Archive for December, 2007
Merry New Year!
Happy New Year everyone. I just finished my last tournament of 2007. Although I finished in the black for 2007.. I certainly had a rough down swing to wrap things up. Later in the week I will be posting my resolution for 2008 in more detail: I plan on working on improving my middle game in tournaments. I seem to have issues with playing too tightly at points in my game and I feel I’m missing a lot of opportunities to scoop up pots to keep my stack out of desperation. In 2008 I would like to also play more cash games. In my next post I would also like to share a few poker highlights for me in 2007.. kind of my “best of”..
2008 from the felt
Well here we are headed into the New Year and just like last year I am starting things off broke. My poker roll has been destroyed, I have no car insurance…again, my license plate are expired, I have several people demanding the money that I owe them, I am tired, I am hungry, I have been very sick lately and I have a girlfriend that hates poker. 2008 is going to ROCK!
Hangers
One of the best things about playing poker for a living is that I have time to do a lot of volunteering. This week, I am in Iowa volunteering for a presidential campaign, so I haven’t had much time to play cards. A friend of mine is meeting me at a small casino in Riverside, IA tonight to celebrate New Years, so that should be fun. Many of the locals here in the tiny town where I’m staying say it’s a nice little casino. I can’t wait.
Shots in the Dark: Another PLO Set-Up
Like most everyone else, I’ve been spending the last few days reviewing stats from 2007 (and thinking about 2008). Plan to say something about all that in the next few days. After playing mostly no-limit Hold ’em in ’05, then almost nothing but limit Hold ’em in ’06, it looks as though I have been spending a good deal of ’07 trying to establish permanent residency in Omaha. Just eyeballin’ it, I’d estimate nearly three-fourths of the hands I played this year were at the pot limit Omaha tables (mostly $25 max; some $50). (Perhaps even more than that.)
New Year’s Resolution – Control
As 2007 comes to an end, I was thinking about the year, and where I want to go next in life and in poker. I came up with Control. Not the type of control where everyone does exactly what you tell them too or the type of control that nobody makes a decision without your approval. I want control over things I can actually have the ability to control, but for some reason refuse to control, (at least as well as I should).
Did you hear about the poker playing dog…
Hi Y’all,
A Christmas Story to start (True Story).
A few years ago I was flying home from Los Angeles to Toronto. Our flight got stuck with what they called the “Blue Flu” basically the Delta flight crew went on take a break strike and left me stranded in St. Louis. The 24th of Christmas is a tough day to get stranded with 300 passengers - with only so many shuttle buses - rooms - and new flights available. I wasn’t in a hurry (back 10 years ago when I was single and up for free flight anywhere in the world) and decided I would kick it at the Riverboat Casino. I gave up my hotel room (good deed #1) put a family together on a shuttle bus as people piled on (good deed #2) and made a few calls to Santa on behalf of a tearful 5 year old traveller.(good deed #3). It felt good that I had no worries with regards to getting on the next flight or home. You know what they say…do good and good will come.
Comparing winning and losing
I’m wondering how other people feel about winning sessions and losing sessions. Three questions for anyone who can take the time out to answer.
Is it harder to sleep after a big win or a big loss?
In comparing your satisfaction over a big win to your disappointment over a big loss, which is greater?
How long does the dissapointment over a big loss stay with you and how do you best get rid of it?
The First Post:
I am glad to have an opportunity to write on this site. It was quite a thrill when Adam asked if I was interested. I have not been playing much poker this week. We had to travel to Southern California to see family for the Holiday.
I have been blogging since October under loser64 at blogspot.
I do plan on playing this weekend online so I will have more to talk about soon.
I did get one great poker gift this week, Tom Schneider’s “Oops, I Won Too Much Money”. It is a great read I highly recommend it.
The limp-reraise: +EV?
I have been struggling with this question for many moons. Personally, I rarely ever limp. If I am the first person into a pot, I am raising 99% of the time. By raising every time I enter a pot, my opponents have a bigger problem trying to figure out where I’m at preflop. However, at the micro limits I play at, I don’t think the other players are overly observant about my tendencies. I have been contemplating whether or not to implement some limp-reraising into my game. However, I’m not convinced it is a positive EV play. In micro limits, an open limp usually sets off an epidemic of other limpers. Very rarely will another player raise if he can see a flop for cheap with many other players already having limped (This is another area where I differ from the usual micro-donk. If there are a number of limpers in front of me and I have a hand worth limping, I am going to raise almost every time. I suppose that makes me susceptible to the limp-reraise).This is where the problem lies in limp-reraising. If I limp with a big hand (AA or KK) and it gets limped around, I am seeing a flop against three or four other players and I have no idea where I’m at in the hand. As the adage goes, “Never go broke in a limped pot.” If there is no raise behind me before the flop, I really have to tread lightly on the flop and my attempt at building a big pot with a big hand has deteriorated into an exercise in caution.
High Society: A H.O.R.S.E. With No Name
“High Society” refers to posts having to do with pro players & tourneys. (See my profile or Hard-Boiled Poker for explanations of the other categories.) Am still pondering whether just to cross-post HBP stuff over here or try to write separate posts for each site. Truth be told, I probably don’t have the time or energy (not to mention fund of original ideas) to carry on with two different blogs. So for the time being I’ll stick with cross-posting.
