Session 20

I've been working on taking better notes during and after my sessions; I've found that although I can remember sessions pretty well, I do often forget bet sizing and button position when it comes time to write this blog or go over hand analysis with friends.

That being said, my notes on this session bring the action at this table back to the forefront of my mind...there was none. The table was a complete dud, for some reason table 21-23 are often like that, there's no real explanation for it, or proof that it's even true. It just seems that way.

So I grinded out a small win and was ready to leave when Bully1 took a seat in the 1 and Bully2(his friend) took a seat in the 5. They had been sent over from a broken table and both had a decent amount of chips in front of them, and both had been drinking...heavily. JACKPOT!

The fireworks started as soon as Bully1 picked up a hand, bet 3 streets, got called on the river and threw a fit because his opponent(an ameristar dealer) wouldn't show his hand first.

Opponent: "I called you Bully1, show your hand"

Bully1: "I don't have anything, I have a 10"

Opponent: "Then either muck it or show it!"

Bully1: "I don't want to show it, stop slowrolling me you douche!"

Bully2:"Yeah, stop slowrolling"

Opponent: "I called and would like to see your hand..."

So now Bully1 is pissed and someone is going to pay for it. He proceeds to play every hand for a bit and in the process loses another chunk of his stack.

On his final hand, he is the BB. Action is folded to Bully2 who makes it $6 to go. A very silly and strange raise in live play. I look down at pocket 10's in the cut off and choose to just call, hoping that Bully1 will jack it up a bit. I get my wish, folded to Bully1 he makes it $15(another silly raise). Bully2 calls, and I raise to $60. Bully1 gives me a look, goes on a 30 second tirade about how rude I am and calls, Bully2 follows suit. $180ish in the pot heading to the flop

10h,6s,8h

Bully1 tells me he is going to teach me a lesson and shoves all in, Bully 2 says "me too" and he moves all in as well. I call with top set. 8 on the turn gives me a boat, blank on the river.

Bully1 says nothing, pays me off picks up his remaining $20-30 bucks and he and Bully2 leave the poker room.

I push Kim(the dealer) a larger than normal tip as the table breaks.

Session 19

I got to the table pretty late and therefore missed alot of the action involved b/w the players that resulted in 5 out of the 9 players having over $600 when I sat down. Unfortunately, I sat to the right of the most aggressive player at the table, who also had the 2nd largest stack at the table at around $900. With it already being around midnight when I arrived, I knew I wasn't going to have much time to pitter around if I wanted to get some uptick before the table started breaking up.

I lost a sizeable pot pretty early in the session when my A10s ran into AQo on an A,10,Q, Q, 8 board. I rebought and picked my next few spots pretty carefully finally doubling up with AKo vs. Villian's 38s in a raised pot on a K,3,4,5,2 board rainbow flop. Yes, the villian was pretty bad.

When I doubled up one of the players at the table, a dealer at Ameristar made a comment like "Bah, He's got chips now pots are going to get crazy..." I loved the little bit of advertising I got there, but nothing came of it because the table did, in fact, break an hour later.

Session 18

After the debacle of the previous session, I really needed to just play well to get my mind right. I really didn't care if I came out ahead or behind finiancially, I just wanted to walk away from the session thinking that most of the decisions I had made were the correct ones.



I really didn't get the chance to make many decisions however, as my session was cut short and I had to leave the table. I doubled up with AA on my 3rd or fourth hand at the table and that was bascially the only pot I was involved in for my hour or so during this session.

Session 17

Believe it or not I played extra shitty during this session. Down 2 buyins in less than 3 hours. Ran my kk into aa in a big pot understandable.



However running my 109o into trip aces for 75bb is horrible. I'm glad i followed my brm guidelines because I was pissed at myself and ready to donk off another buyin.

Session 14

This was just uber bad all around. One of the worst live days mentally that I've ever had to be honest.
I lost set over set 4 times and to top that off I ignored my BRM rules and bought in 3 times while tilting and basically just gave money away. Ugh!

Btw, I need to either accurately track my tokes or not do it at all. I'm funding my records on tipping aren't accurate in the least




-Posted from iPhone

Sessions 15 & 16

These were basically the same session. Due to me running bad over the last week or so I was probably a but gun-shy in some spots I wouldn't have normally been. I removed some late position 3 bets I would normally have seen as +EV and took the conservative route of calling and playing a smaller pot post flop.



I guess you could call it "session scope pot control".



I eeked out a small win in both sessions for a small shot of the confidence I had lost from the set over set(x4) debacle of my previous session. I was happy with just booking the win...

-Posted from iPhone

Session 13

Another card dead session. I did go on a heater at the end of the session and had built up a bit of a stack until this hand happened:

I utg limp with 44. Villian1 is utg + 1 is short stack with about $100 and raises to $15. Villian2 calls and another guy calls. Flop Js4s9s.
I Check. Villian1 bets $15. Everyone calls.
10d on turn I lead out for $35. Villian1 shoves for $90 allin. Villian2 snap calls. She has me well covered. Folded to me. I call. Kh on the river. Villian2 bets $150 on the sidepot and I call like a donkey and see villian 2 has flopped the nut flush

I played that hand so horribly bad on every street, horrible! I picked up and left soon after




-Posted from iPhone

Sessions 11 & 12

Although the hourly win rate is below goal, these 2 sessions have been some of my best poker thus far.

In both sessions I was extremely card dead, extremely. Almost every pot I won I think I got max value for. I laid down a few hands that I would've called down and lost with so I saved some value there as well.





-Posted from iPhone

Session 10

My first sizable losing session of the challenge.

Lost half my stack early with AA pf against JJ when a J peeled on the turn. I made some moves for the next hour or so but couldn't get any traction. Ran my top two into a set to end the session



-Posted from iPhone

Session 8

I sat down with the fog in full effect. The fog is what I call the feeling I have when I know I'm not at full power before the game even starts. I shouldn't have even bothered playing...



-Posted from iPhone

So far...

7 sessions in and so far so good.

Even with 2 lame duck sessions and a losing session I'm still averaging over my goal projection. It's still early and a very small sample size but so far so good...




-Posted from iPhone

Session 7

I was tired during this session but couldn't pass up the chance to play with "top gun" on my left and a bunch of young kids with stacks at the table. I knew I didn't have long to play, which is normally a -EV situation, but the table was too ripe to leave sitting there. I just wanted a piece then I could leave...

I won the first 4 hands dealt to me in unspectacular fashion before picking up KK and folding when I got check-raised on an A78 board.

A flopped set of jacks won me a decent sized pot though and I left before falling asleep at the table




-Posted from iPhone

Session 5 & 6

Both these sessions were almost the same. Dropping big portions of my stack early then eking out a small win to leave up. It was mind numbing. Both times I had some laggy players in my left limiting the options I had.

I didn't play bad, although I wasn't on my A-game but I survived a miracle in itself as the table was full if donks catching crazy two pair combinations on the river to scoop pots.











-Posted from iPhone

Session 4

My first losing session of this challenge. I bought in short because I hate the "aces cracked" promotion with a passion.

The problem with the short buy is that I have even less wiggle room with 50bb's and so after missing a flop with AKs and cbetting then getting shoved on, I rebought.

I was card dead for a bit. Lost a few pots with the second best hand and that was all she wrote



-Posted from iPhone

Session 3(part 2)

Late night poker is another monster in itself. As the book "The zen of poker" states "Always skip the last 2 hours of a poker game"




This I have found to be very true so after my table broke moved to a table full of chatter with the majority of the table drinking.

Big pots were moving back and forth as people fought to cooler one another. I stayed out of harms way for the most part, picked some good spots and watched the drunks argue...




-Posted from iPhone

Session 3

Rolling off the 1-2-5 and back to the 1-2 always requires a bit of level adjustment, not a lot but there is a difference. The range of hands the 1-2 players choose to get involved with is daunting. It's like a minefield!

I moved to table 21 and was happy to see a couple players with deep pockets and no idea how to fold. I basically picked up hands and bet each street for value for a few hours. Again I didn't win any monsters(I didn't even get involved in any) but I was steadily scooping decent sized pots and making obvious folds on others.

-Posted from iPhone

Session 2

With one session under my belt I was being to just ignore the fact that I would be tracking everything on this blog. I decided to just settle back into my game as I headed over to a new 1-2-5 must move game.

Immediately there was an issue. Due to my brm guidelines I couldn't buyin to the game at my normal amount. I had to buy in really short with only $150. Oh well.

I made due with the short buyin by picking a couple pots that noone seemed interested in.

As I grinded my nub to $400 in pretty short order I was amazed by how many players are still willing to stack off with TPTK. Nutty.

I was picked to move to the main fame which has been running awhile, $400 in that game wasn't going to cut it so I opted to move back to 1-2.


-Posted from iPhone

Session 1

I had planned on starting this challenge on january 1st but this was totally arbitrary so since I had the blog up I thought "no time like the present" and started on December 18th.

I decided to break each table into sessions rather than group sessions by day. I think it'll just be easier to track that way.

My first session was pretty uneventful. I did think that I was playing a bit differently knowing that I'd be tracking my BR publicly sure changed things. I played about an hour of 1-2 while I waited for 1-2-5 to start. Therefore there were no hands of note I left up $61




-Posted from iPhone

It begins...

Goal: Profit $15,000 playing live by the end of 2011. I also play poker online, but this goal is strictly a “live” goal.

About Me: I’m a 38 year old man working full time with a 1 year old daughter.  I’m estimating that I will have 25 hours/week(or 1300 hours/year) to play poker live in 2011.


Poker History:   I believe I first started playing poker sometime in 2004-2005. Like most it was of the local home game variety, totally recreational and mostly small stakes tournaments.  I typically did well in these, not crushing them by any means, but I held my own and made enough profit from them to warrant me coming back whenever a friend was having them.

I transitioned to playing micro stakes online poker in 2005, again recreationally.  I quickly learned that I had no idea what I was doing.  I would deposit $50 and quickly lose it by attempting to play like “the guys I saw on TV”.

At some point in 2006 I got sick of being a slowly bleeding losing player, so I began studying the game.  Poker transitioned from being something I did as a recreation to my ‘hobby’.  I bought or borrowed any poker book I could get my hands on and attempted to absorb what I could.  I was still a losing player, but now I was losing slower!

The turning point for me came in late 2006 when I purchased Poker tracker and began analyzing my sessions and identifying my leaks.  A few months after that purchase I went from a losing player to a break-even play over 20k or so hands.  It was also around this time that I stumbled onto 2+2 poker forums and shortly after CardRunners Video training.

By 2007, I was a winning online player, again not crushing the games I was playing(10nl & 25nl), but I was winning.  I still had no Bank Roll Management(BRM) guidelines, so there were a few ‘busto’ periods in there after taking withdrawals from my poker bankroll to go clubbing, buy food, video games, etc causing me to reload a couple times.

In 2009(or close enough) I began playing live.  I’m a social person, so I liked the social aspect of the live game better than staring at a computer screen all night.  Although I was a winning online player, it took awhile to adjust to the style played in a live casino.  I was a losing player again, however this time it was at $1-2 so I was losing $200 a pop!  I hunkered down and worked on my live game, studied tells, re-watched old videos and trolled 2+2 forums...

2010 was a turning point for my live game.  At some point early in the year everything just clicked, and I haven’t looked back at that losing player since.

However, adequate BRM is still something I need to define and this next year I’m going to work on that and achieving my goal.

Process to Succeed: To keep this as simple as possible, I will only be tracking my live play(The hours I log playing online at this point are minuscule and the game I play online is normally 2-7 Triple Draw, for all intents and purposes I will assume that my online bankroll and live bankroll are 100% separate)
Although I do have a full time job, I will still be quite conservative with my live BR.
I have basically 1300 hours to make $15,000 so I’ll need to be maintain a win-rate of $11.50 per hour.

BRM:
Live Play - I’ll start the year with a $3k starting roll.

• I'll never buy into a cash game with more than 5 percent of my total bankroll (there is an exception for 1-2: I'm allowed to buy into any 1-2 game).
• I won't buy into a tournament for more than 2 percent of my total bankroll.
• If at any time during a No-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 20 percent of my total bankroll, I must leave the game when the blinds reach me.
• I have a strict 2 buy-in stop-loss per session.
• I’ll keep my bankroll in $100, $500 casino chips.  Other monies earned from live sessions will be cashed out and transferred into a Roth IRA.  For example, a winning session of $337 will be a $300 BR uptick with $37 Roth IRA deposit

Notes:

• I’ll be logging my sessions using poker journal and take notes after each session
• I’ll continue with my studies, mostly books, forums and the occasional video.