This blog is moving to the link below:

www.damnringer.com

Please check it out! The content will be the same just want to be on a site that has slightly better blogging!

This month is off to the races and i'm still winning money but i gotta tell ya what, i am getting sucked out on like crazy.

I am currently running at 2.20bb/100 over 5k hands. Obviously this isn't near enough to get a real feel for how the month is gonna go but let me tell ya i feel like i'm getting brutalized out there. Seems like everytime i wake up with a big allin i get sucked out on. Which obviously this isn't always the case but it does always feel like it.

But obviously i can't complain but its certainly just been a roller coaster. So hopefully the rest of the month goes crazy good and i can have another 10k winner. Here's the hoping.

I'm off to VT for the weekend.

That session was crazy. I got bad beated all over the place but still made $1100. It would have been HUGE if i didn't get my KK vs. AK and AA vs. JJ vs. QQ sucked out on! Oh well such is life. No time for graphs.

Everyone have a good weekend.

oh and also... i will probably be moving this blog over to a site I created. I will link you guys when i get the new blog setup!

April is underway. I haven't gotten in many hands as i've been very busy with coaching, work, and not being a recluse.

I had my first session with that poorly played hand posted in the blog beneath here. Then i had a $1200 win in less than 500 hands on wednesday. I was running like god. However, yesterday i sit down and had the exact opposite of wednesday happen. I lost 2 big hands and got nailed for $700 in the first 15 minutes of sitting down. The worst part was i wasn't even wanting to play, i was just making sure i didn't miss an ironman day. There is a hand however that i think was a misplay preflop. I played it against Poker679 who is a pretty standard tag player. Here's the hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2382559

I think the only mistake is pre-flop. I think my flop call on a dry board is good as raising would certainly give my hand away and give him a chance to get away from AA or KK. So my plan is to raise on the turn, but with him playing pretty standard tag, a smooth call on the flop might set off his alarms while holding AA or KK. So i think i made the perfect turn bet. What i did mentally was said 'Eric, Make a bet you would never make with a set here'. I did this for a few reasons: 1) He will raise to find out where he is with AA or KK or at least call 2) he will possibly raise with nothing as it looks like i've got a medium strength hand. I think the $66 bet is genius here, and is too big to be a value bet and too small to be a protector bet. It just looks like i have maybe a pair of T's.

Anyways i'm still up on the month and about to play another session. See ya guys.

Ok. So i made a mistake that's been bugging me all day, and i did it yesterday so alas i think the only way to get it outta my head is to write it out and yell at myself via blog.

This is against a 14/11/3 opponent. He's a winner at 2/4 (or at least i tend to think he is). I have played a few hands with him before and viewed a few more. He's solid but certainly a thinking player. Now here's the hand...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2373641

OK... he's got the same stats i do essentially so i know how he plays and what his ranges are. So i raise KJ from Hijack. Standard play of the hand. Flop comes a very solid one with no draw. I make mid-pair with a solid kicker. My thought process for checking this is "i have c-bet all sorts of hands and have an aggressive style, i will check to this player and call hoping to induce a multi-barrel bluff". In this situation if i were him and got checked to i would bet about any underpair to QJ. I also put him on a pocket pair pre- as he just called and calling pre- with something like AJ with his stats just isn't profitable and he would know that.

So he fires. Perfect. I got him doing what i want him to. The bet looks like its a bluff or a queen... and by calling i also put on the hat of having a draw. This is exactly the hat i want him to put on me.

So turn comes off perfect. It makes no draws. It improves no 22-TT minus 33. Which if he's betting that flop i would put him somewhere in the 88-TT range on flop. So 3 is perfect. Alot of times i'll fire into this player on turn as he has a tough time raising me. But i think this player is seasoned enough to see right through that bet when then turn makes utterly nothing and wouldn't scare a monster like QQ or JJ. So I check again, again i'm planning on letting him give me money with something like 99 as he would expect it to be good since i'm on a draw.

I call again. Here's the epic fuckup imo. The 8 hits EVERYTHING! It hits his range and it hits his 9T straight if he was semi-bluff (which is also possible). It also hits my only likely draw. If he fires again, this is an absolute no brainer fold. He fires again... but wait its too big.

"This line doesn't make sense for a made straight or a set." I say to myself. He bets smaller with those holdings as trying to get value from AQ while still trying to get a raise from missed hands. I beat nothing... utterly nothing. If my pipedream of his hand is right, he's likely made a set. Anyways, my brain slips, i start thinking he could have air with such a big bet, and i call and give away money.

Over all the session yesterday was positive, but this one mistake early motivated me to play better. A rare terrible call on the river by me. I just figured i'd show you guys i can make horrendous mistakes too but the key is to learn from them.

So this is offical april 1st at like 12:02am. I just finished a session where actually 3 of my buddies from school got on mikogo and watched me play while berating me over skype. They are all still in school and were all hammered so it was hilarious. They are all small stakes players so they are pretty amazed at watching the sizing of the bets at 600nl.

Anyways, I did finish strong and played a pretty good session today of 400nl and 600nl making another 1.5k or so. Heres my final graph and it was definitely a 10k month + 1k rakeback! In all honesty, i didnt feel like i ran that well either. So hopefully im able to run red hot in april or at least not ice cold. I'm now an iron man for 2 months in a row. That's the only two months i've been VT hokie poker and i feel like i've really started to make a name for myself on FTP. You will soon see a VT hokie poker table on FTP. Alot of people are probably just like 'dude take the money' well in all honesty, i'd really rather have that than $100 so F-it all i'll do it because it will make me feel like a baller and i tend to think the action i get from having my own table might actually be worth more than it 'costs' in medals.

I also cleared the 20k mark in my BR which is about 5k away from my actual bankroll mark when i go pro. So no april fools, i thought about writing some article about how i got drunk and decided to play headsup for 100/200 and lost all my money in one fell swoop to townsend, but decided no one would believe it anyways... so alas i stand before you a broken man with no prank (but not a broke man).

So back to the month, i only managed to get in 33k hands... which is basically nothing! I have a job so that took away from the time i had to really play. I would play far more if i didn't have the job and would probably make far more money. Anyways I have to go to bed so i can go to the job i kinda like still, but find utterly pointless. Here's my stats and graph from the month. Have a good one guys.

have a good night guys.

UNC vs. Louisville

I'm going to see this game at 9pm tonight. So i figure i'll do analysis so i can go back and laugh at myself for being so stupid after the game is over. I'm gonna call this one a blowout. I think UNC is gonna completely blow the doors off the louisville defense. Let me just say I HATE UNC but alas they are ridiculously good at recruiting so i gotta keep watching them play good games. So i will go ahead and say UNC scored over 80 and beats Louisville by 14. 86-72 and it won't even be close.

with that outta the way we can discuss real life things...

On a poker front the month is essentially done. So I will go ahead and post the graph i have for this month, if i didn't piss away $1600 in a drunken moment at the beginning of the month i'd be up about $1600 more. haha. Seriously tho, remind me never to play drunk. The begining of the month was a little rocky and i started the month play 1/2n and ended playing 2/4 and 3/6. That said, my year goal was to play at 2/4 and its march. This is progressing so fast that i don't know where its gonna stop and when. I feel like i'm able to take down any game and compete with the best online poker has to offer. On top of this graph, i also made about 2 grand playing omaha however i can not for the life of me figure out how to get my poker grapher to find my omaha databases. So if you know how to do that PLEASE let me know. So overall this was close to a 10k month which is pretty much where i wanna be by the time i go pro.

My plan currently is still in effect. Save money, and be done with my job by the end of august. I dont' want to rush it just because i have alot of things to consider and alot of precautions i want to meet. I never make rash life decisions so this one isn't going to be that either. I still haven't told my parents that i want to take a real shot at being great in the poker arena. They know i'm very solid and support the fact that i am so dedicated to poker. So hopefully my dad will hear me out and give me some great advice.

There's also the dilemma of what to do next. I currently have a bankroll that is capable of playing 3/6nl full time yet these games never run of FTP. Full ring just doesn't have many high stakes regulars. For the most part, all the action is in 6-max tables and 6-max is just a style that i can't seem to adapt into a really winning game. I could always move to stars where there's regular 3/6 games that run pretty much all the time but i don't want to do that as there is no rakeback to be had. So i think it would be more profitable to grind out 400nl and take shots at 1000nl on FTP. I had a conversation with Pdonk about it the other day and she was explain that acecr just adapted his game so he could play 6-max once he got the point that i'm at. But i still don't really wanna do this as i don't like the swings (on top of other things) of 6-max.

Obviously this dilemma isn't a problem, it means i'm getting to the point where there's not games at the stake i want to play. which is great and a problem i never thought i'd have.

First, i played a session yesterday and played what i thought was pretty well but ended up down about $230. That being said if this didn't happen i would have been a winner.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2338317

Anyways my roommate surprises me again yesterday with NCAA east bracket tickets! So today and saturday i'm going to watch the sweet 16 and elite 8. Now i'm not a UNC fan as a matter of fact i'm very anti-UNC... so i shall be rooting against them. So look for ringer on TV boys and girls.

So today goes pretty much like every other day at work. Samo Samo and i just design subdivisions for 9 hours. I come home and my roommate isn't here. She just moved in about a week ago and actually i got her off craigslist. Now i know what you are thinking... wtf? craigslist? don't you have friends? Well in short yeah i have friends but friends without leases i don't have. So I actually heard really good things from a few of my friends about people getting roommates off craigslist. Well i give it a shot. I get a few responses, 2 of which are normal people.

Being the 24 year old straight outta college guy that i am, i go for a 23 yo guy from clemson and a 23 yo girl from jmu (james madison). The girl is willing to commit to a whole year and she gets the place. After meeting her and talking over a beer, she's real cool and i could definiltely see myself getting along with her. anyways, she moved in yadayada.

So back to the story, she's not home and i sit down and fire up a little game of 1/2 plo hu. play some douche bag donkey who sits with $40 and lose like $18 before he leaves... abotu this time i get a call from my roommate to come outside. She's surprised me with a new recliner for our living room. Awesome.

Its prolly the least she could do after i bought all new furniture and a 60" tv, but its still an awesome jesture and an great surprise.

Anyways so gave a lesson today as well. He's actually got alot of potential as a student, he really seems to have his head on straight just needs to think a little outside of the box. but of course you gotta be in the box before you can think out of it. So he's there at least. He's one of about 5 students i am coaching on a semi-regular basis. So on that note, lessons from DamnRinger are half-buyin/hour and totally worth it. I'm sure a few guys can vouch for it and might just do so on the blog.

Anyways to the poker for the evening. After the lesson,

the tables was hustling with pros at 2/4. The tables were not ideal conditions to be played in, however, i didn't really have a choice cause tonight from 10 til 11:30 was the only time i had available to play and i'm an addict so alas i'm stuck. I fire up 2 tables that have spots without chislodc on them (i'm avoiding him until i get a better grip on his game, narena feel free to comment on how to tackle that beast). Actually i already know, i just gotta let him hang himself but easier said than done. I sit at a new table as i get on the waiting lists and i get a guy sit down with $382.64. Now first thing that goes through my head, "this guy is gonna try to hit and run me". That's a good thought and was spot on. http://www.pokerhand.org/?2330636.

So this is the first hand i really played today... great start and great read by me. I love starting up new tables just because you get some random people that really just decide to sit down with you and you can avoid alot of the regulars as well. Plus you get to see everyone from the beginning. Anyways all said and done i think i played really well tonight (minus one call against narena). And here's the graph from tonight, and march graph will be on the way shortly.

Alright so today was the best cash game day of my life by about 3 times what my previous best was. I had the day off due to a floating spring holiday at work so of course i'm not gonna pass up an opportunity to pretend like i'm already doing this full time. So i wake up at 10am, take the dog out, hop in the shower and then hop on the tables. I fire up 8 400nl tables and boom. An explosion. Over 2657 hands, i took down $3100 at 2/4nl. I took 1 bad beat but got my money in ahead pretty much every time today minus one hand which involved me shoving on 2 mid stacks while i held AK. One held AJ and the other KK. But the A32 flop pulled it down for me.

I checked my stats today and notice my style had changed slightly which means really good thing. It means I am adapting to the players at the new limit. The main reason for my success is the 2 players who take me outta my comfort zone weren't on today. That's Chislodc and BoomerangPoker. All the regulars today were just TAG to the max and very readable. So i was just simply picking those players apart and feasting on the donkeys. But like i said my numbers evolved today. I went from my normal play of 15/10/3 to 12/8/4. This could have been from just the small sample but i really felt like i was playing great poker and am not longer even remotely frightened of 2/4. Once i figure out how to take down those 2 regulars that give me trouble i feel like i'll be unstoppable. Anyways, here's my chart for the DAY which adds to my good month already.