Long time no write

Posted by bellatrix

October 21, 2008

Poker players have got to be one of the worst population of bloggers. The ones that do write exciting blogs (Shamus, I’m looking at you, kid!) are writers from the get-go. What I’m trying to say is that when you play poker, you are trying to escape the monotony, the 9-5, the rules and the routine, so writing an interesting and current poker blog is damn hard. My hat is off to the guys I have on my RSS feed. I also love the stories more than the hands. Too many bad beats in hand posts and you know that if you want bad beats all you have to do is go to the smoking area at the doors of the Commerce.

Actually, come to think of it those might even be more exciting. Last Saturday I was at Commerce again. I finally have enough bankroll also in Southern California to be playing the 20/40. Much, much better to be in the high limit section, people are way more friendlier there (of course it’s for a reason, but so what). So I was sitting there on my smoke break, breathing, doing all those things to relax after winning a big pot of almost 500$. I’m telling you, seeing nice drunks is funny. This guy was really ready to fall over, but all he wanted to do is hug his friends and he was smiling. Even though he was blasted, absolutely blasted, all I could think of was: “good for him!”. Some dealers pooling their tips, they looked really worried (I always feel so bad about dealers at Commerce). Some white girls (they looked like 15, ok ok, maybe 18) strutting around in sweatpants and being really loud. What are they doing there at midnight on a Saturday night, outside in the cold with all the smokers? Sometimes I wish I could sum up these feelings better, but the casino is such a weird place, where all these worlds clash and in the middle of it there is this illusion of money and suddenly people’s true selves show off more and more.

But I digress… the poker. It’s going good. I’m getting better at HUHU, god it just takes a lot of adjusting and learning, learning, learning. I’ve been getting into all three Stud games, they are really good online, especially Stud8. I was talking to friend, while we were watching all the ORSE videos on deucescracked. The instructor, Joe Tall, was saying something like:”The games are really good, you’re gonna make a lot of money!”. We both were like:”Yeah, whatever Joe Tall, all the games look good to you, because you’re such a good player…”, but then we went online and played and Joe was right. So obviously when you learn a new game, you should do it at your lowest limits, so I went to .25/.50 and won, .5/1 and won, 1/2 and won. Finally met a little bit of resistance an 2/4, but still ok. But this is like 2004, where you read up a little bit on the game and suddenly you’re crushing the game. Wow, to be beating 2/4 limit holdem online after watching a couple of videos would be a very, very, very difficult feat. And it’s also clear at 2/4 that they don’t memorize the cards. How can you be playing stud without the one clear advantage that it offers you -> the exposed cards of your opponents?!?!?! One guy was really aggressive with his flush draw, when so many clubs were out, other people were super aggro in Razz when the cards completing what would be his nuts were out, so I had him boardlocked, etc. etc. etc.

Poker results have been all over the place, but I can’t complain. I had a breakeven September in Hold’em until the very end. So I played 13k hands (what can I say, my husband was out of town) of 2/4 Hold’em and ended up 80$. Then I play like 1k hands of HUHU 2/4 3/6 at the end of the month and I’m up 500. Amazing. Of course along the way, I did stupid things we all do like chasing losses and so on and so forth, in the end these things become so small on your PT graph… October has been good, August was bad from my learning HUHU.

I have been visiting the forums less frequently. I don’t get that much out of hand discussions anymore, I mean, they are still good, but the insights are now far and between. I really need to force myself to keep learning now. I wish I could play more, because I’m still bankroll building, I can’t move up, where I feel I would have to work on my game constantly. I am breaking the 5/T barrier online now constantly, but it’s more shottaking, since I still don’t have the bankroll, not because I’m scared of it.

I’m going to be 30 in 2 weeks. That’s scary! I will try to post some more about this and other topics: Kentucky, Russ Hamilton in blackjack, datamining, the November 9, etc.

Thanks if you’re still reading!

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