It's My BIRTHDAY!!!

Do you like fruit?

1/2 TEXASHTGAMETABLE (LIMIT) - TUE MAR 30 21:53:30 EST 2004
Table Table 12537 (6 max) (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: philly718 ( $122)
Seat 2: roadhogg ( $22.50)
Seat 3: johnhern ( $39.50)
Seat 4: NextHellmuth ( $12.62)
Seat 5: pljenkins ( $50)
Seat 6: AAACEHOLE ( $60.88)
NextHellmuth posts small blind (0.50)
pljenkins posts big blind (1)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to pljenkins [ Jc, Ac ]
AAACEHOLE calls (1)
philly718 calls (1)
roadhogg folds.
johnhern folds.
NextHellmuth raises (1.50) to 2
pljenkins calls (1)
AAACEHOLE calls (1)
philly718 calls (1)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Qc, 4d, 7s ]
AAACEHOLE: GOT ME A PAIR
NextHellmuth bets (1)
pljenkins calls (1)
AAACEHOLE calls (1)
philly718 calls (1)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Kc ]
NextHellmuth bets (2)
pljenkins calls (2)
AAACEHOLE calls (2)
philly718 calls (2)
** Dealing River ** : [ Tc ]
NextHellmuth bets (2)
pljenkins raises (4) to 4
AAACEHOLE folds.
philly718 folds.
NextHellmuth calls (2)
** Summary **
Main Pot: $27 | Rake: $1
Board: [ Qc 4d 7s Kc Tc ]
philly718 balance $117, lost $5 (folded)
roadhogg balance $22.50, didn't bet (folded)
johnhern balance $39.50, didn't bet (folded)
NextHellmuth balance $3.62, lost $9 [ Jd Js ] [ a pair of jacks -- Kc,Qc,Jd,Js,Tc ]
pljenkins balance $68, bet $9, collected $27, net +$18 [ Jc Ac ] [ Royal Flush -- Ac,Kc,Qc,Jc,Tc ]
AAACEHOLE balance $55.88, lost $5 (folded)


How about them apples?

What's better, I was down about $28 at this point in the evening, and this hand, the first I played at this table, was the start of an incredible run that left me $22.50 in the black for the night.

Better to be lucky then good!

Back In Black

Good things come to those that wait. That's what Momma always used to say, so it has to be true.

Played several short sessions of poker during the afternoon, including an hour and a half stint at .50/1 (-$6.50).

Then I decided to hit the evening crowd. 40,000+ again on a Monday night on Party. Why anyone would play elsewhere defies imagination. Played a 1/2 6 Max table for about 2 hours, and ended up leaving +$64 ahead. I probably could have done a bit better, but the table went absolutely insane. For most of the evening there was a bona-fide maniac to my left who I punished several times. Then, after about an hour and a half, another maniac filled the seat to my right, sandwiching me between them. I tried to get in one hand and almost immediately realized my mistake as it came back around capped. Flop missed me and I folded out, but the two maniacs capped every street for the next dozen hands and I decided it was time to call it a night. There were some absolute monster pots on that table, as the two maniacs would bring along at least one caller to the river each and every time (yes, it was that kind of table.. a gold mine).

So, I'm back over $400 in the bankroll and I'm feeling good about my game again. 1/2 6 Max seems to be a good game for me, so I'll stick to that for a while and see how the long term fleshes out for me. It's nice that I don't feel the extreme urge to play multiple tables playing 1/2 6 Max. The action is fast enough that I can still be satisfied with one table, and I get the opportunity to try some plays.

This is quite the disjointed post, so I'll just bow out and get back to the tables....

Man Without A Plan

No, I have a plan... However, I don't have a work schedule for April. April will be here in 3 days. If I were to use deductive reasoning, I work on the 1st, but I couldn't definitively tell you that, since I don't have a fucking schedule! You know, I put stuff off every once in a while, but mostly the things I put off only end up inconveniencing myself. I'd give 3:1 odds that we're not going to have a schedule for April until April. A bunch of us were talking about this yesterday, and we decided that we really should just not show up for work on the 1st, since, you know, none of us are scheduled to work! The other tack we can take is, our work contract stipulates that any modification to our regular work schedule without 30 days prior notice will result in us being paid time and a half for those hours that were modified. So, I got to thinking... Since I have no schedule, I have to assume that I work no days that month. If they issue a schedule that has me working on days I wasn't previously scheduled (which would be every day I now work that month), I should be entitled to time and a half for every day within 30 days of that change!

The more I think about that, the more of a concrete argument I think I might actually have. It's spaghetti logic, but I'm having trouble arguing the other side of it. What can they say? "You should assume you're working the same rotation?" Any answer that has the word "assume" in it usually falls to pieces when attempting to make a legal stand.

If they attempt to pull out the "super seekrit" April schedule that the top brass had access to it shouldn't be too hard to point out that we're entitled to know what our work schedule is, since we're the ones working it!

Our director also managed to line himself up for another spanking the other day also. To truly appreciate this, you must know that our boss is "old school". He's also very pissed off about the fact that we voted in a union and now he can't exercise the power he wants to over our department. As a result he's been sort of taking jabs and fades at us to see what he can get away with.

Here's an example. I applied for a coordinator position in the office I work in. When I interviewed for the position, our manager pointed out that I'm a "little light" on dispatch experience for that position... And I agree.. I've only been dispatching for a little over 2 years.

Then three weeks later he announces that a person who works in crew planning, a department that has about at much to do with dispatch as ditch digging has to do with trucking, is one of the new coordinators. Here's the kicker.... She can't start until June because she doesn't have a dispatcher license! Ergo, she has zero dispatch experience. A hearty 'what the fuck' to that?

Anyway, his latest stunt was to send an email out threatening that he was going to withhold paying overtime unless we sent him our sick/vacation allotment forms. So, if you take a sick day and neglect to submit a form for it, or you fail to request vacation (which you'd already requested and been granted, by the way), he thinks he's not going to pay you overtime. Now, I KNOW this is a violation of our union contract at the least, but I think this is also against the law. The 'breaking the law' part might be a little grey, since airline workers are covered under the Railway Labor Act, which effectively strips you of all of your protection under the Federal Labor Law (and which is why almost everyone in the airline business is unionized). In any event, any attempt by him to actually execute this threat will meet with a barrage of grievances.

Big tall glasses of fun here at the old shop! The reason why I'm bitching about work is, well, I feel like it. I also don't have any poker content to offer at all. I've run into a serious time issue that is just now beginning to resolve itself. Perhaps if I can get the blessing of the Better Half, I'll partake in some evening PartyPoker goodness. I'm seriously toying with the idea of switching to Empire (HDouble, you still reading this?). Toying as in I'm going to do it.

It's about time to upgrade this computer of mine. Presently I'm working with an Athelon XP 1600+ (1.37GHz) with 512MB of memory. Certainly good enough to play poker with, but I think I want to get a little home network action going so that the wife can have a machine to work on and I have a few other projects around here that I'd like to do with multiple computers. I will likely have to do this a part at a time, and so I'll probably pick up the motherboard and processor first then get a new VGA card and a case later. Way I see it, I can pick up an ASUS A7N8X-X motherboard and an AMD XP2600 processor for around $140. Far as I can tell, I can stick my old PC2100 memory and my GeForce3 video card in this board and it should work smashingly. The next purchase will probably be an ATI Radeon 9600 board, which I have on good authority can be goosed up to 9600 Pro speeds for half the price of a legit Pro card. Even if this card doesn't allow me to overclock it, it still is a huge improvement over what I have.

Now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure I have PC2100 memory in my computer. I forgot what the model of my motherboard is and I'm at work, so I won't know until tomorrow... Grrr...

Guess I'll know tomorrow!

Into The Unknown

I have become the blogger I hate. My updates are becoming sparse and lacking of any real content and for that I apologize. Life events are dictating my attention. I want to write about it, to just pour it out on the screen, but I don't know how to express it in ways that would hope to make coherent sense to my readers. Perhaps at some point I will, but it has nothing to do with poker. I've always been one to not want to trouble other people with my problems. It's how I was raised. Help others. Give of yourself, and it shall be returned. I'm just not wired to receive.

I'm trying to find out the best way to go about my poker playing. I've run into the rut I figured I would, in that I find the best tables in the evening, but I almost never have the opportunity to play at that time. Since I work at night, I can only play during the day, and I don't do as well at those times. I have yet to play any 1/2 6 Max tables in the day, for fear that they might be shark infested. I may be totally off base, and those games are squishy soft. Won't know if I don't play!

I forgot to add that, in addition to the $11.25 I won at 1/2, I also managed to bag a quick +$10 out of .50/1. So, a quick +$21 and change. I'm happy to finally have some green showing on PokerTracker. I've played very little this month, and I think it's going to be a red ink month because of it. I think if I would have put the hours in, it would have turned around earlier, but again, I wasn't offered the time to find out.

Another thing I haven't had any time to do is keep up with my fellow blog brothers and sisters. I feel like I'm losing touch with the community, and I need to catch back up so that I know what's going on with you all. As Ozzy said, "I love you all, people". Trying to bust through that brick wall of writers block is easier when I know that you're still there reading my mindless drivel.

Anyway, going onward, I need to try to get some hours in this month and see what I can do about getting my bankroll solidly into the 1/2 realm. I'm at a decision point, though. I want to play the 1/2 6 max tables a little more to see if my success there is luck or skill. I feel like I'm really playing poker at the short handed tables, where as when I'm playing full ring .50/1, I'm in "robot mode". The 50/1 players are either unable or unwilling to notice the message I'm trying to send with my chips, and as a result, the implied collusion of everyone calling everything to the river makes it a crapshoot.

In the 1/2 6 Max games, I can read players much better, and they seem to take notice of what I'm doing.

There is still plenty of weak/tight play, but I find that people grossly overplay their hands at these tables. It's amazing to see someone ram and jam the living snot out of a pair of 5's even when the board and the betting clearly shows they're dead.

I think the logical thing to do is to head back to the 50/1 games and get the bankroll back over $400 before playing around in 1/2 anything, but I'm still stinging from the bath I took earlier. Perhaps the answer is to not multi-table. It'll make it a much slower grind, but going up slowly beats the hell out of going down fast.

The Long Road

Been a very busy week. Not of my own decision, let me assure you. I was looking forward to a nice three days off where I could just relax, get back into the swing of things, and try to unwind after the last couple of hellish weeks.

Nope. Personal emergency saw me back in Northern Wisconsin to tend to some business, so my 3 days off turned into 1. As a result, you, my 12 2 readers have been neglected from partaking in my regular wordsmithy, so for that I apologize. Some things are more important then poker.

But not many things!

I'm trying to recover from my rough week of poker. It's amazing the friends you find when you're struggling, and a few people have stepped up to take a look at where I might be going wrong with my poker as of late.

I played some last night. Party has broken the 40,000 player mark on a Wednesday night, so I can only imagine what the weekends are going to look like!

I played 4 different tables of 1/2 6 Max (one at a time, thank you!)... Ended up $11.50 in the green in 120 hands, for a nice 4.7BB/hr rate. Some tables were up, a couple were down... But here's what I really noticed... 1/2 6 Max is FUN! You have a much better opportunity to play people as well as cards. At the .50/1 full ring tables, I really have to turn into "monkey mode" and play straight ABC poker. Any attempts to use your chips to send a message is like trying to strike fear into a robot. You have the best hand or you lose. It's as simple as that. Not so on 1/2 6 Max. If I'm in position and the board comes up scary, there's a real chance that I can move someone off the pot.

Of course, 1/2 6 Max also invites you to dig your own hole! You'll get played back at alot more often. Table image actually means something at the 6 Max tables. People pay attention. It's refreashing to use my brain again for poker.

More later... I've to 1.24 shitloads of things to get done before 1:15.

Where'd Who Go?

Yes, I'm still living. Been a wicked busy week at work, and I have had basically zero access to the Internet for these last few days since I've been training someone. The good news is, I get paid time and a half for every hour of training I do. One of the shining lights in an otherwise suck-ass contract.

Have played exactly zero poker since last writing too. Again, too busy. Plus, I finally got around to replacing my dead CD-RW drive with a DVD+-r+-rwcd+rw=w/6.322% blah blah... This thing does everything. My old drive was about 4 years old and it wrote CD's at like 4X. This thing smokes them out at some ridiculously fast rate, so I'm mas impressed. Haven't played around with DVDs yet, though. Anyway, this thing has illustrated in living color what kind of mind numbingly slow progress my old drive made. I still remember when the 2X CD reader was all the rage!

Of course, I still remember being all geeked out when we got an 80 column card for our Apple ][.

Garbage In Garbage Out

As I suspected all along, the problem with PokerTracker occurred between the seat and the keyboard. Turns out, Party sends all its hand histories in Eastern time. I'm in Central time. I started playing 1/2 6 Max at around 11:15 CENTRAL time.

All the 1/2 6 Max hands were on the next day, so of course they weren't showing up when I looked at the 17th's results.

Duh.

Looks like 1/2 6 Max is good times, but apparently from what I've been reading the variance is a bitch at those games. At least I broke the drought, so now I have to decide if I want to stick with the short handed games or get back into the full ring games...

Decisions decisions. Logic dictates that I stick with the 50/1 games until I claw back to $400, especially if I'm going to take a liking to the short handed games. I'm just so gunshy from getting cheesed to death at the 50/1 tables...

I ran the .50/1 hands from the 17th through pokertracker and had it calculate my odds. Three times I was over a 70% favorite post flop and got crushed. This doesn't sound like much, but I only went to showdown 4 times at that level that day!

Oh well, carrying on...

Back In The Saddle Again

With a new perspective on Poker and what it means to me, I decided it was time for your Intrepid Card Player to head back to the tables.

The beginning wasn't pretty. The cheese-fest continued and I dropped about $15.25 in an hour at one .50/1 table. No point in even breaking it down. It was a whole bunch of crap like T6o beating QQ and other such fun... blah blah blah...

Since yesterday was a day off, I got the rare opportunity to play some evening Party Poker. 36,000 people on tonight, so I figure I'll just play one table of 1/2 and see how it goes. It went. -$15.50 worth of went. Weee. So, my triumphant return saw me roll up and smoke another $30 and change on the ring tables. At this point I was seriously considering taking the rest of the money out and forgetting about poker. My confidence was totally and thoroughly shot. No matter what I did I lost. Raise to thin the field? Nope. Ram and Jam? Nope. Hands that were winners at the turn turned into losers at the River. I started to think perhaps there's more I could be doing with my remaining $300 then piss it away in frustration like this.

Then I decided, what the heck, and jumped into a 1/2 6 Player Max game.

And the magic started.

I don't know if it's because there's less likelihood of getting cheesed due to less people in the hand, or if it was just a psychological thing where it was a short handed game so I played looser and more aggressive, but the chips, for the first time in 2 weeks, started sliding my way. An hour and a half later, I walked away +$27 in the green, for a run of almost $60.

It's a huge confidence booster to know that I can still at least win in this damn game! I can't believe I didn't look into these short handed games earlier. Tables chock full 'o' people grossly overplaying their hands. The play is still "bad" but not atrocious like you'd see on the full ring 1/2 tables. At least people were calling with face cards! Other nice things are, you can better follow the play of your opponents. There's only 5 of them, so it's pretty easy to get them figured out and adjust your play to match. Game play is also faster. You have to win more pots to stay ahead of the blinds, and the pots aren't as big, but I'll take a bunch of small pots to cut the variance down.

PokerTracker isn't working right all of the sudden. I have the latest patch, but it didn't load any of my 6 Max games. I've confirmed that they exist in the hand histories, and PT didn't throw any errors about hands it didn't like, so I have to assume they're somewhere in the database, and the Preferences tab now has a 1/2 6 Max category in it, but no hands. I'll have to get a hold of the guys at PT and find out what's up with that.

Not Dead Yet

Sorry for the lack of updates. This obviously doesn't constitute an update, but there's really nothing to update about...

The few days off from poker has really helped to focus my perspective, and in the down time I've been reviewing Abdul and Jones for some re-alignment of my thinking. I've also drafted the help of a few friends in dissecting the Week From Hell(tm) and seeing if the problem lies in my game or the fall of the cards.

Outside perspective > guessing

Insert Crafty Title Here

I've blown a fuse in my creative brain from all the losing I've been doing.

We're now onto day 5 of the Downward Spiral known as my bankroll. Today saw me distribute around $15 of my cash to the other fine* players on Party.

Take out a gun and shoot me.

I've been pretty good at keeping my cool through this slide, but finally today I friggin' lost it. At least I had the common sense to get the Hell off the tables when I got rivered for the 432,122nd time. I wandered over to the NL $25 table again for some more easy pickin's but quickly realized that, for someone on full scale tilt, having the ability to bet my entire buyin was not a Good Thing(tm) and I quickly bowed out and moped around for a while...

After some study of the mighty Abdul Jalib, I decided to try to modify my pre-flop starting hands a little bit. Doing this in the middle of a horrid run of cards was probably not the right thing to do, but I think the amount of money I could have saved by sticking with ultra-tight card selection would be minimal, if I'd have saved any. I just basically played more hands that failed to materialize. There were a couple though that did turn into playable hands. Some won, most didn't. It sucked.

I think I'm going to take a little bit of a break from poker. This losing every day thing is getting old, and it certainly is working against my psyche, so maybe it's time to step back and do some reading, reflecting and take up my fellow bloggers offers of looking into what I'm doing wrong. Or right. It very well could be a crappy run of cards. Everyone who's played cards for any length of times talks about the slide. Those legendary runs of terrible cards that seem to happen to all card players at one time or another. The logical answer is to play on, as the only way out is to go through, but I want to make darn sure that the slide is a product of crap cards, not erroneous play.

The boys at Kick Ass Poker have given Your's Truely another nod in their "Blog 'O' The Day" section. I am honored! I took a nice thorough tour of their site (Work's NetNanny will block Abdul's site, but seems to have no problem letting me run around Kick Ass Poker's website... Go figure). There's really a bunch of good stuff in there, and I encourage you all to check it out!

Fear not, although I won't be playing much if any poker in the next week, I will be talking about it, so I'll still be posting here a bit. Since I'll be dissecting my game, you'll get to live it with me.

Oh, finally got the call from America West. I shall remain a CheeseHead for the foreseeable future. In a way I'm relieved to be given the shoulder by Cactus. Trying to give less then 2 weeks notice, then move my shit to Phoenix in time to make a March 29th class date would be mas stressful. That and I've been ratholeing money for the past month trying to build the bank to make the move. Now that I've been relieved of that burden, I have a nice roll 'o' cash to pay off some bills with and still have a nice pad for "emergency cash".

Okay, back to work for me.. I'll post more here soon. Thanks to all my loyal victims readers! Knowing I can bitch and moan about my crappy luck to all of you helps me through it!

**&#*@(#!!!

Well, yesterday marked the 4th day of the tailspin I've been having in the ring games. I played about an hour and a half of 3x.50/1 tables, and walked away $21.00 lighter in the bankroll.

While watching the buy-ins tick down on my tables, I suddenly remembered all the talk about the ultra-soft NL games. I figured I was on the way to easily pissing away another $25 at least dorking around in these limit games, so I left all three tables and sat down at a $25 NL table.

Within 2 orbits, I was in middle position when I peek down at AA. Perfect. A $3 bet convinces everyone but 2 people to fold away, and the flop comes 678 rainbow. Heh... Checked to me and I push $6 forward. One guy mucks, but the other guy hands on and we go to the turn. 7d completes the Men's Warehouse. Checked to me again, and I ponder. Some scary things about that board, but what the heck, I'm on tilt, so I push all-in. The other guy things for about 20 seconds and folds out, giving me a nice $11 win.

A couple of hands later I'm dealt A7s on the button. Middle position raises it to $1, Cutoff calls it as do I and the BB. 4 of us to the flop of Ac8s7s. Boom. 2 pair, and I'm feeling pretty good about this... Checked to me and middle position raiser makes it $2. Cutoff goes away and it's to me. Middle position is very close to the felt. The BB has about the same stack of chips as I do, so I want him to go away. I make it $7. Too big for BB to stick around for the drawing hands, and big enough to put MP to a decision for the rest of his chips. BB goes away and MP pushes in his remaining chips. Turn is a 3d, River is a 5c. MP turns over his AKo for a pair of aces, and I roll my A7s for the two pair and rake a decent $7.80 profit. I see no other useable hands and bail from that table. A few minutes later I sit down at a different NL table and buy in for another $25. Not even one orbit after I post the blinds I look down and am again greeted by the Rockets Under the Gun. I push out my obligatory $3 raise and get one caller. Excellent. Flop comes 3h9h5c. Sloppy. I like it. I push out a nearly pot sized bet of $6 and that's called. Turn is a 3c, and it's deja-vu all over again. Two flush draws out there, but would he be silly enough to call down $9 in bets with a 3 in his hand? Time to find out. I push my remaining $15.25 into the middle. He pushes his remaining $8.20 in and we see the harmless Js fall. I turn over my AA for the two pair and he turns over...




Wait for it.....


6h8c for.... NOTHING! A pair of 3's!

I rake my jaw off the floor and the $16.20 profit and run for the exit. Folks, if you're not playing NL in Party/Empire, you're just missing out on the best in life. Someone literally gave me $16 and change!

Total take for the day: +$7.95. Given the horrid beatings I took on limit ring, I'm the luckiest guy on the planet right now.

Checking out the PT stats, yesterday was another day of hands falling apart post-flop, sprinkled with that little bit of cheese one grows to expect in Party ring games. I'm just running into a bad string of cards, but I'm starting to think perhaps I'm not giving myself enough opportunity to win. In a slide like this, I tend to tighten WAAAY up and maybe start moving towards weak/tight, which will just kill the bankroll. I think this morning will demand some study of Abdul Jalib and review of my pre-flop hand selection. I think my post-flop play is pretty darn good. I'm making the folds I need to be making. It hurts to fold away something like QQ, but every time I have done something like that, I've been right.

The only way out is through, so I'll likely put some more time in today before heading to work. But first, some study.

Slip Slidin' Away...

Well, this is my first real "slide" backwards. I've had bad days, but never really bad weeks, until now. It was bound to happen, so I've learned to embrace this as a learning and humbling experience.

First, the real statistics.

Since I hadn't hit my $300 stoploss yet (I was still around $40 away), I stepped back into the 1/2 mix, this time playing 2 tables instead of 3. More on this later.

Played 2 tables for about 45 minutes, and dropped $15.75 on a string of unplayable hands or hands that fell apart on the flop. Decided that this was the sign of a "longer then one day" slide and backed off to two tables of .50/1 for a while. Played 313 hands and came out +$2.04, for a day's loss of $13.71. Certainly not what I'd call a HORRIBLE slide, but red ink none the less.

I have to figure out what's the deal with these 1/2 tables. I honestly haven't seen better card playing there. I've been cheesed out of a lot of pots, but that happens in 50/1 also, and I'm a winning player at that level. The only other thing I have noticed is that the 1/2 tables I've been on have been much more aggressive, with more pre-flop raising and people bluffing. My thinking is, when you're in a bad run of cards, an aggressive table will eat you alive. Of course, people that grossly overplay their hands also end up making you insanely rich, so it's a double edged sword. The trouble I'm having is sensing the difference between a legit raise and a bluff. This comes with practice, I guess, but I have to believe that ABC poker will still be a winning solution above the 50/1 level. Maybe I'm making too much of what could be just natural variance. My "poker sense" tells me to ride this out and the game will come back to me, but there's that little twinge of doubt in the back of my head that says I'm playing bad poker.

I need a coach. I also need to re-read Lee Jones. I talked with The H Factor and we talked some stats. He seemed to think if anything I was a little on the tight side, but given a bad run of cards, this is a natural tendency. Other then that, the small sample of stats we discussed indicated that I'm staying the course through this rough period, so that's another notch in the "it's just variance, deal" category.

About the 2 and 3 tables thing. I've become a victim of online poker, and as such, I don't have the patience to sit and wait for people to act when I play a single table. Yes, it's easier to get a read on what everyone's deal is playing one table, but I find that I start loosening up and playing more marginal hands if I'm bored, or worse, I chase. After you haven't played a darn hand in 20 minutes, you tend to not want to believe that your pair of Queens are dead when an Ace and a King hit the board and the guy across from you suddenly wakes up and raises you. You start to convince yourself... Gotta be another Queen coming, and you peel. I find that I can follow the action and trends well with 2 tables. With 3 tables, I start to have to fall back on ABC poker. I can pick out obvious trends, like a maniac, but the subtle ones I start to miss.

I've been doing some thinking about the play I've been seeing on 1/2. There's still plenty of bad play, but there seems to be a lot more "tricky" play and there are certainly some decent players there. I'm thinking perhaps this is because, like me, there are players that improved their game at 50/1, built their bankroll, and graduated to the 1/2 tables. This has me thinking, cheapo's like me will start at 50/1 and move up. 50/1 is populated by newbies trying to sharpen their game, a couple of experienced players trying to work on some sort of "contest" of moving up the ranks, and a bunch of "Gee Whiz" folks who have the bug to start playing poker for money after screwing around for a few days in the play money section. The "Gee Whiz" guys usually never get out of 50/1, since they're never +EV. The "contesters" move up and out in a few days, having made their bankroll to do so, and the newbies start to trickle to 1/2, where they stay for some time trying to get comfortable in this level.

At the 1/2 level, you have your "seasoned" newbies. They still play a lot of "let's see the flop" type of poker, but they're a little smarter about getting away from dead hands. The "contesters" are still playing ABC "Auto-Poker". Tight/aggressive, easy to read, tough to beat, but betting into them for information works wonders on them. There are very few "Gee-Whiz" guys here. If they are here, it's because they had a lucky run in the 50/1 tables and think they're the next Gus Hanson.

Up at the 2/4 level, you're now faced with the "grizzled" newbies. These guys have honed their game pretty well, at this point, having built a decent bankroll at the 1/2 level and learning how to read opponents and use aggression intelligently. These guys are tossing more of the crap hands, but they will occasionally overplay a hand and made other fundamental mistakes. The "contesters" will spend a little more time here also, and they start to employ some poker playing here to try to intimidate and bully the not-so-newbies who are now playing tight/semi-passive poker.

3/6 is where things start the change. Here, you'll find the Gamb000ler. The Gamb000ler wants action at decent stakes, so he's got no time for anything below 3/6. The Gamb000ler will play any two cards, for any price, and is often ultra-aggressive. Here also, you'll start to see the "money farmers". There are some career poker players here who are more then happy to take the Gamb000lers money. Intermixed are the more "well to do" Gee-Whiz types who just got through watching WPT and want to play some poker, but since they're rich, they don't see the point in playing for nickel/dime antes. Most of these guys are playing the Sit-and-Goes, but occasionally you'll see one pop in to the limit game.

That's the low-limit weather report for this Wednesday. Accuracy is as much as can be expected for someone who has been heavily medicated for the last 4 days. I am feeling better. Now I need to start winning again!

Nice Try...

428 hands of 1/2 poker. -$73.75.

Out fucking standing.

Think someone is telling me to stay the Hell out of the 1/2 tables? Oh well.. Back to the .50/1 grind.

I'll give details later. I'm too sick to my stomach right now to deal with it.

Thick As A Brick

A great song. Also how my head feels right now.

In case I didn't make it clear in my previous post, head colds suck ass. This one isn't that bad... yet. I'll get an hour or two where my head feels like it's going to explode, then the drugs kick in and I dry up quite nicely. Then, 4 hours later, I swell up again and have to take another round. I've also been sucking down enough zinc to shit nickels, so let's hope that combination will lead to a short and relatively painless head cold experience.

Of course, in typical work style, I have to be at work on Tuesday at 3:30am. If I wake up tomorrow and feel like I do now, I'm calling in sick. They can pack sand. I do need the money, but perhaps I can compensate for the lost pay by playing some poker... Though I'll need to win around $200 to call it an even trade. Methinks I'd need to move to 1/2 to do that. Hmmmm....

Well, yesterday I lost about $2.75 playing around 300 hands of .50/1. Today I played around 300 hands again and won $2.75. Imagine that. The bankroll is just a tick over $400 again, so the recovery is going well. I'm toying with heading to the 1/2 tables again. No guts no air medal. I'll make my stop-loss $300. If I get spanked down to $300 it's back to the 50/1 tables for me. I still haven't decided what a good amount is to move up to 2/4. 200BB would be $800, and 300 BB would be $1200. I guess I'll have to see what the progress looks like and take an occasional feel in the 2/4 games to see what's different about them before I dive in. I'm not in a "hurry" to get to the higher levels, but it seems that the 3/6 game is a good earn/risk level for me and now is the time to be sitting in those games, what with the influx of new blood into Party. To comfortably sit that game I figure I'll need around $1600 to $1800 in the bankroll (correct me if I'm wrong).

In the spirit of "not focusing on short term results" I'll post up my MTD and YTD results. I haven't decided yet if I want to do that in the posts or on the sidebar to the right. Waddaya think? I'd do it now, but shock of shocks, I'm at work. Tomorrow is a day off. Abbreviated by needing to be in bed before most people sit down to dinner, but a day off none-the-less.

I'll also be taking a look at TruePoker and try to fund an account there. Hopefully they'll accept Firepay or something, or I'm fooked. BTW, what's the buyin for the second round of the World Blogger Tournement?

I Hab A Code

The head cold. God's way of reminding you not to bitch about how you feel when you don't have a head cold. The simplest tasks seem to take overwhelming effort when your body is busy in full scale warfare with whatever friggin virus is floating around in you. I saw a documentary a few years ago talking about the life cycle of the flu. It was pretty brutal. Let me just say that I'm happy to be the whole of the parts rather then part of the whole. Being a cell sucks.

The operation was as bad as I feared earlier, but I'm still going to be here for about 12 hours. I'm so completely happy to be screwed twice by the same person and not even being offered a cigarette. This is the thanks I get for being a nice guy. Some people really piss me off.

I guess I need to get on the ball and fund an account at TruePoker so I can play in Wednesday's WBT event. I have played almost zero tournament poker in the last 2 months, so my NL tourney action will be a little rusty, but what the heck. It'll be a blast just to play along side some of my fellow wordsmiths. I imagine that by Wednesday this cold will have turned into some infection from Hell and I'll be playing poker in a medicated haze with my luck.

On the other hand:

Interview + Nasty Head Cold = Job

At least, from a statistical standpoint. I shit you not, without fail this is how it works out. It's strange.

Speaking of strange, I wonder if Wil Wheaton reads this blog. Not that Wil is strange... Just strange that I had that thought.

Has anyone else noticed that there are no washrooms on the starship Enterprise?

And, believe it or not, I'm not even taking any cold medication yet. Wait till I'm all gooped up on gop. I'll start talking about Elvis sightings and stuff.

I read the quote Iggy put up from Felicia Lee about websites that sort of trail off into space. I certainly am guilty of a few of and am witness to one or two others. Here's my take on this. I'm under no obligation to entertain, educate, amuse or placate anyone and am under no deadline to do such. I write because I enjoy doing it, and, hopefully you enjoy reading it. The response tab at the bottom of these messages are there for you to tell me to get bent reply to my posts. In any event, I write because I love to write. I sort of pidgeon-holed myself with this blog into writing only about Poker and all things poker, and I have resisted the urge to post rants that have nothing to do with poker. I sometimes wonder if the occasional non-poker post would be something my four and a half three quarter readers would like to see. Anyway, I write for me, and you are the victims benefactors. As Ozzy would say, "I love you all, people".

Some of you will notice that I have done some housekeeping on the links. They're better, faster, stronger. I will refrain from putting links from every blog I see that is remotely related to poker since that would become unmanageable. If you're missing off the list and you'd like to be a part of it, please say something. If you're on the list but you don't want to be associated with the likes of me, pound sand.

So, when do you think the bands of angry housewives will begin marching in front of the Supreme Court building with "Free Martha" signs?

I'm doing everything I can not to just explode into 32,767 pages of text on this whole "gay marriage" issue. My issue isn't the issue, it's the issue everyone is making of the issue. Any time I want to be worked into a lather on something I head over to VeganPoker's website to see what he's spouting off about. Sure enough, he's weighed in on the whole gay marriage thing, but I promise you I won't blow my stack on this unless I have permission from you. Needless to say, I think the only thing I'm really vehemently against is activists. Not because they're exercising their first amendment rights, but that they feel that they have to exercise their First Amendment rights such that there is no possible way for me to not be forced to notice them.

Here's a mini rant for you, just because I don't give a crap care. Vegans. I know you're all into this "meat is murder" thing, and I respect that, but if the agenda is to shun completely any and all support for the slaughter of animals for food, I have some bad news for you. Unless you live on a farm, it's very likely that most if not all of what you eat was bought from a store, ergo the product you bought from the store was grown or manufactured by someone. Let's simplify this by saying you bought something soy based (I think you can make anything from the soybean). This soybean was grown on a farm, which I would imagine was tended to by a or many farmers, and your purchase of soyburgers puts money in that farmer's pockets. Here's where the trouble starts. That farmer takes that money and probably feeds his family with it, but he's no fool. He knows that the nutritional value of a soybean sucks ass, and he doesn't subscribe to the same beliefs you do, so he's stocked his refrigerator with all manners of eggs, milk, beef, pork, cheese, you name it. Guess what... Your dollar just contributed to the very thing you're seeking to prevent!

Ooops!

Getting Up Off The Mat

Well, after the bath I took the other day, I've been slowly working my bankroll back to health. Over the last three days, I've managed to score two wins and one slight loss. Pretty much a break even, really. In any event, I'll have to check the PokerTracker stats to get the actual number, but it's somewhere around +$35. I'll check tomorrow when I finally get home from this place.

I sort of cringe every time one of my Blog Brothers starts talking up Party, but after the last few days, I can't help but pimp Party myself... These are glorious days to be a poker player, my friends!

So I'm at work now. It's Saturday, so it's pretty much a guerentee that the Chicago operation is going to be a complete clusterfuck. Yesterday was a joke too. Chicago delays were upwards of 5 hours, so that was a headache. The dispatcher that sat across from me spent most of the evening launching her cold virus all over the office, and so, of course, today I feel like ass. She called in sick today (small consolation for me, now that I've got her fucking cold). Since we're about 60% of our normal staffing, there's no relief on that desk... And it's the late desk. Since tonights operations in Chicago are going to get progressively worse as the night crawls on, I'm sure that tonight will be at least 14 hours long and double the work. And I've got a head cold.

Outstanding.

The only possible good news is this. Every time I get a job opportunity, I get sick. I'm now sick, and I'm awaiting word from America West on my fate there. Statistically, this is a positive development. I just wish it was something a little easier to deal with, like my palm starts itching or something. Being sick and trying to deal with a new job sucks.

Seeing as how I'm going to have alot of time on my hands tonight, I'll likely make another long winded and pointless entry.

Unless I slip into a coma.

Time Ain't On My Side

In a wholly unamusing twist, the scheduling Godz at work saw fit to screw up my days off schedule for the next few weeks. See, I usually work a 4 on 3 off schedule. This is great, especially now that I most decidedly have a ton of shit to do on those days off. HAI-EVAH, seems that, since our company couldn't see the train coming down the tracks 4 months ago and start hiring dispatchers, we're now short people. Imagine that. Anyway, Fun with Junior Manning has started with a fervor, and now I have a fuggin' morning shift stuck right in the middle of my 3 days off. Now I work 4 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, 4 on. Craptastic. And, of course, it's not easy to shift gears and start that middle overtime day at 3:30am. Guess I could use the money, though, especially if I'm facing down a move to the Southwest.

Speaking of money, and time for that matter, I was simply en fuego last night at the tables... Trouble is, I really had to play in short spurts. My table selection the second session though was incredible.

I played 3 .50/1 tables both times, and on the second round, I managed to sit down at 2 tables with bona-fide maniacs on them. And I was getting cards.

Total take for the day: +$38.25. 20BB/100 hands.

Here's an interesting statistic about micro limit poker on Party. I played 194 hands yesterday. 192 of them saw the flop. There's no possibility of ever raising everyone out pre-flop, no matter how aggressive you are. Lesson here, only raise when you have the best of it, because you WILL be seeing a flop.

I imagine some of you have noticed that the links to the right are the same links I've had there months ago. Some have moved, some have moved on, and in either event, they're woefully out of date and missing some excellent blogs. I'm surprised I haven't taken more crap for it, actually. I'll get to fixing it. In the mean time, please feel free to visit my boy HDouble and his comprehensive list of blogs. Please be advised that this list will be shamelessly plagiarized in the next few days.

Please welcome the Internet Poker Grinder to the, ummm, grind.

Ooof.

Anyway, welcome to the group! Please make your font bigger. My brain almost exploded trying to read the itty-bitty font, and I've got youthful eyes! If The Fat Guy tried that, he'd injure himself!

Shovel, Shovel, Shovel

Okay, I suck... Haven't been updating in a few days, but I have an excuse... Not going to tell you what it is just yet, but suffice to say it's more important then poker (gasp!).

I did get a solid 2 hours in on Monday. Before I get to the results, let me join the PartyPoker pimping bandwagon and say that if you're not playing at Party, you're insane. 42,000 players on on Monday. Yes, that's right, monday! I further suck by not having an affiliate for you to sign up with under my name, so use IGGY and prop a fellow blogger.

Also, props to Spry at KickAssPoker.com. I apparently made the Blog 'O' The Day there, though I got on too late to see my name in lights and colors, so I'll take his word for it. At least, I couldn't find it. Very good website to explore!

I'm up here in the beautiful, exotic Northwoods of Wisconsin, so I don't have my PokerTracker info with me, but I do know that I managed to scratch a $11.25 win from 2 hours on 3 tables... That's 6 hours, so a tick under 2BB/hr, if my math is right. The dig out from the hole I've created for myself has begun.

More later... Gotta head out to do some stuff and then drag back home.