More Jack-mania

Vegas...

I'll make it short. It started off very bad with me losing just about every session I played. Very demoralizing. About halfway through my trip, I did a complete 180 and started doing nothing but winning. Things definitely started going my way. Turning point: played with a bunch of locals at the Suncoast one morning around 1:00 AM and got dealt AA. I got all in before the flop with another player who turned over KK. Flop came K-x-x and I ended up hitting a 6 outer on the river to make broadway and won about a $400 pot. From then on I just went on a tear and won practically every session I played. Overall I think I broke even or finished a little ahead.

One bad part... I played 5 or 6 tournaments but failed to cash in any of them. My very first one at Paris I definitely would have cashed and possibly won but near the end when we were very close to the money I suffered a bad beat against the chip leader and was sent home. I hope to play more tournaments when I get out there and hopefully start doing better.

Floppin' Quads

I've been bitching a lot lately about how I can't hit any flops in Omaha. Well I guess I should shut up for a while because tonight, during two concurrent tournaments, I flopped quads twice. Alas, it did me no good overall as I failed to cash in either one. It was pretty though.

Jack-mania on Full Tilt!

Return of the meltdown...

Well my insanely hot streak finally came to and end today, and a very abrupt one at that. Last night I was sitting on top of my most profitable month ever, but on this final day of August that record is now far out of sight. I started off by dropping about $120 before even getting out of bed thanks to a quick exit in a $20 HORSE sng and then five straight PLO8 heads up losses. That was just the beginning though. Later I would continue to get brutalized heads up including another streak of 6 straight losses, 4 or 5 of which were to the same guy which puts me on tilt perhaps more than anything else. For some reason when you play heads up and get owned by the same person game after game it really eats at me. Must be the ego part of my brain. Anyway, the final tally is I've lost 18 of my last 30, which may not sound like a major meltdown but given how I had been doing prior to that it seems pretty catastrophic. When you win and win and win you get accustomed to it and anything that departs from that pattern gets very hard to accept.

I've played a lot of games today on tilt which I know I absolutely should not do, but alas, I am human. Another thing, the players have been absolutely murder today. In my 30 games I can remember one player who was a total fish. Everybody else has been very tight/agressive/patient/nitty which really sucks. It's so bizarre how there are these days where just about everyone I play has a lot of skill. Other days, most days in fact, it's just the opposite.

One bright spot, I have won 3 in a row which is my longest streak of the day. Despite this setback August will still finish as a very good month for me.

Hot again

This game is so streaky! I've now won 9 in a row and 13 of last 14. Let's see how long it lasts.

Downswing...

The heads up games have been pretty brutal lately. I just won one, but before that I had lost 7 straight. As it stands now I have lost 9 of my last 12. I think I've been playing pretty well but the competition for some reason has been a lot tougher the last couple of days. I make no bones about the fact that a huge reason why I've won so much playing heads up PLO8 sng's is because there are so many players who are so very bad. If more people actually knew what they were doing there's no way I'd be as successful as I have been. It seems like everyone I've been sitting down with lately is solid as hell and knows what the hell they are doing, even though I haven't recognized any of these players. They've just seemed to come out of nowhere and are really good. The frustrating thing is I had a bunch of games where I had my opponents really low on chips (one guy even as low as 140), but they still came back to win.

Anyway, I'm trying not to put myself in a position where I keep losing and I refuse to stop playing, like what happened during my serious meltdown in San Diego. Right now I haven't lost more than 2 in a row without stopping and doing something else.

Speaking of doing something else, right now I'm going to the laundromat.

Dealt quads

Don't see this very often.

By the way, I folded.

That was quick...

I pride myself in that I usually last pretty long in tournaments. I may not cash as often as I'd like to but I feel that I have the ability to put myself in the position to go deep and at least make the money. Tonight I played a 90 person sng for $20 and I lasted about 3 hands. I get dealt AK in early position and raise 3x BB. I get 4 callers total, including the blinds. Flop comes down A-K-7 with two clubs (I have ace of clubs). I am first to act and bet slightly more than the pot. Player to my left goes all in and player to his left calls. I call. The original raiser shows 77 for a set and the other guy shows AK for two pair like me. I actually pick up a flush draw on the turn but the river is a blank and I'm gone.

I don't think I played it bad, as there are a bunch of hands both guys could have had. I know they didn't have AA or KK because they would have re-raised pre flop, so basically 77 was all I was afraid of. And that's what he had... oh well.

Reached my goal...

I finally reached my goal of hitting $4000, and then some. My hot run has continued and I'm now at $4500 which is an all time high. I'm still winning almost every $20 plo8 heads up game that I play. I've also mixed it up with some sit n go's (HORSE, plo8, even hold em) and I've been doing well at those as well. I guess my next goal should be $5000?

Close again...

Ok, I've recovered from my mini meltdown and I'm now just $22 away from $4000, having won 7 of my last 8. Past experience would say it's now time for me to lose like 6 in a row. Will I buck the trend this time and finally make it?? Will anybody besides me care?? Stay tuned!

So close...

I haven't played much in the last week because the family was here, but on Tuesday after they left I played two games with the goal of trying to win enough to actually have a winning month. The first game was a $20 heads up plo8 match that I won. Now I was only like $6 away, so I played a $10 match and won that, thus giving me a net profit of a whopping $2.73 for July! Of course it's not the amount of money that matters, just the fact that I didn't have a third straight losing month. It's good from a psychological standpoint.

This morning I played 4 heads up matches and won them all, which put me just $30 away from the goal of $4000 on FTP that I've been chasing for a while now. Of course, right on cue, I then had a meltdown and lost 5 straight in under an hour, and now I'm back under $3900. It's uncanny how often this happens. Please, just let me hit the $4000 mark and then have the meltdown so I can at least say I reached my goal.

Grrr.

Oops

Must have jinxed myself with that stupid post last night. Today I lost 5 game in a row, the first of which was to someone who did not know the rules of Omaha/8. They understood the 2 cards from the hand part but had no concept of how the low works. Another game, I had a guy all in and he ended up hitting perfect runner runner to scoop the pot when he was on his way to getting nothing on the flop. Basically I had him dominated on the high and low and it came 3 and then 5 to make his 24 good for the wheel. Of course he then came back and won the tournament.

Right now I'm in that frame of mind that I was in while in San Diego where I am expecting horrible things to happen when I play. I finally managed to salvage my last game, so I'm going to stop on a positive note and play again later. It seems like whenever I am almost within reaching distance of a goal, I go on a nosedive. A couple of wins today would have put me at $4000 on Full Tilt, so I immediately lose 5 in a row and now I'm a long ways away from 4k again.

UPDATE: Just lost two more, both to people who were rated as "fish" on Sharkscope. On the last one the flop comes JJ3 giving me a boat. We get it all in, and I know he has the jack and will suckout with a higher boat. He shows JK4x and ends up hitting a king on the turn, and I'm finished. In the previous game the guy was raising the pot on 100% of hands pre flop, then betting the pot on the flop. I can never beat these maniacs. Finally after folding most my hands I got into a situation where I flopped top pair with a flush draw and decent low draw. He pots it, I re-pot it, and of course he re-pots it and I know he has absolutely nothing. He turns over a higher flush draw and a couple of overcards, with no low draw. He hits one of his over's on the turn and I don't make my low. End of story. So so bad!

Turnaround

Amazing what a difference a week makes. Ever since I've gotten back to SF I've been running super hot on FTP and have racked up over $400. I almost have my account up to $4000, which I've set as my next goal.

The heads up Omaha/8 tournaments have treated me really well as I've won something like 24 of my last 31. The competition seems really soft and I'm not taking sick beats every game like I was when I was in San Diego. I think my game has also improved since I was on that losing streak. I'm being more aggressive and not living in fear of getting sucked out on or check raised. It's amazing how you can run bad for a while and that totally changes elements of your game. For a while there I was afraid to bet with anything but the nuts because I was so sure I was beat or would get beat by the river.

I've also stopped playing late at night as for some reason it seems like the games are tougher at 1 AM in the morning than at other times. Afternoon and evening are good times to play, or least it seems that way lately.

Tonight I played a $24+$2 Stud/8 tournament and finished 10th out of 101 players for a pay out of $48.48. I've only played a couple of $10 stud/8 mtt's before so I was happy finishing in tenth. Very happy with how I played and just got really card dead at the end.

The tournament...

Well I have to say that the pot limit Omaha 8 or better tournament last Sunday was a huge success. This was the one tournament I was really looking forward to the most on my trip, not only because I think it is my strongest game but also because I've never played one of these live before. It's very hard to find live tournaments that are anything but hold 'em nowadays. Anyway, the field was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. There were 389 total entrants and I managed to finish in 20th place. The tourny started at 4:00 PM and I think I was finally knocked out around midnight. The buy-in was $150 and my 20th place finish gave me $270. The $120 profit is hardly anything to get excited about but I was very happy to outlast 369 other people. When it finally got down to heads up the two remaining players ended up chopping it and took home about $10,000 each. Of course I would have loved to have made it that far, but I really can't complain.

As far as how I played, it's kinda funny in that I was so short stacked during most of the tournament that I hardly played at all. By the time the dinner break rolled around I was officially in "push mode," which I reach when I am at 10 large blinds or less. From then until I got knocked out about 4 hours later, my only decision was whether or not to pot it before the flop. From then on it was all pretty much up to luck as my hand either held up or it didn't. Fortunately, just about every time it ended up holding up and I didn't really take any bad beats. I don't think I ever pushed without a strong hand, something like A2xx or A3xx with a suited ace or a couple of big cards to go with it. On the hand I got knocked out on, I pushed with that kind of hand for all my chips and the guy had me dominated with a stronger hand, so I can't complain about how I got knocked out. It was gonna happen eventually, and I'm just amazed that I was able to stay alive for so long.

Looking back I can't really think of more than a few hands where I actually had to make post-flop decisions. That's pretty amazing for a tournament that I lasted about 8 hours in, but I was teetering on the edge for so much of the time that it just worked out that way. There was one point when we were down to about 30 that I took a huge pot and got my stacked up to about 30 big blinds, but before too long I was back down to short stacked again. I guess my only regret is that I was not more aggressive when I had those chips because that might have put me in a better position to go deeper, but at the same time I feel like my strategy of being patient and just waiting for strong hands paid off.

FINALLY!

It felt so good to finally have a winning session today. I played at Binions for about 3 hours and finished ahead $160, most of it coming from one hand.

I limped in late position with TT. Normally I'd raise with this hand but I've been running so bad lately that I'm gun shy and playing very conservatively. A tight/solid player on the button raised to $15 and got a few callers, myself included. The flop came down 2-6-T with two diamonds which was a dream flop for me. The UTG player, who had just sat down and was playing his very first hand, bet out $40 and it was folded to me. I went all in with what I had left, which was about $120 total. It folded back to the bettor and he made a pretty quick call. We flipped up our hands and he showed 22 for bottom set. My hand held up and I took down a nice sized pot. Pretty brutal cooler for him, especially since it was his first hand. He only stayed for another 10 minutes or so before leaving in a huff after he lost another pretty big pot.

I like the atmosphere at Binions but I don't think the games are particularly easy there. I have yet to sit down at a table that you could call soft. There are a lot of guys who look like semi-pro's as well as a lot of tight local rock nits. There is a big absence of people who have no idea what they are doing and give their money away. It could have something to do with the fact that the World Series is in town so there are a lot of good players around, plus I've been playing during the day a lot which is usually tighter than at night. I think I need to put in a couple of 3 AM to 11 AM sessions at Bally's if I want some easy money.

Some drunken guy was asked to leave today because he was just being loud and obnoxious and abusive to dealers. He wasn't at my table but one of the nearby ones. At one point he went away to hit the bathroom or something and while he was gone one of the floormen sat down in his seat and picked his chips up. When the drunk came back the floorman said "here's your money," gave him his cash and told him to leave. The drunk guy took offense to this and looked like he was about to take a swing at the floorman. Security was called and they took the guy out. I was glad to see that. I've played at places where drunks are allowed to carry on for way too long. Nice to see they don't mess around at Binions! I'm sure 20 years ago they would have sent him headfirst through the front door "Casino" style.

$150 pot limit Omaha/8 tourny tomorrow at 4 PM!!!

Trip report so far....

Tuesday June 19

Tonight I went over to Binions to see what was going on and I saw that they had a 4-8 HORSE game going on. When I sat down I realized that it was actually ORSE as the hold 'em round had been removed, which was fine with me. Not long after I sat down players started to leave and eventually we were down to 4 handed, then 3 handed for a while, then back up to 4. There was a guy to my left who literally did not know how to play razz or stud 8, but this did not stop him from doing pretty well during those rounds after he had the rules explained to him. He actually forgot a couple of times that stud 8 was a split pot game and he said he threw away decent low draws. Eventually it was back to 3 handed again and this guy got into an argument with an old guy sitting at the table who seemed to have nerve problems of some sort because his arms and hands were always shaking. I have no idea what the argument was about but it seemed like the dude on my left just jumped down his throat for some reason, then got up from the table and left, thus breaking the game. When I saw him at the chip window he was like "Hey sorry about that..." and I didn't say anything, but still, I was thinking "What's your problem? Do you really have to yell at a shaky old man like that???"

I lost about $40 in this game and then went over to a 1-2 NL table. I was pretty card dead here and there weren't any real weak players with the exception of an old guy in a stupid-looking floppy hat who seemed willing to call obscenely large bets with extemely weak draws and hit them with some regularity. At one point I was bored and tried to get fancy by re-raising a solid woman from the SB with AQ. When the flop came all rags I fired like $40 into the pot and got called right away. We both checked the ragged turn and then she bet out on the ragged river which got an instant fold from me. I lost about $70 going for that stupid move and it left me feeling pretty demoralized. I went back to folding 90% of my hands and before too long I was down $200...

Wednesday June 20

The Binions Poker Classic is going on all this month and although I had only planned on playing in $150 PLO8 event, I saw they had a $150 NL Hold 'em event today and decided to play just for the heck of it. I actually wasn't sure whether I wanted to play or not. I stood there by the signup desk and I was kinda feeling like I really wasn't in "the zone" and that I'd be wasting $150 by playing, but at the same time there was this other part of my brain telling me that for some reason I was going to do really well in this event and that I would make the final table and that I'd look back and say "Ha! And I was thinking of not even playing this event!"

Well, turns out I should have listened to the part of me that was saying not to play. I played like crap. Total tight/passive, which is second only to loose/passive in terms of worst playing styles.

Example: Middle position player makes a standard raise. I have QQ ON THE BUTTON but only smooth call. The BB also calls. The flop comes rag-rag-rag. The BB checks and the original raises makes what I thought to be a very weak bet into the pot. It was like 1/3 the size of the pot and just screamed out "I HAVE AK, AQ, AJ, or worse." Once again, I just call. The turn bring an ace, and now the original raiser confirms what I thought he had by making a very strong bet into the pot. I of course know my queens are no good now and fold, but they were damm good pre flop and on the flop! The BB ends up staying in all the way and the original raiser ends up showing ACE-SIX OFFSUIT. Could I have played the hand any worse?

On another hand, I flopped trips in the SB and chose to slow play it, which I don't feel bad about, but when a flush came out on the turn I had to go into calling mode. On the river there were 3 of us left, and the guy who was representing the flush continued to bet strongly. He bet 1000 into a 2000 pot and the player to my right made the call after some deliberation. Now I had a decision to make, and it seemed my decision was a pretty easy one. I didn't think too long before mucking my hand, which of course turned out to be the winning hand as both of the other players showed aces up. In retrospect I think I should have called. The betting player had shown himself to be pretty loose throughout the tournament, and if the calling player really had a flush he prolly would have raised. I think the pot was big enough to warrant my calling, and if I had I would have been in pretty good shape at that stage in the tourny. Instead, I beat myself up over it and kinda resigned myself to the fact that wasn't gonna go far in the tourny.

Eventually our table broke and I got moved to a new table. I was in push mode at this point at the blinds were 100-200 and I had a stack of about 2100. A few hands into the new table I look down at AQ in early position and go all in. I get one caller who shows AJ. I flop a queen and he, of course, makes and open ended straight draw on the turn and, boom, he rivers the straight. I really could care less that I was knocked out of the tournament at that point, as I wasn't gonna make the money the way I was playing, even with that double up. I was just pissed that I had once again gotten my money in with the best hand in a completely dominating position and ended up losing the hand. Hold 'em has been so brutal lately!

Ok, enough whining. Nobody wants to hear a whining poker player, myself included. STFU Luke.

Friday June 22

Played 1-2 NL today at the Mirage and dropped about $140 in 3 or 4 hours of play. There was really only one hand of note, and it accounted for most of my net loss. A player in middle position raised to $10 and I looked down at AK in the small blind. The button called the raise, and I just called as did the big blind. The flop came K-rag-rag and it was checked to the original raiser who bet $10. The button called and I check raised to $30. The big blind immediately went all in for about $95 and it was folded around to me. At this point there was about $180 in the pot and it was $65 more to me which meant I was getting just under 3:1 to call. I really never thought about not calling as I felt I was getting a good price and there was a strong chance he could have AK as well. What I didn't take into account was that, at best, I was probably calling for half the pot and it was just as likely that he had a set or 2 pair and I was drawing extremely thin. I made the call and he showed the set. I don't know if I'd do it differently next time around... Again, it seemed like there was enough money in the pot to warrant the call. One thing I could have done differently is re-raised pre flop and there's a chance the BB would have folded his 44 and I probably would have won the hand unless the original raiser had AA. If the BB called, the result would have been the same anyway.

After this I played short stacked for a while and was eventually down to $18. A middle position player raised to $14 and I went all in with AT. It was folded back to him and he of course called the extra $4 getting better than 8:1 on his money. The player showed J2, which meant he was on a total bluff pre-flop. Anybody who knows how I have been running at hold 'em lately will know how this story ends. When he made his gutshot for the wheel on the river I was really not upset about losing the whole $18 I had in the pot, more I was just extremely annoyed that this kind of shit is happening on such a regular basis lately. It's like the poker gods are needling me at every chance just for the sake of doing it.

Sunday is my PLO8 tourny at Binions. It would be so nice to finish in the top 5 or so and have a nice payday, but it's a tournament so I never get my hopes up too high.

So far I'm down almost $600 for the week. I've had only 1 winning session. I haven't blogged about the 1-2 PL mixed game that I played twice at Binions, but that was good for about another $150 in losses. Long story short, it was a whole bunch of goofy shit with games like Juarez (5 card omaha hi/lo with double flop, double turn, and single river) and ABC which is 3 card lowball triple draw, and others. The players are crazy.... one guy claims he's gotten 11 hours of sleep in 4 days. When I played last night I was getting really annoyed because some of them were taking forever to make their decisions and they were just being generally loud and annoying. I don't know if I'll play in that game again. I loved mixed games to an extent but some of them are just so goofy.