The Weekly Journals of DavidRoss

Week 46
Well, it’s been a character building week, and one of the strangest I’ve had. I played lots of hours and feel like I just treaded water all week. No big wins, I’ve now gone 11 days without a $400 win, and no big losses, it’s over 2 weeks since I had a $500 loss. I seem to be going overboard on this low variance idea. Clearly I’ve been spoiled with my recent success. Playing 2,000 hands and winning $100 feels like losing after the run I’ve been on.

I started out on the right foot with a $398 win on Sunday. Monday however, I began a trend that lasted all week. I would have a nice afternoon session and get up anywhere from 200 to 400 dollars. Then I’d start out hot in the evening before giving most of it back. Monday I ended up ahead by only $90, Tuesday it was $64, and Wednesday I lost $366. Thursday was another loss, only $16 though. So I headed into the weekend up less than $200. Friday was a little better, winning $393, although I was up $1,000 at one point, and Saturday I won another $278. That put my final win for the week at $841.

I played some long hours this week because I’m going to Montreal for a couple of days this week. My kids are on March Break so we’re going to visit and get some skiing in. I’ll miss a couple of days of playing and I was hoping to bank some extra. Oh well. I must admit, if this is a bad week, it sure beats losing. It has never felt more like a grind than it did this week. I think because I was determined to play extra hours, but somehow it is easier to mix big wins and big losses than to just stay even all week as I did. I never seemed to get on the kind of roll that usually happens a couple of times a day.

One revelation from this week is that I’m still paying off too much when I’m losing. Turn raises from players that don’t bluff, when I’m holding just overcards, or the river bet when the flush card hits. I think I threw away a lot of bets. It’s an interesting phenomenon actually. It’s almost like I want to see what I was beat by this time. There isn’t much doubt I’ve lost, its just a question of to what. And I still pay it. Definitely something to work on.

I didn’t play any tournaments this week. I never got an answer from support as to whether they gave a seat to the WSOP last Saturday when I finished 4th. There is another semi-final next Saturday and I’d like to know before I enter if there will be seats up for grabs. I think I’ll play qualifiers while I’m at my sister in laws this week. It’s hard to play multiple tales on her old machine (dial up too).

Empire has a VIP promotion on. You earn points by playing ring games or tournaments, and they have some pretty good rewards. As of Saturday I have 8535 points, and I’m making around 2000 per month. They offer $1 for every 100 points so I could cash them for around $20 / month, not really worth it. Instead I’ll look for a place to use them in an auction. In 2 weeks they have a free roll for the top 100 point earners. The prize is a $25,000 seat in Bellagio’s 5 star tourney. Right now 100th place has 6800 points so I’m comfortably in the top 100. The other reward that caught my eye is a $2,000 WSOP package that includes 5 days in Vegas and a free entry into a WSOP satellite. No indication what kind of satellite, but it might be fun to just be there. I’m pretty sure I’ll have enough points to be competitive with the bid.

It doesn’t look like my wife got the job she interviewed for. She didn’t think the interview went well, and she’s been pretty miserable since then. There is a huge demand for nurses, but she specifically wants to work in Labour and delivery, and that’s tougher to get into. I hope she finds something soon. As my son mentioned the other day, “someone in this family needs a job”. I do wonder sometimes what my kids think about me playing poker all the time, and whether there are any long term repercussions associated with it. I sure love being home all the time, but I’m a little uneasy about the image that I’m just ‘playing’ and not working. I can talk about it with the 16 year old, and she told me she thinks it’s “cool”, but the others are too young to put it into context.

Report cards came home this week for the 3 younger kids. My older son is finding it much tougher in grade 7 than he did in elementary school. I need to spend more time reviewing his work. My younger son continues to amaze us. He got one B+, and everything else is straight A’s. He’s my future poker player. He loves to sit and watch, especially the tournaments. We have a meeting with the school administrators to determine what we want to do with him next year. He was identified as gifted this year and is eligible for special programs, but that would require changing schools, so I don’t think we want to do that. But I do want to make sure he stays challenged. His teacher this year is letting him do algebra (he’s in grade 4) to keep him interested and I hope we’ll get a teacher who will do the same next year too. My baby did very well too, almost all B’s, so it was a pretty good report card day.

On a personal note, I’m getting very fat. I’m almost 20 pounds heavier than I was when I ran the marathon 5 years ago. Sitting in this chair 8 hours a day is not helping my fitness level any. Since soccer season ended last fall, I’ve done very little to stay in shape, and it’s really starting to show. I think I better get down to the ‘Y’ and join up. The tricky part is figuring out when to fit a workout into my schedule. Right after the kids go to school, lunch time, or after school would seem to be my choices. I usually sleep from 9 to 12, so I would have to change that somewhat. I don’t know if it would be better to sleep before or after a workout. 4:00 PM might be the best time, but that’s when I run errands etc. and I’m afraid it would be too easy to keep skipping the workout.

The sweetest feeling in poker. At the same time, on two different tables last night, I had the absolute nuts, and got bet into and 3 bet on the river. On one table I had quads, and the other I had a straight. Both times the other guy had AA, and waited for the river to get aggressive.

Reviewing my rake numbers has me wondering what percentage of players can actually win. Since I started with poker tracker, I’ve won $15,350, and paid $14,600 in rake. Assume an imaginary 6 player table, with all of us paying 14,000 in rake, plus my 15,000 in winnings, that’s 100K that the other 5 have lost in total. Unless I’m missing something, those are pretty spectacular losses. It’ll take a lot of opponents to make up that 100K. Clearly I need to look at moving up in stakes if possible to reduce the rake as a percentage of my earnings.

Have a good week.

Week 47

Taking some time off paid dividends this week. There is nothing fair about the game of poker over a short period, but in the long run you’ll get the results you deserve and I’m getting better and better with accepting the short term fluctuations. Last week I played a lot of hours trying and failing to bank some winnings in anticipation of a few days off for the kids March break. So this week I played minimal hours and had terrific results.

Last Sunday my wife left with the 3 younger children for Montreal. My older daughter had to work and I had to curl on Sunday night, so we stayed behind an extra day and left for Montreal on Monday morning. It was just a short trip for me, as the two older kids had to be back home by Wednesday afternoon. So I drove 6 hours on Monday, made a 90 minute drive to ski on Tuesday, then after a full day of fantastic ski conditions made the 90 minute return trip Tuesday night. Finally Wednesday morning I came back with the two older kids. 15 hours of driving in a 54 hour period, but worth every minute. My wife is still in Montreal with the 2 younger kids, but will return today. Life gets back to normal tomorrow.

Freed from my parental responsibilities, I made a rare Sunday afternoon appearance at the poker tables and immediately wished I hadn’t. My mediocre results from the previous week continued and I dropped $300. The men’s Canadian curling championship final was on Sunday night, and after finding out our game was cancelled, my teammates and I headed out to watch the final in a bar. It was a fun night out with the boys, and the curling was fantastic, maybe the most exciting final ever (keep the comments to yourself), although I readily admit the highlight of the evening was the lingerie match on the WWF show that was on the adjoining television. Anyway I got home around 1:00 AM after a few cold ones and proceeded to lose $600 more. I was just about ready to call it a night when I hit a few hands and decided to play a little more. By 5:00 AM I had won back the $900 and actually finished the day ahead $27. I changed my departure time to 11:00 and got a little sleep. I didn’t play at all in Montreal and got a couple of good nights of sleep. I don’t usually feel tired when I’m on my normal routine, but there is something nice about 7 straight hours of sleep. I got home Wednesday afternoon but didn’t have time to play. I got home from the curling club around 11:00 PM and proceeded to have a good night, winning $616. Thursday was back to a normal schedule, and I had posted wins in both the afternoon and evening sessions, winning $1,081. My son and I had a male bonding couple of nights, take out food and action movies. T3 on Thursday, and Jackie Chan on Friday. It was pretty nice. Even better were the big wins I had. Friday was another big day, up $1,047. Finally Saturday night, in only 2 hours of play I won another $791, finishing the week ahead $3,562 playing only 27 hours.

It has now been over 3 weeks since my last $500 loss. Clearly my more aggressive play is paying off in fewer losing sessions, as well as smaller losses when they occur. The games are still full of people willing to cold call with crap, and chase to the river with anything. This leads to a lot of river beats, but you sure win some big pots as a result. On one of my huge nights this week I lost 3 hands where I flopped or turned a full house, when the other guys AA made a boat with a 2-out A rivering. They were all $150 plus pots, so that night could have been even bigger.

It’s interesting for me to look back at how my game has evolved in the last year. Playing full table 5/10 at paradise, and 3/6 at Party I was very much a weak tight player. I did a lot of limping and saw a lot of flops. But I managed to win steadily, although probably at a rate that was less than optimal. However, seeing so many flops did allow me to develop hand reading skills that I think help me a lot now. Using Poker tracker and comparing my results with other 2+2’ers was the catalyst for me making changes to my game, and although the changes weren’t extreme, they made an immediate improvement in my win rate. I can’t help but think though that the time spent playing “weak-tight’ was an important developmental stage for my game.

I didn’t play any tournaments this week, but Empire has a WSOP qualifier tonight guaranteeing 3 seats for a $150 entry. I think I’ll buy in for that one. And next Saturday is the 1st VIP reward tournament where the top 100 players (as of Wednesday) will play for a $30,000 package to the Bellagio 5 star tourney. I currently have 8916 points and 100th place is 7006. I think I’m safely in.

Here is something I’ve done more of lately with good results. I believe I have the table image of someone whose bets mean something, so occasionally I try and take advantage of that. I had Qd 8d on the button and with one limper in, I limped too. Both blinds played. Flop came Kd 7s 5d. The blinds checked and the limper bet out. I just called hoping the blinds would come along too. This is my usual play in this situation as I would rather play 3 others for 1 bet when drawing than get it heads up for 2 bets. SB called, and the BB folded. Turn was the 6h giving me a few more outs. Again the limper bet, and now I raised. The BB called (damn) but the limper folded. River was the Ts. BB checked and I bet my Q high busted draw. BB folded. Too often I would check this river to save the $10, but clearly I don’t have to steal the pot too often to make this play worthwhile.

I was flush blind here. I have Qh 8h in the SB, and there is a poster who checks. I just call and the BB checks. 3 to the flop. Flop is Th 9s 7h giving me a great draw. I bet, the BB raises and the poster calls 2 cold. I 3 bet, and the BB caps. Poster calls 2 more cold and all 3 of us see the turn. Turn is the 8c, not a great card for me. I check, BB bets and we both call. I start chanting “Heart’ ‘Heart’, but my prayers go unanswered as the Jc rivers. I check, thinking that at least I might split the pot with us all playing the board. They both checked behind me and I was shocked to see the pot sliding my way. I completely missed my Q making me a straight. I also missed 2 bets I’m sure. BB had 8s 3d (wow) and poster had Ah 6h (WOW, glad heart didn’t come).

At one point in my amazing short Saturday session I had the following stats. 229 hands played, 18% won, 90% showdowns won, 30% flops seen and 50% pots won when flop seen. That’s how to win $900 in 2 hours.

Have a good week all.

Week 48

It seems the poker Gods read last week’s post and decided to punish me for my arrogance. After writing that my variance had shrunk due to my aggressive play, and bragging that I had gone weeks without a big loss, for the first time ever I had 2ses of $1,000 in the same week. Fortunately I had 3 $1,000 or more wins so the week still turned out okay. It ended with a bad taste in my mouth though due to the VIP freeroll for the top 100 players. More about that later.

The week started with my paying $150 + 15 to enter a WSOP qualifier for 3 guaranteed seats. It turned out to be a good value since there were only 169 entrants, so the prize pool was an overlay, but alas I played like an idiot and went out around 70th. I’m not making the correct adjustments for tournament play, I’m still playing it like a ring game and pushing tiny edges too far. I need to play more tournaments to get experience, but I hate to cut into my regular playing time too much. It’s a difficult challenge. As an example of my play, it was after the first break and I still had around m chip count, 1,000. The stakes are now high enough (this is limit) that playing 2 hands to the end and losing will cripple you. I had AJo in the cutoff and I open raise. The SB 3 bets me. Flop is Kxx and he bets out. I call and call the turn and call the river and he shows me AK. I still have trouble letting go of hands. This hand wasn’t going to win me the tournament, but it sure could lose it for me.

After that I played for a couple of hours and made back my entry fee plus a little extra to finish up $85 for the day. Monday was a rough day though, starting in the afternoon and continuing all night. I lost $974 and I can’t even blame bad players getting lucky. I was just cold decked again and again. I ran into aces several times while I held a big pair, and I lost with them several times. Never bad plays by my opposition, simply hitting their hands when they had correct odds to draw. What can you do? I bounced back Tuesday though and won $1,002 to get back in the black for the week. Wednesday was a frustrating day, never able to get on a run, and I finished with a small loss of $143. Then came Thursday, and it was brutal. If Monday had been tough, this was tougher. Flush under flush, set under set, full house under full house. Lost $1,003. I’ve started my diet this week and between the two big losses and missing my sugar fixes I was pretty grouchy by now. Then on Friday the roller coaster went back up and I had a monster day, winning $1,580. Saturday night we were invited over to our best friends place for a Sex in the City Finale party (We get it several weeks behind the Americans) and I went for dinner (NY steaks, and Cosmopolitans) but had to leave to play my freeroll at 9:00 PM. Well, I was back at the party before 10:00 in a real bad mood. I had to pick up my daughter at midnight and I didn’t sit down to actually play until 12:30 thinking I’d get a few hours in. I was still playing at 5:30 and I was up another $1,356 finishing the week up $1,903. Wow, it’s enough to spin your head.

One thing I was really proud of this week was the fact that I quit at my usual time on the 2 nights I was getting killed. I didn’t think I was playing my best and I called it quits. That is difficult for me, I always want to get even. But on my big nights, I played late. Real late on Friday and Saturday because the games were just too good to leave. On Saturday especially there was a maniac with $1,500 in front of him and I wasn’t going to leave until he did. Either was anyone else. The same 6 of us stayed at a table for 4 hours. I’ve never seen that before. I left 30 seconds after he did. During this time I eventually quit all my other tables just to concentrate on him since the whole table was on tilt, it was getting pretty tricky to play. But it paid off. I started with $250 and left with $1,300 from just that table. Our average pot was $110 at a 5/10 table. It was incredible. He was down to $600 when he quit.

Now for my freeroll story. I was so looking forward to this tournament. I guess you can tell from the posts of the last few weeks how badly I’d like to win a trip to Vegas. I think it would be the perfect finish to this year and give me a real focal point if I wanted to turn this into a book, I thought this might be my best chance since only 100 were invited, I was sure some wouldn’t show up like all freeroll’s, and I was sure some had no tournament experience. Although it wasn’t a WSOP qualifier, I was already dreaming of the brownie points I’d score if I took my wife to the Bellagio for 4 or 5 days. I was right about people not showing up. At my starting table 6 people were missing and they were blinded off. Unfortunately the 4 of us who were there were in seats 3, 5, 6 and 8 and I was in 3. If you think about it you will see I had about 0 chance of accumulating chips. Imagine playing 4 handed and every 1o hands you are UTG 5 times, 2nd to act once, button twice and SB and BB once each. Now the guy in the 8 seat gets the button 5 times 3rd to act twice, UTG once and blinds once each. Who has the advantage. As the rounds went by It became clearer to me just what a big advantage it was for him. After 6 orbits seat 8 had over 2,000 in chips, seat 6 had 1,700, seat 5 had 1,100 and I was at 700, behind all 6 non-players. And seat 8 was smart enough to start using his stack meaning I never got a cheap play. Except once when I got a free flop with T4. Flop was T94. I check raised him and he called. Turn was another T and he raised me and I 3 bet him. River was a blank and I bet and he raised me and we capped it. He had T9 and I was down to the felt. I went out in 99th place although 40 players didn’t show up. This was so unfair I wrote a letter. Clearly nothing could be done after the tournament had started, but they shouldn’t allow 6 empty seats in a tournament.

I’m not giving up though. Empire has added 2 WSOP seats only for the VIP players so I’ll take a shot at that for sure. And I can always bid on the 2,000 package they have that includes a satellite entry at the WSOP. I was in 5th place overall in points so If I was to bid all my points I’m pretty sure I’d win it.

I’m usually pretty straight forward in my play. A by-product of playing several tables I guess. But this week I’ve tried to mix it up a bit like this hand. I have Kd Jh in the BB and the SB open raises. I just call. Flop is Kc Jd 6d. He checks and I check too. Turn was 7d and he bet and I raised him. River was 4d, I bet and he called. He had K5, the 5 was a diamond. In hindsight I think betting the flop would have made me more because he was looking to check-raise I think. I could have 3 bet or smooth called and still popped the turn. I guess straight forward is still the way to go.

I wanted to write more about the maniac table, but I have to go out and I want to get this posted. I’ll try to elaborate next week. Have a good week everyone.