Day 37

Today I was doing extremely well until about the 6th hour of play... I was up $250~ and then I just started dazing off and playing horribly. I was shoving in on bluffs/semibluffs more often than I should, calling with less than premium hands, playing draws against shortstacks... just stupid play... I took a slide down and finally said enough... walked away with about $50

I noticed towards the end of my sessions, sometimes i become more lackadaisical which affects my play and also notice that playing at these lower levels I get the attitude that makes me think that everyone I go up against at these low limits is playing with subprime hands, didn't hit, are bluffing etc... and I start to loosen up and drop chips... Next time I start feeling these attitudes come on I'm just going to walk away otherwise it is going to take me forever to get to $1/2..

Below are some hilight hands.... I'm not going to bother showing the other stupid shit that lost me cash cause they make me look like more of a idiot than I really am:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2224745 <--- forgot a decimal here and it got put all in... didn't matter though cause it was a bad beat anyway and I would have probably gotten them all in there at some point.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2224758 <--- Stupid play #1 of #23842098 ... I count 2 errors but also had the attitude that he was playing with crap.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2226336 <--- WTF hand of the night... (i actually considered folding cause I have been getting AA vs KK preflop allins like 6x in the past 2 nights... which I shouldn't let get to me cause it will make me change my game and start getting bad habits which sonatine makes a great point in a previous comment response)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?222667 <--- LOL hand of the night.. this guy had been trash talking everyone on the table all night... when i flopped this I thought i would mess with his ego to entice a shove incase he only had like K8 or some sub-prime hand or incase he actually had a hand and thought I hit something big... and it worked =]

anyway here are the totals for today:

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Total for today: +$51.95
Total Bankroll: $743.40
Total remaining: $9356.60

Day 36

I'm starting to notice a trend... either i'm doing well in cash games or I'm doing well in SNG... but not both at the same time... I end up spending hours breaking even and sometimes down because my winnings on one isn't enough to cover the other. I was wondering wtf was going on and it came down to two things... I was either catching unbelievable swings (which isn't likely) or that I was subconsciously concentrating on one while not the other (which is most likely since I'm doing both at the same time). I would be up huge right now if I didn't piss all my winnings away on covering my losses from the other so I decided to just stick to one at a time. I only got felted once in the 10 hours of play and it was from this hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2215861 <-- (I'm sure anyone would have called that bet and if not please tell me why so I can take note)


SNGs had me down something huge tonight and I decided to play just cash games... I headed to 6 table NL50 with a current roll of about $460 which is stretching it bankroll management wise but it worked out great. I was also running hot and hitting some great hands and getting action on them. Here are some of the big ones:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2221668 <--- LOL hand of the night... I went in to raise on the turn and forgot the decimal and it put me all in. He called and flipped crap I got lucky and won.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2221870 <--- played it sloppy but it worked out

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2221880

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2221910 <--- not a great play, but marginal. Loosing in the long run but I felt like gambling... if he would have 3bet me on the turn or shoved, I would have folded.


Overall things went well I think I was up a total of $376 in showdown winnings and $260 overall in cash... SNGs gave me a beating and heres where I ended up:

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Total for today: +$171.60
Total Bankroll: $691.45
Total remaining: $9408.55

Day 35

Today I put in the longest I've done in quite some time.... about 12 hours of SNG and 9 tabling NL25. Today was actually the reverse of yesterday. I ran horrible at the cash games and towards the end was able to pull up from such a huge deficit. At one point I was down about $250 in cash from hands like these:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2211969

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2211971 <-- i'm pretty sure if i had bet the flop he would have called and when the K popped the same results would apply

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2212133 <--- I actually forgot to put the decimal when I raised and it put me all in... but I was going to loose this hand anyway (just not that much)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2212401 <--- I played this terribly... I don't know what the fuck I was doing... I shoved have repopped preflop to limit the field.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2215074 <--- Once again... after he shoved I should have known AA but he was also shoving with hands like AJ and some smaller PP earlier so I called.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2215861 <--- his reraise preflop made me think he had something like AK/AQ maybe even AJ... his over the top shove on the flop was just ridiculous and I figured maybe AK nut flush draw... so i called.

So as you can see... ring games had it out for me early.... I ended up grinding it out and by around 2AM i made most of my $250 back... ended up short only like $50 or so. I was also playing some $16 turbo SNGs I ended up about $90. I lost a few $12 MTT turbos, a $3+R Tourney, $11 MTT, and a $27.50 MTT.

I almost locked in a final table on a $12 MTT turbo... I was sitting at around 7th place in standings with chips and about 23 ppl left. Then I get this hand which would have put me damn near first position in chips:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2214887

sucks but what can you do.... Anyway here are the totals:

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Total for today: +$15.34
Total Bankroll: $519.90
Total remaining: $9580.10

Day 17 - 34

These past two weeks have been crazy... both in poker and in RL... I haven't posted in a while partly cause I was pissed and partly cause I was busy with other shit...

so... where do i begin... on Day 17 I decide to take my small roll and go play 3/6.... stupid by all means especially when I said I wouldn't play against my roll but luckily I ended up tearing shit up... I ran so hot and ended up getting my bankroll to just over $1000. I couldn't be happier because now I was about $1500 away from being able to play $1/2 and the sooner i get there the sooner this prop bet is over.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2153496
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2153503
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2153510
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2153515


Then came day 18-21... I only got to play a couple hours each day and thank god for that otherwise I would have gone bust... I ended up literally throwing chips away to charity with shitty played hands... when all was said and done I was down over $700 playing $.50/$1! I mean WTF... below are examples of how stupid I played some of these...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2154280
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2154284

There were hundreds more hands that were similar but for less chips so I don't bother posting but needless to say loosing $700 because of my idioticly poor play really pissed me off so I decided to take a week or two off before coming back...

This past weekend was my birthday and parents flew up to visit... was cool cause I haven't seen them in over a year and we got to go check out my greatgrandparent's pad over in wilmington... I had never been there but god damn was it baller... I put up some pix on myspace/facebook... the gardens were built to be a duplicate of the palace at versaille, bowling alleys, 77 rooms, paintings worth over $4 million each, 3 green houses, I could go on and on.... there is even a hospital on the grounds... they are currently doing phase 1 of a $90 million dollar renovation and it was kinda cool to see where my grandma and mom grew up... saw portraits all over of her as a kid which was cool... anyway I digress...

So after all this I go back to playing last night with a fresh head after a break and I tear shit up on the NL25 tables.... I ended up about $500 in cash but lost about $200 playing those damn $16 SNG turbos..... oh well.. Below is my current roll and where I stand as of today...

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Total for today: +$243.93
Total Bankroll: $504.56
Total remaining: $9595.44

Day 10

Last night was the first time I actually got to put in some good hours playing in over a week. My cash games were great, I took in somewhere along the lines of $200+ even after horrific suck outs where I was felted three times. The only downside of the day was I got a little two crazy with the $10+R. Also, although i hit the money in the $60 45-seat SNG, I lost a $20 and another $60 SNG as well as some other $27 SNG Turbos. My MTT/SNG game lost me a bit over $100 when the night was over but fuck it... I had fun plus I really need to work on my SNG game.

Also, a thought occurred to me last night while talking with a friend online.... I need to finish this prop bet as quick as possible. I wanted to hit Supernova this year and I was looking at my VPP for the month and I almost at the Gold Star mark... this is including points I racked up from the 1st of the month to the 5th playing 1/2 - 3/6 before the prop bet started. I might not even get to keep my platinum star when it runs out at the end of this month if I don't get another 5,000 VPP in 2 weeks.... sounds simple but trust me... at NL25 it isn't... I didn't even think about my VIP status @ stars when I made this bet otherwise I would have selected another site preferably one with my Rakeback account... heat of the moment and wasn't thinking.

On another note... some friends of mine and I have been playing a live ladder points weekly tourney for a while now that gives people free trips to vegas for the world series of poker. The top 25% of players get to go to vegas and although Ian and I missed the first two weeks, we have been crushing the tourney every week we have shown up and are ranked 1st place and 4th respectively. So we might just have a lock on the trip based on the 25% margin. I'll let you all know how it goes as the tourney progresses.

Rank	Player	W1(12) 1/8	W2(15) 1/15	W3(15) 1/22	W4(19) 1/29	W5(15) 2/12	Bonus	Total
1	Ian Appel	–	–	1|89	6|46	3|51	60	246
2	Kevin Chen	3|39	º	5|40	3|65	º	100	244
3	Eric Leatherman	1|68	3|51	º	º	º	100	219
4	Jose Vielma	–	–	2|63	º	1|89	60	212

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Total for today: +$82.90
Total Bankroll: $260.63
Total remaining: $9839.37

Days 3-9

well its been about a week since I last posted... I really haven't had much time for poker. I've had an Organic Chemistry Exam, a Genetics Exam, two presentations to prepare for a spanish and Genetics course. Its been hell... add that to my extracurricular shit plus valentines day and you get zero sleep and no poker. I managed to fit in a few hours total with some cash and some SNG action and was able to make about $90 total putting me back into the green although not as far as I would like... This week will be a bit more relaxed so I should have some time to sit back and put in some hours. I'm gonna get started now but here is the current stats...

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Total for today: +$94.35
Total Bankroll: $177.73
Total remaining: $9922.27

Day 2

bucks Today was the first day I got to really sit down for a solid sesh and it didn't go well.... NL10 is a bitch.... My strategy for NL200-NL600 definitely doesn't translate to NL10 (which is to be expected I guess). These guys were calling everything pre/post flop it was so sick... Yea I can get paid but I ended up getting sucked out when I shoved all in every time with by far the best hand... I think I need to start maybe raising x10 bb preflop and see if that scares some of them away cause obv x4-6bb gets a family pot. According to my PokerEV over 3000 hands... My sklansky bucks had me at +$61, my showdown winnings were at -$5!!!! and my total cash was -$23... I mean wtf.... anyway as long as sklansky is up, I'm playing well so whatever.

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Total for today: -$23.02
Total Bankroll: $83.38
Total remaining: $10016.62

Day 1

Day one was really like a teaser since I only got to play for about 20 minutes of NL10 before I had to head out to meet up with some people for Fat Tuesday parties but since there was a change to my bankroll, I have to record it.

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Total for today: +$6.40
Total Bankroll: $106.40
Total remaining: $9893.60

Back again for one more try

So if you are reading this than you probably know me and know what this is about... but if you haven't here's a recap:

I normally like to play 1/2-3/6 on stars.... unlike most other players, I upped my bankroll and didn't grind it from scratch like many other online players at those stakes. Anyway, a couple of my friends (who also play online but built their roll from scratch) and I got into a heated discussion about players who up their roll and those who build it. Basically the conversation went something like "You're a fucking pussy"... "I've met NL10 players better than you".... blah blah blah..... this all lead up to someone bringing up the prop bet that occurred last year (I made a prop bet with some friends that I could turn $100 into $10,000 on pokerstars. After the 8th day or so I was doing well up to about $600-700 something or other but then tragedy struck. As you all might recall, there were no posting of Day 9 and I hadn't posted on this blog since. So most of you are wondering what happened when you saw that my gains were solid and I was on the right track... well, I came home drunk one night, and with a friend by my side, I went to the NL600 tables to show off and i got stacked and went down to the felt on a monster hand. I lost just about my entire roll I had built up and could not replace the stack as per the rules. Discouraged, I gave up and paid out the bet and continued on my normal cycle.

So when the whole prop bet issue came up... They offered to make the bet again and I decided to take a second shot at it... stakes are a little higher but the rules remain the same:

1) $100 - $10,000
2) no time limit
3) Tourneys (MTT and SNG) can be played and losses/cashes do count
4) Only playing at Pokerstars allowed

My strategy will remain the same as far as bankroll management and my playing style has altered a bit... becoming extremely tight and aggressive so I expect to see better results. I also am going to not play poker after I have been drinking so as to not fuck up again.

Anyway, time to get this started.

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Total for today: +$0
Total Bankroll: $100
Total remaining: $9,900