I tried, I really did....

After writing my last blog I tried as hard as a could to maintain a positive attitude while playing today, but I could not do it no matter how hard I tried. I think a break is the only thing that will cure my jadedness towards poker at the moment.

This image is very symbolic of my current feelings while playing poker.

I may be reaching for straws here, but bear with me while I explain how this summarizes my poker game.....

• I feel like I can't think outside of the box at all and I am playing a very exploitable robotic style of poker.
• I feel like the box that I am stuck doing my thinking inside of is made of glass and everyone can see my cards and/or knows exactly what I am thinking.
• It seems like I haven't made a correct value bet, bluff, or call in ages....the regulars are crushing me and even the terrible players are making me make mistakes....boo hoo me.
  

I just can't seem to break out of this funk for some reason. I tried really hard for the last 7 weeks to grind and grind hoping that it would turn itself around, but it feels like I have regressed and the games are constantly getting tougher. I don't want to throw a pity party for myself and I don't expect anyone else to either. More than anything I just want to write my current thoughts down so that when I do turn things around I will be able to look back and compare the differences of my mindset when running good and bad.

I am going to try to take the next few days off and get stuff a little organized to move houses and hang out with Derek and Joey before they leave town.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

I lost $1,113 this week and I didn't play very much. The games have been very tough lately and my confidence is struggling because of it. It is probably one of the worst feelings in the world when you lose confidence in your poker game, because it seems like you can't do anything right. You know you aren't playing your best and there is just nothing you can do about it....or so it seems. I am choosing right now to make a concerted effort to get the negative thinking and feeling sorry for myself out of my game. My buddy and soon to be roommate, Nick, is always getting onto me for making negative comments on the golf course or when talking about poker and he is right. There isn't really anything positive that can come from negative thinking. It is easy to think positive when you are running well, because there isn't much to deter you from thinking that way. I am going to try to start thinking about it in a different way though. I am not going to let my results dictate my thinking or mood, but I am going to start letting my thinking or mood dictate my results.

This line of thinking got started today on the golf course when I noticed myself lamenting about being behind a small tree that I wasn't sure I could hit it over. I caught myself thinking about how I just knew my ball was going to hit the tree and end up a horrible shot. I decided I was going to get rid of that mindset and told myself that there was almost zero chance the tree would affect my shot. I hit the shot with total confidence and knocked it to about 6 inches for the tap-in birdie.

Edit: After re-reading this I realized I made myself sound like I am in a horrible mood all the time and constantly whining about running bad. I really feel like I am a pretty positive person most of the time and complain WAY less than normal poker pros. In fact, I think most of the people that I converse with on a daily basis wouldn't even know if I was on a horrible downswing or not. I just think it would be beneficial to try to cut out the little bit of negativity that sometimes creeps into my game.

I don't even know how it is possible....

After yesterday's session I felt like I was totally on top of my game and $400 NL was a breeze again. Basically, it felt like there was no way I could lose for any given day if I played a decent amount of hands. Well, guess what? I was wrong :( I played for almost 5 hours and 3700 hands....I lost $2,457. It was so easy yesterday and then today nothing went my way. It is really frustrating that about the last 6 sessions I have played have been either huge losing ones or huge winning ones. Today it seemed like the games were full of regulars and I was playing my hand face up. They were floating me left and right, most of my bluffs got picked off, I couldn't win any races, and I never made a bigger hand when they had a big hand. I am not complaining about my bad luck I am just complaining that it always seems to come in bunches which makes it much harder to play your best on those days. For instance, I ran AKs into AA twice and AKo into QQ twice today for full buy-ins each time. I had AA twenty times today which is above average and I won with it 19 of the 20 times....the only problem is that I won the blinds or got a walk 12 of those times and I only made more than $45 with it once ($115).

It is going to be near impossible to ever have a winning day when all of those things happen, but I certainly could have lost less than I did if I would have continued to play my best. I didn't do any crazy tilting or anything, but I could have minimized my losses better than I did.

One good thing that happened today was a really fun thing that took place during a hand that I have been waiting to pounce on for a really long time. I hardly ever post hands, but this one is kind of fun. I will tell you my thoughts behind it afterwards. Here it is....see if you can spot why I made such a crazy play and still felt really confident about it.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6508404828: Table Cranwood (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 16:10:20 ET - 2008/05/21
Seat 1: Smoki nNuggets ($376.10)
Seat 2: niceandsleazy20 ($211.40)
Seat 3: OliveStech ($412.10)
Seat 4: Lvl18Wizard ($400)
Seat 5: themightyjim ($417.50)
Seat 6: thakilla ($557.80)
themightyjim posts the small blind of $2
thakilla posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #3

Holecards:
Dealt to thakilla [ ]
Smoki nNuggets folds
niceandsleazy20 folds
OliveStech folds
themightyjim raises to $14
thakilla has 15 seconds left to act
thakilla calls $10

Flop : (Pot: $30)
[ ]
themightyjim has 15 seconds left to act
themightyjim bets $222
thakilla has 15 seconds left to act
thakilla has requested TIME
thakilla raises to $543.80 and is all in
themightyjim calls $181.50 and is all in
thakilla shows [ ]
themightyjim shows [ ]
Uncalled bet of $140 .30 returned to thakilla

Turn : (Pot: $1117.6)
[ ] [ ]

River: (Pot: $1117.6)
[ ] [ ]
thakilla shows two pair Jacks and Nines
themightyjim shows two pair Jacks and Threes
thakilla wins the pot ($832) with two pair Jacks and Nines
themightyjim: lol
themightyjim adds $400

SUMMARY:
Total pot $835 | Rake $3
Board:
[ ]
Seat 1: Smoki nNuggets didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: niceandsleazy20 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: OliveStech (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Lvl18Wizard is sitting out
Seat 5: themightyjim (small blind) showed [ ] and lost with two pair Jacks and Threes
Seat 6: thakilla (big blind) showed [ ] and won ($832) with two pair, Jacks and Nines


His bet seemed so strange to me and usually when someone makes an insane overbet like this they are trying to induce an incorrect hero call. However, usually when this type of bet is made it is on the river and people will make horrible calls because they don't have to fear anymore betting on later streets. Since his bet was on the flop and we still had plenty of money left to play with it raised a red flag to me. I thought to myself...could he have meant to just make a standard continuation bet and just made a typo? There was $28 in the pot and he bet $222. I rationalized that he meant to make a really standard C-bet of $22 and accidentally hit an extra "2". Even though I thought he had made a typo that didn't mean that I had to have the best hand. There are tons of hands that are ahead of mine that he would have been trying to C-bet with just the same as he did this time. I decided to go with my gut and stick the rest in. He obviously felt pot committed and probably a little foolish for having misclicked, because he instantly called my all-in raise. Once I saw I was right I still had to sweat the cards to come as he still had some outs. I was thinking "No ace or jack, no ace or jack" and when the jack hit on the river I thought I had lost the pot for a second. I didn't even realize the jack made me two pair....shew!

Here was the chat following the hand....
themightyjim: lol
themightyjim: misclick
thakilla:I knew it was a misclick....am I right?
themightyjim: oh yeah
themightyjim: slipped on my laptop
themightyjim: nice play
themightyjim: brutal result
thakilla: ya pretty brutal


It is fun when you think outside the box and it pays off.

Back to the grind tomorrow, lets hope tomorrow is one of the easy poker days.

Back on track....

After I had those two really bad days in a row I took some time off and I think I have finally regrouped. My last two days of poker have been some of my most productive days of poker that I can ever remember having. I played 5.5 hours (4K hands) yesterday and just over 7 hours (5200) hands) today....all of 8 tables of $400 NL 6 max poker. In those two days I have won about $5,500 and that is probably the most amount of buy-ins (13.75) I have ever won in any two day stretch. It seems like I posted in an old blog somewhere about having a record day for the amount of hands played, but I searched through some of my old entries and couldn't find anything. Anyway, I will make it official and say that 5,216 is the most hands I have ever played in one day online.

I have decided to start breaking my adderall pill in half and taking the second half about 3 or 4 hours after I take the first half. It allows me to play longer sessions and that is always a good thing (as long as you are playing well). I don't even really notice a lack of focus from the reduced dosage so I don't see why I wouldn't keep doing it this way.

I am tried of sitting in front of the computer, but I feel like I have a lot more to say about my renewed focus on poker. It'll have to wait until tomorrow I guess. Time to go eat and gay it up with the roomies by watching the finale of American Idol without and women pressuring us to.

Swings, swings, and more swings.....

After I had my best day ever I had two of my worst days ever followed by another really good day. I only played 13 hours this week online which is really disappointing. Since my really good day my last 3 days of poker have been -$2,858, -$2,668, and +$2,461. Those are some crazy swings and are not ones that I am used to. I don't think I am doing anything out of the ordinary, but thats just the way it goes sometimes.

Week 6 results:
Online: -$3,215
Live: +150

Total results after week 6:
Online: $13,383
Live: -$4,200
Total: $9,183

That is so sad that I have only made that much money in 6 weeks time :(

I don't really have anyone to blame but myself though. I haven't played near the amount of hours that I intended to and I don't feel like I have played my best poker during those 6 weeks either. I vow to work extra hard this week.

Time to run to the post office and then to bowling for our final week of the season.

Oh ya, I upgraded to PokerTracker3 today so I should have some new blogs up soon with some killer stats to boggle your mind.

BOOYAKASHA!!!

All my whining finally paid off....I had the best day of cash games I have ever had today! I played 5.4 hours and 2,718 hands of mostly 5/10 Full Ring and some 3/6 full ring and 2/4 6 max. I won a whopping $6,844 and ran at an awesome 19.58 BB/100! I soooo needed to have a day like this. On a bad note...I played some 10/20 NL at the Bellagio last night and lost $2,000. I was down about $700 when I picked up two Aces and they couldn't outrun the dreaded two Kings :( We put in about $1300 each before the flop and he rivered a King. Everyone was going so crazy about how sick of a beat it was, but it really didn't even bother me too much seeing as how stuff like that happens daily online. Oh well.

So, today REALLY helped out my week and my overall stats. Here is how everything looks now.

Week 5
Live: -$3,300
Online: +$5,758
Total: +$2,489

Not really all that impressive at first glance, but considering that I have only played about 18 hours and ran like crap live it is pretty solid. Today's little heater got my win rate up to 4.76 BB/100 for the week which makes me pretty happy after running so mediocre for so long.


It seems like I usually only post graphs from stupid downswings, but this is what a graph looks like from a good day. I pretty much never lost a big pot and that makes it so much fun.

I feel really confident now after having such a good day and I feel like I will ride this heater for a while. I expect more good results on the way :)

I couldn't end this blog without posting this hilarious picture and telling all of you that I felt like this dog they way I was pwning peoples faces today...

Quick update.

More lacklusterness.....I played some full ring NL yesterday and had a few coolers right at the end of my day. Of course these coolers happened at 5/10 NL and not at my smaller games. I ran AK into KK twice and KK into AA once in the last 20 minutes of my session all for full buy-ins. I ended up losing $1240 after being up almost the entire day. Today was another grinding type day that have been happening all too frequently lately. I played almost 5 hours and won $343. I have only played 12 hours this week, because Landon and I have been playing golf everyday. I played some 1/2 NL live with Landon and lost $140. Last night Josh and I went to the Bellagio around midnight to play. The 5/10 games were broken up so I played some 10/20 NL for a while. I think I only won one hand the entire time and lost $840. I also played some 30/60 Omaha 8 or better and couldn't make a hand in that either. In fact...I never ever got to see the turn in one hand I played in about two hours worth of playing. I lost $320 playing that.

Week 4:
Online: -$684
Live: -$1300
Total: -$1984

I really need to get to work this next week between Landon and Derek's visits.

Week 4 wrapup and start to week 5....

Landon got in town on my birthday which was the last day of my week. I ended up doing pretty sub optimally for the week. I won $2,470 for the week and only played about 26 hours total. I should really be playing more hours than that, but I felt like I needed some time off so I took a couple of days off this week and played golf and stuff.

Anyway, Since Landon got here and I haven't played hardly any poker other than today. We have golfed for free at TPC Summerlin both days that he has been here and been having a pretty good time at night. Last night the same guy that has been taking us to golf also took us out to dinner at some new restaurant at the Palazzo. It was called Table 10 and was pretty good, but of course over-priced. I didn't mind one bit since Nick was picking up the tab. Apparently, he gets lots of comps from all the blackjack he plays as part of a card counting team. After dinner we went to to Circus Circus to watch Clint and Nick gamble like madmen at the carnival games before they closed and we all but got kicked out.

Then Richie, Landon, and I decided to go to Body English, some overly loud club at Hard Rock casino. Richie's buddy that works there kicked some people out of one of the primo tables there and gave it to us right on the dance floor. It did kinda make me feel a little ballerish. I hate all clubs for the most part, but I actually had quite a bit of fun last night. Drunk Landon makes for some interesting times. He thought it would be fun to tell random girls that it was my birthday and they needed to kiss me on the cheek and pose for a picture.

She looks kinda into it, huh? Baller!

Two at a time! lol
The group of girls from Tampa all posing with the "Birthday Boy".
Richie and Summer (mainly because I think Richie would rather not have his picture posted and he said he has been reading my blog recently).
Anyway, today I decided to mix it up a little bit and play some full ring games since Josh said they were really good the other day when he played. I played 8 tables of mostly 5/10 a little 3/6 and even a 10/20 table. The games were really great and I think playing the 6 max games has made me a lot better at hand reading and using aggression more effectively. I started off down about $2,500 very quickly and thought maybe it was a bad idea to play higher. I made a good comeback and ended up winning $1,074 for the day. Of course I still only ran at .72BB/100 and that is getting REALLY old.

Recap:

Total results after week 4:
Online: +$10,840
Live: -$1050
Total: +$9790

Week 5:
Online: +$1,074

Pretty Disappointing :(

Ok Ok, I am sick of this stuff....

I have had enough of running below expectation and I am ready for it to change anytime. I am putting in lots of hours and playing lots of hands, but my results just aren't there lately. I honestly don't think it is my play that is making my results sub par. I am having a winning week, but nowhere near what I expect to be doing considering how much I have played.

I am up $969 on Cake and $1230 on Full Tilt this week and I have played 19 hours on Full Tilt and probably 4 or so on Cake. PokerTracker doesn't work for Cake so I don't have any fun stats to report from there, but my stats for full tilt are disgusting looking. I am running at 1.44 BB/100 this week and making about $64/hour....GROSS! What is even more miserable than that is the fact that I am running at an astoundingly low 1.41 BB/100 since I have started my 7 week challenge. Luckily, I ran well at 5/10 while I played it and am still averaging $109/hour for the entirety of my challenge. Seriously though, this is starting to get ridiculous.... I have played 67,756 hands since April 8th and I am running at 1.41 BB/100! That is a LOT of hands to run below expectation at. Even worse than that...if I take 5/10 NL out of the picture I am running at .87 BB/100 and I would be making $50/hour! That makes me want to throw up and I have had enough of it.

If you don't understand what all of these confusing stats mean I'll put it another way for you. I am up a little over $11K since starting my challenge. If I would have run at what I expect to run at and what I believe to be a normal rate of 3.5 BB/100 hands I would have won about $25K in that same time span!

So there you have it poker gods....I see what you are doing and I realize there is nothing keeping you from doing it to me for the next 4 weeks as well, but I have had enough of it. Also, What is keeping you from letting me run as hot as I have cold for the last 4 weeks? One time, can I go on a 3 or 4 week heater? Is that so much to ask? It only seems fair to me....thats all the whining I am going to do for now.

My two year anniversary...

I woke up this morning and grabbed my phone to see what time it was. I can't remember what time it was, but I did notice that the date was May 1st. This marks my two year anniversary of playing poker full time. I quit my last job on May 1st 2006 and I have to say it was probably the best decision I have ever made. Its not like I was giving up some amazing job that would be impossible to replace if I couldn't hack it as a poker player, but I think it took quite a bit of guts to make that decision. Almost everyone I talked to about it advised me not to do it. There were a few people that told me that they thought it was a good idea, but it was always painfully obvious to me that they didn't really believe that and/or didn't think I would actually go through with my plans. My parents were half-heartedly supportive at first and I understand that it probably wasn't what they had in mind for me to do for a living, especially after graduating college and having a job for over two years before I decided to do this. Now, I think my parents are some of my biggest supporters and are even proud of me for being a poker player. They aren't proud of me because I am not working for the man or anything like that (In fact they'd probably prefer that I do that instead), but I think they are proud of the fact that I am doing something I enjoy and having plenty of success doing it.

Most of my friends thought I was crazy for doing it and somewhat tried to talk me out of it. However, I think they were just trying to keep me around town to use me as a golf scramble/gambling/playing partner, my diving catches in left center field and a staple in the number 3 spot in the batting lineup, the guy that was always available to go to lunch with, and the guy that was ALWAYS the one to sign our teams up for any league we played in. I know this to be somewhat true, because the group of guys I had played softball with every spring, summer, and fall for about 5 years somehow missed an entire year of signing up for softball because everyone always just waited around for me to do it!

A few of my friend's parents and other random adults that I looked up to had serious-sit-down-heart-to-heart talks with me before I moved trying to convince me what a horrible idea it was to move to Vegas and blah blah blah. "I've had friends that have had gambling problems in the past and it has basically ruined their lives" was a common theme of these talks. Another one of my favorite warnings was "Do you know how they can afford to keep building those huge casinos and pay the electricity bill for all of those flashing lights?? From gamblers that have dreams of striking it rich!"

I was always appreciative of all of these talks, because I always knew they had good intentions and I would probably give someone similar advice if they told me they wanted to play poker for a living. It certainly isn't for everyone and I wasn't even sure it was for me. I just knew that I at least wanted to give it a shot or I would never know if I could have done it or not.

I don't think anyone can say that it wasn't the right choice for me now. I have had the time of my life for the last two years, made more money than I ever could have made at my old job, and taken more vacations than some people take in their whole life.

I am so glad that I took a shot at doing something that I knew I enjoyed and worked hard enough at it to make it work. If you are unhappy with what you are currently doing and second guess yourself when contemplating a risky change in your life I encourage you to take the plunge and go for it! What is the worst that could happen? You could fail? Who cares?!

Slow start to week 4...

Yesterday, I started off playing 6 tables of $600 NL, but really wasn't feeling very confident about my play and didn't feel like I had much of an edge in the game. If I didn't feel like I had an edge in the game it is possible that I was a dog in the game. The players are $600 are noticeably better than they are at $400 to me. You just don't get any of the random people trying to give away money at $600 NL like you do at $400 NL. I was doing really well despite feeling a little over-matched and then I lost two big hands in a row and decided to take a break. I checked my pokertracker and I was up $0.35 after over 1200 hands....yes 35 cents. Anyway, I decided to play $400 NL and won $478 in 932 hands. I just wasn't very motivated to play much poker and I wasn't giving it my full attention either. I was chatting and messing around on the internet (while I was playing 6 tables) and that is no good at all.
I decided I would take today off from poker and try to regain some motivation for tomorrow. I have piddled around a little bit on Cake Poker just playing two tables at a time and wow are the games good on there. In two different sessions in about 1.5 hours total I have won a little over $1400. So even though I have only played about 5 hours total in the first two days of this week I am still up around $1900. Hopefully tomorrow I can put in a decent session and get back on track. Also, I finished this month with over $2,000 in rakeback which is the most I have ever gotten. I played 56,507 hands (this only includes hands on full tilt) this month so I guess that is my new record. That makes me feel pretty good and realize that I did a decent job of putting in the work, especially since I missed the first month of April due to my cruise.
Since I took today off I played golf with Richie and Kevin at Badlands. I shot 81 with two balls out and a 9 on number 9. I won from Kevin and lost to Richie and I ended up breaking about even for the day as far as golf gambling goes.
It's time for me to hit the sack...hopefully I have a long day of grinding ahead of me tomorrow.
Prediction: 4,000 hands and 5+ buy-ins (probably mostly at $400 NL) tomorrow.