Keeping on Keeping on

I want to echo everybody's reccomendations. If you haven't been reading CC's Quest of a Closet Poker Player lately, you have been missing some really good stuff on poker and relationships. I know it has garnered some nice conversatons with Mrs Wonka... .much needed conversations, by the way.

While I love watching the World Poker Tour, World Series of Poker and even the Poker Superstars Invintationals... ok all poker.... I have really, really enjoyed High Stakes Poker. That brings poker viewing to a completely different and elevated level. If anyone questioned what made some of the top pros great... just check out their hand selection. Especially in live play, post flop play is where you make your money and people like Sam Farha, Barry Greenstein and Freddy Deeb continually amaze me. It's truly inconceivable to somebody like me.

We all know that in poker that you are going to have good swings and bad swings. I just need to keep reminding myself to keep on keeping on. The last two days have been better as I have made $118 and $124 in the last two days. I'm still having the gut wrenching suckouts. I'm starting to really hate flopping two pair or straights... We'll see how it goes.

I think playing a few Steps on Party has also helped. Switching things around can only help.. although, I'm not having any better luck in those... I'm stuck on Step one now for 12 tournies in a row. I just can't get over the hump. I have 3 2nds and 3 4ths... Next time, I believe I will just start at Level 2 or 3. That seems to make more sense. One I run out of step tokens, that is probably what I will do.

Not much else to say.. Work is keeping me busy... which is a good thing.

Peace!!!

Deja Vu and HU3

First, let me ask why George Mason is even in the tournament... I'm sure there were other power conference teams that should have been in there... What do you say now Mr Packer and Mr Nance... Although, in a matter of full disclosure, GM was one of teams that I wrote that shouldn't have made it in over my beloved Bears.... but boy how I love seeing them beat those smaller schools from Michigan St, North Carolina and UCONN.... OK, they also beat a Mo Valley team... GO COLONIALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Before we get to the bad news... I was about to shut things down Friday night when a message from Commish Todd wanting to battle it out in the second round of the HU3 challenge.. so who am I say to turn down a good heads up match. Being as that was Friday and it is now Monday morning.. I don't remember too many of the details.. The first match, I pretty much got the cards and won in a relatively short amount of time.... but the second match, that was a very good one. We had good hands, suckouts, all-ins... the whole nine yards.. In the end, I was the lucky one as I had 2 consecutive suckouts to win. I am now anxiously awaiting to find out who my next victim is... oh I mean opponent. It just goes to show you (much like the NCAA tournament) that anybody can win a HU match on any given night. I know, because I have won 3 and I have pretty much gotten lucky to win those 3.

OK.. to even more put off the bad news, I will now talk about the new job. I start my new job today at Company B. Hopefully, all will go well. Probably the good news, is that I won't have the time to read as many blogs from work as hopefully I will get back to a more productive work life. While I am looking forward to the new job and challenge, I think it is normal to be a bit apprehensive. Oh well, no turning back now.

Have you ever had a strong sense of deja vu... I know Mr Murphy must have when he was writing THOSE rules.. you know Murphy's Rules... This was one of the weeks for the ages where if anything could go wrong it did. As painful as it was, I have updated my stats. I had one of my worst weeks ever. This feels just like it did when I went into my towering downswing a few months back. If it possible to still feel that you are playing good when you have a week in the negative 4 digits, I did. I felt my reads were pretty good. Mr Turn and Mr River were not cooperating though.

If you don't like hand histories or bad beats, please skip ahead. This is hopefully going to be medicinal for me and also get it out my system.

AA UTG raised up.. and only called by BB (a good hyper aggessive player) who has T8o... flop of 23T... he check raises me and I 3 bet and he calls... Turn brings 9 and he bets out and I raise.. River.. T... he bets and I just call (yep I was crying). For the record, I probably play this hand pretty close to the same way if I was this guy... but I doesn't mean that I like the results.

KK on button 4 handed.. UTG is guy from above.. who raises preflop, I 3 bet and mr T2s (clubs)calls from BB (LAG...52%, 24, 2.3).. Td6c7s on flop and.. BB leads out, UTG raises and I 3 bet.. and BB calls... UTG caps and we both call... Turn 8c.. BB checks, UTG leads, I raise, BB calls and UTG folds (sure do wonder what he had).. River 2h.. and UTG check calls and takes down a nice $283 pot... Again, other than the loose call preflop, I probably play the same way.. after the turn... he had about a million outs.

QQ UTG 5 handed... UTG (good player).. calls with T8d... SB (which is UTG from above) calls and I raise and they both call. Terrible flop of 4d8cAd.. SB and checks, I bet, and they both call.. Turn 8h.. SB checks, I bet and now of course UTG raises, and SB folds... I should of as well but I don't... River Kd... a little bit of overkill don't you think.. .it's not bad enough to lose to trip 8s.. but let's go ahead and make it a flush... I check call... This is a hand that I should have easily gotten away from...

There are many more; but I'm sure that you get the idea... I don't know if I really call them bad beats... more like.. just unlucky... These were mixed between 5/10 and 10/20... To put a fine exclamation point to my session.. I am in the BB in a 10/20 game with only about 4 big bets left. Super LAG from Button raises.. as usual.. I have K8s and call... 2 spades on flop (I have spades) and I check (intending to check raise)... but he only checks... K on Turn and of course I end up all in... He has K9o to out kick me.... That's right... out kicked me... right in the junk.

So the session started out as just not getting cards as after about the first 400 hands or so.. I my stats looked something like... 14, 6, 1.73... Looks more like full ring stats than shorthanded... well, as usual, the hands started to come... the unfortunate part was that I lost with most of them. We'll see what this week brings... I'm not sure what the plans are... Most likely, I will try to make up for the bad week by playing 10/20 games... Does anybody else see the obvious end to this bad dream...

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For a change of pace, I did play some mini steps on Party. I hadn't played on Party in a while so I didn't want to get that dreaded email from them saying that they are going to pull points for not playing... I did make it to step 3 a couple of times; but my luck wasn't any better there... so I do have a couple of free Step 1s to play.. We'll see how it goes... It was nice to get out of the routien of limit play. I remembered how much I do like the SNGs.. Could be some foreshadowing here.....


Anyway, Have a good week!!!!

Feeling Numb

Good ole Surly had a pretty good post regarding short handed play and the eventual swings that you will have with it and in his humble opinion, full ring is the way to go. I'm not sure that I necessarily agree with him about it being the way to go; but it can and does have its swings. I finished up yesterday playing over 1,200 hands and leaving with a net loss of $77. Today, I played 1,113 hands and leave with a net loss of $32. Starting about mid-day yesterday, the beats (not all of them were what I would necessarily classify as bad beats) just coming and coming until it got to the point where I was becoming numb to the beats. In some ways that is good as you tend not to go on tilt; but in other ways it might suggest that you may not be playing your normal game. The problem was that the beats were coming early in the session which certainly puts a damper on things. Again, most of the losses were coming at 3/6 while I was positive both days at 5/10 and 10/20.

My last session of the night tonight had me getting great hands.. some of the nuts... other of them just TPTK and I split 5 of them.... Add 3 more splits when the board paired to give us a split. I can tell you one thing, it certainly messes with your confidence. Of course, I have had these swings before so you just have to labor on and know that they will end some time.... you just hope for sooner than later.

I guess the glass half full view would know that at least I am getting paid to play as I have made over $500 in rakeback this month from Battlefield Poker. That sure will help put a dent into the unimpressive play of this month. So, again (and I don't mean to sound like a broken record), if you are not getting rakeback, please take a look at ThisIsTheNuts as they have plenty of sites for you to get paid to play. Without that, this month would be getting close to a disaster.

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Well, it was not good for my Beloved Bears as they pretty much got slaughted by the Cardinals of Louisville. The Bears cold shooting (25%) vs the Cardinals hot shooting (50%).. especially from 3 point land did them in. Oh well, what can you do.

At least the Longhorns are still going strong after they destroyed West Virginia... OK, so it was a last second 3 to win... Don't you just love March Madness...

Hopefully, the Shockers will do the Valley proud tonight.

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I played in the first round of the Heads Up 3 challenge. I was appropriately put in the Fish Bracket. I'm sure this was based on past Heads Up challenges.

My first matchup was against Mowenumdown. I have played a few times against M and knew I was outclassed and would need to get lucky. I went with an aggressive approach... OK, it helped that I did get some cards. I probably built a 2-1 chip lead; but then lost a couple all ins and all of sudden, I am the short stack.. I then suck out and get back the lead. That seemed to be the theme of the all-ins... If you were the favorite going in, you would lose. We got a visit from smokkee saying that his match was over in 3 hands. Ours lasted more than 3 rounds; but I finally ended up winning in a very good match. I don't remember the last hand... I'm sure that I got lucky.

That brought me to my second match against smokkee. I made a comment in the chat box that I was going to fold for at least the first 4 hands so that it wouldn't be another quick victory. Probably around the 3rd or 4th hand I get 44. There were a couple of raises and we see a flop. Low and behold I see two more 4s sitting on the board... Bad news for smokkee, because I believe he flopped top pair. He threw a pot sized bet out there of which I called. I don't remember the turn card; but smokkee went all in and of course I called. I always say that I would rather be lucky than good.

My next match is against ToddCommish. I, like he said in his blog, no nothing about him. He did play some pretty good opponents in Round 1... OK... better than good... It's HU... anything can happen... Best of Luck to You Todd... and you know I don't mean it. ;-)

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The last couple of movies:

Kingdom of Heaven.. Nothing too original as it was pretty the same old epic history battle movie. It wasn't terrible so I will give it a 6 out of 10.

War of the Worlds.. Another just OK movie with Tom Cruise and Dakota something or other. 5 out of 10 for this one.

Chicken Little.. Got this one for baby Wonka and I thnk I enjoyed it more than she did... 8 out of 10.

When are Sets not Golden

For a change, I am going to start with good news. My beloved Missouri State Bears beat Houston on Monday and now will be playing Louisville for a chance to go to New York. The Bears beat a Cardinal in the first round and some Cougars in the 2nd round.. Hopefully, they will be some more Cardinals this round. Louisville is only a 2 1/2 point favorite. I can't wait.. It will be on one of the ESPNs tonight so don't miss it.

On a related matter, I find it pretty hard to believe that George Mason is favored over Wichita State... but I should be used to the Missouri Valley not getting any respect.. You would think that 2 teams in the Sweet 16 would give you some respect... guess not. Having said that, those bookmakers are usually amazingly right on. I hope they are wrong on this one. They did have the Bears as a 6 pt favorite over Houston and we only won on a last second bucket and free throw.

Poker... As we all know, I will be playing a bunch of poker this week. Yesterday was the start of the marathon and as per the case recently, things did not go that swimmingly. I played 915 hands for a hefty profit of $50.41. I made $199 on the 10/20 tables (110 hands), lost $12.09 on the 5/10 tables (575 hands) and lost $136.50 on the 3/6 tables (234 hands). I was literraly behind for about 900 of those hands; but made a come back to positive territory and called it quits... Did not want to Press my Luck... because most likely I would have hit a whammy.

I also played a little this morning and any guesses how things are going? Yep.. stuck $248. I've hit three sets and lost them all... of course KK got busted... I just need to keep telling myself to be paitent.

One of the sets I hit on the river... Give me your thoughts on how this hand should of / could of been played.

I am in the cutoff of a 5/10 game with 5 players with QQ and open raise... sLA-A type in SB calls and BB folds so it's heads up. A not so beautiful flop of 3cAdKs comes and he SB checks and calls my bet. Turn comes 9d.. What is your play... SB checks..

I could.... check behind him fearing the A, K or flush draw
I could.... bet to see where I am at.. since he was SB, it would be hard to really put him on somehthing.

OK.. what did I do.. I checked... Sometimes you lose your guts after they have been torn apart the last few days...

Anyway, the worst best card came on the River... Qd... What is your play... SB bets out...

I could.. call and hope my set holds up
I could.. fold knowing that I could be beat
I could.. raise... never fear the monster... or runner, runner (lol)

OK.. what did I do.. I raised... he 3 bet and like a big dummy I capped it and he showed JTo for the rivered gut shot... Wow, I just realized, he hit his gut shot and I received the gut shot.. and let me tell you.. it takes your breath away. Maybe that is why they call it a gut shot.

I think probably the right play is to go ahead and bet the turn and fold to a raise... Any thoughts??

I will play some more later and hopefully make a comeback

Chalk one of for the Maniacs

Brutal, Brutal, Brutal... Nothing was working last night. I am going to keep this brief; but I feel if I'm going to blog... I need to blog the good nights with the bad nights... Last night was one the bad nights.. Here are the numbers:

VPIP: 35.46
PFR: 18.99
AF: 2.58
w$wsf: 36.05
wsd: 36.05
w$sd: 45.24
$: -780.57

Anything I had just wasn't good enough... There were two particular maniacs that had my number last night... When I say maniac.. I mean 76% VPIP with 23 PFR... The other one was 71% and 10.89%... anyway.. things like my AA losing to 52o and my AA losing to J6 when he hit runner, runner to get his two pair. I flopped 3 sets last night and went 0-3. Yes, I understand the way things goes... It ain't fun; but it is the nature of the game.

So, it is the end of an era for me... My time with Company A is now complete... and I don't start with Company B until next Monday... So, yes, I plan to play some poker this week... Why does it seem when I have some extended time planned to play on the virtual felt, the first session is a big loser which obviously taints the rest of the week. For now, I am going to continue on and see what happens. I will also get a look at daytime play. The plan is tighten up a bit; but still keep up the aggressiveness. We'll see what happens.

The Madness Continues

Yes, March Madness continues... boy I love this time of year.. Two years ago at this time, I was in Las Vegas for my first time... what a time to be in Vegas.

Now, this next part has been brewing in me since Selection Sunday and I can't stand it anymore. Are there possibly any bigger morons than Billy Packer and Jim Nance. I consider myself to be a pretty calm and layed back guy; but listening to those two morons... wait.. I think I am being too kind.... but listening to those two IDIOTS, I wanted to reach inside the TV and strangle both of them.. Billy Packer then was on a local St Louis sports talk radio station the next morning and continued his typical Big Conference/ACC sermons and how these low life mid majors don't belong in there. Talk about a guy just not having a clue. The thing that finally set more over the edge was there obvious and disrespectal way in which they handled the interview with the commissioner of the selection committee... Unforgivable... It is one thing to have your own agenda; but to blatantly interupt and cut-off the commissioner.. it is ... oh never mind... I could go on and on but I feel my blood pressure rising again....

Oh, and one more member of the moron/idiot club is Gary Williams of Maryland saying that the phone rings both ways and he didn't hear of any mid-major teams calling him to schedulde... WRONG.. anyway, Barry Hinson of Missouri State called him the next morning... of course he didn't call back to a few days later... By the way, he lost in the first round of the NIT to a non-worthy mid major... Way to go Jaspers... We'll see if he actually follows through with his rant and see if any Missouri Valley teams are on his schedule.

Now, on to the games...

Is anybody else getting the same amount of pleasure that I am watching this other non worthy teams kicking the big schools in the junk...

The Missouri Valley has two teams in the Sweet 16... of course Bradley and Wichita didn't even belong out there in the first plays (so THEY say); but I guess that is why the play the games... Others:

George Mason... yep another non-worthy team in the Sweet 16
Northwestern St.. beat a small school from the Big Ten... Sorry Mr Alford.
Bucknell... yep.. beat a Southeast Conference team
San Diego St gifted a win to Indiana
Wichita beat a Big East and Sourheast conference team.
Wisconsin - Milwaukee... Sorry Big 12
Bradley... Big 12 and Big East

Yes, some of the mid-majors didn't win.. i.e. Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois; but way to go Mids.... you are making this tournament special and hopefully wising up these so called experts/morons/idiots that need to buy a clue.

My beloved Bears played the Cardinal and grabbed a quick 21 pt lead in the 1st half only to relinquish it in the 2nd half.. they did go onto victory and will play Mr Pender's Houston club. The other MO Valley (Creighton) team also won.

OK.. this is a poker blog... let's talk a little poker to a legitimize this post...

Do you ever read a blog posting and say to yourself... boy I wish I had written that.. That is exactly what Poker Shark did in his talk about aggression in limit poker. I agree whole heartedly with his talks on aggression.... more notably known as selective aggression.. He plays more full ring as compared to my shorthanded games; but I feel the same principle applies.

Here is one example from my archives from Saturday... I am in the BB with J3s (clubs) in a 5 handed 6max 3/6 game. The Cut-off open raises. He is a good player.. at least he has a similar style to me. Everybody else folds and I call. The flop comes 6cTh4c... I actually bet out here. I try to mix up leading out and check raising... anyway, he raises and I 3bet... he just calls.

So what does that tell us? He raises preflop about 15% of the time so I can actually put him on a pretty wide range. Depending on the person, you can assume big cards until it becomes obvious that it is more than that.. OK, he raised... still could be just big cards. More times than not, if you are raising preflop, you are raising on the flop...especially heads up... He only calls when I 3 bet... It still screams big cards... or a slight chance that he is way ahead... certainly ahead of me as I just have Jack high...

OK.. Turn brings 7d.. I bet out and he folds. Would I have won this hand if I didn't show strength? No way.. This hand happened to not be very big; but I did get my big blind back plus 5 small bets from the cut off raiser.

So, yes, aggression is a very big key to success in winning limit poker. Another thought that leads to victory... especially in short handed play... is how you play the blinds. I am putting my thoughts together and hopefully going to post something this week on this subject. Heck, I'm off all week in between jobs, I should be able to do something useful.... Other than the honey do stuff that she so conveniently posted on the refridgerator. Surely, that can't have as high of a priority over posted some juicy poker content.

I have updated my stats for the month of March.. I am not playing any on Sunday night so they should be up to date... As far as the week went... it went much better than last week. I got in about 1840 hands of poker... ok exactly 1840 hands of poker mostly back a 3/6... although, I have been having more success at 5/10 and 10/20 than 3/6... Take Saturday.. 368 hands at 3/6 for a $259 loss... 82 hands at 5/10 for $167 gain... 25 hands at 10/20 for $196 gain.. These days, I just seem to getting brutal beats at 3/6... Case in point with JJ with both of them hitting their sets.. losing to 93s for a rivered flush and one other losing to a 4 card flush (I folded on turn after flopping the set and lots of betting on the turn when the 4th club came).

Anyway for the week, I was up $526 in ring play along with $120 of Pokerstars bonus. I did lose some money in a blogger get together, I believe... Anyway, I won't complain about a $634 week. I also received from Rakeback from Battlefield which I will add at the end of the month. See the banner on the right for a link to ThisIsTheNuts. They have re-designed their homepage and have a lot of things going on. We'll see how this week goes as I will be off most of the week and most likely will be playing a whole bunch of poker.

Now as you can probably see, my blogroll on my blog is not very big. This doesn't mean that I don't read a ton of blogs.. I do. Mostly, I just read them via bloglines; but I am not against posting a link to a blog on my site here if requested to. My standards, again, are pretty light... post about poker and post about it often. I received an email from Russell over at Poker As a Second Income requesting that I link him up. After a quick visit, I recognized his blog as I have stopped by before. It looks like he writes about poker and does it often, so I have linked him up.. Stop by and take a look... I am.

That should do it for today...

Have a good week!!!

HUC 3

Not much going on for me.. I am really busy at work since tomorrow is my last day at Company A. By the way, Company B did step up and return to plan A as far as the bonus goes so all is well there...

I played a little on PokerStars to work off their reload bonus... Nothing to great to report there... I made about $320 (including bonus) in 1,200 hands.... playing 3/6, 5/10 and 10/20... mostly 3/6. I don't think I played there long enough to get a true feel of how things are over there... especially during a reload bonus period... The question is whether I will play there any more to achieve Silver Status.. The perks don't really look that good until you reach gold status. I only need 196 pts to get to Silver. Any Stars players have any thoughts on this?


Head on over to the Heads Up Challenge blog as we are going to be starting on new Heads Up Challenge (HUC3). We are trying to get 32 people in it and we are almost there. It is great time playing with other bloggers. Poison is running in this time around and it looks to be a great time, as usual.. Even though, I just donate... It's to a good cause, I guess.

Well, the NCAAs start today and even though my beloved Bears aren't playing in it, it is still the best game in town and always one my favorite times of the year.. Since things are so crazy at work, I haven't really gotten into it like I normally do.. I think I filled out my bracket in about 20 seconds. I'm very boring and going with UCONN... who isn't. I may fill out another one to get away from the majority... but.. man... those Cats are good.... Perhaps, I add one with my other beloved team (the Longhorns) winning the whole thing.. consistency is the key for them and I really don't think they have it... but how cool would that be to win the football and basketball championship in the same year... I wonder if that has ever happened? Of course, I'll be rooting for the Missouri Valley to pull some upsets.. They really need to make some noise to get some respect.

My beloved Bears will be hosting The Cardinal of Stanford on Friday on the junior circuit... GO BEARS!!!!

Have a great weekend!!!!

Got Gypped!!!!!

Not a very good weekend...

First work related... I will be soon starting a new job; but was waiting to give notice until the 15th due to year-end bonuses. Two people from HR and actually my boss told me that they were going to paid out on the 15th... You have to be gainfully employed to get this bonus meaning that you can't give notice until after the bonus. Meanwhile, my new employer was going to give me a signing bonus.. When I looked at the offer letter, it said that it was contigent of not getting one at Company A... Well, being the honest dooby that I am, I told Company B that Company A was still going to give me the bonus so that they didn't have to. I would not feel right double dipping... Well, Friday afternoon, I got word that Company A's bonuses will not get paid until March 31st... of which time I will have already started with Company B.... so another words.... I'm getting gypped!!!!

So feeling a little betrayed, I took off a little early and headed to Harrah's for a little No Foldem before our monthly homegame (3/6)... I step right into the Big Blind and look at AA... of course I raise it up; but lose to 56o out he hit his gut shot on the turn... He raised me on the river and I still made the crying call. I think getting AA in the BB at a No Foldem game is the worst possible place to get it (as opposed to online where you love to get it there). A couple hands later I see KJ... I just call as there are already a million people in the pot... Anyway K comes on Turn and I lose to Ms Calling Station down on the end who has KQ... just check called both the turn and river... as she also did when she hit her nut straight.. no raising.. Within the next 4 hands I lose with 99 and 88. I then get 63o in SB... BB raises it... and by the time it was showdown time my 63o took down his AK when my flopped 3 actually held up... That would be the only hand I win in about an hour and half and lost a clean hundy.. Yep... got gypped... I did go over to the BlackJack Tables and got $70 of it back...

So now off to the monthly game... We normally have 6-9 people... 13 people made it to this one. Things are going pretty well early. I took a fairly large pot right before we combined tables... I raise with A9o.. Webster who is shortstacked goes all in (can't cover my raise though)... defending champ Mr Free also goes all in.. I have no choice but to call. They both had Ax smaller than nine and my A9o held up. One problem I had was that I found myself having to call shortstacks all ins... seems that they would always do it on my BB and I would have no choice... One bright side to the night, is that I did win the last longer bet between myself, fluff, professor, and iceman so I did have that going for me. We are down to 4 and it is bubble time... or maybe it was 5... anyway I don't remember the exact details but somebody bet into me and I ended up going all in with 88 to isolate... The Force down on the other end of the table (who is shortstacked... but not way shortstacked) makes a rather loose call with 95s... All is well when I see an 8 on the flop... except there are two diamonds... and the third comes on the turn.... still have a few river outs; but I don't fill up... I go out a few hands later on the bubble.... yep... gypped... Congrats to Mr Kipler as he gets his first win. I dropped another small buyin in our dealer's choice games afterwords... This is the first time that I have played the dealer's choice games in a few months... Maybe, I'm just turning into a straight holdem guy; but I could not get into it... so I just gambled away my buyin.. It's probably that I am just getting to be an old man.. but between the loud music, cigar smoking and drinking (of which I do none of), and explaining the game 5 times before we started playing, I may be a tourney and run guy from here on out... I can handle the first 3... anyway.. you get the point.

By the way, this was the last tourney for the Professor as he jaunts off to the East Coast. Of course, we will miss the money that you donate... OK, OK, the money we donate to you... but most of all, I will miss your humor and all of that stuff... Good luck to you and Mrs Prof...

Saturday and Sunday continued my woulda, coulda shoulda theme... I was going to bore you with details; but suffice it to say ..... everyone together now... I got gypped!!!! Just a few examples... I can't remember which day it was... or if it was 10/20 or 5/10... but anyway I hit 2 sets... one of them was even set over set (QQ vs 33) so all is well until the 4th 3 comes on river... Next one gets flushed out on the river.. Today was the first time (and a little on Saturday) that I really got aggravated.. I flopped two straights only to lose to bigger straights on later streets.. So coming into the weekend, I was $300 down for the week.. As we all know, I had a 14 week streak going where I had positive weeks. I took off 3 days during the week so I did not have much time to make things right... As we know Saturday went bad with a low point being around $600 down... I just quit when I got it back to being down $187... Same thing Sunday... Again down $500 and made it back to a positive $61 for the day; but suffice it to say the streak is over!!!!

OK, maybe it is not as bad as UCLA losing to Notre Dame after 70 some odd wins in college basketball... or the Miami Dolphins finally losing in the ealry 70s... or Joey D finally not getting a hit in a baseball game.. but boy, the streak was nice and felt good.

And finally, It was Selection Sunday... My beloved Missouri State Bears sat squarely on the bubble. They did not have a lot of impressive wins... but they did finish tied for second in the Missouri Valley, they won 8 out of their last 10... all eight of their losses came to top 50 teams and they had an RPI of 21... No one has ever had an RPI that high and not go.... Well.. until this year.. Yes... I/we got gypped... Instead, somehow Air Force made it in with 3 losses to teams of RPI of 120 or higher.. Seton Hall made it in when they played absolutely nobody in the non-conference season and had some bad losses anyway....

So as you can see, I am coming into this week in a very, very foul mood.

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By the way, thanks to the 2+2er who recommended my blog as a good small stakes blog.. I appreciate it whoever it was... I actually got over 100 hits for the first time today...

Friday Bits and Pieces

No poker in the last couple of days.... Probably none today as I have my monthly home game. It's been a nice little break; but I'm aching to get back to the action. So, I do have a couple of things I wanted to throw out..

It appears that recently everytime I play, I have been getting stuck early. So I want to look at results by the hour and see how it looks. Poker Tracker will give you something similar to what I want; but it only gives you bb/100 based on the starting time of your session. Another words, if you start a session at 8PM and play for 3 hours, Poker Tracker's chart will show the complete session in the 8PM time slot. So I have a SQL Query that will give me what I need. What I expect to see is that the 7PM and 8PM time slot might not be as high as the subsequent time slots. Here are the results (in Eastern Time). By the way, the data below represents all hands recorded by Poker Tracker since December 6th... which was right about the time that I switched over to playing short handed tables. These stats also don't account for multi-tabling.

Hour	# of Games	bb/100
12 am	3,111	3.67
1 am	1,516	-2.73
2 am	1,177	-4.28
3 am	1,207	7.88
4 am	469	25.84
5 am	214	2.04
6 am	11	86.82
7 am	71	33.33
8 am	353	6.52
9 am	305	-1.14
10 am	348	-8.45
11 am	212	15.97
12 pm	174	-2.23
1 pm	625	2.09
2 pm	1,149	-3.08
3 pm	1,839	-3.49
4 pm	1,265	5.03
5 pm	530	5.77
6 pm	339	23.98
7 pm	475	2.39
8 pm	1,723	-9.03
9 pm	4,082	3.14
10 pm	4,715	2.16
11 pm	4,201	-0.38
Totals	30,111	1.46

So, as I kind of expected, the 8PM time slot is not good. In fact, it is my worst. Also as expected was that I did better at 9PM and 10PM... Pretty much break even at 11PM. Midnight stats are good; but the surprise is the 1AM and 2AM stats... as they go way down. My theory going in was that the later I played the better my results would be. Possibly, because I thought that I would be playing more Non-American players who tend to be on the looser side. Wrong!!!! I'll have to rethink that... although during the wee hours of the night, my results are fine.

I'm not sure if I'm surprised at the mid-afternoon stats. Typically, I'm playing here during Baby Wonka's nap and may be in too much of a hurry to get results. Again, I will have to rethink how I play then and if it is even worth it.

The next section probably goes into the too much information category; but I thought you might find it entertaining... basically took the same stats from above and broke it down by Day of the Week and the Level that I was playing at... Enjoy.. I'm not going to go into too much analysis here.

DOW	Level	Hour	# of Games	bb/100
Sunday	$10/$20 (6 max)	12 am	1	310.00
Sunday	$10/$20 (6 max)	1 am	122	10.80
Sunday	$10/$20 (6 max)	2 am	82	10.82
Sunday	$10/$20 (6 max)	3 am	46	35.98
Sunday	$10/$20 (6 max)	9 pm	89	7.42
Sunday	$10/$20 (6 max)	11 pm	107	6.12
Sunday	$10/$20 (6 max) Total		447	5.37
Sunday	$15/$30 (6 max)	2 am	66	16.82
Sunday	$15/$30 (6 max)	3 am	62	20.43
Sunday	$15/$30 (6 max)	8 am	105	2.35
Sunday	$15/$30 (6 max)	10 pm	40	11.00
Sunday	$15/$30 (6 max)	11 pm	12	97.50
Sunday	$15/$30 (6 max) Total		285	1.82
Sunday	$2/$4	8 am	7	14.29
Sunday	$2/$4	9 am	20	45.00
Sunday	$2/$4 Total		27	37.04
Sunday	$2/$4 (6 max)	8 am	3	41.67
Sunday	$2/$4 (6 max)	9 am	19	5.26
Sunday	$2/$4 (6 max) Total		22	1.14
Sunday	$3/$6	12 am	61	1.23
Sunday	$3/$6	1 pm	23	4.35
Sunday	$3/$6 Total		84	2.08
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 am	145	29.20
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	8 am	35	33.45
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 am	16	98.96
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 am	2	33.33
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 pm	174	2.23
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	1 pm	386	11.36
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	2 pm	205	27.56
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	3 pm	535	7.63
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	4 pm	129	20.99
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	6 pm	52	4.57
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	7 pm	24	59.38
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 pm	203	14.78
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 pm	266	0.31
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 pm	239	3.21
Sunday	$3/$6 (6 max) Total		2411	4.73
Sunday	$5/$10	12 am	40	9.00
Sunday	$5/$10	4 pm	111	1.17
Sunday	$5/$10	5 pm	53	16.98
Sunday	$5/$10 Total		204	6.81
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	12 am	263	16.82
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	1 am	241	13.37
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	2 am	140	7.74
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	3 am	228	2.54
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	4 am	204	3.39
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	5 am	214	2.04
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	6 am	11	86.82
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	1 pm	11	91.82
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	2 pm	37	22.70
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	3 pm	75	11.47
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	5 pm	18	4.72
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max)	6 pm	20	39.00
Sunday	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		1462	1.82
Sunday Total	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		4942	2.59
Monday	$10/$20 (6 max)	12 am	26	69.81
Monday	$10/$20 (6 max) Total		26	69.81
Monday	$15/$30	7 am	71	33.33
Monday	$15/$30 Total		71	33.33
Monday	$15/$30 (6 max)	12 am	66	4.44
Monday	$15/$30 (6 max) Total		66	4.44
Monday	$3/$6	8 pm	83	8.73
Monday	$3/$6	9 pm	132	8.40
Monday	$3/$6	10 pm	4	37.50
Monday	$3/$6 Total		219	1.07
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 am	24	43.75
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 am	108	3.32
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 am	1	0.00
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	7 pm	124	20.03
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	8 pm	417	15.49
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 pm	1098	1.09
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 pm	1531	2.43
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 pm	888	3.62
Monday	$3/$6 (6 max) Total		4191	1.96
Monday	$5/$10	10 pm	3	200.00
Monday	$5/$10	11 pm	40	24.50
Monday	$5/$10 Total		43	8.84
Monday	$5/$10 (6 max)	9 pm	19	50.53
Monday	$5/$10 (6 max)	10 pm	102	16.18
Monday	$5/$10 (6 max)	11 pm	64	34.06
Monday	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		185	15.51
Monday Total	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		4801	0.18
Tuesday	$1/$2 (6 max)	8 pm	4	45.00
Tuesday	$1/$2 (6 max) Total		4	45.00
Tuesday	$10/$20 (6 max)	9 pm	6	20.83
Tuesday	$10/$20 (6 max)	10 pm	62	22.26
Tuesday	$10/$20 (6 max)	11 pm	64	58.56
Tuesday	$10/$20 (6 max) Total		132	16.99
Tuesday	$3/$6	6 pm	52	17.71
Tuesday	$3/$6	9 pm	42	7.74
Tuesday	$3/$6	10 pm	73	0.34
Tuesday	$3/$6	11 pm	63	16.53
Tuesday	$3/$6 Total		230	10.05
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 am	577	9.53
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	1 am	350	1.40
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	2 am	208	13.74
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	3 am	99	26.60
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	7 pm	85	9.80
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	8 pm	635	2.60
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 pm	841	2.03
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 pm	523	1.77
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 pm	394	3.24
Tuesday	$3/$6 (6 max) Total		3712	0.49
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	12 am	46	38.15
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	1 am	20	64.00
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	2 am	134	4.70
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	3 am	194	1.76
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	4 am	83	27.35
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	9 am	67	20.37
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	1 pm	45	26.22
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	2 pm	72	51.81
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	9 pm	25	25.80
Tuesday	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		686	9.98
Tuesday	$8/$16 (6 max)	12 am	1	50.00
Tuesday	$8/$16 (6 max)	1 am	79	20.25
Tuesday	$8/$16 (6 max)	2 am	80	15.00
Tuesday	$8/$16 (6 max)	3 am	92	1.19
Tuesday	$8/$16 (6 max)	4 am	20	118.28
Tuesday	$8/$16 (6 max) Total		272	2.18
Tuesday Total	$8/$16 (6 max) Total		5036	2.54
Wednesday	$10/$20 (6 max)	12 am	31	19.52
Wednesday	$10/$20 (6 max)	10 pm	19	0.53
Wednesday	$10/$20 (6 max)	11 pm	11	52.27
Wednesday	$10/$20 (6 max) Total		61	19.51
Wednesday	$2/$4 (6 max)	10 pm	11	0.00
Wednesday	$2/$4 (6 max) Total		11	0.00
Wednesday	$3/$6	10 pm	72	22.11
Wednesday	$3/$6	11 pm	147	12.51
Wednesday	$3/$6 Total		219	1.13
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 am	178	6.88
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	2 pm	46	7.93
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	3 pm	141	0.92
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	4 pm	45	14.44
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	7 pm	27	11.42
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	8 pm	221	14.93
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 pm	342	17.37
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 pm	370	8.29
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 pm	190	14.25
Wednesday	$3/$6 (6 max) Total		1560	4.51
Wednesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	10 pm	67	16.04
Wednesday	$5/$10 (6 max)	11 pm	162	17.01
Wednesday	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		229	16.72
Wednesday Total	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		2080	2.23
Thursday	$10/$20 (6 max)	1 am	73	0.65
Thursday	$10/$20 (6 max)	2 am	171	3.45
Thursday	$10/$20 (6 max)	3 am	176	14.10
Thursday	$10/$20 (6 max)	11 pm	32	20.16
Thursday	$10/$20 (6 max) Total		452	8.12
Thursday	$3/$6	12 am	88	7.48
Thursday	$3/$6	1 am	11	54.55
Thursday	$3/$6	9 pm	66	15.04
Thursday	$3/$6	10 pm	127	4.54
Thursday	$3/$6	11 pm	62	2.70
Thursday	$3/$6 Total		354	1.91
Thursday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 am	287	9.34
Thursday	$3/$6 (6 max)	7 pm	116	45.04
Thursday	$3/$6 (6 max)	8 pm	197	0.51
Thursday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 pm	552	0.85
Thursday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 pm	815	5.39
Thursday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 pm	512	10.98
Thursday	$3/$6 (6 max) Total		2479	2.84
Thursday	$5/$10	10 pm	26	45.38
Thursday	$5/$10	11 pm	30	26.67
Thursday	$5/$10 Total		56	35.36
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max)	12 am	198	8.21
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max)	1 am	164	13.87
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max)	2 am	6	58.33
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max)	8 pm	8	156.25
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max)	9 pm	74	21.22
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max)	10 pm	45	15.33
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max)	11 pm	88	36.36
Thursday	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		583	13.41
Thursday Total	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		3924	1.07
Friday	$10/$20 (6 max)	12 am	115	8.00
Friday	$10/$20 (6 max)	1 am	45	37.00
Friday	$10/$20 (6 max)	8 am	52	0.96
Friday	$10/$20 (6 max)	10 am	119	9.16
Friday	$10/$20 (6 max)	11 am	59	25.68
Friday	$10/$20 (6 max) Total		390	3.13
Friday	$3/$6	12 am	78	10.04
Friday	$3/$6	1 am	26	33.65
Friday	$3/$6	5 pm	10	57.50
Friday	$3/$6	6 pm	34	17.16
Friday	$3/$6	10 pm	29	22.41
Friday	$3/$6	11 pm	93	12.46
Friday	$3/$6 Total		270	2.25
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 am	259	8.95
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	1 am	2	134.00
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 am	76	2.63
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 am	13	33.33
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	4 pm	5	146.67
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	6 pm	113	30.02
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	7 pm	99	19.11
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	8 pm	158	14.24
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 pm	340	18.59
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 pm	195	1.52
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 pm	638	3.77
Friday	$3/$6 (6 max) Total		1898	5.63
Friday	$5/$10 (6 max)	12 am	82	40.73
Friday	$5/$10 (6 max)	1 am	27	42.59
Friday	$5/$10 (6 max)	9 am	33	10.61
Friday	$5/$10 (6 max)	10 am	6	1.67
Friday	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		148	27.91
Friday Total	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		2706	6.15
Saturday	$1/$2 (6 max)	3 pm	31	75.16
Saturday	$1/$2 (6 max) Total		31	75.16
Saturday	$2/$4 (6 max)	9 am	38	59.21
Saturday	$2/$4 (6 max)	10 am	21	38.10
Saturday	$2/$4 (6 max) Total		59	51.69
Saturday	$3/$6	11 am	137	10.99
Saturday	$3/$6	4 pm	18	13.89
Saturday	$3/$6	5 pm	84	17.46
Saturday	$3/$6 Total		239	11.39
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	12 am	495	1.04
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	1 am	274	3.39
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	2 am	212	19.69
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	3 am	139	7.73
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	4 am	50	50.00
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	8 am	151	5.68
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 am	112	9.23
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 am	18	66.67
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	1 pm	160	17.58
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	2 pm	789	2.65
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	3 pm	969	7.52
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	4 pm	791	2.13
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	5 pm	365	0.65
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	6 pm	68	32.60
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	9 pm	253	6.49
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	10 pm	319	7.78
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max)	11 pm	274	14.78
Saturday	$3/$6 (6 max) Total		5439	1.15
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	12 am	50	39.80
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	1 am	82	34.76
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	2 am	78	21.54
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	3 am	171	12.38
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	4 am	112	38.30
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	3 pm	88	18.30
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	4 pm	166	24.57
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	10 pm	16	76.25
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max)	11 pm	91	11.15
Saturday	$5/$10 (6 max) Total		854	3.00
Saturday Total			6622	0.96
Grand Total			30111	1.46

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I also wanted to let you know that ThisIsTheNuts has added some additional sites that you can use to get rakeback. The new sites include:

Fortune Poker (Boss Media) w/ 25% rakeback
CD Poker (iPoker Network) w/30% rakeback
Pacific Poker w/ 25% rakeback

and they have a deal with Pacific that 25% of the rake TITN players generate goes towards a monthly freeroll. Pretty cool.

They are also running WSOP type promos for Absolute, Sun Poker and Eurobet.

Another nice thing is that if you sign up you can get referral rakeback (2.5%-5% depending on the site) so feel free to use WillWonka as a referral code. I would like to thank the few people that have done this and I hope you are enjoying getting paid to play.

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Another little cool thing that I came across was something called MyBloglog. Have you ever wondered what people are doing on your site? This tracks what links people are clicking on your site. It's pretty cool. They have a free version and cost version. The free version only has limited capabilities and is not real time; but is fine for somebody like me.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

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Kudos to XM Radio for adding a new Classic Rock Channel. Their other classic rock channels had too much variety... is that possible? At least for me they did as I didn't know over half the songs... What fun is that...

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And finally a non poker item.. I am a NetFlix subscriber. We dropped our movie channels on our satellite in lieu of getting this. It really has worked out bettter for us as we can get movies for both us and the little one. Anyway, as I watch the movies, I am going to throw my ratings (not reviews... OK, OK.. maybe a brief review) of the movies for a change of pace. Keep in mind that since baby Wonka came around, we never seem to find the time to see movies in the theatre so the movies that I will be lisiting will be older movies. Here are the last few:

The Longest Yard - 6 out of 10... original was better in my opinion
House of D - David Duchovny and Robin Williams Movie.. - 6 out of 10
Empire Falls - HBO mini series.. - 4 out of 10
Batman Begins - 8 out of 10
MindHunters - 6
The Interpretor - 6

Have a good weekend!!!!