CARDRUNNERS

As I said, I got back on UB. I think the games have been pretty good and I've been doing really well. It's fun to get back on UB. That was my first site and the site I've played the most hands on. I've also made probably 70% of my poker profits on UB. I want to run my account up a bit more and then hop in the 10/25 games, because they look very juicy and I always loved that limit on ub.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1225316 This was a tough spot because the flop was pretty nasty. There were a lot of hands that beat me. I tanked it and decided I thought I was ahead and luckily I was.

Wow, A8??? Thank god I resucked.

Great turn. Honestly, I thought I was probably beat after I bet the river and he raised, but there was no way I could get away from the hand with the money I had put in the pot.

LOL. My preflop play is a bit questionable, but I wanted this guy to pay me off if I hit and therefore I wanted him to have the lead.

Note on gambler2k4 match: I can't confirm this, but I heard he ended up down 50k for June. I ended the month up 20k. Therefore, I won the match by 70k. hahahaha. I'm pretty happy with the 20k win. I was struggling early. I feel like I've found my rhythm again and I'm very comfortable at 5/10 again. I expect a very good July.

So I decided to cash out all of my points on the FTP account I'm barely using and my Stars account which I don't use much either. I bought a ton of pro v1 golf balls on FTP. I was looking on Stars and found a great tv for 110,000. I have 105,000. It's a great tv and now that I know about it, I feel like I should play stars. I also would have to get to a platinum star which would take 10,000 more next month. Does anyone know how many hands that would take? If its not too many, I'll just move to stars and get the tv. I really don't feel like moving to stars though, because I much prefer the ftp software and I feel good there lately.

Today I won about 3k. My first session I won around 4500. I came back after dinner to play another hour or so. The 2nd hand I played was this. I played it awful and I knew it. I immediately got tilted and lost about 500 just playing way too loose. With how I've been in 2007, I'd normally keep playing and go off for a few buyins. This time I knew I was tilted and I just quit. Honestly, it felt great. That's something I always used to be good at, but just haven't been able to do as of late. I've only been playing 4 tables as of late and it allows me to focus a lot more. I feel good about my game right now, which is really nice.

I'm even getting some money back on UB and I'm gonna get back on muddywater. It will be fun to play that name again, because it's been a really long time. I'm hoping I can run some money up there. I'll probably mostly play 2/4 and 3/6 at first. I'm going to stick with the 5/10 on FTP, because that has been going well.

Sorry I haven't blogged lately. Sometimes, I just don't feel like blogging and I just wasn't feeling it the last week. Anyway, things have been good. Four of my good friends from home were here over the weekend. It was a great weekend. We basically balled out of control and had a great time. Taylor wrote pretty extensively about the nights we went out, so I'd suggest checking that out if you want. The one night Taylor didn't go out we went to Lure at the Wynn. It was definitely an older/richer crowd, but I still liked the place a lot. We also saw Big Shot Bob (horry) walking out as we walked in. It's pretty cool to hang out at the same places as people like him.

I played a long live session of 5/10nl yesterday. I was getting really tired of people telling me how soft the live games are. I also wanted to get some cash to pay for some stuff down here. I gotta say that while the game was good, it wasn't good enough to justify playing one table at 25 hands/hour. There were some awful guys at the table, but also some pretty good ones. The other hard thing about playing live is that it's just so difficult for me to be patient. I'm so used to seeing so many hands per hour that even when I focus to play tight and patient, I still struggle. Honestly, I almost never got anyone to fold. If I had the hand, they called. If I didn't have a hand, they called. There was one big bluff that I ran that wasn't a very good bluff and got called. Honestly, live cash games just really aren't for me. In the end, it didn't end as bad as it could have. I only lost about $800. Considering I sat w/ 5k and there were a few others with 5k or more, it could have been ugly if I had really ran/played bad.

I started watching the show Heroes the other day. I'm completely addicted to it. I've always liked super hero type stories. I loved X-men as a kid and I've enjoyed the X-Men movies. This is the same kind of thing in the way that the story goes. I think it's well written and I like a lot of the actors/actresses in teh show. I specifically like the Cheerleader and the Asian time traveler. I think they are both great characters.

I made a new 3 part 3/6nl video today. I think it went pretty well. I won about 1200 during the video. I also made 1200 as I was setting the video up. So all in all, 2400 for 2 hours of play was great. The only issue was I had a few technical difficulties with my FTP connection throughout the video, but there wasn't much I could do. I hope people enjoy the return to the 3 part series. I think it definitely allowed for a few more interesting situations due to the established history with my opponents.

The month hasn't really been going as great as I would have hoped, but it also hasn't been a total bust. I'm up about 10k total right now. The last I heard gambler was down 40k. Oops. I guess I won that bet. I hope he comes back to Vegas so I can cash in on it.

I'll be updating regularly again. I'm also going to save some HHs to post.

Also, I should note how I finished in that 3k event. I ended up taking 54th place. It was a fun experience. I wish I could have done better, but I was also pretty happy. Hellmuth was at my table and that was a lot of fun. I basically just ran 1010 into QQ. There was a raise, I reraised and a woman in the blinds woke up with QQ. She was a nice (and attractive) woman who ended up taking 2nd, so I was happy for her.

First off, I want to note something that I saw in the comments of my last post. A few people said I was selling myself short and it seemed liked a defeatist post. The truth is, I've been playing online poker for 4 years. There was a time where I thought the sky was the limit and I thought I would be playing 25/50+. The truth is that not everyone is cut out for that. The sooner those people realize that, the better. I've never had success at the 25/50 games. I don't think my personality is cut out for it. I also just don't have the deep thinking poker mind and talent that guys like Stinger, Aba, CTS or Taylor have. In addition, there was a time where all I did was eat, breath and sleep poker. That is the kind of mindset you need to succeed at the highest of levels of many things, especially poker. That's a mindset I just don't have anymore. I've come to appreciate taking time out for other things in life and I find life much more enjoyable since I have put playing on the back burner. So, take it as you will, but I'm willing to acknowledge that I won't ever reach the highest games. I'm happy enough making good money at 5/10 or below.

With this thought in mind, I also decided to step down from 5/10. I've dropped 3 buyins or so yesterday which brought me back to pretty much even at that stake. My original mindset going into this month was to just grind 2/4, but I got caught up in the glitz and glamour that is vegas. I sat down and looked at my PT stats and saw the one game and limit that I was really doing well at was 2/4nl. So I went back to that stake today. Well, I'm glad I did, because I crushed.

Here are my PT stats from today:


Two hands:
Strange hand. I always get scared when people cold call 3 bets (even if its a smaller one like this one). The turn I checked behind b/c I thought there was a decent chance someone had a set. The river was a good card b/c it gave me two pair and made 88 a less likely holding. I think given the way the hand played out I had to call the river. I was pretty surprised at what he showed down.

Another strange hand. I figured a draw was a pretty likely holding on the flop, so I didn't like the turn. I also decided checking behind was pretty weak and that I had plenty of outs if he had a flush especially if its a baby flush.

Gaucho got here and is going to be here through the weekend. I'm looking forward to hanging out with him. Gambler2k4 is getting here tonight and is going to spend the night here and then gonna go stay with omniheart for the rest of the weekend. The only thing about Gambler is that as far as I know, he doesn't have my cell phone. He does know our address, but it isn't that easy to find and we also aren't going to be at the house when he is getting here. I'm not exactly sure what he's going to do. It should be interesting.

I also think I'm going to play the 2k event tomorrow, as long as tonight doesn't get out of hand. I'm definitely going to play the 3k on Sunday and the 5k HU on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to playing some more events as I have only played one so far.

It seems like gambler is throwing in the towel. I think he's mostly going to play MTTs now and that wasn't what our bet was. I had hoped it would last the entire month, but what can you do. I just can't seem to get much going on the poker front. I seem to win a little and then lose a little. I have been trying out some higher games (3/6nl and 5/10nl). I feel my game is coming around quite a bit and that I just need to hit a better run to really make some real cash.

I'm sitting at around +3k for the month. My hope is to make at least 20k. I'd really love to be able to cover my buyins for the WSOP. After playing my first event, I've decided I probably won't play as many as I once thought. There is just so much luck involved. I'm going to play the 3k on Sunday, the 5k HU on tuesday. After that I think I'll play the 5k 6 man and then the main event. Of course, if I do well in one of these, I might play more. That's what I'm thinking for now though. That adds up to about 25k total in buyins. My hope is that I can play some 10k satellites and win my ME seat. Otherwise, I might sell some of myself. I think putting up 10k is a lot and I'm not crazy about doing that.

I'm gonna head to the gym in a few minutes and then probably put in a long session tonight. I might even go play some live poker.

Sopranos - I personally liked the finale. The more I think about it, the more I liked it. Everyone wanted a big blood bath, but I had a feeling that wasn't what was going to happen. That's just not in the style of the show. I liked how Chase left it all up to the imagination about what was going to happen. I'll be honest, I grew attached to the Sopranos family (as shitty people as they were) and I didn't want to see any of them die. My guess is that maybe Meadow was pregnant and she was excited/uptight about that. I'm downloading the show now so that I can watch it a few more times. This final season really reminded me of how good the show can be. I think I might sit down and watch the entire series again. It's been a really long time since I've seen the first few seasons.