I am strong....like bull!

Nothing went my way during the first half of my session, but I buckled down and did a good job of keeping my cool. I was quickly down a little over 4 buy-ins, but just as quickly as I lost that $1600 I went on about a $3200 upswing and ended up having a very good day online. The six max games are starting to come a little more natural too me and I am starting to adjust my style to fit to the shorthanded games. Matt and I are gonna head to the Bellagio to eat at "Noodles" and then possibly go play some live poker somewhere.

Here is my swingy graph from today...

A pretty good couple of days....

I didn't play many hands yesterday, but I had a pretty solid day. I played about 1200 hands and won $995. After I finished playing for the day Matt, Josh, Richie, and I went to the UNLV/ San Diego St. basketball game. The game was fun and had a good atmosphere. UNLV won the game and after the game Me, Matt, and Richie went to Blondies inside of Planet Hollywood to play some beer pong. It was my first time playing beer pong and I was pretty much a natural. When I played either Matt or Richie, the one that wasn't playing had to drink the beer I was supposed to be drinking. I went 3-0 in my first 3 games every played.

Today I played about 1700 hands and won about $650. After that we headed to the Wynn to see what kind of trouble we could get into there. Stupidly, we played some 5/10 PLO when it was basically just a bunch of our friends that made up the majority of the game. I left the game to go pick up Kevin from the airport and by the time I got back to the game everyone seemed to be stuck and in a bad mood. I did well in the game, but it was pretty silly to play in a game that was mostly just friends anyway. Kind of a can't win situation. Anyway, I won $1024 playing PLO.

Here is my week so far.

Online: +$2,048
Live: +$1,120

Not too bad with 3 days still left before the week is over. 3 more solid days and I might be on my first mini-heater in a while!

Some times you just get lucky....

Well, the first two days of my 3rd week were just as crazy as the rest of my 6 max play. This is a graph of the beginning of my day today. I got REALLY lucky today in a couple of big pots or else I would have had another bad day. But sometimes....you just get lucky! :)


I usually don't talk about specific hands, but this one kind of deserves to be talked about I think (not a bad beat story)....

It feels like I have hardly flopped any sets lately and I certainly haven't been winning any big hands when I flop sets. It just seems like lately every time that I flop a set they never any kind of hand that can pay me off. Well....this time they did have a hand that could "pay me off". Long story short...I flopped a set of 6's on Jc 6d 5d board...three of us got it all in on the flop for more than full buy-ins. One of my opponents had KK and the other one of course had top set with JJ. Obviously, I made quad sixes on the river to win a $1,334 pot for a profit of $890 on one hand of $400 NL!!! I could have gone on some pretty serious tilt if I didn't hit that miracle 6 and would have lost such a huge pot in set over set fashion after waiting for what seemed like forever to get involved in a big pot with a set. Anyway, I went on a serious heater after that and ended up having a decent day online.

Matt got in town today and we went to play some 5/5 PLO at the Wynn. We started the game and since there were only 4 of us and we were all friends we decided we would play some $10/point Chinese poker until the game started to fill up . I ran well in that and won $160 and then lost $66 playing PLO before I had to leave for bowling.

After my first two days of my 3rd week this is how it looks so far...

+$404 Online
+$96 Live

Pretty crappy so far, but I promise...I WILL go on an extended heater in the very near future!

Sooooo dumb!

My roommate Josh's recent success coupled with the insane win rates that I know other people have been able to achieve at 6 max poker has motivated me to try my hand at it for the last few days. Well, basically.... it sucked! The first day I was winning nicely at first and then got sloppy in the last half of my session and ended up a pretty good loser. The second day I I started losing right away and then went on a really good rush. At one point I was up over $2700 for the day. Somehow, I managed to lose about $2200 in about my last 260 hands! It was one of the most discouraging days of poker in recent memory :( I also played some 6 max PLO last night when I was bored and won $654 in almost no time at all. All total I lost $284 playing NL and won $654 playing PLO for a grand total of $370 in about 5,000 hands and 12 hours of playing during the last two days......GROSS!

To say that I had a a few swings in the last two days would be a bit of an understatement (nice finish huh?)!



All that being said....I think I really have a much bigger edge playing 6 max games than I do playing full ring games. I have to play fewer tables and can't play as many hands per hour, but it isn't that that far off since you get more hands per hour at the 6 handed tables than the full ring games.

Today is the end of my second week of the seven week stretch that I am trying to really put in tons of hands/hours. The first week sucked and the second week was a little better even though I feel like it could have been much better. Hopefully, I will do better in week 3 than I did in week 2....I will certainly give it my best effort.

This is how my challenge is going so far....

Week 1
Online: -$2,712 (28 hours)
Live: +$1,297 (8 hours)
Total: -$1,415

Week 2
Online: +$6,328 (36.5 hours!!)
Live: -$1,265 (8 hours)
Total: +$5,063

Total
Online: +$3,616 (64.5 hours and about 29,000 hands)
Live: +$32 (16 hours)
Total: +$3,659 (About 80 hours total)

That is kind of depressing after putting in such hard work for the last two weeks and only being up that much money. I kind of just cheered myself up by writing that last sentence. It made me do the math and realize that despite having two pretty awful weeks of poker I still made over $45/hour. Even though that is way below my expected hourly rate I know there are lots of people that would do some pretty crazy things to get a job that paid that much....during a good week. I know that if I keep putting the work in I will end up having a really successful 7 weeks with a much higher hourly rate. I am shooting for $130/hour by the end of my challenge....we'll see how that goes....it'll be tough after such a slow start.

My weight lose goal...kinda stalling out. I have been eating great and still haven't eaten fast food ONE TIME! I have lost around 7 pounds, but I have only been to the gym once since I decided to start going (such a slacker). I am ahead of pace right now, but as well as I have been eating I should be doing awesome if I could just get to the gym even a little bit.

Week 3 is gonna be the week where I start crushing both goals...lets hope so anyway!

I can see more of the iceberg now!

Today was another good day. I played just under 3,000 hands in almost 5.5 hours. I won $2,245 and I ran at 9.49 BB/100 hands today. I played my super aggressive in your face style again today and it was obviously very successful :) I didn't play on UB today like I said I would, but the games were very good on Full Tilt today as well. I am really tired and don't feel like blogging too much more. I am really enjoying online poker right now and I look forward to playing some more tomorrow.

So far this week I am....

+$5,913 Online
And
-$1,265 Live

This is more like what I expected a typical week of my 7 week challenge to be like and last week was more of an exception rather than the rule.

A productive day....

Today before I played any poker I opened all the mail and paid all of the bills for the house and FINALLY made an excel spreadsheet so I can keep track of what all the roommates owe me....it only took me 7 months to get around to doing that!

Then, Full Tilt was having technical issues again today so I decided I would give the 6 max games on Ultimate Bet a shot. I never have really fooled with too much short handed (6 max) poker, but when messing around in my pokertracker database I noticed I had really high win rates for the very few hands I had played at 6 max. I just don't feel nearly as comfortable playing 6 handed games as I do at full ring tables. Anyway, I played 3 tables of $400 NL on UB today and did pretty well. I won $1,174, but sadly that is really the only stat I know for sure from today. Ultimate Bet's software sucks so badly.....It doesn't save all of the hand histories on my hard drive and for some reason seems to only miss hands that I won! I know for sure how much I won, but when I loaded the hands into pokertracker it had me as winning around $300 less than I actually did. It sucks not knowing how many hands I played, how long I played, what my BB/100 hands was, and what my actual stats were at the 6 max games. Also, you can't use any Heads Up Display on UB, because the hand histories don't go on your hard drive until you close the table you were playing at. It is just not a good site for the stat freak/analytical player like me :( Thats too bad, because the games seem really good on there. I'll keep playing there as long as I am doing so well or until I can't stomach the crappy software anymore.

So far this week I am.....
+$3668 Online
and
-$1265 Live

Decent week so far, but I feel like it is just the tip of the iceberg....like this....

Opposite day....

I had been losing or barely making any money online during the day and then going to the play live at night and booking winners. Well, today I did things oppositely.....I won $1,038 online and then lost $1,765 at the Bellagio. When I was on my bad run last week I had decided to cut back my tables to only 6 and tone down my aggression a bit to lower the variance and try to grind out some profit. I was using this approach for all of yesterday and the first half of today and it ended up being exactly what I had expected....a grind. I gradually lost (-$352) yesterday and was just barely winning for the first half of today. After the IU game was over I decided to try to play a much more aggressive style and it worked out really well. I am going to try to play this style tomorrow again and see how it goes. I feel like when you push your small edges instead of always trying to keep the pot small you are actually going to have a higher win rate in the long run even though you are going to run into some big hands sometimes and lose more than you normally would. Considering how many hands I am getting in per hour it shouldn't take long for the small edges I'm pushing to pay off.

So far this week I am....

+$2,494 Online
and
-$1,265 Live

I am looking forward to playing online tomorrow and pwning some n00bz faces!

Erased!

I played about 8 hours today and completely erased all of last week's loses. That feels good. I started out the day playing some tournaments and lost $162 in those, but then won $1618 in the cash games for a total of +$1456. I ran at 9.65 BB/100 hands today which is better than I will average in the long run, but isn't totally out of the ordinary for any one session in particular. On a little bit more of a disappointing note....my BB/100 hands rate has fallen to 3.39 over the 76K+ hands at $400 NL I have in my laptop's database. I would like to see that get to somewhere between 4 and 5 and I think that is attainable if I improve on my play against some of the regulars that are in the game. Most notably, pay them off less frequently on the river. Almost all of the regulars in the game lose a lot of their aggression on the turn and river, are tight players in general, and usually if they are making big bets on the river they are going to have a hand. It feels really good when you make a great call against a regular, but it also really sucks paying them off.

Josh and I are going to head to the Bellagio and put in a few live hours. It is kind of a nice schedule I have been on lately....play most of the day online and then go wind down at the Bellagio for a few hours at night (and win money).

**I won $500 exactly at the Bellagio in about 3 hours of playing. That puts me at +$1956 for the day and is a great start to the week.

After week #1 of my newest goals....

IT SUCKED! I played pretty well the whole week. There were times when I didn't play my best but its pretty much impossible to not have some lapses for that long of a time period. I played 14,400 hands online this week and I lost $2712. My goal was to play 30 hours and I played just under 28 which is pretty good considering I played about 6 hours of live poker as well. I made $1297 playing live, but that still puts me down $1,415 total for the week. All in all it was an incredibly frustrating week of poker and it felt like I lost $10,000 so I guess $1,415 isn't so bad when I look back on it. I started out the week playing 9 tables and was running pretty poorly and felt like I might be getting a little sloppy with my play so about halfway through the week I decided to drop down to 6 tables and tightened up a little bit. I had decent success doing that and I think I will start out next week doing the same until I start winning again and regain some confidence. My hourly rate will suffer a little bit playing 6 instead of 9, but winning is certainly better than losing!

I did not eat out ONE TIME the entire week, but I only made it to the gym once :( I think I lost about 4 pounds this week and I am slightly ahead of pace for my weight loss goal. It is tough to make myself go to the gym when I am losing at poker. I know it sounds stupid, but stuff just isn't as fun when you are losing as they are when you are winning.

I am confident that next week will be much better poker wise and that should make it a little easier to get to the gym. Even though I lost this week I am proud that I played the amount of hours that I wanted and did a good job sticking to my diet.

On a side note...I am really disappointed with Kelvin Sampson (IU's basketball coach) and Rick Greenspan (IU's athletic director).
1. Why can't Sampson follow the rules....again?
2. Why would Greenspan hire a known cheater?

I am terrified at what long term (5-10 years) ramifications this debacle could have on IU's basketball program. I guess we'll know more in a week and then even more in July. Soooo dumb. Also, keep your fingers crossed that DJ White's knee is OK...we can't afford for him to miss ANY games. I am pretty certain that Sampson will be fired eventually and I am already starting to wonder about who they might get to replace him. I do know someone who recently became available.....

Some new goals and my first day of them....

I always have good intentions of hitting the gym and starting to eat better. Then I always tell myself that it won't workout, because I have such and such trip planned in the next few weeks and whats the point in starting if I am only going to be able to do it for a week or two. Well, I have decided it is time to really buckle down...for a while at least. I don't have any trips coming up and as far as I know I should be in Vegas at least for the next two months.

Usually, when I set goals for myself I have a really hard time staying motivated if I give myself too long of a time frame to achieve them. For example: I want to win X amount of money this year and play more hours of poker. However, I do really well accomplishing goals I set for myself if I set shorter and very specific goals. These new goals that I have come up with are a little bit more long term than I like setting, but I have faith in myself to stick to them this time.

Here is my newest set of goals:

Starting on February 10th and ending on April 1st.

1. I WILL lose at least 16.4 pounds. I weighed myself this morning and I weighed 236.4 and I want to get down to 220. However, when I got back from Louisville (February 5th) I weighed 241 so I have already lost 5 pounds somehow. I went to the grocery yesterday so I finally have some decent food to eat at home and I won't have to eat fast food for EVERY meal anymore. In fact I am going to attempt to try to not eat ANY fast food for the entire 7 weeks of these goals (basically impossible, but we'll see). I will also be going to the gym most days (definitely the hardest/most important part of this goal).

2. I want to play a minimum of 30 hours of online poker per week for the entire 7 weeks which comes out to 210 hours total. I am playing 9 tables at a time which ends up being about 625 hands per hour. This means I will be playing about 18,000 hands per week and 125,000 for the 7 week period...that is ALOT of poker my friends!

These would be two really great accomplishments for me and they certainly will be very difficult. It will be hard to avoid poker burnout, but if I can tough it out I stand to make lots of money :)

Well today was my first day of working towards my new goals and it was a partial success. I planned on going to the gym first thing when I woke up. I am sad to say it, but I couldn't get myself to go to the gym on the very first day! Instead I decided to set up my weight loss program on my dry erase board and hang it in my bathroom.....that way I'll be all set to go tomorrow...yeah right, I just didn't want to go to the gym and that was an easy way out. So goal #1 has yet to really get going full steam...tomorrow though!

As far as the poker goes....I put in a really good effort today. I played 6.3 hours and played a new personal record 3,962 hands! It was an awful start to the session, but the second half of it I went on a huge rush and it ended up being a really productive session.

Talk about a day with some big swings (click the image to get a bigger view).

I know the hardest part will be....

...to start typing. I haven't blogged in a long time and it is kinda like skipping class in college. Once you miss your first class it is soooo much easier to miss the second one and every class you skip after that is easier than the previous one. After a while of missing class or not blogging it can feel like doing either of them is the least fun in the whole world to do. Once you get to class or start writing your blog it really isn't all that bad and sometimes it is enjoyable and you might even learn something....so here goes.

My last blog was about reaching my goal and right after that I went to Louisville to visit with Landon and go to his superbowl party. I played a little bit of poker while I was there and didn't do very well. I think I lost around $1200 while I was there. The party was an awesome time as always. It is funny to watch Landon get things ready for that party...he always puts ALOT of thought and time into it and spares absolutely zero expenses. When buying for stuff for the party if he thinks he'll need 10 2-liters he'll buy 20, if he thinks he needs 8 pizzas he'll buy 15, if one hot female bartender would be cool to hire he'll hire 3 of them! The games are always well thought out and lots of fun. The most popular game every year is "Pass the Football". I'll try to explain it a simply as possible. There about 35 different "Event Cards" that cost anywhere from $4 to $35. Each event card has something specific that can happen at anytime during the second half such as "Randy Moss catches a Touchdown" or "NYG kick a field goal between 30-39 yards". When the event on your card happens you get the football, when someone else's event happens you pass them the football. You win cash if you hold the football at the 10:00, 5:00, or 0:00 minute marks of either the 3rd or 4th quarters. I bought two event cards and they were "Patriot's QB gets sacked" and "NYG's QB gets sacked". Well with about :40 left in the game Tom Brady got sacked and I got the football and I was in line to win $160 if the clock could run out with out anyone else's event happening. Well, with :02 left in the game I lost the football to Landon's buddy Russ....He had the event card that read "Coach gets soaked"! Tom Coughlin got his gatorade bath with two seconds left in the game and it cost me $160. The party went wild when it happened and it was easily the most celebrated gatorade bath in the history of superbowl parties.

Here is Landon handing over the cash to Russ after the much celebrated gatorade bath. Russ deserved to win though...he still came to the party even though he had just gotten out of the hospital earlier that day after having emergency throat surgery...thats how good the party is, haha.

I told ya the party was fun...

Since I have been back in Vegas I have played online one day and live three times. I have lost every time. One of my live sessions was the $550 tournament at the Venetian. I played great the whole time, lasted almost 8 hours, and got nothing for it. I finished somewhere around 60th or 70th, but they only pay 27 spots. I've also played 5/10 NL live twice and the games have had really good action, but I just haven't won any bigs pots. They play really badly live, but it just takes soooo long for the variance to work it self out that it is pretty frustrating. I mean I have played two live sessions of cash game poker for probably 12 hours total which probably is a little less than 500 hands of poker. When I play online I can play 500 hands in ONE HOUR! I have losing days, weeks, and stretches of 5,000 or 10,000 hands online all the time. Can you imagine how brutal a 10,000 hand losing streak playing live would be? I like being in Vegas because I can go play live whenever I want, but I also like it because I can get in a good routine of playing lots of long online sessions.

I don't have any trips planned anytime in the near future and I really want to get a lot of hours in for the next couple of months. I am thinking about some new goals, but I am not sure how ambitious I want to get with them. I'll sleep on it and get them posted tomorrow.

G'night