Couldn't Stay Away

Well, is anybody surprised that I couldn't stay away. While things have changed on the home front, I'm still getting my poker in and as long as I am awake late at night, I'm going to try and keep up with the blogging.

To make things worse (probably); I'm going to again attempt to qualify for the Full Tilt Iron Man Challenge for December. I'm going to go about it differently than I have in the past. Instead of almost exclusively playing ring games, I'm going the other direction and I am going back focusing on SNGs (ala my SNG Fest that I did way back in July of 2005). This accomplishes a couple of things. I get back to playing SNGs which I really enjoy; however, this time around I am going to start at the $33+3 Turbo level (as opposed to the $50+5 levels like last time).

I may search or come up with a schedule for possible moving up if and when I get to a certain level... whatever that might be. At the $33 level, it will take about 10 a day which is certainly not out of the question even given the time constraints.

I might also look into some SNG tools this time around such as SNG Power Tools. I may or may not use sharkscope. I'm not sure that it is worth it. Has anybody used these tools or any others with any success?

I started warming up the last week of November playing 35 SNGs with a little success (51.43 ITM and a 45.47% ROI). Those numbers are of course not sustainable; but we will see how it goes.

One thing with doing a SNG Challenge, it will be easy to blog if I use the same type template that I used last time. I probably won't update daily like last time as I am still in the poker doghouse with Mrs Wonka. She hasn't taken my keyboard and mouse lately and hidden it so it must be better.

So not much to say really other than I couldn't stay away.

By the way, for any of you Mid Westerners out there, this weather is just crazy... 71 one day and the next day it sleets 1/2 inch and then we are supposed to get 5.9 inches of snow tonight. Crazy!!!!

Peace!!!!

Number 200 and Forced Changes

Longevity in any activity is something to be impressed with whatever the activity might be. I recall my beginning days of playing poker that eventually led to blogging. This here post marks my 200th post which in reality is really nothing to be impressed with as it took about a year and a half to get there. I remember my first days of blogging how exciting it was to talk poker (especially when there is nobody to really talk poker around me). I would make a post and check back often to see if someone had replied or commented and low and behold on the 11th post, I got some comments. Happy Days... especially when it was from people that I had been reading. Hella Holdem was my very first commenter followed closed by Mourn who has sense stop blogging. Soon after that, I met some great blogger friends and the rest is pretty much history. I remember the days of blogging and then getting into chatting and the whole nine yards and it was awesome. There have also been some blogger heavyweights that have been instrumental in me keeping up the habit. One thing is for sure, blogging seems to be a continuing cycle which is great. Every few months, a new wave of new poker bloggers show up and it definitely keeps things refreshing. On the other hand, there are bloggers that seem to quit. I'm quite positive they all had their reasons and that they were good ones.

One thing that has not been nice about poker and blogging is the un-support (for lack of better words) that I was/am getting from my wife. Well, the fit hit the shan last week. One promise that I had made was that I wouldn't play poker until the kids were in bed. That was a pretty easy promise as I love staying up with the kids and spending time with my wife watching shows are whatever. Really kid, at this point. The two year old takes most of my time while the 3 month old spends most of her time with Mrs Wonka. Anyway, rewind back to last Wed. I actually decided to sign up for the Mook early, which I rarely do as I don't always get up to the computer early in the evening and if I do, it is only to check email. So I signed up around dinner time and told Mrs Wonka that I would be playing around 9PM Central Time. Around 7:30, after I had given Toddler Wonka a bath, she got pretty zoned in on movie (Toy Story I believe which she calls Woody) so I decided to decided to go check on things upstairs. I told her that I would be right back. I didn't have much email so for whatever reason, I decided to open a poker table and as we all know by now, the Mook started one hour early this night so I never did make it down to put her to bed and Mrs Wonka had to do it. Well, suffice it to say, she wasn't very happy and certainly wasn't enthuised when I told her that I won it. Anyway, that was pretty much the beginning of the end. Couple that with her actually taking my keyboard and mouse and hiding it the next morning (which I did find with out too much problem; but that is besides the point), we have definitely reached a crossroads. Of course, it is a no brainer as to who/what is going to win. I knew the problem had climaxed as I offered to feed Baby Wonka around 11PM the next night. Rewind a bit, for whatever reason, Baby Wonka this time around does not want to sleep through the night so my wife is getting up multiple times to feed and she was obviously complaining about being tired. By this time, here 12 weeks were up and she was already back to work so the lack of sleep was definitely not a good thing. Anyway, when I said that I would feed her in return for telling me where the keyboard and mouse was and she said no, that told me the extremity of the problem. So things changed the next day.

So, blogging is probably, most likely going to be the one thing that I will give up. As I mentioned above, the early days was exciting and I sure didn't have much trouble coming up with things to write about. Well, that has certainly ended as I struggle all the time and pretty much just crank out very similar posts regarding my play for that week which must get very boring over time. Will my poker playing go down? Most likely; but probably not a whole lot. I still enjoy playing very much. I just won't blog about it as often. I don't plan to go completely away; but will again be taking a little break around it until we get settled more around the house with the kids.

So last Wed night had emotions to both extremes. It was very exciting winning my first Mook; but the cost might not have been worth it. It will be OK as we have gone through this before. I was just a little more hard headed on the compromises that I/we had to make. I realize now that I have not be holding up my part of the bargain in helping out with the kids and household chores and hopefully things will improve.

I will still will be making it when I can to blogger events such as the Hoy and Mook and DADI, when possible. I will be defending my title in the Heads Up Challenge which starts this week so I will be around and look forward to contiuing to read about how things are going.

So for now,

See you later!!!

Please Shoot Me

This has not been a very fun week and a half. Luckily, it hasn't been due to poker playing. I got some bacterial infection that totally kicked my butt. I was totally useless. Everything hurt. After 4 days, I finally broke down and went to the doctor and he gave me some drugs. They seem to be slowly but surely working; but the bad news is that my little 2 month old now seems to have the same thing.

I also had some surgery done to my ailing wrist (tendonitus). I still have a a wrist bandage on and will have it until early next week which stinks. Having to cover it up when you takes showers is a pain in the butt. So the last time that I played poker was last Friday and I tried doing it left handed on the mouse. It just didn't feel right so I ended up going back to using my right hand. It was one of those sessions that you just couldn't really believe your eyes . If I hit top pair, then it held up. Two pair on flop. Good!!! Etc, Etc... I'll take thame when I can get them.

So besides that, I haven't played any poker in a week. I am ready to get back to the action.

I did play in the 2nd chance Mookie last night. I don't know if it is legal to play in the 2nd chance when you didn't play in the first chance. Anyway, there were 4 tokens available and was lucky enough to make it to the final 4. I had gotten a little unlucky prior to that with the big stack losing on the river when I had people dominitated; but they hit their off card. Towards the bubble, I'm the one that got lucky when my flopped top pair wasn't good enough for someone's flopped two pair. The board paired and I ended up with a bigger two pair. That's Poker. We pretty much all went all in when we got down to final 4 and we all had tokens. My powerful 86o got 2 pair for the win. We are now heads up and my TT luckily caught a nice river against JJ and I took it down. Some are now saying that they would rather this continue to be money tournaments instead of token tournaments. While I understand why they feel this way, Mookie is just trying to help others make it to the big game and for that, my vote continues for the token 2nd chance tourney.

I did win my way to the Iron Man Freeroll this month and as always am looking forward to that.

Have a good day.

Theory Vs Reality

Do you ever do anything with good intentions? It always seems good on paper. I don't have any specific example; but I'm sure that you know what I am talking about. We all know of past history of how I have been starting poker sessions. For whatever reason, they always head south before they head north. What to do?

Well, here was my theory for last night. Let's start off a little more conservative preflop and then based on flop, filter in the needed selective aggressiveness. Nothing exciting in first 3 hands (K4 in BB, A3s in SB, and 53o) . Just losing the blinds. Not going to take a flyer on anything just yet. Again, the table selection at FTP has been a little better of late, in my humble opinion.

Now to hands 5 and 6 and they both include me getting middle pocket pairs. Typically, I don't have problems raising with these; but the theory and/or gameplan on the night was to see flops and go from there.

I would love to have some feedback on these. I will give my thoughts after hand.

Exhibit A

FullTiltPoker Game #1122935597: Table Amato (6 max) - $3/$6 - Limit Hold'em - 22:34:46 ET - 2006/10/19
Seat 1: razzleplayr ($431)
Seat 2: SplattG ($143)
Seat 3: willwonka ($85.50)
Seat 4: xiangqi ($124.50)
Seat 5: And_How ($84.50)
Seat 6: That Fish ($87.50)
And_How posts the small blind of $1.50
That Fish posts the big blind of $3
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [8s 8d]
razzleplayr calls $3
SplattG folds
willwonka calls $3
xiangqi folds
And_How calls $1.50
That Fish checks
*** FLOP *** [2c 6s Jh]
And_How checks
That Fish bets $3
razzleplayr calls $3
willwonka calls $3
And_How calls $3
*** TURN *** [2c 6s Jh] [8c]
And_How checks
That Fish bets $6
razzleplayr folds
willwonka calls $6
And_How folds
*** RIVER *** [2c 6s Jh 8c] [Td]
That Fish bets $6
willwonka raises to $12
That Fish raises to $18
willwonka raises to $24
That Fish calls $6
*** SHOW DOWN ***
willwonka shows [8s 8d] (three of a kind, Eights)
That Fish shows [Qd 9s] (a straight, Queen high)
That Fish wins the pot ($81) with a straight, Queen high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $84 Rake $3
Board: [2c 6s Jh 8c Td]
Seat 1: razzleplayr folded on the Turn
Seat 2: SplattG didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: willwonka showed [8s 8d] and lost with three of a kind, Eights
Seat 4: xiangqi (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: And_How (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 6: That Fish (big blind) showed [Qd 9s] and won ($81) with a straight, Queen high


BB Special... Dang!!! Again, being a little less aggressive early on preflop and limping with pocket pair and just calling flop. Hit set on turn and slow play. There aren't a lot of places that slow playing is good in limit; but when you get an aggressive type (which this guy was) leading into you, you let him do it and ding him on the river. Of course, when he 3 bets on the river, I'm only afraid of one hand so that is why I can justify capping it. As it turned out, he had that one hand.

Exhibit B

FullTiltPoker Game #1122936199: Table IND (speed, 6 max) - $3/$6 - Limit Hold'em - 22:34:53 ET - 2006/10/19
Seat 1: Carbont ($195.50)
Seat 2: YardDog99 ($109.50)
Seat 3: willwonka ($90)
Seat 4: RandomRemix ($67)
Seat 5: j326 ($150)
Seat 6: Jarzbrd1 ($158)
YardDog99 posts the small blind of $1.50
willwonka posts the big blind of $3
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [9h 9d]
RandomRemix calls $3
j326 has 7 seconds left to act
j326 folds
Jarzbrd1 folds
Carbont calls $3
YardDog99 calls $1.50
willwonka checks
*** FLOP *** [Ah Ad 8s]
YardDog99 checks
willwonka bets $3
RandomRemix folds
Carbont folds
YardDog99 calls $3
*** TURN *** [Ah Ad 8s] [Ac]
YardDog99 checks
willwonka bets $6
YardDog99 raises to $12
willwonka raises to $18
YardDog99 raises to $24
willwonka calls $6
*** RIVER *** [Ah Ad 8s Ac] [3c]
YardDog99 bets $6
willwonka calls $6
*** SHOW DOWN ***
YardDog99 shows [Js As] (four of a kind, Aces)
willwonka mucks
YardDog99 wins the pot ($75) with four of a kind, Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $78 Rake $3
Board: [Ah Ad 8s Ac 3c]
Seat 1: Carbont (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: YardDog99 (small blind) showed [Js As] and won ($75) with four of a kind, Aces
Seat 3: willwonka (big blind) mucked [9h 9d] - a full house, Aces full of Nines
Seat 4: RandomRemix folded on the Flop
Seat 5: j326 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Jarzbrd1 didn't bet (folded)


This was just unfortunate. I had him labelled as a calling station so I should have taken more notice of his raises. The only thing I went on here was that he didn't raise preflop so I put him on an 8 or smaller pkt pair.

Throw in a missed flush draw a couple hands later and somebody that rivered his flush when I flopped TPTK. Yep, history has repeated itself. All of sudden, I find my self way down at the beginning of the session. Again, luckily, I was able to make a comeback for a whopping $9.50; but how many times am I going to say wouldof, shouldof, couldof. I didn't win a showdown last night until something like the 60th hand. That can get depressing.

So here is a case that you can make that the theory sounds good on paper; but the reality doesn't always happen as planned. Had I stuck to normal playing tendancies, I probably could have salvaged the first hand with a flop raise or continuation bet. I'm not sure where I go from here; but I can say that my preflop raises have been under 10% playing short handed the last two sessions and that really can't be a good thing. Yes, perhaps, I can lessen the amount of downside variance; but the it goes the other way and I am losing something on the top side. My aggression has been OK as it is about 2.30 for the last two sessions which I can live with.

So now we head into the weekend which have historically not been so nice to me. We'll see how and what strategy I take into those games. I only have 7 more days to qualify for the Iron Man. I want to get those done right away as I will be giving into my wrist pain next Friday and will be having surgery on it to take away my tendonitus. I'll probably be instructed to take some days off from the computer... if not by the doctors, Mrs Wonka.

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Oh, one final thing for you data miners out there. There is a program out there called Idle Miner which was a data mining tool for Party Poker. While that doesn't really do us US players any good; but they have just released the same program for Full Tilt players. I downloaded it last night and it works pretty nicely. It is in the beginning stages, but lots of promise there. Take a look. It basically opens FTP and Poker Tracker (if you want it to) and opens up a preset amount of tables that you have designated at the limits that you designate. It will also factor in the amount of people at the table if you wan to. If you do like and would like it for free, check out ThisIsTheNuts promo for this where if you have signed up for them and generate $500 in rake for the month, you can get it for free (not to mention the rakeback that you would get). If you haven't signed up for them, then click on the link and you can do it. TITN also has poker videos from Stoxtrader for people that get over $500. They are some nice videos for all levels. Otherwise, I believe it is $35.

Have a good weekend

Upside Down Chart

I have to admit, I enjoy Wednesdays. One reason is I do enjoy watching Lost with my wife; although, talking about your strange episodes. That show gets weirder and weirder. I'm sure that it will come together; but being confusing just for the sake of being confusing doesn't really do it for me. Since it is a good show, I will give it a pass for last night. I will say that the new show Studio 60 has become my favorite show. It's similar to another Sorkin show, Sports Night, which one of my all time favorites.

The other reason is for the Wednesday night Mookie blogger tourney. 60 people showed up last night which is awesome. It's really cool to play a tournament with the same people on a regular basis. I've never really faired well (a couple of final tables and top half finishes); but that is besides the point. I should have been out a lot sooner than I was; but my AQ sucked out on Lifesagrind AK. And in typical fashion, I didn't even see what happened. When I saw the cards, I was forced to pay attention to my other 3 tables and missed the action. Apparently a Queen showed her face and won one for the good guys. Lord knows that you have to get lucky in tournaments. In fact LaG knows it, I'm sure as he has had his fair share of good luck (not last night though). Things went smoothly from there until after the first break. I then got 3 consecutive medium pocket pairs (66,77,88) or at least more or less consecutive. I can't remember for sure. It was within one orbit for sure. I stole the blinds with 66. I passed on the 77 as I don't really like raising in early position 2 times in a row with mid pairs; however, I did try with the 88 and got re-raised all in and had to call as it wasn't much more. He had KK and it severely crippled me. I then went out in some un-exciting fashion. So I wasn't able to take my good fortune suckout and make good use of it. This isn't the case for the eventual winner, 3jacks, as he took his suckout early on and rode it to victory lane. Congrats TJ.

So while I was playing the tourney, I was doing my normal 3/6ing. See Chart Below and tell me what is wrong with this chart?

It must be upside down, eh? I lost the first few hands and then went up. Actually, top pairs were holding up. One thing that I have noticed is that FTP has gotten more fishy, in my honest opinion, since the Party Shack closed down. For example, I raise up AJ and get called by crazy guy who has recently shown aggression and stole some pots. Ace on flop I do my continuation bet and get raised. Nothing too threatening on turn and I check raise this guy and then follow through with a bet on river that he calls. Yep, he had either K high or 3rd pair. Some nights are like that. Sometimes the maniacs hit their two pair and sometimes they don't... but they still end up calling you down. I'll take it when I can get it.

So here is my thought for the day. OK, maybe two. Don't you hate it when you hit a sit with your middle pocket pairs; but there is an ace on board. It almost always kills your action (assuming that you raised preflop). But, don't you love it when your middle pair hits its set with an ace on board and somebody has an ace. Worst of worlds, best of worlds. I guess you have to take the good with the bad. I hit three sets last night and all of them had Aces on board. The first two were folded on my continuation bets; but the last one, someone had an ace.

Final thought, is there ever a card that just seems to eat you up. In other words, whenever I see a K, it has meant bad news for me lately. Either I have QQ or JJ or AT or some other top pair or I have KTs or something and hit my K only to lose to higher kicker. or I have something like KK and lose to ace or straight or flush or something. Either way, Kings have not been good to me. I wish I could justifiably document this as it has been really strange, frustrating, irritating, etc.... Last night, AJ. Preflop raised and I get called all the way down with K8. Oh yeah, King on the river. DOH!!!! Now, I just shake my head when the Kings come.

To Calldown or Not Call Down

First, I would like to say thanks to those that answered the poll question regarding whether or no you liked me putting in my poker session charts. I will continue to do so when it deems appropriate. Anybody that hasn't voted, please feel free to do so by scrolling down a bit.

As usual, when things start going down you take a look at where it could be better. While I'm not going to regurgitate all the things that I do as I have covered that before in my finding leaks posts (which you can find over on the right). One thing that has always plagued me is when to calldown and when not to call down. Also and similarly, when to keep betting (more on that later). Obviously, there are many BB that can be saved by just folding and waiting for a better spot; but the other side is that you can make up BB by calling down people who were bluffing or just on strong draws. The first part of this post will centered around the below hand.

FullTiltPoker Game #1111190972: Table Alpine (6 max) - $3/$6 - Limit Hold'em - 22:39:23 ET - 2006/10/16
Seat 1: AustinisTight ($219.50)
Seat 4: willwonka ($61.50)
Seat 5: mRaise ($62)
Seat 6: serch19 ($182.50)
mRaise posts the small blind of $1.50
serch19 posts the big blind of $3
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Kh Ks]
AustinisTight calls $3
willwonka raises to $6
mRaise raises to $9
serch19 folds
AustinisTight calls $6
willwonka raises to $12
mRaise calls $3
AustinisTight has 15 seconds left to act
AustinisTight calls $3
*** FLOP *** [As Jc Ad]
DR DOOBIUS sits down
mRaise bets $3
AustinisTight folds
willwonka raises to $6
DR DOOBIUS adds $60
mRaise raises to $9
willwonka calls $3
*** TURN *** [As Jc Ad] [Jh]
AustinisTight is sitting out
mRaise bets $6
dwyatt1012 sits down
willwonka has 15 seconds left to act
willwonka folds
Uncalled bet of $6 returned to mRaise
mRaise mucks
mRaise wins the pot ($55)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $57 Rake $2
Board: [As Jc Ad Jh]
Seat 1: AustinisTight folded on the Flop
Seat 4: willwonka (button) folded on the Turn
Seat 5: mRaise (small blind) collected ($55), mucked
Seat 6: serch19 (big blind) folded before the Flop

Here are things that go into my thinking process.

How many people in the hand and my position on the hand. In this hand, I was on the button with 4 people in the hand. Of course this my favorite place to be. UTG limped and I'm obviously raising with KK. Now SB raises and BB folds and UTG calls. Again, no brainer as I am capping this with the 2nd Nut preflop hand and again both guys come along putting 6BB in the hand preflop. The flop comes AJA rainbow and this is where things become interesting (at least somewhat). Small blind leads out. Hmmm what to do from here? Let's look at some other things first.

Stack Sizes. Many times short stacks will just go crazy and just hope to get lucky... either by getting somebody to fold or actually hit their hand. In this case, the SB is short with only 10BB to start with. I am in a similar situation and the other two were deep. In my opinion, I don't usually see maniacal play when you have 10BB. At least maniacal as I definied above. There are maniacs everywhere which leads to my next though.

Reads. Reads can be formulated many ways and I am speaking of the online poker variety. The simplest is by direct obsevation. What hands has this guy actually shown down and how has play been. This kind of read can become a challenge when you are playing 3 or 4 tables. That is where things like Poker Tracker and Pokerace HUD come into play. Yes, they are crutch; but fairly dependable. 90% of my reads are from this method. OK, This hand. The table had been a full 6 man table for a while but was now just 4. The SB was definitely a LAG (48 VPIP, 18PFR) so his range is very wide. UTG was also loose. So my decision to Fold, Call or raise. Given my read, I raised and I did it pretty quickly. He doesn't have to have an Ace or JJ; but he might and I want to him to tell me early on. Well, he replies all right. He raised me back. Next thought.

One similar thought. Cardplayer.com puts out a poll everyday and encourage everybody to go take a look as it is good stuff. Today's question was "I use hand-tracking software when I play online poker". The options were yes and no. Any guesses on the results? With 1,672 votes, only 17% of the players said yes. I found this pretty surprising. First off, we are on Cardplayer magazine so we have poker enthusiasts. I guess the thing I didn't factor in is the level of play of people that actually going out to the site. Sounds like mostly lower limits. I find it hard to believe that just 2 out of the 6 people at the table (of which I am one of) are using something like PT. More Cardplayer.com stuff to come later. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program.

TiltFactor. Another way of saying TiltFactor is how have things gone for the night and how would that be affecting your decisions. It was fairly late in the night and here is a quick glimpse of how the night went. In my first session (which I will define session as me getting the need 200 pts to qualify for FTP Iron Man), I flopped 2 pair 3 times, sets 2 times, Trips 1 time, straights 2 times and AA lost all of them (eerily familiar to an earlier night just few nights ago). Also relevant is that I had KK 3 times before that. One time in the BB where everybody folded. DOH!!!! hate that. The other two times Ace came on the flop. I didn't lose both hands; but I did lose one of them (the one I won was folded after my contiuation bet). So KK is not my friend tonight. Anyway, that 1st session saw me lose $150. I decided to play another session after sitting a bit because since it was past 11pM (Central Time), I could start on my next days 200 pts for FTP Iron Man. This time thing were going better and I made up $100 up to the point of this hand (approximately). So, he raised me back. He's trying to tell me that he has an ace or JJ (or is he). I rarely run up against the time clock; but I did put some thought into this. One more thought before we finish up.

Pot Odds. How many times do I need to win in a call down situation to make it worth it. I'm not a math guy at the poker tables; but given the read on the guy, it is probably reasonable to just call down from here. It would cost me 2 1/2 BBs to win 11BB. Probably worth it, I call. The Turn bring another J. Crap!!! He leads out again. Given the fact that I was doing OK in the second session and most likely was behind. I gave it up.

So my question is.... Who calls this down? Given the LAGgy nature of this guy, I would not argue with it. So I potentially save 2 BBs. I was hoping we would show; but he didn't. It kind of wears on you because you just want to know if you were beat or bluffed... which you could live with both. You just WANT to know.

Speaking of Cardplayer earlier, in addition to their daily poll questions, they also have Poker Quizzes. These are taken from Bob Caiffone and Jim Brier's book, Middle Limit Holdem Poker. They rotate these throughout the day and it is excellent stuff.

One of the quizzes today was about betting at the end. Which again could potentially be a leak. When is it good to get that value bet in and when is better just to check fold or check call. Take a look below.

TOPIC: Betting on the End
A $15-$30 game. You open with a raise from middle position with the A-Q. Two other middle players call. There is $115 in the pot and three players. The flop comes: 9-7-5, giving you a backdoor nut flush-draw and two overcards. You bet into two opponents. Only one opponent calls. There is $145 in the pot and two players. The turn is the 9. You bet again because the top card has paired, your opponent did not raise your flop bet, and you might win the pot outright. He calls. There is $205 in the pot. The river is the 3. What do you do?

What do you do? We have all been bitten by the raise on the river so let's take a look at their answer.

Check. The reason this problem is included is because the player bet the river, and later argued that if his opponent did not have a flush, he was worried that the person would have a pair, and that he could not survive a showdown. Checking and calling is much better, since you gain $30 when he is bluffing. Betting here would be bad because he will call with any pair and raise with a made hand like a flush. He might fold an ace-king, but with this hand, he might not even be in the pot at this point.

Yep, I agree. I probably agree 80%-90% with what they say which obviously means absolute nothing as they are the experts, not me. A lot of the times, I think my answers differ due to playing short handed versus full ring which I assume that these questions are based from. Anyway, good stuff and I encourage everybody to make a daily stop there.

Have a good day.

Bloggers Curse

Bloggers' Curse. What is that. It is something that we all know about; but yet we still do it. Here is an excerpt from my last blog.

"So, having said that, I will start with poker. Things are moving in the right direction. Alot of should of, could of, would ofs; but that's poker. I just need to avoid that one really bad session that inevitably comes to knock down the previous weeks gains."

Why do we do it? The mere mention of running good... BAM.... What took me 7 days to make $1,200 is gone in a weekend. The sessions all look the same; but the bad ones just have the villains hitting their trips, or two pair or whatever it is to beat you. Man, it just blows you away. I hate to have to start thinking about stop limits again; because the table should dictate (or should I say the players at the table) whether you stay or go.

So obviously, I'm not going to show this depressing chart which is goes totally south; but I will stay on the subject of poker charts. Do you enjoy seeing them? Does it add anything? The return (albeit brief one) of the poll question is below. Please let me know. Thanks.





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Now onto something that I've really always wondered about but not been able to quite figure it out. Rakeback vs Bonus. Which is better and when does it change from one to the other. So, I'm going to throw some numbers out there and I would appreciate any help or suggestions for trying to figure it out.

First 3/6 Shorthanded.

Using Poker Tracker and showing hands for the last few months, I have played 19,593 hands (with at least 3 people in the hand) that has generated $17,756 in rake (ain't that depressing) with an average of 5.46 players. Using the simple rakeback formula of Rake / Players dealt cards * Rakeback %, My rb at 27% rb % is around $878.04. Bonus (at least at FTP) is calculated at 6 cents per rake dollar (see below) which turns out to be $1065.36. Is there really that much of a discrepancy. Somehow I think I should be factoring in the number of hands somewhere in the payback/comparison.

I've always hear that somewhere between 3/6 and 5/10 is where the difference is so let's look at 5/10.

I've played 10,612 hands at 5/10 this year with a rake of $14,920.50 with an average of 5.49 players at the table.

Again using the same assumptions as above Rakeback = $733.80 vs Bonus = $895.23 so there isn't much difference.

Here is a cut and paste from FTP pokers website regarding bonus payment.

For each dollar raked from a pot, every player who was dealt cards for that hand will earn one point. You can earn partial points if less than one dollar is raked, and you can earn up to three points per hand.
Each point is worth $.06, so you can earn up to $18 per hundred hands.


So why am I asking? I was trying to figure out if I was going to do the FTP reload bonus as bonus gets subtracted from your rake (UPDATE... I had it backwards and confused by mistake) at FTP (which isn't the case at Absolute). Anyway, per above, I decided to deposit to get the max bonus; but I think I am missing something in my calculations.

Any thoughts?

Have a good week.

Baseball Rant

What??? Baseball. This is a poker blog. Especially from me who says a poker blog should be about that... poker.

So, having said that, I will start with poker. Thing as moving in the right direction. Alot of should of, could of, would ofs; but that's poker. I just need to avoid that one really bad session that inevitably comes to knock down the previous weeks gains.

Last night, was a poster child for just being patient. Just be patient and the cards will come. Check that, the cards will usually come. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I am trying to qualify for the Full Tilt Iron Man 30K Freeroll. so you need 200 pts a day. I got the needed 200 pts and was up fairly nicely and pondered whether I should continue onto Absolute to work off some bonus (and make rakeback... gotta love AP). It was still fairly early, so what the heck. Ooops. Luckily, I made back the early losses on AP and called it a night early. So I only need 14 more days of 200 pts to reach the freeroll.

Hands down, FTP is my favorite poker site now. They still don't have the traffic of Party or Stars; but that may change next week as I believe the President is going to sign the anti-gambling act today. It's probably more of a bonus for Stars as most people will migrate over there. I will say that Stars is actually second to none in most categories. The software is great, the traffic is great (both ring and tourney), the support is great, etc.... So how can Full Tilt be better especially when you factor in that I am an overall loser at FTP (after my terrible stretch a few months ago) and I am an overall winner at Stars. I wouldn't call it greed; but the fact that FTP gives rakeback and you are able to datamine their tables is what sets them a part for me. Full Tilt also has the BIG games going that is very entertaining to watch with recognizable players. We'll see how the volume of players changes next week.

By the way, if you are not making rakeback at Full Tilt or Absolute, let me know as they are letting people get rakeback, even if you already have an account. As usual, some restrictions apply. Just leave me a comment or check out my profile which has my email address.

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OK, switching subjects. I should preface my remarks is that I do NOT watch Major League Baseball. I have boycotted the game pretty much from the last strike. I could go on and on why I don't watch baseball; but I don't want to bore the 1 or 2 readers that I do have. I'm from St Louis, of course and a co-worker came up to me and said that if he had 4 front row tickets behind home played for a Cardinals World Series game, would I go. Easy decision. Pass!!

Anyway, onto my beef. Why does baseball have to be 162 games. That is entirely too long. What fun is playing or for more importantly watching baseball when it is 40 degrees outside. That is crazy. They could easily take a month off of the schedule. Football starts in September. Baseball should be done or almost done by then. Ratings prove that. More people watched football than the baseball playoffs as I believe the Cowboys/Eagles game got the best sports ratings last week (per ESPN radio). I cannot think of a single reason why the sport has to go for so long. I know why it does; because the owners want the dollars. Not that there is anything wrong with that and they obviously have a market for it; but for crying out loud. The boys of Summer can't like playing baseball in the cold weather, brutal winds and snow. Some cities get it at the beginning of the season in April and most people get it at the end of the season.

I could say the same thing for Hockey as their season ( or at least their playoffs go too long). I realize that there is no way that the baseball season will ever be shortened; but if I had my say (which I don't and shouldn't especially since I don't even watch the game), they would shorten it at least a month.

By the way, I really consider baseball more of a social event anyway as it really isn't all that exciting (except in spurts); but it was always, always nice to go out the ball park during a summer night.

Have a good weekend!!!!

Broken Record

OK, this may sound like a broken record; but...

I started off in the hole again and had to fight my way back.... scratch.. I started off in the hole again and had to fight my way back.... scratch.. I started off in the hole again and had to fight my way back.... scratch.. I started off in the hole again and had to fight my way back.... scratch..

I don't know what it is; but I can NOT get off to a good start. OK, I know a little about what it is. Last night, I flopped 2 pair twice, a set once, and pocket aces all of which lost. I also turned a straight to lose to a rivered flush so yep, I know how it happened. The next question what do I do about it. The answer. Keep doing what I am doing. Hopefully, winning 40% at showdown is not a long term trend. It does usually make itself to 50% by the end of the session.

I had AA last night an incredible 7 times (plus 2 more in tourney) out of about 460 hands. Unfortunately, I did not win at the historical 80% clip. I won 60% of the hands which of course is not bad; but you would think that if you had AA that many times that it would be your overwhelmingly biggest hand of the night. Nope, finished around 7th so at least it was positive.

I'm still seeking some leak finding thing that can capsulize my play. Winning $ at showdown is misleading. Obviously, VPIP, PFR and aggression Factor are just baselines. I'm going to dig deeper here and see what I find.

See below charts for the last few days sessions.

I was able to win a small rebuy tourney for $260 last night. There was one hand that came about midway through the first and second break. We are past the rebuy/addon level. I am in the BB with AKs. EP raises it up about the standard 3x. 2 callers in front of me so I just called (thoughts?). Flop come something like 68J with 2 hearts (my suit). EP guy now goes all in and the one other guy calls so it is a little over $1000 to call with nearly $6,000 in the pot. What do you do? I was the chip leader at the time..

Anyway... I called... EP turned over QQ and the other guy had a Jack I think. Anyway, I did not improve... but I think I'm OK with the decision. Thoughts?

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Vicious rumors about Neteller (courtesy of NetFilter) calling it quits for US players and confirmed rumors about Firepay. This is not looking good.

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I'm again shooting for the Iron Man status on Full Tilt. I've made the needed 200 pts everyday this month except for one. We'll see if I can make it. 30K freerolls are always nice. You need 200 pts 25 days out of the month.

Weighing In

OK, after reading, reading, reading and more reading I will now weigh in on the state of affairs.

First off, I have not quit playing poker; although maybe I should with me latest results. Yesterday ending up about even. More on that later.

I'll start off with some interesting links.

ABC News Poll asking whether or not an online ban of gambling is necessary. The results are NOT surprising at all.

Sen Frist's campaign contributors. Look who weighs in at #13. I may be wrong; but that might be related to the industry that you are banning. Do as I say, not as I do, eh?

Latest tally of who's in and out. I haven't heard about Prima yet. Are we missing any other big ones? Titan shows as undecided; but I can speak from personal experience that they recently would not let me start up an account with them.

As you already know, there is way more information out there. It ain't hard to find.

OK, my take.

First let me say that I am more than saddened or sickened by the declining morality in the US / World. We've come a long with from Leave it to Beaver and Any Griffith and for the most part, this is good. As an American, I believe we should have the right to speak out and do what we choose (within the law, of course). I don't drink, smoke, cuss, etc etc.... but guess what. I don't have anything against people that do (again within reason). It is my simple choice to not do so and I just avoid that environment. I have my reasons for not doing so as I'm sure that people have their reasons. Let's just all get along.

Having two small children, I am worried... check that... concerned (I don't really worry about anything) with how things are now and will be in the future. I am up for the challenge and will do everything in my power to bring up my girls in a sound, moral way.

Having said that, one of my biggest pet peeves are people that hypocrites. I try to keep an open book. For example, I like the taste of beer and would personally have no trouble drinking non-alcoholic beer such as ODouls (sp?) or whatever; but I fear that it may be perceived as hypocritical for someone seeing me drink that and not knowing that is non alcoholic. Again, my choice not to say that I don't have an occasional O'Douls. On the other hand, when I hear that someone is drafting and passing legislation to ban online gambling but takes money from a Huge Gambling institution, he loses all credibility.

Secondly, I consider myself to be a conservative (obviously). This doesn't mean that I am a devout Republican. I just tend to agree with most things that they stand for. Having said that, you are always going to have your extreme rights and extreme lefts as far as politics go. I am not into politics. I don't follow it. Maybe it is because of the hypocritical stereotype that transcends it. So a republican drafted this bill. OK, take your pot shots at them, if you choose. But as far as I know, this thing passed almost unanimously from both Parties so don't just toss your stones at the extreme rights.

Where do I go from here? I will be on the fence. I have taken my money out of Stars and will do so on Party (and Empire) in the next few days and will continue to play on Absolute and Full Tilt. These two (among others) have the potential to get a lot more traffic which could be good or it could be bad. As long as they have the bandwidth and technology to handle this, it will good; but I lose connection to Full Tilt at least once a night and as we all know, Absolute is not the slickest software in town.

I have also started using a different rakeback provider which is not based in the US. I have emailed my previous rakeback provider; but have not heard back from them. Anyway, RakeTheRake is one of the biggest out there and have lots of good promotions. For example, the have monthly $7,500 Freerolls for their Absolute customers and another $7,500 for their Full Tilt customers. All together, they have about $100K in tourney freerolls according to their site. They have over 14,000 members so they must be doing something right. They also have a decent referral program. The referral program is not automated just yet; but they are working on it. Feel free to let them know that willwonka sent you. As with any rakeback site, this won't take away from your rakeback. You can check your account anytime.

OK, enough of that. One more thing to weigh in on before I move onto last nights action. The whole topic of Poker Blogs dying out. I was more than amused when I read BGs take on it. As usual, he has some good stuff. I would like to quote one thing from him from his post from Friday regarding what a poker blog is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but much like how there hasn't been variation in sitcom plotlines for years, there really are only a small number of poker blog post types on which the poker blogger relies:

-- How I did last night at the tables
-- Playing with bloggers
-- Home game/casino trip report
-- Strategy and hand analysis
-- The bad beat story
-- Venting about losing
-- Poker truths and the grand scheme of life

It's really just variations on a theme from there.

He is absolute right.... But.....

When I go to a poker blog, I want to see stuff about poker. While other stuff thrown in there is nice, it is not why I go there. There are notable exceptions, but that is my general rule.

When I go to a football game, I don't expect a baseball game to start or people to stop and break into some kind of Oprah show.

When I go to church, I expect to hear a sermon, I don't expect to break out in politics.

You get the idea. In my mind, poker blogs aren't dyeing. There is a continual changing of the guard so to speak. Some of the first blogs that I stared reading (poker nerd) are no longer posting. It is what it is. There are plenty of new ones to pick from that are posting just as good of stuff. Personally, it has been hard for me to post as much as I once did. I could use the crutch of having two kids; but that isn't really it. Truth be told. I really just want to play poker and not so much write about it as much. I do enjoy writing about; but I just don't have the zeal I once did.

OK, moving on very briefly to last night. Only briefly, because it is the same thing. Down early and came back. See chart below.

I'm sure that many people will enjoy this one. I don't have the hand history; but my opponent was seeing a little over half the flops. I have pocket Aces and do all that raising and re-raising stuff only to lose to none other than the hand the everybody loves.... 72o (it may have been suited); but the flop of 2x7 sealed my doom and of course I didn't believe him. Woe is me. So the end of the day saw me playing over 400 hands for a nice $3.50 profit. I'll try not to spend it all in one place.

At one point, I was winning $ at showdown at a impressive 39%. That will more or less tell how my session was going at the beginning. That number ended up a nearly 52% which is more like it.

Wonka's Law

I hate poker.

OK, not really; but sometimes... oof.

You've all heard of Murphy's Law. Well, I am now renaming it to Wonka's Law. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

Of course that is an exaggeration; but do you ever feel like that?

I had been having a nice month closing in on 2K. Well, until last night.

Ring Play:

Actually started off well here. After 100 or so hands I was up a hundy. Dropped 2 hundy in a flash and flatlined for awhile. Some things went south in tournies (more on that later) and had some adverse effects on Ring Play. It was just one of those nights when you name it was happening. Runner Runner gutshot, flopped trips going down, etc, etc.... I won't bore you with details. At the end of the night, I was down almost $600. Ouch!!!

Mookie:

This was an up and down exercise. Just before the bubble, I made the almost mandatory raise and continuation bet with the hammer. Didn't work out; although, hammer play the sequel did work so I got some of the chips back. I get KK and raise it and a shortstack goes all in (sorry didn't capture names and links). He turns over QJ and I'm hopefully in good shape. That is until he flops trips. Anyway, onto bubble time as there are 5 payouts and I find myself in 1st place. There was talk about who was going to bubble and I said to myself that I knew it was going to be me because that was just the way things were going this evening. Two major pots that I probably played badly. Both of them involved middle suited aces. I have never been a good front runner as my bullying or whatever never seems to work out. Anyway, both times I raised it up only to be pushed by others. Now, both of these guys are very capable of making plays and I called both of their all ins. Both of them had AK. First hand, no help. Second hand, the pusher was in the BB and had folded to some reraises earlier, so I called. I flopped my lower pair, only to see it counterfeited by the river and as advertised, I bubbled out. I couldn't even watch the rest.

Final tabled another tourney that had $500 1st place... ran into Aces twice on the final table and then went out on an uninteresting hand where I again got rivered. Talk about drowning on the river. That was me last night.

This was about the time that I decided to open up a 5/10 table. It was a great table as there was a 55%er and a 70%er. I guess "great" is in the eye of the beholder because again after getting up a hundy it all went south on 4 card flushes and straights and river gut shots.. blah blah blah..

So things went bad and I was coming down to wind down with some TV or something, I mentioned to Mrs Wonka (who was up feeding baby #2) that it was a bad night, she decided to bring up the "poker addiction" conversation. Obviously, I was in no mood for it. Luckily, I just let her make her speech and said. OK, I'm addicted.. you happy and that was it.

That should do it and hopefully, tumor (or whenever I play next) is a better day.

Roller Coaster and What comes Around, Goes Around

I would like to start off with a great quote that I heard from Mike Ditka on ESPN Radio this morning. It is not an original Mike Ditka quote (I don't think); but it is awesome. The context of the quote is about Jeremy Shockey (and Kellen Winslow) spouting off against whatever they spout off against... which is plenty. Here is the quote (to the best of my memory):

"It is better to shut up and appear stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

Classic!!!! Actually, I just looked it up and it appears the Mark Twain penned the phrase.

This holds very true to my poker session last night. More on that later.

As I mentioned a little bit previously, I am trying to gain a little more consistentcy on the early part of my poker sessions. One thing is that I am trying to play at least 300 hands during a session to get a better representation of the session. I'm also trying to avoid getting down early in the session as that can sometimes change everything. Not unlike the Saints game last night where they blocked a punt early for a touchdown. It changes things. It just does. Same thing with getting down early. It shouldn't change things; but typically it just does. I'm not saying that people go on tilt; but they might take a flyer on a middle pair or ride that flush draw with beaucoup raises in front of him. OK, it will come as no surprise that I did just that. I fell down early again over a weekend session. It turned out to be quite the roller coaster rides. Now, I love roller coasters; but not so much when it revolves around poker. I was down $100, got back even, down $100 again, now I'm up $100, now I'm back down $100, I ended up over $185 for the session. Once I was up $100, I was tempted to take the money and run; but I remembered by 300 hand pledge. Onward I go, and sure enough, say bye-bye to the profits; but this story has a happy ending as I finished with quite a flurry, reached the 300 hand mark and called it quits. For the record, I must say that playing 300 hands a day is not a hard goal to reach as it typically takes less than 1 1/2 hours; but as other fathers can attest (especially ones with young ones), getting time to play poker can be a challenge. Anyway, I was happy to call it quits and book the profits.

Here I am talking about $200 profits when on Full Tilt, John D'Agistino has been talking about a few more zeroes. Yesterday, someone posted (sorry, I can't remember who) that Dags took about an 100K hit to Brad Booth. Well, the rematch was on and I had the table up while I was playing my 3 tables. Bad news for D'ags as he took another $139K hit. That has to hurt; even for a top professional.

Now let's get back to looking stupid. Again remember that I am working on consistency. Very first hand last night, I get 43o. I 52% VPIPer and 24% PFRer limps from early position and it gets limped around to me. I check. Flop comes something like A3x. He bets out and I call to see a turn. A blank comes on the turn and again he bets out. What do I do? Fold? Wrong!!!!!!! I'm not buying his strength and check raise him. Now wait???? How does that fit into the plan of being consistent and NOT getting down early? Oh yeah, it doesn't. Some people just never learn and I guess I fall into that camp; but wait, this just in. A 4 on the river and I take down the pot against his weak Ace. Of course he had some choice words for me so I am faced with:

Is it better to shut up and appear stupid or open my chat-mouth and remove all doubt? Maybe I chose the middle as I just typed in HeeHaw. I later sucked out on him again when My KQ on a Q high flopped spiked a K on the river when he had actually flopped two pair. It was all good and nothing really came of it. He called BS on the first river suckout and I agreed. End of story. As you can see on the chart, it was a good session and I broke another rule and only played a bit over 200 hands; but booked another nice session for me of over $200.

One interesting hand come up about mid way through the session. Well, interesting to me at least. I get 43o in the blinds again; but this time there is a preflop raiser (different from the first time); but I called anyway with a total of 4 people in the pot. Again, the flop comes A3x and again the EP guys bets out and I start to fold; but wait, maybe 43o is my hand of destiny tonight. CALL. What is that on the turn? Yep, a 4. Can you believe it. Check-Raise (oh how I love to check raise... it's an art, you know). Oh no!!! An Ace on the river. I have to represent (or do I?). Turns out I shouldn't have as he raised me and folded. It might have been worth that final call just for "looking stupid" reasons; but I didn't. It just goes to show you..... What comes around, goes around. I just chuckled and moved on and ended up nicely even though I did shut things down prematurely (at 200 hands).

Duggle has a link to a TIME magazine article regarding whether Poker is good for kids. I think it may have a positive slant to it. I haven't had a chance to read it; but plan to shortly. I'd be interested hearing other people's take on that. I, for one, plan on teaching the Wonka girls how to play cards as early as possible.

Have a nice day!!!!

Disturbing Trend

I put in another 600 hands or so last night. For the most of the night it was 4 tabling. 2 at Absolute, 1 at Full Tilt and one on a smaller site. I'm trying to concentrate more on table selection that I have in the past. One thing that I don't do, however, is move from a table that starts off good but then degrades into a tougher table due to the bad players busting or hit and runs by the bad players or whatever. For the most part, once I sit down, the roots start to grow. I really need to pay attention to that as Absolute and Full Tilt have plenty enough tables to choose from at my level.

Anyway, as you will see in the graph again that my session started in a Southward trend. This trend is becoming quite disturbing. So the question begs should I be playing any differently at the beginning of a session as related to later in the session. If you would have asked me that last week, I would have said NO hands down. It doesn't matter when you are playing, you should be playing the same game. To tell you the truth, I still believe that.

To be honest, I didn't sit down with the best frame of mind. It was a little bit later than I normally start so I wasn't sure that I was up to putting in a full session. So the first hand ended up being a blind on blind hand with a know aggressive person. I went with the bluff re-steal as I believed he was on the bluff steal. Nope. No biggie, that's poker. So, here's the deal. Do I press more when I get down early? I would like to think not as my Poker Tracker stats did not seem out of whack. One thing that really stood out is that other than the one time I had AA, my A9(suited and offsuit) and better was not an overall winner for the night. Another words, overall for each hand over A9, they were overall losers for the night; albeit not gross loser as I think it added up to 10BB; but typically you want wins there to offset some of the others.

Speaking of the AA hand that I did win, it was a strange one. Not so much the hand itself but how the people played and what they played it with. I don't put too many raw hand histories; but this one does the talking for itself. Here it is:


FullTiltPoker Game #1025502206: Table Clark (6 max) - $3/$6 - Limit Hold'em - 0:29:18 ET - 2006/09/22
Seat 1: willwonka ($52)
Seat 2: RailCityCrew ($141.50)
Seat 3: dirtybird81 ($127)
Seat 4: KindOfBlue00 ($182)
Seat 5: BLUEHUT43 ($15)
Seat 6: kezinch8 ($254.50)
willwonka posts the small blind of $1.50
RailCityCrew posts the big blind of $3
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willwonka [Ac As]
dirtybird81 folds
KindOfBlue00 folds
BLUEHUT43 raises to $6
kezinch8 calls $6
willwonka raises to $9
RailCityCrew calls $6
BLUEHUT43 raises to $12
kezinch8 calls $6
willwonka calls $3
RailCityCrew calls $3
*** FLOP *** [4s 2d 9h]
willwonka bets $3
RailCityCrew calls $3
BLUEHUT43 calls $3, and is all in
kezinch8 calls $3
*** TURN *** [4s 2d 9h] [Ad]
willwonka bets $6
RailCityCrew calls $6
kezinch8 calls $6
*** RIVER *** [4s 2d 9h Ad] [8c]
willwonka bets $6
RailCityCrew calls $6
kezinch8 calls $6
*** SHOW DOWN ***
willwonka shows [Ac As] (three of a kind, Aces)
RailCityCrew mucks
kezinch8 mucks
willwonka wins the side pot ($36) with three of a kind, Aces
BLUEHUT43 mucks
willwonka wins the main pot ($57) with three of a kind, Aces
BLUEHUT43 is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $96 Main pot $60. Side pot $36. Rake $3
Board: [4s 2d 9h Ad 8c]
Seat 1: willwonka (small blind) showed [Ac As] and won ($93) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 2: RailCityCrew (big blind) mucked [Qd Ah] - a pair of Aces
Seat 3: dirtybird81 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: KindOfBlue00 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: BLUEHUT43 mucked [5c 6h] - Ace Nine high
Seat 6: kezinch8 (button) mucked [Ts 9d] - a pair of Nines

Typically, at least lately, the crazy guys have been hitting their gutshots; but luckily not this time. I did lose drawing hands vs being drawn out on; but again, that is normal as I expect to be outdrawn more than I draw out on people.

I did get called a donkey last night when I did call down to the river only to hit my pair on the river against his AKo that didn't connect. You know what I say, if you can't beat them, join them. My only response to him was...... HeeHaw. Enough said.

I did end up the night in positive territory so I can never complain too loudly about that.


Speaking of Donkeys, I did get a chance to play DADI last night; but I had to play on my laptop and the wireless connection was terrible. I chipped up nicely at the beginning; but lost it fittingly trying to draw to a flush or something in Omaha. Ooops. Thanks to 3Jacks for dropping the hammer on me when I had the best of it and making me fold. Nice play sir. I should have known.

Have a nice weekend!!!!!

One more Round

Got in a good bit of poker in last night. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 hands. As per the normal rule, I play a bunch of hands if I find myself stuck or not so many hands if I am up. There are plenty of good reasons NOT to do Hit and Run Sessions; but sometimes you just like to book the profits and move on to other things; especially with the new Fall Shows coming on, I can see myself watching a bit of TV with Mrs Wonka. Apparently, there is more to life than poker.

Well, as you can probably guess, I again started stuck last night and again it was pocket Aces sticking me early. I don't know if I am ready to say that I don't want pocket Aces to begin a session; but they have not been kind to me over the past few days or should I say the past few days early in a session. Anyway, as you can see on the chart (did I mention that I really love these Poker Tracker Graphs). I got stuck early and went downhill from there. At one point, I was over $250 down for the night; but was able to work that back up to just being down $14. Since I had put a good bit of hands in and it was starting to get late, I did my obligatory "one more round" strategy.

One More Round??? Why do I feel that I have to make one more orbit around the table? Maybe it is the sports player in me as I have always had a cool down to any workout or practice. You know, you just can't stop. Easily work your way down to a good stopping point. Plus if you get a good hand, then play as normal. I'm also thinking that I am working off more of my bonus and getting rakeback so that makes it worth it. 8 or 9 times out of 10 I am just folding and calling it a day. Sometimes, you get the good hand and it holds up and you feel good about quitting; but sometimes you don't. Case in point last night. I get AK. EP raises and I pause and think. Do I want to get involved? He is actually one of the normal players at the table. Instinct takes over... Raise!!!!. He caps. Anyway, Ace on the turn and lose to his pocket rockets. Next hand or 2, AQ. OK, maybe this will make up for it. Nice Ace on the flop. I'm just getting called down, I should be good. What is that on the river? A Jack? Yep, he had AJ. Next hand or so. QJs. Flop open ended straight draw and a flush draw. Doesn't get there. And finally, A9s. Again Ace on flop and guy calls me down only to hit his gutshot straight on the river.

As you may have read here, people calling down on a gut shot draw really sets me off. At this point, I only had one table open as the "one more round" had completed on the other tables. I had $50 left at the table (I'm playing 3/6 SH by the way) and I even said to myself, you can kiss this $50 goodbye. Of course the final round thing was off and I'm back to try to catch up mode. This may come as a surprise. I lost the $50 when my ATo from the button open raising on a A2Txx board lost to pocket ducks.

So that is how you go from being $14 down (I was actually up including bonus) to $150 down in a matter of minutes. So, yes, I may to rethink my "one last round" strategy.

Survivor Fun

Not much in the way of poker last night, it took twice as many hands to win 1/2 as much money. That seems flawed somewhere. Nothing too exciting as I only played 200 hands for $120. Yes, my aces got cracked... la de da de da... move on... I'll take it.. positive sessions are just that. No room to complain.

Since I don't have much poker news I thought I would bring some Survivor Fun. Yes, Survivor started last night and yes I watch it. It is one of the shows that Mrs Wonka and myself enjoy watching together. Reading my comments last night, our good buddy CC has some questions that must be answered. Here they are (with his comments):

>> How long will they keep the tribes?
I'm guessing they'll have to combine to two fairly quickly, as well as nuke more than one person soon.
>> Will those two do the dirty deed next week, and will they show it?
>> Will the African American tribe be able to make fire with flint?
>> What in the world is the job of the hippie girl who let the chickens go? And isn't that automatic dismissal?

Added by WillWonka

>>Who is the favorite after week 1?
>> Will the Medicine Man cure any more ailments?
>> Who is the hottest chick?? guy??

We shall see.. I will think about these and answer them in the comments a little later.


Have a good weekend!!!!

What's Missing?

First off, if you are not reading Scurvy, stop now and go over there. Great stuff, as usual, over there. Apparently, another site is doing the Pittsburgh Steeler guarantee bet; albeit only $100 this time. Read about it here. He also wrote a great post about Poker Blogging which was outstanding. So True.

As usual, I have been puttering away at the 3/6 SH games. Do you ever get that feeling that something is wrong and you just can't put your finger on it. That is how I feel right now with my poker game. Playing Limit poker, especially low limit poker, is pretty much ABC poker with a touch of selective aggression for short handed play. I still believe there isn't much difference between 3/6 and 10/20; but it is what it is. Anyway, I am playing along. Yea, sure, I try a few things here and a few things there; but I've got my style and I'm sticking to it. While, I am always looking to improve, Scurvy was spot on when he said that I/we don't necessarily seek out strategy like I once did. But still, something has gone astray. I still love the game; but with this recent downswing over the last year, it makes you wonder.

First, let's look at some overall stats. Stats are what they are and never tell the whole picture.

09/11/06 358 hands 31.84 VPIP 15.36 PFR 1.30 AG 39.83 WtSD 39.83 WSD 63.83 W$SD +121.03

09/12/06 311 hand 36.33 VPIP 19.61 PFR 1.78 AG 40.98 WtSD 29.51 W$SD 58.33 -122

More or less same old stuff.

I've recently been getting into a feature on Poker Tracker that I never used before. It is the graphs. Here is a graph from Day 1 . As you can see,
I was down right from the get go and made a nice comeback at the end; but still up until that point, I was still winning over 60% of my showdowns. What is the "thing" that I'm missing that is causing the downswings. Yes, in the short term it could just be the draws not hitting or any other form of variance. I have another idea, which I will mention a little bit later.







Day 2's graph isn't much different. Again you see that I was down right away and then more or less straight lined the rest of the session. Something has to be causing these early downward shifts. Is it as straight forward as variance. For sure, short term results are meaningless; but as this trend has lasted a year, there is something to it.






Day 3 (last night) was days that you like to see; but are very few and far between. This session only lasted about 100 hands VPIP 32 PFR 19 TAF 5.55 wsf 47 wsd 29 w$sd 69... +203 . I did exactly what you are not supposed to do. I quit while I was ahead. Did I do anything different here to get ahead early. Nope. So, yes, variance does apply to short term results.




OK, moving forward. Let's look at a hand from Day 1. This came right at the end of the session. I would be very interested in your thoughts.

The table had moved down to just 3 players. Two of us sat at with $180 and another was extremely shortstacked. Both of these guys were pretty hyper aggressive. I'm on the button with As2d. Easy raise here 3 handed as I am pretty much raising any ace. SB 3 bets it here and BB (shortstack) calls the 2 the 2 bets. I'm certainly not folding; but choose to see a flop. Does anybody cap it here? Flop comes 7sKs4s leaving me with nut flush draw. SB leads out here and is raised by BB. What here? I'm getting 6-1 to call or should I be raising. I decide to call and SB re-raises and BB just calls so of course I call. Qs on turn and that is all she wrote. I win with the nut, SB had 2nd nut and SB had top pair with a middle spade. Any thoughts here? I wonder if I would have played this differently at the beginning of a session?

So now back to my original question. What's missing. Other than Online Poker being rigged, what am I missing that will bring me to the next level. At least for now, I am going to more deeply into my Blind Play. Of course, Blind Play is so important in short handed action. The more I read, the more I get confused. Some people will say that you should always just call from BB when somebody steals. I think Matt Matros might have written something about this. While other say that you should take control and re-raise. I think Matt Hilger wrote about this. What should your ranges of blind defense be? What should your ranges of blind stealing be? How should be adjusting to the amount of players and type of players. Too many times lately, I have been just calling with what I will say are just calling hands. I then miss the flop and fold to continuation bet.

What is a calling hand? Good question? Maybe a broadway card with some sort of 1,2 or 3 gap connector. Maybe just a suited hand with a broadway card. A small pair? A middle pair.

This will be my mission and hope to find something out soon; because whatever I'm missing, it has made poker more of a grind than an enjoyable experience.


--------

Well, tonight starts the new season of Survivor. This is one of the shows that I agree to watch with Mrs Wonka. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy them. She really looks forward to the new shows. I've never been a real big regular/network TV kind of guy; but I do enjoy some shows and definitely spending the time with her. The Wire on HBO just started again and I am really looking forward to that series. We'll see how it goes.

Speaking of Mrs Wonka, we had our first "date" night that we have had in a long, long time. Talk about weird. We went to a restaurant and didn't have to worry about high chairs, crayons, crackers, balloons, etc.... It was almost too peaceful. We enjoyed it and we also saw the movie Invincible. We both enjoyed it. Nothing too original but a good story none the less. Doesn't really compare to Rocky or Rudy in my book; but good nonetheless. Wow, what is the deal with movie ticket prices. Our first movie in almost 3 years probably.. a little different.

While I'm on the subject of prices. What is the deal with gas prices. I just don't get it. OK, summer is over; but come on.. over $1 a gallon difference. Oh to be an Exxon exec.

I've rambled long enough...

Bitter and remembrance

For the most part week 1 of the NFL season and week 2 of the college football season are in the books. It's always such an exciting time; but then yet always a big letdown when your teams lay an egg. Starting with Saturday, Texas was in everyway was outclassed by #1 Ohio State. Apparently that Troy Smith can play. Yep, need help at QB. He's young so we will see how he handles this and moves on, so yeah, I'm a little bitter. At least Notre Dame looked good.

Things really didn't improve on Sunday as the Cowboys took it on the chin as well. Yep, we need help at QB. I don't know about anybody else; but I'm ready to make the move to Tony Romo. Not that I believe that he is a better QB than Bledsoe; but he is the future. I'd be interested to see listen to Dallas sports radio today. I usually hate pulling the referee card; but I'm going to pull it on this game. They gave Jacksonville a touchdown when Reggie Williams blatantly pushed Henry's head down before he caught the pass. And then a little later, they called Jason Witten for offensive pass interference and took a touchdown away from Dallas. Oh by the way, the contact was 10 yards down the field. I thought there was a rule against that. Oh yea, there is. The one thing that really got on my (and my brothers) nerves was their second and short play calling. They consistenly were making 7-9 yards on first down and then tried to run on second and short to only get no gain or most of the time actually lose yards. Sure, I don't mind running it sometimes; but throw in some passes once in a while. If me and my brother can figure out this tendency, I'm sure Jacksonville can. Oh well what can you do.

Not much poker this weekend.

On the now 5 year anniversay of 9/11. Please take some time to pause and reflect on what was and what is. We need to remember. My thoughts and prayers will be will all who were affected by 9/11 both on that day at the towers and the subsequent days/years that have happened since.

Bad... Bad... Bad... Good!!!

When can things be going so bad then turn on a dime and all work out.

Of course, I am speaking of the Steelers somehow besting the Miami Dolphins.

Bad #1. Benny Boy goes down... Now, any thoughts of Pittsburgh covering; much less winning are not looking good. Even worse, any thoughts of hedging the $1000 are out the window.

Bad #2. 2nd and goal from 1 (or whatever it was)... FUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. DOH!!!!!

Bad #3. $1000 Field Goal attempt..... Not even close...


GOOD!!!! Dante throwing for a touchdown... What??? Oh yeah, he threw it to Joey Porter... Game, Set; but not match... Miami has ball and 2 minutes... didn't work for them... Match... Of course, it doesn't hurt that I have the Pittsburgh Defense on my fantasy team...

I am truly blessed...


As far as poker goes...

My last post really rang true over the last few days. I wish there were a way to track Drawing hands. I'll have to give that some thought. Other than manually doing it which I did over the last two short sessions... I drew out on the river 0 times; however, I would have drawn my gutshot once had a called the turn bet. I need to work more on my fishy tendancies. Draws against me.... 5.... I did hit my set of 5's on the river once; but I was being called by Ace high so I don't really count that. I did end of the positive for the both days; but both days total a whopping $25 which ain't bad considering where I was at one point.

I've started playing on Absolute poker again for the bonus and rakeback. You just can't beat getting both at the same time. OK, maybe their rake is a tad worse than others; but hey, you still come out ahead at the end of the day.

Have a good weekend!!!!

Judging Sessions

First and foremost... I AM READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!! My new HD 56" TV is awesome. Watching sports has been taken to a completely new level. So of course, I got some football in this weekend. I have 3 teams that I profess to follow and they are (in order). University of Texas, Notre Dame and Georgia. Texas for obvious reasons (I was born in Dallas). Notre Dame for no other reason than when I was a kid, they were about the only show in town and I remember watching the repeats of the game on Sunday mornings before church with my dad. That is something that I will never forgot and hope to experience now with my kids. Although, with girls, it may not be football. Georgia is kind of weird one. I have no real ties there. I think during the Herschel Walker era is when I became a fan. I've always been a SEC fan and Georgia is the team that I most followed.

Anyway, I watched the Notre Dame game on the new TV and it was awesome. For you Georgia Tech fans out there (CC). You may have been gypped on the late hit out of bounds on Quinn which then eventually ended up as a ND touchdown. OK, sure, they have hit head on head; but for crying out loud, they are both running a million miles an hour and towards each other. Bad call, but what can you do?

OK, while on the subject of football. As we all know, I am a huge Dallas Cowboys fan so it goes without saying that I detest the Pittsburgh Steelers. Along comes this Mansion bet a $1000 thing. OK, I have to bet on the Steelers, that hurts; but I did it. As usual, the Steelers do me in as Benny boy isn't going to play. Some weak excuse about his appendix. So now, Miami is actually favored so there will be no hedging of the bets. Maybe Charlie Batch will get it done. That is why they play the games.

Oh yes, this is a poker blog.

Sometimes, I just don't get this game of poker. What does it take to be a good long time winner. If you are looking for an answer to that, you won't find it here because I just don't know. This post is going to touch more on the subject on how to Judge your sessions as either good or bad sessions or should I say what can cause a sesion to be good or bad. Yes, we can all review our sessions and try to judge how well it went. Heck, I have even written about it in my Finding Leaks posts, Click here for Part 1, and here for Part II. But this time, I want to look at it from different perspectives.

Of course, I have an opinion on the subject and of course I will tell you and of course, it will come later; but in the mean time, let's talk about some of the things that might be good indicators of how well your sessions will go.

First, let me define a session as simply as a sitting. Whether it be one table, two tables, or multi tables, to me that is a session. It can be mixed games, ring play and tourney. It doesn't matter, if you sit down to play whatever, it is a session. Quite possibly, you can even call a day a session depending on how long the breaks in between playing are.

So, here is my list of things that can determine how a session will go. In other words, will the session be an up session or a down session.

Cards - Yep, this is a pretty obvious one. If you get cold decked, you most likely aren't going to have a winning session; but I think you can prevent yourself from having a disastrous session. This is where patience and all that stuff that we have heard a million times comes into play; but in my mind that is not the biggest factor that will determine how your session goes.

Stats - What do I mean by stats? Well, mostly I am talking about Poker Tracker stats. Things like, VPIP, and Won$ at Showdown, Aggression Factors, attempts to steal, Aggression Frequency (I love this PAHUD stat). Yes, those are all nice; but can be misleading; especially if you are playing NL (which I am not). I've had almost identical looking PT stats and the end of the day/session story couldn't be anymore different. I've had 10BB up and down days while having almost the same stats. For example, I won$ at showdown yesterday a nice 56% of the time; but still had a down session. Another day, I won 40% of the time and had a nice up session; so obviously, this is not the best indicator.

Psychology - This is a huge factor to me. How are you feeling when going into a session. Are you sitting down just to play for a few minutes. Are you tired? Are you anything but focused on playing poker. These are big questions. OK, let's say that you are good to go at the beginning of a session and things go bad for you right off the bat. My very first hand yesterday was AA. Cool, this might be a good indication of a good day. Uh... no... Mr JJ flopped a set against me and immediately I am in the hole. Same time, different table. AKo.. flopped K... oops lost to J9o. So very easily, I could go into a tilt rage and start really pressing so yes, Tilt can be a determining factor; but in my opinion, not the biggest.

Aggression - This one makes sense because if you are over aggressive and don't hit any flops or anything, it could add to a big down day. Conversely, if you are not aggressive enough, you may not get paid off on the big hands. For most of us, aggression is one of the most important things in poker or as I like to say.... "selective aggression". This is where some of the things that we talked about above such as Poker Tracker and other tools really help. If you have a read on a person, you that amped up aggression will work on that guy who will lay down middle pair. On the hand, you may know that it isn't worth because he is going to call you down with pocket 2s.

Luck - Luck, either or good or bad can definitely determine which way your session is going to go. Another hand from yesterday. KK. flopped a K for a set. There was even an Ace on board which is usually even better as you set will obviously beat a pair of aces. Well, Mr "calldown" called me down and hit his gut shot on the river. At the same time, it is not unusual for me or any other player to hit a runner runner flush, or hit that second pair on the turn and get paid off when TPTK won't lay it down. We've all been on both sides of luck. Typically, the better players have more bad luck as they don't get caught in too many hands that need gut shot type help on the river; but needless to say, it happens and can determine how our sessions turn out; but in my opinion, it is not the biggest factor.

Let's recap, our mission today is find out what I think is the biggest determining factor in whether or not a poker session will end up positive or negative. We've talked about getting cards, statistics on your session, the psychology of poker, aggressiveness and luck. All of these are vital in determining how your session is going to go and in all truthfulness, my answer is going to include bits and pieces of all of the above.

My #1 reason for determining whether a session will be good or bad is:

Draws - Yep, that's it (in my humble opinion). Flopping those open ended straight draws and nut flushes happen often enough that they can determine whether your session goes South or whether it goes North. So how you play draws will determine how aggressive you are, how often you go to showdown, how lucky or unlucky you are and of course how you will react (psychology) of hitting or not hitting. This goes the other way as well. Mr 60% (especially mr 60%er) is going to hit his draws as well. The actual number of draws you hit vs draws they hit can absolutely have a huge factor on good or bad results.

So there you have it and there you are. My 2 cents.

Have a great week!!!!!!

Cardinal Rules

I broke one of the biggest Cardinal Rules tonight; but as usual, more on that later.

This Mansion betting thing is getting pretty widespread. Pretty cool. I'm not going to make my decision on whether or not to hedge until Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm seem to be flip flopping on this one. Today, I am at 70-30 in favor of the hedge which is down from 90-10. Miami didn't look too impressive last night against the Rams; but neither team played anybody.

While I'm on the subject of football, Mr Owens finally made his debut with the Cowboys. Is anybody else a little distraught that the Cowboy fans gave TO a standing ovation when he came into the game and continued standing throughout the whole series. Maybe, I am just one to hang onto a grudge too long. I will never, ever forget (or forgive) his little antics at mid-field a few years back... and now Cowboys fans want to give him a standing O? Not this guy. I am normally quick to forvige and forget. I guess Sports is the one exception (yes, I still haven't watched a major league baseball game since the last strike) To tell you the truth, I was hoping this Hamstring and Groin was going to keep him out all year. Yes, he is a great player and yes he will probably help the Cowboys in the short term; but as for me, I dont need nor want him in a Cowboys uniform.

Ahhhh, It's that football time of year. None better. I have two fantasy drafts next week. I can't wait. One of the drafts, I am down at pick #12.... again (4th time in 6 years). I'm trying to work some predraft magic with some trades. No luck yet. Draft number 2 has me in the #3 slot so it is probably a forgone conclusion that I will take one of the Big 3.

No poker for me last night; but I did play a for a bit on Wednesday. As with others, I'm returning to the Party tables to get their reload bonus. I've had a few nice nights (up about $1K for the last two weeks) and its always nice to know that Mr Variance won't let you get too comfortable. Flop a set of Kings, no good. Lost to Mr Moron who capped preflop, flop, and turn (with KJ) on an Ace high board only to hit his gut shot on the river. How about flopping a straight. Nope. Apparently runner, runner rivered flushes beat a straight. And of course my nemisis of the last week. Flopping bottom 2 pair. Mr counterfeit card comes on river. Dang. Now of course, I'm not too happy; but at the same time, I have worked myself down to be down only $70 (from a high of over $200 down) when I broke the Cardinal rule. It's even possible that I broke 3 Cardinal rules on this one.

Cardinal Rule #1. Don't play on Tilt.
Cardinal Rule #2. Don't play when you are tired.
Cardinal Rule #3. Move tables when getting killed. This may not be a cardinal rule.

I don't really go into Tilt; but I sure do remember the guys that put the bad beats on me and I tend to push back on them. Sometimes with mediocre hands. I had been 2 and 3 tabling things, as normal. 2 of 3 tables, I am doing fine and even very good on one of the tables; but one of the tables, nothing was going right and was down around $250. I got back $100 of it; but it was starting to get late and I was getting tired. I had just gotten 3rd in a $25 SNG with my crowning blow running my mid pocket pair from the button running into Aces in Big Blind. Same thing happened to me in the Mook. In the Mook, I shouldn't even have gotten as far as I did as I got a runner, runner gut shot to survive that long. Anyway, finished in the middle of the pack there.
Back to ring play. I closed down everything except for the trouble table. I had just lost half of my table holdings on something that I don't remember. The next hand I had T9s and limped in and saw a multi hand pot. For some reason, I thought I hit my straight on turn and went crazy betting. I lost to KJ (top pair). I saw the chips go the other way and I was wondering what happened. Oops.. apparently 89TJ does not make a straight. OK, I get it. Go to Bed so all in all I lost about $150 for night. It could have been worse; but should have been a lot better.

Switching subjects...

I have been contemplating moving back to NL poker. This is where I first started many moons ago when I first deposited my first $60 into this thing we call poker. I remember being so conservative that I would open a 10c/25c table with only $5 and if I worked it up to $20, I would quit and go to another table and start the process again. Anyway, fast forward to now.

What should my thought processes be around swithcing from Limit to NL. I always try to do a little studying before I do it. I'm not much of a book reader so that is probably out. I'm thinking of going the video training route. The two prevelant NL ones out there are:

Cardrunners and PokerxFactor.

If anybody has ever used one or both of these, please let me know your thoughts. I have been using stoxpoker lately as that has a bunch of limit on it and I highly recommend it. Lately, it has even been free via ThisIsTheNuts. ThisIsTheNuts has a promotion going that if you attain $500 of rake on a site that you sign up with them on you get a month of training for free. Of course, you are also getting rakeback so it is a nice little added bonus. I definitely reccomend those guys. They have also just added a site (SensePoker) where you can get up to 60% rakeback. Just click on the links here or on the right and check them out.

That shoud do it for today. Have a great Labor day weekend!!!!!