An important element of the following blog is that I don't deposit, and the point to the blog is at the bottom.

Since December has been rough. Downswinging and hitting awful and getting seriously unlucky and running into the top of peoples ranges was a bummer. Playing downright awful at times was pretty horrid too. The worst though was the fact that I mismanaged my bankroll. Probably you know about people who have done this doing things like playing wasted or taking rediculous shots. None of that happened to me.

In order for me to play my chosen game (sattelites) I need about 1500 online. In order for me to play my chosen game and handle as bad as the swings can get though, I think I need about 2500 online. All of a sudden I started going 0-fer. And my roll declined. Gradulally at first. Then I moved to something else (rush poker or sngs) so that I could start fresh because I lost some confidence. Then I started noticing that I didn't have 1k on stars. 1K is a nice mark for casual but serious players, you're in good shape to play most games at low stakes. Before I knew it one sunday of sattelites and I have like 500 on stars.

BOOM! "WTF do I do now. If I play next sundays satty's I can bust my roll. I guess I have to move to 4.40 180s?"

And I did. And it sucked. Something awful. I'd play em, get a top 3, take a shot at 3 sattys, brick, rinse, repeat. Instead of winning I was losing. I crushed at 10nl rush for feb and moved that money over to stars for sattys and bricked.

BRUTAL.

All in all it was the worst run in my life. On a typical Sunday I win give or take 500. Then I play about $100 in tourneys. Every other week or so I take off about 1k. The problem with that, is that when variance strikes that extra hundo that I'm withdrawling/playing and not profiting is thinning my roll. I need to be able to play the satty's the the monday 1k on FTP and The Super Tuesday. I need to play the sattys to the Wed 1/4mil.

I mismanged my roll, allowed myself to get to the point where I couldn't play sattelites and therefore couldn't profit at poker! I'm about back to the 1k that I need to be really able to get my roll healthy again. I'm gonna make changes about how I manage my roll so that I don't cost myself 3months of playing my preffered game again. But, here is whats more important that I learned.

I tie my self esteem to my roll. I built it from thin air. I don't lose at poker, losing is for other people. I'm comfortable playing low if that is what it takes.

For the record, thats a bunch of shit. I'm not. I wanna play the game I like the most! I wanna sit HU at 50nl once a month and spew $100 tryin to understand it some. I want to take shots at the NHG on stars sometimes, I want to play sattys to the mohegan sun. I can't do any of that if I don't manage my roll properly. If the biggest downswing you've had is 750$, your roll should be 3-4 times that easily, maybe more. Now that I'm back I'm going to be careful to remember that just because I lost last week doesn't mean I'm gonna win this week. Variance doesn't give a shit that you like never book 3 losing sundays in a row, thats why it's variance. I solemly swear that I won't keep so little online so that I have to go back to micro stakes to grind it back up. I will not EVER let that happen again.

stop into cr chat and say hey

I'm in first with 30ish players to go! 105 bigs

2/95 now

6/171

8k runners

PokerStars Game #57193254951: Tournament #405010516, $3.00+$0.30 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXXII (40000/80000) - 2011/02/05 23:31:32 ET
Table '405010516 465' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: makdak77 (1013632 in chips)
Seat 2: MotM18 (5481819 in chips)
Seat 3: aisflat439 (1642057 in chips)
Seat 6: 1$ickDisea$E (743239 in chips)
Seat 7: SyBorgg (4739776 in chips)
Seat 8: jesse0001974 (3593884 in chips)
Seat 9: AceJames1 (5284074 in chips)
makdak77: posts the ante 8000
MotM18: posts the ante 8000
aisflat439: posts the ante 8000
1$ickDisea$E: posts the ante 8000
SyBorgg: posts the ante 8000
jesse0001974: posts the ante 8000
AceJames1: posts the ante 8000
makdak77: posts small blind 40000
MotM18: posts big blind 80000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to aisflat439 [Kc Kd]
aisflat439: raises 160000 to 240000
1$ickDisea$E: folds
SyBorgg: calls 240000
jesse0001974: folds
AceJames1: folds
makdak77: folds
MotM18: folds
*** FLOP *** [7s 5h 9c]
aisflat439: bets 400000
SyBorgg: raises 1000000 to 1400000
aisflat439: calls 994057 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (5943) returned to SyBorgg
SyBorgg said, "lol"
*** TURN *** [7s 5h 9c] [Ts]
*** RIVER *** [7s 5h 9c Ts] [3h]
SyBorgg said, "lol"
*** SHOW DOWN ***
aisflat439: shows [Kc Kd] (a pair of Kings)
SyBorgg: shows [Td Th] (three of a kind, Tens)
SyBorgg collected 3444114 from pot
aisflat439 finished the tournament in 20th place and received $197.79.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3444114 | Rake 0
Board [7s 5h 9c Ts 3h]
Seat 1: makdak77 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: MotM18 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: aisflat439 showed [Kc Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 6: 1$ickDisea$E folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: SyBorgg showed [Td Th] and won (3444114) with three of a kind, Tens
Seat 8: jesse0001974 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: AceJames1 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

See you all again on Sunday....















yikes....

Phew! I've had a tough week. I'm down about $1300 which since I keep so little money online has forced me to move down stakes for a little while. Back to $4 180mans for a time. I'll need to ship a few of them to get back to where I can play the DSO's on Sunday worry free. I'm still comfortable enough to play like 4 or 5 of them this Sunday so hopefully I can run hot and win like 2 seats and get back to where I need to be for grinding satty's. Emotionally though it's really weird. I don't want to play micro stakes. Play at $440's is absolutely atrocious though. I went 1 for 20 today for a $50 profit which is kinda gross. My old rate at these is 2FT for 12 played and usually one of those is a 1st or 2nd. People are really passive bad. This has lead me to a lot of thinking about bet sizing. My standard open is like 2.25 and that works just fine. If I haven't been particularly active though I've been really aware of the players that I'm opening into. If they are 60/4 I'm opening to up to 4x and having good success with that thus far. I'll ship a few of these within the week and be back to satellites in no time and I think a New Years Resolution will be to stop running at such a tight roll. Maybe start keeping like 3K online so I can handle the swongs....

I'm trying to get staked for satellites. Specific higher limit games only. I'll post a review of the offers I recieve and how it goes here I think. If you are a backer and are interested feel free to review the posting on 2+2.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/163/staking-selling-shares-online/high-limit-sattelite-staking-desired-945124/#post23724301

Mods et all... if this blog violates any T&C's let me know and I will promptly remove it.

****THIS IS CURRENTLY NOT OPEN. Once the downswing ends and I'm back up I will be available but I won't get staked while I'm nearly broke online*****

I put in about 5k hands yesterday. I'll probably put in about 1k today at some point. I'm crushing pretty hard still so I should probably move up relatively soon.

I took a stab last night at 1/2. There was a very nice spot so I figured it was worth it. I only played 111 hand and finished up a tiny bit which would have been more had I not made an awful jam with JJ preflop. In this spot I ended up having the top of my range vs a reggy type who was in call down mode. I think I could have bet $26 and gotten called but a nice pot nonetheless.


Poker Stars, $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 5 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details


Spagiari: $157 (78.5 bb)
Hero: $100 (50 bb)
nullnullnull: $42 (21 bb)
dbj6163: $96.50 (48.3 bb)
AARoseniorAA: $80 (40 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K K
Spagiari folds, Hero raises to $4, nullnullnull folds, dbj6163 calls $3, AARoseniorAA folds

Flop: ($10) 3 7 5 (2 players)
dbj6163 checks, Hero bets $8, dbj6163 calls $8

Turn: ($26) T (2 players)
dbj6163 checks, Hero bets $18, dbj6163 calls $18

River: ($62) 2 (2 players)
dbj6163 checks, Hero bets $20, dbj6163 calls $20

Results:

Spoiler:

$102 pot ($2 rake)
Final Board: 3 7 5 T 2
Hero showed K K and won $100 ($50 net)
dbj6163 mucked 9 7 and lost (-$50 net)

Spoiler:

$50.75 pot ($2.45 rake)
Final Board: 6 J 7 4 6
texi333 showed 9 4 and lost (-$25 net)
Hero showed 7 A and won $48.30 ($23.30 net)

and boy am I tired.

Thanks to:

Iseedeadmoney
asufan23
omnihill
jaypeterson2007
fakesenatorkevin
bgsapnaples
verneer
jimmylegs
the fish on pokerstars

and whoever else I'm forgetting for the rail!

I'm going to bed extremely happy!

I'm super excited about the ME satty today. $320 will certainly be my biggest buy-in ever. I'm not worried about the money as its a shot taking thing, not a me moving to playing $320 tourneys on the regular. 50NL was starting to go well again then I got a puppy. That has slowed my previous Platinum Star pace down to a bronze star level. I'm playing two other tourneys today the 10+r and the quarter million. Both of them I'm playing so that I remain focused in the ME satty. There is overlay right now but that will be busted pretty soon I suspect. I really hope that I can make a deepish run and have some fun. Obv the $12000 would be nice but I don't really suspect that I'm gonna cash it, variance in these fields is huge. 8k runners and only like 300 seats is pretty wide variance. Things are going pretty well though lately so you never know.

The house is coming along nicely. I'll be hanging drywall tommorow. The office will be up in no time flat as well as the new master bedroom. I'm really happy with how it's turning out. It looks really sharp and will be extremely luxurious. I'm about to bust the 1/4mil probably. Meh, they folded.

Joey the dog is super fun and super cute. I'll see if I can work out how to get a pic on this blog. That's all for now. GLGL.

Haven't played a ton yet this month. Took a stab at a little HU. My plan was to play just a few hands and be willing to lose about $100.

Poker Stars, $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 2 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details


Jekus PL: $90.95 (181.9 bb)
Hero: $62.75 (125.5 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K K
Hero raises to $1.50, Jekus PL raises to $5, Hero raises to $11.50, Jekus PL calls $6.50

Flop: ($23) J 6 8 (2 players)
Jekus PL checks, Hero bets $16.50, Jekus PL raises to $79.45 and is all-in, Hero calls $34.75 and is all-in

Turn: ($125.50) 6 (2 players, 2 are all-in)
River: ($125.50) T (2 players, 2 are all-in)

Results:

Spoiler:

$125.50 pot ($0.50 rake)
Final Board: J 6 8 6 T
Jekus PL showed J A and lost (-$62.75 net)
Hero showed K K and won $125 ($62.25 net)

I figure that I'll start blogging some about poker. I'm trying to take advantage of all the things that players can do to improve. Last month I made platinum for the first time. This was a pretty cool thing for me as I don't play professionally or anything. I play for money and the satisfaction of stacking people. The thing that I'm working on right now is thinking through my decisions and arriving at a logical conclusion.

Here's an awesome hand where I did that!

http://www.cardrunners.com/pokertools/session/121563/replay/

I finished down like $65 for the session but I'm a winner in my games so that's part of it I guess. I did do some work on my preflop game recently where I am taking 3bets more seriously and thinking about if I do or do not want to open the door to a big pot.

On the personal front there is good progress on Sarah and I's new master bedroom and my poker office. It's starting to look like something now. Which is super sweet! We start the new diet in a week or so. That will be very interesting and a difficult challenge for sure. For those curious it's the Engine 2 diet. It's supposed to be really good for cholesterol and mostly the reason that we are doing it is so that we can have a more creative and interesting diet. We'll see. I'll post again next time I play. Maybe that will help things along for a blogging pattern.