Random Thoughts 2

Been busy lately with helping the soon to be ex find a place. Things are good between us, but she is dragging her feet on this a bit, and I am ready to move on.

My current band is going well, learning a ton of new material and we have been on the last few gigs. Our new back up singer is quickly becoming our new co-singer. Very good voice.

Still dragging my feet on a new hard rock band. I have two great guitarists available to me. Need to find a drummer or singer who has a place we can practice at. The practice space issue is the big problem right now. That and the fact that I am the most unorganized person around. Trying to cooridinate peoples schedules to get together and jam is not my thing. I am much more the tell me were I have to go and I will be there type.

The Blogfather listed a link to me. I read him all the time, and that was a pleasant surprise.

I have played horrible poker the last week. I took the weekend off to figure out why I suck. One thing I have realized, I am not good enough to make big laydowns, that cost me a bit o dough this past week.

Why isnt "The Hammer" called "The Treetop". Just read about that in "The Book Of Bluffs". That is one of the greatest bluffs of all thime.

Now that we know that Justinwhoeverthehellheis got busted for multiple accounts on Party and PokerStars, it makes me wonder how many others are out there.

Playing a $30 SnG on Stars right now. Down to 6 players, I have 1840 and in 3rd. We'll see what happens.

Just busted a guy with wired 7's holding up.

BTW, is wired pair redundent? Shouldnt it be wired 7's and not a wired pair of 7's. Drives me crazy every time Mr. Van Patten says that.

The Jackass to my immediate right in the SnG keeps raising all in.

I keep hitting mid pairs on the flop, I wonder if I play them too strong sometimes. For that matter, I wonder if I play them too weak sometimes as well. My game is officially in the toliet right now.

I play too many hands out of position. I get those marginal hands in early position after being card dead for some time and I just cant resist. Its like they are singing to me.

I just noticed, I never just out and out bluff, I always have outs. But, I semi-bluff alot.

In second place, 3450 in chips, 5 left.

Bubble time, just busted a guy when my wired 6's held up to his Ac 3c. 4420 in chips, 4 left, still second place.

Chip leader is now going all in on me when its my bb. Bastard!

Just lost a race with the short stack. My AKo failed to improve and his wired 5's held up. Down to 3445, still in second and we are still on the bubble. I have had many bubble finishes this week, hopefully I can breakthrough that streak.

Jesus, the blinds are up too 200/400 with an ante and we are still on the bubble, this sucks.

I just busted out the short stack. I sucked out when a fourth heart fell on the river.

Irony, just got knocked out in third when the chip leader sucked out a heart on the river to win the race with my wired 8's. Bastard!

No Limit To Fun

All I really play is No Limit Hold 'Em. I have noticed a slight boredom setting in. I play Stud, Omaha and O8 occassionaly, but not really because I like those games, its just good to keep up to speed incase you end up in a mixed game. I was looking for something to get the juices going again, I think I found it.

For the hell of it I jumped into a 3/6 limit game. I had a blast!

No Limit strategy can get old after awhile. Have a good hand, bet high enough to not allow your opponents to get the correct odds to go for their draws. Have a draw, bet high enough to try and get people out of the pot. Have an absolute monster? Slowplay to extract as much as possible. Bluffing was about the only thing that hasnt gotten a little stale to me.

The strategy in Limit is so different. You are not going to bet people out of the pot often. The really intriguing thing to me in Limit is the pot odds. In No Limit you can control the pot odds easily. Not the case in Limit. If you bet strong and heavy from preflop on, you are giving people the correct odds to call when you get to the latter streets. It adds a whole new element to gameplay for me.

No Limit pots are usually pretty small most of the time, and then every once in a while you see an absolutely huge pot. In Limit, the average pot size is much larger. Larger pots equals more excitement to me.

What got me thinking of playing limit was something the Poker Princess posted. She mentioned that you hear that most pro's play No Limit tournaments and Limit cash games. That got me to thinking that I might need to brush up on my limit game. Am I glad I did.

Every night I now play one or two No Limit Tourneys or SnG's, and then some Limit ring games. It has broken up the monotony of poker for me, and as a side effect, I think it will make my poker game in general much sharper. I have read in books that the pros recommend playing various types of poker to improve you game. Hmm, maybe they are onto something there.

Some of you may only play Limit and are getting a bit bored, well then try No Limit, Omaha or Stud. Variety is the spice of life, and poker is no different.

A big smack of reality

While things are going well on my front, some fucking weird thing is going on in bloggerdom. Bad news, after bad news, after bad news. If you do not know of what I speak, lets just say that I know of 4 bloggers who have had terrible events happen in the past week or so.
After reading about there lives, it makes you realize that bad days at the table mean absolutely nothing. My thoughts and well wishes go out to all.

YES!

Well, I think that last post really helped. Look at this pretty picture.








Just goes to show you what a little whining can do.

Its My Blog And I'll Cry If I Want To

My game is in the toliet! The hands I am putting people on are wrong, I underplay winning hands and overplay losing hands. That my friends, is a recipe for bankroll disaster. My $1000 bankroll is down to $350 with no signs of the freefall ending anytime soon.

I really have no point to this post except to whine and cry like a baby. The poker gods can be very cruel. I wont go into details about bad beats, but; there have been those as well. I was playing one of the 180 SnG's at Pokerstars last night. With 30 people left I was 5th in chips. Top 18 get paid, I go out in 20th.

I believe I have lost 4 of the last 5 times I have had pocket Aces. Seems statistically impossible, but it has happened. The one time I didnt lose with them, I got no action at all, just the picked up the blinds.

My tilt-o-meter is off the charts right now. I have the stupid gamblers disease. I want to win back all of my losses at once. I had lost about $300 on Saturday, so what do I do? I play a SnG at a level I have never played before, just to try and win a decent amount back. So I play a $100 SnG and go out in 7th. Well played sir! I know that is not the way to go about this, but it just knaws at you when you win say $50 and know that you still have about $650 in losses for the weekend. I want that big score damn it! I want healthy bankroll again.

Oh, btw, it doesnt help to leave money on the table. I actually came in 2nd in 2 SnG's over the weekend. 2nd! Doesnt sound so bad, except I had the chip lead going into heads up on both occasions. My heads up game has taken a dump as well. Here is what happens, I push and push and push because I have the chip lead and its heads up so you should be aggressive. Well what happens is my opponent will get tired of this and start going all in every time. I of course pick the wrong times to call the all-ins and viola, welcome to 2nd and I hope you dont miss that $90 difference.

Ok, thats about it for today. Thanks for reading my self pity post.

A Group Blog

Bill Rinni, came up with an idea for group blogging. It sounds good to me, and his subject for the first group blog is something I have a problem with, so I decided to tackle it.

"Expect nothing from a hand. Play each street based on the information at hand."

How often do you find yourself with a good starting hand and refuse to believe you are beat? For myself, more often than I would like to admit. Now, part of it is the fact that I play aggressively and am not afraid to bluff someone off a hand. Why is that a problem? Because I often think people are doing the same thing to me, because thats what I would do, when in reality, they have me beat.

If I can remember that not all players play like me, then I might have a chance to really embrace this concept. Until then I will continue to cost myself money.

Is there any worse feeling than having pocket Kings, building up a big pot and then seeing the Ace on the turn? At this point I know that someone probably has an Ace, however; I will continue to bet and reraise even if the information the other players are giving me tells me not too. Why? Because if I were in there position and didnt have an Ace, I would bet it anyway to scare off someone who has pocket K's or Q's. It all goes back to realizing that not everyone plays and bluffs like me. I need to learn to laydown these hands.


When you are in game and someone at the table has been getting under your skin, these are the hardest opponents to laydown a premium starting hand to. Ego! I know for a fact, a lot of my leaks in my game are do to ego. However; this is a double edged sword. I feel that if my ego and confidence were higher I wouldnt have these problems. If I truly felt that I was the best player at the table, then I should have no problem laying these down, because I can outplay the others when I have less than premium hands. So to me, I think I play these so poorly because in my heart of hearts I dont believe I am as good as I try to convince myself I am.

This has been really interesting to me, and I am going to try and keep this in mind. I almost always know when I am beat, but will push because of ego. If I can become truly confident in my game, I should be able to follow the advice of the above quote.