So June finished like this;

With tournie winnings and bonus' a little over 13k. July started off great at +700ish, then yesterday I had my worst day ever -3700.

I knew it would happen but it's so frustrating when you just can't make any hands or your made hands don't stand up. I dropped 6 buy ins at 1/2 messing around whilst drunk on Thursday but I just sobered myself up and played 2/4 and had it back in about an hour so I thought I could do it again but it just got worse and worse, in the end after about 5 hours I just said "fk it I'm going to bed"

I reviewed the hands this morning and theres a few tilty stack offs but most of them are standard.

So last night I moved up to 3/6 to follow a fish from my 2/4 table and won about $300 off him before he left, then I played this pot vs a super aggro guy.

Poker Stars $3/$6 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BB: $932.30
UTG: $625.00
CO: $600.00
Hero (BTN): $1030.60
SB: $62.70

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with 7 J 5 6
1 fold, CO checks, Hero raises to $24, 1 fold, BB calls $18, 1 fold

Flop: ($57.00) 3 8 7(2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $55, BB raises to $220, Hero calls $165

Turn: ($497.00) Q(2 players)
BB bets $495, Hero raises to $786.60 all in, BB calls $193.30 all in

River: ($1873.60) 4(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $1873.60
BB shows Ah 6s 3s 8h (two pair, Eights and Threes)
Hero shows 7c Jh 5d 6h (a straight, Four to Eight)
Hero wins $1871.60
(Rake: $2.00

I mean this is when you know you're on tilt every hand he could have has me crushed, I'm semi deep and I shove on him and get lucky as fuk with my 11 outer. His chat was quite funny after the hand though.

ula said, "wtjkl"
ula said, "wthat ?"
ula said, "wha t?"
ula said, "how ?"

DrCaligula said, "u idiot"
DrCaligula said, "u are SO DEAD To me"
DrCaligula said, "u're just drawing to no nheart str8"
DrCaligula said, "u fn idiot"
DrCaligula said, "talk about getting it in BAD"
DrCaligula said, "omg"
DrCaligula said, "how are they SO BAD"
DrCaligula said, "wors tplayers"
DrCaligula said, "on the planet"
DrCaligula said, "and still suck otu"

i was going to disguise his name in the 1st part but once I found the 2nd and remembered what a dick he was I thought fk him.

So, i'll probably be spending the reat of this week mainly losing at 2/4!

GL at the tables.

This is actually the most frequent question people ask me immediatley after they ask me what I do for a living.

Now this may seem normal and not that big of a deal to those of you who don't play poker but it's actually really fking annoying. There's this thread forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php

on 2+2 titled "why I don't tell people I play poker" and has 1000 replies, it's amazing how similar everyones experiences are to mine. Here's a few of the posts:

Yeah this usually ends the conversation for better or worse. Not sure I am ready to adopt that response but I like it.

"Here is what usually happens with me.

So Devin what are you doing these days?

oh **** here we go again... uh I play poker for a living.

U serious? Can you acually make money from it?

hmmm.. how should I answer this retarded question..."

"I never tell people I play they look down on me for it"

"It's great when you've been talking to someone for a while about the game and realize that they think you're talking about blackjack"

"one of the friends will usually ask
friend - "oh what are you doing?"
me - "Just playing some poker"
friend - "You play poker? Like for money?"

WHO THE F#%K PLAYS POKER FOR FREE? Honestly!

NO biTC# I'M 12 TABLING FREEROLLS!!????!!!"

"I always avoid talking about playing poker for a living. People either think you are a liar, genius, or an idiot. You can tell by the look on thier faces. I was recently put on the spot at a dinner get together with family and friends. It was awfull."

"Why anyone thinks it's any less appropriate to ask a poker player how much they make than to ask a plumber or accountant is beyond me as well..."

I"t's funny though that we all probably used to talk up all our wins to make us sound like ballas and would love all the attention while we're at it. Now im guessing most of us downplay pretty much everything just to shut everyone up.
My most commonly asked questions in order, and the ideal non-commital responses:

1) How much do you make? "Yeah I go OK, it goes up and down though you know?"
... and if they press on:
2) How much did you make today? About $[insert some amount slightly lower than you guess that they make themselves], I mainly play for fun though.
3) But it's so addictive, how do you know you're not in over your head?. "Yeah you have to be real careful, I know a friend who... [insert made-up annecdote to make them realise that maybe, just maybe, you realize being a pro player may have an element of risk involved]"
4) You should cash it out now, before you lose it all. [If bothered, launch into a half-hour spiel about risk, variance, limits and how with good bankroll management its almost statistically impossible for a winning player to go broke. If not bothered...] "Yeah I just did... poker's fun and all but it's really not for me". Hope to God for no follow-up questions.
5) Online poker's all rigged. I played in a Pokerstars play money tournament the other day and my AK got beaten by Q6 twice in a row! Twice! Noone ever wins, they just make you think they do so you keep putting money in. [nope... still got no good one for this without sounding like an absolute tool]
6) "My dad lost his superannuation fund playing poker against people like you." [um... awkward silence]"

The last 2 posts are so spot on its not even funny, I mean imagine if the conversation was turned around:

"so what do you do for a living?"

"errr, I'm a plumber"

"a plumber?!, wow, what's the most you've made in a day?"

"err, well..."

"well today, how much did you make today?"

"err....."

"what if the work dries up, you ever think about that?, what would you do if no ones plumbing broke?"

"err..."

"so how do you get paid, do you ever worry someones going to not pay you?"

"err...."

" I had a friend once used to be a welder, now he has no work, had to sell his house"

"errm, plumbings not the same as welding"

"yeah but it's the same sort of thing and ..."

"FUCK OFF"

All of my close friends never even ask me how I'm doing but nearly every new person you meet the conversation goes like above, funny thing is though that people seem more impressed that you can get stuff like TV's for free with player points than having a 5 figure month. I was telling a friend of mine about a bath robe and some golf balls I ordered from full tilt and he was seriously amazed that you got them "free", I couldn't be bothered to explain that they probably cost me about $1500 in rake, "whats rake, etc.".

Anyway going to get my grind on just so I can have a great answer to this question, notice this post was made 2 years ago so obviously it's always been the number 1 question.

08-25-2006, 07:41 AM	#http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=1436288&postcount=99">99
thebeebster old hand Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 1,317	Re: Why I don't tell people I play poker. "what's the most you've ever won?" - every person ever.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/report.php?p=1436288">	http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1436288">

I managed to beat last months total last night with 4 days to go. I played 3 low buy in tournies, $75 freezeout, $20 RB and $10 RB. Got to the last 40/224 in the $75, 13/118 with 12 places paying in the $20RB and won the $10 RB. I haven't played MTT's for a while and it was a nice change of pace and strees free too!

I have to say the play in all of these was soooo bad, I know they're low buy in but I'd expect at least some of the players in the later stages to have some sort of clue. I got to the FT as chip leader and lost a pot that would have given me half the chips with 9 left when I called an UTG shove with JJvsTT and he spiked a T on the river. After that I built my stack back up to leader with lots of blind stealing and calling people in position and outplaying them post flop. When it got down to 6 I lost a flip with TT vs AJ.

GAME #1589670130: Texas Hold'em NL Tournament 2008-06-25 22:35:55
Table 178622842 (Tournament: $10,000 Guaranteed R/A Buy-In: $10+$1)
Seat 1: superPOTnoodle ($307,519.87 in chips)
Seat 2: noemie08 ($95,682.60 in chips)
Seat 5: lower56 ($445,909.42 in chips) DEALER
Seat 6: jtaura ($112,384.98 in chips)
Seat 7: Ellishse ($210,206.52 in chips)
Seat 9: KASTIIL ($210,296.61 in chips)
jtaura: Post SB $10,000.00
Ellishse: Post BB $20,000.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ellishse [HJ SA]
Dealt to superPOTnoodle [D10 H10]
KASTIIL: Fold
superPOTnoodle: Raise (NF) $60,000.00
noemie08: Fold
lower56: Fold
jtaura: Fold
Ellishse: Raise (NF) $210,206.52
superPOTnoodle: Call $150,206.52
*** FLOP *** [C4 D3 DK]
*** TURN *** [CA]
*** RIVER *** [H3]
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $430,413.04 Rake $0.00
Ellishse: wins $430,413.04

This took me down to 90k in chips and last place, I again managed to re build my stack and got the rockets 4 handed at the perfect time.

GAME #1589697879: Texas Hold'em NL Tournament 2008-06-25 22:49:01
Table 178622842 (Tournament: $10,000 Guaranteed R/A Buy-In: $10+$1)
Seat 1: superPOTnoodle ($245,991.90 in chips)
Seat 5: lower56 ($284,211.09 in chips)
Seat 7: Ellishse ($573,500.40 in chips) DEALER
Seat 9: KASTIIL ($278,296.61 in chips)
KASTIIL: Post SB $12,000.00
superPOTnoodle: Post BB $24,000.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ellishse [S4 D4]
Dealt to KASTIIL [SK CK]
Dealt to superPOTnoodle [DA SA]
lower56: Fold
Ellishse: Raise (NF) $573,500.40
KASTIIL: Allin $266,296.61
superPOTnoodle: Allin $221,991.90
*** FLOP *** [H8 H7 H10]
*** TURN *** [CQ]
*** RIVER *** [S9]
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1,097,788.91 Rake $0.00
superPOTnoodle: wins $737,975.70
Ellishse: wins $295,203.79
KASTIIL: wins $64,609.42

This hand basically won me the tournie as3 handed I had more than 1/2 the chips in play and both my opponents were shit.

I'm just short of 5 figures in PLO this month and up a huge $115 in NLHE which I've just about stopped playing, so with the money from this tournie and a $600 bonus from i poker it's been a good month, hopefully I can win a nother couple of K by the 30th and take some shots at 5/10 next month.

I know this sounds stupid but I should be playing 5/10 now, whats stopping me? THIS:

I'm not 100% sure how to read this graph but for anyone reading this who doesn't play poker this graph shows my luck in pots where I put all my money in before the last card is dealt. The peak of the graph on the Y axis is 40%, thats the chance of me winning that amount of money, (about $5000), this is where the red infill should stop. That would mean say in a $800 pot where I was 50% to win I would be winning around 50% of the time, so I wouldn't be getting over lucky or under.

However my red infill stops at about 0.08/$7500 which means there is a 0.08% chance of someone winning that much on all ins, so I'm basicaly lucky as fuck which makes me feel like a bit of a fraud. So either I move up to 5/10 my lucky streak continues or I get found out and get raped or I might be wrong about what this graph means and I'm just awesome at omaha.

Graphs to come at end of month.

GL at the tables.

Just been messing around with poker EV and it looks like I'm a luckbox, I'm running about $1500 above expectation this week in my last 30 all in hands.

The best thing about this graph is the dip in the blue line from 3k down to 1800 but the red line stays pretty constant, I'm pretty sure this was a session I played the other day where I just couldn't win a hand. I had to get up and take a break a couple of times because it was so frustrating, I did manage to go from 1200 down to $17 down though so I was pretty happy with that.

Couple of bigish hands I lost in the session.

1.Here we end up flipping kinda deep at a 100 buy in 1/2 table but my equity vs his range is huge, I'm only ever a big dog to a complete 569T wrap.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter http://www.deucescracked.com/?referrer=converter_2p2">Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (UTG): $400.00
CO: $173.65
BTN: $376.20
SB: $402.70
BB: $76.65

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with 7 K 5 Q
Hero raises to $7, 1 fold, BTN calls $7, SB calls $6, BB calls $5

Flop: ($28.00) 6 Q 3(4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $28, BTN calls $28, SB folds, BB folds

Turn: ($84.00) 5(2 players)
Hero bets $68, BTN raises to $288, Hero raises to $365 all in, BTN calls $53.20 all in

River: ($766.40) 7

Final Pot: $766.40
Hero shows 7s Kc 5c Qs (two pair, Queens and Sevens)
BTN shows 3c 4c 9c 4d (a straight, Seven high)
BTN wins $763.40

I had my best month this year at PLO last month and I'm about $1k short of that with 11 days to go so fingers crossed.

In real life, I moved house last year and because of that I was having to pay my bills direct instead of by direct debit from my bank account. So a couple of months ago I get a water bill for £250/$500, now theres only me in the house and I left my washing machine in my old house when I sold it, so my mother had been doing my washing, which means the only water I used was for showering and flushing the toilet.

So I rang them up paid the bill and asked them to install a water meter. This morning I got a cheque from them for £220/$440, so they had only overcharged me by about %1100 !!!

Woke up this morning feeling like shit and totally hungover. I had a dentisit appointment at 10 so I had my friend Nicky ring me at 9 to make sure I got up, I'm terrible at time keeping anyway but a lot worse after a full days drinking. I still ended up getting there a few minutes late, I felt bad anyway but when the dentist started cleaning my teeth the smell from the rubber airhose that powered the tool he was using made me nearly throw up, luckily the dentist just thought something had caught the back of my throat, I was honestly sitting there thinking "what the fuck am I going to say if I throw up".

I had a great weekend though, went on a date Friday night which was just O.K., bought a new driver on Saturday morning and played in the captains day event at a nearby golf club, golf was terrible but it was a nice day and I had fun. Went to Newcastle with Nicky on Saturday night, we didn't get there till about 9 and started straight on the double vodkas to "catch up" which is always abig mistake as you just end up more shitfaced than everyone else, plus the prices are a joke, 14 pound for 2 drinks is just taking the piss. We were going into the nightclub and they have the normal line and then the VIP sort of entrance, so we get to the front and the 2 bouncers for the line side stop the 2 guys in front of us for I.D. and the bouncer for the VIP(non paying) entrance looks over and catches my eye so I just sort of nod towards his entrance and smile and he waves us over and lets us in for free, it was just really surprising since most bouncers are arseholes.

When we got in I started talking to some girl at the bar and asked her who she was there with, she said her friend so I told her where I was standing and to come over, when I got back with the drinks my friend wasn't there and a girl came over and said she thought he had went outside, we got talking and she was really funny and very attractive, so I'm standing there and the girl from the bar comes over with her friend and stands at the other side of me, I wanted to go and talk to her but I was having a good time talking to the other girl and didn't wanna leave her, so I just ignored her, she stood there about 5 minutes then just walked off. I ended up going outside with the girl I was talking to for a ciggarette and got cockblocked by her friend when we came back because she wanted to go to the other room, so once again I ended up with nothing, what a player!

Yesterday four of us went to Jesmond which is like an upmarket part of Newcastle, its just a road full of bars and everyone sits outside in the sun, theres always some nice cars parked there and there were a couple of guys in Lambos driving up and down the road, looking at some of the cars really inspired me to stop being so lazy and try and have a really big month instead of just trying to make X amount every week.

In poker news my new monitors arrived today, Dell 24s, you can't fit anymore tables on them without overlap but they're great for reading and browsing the net and they just look better than 20s.

I downladed the poker EV graph software the other day and it looks like I've been running ridic. hot in plo something like 6k over expectation which doesn't sound a lot but thats only over 17k winnings so about 30% over. That combined with the fact that most people in the PLO section of 2+2 seem to disagree with me on most of the hands I post has made me decide to stick to 2/4 for another month, I'm pretty sure I'm beating the games but I just want to make sure I'm not just running hot.

So I signed up for deuces cracked last week to see what their PLO content was like. The 1st vid I watched was RBK and DJSensei 5/10, what a joke, it was more like watching two guys fuck around than an instructional video, the second vid was even worse, they were commenting on how 2 good hold 'em hands don't make a good PLO hand then 2 minutes later they stack off with exactly the type of hand they had described. It was so bad I cancelled the free trial the same day.

I tried a session 2 tabling last night to really focus on hand reading and other players styles, I really like doing this from time to time as I think it gives you a good indication of how your hand reading skills are improving. I just think that when playing 4+ tables mostly you just make call or fold type descisions when played back at and never really get time to properly dissect the hand.

Heres a couple of bluffs I picked off.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter http://www.deucescracked.com/?referrer=converter_2p2">Powered By DeucesCracked.com

SB: $260.60
BB: $400.00
UTG: $653.00
CO: $405.40
Hero (BTN): $400.00

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with 7 7 Q Q
2 folds, Hero raises to $14, SB calls $12, 1 fold

Flop: ($32.00) 4 4 T(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $28, SB calls $28

Turn: ($88.00) 8(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $72, SB calls $72

River: ($232.00) K(2 players)
SB bets $146.60 all in, Hero calls $146.60

I actually like his river lead here even though he is repping a nuts or nothing type hand as I hardly ever have much more than my 2 pair holding and a most of the time I have nothing. On the actual hand I was only really scared of him having the K of diamonds but I think shoving the Kd for value here is a level too high for a shortstacker at 2/4.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BB: $99.00
UTG: $501.60
MP: $207.85
CO: $311.80
BTN: $357.45
Hero (SB): $200.00

Pre Flop: Hero is SB with 8 A 3 A
UTG raises to $7, 1 fold, CO calls $7, BTN calls $7, Hero raises to $37, 1 fold, UTG calls $30, CO calls $30, BTN calls $30

Flop: ($150.00) 8 8 6(4 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, CO checks, BTN bets $116, Hero raises to $163 all in, UTG folds, CO folds, BTN calls $47

Turn: ($476.00) 2

River: ($476.00) 4

I normally would just lead this flop and get it in but UTG is a huge fish and loves to bluff so I thought I'd give him a chance to do something stupid, turns out the BTN took the bait instead. If I do lead here though I'm only ever getting called by an 8 and I have one of them, 66 or sometimes a straight draw.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

SB: $169.00
BB: $313.90
UTG: $389.95
MP: $281.80
CO: $200.00
Hero (BTN): $546.00

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with Q 7 K Q
3 folds, Hero raises to $7, 1 fold, BB raises to $12, Hero calls $5

Flop: ($25.00) J 3 6(2 players)
BB bets $25, Hero calls $25

Turn: ($75.00) 5(2 players)
BB bets $2, Hero raises to $41.50, BB calls $39.50

River: ($158.00) 9(2 players)
BB bets $2, Hero raises to $104, BB folds

BB is fish I mentioned in the last hand, I honestly don't know what goes on in their heads when they make these donk leads, I mean I'm never folding the river getting 80/1 and he must know that so he has some sort of weak hand but I beat just about nothing so I have to make a decent size raise here and hope he folds.

I was comparing my PLO graph for my last 20k hands vs my HE graph and the strange thing is it looks like over this sample size PLO has less variance and a much higher winrate. I really love playing PLO rather than HE so I'm pretty happy about it.

Hold 'em

PLO

So the 2/4 plo games on Tilt have been great this month, I'm really loving the 1/2 deep games too, lots of fish and lots of 1/2 players with no experience playing deep. I've played around 6k hands of 2/4 and about 3k hands of 1/2 mostly deepstacked but I don't know how to filter the 1/2 games for deep on poker tracker. I had a full entry written out but for some reason it dissapeared when I tried to save and I'm going out soon so this will have to do for now, I'll post some hands later.

My friend Paula got married on Sunday and we all went over. I dunno what it is about weddings but everyone just seems to be up for a great time. My Sister was a bridesmaid so Paula had paid for her and her boyfriends room ,we went to their room to get changed and I decided to get a room for me and my friend Nicky and rang reception to see what was the best deal they could do me on a room, the girl told me £64 was the best she could do so I went downstairs to pay for it, then on my way back upto the room saw that £64 was the standard rate for a room anyway!

The actual wedding ceremony was the quickest one I've ever been to and only lasted about 10 mins but I suppose that's long enough to sit listening to two people exchanging vows anyway. After the ceremony we went upstairs for the meal and I was seated at a table with most of my main friends and a couple of girls I didn't really know but turned out to be great fun. I think we made it to about 8p.m. before we started doing shots and managed to go through a full bottle of Tequila, after shock and sambuca between about 10 of us. Me and my friend Whitey were up dancing when all the Grooms friends formed a circle on the dancefloor for him to dance in, Whitey walked over to see what was happening and I pushed him into the middle where he proceeds to "try" and breakdance and ended trying to flip himself up off his back and failing miserably.

After the wedding me, my Sister, Nicky, our friend Anna and her Husband and the two girls from our table headed back to my room headed back to my room. One of the girls had been telling me how they were going to have to leave early to get a taxi home and I had offered to let them stay in our room as there were two beds and me and Nicky could share one, (there was only 1 bed). We had a few bottles of wine in our room and I decided to go back to the buffet and get some food for us and came back with a huge silver platter piled with food, as soon as I walk in the door Nicky stands up and kicks the bottom of the platter covering half the room in meat, fish sandwiches and crisps. Everyone ended up leaving around 4.30a.m. and I was so drunk/tired that I just asked the girl on my side of the bed if it was worth trying to get anywhere, I didn't have much hope anyway since her friend and Nicky were lying right next to her, obviously she said no.

As for poker i just haven't played much lately and most of table time has been playing 1/2 plo when I'm drunk. It just seems I have to read about people having 30k months at 2/4 to motivate me. I've been thinking more about the psychological aspects of the game lately and Raptor touched on something in his blog that I'm really guilty of, stopping to book a win. when i can't be bothered to play I'll sit down win like 2 buy ins in 30 mins or something and think "fuck it that'll do" then later when I actually feel like playing I won't because it would tilt me to lose it back.

Also because I haven't cashed out this year I've realised how important bankroll management is, I used to keep like 10 buy ins online and think people were crazy to keep like 30 or 40 but I honestly never used to have -10 BI swings, I mean I have had them but probaly once or twice. Now though I'm over rolled and because I'm playing so much PLO at the moment I've realised how this affects you mentally, playing PLO you can do nothing wrong and drop like 5 buy ins, i've had numerous days where this has happened in the last couple of months but nearly always got it back in the same session and I think I've been able to do this only because it wasn't that much of a dent in my roll.

I'm going to try and play 10k hands of 2/4 PLO this month before I move up to 5/10, I wish more 3/6 games ran but for some reason people seem to only play it capped on FT so I'' probably have to skip it.

GL at the tables.