Been in socal ever since June 26th or so. Got to go to Vegas as well and played in one of the events at the World Series of Poker, and got to meet a lot of some famous (at least famous in the poker community, but not quite TV material) pros. Was a great experience and even though I lost a good chunk I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Staying here has made me super lazy, and I even told myself I'd go to Commerce today, but that obviously didn't happen. Also been playing a lot online, and I feel its helped shape my style and game a lot more. I did however, go to Commerce yesterday and my favorite hand came like one of those dream situations.
A solid player in middle position (MP) raises, I re-raise with red Queens and big blind takes three to the face with MP calling the 3-bet.
Flop: Q52 rainbow
bb checks, MP donks (bets into me even though I put in the last raise), I raise, bb now 3-bets, MP 4-bet caps it, me and bb call
Turn: 9 completing all 4 suits on board
bb bets, MP raises, I 3-bet, bb folds, MP calls
River: 2
MP checks, I bet, he calls
As you would notice I had the absolute nuts the entire way except at the river where only 22 would beat me and I did nothing but jam the raise button if there was one at live poker.
- Dan Low
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Long overdue post
I guess it has come to my attention that people actually read this thing. But no one tells me they do. Anyway, winning streak has been great for my confidence and overall mental state I suppose. I have not lost a session yet in June though I'm sure it's bound to happen. I've only played 5 sessions for a total of 23 hours, so obviously not much. I've been wanting to/half-assed planning but not yet planned to go to Vegas sometime soon. Hopefully things'll put themselves together by this weekend or next.
Recently I've met up with my old friend from highschool who I played a lot of poker back in the day. I've been full staking him with a 75/25 return. Meaning if he happens to lose, I eat 100% of the loss he takes. If he happens to win I get 75% of that win and he retains 25% of the win. Basically he can never lose, but is cutting at his wins and I am taking a bulk of the variance he can take. Hopefully this works out well for both him and I.
Lately I've been seeing a lot of younger faces at the games. Guess its summer and college is out so a lot of those kids come to gamble it up. Good thing they suck. But they don't quite suck the way an old rich person might suck. They tend to suck in a doing too much kind of way as opposed to the old rich person's version of suck is doing too little. However, the younger players do talk a lot more. And whine about their poor luck even though they bring their losing upon themselves.
I'd post some hands except I haven't really played since Tuesday the 16th cause I'm a lazy bum, but I have posted some hands on twoplustwo so here goes...
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/53/medium-stakes-limit/k3-soooooooted-515467/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/53/medium-stakes-limit/preflop-pregunta-511446/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/53/medium-stakes-limit/i-got-myself-interesting-spot-508032/
hopefully more hours to come
-Dan Low
Recently I've met up with my old friend from highschool who I played a lot of poker back in the day. I've been full staking him with a 75/25 return. Meaning if he happens to lose, I eat 100% of the loss he takes. If he happens to win I get 75% of that win and he retains 25% of the win. Basically he can never lose, but is cutting at his wins and I am taking a bulk of the variance he can take. Hopefully this works out well for both him and I.
Lately I've been seeing a lot of younger faces at the games. Guess its summer and college is out so a lot of those kids come to gamble it up. Good thing they suck. But they don't quite suck the way an old rich person might suck. They tend to suck in a doing too much kind of way as opposed to the old rich person's version of suck is doing too little. However, the younger players do talk a lot more. And whine about their poor luck even though they bring their losing upon themselves.
I'd post some hands except I haven't really played since Tuesday the 16th cause I'm a lazy bum, but I have posted some hands on twoplustwo so here goes...
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/53/medium-stakes-limit/k3-soooooooted-515467/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/53/medium-stakes-limit/preflop-pregunta-511446/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/53/medium-stakes-limit/i-got-myself-interesting-spot-508032/
hopefully more hours to come
-Dan Low
Friday, June 5, 2009
Poker sucks
Indeed it does. I probably need a long break from the game after the atrocity that was the month of May. While I definitely can say I didn't play on average my best game overall for the month, I feel like I played fairly solid for the most part. Whatever that means. The large downswing made me think a lot about whether or not I can handle the game, whether I'm lucky enough or good enough to still play well amidst a downswing, and whether or not its worth learning to cope with it at all.
Downswings absolutely kill a poker players confidence. I've found myself questioning tons of standard plays and making poor plays regularly. I've taken notice lately even that when I do play that my stress level seems to be higher than normal and that nervousness when I flop a straight that I'm still going to lose the pot by some miracle comes back again. I'm hoping for a much more successful June, and still strive to learn and grow both as a poker player and as a person in general.
Okay, now that that's out of the way onto some hilarious hands.
I'm sitting in what seems to be the worst game I've sat in in a while. Everyone plays tight and passive. There is barely any action around at all on this table. Lots of folding preflop and no loose drawing on the flop etc.
1st hand, this was by far the most action this table was ever going to get
UTG limps, I limp next in with JT of clubs, like 2 or 3 more players limp and then the cut-off (2nd to last to act postflop) raises, button calls, both blinds call, now I reraise for awesomeness. Everyone calls up to the small blind who wants to make gamble and caps it for 4 bets.
We are now a massive 7x4 small bets (1 small bet = 20$) w/o a flop between 7 people
Flop: Kc8d2s
sb checks, bb now bets out, utg folds, I call because any 79TJQA and any club gives me 4 outs or more at the cost of only 28:1 (1 small bet to win 28). Some others call can't remember but its probably 4 or 5 to the turn
Turn: 3h
complete brick, bb bets, I fold, 2 guys call. with one of them yelling for a deuce
River: 2c
bb still bets and the guy who was calling for the deuce raises and last guy folds and bb calls only to see A2 to scoop up this massive pot.
Next hand has a bit of humor to it
2 limps, I raise KK in the sb, bb asks me if I'm stealing and calls and the rest call.
Flop 339
I bet, lady now raises as she says she wants to see wheres she's at, both limpers fold. and I opt to call planning to raise the turn
So far I've been dominating this olderish Chinese lady so onto the turn
Turn T
I check, she bets, and before I raise she says "please don't raise me cause then I'll have to fold". As soon as she finishes her sentence I put out my 8 chips for a raise.
River blanks off and she pays me off.
-Dan Low
Downswings absolutely kill a poker players confidence. I've found myself questioning tons of standard plays and making poor plays regularly. I've taken notice lately even that when I do play that my stress level seems to be higher than normal and that nervousness when I flop a straight that I'm still going to lose the pot by some miracle comes back again. I'm hoping for a much more successful June, and still strive to learn and grow both as a poker player and as a person in general.
Okay, now that that's out of the way onto some hilarious hands.
I'm sitting in what seems to be the worst game I've sat in in a while. Everyone plays tight and passive. There is barely any action around at all on this table. Lots of folding preflop and no loose drawing on the flop etc.
1st hand, this was by far the most action this table was ever going to get
UTG limps, I limp next in with JT of clubs, like 2 or 3 more players limp and then the cut-off (2nd to last to act postflop) raises, button calls, both blinds call, now I reraise for awesomeness. Everyone calls up to the small blind who wants to make gamble and caps it for 4 bets.
We are now a massive 7x4 small bets (1 small bet = 20$) w/o a flop between 7 people
Flop: Kc8d2s
sb checks, bb now bets out, utg folds, I call because any 79TJQA and any club gives me 4 outs or more at the cost of only 28:1 (1 small bet to win 28). Some others call can't remember but its probably 4 or 5 to the turn
Turn: 3h
complete brick, bb bets, I fold, 2 guys call. with one of them yelling for a deuce
River: 2c
bb still bets and the guy who was calling for the deuce raises and last guy folds and bb calls only to see A2 to scoop up this massive pot.
Next hand has a bit of humor to it
2 limps, I raise KK in the sb, bb asks me if I'm stealing and calls and the rest call.
Flop 339
I bet, lady now raises as she says she wants to see wheres she's at, both limpers fold. and I opt to call planning to raise the turn
So far I've been dominating this olderish Chinese lady so onto the turn
Turn T
I check, she bets, and before I raise she says "please don't raise me cause then I'll have to fold". As soon as she finishes her sentence I put out my 8 chips for a raise.
River blanks off and she pays me off.
-Dan Low
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Long time
Wow it's been a really long time since I last posted, and even longer since I posted anything with some actual content. A friend of mine asked me to go to Commerce Casino over in LA next weekend and I think I'll go. There's some special tournaments going on there right now and the one he wants to play is a $400,000 prize-pool guaranteed 335$ buy-in. Not sure if I'll play the tournament but I've been meaning to make it out to Commerce so I can see some of the more prominent posters on the poker forums I read. Quite poker nerdy I know, but we've always got time for making new friends.
So March was my least successful albiet quite successful still month. I put in a good amount of hours, 85 to be exact. I did earn less than my hourly expectations, but I'm just happy to have put in as many hours that I did and feel very solidly confident that I played very well. In fact, I think my playing abilities as of late have been growing rapidly. I've added more "moves" or plays to my arsenal as well as making more optimizing plays in general.
April has been a monsterous month. I haven't put many hours at all this month so far mostly due to schooling obligations that I've had, but I've been earning way over expectations this month. A lot of it is luck, but a lot of it has also been because of my new main choice of location to be playing at. The games I feel have been much softer than what I experienced over at Bay101, but that could just be because I've been luckier as of late there.
I also received an indirect compliment the other day from my friend Jesse. We were in the same game sitting next to each other when a regular who's not very good, Kenny, had made some comment with the intent to irritate me or something. Forgot what the comment was exactly and whether I won the pot or not, but Jesse responded, "that won't really work on him". I guess he thinks I'm tiltless even though I'm not but I guess its a testament to my ability to control my frustrations. I think that its a very important part of being able to play well. Sure there's a lot of thought process involved both in and outside of the game, but while in the game it's hard to continually be in that objective thought process when you've lost pot after pot. One thought that continually gets me going is, much like a pool hustler, the players donating money to the games have to win or else they never come back. The reason the game is so easy to beat is because of the incredible amount of variance there is with the game. A guy who's play probably deserves to lose ~$40/hour can have pretty strong profit for even as much as 150 hours of play. Its really hard to learn this game when you're earning money somehow over 150 hours when you should be expecting to lose a significant amount of money with the play that you were carrying out. It falsely confirms your idea that you are indeed a winning player.
I find it most fun to crush the players that think they are strong poker players and happily flaunt their abilities to play the game as high as 20/40 (even though its not really very high at all). Guess I'll end the post with a story about how I hit and ran a table and I think the table got somewhat irritated at it but whatevers.
So I was playing for about 3-4 hours at this table when it's time for me to go, but I had a friend who was coming to Garden so I thought I'd hang around for a bit and sit behind my other friend who was at the table so I can say hello to my friend who was coming. At one point 3 people all left or went busto and left the game and my friend had not arrived yet. I decided I'd sit in for one more round and I post my blind in between small blind and Button (kinda too lazy to describe it but essentially its 1 big blind left of button, and then a small blind and a big blind left of that extra big blind).
UTG limps, MP(middle position) middle-aged Asian regular lady raises, I call with 56o, sb calls, bb calls, UTG calls.
Flop: TT6
Everyone checks to MP who bets, I raise, everyone folds to MP who calls.
My plan was to check and fold if she bet on most turn cards (except obviously a 6) cause she's not betting the turn unless I'm beat
Turn: 6
course miracle card comes, i bet she calls
River: 9
I bet she calls and mucks her JJ in disgust.
I play the round up to the big blind and rack up my chips haha. I pretty much doubled how much I had won that day from getting uber lucky in that 1 round where I hit and ran, so go me.
- Dan Low
So March was my least successful albiet quite successful still month. I put in a good amount of hours, 85 to be exact. I did earn less than my hourly expectations, but I'm just happy to have put in as many hours that I did and feel very solidly confident that I played very well. In fact, I think my playing abilities as of late have been growing rapidly. I've added more "moves" or plays to my arsenal as well as making more optimizing plays in general.
April has been a monsterous month. I haven't put many hours at all this month so far mostly due to schooling obligations that I've had, but I've been earning way over expectations this month. A lot of it is luck, but a lot of it has also been because of my new main choice of location to be playing at. The games I feel have been much softer than what I experienced over at Bay101, but that could just be because I've been luckier as of late there.
I also received an indirect compliment the other day from my friend Jesse. We were in the same game sitting next to each other when a regular who's not very good, Kenny, had made some comment with the intent to irritate me or something. Forgot what the comment was exactly and whether I won the pot or not, but Jesse responded, "that won't really work on him". I guess he thinks I'm tiltless even though I'm not but I guess its a testament to my ability to control my frustrations. I think that its a very important part of being able to play well. Sure there's a lot of thought process involved both in and outside of the game, but while in the game it's hard to continually be in that objective thought process when you've lost pot after pot. One thought that continually gets me going is, much like a pool hustler, the players donating money to the games have to win or else they never come back. The reason the game is so easy to beat is because of the incredible amount of variance there is with the game. A guy who's play probably deserves to lose ~$40/hour can have pretty strong profit for even as much as 150 hours of play. Its really hard to learn this game when you're earning money somehow over 150 hours when you should be expecting to lose a significant amount of money with the play that you were carrying out. It falsely confirms your idea that you are indeed a winning player.
I find it most fun to crush the players that think they are strong poker players and happily flaunt their abilities to play the game as high as 20/40 (even though its not really very high at all). Guess I'll end the post with a story about how I hit and ran a table and I think the table got somewhat irritated at it but whatevers.
So I was playing for about 3-4 hours at this table when it's time for me to go, but I had a friend who was coming to Garden so I thought I'd hang around for a bit and sit behind my other friend who was at the table so I can say hello to my friend who was coming. At one point 3 people all left or went busto and left the game and my friend had not arrived yet. I decided I'd sit in for one more round and I post my blind in between small blind and Button (kinda too lazy to describe it but essentially its 1 big blind left of button, and then a small blind and a big blind left of that extra big blind).
UTG limps, MP(middle position) middle-aged Asian regular lady raises, I call with 56o, sb calls, bb calls, UTG calls.
Flop: TT6
Everyone checks to MP who bets, I raise, everyone folds to MP who calls.
My plan was to check and fold if she bet on most turn cards (except obviously a 6) cause she's not betting the turn unless I'm beat
Turn: 6
course miracle card comes, i bet she calls
River: 9
I bet she calls and mucks her JJ in disgust.
I play the round up to the big blind and rack up my chips haha. I pretty much doubled how much I had won that day from getting uber lucky in that 1 round where I hit and ran, so go me.
- Dan Low
Thursday, April 9, 2009
SHIP SHIP SCOOOOOOOP!!!
Poker Stars $2/$4 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo - 9 players
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is MP2 with 4
2
3
A
UTG raises, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, 4 folds, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls
Flop: (10.5 SB) 3 A J (3 players)
UTG checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls
Turn: (6.75 BB) 6 (3 players)
UTG checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG raises, UTG+2 calls, Hero calls
River: (12.75 BB) A
(3 players)
UTG bets, UTG+2 calls, Hero raises, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls
Final Pot: 18.75 BB
UTG+2 mucks 5 3 7 2
Hero shows 4 2 3 A (HI: a full house, Aces full of Threes; LO: 6,4,3,2,A)
UTG mucks 4 8 A 8
Hero wins 9 BB
Hero wins 9 BB
(Rake: $3.00)
This is why I play Omaha
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is MP2 with 4
2 3 AUTG raises, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, 4 folds, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls
Flop: (10.5 SB) 3
A J (3 players)UTG checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls
Turn: (6.75 BB) 6
(3 players)UTG checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG raises, UTG+2 calls, Hero calls
River: (12.75 BB) A
(3 players)UTG bets, UTG+2 calls, Hero raises, UTG calls, UTG+2 calls
Final Pot: 18.75 BB
UTG+2 mucks 5
3 7 2Hero shows 4
2 3 A (HI: a full house, Aces full of Threes; LO: 6,4,3,2,A)UTG mucks 4
8 A 8Hero wins 9 BB
Hero wins 9 BB
(Rake: $3.00)
This is why I play Omaha
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Omaha is the game of the future
Apparently according to a lot of people, Omaha is the game of the future. I plan to learn it. I played it for the first time in my life a few days ago, and it was quite a sight to see. It was 4/8 Omaha 8, which means its a high/low game. Which means that if your final 5-card hand using the board consists of 5 differently numbered cards you have a low hand, the nut low hand being A2345. Anyway, in the end I think I have a decent grasp of the game and know that the people that played that game that day all suck at it for most part. Course that game is virtually unbeatable because the rake (the fee that the casino takes out of each pot) is a ridiculous 6$ which basically is both the small blind AND big blind. Being the luckbox that I am I ended up winning 60$ haha. I remember using all my brain power to see what kind of draws etc. I had and what not, since its like playing regular Hold'em cept with 4 cards for a total of 6 combinations of Hold'em hands.
Monday, March 16, 2009
March Tourney Madness!
Actually this tournament madness is probably not what everyone thinks it is. Yes it is March Madness time with lots of college basketball, but over at Bay101 when the word tournament is mentioned 90% of the time (ok thats a bit of an overestimation but whatevers) its about the upcoming WPT Shooting Stars Event this Monday (3/16).
The tournament is called Shooting Stars because many "famous poker celebs" are playing and are receiving what is called a bounty dubbing them a shooting star. If you happen to knock out a shooting star you get their bounty which I believe is worth either $5,000 or $10,000. The buy-in for the tournament is $10,000.
I figure #s about how good/bad I've been running are pointless, so I'll just say I feel I've been playing fairly well the past couple sessions. Here's an awesome hand where my opponent goes on tilt for a little after this hand, and for the oddest reason.
Oh and I've been getting pretty lucky
Villain limps UTG, I raise 55 from the CO, everyone else folds he calls.
flop: Jc6c2h
he checks, I bet, he calls
turn: Ts
he checks, I bet, he calls
river: 3h
he checks, I check
He then proceeds to stand up and almost yell, "BUT YOU NEVER CHECK THE RIVER! HOW COME YOU DIDN'T BET?!?!?!" and then he tables 33.
I am awesome.
Been great lately having a familiar face both at my games and to talk to about poker. He's a friend from highschool who has had much greater success than I have had when it comes to poker. I'd also say he probably has a greater edge than I do at the 20/40 game, but who knows. For the most part a large portion of poker strategy discussion I get is from people that I've met online through a poker forum and on AIM or what not. So its nice to be discussing hands with someone I regard to have good knowledge of the game as well as someone I know outside of the online world.
-Dan Low
The tournament is called Shooting Stars because many "famous poker celebs" are playing and are receiving what is called a bounty dubbing them a shooting star. If you happen to knock out a shooting star you get their bounty which I believe is worth either $5,000 or $10,000. The buy-in for the tournament is $10,000.
I figure #s about how good/bad I've been running are pointless, so I'll just say I feel I've been playing fairly well the past couple sessions. Here's an awesome hand where my opponent goes on tilt for a little after this hand, and for the oddest reason.
Oh and I've been getting pretty lucky
Villain limps UTG, I raise 55 from the CO, everyone else folds he calls.
flop: Jc6c2h
he checks, I bet, he calls
turn: Ts
he checks, I bet, he calls
river: 3h
he checks, I check
He then proceeds to stand up and almost yell, "BUT YOU NEVER CHECK THE RIVER! HOW COME YOU DIDN'T BET?!?!?!" and then he tables 33.
I am awesome.
Been great lately having a familiar face both at my games and to talk to about poker. He's a friend from highschool who has had much greater success than I have had when it comes to poker. I'd also say he probably has a greater edge than I do at the 20/40 game, but who knows. For the most part a large portion of poker strategy discussion I get is from people that I've met online through a poker forum and on AIM or what not. So its nice to be discussing hands with someone I regard to have good knowledge of the game as well as someone I know outside of the online world.
-Dan Low
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Feb Recap
All in all, February was good to me. I played 3 more sessions since my last post. -993 -997 and +1940. This brought me to a total of 66.25 hours played for total earnings of 5253 at 79.29/hr. If I had not played that last session on the 28th, I would've been running at 55ish/hr for the month which is way more reasonable, but running well is always welcome.
I realize that these posts are ridiculously long for anyone to just randomly read so I'll try to keep the posts more brief I suppose. I decided yesterday that I need to start putting names to faces so I can recognize playing styles more easily. I recognize faces, but often times I don't remember which face played what hand this way from the hands that I remember. I figure putting names to my past hands will help me remember how they play. Currently I just sit, I see old faces, but its like starting over again on the observations because I don't remember how they play. I just stereotype, which works, but is not the best when I have so many hands against these players.
I realize that these posts are ridiculously long for anyone to just randomly read so I'll try to keep the posts more brief I suppose. I decided yesterday that I need to start putting names to faces so I can recognize playing styles more easily. I recognize faces, but often times I don't remember which face played what hand this way from the hands that I remember. I figure putting names to my past hands will help me remember how they play. Currently I just sit, I see old faces, but its like starting over again on the observations because I don't remember how they play. I just stereotype, which works, but is not the best when I have so many hands against these players.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Satellite Saturday, and why people suck at Limit
After ending the last entry last night I checked on the Bay101 website to see the various tournaments that they run weekly. They have a WPT Satellite every day at 8:15 AM or 9:30 AM. A Satellite tournament basically is a tournament where the top seats get seats to a bigger tournament as well as cash from the prize pool. The remainder of my night was filled with delusions about playing in the WPT with all these 'poker celebs', and/or selling the $10k ticket voucher to the big WPT Bay101 Shooting Stars tournament in March. I plan on at least going and seeing the various poker pros in person.
Anyway, I instantly set my alarm to 7:30 AM because the Saturday tournament is at 8:15 AM, and I feel very excited actually to play this tournament. I haven't been excited to play poker in a LOONNGGG time. I would find out this morning that it was really nothing to be excited about and the delusions of selling the 2-3 tickets I would win, making mucho monies, dissapeared.
I had a hard time sleeping because of all the various strategies and thoughts about tournament play last night as I decided to play in this tournament, but I eventually fell asleep and got to the casino at 8:00 AM. There was a looooonnggg line to sign up for the tournament. I got the 142nd tournament entry that costs 105+15+5 (15 and 5 for entry fees), and couldn't even play because they did not have enough tables available for the tournament. So what happens is you have to wait til people get knocked out to accomodate. It's not THAT bad because you can enter with an addon and a rebuy for extra chips for 100$ for each. I play some 8/16 in which I lose with AA, QQ, AJs, and win a huge pot with 7c4c, and call a guy's bluff with King high to end up $40.
So I enter in the 3rd round when blinds are 100/200 starting with T3000 chips (T denotes tournament chips as not to be confused with $). I really didn't do anything special except steal a big blind who had just quit the tournament and was not there for a free T300 as the sb folded. After that much folding ensued, and here and there I got hands where at the point was a all-in or nothing. General rule of thumb is if you have 10x bigblind or less you should pretty much be pushing all-in or nothing at all.
I did this a few times with pocket pairs, big Aces, and what not and eventually had 99 UTG with 5300 chips, blinds were 300/600. I push and am insta-called on SB's turn who had KK and I lose. 85th place. Oh well, good play leads to 75 places away from the money and 82 places away from that 10k voucher. Always next weekend when I can play the morning tournaments with no classes.
Earlier when I knew I was pretty much all-in or nothing situation I had myself put up on the 20/40 list, and when I got knocked out I went over to play 20/40 at 11:15 AM. It'd be an understatement to say I ran sick hot. Everytime someone say checkraises my C-bet when I have overs and a gutshot straight draw, I hit my straight on the turn. The table was also very very weak. A regular, David, and another older Asian guy were the only other winners on the table and they play a more tight/uber conservative style for the most part. Well maybe not David, but he usually gets outta my way and I his. I was really tired as it got closer to 1:00 PM, but I couldn't leave until some of the terribad players went busto or else I'd be leaving too much opportunity at the table, not to mention my image was great for the style I like to play. Eventually the biggest of the donators had left, and I took my leave to go home and help clean up the house as we are having guests over.
I mentioned that I'd also talk about why people suck at limit hold'em. I gained a lot of insight from reading various poker blogs, specifically reading one from a well known limit hold'em specialist. Not much limit is really shown on TV to start with, but the biggest part of limit that makes players bad is the variance. A big portion of why poker in general is somewhat hard to learn is because of the way humans learn things. It is easy to make big mistakes and be rewarded winning feeding positive reinforcement about how you should call someone's all-in with a flush draw when you clearly do not have the odds to play it. Likewise, the opposite is obviously in place when someone might raise preflop with AA and lose to T8o, and decide its not a good idea to be raising with AA. Limit is the easiest form of poker that make people fall into this trap of reversal of reinforcements. When pros play limit, they do not win as many pots as say a NL player, but the pots they do win are big, and easily make up for the pots they lose. This makes for huge variance, and even the strongest pros can even go breakeven or worse for 150k hands at limit. Okay that is all, I can probably elaborate more if you ask me about it on AIM or in person or what not.
Dan Low
Anyway, I instantly set my alarm to 7:30 AM because the Saturday tournament is at 8:15 AM, and I feel very excited actually to play this tournament. I haven't been excited to play poker in a LOONNGGG time. I would find out this morning that it was really nothing to be excited about and the delusions of selling the 2-3 tickets I would win, making mucho monies, dissapeared.
I had a hard time sleeping because of all the various strategies and thoughts about tournament play last night as I decided to play in this tournament, but I eventually fell asleep and got to the casino at 8:00 AM. There was a looooonnggg line to sign up for the tournament. I got the 142nd tournament entry that costs 105+15+5 (15 and 5 for entry fees), and couldn't even play because they did not have enough tables available for the tournament. So what happens is you have to wait til people get knocked out to accomodate. It's not THAT bad because you can enter with an addon and a rebuy for extra chips for 100$ for each. I play some 8/16 in which I lose with AA, QQ, AJs, and win a huge pot with 7c4c, and call a guy's bluff with King high to end up $40.
So I enter in the 3rd round when blinds are 100/200 starting with T3000 chips (T denotes tournament chips as not to be confused with $). I really didn't do anything special except steal a big blind who had just quit the tournament and was not there for a free T300 as the sb folded. After that much folding ensued, and here and there I got hands where at the point was a all-in or nothing. General rule of thumb is if you have 10x bigblind or less you should pretty much be pushing all-in or nothing at all.
I did this a few times with pocket pairs, big Aces, and what not and eventually had 99 UTG with 5300 chips, blinds were 300/600. I push and am insta-called on SB's turn who had KK and I lose. 85th place. Oh well, good play leads to 75 places away from the money and 82 places away from that 10k voucher. Always next weekend when I can play the morning tournaments with no classes.
Earlier when I knew I was pretty much all-in or nothing situation I had myself put up on the 20/40 list, and when I got knocked out I went over to play 20/40 at 11:15 AM. It'd be an understatement to say I ran sick hot. Everytime someone say checkraises my C-bet when I have overs and a gutshot straight draw, I hit my straight on the turn. The table was also very very weak. A regular, David, and another older Asian guy were the only other winners on the table and they play a more tight/uber conservative style for the most part. Well maybe not David, but he usually gets outta my way and I his. I was really tired as it got closer to 1:00 PM, but I couldn't leave until some of the terribad players went busto or else I'd be leaving too much opportunity at the table, not to mention my image was great for the style I like to play. Eventually the biggest of the donators had left, and I took my leave to go home and help clean up the house as we are having guests over.
I mentioned that I'd also talk about why people suck at limit hold'em. I gained a lot of insight from reading various poker blogs, specifically reading one from a well known limit hold'em specialist. Not much limit is really shown on TV to start with, but the biggest part of limit that makes players bad is the variance. A big portion of why poker in general is somewhat hard to learn is because of the way humans learn things. It is easy to make big mistakes and be rewarded winning feeding positive reinforcement about how you should call someone's all-in with a flush draw when you clearly do not have the odds to play it. Likewise, the opposite is obviously in place when someone might raise preflop with AA and lose to T8o, and decide its not a good idea to be raising with AA. Limit is the easiest form of poker that make people fall into this trap of reversal of reinforcements. When pros play limit, they do not win as many pots as say a NL player, but the pots they do win are big, and easily make up for the pots they lose. This makes for huge variance, and even the strongest pros can even go breakeven or worse for 150k hands at limit. Okay that is all, I can probably elaborate more if you ask me about it on AIM or in person or what not.
Dan Low
My smallest win so far
I got around to playing today, and it looks like I'm getting around to posting about the session today as well. I put in a good 4 hours today which I'm very happy about. I'm starting to feel good just about getting +EV hours in. +EV stands for +Equity value, or in plain English an action that on the average you would expect to make money. So whether I win or lose, I'm just happy to put in the hours, and I wish I could always feel that way whether I'm winning or losing (especially the losing hours).
That being said, I had the smallest win today. 82$. I actually came back from the dead to make this 'break even' day. I was down to as little as $180 or so from my initial $1000 buy-in, and I make the most -EV play in the world (probably not that bad but I still got super lucky).
I 3-bet some idiots preflop raise with Q9 offsuit and of course 3 others call my 3-bets cold (they call 3-bets without having any money in the pot to begin with which is a no-no in terms of playing 'good' poker).
Flop comes 8xx which it checks to me I bet and get 2 callers
Turn blanks again, in which I'm probably tilting still and try to bluff them out even though its hopeless and both players call again
River 9, and I bet cause they have an 8 which they both do and they both call, and my poker sesssion just went from a short 2 hours to go another 2 hours. After this hand I make a conscious decision to play well.
I realize I never mentioned a change in my 1 rule. It's pretty much a more complicated version of it (remember its $800 buy-in and if I lose that I go home). The reason for the change is because $800 is way too little, and I could still be playing my best poker and have lost that $800 because I don't think its enough to tilt me (which I'm probably wrong but its okay). Instead now I buy-in for $1k and if I get to $250 or below I will play hands up to the big blind and not post that blind and just go home. This pretty much leads to a similar $800 stop-loss, but I could potentially lose $1k, but it leaves room where if I get a big hand I don't just win the small amount due to the lack of chips I have.
On another note, I sorta wanna be getting into playing some of the weekly/daily tournaments around the Bay Area. I don't fancy myself a particularly good tournament player, but I feel I have a pretty strong edge against the competition to be strongly +EV. I haven't done much studying/reading on tournament play, but I do know a lot of idiots learn a lot of how to play from watching TV, but don't have an overall understanding of how you need to adjust differently to different situations like chip stacks, tournament structure, payout structure, etc. Hopefully I can get around to those as there are a lot of Sattelite tournaments (tournaments to win tickets to bigger tournaments) going on where I could potentially win a $10k tournament seat which I could sell or something of the sort. Maybe I'll start with limit tournaments as people are idiots at limit hold'em in general. Hopefully I'll get to more on that as I've just gained some great insight on that topic. 2:30 AM, time to try to fix sleeping schedule to be at least more normal!
Dlow
That being said, I had the smallest win today. 82$. I actually came back from the dead to make this 'break even' day. I was down to as little as $180 or so from my initial $1000 buy-in, and I make the most -EV play in the world (probably not that bad but I still got super lucky).
I 3-bet some idiots preflop raise with Q9 offsuit and of course 3 others call my 3-bets cold (they call 3-bets without having any money in the pot to begin with which is a no-no in terms of playing 'good' poker).
Flop comes 8xx which it checks to me I bet and get 2 callers
Turn blanks again, in which I'm probably tilting still and try to bluff them out even though its hopeless and both players call again
River 9, and I bet cause they have an 8 which they both do and they both call, and my poker sesssion just went from a short 2 hours to go another 2 hours. After this hand I make a conscious decision to play well.
I realize I never mentioned a change in my 1 rule. It's pretty much a more complicated version of it (remember its $800 buy-in and if I lose that I go home). The reason for the change is because $800 is way too little, and I could still be playing my best poker and have lost that $800 because I don't think its enough to tilt me (which I'm probably wrong but its okay). Instead now I buy-in for $1k and if I get to $250 or below I will play hands up to the big blind and not post that blind and just go home. This pretty much leads to a similar $800 stop-loss, but I could potentially lose $1k, but it leaves room where if I get a big hand I don't just win the small amount due to the lack of chips I have.
On another note, I sorta wanna be getting into playing some of the weekly/daily tournaments around the Bay Area. I don't fancy myself a particularly good tournament player, but I feel I have a pretty strong edge against the competition to be strongly +EV. I haven't done much studying/reading on tournament play, but I do know a lot of idiots learn a lot of how to play from watching TV, but don't have an overall understanding of how you need to adjust differently to different situations like chip stacks, tournament structure, payout structure, etc. Hopefully I can get around to those as there are a lot of Sattelite tournaments (tournaments to win tickets to bigger tournaments) going on where I could potentially win a $10k tournament seat which I could sell or something of the sort. Maybe I'll start with limit tournaments as people are idiots at limit hold'em in general. Hopefully I'll get to more on that as I've just gained some great insight on that topic. 2:30 AM, time to try to fix sleeping schedule to be at least more normal!
Dlow
Friday, February 20, 2009
I'm terrible at this
As stated, I'm terrible at this blogging thing. I guess I should just do entries just to get my thoughts out there, but it'd be nice to maybe hear feedback here and there. Of course of the blogs I read I don't really tell them how awesome their blogs are either. Maybe I'm just an attention whore haha.
So its been many sessions since my last post. Its been a whole month since I last wrote. Since then I've played 15 times for a total of 71 hours and 45 minutes which netted me a loss of $187. Here's some of the data from these past 15 sessions...
1/21 -800
1/22 -799
1/27 +480
1/28 -797
1/29 -799
1/30 -745
2/3 +1045
2/4 +720
2/5 +1267
2/8 +529
2/9 -923
2/10 -640
2/11 -999
2/18 +802
2/19 +1472
I'm pretty sure no one even looked at that, but the astute read would notice that all the wins/losses were strung together. I can't say I played my "A" game of poker during any of those losing blocks, but I definitely played better than the table and still had an edge over the competition, which is something I can take away from all of it. Even with this long breakeven streak, I'm still running hotter than I expect to in the long run, running at $87/hr (I expect to run at ~50-60).
I guess I'll just do a really long entry as I was meaning to do a January summary entry, but never got around to it. January was a good month to say the least. It was my most hourly intensive month, and also my 2nd winningest month in terms of cash (2nd to Nov-07 when I won a Bay101 tournament). I booked 18 sessions for 75 hours with an earnings of $6020. Overall I'm very happy at how I was able to put in that many hours, play well, and maintain my responsibilities with school as well. Hopefully there will be more Januaries to come, in poker, school, and life. Life is Beautiful :D
So to finalize this post, my session was a fun one. To start things off, I had called Bay101 at about 1:30 to get my name on the seatting list, and I ask hows the list and hear that there are a lot of call-ins (people like me, meaning if I beat them there I will have a high chance of getting a seat). I arrive at 1:45 to see the long list of call-ins.......under the long list of people waiting there already. I didn't turn out very bad at all because at the time they only had 2 20/40 games going, and soon opened a 3rd clearing 9 names off the list putting me near the top. I eventually get seated in what turned out to be a very very good game. It also helps to run well too.
The seat I had been seated at was also the best seat at the table, putting 2 loosish/passive players on my left and all the aggressors to my right. This is good because I won't have to make as many tough decisions in my session as the bets/raises will come from my right rather than my left. If I were to the right of the aggressors I will have to make decisions based on whether I want to expose myself to bluffs or not whereas the passive players will not bluff (at least not often). So I astutely begin stealing some blinds, seeing AQo 3x in 1 round and winning 2/3 of the pots and then this hand happens.
UTG(1st to act preflop) calls, I call right after with Ad2d (d is for diamonds), I think 1 more caller and then a fairly loose aggressive button raises, sb (small blind) folds, bb (big blind) calls, and everyone else calls putting 5 players to see the flop.
Flop comes 3d4d5d
I holy crap in my pants and check, and some how the other players left got it 2-bets back to me which I thought about 3-betting but thought it looked too strong and could probably check-raise the turn making mucho $s and call, left of me makes it 3-bets! and everyone calls.
Turn is Kc (c is for clubs)
and it goes for 2-bets as I checkraise like 3 players and get 2 callers
River is something that doesn't matter cause I have a straight flush.
and i beat 67 for the flopped straight in a huge pot.
Later I flop quads with 55 on a 655 flop where its headsup (1 on 1) and he proceeds to continually raise me til he gets all in on the turn for like 6 big bets (6x40).
So this game is easy. All you have to do is flop straight flushes and quads and make people put lots of chips in the middle when you hold what absolutely cannot lose. (A2 couldve lost to 67 of diamonds but that is so absurdly rare). Ran pretty sick hot, and a majority of my "tough" decisions were about how I can get them to put more chips into the middle rather than the decisions about whether I should bluff or if they're bluffing etc.
Oh and lastly, PokerStars has sucked me in with their 25% reload bonus for 250$ of free money as long as I play, so I started a little online play, more on that in future posts.
Dlow
So its been many sessions since my last post. Its been a whole month since I last wrote. Since then I've played 15 times for a total of 71 hours and 45 minutes which netted me a loss of $187. Here's some of the data from these past 15 sessions...
1/21 -800
1/22 -799
1/27 +480
1/28 -797
1/29 -799
1/30 -745
2/3 +1045
2/4 +720
2/5 +1267
2/8 +529
2/9 -923
2/10 -640
2/11 -999
2/18 +802
2/19 +1472
I'm pretty sure no one even looked at that, but the astute read would notice that all the wins/losses were strung together. I can't say I played my "A" game of poker during any of those losing blocks, but I definitely played better than the table and still had an edge over the competition, which is something I can take away from all of it. Even with this long breakeven streak, I'm still running hotter than I expect to in the long run, running at $87/hr (I expect to run at ~50-60).
I guess I'll just do a really long entry as I was meaning to do a January summary entry, but never got around to it. January was a good month to say the least. It was my most hourly intensive month, and also my 2nd winningest month in terms of cash (2nd to Nov-07 when I won a Bay101 tournament). I booked 18 sessions for 75 hours with an earnings of $6020. Overall I'm very happy at how I was able to put in that many hours, play well, and maintain my responsibilities with school as well. Hopefully there will be more Januaries to come, in poker, school, and life. Life is Beautiful :D
So to finalize this post, my session was a fun one. To start things off, I had called Bay101 at about 1:30 to get my name on the seatting list, and I ask hows the list and hear that there are a lot of call-ins (people like me, meaning if I beat them there I will have a high chance of getting a seat). I arrive at 1:45 to see the long list of call-ins.......under the long list of people waiting there already. I didn't turn out very bad at all because at the time they only had 2 20/40 games going, and soon opened a 3rd clearing 9 names off the list putting me near the top. I eventually get seated in what turned out to be a very very good game. It also helps to run well too.
The seat I had been seated at was also the best seat at the table, putting 2 loosish/passive players on my left and all the aggressors to my right. This is good because I won't have to make as many tough decisions in my session as the bets/raises will come from my right rather than my left. If I were to the right of the aggressors I will have to make decisions based on whether I want to expose myself to bluffs or not whereas the passive players will not bluff (at least not often). So I astutely begin stealing some blinds, seeing AQo 3x in 1 round and winning 2/3 of the pots and then this hand happens.
UTG(1st to act preflop) calls, I call right after with Ad2d (d is for diamonds), I think 1 more caller and then a fairly loose aggressive button raises, sb (small blind) folds, bb (big blind) calls, and everyone else calls putting 5 players to see the flop.
Flop comes 3d4d5d
I holy crap in my pants and check, and some how the other players left got it 2-bets back to me which I thought about 3-betting but thought it looked too strong and could probably check-raise the turn making mucho $s and call, left of me makes it 3-bets! and everyone calls.
Turn is Kc (c is for clubs)
and it goes for 2-bets as I checkraise like 3 players and get 2 callers
River is something that doesn't matter cause I have a straight flush.
and i beat 67 for the flopped straight in a huge pot.
Later I flop quads with 55 on a 655 flop where its headsup (1 on 1) and he proceeds to continually raise me til he gets all in on the turn for like 6 big bets (6x40).
So this game is easy. All you have to do is flop straight flushes and quads and make people put lots of chips in the middle when you hold what absolutely cannot lose. (A2 couldve lost to 67 of diamonds but that is so absurdly rare). Ran pretty sick hot, and a majority of my "tough" decisions were about how I can get them to put more chips into the middle rather than the decisions about whether I should bluff or if they're bluffing etc.
Oh and lastly, PokerStars has sucked me in with their 25% reload bonus for 250$ of free money as long as I play, so I started a little online play, more on that in future posts.
Dlow
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
MLK day = Payday
Today I "worked". If I can even call it that yet, but once again I continue to run well and win again. Much to my delight the 21 yr old skinny asian kid wearing Gucci glasses that you could see through was here again. So the constant reraising of this kid's incredible wide raising range began. Oh, and I read his soul.
Everyone folds to Kid who raises in some late position but not the button, I look down and see red Tens in the small blind and 3-bet, big blind clears out.
Flop K78 2 spades
I bet, he calls
Turn 6 spade
I bet, he raises, and I thought for a bit, I know he's capable of bluffing and he was actually not jittering as he usually does when he's in action, instead he's stone stiff. I call.
River blanks
He bets, I call, he tables(shows his cards on table) red 55, and my Tens win.
Table could not believe how I made such an insane call on the turn.
The night ended on a bit of a heater netting me 1213 for the evening.
It's safe to say January has been good to me. I've been trying to just simply log as many possible hours that I can, and I'm at 45.25 hours so far for the month playing 11 sessions. I've earned 9140 so far this month, but I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch as my dad would always say. I could very easily end this month with less than that, perhaps even in negative if I run terribly bad. I want to find some way to harness all the confidence I'm playing with now for times when normally my confidence may be shaken, leading me to misplay hands. I have no idea how I'm going to keep up my playing with school starting on Thursday, but hopefully none of my playing time will interfere with my schooling. Perhaps I will attempt to update how much poker is effecting my studies in the near future.
Dan Low
Everyone folds to Kid who raises in some late position but not the button, I look down and see red Tens in the small blind and 3-bet, big blind clears out.
Flop K78 2 spades
I bet, he calls
Turn 6 spade
I bet, he raises, and I thought for a bit, I know he's capable of bluffing and he was actually not jittering as he usually does when he's in action, instead he's stone stiff. I call.
River blanks
He bets, I call, he tables(shows his cards on table) red 55, and my Tens win.
Table could not believe how I made such an insane call on the turn.
The night ended on a bit of a heater netting me 1213 for the evening.
It's safe to say January has been good to me. I've been trying to just simply log as many possible hours that I can, and I'm at 45.25 hours so far for the month playing 11 sessions. I've earned 9140 so far this month, but I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch as my dad would always say. I could very easily end this month with less than that, perhaps even in negative if I run terribly bad. I want to find some way to harness all the confidence I'm playing with now for times when normally my confidence may be shaken, leading me to misplay hands. I have no idea how I'm going to keep up my playing with school starting on Thursday, but hopefully none of my playing time will interfere with my schooling. Perhaps I will attempt to update how much poker is effecting my studies in the near future.
Dan Low
Sunday, January 18, 2009
There, And Back Again
That was the title of the book that the hobbit wrote I think, but anyway...
I finally made it out to Garden city again for the first time this year. Same dreadful place. Dimly lit, looks very green, dealers were decently pleasent, I didn't get carded as usual, and the place was empty. Empty, on a Saturday night?! So they only spread one 20/40 game that I had called in for about an hour ago and was told I was 4th on the list. I was still 4th on the list. I expected to meet my friend Elliot there, but somehow through our AIM conversation he ended up at Bay101, realized it was jam packed there and the list is like 30 people long for 3/6-8/16, and was on his way to Garden City.
So I played in the open seating 8/16 game, and recognizable really bad middle-aged Asian man was there to much my delight and proceeded to stack many of his chips. I called him down light (means I call his bets with less of a hand than I would others) because he bluffs a lot.
A hand...
I raise ATo MP, he calls on button, okay player (his friend) calls in sb, bb calls.
Flop T63 2 spades
check, I bet, button raises, sb 3-bets, bb folds, I call, button caps, sb calls, I call
Turn 3 non spade,
check, check, button bets, villain calls, I think about how crazy these two must be and maybe they're colluding (trying to raise me out because they will chop the money in the parking lot), but they're regulars so that drops out of picture,
So my decision leads me to keep them honest, Buttons crazy, and sb looks like flush draw, and I call
River 5 non spade
check check, he bets, sb calls, and I have a funny feeling sb called because he didn't want me to call, but I still call.
Button has JT, and my AT is good, I should've asked to see sb's hand because of the possible collusion. The whole time I'm talking to them about how they're trying to screw with me, and I hear crazy guy mention to his friend about how cocky I am. I ran out of witty things to say at this point.
I eventually pick off like 11747357 bluffs from the button with one pair, oftentimes being not top pair to beat his whatever bluff, and he is determined to get me.
And then this miracle
some calls or what not, I raise QQ, he cold calls 2(calls 2-bets without putting any money to begin with) on the button, and some other people call
Flop 997
checks to me i bet, he calls, some other people call
Turn 2
I bet, he calls, smoe folds, maybe or not 1 caller
River 3
I bet, he raises, and its on me and I call
He shows 97o, and I proceed to tell his friend that he missed out on getting more of his chips back because he failed to raise flop.
Eventually I got seated at the 20/40 game winning about 200-300 from the 8/16 game, and ran hot at the start getting up like 300, and then I break even for the rest of the night for a win of 525 for the night. I half staked Elliot for his 6/12 game as well, and he earned me 53$. Go Elliot!
For the not so math inclined thats a 578 night for me hurray! FWIW I made a vareity of mistakes at the 20/40 that I should not have made, and need to work on my game when the table turns to a tougher game to win in.
Dan Low
I finally made it out to Garden city again for the first time this year. Same dreadful place. Dimly lit, looks very green, dealers were decently pleasent, I didn't get carded as usual, and the place was empty. Empty, on a Saturday night?! So they only spread one 20/40 game that I had called in for about an hour ago and was told I was 4th on the list. I was still 4th on the list. I expected to meet my friend Elliot there, but somehow through our AIM conversation he ended up at Bay101, realized it was jam packed there and the list is like 30 people long for 3/6-8/16, and was on his way to Garden City.
So I played in the open seating 8/16 game, and recognizable really bad middle-aged Asian man was there to much my delight and proceeded to stack many of his chips. I called him down light (means I call his bets with less of a hand than I would others) because he bluffs a lot.
A hand...
I raise ATo MP, he calls on button, okay player (his friend) calls in sb, bb calls.
Flop T63 2 spades
check, I bet, button raises, sb 3-bets, bb folds, I call, button caps, sb calls, I call
Turn 3 non spade,
check, check, button bets, villain calls, I think about how crazy these two must be and maybe they're colluding (trying to raise me out because they will chop the money in the parking lot), but they're regulars so that drops out of picture,
So my decision leads me to keep them honest, Buttons crazy, and sb looks like flush draw, and I call
River 5 non spade
check check, he bets, sb calls, and I have a funny feeling sb called because he didn't want me to call, but I still call.
Button has JT, and my AT is good, I should've asked to see sb's hand because of the possible collusion. The whole time I'm talking to them about how they're trying to screw with me, and I hear crazy guy mention to his friend about how cocky I am. I ran out of witty things to say at this point.
I eventually pick off like 11747357 bluffs from the button with one pair, oftentimes being not top pair to beat his whatever bluff, and he is determined to get me.
And then this miracle
some calls or what not, I raise QQ, he cold calls 2(calls 2-bets without putting any money to begin with) on the button, and some other people call
Flop 997
checks to me i bet, he calls, some other people call
Turn 2
I bet, he calls, smoe folds, maybe or not 1 caller
River 3
I bet, he raises, and its on me and I call
He shows 97o, and I proceed to tell his friend that he missed out on getting more of his chips back because he failed to raise flop.
Eventually I got seated at the 20/40 game winning about 200-300 from the 8/16 game, and ran hot at the start getting up like 300, and then I break even for the rest of the night for a win of 525 for the night. I half staked Elliot for his 6/12 game as well, and he earned me 53$. Go Elliot!
For the not so math inclined thats a 578 night for me hurray! FWIW I made a vareity of mistakes at the 20/40 that I should not have made, and need to work on my game when the table turns to a tougher game to win in.
Dan Low
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The 9 Hour Session (With no breaks)
So... I'm an idiot. While I still won today, and felt very good about how I played today, I was really tired after the sessions end. Ended the day up 1205$, but it seemed like it took forever. Hit a nice little string of pots that I didn't lose and broke the slump of being breakeven/up a little.
Something I really liked today was the fact that I got to play to my image today. The first table I sat in was a table full of nits (uber conservatives). Not very many big pots, lots of chopping (when everyone folds to the small blind and big blind, they can chop and fold their hands and take their blinds back). I was probably the nittiest of all, or at least it must've seen that way as I picked up a slew of T6o etc. Allowed me to gain a LOT of respect on my turn check/raise bluffs which I administered a few times until I moved tables.
I sit 2 seats left of Jesse, a poker friend I met online, who plays better than I do, but we do no battling today. Both of us pretty much break even for the next 1-2 hours until he gets called over to the 40/80 game where the game is actually softer with tons of action. I however, cannot afford to play 40/80. Instead I painstakingly sit there w/ ~800$ in yellow chips (my buyin) for what seemed like eternity. I somehow got string of hands where I kept raising preflop, and maybe or maybe not winning but develop this crazy asian gambler image. I probably was especially on this ensuing hand...
everyone folds to me and I pickup 8h9c, and raise 2 away from the button and RU in the BB calls.
RU is a floorperson whom I haven't seen not defend his bigblind headsup which is probably merit for just folding 89 but its ok, I have AK and he'll pay me off when flop comes 9 high.
Flop comes Ts6s5c
he checks, I bet, he raises (this generally signifies either a flush draw or some kind of pair), I 3-bet thinking a 8 or 9 will win me the pot if I hit too, and he calls
Turn 3d
he checks, and for some reason I have this sneaking feeling he's going to fold, so I bet, and yup he calls
River is 7s
he bets out, and I almost raise him but I just call, and he flips over T7 saying I rivered you.
Fortunately for me I rivered him, and someone said they folded 77 to my preflop raise giving me 1 out to win this pot, the lone 7 of spades that I couldn't even raise on the river.
The table is astonished at how I could possibly raise preflop with 89o, 3-bet flop, and bet the turn with a gutshot straight draw, no pair.
This plays out nicely on this next hand...
folds to me, I pickup 44 in MP and raise looking to steal the blinds, lo and behold RU 3-bets from SB, BB folds, and I call.
I think RU's possible holdings are somewhere like 99+, AQ+
Flop is a beauty, a tournament players wet dream
K43
RU bets, I raise hoping he has AK, he 3-bets, I 4-bet, he calls
Turn 3
RU donks (bets into the raiser in previous street), I raise, he 3-bets, and then my heart sinks a little because he could very well have KK and call
River T
RU checks now, and my 44 is freakn golden and I bet, he calls, and I bare him the bad news that AK is not good.
Still quite the tiring day, and I could've used a break here and there. Can't say I played hands perfectly (especially towards the end as I got more tired), but I'm getting a better feel for the game and feel like I'm developping more patience and adjusting to different players and table conditions as I play more and more.
Dan Low
Something I really liked today was the fact that I got to play to my image today. The first table I sat in was a table full of nits (uber conservatives). Not very many big pots, lots of chopping (when everyone folds to the small blind and big blind, they can chop and fold their hands and take their blinds back). I was probably the nittiest of all, or at least it must've seen that way as I picked up a slew of T6o etc. Allowed me to gain a LOT of respect on my turn check/raise bluffs which I administered a few times until I moved tables.
I sit 2 seats left of Jesse, a poker friend I met online, who plays better than I do, but we do no battling today. Both of us pretty much break even for the next 1-2 hours until he gets called over to the 40/80 game where the game is actually softer with tons of action. I however, cannot afford to play 40/80. Instead I painstakingly sit there w/ ~800$ in yellow chips (my buyin) for what seemed like eternity. I somehow got string of hands where I kept raising preflop, and maybe or maybe not winning but develop this crazy asian gambler image. I probably was especially on this ensuing hand...
everyone folds to me and I pickup 8h9c, and raise 2 away from the button and RU in the BB calls.
RU is a floorperson whom I haven't seen not defend his bigblind headsup which is probably merit for just folding 89 but its ok, I have AK and he'll pay me off when flop comes 9 high.
Flop comes Ts6s5c
he checks, I bet, he raises (this generally signifies either a flush draw or some kind of pair), I 3-bet thinking a 8 or 9 will win me the pot if I hit too, and he calls
Turn 3d
he checks, and for some reason I have this sneaking feeling he's going to fold, so I bet, and yup he calls
River is 7s
he bets out, and I almost raise him but I just call, and he flips over T7 saying I rivered you.
Fortunately for me I rivered him, and someone said they folded 77 to my preflop raise giving me 1 out to win this pot, the lone 7 of spades that I couldn't even raise on the river.
The table is astonished at how I could possibly raise preflop with 89o, 3-bet flop, and bet the turn with a gutshot straight draw, no pair.
This plays out nicely on this next hand...
folds to me, I pickup 44 in MP and raise looking to steal the blinds, lo and behold RU 3-bets from SB, BB folds, and I call.
I think RU's possible holdings are somewhere like 99+, AQ+
Flop is a beauty, a tournament players wet dream
K43
RU bets, I raise hoping he has AK, he 3-bets, I 4-bet, he calls
Turn 3
RU donks (bets into the raiser in previous street), I raise, he 3-bets, and then my heart sinks a little because he could very well have KK and call
River T
RU checks now, and my 44 is freakn golden and I bet, he calls, and I bare him the bad news that AK is not good.
Still quite the tiring day, and I could've used a break here and there. Can't say I played hands perfectly (especially towards the end as I got more tired), but I'm getting a better feel for the game and feel like I'm developping more patience and adjusting to different players and table conditions as I play more and more.
Dan Low
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Due for a loss, but why in front of an audience
Usually when someone has a person sitting (not standing) behind them watching their every hand I make some retarded remark like "Where's my fan club?" or something of that nature. Anyway, today I had my personal fan club. A friend of mine had her day off work and for some reason wanted to watch me play poker. Her only knowledge of poker is from playing for fun and no money with her friends and what she sees on TV. I think she expected this dimly lit room with heavy tension and all that nonsense that you see at the feature table at the WSOP. At least the chicken soft tacos didn't disappoint.
So after grabbing lunch and finishing up the tacos I get seated and immediately begin firing away with some actionable hands I can't remember and manage to float around my original buyin of 800 maybe going up and down 1 stack. And then the sinker hits. New 50sish white male gets seated to my left and immediately posts in MP (sign of looseness).
I pickup 88 and raise, he calls, as does BB who is a big donater of chips from what I've seen from him in the past.
And then I take this super weak line which I'm not so sure was correct...
Flop Q66, check I bet new guy calls BB calls,
Turn K, BB checks, I check planning to call BB's likely river bluff and fold to new guy (looks pretty passive so bet means K), new guy checks
River 5, bb checks, I check, new guy bets, bb folds, I call
55 is good.
Later I get a 3-bet preflop and cap flop on a Ten high board and lose against TT, with one guy in the middle w/ JJ and I have AA, and eventually, 1.5 hours into the session, I lose it all except 2 5$ chips and 4 1$ chips. I guess I was due, and am still due for more losses as I'm running way above a normal attainable rate thus far for 20/40. But I like to stay positive and just play smart and expect to win in the long run, however long this run may be.
Movie hopped Slumdog Millionaire and Marley and Me, liked Slumdog didn't like Marley (and its not because I don't like romantic comedies and I have 2 dogs)
Dan Low
So after grabbing lunch and finishing up the tacos I get seated and immediately begin firing away with some actionable hands I can't remember and manage to float around my original buyin of 800 maybe going up and down 1 stack. And then the sinker hits. New 50sish white male gets seated to my left and immediately posts in MP (sign of looseness).
I pickup 88 and raise, he calls, as does BB who is a big donater of chips from what I've seen from him in the past.
And then I take this super weak line which I'm not so sure was correct...
Flop Q66, check I bet new guy calls BB calls,
Turn K, BB checks, I check planning to call BB's likely river bluff and fold to new guy (looks pretty passive so bet means K), new guy checks
River 5, bb checks, I check, new guy bets, bb folds, I call
55 is good.
Later I get a 3-bet preflop and cap flop on a Ten high board and lose against TT, with one guy in the middle w/ JJ and I have AA, and eventually, 1.5 hours into the session, I lose it all except 2 5$ chips and 4 1$ chips. I guess I was due, and am still due for more losses as I'm running way above a normal attainable rate thus far for 20/40. But I like to stay positive and just play smart and expect to win in the long run, however long this run may be.
Movie hopped Slumdog Millionaire and Marley and Me, liked Slumdog didn't like Marley (and its not because I don't like romantic comedies and I have 2 dogs)
Dan Low
Monday, January 12, 2009
Day Two
So it always feels nice to pickup a nice win following a losing session. I didn't get to play on Saturday or Sunday, but I found time to play today from 3-8. Today I ended the session with a net win of 2388$+3$ can of coke. The win felt good, but what almost felt equally good was beating up on this cocky kid wearing gucci sunglasses where you could see through the lenses. He looked really young, and looked like one to try to make plays n such, and it was confirmed to me on the first hand we entered against each other.
Bay101 20/40 game, I was UTG+1 (Under The Gun+1 or 2 left of the big blind) with 88 and raise, he 3-bets (reraises), everyone folds and I call.
Flop comes 777, I check, he bets, I raise, he calls,
Turn 5, I bet, he raises, I think and call
River T (ten), I check, he checks with only 4 chips left and MHIG (my hand is good) against his AQ
Eventually we both move tables, and I get to move to a seat to his left where I continually 3-bet him with even some Ax at times because he's been caught with random hands like Qx suited or what not. He does not stop, and proceeds to keep trying to play hard against me all the while talking about how he can read people and how he plays and wins at 100/200, and constantly repeats "I know what you have".
I must've seen him rebuy at least 6 times...
The crazy amount of hours I've put on so far in January hasn't felt like much actually. For the most part I'm actually having fun playing cards, and the boring times when I'm just folding away hands for what seems like hours, I can listen to music or start conversation with those around me or the dealers. So far I've logged in 26 hours in the 12 days of January that we've had. I'm aiming to try to login 15-20 hours/week, but I don't think I can keep up as soon as school hits on the 22nd.
Okay time for bowling, peace
Dan Low
Bay101 20/40 game, I was UTG+1 (Under The Gun+1 or 2 left of the big blind) with 88 and raise, he 3-bets (reraises), everyone folds and I call.
Flop comes 777, I check, he bets, I raise, he calls,
Turn 5, I bet, he raises, I think and call
River T (ten), I check, he checks with only 4 chips left and MHIG (my hand is good) against his AQ
Eventually we both move tables, and I get to move to a seat to his left where I continually 3-bet him with even some Ax at times because he's been caught with random hands like Qx suited or what not. He does not stop, and proceeds to keep trying to play hard against me all the while talking about how he can read people and how he plays and wins at 100/200, and constantly repeats "I know what you have".
I must've seen him rebuy at least 6 times...
The crazy amount of hours I've put on so far in January hasn't felt like much actually. For the most part I'm actually having fun playing cards, and the boring times when I'm just folding away hands for what seems like hours, I can listen to music or start conversation with those around me or the dealers. So far I've logged in 26 hours in the 12 days of January that we've had. I'm aiming to try to login 15-20 hours/week, but I don't think I can keep up as soon as school hits on the 22nd.
Okay time for bowling, peace
Dan Low
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The First Entry
I'm assuming anyone who is reading this already knows at least who I am. But, just in case... My name is Daniel Low, I'm currently a student at SJSU, and I've been playing poker semi-seriously ever since I turned 21 and could play live. Recreationally I played a lot since high-school.
Since August 10th 2007, I've been recording all my live sessions at both Bay101 and Garden City playing mostly 8/16. I made a pretty solid 25$/hr over about 350 hours or so. Starting Dec. 30th I made 20/40 my new game of choice and have run pretty hot since. I don't expect to run as well I am, but I do expect myself to be a winning player at 20/40.
I've been thinking about starting some kind of blog to let whoever cares about my poker endeavors know about how I'm doing and whether I'm a lifetime loser or what not. Part of this is also to make sure I'm not fooling myself and those around me about being a long-term winner at poker.
Another reason for this blog is to just get how I feel about my sessions on paper as it may or may not help in reducing the anger I have when I lose (Specially when I literally didn't win a single hand before I left). I was going to do this blog earlier, but I felt it would be better to start it after I took a significant loss.
Currently I have a one rule I set myself for when I play.
Stop loss = 800$ aka I cannot lose more than 800$ in one session.
Anyway, on to the session...
So I was planning to still be playing at the time that I'm writing this, but it got cut short because I sat at a pretty juicy table for 1 hour and didn't win a single hand netting me a 795$ loss (I decided to just leave with my last yellow chip). I did play one hand terribadly where I called against two players, both a turn and river obvious value bet with a Q9 on a TJQK board from the BB. Other than that it was pretty much folding or raising preflop and mucking on flop/turn or missing draws etc. I'd post more hands if I had anything interesting hands to post but I don't.
Dan Low
Since August 10th 2007, I've been recording all my live sessions at both Bay101 and Garden City playing mostly 8/16. I made a pretty solid 25$/hr over about 350 hours or so. Starting Dec. 30th I made 20/40 my new game of choice and have run pretty hot since. I don't expect to run as well I am, but I do expect myself to be a winning player at 20/40.
I've been thinking about starting some kind of blog to let whoever cares about my poker endeavors know about how I'm doing and whether I'm a lifetime loser or what not. Part of this is also to make sure I'm not fooling myself and those around me about being a long-term winner at poker.
Another reason for this blog is to just get how I feel about my sessions on paper as it may or may not help in reducing the anger I have when I lose (Specially when I literally didn't win a single hand before I left). I was going to do this blog earlier, but I felt it would be better to start it after I took a significant loss.
Currently I have a one rule I set myself for when I play.
Stop loss = 800$ aka I cannot lose more than 800$ in one session.
Anyway, on to the session...
So I was planning to still be playing at the time that I'm writing this, but it got cut short because I sat at a pretty juicy table for 1 hour and didn't win a single hand netting me a 795$ loss (I decided to just leave with my last yellow chip). I did play one hand terribadly where I called against two players, both a turn and river obvious value bet with a Q9 on a TJQK board from the BB. Other than that it was pretty much folding or raising preflop and mucking on flop/turn or missing draws etc. I'd post more hands if I had anything interesting hands to post but I don't.
Dan Low
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