Johnny

The 20 day mark has me right on schedule. I gave $110 back to the poker economy last night as a result of some amazing hands but my 20 day total has me at $2,440.25 including rakeback, which would put me at $7,320.75 for the 60 day period so I’m a tiny bit ahead of the curve.

Unfortunatly, or fortunately, things happen which mess up your plans though and a few such things happened, one very bad and one very good. One was that we had a bit of a crisis here personally which caused me to cash in a bunch of my bankroll. The other thing is that I received an invite to the All In Powerdrink Invitational next week in Vegas, so I cashed in another $1k of my roll to pay for it all and I’m off to Vegas for a few days on June 30th. It’s not a WSOP event, but at least it’s listed on the WSOP lineup page.  Baby steps!  Haha.  The tournament is a $500,000 guarantee with $1k bounties on players such as Johnny Chan, Patrik Antonius, Phil Gordon, Annie Duke, Eli Elezra, Scotty Nyugen, Freddie Deeb, Dewey Tomko, and Layne Flack who just won another bracelet last night. Trip report coming, obv. Wish me luck!

I don’t know what it is about Pokerstars but, man, it’s a grind at best for me there. I had a bonus to clear there so I played some NLHE. Here’s the stats for my first 400 hands:

Winnings(Losses): ($295.35)

EV Winnings ($180.15)

Pretty standard basic stats and aggression, went to showdown was near normal at 22.6, but Won $ @ showdown was down around 40 points from my average at 16.7%. Ha! A little coolerville.

I eventually came around a bit then won a few hundred after I switched to PLO, but I still have about 1200 hands of PLO to go before this bonus clears.

The Stars sessions kinda sandbagged my chart a little but it still looks pretty good. My goal was to add $2k to my roll so I’ve gotten that much on straight NLHE now, so the rest of the 2 month period plus bonuses and Omaha all be towards the goal of an extra $5000. Here’s the NLHE chart to date:

I figured I was in for a bit of a doomswitch after making the last post and it did hit hard and fast tonight. I played just two tables for most of the night and had a 70%+VP villain at each one accompanied by some 40s and 50s. Really loose tables. Unfortunately, they ran like god when I had hands with showdown value. ~$200 loss on the night, but at least the penance is out of the way. (Knock on wood)

The laptop I have is very serviceable. I got it on clearance from ToshibaDirect, I think mostly because it has this hideous copper cover. However, I really liked that it still had XP and resolution up to 2048 x 1536 though I use it at 1680 x 1050. It 4 tables without overlap and runs great, plays World of Warcraft just fine too. It can’t play new generation games though.

This week I purchased Age of Conan, the MMRPG. It’s huge, taking up fully 1/3 of my 100 Gig hard drive. My system met the minumum specs, but the game really isn’t playable. The graphics lag and stutter far too much. Now normally this wouldn’ t be a problem as I’d just forget the game, but some friends are playing it and so that increases the fun factor. I also had to give Bioshock a miss because it had bad problems with this particular graphics card.

But this Conan game… you don’t understand. I mean, I was never into the Conan mythos. But the game has boobies and gore, boobies and gore! See what I mean?

And they go flip-flop and everything.

How can I resist?

Looking through the laptops on the market it seems like I’m going to have to shell out about $4800k with tax to get something that will last for a few years without being obsolete. Icky, imo.

So, hey I’ll do what any good degen would… baller up the poker roll. Either a brilliant plan or really, really stupid.

I’ve been playing only a minumum amount of hands this month. I’ll swtich do more grinding and see where I can get in June and July. I’ll put $2000 of the gains into my roll and take the rest and see what kind of machine I can get and chart my progess here in teh blog.

Here’s the chart for this month so far, 9 days in and $1743.20 plus rakeback so I’m off to a good start. Hopefully I won’t screw up and I’ll be watching boobies bounce before I know it.

Warning: Some of the links in this entry go to external sites and some are NSFW. If you hover over the links titles will pop up saying “EXT” for external link (link other than my home server), “NSFW” for the obvious, or “CLICK AWAY” if you wouldn’t mind if your mom/wife/priest saw it. Due to it’s nature the last link shouldn’t be clicked on by anyone.

On Saturday Ridge Forum buddy Snickers and I met up at Mounaineer Racetrack and Casino in West Virginia. It was one of the nicer rooms I’ve been in. The entry was large with a big front desk. Large monitors showed the wait lists for all games. You could give your name to the desk or enter it yourself at a kiosk. The room itself was very large. There was a lot of room between the tables, which was really great. It was the least crowded room I’ve been in and it still holds 30-something tables.

Getting there took a little longer than anticipated. Google maps comes up a little short, leaving you about 8 miles from your target at a really shady place called Gumby’s Cigarette and Beer World. Now I can understand how Google could think that I might want to stop there from my browsing habits, but they should continue the route even if they think I won’t make it back out.

The trip down was 99.4 miles and took just shy of 2 hours. Still a better drive than Niagara, but not as short as I expected. I did make a quick stop off the highway at a place called Jay’s hot dogs in the middle of nowhere. I was happy to see that my lunch of 2 hot dogs would cost only $1.38 - small town value! While I’m waiting a group of guys walks in and the cashier calls them over. “We ain’t from here!” the customer exclaims “We haff to read the menu.” The cashier and I just kind of look at one another… It’s Jay’s Hot Dogs, the menu = HOT DOGS. wtf? They are still pondering while I pick up my sack and head back to the car. The dogs were good. They come with onions and mustard but also with this really spicy chili sauce so I knew that later these dogs would be barkin.

Another 45 miles down the road I pass “East Palestine and Calcutta Ohio” A little international flavor to the community names. There were quite a few tricked out PT Cruisers getting off the highway here. So, if you a fan of tricked out PT Cruisers, East Palestine and/or Calcutta Ohio might be the place to be.

The road starts curving an undulating in a way that can only mean that you’re entering hill country so I feel West Virginia coming on, and around a bend I glimpse the big Ohio River. West Virginia and the Mountaineer are just on the other side. While in Niagara, Snickers had told me about Ohioans at Mountaineer talking about this rickety old bridge they crossed to get there. I’m wondering what it will be like. Driving east along the river I see it… it’s called the “Toll Bridge” but I call it “Dumbass Bridge” because you have to be a certified mouthbreather to cross it. It looks barely 2 lanes wide, the cars are crawling along it at what must have been a little over 5MPH. It’s lacking any actual pavement and instead has metal see-through grating. The sides are lacking with flimsy bars. From the name I assume there is a toll involved somewhere. Still, if it’s the bridge why condemn these people to dumbass status? Because you can see just a short way down the river where the highway crosses on a nice 4 lane arching proper bridge. Your humble blogger opts for the highway.

I arrive at the Racino and was able to drive directly to the proper parking lot right away because of Snicker’s last trip report. The parking lot is huge and right next to the racing grandstand. The poker room is inside the grandstand. There are doors out to a patio area and the racetrack is right there. When the horses are racing it must be a very different atmosphere in there.

The player’s card sign up and putting my name in for the $1/$2NL list took about a minute and within 10 minutes I was playing poker. They don’t call your name and table number. They call your name and then you have to look for a seating dude who shows you where to sit. When they called me I went straight to the cashier and the seating dude came up to me in line and told me where to go, which conveniently was the table right next to the cashier. I don’t know how many $1/$2 tables they had going, but at the peak of the night almost all of their 37 or so tables were sitting players. They had stud, omaha, limit and no limit in a bunch of denominations. The biggest game was $10/$25 no limit hold em with a $7000 max buy in. I won’t be sitting at that for some time! The dealer said that the play on that game gets really nasty.

I buy in for the full $300 and take seat 4 at the 10 seat table. With my beginning stack I have all but a couple seats covered. Seat 1 is a guy with a WSOP shirt and cap on. Seat 2 I can’t remember but he didn’t last long. Seat 3 told me his name but I forgot it. I call him Irish Chris Rock. He talked and smiled a little like Chris Rock, but he was redheaded and pasty white. To my left in seat 5 was Joel who had a little over a double stack when I sat down. I didn’t note much of seats 6 and 7 as the players there made no fireworks while they lasted and I couldn’t see them. 8, 9, and 10 were tight players.

In keeping with our rather good gauge of comparing the play to online tables, this table was more difficult than the Full Tilt $1/$2 NL tables I usually play on in comparison to Seneca Niagara’s tables being $.10/$.25NL tops. The players were tight, I’d give the table a VP% of about 12. They were aggressive. I didn’t do much for the first several hours. After about 30 hands I tried to get cheeky. In the BB I had :Jc :8c and checked it down. The flop came xx4 and I led out and got flat called by Joel. The turn paired the board with 4s and I bet out again and got called. I don’t remember what happened on the river except that Joel was nice enough to show me his quads. So, I tried to bluff out quads using nothing but a tight image. Dumbass me.

A few hands later Snickers shows up and comes over. I say that I’m doing alright except for this bastard getting quads as I point to Joel. Joel piped in that I had nothing at all, which I didn’t expect, so there goes my total fabrication of a bad beat story! Snickers buys in and sits 2 tables behind me.

3 more hands come where I could have lost more. I check the BB or flat call a button with 67o, can’t remember my position. I flop a straight draw and I’m priced in with first to acts bet and Chris Rock’s call but I fold it because I just got a bad feeling. As it turns out, the river that made me the straight made Chris Rock’s straight flush. Happy to get away from that for $2. On another hand I’m sandwhiched between Chris Rock and Joel. Chris has the button, I have AKo in the SB, and Joel has the BB. Chris might have raised, he liked to raise, if he did I flat called and if he didn’t I just completed. I’m thinking that he probably raised though. I didn’t like my position between Chris, the tables wild better, and Joel, the only guy to have me covered and a pretty good player. Joel calls or checks and the flop comes 99x. Chris’ hand jerks and freezes on the flop and I think “ha!” and fold to his bet. Joel calls. A on the turn and T on the river. They go to town and both end up with the same hand, 9T and they both have boats. Also in there I have a quality hand but fold only to watch others go to the river to see that I would have lost, but I can’t remember the hand. At this point I’m feeling really good being down only $60.

People start to bust. Some rebuy and they usually rebuy for $100. And when I say they bust they usually bust to Joel who is playing a game that I really can’t pick up on. He’s seemingly tight but every once in a while shows down with a pretty subpremium hand, but is confident that he’s ahead and he often is. He knows position but limps UTG a lot. Whether by design or chance he mixed up his game nicely and I couldn’t put him on anything. His stack sat at about $1800 when I left.

This goes on for 3 hours or so. By the time I talk with Snickers again I’m up about $20. My cards weren’t terrfic. I had AK the hand above when I folded. I had AQ a few times, a few pocket pairs, mid connectors, TT a couple of times and JJ once for the entire day. The couple times I had TT I raised to $10 first in the pot then took it down after the flop with a strong continuation bet. Chopping seemed to be standard and table folds to Chris in the SB and I pick up my cards and say “Chop?” and he says “You want to chop?” “Ya” I say and so he says “Then I raise it $10.” I say “Thanks a lot” and fold. Chris says “Well I don’t know about you but I came here to play poker.” I ask the dealer if Chris would lose money on this play and the dealer said no, if I fold there is no rake. Oh. Different story then. The table started to loosen up. WSOP was replaced by Penguins Guy, who was passive and eventually was felted but he provided some action. Seat 2 was replaced by Assfinger Man.

Assfinger man was a treat. He was an old guy with bushy white hair. Do you remember James Stockdale who ran for Vice President on Ross Perot’s ticket? He was a lot like that guy, except for the assfinger. The index finger on his right hand was stained a deep brown with the browest part in the center and fading to a coffee-cup light brown from there. This was either becuse he smokes non-filtered cigarettes non stop for 50 years or because he sleeps with his finger up his ass. Judging from his persona, play, and lack of an external voice box I’d guess the latter. He did his part to soften up the table, playing a loose aggressive game.

Chris remained in seat 3. He was your typical shortstack. Seriouly, just the kind I post about, playing ultra aggressive without an edge and depending on fold equity or lucksacking it. It was very interesting, though, to hear him talk about why one should play shortstacked and how he does it on Stars, playing $1/$2 and $2/$4 for the minumum buy ins. You can imagine the thoughts racing through my head, but I just nodded in agreement. Chris was an indominable spirit, and I pegged him for West Virginia by the accent, but he was from Ohio.

I’m in seat 4, Joel in seat 5, and a gruff looking gentleman with a deep eastern european accent sat in seat 6. His first hand played was strong, slowplaying then betting the turn on a strong hand and winning a large pot. After that he just seemed like your average donkey, playing without regard to position and too loose.

The rest of the table was the same for a while, if not the players themselves at least in style. Later on a slightly annoying guy sat in seat 9 and I could tell he’d get felted by the time he left.

Snickers is ready to go and he waits for a couple minutes until my button passes and my beer comes from the waitress. She had a French accent that could only be topped by Borat’s scenes in Talladega Nights. “Allo! Wood zu like a bleverage? Can I get zoo anyzing?” Just about the whole table couldn’t stand it and when everyone admitted it the dealer finally broke down and said it made him insane too. The security guard said she was German and has lived in West Virginia for a long time. She certainly didn’t fit my stereotype of a West Virginia girl as a little backward hot, and armed.

So my beer comes. They are very cheap and so I also got one for Chris who was wondering if I was still pissed off about the chop. Chris seemed to be sobering up. He finally busted out to Joel though and left and so Joel got the beer when it arrived and corrected my lame ass tip too, which was an accident on my part. I limit myself to the one beer while I’m there because I saw some cops on the road and Ohio is no place to get a DUI. Bastards made me afraid of beer. Maybe I can get some therapy from Thebatsman. Then I meet up with Snickers briefly and we talk about some hands and the room in general. He says that his table was looser than mine and that I should put in for his seat, but my table is just starting to loosen up nicely and I have a read on everyone. Snickers had thought that Wheeling seemed softer in his trip reports and one of the dealers at our table actually said that he prefers to play there because the games are softer, which was notable because it’s run by a different company. Joel had also said that Wheeling was softer. Snickers and I say that maybe the next trip should be to Wheeling even though it’s about 45 minutes further for me, the drive might be worth it.

We say goodbye and I hit the table for another 90 minutes or so. Eastern european guy was replaced by a different guy who was a calling station and very difficult to push off a hand, 2 seats to my left. I was still up just a little bit and I didn’t want to play loose into Joel or the calling station so I remained tight. I had seat 10 dominated with my KQ over his K8 on a flop that was something like 99K. However, the river brought another K and saved him as we split the pot. My AQ hit the A or the Q and villain hit 2 low pair but the board paired as well. Joel caught it first and stopped the dealer from pushing the pot to villain.

Then I was dealt my best hand of the night, JJ in the SB. Calling station limps, seat 9 limps, I raise to $12, calling station calls ( of course), seat 9 calls. The flop comes 345 with 2 hearts. I bet $30 and the calling station raises! Seat 9 folds. Well, the calling station minraised me and I want to know more. Finally, I get to play a hand where a physical tell you can’t get online might could come into play. I reraise and make the bet an even $100. His face becomes very red and he looks like he wants to vomit. Yes! He tanks for a bit and flat calls the $40. The turn is a blank. He doesn’t have QQ, KK, AA. His reaction to my reraise made me feel good about the prospect of going up against a set. What could he have? A5 with a flush draw? I push a $100 stack out beyond the betting line and he looks at it like it just flipped off his mother. He tanks. He gets a long time as the dealer and Joel are talking about Wheeling. I try to join in and say something funny and laugh because Calling Station is staring at me, but in reality I’m trying very hard to control my breathing. I feel that I have the best hand but I really just want him to fold and not draw out. After several minutes he folds and I take a nice pot. The dealer wants to guess what I had and I say that it’s ok to guess and he says “a set of 3s” and I just say no. Seat 9 says that it ’s not JJ because that’s what he had. Ha, if you did then you’re a bigger donkey than I thought. When I got up to leave Calling Station asks what I had and I said JJ. Seat 9 gets a little animated and says “That’s what I had!” Calling station says he had 77.

I get AT and take it down with a continuation bet after the flop. Same thing once more, forget the hand. I cash out with $483, having bought in for $300. Not bad considering the table, my cards, the $5 rake *ouch* and tips. Just about an even $30 per hour.

Driving back I almost turn onto Dumbass Bridge by mistake which looks even more like a dumbass proposition in the dark with icy rain. If mothman was going to get my ass, it was going to be that night on that bridge. I switch lanes and get on the highway and drive home, which is 26 miles further than work and takes about 2 1/2 hours. I stop for Tacos in East Palestine and/or Calcutta, but there are no PT Cruisers around.

And if I don’t get another post up in time… Merry Christmas!

Warning: Some of the links in this entry go to external sites and some are NSFW. If you hover over the links titles will pop up saying “EXT” for external link (link other than my home server), “NSFW” for the obvious, or “CLICK AWAY” if you wouldn’t mind if your mom/wife/priest saw it. Due to it’s nature the last link shouldn’t be clicked on by anyone.

So, who knew my first entry would be about shortstacks? I’ve come to accept that they are a huge hole in my game that I fear I can’t get out of.

I’m going to go over some hands from Friday night. Hey, if any of our great circle of friends on Ridge would like to comment on the hands or my thinking please make a thread in the strat section of the forum and copy them there, or make a guest blog post to post here. I’d greatly appreciate some analysis.

First hand…

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 9 Players

LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

SB: $137.20
BB: $79
Hero (UTG+1): $198.80
Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (UTG+1)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $7, 5 folds, SB calls $6, BB calls $5

Flop: ($21) (3 Players)

SB checks, BB bets $21, 2 folds

Results: $21 Pot ($1.05 Rake)

BB mucked and WON $19.95 (+$12.95 NET)

Not a thrilling start. Here we made a standard raise UTG+1 with AKs and both blinds flat called. The big blind bet a little more than the pot and we dumped the hand. We had no reads on villains yet, but it soon became clear that BB was a shortstack pain, betting the pot or pushing every flop until he busted a couple hands later, so it was slightly annoying.

As it turns out, that kind of play was going to be somewhat standard for this session. Here are a couple of pots that I wasn’t involved in that will give you a feel for the two tables.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 7 Players

LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

CO: $342.90 (Solid player)
UTG+1: $36.70

Pre-Flop:

UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $2, MP folds, CO raises to $8, 3 folds, UTG+1 raises to $36.70 and is All-In, CO calls $28.70

Flop: ($76.40) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: ($76.40) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($76.40) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $76.40 Pot ($3 Rake)

CO showed (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$36.70 NET)

UTG+1 showed (a pair of Kings) and WON $73.40 (+$36.70 NET)

So, this guy who had been playing solid tried to raise the shortstack out, which doesn’t work because that’s why they are playing those stacks to begin with, then calls his push with a bad hand. His brain got eaten too.

Another hand…

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 8 Players

LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

SB: $54.05
Hero (BB): $182
UTG: $321.60
UTG+1: $223.45
MP1: $132.90
MP2: $68.80
CO: $100
BTN: $66

CO posts $2

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (BB)

UTG calls $2, UTG+1 folds, MP1 calls $2, MP2 calls $2, CO checks, BTN raises to $4, SB calls $3, Hero folds, UTG raises to $15, 3 folds, BTN calls $11, SB raises to $54.05 and is All-In, UTG raises to $93.10, BTN calls $51 and is All-In

Flop: ($194.05) (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: ($194.05) (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($194.05) (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $194.05 Pot ($3 Rake)

SB showed (a pair of Sixes) and LOST (-$54.05 NET)

UTG showed (a pair of Sixes) and WON $191.05 (+$125.05 NET)

BTN showed (a pair of Sixes) and LOST (-$66 NET)

So, the play is just a bit loose for us today. UTG was a pretty solid player himself and had no issues going all in against these guys with his AJ. Also, we love button’s minraise with QJ. Sometimes it really obvious to see when they are too loose, sometimes it isn’t. Our friend Ugi can tell you, minraising the button is just doing it the wrong way.

In what is the very next hand we find ourself with cowboys and we’ll be OOP. The converter is really messing up this hand so I’m going to post it freestyle.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players

Seat 1: Sitting out (shortstack busto dead button)
Seat 2: Hero ($180.00) SB
Seat 3: ($446.65) BB
Seat 4: (223.45) UTG
Seat 5: ($130.90) UTG+1
Seat 6: ($66.80) CO
Seat 7: ($98.00) BUTTON
Seat 8: Sitting out (shortstack busto dead CO)

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero

UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, CO limps, Button limps, Hero raises to $12.

Why $12? Because of the crazyness of the tables and our position I raised 6x, 4x plus 1x for each limper. In retrospect I would have liked to have made it $14 or $16 because of the difficulty of defining these shortstacks hands with anything standard.

BB folds, CO calls, Button folds.

Flop ($28) Flop: ($194.05)

Hero bets $28, CO folds.

Basically, I’m not fooling around. One of these guys is likely to call that pot sized bet or even push with a straight draw or a flush draw, any jack, or any ten. They don’t play shortstacks because they want to make difficult decisions. I don’t see any purpose in betting any less. If they fold, great, I’ll take it right there. If they push I’ll call because their range is infinite. If they flopped a set or JT then gg me again, just another unpleasant surprise.

Just a couple of hands later we have teh rockets.
Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players

LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $192.60
CO: $443.65
BTN: $248.85
SB: $138.95
BB: $38.80
UTG: $78

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (MP)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $7, 2 folds, SB calls $6, BB calls $5

Flop: ($21) (3 Players)

SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($21) (3 Players)

SB checks, BB bets $21, Hero raises to $42, SB raises to $63, BB calls $10.80 and is All-In, Hero calls $21

River: ($178.80) (3 Players - 1 is All-In)

SB bets $68.95 and is All-In, Hero calls $68.95

Results: $316.70 Pot ($3 Rake)

Hero mucked (two pair, Aces and Fives) and LOST (-$138.95 NET)

SB showed (a full house, Jacks full of Fives) and WON $313.70 (+$174.75 NET)

BB mucked (two pair, Jacks and Fives) and LOST (-$38.80 NET)

What happened here? Ugh. We made a standard raise first-in in MP. On this table we should have gone higher. SB is a previous shortstack who has doubled and BB is a moron. What do we bet? Both of these players have shown that they will not lay down their blinds very easily. A $20 would be begging the BB to push, but would he do it? Maybe a $12 or $14 bet out of the gate would have been better. Ideally we don’t want to isolate ourselves against the shortest stack on the table, but with these two in the blinds they are going to hang on and add problems to our pot if others call. Damn shortstacks. Anyway, as played our pre-flop is entirely wrong.

So the flop comes and they check to us and we check, which is some terriffic misclick equity for them. There is, of course, zero reason to check this flop unless you want a villain to catch up a little so that you can get more value on later streets, but that just doesn’t apply here. I must have been really distracted during this hand. I remember checking and immediately cursing.

The turn pairs the board and villains get aggressive. At this point I’m steaming because I misclicked on the previous street and I realize that my rockets are going to lose to these morons. I minraise the $21 bet, again showing I’m briefly out of my mind, and just call the rest down. While the one villain flopped top set, the other is true to his shortstack dingleberry role. But I played this hand worse than anyone.

Just a couple hands later, bam, more rockets.

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 7 Players

LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

BB: $197
Hero (UTG): $206.25
UTG+1: $408.65
MP: $183.80
CO: $309.70
BTN: $87.75
SB: $223.20

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (UTG)

Hero raises to $7, UTG+1 folds, MP raises to $124, 4 folds, Hero raises to $206.25 and is All-In, MP calls $59.80 and is All-In

Flop: ($370.60) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: ($370.60) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($370.60) (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $370.60 Pot ($3 Rake)

Hero showed (a pair of Aces) and WON $367.60 (+$183.80 NET)

MP showed (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$183.80 NET)

Here, again, we made a standard raise, first in. Our SB is a moron but his little stack has been pumped up. BB we don’t know. Our button is the only shortstack left.

MP kindly took the decision making out of the hand for us, ty sir. Thanks to his standard 17.4x raise with JJ we could play this hand while being completely oblivious to our surroundings.

But what do you do when you flop air against a shortstack maniac?

Full Tilt Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 9 Players

LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

SB: $67.80
BB: $84.95
UTG: $55
Hero (UTG+1): $183.80
UTG+2: $45
MP1: $39.55
MP2: $169.80
CO: $183.50
BTN: $239.10
UTG+2 posts $2

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (UTG+1)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $8, UTG+2 calls $6, 6 folds

Flop: ($19) (2 Players)

Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

Turn: ($19) (2 Players)

Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

River: ($19) (2 Players)

Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

Results: $19 Pot ($0.95 Rake)

Hero showed (Ace King high) and LOST (-$8 NET)

UTG+2 showed (a pair of Sixes) and WON $18.05 (+$10.05 NET)

Here we’ve been flat called by the shortstack who had just posted in. He sat with just $45 on a $200 table. We’re out of position, we have AK, and we flopped air against a villain who is likely to spooge his chips all over the board. If he limped then called the liklihood of a small or mid pocket pair is good, but he posted in and called, so maybe he has a weak Ace or who knows what, the guys range is infinite. I just checked it down, feeling that a continuation bet would lead to a villain push. He might have folded with his small pockets, but that’s not why these guys buy in short. This is where I need some work.

The tables turned tight and I turned to Pokerstars, which provided some fishy action of it’s own and no reason to slow play a set.

Poker Stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 7 Players

LeggoPoker Hand History Converter

BTN: $103.35
Hero (SB): $100.85
BB: $97.80
UTG: $65.70
UTG+1: $109
MP: $60.45
CO: $208.20

Pre-Flop: dealt to Hero (SB)

UTG calls $1, 4 folds, Hero calls $0.50, BB checks

Flop: ($3) (3 Players)

Hero checks, BB bets $3, UTG calls $3, Hero raises to $9, BB calls $6, UTG calls $6

Turn: ($30) (3 Players)

Hero bets $14, BB raises to $87.80 and is All-In, UTG calls $55.70 and is All-In, Hero calls $73.80

River: ($261.30) (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $261.30 Pot ($3 Rake)

Hero showed (three of a kind, Eights) and WON $258.30 (+$160.50 NET)

BB mucked and LOST (-$97.80 NET)

UTG mucked and LOST (-$65.70 NET)

Ok, this is too long. I’ll make them shorter. I’m going to keep trying to look at a few shortstack hands every so often as time goes on. I hope that I didn’t take the joke too far with all the links.

So, here’s the obligatory intro. 

I’m a part-time poker player, right now living at $1/$2 NL on Full Tilt.  Cash games are my preferred playground.  I’ve done alright in some multi table tournaments along the way, and I’m just getting into dabbling in ICM and Sit and Gos for fun.   I’m an art dealer, picture framer, and designer for my day job.  This makes cash games more practical as I’m normally very busy during the biggest tournaments on the weekends.

It was St. Patrick’s Day 2006 and I had been thinking of checking out this poker thing for some time.  We chose to stay in that night and cook some corned beef and cabbage, have a few beers, and stay cozy because it was cold.  I mentioned my interest to my girlfriend, Spammy, and she directed me to a site that gave you a bonus for signing up to poker sites. Hey, free money!  And that’s how I started that night, like so many others, signing up for Party Poker with a $100 free bankroll and getting $20 and a free t shirt along the way for joining the Poker Player’s Alliance.

I dabbled a tiny bit in the beginner’s micro tables on Party, but I didn’t want to really play until I understood more about the game.   I didn’t even know how blinds worked.  Searching for information I came across some really great people who loved talking about poker, and those guys are my current comrades here on the forums at Felt Poker.

Back then I read some really helpful articles, absorbed the strat forums while reading people discuss hands where they had hundreds of dollars in play and that seemed so far away to me, and originally registered on the forum in order to take advantage of the tutoring.  Pretty quickly I learned about this Sklansky guy and what he had to say about the ranking of hands.  I learned about how I was trapping myself.  I learned about bankroll management.  Once I had some basic strategy down I hit the Party beginner’s tables running.  I was still doing some awful things like limping with AA or KK until the river then pushing, then crying on the forums when I lost of course, but the knowledge that I did pick up right off the bat made me an overall winner.

I can’t say that I truly ran up that $100 in free money to my current roll because I used thousands of my own money to continually deposit for bonuses.  However, I’ve never put any money outside of the profits derived from that $100 on a table.   It’s been a slow progression compared to a lot of people and I’m still striving to build my first $10k, but I’m more than 1/2 way there after 19 months of learning and around 130,000 hands played.

Because of the way I’ve progessed, I’m a big believer in the importance of bonuses and incentives to cushion the bankroll of beginning players.  I did not play a single hand for over my first year when I wasn’t also earning some type of bonus.  It’s just now, after a year and a half, that my monthly wins and losses have begun to dwarf the impact of these incentives.  They are why I can say that, overall, my bankroll has grown 17 out of the 19 months I have been playing.  And, now that I’ve published that in a blog, here comes the brag curse!   Someone ask me for a dollar.

So with this blog I plan to record my progess in achieving my first $10k stack, post about beats and interesting hands,  record some of my thoughts on how hands played out, and just make general bloggy type posts.  Hopefully when I’m dead wrong one or two of my friends from Ridge can make a guest post and set us straight.  As I get used to what this blog software can do I can hopefully make them interesting or at least funny!