Break Time

All right, I think I've pretty much nailed all my goals for the month and it's time to take a little break to soak it all in.

July has been a great month. I've played tons of hands and I've managed to reach 700$ in Rakeback. The fact that I mostly played 50$NL should tell you that is quite a shit load of hands to run through in a month. Yes, yes it is and I'm now on the point of a burn out so It's safe to say I've earned a few days break.

My play in the past few days shows the effect of wear and tear. Playing through the motions like a robot tends to bring result that are less than optimal. I would often make stupid borderline calls, get caught making one too many fancy plays, chasing without getting the right odds, etc. The proof is in the pudding: In the last three days on Full Tilt Poker, I've managed to play more than 3.3K hands. My net result for these past three days? 3, 70$.

That's not a typo.

And that's not counting the debacle on Cake Poker either. Sheesh!!

I'll gladly take this one on the chin and debate that, at the very least, it's not a big hole that I dug myself into. But I definitely need to stay away from the laptop for two or three days. I've been more tilt prone lately and am just generally mentally exhausted. My hasty exit in the 50/50 is enough proof of that. I'll spare you the details, they're embarrassing enough for me to keep to myself.

I probably would have been unable to play tonight due to prior obligations and my brother is hosting a home game on Wednesday. Thursday is still up in the air at this point but I could easily find myself something else to do by then. As of right now, all signs point to me returning to the tables on Saturday at the latest, which I believe is perfectly acceptable.

My plan moving forward will be to move up permanently to the NL 1$ level. I don't think I have much more to prove at the 0.50$ level anyways. I've beaten those games consistently at a 10BB/100 clip through 50k hands which means I'm definitely ready to graduate. I am currently rolled for NL 2$ so the money wont' be an issue either.

I've dabbled in the 1$ stakes before so I won't be intimidated by the money all that much. I guess my target for the next few months is to hit a decent win rate for the next 50K hands and reevaluate from there if another vertical move is in order. My main priority right now is to deposit 2K on the Ipoker network. The games look ridiculously soft and I'd like to build something down there. I would now have my bankroll split across three sites: Full Tilt, Cake Poker and Titan. I figure I could two table on all three sites and play 6 tables at the same time. I'm so smrt!!

So enjoy the next few days, I won't be a threat to your money for a little while!

Doomswitched!!

I was running so ridiculously hot for the past few weeks that I was simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was literally incapable of losing a hand at time it seems. Get the money in with the worst hand in a pair over pair situation and I'd hit my two outer on the river. If I had draw it hit, a lower pocket and I hit my set, etc. The results were especially ridiculous on Cake Poker where my 625$ in my account became 2100$ in a week and a half of play.

Enter last Friday.

Wow, where to begin? How about getting stacked three times with Pocket aces against flopped sets? Where have you ever seen such ridiculous bad luck as this? Run into a set with aces three times in less than 250 hands? None of Hoy's lucksack BS of winning 470 out of 470 with these babies. Not here that's for damn sure.

Other than that, meh the usual. Flop two pair, someone else rivers a higher two pair. Set going down to straights and flushes and my absolute favourite, getting nailed with two outers, on the river no less, by smaller pairs against my monster. And pocket kings is by far my biggest loser this month, I'm down 300+$ with them for the month of July!

I like to come here and vent but I'm not really that upset. Let's face it, it would be incredibly hypocritical of me to complain considering how freaking hot I've been running for this past month. In fact, the past few months have been really great to me. Let's put things in perspective, shall we? On may 1st, when Neteller pulled out of the Canadian market, I cashed most of my bankroll and left 500$ on Full Tilt and 500$ on Cake Poker. As of today, my Full Tilt account stands at 3800$ and Cake Poker is a dozen dollars short of 2k. Add the 600$+ dollars of Rakeback that will hit my account in the next few days and you can clearly see that things are going quite well in the land of the Artiste. Long may it continue.

I also won what was quite possibly my largest pot of my Poker career. Sitting at 1$ NL limit table 200 BB deep, I got all my money in with a flopped set of queens against pocket kings and some other moron with an OESD. I filled up on the turn and the river failed to bring a king to ship a ridiculous 300$+ pot my way. Maybe just maybe the doomswitch has been lifted. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

More of the same in store for tonight. I really want to play the 50/50 but I'm exhausted right now so maybe I'll take nap and see how I feel by then. If I can't make it tonight, I'll figure something else for the rest of the week.

Good luck at the tables!!!

Full Tilt crashed AGAIN last night

I don't know if anybody else was aware but after the BBT freeroll disaster on Wednesday, Full Tilt pulled the same stunt against last night. What makes this even more infuriating (for me anyways) is that I was just about to stack some donkey who was chasing a flush and his miracle card hit at the same time as my full house! Needless to say I was pissed. To add insult to injury, I couldn't log in anytime soon after to find out what happens with the funds invested in the pot when a situation like that occurs? Does the hand automatically goes to showdown? We'll see when I come back tonight.

One thing is for sure, this whole mess has definitely encouraged me to move at the very least half of my roll from Full Tilt and relocate at Titan Poker for the next little while. I'll still keep some money on Tilt for tournaments and blogger donkery but I'll pay the majority of my rake elsewhere for the next little bit.


Last night's session was a doozey too. I logged on the tables drunk out of my mind and I started playing a ridiculous laggy style on a equally ridiculous amount of tables. I was timing out of tables all over the place like crazy. Net result? Up 6 buy ins on Full Tilt down three on Cake Poker. And two of the buy ins that were dropped had me considerably ahead when the money went in. Can't win ‘em all I guess. Now watch me lose out my gourd when I sit down at the tables sober tonight. Such is Poker my friends.

Right now I'm just trying to get as much hands in as I can before the end of July. I'd like to reach 500$ of Rake back for the month. Before last night's play I was up to 448$ so there's no doubt I'm going to make it there but if I could hit 700$, that would obviously be better. Regardless, I'll be looking to go all out in the next few days

I don't think I have registered for one tournament this week which is pretty disappointing. I have to keep working at these things if I hope to win a nice score. I want to hit the 50/50 at least twice next week and I'll enter a few of these 75$ Token frenzies while I'm at it. The 75$ tournaments usually mean big prize pools and fewer donkeys to work your way through.

Enjoy the weekend!

Tough night

Got reamed badly last night. Dropped 4 buy-ins in 153 hands. Just not pretty. I checked my PT stats afterwards and my 0% hands won at showdown was worthy of a few lol's. Thankfully I quit the cash games right then and there before this whole thing degenerated into an all-out disaster.

In short, my QQ in the big blind was greeted by AA in the small blind. AK < A3 when some idiot keeps calling my over-bets with A crap kicker and he rivers his second pair. Flopped trip kings with KQ only to lose to a flush on the river and finally, got all my chips in the middle from the BB with AK against some 65% lag who calls with 77 and I promptly lose to a 2-7-2 flop.

GG cash games.

With cash games being out of the question for the rest of the night, I register for the 15$ 50/50 satellite. I chip up early and double up when I win a race with AK against 99. I have a nice stack but I doubt it's going to be enough to reach the magic 35 number. I pick up some chips here and there but I'm starting to fall behind and I need some chips. I finally find AK under the gun and I open for 4X the big blind. All folds to the SB who pushes it in for 600 more. I obviously call. He flips over Kh-Jh. lol. Flop: Ah-2h-2x. Care to take a guess on how that one finished?

So I'm now crippled and a few hands later I call an all-in push with Ad-8d. I spike an ace on the flop to beat 9-9 and I'm back in this thing. I pretty much fold my way into the tournament from there.

505/50 started off well, I chipped up quite nicely by winning two pots with 10-10 and JJ. Yes, this donkey was catching cards. I took my first hit when I defended my big blind with Qd-8d against a player who had been raising every hand that folded to him in late position. The flop comes up Q-10-8. Now I know this player will CB every time so I check with the intention pushing on his bet. He makes it easier for me by pushing himself. I call and he flips up KJ. 9 on the turn completes the straight and I lose a nice chunk of my stack. Great.

A few hands later, I open from the button with Ks-9s. BB pushes it in, the raise is not that much more and I'm getting two to one on my money. I have a fairly decent hand and at that price I decide to make the call. He flips up AK. I flop a 9 but an ace falls on the turn and I'm now crippled. What a freakin' night this is turning out to be!

I'm in push and pray mode now. A late position raiser makes it 3x BB to go and I push for 1k with 3-3. He insta-calls with Qh-Jh. Flop comes xh-xh-x. So I now have to dodge one bazillion outs to make it. I don't like my chances. Turn J, IGH.

GG tournaments.

GG Poker.

Close but no cigar

The above screen shot was taken on Tuesday night, mere seconds after I busted out of the 24K. It was a good tourney, had a blast and that was my best tourney score in quite while. Kinda said ain't it? The most frustrating part is that I was tournament chip leader when the tourney was down to three tables. What happened? Lost some big races, paid off some people stupidly and, my biggest sin, a definite lack of aggression in the final tables. Looking back, I realize that there was many spots where I could have put in a 3-bet with weaker holdings but I lacked the necessary "mmph" to pull the trigger.

I'm still rebuilding the roll so I' won't spit on the 250$ but man, anything over 1K would have been HELLA sweet. One of these days...


Hoy has been raving about the 50/50 lately but the structure in the big money guarantees are pretty much all the same. 3k starting stacks, 12 minute levels and ridiculously god awful players in the early stages that simply seem to be hurry to hand over their chips. There's definitely an opportunity to make money here since these things hardly ever become push-fests and actual talent can come through in the end,

I really need to work on my aggression in the later stages of these tourney though. With the ante's and blinds being so large at that point, stealing blinds is important, yes, but stealing raises is even better. I'll experiment more with this in the upcoming week.

The 50/50 sounds really down appealing lately. I'll try to play it at least once this week. I'll enter those satellite frenzies and hopefully I can make it in on my first try.

This weekend should be pretty much all about the cash games. I'm attending a wedding reception tomorrow and a World Cup Under 20 quarter final game on Sunday. I'll try and fit as much Poker as I can in between all those events. Wish me luck.

Yup, still seeking...

I've had a few more attempts at the 17.5K but nothing extraordinary to show for it yet. It's a really nice tourney to play, double stack and the field is usually less than 1000. Problem with it is that it starts at 2:00 in the afternoon. Stupid work.

There seems to be an alternative on the horizon though. I read on KOD's blog that the 26k guaranteed, and it's 8:00 PM start time, is now a double stacker? I'll probably take a shot at it tonight.

My strategy for these tournaments seems sound. I hardly ever bust out by getting blinded out and having to push with ATC or any ace; my nemesis has been to run into bigger pairs at crucial stages of the tournament (read: the final three tables). If for freaking ONCE, I could catch a break like that , I could maybe make some kind of score, although I'm holding my breath.

Cash games are going fine. I'm doing a better job of not overplaying top pair and making the big lay downs. I've been all about the breakeven lately but I'll take that over the losing any day.

Now that the BBT is over, I'm a little bit disappointed to see that the fields have shrunk so dramatically. Seriously, the Mookie crashed from a weekly 70+ runners to not even 40 in a week? Come on. You're probably all thinking, isn't this the guy who played a grand total of 7 events? (Might actually be even less). If I could have played more, I would have but I simply could not find the time. I'll still try to make it to the Blogger events but they will be taking the back seats to the daily guarantees, that is, until I make a big score. (Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease happen soon)

I'll see you guys out there.