New challenges all around.

February is almost over, and a good friend made me realize I was way overdue for an update.

So where am I at? Well I lost my job a few weeks ago. As much as this suck, I still see this as a positive thing overall. Sure this means the money is a bit short, but it was time I left this place. On to new challenges on that way!

So does that mean that I'm playing poker non stop? Not really. I've invested a lot of time into finding a job and more importantly deciding what exactly I want to do long term.

That said, I HAVE been playing a bit more poker. Finally moving up to NL50. Right now I'm mixing NL20 and NL50 tables on Cake since at times it's tough to find lots of good tables. The results are not too bad so far and barring any catastrophic event, I will reach all my monthly goals.

I can't say I'm completely comfortable at NL50 yet but I could not really explain why. The stakes already don't bother me anymore and the play does not seem all that different from NL20 although it IS a bit tighter and more aggressive. Maybe I just have not been getting much cards at NL50 so far... we'll see.

Finally the Montreal Casino is opening a poker room with dealers, chips and cards on March 30th! For those who don't know, so far this casino only had electronic pokertek tables.



Playing on these is not all bad but there are quite a few things that annoy me.

After the novelty factor wears out, they seem more intimidating to casual players.

The first few weeks, the games were really juicy. But after a few months it became full of regs and shortstacking nits. The feeling of the people I talked to is that the lack of a person in place to explain rules and clarify what's happening made it intimidating to a lot of casual folks.

No authority figure at the table

I have seen many regulars show their hands to each other after hands are over or even sometimes while playing. There is no one to enforce rules like "show one show all" and "one player to a hand". THIS I hated.

Call me old fashioned

When I play live, I want to hears chips being shuffled, I want to throw real cards in the muck. If I want to play in front of a screen, I might as well stay home and multitable.

Well that's it for today, I swear I'll try to update this blog more often!

No computer, no recap, no goals...

Normally this would be the time where I reflect on last month's goals and set new goals for myself for the coming month. Well still being without a computer at home, no goals for me right now other than try to squeeze as much poker as I can.

In the last month I've started clearing a bonus on CD poker and took my first shot at NL50. Things went OK at NL50 and as soon as I get a computer at home this is where I will still try to play. I lost a bit of money but nothing worth panicking yet. I think the little I played at NL50, I played pretty well. Hopefully as soon as I can start playing again things will settle. Worst case I'll step back down for a while at NL20.

In the meantime I might go take a look at Montreal's various poker rooms and maybe even go back to the casino... We'll see I guess...

April thoughts and May goals.

A quick recap on april and then I'll move on to my May goals. The goals I had stated for myself for april were :

- Play 12K hands of NLHE online
- Play at least 3 times at the casino
- Post a winning month online
- Keep updating this blog as frequently as I did in March.

Now other than the casino play I reached all 3 of my goals. I played over 12K hands and definitly feel like I could have played more. While I had a pretty big downswing (more on that later on) I still finished the month up which is always good. Means that in the last 6 months I've only had one losing month which I'm pretty proud of. Now the casino play took a backseat after that bad evening I had there at the beginning of april. This was a conscious decision and I'm glad I let that goal go.

Now what's next for May? Well I want to play even more than in April. I want to again post a positive month and, of course, I want to keep that blog updated. So here are my goals for the month of May :

- Play 15,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Take a shot at NL25
- Keep updating this blog.

The most interesting thing that happened though in the last few days is that I had sort of an epiphany. I just realised why my game is pretty swingy. I play my drawing hands VERY aggressively. If I have an open ended straight draw or a flush draw out there I'll go out and fire bets. This means that when I hit my draws I will win bigger pots on average, but it also means that when I don't hit, I kinda "spew".

I am still not sure if it's something I want to change in my game. I think I'll just start by trying to pick my spots better for my semi-bluffs. Anyway, you can call me stupid for just realising this... I'm just glad I did!

A taste of felt

Had a rough, rough night at the casino yesterday. Went there to play 1$/2$ NLHE and came back home with empty pockets. With hindsight I should have left the table after about an hour of play. I was already a loser by then, but the fact that I was not comfortable at the table should have sent me signals that this was not a good time to play there and I could have salvaged something at least. Guess that's part of the learning process, know when to leave a dry game.

The whole evening I had borderline hands. Like I raise from early position with pocket Jacks and get 4 callers (already a bad sign). Flop comes A-K-Q... what am I to do here? There's no way none of the pre-flop callers has hit that flop. So I check and then fold to a bet from a late pos player. A bit later I open raise from early position with pocket fives to get a call from a shortstacking rock. Flop comes 8-8-3 and I figure that if he has a hand like two overcards I could get him to fold by making a continuation bet. I fire for about two thirds of the pot and he re-raises me. After that raise he was basically commited to throw the rest in on the turn. I muck my fives and keep on bleeding my chips away.

Oh well... life goes on. Time to lick my wounds before I go back to that battle.

Casinos! (finally)

Finally I got some casino experience under my belt! About a week ago I went to the Montreal casino on a friday night. Despite finishing the night stuck about 100$, I had a great time and I definitly feel that the week end night games are beatable there. I played 1/2 NLHE and even though I was a bit short and felt a bit pressured by having only 1 bullet and the bigger stakes, I ended up being pretty comfortable. The 2 biggest pots I lost in the night are a suck out I ended up being on the wrong side of and a play I attempted at the wrong time.

First I limp in a pot that has a few limpers before me with pocket 8s. Flop comes and 8 and 2 heart rages. I bet and an asian dude who seems to be a decent player flat calls. Turn is a rag, I bet again and get called again. River was a heart and I made a smallish bet and got called. He flipped over 10-5 of hearts for a rivered flush. He was fully aware that he was playing a trash hand but I guess he was in a gambling mood. Oh well... not much that can be done about this.

Then later on in the evening I pick up pocket 10s in the big blind. A guy who was playing somewhat tight and mostly playing fit or fold on the flop raises from mid position. It's folded to me and I decide that he's the perfect type of players to 3 bet light so I re-raise it. A crazy spew gambler to my left calls my 3 bet and the initial raiser calls. Flop comes Q-Q-5. I figure there's a pretty big chance he was on a hand like A-K or a medium pocket pair. I decide to fire a continuation bet. Crazy-spew-gambler folds and the pre-flop raiser min-raises me. So far I'm completely good with the way I played the hand, but here I should have folded. The guy played strong before the flop and is not scared by my close to pot sized bet here. So I have to give him credit for something like AQ. Instead I ended up calling the min-raise and check fold on the turn when an A came.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, but I can't wait to go back on a friday night and play with these spewtards again! Makes for a high variance game but in the long run I think I can be a big winner in there.

Then last saturday being in Gatineau I went to the casino there. Ended up with a bit of profit again playing 1/2. Not really any interesting hands that comes to my mind though. The one big thing for me though about this sessions is that I was focusing a lot on trying to spot tells on a few players and I ended up having really good reads on 3 players at my table and ended up exploiting these. One guy in particular I always knew when I would be able to push him out of a pot and I managed to win quite a few small pots against him thanks to that.

All in all I loved my casino experiences and definitly feel like I can make good profits there. So you can be sure I will be going back asoften as possible.

The elusive NL25 and a goal recap.

Turns out NL25 is a tough bird to catch for me. Everytime I get close to my goal, I hit a small downswing that delays the inevitable. That said I have to be pretty happy about it because I'm almost there, 4 months ahead of my goal.

As for my other goals, well I've started playing quite a bit of Pot Limit Omaha. I really enjoy learning the subtleties of this game (the fact that the fields are so soft at micro-stakes probably helps making it fun for me.). Playing more Omaha makes even more obvious to me how simple No Limit Hold'Em is.

I wanted to play more live games in 2008 and I have to say I am pretty disappointed in myself so far. The casino opened it's poker room a month ago and I still have not set foot there. I am dealing a few tourneys soon though so that should help finance my first visit to the casino. I also have a day planned at the Gatineau casino the first week end of March.

Overall January was pretty decent. It was really swingy but the overall results were fine. February started even better so far, so I hope to keep it on the right track... and finally move up to that darn elusive NL25!