Today was a good day, despite the bad beat story I'm about to tell you. I played about 7 hours of 20/40 at Bay 101 and brought home somewhere north of 1700 dollars in profit. I was absolutely on top of my game, making excellent reads, saving bets, and extracting maximum value from my opponents. The deck was also cooperating, which pretty much made for smooth sailing the entire day...except the 30 minutes I played 40/80.
I'm at a fantastic 20/40 table and look over to notice the must move 40 game is...well, better. It's 5 handed at the moment, and as I'm watching a player I know only as WTK takes a seat in the middle. I once said to Hammerin' Hank "I've heard stories about WTK" he simply licked his chops while walking over to the 40 game with WTK in it and said "It's all true. All true and more." The other players in the game weren't very good either, so I decided to suck it up and play some short-handed 40/80.
My first hand I take the big blind and am dealt K9. It folds to Abe, a friendly dealer who refers to me as Cousin (I do the same). he raises from the small blind and I call. The flop is something very dry, like 448 or some such, and I call his bet. He checks the turn and I check it right back when another blank comes off, but I river a King. He doesn't even call my bet though, so I suspect I might have been winning the whole way.
The very next hand it folds to me in the small blind and I raise it. WTK 3-bets it (he has...two cards) and I call. I flop a gut shot at broadway and call him. On the turn I still have Ace-high, but against this guy it might actually be good, so I call one more time. The river brings a blessed Queen, and I do in fact make broadway. I get in a check/raise, and he cries as he calls (I guess Ace-High wasn't very good). I'm over 500 to the good in 2 hands.
Then the following happpens:
I raise black 7s UTG (in what's a 6ish handed game). Only Sin, the small blind, and Cousin Abe, the big blind, call. The flop rolls off:
764 with two hearts. Sin check/raises me and I 3-bet instantly. Sin is an aggressive player, and is one of the reasons I'm in the game. My 3-bet will not dissuade him from check/raising again on the turn, and I have enough hand to 3-bet him again if he does this.
The turn is another 6, giving me basically gin. Basically. He checks, I bet, he raises, I 3-bet and he says "Oh...Pocket 7s?" and calls. To the river.
764-6-8, with the 4, 7, and 8 all being hearts. He checks, I bet, he raises again, and I call only (pocket 8s actually make perfect sense for him to have) and he rolls 65 of hearts, for a straight flush. I am dumbstruck and take my 20/40 seat when it's called 15 minutes later, down 7 dollars, deciding that if that's going to happen, so be it.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Random Post
Through 3.5 months of playing poker professionally, I have won 1.6% more money than I would have earned, pre-tax, from Oracle, in 7 pay checks.
I've taken more days off, but am now paying for Health Care and don't have a 401K match, so I'll admit to being slightly behind. But just slightly :)
I've taken more days off, but am now paying for Health Care and don't have a 401K match, so I'll admit to being slightly behind. But just slightly :)
Saturday, November 15, 2008
James Bond is Awesome
Tonight I'm going up to San Francisco to watch Quantum of Solace with some friends I've lost touch with. It's going to be awesome. Beforehand, I guess I can fill everyone in on the last two days of pokering.
Friday I played at Bay 101 from about noon until about 8pm. I ended up posting a 600ish dollar win, and managed to post 3 hands thanks to my iPhone (which allows me to write down hands after they happen and have it appear that I'm just texting someone). Here are the hands, which as of this writing don't have many responses on 2p2:
Hand 1 - A strange board on which I river a full house.
To make a long story short here, the board ran out Q44-Q-T and I had the misfortune of holding pocket Tens. I got raised on the river, called, and my opponent's shaky hands revealed quad fours.
Hand 2 - I lay down top pair good kicker in a massive pot.
I decided to fold the turn when villain (who was known to slow play sets badly) raised the field in a massive pot. Turns out he only had two pair and a river 3 counterfeited him, which would have sent the pot my way. The board was like Q63-9-3 and he held 69 against my QJ. It was a tough spot.
Hand 3 - I barrel off into a dry side pot.
The title basically sums it up. Someone goes all in preflop and I proceed to bet my Queen-High flush draw on two streets. This is somewhat counterintuitive, as I can't really win the pot without showing down, since someone is all in and guaranteed to show down.
The most interesting part of Friday was the pure number of 2p2ers I recognized at Bay 101. Counting myself, there were a dozen that I could name. Early in the day Captain R, myself, Hammerin' Hank, and undertheinfluence were sharing the three 20/40 games. The other three of them left, and mikeca showed up to play some 6/12 and sweated me for a few hands while he was waiting. Then Professor Ben, CDC and bakku rolled up, but decided to leave before CDC got a seat and go see Quantum of Solace (I declined their invite because of the aforementioned city trip tonight). Finally, another pack of 3 whom I've met and played with before (but who's screen names I don't know) showed up to play 40 and 80 as I was leaving. Quite the crew imo.
Today I only played 2.5 hours at Garden City. I won two massive pots in my first orbit, was up 800 dollars, and couldn't really stick with it after the guy walked past me and knocked a bottle of soy sauce on the ground, spraying my legs and shorts with brown salty specs of liquid. We also had a horrible dealer error that went down like this:
4 players preflop. Board comes down:
349 with two spades.
A checks, B bets, A calls
6 of hearts
A bets, B calls
2 of diamonds, for a board of 349-6-2
A checks, B bets, A calls
B tables his hand and says "I think I missed". He shows 85 of spades, for a 6 high straight. A looks at it, sees no pair, and tables something like A3 for a pair of threes. Dealer looks at both hands, picks up the winning 85, mucks it, and shoves the pot to the losing hand. The problem is that that player had won the previous pot and not finished stacking, so now we have no idea how much money is in the pot (3 of us caught it, saying "that guy tabled a straight"). Dominic (the nicest floor-man you ever want to meet) had to go to the camera to confirm what I said..."There should be 55 chips in that pot....4 players preflop is 16, and a bet and a call from each of them on each street is 40 more, minus one for the drop, is 55" The guy who had to give the money back was a real asshole about it, and the whole situation just put me on tilt. Then the soy sauce hit the fan and I decided to just book a 500 dollar win and call it a day.
Friday I played at Bay 101 from about noon until about 8pm. I ended up posting a 600ish dollar win, and managed to post 3 hands thanks to my iPhone (which allows me to write down hands after they happen and have it appear that I'm just texting someone). Here are the hands, which as of this writing don't have many responses on 2p2:
Hand 1 - A strange board on which I river a full house.
To make a long story short here, the board ran out Q44-Q-T and I had the misfortune of holding pocket Tens. I got raised on the river, called, and my opponent's shaky hands revealed quad fours.
Hand 2 - I lay down top pair good kicker in a massive pot.
I decided to fold the turn when villain (who was known to slow play sets badly) raised the field in a massive pot. Turns out he only had two pair and a river 3 counterfeited him, which would have sent the pot my way. The board was like Q63-9-3 and he held 69 against my QJ. It was a tough spot.
Hand 3 - I barrel off into a dry side pot.
The title basically sums it up. Someone goes all in preflop and I proceed to bet my Queen-High flush draw on two streets. This is somewhat counterintuitive, as I can't really win the pot without showing down, since someone is all in and guaranteed to show down.
The most interesting part of Friday was the pure number of 2p2ers I recognized at Bay 101. Counting myself, there were a dozen that I could name. Early in the day Captain R, myself, Hammerin' Hank, and undertheinfluence were sharing the three 20/40 games. The other three of them left, and mikeca showed up to play some 6/12 and sweated me for a few hands while he was waiting. Then Professor Ben, CDC and bakku rolled up, but decided to leave before CDC got a seat and go see Quantum of Solace (I declined their invite because of the aforementioned city trip tonight). Finally, another pack of 3 whom I've met and played with before (but who's screen names I don't know) showed up to play 40 and 80 as I was leaving. Quite the crew imo.
Today I only played 2.5 hours at Garden City. I won two massive pots in my first orbit, was up 800 dollars, and couldn't really stick with it after the guy walked past me and knocked a bottle of soy sauce on the ground, spraying my legs and shorts with brown salty specs of liquid. We also had a horrible dealer error that went down like this:
4 players preflop. Board comes down:
349 with two spades.
A checks, B bets, A calls
6 of hearts
A bets, B calls
2 of diamonds, for a board of 349-6-2
A checks, B bets, A calls
B tables his hand and says "I think I missed". He shows 85 of spades, for a 6 high straight. A looks at it, sees no pair, and tables something like A3 for a pair of threes. Dealer looks at both hands, picks up the winning 85, mucks it, and shoves the pot to the losing hand. The problem is that that player had won the previous pot and not finished stacking, so now we have no idea how much money is in the pot (3 of us caught it, saying "that guy tabled a straight"). Dominic (the nicest floor-man you ever want to meet) had to go to the camera to confirm what I said..."There should be 55 chips in that pot....4 players preflop is 16, and a bet and a call from each of them on each street is 40 more, minus one for the drop, is 55" The guy who had to give the money back was a real asshole about it, and the whole situation just put me on tilt. Then the soy sauce hit the fan and I decided to just book a 500 dollar win and call it a day.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Days off are nice
I've been trying to enforce a strict two days a week off policy, but it's been tough. I suppose it's a positive sign that I'm having trouble taking enough days off....In general I'm trying to not play on Thursdays (like today) and have had no trouble taking off Sundays. Today I had some errands to run and am enjoying now generally sitting on my couch with plans to do nothing productive for the next 8 hours other than set up my new iPhone (my account just became eligible for an upgrade, meaning I got 200 dollars off the phone...I'd been waiting for this for 4 months).
And now some poker results. Tuesday was a very long day, which saw me log about 13 hours of live play in two separate casinos. I first went to play at Bay 101 early in the day and had to play 30 minutes of 8/16 before I got a 20/40 seat. The only thing of note to happen was this hand, where I made trip 5s on the turn and actually folded it. If I had the hand to do over again, I think I'd grit my teeth and call down, but you just don't see players at that level raise the turn with anything I had beat. My logic was that I was gonna have to put 3 big bets into the pot to try to recover half of a 14 big bet pot. Didn't seem logical to me.
I finished 8/16 up $154 for once (I'm actually a lifetime loser at 8/16, over less than 20 hours of play) and moved up to 20/40. I played for about 5 hours and booked a $1725 dollar win, then decided to bail early and hit up Artichoke Joe's later that night after taking Tyson to obedience class. I didn't post any hands from the session, but did observe the following monstrosity.
Ed, a younger Asian player who is solidly good (he has leaks, but wins in the game for sure...In this same session I watched him check behind on the river with A4s on a board of A35-6-7 just because a 3rd diamond fell on the river. He had open raised the hand in a blind steal situation and I'm sitting there willing him to value bet like pocket Jacks....then he checks behind with a straight and I just shake my head in awe) raises and some players call, including Gordan the prop, who had already limped in UTG. The flop comes down 992 and Ed of course does his thing and bets. Two players, call, including Gordan. The turn brings a third 9, for a board of 992-9 with two diamonds and two black cards. Ed bets again, and again Gordan calls, although this time after a few seconds of thought. The river brings the case 9 and Ed is just shocked in disbelief. He now has King-high with quad nines on board. Gordan checks and Ed just checks in amazement to see Gordan roll K3 of diamonds for a chop. Ed proceeds to walk for the rest of the dealer's down, paying 6 dollars in lobby fees, coming back 30 minutes later still visibly shaking his head. While he was gone I ran over the table for like 2 racks, so I guess I couldn't complain.
Aside: A prop is a player employed by the casino to play in the games to ensure that they are full. In theory if the lists get long props are "picked up", but this seldom happens at Bay 101. They are usually decent, but conservative and tight players. Seeing a prop play a hand this horribly (calling a bet on the turn with a king high flush draw with Trips on board) is pretty astonishing.
So I eventually leave and do the obedience class thing, then head to Artichoke Joe's where I am immediately seated in the 15/30 game. I logged 120 hours in this 15/30 game and am still a small lifetime loser (basically about 200 dollars). I played many of these hours before I was "ready" for mid-stakes and the last few times I've played I have found the game to be very soft and very profitable. I played for about 5 hours, running through down 700 to book a profit of 200 bucks. Two fish left the game, so I decided to treat myself to some 6/12 and bud light, which was a disaster, watching me lose almost 200 dollars in about the time it took me to finish my bud light. I put my name back on the 15/30 list, lost another 100 bucks, then got called back into the game, won my 300 back and left 30 minutes later. All in all, you can never complain about a two K day :)
In other news, the iPhone I purchased today is going to have a drastic effect on my life at the tables. I'll actually be able to post hands right after they happen, and will in general be a happier person I think. The cost is substantial (something like 40 dollars more a month than my old phone), but I think it's going to be well worth it.
And now some poker results. Tuesday was a very long day, which saw me log about 13 hours of live play in two separate casinos. I first went to play at Bay 101 early in the day and had to play 30 minutes of 8/16 before I got a 20/40 seat. The only thing of note to happen was this hand, where I made trip 5s on the turn and actually folded it. If I had the hand to do over again, I think I'd grit my teeth and call down, but you just don't see players at that level raise the turn with anything I had beat. My logic was that I was gonna have to put 3 big bets into the pot to try to recover half of a 14 big bet pot. Didn't seem logical to me.
I finished 8/16 up $154 for once (I'm actually a lifetime loser at 8/16, over less than 20 hours of play) and moved up to 20/40. I played for about 5 hours and booked a $1725 dollar win, then decided to bail early and hit up Artichoke Joe's later that night after taking Tyson to obedience class. I didn't post any hands from the session, but did observe the following monstrosity.
Ed, a younger Asian player who is solidly good (he has leaks, but wins in the game for sure...In this same session I watched him check behind on the river with A4s on a board of A35-6-7 just because a 3rd diamond fell on the river. He had open raised the hand in a blind steal situation and I'm sitting there willing him to value bet like pocket Jacks....then he checks behind with a straight and I just shake my head in awe) raises and some players call, including Gordan the prop, who had already limped in UTG. The flop comes down 992 and Ed of course does his thing and bets. Two players, call, including Gordan. The turn brings a third 9, for a board of 992-9 with two diamonds and two black cards. Ed bets again, and again Gordan calls, although this time after a few seconds of thought. The river brings the case 9 and Ed is just shocked in disbelief. He now has King-high with quad nines on board. Gordan checks and Ed just checks in amazement to see Gordan roll K3 of diamonds for a chop. Ed proceeds to walk for the rest of the dealer's down, paying 6 dollars in lobby fees, coming back 30 minutes later still visibly shaking his head. While he was gone I ran over the table for like 2 racks, so I guess I couldn't complain.
Aside: A prop is a player employed by the casino to play in the games to ensure that they are full. In theory if the lists get long props are "picked up", but this seldom happens at Bay 101. They are usually decent, but conservative and tight players. Seeing a prop play a hand this horribly (calling a bet on the turn with a king high flush draw with Trips on board) is pretty astonishing.
So I eventually leave and do the obedience class thing, then head to Artichoke Joe's where I am immediately seated in the 15/30 game. I logged 120 hours in this 15/30 game and am still a small lifetime loser (basically about 200 dollars). I played many of these hours before I was "ready" for mid-stakes and the last few times I've played I have found the game to be very soft and very profitable. I played for about 5 hours, running through down 700 to book a profit of 200 bucks. Two fish left the game, so I decided to treat myself to some 6/12 and bud light, which was a disaster, watching me lose almost 200 dollars in about the time it took me to finish my bud light. I put my name back on the 15/30 list, lost another 100 bucks, then got called back into the game, won my 300 back and left 30 minutes later. All in all, you can never complain about a two K day :)
In other news, the iPhone I purchased today is going to have a drastic effect on my life at the tables. I'll actually be able to post hands right after they happen, and will in general be a happier person I think. The cost is substantial (something like 40 dollars more a month than my old phone), but I think it's going to be well worth it.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Nothing to see here
I don't really have anything interesting to post, but I realized it's been a while and people are probably interested in what's going on. Here are some results:
The only really interesting thing here is that I've been mixing up where I play a good bit the last week or so, even throwing in a trip to Artichoke Joe's on Saturday since I didn't really feel like putting in the hour of driving to get down to San Jose. That game was surprisingly soft, and had I been able to adjust to it properly I think I could have come out a much larger winner than I did. Alas, you can't win them all.
Thanks purely to luck, my "monthly" numbers have been good. In October I booked a solid win, but ended the month with a massive down swing. That down swing ended just as November took off, so so far this month I've won just under $2,000. If you look a little deeper though, I am stuck $1000 since October 15th....Scary stuff.
| 5-Nov | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | 791 |
| 6-Nov | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | -1674 |
| 7-Nov | 20/40 Limit | Garden City | 260 |
| 7-Nov | 8/16 Limit | Garden City | -127 |
| 8-Nov | 15/30 Limit | Ajs | 139 |
| 10-Nov | 8/16 Limit | Bay 101 | 3 |
| 10-Nov | 20/40 Limit | Bay 101 | 550 |
The only really interesting thing here is that I've been mixing up where I play a good bit the last week or so, even throwing in a trip to Artichoke Joe's on Saturday since I didn't really feel like putting in the hour of driving to get down to San Jose. That game was surprisingly soft, and had I been able to adjust to it properly I think I could have come out a much larger winner than I did. Alas, you can't win them all.
Thanks purely to luck, my "monthly" numbers have been good. In October I booked a solid win, but ended the month with a massive down swing. That down swing ended just as November took off, so so far this month I've won just under $2,000. If you look a little deeper though, I am stuck $1000 since October 15th....Scary stuff.
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