Quickie

Results for my last 9 $10 Double or Nothing games:


Of course, this was proceeded by my worse losing streak ever (4 losses in a row, including my A/A losing to someone's K/K).

Have been playing very little lately. I don't miss it.
When I feel like playing more I'll play more. Today I hit a $6.50 S&G that I lost really early in, and won that $10 Double or Nothing game.

Oh... and I've noticed that even though I've finished with over $10,000 in chips ($10k is 2/3 of the chips in play) PokerTracker has *never* shown me in first place. I think it takes the players how they are listed, which is alphabetically. So out of the 5 players who win, my name had never been the first name alphabetically. :)

Ring-a-ding

I let myself play a short 4-table session of ring games (only $25NL for now).
Finished with 34.26bb/100 despite this hand:

Of the five tables I played (one dried up so I dropped it and added another), that game was my only losing table (-$4.20). Could be worse.

I played two $7.50 "Step 1" S&G's. They are single table satellites where the top two players get a ticket to a "Step 2" game, 3rd place gets a ticket to another Step 1 game (free do-over) and 4th gets a pittance ($1.50). Step 2 gives two tickets to Step 3, two tickers to Step 2, and 1 ticket to Step 1. Step 3 pays two tickets to Step 4, and three tickets to Step 3. Yatta yatta... Step 6 pays a big fancy schmancy trip to the Bahamas or whatever.

Anyway, I bought into two games, got a Step 1 ticket in one, and lost the other. I used the ticket and got zilch from that. It was fun though.

I'll probably let myself play a couple more of these. It's potentially a lot of play for only $7.50, and there's a lot of endgame play, which I enjoy.

Anyway, I'm up for the day. I played fairly smart. I had very little tilt (opening UTG on my last hand of the night with A/6s simply because it was my last hand sticks out), and I found the fun Step satellites. So it was a good day.

DoN's

PokerTracker wasn't importing all of my stuff and it failed to record a 4 game downswing I had. It missed some other games as well (wins and losses). I think I have it all corrected now.
I *do* have a 7 game winning streak going though. That's not bad.

25.8 ROI over 52 $10 DoN games. Not bad at all. The winning streak and switching to turbos (with less rake) has been good for my profit graph.

On the two tables I played tonight, I was up against 5 people who were on both tables. That means, including me, 6 of the 10 players were multi-tabling the games. Someone has to be losing money in that scenario. Glad it wasn't me.

It's late and I work tomorrow. G'night.

Two more DoN's

Played two Double or Nothings Turbos last night.
I cashed in them both pretty easily. There were at least four of us who were playing the same two tables. I sort of give the multi-tables a little more credit for not taking unnecessary chances, so I respect their raises.

All of the regulars were playing just like me... tight. Maybe even too tight. Lately I've been opening up my range and stealing more, and last night was no exception. In one game I had 7,000 on the bubble and just started shoving every hand, unless someone shoved ahead of me. I was giddy, taking in hand after hand. A micro-stack challenged me with A/J when I had A/T suited, and he doubled up when I we both failed to hit.
I was at over 8,000 in chips when someone called my last shove. I had A/6, he had A/4. I flopped a 6, and the turn was a blank which sealed the deal. Boo-ya! Cha-ching!

On the other table I was still a lot more active. I think I got up to $4k at one point but finished at around $3k. I stole a lot. If the BB was $100/$200, I'd raise to $450 and take it. Really, I only remember being challenged once... and that's including both tables.
I did tighten up towards the end because the two people on my left had about equal stacks to me. The three of us were basically waiting for the other three to make a mistake and bust.

I think playing really nitty was the way to go before, but now people are getting nitty (because it pays) so opening up a bit is safer than it once was, and more profitable.

With those two wins, I have cashed in 10 of my last 11 DoN games.

Thoughts about the Turbos...
At first I thought that the standard Double or Nothing tournaments were the best bet for making $. A slower blind schedule means that you need to put fewer chips in, which means that you get to see more hands before having to make big moves. Basically, you get to see more hands and make more decisions, and being able to make more decisions benefeits the better player and limits variance.
However, I'm starting to favor the Double or Nothing Turbos in a big way now. If you win a turbo you get $9.60 profit for your ~30 minutes of play. If you win a standard you only get $9.20 for your ~45 minutes of play. IE, turbos pay a winner $19.20 per hour and regular tournaments pay $12.27 per hour. That is HUGE!
The bigger $-per-hour rate crushes the "more decisons" advantage in the regular games (those extra ~30 hands, many of them with small blinds anyway, aren't a huge advantage). Plus quicker blinds give people more opportunity to mismanage their chipstacks, and it also let me do my "stall to make the blinds go up just in time to his the short stack" trick.

So anyway, those are my thoughts now. I *wanted* to play some rings last night but I didn't want to record a video with comentary with the japping dog in the background, so I did not allow myself to play.

Quickie

They found a fragment of a razor blade in the tire. I guess that can be easy to miss.
They also steam cleaned the engine and put in a new oil cap (which they had to get in Elizabethtown, which is pretty far away).

They said the changed out all the oil too, I guess in case it got particles in there or whatever.

12Anyway, all is well with the vehicle. I didn't go to my in-laws' place this morning so I'll go after work.

Things have picked up enough that I expect to allow myself to play a couple S&G's tonight. If I do, they'll mostly likely be $10 Double-or-Nothing Turbos.5uy7.++
`1
++++
2-

Ok... see that garbled text? That's what happens when I turn and spill an entire can of soda onto my keyboard just as a customer comes into the shop. Nice.

But the keyboard still works and we have business, so all is well! (The soda will be missed, but I'll get over it.)

So...

Yesterday I had them fix my right-rear tire and rotate the tires.

This morning my left-front tire was flat.

I laughed. You have to appreciate how all these small problems gang up on you. I'm blessed to have these small problems. Car trouble means I *have* a car. Getting up at 4:00am this morning because my daughter wet the bed means that I *have* a daughter. Going to the hospital and taking care of my in-law's stuff means that I *have* family. I still have most of the things I hold dear, and for that I'm blessed.

Tired, but blessed.

No way I'm playing tonight

This has nothing to do with poker, other than sort of setting the stage for why there's no frigg'n way I'll be playing poker tonight. This is mostly to vent and clean my head.

Things are going smoother than I could hope for with the divorce. It's still killing me inside, but there's no malice and we're friends with each other. But it's a constant internal burden. I still love her, she just doesn't feel the same way.

My father-in-law had a heart attack and I was awoken via phone call with that news yesterday, causing me to skip my shower and shave to help them out with some chores. I feel like I've been playing cach-up ever since.
I had Monday off, but I'm running the shop by myself the rest of this week and it's been hectic. Lots of emergencies at work, which is good for business, but sort of rough for one person to juggle it.
Last night I went out to the in-law's place to feed the dogs and take their puppy back to my place, so I didn't get home until pretty late last night. Thankfully my daughter was willing to go right to bed at bed time. And despite the dog's reputation it only peed on my carpet once.

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, staying up a couple hours later than I wanted to. Plus the puppy kept whining.
Then I had a really disturbing nightmare involving my wife. I was woken from it by my daughter, who was calling me because she wet the bed.

That was her last pair of pajamas and my alarm was going to go off pretty soon anyway, so I just stayed up and dressed her for school and threw her pajamas and the sheets into the laundry.

After tending the dogs and dressing my daughter for the 12 degree (or whatever) cold front that moved in, I noticed that my right rear tire was completely flat.

The can of fix-a-flat was frozen, so I couldn't use that.

I had an air compressor stuffed in the far back of my shed. It is ancient, and weighs about 60 pounds.
I dragged out my lawn mowers and moved my kayak to get to the compressor. The handle popped out as I lugged it to the front yard, then up the steps of my porch (because that's where the electricity is. After turning it on I noticed that it had the blower end on instead of the tire inflation end, so I had to go back and scour the shed to find the proper end.

I got my daughter to school on time... I think. I think I was there two minutes before she was officially tardy, but they were doing announcements over the intercom system, so maybe she was late.

Then I took the car to the garage to get the tire repaired and get an oil change. I guess the cold weather makes them work slower because it took closer to an hour, even though there were no other customers ahead of me.

My mother-in-law needed the car (she's staying at the hospital) so my wife drove the car up and our daughter and I followed in my car, to give her a ride back. About 45 minutes in, I noticed a burning smell and saw smoke coming from the engine. I pulled over and saw that the cap of the oil was missing. Oil had spewed all over the engine.

I took the car to an auto parts store than was thankfully only a couple blocks away. I bought a new cap and a quart of oil to replace the spilled stuff.

The cap did not fit.
They got me another, that also didn't fit.
I laughed about it and told them about my flat tire and the trip to the hospital. The guy was really helpful and was on the phone for another 30 minutes (after trying everything he could think of for 20 minutes, and about 5 different caps) with all the other auto parts stores in the area. trying to get something for me. Unfortunately the final determination was that it was a part I'd have to get from a Ford dealer. Ugh.

He gave me a piece of plastic (from a package) and a rubber band to seal the hole.
It worked. Woo-hoo!

We visited my father-in-law, who's doing well. Then we drove back to work to get my dog.

I dropped my wife off in time, as she was going out drinking with friends. She also told me that I'd have our daughter and extra night this week because she was going to be off doing something Thursday.

When I went to work to pick up my dog I found that it peed on the carpet. So I cleaned that up.
After cleaning that up we went home. I squeezed past the air compressor on my front porch while holding my sleeping daughter. I stripped my daughter and put her on the sofa since the pajamas were still wet in the dryer, and he bed was stripped bare (to dry).

Miraculously my father-in-laws dog didn't make a pee or poo in her cage, though she did chew up my dog's dish which I'd put in there.

After letting the dog out and making the bed I finally got my daughter to bed and started to dry the pajamas and sheets.

Now I sit here at the computer, exhausted. I've been fighting off a cold. I'm just too busy to have it, so it's really mild. But I can sense it's there in the background and it's not making things any easier.

Tomorrow... oh man... where do I start? I need to drive my daughter to school, turn around and go the opposite way (past my house) back to my in-law's house to feed the dogs, then head back into town again to complain at the place where they lost my oil cap and get them to fix that problem. Then at work I have to set up a big backup system for the police department. Plus I have a bunch of computers in the shop to fix. Busy busy busy, and I have a feeling I'll be playing catch-up all day.

I am sooooo going to sleep in on Saturday.

Slowing down

Lots of off-the-table shtuff has been having a terrible impact on my game. I've been making a lot of reckless plays, suicidal calls, etc.
I confided to a friend my dwindling bankroll, the whole "the first step is admitting you have a problem" thing. Since then I've slowed way down. I'm going to try to only play when I think I'm in the right frame of mind. I've also vowed to record every ring game session to force myself to be accountable for my actions.

I've also played more S&G's, as they limit my potential to spew. I won my last four Double-or-nothing games, putting my ROI at 32.55%. Nice, if I do say so myself.
Here's my totals for $10 Double-or-Nothing S&G's:


I have a new computer since the last update, and not all of my hands made the transfer. I had to go back and have PS send me data on 9 tournaments to get them all. But anyway, it's done.

Edit: It looks like I've cashed in 4/6 turbos and 23/32 regular tournaments. It's too small a sample size to be accurate, but extrapolating anyway, that's like 64/96 turbos and 69/96 regulars. While the turbo's have a smaller win rate, the ROI is greater, and the $ per hour is greater. I'm averaging just under 30 minutes for the turbos, and I think I averaged 45 for full rings.
Anyway, this is way way early to give much merit to those numbers. But it's still fun to look though them.

I'm bad

Another bad night. Down $70.
It should have been more:

We split that. I was happy with the split.

I won a lot of small hands to take the sting off the big hands I lost.
One buy-in was lost to tilt. I three-bet a guy and didn't think he was calling with a Q. Ends up he called with Q/J and made trip Q/s on the flop. I bluffed away my stack on that one. I was just sick of stuff not going right. My bad.

Bad day, mixed with some fist pumps

Again... could have been worse. But it seems like all my bluffs got called, everyone hit their draws, and nobody called me when I hit.

I've been playing full rings lately, to mix things up. I can play more tables that way, and get more FPP's. But I feel a bit out of my element.

Here's a bluff that actually worked.


Man, I hate playing against short stacks.
Check out that flop from hell:

Zoink!
The only person who didn't do a fist pump when he saw that flop is the one who took it home.
If I can't get it in good, I'll take the miracle.

I flop the nuts. But will it hold?

Yay!
Now, I lost a bunch on other tables, so the session wasn't a big winner, but it was a winner none the less.

2009? Took long enough to get here.

I continued my bad streak at $50NL 6-max to finish the month at what I think is just below even. Personal off-the-table troubles tanked me.

I signed my divorce papers on New Years Eve. The night before... I couldn't sleep. I started fading into sleep at 3:00, when my daughter yelled "Daaaaaady! I wet the bed." She hasn't done that in a long time.
I was up at 6:45 because it was a work day.

On New Year's Eve I was asleep at about 8:45. Zzzzz...

I've been avoiding ring games because I felt that I would tilt off a significant chunk of my bankroll, but yesterday I let myself play some $25NL with a friend, and some $2NL with some people from the best poker forum.

I also let myself play some tournaments, as the potential loss is limited to the buy-in. It took two FPP satellites to get into a $10k guaranteed $10+$1 tournament, and I finished less than 200 from the money after shoving from the SB with A/Q and getting called by the BB who had A/J. J on the river.

I've been seeing a lot of lucky rivers lately. I played a $6 single table turbo last night and saw about 4 hands where someone inevitably cursed the river. I know won an all-in on the river for my tournament life. BTW, I ended up winning that tournament. Once we were HU, even though he had a 2:1 chip lead I thought I had a very good chance of winning.
Then I won a 60 40 to get about even, and I knew I was a big favorite to win.
I noticed that if I limped in the SB (on the button) he'd take that for weakness and play back hard. So when I was dealt A/Q I limped and he shoved. My A/Q crushed his A/6 and he was down to 40 chips.
He was automatically all-in the next hand and won that. Then the was all-in automatically the next hand as well, and my Q/6 beat his Q/9.
Cha-ching!

Anyway, I let myself play some $50NL 6-max today and did alright.

Two interesting hands:

Limping with A/A? Are you trying to build a small pot with a lot of callers?
I was worried that he might have a set. I didn't expect an over pair with a limp.

When I played the $2NL game yesterday I turned off the auto-rebuy and I'd forgotten to turn it back on. I was about to leave this table when I missed clicking "sit out." Then the guy on my left 4-bet me a second time and I was pretty sure he was full of it. I had questioned some of of his other plays, so I decided he was a target and I should sit around a few more rotations.

Ba-da-boom!

I'd be doing better if it wasn't for the there's-no-way-I-can-play-seriously CardsChat $2NL game. :)