Terrific home game!

Last night was a blast! We played lots of Omaha, a bit of Razz some 7 card stud and, of course, LOTS of Hold'Em. I was hit by the deck harder than I've ever been. Managed to triple up my buy in. Guess that's why I had so much fun! We also had a record 6 people. Hopefully this is sign of things to come.

I won a sit & go last Sunday which felt good. I've had mixed results in Sit & Gos and tourneys lately so I'm really glad about that one. Especially since I had to fight for it. Was a really fun game. (once again I guess winning it all has something to do with me enjoying it so much!)

Here's a hand I am still not too sure I like the way I played. We're 3 handed and I'm the big blind. Blinds are 50/100 and I'm the chip leader with about 5500 chips. The button folds and the small blind raises it to 300. Looking at 7d 7c I call.

Flop comes Kd 7h 3h. The small blind checks. There I was putting him on something like AK, KQ or just a weak K so I was pretty convinced I had the better hand. The flush draw did not bother me that much I guess so I wanted to give him a chance to improve his hand so I checked. That's actually the part of the hand I'm not too sure about. Sure, I most likely have the best hand at that point, but if he's on a flush draw a free card could be dangerous for me.

Anyway, I checked and the turn came Qd which I was pretty happy about since if he was on a heart flush he missed it and if he had KQ well then there's no way he's going to fold this. He bets 300 into the 600 pot, I raised it to 900 and he called.

River came Ac, he checked, I fired 1200 and he raised all it for about 400 more. I called and he turned over JT for a nut straight. How could I be stupid enough to not even think about that possible hand! Of course I did not give him the proper odds to call on the turn, but still, I hate the fact that I completely missed the fact that there was a possible straight draw on the board!
Anyway, I managed to get those chips back and win it but I hate the way I missed an obvious possible hand.

I went to play raquetball with Alex tonight. Looks like he'll need to give me good odds if he wants us to bet on this lol! Played 2 games against him and lost them 11-6 and 11-2 if I remember correctly. Give me a few weeks though and this will turn around!

Raquetball baby!

I have not played much poker this week end. Been playing a lot of raquetball. God I love that game! I am supposed to go play again with Alex on Wednesday, I smell some prop bets coming!

Played a bit of hold'em and a bit of pot limit Omaha this week end. As is usual lately I lose at HE and win at PLO. That said, I'm starting to itch to play a good Hold'Em session soon, so I expect I'll try to find some time this week to get a good, focused session.

For the next few week ends I won't have much time to play, believe it or not I have lobster parties on the next 3 week ends! I like lobster but can't say I like it THAT much!!

Alex and myself are playing with the idea of organizing a fund raiser poker tourney with the office, will most likely do our pitch this week. Doubt I'd play in that event, most likely I'd just deal and do floor.

I'm also hoping the home game takes off again this week. I want to introduce a bit more Omaha in there!

Hold'Em slump

I don't know if it's playing Omaha, but my Hold'Em game is way off right now. Funny thing is, I'm running really good at Omaha, making money constantly in the penny games. I know I'm just going through one of my slumps with hold'em where I have problems focusing, which I need to play my game well.

Anyway right now I'm having a lot of fun playing Omaha. I really enjoy discovering different types of poker. Right now I'm only playing Omaha high, but I will most likely give Hi/Lo a shot too at some point. I just need to read a bit on that game first.

My bankroll is doing ok, it's basically staying afloat right now. I make money at Omaha and then lose it at hold'em or buying in sit & gos.

Sit & Go, Home game & Omaha

Well I have not posted here in... well... way too long.

My cash game has been pretty good lately. I have way more winning sessions than losing which is pretty much a good sign that I'm back on track. When I put myself into it and focus on my game I usually have pretty good reads on my opponents. Been playing only 0.05/0.10 lately and I see no reasons to step down.

I've also started doing sit & gos again. Been having so-so results. Made money in a few of them. That said I tend to play a bit too loose at times. Again, when I play focused I do well, when I'm not putting my mind completely at it, I have mixed results. That said, I really enjoy single table SnG and will most likely do more of these.

The home game has been hit and miss lately. I've gone back to having 2 winning sessions in a row, but we are not really able to have the game every week. Hopefully we get it going on a regular basis but with summer coming I'm kinda sceptical.

I've started playing a bit more pot limit Omaha on pokerstars. Now, I'm far from being a pot limit Omaha expert, but for some reasons I seem to do really well in it so far. I plan on installing the Omaha version of pokertracker to keep track of my results and have a better idea of how I'm doing. I don't know if it's because the field is so weak in the penny games on pstars, but I find that just by playing really tight I end up making money everytime I play.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. I need to get back to posting more often in here.

Taking a break from tournaments

Just a quick entry before going to bed.

Tonight went well, made about 9$ of profits, then went and played a bit of 0.01/0.02 Pot Limit Omaha for fun.

Decided to focus on cash games for a while. At around 40$ I don't feel comfortable doing 5$ Sit & Gos so I decided to grind my bankroll up a bit. Might sneak a 1$ multi table SnG or 2 in there but I want to mostly play in cash games for the rest of the week. Anyway I figure I need about 250$ to climb up to the next cash game stake.

Grinding it out

Well I've been playing in cash games a bit tonight and I've got pretty good results. Out of 3 average length session I got 2 winning session and 1 losing one. The way the losing session was going I'm sure I could have brought it back to break even. So it seems that I've managed to refocus and get back on track.

Will leave that post at that since my sit & go is about to start. I will post again later tonight about our (lack of) home game tonight and other stuff.

Guess I talked too soon...

Well turns out about an hour after posting my last message, I am playing on a 0.02/0.05 table and loose almost all of my buy in.

At first look it seems like I suffered a few bad beats, will have to review that to see how well/bad I played. Talk about a downer though.

That said, the feeling of that bad session is not so bad, I feel I'm getting back on track and playing better than I was lately.

Now time to refocus and get ready for tomorrow's game!

Mixed results, weekly home game and tourneys

Well it's been a while since I posted here so I'm way overdue and have quite a bit of mixed feelings so not too sure how this entry will turn out.

Lately my cash game results have been horrible, either on pokerstars or in our weekly homegame (which has started to pick up and is going pretty well so far). Basically I suffer from Callingstationitisme. I play very undisciplined, don't pay much attention and make calls I know better than to make. THANK GOD tonight I had a pretty good session. Ended up making about 3$ profits in 0.05/0.10 (which I've pretty much permanently switched to now. I feel there's more poker and less random coin flipping in there so I just enjoy it more). Anyway, while I was playing everything was falling into place, I had a pretty good read on a few people at the table, was able to stay focused and act according to my instincts and reads. Once I started losing focus I went to do a multi-table sit & go which went, expectedly, pretty quick lol.

Anyway, that session is a big positive for me, showing me I can still play, I'm not completely fucked and that I just need to focus on it and take it more seriously when I am playing.

Last friday night I had my first money finish on a tourney on PokerStars. Finished 68th out of 1663 people. Pretty happy about it. It all went pretty well except at some point I ended up focusing way too much on the different money bracket and trying to move up in it. That got me to playing way too tight and just anteing myself out. I ended up with about 21,000 chips with the blinds at 1000/2000 with an 100 ante. I look up at Kh Jh from late position (one seat on the right of the cut off to be more accurate). Some guy from middle position makes it 16,000 to go. At that point in the tourney and with the chips I have relative to the blinds there's no way I'm folding KJ suited. Even though it's a hand that can easily be dominated I figure that I have to start taking chances pretty soon anyway since I basically lose 3900 chips per orbit and any standard raise I want to make pretty much commits me to the pot. So anyway, instead of just calling his raise and being left with a smallish 5,000 chips and being pot commited anyway I just push all in right there. He calls with pocket queens. Board doesn't help me in anyway and I hit the rail, still happy that I made some profit on that tourney.

So tomorrow is our home game. Last 2 weeks I went totally broke both times, I have to do better tomorrow. First step I'll take towards that is to have less beers lol.

I'll try posting again here more frequently in the next few weeks.

Oh, btw, next sunday I have my dealer's course and I'm thrilled about this! Will post more about this once it's done!