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Poker: Nasty November

November 30, 2015

Okay, so it wasn’t a total disaster. Thankfully I finished 3rd in the $225 Omaha 8 Or Better tournament at the Fall Round Up in Pendleton, Oregon for a career high $5800 score (for the full write up, click here). It was a performance that saved my month from the abyss. It’s the other 29 days of November that made me sick to my stomach.

Outside of that tournament win, the best day I had was for a mere +$370. In contrast, I had four days where I lost at least $780. In all, even with the big score, I profited less than $1000 for the month. Now, I know plenty of people would be happy to make $1000 a month playing poker, and I am grateful to turn a profit despite what felt like a terrible month, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a bit defeated after the past two months.

What’s really eating at me is how poorly I’ve been doing in my main game, which is the $8-$16 in Lakewood. I haven’t just been losing, I’ve been getting TROUNCED. After polishing off nine straight winnings sessions for a $6k profit, I have gone on a miserable and mighty downswing. Over my last 16 sessions, I’ve posted a loss 10 times and 6 of those sessions have been for at least -$750. To make things worse, of my 6 winning sessions, none of them eclipsed +$750. I’ve shaved 39% off my win rate for the year in the last 6 weeks, dropping from 2+ BB/HR all the way down to 1.21 BB/HR.

Now I can’t really say this is all that surprising. I never really expected to sustain a 2 BB/HR win rate over the long run in a medium stakes limit game in 2015 – it’s just not realistic. The average player is so much better than they were a decade ago and honestly, I feel like 1.25-1.5 BB/HR is a more realistic number for crushing the game.

So I was due from some negative variance.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. In fact, it’s caught me quite a bit off guard. November is typically my worst month of the year as I tend to get lazier as the year progresses and my focus lapses before the new year kicks me into high gear again. So with my focus and my studying at its lowest point for the year, a monstrous downswing has played havoc with my psyche. I knew I was going to fall back to earth, but I wasn’t prepared to get my ass kicked – for weeks. There have been moments over the past two months where it felt like pure torture at the table… like the cards were mocking me, laughing at me. I’m just never going to flop a set when it gets capped multiway… or my huge draw is never getting there in the monster pots – and if I do get there, I’m finding ways to lose anyway.

I had a session last week where I flopped top pair with a premium kicker twelve times and every single time I got raised and every single time I lost the pot. It reached a point where I was expecting to get raised… and they never let me down. At the tail end of that session I flopped the nut flush draw, with a gut shot, after three betting an opponent who was opening a wide range, so even though he capped it preflop, I decided to take the point and play my ace high monster draw like it was the best hand. The board was 5323 and when I got check-raised on the turn, I felt it: a total loss of emotional control. My composure was entirely relying on the outcome of this river card. A brick… and I can’t fold…. and now he’s showing me the 63 of spades. I could feel myself boiling. Not because he beat with a trashy hand, but because I was fed up with the variance, annoyed that my aggression was getting punished to the max, and, more than anything, angry at myself for letting short term results affect me so much. Now I don’t cause a scene when I’m upset, but when you’re boiling on the inside, it’s pretty difficult to hide how you’re feeling on the outside. I might not say anything, but you can tell I am fuming. And that’s when it’s time for me to quit playing.

Fortunately, one of my strengths as a poker player is recognizing where and how my game is falling apart. I know I will get out of this funk – I have years and years of history that proves that I will – but when I’m blatantly struggling with my emotional control and letting results affect my mental state, I know it’s time to start holding myself accountable again. That means making studying a priority (starting with the mental game) and making sure I stay focused at the table. It’s easy to get lazy and go on cruise control when things are going extremely well, but I’m paying the price now for my lack of dedication. It’s not that I’m playing bad – although any deviation in your mental state is technically a form of tilt – it’s how I’m handling a series of poor results. It happens. It’s part of the game and I know that. So it shouldn’t be shaking me to my core. The variance will take care of itself eventually so I need to make sure I’m focusing on playing each hand as well as I can and making sure I have a game plan for when things go awry.

Bring it on December.

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Wildhorse Fall Round Up 2015 Results

November 24, 2015

First off, I have to say that I’m quite pleased with my performance at the Fall Round Up last week. It was my first undeniably successful trip to Pendleton. Even taking expenses and time off work into consideration, I still managed to turn a hefty profit. I have previously cashed in the Main Event twice, cashed some other tournaments, and done okay in the cash games, but whatever meager profits I’ve managed to accumulate would always be wiped out by expenses. I’ve never experienced that 5-6 hour drive home with anything but bitter disappointment in my head. I think my first trip to Pendleton I lost my entire bankroll… To Cherish Andrews… who’s now a well known enough pro to get invited to Poker Night In America. On a separate trip, I had the worst 4/8 session of my career by a large margin. So booking a solid win was a nice change of pace and Wildhorse went from possibly being my worst all-time casino to becoming my second most profitable location in 2015.

In a nutshell, I did extremely well in the tournaments even though my end results weren’t exactly amazing. I showed up 45 minutes late to the Omaha 8 event after driving for 5 hours straight and I didn’t bust out of that tournament until there were three people left and I had a $5764 score in the books before I had even unpacked my car. So I was able to immediately cross two things off my goal list by setting a new career high for a tournament score and by making a Round Up final table. Clearly, a great start to my trip.

Still, this Omaha tournament was a testament to how influential variance can be in tournament poker. There was a moment with two tables left, when we were already in the money, where I got scooped by an unlucky river card and I felt like my final table chances were all but finished. And then I went on a Joe McKeehan-like heater and entered the final table with the undeniable chip lead. It was a testament to the concept of never getting discouraged because good things can always happen. I stayed hot at the final table, knocking out multiple players and by the time we were down to three, myself and the other big stack had 80% of the chips in play. It looked like a guaranteed payday of $7000+ and a chance to play Steve Stencil, #2 on the Round Up’s all-time winner’s list, heads up for my first bracelet and a shot at a $10K score. And then variance struck again: I opened on the button with AK62 and the small stack raised me and we got four bets in preflop before getting the rest of it in on the K76 rainbow flop. I had two pair with the nut low draw; he had AQJT for… nothing. No pair, no flush draw, no low draw, NOTHING! Obviously he was committing himself preflop, so he had to go with it, but it’s hard to imagine a hand I could have more crushed than his… and then a 9 hit the turn for a sweat… and then the Jack on the river gave him the nut straight with no low on board for the scoop and the full double up. I never recovered from that hand and busted third while that kid went on to win the tournament. As they say, that’s poker.

I finished 19th in the H.O.R.S.E. tournament the next day, but only 16 players cashed. While bubbling may sound brutal, I never really had any momentum in this tournament – it was a grind the whole way as I was somehow able to take a stack that was never above average and almost crack the money. My starting table in this tournament was amazing and full of terrible play, but I was never able to take advantage of it.

After taking a day off tournaments for a successful session in the $10/$20 Omaha 8 game, my first NLHE tournament of the series looked to be a thing of destiny. I was running absurdly hot. Every break I had more than twice as many chips as the last break. At dinner, with about 55 people left, I likely had the tournament chip lead. My buddy Vince was telling me how he had one big pair the whole tournament. I had already had Aces four times and I had KK-TT maybe 8 times total and they were all holding up. My big pot to that point, I had flatted the second big stack at the table with AA on the button and we got to see a K97 with two spades flop heads up. He made a strong bet into me and I decided this wasn’t the kind of board I wanted to let him barrel into, so I raised him on the flop and he jammed it on me. It gave me pause because he had a ton of chips, but since my hand was so disguised and the player was aggressive, I didn’t think about it too long before sticking my stack in there. Fortunately, he had AK and my hand held and I turned my above average stack into a monster stack.

And then I did something stupid. A new player had arrived at the table, two to my left, and he was already giving me problems. I had already lost three small pots to him and we had built up a history of him playing aggressively and me giving up routinely. So when he made a small raise from early position and it folded around to me in the big blind, I decided to take the attractive pot odds and see a flop with the K6o. The flop came all clubs and I had the K of clubs and I decided to continue taking a passive line against this overly aggressive opponent and planned to throw him some rope if I turned a king high flush… which I did. I check-called a decent sized bet on the turn and I made it look like I was strongly considering folding because a) I wanted him to keep betting and b) if he did happen to have the Ac I didn’t want him to think he could get maximum value from me. Unfortunately, when I checked the river, he jammed on me for more than a pot-sized bet of 36K. It’s a great move. It polarizes his range into either a) I have the nuts or b) I am bluffing – and given our brief history so far, my image of him was that he was totally capable of shoving the river with air to try to get me to fold a flush. Even though the river shove was for more than half of my remaining stack, I didn’t give it a ton of thought on the river because when you try to manipulate an opponent into doing something and then they do it, you probably shouldn’t second guess yourself. Unfortunately, in this case, he did have the ace of clubs. Although I think my postflop line is fine and that, against this villain, I will win a monster pot on the river picking off his bluff a good portion of the time, I’m having a hard time forgiving myself for defending the hand in the first place. I have K6 offsuit, out of position, against a good LAG with a big stack. Is this really a spot where I want to put my big stack at risk? Playing the guessing game against a good player? It’s one seemingly small error that lead to a huge loss.

A few hands later, I called an 11 big blind shove with AQ and lost a race to 66 and suddenly I had a below average stack. Just like that. My momentum never picked up again and eventually I jammed a small pair into Aces and somehow didn’t even make the money of a tournament I had the chip lead in at dinner. Gross. However, any time you can learn from your mistakes is a chance to improve and get better and next time I have a huge stack in the late stages of a tournament, I’ll remember to be a bit wiser about the spots I pick to get involved in.

I made the dinner break of both the $330 NLHE event and the Main Event, but never really got the ball rolling in either tournament. I just kept grinding in both events waiting for something good to happen and the rush never arrived.

I wrapped up my series by dominating the Last Chance Turbo event until I lost a huge chunk of chips 10 off the money with AQ to KK against an opponent that was showing a very wide jamming range. I did manage to quadruple up when I was down to less than two blinds and found a way to get another cash for the series, ultimately finishing in 16th place.

All in all, I cashed 2 of 6 events, made a final table, secured my biggest cash ever, made the dinner break in every tournament I played, and felt really good about my play overall. Having made deep cashes in the last two Muckleshoot Classic series and now making a Round Up final table, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before I really arrive with a huge win.

Now if I could just figure out how to beat that 8/16 game again!

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An Overdue Update

November 2, 2015

Just when I was starting to show some consistency with my posts and get some steady traffic to my blog, things have gotten so hectic that blogging has fallen way down on my priority list. In July, my wife and I moved to Tacoma and my part-time job (playing poker) started to take up a lot more of my time with an $8-$16 game always in action a mere 15 minutes away. In late August, I was hired by the Palace Casino in Lakewood and what used to be an easy, part-time job in a one table poker room where I spent most of my time on the clock playing poker has turned into a mentally and physically exhausting, frequently intense, and often difficult 30 hours a week of running the floor of a poker room with never-ending traffic and few moments to catch your breath after noon. Needless to say, when I finish my work day now, I just want to go home and try to relax a little before I fall asleep far earlier than I ever have in my life. So, aside from my time at work, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays result in basically no productivity from me. I literally come home and do NOTHING. On the bright side, I’m guaranteed to work all my hours and to have multiple games going every day, so while my hourly wage remains similar, my net income has increased dramatically. I also have Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays off, which is optimal if your primary goal is to play poker.

Speaking of poker, August was the best month of poker I’ve had in years and September was also considerably profitable. I spent the vast majority of my time in $8-$16 and saw my win rate for the year climb to over two big bets per hour, thanks to nine straight winning sessions that resulted in pretty large upswing. While I feel like my results are a testament to the hard work I’ve put in towards mastering the game of limit hold em, I don’t think anyone is beating low stakes limit for 2 big bets an hour long term, so even though my sample size is pretty substantial, it’s important to recognize that luck has played a large role in my success. While I personally don’t feel like I’ve been overwhelmingly lucky (others would disagree), one thing is for certain: I have definitely not had many extended periods of bad luck this year. I did, however, end my winning streak with an incredible -$1800 session, the worst I’ve ever had in any limit game – in terms of big bets lost – by a mile. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to leave a game because I was no longer emotionally equipped to sit in it. I mean, I’ve had bouts of anger, frustration, even tilt – that’s normal – but after I was already stuck $1600 and flopped top set in a capped 7-way pot and lost to 65 on the 942J3 run out and a few hands later I was shown the 53 on the AK2A4 board, I no longer felt like I was fit for being in public. My internal dialogue was screaming so loud I felt like everyone at the table could hear it. So I made a swift exit. That happened in early October, which has turned out to be a difficult month of poker for me, as I’m in danger of having my first losing month of 2015 if things don’t turn around over the next few weeks. Still, I can hardly complain, as poker has gone amazingly well since I relocated to Tacoma.

(Note: since I started writing this, October has passed, and while I did mount a serious comeback, I still fell short of the black, resulting in my first losing month of 2015.)

I played three events in the Muckleshoot Classic Series in September. I felt like I was playing really good poker, but I lost every flip I was involved in during the first two tournaments and hit the rail earlier than I wanted to. In the third event, I got my 99 in against an overpair and turned the miracle set and then finally started winning some flip situations, which I was able to parlay into a 13th place finish. I felt like I was freerolling after spiking that set, so it was nice to make a deep run, but it was still ultimately a frustrating finish, as I lost two critical pots with two tables left where I was a heavy favorite and I’m still yet to final table a major tournament at Muckleshoot. Next week I’ll be heading to Wildhorse Casino in Pendleton, Oregon to play five events in the Fall Round Up, another poker room where I’ve struggled to break through. Despite multiple cashes and deep runs, I haven’t final tabled at the Round Up either and variance has never been on my side in the cash games when I’ve been there. In fact, if I had access to all the data I’ve ever compiled, I probably would discover that Wildhorse Casino is my worst location lifetime. So needless to say, I’m looking forward to finally doing some real damage on Oregon soil. You can only hold me down for so long.

I was really enjoying the consistent movie reviews I was posting and I plan to get back in the zone of posting them again, but aside from being too busy to post, I’ve also been too busy to watch any movies. Since I started my new job, I haven’t seen a movie in theaters or at home. It’s been nearly two full months since I last watched an entire film. All of our TV time at home has been dedicated to watching the entire series of “Parks And Recreation,” which is a great show, but I prefer a bit more variety in my entertainment programs. I suppose this is a minor downside of the streaming services as you can “literally” watch 100 episodes in a row without having to wait for a new disc or the next one to air on TV. Meanwhile I’ve had Interstellar at home since June and The Drop and Ex Machina since late August. It’s getting to the point where I probably would have been better off buying these movies rather than paying my Netflix subscription the last few months. We are on season six of Parks & Rec though and I’ve never been so excited for a show I actually enjoy to end. Sorry babe!

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Poker Goals – July 2015

August 6, 2015

July 2015 was one of the most turbulent and frustrating months of poker I’ve ever experienced. I started the month off hot, winning 8 of 9 sessions, including a solid showing in the Muckleshoot spread game on Super Sunday. All in all, after 5 days, I was up over 60 big bets at my normal limit.

I followed that happy start with back-to-back-to-back -$800 sessions over a three day period, which amounted to the largest downswing (in terms of money lost) I’ve experienced in at least five years – or since the days when alcohol used to wipe my entire bankroll out on a regular basis. Of course, now that I’m playing $8/$16 regularly instead of $4/$8 I’m not surprised to have bigger financial downswings, but having it happen so severely in three short days was a bit jarring.

It was a short lived disaster, however, as I quickly recovered by going on a massive heater that included nine straight winning days and profits in 12 of 13 total sessions. All in all, this stretch was good for a 260 big bet upswing and changed my game plan for the month. I initially planned to play the Muckleshoot deep stack tournament every Tuesday night, but since I was running at around $100 an hour in my normal game, I couldn’t really justify wasting my time in a tournament where my best result so far has been getting my money back. Even though running in the 4-5 BB/HR range is totally unrealistic, this wasn’t my first stretch like that this year, and running extremely well can affect your emotions and game just as much as running bad can. It’s easy to forget how hard poker can be when you go through a hot streak like this.

I was quickly brought back to reality over the last week or so of July. I played a mere 20 hours over 5 days, but I got clobbered again. I was losing hard and I was losing fast. My starting hands were running pretty good, but I was whiffing the flop almost every time I raised and when I did connect, I would win a small pot or lose a big one. My draws were pretty much never coming in and it really felt like an impossible task to show down a winner. Not only did I run at -$108/hour over this period, but I also lost more money in a single limit session than I have since I’ve started tracking all my results five years ago. Again, now that I’m an $8/$16 regular, this is to be expected. Not only are my downswings and single session losses going to be bigger financially, they are also likely to be bigger proportionately since the $8/$16 game I play in is significantly more volatile than the $4/$8 games I used to play. My worst result in a normal $4/$8 game was -66.25 big bets. That’s over thousands and thousands of hours – so probably as bad as it was ever going to get. In what is probably less than 1000 hours of $8/$16 lifetime, I’ve already far exceeded that bad result, by posting a -77 big bet session during this stretch of run bad.

All in all, it was a pretty bizarre month. I ended up with a pretty dinky profit for July which I guess is pretty nice considering I not only experienced my worst downswing of the past five years, but also my second worst downswing. On the other hand, it’s also pretty disappointing, since three weeks into July I was having an amazing month and felt like I was basically printing money. Oh well. It was a good exercise for my mental game and while I was incredibly disappointed with myself during that six rack loss – I felt physically ill and I was incapable of even pretending to be interested in what anyone was saying to me – the feelings didn’t linger and I felt normal by the time I got home usually and certainly by the next morning. So even though I felt some emotional collapse at the table, I could still see that my mental game has grown overall by my ability to move on quickly and put things behind me.

I decided to abandon the style of poker reviews I’ve been posting since the start of the year since it was a bit repetitive and a lot of the goals I set are shoo-ins to be met – for instance, playing most of my hours in $8/$16. Really, the only time I’m in a $4/$8 game these days is when I’m waiting for a seat in the bigger game or when I’m propping.

I did keep pretty studious notes during this past month, however, in order to post about hands that gave me trouble and to help identify how variance is affecting my results in the short term and to better help evaluate my own play. Here are the results of what I consider to be the key hand categories:

AA: 7-12 (58.33%)
KK: 13-17 (76.5%)
QQ: 6-9 (67.67%)
JJ: 7-10 (70%)
TT: 2-5 (40%)
99: 3-15 (20%)
88: 3-9 (33.33%)
77: 5-10 (50%)
66-22: 6-37 (16%)

AK: 6-29 (20.7%)
AQ: 13-33 (39.4%)
AKs-ATs: 8-31 (25.8%)
KQs-KTs: 11-23 (47.8%)
QJs-JTs: 10-20 (50%)
Sets: *14-21 (67.67%)
Flush Draws: **29-73 (39.73%)

*note: I made a set when I played a pocket pair about 16% of the time, which seems about average considering I’m including the times I made a set on the turn and river.
**note: I lost six times when I made a flush.

I ran well with my big pocket pairs and ran about average on making sets and flushes, but I lost a whopping 33% of the time I had a set and I lost over 20% of the time I had a flush. That seems unlucky. My AK results look less than ideal, but the rest of the hands look to have run pretty average overall. Variance seems to have had a modest affect on my results last month, it just seems worse because a lot of the losing hands happened in the last ten days of the month.

I missed the first Muckleshoot deep stack of August, but I likely will be playing them on Tuesdays going forward. I’m better off spending my time in cash games, but I plan on playing multiple events in the Muckleshoot Fall Classic next month so prepping for that series in the Muckleshoot deep stack makes a lot of sense.

Here’s to hoping August will be a smoother ride than July was!

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2015 Poker Goals: April through June update

July 6, 2015

I have to say I’m a bit disappointed with my dedication to elite poker play the past three months. My focus level has fallen off tremendously and the fact that I never even posted wrap-ups for April or May is pretty telling. Granted, it’s been a busy few months. Since my March wrap-up I’ve gotten married, been to Vegas for the World Series of Poker, spent a week traveling down the coast to San Francisco, celebrated my wife’s birthday, and moved to Tacoma. And today I finally got my internet up and running. For the first time in months, I have nothing on my plate in the foreseeable future. I can once again turn my attention to crushing at the poker table. This post will focus on how I did the past three months and how I’m doing on my 2015 poker goals.

log 1200 live hours

Over the past three months I played 314 hours of live poker – just over 100 hours a month – putting my YTD total at 764 hours, well on pace to reach my goal but a noticeable dip in play compared to the first three months of the year. I now live about 10 minutes away from the Palace in Lakewood though and seeing as how parenthood is probably in my near future I should be granted the freedom to go on the super grind for the next year or so.

focus on how well I played, how well I controlled tilt, and how well I paid attention to the game flow instead of on how well I ran.
Continue taking notes throughout all my sessions and combing through them later.

And here is where my lack of focus comes in. I literally kept notes for ZERO sessions over the past three months which means I’ve basically been playing on autopilot and spending very little time thinking about my game off the table. My mindset has remained strong during this time, so it’s nice to see the mental muscle is actually building, but it’s important not to get lazy and I will be turning on the laser focus again starting… now.

spend less than 20% of my total hours in 4/8 games

One of my bigger goals for 2015 was to quit spending so much time in a game both my ability and my bankroll have outgrown. The past three months I played 112.5 hours at the 4/8 level with 82 of those hours coming on the clock. That means I played 30.5 hours of 4/8 off duty out of 156 personal, non-tournament hours – or just under 20%. That’s a happy ratio and meets my goal, but it also means I only averaged just over 50 live, off duty cash game hours a month, which is a pretty poor output.

log 100 hours of spread limit

I did get some no limit hours in while I was in Vegas, but not very much. I am now at 30 hours YTD halfway through the year. There’s a chance my output will increase over the second half of 2015 as my bankroll (hopefully) increases and I dabble in the Muckleshoot 3/5 game a bit more. I now have Sundays off permanently and live 20-30 minutes away from Muck, so Super Sundays will be a must for me going forward. I should reach 100 hours just playing the next six Super Sundays.

continue reading about mental game, develop mental game profiles, and improve my c-game

focus my learning – don’t study multiple variants at the same time or games I’m not playing frequently.

This has been another area of my game that has fallen off tremendously the past few months. I did spend some time reading up on and developing my mental game, but it’s nowhere near as developed as I would expect it to be by now. While I haven’t had any notable mental game problems the past few months, I basically just treaded water. I should have a lot more free time for poker study in the future as my wife is switching to week days and it will be easy to schedule a designated time solely for working on my game away from the tables.

treat poker like a job with set hours and not like a hobby.

I did a poor job in this area the past few months as well. Poker felt more like a hobby than something I was putting my heart and soul into. The most telling point: I spent 54 hours in my bread and butter game – the 8/16 at the Palace – or just 18 hours a month. Considering I’ve been averaging over 1.5 big bets per hour in that game my lack of output is pretty inexcusable. Obviously I have been busy with other stuff, but still… Now that I live ten minutes away, there is really no reason I shouldn’t be able to play 90+ hours of 8/16 a month going forward.

watch opponents closely in tournaments and develop exploitative styles for each of them.

take my time in critical pots and really think things through before acting.

set a new career high tournament score.

I played 21 tournaments over the past three months and cashed three times (15%). Two cashes and nine tournaments were at my job with entry fees of $40 or less. Yawn. The other 12 tournaments had an average BI of $266 and I only managed to cash once, which fortunately was a first place finish.

In mid-April I went 0 for 3 at Wildhorse Casino during the Spring Round Up series. I finished 3rd at my table during the Shootout tournament and I remember feeling pretty unlucky about that. I don’t remember getting any momentum in the Omaha 8 or HORSE tournaments. I am planning to play a full slate at the Fall Round Up this year and I have a pretty good feeling about a breakout.

During the 2015 World Series Of Poker, I continued my drought at the Rio by going 0 for 4 in World Series and daily deep stack events, bringing my lifetime showing there to a sad 0 for 9. Whiffing nine tournaments in a row is a pretty standard stretch, but it’s not how I was hoping to start my World Series career. I was extremely disappointed with my showing in WSOP Event #1, the Casino Employee Event. I can’t remember any particular hands but I do remember feeling like I was not super happy with my play and that I didn’t set myself up for success very well.

In the $565 Colossus I fired one bullet and received an absolutely brutal table draw. On my direct left, I had notable pro Maurice Hawkins (top 130 in the world according to the GPI Rankings); on my right I had WPT champion Jordan Cristos. In fact, of the eight other players at my table, I knew for certain that I was better than one of them and he wasn’t much of a drooler either. In a tournament with a record-breaking 22,000+ entrants (and a sea of fish) I couldn’t believe how tough my starting table was. Maurice was playing every hand – seriously, I saw him call off over half his stack pre with 92dd once – and I quickly learned that I wasn’t going to be able to open lightly and he was going to make me “prove it” every time I took the lead in a pot. He was playing the Colossus like it was a $10 tournament and I was playing like it was $1500 and I wasn’t about to bluff off my stack trying to outlevel him. Being one of the top players in the world, I was shocked at how unprofessional and rude Maurice Hawkins was. He was a total ass. Possibly the least pleasant person I’ve ever played with and that’s really saying something. I had the pleasure of watching Jordan Cristos check-raise jam the turn, getting Maurice to fold an overpair, and then showing a total airball bluff when Maurice caused a MASSIVE scene after folding his hand face up and throwing his cards at Jordan. “Let’s move on to the next hand, cause this one is no good. So let’s just play the next hand.” All said with such aggressive, negative energy and repeated ad nauseum. It was a pretty cool moment for the whole table when Jordan flipped over the king high and shut his arrogant ass up. After that hand, Maurice decided to focus on someone else and picked on him relentlessly. That player handled it like a champ though and I think the whole table breathed a sigh of relief when Maurice busted… of course, he guaranteed to all of us as he was walking away that he would win the Colossus. The dude is the epitome of how a professional should NOT act at the table. A total disgrace to the game if that’s his constant MO.

Unfortunately, Jordan Cristos was also playing this tournament like $565 is nothing to him. One of his standard plays was to isolate a limper by making a huge raise in late position – something like 10+ bigs, which is a bigger bet than most three bets would be. One time he did this, I flatted him with two black aces and got it in on the KQJ all heart flop, expecting to hit the rail most of the time, but somehow holding against his QTo with a royal draw. Later in the tournament, he made a similar move and I looked down at AQ sitting on about 16 big blinds. Jordan had shown down so many trashy hands – and almost never passed on an opportunity to try to steal – that I didn’t think for a second about folding, but I also realized that I had no fold equity and that I would be playing for my tournament life. I jammed it, he was priced in, and I ended up losing to his Q9, a pretty depressing end to my day, but quite a huge improvement on my one hand exit in the Millionairemaker last year!

I decided to play the $100 weekly HORSE tournament at The Orleans and I took the majority of the money in a four-way ICM chop as the substantial chip leader. Even though I had a hefty chip lead, the blinds were large enough that one hand could change the scope of the tournament and I couldn’t say no to better than second place money without having to play it out. I played good overall and ran really hot at the final table to earn the victory. It was bittersweet. Obviously, when you enter a tournament the ultimate goal is to win it, so I was happy to take it down. On the other hand, it’s a bit frustrating to run red hot in the tournament with the smallest buy in and field size of my trip. Even with the first place victory, I still lost money on my tournament entries in Vegas. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but if there’s a time to run amazing, this is not the tournament I would have picked.

Two days later I played the $240 HORSE event at the Golden Nugget, got an amazing table draw with some of the worst play I’ve ever seen, and had absolutely no luck. I peaked in the first ten minutes of the tournament and I was barely above the starting stack at any point. I missed most of my draws and lost with most of my made hands and could never take advantage of the horrendous play that was rampant at my table. I’ve never wanted a mulligan so bad in my poker career.

I’m reaching a point where I’m getting pretty fed up with tournament poker. Excluding smaller tournaments (< $100), I have cashed 2 of 19 times this year for an ROI of -34%. In the past twelve months, I’ve cashed 3 of 29 times for an ROI of -56%. As someone with so much cash game success, I have to ask myself why I continue to punish myself with tournament variance. Or is it variance? 29 tournaments is an absurdly small sample size so it’s certainly possible. Prior to this past year, I had been a tournament crusher, so I have good reason to think things will turn around eventually. I am fully confident I am capable of a life-changing score. On the other hand, in comparison to cash games, I play tournaments so infrequently that it is much harder to develop my game plan. With cash games, I can study off the table and apply what I’m working on immediately, multiple times a week. With tournaments, I might go weeks in between events and even when I play I might not be able to apply the concepts I’m currently learning in a given tournament. Still, I’m not quite ready to give up just yet. I feel like my time is coming and I’d hate to deny myself the opportunity. I’m planning a full slate for the Fall Round Up in Pendleton and I’m going to start planning for next year’s WSOP immediately. Hopefully I will be in a position where I can sell action for and play up to five events or more. Also, now that I'm residing in Tacoma and my availability is changing, I think I will start playing Muckleshoot's Tuesday deep stack regularly. With that event and some of the weekend tournaments, I should be able play somewhere between 5-7 tournaments a month and hopefully turn my ROI around.

double my current bankroll size

maintain a 1 BB/HR win rate at 8/16

I posted a small loss in April and followed that up with two mediocre winning months in May and June. I had to use my bankroll for all the extra traveling we’ve been doing and various other expenses, so despite making a modest profit the past three months, I actually have less in my bankroll now than I did when April started. I loathe the feeling of running in place and getting complacent, but that’s how these past few months have felt. I’m ready to start grinding and really focus again.

Over 648.5 hours, these are my current YTD win rates:

1.67 big bets per hour at 8/16 (1.81 past three months)
0.77 big bets per hour at 4/8 (0.2 past three months)
0.42 big bets per hour at 10/20 and higher (all in the past three months)

I’m looking forward to doing some serious grinding and bankroll building over the rest of the summer and hopefully I can put together a hot stretch of tournament runs!

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MLB Awards – through the first third of the 2015 season

June 10, 2015

Note: I compiled this post over the past two days, so some stats don’t reflect yesterday’s action.

American League MVP

1. Josh Donaldson, Blue Jays: .310/.367/.582, 47 R, 16 HR, 43 RBI, 3 SB, 3.6 WAR
2. Nelson Cruz, Mariners: .329/.384/.613, 33 R, 18 HR, 39 RBI, SB, 2.0 WAR
3. Prince Fielder, Rangers: .356/.414/.547, 27 R, 10 HR, 40 RBI, 1.6 WAR
4. Jason Kipnis, Indians: .338/.414/.518, 41 R, 5 HR, 27 RBI, 8 SB, 3.7 WAR
5. Mike Trout, Angels: .283/.373/.561, 42 R, 16 HR, 33 RBI, 8 SB, 3.2 WAR
6. Miguel Cabrera, Tigers: .320/.427/.558, 31 R, 12 HR, 38 RBI, SB, 2.3 WAR
7. Stephen Vogt, Athletics: .290/.385/.544, 27 R, 11 HR, 39 RBI, 2.2 WAR
8. Brian Dozier, Twins: .268/.344/.527, 47 R, 11 HR, 28 RBI, 3 SB, 2.3 WAR
9. Adam Jones, Orioles: .311/.348/.509, 30 R, 9 HR, 30 RBI, 3 SB, 2.2 WAR
10. Eric Hosmer, Royals: .306/.378/.490, 32 R, 7 HR, 35 RBI, 3 SB, 1.9 WAR

Comments: Josh Donaldson has been an absolute monster this year. I figured moving from pitcher friendly Oakland to hitter friendly Toronto would give him a boost, but he’s on pace to hit over .300 with 43 homers and 116 RBI. Pretty sick. With Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion mostly scuffling through April and May, Donaldson has carried the Jays offense to .500 record. As a Mariners fan, Nelson Cruz sure feels like the MVP right now. I can’t imagine where the M’s would be without him. 10-48? Cruz accounts for about 75% of the M’s total offense. Prince Fielder has the lowest WAR on this list (probably because he’s a negative on defense and on the bases), but that offensive line is pretty impressive and his Rangers actually have a winning record. Of course, Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera make their obligatory appearances and Trout will probably climb out of reach on this list as the season progresses. It’s worth noting the lack of any Astro on this list, but that’s largely because Jose Altuve had a pedestrian May.

National League MVP

1. Paul Goldschmidt, Diamondbacks: .340/.466/.650, 44 R, 16 HR, 47 RBI, 9 SB, 3.1 WAR
2. Bryce Harper, Nationals: .326/.464/.706, 44 R, 19 HR, 46 RBI, 3 SB, 4.0 WAR
3. Anthony Rizzo, Cubs: .332/.409/.608, 33 R, 11 HR, 35 RBI, 10 SB, 2.9 WAR
4. Dee Gordon, Marlins: .366/.390/.433, 32 R, 16 RBI, 20 SB, 2.9 WAR
5. Adrian Gonzalez, Dodgers: .329/.407/.589, 37 R, 11 HR, 39 RBI, 2.6 WAR
6. A.J Pollock, Diamondbacks: .321/.369/.495, 40 R, 7 HR, 27 RBI, 14 SB, 2.5 WAR
7. Todd Frazier, Reds: .282/.356/.587, 37 R, 16 HR, 36 RBI, 6 SB, 2.8 WAR
8. Joc Pederson, Dodgers: .253/.377/.566, 34 R, 17 HR, 33 RBI, 2 SB, 3.1 WAR
9. Matt Carpenter, Cardinals: .300/.391/.520, 38 R, 8 HR, 30 RBI, SB, 2.3 WAR
10. Giancarlo Stanton, Marlins: .240/.325/.558, 36 R, 19 HR, 49 RBI, 4 SB, 2.4 WAR

Comments: Goldschmidt and Harper feel like options 1a and 1b here. It’s so close, I can barely call it. Bryce edges Goldy in WAR, but Goldschmidt is hitting .340 while on a 30/30 pace… as a first baseman. Who does that? Oh, Anthony Rizzo also. I wonder how many people outside of Arizona that don’t have him on their fantasy team realize that A.J. Pollock is having an MVP-caliber season? Joc Pederson is having a pretty absurd rookie season for the Dodgers. I think most believed that he had 30/30 potential somewhere down the line, but he’s on a 40 homer pace in his rookie year. It’s kind of weird to consider a .240 hitter an MVP candidate, but it’s even stranger to exclude a guy that leads the MLB in homers and RBI. If Stanton can cut back on his NL-worst whiff rate and get a bit luckier on his BABIP (.275), he will vault up this list and his power numbers could get crazy.

AL Cy Young

1. Chris Archer, Rays: 7 Wins, 1.84 ERA, 11.71 K/9, 0.95 WHIP, 5.40 K:BB, 2.8 WAR
2. Sonny Gray, Athletics: 7 Wins, 1.65 ERA, 8.01 K/9, 0.91 WHIP, 3.48 K:BB, 2.3 WAR
3. Dallas Keuchel, Astros: 7 Wins, 1.85 ERA, 6.88 K/9, 0.92 WHIP, 3.05 K:BB, 2.2 WAR
4. Felix Hernandez, Mariners: 9 Wins, 2.51 ERA, 8.85 K/9, 0.96 WHIP, 3.52 K:BB, 1.4 WAR
5. Chris Sale, White Sox: 6 Wins, 3.04 ERA, 11.31 K/9, 1.01 WHIP, 5.47 K:BB, 2.3 WAR

Comments: Chris Archer has been really, really good and has only gotten better as the year has progressed. In his last three starts he’s posted strikeout totals of 11, 15, and 12. What. Chris Sale has been pretty unlucky to be #5 on this list.

NL Cy Young

1. Max Scherzer, Nationals: 6 Wins, 1.85 ERA, 10.43 K/9, 0.91 WHIP, 7.50 K:BB, 2.8 WAR
2. Gerrit Cole, Pirates: 9 Wins, 1.73 ERA, 9.92 K/9, 1.10 WHIP, 4.53 K:BB, 2.0 WAR
3. Jacob deGrom, Mets: 7 Wins, 2.42 ERA, 9.35 K/9, 1.00 WHIP, 5.06 K:BB, 2.0 WAR
4. Zack Greinke, Dodgers: 5 Wins, 1.92 ERA, 7.68 K/9, 0.95 WHIP, 4.25 K:BB, 1.7 WAR
5. Jason Hammel, Cubs: 5 Wins, 2.76 ERA, 9.12 K/9, 0.89 WHIP, 8.44 K:BB, 1.7 WAR

AL Rookie Of The Year

1. Lance McCullers, Astros: 2 Wins, 2.32 ERA, 10.45 K/9, 0.90 WHIP, 6.00 K:BB, 1.1 WAR
2. Devin Travis, Blue Jays: .271/.336/.504, 24 R, 7 HR, 26 RBI, 2 SB, 1.4 WAR
3. Carson Smith, Mariners: 1 Win, 2 Saves, 1.38 ERA, 10.04 K/9, 0.73 WHIP, 5.80 K:BB, 0.5 WAR

Comments: No real standouts in the AL yet. Devin Travis was making a pretty strong case before getting injured. McCullers has been lights out for the Astros in 5 starts. Smith probably should have been the Mariners closer a month ago.

NL Rookie Of The Year

1. Joc Pederson, Dodgers: .253/.377/.566, 34 R, 17 HR, 33 RBI, 2 SB, 3.1 WAR
2. Kris Bryant, Cubs: .282/.392/.469, 31 R, 7 HR, 34 RBI, 5 SB, 2.2 WAR
3. Chris Heston, Giants: 6 Wins, 3.77 ERA, 8.03 K/9, 1.19 WHIP, 3.67 K:BB, 1.2 WAR

Comments: This will be a fun race to monitor for the rest of the season. Pederson and Bryant are truly elite talents. Heston threw a no-hitter yesterday, but I have a feeling the opposing pitcher in that game, Noah Syndergaard, will pass him on this list by midseason.

Surprise Team

Minnesota Twins – The Astros have been incredibly surprising, but everyone knew they were going to be really good… eventually. The Twins though? I don’t think anyone saw this coming. Granted, the Twins have one of the better farm systems in MLB, but all of their premiere prospects (Buxton, Sano, etc.) are yet to arrive. Trevor May, Mike Pelfrey, and Kyle Gibson have been amazing in the rotation and the Twins have posted one of the AL’s best records despite ace Phil Hughes struggling during the first 2.5 months.

Dissapointing Team

Seattle Mariners – If you would have told me that Nelson Cruz would be hitting .320 with 18 HR and 39 RBI and that Felix Hernandez would have nine wins in early June, I would have guessed that the Mariners were about 10 games over .500. Instead, they are 6 games under. As someone that has watched the M’s closely, it’s pretty obvious what the problem is: a lack of offense in general and a lack of timely hitting specifically. We are bad at getting men on base, but when they get in scoring position we are even worse. It’s hard to blame anyone in particular, but Robinson Cano has been absolutely terrible. He’s not hitting with any authority and he just doesn’t seem like he even cares anymore. I’ve seen him get picked off twice while not paying attention and seems like his effort level never goes above 80%. It’s scary to think Mariners fans might have to watch this for seven more years.

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Back From The World Series Of Poker…

June 4, 2015

…and back to blogging soon!

Here are some things I will be posting about:

-How well I did with my poker goals in April and May
-How my week at the World Series Of Poker went
-my awards for the first third of the MLB season

and reviews of movies I will likely be watching over the next month or so:

-The Theory Of Everything
-Selma
-Foxcatcher
-The Drop

and in theaters:

-Pitch Perfect 2
-Entourage
-Love And Mercy (Beach Boy Brian Wilson biopic starring Paul Dano)
-Spy (Melissa McCarthy comedy)
-Jurassic World
-Me And Earl And The Dying Girl (limited release, Sundance winner)
-Inside Out (Pixar)

Also, I decided to scrap my idea of picking my Franchise Four for every MLB team. As is typical for me, I couldn’t just pick four players off the top of my head, I had to put hours of research into each team so I could make sure I got it exactly right. Since I’m just doing this for fun, I just don’t have that kind of free time.

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2015 Poker Goals – March Wrap Up

April 3, 2015

Every month I’m going to reflect on the previous month of poker and see how well I’m doing at accomplishing my 2015 goals:

Log 1200 live hours

As I noted in my February Wrap Up, I have upped my goal from 750 hours to 1200 hours. Since I’m frequently playing when I’m working, I am still able to play nearly full-time hours despite having a day job. In March, I played an absurd 174 hours, my largest output since the first half of 2012 probably. That kind of pace is unlikely to continue, but I think I can average about 120 hours most months.

focus on how well I played, how well I controlled tilt, and how well I paid attention to game flow instead of how well I ran.
continuing taking notes throughout all my sessions and combing through them later.

One of these days, I will really start paying attention to the game when I’m playing. It is quite easily one of my biggest weaknesses. I kept accurate notes for most of my $8/$16 sessions, but I continue to struggle to pay attention when I’m not in hands.

I’m also learning how to go through my notes in a more efficient manner – skimming past hands that seem totally standard and focusing on the ones that gave me trouble. It should be noted that the statistics I’m about to post are for $8/$16 sessions only and don’t include notes from one of my more important sessions of the month – where I started off stuck $700 and stayed in the feeder game playing short-handed for several hours (and thus unable to take notes between hands). I ended up crushing the short-handed game and then went on an absurd run after the game broke and I finally made my way to the main game. At that point, with so many hands unrecorded – and it being the first of the month – I decided to continue not keeping notes for the session. So for a period where I went from stuck $700 to cashing out over $1300 sugar, I have no hands logged for an absurd amount of positive variance. I also played 65 hours of $4/$8 where I did not keep notes.

Here are the hands I have decided to track to keep variance in perspective:

AA – 4/8 (50%)
KK – 4/12 (33%)
QQ – 7/14 (50%)
JJ – 7/12 (58.3%)
TT – 4/8 (50%)
77-99 – 14/43 (32.5%)
22-66 – 8/28 (28.6%)
All Pairs – 52/125 (41.6%)
Sets – 16/18 (88.9%)
AK-AQ – 25/65 (38.5%)
AKs-ATs – 12/30 (40%)
KQs-KTs – 5/13 (38.5%)
QJs-JTs – 4/17 (23.5%)
Flush Draws – 19/40 (47.5%)

Thoughts: Running at over 40% for all my pairs seems like a pretty favorable result. Running at less than 50% for AA-QQ is definitely below average, however. It’s also worth noting that I made a set 18 of the 125 times I played a pair, or 14% of the time – which is almost exactly average. More importantly, I almost never lost with my sets and I nearly always got an abundance of action when I had one. I’m curious to see how the smaller suited Broadway hands do going forward. I completed nearly half of my flush draws which is a highly favorable result – although I lost some of those hands. Between the sets and flush draws – and running above average with my pairs overall – I would have to say variance was mostly on my side in March.

spend less than 20% of my total hours in 4/8 games

I played 66 of 150 cash game hours at the $4/$8 level – or 44%. However, subtracting 34 hours as a floor man, that total becomes 32 of 116 hours – or 27.6% – a reasonable result. For the year, I’ve played 191 of 403 total hours (47.4%) and 95 of 308 (31%) of my non-working hours at the $4/$8 level. Including my tournaments hours, it probably comes pretty close to my 20% target.

log 100 hours of spread limit

I played some small stakes NLHE when I was in Vegas this past month and my conclusion is that I’m still not very good at that format of poker. Obviously, at 11 hours of play logged for the entire year, this is an incredibly small sample size, but the results are consistent with an ongoing pattern of performing poorly in no limit cash games. In Vegas, I lost every session I played and it should have been worse – I jammed 100+ bigs preflop with 99 vs AA and rivered a straight. Over my past 163.5 hours of no limit/spread limit, I’ve won slightly less than 50% of my sessions and I’m running at almost -10 big blinds per hour. I have been unlucky in some hands, for sure, but the biggest problem I’ve identified is that I play overly aggressive and try to win every hand I play rather than being selectively aggressive and picking my spots more wisely overall. Starting this month, I want to log at least one 8-10 hour session of no limit and focus on correcting these mistakes.

continuing reading about mental game, develop mental game profiles, and improve my c-game

focus my learning — don’t study multiple variants at the same time or games I’m not playing frequently

I finally finished the series of questions in Jared Tendler’s The Mental Game Of Poker designed to pinpoint potential problems and give an outline of my current mental game. This can be referred to and adjusted as I improve or discover new concerns over time. Working on this had halted my reading for the most part, but I should be able dedicate time for that soon. With the Pendleton Spring Round Up and World Series Of Poker coming up, I’ll probably adjust my focus to studying Omaha 8 or better and tournament play over the next few months.

treat poker like a job with set hours and not like a hobby

With 445 hours in roughly 12 weeks, I have been playing full time hours despite the fact that I work 20-30 hours a week on top of that, so my poker playing is like a second job these days. My work off the tables has suffered a bit, but for the most part, I’m taking my poker time very seriously and putting in the hours unless I feel like I’m not playing near my A-game.

watch opponents closely in tournaments and develop exploitative styles for each of them instead of playing laggy for laggy’s sake

take my time in critical pots and really think things through before acting

set a new career high tournament score

I played 5 tournaments last month, but one of them was a freeroll and two others were very small, local tournament, so I’ll focus my attention on the bigger events I played.

I played the $150 daily tournament at the Venetian and I dominated my table for most of the day, feeling like I was really playing well. I got lucky in some spots to dodge a couple coolers, but I consistently increased my stack throughout the event without much resistance until I got in a blind vs blind situation late where I flopped trip aces and my opponent turned a gutshot straight. I ended up betting the turn, re-raising my opponent when he raised me, and ultimately calling off against his 5-bet jam. I had completed with A8 from the small blind so I figured my opponent was never giving me credit for an Ace – and I surely wasn’t giving him credit for one – and I had a decent amount of outs against any hand that was beating me. In retrospect, calling his initial raise makes a lot of sense because I’m not getting action on a 3-bet unless he’s committed to a bluffing line or I’m crushed. Instead, I lost a decent portion of my stack on the hand and my momentum disappeared soon after. I managed to make the final table, but ultimately busted out in 9th in a tournament that paid 8. I busted when I shoved my short stack from the button with the big blind away from the table. I don’t even remember my hand, but the small blind woke up with AJ and that was good enough to bust me. It was my second final table in a medium-sized tournament that didn’t even pay. Even though the end result was poor and I may have misplayed a big pot, I felt very good about my overall play and thought the style I chose for this event would be profitable in the long run.

I followed that deep run up by playing in the Muckleshoot Spring Classic $750 Main Event and finished 14th of 226 runners, ending a nearly year long drought of not cashing in a $150 or higher tournament. Once again, I played well and ran pretty good before getting cold late and losing a couple crucial pots. Midway through the tournament I was moved to an extremely tough and loaded table: multiple WSOP bracelet winner Rep Porter, Adam Coats – who got TV time on ESPN during the main event and made multiple deep cashes in the 2014 WSOP – and a couple of other local players I’m pretty sure play for a living. Not only did I outlast all four of these tough players but I held my own in a couple of difficult pots against Rep, including one where he put me in an extremely tough spot and I found the correct call. And then I busted him. It’s not that I beat a top pro in a couple of pots, it’s that I was able to make the correct decisions because I knew what he was thinking and how he perceived me and that is something to be happy about. Obviously, I was a bit disappointed to fall just short of some serious money ($45,000 for 1st!) and I had a very real chance of crossing off my goal of a new career high tournament score, but I feel like my tournament play is improving and things are trending in the right direction. I feel something big is about to happen. I believe.

double my current bankroll size

maintain a 1 BB/HR win rate at 8/16

start playing 20/40 regularly by end of year

I finally had a month where my bankroll saw serious growth. It’s probably been a year or longer since I’ve seen a 10% increase in a single month, but I did much better than that in March. Doubling the bankroll I started 2015 with should be a very attainable goal and honestly, I hope to do much, much better.

I had an amazing month of $8/$16, running at 3.48 BB/HR for the month overall, and an absurd 5.27 BB/HR in the $8/$16 at the Palace in Tacoma. It was a month where I set a new personal record for an $8/$16 win on the 1st of the month – and then I absolutely annihilated that new record just a couple weeks later when I had this session:

For the year, I am now running at:
1.68 BB/HR in $8/$16 LHE
1.04 BB/HR in $4/$8 LHE
1.3 BB/HR in all limit games

In April, I will be making a 4 or 5 day trip to Pendleton, Oregon for the Spring Round Up – a tournament series I haven’t attended since Fall 2012 and never with a sizable bankroll – and I am currently planning on playing the $225 O8 and $225 H.O.R.S.E. tournaments. I may play a few other events, but I’ll likely focus on cash games the rest of my stay. Also, anyone interested in buying up some of my WSOP action, I’m ready to start selling. You can e-mail me at maccent17@gmail.com or PM me on Facebook. I’m currently planning on playing the Casino Employee Event and the Colossal, but I will be there for at least a week and if things go really well, I would be interested in increasing my stay.

Here’s to more run good!

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2015 Poker Goals – February Wrap-Up

March 2, 2015

Every month I’m going to reflect on the previous month of poker and see how well I’m doing at accomplishing my 2015 goals:

-log 750 live hours

For the second straight month I played 100+ hours of live poker with 112.5 hours logged in live games. That brings my total to 249.5 for the year and I’m on pace for nearly 1500 hours in 2015. As someone noted on my Facebook last month, 750 hours is a soft goal for a professional poker player – that’s true. But it should be noted I am NOT a professional poker player – I work to pay my bills. Still, it’s obvious that my 750 goal is going to get demolished and it’s sad that I was playing so little poker that I felt like that was a number I had to strive for. I think I can safely update my goal to 1200 hours as 100 hours seems like a good number for me since I’m working part-time.

-focus on how well I played, how well I controlled tilt, and how well I paid attention to game flow instead of how well I ran.
-continuing taking notes throughout all my sessions and combing through them later.

I fell off a bit here in February. Once again, I pretty much only kept notes for $8/$16 sessions, but I ran into some roadblocks this past month. For one, I have at least three sessions worth of notes I haven’t gone through looking for mistakes or for variance so I can’t post the stats like I did last month. I may update this page in a few days with those numbers, but part of me feels like I should just move forward and focus on current events.

Another issue I had was that I played a lot of short-handed poker and when then game gets down to 5 or less players, I find it not only difficult to jot notes between hands, but my game changes so much that some crazy things are going to happen – variance is going to increase drastically and I’m going to be in a lot more marginal situations. It’s better to just focus on the action and let the results speak for themselves.

My ability to keep my emotions in check remained strong, but everything else listed in the above goals could use some work going forward.

-spend less than 20% of my total hours in 4/8 games

February was extremely fluky. I should be able to log at least two $8/$16 sessions a week, but this past month it seemed like something random came up on all my normal playing days: big poker tournament, went to a hockey game, I got sick, I attended a going away dinner, I played $4/$8 on a friend’s shift because he’d been playing on mine, and I had to cover a shift for someone on vacation. As a result, I only played 39 hours of $8/$16 compared to 70 hours of $4/$8, although nearly half of those $4/$8 hours were as the floorman. For the year, 67% of my free time hours have been in bigger games, so I guess I’m okay with that.

-log 100 hours of spread limit

I actually played one really short session in the $3/$5 Muckleshoot game which brings my total hours for the year to a whopping 2. I feel like this is a goal I’m more likely to achieve over the last few months of the year. While I’m all for challenging myself as a player, at the end of the day, I’d rather spend my time in a game I’m an expert at and I just haven’t spent much time developing my NLHE game and I don’t feel like my bankroll is large enough to learn on the job.

I doubled up early in the session and won a sizable pot with KK, but I blew back all my profit in an extremely marginal situation where I whiffed a nut open-ended straight draw in a raised pot and then leveled myself into calling off $200 on the river with 4th pair after concluding that I should fold. It’s that kind of flimsy decision-making that makes me feel like I’m not ready for that game yet – the confidence is simply not there.

I did cash out +$20 though. GOT EM!

-play a tournament series in a city I’ve never been to before

I thought I was going to Shakopee, Minnesota this past month, but that trip was cancelled for various reasons. I will probably revisit that idea in late summer or early fall. Some friends recently moved to Connecticut and I may visit them later in the year, which would certainly include a trip to Foxwoods. Also, I am going to Vegas a week from today, but that’s nothing new and also not necessarily a poker trip.

-continuing reading about mental game, develop mental game profiles, and improve my c-game
-focus my learning — don’t study multiple variants at the same time or games I’m not playing frequently

To be honest, I didn’t spend a ton of time on my game away from the table this past month. Between all the distractions and being sick, I didn’t have a bunch of free time, but this should change going forward.

-treat poker like a job with set hours and not like a hobby

Fortunately, I work for a living and I’m in a situation where straying from this plan isn’t detrimental to my short-term quality of life. Even though I reached my hours goal, I definitely treated poker like a hobby this past month.

-watch opponents closely in tournaments and develop exploitative styles for each of them instead of playing laggy for laggy’s sake
-take my time in critical pots and really think things through before acting
-set a new career high tournament score

I played five tournaments in February, but three of them were at my job and two of them were while I was working. I took second while I was working for my only cash of the month.

I made a pretty early exit in the $115 Monday night tournament at Muckleshoot. I lost with QQ to quads for a decent portion of my stack and then I jammed over an open with 18-19 bigs holding JJ and my opponent showed up with QQ.

I also played the 4th Sunday $250 deep stack at Muckleshoot and never really got things going. I had a chance to chip up early, but got decidedly unlucky. With blinds at 100-200 and effective stacks well above 20K, a weak, predictable player limped in and I raised it to 700 on the button with AKdd. A younger Asian guy three-bet me from the big blind to 2200 and the limper folded. My first instinct was that this guy was capable of re-raising me light and capable of realizing that I would raise the button light trying to isolate the weak player in position. In this instance, I was near the top of my range and I felt like if the big blind was capable of 3-betting light, he was probably capable of 5-betting or jamming light. Since I’m never folding AK here, I decided to avoid the leveling war and not get 100+ bigs in preflop with Ace high during level 2 and just called. The flop brought KQ3 with two clubs and I called his bet of 2500. The turn bricked out and he bet 5000. I could jam here, but I really felt like his range was mostly air and that if he had nothing, he would almost certainly have to bet the river and raising the turn would let him off the hook – so I just called. The river was a pretty gross Tc, but since I felt like I backed him into a corner where he had to be his entire range, I snap-called his 10K bet and he showed me the 85 of clubs for a flush. Sigh. From that point, I made a few unsuccessful opens trying to pick up some much needed blinds before eventually cramming it in with AT and 6 bigs only to run into AQ.

I am now about a month away from going a year without cashing in a tournament with a buy-in of $100+ and it’s been such a steady drain on my overall results that I’m starting to think maybe I should focus solely on cash games. At the moment though, I am still planning on playing the $500 NLHE event at Muckleshoot this month and the first two events at The World Series Of Poker in late May, plus the daily $150 at Venetian this month.

-double my current bankroll size
-maintain a 1 BB/HR win rate at 8/16
-start playing 20/40 regularly by end of year

I crushed it in February for the first three weeks before having a rough last week.

My final numbers were 1.35 BB/HR overall, 1.52 BB/HR @ $4/$8, and 1.02 BB/HR @ $8/$16, which brings my YTD totals to: 1.15 BB/HR overall, 1.87 BB/HR @ $4/$8, and 0.48 BB/HR @ $8/$16.

See you next month.

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2015 Poker Goals – January 2015 Review

February 2, 2015

Every month I’m going to reflect on the previous month of poker and see how well I’m doing at accomplishing my 2015 goals – well, the ones that are applicable for now anyway.

–log 750 live hours

I played nearly 137 hours of live cash game poker last month – a stark increase over any output in recent memory and on pace to destroy my 750 hour goal for the year (current pace: 1644 hours).

–focus on how well I played, how well I controlled tilt, and how well I paid attention to game flow instead of how well I ran.
–continuing taking notes throughout all my sessions and combing through them later.

I did a really good job of this in January. I kept consistently accurate notes whenever I was planning to play an $8/$16 session. While I never tracked my play during $4/$8 sessions, I did track it if I was waiting to get in a bigger game later. Note-taking really helped me keep things in perspective – if I took a brutal beat, I’d just jot the hand down, and move on. Overall, I felt like I ran a bit poorly for the month of January — at the $8/$16 level anyway. There were a few moments when I started to get frustrated, but they were pretty brief and I felt like I did a good job of controlling my emotions overall. Also, being able to look through my notes later really helped me see how much variance affected my results and allowed me to spot potential mistakes and find holes in my game that needed plugging. Over ten years into my LHE career and I feel like I’m a much better LHE player in February 2015 than I was in December 2014 and I’m quite grateful to be able to find that much room to improve.

Just for fun, let’s take a look at some of the more obvious spots where variance affected my results in January:

-I won 57 of the 150 times I played a pocket pair (38%).
-I won 43 of the 90 times I had 99 or better (47.8%).
-I won 19 of the 42 times I had QQ or better (45.2%).
-I won 26 of the 72 times I played a suited broadway hand (36.1%)
-I won 35 of the 68 times I played AK or AQ (51.5%).
-I made a flush 13 of the 51 times I was drawing to one (25.5%).
-I made a straight 12 of the 32 times I was drawing to one (37.5%).

Notes: There were times I made a flush or straight and lost the pot anyway. I also folded plenty of pocket pairs preflop, AQ once or twice, and probably a few suited broadways. I also started tracking my flush and straight draws differently during the middle of the month, including backdoor flush draws and gut shots in the mix since it seemed unfair to count those hands when I hit them but not when I missed them.

I’m not exactly sure what a good percentage for some of these hands are, but I’m certain that losing half the time you have QQ or better is below average. I’m also quite certain that running at 25% on your flush draws is below average, particularly when you lose some of the ones you hit.

–spend less than 20% of my total hours in 4/8 games

I spent 50 of my 137 total live hours playing $4/$8 which accounts for 36.5% of my total hours. That seems like I missed on this goal, but 28 of those hours I was propping my game while I was flooring and another 6 hours were while I was waiting for a seat in the bigger game. Excluding those hours, I only played 13 of 103 hours in $4/$8 games (12.6%). Goal achieved.

–log 100 hours of spread limit

I played zero hours here, but I have plenty of time to achieve my goal. I want to have at least five figure bankroll before I start playing the Muckleshoot spread game regularly – even then, I think $10k probably too small to play that game on a regular basis, but taking some shots is probably fine.

–play a tournament series in a city I’ve never been to before

Didn’t happen this month, but I am developing plans to visit Canterbury Park Card Casino in Shakopee, Minnesota, possible as soon as late February. While this isn’t a tournament series and I actually have been to Minnesota previously, I suppose this would half cover this goal.

–continuing reading about mental game, develop mental game profiles, and improve my c-game
–focus my learning — don’t study multiple variants at the same time or games I’m not playing frequently

I was pretty consistent with these goals this past month. The only poker reading I did was on mental game and I did well at incorporating what I learned into my play, sticking to my plan, and using my notes to improve my play. Also, I only played LHE, so my focus was extremely narrow for the most part.

–treat poker like a job with set hours and not like a hobby

I did pretty great here. Whenever I planned to play, I went and played a full session and crushed my overall hours goal. Also, I was very focused and in the zone when I was playing a real session – something that is much harder to do when I’m merely propping a game.

–watch opponents closely in tournaments and develop exploitative styles for each of them instead of playing laggy for laggy’s sake
–take my time in critical pots and really think things through before acting
–set a new career high tournament score

Meh. I played three tournaments this past month: $180 monthly @ Little Creek, $220 monthly @ Muckleshoot, and $115 weekly @ Muckleshoot. I went 0 for 3.

I made a swift exit in the $220 event after (arguably) getting quite unlucky. During the first level, with blinds at 25/50, a middle player raised to 200 and three players called. I looked down at AA from the small blind and realized that I was in a great situation. This is such an obvious spot for a squeeze that I figured I could make a substantial raise and get some unwarranted action. I made it 1500 (30 bigs) to go and managed to get it heads up – a great result. Then, figuring that my opponent’s most likely hand was a pocket pair and that I looked like I was trying to steal preflop, I checked the 632 rainbow flop, hoping to jam all-in vs a bet. Instead, my opponent checked back. I bet about half pot on a board-pairing turn and he called. The river brought in a back door flush, but I felt pretty confident putting out a 40% pot bet. He called and showed me the KJ of hearts for the running flush. I dunno. I think my thought process is okay here. Obviously it’s a pretty bad result that starts with my flop check, but a free card hurts me so rarely that it can’t be that bad.  On the other hand, since I think he has a pair and I think it looks like I could be bluffing, checking the flop seems like the wrong conclusion for my best possible line – clearly betting is better if I’m not expecting him to fold.

After losing about 70% of my starting stack on that hand, I opened QQ during level 2 with a 33 big blind stack, jammed over a 3-bet, and busted after I lost a race to AK.

I finished 8th of 65+ players in the $180 event… and 6 cashed. I was very happy with my overall play, but my bust out hand leaves me unsatisfied. I’m not convinced it was a standard spot and I feel like it’s a clear violation of the second goal I have posted above. This was the situation:

I’m sitting on a stack of roughly 20 bigs holding 75o in the big blind. We are at the 1500/3000/500 level and two late players limp in, the small blind completes, and I check. We go four-handed to 743 two flush flop. I decide to lead out a mere 5000 into a pot of 16,000 – which seems extremely small in retrospect. I get called in one spot. The turn card is an offsuit 2 and at this point, I decide to take a pot-control line and check. My opponent bets 20K into 26K and I go into the tank – but not for long enough! Ultimately, I decide that a) I think I had the best hand on the flop, b) I can’t call this bet and fold on the river when I miss my straight draw, c) this is a great spot to apply pressure on me after I show weakness, and d) if I’m not folding, I have to shove – which I do and he snap-calls with A5 and I’m out after the river bricks off. During my brief tank, what I didn’t consider was: a) is this extremely marginal spot worth betting my tournament life on? or b) if I fold here, I’ll have 18 big blinds, plenty of play, and an opportunity to find a much better spot. Obviously, this is one of those spots where it’s okay to take extra time to really think things through and evaluate everything at hand.

In addition, during the $115 event, when we were down to two tables, I picked a really bad spot to bluff the river after checking back on the turn that cost me a large portion of my stack… another spot where it was pretty obvious my opponent is never folding to a standard bet and I didn’t really stop to think it through enough. So while I felt like I played pretty well overall in these events, the spots where I felt like I choked are the exact situations that I’m wanting to improve in.

–double my current bankroll size
–maintain a 1 BB/HR win rate at 8/16
–start playing 20/40 regularly by end of year

Despite my whiff on tournaments and average/bad luck in $8/$16 games, I still managed a winning month. However, it didn’t do much in helping pad my bankroll – especially after using it to buy a really nice Valentine’s Day gift!

I ran at 0.99 BB/HR overall, 2.34 BB/HR @ $4/$8, and 0.22 BB/HR @ $8/$16.

Also, I’m not sure if $20/$40 should be my end game. Perhaps the $5-$500 spread game at Muckleshoot should be my goal.

Overall, I guess I’m happy with January, but I know things could be much better (or worse – to be fair…). Looking forward to February!

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