Author Archive
How bad do you want it?
OK, so it has been a loooooooooong time since I wrote anything. There is a good reason for this. I doubted anyone was interested in how bad I was running. Nobody wants to hear how my bankroll was destroyed by coolers, bad beats, and just plain bad plays on my part. Let’s just say it was pretty ugly. I was down in the dumps and back at the microstaked and I had to ask myself how bad I really wanted to be a winning poker player.
R.I.P. Brandi?
If you have never heard the name Brandi Hawbaker you probably haven’t spent much time at the various poker forums over the last couple of years. Mike and Adam have also frequently mentioned her on the pokercast as well. She broke onto the scene in 2006 at the WPT Festa Al Lago where she finished in 35th place.
Since that time she has been the center of several poker dramas and has been linked to several well known poker pros including Gus Hansen, Mark Newhouse, Dustin Woolf, “Captain” Tom Franklin, and even David Sklansky to name a few. Some of the threads on 2+2 have reached over 100 pages.
What’s a Wrap?
Wraps are great! I really like the Chipotle BBQ Chicken Wrap at McDonalds. They make a nice late night snack when you are multitabling. I also like the 20 card “Maine to Spain” wrap and the 13 card nut wrap with a nut flush draw on the side. You won’t find those two at any fast food joints though, they are only found at the poker tables where Omaha is being spread.
“Tournament poker isn’t real poker…”
It looks a lot like it but its not the same thing.” I wish I could remember which pro said this. I think it was either Barry or Doyle, but it has been a few years. At the time I really didn’t understand. Everyone I knew had caught the poker bug from watching the WPT or WSOP and all they wanted to do was play tournaments. The first time I ever played Texas Hold’em was a tournament in my brother-in-law’s garage (which I managed to bubble after playing for seven hours.) When I started playing online I spent about 90% of my time playing tournaments and SnG’s and when I did play cash games it was PLO8 because the play was so weak it was like printing money. How could anybody say that a tournament isn’t real poker? Of course it is real poker, right?
Moving Up
I have been able to beat $25 NL for about 8-10 PTBB’s/100 which is really good. I started wondering about how much value I was giving up by not making the move to $50 NL. The problem has been I don’t play the same way at the higher stakes. I start slinking back into my weak-tight shell and start folding way too much. I was afraid of losing the money. Then I got to thinking, I just lost a bundle on a game I am not even sure I am any good at, why should I be scared in a game I know I can play just because the stakes are doubled? Forget it, put me in the game.
I Tilted
Hey all, It has been a little bit since my last post. I have been working my way back from the worst poker week in my life. In about three or four days of play I lost about 200 big bets ($400), which is almost 30% of my online roll. It started off with a bad run of luck which I then chose to compound with bad play. I think I won four of fourteen hands with Aces and Kings, and people were constantly calling my flop bets with overcards and spiking a six-outer on the turn or river. It seemed like I could not win a pot.
A Most Unusual Session
Last night was pretty strange. A while back UltimateBet put $10 in my account because I had not played there in forever and now I am trying to grind it up to $50 so I can withdraw it. I have worked it up to about $30 so far playing $10 no limit and some .25-.50 limit hold’em. It is kind of a slow grind because I have very little room for error. Even though that money is less than 1% of my total roll I still want it. I guess I am just a sucker for free stuff.
Trying to find my sweet spot
One of my goals for this year is to learn how to play short-handed limit hold’em at a respectable level. I have been getting a little burnt out on NL lately. It seems that every good table has a waiting list 10 deep now, and any table that has an open seat is full of nits with 20BB stacks. I don’t want to try to wait and hope that by the time I get to the table the deep stacks are still around. Often times when you finally do get your seat the table has been taken over by people playing a shortstack-pushbot strategy which drives me insane. I play a pretty LAGish style, raising with a lot of marginal hands in late position like ♣ar♦♠ 8♦ 6♦ /♣ar♦♠ or ♣ar♦♠ A♠ 5♣ /♣ar♦♠ hoping to hit gin on the flop and stack somebody. When these pushbots shove all-in I cannot call, and it keeps me from getting to my intended target as well. It just totally takes me out of my game.
Back in the Saddle
January was a very busy month for me. When you drive for a living winter can be a real pain. Bad weather means it takes longer to get where you are going and that cuts directly into my poker playing time. Tuesday was absolutely brutal. I found myself in the middle of a blizzard in northern Iowa. The temperature was around -15F with a 35mph wind with blowing snow. I experienced white-out conditions where I could see no more than about ten feet ahead of me over and over. I actually passed three different police cars that were blocking people from going the direction I had just come from. Somehow I made it through, but a ten hour drive turned into a fourteen hour nightmare. Then Thursday I had to drive through downtown Chicago at 4p.m. in a snow shower, and I almost wished I was back in the blizzard.
Starting to put the peices together
This week has been much better for me than last week. After the feedback I received on my last post. I really made an effort to step up the aggression. I enjoy poker but I am in it to make money, and the way I was playing I might be able to beat the game but I still lose to inflation . I three-bet a lot more this week, especially when I had a big hand out of position. I even check-raised a guy all-in on the turn with my over pair of Kings to win a 240bb pot. I was playing aggressive and it paid off.
