Grinding it out

Up $600 dollars this weekend with 8 hours of play. Would have been a little more, but sometimes you cant avoid the bad beats, despite being ahead.

Lately, I've really been treating this as a business. My new motto is not to gamble, but make money. So not needlessly putting my stack at risk with hands that I don't know if I'm ahead or not. Most of it comes down to how well I can read the guy.

Example: A guy raised and I was sure he had jacks, so I laid down AQ suited. While another guy called and won the pot with AQ offsuit when he hit a queen on the turn.

Second example: Folded AQ offsuit again to a player who raised. I also put him on a high pair like kings. I would have turned the straight, but that player won when he rivered a full house. Whew~ I would have lost a lot here.

So this is how I've been playing. I figure its not tournament, so I don't have to worry about surviving. I'll choose my spots and play the cards when its on my terms, where I have a edge.

Friday. Had a pretty solid table of players who knew what they were doing. Passive preflop but aggressive on most flop. Out of the 9 players, about 5 of them love to bet on every street, no matter their cards. So, I played tight for about a half a hour and tried to see flops as cheaply as possible with hands I like.

Lost my first buy-in to someone who raised high on his draw. I pushed and he called. Hit his straight on the turn. Urg! Brought back in and doubled up on my first hand.

Most of my winnings came from a big stack player who was aggressive not only with his cards, but with his mouth. He so love bad-mouthing plays and the dealers. When I first sat down, he was constantly talking, until I started busting him up for about $400. It wasn't too long that he put me on tilt with his mouth.

So I table changed.

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Saturday: Strolled in around 6pm and brought in for only $60. Left at around 8:30pm with $420. Not too bad. Pretty much played solid and felt the table up to identify players. Who was aggressive? Who was passive and who was the fish?

The biggest win came from this hand. A raised from a UTG player to $12 and a call. I'm in the big blind with aces and raised to $40. I get two callers. Flop comes out A 3 5 with two hearts. I pause with for a bit with my set of aces and trusted my gut that if I checked, he will bet thinking I didn't like the ace. My trap worked and he bets out $75. After a fold, I push for $160 total. He insta-called and mucks after I show him my set.

It wasn't long that the table got a whole lot of new faces. I was way too tired to try to identify these new guys, so I left, not wanting to lose what I won.

Rack Attack!

Won the rack attack tonight! Second time at lucky chances. Was lucky enough to hit a set of deuces on the river.

Tonight, had a stack of $300 after 3 hrs of play. Two bad beats and I lost it all. Later a buddy from work called me and asked me to pick him up to play at lucky chances also. So, after I came back, he staked me for $100 and asked for 20% of my winnings. Haha! Just like Kanish on Rounders.

I made sure he didn't regret that stake. Won a total of $420 for the night. After returning the investment and profit, I pocketed about $240 for the night.

Labor Day Tourney

Lucky Chances Tournament: $65 buy in with one rebuy at $50.

I wish I had more time to play these tournaments, because they are so fun. After you buy in, there's no need to worry about losing more cash and the competitive nature takes over. The feeling of winning a hand or outplaying someone is a great feeling.

Onto the tournament itself. Let me comment on the tournaments at LC. While they are fun, the blind structures are horrible. You start with 1500 chips with blinds at 25/50. Which only gives you 30 big blinds...and rebuy with 2500 chips which is just 50 big blinds, assuming you lose in the first levels. So, you can certainly expect to be all-in anytime you put a single chip into the pot.

I knew this from experience, so I had to really get in there and gamble early on. Raising with any decent hands I love that range from connectors to big pairs. Occasionally limping in with small pairs, hoping to catch and trap with them. The main reason you want to raise is based on small ball style...It lets you enter pots cheaply in a way, and if you are re-raised. You can narrow someone's hand better and hope to trap him.

So, I lost alot of chips early on by having one of those hands over hands. I had a straight to the King and guy next to me gets the straight to the ace. I'm so glad I small-balled it and only bet for value.

My all-in hand before my rebuy was pocket 5's which got out flopped by someone with Q8. Urg!

After rebuy, I bet, reraised any flush draws and always hit. This tournament, the flushes really help push me into a good chip position. I flop open ended straight royal flush draws 3 times in the tourney and while I never hit the royal flush, I always did hit the flush card.

I made it right up to the second break and had AK and raised. Everyone else had gotten up to take a break, but the big blind was contemplating a call...He finally called and the flop came a Ace. He checks and I bet out. He re-raised me all-in and I pretty much insta-called. He shows AJ.

The turn came a J. End of story.

I really hate it when I'm playing so well, but to end it with a bad beat.

If you are going to play tight, make sure its a secret

played two sessions of spread hold em and been up $140 in both. Buying in only $60 bucks. Still doesn't cover some of the losses I went thru earlier, but its a start. I've been learning to grind it out and make money by putting it in there with the best hand. I'm basically re-building my bankroll before I start moving up.

Tonight's session was interested...and oddly enough I had the same seat two different nights in a row. Sat down and right off the bat, I had some great starting hands and opt to limp in. Missed the board several times and ended up folding on the flop, but had a good feel of how the table was playing, which was passive poker, except with a few guys who bet big with their hands. Easy read and easy exploitable...but also they were some very good players laying down monsters face up.

I pretty much got paid off on my big hands and scooped my fair share of small pots. Floped a bunch of nut straight and got paid off. Hit Quads and got paid off and hit sets that got paid off. its sweet to flop the best hand and finally just coming up with different ways to play them.

Two guys almost put me on tilt and ruined my game for about 30 minutes. And both of them were from seat 1. weird. Instead of playing like a donk, I chose to sit back and relax so I could calm down.

The first guy got mad when I said something like "same hand" and folded. He was like, "You cant do that!!" even though I never showed that hand, so he wouldn't even know what those cards were. So for a couple hands, I tried to tilt him by going "same hand" when folding.

After he busted out, another player sat down. I've played with him before. He likes to talk out loud a lot when trying to put you on a hand. We finally tango in one hand with a board of K K Q. I bet out 12 and get called by him. On the turn, I bet $25 and he stares me down for about a minute. I take a look at him and raise my eyebrows. He talks trying to range my hand. He says stuff like "QJ?" and then finally mucks his AQ face up. I show my AK and say that I knew he just had a Queen. He actually gets mad. Saying to me "why didn't you rolled me and check the turn if you knew I had a queen" I was like, cause I know you wouldn't put me on a king...and he starts yelling out, "what else could you have, I did know which was why I folded. "

I finally just said whatever and collected my pot. Then I announced I wasn't going to show anymore cards, if all I'm going to get is bs talk against me.

Soon enough, the table got really short handed and I decided to leave.

setting up the table

Strolled into LC last night and decided to play tight and limp in a lot of pots with big hands. 

The reason is because I had a table of a super aggressor and two gamblers looking for a chance to stick it in. So I really had to have a good hand if I wanted to be in any pots with them.

Having the super aggressor really changed the game, which was a curse and blessing for me. I couldn't limp in with too many hands that I like, but the good end of it was I always knew what people had by reading the way they play their hands. Since, they will usually only call those raises with a decent hand. 

He doubled me up each time with my Kings and aces. But, I lost some back to him when it went two pair over two pair.

I decided to follow some advice I read in a book about chatting the table up and giving a bad player props for being lucky and saying good hand and stuff. It was pretty cool, it allowed me to relax and the table had a good vibe where there playing too serious and took the bad beats lightly. The advice was "a laughing happy table is more willingly to give up cash than a table full of serious players".

Example: there was a guy who loved playing 10 8 no matter what the raise was. He won some huge pots with that hand and I would say how cool it was that hand always won him pots. Well, he went into a pot with me holding that hand and lost big. Yet, he took it lightly since I gave him so much props for it earlier.

I swear I must have spend a hour setting up this table, where I could manipulate the pot and catch free cards since I was "such a nice guy". I got paid off big on my aces, kings and jacks.

The nice guy act worked so well that when I was holding pocket jacks on a board of A K Q J 2. A guy before me goes all-in and I was thinking to lay my hand down, thinking he had a straight. I asked him if he had a "10" and he said he had "two pair" then I told him I could beat 2 pair and he said I should call. So I did and won with my set. I felt so bad afterwards, that I gave him back half his all-in bet.

Soon, I knew I was tired when I put in a 25 dollar bet into a board of K 2 4 9 8. Thinking I had the King, but I looked down and saw QJ of hearts. Damn it! So I decided to leave after that and because it was 4am. 

Satellite Tourney

I didn't have much experience playing in satellite tourneys at lucky chances, but really wanted to play this one since the prize was entry into a 100k first prize tourney that was 1k buy-in. The satellite buy-in was $140 and it was 10-handed.

Once when I sat down, I notice there wasn't a lot of chips on the table. Then when I received my chips, I counted that there was only 25 chips and they said there was no chip value. The blinds would start at 1/2. Right away, I was thinking "aw man, this is basically an all-in game" then it reminded me how I started off in poker playing this way in home games when we played with 50 chips each. Ah, the memories. So, I was hoping that experience would really help me out in playing this game. I was little blind for the first hand.

First hand, under the gun raises to 6 chips. Folded all the way around to button who calls 6. I call 6 with J3 of hearts and big blind folds. Flop comes out J 6 3. I push all in with my two pair and everyone folds. Gain 20 chips.

Since this was a very low stack tourney, meaning you can pretty much count on a "all-in" on every hand, people were choosing their spots and pushing in with A high or any pocket pair.

I doubled again when someone under the gun pushes and gets folded to me in the little blind and I'm holding A 9 suited. Usually, I'll fold, but since this is a winner take all, I opt to gamble against his pocket 5's. I hit two pair and send him home.

Down to the last 5 players and the blinds were extremely high at 8/16. So there was a lot of blind stealing involved and all in preflops until the last 4 players. I was left with the shortest stack, which was about two big blinds left. Had to gamble with any two cards and actually hit. Soon, I had come back to chip leader with 120 chips and down to 3 players.

Stacks were me at 120, the two others at 90 and 30. On the first hand of us at 3 players, I have KQ in the button. Blinds at 16/32 I decided to push all in to try to steal the blinds. Little blind calls me with A 6 suited and flops the Ace. Major hit! I'm down to 30 chips and big blind.

I bust out in 3rd place and get my prize money back. Urg! so close....that one major mistake cost me.

6 - handed Sit & Go tourneys

I've been playing on Full Tilt lately on the low buy in 6-handed tourney's and I've been doing very well in them. I think I've played in at least 10 of them and placed in 1st or 2nd in 8 of them.

I was mostly practicing a tight small ball strategy. I usually like getting in a lot of flops when the blinds are low, but instead opt to wait out other player mistakes, such as limping in with big hands and if they raise, I'll go over the top and they will push all in.

Other times are I'll check my hand all the way thru with a mediocre hand, but thinking its the best hand and calling all the bets. I've caught several bluffs attempted at me. Its a great feeling to see someone flip over AK high to my pair of 3's. lol.