The Weekly Journals of DavidRoss

Week 31

Maybe I just need to stop being surprised by the day to day swings of shorthanded poker. Last week I reported that I thought it was the craziest week I have ever had. Now this week comes along and I have not only the biggest one day loss I’ve ever had, but I also had the 2 biggest one day wins I’ve ever had. The week started off very well with a $330 win on Sunday night, and a $460 win on Monday afternoon. And just like last week, Monday night was a disaster. Do you remember the Boom Town Rats song “I don’t like Mondays”? I think it will become my anthem. I lost $1,650 in 5 hours on Monday night. I ran into quads 6 times during that stretch, of course always when I had a hand myself. Then before I had a chance to contemplate suicide, Tuesday came along and turned my world right side up. I’ve been wondering if I’d ever have a day like this shorthanded, where everything went right all day. I won $2,417 in a single day. It was unbelievable. I won 45% of the hands where I saw the flop for the entire day. Wednesday was a bit of a comedown, I gave back $374, but then got red hot again on Thursday for a $1,352 win that was the 2nd biggest win I’ve ever had. I won another $261 on Friday and in a very short session on Saturday night I won another $217 for a fantastic weekly total of $3,015.

So after 5 weeks of shorthanded play I’ve made $8,600, around 1,700 per week. Clearly this is an improvement over the full table games and I will continue to play them. If I throw out the first week where I made only $600 the average is even more significant. I feel like my game improved even more this week, especially in the area of getting away from hands where it seemed clear I was beat. I am also getting in more check-raises against the hyper-aggressive’s who will auto-bet anytime it is checked to them. I am learning not to play sheriff every time someone tries to steal every pot. Once a day I play with someone who will 3 bet every time I raise from the button or SB. I really struggled with these guys a few weeks ago, and I’m still not comfortable with them now. Clearly I folded too much at the beginning, then went too far the other way calling down with everything. What helped me most in these situations was the observation that no matter what my results against the guy were, they always seemed to go broke before leaving the table. Whether I caught them or not, you can’t keep raising and capping with 96o and make money. So if my original raise contains an Ace, I will call these guys down unimproved and if I raised with a K high or Q high hand I will only stick around if I make a pair or better. That seems to be the dividing line I’ve come up with.

Because of the number of players who will 3 bet any SB raise, I have tightened up considerably from that position. I will still steal liberally from the button, because of the positional advantage, but It is very uncomfortable to be in the SB with K7 on a flop of AKx against someone who 3 bet you pre-flop. If nothing else, this 5 weeks of shorthanded play has really driven home just how important position really is.

Another adjustment I have made is checking an unimproved hand more often from the button. Lets say I raise a limper with AQ from the button and the BB plays too. The flop comes K x x. It is checked to me and I check too. 3 handed I have always bet a flop like this trying to win it right there. What I have discovered though is that shorthanded people are very deceptive, and assume you are too. Right away they assume you are slowplaying when you check a hand with an A or K on the flop, so unless they have a big hand themselves, and I mean top pair or better, they won’t bet the turn either. Now a turn bet will win the pot unless I am beat, and if I am called, I just check behind on the river. Betting the flop doesn’t achieve the same purpose because a lot of guys will take one off for the small bet price, and a check by me on the turn will induce some river bluffs.

No news from Seattle regarding the contract. Since some of the work they wanted done was year-end related I can safely assume I set my price too high for them. Oh well, I still think it was the correct thing to do. If I had low-balled the price I would have had a tough decision to make if they offered it to me. This way it was an easy decision. If it’s offered I take it because it’s too good to pass up, if not, we continue to play every day.

I only played for a hour on Saturday night, maybe not even that long. I wanted the 3K week badly, and I needed $200 to make it. My daughter was in a school production of the Wiz, and we attended the final performance on Saturday night. I was dog-tired all day Saturday. I never got my usual nap in because the Florida-Florida State game was too good (I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a better game to be honest). So it was after 11:00 before I got everyone to bed and finally sat down to play. I won around $150 in a half hour before my daughter called from the school to say she needed a ride home and when I came back I won another $60 in 2 hands. I decided right then to post my 3K week and get some sleep. I slept for 7 ½ consecutive hours for the first time in 2 or 3 months. It felt great. I really need to think about doing this more often on Saturday nights. I just can’t find the time to go back to bed on the weekends the way I can during the week.

The play was fun, but to be honest was the poorest of the 5 or 6 productions we have seen this group perform. There are some very talented kids in the group, and the band and the dancing were superb. But there is just something wrong with a group of suburban semi-privileged white kids calling each other jive-turkeys and trying to sound like Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. The other problem is that while the school has 5 or 6 very talented female singers, there really aren’t very many boys who can match them, and 3 of the 4 main characters are male. However, as disappointed as I am with my daughters school performance, I admire the effort she puts into these productions. As well as appearing onstage, she was part for the costume crew and the advertising team. Hopefully that’s a sign that she will put forth the effort in things she deems important. On top of that the elementary school report cards came home this week and my two younger children got superlative reports. Those two have practically raised themselves since we were too busy to lavish the attention on them that the older 2 kids got. Shows how important the parental attention at an early age is. Maybe I should write a book called “Ignoring your kids to better grades”.

We are going to Montreal for Christmas, something we do most years. I picked a good week to earn some extra money as my wife has begun Christmas shopping already. November’s affiliate money is also earmarked for Christmas. We will probably stay for a week and I’m a little concerned about getting some play in. My sister in-laws computer is not well suited to heavy volumes of play. Her monitor will not handle multiple screens very well so I will probably only play 2 tables, and I certainly won’t be able to play the volume of hours either. I need to bank some wins before that so let’s hope for a good month leading up to that.

I hate these hands. I get a free play in the BB with Kc 7c. 4 of us see the flop of Ks 9c 9h. I bet out and I get 1 call from the button. Already I don’t like it. There aren’t many hands other than small pocket pairs I can beat, and there are no draws on the board. But I don’t know this guy at all. The turn is a 6d and I bet again. He calls again. Yuck. River is a 3d, and now I check and he bets. If I was prepared to check-fold, I think I should have done it on the turn, so I called. He had a 9. I really think checking the turn is the way to go. I can even call the turn bet, and fold to a river bet, because a small pocket pair would probably check the river behind me.

You gotta love this. I have AKo UTG and I raise. EP cold call and the SB calls too. 3 of us see the flop. Flop is J J A. I bet and only EP calls me. Turn is another J. I bet again and now he raises me. I just call, I’m still gun shy from all those quads. River brings the case J and I bet. I wasn’t really trying to be cute, when I saw the 4th J I knew I couldn’t be beat, but I realized right away that we were both playing the board. The other guy hesitates and types in “What was the point of that bet?”, “Like I’ll fold now”. Then he folded!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my. I don’t know what happened, if he disconnected or hit the wrong button, but the entire table got a lot of laughs out of it. Except of course for my buddy, who left without saying another word.

Have a good week everyone.

Week 32

Poker is a fickle game. At 10:00 PM last night I was in a position to post my biggest week ever. Unfortunately I played until 3:00 AM, and a great week turned into simply a good week. I started with a fantastic Sunday night winning $900. Monday was a struggle (again) but I did manage a small win of $175 in 8 hours of play. Tuesday was a shortened day due to curling, but I still managed my 6th straight win, this time for $950. Clearly I was running good (pardon my English). As well as I have been doing for the last 4 weeks I have never felt like I was on a rush, but for the last week I have certainly been getting better than average cards. I have been posting big wins in shorter than normal sessions. I have been playing only 2 hours in the afternoons instead of 3, and usually 4 or 5 hours at night instead of 6 or 7. Wednesday was a dose of reality as I lost $350, but Thursday was a monster day, with a $1,150 win. Friday was my older son’s 13th birthday, and the kids had the day off from school. I was only able to play for less than an hour in the afternoon, and not at all in the evening. I lost $9 in my hour of play. Then last night I started well and was up around $300 quickly, giving me a $3,200 week, but then the bad streak hit. KK vs AA, QQ vs KK. I started sinking and never was able to bounce back. I ended up down $650 for the night, giving me a $2,150 week. Not bad but a big disappointment from a few hours earlier.

I received an e-mail from the people in Seattle asking what days I was available to work in the next 2 weeks, so I told them anytime, but I didn’t hear back from them after that. It certainly seems like they want me to come out once at least. Then I had a head hunter call me on Wednesday about 2 possible jobs nearby. December is usually a bad month to look for work so I’m very surprised.

The rake rebate money was paid out this week. It will make for some nice Christmas shopping.

Some weird happenings from this week. I won 8 hands in a row at the same table. I don’t ever remember winning more than 4 in a row before. I hit the wrong button and folded a flopped set of Tens, heads up. I was trying to act on another table and the screen with the tens popped up. The pot was already a good size, we had capped it pre flop, and he had bet into me on the ATx flop. That was an expensive mistake. And on a hand where I raised with JJ and got 3 bet, then called from the blind, the flop came down AQ3. The blind bet into me and I folded, the button raised and I congratulated myself for getting out before the raise. Of course not only did the J turn, the case J rivered. Doh!.

On the good side I had a hand where I turned the nut flush, and got raised 3 times before showdown by a smaller flush. I admire his persistence.

When you just call on the turn and river, and win, you always feel you should have gotten another bet in by raising. But sometimes I think you have to just call down. I had AA and raised two limpers from the button. The BB played too and 4 of us saw the flop. The flop was an unappealing K T T rainbow. UTG bet and MP called. I decided to wait until the turn to raise. To be honest, a K or a 9 are probably the only cards I don’t want to see here, so I’m not sure I’m risking much waiting. If a T is out there I’m almost dead anyway. The turn was a 5 putting a second diamond on the board. UTG bets again and now MP raises. I know him well and he would definitely make a move here. If I raise now, only a T will call (Raise me), or 2 diamonds or QJ. So I just called again. I decided his raise was the one I would have made anyway. 3 of us saw the river which was an offsuit 6. MP bet and again I just called. Same reason. I think he folds or 3 bets. I was good, he had K6. I’m not sure if I played this too weakly or not.

I like this guy. I raised JJ UTG. I was 3 bet on my left, and the CO called 3 bets cold. I capped it and they both called. Flop is Tc 7c 2h. I bet and get raised on my left. CO calls 2 more cold and I just call. Turn is Jc. I bet again and get raised again on my left. CO again calls 2 cold, and I 3 bet. Guy on my left folds, and CO calls again. River is the case J. I bet my quads and he calls again. Look back over his play and guess what he had. He called 3 cold pre-flop, called 2 cold on the flop and again on the turn, then called the 3 bet. And called on the river. He had Ts 8s.

I have the bug to play live again. It’s been a year since I played in a casino, and for some reason I want to do it again. I’ve picked Wednesday of this week to go to Brantford (about 25 minutes from home) and play some 10/20. I won’t count it towards my regular results, combining the Cdn and US is too difficult. Unless I am flying off to Seattle that’s my plan. It’ll be fun to try and shuffle chips again (I’m terrible at it, I can only do two stacks of 3 chips). I’m quite excited now that I’ve decided to go.

In review, I’m quite happy with the shorthanded games lately. Other than a greater than normal number of table experts (I think I’ll rant about this next week), I seem to be winning at an increased rate. And I’m playing a lot more hands which is great for my affiliate for rake rebates. Have a good week.

Week 33

Well much to my surprise, they want me to come out to Seattle for 2 days this week, so I’m starting my journey today. I have a 2:30 flight from Buffalo to Washington DC, then a 5:00 PM flight to Seattle. Hopefully I’ll get in in time to catch the Survivor Finale. I’m to work for 2 days and then we’ll see if they want me on a regular basis or not, and whether I can put up with the trip. I think between this and Christmas I will take a break from keeping the journal and we’ll see about resuming it in January. I rented a laptop again so I can play from the hotel at night. If I get a contract with them I will buy a laptop to take with me. I’m also hoping to get to a live game on Tuesday night, since I can’t get a flight home until Wednesday morning, and I wasn’t able to play live this week as I had hoped because I spent Wednesday running around making travel arrangements. I had to give them a fixed price quote for the 2 days work, which means they won’t pay my expenses, and I’m already ahead for the trip. I gave them a price of $750 US for my flight, and then discovered the quote was in CDN dollars, and the price had gone down, it was only $620 CDN. I’m up over $300 already. I’m also thinking of checking out of the hotel Tuesday morning and just playing cards through the night. My flight is 8:30 AM so I need to be at the airport by about 7:00, and if I go out to play after work I can’t imagine I’d be home much before 3 or 4 anyway. Another $155 US in my poker budget.

It was another strange week for poker. If you remember, I had a horrible finish to last week, turning a great week into a good one, and I continued to struggle on Sunday, having my first Sunday loss in 8 weeks. I lost $206. Then the usual Monday troubles and I lost another $181. That made 4 losing days in a row, and 5 out of 6. Strangely enough though, they were good results as far as I was concerned because I had a huge number of bad river losses. I can handle the KK vs AA losses, and the AQ vs AK in the blinds, those are just going to happen. It’s the times that you make the perfect read, hold your raise until the turn, make him pay the max only to get beat by a kicker matching deuce on the river that seem to set me off. But as it always seems to happen, just when I’m completely fed up, something good happens and Tuesday I ran hot. A good afternoon followed by a great evening after curling and I won $1,387. Tuesday is now officially my favorite day of the week. Not only do I get out with the boys for some curling and beer, but in the last 3 weeks I’ve won over $4,700 on Tuesday alone. Maybe I should just play 1 day a week. The frustration returned on Wednesday where I lost $306, making it 6 losses in 8 days, which is pretty unusual for me, but most of the losses were pretty small, and again a huge day on Thursday made me forget about it. I won $1,499. I have felt for a few weeks now that I was about to have a huge week. Just one week without a $900 loss and I might do something spectacular. I thought last week was going to be it until the big loss on Saturday. Well it turns out it was this week. With 2 huge days already in the week I had the greatest hour of my poker life on Friday afternoon. I took my 8 year old out for lunch and only got home at around 2:00 PM. In the one hour before I had to go get my son I won $1,200. That’s a pretty good hourly rate. I continued to run hot and while I only played about 4 hours for the entire day I won $1,876, putting me at $4,069 for the week. My best week by a mile. I decided not to play Saturday night since I have to drive to Buffalo Sunday morning. Weeks like this make me wonder why I want to go back to work at all. I need to go back and read a post from a bad week before I leave.

As I go deeper into this experience I’m handling the losing better, since I’m confident the winning will return. I’m actually quite surprised how small the weekly variance is overall. I’m starting to feel like the house must feel in the casino business. As long as I play the hours the money will come in. In 33 weeks I only have 2 losing weeks, and none of those in the last 5 ½ months. My biggest week before this week was $3,100, and I’m averaging around $1,800/wk since moving to the shorthanded 5/10 games. The full table 3/6 games brought in around $1,200 / wk. My game has improved so much in 7 months, mostly in the area of hand reading. I’ve also gotten better at leaving tables where I don’t have an edge. I think I’ve proved that you can make a living playing low-limit online games by playing multiple tables, even a comfortable living if you don’t have 4 kids and a mortgage to worry about.

Had an interesting experience on Thursday night. I had started to run real hot after struggling all day, and I sat down at a table where a known strong player was berating someone for his general play. I’ve seen this guy do this again and again, you know the schtick…”You are so bad”, “Q4o is my favorite hand too”. The kid answered back and it became clear he was a young kid, 20 he said, who was just having fun. He had run his bankroll up to around $600 winning with outrageous hands, but he seemed to be taking the abuse to heart, he was folding more pre-flop anyway. I sent a private message to the abuser, asking him to back off, saying something like “your going to drive him to buy a book”. Anyway he left the table at the same time I sent the message (coincidence I think, it was the exact same time I sent it), but I promised myself I wasn’t leaving that table until the kid did. We played 3 handed for a long time (I usually leave the tables at 4 handed or less because the hands go so quick I can’t maintain focus on 4 tables) but I made an exception for this guy. Sure enough within an hour his $600 was gone, and I had $300 of it. I just can’t believe that seemingly good and successful players continue to abuse the bad players, and then leave before letting time wear them out.

I made a royal this week, my 5th I think, and I also made a straight flush against the A high flush that was good for a huge pot. The funny thing about the Straight flush was that I didn’t realize it was a straight, and thought I had flush under flush when his hand showed. It took me a minute to figure out when the chips slid to me.

Weirdest happening of the week. 2 hands in a row, heads up with the same guy. 1st hand I have AQ and the flop is AKx. We cap the flop and bet out the turn and river. He has AQ also and we chop it up. Very next hand I get AQ again. Flop this time is AA7. We cap the flop and the turn, and bet call the river. He has AQ again too. At least on the 2nd hand we each won $6.

The big event around here this week is my wife graduating from school. She has to write a provincial board exam in January to get a license, but she is a college graduate now. I can’t describe how proud I am of her, and what a fine example she is for our kids.

When AK misses. I picked this hand because this happens so often, and there is clearly no set way to play it, although heads up this is probably my standard. UTG limps and so does utg+1. I raise from the button with Ah Ks. Both blinds fold and the limpers call the raise. Flop is Th 4s 3h. Checked to me and I bet. 3 handed I will almost always bet no matter what, and with that flop there is a good chance it missed everyone. I only get 1 call. Turn is the 5h. Checked to me and now it’s decision time. I’m never sure what the right play is here so I vary it by opponent. I believed I was behind, but I had a lot of outs. I like the maxim, bet when you have few outs, check when you have lots so I checked. River was the 2d, giving me the butt end of the straight, and he came out betting. I just called and I was good, he had turned a set of 5’s. This is one of those hands that can go either way on the turn, and my good read actually cost me $20, since I’m sure he was going to raise the turn.

Here’s what happens when you’re running well. I have Jh Th in the SB. UTG raises and 2 cold callers to me. I call too and the BB plays as well 5 of us to the flop. Flop is pretty good for me Js Jc Ts. Normally I would be tempted to slow play this, but someone else has to have a piece of this, and the pot is already pretty big. I bet out, and it is quickly raised and 3 bet. I smooth call this time and it gets capped anyway. 3 of us see the turn. Turn is the Qh. I check waiting to raise, and the flop capper checks too. Oh no! Luckily the 3rd guy bets and I raise. The guy in between us calls and the other guy 3 bets. I cap and they both call. River is the 2h. I bet and they both just call. The flop capper had Ks Qs and was pushing his HUGE draw. The other guy had AK and turned a broadway straight. That was a $260 pot.

What a chicken. At another table the same night I get 44 UTG and I limp. I haven’t been playing the baby pairs in EP as much, but I was running really wel and this table was ripe for it. I got 2 calls and the BB played too. Flop is 4c 3c 2s. SB bets and I raised. With the flush and straight draws on board I decided to play it fast. 2 cold calls and the SB 3 bets. I capped and all 3 called. 4 to the turn and $100 already in the pot. Turn is the 3d. Yessssss. SB bets, and I raise again. Finally someone folds and the 4th guy types in “Do both of you have 32?”. Then he calls 2 more and the SB 3 bets. I type in “maybe” and cap it. He calls 2 more and the SB calls. There is now $220 in the pot and I’m starting to worry about 33. He has to know there is a ful house against him doesn’t he? I mean the other guy has already mentioned it. River is Kh. Finally the SB checks. I bet and the 3rd guy calls all-in. Now the SB raises me. Uh oh. I finally chicken out and just call. SB had 65 for the flopped straight and the 3rd guy had A5 for another flopped straight. And I was ticked I left $10 more on the table. I guess I should be happy the SB gave me about $80 extra with excessive raises.

Before I close I want to thank all the guys that have replied each week to these posts. I am so glad I started doing this. For one thing it gave me an outlet for my frustrations, but it has also been so lucrative for me. It was through these posts that I was steered to the Party 3/6 games, then to the shorthanded games. And I wouldn’t have had anyone sign up under my affiliate program either without them, so it has probably been the smartest thing I did during the 7 months. My play will be interrupted over the next few weeks with the Seattle trip and Christmas, but I’ll keep posting when I can, and I’ll see about starting the journal again in the New year. I have to make up my mind about the book thing too. I’ve done around 4 chapters now, but it seems pretty lame to me. I can’ imagine anyone other than we die-hards being remotely interested in this, except then I go to a Party and everyone asks me all about it. Maybe I need to redo it and instead of using the posts, rewrite them as a story and explain more about the game to people. We’ll see.

Have a great and safe holiday everyone, and if anyone in the Seattle area can get to Muckleshoot on Tuesday night please try and say hello. I’ll be the guy speaking Canadian eh!