So after being down to $686 from $1005 playing blackjack (ugh), I'm back up to $714! Got a long way to go but at least it went back up a little bit.
Also, made $40 back of the $100 that I dropped at the casino and $20 of the $30 I was down at Full Tilt. Sooo, the plan is to play smart and get back in the black this playing against drunk people at the Edgewater Casino tonight.
I'll do the bankroll math tomorrow. Still down (probably about $50-60) overall.
Wow. So I made the $100 back I lost last weekend playing 2/4 LHE at the casino plus $7 profit (almost 2 big bets).
I had made $81 back when I went today, and then went on a crazy 26 big bet downswing. So, essentially, I was in the red even more. At this point I was sooo close to tilting but I promised myself I wouldn't. I honestly felt like I was playing good poker (not getting trapped for extra bets, etc), just the cards weren't going my way. Then I made an insane comeback and walked away with a 6 big bet profit today ($26).
So I finished this month up $65. Didn't quite reach the $100 mark but I've switched to live poker so I'm only playing weekends right now.
All my profit is from live. I broke even online. I'm pretty much done with online for decent stakes. Live is so much more interesting.
I played live 2/4LHE for 17 hours this month. I made 0.95BB/hour. So *almost* 1BB/hour.
The swings have been insane. It's not uncommon to drop $60/$80 before making it back. Crazy.
Wow.
So I was up $65 for December '08, and already up $88 (for a total of $153) in January '09 on the first weekend...then last tuesday happened. I dropped $180 in 8 hours. It was sick. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, and then I started playing poorly. Jeez.
So, I went back to the casino this past Friday with my confidence at an all time low. I was now -$27 all together. Goodbye December's profits. Goodbye January's profits.
I finished a 3 hour session down -$4. I actually didn't feel so bad afterwards. I didn't have two terrible sessions in a row.
Then on Saturday I made $76 in 3 hours. That was a night and a half. I NEVER fold to one bet on the river in a large pot, but I broke that rule and it cost me the pot! I indeed mucked the best hand. I can't explain why I didn't make the crying call like I always do. I was up 10BB so it's not like I was playing with scared money. This tilted me and I played 2 marginal hands (at least I had position in each one), agreeing if I didn't hit the flop crazy hard I would fold to 1 bet. And I hit the flop crazy hard each time. Poker's a funny game. If I wasn't tilty I wouldn't have played those hands (they were A6 offsuit and A2 offsuit). Playing the A6 offsuit wasn't actually so tilty. I was in middle position in an unraised pot with only 1 other middle-position limper already in. Still a marginal hand tho.
And then I went back on Sunday and made $30 in 1.5hours.
So altogether I'm up $75. So I've made December's $65 back and am up $10 for January.
So I had a bad day yesterday. The worst part is, I played good poker.
I was in 2 hands against this guy that called with backdoor anything on the flop (no pair, and all low cards so he had to hit runner runner even if he was hoping to make a pair cause he couldn't beat top or overpair if he did hit). Anyways, in both hands he hit runner runner and those two pots cost me $18 each. Then in a hand against his wife, I made two pair on the river which gave her a freakin' set. I was steaming after that.
The worst part is, this guy wasn't just drawing out on me. He was doing it to everybody! In 30 minutes he was up approx. $150 in 2/4 Limit for God's sakes! 30 minutes! That's about 15 freakin' hands worth $10 per hand. It was sick. He was laughing. His wife was laughing. I mean that literally too. Everybody else was just sitting there silently waiting for this guy's luck to run out but it didn't.
Anyways, those three hands I described cost me $54 (13.5BB). I was already down $20 (5BB). Then I donked off the rest. Jeez. I'm not playing limit today. I need a break from bad beats on the river in pots I would've won on the flop. I'm playing sss no limit instead.
So I'm back down to -$25.
Yeah, the table joked about that. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was going on a heater. It happens.
So today I busted on the 3rd hand of the early bird tournament. I'm in the small blind. Nobody raises. 4 limpers, I check my option, the big blind checks his options (in the first level the big blind and small blind are the same, 25 and 25). I hold J 9 off. Pot is $150 going into the flop.
The flop comes 2d 4d Js. I bet $150. Big blind calls. UTG calls. Button calls. Pot is now $750.
Turn makes it 2d 4d Js 9s. This gives me top two pair. Nobody's shown any strenght. I put the big blind and utg on draws. I seriously don't know what the button is doing since he was so new to the game, he didn't even know he could check when he was in the big blind if nobody had raised and went to fold instead.
So back to my top two pair and nobody showing any real strength. Of course I'm going to bet. If I bet pot I've now contributed 50% of my stack to this one hand (we only get 2k to start) so I push all in. I get insta-called by the big blind so I know I'm up against a set. And UTG calls too. Button finally folds. Big blind shows a set of deuces. I didn't even look at UTG's hand (turns out he didn't have the flush draw, but I don't know what he actually had).
So check this out, the big blind on the first hand of the tournament made quads and then two hands later makes a set. The river's an Ad and I'm out just like that.
So I go to the 1/2 No Limit game and buy-in for $50. First hand, UTG limps. Middle Position raises to $10. I'm in the big blind and even tho I'm playing short stack strategy, I'm a stickler for defending my blinds. I look down at A 10 off and figure, if I flop a ten I'm sure I'm good and push. If I flop just an Ace I'm probably dominated and fold (I know that sounds weird but I put the middle position raiser on a better Ace and I was sticking with my read). If I flop two pair I also push. So I call. UTG calls.
Flop comes A 10 2 rainbow. I push. Folds around to middle position raiser, he calls. Turn is a 9. River is a 6. I turn over A 10, he turns over A K. I take down the pot. So on the first hand I make a nice double up and now I'm up $45 again.
Sick thing about short stack strategy is if I bought in for the max, there's a good chance I would've busted him and made more. Even when I win a pot I'm thinking about how much more I could've made. Sheesh.
I just have to remind myself of what Mike Caro says. Poker's not about winning pots, it's about making the right decisions.
Anyways, it was nice to play some no limit again. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to double up in one hand. :-)
So I've been playing micro Limit Hold 'Em 6-max turbo tourney's at PokerStars lately.
$3.25 is the buy-in.
Out of 15 I've won 5 and placed in 2nd once. So I've cashed in 6 out of 15. The others I was seriously tilting after doing well and then taking a bad beat and going off my rocker. I really need to get that under control. I take a bad beat in one and then play, like, 3 terrible tourneys in a row.
So I've made a decent $15 American.
I really wish there were more people lining up to play these tourneys cause I have to usually wait about 5 minutes or more for one to fill up. I guess there's not a big demand for limit tourney's these days. At the slightly higher stakes, there's even less people playing the 6-max turbos.
Alright, I finally did it!!
I buckled down, started multi-tabling, and made +$100 total this month (in about 6k hands) playing mostly NL10 this month.
I also played a few SNG's ($1, $2, and $12 buy-ins) and some heads-up .25/.50NL.
The earnings are spread out between Full Tilt/Stars/Cake/Everest/PartyPoker/UB. Most of the profit is from Full Tilt and Stars. I made $52.74 (with another $5 in rakeback on its way) on Tilt and $39.09 on Stars.
It was pretty swongy. I made $47 on Full Tilt fairly easily playing short sessions, 6-tabling. Then I went on a $45 downswing in one session. That really made me want to give up. However, I didn't, and I got really lucky with a couple hands at the right time to put me back on track.
The last couple sessions have seen a downswing but with rakeback I'm actually only down ~$2. It's sick. Both sessions started out what seemed to be great. Big hands early on (trip Aces against QQ in one and KK against A10o in the other) only to be drawn out on by 2 and 3 outers on the river and turn respectively. My last session was just one big bad beat when I got it in good, and if I didn't get drawn out on, I couldn't get paid off.
So, I'm glad I'm not down by much but I am a little dismayed that over the last 2k hands I haven't been able to show a profit.
That said, I just keep reading Doyle's section in Super/System 2 on multi-tabling online, reminding myself that there are going to be long break-even stretches and even downswings. But, the more hands you play, the faster those stretches and downswings will turn around.
