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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!

Posted in poker | Tagged colossus, gambling, hold em, jordan cristos, limit hold em, maurice hawkins, muckleshoot casino, palace casino, poker, professional gambling, seattle, tacoma, world series of poker, wsop | Leave a Comment »

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!

Posted in poker | Tagged big bets per hour, horse, limit hold em, muckleshoot, muckleshoot spring classic, omaha, poker, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, rodeo, spring round up, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

I Suck At Tournament Poker

March 8, 2013

God, it sure feels like I do. I mean, my history in online tournaments pre-Black Friday and even playing live up through all of 2011 suggests otherwise, but my success (or lack thereof) since the start of 2012–particularly in big ($150+) events–has been…unsettling. I managed to post a profit in tournaments last year and went deep in multiple major events, but the overall result is lackluster and disappointing. So far in 2013, I’ve fizzled out of a couple events and have been cold decked out of a few others. All these experiences have lead me to the following conclusions:

a) I handle the short term luck factor in tournaments very poorly. This is a concept that creeps into my limit hold em cash games very seldom. Generally, when it comes to variance in cash games, I realize that over time, all the money I lose when I get unlucky eventually comes back, with interest, and often within the same session. I also grasp the fact that these frequent beats are a result of poor play and that errors from opponents is how I make money playing poker. Therefore, I never berate players and rarely tilt, spending as much time playing my A-game as possible. I have a much harder time applying these same concepts to tournament play. Perhaps it’s the absolute nature of tournament poker: once your chips are gone, you’re out. If you get unlucky or coolered in a massive pot, you are usually out or crippled, and the amount of chips you have directly correlates with how you can play. And when you bust out, you might have to wait a month to play in another good event. All of this tends to make me highly upset during a tournament and almost always afterwards. I mean, I don’t want to be bothered by anyone and my day of poker is usually mentally over with. For the third time in less than two months, I immediately left the casino instead of waiting for the dinner break to use my free meal voucher and socialize with the other players. I lose, I’m gone. No goodbyes. Rarely a “nice hand.” It’s not a good look.

b) I have no idea what style suits me best. Without a doubt, I’ve experienced my most success using a tight-aggressive (TAG) and frequently nitty style. The problem is, while this style gets me to the money most often, it also leaves me short stacked in the late stages of tournaments and relies far too heavily on what cards I’m being dealt (luck) and has much less to do with playing position correctly, exploiting my opponents’ tendencies, staying unpredictable, and playing poker after the flop (skill). However, my ventures into playing a loose-aggressive (LAG) style have led me to continual destruction (often self-inflicted). I have little doubt that a controlled LAG style is the best way to play tournaments, as it makes you highly unpredictable and sets you up to make the final table with a bundle of chips and the ability to make moves your short stacked opponents can’t afford to. Note that I said “controlled,” which seems to be where I go wrong. My use of the LAG style is frequently misguided and random, as I’ll show when I start talking about the $180 tournament I played at Little Creek on Friday night. Ultimately, the biggest problem here is that the TAG style is my comfort zone. It’s not how I want to play, but it’s the style I feel most comfortable using and my history of experimenting with the LAG style has been… questionable.

So last night, I’m playing in the $180 event of the Spring Classic at Little Creek Casino and within the first two levels I run JJ and TT into overpairs on favorable boards and lose a bunch of chips, but stay alive. Then I flop a full house with QQ in a raised pot and make 0 chips after the flop and then I flop another boat with 22 in a 3-way raised pot and manage a measly +700 in chips. I raise with 99 over one limper and both blinds also call. We see a flop of TT6 and only the big blind calls my bet of 500. At this point in the hand, I feel like I should tell another story.

Flashback to the Fall Classic $230 Main Event at Little Creek last year. I get into a massive leveling war with the big blind in the hand I’m talking about in the last paragraph. A few people limp into the pot for 200 or 300, something in that range, and I make it at least 1000 on the button (OTB) with a deep stack holding the monstrous T8o. The big blind repops me to, say, 2700 and everyone in between folds. My first instinct is to fold, well, because I just got caught with my pants down and T8o isn’t exactly AK… but then I start thinking… I already have this guy sized up as someone that pays attention and is capable of making plays and realize that he probably realizes that I’m raising light. So if I know that he knows this, how can I possibly let him get away with it. For the first time that I can remember, I pull off the preflop 4-bet bluff and make it 6500 to go. For some reason on this day, I have chosen to sit with my chair backwards so that my arms can rest on top of the chair and my face is basically buried in my arms. I am nervous, oh boy, am I nervous, but this is the same posture I’ve taken the entire tournament. Regardless, after sizing me up for quite some time, this guy pulls the trigger and ships it all in. I spend very little time posing for the cameras before tossing my hand into the muck and he turbo fastrolls 96o. Good play, sir. And the lesson learned here is that if I trust my read, I can’t let him have the last move (the 5-bet shove) because even if he “knows” I’m bluffing, he can’t call me, much like I couldn’t call him even though I was sure he was full of it.

Flashfoward to the 99 on the TT6 flop. After he calls my flop bet, I’ve already determined that a) I’m showing down and b) I’m going to keep the pot small. So I check back on the turn and call an 1100 bet on the river and he shows me JT. Nice.

I definitely have a fishy image at this point because I’ve had lots of big hands and I’ve shown NONE of them so far, so when it folds to me in the small blind and I raise to 450 with AQ the big blind makes it 1475 quickly and with a tone in his voice that says: “find someone else to pick on.” So… I shove it on his ass and he folds.

Then, I proceed to play AK so poorly that I’m not going to write about it out of fear that no one will ever back me again. I mean, seriously… Worst. Line. Ever.

So now I’ve been involved in a number of pots, have lost almost 67% of my stack, and I’ve tabled zero hands. My terrible image is still intact. Blinds are 50/100, one player limps, the button makes it 500, the worst player at the table in the small blind flats, and I look down at QQ. I’m sitting on 6200, which creates for a rather awkward situation. My inclination is to just shove it here, but that’s a huge re-raise and I want at least some action on my hand. I opt to 3-bet it to 2000, an amount that virtually commits me to the pot, and my plan is that, if called, I’m going to shove it all-in on any flop unless something dictates that I shouldn’t. This is a gambling line, but I want chips. I’ll take the risk. Everyone folds except for the kid in the small blind which is the perfect result. He checks to me on the KJx flop and I shove my remaining 42 big blinds into the pot and he calls pretty quickly with AT for… a gut shot. I’m holding two blockers and he somehow misses his 5-outer and I have a playable stack again.

Naturally, my playable stack lasts one orbit before this happens: Blinds are 100/200, the kid from last hand limps, I limp in with 99, one other player and the button limp in, the small blind completes, and the big blind raises to… 400! Yes, a min-raise. I’d love to hear the thought process on that one. The kid calls, and I briefly consider 3-betting because given the action so far, I almost certainly have the best hand and should be able to take it down right here. Alas, my confidence is shot and I decide to just call, as does everyone else. 6-way action for 2400 to see a flop of T98 with two diamonds. Not the best flop for a set, but the pot is big enough that I’m never folding here with my stack size. The big blind leads out for 700, lighting those chips on fire and kissing them goodbye because, well, because he just announced that he has absolutely nothing with such a weak beat on a super dangerous board. The bad player to my right makes it 1400. Perfect. I practically min-raise it to 3000, prepared to get it all in if anyone comes over the top of me, but everyone folds around to the kid, who only has 3100 total, which he proceeds to shove into the pot as he fastrolls TT for top set. FML. I actually have a chance to fold here for 100 more, but I’m getting 85 to 1 and it’s probably correct to draw to my 1-outer. I miss it and am back to short stacking it.

Final hand. Folds around to the button who has yet to not raise in this situation. He makes it 700 to go, the loose kid to my right calls, and I look down at A8. A few things to consider here that I didn’t take the time to think over at the table. The button has open-raised in this situation four times now. Once, I 3-bet with QQ and he got out of the way pretty quickly. Another time, I flat called with A2o and he checked the flop and turn when medium cards hit the board and folded when I bluffed the river after a 4-card straight showed up. Giving this information, calling preflop makes a lot more sense as this opponent took a pretty passive line with a hand he missed with and folded without resistance when I bluffed the river and he folded when I 3-bet the queens… so when I decide to raise it up to 2700, I’m only going to get action when he can… go all-in. Which he does. I deliberate for quite a while and study him. I’m not getting much information there, so I start looking at my pot odds and realize, with horror, that I’ve priced myself in with A8o for my tournament life. Awful planning on my part. Just terrible. I shake my head and put my chips in and he shows me QQ and the dealer wastes little time killing me off as he brings out the Queen high flop. GG.

Honestly, I’m so discouraged with my tournament play that I went to the cashier and had to go through the arduous and embarrassing process of refunding my tournament buy-in for the main event because well, I don’t want to waste my time and money (or my backers’ money) when I’m not feeling good about my game. I’ve had some terrible luck in the Oregon tournaments, but my play in the local ones has been pretty awful. I just need a break to collect my thoughts and think about what I need to fix.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, no limit, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, poker tournament strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

Selling Pieces For May Poker Tournaments

May 9, 2012

I’m looking to sell pieces of my action for some of the bigger buy-in upcoming tournaments. This is the schedule of events I’m looking to play. I’m willing to sell up to 50% of my action in these events:

5/12, Saturday: $110 No Limit Hold Em @ Freddie’s Club Of Fife
5/13, Sunday: $215 No Limit Hold Em @ Muckleshoot
5/17-5/20: $250 No Limit Hold Em Main Event @ Tulalip
5/20, Sunday: $250 No Limit Hold Em @ All-Star Lanes
5/21, Monday: $200 H.O.R.S.E. @ Tulalip

That’s a total buy-in amount of $1025 and I’m going to be charging a mark-up of 25% to cover expenses such as food, gas, and time invested.

For example: since 10% of $1025 is $102.50, with a mark-up of 25% that 10% would actually go for $128.

So these will be my selling rates for these 5 tournaments in May:

1% = $13
5% = $65
10% = $128
15% = $192
20% = $256

Since I’m not 100% positive I’ll be playing in all these events, I would refund the investment for any tournament I don’t actually play in. Particularly, if I make it to Day 2 of the Tulalip Main Event, I would not be able to play the All-Star Lanes event as they would be on the same day.

Most of you know what I’m capable of accomplishing, but just in case anyone needs more convincing, this is my resume over the past couple years:

In 2011, I cashed in 40 of 123 live tournaments for an in the money rate of 32.5% and a total profit of $1998.75. Not bad considering my average buy-in size was roughly $25. More importantly, I finished in the top 3 in 18.7% of all tournaments and chopped first or won it outright a whopping 12.5% of the time. That’s crushing the game.

In 2011, I played in 387 online tournaments and cashed in 65 of them for an in the money rate of 16.3% and a total profit of $1321.27. Those numbers are with an average buy-in of $6.89 and an average field size of 967 players! I final tabled those massive fields 6% of the time and took 1st outright in 2% of all tournaments.

So far, in 2012, I’ve played in 128 live tournaments and cashed in 29 of them for an in the money rate of 22% and a total profit of $1651.

HOLLAR @ YOUR BOY!

Posted in poker | Tagged all star lanes, clearwater, muckleshoot, oregon, pendleton, poker, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, tulalip | Leave a Comment »

The Dark Knight Rises: An Epic Month Of Gambling

February 2, 2012

“Allow me to reintroduce myself: my name is…”

When filmmaker Christopher Nolan revealed the final installment in his Batman trilogy was going to be called The Dark Knight Rises I wasn’t an instant fan of the name. Several months later, I can’t imagine a better one now that I’ve adopted his film’s title as my own personal mantra for 2012. For whatever reason–the girl I was recently dating would say ego–I felt like I needed a poker nickname. I mean, all the top notch card pros have one, right? What if I blow up someday? Make a TV final table? Are people going to know me as Mike Coombs? My friends in real life don’t even call me that. Maccent? Retired. Mac? Not good enough! So I made it a goal in December to figure out a proper nickname, even going as far as asking for help on Facebook. Bat-Mac? Cute, Mom, but this is grown man business. Birdcage? LOOOOOOOOOL. Nice needle, Ethan. The Serial Killer? Kinda dark, bro. How about Mac The Ripper then? Why yes…excellent. I actually ran with that for a couple weeks and even had a few people referring to me by it. Looking back, I can’t help but think what a tragic mistake that would have been. Then my buddy Vince started calling me The Dark Knight and after some initial resistance on my part, it all started to make perfect sense. My obsession with all things Batman is well-known, as is my complete inability to sleep at night, mostly due to a tireless work ethic when it comes to playing cards; much like Bruce Wayne constantly sacrifices his own personal well-being for the sake of Gotham City, I put my poker career before anything else, even my own health. No, seriously, I played over 220 hours of poker last month. Holy mackarel, Batman, I AM THE DARK KNIGHT.

The designation couldn’t have come at a better time. I was fresh off my first Royal Flush Jackpot and had completely turned my life around, a story you can read in this post. Since officially donning the cape and the cowl, I’ve been on the most ridiculous heater of my life. January 2012 was easily the best month of gambling I’ve had since summer of 2005 and quite possibly my most lucrative month of all-time. To put things in perspective, I had a solid 2011; for someone that had a good day job most of the year and only played small stakes poker, I turned a pretty serious gambling profit for the year. I made $348 less in January alone than I did all of last year combined. If you include the wages I get paid for propping the poker game at All-Star Lanes (and I don’t), then I’ve already made more money gambling in 2012 than I did in 2011. Sick.

I previously noted my life-changing turning point in the post I linked in that last paragraph. The run I’ve been on since that day has been completely absurd. I don’t know if the day’s events lit a fire under my ass or if karma has been rewarding me for having to put up with a bunch of nonsense, but I’ve been CRUSHING ever since. I hit that Royal Flush Jackpot on the 7th, then between January 13th and January 21st, I finished 2nd or better in 5 of 8 tournaments for a $1043 profit, including a 6-way chop @ Freddie’s $110 buy-in tournament that I had to share with a backer (45%) and my running partner (10%). I started propping for All-Star Lanes on January 13th and demolished the game all month long. In 100 hours, I profited $2,476 and that doesn’t include my hourly wage. I decided not to clock on one night so that I could earn hours for their freeroll and hit the All-Star Strike for $375, a jackpot I would not have been eligible for if I was working. I finished the month with seven straight winning sessions. I won $812 in match play bets on the black jack table. I randomly decided to play a day session on the last day of the month (I always play at night) and crushed the game for +$500. I hit every draw I had and I made it hurt. Everything just seemed to be going my way in January.

Well… almost everything. I’m sure some people were getting pretty sick of my run good and I can’t say it hasn’t been getting to my head. I mean, I’ve felt like I could walk on water and do no wrong at times, but I can assure you, I did not have a perfect month. I played my first $8-$16 session of the year at Parkers this past month and had my worst losing day in well over a year (-$636). To make matters worse, I usually sell half my action in that game, but that night I decided to take a shot and I felted over three racks without ever winning a hand. BRUTAL. This past week, I got shutout in Clearwater’s Poker Series. I lost almost $960 in buy-ins, despite having respectable finishes of 9th in the $250 NLHE event and 12th in the $250 H.O.R.S.E. event. A decent showing, but with such a pathetic turnout for the series I didn’t make any money for my performance. In the one event that was worth going deep in, the $460 NLHE Main Event, I busted out just shy of making it to Day 2. Fortunately (for myself), I had solid backing for all those events and only lost about $400 of my own money. But the series left me still waiting for that first big event cash. I have now whiffed the six events total at the Pendleton Round-Up and the Clearwater Series in the past few months and it has me feeling like I have something serious to prove. I haven’t been to Clearwater in years and it’s kind of weird for me to go into a local card room and not have everyone know who I am. While anonymity can be to one’s advantage when it comes to poker, fuck it, I like the recognition. I don’t want to fly under the radar; fear and respect me or figure it out the hard way.

Despite those setbacks, January was an incredible month. That kind of success is unsustainable, but if I can maintain even half that win rate in the All-Star Lanes game, I’m going to have a monster 2012. It didn’t take long into February for me to be humbled. I was worried that as soon as the calendar flipped so might my doom switch and today was a spectacularly bad day. Not only did I run bad, but I admittedly played like shit and lost more than was necessary. Oh well, challenge accepted: I now have a decent-sized hole to dig myself out of for the month, but The Dark Knight always seems to find his way out of sticky situations. Will he turn this rough start into another profitable month or is this the start of the end? Stay tuned next month. Same Bat-Time, same Bat-channel.

Posted in poker | Tagged batman, cards, christopher nolan, gambling for a living, playing cards, poker, poker nicknames, professional gambling, texas hold em, the dark knight, the dark knight rises | Leave a Comment »

Freddie’s Club In Fife $110 Deep Stack Tournament: Play-By-Play

January 16, 2012

Yesterday, I decided to take notes during the deep stack tournament @ Freddie’s Club in Fife so I could talk about some of the critical hands on my blog. I didn’t jot down every hand I played, but this is a pretty thorough play-by-play from my tournament game yesterday:

During the first blind level (25-50) I only played two hands. In one hand, I called a raise to 250 with 87o on the button. Might sound illogical, but my hand was slightly irrelevant and not nearly as important as my position or my current super nitty image. The flop comes down T8x and the preflop raiser bets out 600. I decide to float for one street and re-evaluate all my options on the turn. It’s a brick for me and dude bets out a strong 1600. Okay, Kumar, I believe you. Muck. He shows me JJ like he knows what I’m up to and doesn’t want me fucking with him all day. Same dude opens for 250 again and I call with 44, several people come in behind me and I check-fold to a bet behind me after missing the flop.

For nearly a half hour those are the only two pots I’m involved in, so at the 50-100 level, I can’t stand it any longer and with two limpers in front of me holding Q7o on the button I make it 600 to go expecting a bunch of folds. Everyone obliges.

Blinds are 100-200 and I have KTo in my BB and 4-5 players see a AQJcc flop. I check and watch as one of the players disappointingly bets 200, one other calls, and everyone else mucks. I tank for a bit thinking of the best way to play the hand. 200 was way less than I was hoping someone would bet, so it’s time to start getting more money in the pot. The board is kind of coordinated. I definitely don’t want to see another club roll off and a K or T could be an action killer for me. I make it 1175 to go. The initial bettor calls and the other dude folds. T on the turn. Fuck! I consider making a substantial bet since a flush draw is the only thing I’m expecting to call me now, but I reconsider and settle on a slightly less than pot-sized 2500 bet. He calls again. The river is a complete brick, like the 6s or something. It looks to me like this dude was drawing and missed and should have a pretty good idea of where I’m at. I decide to throw him for a loop with a 1000 bet into a nearly 8000 pot. It’d be tough to muck an ace or any pair+flush draw that missed for that price and I don’t think he’s calling a big bet here. Slim chance, but he might also mistake my weak beat for a missed draw and raise me. He just calls and I show him the flopped nut straight.

My buddy Kumar has been in a lot of pots lately and just took a bad one with top two pair and lost to a flush on the river. He was crippled for a second and made a slight comeback but still appears to be steaming. With blinds at 150-300 it folds to him in the cutoff and he makes it 800 to go. Folds to me and I look down at AA in the BB and take my time thinking of the best way to get Kumar to stack off to me. He has about 6000 total chips. The fact that he showed me that JJ earlier makes me think he thinks I’m capable of making moves. I took that as a way of him saying “I’m not fucking around, bro; don’t mess with me.” Sorry, Kumar, wish denied. Knowing that my opponent is still on T and thinks that I’m capable of making moves, I study him for a while and really ponder whether or not I want to raise him. It’s tempting to smooth call his raise and let him hang himself after the flop, but I’m feeling like he’s even more suicidal than that right now. I want his whole stack. I finally settle on a raise to 2800, which is large enough to make it look like I could be re-stealing and still be able to get away from it. Shockingly, Kumar merely calls and takes a flop with me for almost half his stack size. The board comes out J43 and I check it to him hoping he’ll think I’m giving up on my re-steal play. He shoves and I quickly call. He shows Js9s and whiffs his 5-outer. Good day and thank you.

Blinds are still at 150-300, a couple people limp in and a tight player to my right makes it 1300 to go. I look down at TT on the button. My opponent has 5200 left behind. I just got a bunch of chips and I’m not looking to put them at risk in a coin flip (or worse) situation. I decide to flat the raise and see what happens after the flop. I’m not exactly set-mining here, but I don’t think my opponent is folding to a re-raise, so I wanna see what the flop brings before I decide how much I like my hand. Plus, someone behind me could wake up with a monster. I just call and only one limper sticks around. The flop comes down T44. Somebody’s running good all the sudden! First action checks and my dude ships it all-in for 5200. I call hoping the lady can stick around, but she mucks. Dude turns over AK and is basically drawing dead. AK high? Uh, nh.

Very next hand, almost identical situation: I have 99 and the lady from the previous hand makes it 1000 to go with blinds at 150-300. Again, I feel like she’s going with her hand if I re-raise preflop, so I decide to flat. One player calls behind me and we see a KQJ flop 3-ways. She bets I muck and I forget what the end result was.

Blinds are still 150-300 and I open to 1150 with TT. Homie from the hand where I flopped the nut straight shoves it all-in for 4500. Folds back to me. Dude has been playing pretty snug, but this is a pretty simple call, all things considered. He shows AJ and outflops me on a QJ8 board. A blank hits the turn, but I spike a 9 on the river to make a straight and knock out my third opponent of the level. I’m now up to over $32K in chips and feeling really good about my chances.

My table breaks and I’m moved to a new one with a bunch of new faces. Ugh. Blinds are 200-400, 4 people limp in, and someone pops it to 2600, it folds to me in the BB and I look down at 99. The raiser has about 9000 behind and I go into the tank wondering what the right play is. Being new to the table, the only data I have is that this guy decided to make a large preflop raise after four people limped into the pot. I know I’d be tempted to make the same play regardless of my cards and that thought is definitely crossing my mind. I obviously can’t call in this spot, out of position, and see a flop, so it’s either re-raise or fold. If I re-raise and he actually has a hand, I’m going to be pot-committed against his shove and I’m really not looking to play a 25K pot with 99 at this stage of the tournament. Since I have no idea how to play the hand or any real read on my opponent, I decide to just muck it. Everyone else quickly folds and because I was making him sweat it out so bad, dude makes a comment about how it’s the first hand he’s played in half an hour.

With blinds at 300-600 I open to 1600 UTG with QQ. Some chick calls me in position and so does the big blind. The board comes down J94 rainbow and it checks to me. I start eying their stacks, but I’m kind of annoyed because the lady has her chips all mixed together and I have no idea how much she’s really working with. I look at the dealer and say “WTF?” with my hands, which she takes as a check and and tries to check behind me. LOL. No, honey, back it up. How many fucking chips do you have? She has about 5K left and the BB has about the same. I’m obviously down to play for stacks and bet 3500 which is basically the same thing as announcing “I’m all-in.” They both muck. She doesn’t fix her stack and the dealer doesn’t ask her to. Wow.

With blinds at 400-800, I open to 2200 with 55. My supposedly tight friend that hasn’t played a hand in half an hour calls from the BB. The flop comes down T98cc and he checks to me. That’s a terrible flop for me, but my hand still might be good; however, the last thing I want to do is bet and get raised by a draw. I check behind. Turn card is a Queen. Okay, I’m done with it. He checks to me again. I still might have the best hand, but it’s incredibly weak and I’m just trying to get to showdown as cheaply as possible at this point. River is a small club and he checks to me again. If my hand is good here, there’s no need to put any more money in the pot. I check behind and he shows AJ and tells me I have really good discipline and complains that the third club on the river probably cost him some action. LOL, okay buddy.

Very next hand, I open to 2200 with AhJh and it folds all the way around to the BB who ships it for about a billion more. Easy muck, but I’m starting to get annoyed. Since I switched tables, I’ve watched as every pot gets opened in front of me and it folds around the vast majority of the time. But since I sat down at the table, I’ve opened the pot seven times and have been called or raised EVERY time. People complain about not getting action when they have AA or KK, but stealing the blinds is critical in the middle stages of tournaments and I’ve been contested in every pot I’ve played. It’s starting to eat at me.

I have Tc6c in the SB and complete after two limpers. BB checks his option and we see a J74cc flop 4-ways. With 3200 in the pot, I lead out for 1300. It folds to Mr. Discipline and he makes it 2800 to go. I don’t really know what to make of that raise, but my Spidey senses are telling me he’s not very strong. Almost like he put in a small raise to take control of the pot and see how I reacted to it, but he’s not giving off a lot of strength. Now that I’m away from the table, it seems like he was taking advantage of my weak lead and that a 3-bet on my part probably would’ve taken the pot down. I decided to just call since I was getting profitable drawing odds, but it was a play that kind of telegraphed what I had. I brick the turn and he fires 3500. My confidence has been taking a blow and I feel kind of readable in this spot, so I decide to just let it go. He asks if I had a club draw. Fuck you.

Don, an old man taxi driver that used to play around Bremerton, opens to 2600 UTG+1 with blinds @ 400-800 and has about 10K behind. I look down at 99 two spots to his left. I know Don well enough to know that he’s not opening light in this spot and that he’s never folding to a re-raise. In fact, with his stack size, I’d expect him to open-shove with the hands I’m actually slightly ahead of. Easy fold. Some lady behind me ships it for 9500 and Don calls and his JJ holds against her 77. Knowing is half the battle.

Blinds are still 400-800 when someone in MP makes a min-raise to 1600. Don calls on the button and the small blind calls, so I come along for the ride getting 7 to 1 on a call with J9o. The flop comes J83hh and having great relative position, I check and get to see what everyone does after the preflop aggressor acts. He checks and Don says “let them see another one,” which reliably translates to “I have absolutely nothing right now.” The turn pairs the Jack and it checks to me again. For some dumb reason, I check instead of firing out a bet. The preflop raiser obviously missed the flop and if he was slowplaying a big hand, a second jack showing up is not going to be a welcome sight. Don clearly has nothing behind him, so missing this value bet is a pretty big mistake. I don’t think anyone has anything, but I can’t make anymore money if I don’t put any chips in the pot. I bet 3K when a 5 shows up on the river and everyone quickly mucks. Ugh. Poorly played, Dark Knight!

Blinds are still @ 400-800 and I open UTG to 2000 with AsTs, a questionable play in retrospect. I don’t hate a limp here and my preflop raises weren’t getting any respect, so opening in terrible position with such a weak hand seems a little spewy. I’m really just hoping to take the blinds down and I’m in horrible steal position, so what value does my hand really have? Some poker theorists hate the open-limp, but I think this is a good spot for one. If you disagree, we can debate it later, but I think the play has plenty of merit. Anyways, I raise it up and a somewhat loose player calls me in position. The flop comes down J63 and I fire out 3500. He shoves all-in, I muck, and he shows me a set of sixes. NH sir.

My frustration level is quickly rising and my stack has dwindled down to about 22K, or the tournament average. It folds around to me in the SB and with blinds at 600-1200, I put the BB all-in for his remaining 5K or so. He mucks. Oh, I had KJ.

I open-raise in middle position with AT and everyone folds. I let the table know how grateful I am that they finally let me take a pot down uncontested and ask if they can continue to be so courteous in the future. No one seems amused.

HAND OF THE TOURNAMENT: With the blinds at 600-1200, the player UTG makes it 4K to go. It folds around to me and I look down at AK in the BB and have about 22K left behind. Seems like an easy play, but I’m sensing strength from my UTG friend and he definitely hasn’t been splashing around. I realize I’ve been put to the test for my entire stack. I consider calling and seeing a flop first, but if I miss the flop I’m basically handing him the pot when I might have the best hand and, more importantly, when I DO spike, I might not double up. Fuck it, time to gamble. I ship it and he quickly calls and shows QQ and we’re off to the races. It’s a quick one though as I immediately spike an ace on the flop and hold up through the river. Doubled up to 45K+ and right back in this thing!

A few hands later, UTG makes it 4400 to go and I look down at KK on the button. He has 7K or so left behind, so I’m expecting him to stack off with most of his range. No need to be coy, I’m all-in. He calls and whiffs his 3-outer with AK. We’re up to over 50K now and have a big stack. I think there are two tables left at this point.

Blinds must be 1000-2000 now cause I make it 5500 to go with AT this hand. A really loose, obnoxious Asian kid calls me from the BB. He’s been taking a lot of flops, limping in a lot, and generally acting a pest. He hasn’t stopped running his mouth since he sat down at our table. The flop comes down KQ7. He plays with his chips and does a ton of acting before finally checking it over to me an hour later. That kind of shit is usually a tell for a weak hand, and I contemplate a bet, but the kid has been playing so recklessly that I decide to keep the pot small and give myself a chance to improve on the turn. I check behind and he instantly fires 3K in the dark. LOL! I’m probably raising that bet no matter what, but it becomes a lot easier to pull the trigger when I make the nut straight on the turn. After doing some Hollywooding of my own, I settle on a raise to 15K. It’s a pretty hefty raise, but if this kid wants to fuck around, I want it to be as costly as possible. Plus, a larger raise size might make it seem like I’m bluffing and just want to take the pot down right now. He tanks for a while, finally flashes me a 7, and then tries to riddle me with questions. I don’t give up anything and just stare the punk down. I ain’t answering shit, bruh.

Folds to me in the cutoff and for the third orbit in a row, I open on a tight player’s big blind. Blinds are 1500-3000 and I’ve made it 7500 to go with AQ. I have my headphones on, but my music isn’t playing and I can hear everything. The Loudmouth Asian Kid is telling the big blind how I’ve been raising his BB every orbit and how I’m just going to keep pounding him until he makes a stand… and there’s still three players left to act in the hand! I have been picking on dude a little, but I have AQ this hand so it’s not like I’m on a pure steal attempt here. The button folds, but the SB ships it for 32K more. The BB makes a very painful looking laydown (says later it was QQ) and it folds back to me. Normally, I wouldn’t think much about calling with AQ here and it would be an easy fold, but everyone heard what the Loudmouth said and I can’t help but wonder if his comments encouraged this guy to grow some balls and ship it all-in on me. I really go into the tank contemplating it and I’m looking at the small blind and he just doesn’t look that strong to me. Even if he’s on a pure bluff, I’m only a 60/40 favorite and losing this pot would be devastating. The only hands he could have where a fold from me is a clear mistake is when he has a weak ace. I decide to pass and wait for a better spot, but I rip into the Asian kid, basically telling him to shut the fuck up when he’s not in a hand and that he probably cost his buddy in the big blind the pot–if he really had QQ, that is.

I stopped writing notes at this point because as we were getting closer to the final table, I didn’t have much free time since we were playing short-handed and it was crucial to pay attention to the action. However, I can remember a few hands.

Loudmouth open raises in EP and I look down at AK. I ship it on him. He does his usual acting before finally mucking and telling me he’ll gamble with me eventually.

A short while later, he opens again and I have AK again. I know dude is just trying to pick up some blinds and I’m ready to play for stacks against his range. No need to see flops. Come and get it. Nope, he mucks again. So much for gambling with me.

Finally, he open-pushes for like 12K with blinds at 1500-3000 and I have JJ in the BB and stack him when his A2 misses. Stackety, stack stack, don’t come back. Seriously though… good riddance, douchebag.

After stacking my annoying friend, I now have around 105K in chips and am headed to the final table. We immediately make a deal so that everyone gets $125 back and at least makes a little money. I’m not involved in any big pots as four people get eliminated and the chip leader proposes a deal: we chop six ways, but everyone gives him an extra $20. Since 6th only pays about $280, the chop nets me an extra $600 guaranteed and even though I’d usually rather play it out, my stack size has dwindled to about 75K and I’m not really in any position to negotiate. I swallow my pride and take the pay day for a +$760ish score.

Posted in poker | Tagged hold em, no limit, no limit hold em, poker, professional gambling, tournament, tournament poker | 1 Comment »

Poker 2011 & The Royal Flush Of Destiny & 2012 Poker Goals

January 11, 2012

My biggest goal for 2011 was to make money gambling. After several years of talking about how good of a poker player I am, it was time to prove it. I’d been treading water in mediocrity for quite some time and didn’t have anything to show for all my self-proclaimed “knowledge.” I’d make a few scores here and there that suggested I was better than the average player, but I had way too many leaks in my game to be an actual long term winner. Last year, I exceeded whatever goal I had in mind. I just wanted to turn a little profit from my hobby and wound up making several thousand dollars and for a moment, I could see a career as a professional gambler in my near future.

Unfortunately, nothing comes easy. Full Tilt shut down and took about 33% of my bankroll with it; I spent a month in jail not making any money; I moved into my own place and through an unfortunate chain of events that were beyond my control, found a friend of mine indebted to me for $1500 (a debt that has since been paid off–good looking out Tiny T!); I lost any and all interest in working at my day job at Silver City and found myself filing for unemployment in November; and finally, my new job at Arena Sports Bar & Grille has gotten off to a slow start and I’m not making nearly as much money there as I thought I would be. Basically, instead of building a bankroll last year, I had to survive off my gambling winnings because actual work wasn’t paying my bills anymore.

I spent most of last year playing $4-$8 limit hold em and small stakes tournaments locally. Over roughly 750 hours of $4-$8, however, all I could really say was I’m a roughly break even player. I’m not crushing the game by any means and certainly haven’t proven I can make a living from it. Between the rake, tipping the dealers, variance, some terrible luck, and a game that is still not free of leaks, beating the game in the long run has been a formidable challenge. I still think I can do it and I plan to prove it, but if I’m really looking to make money playing limit hold em, it’s time to step my regular game up to the $8-$16 level.

I did get some experience in the $8-$16 games in Tacoma and Seattle last year. I sold half my action in all but one session, but over 81 hours I beat the game for 1.47 big bets an hour. Hardly a large enough sample size to be considered reliable, but still somewhat promising. If I’m not playing $8-$16 regularly, with 100% of my own action, by the end of the year, 2012 will be a long year for me. This is where I need to be at.

In 2011, I played 123 live tournaments, mostly at Chips Casino in Bremerton. Considering the size of the buy-ins, I absolutely crushed the game. I cashed in 33% of the tournaments I played, finished in the top three 18.5% of the time (!!), and at least chopped for first place in 12.2%. Those numbers are INSANE. For the year, I made roughly $2000 in live tournaments, or profited roughly 80 buy-ins (assuming an average BI of $25). All of these numbers include the fact that I didn’t cash in a single event with a buy-in of more than $50. I completely whiffed at Pendleton’s Fall Poker Round-Up and had one of the worst showings of my life in the first event of Muckleshoot’s Fall Poker Classic. Fortunately, I sold most of my action in those events, but the trip to Oregon was still a soul-crushing experience. Above anything else, it made me realize that despite my pedigree in local small stakes tournaments, my game still has a lot of work to do and I vow to return to Pendleton with something to prove in 2012. I refuse to come out of this year without a 5-figure tournament score. It’s my time.

I played a minimal amount of spread limit and no limit hold em in 2011, but found success in the few hours I put in. I profited roughly $1000 in about 40 total hours and that includes a brutal hand where I get stacked for $250 with AA after getting it all-in preflop vs KK. Along with trying to play more $8-$16 in this upcoming year, I absolutely need to get in more no limit cash games against weak players because differences in skill level is a much larger factor than it is in fixed limit games.

I opened 2012 by getting a job at All-Star Lanes. I’m not going to state many details on exactly what it is I’m going to be doing, but I’ve been hired to help out in the poker room: possibly dealing, possibly chip-running, but definitely playing a lot of poker. It sounds like my dream job and right now I’m being told everything I want to hear. How it works out remains to be seen, but I’m excited about the prospects, although not being able to play at Chips as much is going to sting. I love that place and I thank them dearly for treating me like royalty the last seven months. Carla, A.J., Dan, James: you guys are like family. I spent more time with you than anyone else last year and I know that all of you root me on wholeheartedly. I will miss you and try to visit often. I’m going to miss the regulars too. Somehow… a young, cocky, aspiring professional that never gives anyone air and plays cutthroat poker 100% of the time has mostly gained the respect and support of the local gambling community. Many of these players are friends of mine on Facebook now and follow my blog, so I thank you all for tolerating my unforgiving play and being willing to lock horns with me all year. Today, someone that won a seat to the World Series Of Poker 2012 Main Event seriously considered letting me play the event for him. I would hate to deprive someone of that experience, but I’d also love to bring a main event cash back home to Bremerton. What you say, Simi?

As I stated earlier, despite having such a successful year gambling in 2011 and showing a profit in 10 of 11 months (I was in jail all of May), multiple shenanigans lead to me having a very depleted bankroll to start 2012. I was basically operating on fumes. Off of unemployment and not being able to bank on my current job for more than $200 or so a week, I was starting to wonder if I’d even survive January without resorting to drastic measures. Fortunately, my gig at All-Star Lanes looks like a go, but still: if I was going to be playing a ton of poker there, how was I going to fund it? Start with a short roll and pray that I run good for a couple months? I certainly didn’t have the stake to absorb any significant downswings and if 800+ hours of live play last year proved anything, it’s that no matter how good you are, large downswings are still very common. I needed a miracle.

To make matters worse, I met a remarkable woman the last couple weeks of 2011, but what I thought was the beginning of an amazing relationship instead fizzled out rather quickly. It was incredibly disappointing and it was messing with my head. On Saturday, January 7th, whatever hope I had remaining for it to work out evaporated. But it’s funny, because as we were talking over lunch about how painful things were in that moment, we both recognized the fact that it would all make sense some day and that everything happens for a reason. Little did I know, it’d make sense to me within hours.

After my dismal lunch, I tried to go home and sleep it off… get a little rest in before my poker session that night. But sleep proved beyond my reach and instead I hit my boy MC up and told him I needed a guy’s night out. He said he needed to be home by 6 PM, but I showed up at Chips anyways, kidnapped him out of their live game, and we drove to All-Star Lanes to play their 7 PM tournament. After busting out in 7th place at the final table, it didn’t look like their live game was going to be too cracking that night, so I talked MC into going back to Chips since they had two jackpots that were over $2000. We get back to Chips and I toss $300 on the table, but the floor is gone and I can’t get all my chips yet, so I say “fuck it” and start walking around the casino bullshitting with various people.

Finally, after about 15 minutes or so, I sit down in the live game with $100 in white chips and $200 in cash and Carla asks if I wanna post my big blind. Sure I do. 3-4 people limp in, the small blind completes and I look down at AdJd in my big blind. Raise it up! Everyone calls and we see a flop of KdQdx.

I’ve been playing poker for 8 years and have logged TONS of live hours, but I’ve never hit a Royal Flush in a casino. I know someone that has hit three in a calendar year. Another friend of mine has been playing half the time I have and has four under his belt. I know a regular that recently hit a $11K Royal and followed it up with $2K one just a few months later. I’ve personally hit 11 royal flushes online, but I’ve never received jackpot money for one and I’ve never done it in live play. For whatever reason, I could feel this one coming in from the jump. Carla, the dealer, has said to me numerous times recently: “something great is going to happen to you soon, Mac.” I believed her.

I go ahead and lead the flop, betting my monster draw for value, not worried about losing customers (and a chance to draw out for a Royal) since that flop hits so many hands. Two players do call. A blank falls on the turn and I decide to bet again anyways to keep building a pot with my big draw, not really concerned about getting raised. Both players call again and one of them says, “bring a ten on the river.” I think in my head, “oh really? Be careful what you wish for, sir.”

With my life in shambles, my head in disarray, and my future in question, I can’t say anything has ever looked prettier than that Ten of Diamonds on the river. Red Royal Flush. Jackpot. $2389. Ship it.

I’m not saying that jackpot is going to solve all my problems, but it couldn’t have come at a more critical time. I am now right back where I was several months ago: with a reliable source of income that I can pay my bills with and a large enough bankroll that I can gamble with regularly and build over time. And rather than dwell in self-pity and wonder why things didn’t work out with ole girl, I know that everything that happened with her led up to that exact moment. I don’t hit that Royal Flush if we are still dating. Plain and simple. And I need that money way more than I need a woman in my life right now.

The Royal Flush Of Destiny… I’ve never been a religious person, but I do think there is some merit to concepts like fate and destiny. Like… everything that has happened in my past, good or bad, was meant to be and has shaped me into the person I am today. Well, I feel like this Royal Flush is a sign that my poker career should be my top priority right now. Fuck all the doubters; this is what I was meant to do. Instead of having to start from scratch all over again–through no little fault of my own–it’s like I’ve been given a reprieve and can continue doing exactly what it is that I want to do: work my way towards becoming a professional gambler.

I expect another successful year in 2012 and I have a list of goals that should be more than achievable: become an $8-$16 regular, play significantly more no limit cash games, log my biggest tournament cash of all-time, and, for crying out loud, have a profitable trip to Pendleton, Oregon.

2011 was a promising year. I proved that I have what it takes to beat the game of poker in the long run. It’s no longer a question. I feel I have answered it and that my calling is apparent. I experienced some growing pains and some struggles last year, but have learned from all of that. The struggles are over. I feel like Eminem on ‘Say Goodbye To Hollywood:’ “but no one ever puts a grasp/ on the fact I’ve sacrificed everything I have.” I really have; I’ve bet it all on this poker shit and I don’t plan on failing now. 2012 is my year.

Posted in poker | Tagged betting, fixed limit, gambling, hold em, money, no limit, no limit hold em, poker, professional gambling, texas hold em | 1 Comment »

September 2011 Gambling Results

October 2, 2011

Poker is such a grind. I made a resolution this past New Year’s to make a profit gambling. I was sick of thinking of myself as a great player without having the consistent results to prove it. I’ve destroyed that goal. I’ve won every month in 2011 and thanks to a great session on the second to last day of the month, I can add September 2011 to that list. In consistently achieving my goal to make money gambling this year, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. I was hoping to be playing professionally by 2013, but I’m ready to make the transition NOW. Part of me wants to throw caution to the wind, quit my day job and really put myself to the test… but that’s the part of me that has kept me treading in mediocrity for the past five years. I simply can’t afford to take that risk. Even if half my bankroll wasn’t indebted to me, I wouldn’t be close to having enough money saved up to take the plunge. Even at a limit as low as $4-$8, I’d be crippled after any sizable downswing without another source of income. My game still has plenty of leaks, but I’m convinced I can beat any limit game Washington state has to offer, so it’s frustrating that the only thing holding me back seems to be how much money I have to play with. So close… yet so far away.

I’ve had someone question whether or not I’d really want to play for a living. Not because they question my talent, but because they say that poker isn’t as much fun when you HAVE to play… when it becomes your job. When you have to put in the hours to make your money. Please. I have a day job now and still managed to put in over 160 September hours in just cash games. That doesn’t included the time I spent in the 17 tournaments I played. Playing is not going to be a problem for me. In fact, I’m in danger of letting poker completely dominate my life. If you include those tournament hours, I probably played around 200 hours last month, which would be a lot even for a full-time professional… and I’m still employed. Over a 450 hour sample size, my win rate in my regular game ($4-$8 fixed limit) is barely worth my time, so spending that much time playing is probably not my best investment. I think I need to cut my hours way back or find a full-time backer so I can move up to $8-$16.

I still have a tendency to think too much in the short term. I think it’s my biggest weakness now. Losing a big pot still hurts way more than it should. A bad run of cards, missed draws, coolers, and lucky catches for my opponents can still put me on tilt. My mood mirrors how my session is going far too often. For someone that is striving to play for a living and has proven that he will win in the long run, these attitudes are unacceptable. My focus on short term results makes me more susceptible to tilting, not playing my A game, and ultimately, cuts into my win rate in the long term and affects my overall performance. I feel like I could be doing much better than my current results if I can somehow get past this problem. Even right now, I feel down in the dumps because I started October off with a -54 big bet session and I haven’t won with TT, JJ, QQ, KK, or AA in my last 12+ hours of play. Unlucky? Yes. Any reason to whine and slum around my house feeling defeated? No. That money will come back. Time to get over it already and plug that leak. Coping with bad stretches separates the above average players from the great players and I’m ready for a promotion.

Rather than break down my exact results like I have in past months, I’ll just say I turned a modest profit for September. Considering the amount of time I put in, my final results are pretty unsatisfying. On the flip side, being stuck with two days left in the month and managing to turn a decent profit feels pretty good. My results in fixed limit cash games were not good at all. I lost at every limit I played, running absolutely brutal for multiple long stretches and probably not playing my best poker as a result, losing even more money than I should have. Before closing the month with a big win, I had six straight losing sessions–a first for 2011. It seems like I can’t go an entire month without 1 or 2 big downswings, even in months I’m generally killing the game. I also cashed for a profit in just 3 of the 17 tournaments I played (17.6% vs. a 45% ITM rate YTD) and went a stretch 8 straight tournaments without cashing at all (also a 2011 record).

Where I did do well last month was in the $2-$40 spread game at E&J Reyes and in the pit. I don’t have a lot of experience in spread games and haven’t had much success in them in the past. I’ve never been able to decide if I want to play a game that’s similar to how I play limit or how I play no limit. This time around I decided to play a mixture of both: seeing a lot of flops cheaply and using position like I do in no limit and using tight fixed limit hand selection in all other spots. I ran much better than average in these two sessions (88 > AA, JJ > AA, rivered a flush against trips, etc.) and I’m not expecting to maintain a $90/hour win rate. In the pit, I killed on match plays and pretty much expected to win every time I played one. Also, in one of my extremely rare moments of playing a table game, I hit quad 9s on Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em for a pretty decent payout and, unlike the degenerates who usually play the pit games, I immediately cashed out after my score.

Even though September was a small success, my bankroll actually decreased. I made way less at my day job than I budgeted for and had to take more out of my bankroll to pay bills than I made back in profit. Hopefully October will bring more consistency, both at my real job and on the felt. I just read that Full Tilt Poker has been purchased and maybe that means I’m that much closer to getting my money from them. I also got in touch with the dude that owes me a lot of money and he agreed to make a payment on the 5th. And seriously, does anyone in Kitsap County deserve the $9000+ Red Royal Flush Jackpot @ Chips Casino more than me?

Posted in poker | Tagged fixed limit, gambling, no limit, poker, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

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