The Worst Best Hand

I am continuing to have limited success with the 15/30 experiment. I opened up a little bit with little or no success and then when back it my "error on the side of caution" mentality... I got a little lucky last night hitting some gut shots and walked away with another quick victory of $255. I am still mining the heck out the tables and will be in full game mode shortly (barring any kind of huge setback).

OK, for the thought of the day. I was pouring over some PT stats and found out that I have made the most money holding AA. Boy, it doesn't take a poker wizard to make money with that hand. I think my almost 2 year daughter could play that hand... Another big surprise... KK was my second best hand... OK.. enough of the obvious ones... Where have I lost the most money with?

There are actually two hands that are about equal in the amount of losses that I have had.. They are... wait... before we get there, let's try to figure it out...

What are hands that are overplayed and could potentially lose somebody a lot of money.. We can probably rule out the top 15 hands which I will call (in a 10 max game)... AA, KK, QQ, AKs, AQs, AJs, JJ, KQs, KJs, QJs, KTs, ATs, JTs, AK and QTs. I am getting these numbers from a spreadsheet that I designed to play poker hands. In my spreadsheet, I have played a million hands and those came up as the top 15. I know that there are better tools; but I have not looked to them in detail. You are probably safe in playing all of these hands for a raise... depending on your position..

Now for the next 15 which could conceivably get you in trouble... Here is what my spreadsheet shows as the 16th through 30th hands... TT, A9s, AQ, T9s, A8s, 99, K9s, J9s, KQ, A5s, Q9s, A7s, AJ, A4s and A6s... Now looking at these, I can definitely see where you can get into trouble and in fact, the hand that has lost me the most money is in this list. Mid Pocket Pairs can obviously get you into trouble, especially Tens... but should be fairly easy to get away from if pressure is applied to you... Let's also rule out the suited cards.. although dangerous because many of us will stay on our drawing hands while ignoring if it is proper to do so according to our pot odds. That leaves us with AQ and KQ.. Now if anybody has read this blog for a while (all 2 of you), you will know that I have experienced tournament problems with AQ (see my 1st SNG challenge posts); but did that roll over to ring play... nope... That leaves KQ is as the big winner or in this case the big loser.. Why is that? More on that later..

Let's now look at the final 15 in my top 45 hands according to my spreadsheet. One could say that these should be the last of the hands that you should be regularly be playing (not counting blind play and multi player pots where it makes sense to play with positioin). OK... 31 through 45.. A3s, A2s, QJ, K8s, KJ, 88, T8s, Q8s, AT, JT, J8s, KT, QT, K7s, 98s. I will simply say that all of these hands are potential problem childs (also include the rest of the pocket pairs and 72o... lol) and you need to be extremely careful with them. None of these hands should really be played unless you have position.... but the one that has continually given me fits is KJ and that is the hand that I have lost the 2nd most amount of dollars. Why is that?

OK, now we know the 2 hands that have caused me problems... KQ and KJ (both offsuit). Let's try to figure out why? Without putting a great deal of thought into it, I have come up with the following reasons.

1. Falling in love with hands
2. Playing out of position
3. Ignoring the pressure signs.

1. Falling in love with hands... How easy is it to see a low card flop and keep playing with your over cards... How easy it is to see that you have top pair and continually think that you have the best hands... It is so easy to think that you have the best hand with TP with a good kicker... but still there are plenty of hands that can beat so you need to pay attention to how the betting is going... more on that with #3. I can happily say that the love affair that I was having with these hands turned out to be only a strong crush... and I have moved on. So that leads us to #2.

2. Position. As we know, there really isn't anything more important than position in preflop action on a full table. Simply stated, I would say to let these hands go in early position and wait for greener pastures. You could make exceptions based on your table image and the perception of the whole table (is it a loose aggressive game... or is a tight game).. but generally, your patience will be rewarded. Is there nothing worse than limping in with KQ or KJ (or even open raising) and then to get bumped by a solid player with position.. you immediately get a lump in your throat and start praying to the poker gods... and then the worst possible thing happens... you actually hit the flop... or even worse you hit it hard with say something like 2 pair. I shudder to think how many times I have hit 2 pair and have eventually lost to a straight or flush becase I.... #1 (fell in love with my hand)... 2.. ignored my position and..... which leads us to #3.

3. Ignoring the pressure signs. As we have learned from other much better bloggers, pressure points are one of the roots of successful poker play. It is one thing to put on the pressure points; but what about when you are the receiving end of these pressure points. What do you do? I can only speak for myself; but with these two hands, I tend to 1. fall in love with the hand and 2.. play them out of position.. and now #3.. too often ignore the pressure points.. Especially if the pressure is being applied from a LAG that has continually been hitting his draws and sucking out on other people. I don't know about you, but I'm good at convincing myself that this is the hand that will slow this guy down and then..... boom... he gets his gutshot or flush on the river... or a more likely scenario is that he had the goods and had you practically drawing dead.. So, don't ignore the pressure points... Some of the best money we make is by not calling down with a losing hand. Saving those last 1, 2 or 3 bets is highly instrumentail into getting you in the black numbers instead of putting you in those dreaded red numbers.

So what is the take away here.. Again, I can only speak for myself; but I now don't play these hands from early position... I will limp in with these from MP but will constantly be watching for people pushing back and figuring out how it fits into their normal betting patterns... and finally will open raise with these from LP but again will be looking for push back signs...

Have a great weekend!!!!!

Movin On Up

Short and sweet today...

I am continuing to gradually work my way up to 15/30. It's just one of those things that I want to try. I do have the bankroll to play there so that is what I want to do. I'm also continuing to data mine the heck out of those tables. It's especially sweet for the data miners that you can open up 10 tables on Party now. I can be playing on one while data mining on 9 and with the help up Poker Aces HUD, it makes table selection so much easier.

Last night, I sat at an abnormally tight table. Why do I say that? Well, the table average had a VPIP of 20. I usually don't spend a lot of time on table selection (that is something that I really need to work on). I just adjust my game to the personality of the table. I ended up only playing 33 hands. I did win $138.50. My wife was wanting to watch some shows so I just decided to take another small win and be happy.

Here is the strange thing last night. As I said, I played 33 hands. Can you guess how many hands went to showdown? Zero... I won every hand that I saw the flop with... Now granted, while I'm doing this "movin on up" experiment, I am playing a little tighter than I do at the 5/10 tables (i.e. my VPIP last night was 18). At this point, I don't know how much of an anomaly that was so I didn't test the waters. I'm not going to get greedy while I learn the differences from 5/10 to 15/30.

I would appreciate any thoughts from others that have made the move from 5/10 to 15/30 on the differences of the game. At this point, I am happy with the quick hit and run victories while on the other side setting a strict loss limit while I am collecting the data.

____

HUC2

Wow, none of the HUC1 challengers made it to the second round of the HUC2. Congrats to all the newcomers (and you know who you all are).

SNG Part II - Day 11

Don't ever say that I don't learn from my mistakes.. Instead of going to the 5/10 tables to lose a couple of buy-ins, I went straight to the 15/30 tables. You see, that is what makes a great poker player... if you keep doing the same stuff over and over again and keep getting the same results, you have to mix it up.... OK, OK.. again maybe not a smart move... but... I did win my first 2 hands for $144.50 and I got the heck out of dodge when the blinds came back around to me. Call me a wimp or whatever... I wasn't giving it back on this night...

So, I was in the mood for a multi... I hadn't played in a while... I looked and there was a $20 multi starting on Party in 2 minutes... I rushed and registered.. First hand I get AQ... I go to raise and DOH!!!! it's a limit tourney.... Dang.. OH well, make the best of it... I did do good early; but ended up around 250 out of 864 or something like that.

I did play 2 SNGs as well. Here are the numbers:

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 25	MTD	ITD
Games	2	46	482
1sts	1	7	60
2nds	0	8	68
3rds	0	4	52
4ths	0	6	49
5 - 7	1	14	143
8 - 10	0	7	110
ITM%	50%	41.30%	37.34%
ROI	127.3%	32.41%	14.67%
Net$	140	820	3890

1. 6th - JJ lost A6
2. 1st - K6 beat AQ .. K on flop

I still have more 2nds than 1st and more 4ths than 3rds... but I'm not really complaining. I'm obviously happy with the results so far.

_______

I wanted to put a couple of shouts out to some other St Louis bloggers... I didn't even know they were out there until recently. Go by and check out their stuff as it some good stuff...

Law of Poker - primarily an Omaha player..

Infant Days Sleepless Nights - good stuff on a variety of things

Poker Blues - more poker tales

JMC Automatic - Another nice St Louie blog

Cheating at Solitaire - Who knew that there so many StL poker bloggers out there.

There you have and there you are...

Stubborness

Why do I continue to cater towards my weakness as opposed to my strength.. or at least alleged strength. Historically, I have done better at tournaments rather than ring play... so what do I see myself doing mostly this last week or so.... Of course ring play... We'll get back to this; but let's first look at last night.

I thought I had reached my 2000 CPC points for Carribean; but I received an email saying that I was 70 pts short... off to 5/10 land again... luckily (I thought), they had a full 10 person table going... Even better, first hand AA.... Lost... Sucked out on river... I was also playing a 5/10 table at Party... first hand KTs.. flopped a flush draw and gut shot... didn't hit on turn; but played aggresively enough to get the other person to fold. So, I'm a little down after the first hand.. Caribbean went up and down for the next hour with me staying pretty close to my buyin.... but Party....

2nd Hand.... JJ.... lost to river... 3rd hand QQ (wow)... Lost to A2 on flop.... this continued to be the theme as I went 0 for 3 with JJ and 0-4 with QQ... I did win with KK so I have that going for me.. as you can see I was getting tremendous cards; but as luck would have it, I just wasn't finishing... One huge problem that I had last night was the ever so popular "falling in love with your hand". OK.. I know the guy has been seeing over 40% of the flops... but he can get good hands.. so if keeps coming over the top of you, he probably has you beat... Case in point... AKs... flop TT6... I bet.. raise... what??? reraise... he just called... ah.. I thought so... Q on turn.. he bets out... huh??? I end up calling him down and he shows TT for quads... oops... At some point, I need to realize the Mr Pisces has a hand... The short of it was that I ended up getting stuck for another $550 last night and continual beats despite my good cards.... but the thing is that I'm not ready to call it quits.

I did get my 70 points on Caribbean so I 'm good there... so what to do? SNGs... sounds logical.. I've been fairly successful with them this month... nope... I'm heading to newer, deeper waters...

I headed to a 15/30 table... I also bought in short (on accident)... First hand in BB... AJ... UTG calls and UTG + 1 raises... dang it... lay it down Wonka... lay it down Wonka.... RAISE... It's like I'm on auto pilot... my fingers are controlling the body.. not the brain... they both call... nothing on flop... I bet out... raised... reraised... OK.. I'm out... The hand ended up going to showdown with both of them showing KJ (as a King came on the river). Huh??? OK, I'm new to 15/30 land; but calling and raising with KJ from EP seems odd. Right now, I'm not calling them bad players as I'm hoping that 15/30 players are playing a more aggressive game rather than a more donkey game.

The good news is that I did end up getting AA and KK (yes the cards just kept coming) and they held up.. both until showdown which really worried me... both hands had pots of $352 and I ended up calling it quits after being up $300 at the 15/30 tables... so the net for the night was down $250. I wasn't going to press my luck.

So what's the bottom line.. what can I take away from last night... Well, that brings us back to stubborness... on many levels..

1. I am continuing to play ring play even though I am not +EV on it. I continue to tell myself that I can beat this game. Any "real" poker player can make money at ring play. To justify your poker existence, you have to beat the ring play. Huh??? Why am I so convinced that you have to beat the ring tables to be a poker player... Even professionals have the "tourney" players (Ferguson, Helmuth.. etccc) and the ring players. There are probaably so many ring players that we have never heard of because they just don't play in the big tournaments.
2. Why do I continue to fall in love with hands and not admit that even people that are seeing almost all flops can also have good cards. For crying out loud.. by now, you should know when you are beat and if that means laying down QQ, KK or AA then so be it. What's the big whoop? Decisions.. not results.. you moron...
3. So after you have a bad night, why do you go to deeper waters... I've done it with SNGs and Blackjack as well.. going to the $100 SNGs after losing out a bunch of $50s badly just doesn't make sense. Does the results justify the means... Obvsiously NO... How many times do I have to say it... Just because you think you can beat the games; doesn't necessarily mean that you can do it every night. Grind it out... Ignore that "rush" you get from playing in uncomfortable games... even if you bankroll can absorb it.

OK.. I admit that I like playing the ring games.. I like the process of trying to put people on hands and figuring whether you have odds to call or should be raising.. etc, etc... Just play smarter and hopefully things will work out... in the long run, of course.

Hopefully, I will finish out the month in good style.

SNG Part II - Day 10

There is a lot of stuff to cover so we'll see how it goes. Of course the big news was the Bloggers Championship on Stars...

It started with 1473 players. I didn't recognize anybody at my starting tables... Here is my blow by blow recap:

The first half hour, I was really getting cards but:

3:10 AQ... Hit trip Aces on turn only to lose to flopped set of 55 that boated on turn.

3:15 AK... Hit Broadway on turn only to lose to K2s flush on river.

3:25 T685... 1270th out of 1325 left

3:47 T1745.... 620th out of 1185 left

3:50 I survived all in with A7s on a A75 (all clubs) flop. I pushed and got called by QQ with one club... no club and I doubled up... T3540

4:00 First break... T3140 345th out of 1060 left

4:19 I have T3 in BB 67T flop.. I led out and he pushed... only 900 more to call so I called... he had flopped str8. T1890

4:30 T1590 463rd out of 657

4:40 T5205 more than doubled up with J6s in SB with flush on turn

5:10 Second break... 3180 240 out of 263

5:18 OUT... 240th.. Qh4h in SB... 4 other limpers so I called... QJT of diamonds... I pushed and got called by 2 and riased by another so I knew was toast... another diamond on T; but that didn't matter as somebody had flopped the flush (J5s)

So I finished in the top 15%... kind of.. as a lot of people did not play that were registered. While I am not second guessing my push (see Justification) as I was short stacked and decided to a quasi stop and go... unfortunately, I was was the one that had to go... plus one other who called with the open ended str8 draw. Had I just checked an saw all the action behind me, there was no way that I could have called. But I am OK with my decision. I never did see who won.

_____

It was also the start of the Heads Up Challenge 2... As predicted, I went down in flames. SirFWALGMan took care of me in two straight. I won't bore you with the details; but he has a good write up on it on his blog. Suffice it to say, HU is not my specialty. You can tell that in my SNGs as I have more 2nds than 1sts.

_____

I did play 3 SNGs over the weekend. Here are the numbers:

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 22	MTD	ITD
Games	3	44	480
1sts	1	6	59
2nds	0	8	68
3rds	0	4	52
4ths	1	6	49
5 - 7	0	13	142
8 - 10	1	7	110
ITM%	33%	40.91%	37.29%
ROI	51.52%	28.1%	14.20%
Net$	85	680	3750

1. 8th - A9s lost QT
2. 4th - J4s lost A7.. hand before... KTs lost 84 on river.. T high flop
3. 1st - AJ beat Q7

I did complete my 2000 pts for Caribbean although it was a rather expensive one so I should be hopping back on to the SNGs for the rest of the month.

The Longhorns kicked butt again this weekend. I actually doubted them as I didn't think that they would cover... I went with Georgia instead.... dang... The Cowboys with another huge breakdown at the end of the game that cost them a potential win.

______

And finally, I had a home tourney that I also bombed out on....

All in all, I very disappointing poker weekend. I hate it when you really look forward to something and it just ends up kicking you in the junk. Oh well, what can you do.

I have updated my stats at the top right.. As you can see, a pretty bad week..

Friday TidBits

OK, I did get just a little bit of poker in on the Crytp-Mania site and as usual it was a roller coaster. The first hand that I was dealt was QQ... Lots of raising... flop of 755 and again lost of raising... the short of it is that he flopped the boat with 77 and I continued to donate to his cause. One of the problems that I am having with Caribbean is when to ratchet down or up the aggressiveness. As I have said, them Crytpo players are crrrazzzyy. So what do I do, I ignore all the classic signs that my Queens are no good; but you get a little calloused after a while when you see them capping the bet with nothing better than a gut shot or Ace high.. This was also at the 6Max table. I guess my take away is that I'm going to continue to ramp up the aggressiveness when I think that I am ahead. I did end up 6BB (as some people like to put it) in about 30 minutes.... I was playing 2 tables and lost the complete buy-in one one table and doubled up on another... I then closed down the double up and rebought on the down table and made the profit.

I only have about 350 CPC points to go to qualify so I will probably try to knock that out this weekend. It was a lot tougher that I thought it would be to get to the 2000 CPC points. Hopefully, it will all be worth it come Nov 6th.


HUC2

We have filled up the 16 places for the Heads Up Challenge 2. Looking at my first round match up, I was relieved to see that I got paired up with SirWALGMan because that guy can't beat anybody heads up. It seems that everybody and their mother is beating this guy Heads Up. I my only fear is that I hope that I won't be looking ahead to my Round 2 challenger and forget to take care of business against SirWALGMan. All kidding aside, I am looking foward to Round 1. First off, I have never played with SirW and for what I can tell, it should be a nice match... probably not for the faint of heart though. I don't predict any marathon matches. So SirW...if you are reading... Good luck to you... even though I don't mean it... lol

I am glad to see that we did get a host of new players. Again, that is what is so great about online poker.... the online community...

As for predictions... the only one that I will make is that GCox will back into something.. I just don't know what yet.


I want to thank Virginia Tech for taking care of business last night and covering the spread... I didn't really watch the game; but for what I could tell.. they did everything they could to blow it. It's always nice to be ahead going into the weekend games.

And finally... We are having a home game tournament on Saturday... I haven't fared to well in these (except for last month)... We'll see how it goes... Plus a reader to this blog has shown interest and it will be nice to meet somebody who actually wastes a few minutes a day reading this thing.

Have a great weekend... and SirWALGMan, I will be looking for you...

SNG Part II - Day 9

Not a good night in poker land... The first part of the evening went OK... I then went to go watch Lost with the wife and decided to come back for more fun.... bad idea... First let's look at the SNG numbers...

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 19	MTD	ITD
Games	5	41	477
1sts	0	5	58
2nds	1	8	68
3rds	1	4	52
4ths	1	5	48
5 - 7	2	12	142
8 - 10	0	6	109
ITM%	40%	41.46%	37.32%
ROI	-9.09%	26.39%	14.21%
Net$	-25	595	3690

1. 2nd - AT lost to 44
2. 4th - AKs lost to 55
3. 7th - AJ lost to A5
4. 7th - QQ lost to JT
5. 3rd - K4 lost to A7

So as you can see, I was pretty unfortunate most of the way.

One of my SNGs, I had a big lead and then I made a couple of donkey moves that ended up costing me.... oh wait... check that... I just read my post from yesterday.... please strike the previous sentence from your memory.

Unfortunately, the bad luck from SNG play carried over to ring play as I decided to get a change of pace and hit to the 5/10 tables.. Caribbean was a ghost town so I only played a few hands and then I headed over to Party. The tables I sat down at were prime for the pickings; but this happened to be one of those nights were T2s was hitting his/her flush on the river.. and other such non-sensical plays. I guess I did jinx myself after stating that I had 7 straight winning sessions.

Ok.. I have to post at least one hand that I ran into at the good ol' 5/10 tables. Please note that chenxio8 has a VPIP (i.e. basically his flop percentage) of over 65%.

***** Hand History for Game 2903305877 *****
$5/$10 Texas Hold'em - Thursday, October 20, 00:57:09 EDT 2005
Table Table 71073 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 3: xxxxxxxx ( $268 )
Seat 6: xxxxxxxx ( $270.50 )
Seat 9: chenxio8 ( $348.50 )
Seat 1: wilwonka ( $143 )
Seat 10: xxxxxxxx ( $508 )
Seat 8: xxxxxxxx ( $109 )
Seat 7: xxxxxxxx ( $250 )
Seat 2: xxxxxxxx ( $186 )
Seat 4: xxxxxxxx ( $282 )
Seat 5: xxxxxxxx ( $250 )
xxxxxxxx posts small blind [$2].
xxxxxxxx posts big blind [$5].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to wilwonka [ Js Ad ]
xxxxxxxx folds.
xxxxxxxx folds.
chenxio8 calls [$5].
xxxxxxxx folds.
wilwonka raises [$10].
xxxxxxxx folds.
xxxxxxxx folds.
xxxxxxxx folds.
xxxxxxxx folds.
chenxio8 calls [$5].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5s, 6c, 6h ]
chenxio8 checks.
wilwonka bets [$5].
chenxio8 raises [$10].
wilwonka raises [$10].
chenxio8 raises [$10].
wilwonka calls [$5].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Td ]
chenxio8 bets [$10].
wilwonka calls [$10].
** Dealing River ** [ 2h ]
chenxio8 bets [$10].
wilwonka calls [$10].
chenxio8 shows [ 2c, Qc ] two pairs, sixes and twos.
wilwonka doesn't show [ Js, Ad ] a pair of sixes.
chenxio8 wins $104 from the main pot with two pairs, sixes and twos.

I only have myself to blame. Had I kept up the aggressiveness, he probably would have folded. To add insult to injury he rivered me on the very next hand. I did get him back a few rounds later when my flopped set was beat by a turned straight (on a 4 diamond board by the way) which ended up getting beat by a rivered boat.

All in all, I had about a $200 setback today which ain't bad .... considering...

I do believe a few shout outs are necessary:

Thanks to members of the labelled Poker Mafia for continually linking me up and chatting it up with me.. As always.. good times.. and great writing by those guys.. but I don't have to tell you that.

Also thanks to SirFWALGMan for explaing his pocket Queens dilemma.

Scurvy Dog, as always, has good stuff and further elaborated on my Cryto-mania contetion.

And finally, thanks to Mr Rini for putting my Justification post on his PokerFilter site. How cool was that to see a story that I had written there.

I have more things on my mind; but they will have to wait. No poker tonight.

Justification

No poker last night.

One thing that has been brewing inside me for a while is the justification they we poker players make (yes, I am absolutely including myself) in defending our actions. How many times do you hear that somebody played great for x amount of hours only to donkey it off it 1 or 2 hands. This will be the theme of this post.

First off, it is human nature to justify our actions. It is what it is so we just deal with it.

Let's set up an example, you are deep into a tournament but not yet to the money... You hit bottom pair and somebody puts a small bet out there. You decide to put a big raise out there because you "smell" weakness. He ends up calling you down with middle pair and you lose half of your stack. You go out a few hands later when you pocket Tens don't hold up. You then tell the story of the tourney and say that a made a "donkey" move and lost half my stack. My question is.... was it really a donkey move.... my answer coming later...

You are at a NL table at get the magic hand of 72o... And as any good blogger does, you raise it up and get called... You hit part of the flop; but EP bets out... and knowing that this guy can be aggressive and is a little short stacked compared to you... you push all-in... He calls and shows hit top pair... and you take a big loss... And you go on to tell that you made a bad move with the hammer (although most people are happy to tell their hammer beats and wins)... My question is... was it really a bad move... my answer coming later.. with an added bonus section on the "Hammer"....

This is a real life situation that happened to me in a real tournament... We are down to 2 or 3 players.. I think it might have been HU... and I am in the BB with 82o... We see a flop with an ace on it but other than that, not too scary... I check.. and bets... I raise it up and he calls... I end up going all in on either the turn or river as I know this player is a good, tight player... He ends up laying down his A2 and I took down a big pot and went on to win the tourney. My question is.. was that a bad move... my answer coming later...

Very early on in an SNG I get something like A3 of clubs... Flop comes something like 3s4c5c giving me a pair plus a gut shot straight flush draw... another words.. oodles and oodles of outs... I check... EP leads out and LP raises... Short story... I ended up laying it down (although probably a favorite with my draws)... as I thought EP might shove all in... he did.. I still would have had odds to call... as it turned out.. I wouldn't have hit my outs and would have finished in last place. I went on to finish 2nd in the SNG... My question is... was that a bad move... My answer coming later...

A similar, non poker situation.. USC has the ball on the one yard line with 4 seconds to go.. They need a field goal to go to overtime... They act like they are going to spike the ball; but actually run a QB sneak and end up winning the game in regulation... My question to you is... was that a bad call... Now for my answers...

What makes a good or bad call or move? My simple answer is, if it worked, it was a great move... If it doesn't, then it was a bad move....

OK.. Let me explain...

We all know that bluffing is part of the game of poker.... a beautiful part of the game of poker. Most of the time, if you just wait for the cards, you are not guaranteed of making it to the money or actually winning.. So what makes a good bluff? First off, let's define a bluff as simply not having the best hand at the time. Moreover, there are different levels of bluffing.. There is the "sweat your nuts off" pure unadulturated bluff when you have nothing... Then there is the Semi bluff where you are drawing... but still probably don't want them to call.

Obviously, the first type is the one that gives "us" poker players the biggest pleasure and rush; but when they don't work, some people seem to think that they made a "donkey" move that ended up costing them the tourney... My response.... WRONG!!!!!!! yes, there are times to bluff and there are also times when you shouldn't bluff. It's tougher to gauge in the online game; but if you sense weakness and you think a bluff will work... then I say Go For It!!!!! Whether not it works should not come into the equation... Again, as Greg Raymer says... it decisions not results.. If it works, then we think we are the gods of the poker world... if it doesn't we spendless seeminly countless time trying to justify or decision. I say exnay on the justifynah... I don't want to hear it.. If you felt it was the right move and you had the guts to do it... then I applaud you.. Just don't bore me to tears trying to explain why you shouldn't have done it.. Just learn from the experience and move on.

Let's get back to the hammer or 72o for you home gamers... It seems to be the hand of choice for bloggers to raise with. While I am in the huge minority here and never play the hammer unless odds predicate it... I have no problem with others doing it. Many people will say to pick a hand and when you see it, push it.. As we have said before... bluffing is a vital part of successful poker. So play the 72o hard if you want to.. I may choose 830... or K4s.. whatever the case, if this is the "chosen" hand to bluff (on a non-situational basis) with and you have the nerve to do it... Awesome... you get two thumbs up in my book.

Let's go back to our what if's? Obviously, by now you have probably picked up that the answer to every question is a hardy "Nope". They were not donkey moves... What if:

#1.. if the guy was weak and on a draw and your pair won it... you would be singing your praises on such a great read.

#2.. what you if got him to lay down his marginal (but better than yours) hand.. we all know the answer to that as bloggers are not shy about posting these.

#3.. What if he had called me and I lost most of my stack... Then you say good call and move on. Decisions.. not results..

#4.. what if I had pushed and hit my flush or whatever... or if I didn't push and folded but still hit my flush... Was the fact that I still ended up 2nd justification for my laydown... nope... Even though you have odds to push or call.. .if it doesn't feel right to you.. then don't do it.. and live with the consequences..

#5.. what if Leinert got tackled and didn't make the end zone that ended up costing them a chance at the national championship. Can you imagine the sports talk on that decision? My contention is that it worked so it was a great call... If it hadn't, then I say it was a bad call. Simple as that.

Well, there you have it... That is my opinion on justification... I may be wrong. I realize that I have just scratched the surface on when to bluff and why to bluff.... but that could be a story for another day.. this story was basically on the decision of bluffing (or not bluffing) and living with the consequences.... and for crying out loud, don't try to explain to me why you lost with such a bad move... because I don't want to hear it... Let me know your thoughts.

Crytpo-Mania

St Louis Rams... why doest thou tease me... You go into a game expecting to see your home team get throttled by the Colts... and what happens... the Rams come out firing and take a 17-0 lead... never fear the real Rams came back for the last 3 quarters and yes the Rams got throttled. Those Colts may be for real.... wink wink

I played some more on Caribbean Sun tonight. When does winning $18 feel like winning the lottery?... more on that later. That place is just plain crazy.. Due to the lack of tables at Caribbean (again a surprise to me because I thought Crypto sites were fairly large). If you want loose play, I would say go to a Cryto-mania site.... that's right... Party has nothing of those maniacs from Crypto... I never did put any Cryto stats into Poker Tracker because I didn't plan on playing so many games; but I may do that just to get a read on these players... However, it is pretty easy... just assume that each player is maniac or massive calling station. So what is the bottome line? If you are patient and can handle the swings, there is money to be made there; but I might advise seatbealts or arm straps and not having anything loose laying around. I can't be held responsible for what you might do when your AK loses to K4 when the K4 cold called a raise and re-raise only to hit his 2 pair...

Most of the craziness is on the 6Max tables. There was finally a 10Max table tonight and things settled down a bit... for it didn't stay full for long... Most of my play is at the 5/10 level. I again (for the second night in a row) lost my initial $150 buyin in record time.... This time boat losing to bigger boat (on river)... oh never mind.. I won't bore you with the details... just suffice it to say that I lost quickly.... REBUY!!!!! Things went better and I was on the verge of making the $150 back when I had a stroke of genius... hmmm ... why don't I open another table.... and let's make it a 6max table.. Nice thinking.... $150... gone.... didn't rebuy... went and watched the Rams game that I had recorded.. (another waste of a couple of hours)

Being the stubborn person that I am, I returned to the scene of the crime and this time, my patience paid off as I made it all back plus a whopping $18.. so that is how winning $18 can feel like winning the lottery... OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit... but good golly miss molly, them are some crazy poker players at those Crypto-mania sites... I'm not complaining... positive numbers are better than negative numbers.. This actually makes 7 winning sessions in a row; albeit some of the days were barely positive... again, I'll take it. Yes, I realize I probaly just jinxed myself.

I still need 450 CPC points to make my 2000 for the month so I will continue to put myself through this agony... I just have to see it through now... I can be as stubborn as the best of them.. It will all be worth it if win a trip to the Caribbean.. That would be nice.


In other news, Jordan of High on Poker announced the second coming of the Heads Up Challenge. Head on over to his blog to read the details. It's basically a round robin tourney where you play heads up matches against everybody. It was quite fun the first time around (even though I pretty much stunk of the place)... TripJax of Poker in Arrears will be defending his title. He is trying to get 16 people for this challenge. Come join the fun.. I believe it will be a $25 entry fee again this time.

That should do it for now...

Rockets

A few things.. probably will be bouncing around today.

No SNGs this weekend. I believe that is what is better about this SNG challenge. If I don't want to play them, then I don't. Last time, it was an exclusive thing for me. Neither way is wrong; but I like the flexability this time around. Like everybody else, I had to play a little bit of the Bad Beat tables at Party. No luck...

I played in a home game on Saturday and we got 2 games in. We we got down to Heads up, I flopped two pair... middle and bottom... we ended up getting all of our chips in and unfortunately he had top 2 pair... The good news is that I sucked out on him and boated on the river. The next game we are down to 3 handed and I flop 2 pair... middle and bottom and we get our chips all in... and you guessed it... she had top 2 pair.... lady luck wasn't on my side this time around and she took me out. You just don't see that everyday and I thought it was pretty interesting.. but then again, what do I know.

Last night, I decided to play in the 1K guarantee on PW as I hadn't played it in a while. Again this tourney is a $20 buyin with rebuys and addon. Things were neither real good or real bad for the first hour as I never needed to rebuy. I only got all my chips in once and my pocket Js held up. I did do the addon. Again, the real nice thing about this tourney is the amount of people that play. Last night there were only 29 players. Usually, it is even lower than that.

Anyway, on to the reason for the title of this post.... Rockets...

We get down to 5 handed and I am probably in 4th or 5th place. I am in the BB with 35s. It is folded to button who calls and SB calls. Of course I check and the flop comes 335... Button bets half pot which chases SB.. I, of course, call. Turn comes a Q.. again half pot bet... This time a due a min raise... he just called... River comes a 5... this time I lead out All-in and he insta calls with AA. Needless to say that put a huge dent into his stack and vaulted me to the lead. As it turns out, this same guy ended up going heads up with me. I increased my lead with him and it came down to me calling his allin when I had flopped an opened straight. He was severely short stacked so it was an easy call. I hit my straight on the turn and it was over for a nice $520 payday.

Anyway, as I said in my last SNG Month end review. NEVER SLOW PLAY ACES!!!! It's just not worth it. Perhaps when you get down to 2 or 3 handed.. then maybe... but how many times do you hear about Aces being cracked because someone slowplayed them. Aces against a full table are only going to win about 1/3 of the time.... Again, it is not worth it.. Even five handed, you are only winning 55% of the time. A nice raise and of course I would not have called with 35s. Not that I'm complaining...lol


Another interesting hand in this tourney involving the rockets... This was after the break... This hand 3 people got all in... It turned out being AA vs KK vs QQ... and of course the QQ hit their set and won... wow... I've seen it happen a few other times; but it never ceases to amaze me... online poker is sooooo rigged... LOL.

Another great football weekend if you are a Texas Longhorns and Dallas Cowboys fans. For the second straight week, the Texas Longhorn game on St Louis TV was switched over to a more "competitive" game. I guess I can't blame them. They switched over to the Michigan game which I heard was very exciting. I, myself, switched over to the Notre Dame game that I was recording on a different TV. How heart crushing was that game. Not only am I a UT fan; but I am also a big ND fame. So I of course wanted ND to win because they are ND; but that would have put UT #1. It came down to a 4th and 9 play that Leinert apparantly audibled and just made an unbelievable throw and catch. The coverage, I felt, was very good. Oh well.. At least they covered so I won my UT/ND 2 teamer parlay.

As for the rest of my football picks, they are going down badly. I will no longer be posting them on Scurvy's Bonus Bug site anymore as my spreadsheet is really sucking this year. Enough said there.

I had a good time chatting it up with GCox and Tripjax last night. One of the greatest things that I have discovered with online poker is that the great community of people that are out there.

Finally... I have finally reached the 20th century this weekend as I finally got a cell phone. I never wanted one.. I never needed one... etc.. etc... but now I have one... Of course this was wife mandated. I finally gave in... what can I do?

Oh yeah.. one more thing.. I did update my stats for October.. It was a good week.

Quite a bit of rambling today... Have a great week!!!

5 Years

Not much to report today... I've been grinding away at Caribbean Sun to get to their monthend 200K freeroll. The requirements were 2000 CPC points... which I thought to be raked hands. My plan was just to play the low limit (1/2) tables to build up the points. What I failed to realize was that you didn't get a CPC point unless the rake was $1 or more... otherwise you only got 1/4 pt. No big deal, I just moved up to the 3/6 or 5/10 games.. There is not a whole lot of selection there. For some reason, I thought the Crypto sites were a little larger. Anyway, I was forced on occasion to play the 6Max games and that has been very -EV for me. I have adapted a little and I am doing much better... but sheesh.... those games seem to like them drawing donkeys... Yikes.. Last night in particular at the 5/10 6Max.. Practically every hand (and I mean about 80%) was getting raised and 3 betted both preflop and on the flop... and the things these people were raising with made my head spin... On hand... it makes want to stay around and make them pay for raising with Q2 soooted UTG... and calling three bets with K4o... but when they river flushes, it just plain makes you want to ........ you get the idea... I finally hit a hand and was up a little and just left... wow, what a relief... I went back to my safe haven of 10Max... Much better although it was quite the roller coaster ride... My last hand was for a pot over $200 which is 20BB for 5/10 land and I quit (my flopped 2 pair boated on river). I wish I could have seen what the other two were calling and raising with.

Anyway, the 5 years title doesn't relate to poker. It is actually my 5 year wedding anniversary today. I can truly say that it has been the best 5 years of my life with an extra exclamation point on the last almost 2 years with Baby Wonka. I am truly blessed to have found such a great person. To tell you the truth, I don't how she has put up with me for the past 5 years... I believe sainthood may be in her future.... Anyway... Mrs Wonka... yagb... and I hope to many, many more anniversaries with you...

Now, back to the regularly scheduled program... due to the above, there will be no poker tonight as we are dropping baby Wonka off at the grandparents and are actually going to dinner. It will be strange eating without baby Wonka as the saying is true that you don't really remember what it is like before kids..

This Party Poker Bad Beat thing is getting crazy. I normally stay clear of these due to the higher rake... but it is worth a shot now... How cool would that be?

Have a great weekend... Another good football weekend with Notre Dame/USC on Saturday and Dallas/NY Giants on Sunday with the Rams crucifixion to happen on Monday Night.

Surprised?

No poker last night. I went to some friends house for a Playoffs party. Now, I'm not into baseball; but the food and company was great!! We ended up leaving around the 2nd inning due to baby Wonka needing to get to bed.

Is anybody else surprised that there are almost 1200 people registered for the Pokerstars blogger tournamnet? I didn't know that there were that many poker blogs... or should I say that many bloggers that play poker. We'll see how it goes.

That's it for today... short and sweet.

SNG Part II - Day 8

Still playing on Caribbean to try to get back to even... I'm staying away from the 6 max games and I am doing better...

Only 3 SNGs tonight..

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 11	MTD	ITD
Games	3	36	472
1sts	1	5	58
2nds	0	7	67
3rds	1	3	51
4ths	0	4	47
5 - 7	0	10	140
8 - 10	1	6	109
ITM%	66.67%	41.67%	37.29%
ROI	112.12%	31.31%	14.21%
Net$	185	620	3690

1. 8th - 56s lost 32s.. short stacked
2. 1st - K4 beat J9
3. 3rd - K7 lost to KJ.. K on flop

I still can't complain... 2 out of 3 ain't bad. I'm still just playing 2 at a time.. Maybe that is helping me pay more attention... maybe not though as I find myself doing other stuff.

I'm so pysched to have the Main Event of the WSOP finally on... I can't wait to watch the action. I'm sure that I have forgotten most of the details so it still should make for some entertaining TV. For example, who else felt bad for Jen Harmon last night? That was brutal with a capital B. Hilton Sisters going down..... twice... Ouch... Not that I have any idea what that feels like; but I do know how it feels when you really build something up only to have it kick you in the junk...

SNG Part II - Day 7

Played mostly at Caribbean Sun last night. The good news is that I got my 2000 pts to qualify for the 200K freeroll at the end of the month. It will be interesting to see how many people actually qualify for it. I will probably start concentrating on my SNGs now. I only played 2 last night and neither of them ended the way that I wanted to even though both were in the money. Here are the numbers:

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 10	MTD	ITD
Games	2	33	469
1sts	0	4	57
2nds	1	7	67
3rds	1	2	50
4ths	0	4	47
5 - 7	0	10	140
8 - 10	0	5	108
ITM%	100%	39.39%	37.10%
ROI	127.3%	23.97%	13.59%
Net$	140	435	3505

1. 2nd - AA lost to Q2
2. 3rd - A4s lost to JT on rivered str8

You ever hear the saying about be careful what you wish for because it might actually come true. Yesterday, I was calling for Mike Martz's head and yesterday he stepped down due to some medical problems with his heart. As much as I didn't want him as coach, I for sure didn't want it to happen under these circumstances. As a person, I think Mike Martz is a great guy and my prayers will be with him and his family while they treat this heart condition. As for the Rams, we will just have to wait and see how this will affect the team.

What are everybody's thoughts on the Party Poker situation. I think it was probably a good move and as long as they bring back the rakeback deals for affiliates, they should have no problem getting the players back to their site. Time will tell.

That should do it for now.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

HOOK 'EM HORNS... What a game for the Horns... As expected, they took care of those Oklahoma Sooners. Sorry GCox, the law of averages was going to get you eventually... The good and bad of the game was that since it was never really a contest (wink wink), they quit showing the game in St Louis and switched over to the Michigan game. HOOK EM HORNS!!

I then went to the Rams fiasco of a game on Sunday with Mrs Wonka. I have just one question. Every game the Ram's coach, Mike Martz, says that it his fault. This week it was I wasn't prepared, I called the worst game of my career, and I meddled with the defense. How many times do we have to hear that before someone wises up and makes a coaching change. It is really, really frustrating to see this team losing when they should not be.

But finally, my Cowboys came through and totally wiped out the Philadelphia Eagles. I wouldn't of believed it if I hadn't seen it. Wow. It just really makes your weekend when your teams win... OK.. the Rams didn't win; but two out of three ain't bad... One of my other college teams is Georgia and they won... so that also helped.

Oh.. Poker.... Well, the variance demon was due to hit me and it did this weekend. Normally, I would be all depressed; but I'm basking in the football glory... Did I mention that Texas crushed OU? I have been playing a lot of ring play on Caribbean Sun... There is not a whole lot of traffic on there; but the games seem to be pretty good although they kicked me in the junk on Sunday. They have more 6max tables than full tables which doesn't really fit my style. I'm about 2/3 of the way of qualifying for their monthend 200K freeroll. Anyway, here are the numbers from the weekend

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 9	MTD	ITD
Games	7	31	467
1sts	0	4	57
2nds	0	6	66
3rds	1	1	49
4ths	1	4	47
5 - 7	4	10	140
8 - 10	1	5	108
ITM%	14.29%	35.48%	36.83%
ROI	-74.03%	17.3%	13.10%
Net$	-285	295	3365

1. 4th - A7 lost to KQ
2. 5th - 97 lost 44.. 9 on flop
3. 6th - AT lost to A2
4. 6th - A8 lost to 88
5. 10th - AA lost to JJ... 4 card straight
6. 7th - AQs lost to AA... Q on flop...
7. 3rd - A8 lost to Q9s

As you can see, I was unfortunate in a few of those. I know these streaks happen and will just move on.

I have updated my template on the right so you can see this month is another ho-hum month of staying about the same... Hopefully, I can finish it out nicely.

So I signed on to Party this weekend and it gives me a new version to install. This hardly ever happens so I was curious as to what it was? Well, it did not take long for me to find out what it was. I opened up some SNGs and what do I see? You can now sidebet on the flops. Another words, you can put up so money as to whether or not the flop will be "all red" or "all black". It pays 8-1. Wow, it never ceases to amaze as to what people will do to make money.... not that I'm blaming Party... I, myself, did not fall into the trap; but I'm sure plenty did. They also had a blackjack icon to click on while you were playing. Did anybody else see those and play them? I'm just curious.

SNG Part II - Day 5

What a great weekend of football we have coming up this weekend.. It starts off with college with the eagerly anticipated Texas - Oklahoma game. This will be the year that Texas starts to make up the recently lopsided matchup between these two teams. There is this one Oklahoma boy (and you know who you are) that actually thinks that OU will cover the spread and as I told him... dream on you little broomstick cowboy.... Texas by 23. Not only that game but Georgia/Tennessee, USC/Cal and Penn St/Ohio State.. another words...very much a BCS weekend... And then on Sunday, I will be going to Rams/Seahawks game.... plus Dallas plays Philadelphia which is actually on St Louis TV this weekend which is cool. I can now DVR it and watch it when I get home. Throw in that the weather is practically ideal in St Louis now that the heat is gone and it actually feels like fall now. I will be posting my football picks on Bonus Bug later today.

Oh yeah, poker. I did play 4 SNGs. Here are the numbers:

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 6	MTD	ITD
Games	4	24	460
1sts	1	4	57
2nds	1	6	66
3rds	0	0	48
4ths	1	3	46
5 - 7	1	7	136
8 - 10	0	4	107
ITM%	50%	41.67%	37.17%
ROI	81.82%	43.94%	14.43%
Net$	180	580	3650

1. 7th - KT lost to J9 with KT on flop... he rivered a straight
2. 4th - K5s lost to AJ (at least it wasn't AQ... lol)
3. 2nd - Q6 lost to A8.. I pushed open ended after flop
4. 1st - AT beat 87

So far, I'm doing ok. Unfortunately, the trend of more 2nds than 1sts and more 4ths than 3rds continues. I need to figure out something.

Yesterday, I posted an interesting hand question. Here is the question again:

It was very early in the SNG as the blinds are still 10/15 and we all have about 1000 chips. I have not had time to make reads on anybody... I have A3 of clubs in the BB... UTG does a 3x raise to 45.. UTG +2 calls as does SB and myself. Flop comes 3h4c5c giving me bottom pair with a straight flush draw. SB checks, I check.. UTG raiser puts in a 200 bet (about the pot)... UTG+2 doubles that to 400... SB folds... What do you do?

OK... here's what went through my head.. Ok, these guys probably have some made hands... UTG raised. I usually respect UTG raises.. The fact that he got 3 callers doesn't really mean much since it was so early in the tournment (5th hand) and it only cost 45. There is a wide range of hands that everybody can have since it was cheap to see the flop. OK, the flop... not a bad flop for me.. I practically don't have enough fingers and toes to count my outs... but let's count anyway... 9 clubs... 2 threes... 3 aces... 3 twos.. wow 17 outs... making me about 68% to win. Gottal love those odds.. Even if Mr Raiser has Aces, I still like the odds. SB checks.. I check to see what Mr Raiser is going to do... he puts out about a pot bet of 200... and the next guy doubles to 400... about 2-1 to call... I easily have the odds to call... but... Mr raiser is yet to act.. what if he pushes... will I still be able to make the call.. If he pushes and the next guy calls then it is an even easier call as I would then be getting about 6-1. OK.. everything points at pushing.. Oh, one more piece of information... the previous 2 SNGS, I finished in 10th... yep last. You can see my previous posts to see my bad beats... Having said that, I layed (sp?) it down.. it was very hard to do..

Oh, I guess you want to know how it turned out... Mr Raiser did push and the next guy called... Mr raiser had KK and the next guy had 88. The turn was a 9d and the river was 4h so I would have finished 10th again... I still believe pushing is the right answer; but at that early stage in the tournament and the fact that I finished last in the previous two... I decided to wait for a better day when I wasn't drawing to win. The good news is that I did end up 2nd in that SNG; but that doesn't really justify the lay down. 9 times out of 10 I am pushing there. So there you have it and there you are.

Also.. you may have noticed that I made some template changes.. One of the things I love with blogs is seeing how others are doing. There are a few bloggers that post their results and I am now joining that crowd. I will be breaking out my month by different categories. I've always wanted to do this for myself and this will make me do it. Before this, I just knew my daily win/loss amount. The numbers I have there presently are not the right ones. I just put some numbers in there.. I will update those on a weekly basis... probably the weekends..

Have a great weekend and....

HOOK 'EM HORNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SNG Part II - Day 4

As it was inevitable to happen, the unfortunate breaks came yesterday. That's OK as I had been a little fortunate in few earlier ones... I know that I will experience both. Again, as Raymer said... it's decisions, not results that matter... Anyway, here are the numbers:

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 5	MTD	ITD
Games	5	20	456
1sts	0	3	56
2nds	1	5	65
3rds	0	0	48
4ths	1	2	45
5 - 7	1	6	135
8 - 10	2	4	107
ITM%	20%	40%	37.06%
ROI	-45.45%	36.36%	13.84%
Net$	-125	400	3470

1. 10th - AA lost to A6s.. flopped flush.. I should never have pushed... bad decision. I thought that he was on a draw..
2. 10th - AQ lost to 99 w/ Ace on board... he got 4 card flush... Is anybody else not surprised that I lost with AQ?
3. 2nd - 88 lost to 99
4. 6th - KQs lost to A9
5. 4th - KQs lost K9. This one hurt as I got my flush; but he his boat on river.

I still feel that I am playing OK. I had an interesting hand come up last night and I was curious to see how others would have played it..

It was very early in the SNG as the blinds are still 10/15 and we all have about 1000 chips. I have not had time to make reads on anybody... I have A3 of clubs in the BB... UTG does a 3x raise to 45.. UTG +2 calls as does SB and myself. Flop comes 3h4c5c giving me bottom pair with a straight flush draw. SB checks, I check.. UTG raiser puts in a 200 bet (about the pot)... UTG+2 doubles that to 400... SB folds... What do you do?

I will update with results later today.

SNG Part II - Day 3

I only played 2 last night.

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 4	MTD	ITD
Games	2	15	451
1sts	0	3	56
2nds	1	4	64
3rds	0	0	48
4ths	0	1	44
5 - 7	1	5	134
8 - 10	0	2	105
ITM%	50%	46.67%	37.25%
ROI	36.36%	63.64%	14.49%
Net$	40	525	3595

1. 6th - 55 lost to KK
2. 2nd - KT lost AQ

The second one was another case where I was huge chip leader and didn't finish. I had over half the chips with 5 people left. I tried to put out the shortstack with K9s but he had AQ. Then I went card dead for a while.. still picking up the occassional blind... When it got to heads up, we were about even... It as a great HU as it went back and forth... but ultimately I pushed with KT and lost to AQ (of course... I can see AQ is going to haunt me again this challenge... lol).

SNG Part II - Day 2

So far so good.

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 3	MTD	ITD
Games	7	13	449
1sts	2	3	56
2nds	1	3	63
3rds	0	0	48
4ths	0	1	44
5 - 7	3	4	133
8 - 10	1	2	105
ITM%	42.86%	46.15%	37.19%
ROI	68.83%	67.83%	14.4%
Net$	265	485	3555

1. 7th - A8 lost K7 Level 4
2. 9th - KT lost to AA Level 6 (see below)
3. 1st - AK beat T6s
4. 5th - TT lost KQ & KJ
5. 5th - A8 lost to K5
6. 1st - forgot to write down.. back and forth battle and for some reason, I am not getting the emails from Party on SNG game history.
7. 2nd - A8s lost to AJ

The reality of poker can hit you quick... Take game #2.. I was the overall chip leader.. We are in Level 6 so the blinds are getting up there... From the BB with T9, I flop a straight only to lose to a Full House on the river.. next hand with KT with a T high flop, I go all in after his minimum raise preflop.. and min bet after flop... oops... he had the rockets... so in 2 hands, I went from chip leader to out.. I felt like that Olaf something or other from the 2003 WSOP. The key for me again is wins... not worrying about bubbling... not worring about ITM... win baby.. that's what I'm talking about.

To begin the SNG fest.. I am only playing 2 tables at a time... to ease me back into it.. I may or may not increase that as the month moves on.

Well, St Louis has baseball fever... especially with the way the Rams seem to be heading. I just want to make it clear, for the record, that I am not part of this fever. You see, I have not watched baseball for the most part since the last strike. I have boycotted major league baseball. I did watch just a little bit after the strike because the new players agreement was supposed to fix the problems... as we all know that the collective bargaining agreement did nothing to fix the problems the MLB experiences.. so you couple that with the drugs (steroids) and also I believe the whole ARod thing where he said it wasn't about the money that just put me over the edge... That's it... I'm out.. no more baseball. Now, I will frequent the local Class A team.. they are obviously not in it just for the money.... it's still a game they love to play. To tell you the truth... I don't miss it.... What about hockey, you say... another story for another day.. .suffice it to say, that it was not the same situation and I am eagerly anticipating the stary of the NHL season.

Start of New SNG Fest

OK, I have started my new SNG Fest. For anybody that missed my first one, I encourage you to look back in my archives and read about my month long journey through SNG land. Also, just so you know, I will doing these at the $50+5 level again. I only played 2 sets over the weekend. As some of you know, it has been a trying weekend in the Wonka household and thanks for the nice comments... Anyway, I believe that I will use the same format that I used last time and we will see how it goes.

October SNG Breakdown
Desc	Oct 2	MTD	ITD
Games	6	6	436
1sts	1	1	53
2nds	2	2	60
3rds	0	0	48
4ths	1	1	44
5 - 7	1	1	127
8 - 10	1	1	104
ITM%	50%	50%	36.93%
ROI	66.67%	66.67%	12.8%
Net$	220	220	3070

1. 5th - QT lost FH.. I pushed with open ended
2. 4th - K7s lost to A2s... same suit so I was in trouble from the start.
3. 1st - KT beat 84
4. 8th - QQ lost AA
5. 2nd - AT lost A5s
6. 2nd - J7 lost to AT

I could have been better as the first two I was a pretty big chip leader in both... The big blow coming when my 66 hit the set on flop and FH on turn only to lose to KK that also hit the set on flop and FH on turn. Oh.. not much you can do about that one.

We'll see how it goes.

Of course, I'm in

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 3102501

Crossroads (cont)

I am what I am - Popeye the Sailor Man.

First off, I would like to think everybody for their comments. Every little bit helps.

Previously seen on Poker with WillWonka: I am a donkey (Hi Will)....

Now for my second step in my twelve step program. I have to admit (with deep chagrin) that poker has become more than merely a hobby. I mean, who I am kidding. I'm hooked, addicted, obsessed, etc... with poker. It is what it is. I guess you can say that there are good addictions and bad addictions. Right now, it is a good addiction meaning that is something I do a lot; but it is not replacing the more important things in life (family, work, finances.. etc). I'm not saying that poker is a good thing to be addicted to. Contrare, Contrare. Poker can be a very bad thing to be addicted to. It hasn't (and of course never will) gotten to that point.

I've always been a gambler. It all comes from my dad. My dad gambled on most everything (in a non-degenerate type way). What I mean is that he played golf a lot and had money on it. Played the football games... Horses... you bet... so it's always been a part of my life. It is just when you couple sports with competitevness, gambling usually happens.

Anyway, moving on. I had mentioned that I had come to an important crossroads this week. Survey says... I'm OK now. It has been a terrible month and a half and I am going to ease myself back into it. One of my recurring thoughts that if you are going to be successful in poker, you need to master the ring game. That has been my achilles heel as I haven't been able to do that once I started moving up in limits. I'm not giving up on that quest as I will return to this venture in the future... but for now.... I am who I am. My success has been in tournaments so I am now officially announcing the return of the SNG Fest (part deaux).

Yes, you heard it here first.. starting in October, I will return to primarily playing SNGs. Primarily, you say? Yep, this time around, if I feel like playing a MTT, then I will. If Ring play is my fancy for the day.. go for it... I'm not going to set a goal amount to play such as I did last time with the 200 (which I easely attained playing 282).

I came to my decision after reading comments from others and.. after I had fired up 11 $55 SNGs this month with a 54.55% ITM rate and 57.02% ROI. It just felt like home.

So hopefully this next chapter in my poker life will help me grow in my poker maturation process. Time will tell.


___________

My football picks have been dreadful these past two weeks; but I did put a disclaimer on them saying that my first 4 weeks picks are inconsistent. Hopefully, starting this week, things will get better. I will try and post them here later this afternoon; but as always, you can find mine and others over at Scurvy's Bonus Bug site.

Crossroads

Bless me bloggers for it has been 12 days since I last blogged. As I'm sure that it is with many players, when you are on a prolonged downswing (especially if it is your first prolonged downswing). Yes, I know all about variance.... blah... blah... blah... After it kicks you in the junk for over 30 days now, it makes you start to think. I had written about how this year wasn't going very good anyway... at least compared to my first year... I was up arond $4200 for the year on August 6th. This was a high water mark all time for me and I seemed to be turning it around from a slight slump that I was having.... then the fit hit the shan. I have proceeded to give back $3300 since. OK.. that is the big picture... Again, my bankroll is in no danger as this downswing has accounted for about 25% of it so while it is material in my estimation, it is not a deal breaker.

Before last night, again I thought I had turned it around with 5 good sessions. I won't go into details as I don't want to ramble as I want to fast forward to last night. I had more or less not played any online poker for almost a week... and just a couple of times in the last 2 weeks. The only exception was while I was in Texas to see the Cowboys game (don't get me started there.. that is whole other story... needless to say it was a long drive back to St Louis from Dallas after they blew their shutout in the last 4 minutes). Anyway, I played a few SNGs in the hotel and did well.. 4 SNGs, 1 1st, 1 2nd, 1 3rd, and 1 5th. Also, I had just played in a home tournament with a 2nd place out of 20 and a 1st out of 10. So things were seeming to turn around.

Now to last nights action which has brought me to an important crossroads. Again, I was fairly refreshed and ready to play ball. I sat down and open 2 5/10 tables at PokerRoom. I needed just about 200 pts to get my $200 bonus which I know will only take a couple of hours. The first 45 minutes was up and down and was probably up just a little bit and then.... BAM!!!!! I am going to briefly describe what happened:

KJ with a K7J flop loses to Q7..... 7BBs
QQ loses to AK on river.... 4BB
Q9 in BB with Q79 flop loses to 77.... 5.5BB
AQ loses to AJ on JJ4 flop.... 2.5BB
QQ loses to 77 on flop.... 3.5BB
88 on button raises blinds and loses to K3 BB with KK7 flop... 2.5BB
88 on 869 flop loses to 75... 3 BB and
J9s in BB on 499 flop loses to TT on river... 5.5BB

Ok.. seems normal type beats.. the problem was those 8 hands all happened within about 10 mintues (again I was 2 tabling). Not once did I really go on tilt... ha.. didn't really have time to do that. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about it... A little while later I lost the little I had left from my original 300 buyin... no big deal. I still needed a few more points to get the $200. I have about 280 left in PokerRoom... so what do I do? Do I quit? Do I re-up on the 5/10s... No... I go straight to the 10/20 tables... What???!?!?! He is obviously not thinking straight... and I might not have been. I can say, however, that I was not steaming... As I've told some friends, that I have been sitting down with the attitude of how much am I going to give back tonight. Last night was not like this as I was indeed refreshed... but it didn't take long to revert back to the bad attitude...

As I suspected, the play on 10/20 is no better than that of 5/10.. and things actually were going good as I made up for $300 and got the $200 bonus... I was 2 hands from the big blind so as I typically do, I turn off the auto post and will call it quits unless I get AA, KK or AKs... 1st hand nothing... next hand UTG.. AKs.. Doh... Raise... here we go... 2 callers... QT8... continuation bit and only 1 caller... K on turn... cool.. Bet.. Raise.. huh? oh wait.. this guy is a maniac.. playes 54% of hands and preflop raises 10% etc, etc... Poker Trackers rates him a fish... I just call.. and I check call the River.. yep he had AJ for the str8 (down $90).... very next hand... Q3 in BB with Q87 flop... and 3 comes on River... and I lose to Q8 from SB.. Down $120... Dang!!! Now I can't quit... btw, it is about 10:30 Central time... I decide to keep playing and make up ground and then:

AK in MP... UTG raises and I just call (mistake #1) 2 more callers... flop comes 3AA.. UTG leads out and again I just call (mistake #2).. lose other 2... Q on Turn... UTG leads out and I raise.. re-raise.. uhoh.. I cap (don't think this is mistake)... River is Q.. UTG leads out and I call (thinking we are splitting)... nope he had QQ to make his quads over my aces full... I just typed in ... "that hurt... nh"... I didn't lose my temper or should I say I didn't yell or throw anything... but something must have happened... because next thing I know it is 3AM and I had given back all $800 that I was at when I was at the peek. I remember sitting and playing but that is about it... My wife woke up to go to the bathroom (I had forgotten how much pregnant women have to pee in the middle of the night).. and that kind of broke the transe or whatever that I was in and I called it a night. I looked back at Poker Tracker and saw that later that night:

My A8 on 786 lost to A9 when T came on Turn (the was the very next hand after the above).
My K5 from BB that hit trips lost to flush on river
My 87 in BB with 78T flop lost to T9 on Turn
My A5s in BB with A34 flop lost KQs on River when he got runner, runner for str8.
My T8s steal attempt backfired
My AQ on 85A flop lost to runner, runner clubs to lose to flush on river...

I was looking back at those and didn't remember them... other than I remember that I had some bad beats. Meanwhile, it was so bad, that I was even playing craps online (which I hardly ever play even at the casinos). When I do play, I always play the consevative no pass... but I was playing the pass line... I ended up winning about $150.. but not before I had lost about $150 and had increased bets to make it back.

Anway, back to my crossroads. As I have stated numerous times.. I play for the enjoyment of playing.. and again, that has not changed.. I have never withdrawn other than to Neteller. I was working on withdrawing to at least put in some interest bearing account or invest in stocks; but didn't due to the recent downturn. So, I need to figure where I go from here because I don't know. A good buddy and even a blogger buddy has suggested going down in limits and try to get back to the "enjoyment" level... and of course that is the right answer guaranteed... It's the evil side of me or should I say the very competetive side of me that can not handle being beat at this level. Of course everybody who loses thinks that they are better and are just "unlucky" or whatever. I'm trying to be a little more level headed about it and know that it is me and my inconsistent play (plus a little bad luck) that is costing me. To that end, I am doing some reading and striving to get better.

To tell you the truth... last night kind of scared me. Part of me wants to fold up ship right here before this gets worse. If I was on the outside looking in and after reading this, I would probably say that this guy has a gambling problem. Of course my wife calls it an addiction. I truly don't believe I have a gambling addiction. I am still calling it a hobby and I am doing something that I really enjoy doing... I just don't know. I'm probably being a little too honest here and hopefully making a mountain out of a mole hill; but again, last night kind of scared me. When you lose track of about 3 hours... yikes... For now, I'm going to chalk it up to being tired.

So, which direction am I going at this important crossroads at this poker intersection? To be continued.......

I want my Two Hours

You ever seen that movie with the little kid on the bike that keeps going after John Cusack for his 2 dollars for his newspaper route (Better of Dead, I believe). It is just one of the classic lines from a movie that I will always remember. I also liked the movie, but that is besides the point. Mrs Wonka and myself sat down to watch the highly heralded Napoleon Dynamite last night. What I mean by highly heralded is that imdb.com had high ratings (7.1) and I've known some people that liked it so needless to say, we went in with somewhat high expectations. Anyway, after about 2 hours, I am very, very mad. To me, that was the biggest waste of 2 hours that I have ever had. I want those 2 hours back. Did I laugh out loud? OK, a few times... but a few laughs does not make a movie. I usually don't get so ticked about bad movies because as we know they are a dime a dozen... but to me, this was that bad. I just keep thinking to myself.. first off, someone had to come up with this idea and put it down on paper. He then probably ran it by a few friends that encouraged him to take it the next step.. they then had to find a studio, actors, distributors... etc, etc... and finally, they had to run it by a test audience. I just don't get it. I'm obviously not in the majority here.. but come on... this is the WORST movie (I don't even know if I can call it a movie) of all time.

Ok, enough of that.. you probably got the gist of my point. It is Wednesday, so that means football picks. After a good week last week, it's hard to put more picks out there... So with a slight bit of hesitation, here are my top 6 picks for the week (with a bonus 7th since my spreadsheet had a tie for the 6th pick).

1. Wisconsin -3.5 at NC
2. SMU +28 at Texas A&M
3. Purdue -7.5 vs Arizona
4. Idaho +14 at Washington
5. New Mexico -22.5 vs New Mexico St
6. North Texas -5.5 vs Tulsa
7. UTEP -12 vs Houston

Just looking at them, I don't have the same level of confidence as in previous weeks; but we will see how it goes.

I am continuing my poker hiatus for now. I will start up again this weekend probably.

Up and Down Weekend

While I am still in my quasi-poker hiatus, I did play a little this weekend. It started off with our monthly home game on Friday where I was knocked out early. I think this makes something like my 15th straight tourney without a win. I then proceeded to almost make back the buyin in just our normal home game poker games. As usual, it was fun.

I also played in a tournament on Poker World last night. It was the monthly 3K guarantee freeroll for the 50 people that finish in the top 50 of their tournament leaderboard. I had made $842 for the month and still finished something like 15th so that kind of tells of how much traffic is on that site. Anyway, I ended up 5th for a $225 payday so that officially ended my 5 day losing streak in poker. I will continue on my quasi-poker hiatus... at least through tonight.

This weekend was really all about FOOTBALL!!!! It started off great on Saturday as my 3 favorite teams that I follow all won. It started off with a big win for Notre Dame in the big house... Georgia hung on against South Carolina and then in the biggest game... My Longhorns came back in beat Ohio State in front of nearly 106,000 people at the horseshoe... What a game!!!!

My Cowboys then had a good Sunday "picking off" the Chargers in San Diego. The offense looked great... Still need some work on defense... specifically the defensive backfield.... Newman continues to worry me.... Now, the Rams, on the other hand... UGH!!! Could there have been a more ugly loss. I have said this and it bears repeating here... Mike Martz may be the worst coach in the NFL. I don't know if anybody saw the opening kickoff; but our guy caught the kickoff at the one yard line while stepping out of bounds. That would be bad enough by itself; but Mike Martz, in his inffinate wisdom, decided to challenge the play. WHAT???!???. My 20 month old could have told you that he was out of bounds. The special teams continued to kill us (giving up a punt return for a TD and giving up an onsides kick).. .UGH!!!!!!!

My buddies are now calling Mr Bad Beat. After them hearing all my stories about poker.. that is.. Anyway, I am the defending champion in our fantasy football team.. I had one of the best years of all time in our league. Anyway, the good news is that I scored the 3rd most points this week in our league. Unfortunately, I played the two people that scored the most.. so I am now 0-2. One of the losses coming on virtually the last play of the Sunday night game in which I had the Colts defense. They gave up a touchdown at the end that cost me 2 pts and I lost by 1 point... Ouch.. Oh well, if I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any at all.

Back to college... I had published my six top picks... Here they are for review

1) Ga Tech -12.5 vs NC LOSS
2) Minnesota -13 vs Colorodo St WIN
3) Va Tech -20 at Duke WIN
4) Florida - 29.5 vs La Tech WIN
5) Air Force -7.5 vs San Diego St WIN
6) Boston College -27.5 vs Army WIN

I went 5-1 with them only losing the Georgia Tech game. Overall, my spreadsheet was 25-17-3.
So far so good. I will put 6 more out there around Wednesday.
That puts my top picks at 8-4 (66.67%) and overall 52-36 (59.09%). I will definitely take that for the start of the year.

I am a Donkey

As part of my 12 step program of being in Donkey's anonymous, my first step is admission.
Hello, My name is WillWonka and I am a Donkey... (Hi... Will!!).
After the last 30 days or so, I must be a donkey as I continue to donate to the masses.

As my last message explained, I have not been doing very well at the tables so I decided to take a little break... well, it looks like the break will be extended as I did go back to the tables on Wednesday. I started up 5/10 sessions on PokerRoom and Ultimate Bet. Poker Room started off bad; but then turned around as I finished up a little over $200. I then closed out of Poker Room and went exclusively on UB. Things went bad there to begin with also... then things turned... to the worst... It is always fun when you get AA on one of your first hands... not fun when they get cracked. I have to admit that my losing hands were not all due to bad plays from others.. they were just catching the cards... The aforementioned cracked Aces were from a T9 that happened to flop a straight. It was from a known bad player so I stayed in... even though he never re-raised me... so I should thank my lucky stars that I didn't lose more. Having 99 beat by 28 just plain hurts... even if it was a big blind special. Anyway, I ended up down almost $500 on UB.

We'll get back to poker in a minute; but let me talk about something a little more exciting.. at least at the moment. FOOTBALL!!!!!!

I am doing my picks. Usually, I don't post any picks until about week 4 or week 5; but Scurvy Dog's BonusBug has a section for sports picking and I put my week 1 picks there. The bad news is that I only went 3-3; but was very close to going 5-0-1. A few last minute scores from the bad guys did me in. Poker Nerd is also making some picks on his site. Anyway, I will start putting my college football picks on this site as well. For week 2, my top 6 picks are:

1) Ga Tech -12.5 vs NC
2) Minnesota -13 vs Colorodo St
3) Va Tech -20 at Duke
4) Florida - 29.5 vs La Tech
5) Air Force -7.5 vs San Diego St
6) Boston College -27.5 vs Army

Overall last week, my picks went 27-19. I have never have had any luck on Pro Games so I shy away from those. Just a note... I rank all 119 Division 1A football teams via a spreadsheet that I created. I then take those rankings with my associated power ranksing and come up with a spread for the game. I then compare that spread to the actual spread to come up with my picks. So for the most parts, the picks above are solely computer based picks based off of my computer spreadsheet. My top 6 picks are typically around 60% for the year. We'll see how it goes this year... since I am publishing them.. they probably won't do squat... lol.

As a Texas Longhorns fan, the UT / Ohio State game could be the game of the year. Ohio State is a slight favorite; but I don't see them staying up with the Horns. I may be a little biased.. lol... and of course I look forward to the Oklahoma game every year...


Now, back to our orignally scheduled program... poker. I have now had 5 straight losing sessions and since I hit my all time high water mark on August 6th, I have bled away $2,739 which comes out to nearly 20% of my bankroll. We all read of the variance swings and bad cards and whatever you want to call it; but this is as bad as it has ever been. I did have one 5 session losing streak early on in my poker playing that accounted for a 37% loss in bankroll; but the bankroll was pretty small back then and it didn't take too much to swing the percentages one way or another. So, now, the recurring question remains on what I am going to do going forward?? I don't know. It's pretty frustating right now; so for sure, I am going to take a little more time and mull things over. With football starting tonight and going through the weekend, that should help divert my attention.

One thing I would like to do in the interim is post some of the big hands from the last 5 days. One of the things that I serverly lack is the opportunity to talk poker with other poker players.... at least online poker players. I do have a couple of guys at work that are poker enthusiasts and it helps to talk to them; but it is not the same as chatting with people that are out there online playing and are experiencing some of the same things that I am (whether good or bad). So I would like to start posting some hands (aka Scurvy Dog) with some of my thoughts during the hand and get some feedback on them (although they won't be as entertaining as his). I think this will help two-fold. One, I won't be out there playing right now when I shouldn't be playing. I honestly sit down to the table now and say to myself "I wonder how much I'm going to give back today?". Obviously not a good attitude to take. Secondly, it will help me review my play.

Thanks for listen to me ramble. I will start posting some hands either today or tomorrow.


Oh, btw, a second baby Wonka will be entering this world next March/April. We are both excited and afraid of the times to come.

Stick a Fork in Me

Another beauty of a night... I only ended up $76 down for the night; but it was a struggle the whole way. I will say that most of it was lost while our table got shorthanded. I may be the worst shorthanded player on this earth. Anyway, I caught second-best-hand-itus during that stretch (sometimes even third best after flopping 2 pair to lose out to str8 and trips). I did play in the Poker Room freeroll last night. For some reason it was a limit tournament. You could tell it was a freeroll.. almost every hand was getting capped preflop. There were over 800 people and it got to the point where I just pushed with my good hands. I was either going home early or building up the stack. The former won out was I went out in 500th place out of 880. I don't know how long that was; but I know I didn't make the first break.

So for the month, it put me down $944... obviously, my worst month ever. It reiterates my thoughts that I must not be worthy of a 5/10 player. What is more frustrating is that I was up $1000 after a week in August and whittled it all away. My total for the year is a gargantiuan (sp) $2,393. Call it the sophomore year jinx or whatever; but I believe that you can officially stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Any thoughts of actually making a steady income playing poker are being thrown out the window. So what does that mean? It means that I won't be playing nearly as much. The good news is that maybe it will get back to the "hobby" status where I was playing just because I enjoyed playing at the money didn't mean anything. Not that it means anything now as again I have never withdrawn anything. With the fall TV show and football and hockey coming up, my attention will be diverted elsewhere and maybe the break will be good for me. The shame of it is that I really, really enjoy playing poker.

We've all read posts about us poker players balancing our real life. I feel have done that for the most part; but that will become even more of a focus now. I'm sure Mrs Wonka will enjoy more... or maybe she won't.. we'll just have to play it by ear.

So I'll probably take a few days off to figure out what my September goals will be. I have my fantasy football draft tonight.

By the way, it goes without saying that my thoughts and prayers are with the folks down in the Gulf region as they are dealing with the aftermath of the storm. And while on the subject, as we approach 9/11, my thoughts also go out to the people that lost loved ones as I'm sure that they will be reminded of that day as the 4 year anniversary draws closer. I did watch a show on the National Geographic channel called Inside 9/11 that was ver interesting which kind of detailed out the planning of the attack.

That shold do it for now. Peace.. Out.