Took a Break

I normally wouldn't post something if I took the night off, but since I've been so bad at keeping this blog up, I thought I would just to keep me in the habit of posting. Things at work have been a little hectic recently and I ended up not playing at all last night. On a side note, The Usual Suspects is a great movie.

Right read, wrong results

I took a night off on Tuesday to go and hang out with some friends, but played a shorter session last night that was going well, but ended up in a loss. I played just under two hours with some pretty big swings along the way. I was up for most of the session except for a hand that I should have folded and one where I made the right choice but ended up on the short end of the stick. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten on the positive side, but decided to quit and play another day when I wasn't so tired.

Here's the first hand. Overplayed the aces and probably should have just dropped it on the turn, but the call was only $7 more into a $30 pot. The guy was mixing it up and had shown down both extremely strong hands as well as a few busted hands, playing about 25/18/3. He was willing to bet his draws and I had seen him get stacked trying to make a move. Maybe the better play was making a probe bet on the turn and letting it go, but I don't think that extracts full value if the person had been playing KK, the other AA (unlikely), the flush draw or straight draws. I would be way behind the Q, 66, & 33, but I made the call.

I just ran a Pokerstove calculation. Based on this guy's preflop range, I show as having 81% equity on the turn.



I was able to climb back a little, but the hand that made me decide to just call it a night was this one.



Anyway, overall stats for the night:

110 minutes
379 hands
-12.95

daily update

I should have just added this to the last post, but the spreadsheet file didn't get through until just a little while ago. It was a normal session but a really volatile one. Started down about a total of a buy-in across two tables, but started to catch some hands and was up. Ended up losing a $30 pot with QQ against some guy who thought calling a raise with 5-8 off was a good play. Got it in on a dry flop where the guy flopped a five. The eight fell on the river. What are you going to do. I watched him play like a maniac for the next 40 minutes, but could never catch a hand against him.

I'll post a few other hands where I made some questionable calls which added to the roller coaster ride that I played. Luckily, I ended up with a small winning session for the night.

Date	Minutes	Hands	$
8/26/2008 0:00	195.7	920	$16.95

been really bad with updating this

Well, it's been over a week since I've updated this blog. I've been playing, but haven't been updating. The days have been up and down. More down than up. I know that I've been making some bad decisions, but looking at the totals, over the past nine days I'm down just over 4 buy ins which is really not much, but I still feel like I'm getting killed. A lot of times, I'm down $12 or $13 without even knowing it just playing a few hands. Anyway, I e-mailed myself my daily session stats for the past nine days so I'll be posting that here and updating my stats.

Start Time of Session	Minutes	Hands	$
8/15/2008 3:34	207.1	849	$80.05
8/16/2008 3:48	241.3	1218	($39.05)
8/17/2008 2:25	249.7	1179	($80.65)
8/17/2008 16:58	67.8	208	($29.85)
8/18/2008 2:22	181.3	1108	$24.60
8/19/2008 3:47	185.9	1119	$39.15
8/20/2008 3:42	136.2	624	($10.15)
8/22/2008 3:24	86.1	355	($47.10)
8/23/2008 0:06	233.4	838	($71.25)
8/23/2008 18:27	300.8	1345	$23.80
8/25/2008 3:13	215.8	893	($5.50)
Totals Through 8/25/08	2105.4	9736	-115.95

Tuesday & Wednesday

Played just under 3 hours on Tuesday night. All in all, it went pretty well until I made some fairly bad decisions where I was pretty sure I was beat. I pushed over the top with top and bottom pair plus a flush draw against what ended up being top two, and I lost another big pot with an overpair to a flopped set. Although I was happy with my play for the most part, by the end of it, I had turned what should have been a small winning session into a $29.00 loss. I've been playing tighter over the past several sessions and it's kept me out of a ton of marginal spots.

175 minutes
573 hands
-29.00

Last night I felt that I was finally able to gain some traction, gaining 4 buy-ins for the day. Cards came when I needed them & I was lucky enough to have some huge starting hands against a couple of guys who were willing to push their short stacks with ace-rag. My kings and queens held up both times and I was able to walk away with my first positive night in a long time.

I really need to work on tilt control and following my instincts. Starting off this exercise winning the majority of the time put me in a bad mindset where I felt I could just play aggressive all the time and end up ahead. I really have to keep my mind on the basics of positional awareness and only selected aggression. I run in to all kinds of problems when I'm just freewheeling. Anyway, here are the stats for the two sessions I played last night.

40 mins
54 hands
+20.80


207 mins
849 hands
+80.05

uneventful night

Things started out bad last night dropping a buy-in and a half in about 30 minuted. I decided to take a break for dinner. I really wasn't sure if I was going to play another session or not. I was able to win back the buy-in and end only down 4.35 for the day. A loss, but definitely not what I've been seeing of the past week or so.

I'm happy with the way I played and most of the decisions I made other than when I pushed over the top with KK into AA.

255 mins
564 hands
-4.35

Time to rethink things

I've kind of been putting this off as I've been thinking about whether or not I should even be playing. The continued downswing just keeps getting worse. Bad thing is that I know that I've been tilting when I start losing and when I'm getting frustrated. That being said, here we go. My weekend total is -140.45. My stats are where they have normally been, but I've been making some really bad decisions.

I'm really kind of sick about things. I'll be more diligent about posting here. Oh, and my effective bankroll is a little smaller than the $80 someodd that's posted. I played a $6 turbo sit n go as well as a $10 tournament this weekend as well. Needless to say I didn't cash in either.

4631 hands
-140.45

Back to the drawing board

I should have never thought that the other day's small win was a sign that things were getting better. I have in 4 days, managed to lose what it's taken me almost 2 weeks to build up. I'm kind of sick about that. I three tabled last night and was up on one table and even on the second. The last table, however, I kept losing a number of smallish pots, and three huge pots. I got it in on the turn with a set holding KK and lost to a made straight. Bet top two into a straight and called the all-in bet because I just didn't think the guy would be playing 7-4 with a raise and reraise in front preflop.

And those are just the hands where I don't think my plays were all that bone headed. I know that I was leaking chips all night on that table trying to make something happen with my strong hands, but I just wasn't connecting on most of them. My c-bets got no respect and I would have to fold the turn a lot of times.

194 minutes
848 hands
-98.70

Stop the bleeding

It took a marathon session last night, but I was finally able pull out a winning session. At the worst, I was down about a two and a half buy-ins and thought it was going to be another night where I took a beating.

The swings were kind of big last night with me being up nearly a buy-in early then dropping one as tables kept breaking and I didn't have a feel for who I was playing with. I was final able to hold off my tendency to bleed even more chips when I'm frustrated with not catching hands, but still did end up tilting for a while about 3 hours into the session.

We'll take the win, though. +6 is better than -65

311 minutes
1328 hands
+6.45

WTF am I doing

Sorry I don't have the stats right now. I'll post it when I get home. Played a session just under three hours last night. Was happy with the play for the most part and it looked like I would squeak out a small winning session after continuously hopping tables due to tables breaking after only about 15 minutes, but got involved in a hand that I shouldn't have that put me down about a buy-in for the evening. More on that later.

For the most part, I did a good job of not getting frustrated when hands weren't coming except for the stupid play at the end of the night, where I was getting anxious and just decided to play the hand really aggressively.

Doubled up once and won a couple of other big pots earlier which meant that I was down more than I thought jumping from table to table. $5 here and there adds up.

Still frustrated that I can't keep things under control for the entire session. Concentrating on hand selections and position helped last night. Tonight's focus is to continue what I did last night and add pot control.

163 minutes
824 hands
-24.45

The Downward Spiral Continues

Dropped two buy ins tonight and I have no one to blame for it but myself.

-------------

UPDATE

I looked over my hand histories over the past two days to see what's going on. Although my stats have remained fairly constant, I've been played a lot more marginal starting hands over the past two days and have played them over aggressively trying to push the table around.

I've generally shown down crap in the past two nights. The difference is that over the past several weeks, I'm showing down near the nuts most of the time which allows me to play much more aggressively since I'm getting more respect at the table. I know I haven't been taking table image into account and I haven't been paying as much attention as I should to flop texture when I'm c-betting.

Basically, I've just been playing like an idiot. Overly aggressive on the flop and overly passive post, just check calling with marginal hands, not forcing people to define their hands and just hoping that I'll hit something, which makes me the sucker at the table.

I'm not sure if I'm going to play tonight, but it's time to go back to basics. I need to remember, STARTING HANDS, POSITION, and CONTROLLED aggression instead of just playing like a fish.

349 hands
-52.30

Should have just left it alone

Decided to play another session last night and it was a bloodbath. Everything went downhill after I got stacked with AA vs. AQ. The first queen fell on the flop . Everything ended up going in there as my opponent had been having a rather bad run of cards and was playing aggresive. He ended up rivering the set.

For the next two and a half hours, I just couldn't hit anything. When I did, I was outkicked or played passively and let my opponent get there. I was playing looser than I should have been and I think that although I wasn't tilting like I used to, I was definitely on tilt after losing wiht the aces and not being able to catch any cards.

Let's hope things get better tonight or the next time I play.

156 min
597 hands
-86.10

Sunday Update

Played a fairly long 3-table session. I think I should have quit a little earlier, but still ended up in the positive. I let a couple of hands get there, but I didn't have an idea of whether my hand was good or not to be playing more aggressive. All in all, no huge hands. I got away from two that could have been disastrous. Looks like a lot of my tough hands today were due to not just letting go of my blinds and floating cards when I had a small part of the flop. Anyway, here are the results.

228 minutes
1033 hands
+68.25
$17.94/hr

Quick update

Played a quick session this evening. Things were going well for the most part and I'm happy with my play. Lost a couple of pots but nothing huge. I feel I was able to control the hands that I could lose with, and I was able to extract value from the hands I hit. I may play another session tonight, but I'm going to take a break to eat.

118 minutes
544 hands
+52.65

add another table

Well, I decided to 4 table short handed tonight. Looked like it was going to be a rough session dropping a buy-in early, but I got lucky. There was a maniac playing on two of the tables. I never really had the hand to play back at him, but still took a buy-in back off of him.

182 mins.
1032 hands
+52.65
20.41 bb/100