I will be playing some more 2/4 NL and 1/2 PLO8 as well as a tourney or two. I will update again tomorrow. Take care.

Year in review

Well 2006 is finally over. The bankroll finished at 26k with my $350 win last night. No it is not 100k. It is not even close. With the amount that I took out I would have been in the low 30s, which is still not in shouting distance of 100k. So was the year a success???

I think so. First of all it was a profitable year. Sure I could have gotten a part time job that could have paid nearly as much, but that is not the point. I took a hobby that I enjoy, and earned a pretty sizable profit from it.

So what did I learn??? Plenty. I learned and practiced good bankroll management, I learned some other games like HORSE and Omaha, I learned many tournament and cash game strategies. I definitely grew as a player.

So what are the goals of 2007? Glad you asked. I posted them in the Bluff Magazine Forum. Here they are....

1) Have a winning year
2) Bring the bankroll up to 100k (since I failed miserably at it this year)
3) Keep improving
4) Try and get to Vegas
5) Play in the big tourneys on a regular basis (and actually cash/win)
6) Get enough Full Tilt points for that plasma TV

Obviously number 3 & 4 are the easiest to attain. Those are completely in my control. The others are attainable, but are more difficult. If I hit number 2, then I will hit the rest.

Well I need to get started if I am going to hit any of these goals. Happy New Year to all of you. I hope you all hit all of your goals for 2007.