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
Sunday, April 26, 2009
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
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