Blow Up

So I didn't do a good job at not playing for a couple days. I played this morning and continued my drastic down swing. I'm trying to figure out if it was bad play, or just a really cold deck.

I did have a bit of a blow-up. I do know that. Which I am going to try to real in. But I know that not all of it can be attributed to bad play. Here are the major hands I can remember from my 3 hour session, on four tables this morning.

1) QQ versus KK. So I was doing ok, not losing too much yet. I think the most I was down on any table was $3. I'm in the sb with QQ, and I get raised. I 3-bet it to see if I can chase away any A rag, or KQ to avoid them hitting their over card. The original raiser smooth calls. I hit a Q on the flop, and begin thinking about how to get money from him. I make a small raise, and he instantly shoves for the rest of his $25 into a $4 pot. there are no straight draws, no flush draws. At best he could have two pair (or Aces), maybe a lower set. I had to call. He showed his KK... turn is a blank, but the river is another K.

I'm  not devastated at this point, but really frustrated. I get up and go get a coffee, and I sit down to try an win it back.

I take in a few small pots, but the overall results are mostly based on these hands.

1) AK versus A5. I was already pretty short-stacked. He three-bet me, but I decided I would much rather take it down now, and I four-bet shoved. He called and hit his 5.

2) AKs versus A9o: This one was a bit of a blow-up. I was a little steamy about the AK a few hands ago, and got 3-bet again, so I shoved. Again somehow the person called, this time I hit AK... but they pulled off a flush with their 9.

3) I have 67c. My opponent min-raises, and I call from the SB. Flop is 6Q7. So long as they don't have a set, I'm golden. My opponent bets, and I make a 2.5 re-raise. He hesitantly calls, and I put him on a Q. he only has $15 left, and there is $10 in the pot, and I am positive I am ahead. he checks on the turn, which is a blank deuce, and so I bet $7. If he has AQ, he may shove, and if he has a straight draw, he can't chase.

He shoves, I call. He has KQo. No straight draw, not flush draw, all I need to dodge is a K or another Q was the thought going through my head. But just to get a good laugh... the poker gods throw out another deuce. Counterfieting my two pair, he rakes in the $40 pot.

I'm steaming. Just losing it. I was so annoyed, and this is where I have my mini blow-up. I'm with those 3 hands (plus a few that I'm not remembering) I'm down $80. I throw in a few all-ins that were probably unwarrented, I run into AA versus my KK (and I lose), and then I check to the river with 33, to catch my set, just to find out that my opponent was checking a bigger set to me hoping I would catch.

I lose one more AK verses A rag, and decided... I can't do it. Something is just plain wrong with my game today. Pokerstars has my number, and I need to relax. I'm down almost $150, which isn't a disaster. I can make that back easily; but not today. Right now I'm sitting at $866.83 from my $1000.

I'm forcing myself to take a break. I locked away my laptop with pstars on it, and can't access it on my desktop. I need to regroup, and see if I can get back some of my loses next week. I might take some time to see if I can follow what's going on with the Fallsview poker classic coming up next week.

I'll let you know any good poker news I hear or catch up on while I take my break, but for now, I'm down. Next week I'll try to recover.

Break-time

Ok, so I'm still up, but I've had two really really bad sessions. I'm going to spend some time taking a break. Relaxing a bit, and coming back to poker in a couple days. right now I'm sitting at $1032.68. I was up to $1120ish, but as a result of my two really bad sessions am down.

It's going to be REALLY hard to not play for the next three days. Really hard. But I think it would be good to step back as I have been playing very consistently, and a lot over the past week.

I will hopefully be able to take some time, analyse, and look at my play for holes. I know I chase way too much, but hopefully I can look and see 'how much am I chasing too much?' or 'is there times when I'm losing big pots by chasing, but getting the right odds to call?'

I want to look at these questions and see if I can figure some of these out. I also want to be able to discuss the best kind of table that I play on. Whether I want a loose table, with really high average pots, or tighter tables with low average pots. I was playing at a really high average pot table, the other players were betting REALLY big, and always taking stabs, etc. Perhaps the answer is, when I'm on these tables, be more patient. If I know I'm over aggressive sometimes, these might be good spots to be more patient for big hands, because I know very well that I will probably get paid off.

I might try to read Dave Sklansky's Theory of Poker on this little three day break. I will hopefully be able to learn something, and I will let you all know. Anyways, that's all for now. See you guys later.

Day 3 Roller Coaster

So I'm probably not going to always number my days, but the other day I had a awesome day; but stressful. It seemed I was going all over the place. I was hoping to recover my loses from day 2, and I started off quite well.

Two hours into the session, I didn't really seem to get anywhere except up maybe 2 or 3 dollars. I was multi-tabling, so I would of thought that after 2 hours I would have been more than that, but I seemed to be at a stand still.

Then I hit it; with Ax suited, I make a small pre-flop raise, two callers and I flop a flush draw. Check, check, I put in a mid-size bet, and get one caller. I make my flush on the turn. I make another bet, half the pot this time to make it look like I was nervous that he called my c-bet. He shoves instantly for his entire stack. I assume he has a lower flush, or possibly 2 pair and for some reason didn't care that a flush draw was just completed.

I insta-call, and he turns over a set. I was excited to rake in the pot and make up for all those lost chips the other day... but the river pairs the board and I lose to a full boat. I was so frustrated. I re-buy hoping to win my money back... but can't seem to get anywhere. It was probably mostly tilt, but it just seemed like I missed every flop, every bluff seemed to not be believed.

I lost another $15, and now instead of being up $35 on my grand, I was down more than $10.

I re-bought. I was going to fight for my money back. But then I had another idea. I was wired, steaming and frustrated, and wanted to play to win my money back. I needed a break.

So I got up, I sat in my apartment for a bit, I relaxed and listened to some music. I took my dog on a walk and went to get a coffee at Tim Horton's to just not worry about it. I was only down $10. I just needed to let it go, and not worry about my game. I actually came back, but decided to wait even more, and I sat down to watch a movie.

This post is actually being posted a couple days, so I can't really think of any remarkable hands (ironic that I can remember the one I lost so brutally like I just played the hand...). But when I eventually returned, I can't really explain it. I thought through EVERY hand, focused on watching players so intensely, and within 2 hours, I recovered my $50ish that I had lost.

I thought about quitting. I was back up, I didn't really need any more. I could of just let it go and fight another day.

In the end I stayed, which for me for some reason is usually a bad thing. The last thing I wanted was for me to loosen up because I was "up" now. I honed in even more, turning off any distractions around me. I left with an additional $50!

I really don't have much to say as this post is a few days later from me being away, but I was ecstatic. I think the best thing I could of done for myself, is my few hour break.

Day 2 Crash

     So day 2 was last night. It was a disaster. Needless to say I'm going to take a little break today. It was intense though. It was another 7 hour session. I got Aces cracked twice, 3 times I flopped (flopped!!!) the nut flush against top pair or a set just to have them make a runner-runner boat. And once I got a set of threes in against pocket tens, just to get a ten on the river.
     It was just a bad night of poker. At one point, I lost ALL my winnings from day one, plus and extra $20.00.   I was going to quit then, which I probably still should of, but I kept playing and luckily made it back into the green by about $35. So I was still down by $30, but I wasn't down over all, which made my night a bit better.
     When I finally quit, it was because I was thinking about one of the very first poker books I ever read. Hold'em Wisdom For All Players by Daniel Negreanu. He talked about how he would read of people having these great sessions; they would play 6 hours, win $50, play 7 hours, win another $50. Then, they would have this 14 hour session where they lose $400. The problem is knowing when to quit. This is what I thought of when I ended up calling it a night. There was always another day.

Small Stackers

So I've developed a pretty good method, which I'm well aware is not a new strategy. I didn't come up with it myself, but I've done a pretty good job implementing it.

As always, at every table, you have your "short stackers." People who will buy in for the least possible amount of money. Sometimes it isn't always the lowest possible, but it's often pretty low.

On the tables I play on, $0.10/$0.25, the standard (and the max) is $25. However often we'll have 2 or 3 (sometimes 4) players who will buy-in for $10. I like playing and picking on these people. They tend to play really conservative, always hoping to flop the nutz.

I understand where they're coming from with their strategy, but it just makes it way to easy. Maybe I tend to be over aggressive, but I just feel like you can't put enough pressure on if you have less than 50% of everyone else at the table.

If I go all in against you, I'll still have more than half my stack, even if I lose.

The other reason I like them, as I said before, is they tend to play ultra-conservative. They make small raises, or limp, hoping to flop big. This makes them wide open to bluffs since they don't have as much protection and cushion against loses. Some of my biggest bluffs are against these players.

All in all, while I'm sure they are thinking about protecting their money by buying in for such a small amount, in reality they are opening themselves up to pressure that they have made it impossible to for them to respond too. I think it would just be smarter to play conservatively, but buy-in for the full $25.00.