Poker Journal Day 23
Day 23, March 17th: I got pleny of work done on the book. I revised the onlie vs live section to sound less partial to online players and got more work done on the mid stages section, though I am currently awaiting further input rom ElkY in order to shore it up further.
I realized that I have forgotten to keep putting the entries on Pokersavvyplus lately so I’m going back and adding them all today. I also never went over the responses I got on the hands I posted on Day 14, so I’ll go over them now.
On the first hand where I called down with AJ on a 8 9 9 8 A board pretty much every response agreed that my line was standard, particularly since there are plenty of missed draws and counterfeited hands in his range.
Looking back at the second hand, which had me holding 88 in the 100 rebuy, I realize that the suits did not copy/paste correctly into the blog entry. In the actual hand I held the 8h and the flop came T high with three hearts. I check called and the turn was a low heart, prompting me to check/call again. I then check/folded a brick river on the shove. I only got one response on the hand so I’ve gone back and given it a quick bump to see if I can get more input.
On the third hand where I flopped two pair with K5 out of the SB in a UB tournament opinions were highly mixed, but most seemed to think that given odds and that people on UB do really weird and spazzy stuff I should at least call the turn. This was an interesting one as a number of guys I respect had fairly polarized responses, but most seemed okay with the idea of at least calling.
On the fourth hand where I 3 bet J7dd in the Tilt 100/r/a most agreed that it was worth having a move like this in my arsenal pre flop so long as I didn’t start going nuts with it. Most liked the line I took post flop, though some said they would bet all three streets as a bluff. I feel like the line I took is better since that early in the tournament people will almost never fold any pair on the turn and rarely turn many worse pairs into bluffs so getting to showdown is not so hard.
Poker Journal Day 22
Day 22, March 16th: I took the “morning” (I generally sleep until about 1pm here) off and we had a visit from Lee’s friend Yann then played a three way tournament between us. Lee wound up beating me heads up when I shoved the turn against his donk bet with a gigantic draw and blanked off. I’m down $200 to him in tournaments at this point in the trip. I anticipate being broke by next week.
I continued working on the book in the evening. First I read over and edited the early stages play section, which is nearly 30 pages long now. Then I continued on the mid stages portion and finished adding everything that ElkY provided from his outline, though I’ve emailed him again to get input on some topics I felt needed further elaboration. Then I shored up the online vs live section to include more of his material and edit it so it read in a way that was more congruent with the rest of the book. I’ve written and read so much about poker over the last week that I find my brain starting to melt and tune out a little when I go over things, forcing me to slow down and reread things two or three times just to make sure I’m thoroughly thinking over what’s being said, or what I’m trying to say.
Poker Journal Day 21
Day 21, March 15th: More work on the book today of course. I continued writing up ElkY’s thoughts from the outline he provided, mostly on middle stages concepts. All this writing about poker makes me miss actually playing poker. Luckily we have the Lee Nelson deep stack tournament coming up on the 26th, which I have the uneasy feeling that I’ll spew out of by attempting some insane ElkYesque triple barrel.
Poker Journal Day 20
Day 20, March 14th: All the poker related stuff I did today was writing and glancing over some interesting hands at HSMTT. I wrote about pot control, pot odds, and additional forms of tricky play at the mid stages of tournaments. I still have a ton to do in that section; I’d guess that buy the time I finish that section alone will be in the area of 50 pages. Brevity might be the soul of wit, but it’s not quite indulgant enough to teach someone tournament poker.
Poker Journal Day 19
Day 19, March 13th: More work on the book today of course, though I was given a retreive when Lee and Penn took me to a basketball game in the town of Nelson, which is about an hour from the retreat. I spent the majority of my evening writing on the topic of mid stages play, which has already turned into 15 pages of work and is nowhere close to complete.
At first when I accepted this assignement I was concerned that it would slightly derail my attempt and refamiliarizing myself with the game and keeping my focus on improving. Going over the notes of ELKY every day and keeping my head concentrated on the idea of attempting to write excellent strategy while consulting with fellow excellent players has done the opposite, and I feel sharper every day.
Poker Journal Day 18
Day 18, March 12th: Continued working on the book today. I more or less finished my section on hand reading though I’m still looking to contact some of the sick online guys I know about providing specific examples for me as I currently only have one in there and would like to get at least three thorough and thought out spots per section.
I took my old adapting to live play for online players article and made a bunch of additions and edits to reformat for a section in the book. It’s nearly completed. I also began writing a chapter on mid stakes play, and although writing at length for a while it is nowhere close to done. That seems like a major chapter to me.
I’ve been playing Lee at a HU SNG in the evenings. He won yesterday when 50 BB’s effective I raised the button with AA and he called in the BB with KQ. The flop was QQ7 and that was the end of that. Tonight I reraised 97ss at he 50/100 level (we start 20,000 deep) and got it in against his raise on a Qs 7c 5s flop. I never had a chance against his As 4s. I’m down $200 New Zealand to him in those so far.
Poker Journal Day 17
Day 17, March 11th: Obviously didn’t play today. I went over the outline of the book in great detail with Lee today and took a bunch of notes to send off to ELKY. In the evening (which is very late for me, especially compared to Lee and Penn) I began to write a section about hand reading.
I had enormous trouble sleeping. I think I dozed off somewhere around 6am.
Poker Journal Day 16
1. He does some wild shit.
2. That guy is a fucking genius.
Of course the second statement is obvious considering his accomplishments, but getting an insight into his play was a real treat for me. I learned things just glancing over the outline. At this point I’m not sure what all is going to be required of me in this creative process but I’m looking forward to getting started. The retreat here is gorgeous (http://www.splitappleretreat.com), but it’s also 20 minutes drive to the nearest small town and over an hour to where I flew in, the town of Nelson. As you can see in the pictures at the link, the place is stunningly adorned and crafted and certainly a relaxing spot to spend two weeks. Unfortunately, my idea of relaxing is a joint and a movie and without a full fledged gym and lots of people to occupy me I get a little stir crazy. There’s curently nobody here except Lee, his wife Penn, and a few staff, so I can’t imagine I’ll get too distracted from writing. We’ll see.
Poker Journal Day 15
Day 15, March 9th: As I mentioned in the previous entry I didn’t play today. However, I did take the time to create two more full hand history reviews of tournaments I went deep in for Pokersavvy, including the Tilt $24 tournament I won earlier in the week. I think it’s my most profane video yet, as watching people fold getting 4 to 1 pre or flat 40% of their stack and check fold the flop is stuff I’m not that used to at mid to high stakes MTT’s.
Poker Journal Day 14
Day 14, March 8th: Today will be my last day playing before I had off to New Zealand on Wednesday. I'll be taking tomorrow off to get some things done and follow through on some earlier made plans. The session is still technically going, but I've only got three tables left in late, smaller tournaments and I'm pretty short on all three tables. It was a fairly frustrating day as I just got brutalized over and over and lost my two major flips in the only substantial deep run, the Tilt $109 rebuys turbo where I got 19th. Ah well.
I've got mixed feelings about going down to New Zealand to write this book for ELKY. I think it's an awesome opportunity and I'm very gracious that he and Lee offered it to me and that they have such faith in my abilities. However, I think it's pretty obvious from the questions that I've been posting lately that I'm simply not the poker player I used to be. I think in a few months of constant playing and posting I'll be up to speed again, and I certainly haven't turned into a total donk, but I'd hardly call myself a highly competitive pro at the moment. The consequences of taking the majority of 2009 off to travel, get drunk, and chase girls has caught up with me; not that I regret a second of any of it.
Popular 2+2 poster Todd Terry recently made his 10,000th post in MTTC. Congrats to him for having made it that far, especially considering the constant verbal thrashing he took in his early posting career. He wrote a paragraph in his post that I think is right on the money when it comes to getting and staying good at poker:
"Get better every day. That should be your goal. There are intelligent, motivated people who are doing that and if you don't keep pace they're going to pass you by. No matter how good you are right now (which it seems for most people isn't 1/10th as good as they think they are). So post on the forums, read a book, spend some time with PokerStove or SNGPT, watch some videos, memorize some charts, talk to friends, hire a coach, coach someone who asks intelligent questions, play some tournaments below your normal stakes and try out some new plays, play more live (live I learn a lot every time I play, whether it be tells, how randoms think about hands, how specific known opponents against whom I'll play again think about certain situations), whatever you think you need to do."
He's absolutely right. Spend enough time away from both playing and thinking about poker and the game will pass you by. If it does, you'd better be pretty fucking self aware and realistic about making the effort to get good again. There's a long list of guys who smashed tournaments through 2005-2007 that we basically never hear from anymore because they stopped making a genuine effort to improve. I don't intend on letting that happen to me. Twenty-five is a bit too young to be washed up, particularly when a simple google search of my name will disqualify me from having the majority of most real jobs. Besides, I already love the one I have and I'd like to hang around a while. Writing this log and looking at my interesting spots every day certainly helps. I've also been watching videos from other tournaments players and occasionally even studying a dry hand history from a player I respect. There's a few very sick players who are friends and are happy to help me out with some coaching, so I'll probably get on Skype with them in the near future and review some hand histories.
There were a number of interesting hands from today. I'm going to aim to post them with my thought process thoroughly explained in the future so that I can not only have my lines corrected, but my thinking as well.
Tilt nightly $150:
Fairly early with no particular history and I'm gajillion tabling at this stage on a Monday (Sunday for you kids) so no direct reads available. Villain is an unknown. Questions:
1. Thoughts on the C bet? All pairs will peel, a fair bit of his flatting range will call (JTs, QTs, QJs, T8s, etc), and occasionally big aces will call too.
2. Considering he checked turn and numerous draws missed, plus mid pairs under the 8 got counterfeited, thoughts on river?
Full Tilt Poker $75,000 Guarantee No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 9 players
SB: t3360 M = 56
BB: t1645 M = 27.42
Hero (UTG): t2645 M = 44.08
UTG+1: t1915 M = 31.92
UTG+2: t4655 M = 77.58
MP1: t4005 M = 66.75
MP2: t2730 M = 45.50
CO: t2910 M = 48.50
BTN: t2925 M = 48.75
Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is UTG with J A
Hero raises to t120, 5 folds, BTN calls t120, 2 folds
Flop: (t300) 8 9 9 (2 players)
Hero bets t200, BTN calls t200
Turn: (t700) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks
River: (t700) A (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets t480, Hero calls t480
Stars $100 rebuys:
Stars 100r. Villain is a guy I've seen around and I'm fairly sure is a reg but no highly substantial history with him. Thoughts on the whole line? I'd guess he mostly gives me credit for higher flushes than I have by the river and he'll have mostly big cards for his opening UTG range, so even though we're getting 3 to 1 I figured the fold was likely correct, especially as his bet looks value seeking sized.
Poker Stars $100+$9 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t50/t100 Blinds - 9 players
UTG+1: t8250 M = 55
UTG+2: t4049 M = 26.99
MP1: t3415 M = 22.77
MP2: t2450 M = 16.33
CO: t2850 M = 19
BTN: t3891 M = 25.94
SB: t6385 M = 42.57
Hero (BB): t3220 M = 21.47
UTG: t3000 M = 20
Pre Flop: (t150) Hero is BB with 8 8
UTG raises to t250, 7 folds, Hero calls t150
Flop: (t550) 7 T 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets t300, Hero calls t300
Turn: (t1150) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets t600, Hero calls t600
River: (t2350) 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets t1150, Hero folds
UB $120 20k gaurantee:
Gajillion tabling at this stage of the day, so no good reads or particular history with the villain. All I know is that by the turn when he nominal raises me on this texture I feel like I'm crushed, even though not a ton of holdings make sense for him. I guess he could limp AK/AA/KK UTG, but that's gotta be pretty slim, and otherwise we're folding to 55. However, how many hands actually raise like this that don't crush us. Thoughts?
Stage #84036331 Tourney ID 5116891 Holdem Multi Normal Tournament No Limit 60 - 2010-03-08 14:08:36 (ET)
Table: 23 (Real Money) Seat #3 is the dealer
Seat 1 - JILL339 (2,665 in chips)
Seat 2 - FURION3 (2,905 in chips)
Seat 3 - POLETRAIN (5,480 in chips)
Seat 4 - MUCKTHENUTS (2,840 in chips)
Seat 5 - BETOOO (5,020 in chips)
Seat 6 - NICKC1313 (5,710 in chips)
Seat 7 - PLAYER_1113 (5,025 in chips)
Seat 8 - MPLIZZY2288 (4,030 in chips)
Seat 9 - HB_HITMAN (2,480 in chips)
MUCKTHENUTS - Posts small blind 30
BETOOO - Posts big blind 60
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to MUCKTHENUTS [5d Kd]
NICKC1313 - Calls 60
PLAYER_1113 - Folds
MPLIZZY2288 - Calls 60
HB_HITMAN - Folds
JILL339 - Folds
FURION3 - Folds
POLETRAIN - Folds
MUCKTHENUTS - Calls 30
BETOOO - Checks
*** FLOP *** [As Kc 5c]
MUCKTHENUTS - Bets 180
BETOOO - Folds
NICKC1313 - Calls 180
MPLIZZY2288 - Folds
*** TURN *** [As Kc 5c] [3s]
MUCKTHENUTS - Bets 440
NICKC1313 - Raises 1,000 to 1,000
MUCKTHENUTS - Folds
Tilt $100 single rebuy add on:
Been very inactive lately and hadn't 3 bet anyone. No particular history with villain, and I haven't seen him around before to my knowledge. Questions:
1. Thoughts on mixing occasional 3 bets like this in during early stages? I know with my recent postings it likely looks like I'm doing it all day, but it's a pretty rare thing really.
2. Am I correct in thinking that given the flop the best plan is to check back and go for one street of value on the turn unless my hand improves?
Full Tilt Poker $33,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com
MP: t4415 M = 98.11
CO: t4145 M = 92.11
Hero (BTN): t3720 M = 82.67
SB: t8415 M = 187
BB: t3395 M = 75.44
UTG: t1910 M = 42.44
Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is BTN with 7 J
1 fold, MP raises to t90, CO calls t90, Hero raises to t340, 3 folds, CO calls t250
Flop: (t815) 8 Q J (2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks
Turn: (t815) 5 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets t525, CO calls t525
River: (t1865) A (2 players)
CO checks, Hero checks