decent little start

played 3 separate half hour sessions before settling into a $100/200 game which I played for like 8 hours. It was the biggest hold-em game going as most people start to come for the series today. I won a little bit. Even though it shouldn't really make a difference, starting off well makes for a much better vegas trip for me. Like today I've been sitting here relaxing and playing a little online instead of trying to go 'win some money'.

I probably wont even play all that much today cause jay, schnettler, and schlattery are coming to town just for tonight so I'll be hanging out with them. I'm sure it'll involve drinking so that pretty much makes it final for not playing the noon 5k event tomorrow. Not a big deal, I didn't have my heart set on it anyhow.

Maybe I'll just go sit by the pool and get some food and do a few logic puzzles out of a book I bought. Too bad Kels isn't here she'd love to keep me company down there.

taking it

Wasn't planning on playing today but kels fell asleep while we were watching miracle and I wasn't tired so I played 2 hours 2-3 tabling. Pulled out a nice little victory. It's amusing how much more lag/thoughtful you can play when you're not playing a bunch of tables. Just pick up on so many more subtle things.

Lets go to vegas, eh?

Off to vegas in the morning with Schneider. We're trying to convince poker bob /edit AND gator to join us and he probably will at some point. Pickett, kirby, and CMO will be out there so that'll be fun. Pickett is staying at some mansion with mcstot and tommy which i'm sure will lead to fun times as well. I'll probably be there 12 days and kels is gonna join up a week from thursday.

This is going to be sweet.

I'll be updating this throughout with how things are going and what's going on.

more luck using

Apparently I to get more bad-luck out of my system online today. I didn't play particularly much because it was memorial day and kels came back and we went to schneiders for grilling and the such but still, it was bad enough that I can only imagine I'm going to win about 782 million in vegas.

Saving my luck

They beat me up at canterbury last night which is annoying cause they're so bad but I decided to save my luck for vegas where it'll matter much more.

No Shot

The last 2 days:



Click on for full size cause I can't figure out how to change the formatting on this thing.

The games are gooooooooood I just never have a shot of having the best hand by the river. It's definitely in my head and I'm sure my play is deteriorating. I want to be in the zone for the series tho otherwise I'd just probably go away.

Fine, I'll take your dumb money if you don't want it

tc3668 posts the small blind of $10
rtfuldodger stands up
uglystyles posts the big blind of $15
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to uglystyles [Kd Kc]
syhg99 folds
cowbag folds
racer fatty folds
tc3668 raises to $30
uglystyles raises to $45
tc3668 raises to $60
uglystyles calls $15
*** FLOP *** [4d Kh Ks]
tc3668 checks
uglystyles bets $15
tc3668 raises to $30
uglystyles raises to $45
tc3668 raises to $60
uglystyles calls $15
*** TURN *** [4d Kh Ks] [Ad]
tc3668 checks
uglystyles bets $30
tc3668 calls $30
*** RIVER *** [4d Kh Ks Ad] [2d]
tc3668 checks
uglystyles bets $30
tc3668 raises to $60
uglystyles raises to $90
tc3668 raises to $120
uglystyles calls $30
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tc3668 shows [8s 8c] (two pair, Kings and Eights)
uglystyles shows [Kd Kc] (four of a kind, Kings)

sometimes just falling over is best.

canterbury

So I get to canterbury yesterday afternoon and it's the worlds worst game for an hour or so. All pro's but 1 guy. All of a sudden it was the juiciest game I've been in there in awhile. I ran up a couple racks but by about 1 or 2am they were depleting. Genaddy was on life tilt or something and he was hitting everything vs everyone. I didn't lose a ton of weird pots to him like a few people but man was he out of control. Cold-calling 3 bets with 43o and playing like a goon post flop, calling 52s first caller after rocky raised etc etc it just had everyone on tilt and I wasn't winning hte pots so ended up losing like 1500. Meh. was a fun game none the less.

Finally shot -20 at golden tee today. neither jeff or mike have done it yet so it was extra sweet to be the first of our little group of new guys.

2 tabling

Maybe I'll try 2 tabling for a little. I did that yesterday while watching the movie "Deja Vu" and it worked well. It'll definitely allow me to have super good table selection as finding a good table or two is easy. Things will just happen slower so the frustration level can't build up as fast.

Not sure I'm going to stick to this it's just something I'm gonna try. Maybe I'll end up at 3 or 4 tables who knows.

blah and blah

Online hasn't been sitting right with me the last couple days. I played yesterday and won like 500 at limit but wasn't feeling it so went to NL and dropped 900 in about 10 minutes and that was enough of that.

I booked a room at the Bellagio starting next Wednesday with Schneider. I haven't booked a flight yet but I looked at them and there were a million options for 1 ways all around $99. Sweet. It'll be nice to play live for a bit. I'm not sure when I'm coming back yet...will see how I feel when I'm out there. One of the nice things about being a self-employed pro poker player is I get to write most things off on trips like this, so it's like traveling with a 35% discount.

Golden teez this afternoon, canterbury tonight. Online blah.

gathered myself and played another session. About a half hour, lost a little and quit so I can start getting ready for softball. No frustration that time even though there still were some really dumb/standard hands.

I won again last night at canterbury but today couldn't have gone much worse from start to finish. I didn't play til the blinds...I just closed poker. I almost never do that.

rats.

another day of limit

Another 1400 hands. I haven't decided full out if i have a problem - too many tables yet but part of me thinks maybe. I'm often playing a gillion but a couple are full tables so that helps a bit. I usually focus on about 2 tables and 'just play' the others. It's just that I always feel bad when i'm leaving 'good' tables out.

I've been tangling a lot with a 58/46 guy lately and I think it's been helping my game quite a bit because I have to play a little different style vs him than most. I've been getting the upper hand too according to PT. I'm still playing a good chunk tighter and I'm liking it. I think I was bleeding a little bit. I'm probably a hair too tight now but that doesn't bother me. I'd rather be there now than too loose. I'll have to do some studying to figure out where to open up.

Golden tee this afternoon then canterbury (live poker) tonight.

dark side

I've played 6500 hands of LHE in the last 2 days. I think it's kinda like going back to an ex-gf. You go back and spend some time together, have some good times etc etc but then ultimately realize why you broke up. So far so good, though. I can tell I haven't played lhe in forever which is good cause all of the stupid frustration things aren't there like they were during that huge streak. So far I'm playing a little tighter pre-flop which I think is helping me cause I think I was too loose given the nature of the games before. I read some of stoxtrader's book and I was definitely opening too many hands on the button. Also, given the stupid-laggy nature of the games these days it helps to have something just a little bit more which also leads to a little bit less frustration.

Somehow I got conned into golfing this morning. Went to the comedy club with like 12 people last night then to a bar...which doesn't bode well for earlyish morning round of golf but I think I'll deal.

false alarms

The stupid glass break sensor for our security system is a piece of crap. That's the third time it's false alarmed. Twice by music and once by a pile of magazines falling over on the desk. The first time I was scared shitless cause I was the only person who lives here in town and it was 10pm on a friday night and I had just gotten out of the shower. The 2nd time it was obvious and this time I just figured it probably was the case. Annnoyinggggg.

Hmmmm

I played 3500 hands of stars this afternoon. 1100 of them 2/4 and 2300 1/2 and whaddya know I broke even. It was mostly 10 tabling...probably the problem...but the games are so incredibly nitty it seems like playing more tables like that makes sense. I told myself I'd give this a try for a week but after probably half of the sessions I'm like hmmm this probably isn't right. It sure is a lot easier to just open a million tables and just play as opposed to opening 4 different sites and playing a games over all of them...so in that aspect, it's 'less annoying' work. It's also nice to see 3500 hands as opposed to like 1400 or whatever I'd have if I was playing 6ish tables on other sites. I get a lot less hands per hour cause it's harder to get all the right tables and they aren't as fast as stars so it's 500 hands per hour compared to 1000 at stars.

Oh the decisions.

sucker for pokerstars

They always find ways to hook me. Their stupid FPP program gets me every time. Right now they're doing a promotion where you get 2x vpp and that'll make it tons easier to get my supernova back, if not at least platinum. The other site's games weren't that great anyhow so it was fine but still I just breakeven at the stupid 2/4 game on there. I'm up like 10 buyins lifetime or something I bet. With the rake, the players on there are pretty decent. The other problem is the software is so good and there are so many games going and I want mucho VPP I always somehow end up with like 9 tables going.

I'm on a 20k hand or so break even streak here at NL but lemme tell you it's a lot less stressful than 20k hands of limit. Still in a great place. I think I might be fancy playing a little too much. There's just such a fine line between FPS and good tough NL play. I have pwned a few people and that's always super fun. I really do love NL though. It just feels so much more like poker than limited crappy betting.

Halfway through the month and only 15k hands. Yuck. -4 buyins. That'll change I'm sure :)

prom date

Mike and I ran into my prom date at a bar tonight. I haven't talked to her/seen her since high school (6 years) so that was kinda funny. She's moving to Seattle in a few days cause her bf is there so it was nice we saw her when we did.

This cold is irritating the crap out of me. Please be done soon thanks. Just sucks extra cause my hay fever is bad right now too.

Good chance I play at Canterbury tomorrow. Wish me luck at that stupid LHE game.

Pretty uneventful poker day today. Played like a thousand hands and won $45!! lol. Kels had to do some work this morning so I ended up waking up when she got up at like 8am and the games were surprisingly good. By the end of my session they were getting a touch worse but still much better than the 1pm games I often play in.

Played softball tonight on a competitive team for the first time in forever and it was incredibly fun. Man I miss that stuff. Most fun I've had in forever.

good start

Nothing like logging on and starting like this:


After that I lost KK to QQ all in on 944 flop at 3/6 but then battled back and am back to the +1500 area now after 700 hands or so. Probably play another hour or so then I have dinner with my family.

Exhaustimatated

Yuck a long last couple of days. I had thought about playing a session when I got home from duluth (got home a few min ago) cause saturday night games are usually good but given that half the time I've been looking at the screen I've been zoning out probably is a sign I should just go watch a movie and fall asleep so that's what I'm gonna do.

good niiiiiiight.

/edit the stupid save as draft button is bigger than the publish button so i often click that instead. Whoops, meant to post this last night.

quick session

Kels was off shopping with a friend and I was feeling good so I played a quick session. Started off down almost 2 buyins but ended up 1.5 in like 700 hands. Not really much to say about the session. I played pretty well. We'll see if I play any more later tonight in duluth but my guess is not. Maybe play tomorrow night or sunday night but busy busy weekend and poker isn't that high on list of priorities these days.

A nice day without

Woke up just before 11 today and went over to a park with a bunch of guys and hit softballs. They needed another guy so I'm gonna be playing every monday. Awesome, I've been really wanting to play. My shoulder has been messed up since freshman year of college though so that might be a small problem. I'll prob have to goto the doc and investigate. It was 73 and perfectly sunny. Very little wind. Perfect day. Grabbed some golden tee on the way home.

Got really lucky somehow and was browsing the twins website and looked at tickets for tonights game and somehow they had some for the 6th row right behind home plate. I've been wanting to sit there forever and have been thinking about paying top dollar for them but somehow I got them for retail. I still wanna sit in that sweet box the first few rows sometime, but I imagine those tickets aren't easy to come by.

I definitely think I needed more days off back during my downswing. I tried TOO hard to play through it and get out of it when I just needed more regular time off. I tried a week off a couple times and that didn't help a ton cause I came back it was really bad, but just more random days doing completely non-poker stuff is very helpful. Now that I think about it I probably wont play til sunday night or monday as Kels is moving in and we'll be doing that stuff and then we go up to duluth for her award ceremony and to move the rest of her stuff. Sunday is mothers day so I'll be with family all day. Perfect. Sounds good to get a nice little vacation. Not gonna get as many hands in but owell i'm over it. Better than putting in hands and not having a good hourly and not enjoying life. blah blah blah i'm blabbing now. Enough.

wow pathetic

Semi tilted. Got QQ ai vs 99 preflop and lost. same guy a little bit later I thought was making a play nope I was wrong bluffed off a double stack. To 5/10 I went. second orbit get KK ai vs AA when he 4 bet me pre and went ai on 532 flop. Then tried to get a little cute with a pair and a flush draw on the turn. He had tptk and better flush draw. Whoops. Also tried 3 barreling a guy at 3/6 and there went a stack. 476 hands - 3200 dammit. Quit immediately after the pair/fd hand as it was semi-dumb play.

bah.

Least I got out golfing today and I wont play poker tomorrow.

I bet I'll play a little at canterbury tonight as I'm going to be nearby playing golden tee.

/edit nah guess I wont be nearby and no cb. Probably for the better anyhow. Go twins!

I'm the worst

Twice in a row now I've booked nice wins at canterbury! Real fun game last night after the twins game. Nice to play/suck out on joe and ryan. I crashed in their room and pokerbob and I went to the twins game this afternoon. Almost!

Spent the afternoon afterwords playing golden tee with mike and jeff. I'm getting a lot better at t hat game but I still kinda suck. Just a little sloppy I guess.

Played some online...

I raised 87s in the co, a fish in the blinds called. The flop came 966 with a flush draw that wasn't mine. he checked, I bet and he called. This meant very little. Ace high, king high, a gutshot, a straight draw, 2 semi-random cards, a pocket pair, a 9, a 6, any. Turn 7 not bringing in the flush. He checked and I checked. The river bricked a 3 and he bet like 1/5 the pot and I called. He showed q9 and I just said to myself yeah that'll do it. Then the chips went to my stack....wtf did I misread the river and I have a straight??? No. I had 76 and had a full house...quittin time. It was just when Jon had walked in so it's sorta 'excusable' but I'll probably be better off just quitting anyhow.

a nice day back

In the first 15 minutes of playing today I double stacked a guy when I set over set him. It's funny how those hands pump you up, yet if you're on the other side it's so deflating when nothing even happened really. It's not like I did anything skillful or I would have gotten away from his hand in his place...but still I think gets me going and playing well.

I had a real slow start to the month getting sucked out on and what not, but today it's turned the other way in a big way. I got 2/3 stack in on turn with KQ all in vs AQ on a Q764 board and spiked a K. That'll help a day.

Re-raised a guy out of the sb with AQs and flopped QT9. He min-raised and I shoved for like 2x his raise or something, he was like a half-stacker and he slow-roll called me with KJ. Turn T river Q. Lol karma in his face. What's funny is I was actually talking to bob about the online slow-roll yesterday. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's much dif in person in my oppinion and it's definitely a dick play, but I might be able to be convinced it has value because it could send somebody on tilt.

The twins game was kinda so-so last night. It was like a playoff game without the intense atmosphere. Pitchers duels are can be fun when the game really matters, but when it's this early in the season I'd rather see a game like the 15-11 mariners/yankees game yesterday. Joetall and ryan came into town last night so me, schneider and them are going tonight. With santana going vs their 5th starter it should be a good whoopin but you never know.

Probably go up to canterbury after and play some live with those guys. I'd really rather go play NL at turtle lake but that's too far away. Been really itchin to go up there...but they said they only have 2-5 nl on weekends and weekends haven't been avail lately. Maybe I'll just go sometime during the week and play 1/2. At that point i'd rather get a homegame going but those aren't that easy to get goin these days. meh.

A day off

I don't take nearly enough days off (although in the last month or so I've gotten a ton better at it) so today I'm not going to play. I've been playing a lot of $2/4 NL these days and it's been going great but the last few days have been annoying and I only have 2.5 hours this afternoon I could play before going to the Twins game and I think I'll spend it doing other things.

Finally, a blog

I've been wanting to do something like this for quite some time but for many different reasons...the biggest being laziness I just haven't gotten around to it.

I suppose I can give a little background to catch people up on who I am.

I'm a 24 year old from MN. I started playing semi-professionaly my junior year of college and graduated graduated with a computer science degree 2 years ago. After I graduated I decided that poker was the best option, at least for a bit. I started out playing limit hold-em and have played over a million hands, mostly online. I goto Vegas/LA every couple months or so as it's nice to play live from time to time.

Being a poker pro can be GREAT, but probably isn't everything many young people think it will be, especially now with the legislation and the games being a lot tougher. It definetly has a lot of downsides and has messed up a few of my friends lives. Really easy to do if you're not careful. For me as well as many others, it's worked out well, but not without stress and other complications. I have great bankroll management so I stayed in good shape, but I went through 6 straight months of losing, all while dropping down limits. That took so much out of me emotional-bankroll wise that I've pretty much taken a break from limit hold-em for awhile and have been playing no-limit which at the lower stakes has far less variance. I had always been interested in learning it and it seemed like the best time. I've played probably 150k hands of it and been having nice success. A welcome change.

Poker is easy to play when it's going well, but as soon as it starts going poorly, it's hard to stay focused and play, let alone play well. It's also not easy to keep it from propogating into the rest of your life and not be crabby around friends/girlfriends.

I feel like I'm making it out to be bad. Quite the contrary, it's just not without negatives. It's given me tons of opportunities I couldn't have imagined if I would have gone into the computer science field. I've spent a ton of time travelling and was able to spend a huge chunk of last winter skiing out west. I've gotten to spend a lot of time on the lakes here in mn. I rarely have to wake up to an alarm. If I don't feel well, I don't have to work. I can visit my girlfriend during the week. I can pick up and go visit friends in another state for a week on short notice. I've met a ton of other successful/fun people and the networking that provides is great.

I feel like I'm rambling. Enough for now, maybe I'll come back and edit it later.