CARDRUNNERS

Note - This has not been proofed at all. It took too long to type up, so you'll just have to deal with the bad grammar and poor sentence structure. Sorry.

Last Thursday I played in a new home game for the first time. Well, it is not really a home game per se. It is actually, more or less, an underground poker room. The setup is simple with a homemade table that accommodates 8 comfortably and has a dedicated spot for a dealer, which they provide. The main downsides are twofold:

1. Rake is absolutely fucking insane. Last night I saw them pull $6 from a ~$75 pot. The thing is, two of the guys playing, including one of the mega fish, are the guys running the room. If they did not rake so heavy, there would be no game because they'd have no money to lose...

2. The crowd is pretty rough by my elitist standards. More on this in a moment.

They do provide food, pop, and beer and the game is very well run. All together, the rake is worth it I suppose, especially when you factor in the level of play. I should also mention, for those who did not read my last blog, the games are all $10 max raise, $2 minimum, except crazy pineapple hi and hold'em, which are NL. The other games played are crazy pineapple hi/lo, Omaha 8b, and Omaha.

Oh my, the level of play! For the two nights I've played so far, the lineup has consisted of (initials posted, names changed, and aliases used to protect the innocent):

AM - Cannot fold a hand until the river. He will call off $75 and fold to a $10 river bet. A lot. Often. All the time. He also plays his hands face up, mostly because he cusses when a bad card hits. This is not done as a bluff or to fool you either - he really means it.

SW - First night ran up a HUGE stack as he hit the nuts about 400 times. Last night, he got crushed. He is mostly a douche bag as he tilts and just gets up and leaves without saying anything then comes back an hour later. I don't really like him. Luckily for me he is really really bad. SW loves to cbet and always shuts down on the turn with air. Sooner or later he will get tired of me stealing pots.

Big G - Very passive, but likes to call down hands, esp with draws. Underplays big hands, overplays bad ones.

Old B - literally plays 95% of hands and chases EVERYTHING. I've never seen anybody that likes to call down with the 3rd nut low draw as much as this guy. When he has a hand, he wakes up and starts shoveling money into the pot faster than you could imagine.

CJ - One of the two or three best players here. He runs the game and is probably one of the winningest players in the game. He'd be better if he was not so freaking aggressive and gamble prone. CJ is easy to play because he is mostly pretty tight and makes good folds.

JB - Owns the place we play at. JB is truly awful and very prone to making tilt plays, which usually involve calling off massive amounts or making large tilt raises. He way overvalues TP type hands and calls down in Omaha 8b with almost anything. Dude is really bad at poker.

Young J - Along with CJ, he is a decent player. He plays a tone of live hands and knows his way around a table, especially Omaha.

SB - I've know DT for a bit and actually am going to get him hooked up with CR soon. He is a good dude and a solid player. I am not sure that he is a winner online at this point, but I suspect he may be. I am sure he is a winner in these live games, but I have a pretty good read on him so he doesn't scare me too bad.

On Thursday night I showed up, sat down, bought in for $200, and got dealt AA6ss in crazy hi my very first hand. The flop was Jxx, I cbet and got one caller. Turn was  T, I bet big, he called. River was a T, I bet again, he insta min raised, and I snapped.

The second I snapped, I thought, "I beat nothing." I think I was excited to have sat and got right into it. There was some anxiousness, nerves, etc. It cost me about $85 as he flipped over JT.

Lesson learned.

The rest of the night was spend seeing a lot of flops as I had brilliant hole cards. I spent a lot of time folding flops as my brilliant hole cards seemingly refused to actually turn into anything. I ended up losing a little.

Last night I went over from about 9pm to 2:30am. I played much, much better. My Omaha game is my most lacking, but I tightened it up considerably and cut out all the nickel and dime losses (I have the odds, I have to call!). I ended up losing around $70, which was a huge win considering the following two hands:

Crazy hi - I have AT6ss and call a raise on the button. The flop has 3 players and is TTx. SB led $12 into me, I called, we are now HU (SB cbets 100% of his range in pretty much all NL games. At this point he could have anything from a T to two overs to 88). The turn is an 8, and now be bets $20. I decide to call again, putting him on a range of Tx, an over pair, or random air that he decided to fire twice because my range is very wide, which, presumably, he knows. If I raise, I fold out his air and some over pairs, both of which he may fire again on the river. If not, he is almost always calling a reasonable value bet with those OP's. River is a Q, which is interesting. While J9 is not a huge part of his range, it may have been that he fired it on the flop then picked up the draw and fired the turn. QT now beats me, AK is not calling a raise, AQ may call a small one, and I suppose QJ could be there if he picked up the gutter on the turn. Anyway, be now bets $23. After thinking for a minute, and after under repping my hand so much, I decided there was almost no value in a raise, so I called. He tabled T8.

I like the way I played the hand. I don't like the result.

Crazy Hi - I had AQT and called a $12 raise from JB in position. The flop is 358, all clubs. I have the ace of clubs. JB does what he always does when he raises $12 pf and fires a near pot sized bet. Since there was another caller pre, this put about $75 in the pot. He had around $90 behind and I had him well covered. After thinking for a sec, I decided to shove, which caused a serious tank. After a few minutes, he called with.........55. I feel like I ran into the top of his range and he 100% would have called with TT+, esp if he had a club in his hand. Keep in mind this is crazy hi, so he could have all sorts of weird 2p combos. I figured my nut fd, 2 overs, and backdoor straight was enough to make the play, esp with fold equity. I bricked.

Those two hands cost me a bit more than $200.

The second to last hand of the night was also Crazy Hi. I was in the sb with KK6ss. JB raised to $12 in LP, I called, and Big G called. The flop was Q7x, we checked to JB, who fired $15 into $40. We both called. The turn was another 7. Again it was checked to JB, who now bets $25. At this point I was relatively sure I was up against a Q from one of these two monkeys. The question was, who had a 7? After playing some crazy hi, I've learned than an OP has much less value than you think, esp on paired boards. It is so easy for somebody to have a random under card that paired the flop, then stuck around to find the turn or river. After much deliberation, I folded and felt pretty much sick about it. Big G called and the river brought a.......king.

Fuck.

Big G checked and JB led $75.

At this point I was SURE he had a 7 and was more than a little annoyed by my (correct) fold. Big G tanked and finally called.

JB tabled QUEEN FUCKING NINE.

Big G showed AA.

Such is life.

I plan to play twice a week for as long as my wife will let me, or until I go broke. More updates will be forthcoming.

-Jeff

Before I get onto the actual content, I want to address some of the comments to my previous blog (blogs.cardrunners.com/jeff218/christmas-is-over-turn-your-damn-lights-off). While based in reality, my rant blogs are almost completely a level. I am not really that angry. I don't really care. I am not some angry nut job who is libel to go on a killing spree. This is the internet - stop being so fucking uptight. Yes there are times to be serious on the net, and I have been guilty of being too much so on occasion, my blog is rarely ever one of them.

Now that we have that out of the way...

I am not This County's Education System Sucks Guy, but something that has amazed me time and time again over the years: People's inability to do the most simple of math. Last weekend I was at my nephew's wrestling tourney. It was lunch time, so we headed to the concession stand. We got four slices of pizza for $2.50 each and three drinks for $1.50 each.

Simple, right?

So the lady helping us tried, literally, for 2-3 minutes to do the math. Once she gave up, she asked her daughter to do it. FAIL. Finally, mercifully, I said, "$14.50." She looked at me like I was a math savant and gave me change for my 20. Amazingly, it was correct.

I don't mean to pick on these two exclusively - this is not an isolated problem. Take a look in a poker forum sometime. It is one giant math fail. What is it that we do wrong as a country that leads to this?

/rant

I am playing in a new, to me, homegame tonight. It is dealers choice, but is limited to a few game types, with different limits depending on what game is called:

Omaha 8b: $2/$10 spread game with $1/$2 blinds
Omaha Hi: No limit, 1/2 blinds
Pineapple Hi/Lo: 2/10 spread, 1/2 blinds
Pineapple Hi: No limit, 1/2 blinds
Hold'Em: No limit, 1/2 blinds

The lineup is amazingly soft, as it is filled with some of towns biggest problem gamblers. In theory it should be VERY easy money. I'll update on things later this week.

-Jeff

So, it has been a bit rough for me the last 3-4 days. My little challenge this month was to pick up 10 buys at 25nl before heading back to 50nl where I was to pick up 25 buys before moving to 100nl. I've mostly been playing as well as I am capable of, whatever that counts for... Sadly FTP has had other thoughts.

My last 5k hands in a nutshell: weaktight.com/2037943

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE RED LINE IS EV, NOT MY RED LINE. HEM is messed up...no idea what is going on.

The start to last nights session (yfrog.com/0hstartphj)





The last 5k hands (yfrog.com/0k5000handsj)




Tilt has not been an issue for me, which is cool. In fact, I am very proud of myself as I've played over 18k hands and 40 hours this month. My goal was 60 hours and w/e many hands that made out to be. I am right on pace. I've also watched 8 or 9 videos so far in Feb and spent significant time digging around HEM. Things are looking up....as long as I can get FTP to cooperate!

-Jeff

This is a cross post from the forums (deal with it). I just made my 10,000th post and commemorated the event with a self serving, ego boosting list of the best stuff I've ever posted on CR. It will take awhile to wade through, but I promise you won't be disappointed.

--------------------------------------------------

10k posts.

Pretty embarrassing.

To commemorate the occasion, I've established a list of the 13 best blogs I have written as well as the three threads I am the most proud of (would have been more but some forum issues have bustoed the search feature).

FWIW, it is worth checking these out, I am a funny/angry guy (with an ego too).

In ascending (fav is at the bottom) order, my greatest hits (yes, these are links)...

16. Knox828 bad beats me at a stud table

15. Pool league at a seedy strip joint

14. FML rant

13. Black Friday = Satan

12. You know what really grinds my gears?

11. Bacon Explosion

10. Emo blog about the death of a 3 year old boy

9. Golfing with Dr. Zoidberg

8. Hot bridesmaids, being peed on, and racism towards Asians

7. Girls pissing together

6. Garage sale rant

5. Group sex poll

4. People suck at Facebook

3. Tales from car sales

2. Lou Pinella

1. Tyra Banks Show and the Oxygen Network

I debated pretty hard about the ordering of the top two. Eventually I did the honorable thing and flipped a coin. Lou would be proud.

Decided to bump down and win 10 buys at 25nl before I play any more 50nl (was on a -10 buy swong and took 2 weeks off).

lol 25nl

http://weaktight.com/1981354

CapAnson329: worried about the royal?
trent98375: dont like being greedy
CapAnson329: lol

EDIT:

Oh lord, he is at it again... I love it when a 48/23 and a 48/10 talk strategy:

http://weaktight.com/1981369

oakraiders83104: when the aces were on the board trent what did uhave
trent98375: what you have
oakraiders83104: an ace
oakraiders83104: big pocket pair?
trent98375: i had KK
oakraiders83104: i had AA
oakraiders83104: swear
trent98375: i believe you
oakraiders83104: shoulda reraised u preflop
oakraiders83104: i wanted to milk it
oakraiders83104: but i didnt win much
trent98375: nice play though
trent98375: i think technically i should of called
trent98375: almost did
oakraiders83104: yeah
oakraiders83104: tough laying down the kk
oakraiders83104: but great fold
trent98375: well i was think you had like AK
oakraiders83104: yeah haha
trent98375: Because you really didnt raise that though
oakraiders83104: i wanted to win more lol
oakraiders83104: i wanted u to make the bet
trent98375: yeah i hear you
oakraiders83104: but the flop kinda stopped that with a good player
oakraiders83104: if i went over the top preflop
oakraiders83104: are u calling?
trent98375: yeah
trent98375: aces are tricky to play
oakraiders83104: yeah cause more then half the time
oakraiders83104: ur not callig that preflop
trent98375: yep

Back in high school the group of girls going to the bathroom together phenomenon was a normal thing. Those of us with penises would question it from time to time, but eventually dismissed it and went back to talking about Tiffany Amber Thiessen. All these years later, I never would have thought the topic would come back into my life with the force of so many tidal waves.

The scenario:

-This past Friday evening my wife Amber and I were at her company Christmas party (yeah, in January).
-The party was at a house, not some restaurant with a large bathroom.
-Amber went to the wash room, or water closet, for readers in their late 90's (please note I was sitting on the davenport, next to the barcalounger).
-About 2 minutes after Amber went to pee, a female co-worker of hers did the same.
-They both returned at the same time.

As they returned from the piss party I said, "Wait a minute, were you in the bathroom together?"

They were incredulous: "Yeah, so?"

No matter how hard I pushed, they refused to see the issue with one of them pissing while the other stood next to them washing their hands. I pressed, "If this is acceptable adult behavior, why does the mall have stalls around the toilets?" What the hell, why not just line up shitters next to cash register at Taco Bell? You could order and drop a deuce all at once. Think of the time you'd save!!!

All I know is that when men are lined up at a urinal, there are two acceptable directions to look:

1. Straight ahead
2. Down

In fact, we go out of our way to NOT look at each others penises. Is this homophobia or is it just polite not to look at another man's manhood? I'll let you decide. The point is, I don't even want my wife in the bathroom when I am pissing, much less a co-worker (sorry Wiggins, but you're out). But apparently women can drop their drawers, squat, lean forward to wipe, then redress themselves, all the while talking about ironing and fingernails with their gal pals.

"It's not like I looked at her vagina."

Well thank freaking god for small favors.

-Jeff

Oh hi der. It's been a spell since I blogged last. Mostly I've had a dearth of material to share, so I haven't. I hate it when ppl blog just to blog - I don't want to be that guy. Other than some work, not much has been going on, so I'll spare you the details and skip to the good stuff.

Back in November I stepped on a scale for the first time in well over a year. I did not really look at what it said, only glancing long enough to see the red needle was beyond the number 235.

That's a lot.

Jeff is a pussy hair short of 5' 9" and have a very stout natural build (yeah, I just used 3rd person, deal with it). I am guesstimating that if I was around 175 I'd be in very good shape body fat wise. As I said to my wife, if I was wrestling, I'd be in the 152 lb class (I wrestled for 13 years. My senior year of high school, 12 years ago, I was at 135). If that is the case, 170-175 seems like a good walking around weight.

My last known accurate weight was about 195. That was in late 2006. I was, ummm, husky,  and could def have lost 20lbs. Since then I've worked jobs where I sit basically 8-12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. I ate a lot of fast food and got very little exercise. I also like to booze a bit and 4th meal was standard.

All that being said, as of this morning I am under 220 for probably the first time in well over a year. The most amazing part is that I've done it in about 8 weeks....without working out.....or giving up everything good to eat. I know it has only been a couple pounds a week, but this is the RIGHT way to lose weight. I am not dieting, I am changing my lifestyle.

I'll explain:

-had pizza exactly once
-not had a single burger
-only had french fries once
-basically zero fried foods
-had 1 bowl of shitty cereal (froot loops, this morning)
-drank almost no beer and very little hard alcohol
-stopped eating in restaurants almost entirely
-Lots and lots of fish and chicken.
-ZERO junk food
-fruit for desert - no candy or baked goods
-much more veggies
-snacking often on not terrible for you things, so I stay full because....
-cutting my portions (one of my biggest problems)
-almost completely sworn off red meat

I should also note that I have not gone on a fad diet or turned to shakes, protein bars, atkins stuff, or pills (food pyramid baby). So what is next?

-Monday I start p90x. I'm not looking forward to this at all, but I think it will more than double my weight loss. I want to be at 200 on April 1, on my way to a goal of 175 (hopefully by summers end). Actually, I am looking forward to it, just not the first week of immense pain and soreness.
-increase consumption of salmon and tuna (protein and omega-3's baby)
-double amount of veggies I eat
-have at least 3 pieces of fruit daily
-ALWAYS FUCKING EAT BREAKFAST (I am REALLY bad at this)
-cut way down on sodium intake
-increase water intake by like 8x
-reduce the amount of unnecessary starches in my diet

Aside from feeling better about myself, feeling less tired on very little sleep (standard), and hearing things like, "have you lost weight?", the best part of this deal is that I don't have the chronic heartburn I suffered through for three years. Basically, I was on Prilosec nearly every day just to keep from being miserable at night. I've sworn off the stuff and have had nary a day of the burn since I stopped eating fried foods.

I really hope getting on a workout plan will speed things up and accelerate results. So far the big key has been the purchase of a scale. It is like a competition to me now. Every day I want to be a bit lower than the day before. Every week I want to see results. Now whenever I have a temptation to eat poorly, I think of that $35 scale sitting in my bathroom.

The real moral here is that if I can do this, freaking anybody can. I have felt like shit about myself for years. No matter what clothes I buy/try on I look like shit (not that I am a male model, but you know what I mean). I don't like going places where I have to dress nice because I feel self conscious. I just hate it. Plus my family has a long history of heart issues and diabetes. Despite all this it took me basically 10 years of steady weight gain to finally do something about it. That is really sad. All you damn kids all over this site: Don't be me. Lose the 10 lbs now, it is way easier than losing 60 later...TRUST ME.

So how did I go from eating like an idiot to losing 15+ lbs just by changing my diet? It was easy! All I did was take all of the shitty food, and I mean ALL of it, out of my house. I could not eat poorly if I wanted to (I guess I could drink come crisco or something). After a couple of weeks, it became normal, and now I don't even want the shit.

It really is just that easy.

I have a couple more things in mind for blogging. I'll be back soon, I promise.

xoxo

-Jeff

2010 has not been super kind to me up to this point. While nothing life threatening has happened, I have hit several speed bumps:

1. It has snowed a fuck ton. I blew my lower back out while moving snow at my aunts place. That was a week ago and I am still feeling it. Sitting at a computer all day has not helped.

2. One of our employees put in his notice. I consider Michael to be a good friend and will miss working with him. He was a machine who could put in a ton of hours and still turn out good work. Plus he has a cool Aussie accent which was always fun to mock in meetings.

3. Poker...ugh.... I've finally got my work situation to be more manageable. I'm putting in much closer to 40 hours than the 50+ I was for the last several months. So on Jan 1 I started grinding pretty hard. I've watched 5 vids this month and spent 22.5 hours at the table (5837 hands). I'm mostly playing 2-3 tables and trying to work on my game. I'm mostly playing pretty well, but have been absolutely fucking miserable in all-in pots. Of the 9 I have lost, 6 of them were bad plays (one was for 240bb's). The other 3 were KK<AA, KK<JJ, and JJ<KK when we both flopped sets. Not good.

Conversely, of the 7 all-in pots I've won, 2 of them I spiked a 2 outer to get there. I'm losing with QQ, JJ, AK, and AKs. Oh, and I am winning 42% of showdowns! Not a good combo of events imo.

I feel like I am just not being disciplined. I keep getting all excited with over pairs and just don't think. I look for reasons to stack off, and usually do. Most of this can probably be attributed to making over my game. Since I've been working with nute, I've gone from a 18/15 fit or fold player to a 23/19. My W$WSF has risen from barely 40% to 45% and my red line is no longer a staircase to hell. I've had a lot growing pains trying to figure out when to battle for a pot and when to give up, but that is part of the deal. I am def bluffing too much as well. Usually the thought process is, "He has 2nd pair at best, he just can't call if I fire this 3rd shot." The issue is, it is 50nl and not only can they call with 2nd pair...they can, and do, call with 4th pair.

The moral of the story is that I need to be more careful and more disciplined. Either that or I'll be at 25nl soon. I've dropped almost 1/3 of my bankroll so far in Jan. Thank god I started with a comfortable amount for the limit. That being said, I can't keep losing.

Hopefully this does not come off as ranting or whining. I actually feel pretty good overall about my game, save for some really glaringly stupid shit I do.

In the good news department, we raised $4000 via the Lou Pinella Memorial Poker Tournament. All that cash goes to our fall friend's son's college fund. Hopefully we've helped Davis and Patrice in some small way with our efforts. I should give a huge thanks to Andrew Wiggins for all his help with the tourney as well as his very generous donation to the pot.

I'll see about blogging more regularly. I am not great at it because, to be honest, it is just not a major priority right now. With so much going on, something has to get cut out. Sadly, it is often the blog. Till next time, whenever that is...

-Jeff

This Sunday, at 8:00pm EST, CardRunners will be hosting the Lou Pinella Memorial Tournament.

David “Lou Pinella” Doerr was a charter member at CardRunners who passed away as the result of an auto accident on November 18. To honor this great friend, husband, and father, we have put together a tournament this Sunday on Full Tilt Poker. It is a $15+$15 NLHE event, with 100% of the rake going to his son Davis’ college fund.

Whether you knew Lou or not, there is no reason not to get in on the fun. Team CardRunners and Full Tilt Poker sponsored pros, Taylor Caby, Brian Townsend, Brian Hastings, Andrew Wiggins, and Mike Schneider will all be playing!!! To sweeten the pot even further, each will have a bounty placed upon them. If you are lucky enough to knock one of our Red Pros out of the tournament, you will receive a CardRunners t-shirt and a free one month subscription to either CardRunners or StoxPoker! CR guest pros nutedawg, verneer, and Zaitsev will also be playing. Even FTP Red Pro Andrew Feldman is in the field.

To find the tournament go to the Full Tilt Poker private tournament tab. You can sort by date, look for the name (Lou Pinella Memorial) or the ID (122018681). The password is "DRD#1", which you'll need to register. It is open to the public, so please invite your non-CR friends to play as well.

Don’t turn away from this opportunity to give to a great cause and have a great time with the who’s who of CardRunners!

To read more about Lou, please click here.

To donate directly to Davis’ college fund, please send to:

College Savings Plan of Nebraska
P.O. Box 82644
Lincoln, NE 68501-9542
(888) 993-3746
Account number: 975-757-841 and the beneficiary is Davis R. Doerr

Alternatively, you can send directly to Andrew Wiggins on FTP (first letter of city is “C”). He will then cut a check to the fund for the amount donated.