August Failures

While I’ll continue to hit the tables hard in August, I will also turn my attention to the plethora of Casino bonuses that are floating around. I’ve seen other bloggers grind their way through these to great success so I decided to join myself. I’ll research the subject a little more and I’ll try to set up one tonight.
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- Suckout Artiste


Ah yes, that would be me talking out of my arse crack at the beginning of the month.

I should add that my intentions were good, it seems I simply forgot to compute the fact that I’m an unreliable lazy wanker into the equation. Oops.

How bad was it anyways? How about I haven’t even opened a Casino Website? Don’t even know if they have websites for $$%# sakes.

To be written on my Poker epitaph when it’s all said done:

Suckout Artiste
R-I-P
1980-20xx
Lazy bum who didn’t play enough hands and
wouldn’t get down and dirty and grind

Moving on...

It must be said that not grinding Casino’s is somewhat related to me actually winning at Poker. Yes, imagine that! Profits! Lame excuse but I am significantly up for the month after an up and down start (Would have been a significantly upper month if I could have won a few pots with hands like AA and KK yesterday, Fuck you very much Party Poker) so all is not bad.

What now?

Finish the Party Poker reload bonus tonight (A few hundred hands left, if that) and withdraw every single penny out of my Poker accounts towards Neteller. I’ll be leaving some at Pokerstars to play the Blogger events. It boils down to Casino bonuses throughout September.

What can I say, desperate men do desperate things in desperate times. Besides, it’s only for a month and there’s so much money out there that I don’t want to just leave it on the table. I also have a copy of Hold’em Poker for advanced players that I’ve never even opened (It was a Christmas gift) so maybe I’ll use some of my spare time in September to work myself through that.

P.S What’s the over/under on me dumb self going on massive BJ tilt and destroy my bankroll by making 100$ bets? Can’t wait to find out.

As if I had Never Left...

There’s really nothing quite like it. You sit down and wait patiently for your big blind. You’re dealt KK on your first hand, raise it up, bet on all streets and lose to some maroon who hits his gutshot straight draw on the river of a paired board.

Good ol' Party Poker, it's as if I had never left indeed.

After datamining the place for a week (Including a 21000 hands import that put my Laptop KO for approximately 8 hours ) I was finally ready to sit down and play with some Donks.

Seriously, were the players always this terrible?

It’s ridiculous how three or four morons would be in for the ride all the way to the river on every second hand. Don’t these people care about money? And where the hell DO they find all that money? And yet, the biggest net winner in my week of dataminig is a calling station who sees over 48% of the flops and never seems to fold a hand. He made almost 1K just last week. Long run and all but damn, that’s a lot of money for a LHE 3/6 player.

I’ve adapted well to the change. I’m up about 90$ after ~ 400 hands after being down a bit on the first day. I’ve been getting reamed with big pocket pairs again but that should solve itself in a bit. I’m also clearing a reload bonus at the same time so I’m expecting a nice 75$ boost in the near future. I’ll gladly take it.

I played the WWDN yesterday but I didn’t do well. I started off fine but I was guilty of committing one of the cardinal sins of Online tourney play: Thou shall not open cash games while playing a tourney. I bounced not too long after making suspicious plays with suspicious holdings. I REALLY need to work on that.

I don’t think I’ll be able to play any Poker either today or tomorrow as I have plans with friends. I’m off work on Friday but I have a bunch of errands to take care of + a home game in the evening.

It seems my only gambooling in the next few days will be to dump a 1100$ on the Steelers and hope they can pound Miami by at least 5 points to earn myself a cool grand.

Yup, I definitely need help...

A Shorty but a Goodie

Short one today, really didn’t play much Poker last night. The tables were just terrible. I was stuck around 100$ for most of the session. I was catching cards but I couldn’t get any action with them. Gotta love picking up aces three times and win the blinds each and every single time with ‘em.
Managed to win a few pots here and there until I won a decent size one when I turned a 10 high flush. I quit with a 50$ profit. Pretty lame but what can you do?

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Still datamining Party. I should have more than 15 000 hands when it’s all said and done. I won’t have time to play tonight so I’ll be picking up some more. I should finally get a chance to sit down and start fish hunting the 3/6$ tables tomorrow. Can’t wait to get at it.

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Whatever happened to Gus Hansen? Remember when he used to win all kinds of shit? Was he really a donk who got lucky a bunch of times?


Later...

Selling my Soul to the Devil

Well I had to do it. Following Wes’s recent advice on how to datamine the living shit out of Party Poker, I’ve had my desktop running 24/7 picking up info on all the idiots, tourists and donkeys slinging chips at the 3/6 game. It seems to be going good so far, I already have more than 5000 hands in my database and it’s still picking up some as we speak.

Why the change of heart? My sites full of weak-tight rakeback collecting donks are just a pain in the arse more than anything else. You can hardly find a good game anywhere and what you do end up finding is full of the above mentioned weak tight donks. With at least 20 full ring 3/6 tables running at Party, I should have my hands full for awhile. Looking at some of the numbers of the donks in there, I’m salivating already. Should be fun!

Ran the Mookie last night. Don’t know what it his exactly about this tourney but for my money, it’s easily the best tournament in the blogpshere. I like it’s starting time, the play is somewhat loose and the players are always chatting and seem to really enjoy being there.

I started up well. I mostly hung around the top 10 chip-stacks for most of the first hour. I donked off 500 chips trying to get cute with the hammer but I recuperated those fairly quickly. The turning point of my tourney occurred in a hand that happened 5 minutes after the break. Iak had just been moved to our table and he was pretty much doing what I wanted to do at this stage of the tourney: Open raise lots of pots and steal some blinds. Since he was seated immediately to my right, this obviously created some problems for me. I was pretty much waiting for a decent hand to trap him with and go from there.

The perfect situation seemed to present itself when I picked up KQo on the button and all folded to Iak in the cut-off. Fully expecting him to raise it up as he had been doing since he came to our table, I was COMPLETELY thrown off when he decided to open limp from his position. I decided to call right behind.

Mistake #1.

It didn’t take long for me to realise the gravity of my error when I saw Jules complete from the SB and the BB checking his option. I pretty much hated my hand right away. KQo is a bona-fide top pair hand, not really the kind of hand you’re really willing to go to war with, especially in a multiway pot unless the flop pummels you over the head. I was a bit relieved to see all check to me the 4s-Kh-7s flop. Not wanting to give any free cards to any draw out there I led out for 2/3 of the pot. Jules in the SB insta-pushed and I called.

Mistake #2.

I didn’t call right away. I actually used a huge chunk of that 60 seconds timer. Unfortunately, I used it for all the wrong reasons.

Every single fibre in my body was screaming to fold this hand. The only possible hand that she could be holding that I was beating was a flush draw. Yet for some strange reasons, watching that counter ticking down, I was convincing myself that she was indeed holding the draw and I should call. She obviously wasn’t on a draw, but her bottom two pair made short work of my TPSK and I was crippled all the way down to 750$.

I didn’t quit. I stuck in there, fought for every single possible chip that I could get and found myself back up to 1500$ without ever seeing a flop. Unfortunately for me, after pushing and stealing blinds with marginal crap, I ended up picking up my first truly Push-worthy hand, AK, when someone else was holding 10-10. Since I expired all my race winning karma in my 3rd place finish in the WWDN earlier this month, it was quite obvious I would end up getting dumped on that hand. C’est la vie!

Had a blast, did some good things, especially in the first hour when I small balled my way near the top of the chip leader board, and I did some dumb things, as usual, but I’m definitely hoping to be back next week to avenge myself.

Later...

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

A week already, huh? Vacations sure as hell do no improve the relationship of a would be Poker player and his blog. I really wanted to put something out there before I left but time simply ran out on me and I just couldn’t make it. Hey, what’s done is done so let’s move on shall we!

Until yesterday, I hadn’t played a single hand of Poker since Wednesday. That might have been a mistake however since I was running really well for the past few. Until last night. Which just ended up being one of THOSE nights. The ones where your flopped sets don’t make it in the end and your big pairs get called by 4 players and an ace flops, obviously when you do NOT have pocket aces.

Disappointing night, but I’m still doing fairly well for the month and besides, it’s all about the long term blablalbla... I’m still craving some action big time so I’ll definitely be hitting the tables hard this week, starting tonight.

How sad is it that I’ve yet to sign up for any Casino bonus when this was my #1 goal for the month? Pretty %$#$ sad I’ll say but again, I’m hoping to rectify this situation this week. I’ve decided to split my gambooling into two sessions, the first will be Poker and the second will be Blackjack. Simple enough, right? Can’t wait to see how I manage to screw that one up.

The 6-max tables have been, so far, pretty good. I’ve been a winner in most of my sessions. Sometimes big, sometimes small, but I’m definitely on the "+" side of the equation which is always a good thing. I’ll try to get 3000 hands in at the 1/2$ level and evaluate from there if a move to 2/4 $ is in order.

Growth and the Poker Player

I often find myself daydreaming about where this whole Poker adventure started a year ago. My first ever LHE session where I left up 28$ in less than hour or my 5 straight cashes in 5$ SNG’s. Feeling on top of the world when my bankroll finally reached the 100$ mark.

And yet, more often than not, it’s not those modest successes that have me reminiscing of times past but the progress and strides that I have made in my play. Fact is, I was a complete bot back then. I did “things” because books instructed me to do said “things” . In a sense, that was the right way to get started since anything else than a really strict template will lead you down a path of confusion and many headaches and heartaches throughout your initial learning process.

For me, the formula use to be: Win a big pot = Happy, Lose a big pot = devastation.

Needless to say, that shit got old fast.

Of course, losing sessions still suck, the penultimate goal of the game is to make money after all. But enjoying the game strictly from the decision making aspect makes it *that* much better.

Having played so many hands and having seen so many flops, my Poker instincts are now getting more refined. The area of my game that’s benefited the most from this is my hand reading ability. To put it bluntly, I can now smell bullshit from a mile away and I can often enough put a player on a specific hand with pinpoint accuracy.

The bad beats still sting, yes, but I still get some kind of satisfaction when I realize that my read was correct and my opponent caught up/sucked out on the river and my play was fine.

And that, is growth in a Poker player.

Popping the Vegas cherry

While there’s nothing official yet and we still have to figure out when we’re leaving, where we’ll be staying and how long will be staying, it seems I’m pretty on much on my way to Vegas for the first time! Woot!

It’s pretty much myself and two friends who are planning to spend 3 days or so in Sin City. Ideally we’d be over there in October. Perfect weather and no tourist overpopulation nonsense. Just thinking about it makes me excited, can’t imagine what it’s gonna be like a week before takeoff.

Poker was ‘aight’ this weekend. Slight gains here and there, nothing major but at least the bankroll is moving in the right direction. I have actually started playing the 6-max tables again, this time dropping all the way down to 1 / 2 and the results so far have been satisfying. Although this has mostly nothing to do with my play but more with the fact that players who are sitting in those games are absolute clowns. It’s crazy how many idiots are out there who figure Ace high might take down a four handed pot. Guess I should shut and enjoy the money.

On the negative side, I have yet to start chasing any casino bonuses, which was supposed to be one of my main goals for the month of August. There’ still plenty of time to correct that so hopefully I manage to get a chance to give it a go.

No MATH again for me tonight, which sucks, but I should be around for the WWDN tomorrow.


Laaaaaaaate

The 12 million $ Donkfest

As you all know, there’s a tournament being played right now that will determine who is the world’s best Poker player. Obviously, this title doesn’t really mean anything, but we pretty much have to accept it and move on. If one were to scratch the surface just a little deeper, we’d be hard-pressed to recognize this tournament as anything worthwhile since the play in this thing has been, at times, nothing short of embarrassing, especially now that we’re closing in on finding our winner.

How bad is it? Open pushes with ace-rag with M’s around 20, calling off 40-50% of one’s stack on a gutshot and a over card, all-in re-steals with lowly pairs with stacks of 30-35 big blinds and it goes on and on and on. Let’s face it, the Poker explosion has gone a bit too far and it’s time to reel it in a little bit. The World Series MAIN EVENT is being played like a late night 10$ Poker Stars MTT. It’s pretty sad to think that the game’s top prize is being disputed by low-limit push bots who can’t even begin to understand the concept of big stack play or worst, post-flop play.

You really have to like Allen Cunningham’s chances at this point. Most of the Internet maniacs are gone and real Poker should be played at the final table where he is BY FAR the best player. It was pretty laughable to see him start the day as a middle of the pack stack, carefully pick his spots, since he understands the stack to blind ratio, and easily quintuple his stack in two hands. Really wonder what those three donks who busted out in the first 12 minutes were thinking. Tsk tsk...

It’s time to raise up the buy-in for the ME, plain and simple. Yes, it was cool to see a nobody win it a few times, but this thing is no longer about skill, it’s a complete lottery. I don’t wanna see a low-limit loser like myself making donk play after donk play and sitting at the final table with a cool shot at 12 mill while better players get sucked out by idiots hitting runner runner quads in pots they had no business being involved in to begin with.

Hanging ‘em up

I think it’s time to put an end to my days as full ring LHE grinder.

This decision has nothing to do with a downswing or running bad, I’m actually up a bit lately, but mostly due to the fact that these games are just plain terrible nowadays. And for that, I blame Rakeback.

Before Rakeback was widely introduced to a bunch of smaller networks (Prima and Ipoker come to mind), you’d easily be able to sit at a full ring 5-10 table filled with donks where 6-7 handed flops were the norm. Hard to NOT make money in that situation. But now that Rakeback is an industry standard, Weak tight grinders are usually hanging out in those waters making most of these sites barely profitable. You’re pretty much looking at a bunch of nut peddlers trading around their money while extracting a tiny profit from a 28%-35% rakeback deal. Not cool.

After grinding in these for just about a year, I really feel like I’m due for somewhat of a change.

The word around town is that the crap players crave the shorthanded action since it’s faster and they get to play more hands. Which would also mean that these fish are basically tripping over themselves making dumb mistakes in the hopes of winning big pots. I think this is where I need to be right now. My game is improving, I can feel it. I’ve especially made progress in my hand reading ability. Playing more hands and seeing more flops should definitely allow me to progress to the next level in that regard.

So what now? I’ll probably take the rest of the month off from cash games and pad up the roll with the various casino bonuses around. I will also be studying the shorthanded game to make sure I am well prepared when I make my moves in there.

I’ll also focus some more on tournaments. Believe it or not, I actually cashed in my last three online MTT’S. No big scores yet, but I pretty much made the money without breaking a sweat. It’s crazy how much of a difference winning hands where you are significant favourite when the money goes in can improve your results. It’s also a matter of the various adjustments that I’ve made in my game, mostly making things happen in the middle stages of the tournament instead of waiting for them to happen for me. I’m no longer depending on good cards to get anywhere in those things, I just focus on abusing the living crap out of the players and go from there. I still need to tone it down and pick some of my pots better but at least I’m on the right track, my game is progressing.

This Year’s Girl and WWDN Thoughts

Poker Beauty Joanna Krupa

This young woman is pretty much what the WSOP 2006 ME is all about. The 25 year old Polish beauty who has graced the covers of Playboy, GQ and Maxim seems to have survived day 2B of the event (That Cardplayer coverage is quite shyte, so I can’t really be sure). Quite a refreshing change of pace from the middle aged fat arse white dudes that are usually showcased in these events. So who was the star of ESPN’s feature table yesterday?

Daniel Negreanu.

Yup, the most annoying dork in the Poker industry. I guess we needed MORE footage of Mr. Daniel coaching the table on why such and such play was wrong while being ‘entertained’ by his terrible jokes in between.

For fuck sakes...

THE POKER GODS HANDED OVER A HOT BIKINI MODEL WHO CAN SLING SOME FUCKING CHIPS, STICK THE CAMERA ON HER AND LET US WATCH!!!

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5 months ago, I final tabled the WWDN in my first ever appearance. Haven’t had a sniff since. Until this week when I finally managed to snatch third place to put a end to this endless drought.

I changed some things in my game lately and it seems some positive results are starting to appear. I played a big total of ZERO hands outside of my blinds until they were up to 25/50. That was part strategy, part I was dealt absolute crap for the first hour of the tourney. I really focussed more on my table though, paying close attention to whom would raise from where with what, etc. Crazy how easier it is when you’re not running three cash game tables on one side and downloading porn on the other. I might be up to something here.

I didn’t see a single decent hand until the 90 minute mark. I mostly picked up chips on blind steals and re-steals. I got extremely fortunate when I re-raised what I felt was a positional blind steal with a lowly Q4s and I was insta-called by said raiser. I say fortunate since I flopped trip queens and won a decent sized pot.

What also really helped was that I managed to get paid off with by big hands. You know that awesome feeling you get when you pick up aces after folding crap for 1 hour and manage to only win the blinds with your 2.5x blinds raise? Well that wasn’t me last night. My pocket aces allowed me to bust Weak Player, who was one of the bigger stacks of the tourney, when I flopped a set and induced him to push his whole stack on a bluff when I showed weakness throughout the hand.

It was pretty much smooth sailing after that. Busted some more players with AK and KK, doubled up some short stacks here and there, suck out on some people, etc. I was pretty much on autopilot until we were down to three handed where we moved chips around until I busted when I jammed with TP+Flush draw but lost out to Aquavere’s TP higher kicker.

While making it deep in a blogger event is quite the anomaly for me, I must say that I was incredibly surprised at the passivity of the players with the blinds so high. Players would auto-fold the button on so many occasions that I was literally dumbfounded. I remember open raising 6 of the 9 pots in one orbit and never meeting resistance once. Quite interesting to say the least.

Following that, I now crave playing tournaments again. I obviously won’t quit my LHE cash games, but I definitely want to splurge more in the 10$ MTT’S that are out there. I really want to make it deep in one of those for a sweet payday, perhaps I’ll add it as one of my goals before the end of 2006.

Later!

It Was the Best of Times...

...and by God, it was the worst of times.

Lat night was perhaps the most frustrating cash game session I’ve ever had the displeasure of taking part of. It all started when my aces, queens and a flopped set were cracked in back to back to back hands.

Enter Tilt.

I pissed off the rest of my buy-in on some really donkalicious play before leaving the table to gather my thoughts and attempt a comeback. It was not to be. While I managed to do extremely well at the 2/4 tables, I pretty much sat around 2 hours of complete 3/6 card-deadness while donkeys were spewing chips left right and centre. I finished the night down 48$ thinking of what might have been.

And yet, I really can’t remember the last time I had this much fun playing Poker. I don’t know what it was but it really reminded me of the days of yore, when I was toiling at the .25¢-.50¢ tables and a 7$ profit was considered a good night. To this day, I still believe that was the period where Poker was at it’s best for me. It was all about the love of the game and the aspirations of moving on up the highest limits possible.

I guess we can really call it a resurgence of sorts. I probably played more hands of Poker last week that I did for the first three weeks of July. It this a bad thing? Of course not, I’ve pretty much been a consistent winner at all the levels I played at. Getting more hands lessens the impact of variance. There’s also this little thing called Rakeback...

While I’ll continue to hit the tables hard in August, I will also turn my attention to the plethora of Casino bonuses that are floating around. I’ve seen other bloggers grind their way through these to great success so I decided to join myself. I’ll research the subject a little more and I’ll try to set up one tonight.

I really doubt I’ll have time to hit the WWDN tonight but I’ll stop by and sweat towards the later stages.

Later