River Rats Reincarnated

I created this blog for the most part to talk about my poker escapades.  Well since there isn't much poker going on since Black Friday, I haven't had anything interesting to post.  Therefore, the absence of my blog for the last few weeks.  However, I hate to abandon this so soon after I created it.  I've decided to start writing about whatever hits me at the moment.

I hope to write my next entry later this week.  It will describe all the many wonderful things I have done the last weeks.  I know you are all on the edge of your seats, eager with anticipation.  Please try your best not to lose any sleep.

Now What?

I think that most of you folks reading my blog are poker players, so I won't go into the gory details of Black Friday.  For those of you who aren't in tune with the daily comings and goings in poker, April 15, 2011 is now being referred to as "Black Friday."  Last Friday, the DOJ and FBI essentially seized and shut down online poker for US players.  This is very devastating for so many US players who play online poker for a living.  For me it is not as devastating since I am a recreational player.  Also, I only had about $800 online and a few Step Tickets.  But, I know of many players who had up to $50k online.  With sites like Full Tilt and Pokerstars, as well as payment processors being shut down, withdrawing those funds are near impossible.  Like I said, I don't have much money online, however, I just started running pretty good in cash games and ran ungodly in the Single Table Super Turbo Step Tournaments.

My goal the last couple of weeks prior to Black Friday was to play and collect as many Step 4 and 5 tickets as possible.  Step 4's are valued at $75 while Step 5's are valued at $215.  I was going to use these tickets to try to win seats into this years WSOP satellite events in Las Vegas.  My biggest disappointment as a result of Black Friday, is that I won't be able to cheaply take a shot at winning one or more seats to this year's WSOP events.

Now that online poker has been shut down for the most part, I think I will use some of my newfound time to play some more live poker.  The problem is, to play live poker, a person needs a much higher bankroll.  Online, I can play a full schedule with $200 with the long term expectation of of increasing my bankroll by 10-20% per session.  Even if variance gets the best of me, and say I run at -80% Return on Investment (ROI) in a session, I will still end the day with $40 plus the rest of my bankroll that wasn't used.  Now to play in a live $1/$3 NL cash game, I realistically need to come to the table with about $500.  In the short run, anything can happen.  I could sit down and immediately get dealt pocket Kings, only to get coolered by pocket Aces and lose my whole roll for the day.  Unfortunately, I don't have a $10k - $15k live bankroll to play with, so short term variance on the bad side could be devastating.

Since I have lost my chance to win a seat to Vegas, I think I am going to set aside all my profits from live cash  and put it towards a trip to this year's WSOP.  Hopefully I can make friends an enjoy a nice three-some with Lady Luck and Ms. Variance.

The Hollywood Scene

It's been a while since my last post.  I've come to learn that I enjoy sleep more than I enjoy grinding $10 sit and go's and micro MTT's online until 6 am.  I no longer have a burning desire to play every night knowing that I will be going to work late and on 3 or 4 hours of sleep.  This is not to say that I have lost any love for poker.  I would still look forward to grinding those same games if I could do it during normal hours or if I could get in at least 6 hours of sleep without missing work.  Also, live poker is a totally different animal.  I get an adrenaline rush playing live poker, whether it is tournaments or cash games.

Hollywood Casino is holding their Hollywood Poker Open starting March 24.  Each Tuesday in March leading up to the HPO, they are giving away $100 tournament vouchers for individuals who play at least 8 hours of poker.  Last week, I earned the max 2 $100 vouchers.  I started at 7:30 am and finished up at 6:30 am the next day.  I finished my session up around $500.  As I waited for my vouchers to be distributed, I played some 3 card poker.  It's not really poker.  It's more like Caribbean Stud or Let it Ride.  I sat down with a middle aged couple and an older Asian woman.  I got the feeling that the other 3 had been at the table for a while.  After about 30 minutes, the couple got up.  Two hands later, the older Asian woman was dealt a Royal Flush in Spades (AKQ  all spades).  This hand not only won the woman about $800 on her bet but also the progressive jackpot of $6,990!  Had the other couple stayed for 2 more hands, they would have won the jackpot.  What was also cool, is that everyone at the table when the jackpot is hit also wins $100 "envy" bonus.  I got a little off track, but I thought that was a neat story to share.

This past Tuesday, I headed back to the Hollywood to collect another voucher and hopefully make a few bucks at the same time.  The Sunday before, I was up until a 6am.  I had finished up my Sunday schedule online and was witnessing a member of my home poker forum (www.badbeatspoker.net) make it to the final table of the Sunday Millions.  He chopped and won $311k!  So sick.  Anyhow, I decided to sleep in on Tuesday and just go for 1 voucher.  I got to the Hollywood around 3:00pm but a table didn't open up until 4:30. Therefore, I couldn't get in my required 8 hours in order to receive a voucher.  To add insult, I lost $340 playing slots and 3 card poker waiting for a table to open up.

I came to the casino with a little more than $500.  The max buy in for the game I play is $500, yet I only had $200 left.  I thought about withdrawing $400 from the ATM, but decided to try to build a stack with what I had.  The very first hand I was dealt 5 7, normally a pretty shitty hand.  The first few players to act folded.  The guy to my immediate right acted like he wanted to fold but must have convinced himself to put in a small raise.  I immediately knew that I could easily get him to fold by reraising.  By reraising, I also send a message to all those yet to act that I have a pretty strong hand.  No one in live poker, at this level, 3 bets (reraises) without an insanely strong hand.  So even with 5 7, I reraised.  Everyone except the big blind folded, including the original raiser.  My read on him was correct.  Now I had to deal with the big blind.  The flop came out pretty dry.  I made a continuation bet.  The BB called.  The turn card was also non threatening, yet no help to  me.  I fired again only to be called again.  The river came and completed a fairly dry board.  Here's the beauty of playing with a short stack; based on the standard bet sizing on the flop and turn, the standard bet size on the river would be about the the amount I had left in my stack.  If I wanted to win the pot I would have to bet, and if I bet it would have to be an all in bet.  Most players in the live games I play are fish.  Most fish don't go all in without a very strong hand.  General assumption in these games is that if a player bets every street and is willing to get all his chips on the river, then he has a great hand.  So my shove on the river was the perfect bluff. I did, and he folded as expected.  I flipped my hand over to exposed my rags.  The message I wanted to send by showing my cards was "don't f@#* with me," and stay out of my way unless you want risk your whole stack.  I also hoped that by exposing my hand, I could get paid off when I actually held a good hand.

After scooping the first pot, I now had a respectable stack of about $350.  Because I could not get in enough hours on Tuesday, I made it a goal to just play well and make about $500 to compensate my time and travel expenses even though I couldn't get a voucher.  I anticipated playing until midnight or 1 am.  I easily reached my money goal but hacked my time goal.  I finished my session up $2,100.  I failed in my attempt to leave by 1 am as I stayed until noon the next day.

Funny Quote of the Day

I was heads up with a guy who was with some friends and learning the game.  I had flopped top pair of Kings.  He was first to act and asked the dealer:

"Can I check-raise?"

Um, what the hell was I supposed to do after he checked???

Getting Well and Back to the Grind

So I've had an adventurous week. Last Wednesday, I took my son, Griffey, in to see our Pediatrician because he wasn't feeling well. She diagnosed him with bronchitis and wrote him a script. Later that night, he complained a little about his stomach hurting. No big deal. In the middle of the night, he woke up with a fever and was feeling bad. We weren't too surprised, after all, he had bronchitis and isn't expected to feel great.

The next day, he battled fevers and stomach pains all day. One of the side effects of the medicine he was on was stomach cramps. My wife was on the phone multiple times with our Pedtrician's office throughout the day. They simply said that it could be gas. They recommended gas relief pills and said to call back if he doesn't improve.

Around 6pm, Griffey was sleeping but he was breathing really hard. You could see his chest/stomach retracting severely. At that point, we took him to Urgent Care. There, he was diagnosed with H1N1 and pneumonia. He was admitted into Children's Hospital Thursday night and wasn't released until Sunday afternoon. I stayed the night with him Friday night to relieve my wife. That night, I caught something as well and felt like I had been run over by a truck.

Griffey is home now, and I am feeling better. Although, my other son, Brady, just threw his guts up about an hour ago. Here we go again.

Tonight was the first time in a week that I have played any poker. Ever since my break earlier this month, I have lacked the intense motivation that I am normally accustomed to. Those close to me know that I would rather play poker than breath. So lack motivation is saying something.

Tonight was different. Tonight, I was eager to play. Tonight, I played pretty good. I had really good focus and took my time to think through every post flop decision. Unfortunately, I didn't have any super deep MTT runs, but I did manage to chop an $11 45 man and finish 3rd in another one. Overall, I am up about $130 on the night. Next post I hope to be describing an epic win for $4k or $5k.

Can't Get Motivated

In my last post I eluded to the fact that I was taking some time off from poker. I last played last Sunday, not including a short 30 minute session a few days ago. My plan was to not play for 1 week at least, not until after Super Bowl Sunday. I wanted to take some time off for a few different reasons. I had been going so hard that I just felt I needed to take some time off to recharge the batteries. Also, as my volume of play had gone up, so had the number of bad beats I was seeing. These bad beats were putting me on Monkey Tilt. At the same time, my 45 man game had gone to shit. (45 man games are 9 table tournaments). 45's were a constant money maker for me, but of late, they had become my worst game. Some time off would also allow me to get caught up on some much needed sleep as well as spend some more time with the family. Studying and improving one's game is a must for any serious poker player and as long as I was playing, I wasn't going to take time to study. So this was another goal for during my time away.

During my time away, I have slept about 2 -2.5x longer each night. I have been reading 2 different poker books, watched 1 poker training video, and spoke to a couple of different coaches about training sessions for next week. Friday night, we celebrated my brother-in-law's 21st birthday. My mother-in-law watched the kids and I got drunk and partied for the first time in probably 2+ years. This past week has been great, and I have had very little urge to play poker.

However, today, I got a small itch to play. Sunday's are like Saturday's to College football, or Sunday's to Pro football. All the biggest tournaments are played on Sunday's. For $22, you can enter into Full Tilt's Double Deuce which offers a guaranteed prize pool of $200,000. First place pays a minimum of $31,000. For $11, you can enter Poker Star's 1/4 million that features a $250,000 minimum prize pool. Those are not even the biggest prize pool tournaments offered on Sunday's.

Due to the Super Bowl starting at 6:30, I decided to only play in a couple of tournaments. I played in a couple of satellite tournaments and did well. I started by playing in a $3.30 Sit and Go and won an entry into the $8.70 SNG satellite. I also won the $8.70 which paid a $26 tournament ticket. I played both of these on auto pilot. I used my $26 ticket to try to win a seat into today's $216 FTOPS Event #1, which offers a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. As of 5:00pm, the prize pool has risen to $1.2 million. About the time I started the $26 satellite, I bought straight into the $11 1/4 million event. I busted out of the satty, and played with no passion in the 1/4 million. It didn't matter what cards I had, I simply tried to bully the other players by throwing my chips around as if I had an endless supply. I tried to pull a triple barrel bluff with nothing but a 9 high. That left me with a third of the starting chips. I didn't have the patience to rebuild my stack. Therefore I limped with 3 6 and called a late position raiser. I proceeded to shove all my chips in on a dry flop and was quickly called by pocket aces. I busted out in about 10 minutes, but I didn't care.

The only thing I can think about now is how much of a grind poker really is. To win, or make it to the final table of any online tournament with 500 or more players, you will be playing for 5 hours at least. When I won the Midnight Madness, there were over 2,000 players and I think it lasted 7 or 8 hours. The beats are also very taxing. Poker is kind of like hitters in baseball. You are going to experience failure more than success. So to continue to lose, lose, lose, min cash, take a bad beat, and another bad beat, followed by a min cash, it is very tough mentally. However, like baseball, striking out 3 times only to hit a game winning home run in your last at bat of Game 7 in the World Series, 1 win makes the long hours and endless bad beats well worth it. Hopefully, once I officially end my hiatus, my passion and motivation will reappear and drive me to new poker highs.

Me and My Daily Routine

The thought of creating and updating a blog is easy and fun. The actual act is something completely different.

For those of you who don't know, I am happily married and the proud parent of 5 1/2 year old triplets. As if that is not enough, my wife, Erin, and I gained legal guardianship of our 1 year old nephew last Summer. We also have 3 four legged friends and a few fish that we really don't take care of.

My day usually starts in the late morning. I am a broker, or financial advisor, with Wells Fargo Advisors. I usually get home around 5 or 6pm to an exhausted wife and rambunctious kids. I try my best to help out with home work and dinner when I get home. But most times it isn't enough for Erin to unwind. In between the bickering and screaming (both joyful and or anger) we try to get them settled down and ready for bed. On the good nights, we get 2 of the triplets asleep by 9pm. On the not so good nights, all three will be up well after 10:30. It is not until all kids are asleep that I can start up on poker. But first I eat, if I haven't already, and spend some time with my wife. Most of the time, I don't spend enough time with her.

So poker for me usually starts around 11 -11:30 pm, 4 -6 nights a week. I always register for Full Tilt's Midnight Madness. It is my favorite for a couple of different reasons. It is perfect for my bankroll ($11). It's prize pool ($20k+) is big enough to really get the juices flowing. It's the only tournament within the above parameters that starts late enough for me to enter but not so late that I will be up until 8am if I go super deep. Finally, I really love this tournament because I won it about 2 years ago while I played under Chewbacca Nuts.

My session usually end between 4 and 5 am, unless I am deep in an MTT. These late night's usually mean I only get around 4 hours of sleep a night. I have been on this schedule for about 2 years now, only now my sessions are a little longer than they were a year or two ago and they are more often. Each and every day, I feel tired and I know I look terrible. I have only played about 30 minutes since last Sunday and I definitely feel much better. I've had 3 straight nights of great sleep, yet I still dozed off this afternoon. I bet I probably would not be fully caught up on sleep for another 2 days. Good thing I dont plan to play again until after Super Bowl Sunday.

Next post, I'll probably talk about the type of player I am today and what I still struggle with.

My Story

I wrote up this bio 2 years ago (2009):

I first started playing online poker about 7 years ago after I saw an episode on the Travel Channel about the Party Poker Cruise. The next morning, I logged on and started playing the $25 satellites for the next cruise. Early on, I played mostly satellites and SNG's. I dont really remember how I did other than the fact that I had made several small deposits over the next couple of years. No major wins or losses to report.

After I saw the movie Rounders, I started to get more serious about poker. I purchased Super System and started to read. When I first started playing, I thought I knew what I was doing but I actually had no clue. However, the more I played, the more I learned.

During the mid 2000's, I started to make some big cashes in both Tournements and cash games. My preference was to play cash games. It was a quick way to win big cash. Twice I turned $500 into over $12,000 within a couple of weeks. I started playing 1/2 NL and moved all the way up to 20/50 NL. Unfortunately, I lost my entire roll both times. Once, I even lost it after I withdrew $8,000...only to redeposit it and give it back. The bigger my bankroll got, the bigger games I played. So it is easy to see how I lost my entire bankroll.

As far as tournments, I have never placed in first of a field larger than 27. However, once I took third in a $35,000 guarantee for $3,600 and third in another big tournement for about $1,800.

After, giving back my huge roll twice, I tried to recapture the magic several times only to flush it away against better players. Looking back, I was better off playing the lottery. I probably lost close to $10,000 of my own money over a 2 year period playing mostly cash games. Sometime in 2007 I stopped playing almost entirely.

For the next year or year and a half I only played here and there for small stakes. It wasnt until, December 2008 that I decided that I wanted to quit my part time job (dont worry, I still had a FT job that paid the bills) and try to supplement my income with poker. I only needed to make $100 - $150 a week. I thought that with my new found friends at BBP, a commitment to BR management, and an improved game, that I could realistically obtain the modest goals I set for myself.

Like I said, I have commited to BR management (for the most part) and turned my play from (very)Loose-Aggressive, to Tight -(? not sure what my post flop style is yet). During my first month back I noticed much better results. I figured that 2009 would be my break out year.

This brings us to today, February 16, 2009. So far I am still waiting for my breakout. I am playing 80% tournies and 20% $10 NL and occasionally $25 NL cash games. I am reading Winning Poker Tournements One Hand at a Time, watching a few videos from Deuces Cracked, subscibed to Sharkscope HUD, and purchased Poker Tracker 3. I have all the tools that I should need to turn this ship (Titantic) around. I am down about $700 YTD, but I am keeping my head up because some of the best from BBP are also off to slow starts. My last step is to hire a coach. I am considering Jennifear from Pocket Fives. Her price is very reasonable, $300 for 4 hours. However, her stats are not spectacular (around 29 ROI) but not bad at all. I have to expore all possible avenues before giving up. But then again, I do have to draw the line somewhere.

What is a River Rat?

In Texas Holdem, I have termed any player who sucks out on the river a "River Rat." If you have ever played Texas Holdem, you know how painful it is to lose a huge pot with 1 card to come.

Anyway, I have been wanting to create a poker blog for a while now. I think that if I maintain an active blog, it will help my game. I think a key to improving at poker is to be thinking about the game and analyzing hands after my session is over. Not only do I need to improve the analytical aspect of my game, but more importantly I need to improve the mental aspect of my game.

I plan to dive into this topic in a day or two. But for now, I wanted to get this blog up and submit my first post. Hopefully, I can keep this thing going until I become a legitimate beast or die trying.