The Weekly Journals of DavidRoss

Week 43

I was really hoping to say I had qualified for the WSOP in this update, but alas, the servers have crashed again at Party/Empire and I sit here writing my update instead of finishing the tournament and wondering how they are going to sort this one out afterwards.

I have had another good week at the tables. My new improved playing style has survived a second week where I spent a lot of hours playing qualifying tournaments instead of earning money. According to poker Tracker I am now winning 1.71 BB’s per 100 hands, nicely up from the 1 I was at 2 weeks ago. I am voluntarily putting money in the pot around 23% of the time, and raising pre-flop 11%. That means half the time I play I am raising pre-flop. Based on numbers others have given me I am still very low in that department. I’ve seen some people with stats like 29% putting $ in pre-flop and 27% raising. That to me indicates that they are raising or folding pre-flop almost 100% of the time. I still can’t believe that’s an optimal strategy there are some hands that deserve a limp.

The adjustments I have made are to never limp first in, and to never be the first to cold call. I was always willing to limp first in with suited connectors from QJ down to 76, and with suited Aces under AT, and with medium and small pocket pairs. And I would cold call with pairs T and under, and with suited broadway cards. So now I raise or fold. I will still make a second cold call with some of those hands, and limp behind other limpers as well. It’s the limping behind that I’m sure is predominately the difference in my raising stats and most of the more aggressive players. I intend to research that in the short handed section this week.

I have caught the tournament bug again. I always enjoyed playing tournaments, but have hardly played any at all since I began playing full time. I have had good success with single table sit n go’s, but have never done well in a multi-table tourney. I readily admit that I have no expertise as to the peculiarities of tournament play. My strategy in single table tourneys is to play extremely tight for 3 rounds, where we are usually down to 5 players or less, then get extremely aggressive when everyone else is tightening up to make the final 3. Once you’re in the money it’s a crapshoot and I don’t mind being the aggressor at all. However in multi tables, my strategy seems to break down. I rarely accumulate chips early, since I’m playing tight, and then I seem to lack the patience required in the middle rounds. I haven’t ever made the final table of one of those so I don’t know how I’ll do there.

Empire’s WSOP promotion involves single table qualifiers ($25 + 2) running continuously and multi table ($9 + 1) at 2:30 PM EST and 11:00 PM EST every day. The single table’s send one qualifier, and the multi’s send 1 for every 24 entries to a semi final every other Saturday. The unfortunate single tables hardly ever seem to run. Every time I check it seems both the Limit and No Limit are waiting for10 players to start. I managed to play 2 no-limit single tables early in the week, but went out 7th or worse in both, both times getting it all-in as a favorite, but losing. I also managed to play 4 multi-table qualifiers during the week, 2 in the afternoon and 2 in the evening, but again my best finish was 20th. That 20th place finish was a good example of my impatience. After surviving past the first break without moving very far from the 1000 chips we start with, I hit two big hands in a row. I had AK on the button and raised 3 limpers. A K high flop came and I got 3 callers, 2 more on the turn and river and my top pair was good. The next time my blinds came around it was folded to me in the SB and I had 55. I raised and the BB called. The flop came out 985, and I bet and got called all the way down to the river. Suddenly I had over 7,000 chips and I was in 4th place out of the remaining 25. There were 2 seats up for grabs. I then lost 2 big pots. AQ with a Q high flop lost on the river to a flush, and my AK with an A on the flop lost to A2 when the deuce rivered. Suddenly I was back down to around 2300. The blinds were 150/300 so I had a couple of orbits before panicking, but I got it in my head that I needed chips. When it was folded around to me 2 off the button and I had Ts9s it seemed like a good time to make a play. I raised, and got cold called on the button. Both blinds folded. Already I don’t like it. I promised myself that unless I hit the flop hard I was done. Flop came out 955, but no spades. Hmm.. I bet and the button raised. I have seen very little bluffing in these tournaments. I should have known I was beat. SO what did I do? I 3 bet him. He called. Turn was a Q. I bet he raised again, and I called. River was a T, giving me 2 pair. I checked, he bet and my last 300 went in. He had AA and I was out. What a stupid way to lose.

The silver lining in my failed attempts to qualify, is that I am incapable of playing only 1 table now. I seem to have completely destroyed my ability to concentrate on 1 table. So I decided to play $30 sit n go’s while I was in the multi table tourneys. In 8 of them (all no-limit) I have won 4, finished 3rd twice (and also had a 4th), to put up over $500 in profit.

I promised myself I would only play in the Saturday semi-finals if I qualified, but I think if it gets down to the last one I put up the $200 and just enter. I was sorely tempted to just enter Saturday afternoon, but decided to sit at another single table qualifier with 2 others. 45 minutes later we were up to 5 people, and finally 90 minutes after I took my seat we had 10 players in a limit format. Now I was in trouble because my daughter needed a ride to the school, and my wife had dinner ready, and here I was in the early stages of a tournament. My wife is a good sport on weeks where I’m winning so she is putting up with me lately. I played my usual ultra tight style and was the low stack when we got down to 5 players with around 650 chips. I may have only played 2 or 3 hands at this point, but now I came to life. I picked up some blinds and then found rockets on my 3rd straight pre-flop raise and got called down. Suddenly we were down to 4 players and I had the chip lead. This is why I stay out of the fray for 3 rounds. You can win 7 pots in a row in the 1st round, and find yourself behind the guy who wins his first pot in round 4. Again I found everyone to be very cautious. My stack kept increasing as blinds kept folding. The 2 small stacks went at each other and we were down to 3 players. I went on a card rush and took out the 3rd place finisher leaving me with around 5500 to the other guys 2500. An interesting first hand happened. I raised with A6o and he 3 bet me. He had shown no aggression thus far in the tournament. I just called. Flop was KQx and he bet. I folded. This kept me in the chip lead. Maybe I should have called with my A, but I had a strong feeling he was good. I won 2 sets of blinds to give me back a 5000/3000 edge, and the most amazing finished it. He limped from the button and I had Tc7c. I checked. Flop was Jc 8c 8s. I bet my flush draw and gutshot straight flush, and he raised me. Turn was the Tc giving me a lock. I bet, he raised and I raised him all in. River was Ad and he showed A8 for a losing full house. He must have felt like he was kicked in the balls. So I qualified for the semi final.

I played my usual conservative style in the early rounds. I noted the carefree any 2 suited’s who always seem to hit a bunch of hands early. I won a small pot with TT because with 2 overcards on the flop I didn’t bet the turn or river. Then I went on a run where I got AK 6 times and won them all. 2 of them I won just the blinds, but the other 4 all made hands, including a full house, a straight and 2 pair. I lost a couple of pots I stayed in 2 long, but found myself with 2700 in chips when we were down to 86 players, clearly in the top field. Then the server crashed.

As for the rest of my week, I had my first loss in 8 days last Sunday, but it was only a $114 loss. I had a great day on Monday, winning $837. Tuesday was another loss, this time for $426, but another good day on Wednesday was a win for $793. This was the first evening I played a qualifier because I had a good win in the books already. Thursday was my best day of the week, winning $1,053 including 2 tournament wins, and Friday I had 2 kids home vomiting, which limited the time I had to play. In restricted play I won another $207. That left me up $2350 for the week, and since I couldn’t play Saturday that’s where my week ended. I anticipate a refund from Empire for around $375 but as of 9:00 AM Sunday morning there is no word yet on what will happen.

I had some remarkable hands this week including my 4th Royal flush. I also flopped quad Aces holding AJ on an AAA The other guy had QQ and I was paid off handsomely. Another beauty, I have 88 in the BB. UTG limps, CO raises, SB calls and I call. Flop is Jc 8c 6c. I bet, UTG raises and CO 3 bets. SB folds, I cap and both call. Turn is Ks. I bet, UTG raises, CO calls, and I just call, muttering “pair the board, pair the board. River is my case 8. I check. UTG bets and now the CO comes to life raising. I 3 bet and UTG, bless his soul, caps it. UTG had the flopped flush, and CO had AA.

This one’s from the “try and put him on a hand” file, or the ”OMFG” file. I raise UTG with AhJs, and get cold called on my left. CO 3 bets. CO has been 3 betting me like crazy, but I haven’t caught him at anything yet. I simply haven’t had anything I could take to a showdown, and now I know he thinks he can push me around. 3 of us see the flop of A95, two diamonds. I check, intending to check-raise, but the guy on my left bets, and the co raises. I just call. Turn is the 4s. We check to the cut off who bets, and we both call. River is an offsuit Q. We check, he bets and we both call. The cold caller also had AJ, and the button?...........he had 32o. He 3 bet it pre-flop then raised the flop on his gut shot. Of course he made it and I blessed his soul too. My wife has given me a stress ball to squeeze in these situations.

Have a good week everyone.

Week 44

Another solid week of poker finished off a very successful February. I’ve run so well these past 4 weeks that the absolute low I hit in January is just a distant memory. My bankroll is as healthy as it’s ever been, I might even contemplate playing some 10/20 for the first time. There has been a fresh influx of players to the Party/Empire games despite the performance problems they have had lately, there were at least 2 nights this week with over 40,000 players. It was less than a year ago I was so impressed that Paradise had almost 3,000 players. The games seem very soft to me again, maybe just a function of running well, but I don’t think so. I have been surprised at how many family pots I have been involved in lately. Stealing the blinds is a very rare occurrence lately, and cold calling is rampant. It has suited my tighter, more aggressive playing style perfectly. Post-flop I have had to adjust and not push so hard if I miss the flop because someone is always chasing, staying to showdown. I find the games playing much like the 2/4 ring games used to, where you just waited for big hands and pushed them hard.

Running well presents its own set of problems, but much better problems than running bad does. My top priority is not to fall into the trap of loosening my pre-flop standards, as I’ve been known to do during past winning streaks. You really do start to believe you will hit your hand every time. Although I think I have improved my play somewhat lately, and the games do indeed seem softer, I can’t kid myself into not believing that most of this hot streak is due to a good run of cards. I’ve made over 10 grand during the 4 weeks of February, which is the 2nd best 4 week stretch I’ve ever had.

Empire added an extra WSOP qualifier last night to replace the one that was cancelled on me last weekend. We had a party to go to last night so I knew there was no point trying to qualify, so I played no tournaments this week. I hope to qualify for next Saturday’s semi final though. My share of last Saturdays cancelled prize pool was much higher than I had expected, over $520.

In my first full week of Empire only play(they allow 4 tables to be played now so I have not played under my Party ID in over a week) I started with a nice $504 win on Sunday. Monday was a struggle, and I gave back $359. I had been down a lot in the afternoon, but got some of it back overnight. Tuesday was another good day, up $624. On Wednesday my kids had an early dismissal day where they got out of school at lunch time, so instead of playing I took them skiing, or snowboarding to be more precise. I arranged a lesson for my boys as they are just starting to snowboard, while I skied with my youngest daughter. It was a gorgeous sunny day, but the hill was too crowded (everyone had the same idea I guess) and my older boy took ill around the end of his lesson and I had to call my wife to come and get him. I missed out on about 90 minutes of ski time. It became a very expensive day for the amount of skiing I actually got to do. But the poker gods rewarded me with a great run over the next two days, winning $458 on Wednesday night, and then a great run on Thursday brought in another $1,058. My bad run of Fridays continued, I lost $750 in the afternoon, and although I made a big run in the evening to get almost even for the day, I ran cold again and finished down $517 for the day. On Saturday we were invited to a private ski club by my little girls classmate. Skiing in Southern Ontario is pretty limited by our geography. We have the Niagara escarpment which provides us with Niagara falls and a uniform set of small ski hills all with a vertical drop of a couple of hundred feet. It’s great for beginners, but pretty tame for an experienced skier. I grew up in Montreal and we had access to some excellent ski areas in the Canadian Laurentians and Vermont. But this private club was wonderful. Uncrowded, with wonderful staff and facilities we skied all day, had a great lunch, and a short drive home. I can hardly walk today, indicating my total lack of physical fitness, something I need to take care of. I inquired as to the cost of joining this club and was informed that there was a waiting list about 5 years long, the initiation fee used to be $9,000, but that was 10 years ago, and the annual dues were $600 per person. I don’t think I’ll be joining any time soon. I got home just in time to leave for the birthday party we were invited to for the mother of yet another of my daughter’s classmates. It was her 10th birthday. In case you haven’t figured out how my daughters friend’s mother can be only 10, she is a February 29th baby, and only gets to celebrate every leap year. There were a lot of people I knew from the school, and from soccer, but none I knew very well. Her husband had arranged a presentation in the “This is your life” theme, and after an hour we were only at grade 8. I began to drink heavily. Fortunately for me my wife began to feel ill around 11:00 and we snuck out. I’m a little worried that this bug is working through the family and my older daughter and me are the only ones not to get it yet. I rarely get ill, and haven’t missed a day of playing due to sickness yet…knock wood. So after putting my wife to bed, and still pretty buzzed I decided to play poker. They say god looks out for drunks and small children and I guess it’s true because I won around $750 in half an hour. I should have quit right then, but I played for a couple of hours (I wasn’t really that drunk, I think I played fairly solidly, although I caught myself limping first in a couple of times) and ended up making the exact same amount I lost on Friday, $517. That left me with a win for the week of $2,285.

The influx of new blood at the tables has brought with it a lot of bad behavior again. Several times this week I played with obnoxious people berating everyone at the table for their play. They sure don’t complain when the guy chases the gutshot and pays him off on the river with bottom pair, but when he has the gall to actually hit, they are all over him. I still wonder how many of these poor players ever come back after a miserable night of being verbally abused.

My wife has a job interview next week at the hospital she wants to work at, in the Labour and delivery area, which is where she wants to work. She is very excited as she was told there was very little chance she could get into an L&D job right out of school. When Mrs Davidross is happy, davidross is happy.

A curious hand from this week. I open raised with KQo and got 3 bet from the button who’s handle was coldcall(I ever saw him coldcall). The SB called as well and I called. Flop comes out Ks 8h 4s and I bet. Button raised and SB cold called 2. I decided to just call. Turn was Ts putting the flush on the board. I had the Qs. Checked to the button who bet. We both called again. River was 4d. same betting pattern, button bets and we both call. All 3 of us had KQ. I was freerolling on the spade. I don’t ever remember a 3 way split like that.
Here’s what happens when you don’t know the players in the hand. UTG limps and I raise with Jc Jd. Idiot1 on my left cold calls and idiot2 on the button 3 bets. BB calls 2 cold, limper calls 2 cold and I just call. I wonder about capping a 5 way pot with JJ just in case I hit my set. I don’t think JJ will hold up unimproved very often in a 5 way pot, but capping might still be the right play. I just called. The flop is 9d 5d 5h. BB bets, limper calls and I raise. Idiot 1 3 bets, and idiot 2 caps it. SB folds but the rest of us call. Turn is 2s. Checked to idiot1 who bets and idiot2 who raises again. Limper folds and I think. I believe it’s going to cost me at least $30 to get to a showdown and probably more. The pot is very big though. I fold. Idiot 1 3 bets and idiot2 calls. River is 8c. Idiot1 bets and idiot2 calls. Idiot1 has 97o for his pair of nines and wins $240. idiot2 has Ad 8d for a busted flush draw. I quickly discover that these 2 go at each other every hand like this. Idiot 2 is on idiot1’s case constantly about his bad play, which there is plenty of. I take a lot of money off these 2 in the next 90 minutes, but this pot stung. I think I had to fold to the 4 bet on the flop, or call to the end on this hand.

I made this observation in a shorthanded post this week, but I think it’s worth repeating here. My variance, both positive and negative seems to be way down since I increased my aggression. My biggest loss in 3 weeks has been Fridays $517, and although I’m winning steadily, there have been far fewer huge wins as well. I would have expected the opposite to be true, by putting more money in the pot pre-flop, on bad days I would lose even more, but on good days I would make more. One poster theorized that the pre-flop raises limited the field, and made it less likely that you would lose 8 or 10 pots in a row, which is what causes the big losses. Maybe that’s it.

Have a good week everyone.

Week 45

Well another happy week in the davidross household. I really wanted to report that I was on my way to Vegas for the WSOP, and I came close, but alas that dream is still just a dream. Empire/Party have continued to have technical problems all week. The tournaments seemed to be most affected by it, with several days and nights where they didn’t run any tourneys. I understand they are under some ‘Denial of Service’ attacks, and I sure hope they get it sorted out. Doesn’t seem to be affecting the number of players though. Over 40,000 some nights this week. I played a couple of qualifying tournaments early in the week and for a couple of reasons decided to stop and just pay the $215 and enter the Saturday semi-final. First of all, there were a couple of nights where the qualifiers didn’t run, and 2nd of all, playing in the multi table qualifiers is costing me a lot of playing time. Between the income I’m not earning, and the ancillary benefits (E-points and affiliate income) I don’t get because my hands played go down, I decided it’s not worth it to keep playing a lot of these qualifiers. On the other hand, I’m getting better at them so I will still play a couple each week.

First the ring games. I had another great week. I’m getting very comfortable with my new pre-flop raising standards. I am finding it much easier to play post-flop as well simply by raising more on the flop. I have to assume I’m getting better than average cards right now as well, so it’s difficult to say how much my improved results have to do with my play, but I’m not complaining. I started out Sunday with a nice $318 win. Monday was another $668 in the win column, and Tuesday was a big day winning $1,302, most of it after my curling game and a couple of beers. Wednesday was almost as good, up another $1,180, and at that point I had 8 wins in the last 9 days. Thursday started out pretty well, but around 1:00 AM I started my first big losing streak in a while. After being up over $700, I lost almost all of it and finished the day up $65. Then Friday I didn’t play in the afternoon, but struggled all night and lost another $427. I played only a few hands Saturday and lost another $70 putting me in a 120 BB losing skid right now. I need to tell you about my Saturday Tournament though to get my final number for the week.

As I mentioned I decided to just pay the 200 + 15 for the WSOP qualifier and there were 74 entrants. For some reason the prize pool was set out like a normal tournament with 1st place getting over $4K and paying 10 places. There was no mention of a WSOP seat even though they advertised 1 seat for each 60 entrants. As of right now I still don’t know if the winner got his seat plus the $4K, but because I made the final table I do know that they paid as per the prize pool they listed. As happy as I am to get paid, I am confused why the payout was like that, and until I figure out what happened I won’t play any more qualifiers. Bottom line was I finished 4th and got paid $1,480. That put my final total for the week at $4,262, my 2nd biggest week ever. I have averaged over $2,500 / wk for the last 8 weeks, making even more certain that the fresh blood has made the Party/Empire games softer.

In a complete turnaround, I did very well in the multi-table tournies this week, and very poorly in the single tables. I made the final table in all 3 of my multi’s, and only cashed once in 6 single’s, a second. The first final table I made I came to the final table with only 1 big blind worth of chips and was gone right away. In the 2nd I had a healthy stack, and was about 4th, with 2 players to qualify. I proceeded to get TT, JJ, TT and QQ in the next 2 orbits, and lost them all, and I was out. But on Saturday, I had my best finish ever. I got no big pairs at all in the whole tournament, which makes my results even more remarkable. I played 280 hands without getting a pair over 10’s. I did get TT 3 times, and won with them each time. I got to the first break with almost exactly my starting chips. No big hands, but a couple of small pots kept me even. I never made it to 2,000 chips, but I never got below 800 either and as we approached the 2nd break I was still hanging in and we were at 2 full tables. I folded my blinds just before the break leaving me with $729 and the blinds at 100/200, limits of 200/400. My first 6 hands all had a 2 in them and I folded all of them. With the blinds approaching I played a rather remarkable hand. I raised an UTG limper with KTo. It looked like AA to me after all the hands I had seen. He had a lot of chips, but was very quick to fold on the flop and I was really hoping to play just him. Unfortunately I got a cold caller as well, but both blinds folded. Flop came 9 8 3 rainbow. UTG checked and I bet 200. Cold caller called again, but UTG folded. Turn was another 8. I bet my last 129, and the cold caller folded!!! I can’t begin to fathom what he had, that he would fold this 2K plus pot for another 129 dollars, but I thank him. Suddenly I had enough chips to go around a couple more times. And I took advantage of it. The chip leader at the time was really playing the bully, and very successfully. He was raising any Ace, and betting any flop. I played back at him a couple of times with good hands though and he folded. Very quickly I had over 5000 chips and was comfortably in a final table position. There were 11 left when this hand came up. Our table was 5 handed and I open raised 99. Folded to the bully in the BB who 3 bet me. He did this all the time. Limits are now 400/800, and he has triple my chips at 15K. Flop is Jd 6d 2d. I have no diamond and he bets. I call. Turn is Kd. He bets and I fold, leaving me 3400, and still in a position to make the final table. It wasn’t an easy fold because he would play any hand this way. But I think it was smart. The final table started with me short on chips, but I went on a roll finally. I won a couple of pots from the bully, we lost a few players and suddenly we are 5 handed. Bully has 23,400, and I’m second with 17,700. The pivotal hand of my tournament went like this. Bully limps from the button. He has done this a lot since I 3 bet his button raise 3 times earlier. I get a free play with K2o. Flop comes K 4 2 rainbow. I check, he bets and I just call. He will bet the turn no matter what so I decided to check raise him there. Turn is a 3 putting a second club on the board. I check, he bets and I raise him. He 3 bets me. He has folded to all me raises so far, so I’m not sure what this means. I don’t know if he’d make this play with AA or AK, but I think he would. Limits are 600/1200 so the pot is big. I just call his 3 bet. River brings another K. I check, he bets and I raise. K4 and K3 are all I have to worry about now. He 3 bets, I cap and of course he has K3. I watch 20,000 chips slide his way, and I’m down to 7000. I felt like I’d been kicked in the balls. One more guy went out and I climbed back over 10K when we were down to 4 players, but two AK hands that missed put me out. It was pretty exciting though, and I can’t wait to try again. My patience was much better tonight. I guess I could have saved a few chips on that K2 hand, but that was pretty unfortunate.

Some random musings from this week. It’s pretty clear to me that we all have different reasons for playing poker. Obviously we all enjoy card games and the thrill of competition, but I think if you asked everyone what their number 1 goal, or reason for playing was we’d get a bunch of different answers. Personally I am trying to make as much money as I can, but that wasn’t always the case. The first year I was playing I was trying to improve my game as much, and as quickly as I could. Towards those goals I played in games that were above my level of proficiency, and quite often I lost. I did however improve, so I guess you could say I still achieved my goals. It is my belief that a huge number of poker players are playing a limit beyond their abilities, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t achieving their goals. Some wall street fund manager making 7 figures, isn’t going to enjoy himself playing 2/4 poker, yet that might be the proper limit for him. So he drops a few hundred, or even thousands playing 10/20 and doesn’t bat an eye. His goal is just to compete. And I see a lot of people playing who just want someone to recognize how great or smart they are. These are the table coaches. Their goal can’t be to earn as much as they could, or else they wouldn’t tell others how bad they are playing. These are the guys who have to show you the AA you just cracked so you know they had the better hand pre-flop. As much as I want to take them to task for being idiots at the table, I have to recognize that they would rather play that way than play optimally. More power to them.

There are so many tells I am starting to recognize that are used by average players. The real trick is determining who the better than average players are and not falling into the trap of thinking they are playing like joe average. When the flop comes out like JJ6, and the average guy bets from the blinds, he doesn’t have a J. The average guy slowplays his J and try’s to get more. The better players bet out with their trips and tend to make more on the hand overall. I almost made the best laydown of my life yesterday, but I still didn’t believe what is an obvious online tell. I had AQ and was in a 4 way pot. On the river, the board was KKKQJ. I had led the betting every street, and when the 3rd King rivered I bet again. My opponent used up half of his clock before raising. The long dramatic pause is such a giveaway I knew he had the quads. But I couldn’t bring myself to fold my hand and I paid him off. He did have the K.

Just for an update, I have 70,000 hands in my Poker Tracker database now, all from 5/10 shorthanded games. I’ve raised my BB/100 hands to exactly 2. Considering it was at 1.02 just 3 weeks ago, I’m thrilled with that number. Until this last week my rake paid was almost exactly the same as my earnings. I have now pushed my earnings almost 2K ahead of my rake paid, but I’m still paying a phenomenal amount of rake every month. Some interesting observations are that UTG I’m losing money with 88 and 77 (I don’t play the smaller pairs UTG). I don’t know if I should start mucking them too or not. I’m also losing money with AQs, but not with AQo, so I think that’s just a statistical anomaly.

Poker Tracker has also identified 5 or 6 regular opponents that I have played over 10 sessions with, that are significant winners. Until recently I had all of them pegged as recklessly aggressive. Clearly weak tight is not the way to play shorthanded poker.

Life is sure sweet when you’re running well. I’m on an amazing roll, and the affiliate money is in. Please remind me of this when the next losing streak hits and I’m whining because I’m losing. Have a good week everyone.