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Same Name, Same Game. New Faces, New Places

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  1. #1

    Default Same Name, Same Game. New Faces, New Places

    Praying for Daylight

    tl;dr at end of post

    Ahh FTR, it has been too long. Coming back and reading old blogs and threads, the stickies in the BC, hell even seeing spoon posting strat threads is like coming back home and seeing an old friend.

    Haven't posted or made a blog here in forever, and it feels good to be back. Hoping to see some old friends and make some new ones!

    Been getting the itch that only poker can scratch lately but living in the U.S. means options are limited online. Thankfully, I live 15 minutes from a small cardroom that spreads 1/2 with weak competition.

    This first post I'm just laying the foundation for what I want out of this blog, which is basically a place to hold myself accountable, track results, post hands, vent, and banter with my FTR Bros.

    Starting point:
    -$1,000 or 5BI's

    Initial Goals:
    - Not go busto on the first trip
    - Reaquaint myself with the laws of poker, position is king, don't get fancy, bankroll management is paramount, tilt management even more important early on.
    - Strike up poker related conversations with as many people as possible.

    To kick this off, I'm using $1k from my tax returns to see if I can grind out a nice little live roll. Nearby cardroom only spreads 1/2 regularly so I'm stuck with that until I relocate (more on that in future posts).

    I have a massive resource in FTR, poker friends, and more than a few hours in previous experience to draw on to make this happen. There is no excuse for failure.

    Expect more updates by the end of the first week of March. Should have return back by then and have played a couple sessions.

    Good to be back!!

    tl;dr - Fuck you, read it or gtfo.
  2. #2
    Good luck with the live grind!

    I post some live hands from time to time. Gonna head to the casino this weekend probably. Baudib's blog also focuses on his live escapades.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay-Z
    I'm a couple hands down and I'm tryin' to get back
    I gave the other grip, I lost a flip for five stacks
  3. #3
    bikes's Avatar
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    [03:49pm] [fats] lets see if theres any good failblogs on ftr
    [03:50pm] [fats] lul dranger started

    ?wut
  4. #4
    Soon. Will most likely be headed to local cardroom next Saturday. Then the lulz can begin. Expect lots of terribad hh's.
  5. #5
    Back in the Saddle




    I lied. Refund showed up this morning around 10am. Since I had the day off, and thanks to Bravo Live Poker app telling me there were more games than normal running I figured this would be a good time to dust off the ol' poker skills.

    Took my 15 minute drive to the cardroom and dicked around watching Tiger Woods play some golf while I waited for a spot to open. Since I work at a gas station nearby I bumped into a lot of dealers and floor people that I knew and bs'd with them for a bit. Also bumped into ex-gf with some guy (assuming the new dick to fill the gap). Awkward but w/e. We were both polite, kept it short.

    About 45 minutes of waiting later a new table opens up. Which is about damn time considering there were 12+ names on the list for a half hour. Take a chair in the 5 seat right in front of the dealer and am ready to pwn noobz and stack chips. Looking around at the stacks, most people have ~50-70bbs in front of them. Lame.

    Unfortunately, literally no hands of note that I can think of off the top of my head except one really easy spot vs an aggro 20-something kid when he had 30bbs.

    $5 live straddle, two callers in between, I bump it to $16 in CO with AKo. Aggro kid in BB jams his whopping $65 in and I call. He has AQ, hits the Q (sick beat bro). Give the 'Aw, nh.' and move on.

    Really shitty how card dead I was though. Some 40-ish dude chugging red bulls kept commenting on how I ALWAYS folded my SB "for only $1." Not sure, but pretty positive its -EV to throw that $1 in with J2o and etc even after 4+ limpers. :/ Sucks that this guy pointed it out though, as shortly after I stopped getting 2-6 callers when I raised to $15+ PF lol.

    All in all, very boring night. Double barreled a couple boards with missed overs vs nitty 70+ year olds that were sticky on the flop but wouldn't continue on the turn unless they had TP+. Feel like I played pretty decently with the hands I was dealt, and honestly I'd take a night like this every night since I know good poker isn't necessarily the most exciting poker. After about 5 hours, decided it was time to go as my mind was beginning to wander to checking out really meh looking server girl's asses vs watching my opponents actions.


    Results:
    Bought in for $200, cashed for $251 in about 5 hours.

    I'll call it a good start. Be back in there maybe Sunday as they have a really cheap NL tournament that brings in a decent crowd that plays the cash games afterwards.
    Last edited by dranger7070; 02-28-2014 at 08:34 PM.
  6. #6
    Nice job
    Playing big pots at small stakes.
  7. #7
    bikes's Avatar
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    raise bigger with AK on straddle if you are playing where i think you are playing. liek 25 and expect 4 calls

    ?wut
  8. #8
    Yeah I'm playing where you think I'm playing and agree I should be raising more vs straddle + limpers, just my first time playing in a while and not used to seeing it.

    Taking a night off, for now anyways. Might change my mind later, just not feeling it atm. Went up again last night (Saturday night) around 11pm after getting home from work at noon and sleeping until 8pm. Games were really good. First table I was at had 4 of the 10 guys drinking beers/mixed drinks and obviously just punting off bb's like they didn't give a fuck.

    Couple things that made me lol. 2 of the guys had their gf sitting right behind them. One was pretty good looking, really cute 5'2 110lb blonde with a great ass, the other really trashy looking brunette with a white short skirt on. I'm a sucker for trashy bitches (bikes knows) and this girl was in the perfect spot to keep flashing me upskirt shots. Wouldn't have been surprised if it was on purpose because she eyeballed me every time I looked her way and her boyfriend looked like he was getting ready to go hunting for the yeti. Nice cleavage, meh face.

    Anyways, these guys with the girls there would ALWAYS show their gf's their hand when they had something decent. Just the easiest slam dunk read in the world. Unfortunately, extremely card dead and it's 1/2 and both these guys are sitting on less than $140 all night, no need to make crazy plays, especially since I'm playing underrolled. Got a couple spots to value bet that got looked up by god knows what but nothing very exciting.

    About 2 hours later, move to a new table as the games are dying since its 2am. Get seated next to this awesome late 30's-early 40's black business dude. This guy is just here relaxing, getting away from wife, etc. Me and him get friendly, turns out he's a Cowboys fan, so I have to crack jokes about the Stafford leap to seal the comeback this year. We get a good laugh and keep talking. I pick up a few decent hands at this table, stack the yeti-hunter who was really just an loose-passive fish PF and an aggro fish once the flop hit. Hit TPTK IP vs him and let him bomb away with his 40bb.

    We were 10 handed for the majority of the hour and a half I spent there, unfortunately I got too into talking with the 'Boys fan and literally developed no new reads on anyone. Couple of hands before I decide I'm not paying enough attention and its time to go.

    Yeti-hunter straddles with $80ish behind, I'm in MP1 with AJo. I bump it to 20 and another short stack behind me (around $45-50) ships it. Only read I have is this guy hasn't been involved in a hand that I can remember for the last hour, is mid 20's and wearing earbuds. I didn't take the time to look left to see what everyone else was doing but I would be willing to bet with almost 100% certainty this kid already had this chips in hand and was ready to play this pot. If this was the case, I feel like this should be a turbo muck. As played, I have to call like $27 to win $50+ (straddle + limper). Folds to me, I sigh and call. AK. *surprise*

    Hand #2, I open QQ UTG+1 to 15 after business guy limps. Folds around to a couple retirees in LP who I'm sitting fairly deep with, $400+ easily. Korea vet OTB flats, yeti-hunter flats in the BB with ~$60.

    Flop comes K92r. I check because #1 I don't know shit about retiree, and we're deepish. Turns my hand fairly faceup but #2 I really don't want to see a c/bomb from the short stack aggro fish. It turns my hand faceup, but I'm just in an awkward spot being IP vs the short stack fish and OOP vs the (perceived) nitty bigstack. If i cbet like $30, old man river flats and fish ships it in my face, now I'm being given odds to call, but now I have to play for a dry sidepot vs old man, and will likely have to end up folding later in the hand. This does not seem like a profitable situation to be in.

    Turn is a blank, fish checks, I check. (mistake imo) and old man fires $15 into like $45-50. Yeti calls, I call. Started to get a little lost in the hand here I think. Pretty sure if I check turn, it needs to be a c/f, especially if the kid in between calls. HU it might be a different story. I really feel like I need to fire the turn here for ~$25 to get value from smaller PPs, 9x, and gutshots from the fish that probably won't fold.

    Anyways, I call, river is like an offsuit 8, nothing important. (I really need to start taking notes of hands in my phone.) Fish and I check to old man, who fires $45 into $70, fish turbomucks. I sit there and hmm and haah. Not really thinking about calling, just trying to take the time to replay the hand in my head and narrow down his range. Seems like the sort that is at the Eagle on a regular basis, so we'll cross paths again.

    I don't think he's turning a small PP into a bluff. Guy has been pretty tight since I sat down. I feel like this is KT-AK 100% of the time. Leaning towards KT-KJ since I think he would bet AK almost always on the flop. Checks back because he's an old nit and might think I'm trapping. Once I check it twice, I might as well announce to table I have two black Q's if they are paying attention (I believe he is). Only other hand I believe he can possibly have in his range is 2 of whatever card was on the turn or 88 for the turned or rivered 2 outer. I wait for my bb (one hand later) and rack up and leave.

    So his range would be 22, 88, KT-AK. He's not bluffing. From my huge sample size of 10 hours and some foggy memories of the past playing here, the retired guys are rarely firing multi-street bluffs and definitely not into 2 villains, one of whom is very short and spewy. Once I realize this (took me longer than it should I have) I muck and say nh.


    Felt like I played ok this session, but made some very avoidable mistakes. There is no reason for me to call $15 on the turn in hand #2. I also could have potentially saved myself from punting off 25bbs in hand #1 with AJo in EP if I slow down and look around the table for half a second. I am a live fish still, these things will come with time. My game is also very rusty, the important thing is I take a hard look at my game afterwards and own up to where I messed up a hand. I will continue to improve. A year from now, I hope to be getting ready to take a trip to either Vegas (bankroll allowing) or AC if I'm a little shorter on cash to play 2/5.

    Results:
    Bought in for $200, reloaded for $100 early on cashed for $383. Played for maybe 3-4 hours. Really annoyed at myself for losing $60 more than I needed to my last orbit at the table with those final two hands. Glad I decided to leave.
  9. #9
    bikes's Avatar
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    old white retiree firing over 1/2 on the river? snap muck

    ?wut
  10. #10
    I would cbet the QQ hand like $20-25. You're EP so he likely flats TT/JJ which he's def not folding. He's calling all 9x (9Ts/89s), he's calling JT, QJ, QT. He's calling KJ, KQ (which you block) and AK.

    Worse combos calling: TT,JJ (12), 9Ts/89s/A9s (9), JT (16 - assuming ppl peel offsuit JT), QJ (8 - includes offsuit), QTs (2)
    Total worse = 47
    Better combos calling: KJ (12), KQ (6), AK(12), 99(3), 22(3) = 36 combos

    This also doesn't assume ppl peeling things like AJ/AQ or ATs with bdfd, which they probably are. People are bad!
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay-Z
    I'm a couple hands down and I'm tryin' to get back
    I gave the other grip, I lost a flip for five stacks
  11. #11
    bikes's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by griffey24 View Post
    This also doesn't assume ppl peeling things like AJ/AQ or ATs with bdfd, which they probably are. People are bad!

    DIDNT WAIT 2 HOURS FOR AQ TO FOLD IT!

    lol live people.

    ?wut
  12. #12
    Reason for not cheffing was didn't want to cbet, get called byvold man, then shipped on by aggrofish. Seeing monsters here probably but mehhh. Think its pretty trivial either way. On a short roll atm so I'm just trying to make the super easy value bets and play more passively in higher variance spots. Not what I'd like to do but bankroll handcuffing me in certain aspects. :/
  13. #13
    Oh and if its HU I'm cbetting 100%. And if I was IP would be a different story. Would bet/call vs fish because he played back with less than TP with 30-40bb on multiple occasions.

    Vs old man, bet, check, bet seems in order. Folding to any aggression since unknown
  14. #14
    So have today and tomorrow off work, then work two days, then have Saturday + Sunday off. This happens every other week pretty much due to how the schedule is set up at work. Work 30+ hours a week regardless if I work the weekend or not. Anyways, with my day off today, and stepdad being home sick due to the flu, I didn't really feel like doing much. Pretty much stayed holed up in my room all day playing League and thinking about this live grind to avoid getting his sickness.

    Could have gone to play tonight, and still might later (its only 7pm), I just haven't felt like it, plus Bravo telling me only 1 game of 1/2 going atm. Not surprised since they run a $45 NLHE tournament every Tuesday, so cash games are dead til some fish bust.

    So with all this free time today, I have been thinking about what I want to get out of me diving back into playing it. An idea popped into my head, and I think it would be pretty sweet + give some people (*cough* parents *cough*) some confidence that I'm not just degening my paychecks away like most people do at the casino. I owe roughly $3200 on my car still. Payments run until July 2015 if I make the minimum. I would like to pay if off a year early with winnings from poker.

    So basically, by the time July this year rolls around I'll owe in the neighborhood of $2k-2200 on it still. I have 21 weeks, counting this week until the last week of July. My super stellar math skills tell me that if I average 10 hours a week @ $10/hr, I'll have enough to walk into the bank with a (small) stack of benjamins and pay it off. Would feel very, very nice to do something like this. After paying it off, I'd like to have ~$1500 or more in my BR to keep playing of course.

    Benefits to doing this are obvious:
    - No more car payment = $245 more to add to br/savings or hookers + blow
    - Can lower car insurance rates, currently $191/mo (ugh), could probably knock it down to less than a hundred if I go for PLPD.
    - With more cash going into bankroll and no more stress each month for paying bills, I'll be able to grind up roll faster and take time off work if I feel like making an extended trip to AC or Detroit to play in some bigger games.

    I really think when (not IF) I pay my car off in July, my bankroll and finances in general will start to snowball in a good way. This could lead to me making a move out on my own by next summer to somewhere I can maybe take my shot at doing this full time if I can run good + play good + not blow all my cash on stupid shit. That last bit is still a pretty long way off since I'm a fishcake at poker, but if I didn't have a dream, whats the point in doing this?

    I know this is long winded, and fairly dry content, so I apologize, I just really wanted to get this in text so I can look back on it if my resolve starts to wear down.

    BR $955/$3700 - 26%
  15. #15
    !Luck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dranger7070 View Post
    Oh and if its HU I'm cbetting 100%. And if I was IP would be a different story. Would bet/call vs fish because he played back with less than TP with 30-40bb on multiple occasions.

    Vs old man, bet, check, bet seems in order. Folding to any aggression since unknown
    So what if he ships? It's poker deal with it and play poker. cbet is the way to go.
  16. #16
    !Luck's Avatar
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    Chickens and all that hatching, but whatever.

    Fundamentally, you don't want to destroy an asset that's income producing. The goal is to hit 2/5+
  17. #17
    Dranger, in regards to the $$$:

    I found it very beneficial to separate real world expenses from poker money and profits when I was playing online back in 2010 and 2011. I used my full time job to pay all of my bills and the poker money to move up in stakes and shove in the bank. It was much easier to separate the two because the money was in different spots, but it was very beneficial to my success as a poker player to have the money separate and not think of the poker money in real world dollars.

    Just a piece of advice. I feel old. I miss online poker. I haven't played poker since August. Bah Humbug
  18. #18
    taking money out of your bankroll until you are able to sit in a soft 5/10 game would be worst decision you could make with this operation
  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by !Luck View Post
    Chickens and all that hatching, but whatever.

    Fundamentally, you don't want to destroy an asset that's income producing. The goal is to hit 2/5+

    Quote Originally Posted by Micro2Macro View Post
    taking money out of your bankroll until you are able to sit in a soft 5/10 game would be worst decision you could make with this operation

    Yah +1 to both of these comments. Or at least a soft 2/5 game.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay-Z
    I'm a couple hands down and I'm tryin' to get back
    I gave the other grip, I lost a flip for five stacks

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