DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

And it continues.

DOWNSWING

I played a little aggro when I sat down today without getting a feel for the tables and payed for it. I then got some fucked up hands, set over set, set vs rivered quads, and so on. I did not tilt though, and feel good about my play after the coolers. It is also a big step to still post while losing, enjoy the stats.

Edit: While I played well to the best of my knowledge, I was not concentrating as much as I could of. I surfed the web and chatted while playing, neither helped the situation.

FEELING GOOD STILL

I am playing what appears to be very good poker although I have not been running great. This is a period where I would normally trend down but I am going up slightly instead. I am getting paid off more and feel that I am the irritater not the irritated, which is nice. I posted 3 hands on CR mid stakes and would like some feed back from you guys if you have the time or inclination.

Poker goes in phases and right now I am in a discovery phase. I am ready to learn and apply myself more than I have been for a while.

FIRST LESSON TONIGHT

Had a good first lesson although not to many interesting spots came up. I learned how to take advantage of poker stove better, learned about meta game a little, feel better about hand ranges, and my opening and calling ranges. I am looking forward to the next lesson and am very happy with my coach.

One interesting spot that came up was in a 3 bet pot on a flop that I checked through, and then double barreled the turn and river. Given the way he played his hand it did not seem he would have a big enough hand to call a river bet. At the same time we could have a T from the way the hand played out. If anyone would care to comment on this hand please feel free.
wmmcl: $203.00
Hero: $261.10
NigelWinters: $289.50
john0014: $201.00

[b]Preflop:[/b] Hero is dealt A:diamond: 8:diamond: (4 Players)
[i]2 folds[/i], wmmcl raises to $6.00, Hero raises to $22.60, wmmcl calls $16.60

[b]Flop:[/b] ($45.20) J:heart: T:club: Q:club: (2 Players)
wmmcl checks, Hero checks

[b]Turn:[/b] ($45.20) J:heart: T:club: Q:club: 3:heart: (2 Players)
wmmcl checks, Hero bets $33.90, wmmcl calls $33.90

[b]River:[/b] ($113) J:heart: T:club: Q:club: 3:heart: T:diamond: (2 Players)
wmmcl checks, Hero bets $79.10, wmmcl???

Pot Size: $271.20 ($2 Rake)

PLAYED AGGRO

I felt like playing aggro and did OK I made one very bad call though. I will post my monthly stats as always and also stats for just yesterday.

LIVE GAMES ARE CAKE

Live play is allot easier thats for sure but I still made mistakes that killed my win rate. Overall I ended up $1400 over 24 hours at 2/5 which is an hourly rate of almost $60. I take out three glaring errors I made and my rate increases to $85hr. I was playing very few hands and suspect my VPIP was not over 10% this did not seem to matter to most people at the table however. I found it impossible to get anyone to fold and only bluffed rarely and mostly on the river when they could not call looking for cards. The bet sizing was absurd I will not waste your time describing all the ridiculousness. I met up with a fellow AP player "The1Wizard who was good enough to take advantage of a huge mistake I made netting him around $500 of my money. I am in the land of donks and I am siting here playing with someone who kills me online. Talk about poor game selection.

IPOD UPDATE COMPLETE

I am leaving in 2 hours and will not be updating for a couple days.

PARANOIA

I am going to work on reducing my paranoia, I just need to trust people more. I make calls I justify one way or another and it is killing my game. It sucks to build a stack just to give it back due to some crack pot reason I think up.

FULL RING, MY NEW HOME TILL COACHING

I rocked the full ring games tonight. I decided to play to prepare for Vegas (2 days left) and am glad I did. I found leaks in my preflop hand selection (not all I am sure) and got some post flop practice also. It felt good to be able crush all 8 tables, there was a point where I made some bad decisions due to allot of hands playing out at the same time.

I can not stop thinking about my lessons that should be coming up soon, my soon to be coach is just waiting for a mike. I think I will continue to play full ring till the lessons start as long as I continue to print money. The last week has been a really exciting poker time for me and I am looking really forward to becoming the player I want to be.

THE DONKY PLAY LEVELER

I played good tonight till I make a huge donk move which leveled me for the night. I don't want to talk about it right now.

ANOTHER PROBLEM

I think I am raising to further define my opponents hands to much and losing value or having to fold to reraises. I do this because I can not read a hand to save my life sometimes. I want to know where I stand instead of playing poker. I am going to have to figure out how to fix this without losing a ton of money.

I AM NOT GOD.

I got a little cocky and made some bad calls and raises but overall I am still improving. I calmed down after I got the idea that people can still beat me and got some cash back Going over my PT stats, some big pots that I lose are from being overly aggro at the wrong times. This includes but is not limited to raising myself off of draws. I am also getting it in PF with the worse hand (AK) and will tone that down a bit as well. Overall I think I need to pick my spots better and less frequently to improve my win rate and stop the spew that is my game.

AHA MOMENT

I feel I had an aha moment today, I am reading players better it is winning me some pots. I continue to play only 2 tables as I watch The Wire. I might not be cut out to multi table. I will have to play more tables at some point this month to keep my elite status at AP, I hope that I will play as well as I have been while playing 2 tables. Hopefully I am not just running well and creating bad habits with these "amazing" plays I have been making.

CR FLOP FLOATERS ON THE TURN

I was cr flop floaters on the turn with some success today. It was nice to feel in control of the table, like I was the unpredictable one. I was also playing good ABC poker and making good folds (which is rare). I have only been playing 2 tables at a time because I am addicted to the wire and I just got seasons 2-4. I am almost back to my high point for the month after the rough stretch I had.

UP AND DOWN TO END EVEN. AGAIN.

Exchanged a few PMs with my future coach today and I am excited about starting my lessons. I feel that he will be a good teacher, seeing as how he used to be a teacher. He asked what I felt like paying and I suggested $75 an hour. I am not sure how this comes across to someone that is a successful 5/10 player and only hope that I did not insult him. I asked how he felt about it and he said he would ask around and see what was average in this type of situation. I am slightly worried that he will come back with a high figure like $200 or something. It will really put me to a tough decision. I mean, how much can 1 hour of coaching improve my play? How bout 2? And 10? I would like to get 10hrs or so. I shutter to think how many hours I will have play to make up 2K at 1/2. On the other hand, poker is allot more fun win you beat the hell out of everyone. I would get more hands in if this were the case, and I would be happier on a day to day basis. I think I would be most happy if he came back with an hourly rate that included him getting a % of my winnings over X hands (I did suggest this) I would feel good that I had the confidence of a good player and would be less prone to tilt. I think I will also broach the topic of a bonus once some trust is established. I would like to be able to beat 3/6 for a decent rate and think I will offer 10K to him if he can get me there. It would be only one month of 3/6 earnings at 3.5BB/100. At that point, when the lessons are an obvious success, I would not hesitate to dish out serious coin. As you can see from the length of this, and the late hour of it's entry, I am excited about this.

LAAATE NIGHT SESSION HELP A BIT

Made a buyin at .5/1 when I hit a flush with AQ vs AK.

ELITE VIP STATUS ON AP

I have to play like 20K hands to keep my status on AP. With that status I get the 200K APR points converted to 3K, my rakeback, deposit bonuses, and now the 9% interest. The 9% interest comes with allot of conditions though, here they are.


* Maximum balance eligible is $500,000
* You Must be Elite
* Your average daily balance must be greater than $1000 (balance snap shot taken once per day)
* You may not have any payouts during the calendar month
* You must earn the VIP points needed to maintain your Elite status during the calendar month
* Interest credits to your cash account will be given within the first 7 days after the closing of the previous calendar month
* All issues not covered in the terms and conditions will be decided on by Absolute poker, and all resolutions will be final
* Absolute poker reserves the right to withdraw this program at any time, with 10 days notice
* You may not have any payouts or transfers during the calendar month

OK PLAY

I played OK today. If I had not exhibited some serious FPS I would have had a solid session and recouped most of my losses. As it stands I broke even for today over 900 hands.

I just realized that AP and UB results are not separate in PT, I have no idea why this is but it irritates me.

I will be getting a coach for some serious time, I am deciding between two people that are both very qualified. I am excited about it and plan buy around 10 hours which I expect will cost about 1K. While this is quite a bit I think it will pay for itself so fuck it.

BAD PLAY TODAY

My Dad is in the ER with a blood clot in his lung. I spent the day with him got home and played anyway. I did not play well, in one hand I did not notice that I was 200bb deep and lost two buyins when it was a clear fold.

UB IS SO SOFT

After playing in the game for 1000 hands I believe I can sustain a win rate of at least 20BB/100.

ROUTERS SUCK

I spent sooo long updating my firmware on the old wireless router. One of the bigger pains in my ass of the year. More results to follow.

I CONTINUE TO OWN UB .50/1.00

FUCK YEAH UB

UB is treating me real good, I have not been playing crazy or tilting as well. That was a huge problem for me at UB in the past. Recouping some of my losses feels good and I am back on track for a great month.

FUCK YOU FULL TILT

CAUGHT UP WITH ME

I had a bad run and proceeded to tilt off a buyin or two after that.

I have redeposited at UB now that AP owns them. I have had great experiences with AP customer service and hope that UB will follow suit. The games were very soft with table VPIP's of up to 50%. Looking forward to being able to play on three different sites although 2/3 of my hands will be at AP due to the great bonuses they offer. The crazy bastards even pay me interest on my money now, 9%!!! This is crazy, you cant get 9% anywhere except AP. A big thanks to AP the only site that gives a rats ass about customer service. Long live AP.

PLAYED BETTER THAN USUAL TODAY

Besides one very bad call I could get over all the other errors I made today. I continue to run well and am trying to mix up my play. The bottom line is I am making hands and getting payed, I must maximize now to get through the inevitable dry spell that will come at some point. I posted some hands today and plan on answering posts tomorrow.

I have a Vegas trip planned in a couple weeks and am looking forward to that. Every now and then I get a craving to play a ton of live poker. After, I feel like WTF did I put myself through that for but I look forward to it just the same.

RUNNING WELL IN SEP.

I continue to play OK but am killing it anyway. I think in an effort to get my AF up I am spewing on the turn. I need to remember that folding will have the same effect and that it is an option.

STUCK TO UNSTUCK IN 1 GREAT HAND

When you try and steal with T9o and hit the joint on the beautiful rainbow flop against to donks that manage to call with hands such as K9o it is great. It also helps that AP lets them buy in for 200BB. If it were not for this hand I don't know where I would be tonight, I started with some piss poor play. My turn AF is 1.71 so that is not going great either. Tomorrow is a new day and I plan to kill it.

THE DONK GIVITH

Some very bad play on AP today, most of it by players other than myself. Only got out drawn a couple times and had a good start to the month. My AF is low for the session but over only 450 hands, I will still try to improve this as the month goes on.

A NEW MONTH

This month I am going to work on folding one pair hands to raises and check raises on the turn. I think I am not believing people enough and it kills my win rate. I am also going to continue to answer and post regularly in the forums on CR. I will also be trying to raise my AF, folding more on the turn should help but I will also be betting more overall. As always I will be working on my hand reading skill (it could really use some improvement). Heres to a good month.