Well, its been about a month since I updated this thing. I can't help it, I just forget and am lazy but I should probably try to be better about it. I have been pretty busy lately outside of poker. Work, bar action, beating GTA 4, etc. But I did put in a decent amount last month. I started off with a nasty downswing of about 900ish, but recovered nicely toward the end, but only won about 500ish for the month of May. Could be worse though.

Tonight I had a good session though, including some .5/1 that end up around 350ish total and I had some interesting spots.

Standard imo. http://www.pokerhand.org/?2703171

I thought this one was fun. Isolating a short stack all in with a decent hand to increase my equity. I can never fold here, so I figured why not get it heads up. http://www.pokerhand.org/?2703165

Pretty fking nice flop for me, so Value town. Had a note on her from some other time saying "Doesnt like to fold in PLO". As you can see, that is the case. http://www.pokerhand.org/?2703168

I've played a decent amount with the villain in this hand and he loves to 3 bet in position, so knowing that, plus how strong my hand is, I just 4 bet/jam any flop. He actually thought for a bit before calling the flop. Kinda slowrollish imo, I mean what else do you do when you flat a 4 bet with that hand and get that flop? http://www.pokerhand.org/?2703170

I honestly had no clue what to do on this flop. I knew brendan was going to fire the flop, and was intending to check raise him. I had no read at the time on the check raiser. I had to think he either had top set or a huge draw. So my decision was to cold call with the intention of stacking off any blank turn. Honestly, I wasn't even too concerned with Brendan. I figured he would give up most hands unless he actually had a big hand, and in such case I could get away if he pots it or continue with my line of stacking off blank turns. Given then circumstances turn is an easy fold. Pretty shitty spot seeing their hands, but a tough spot I think in general. Though, if this hand had come up later in the session I think its a jam on the flop, but I did not know at the time how bad the one guy played. Would love some feedback here on this hand if anyone has thoughts. http://www.pokerhand.org/?2703166

Big pot with Overpair and nut flush draw in a 3 way pot, with a large side pot against the same spewtard from the JJ44 hand above. And my 12 outter gets there http://www.pokerhand.org/?2703437

So after my last blog entry, I received a comment asking how I was able to get rakeback on my account on Full Tilt. I sent a quick pm to that person while I was at work, but then I thought that more people would be interested in this as well. It was really quite simple.

One day a few months ago I simply sent the following e-mail to support@fulltiltpoker.com:

So a few days later, they replied with this:

While that e-mail left me marginally optimistic about it, I didn't really think too much of it and figured I wouldn't get rakeback. Then about a month and a half later I received another e-mail, which I think I deleted, that basically just told me to go make an account at www.rakebackpros.com and I would start getting 27% rakeback.

A friend of mine tried sending a similar e-mail that I did after hearing that I got rakeback and was told that he will be put on a list to be added with the next batch of rakeback accounts.

So it was that easy. On a side note, if anyone who reads this that gets rakeback from the same site, when do they usually pay it out? I'm not sure when to expect my April payment.

Today I'm kinda hung over. I went out to see a band with some friends in Annapolis and got pretty drunk last night. Hmmm, I can't decide if I want to grind it out or go buy GTA4 and waste my day playing that. Tough decisions.

I booked a solid session last night. Played 2 games of .5/1 PLO cap and 1 game of HU 50PLHA and won about 150 then took a break for dinner. Came back later and played some 50PLHA on full tilt and 2 tables of 50PLO on stars. I only have 150 on stars and decided I need to either run it up or bust it. Somehow I ended up just breaking even on there though, soo lame. But I did end up winning 75ish more playing on full tilt. Here are some hands from the sessions:

I played HU PLHA against a guy named dino1980. I had notes on him that were simply this hand history. Basically lets me know the guy isn't folding. I'm actually not sure why I min raised him in the hand I saved, probably should have just shoved, but who knows. With that in mind I just decided I would value town him here, and here. These were the only sizable pots we played. Basically I just gave him a few pots here and there, stole some small ones, kept afloat and waiting for chances to throw him the rope. Eventually a spot came up and he hung himself. Obv he quit me after that one.

Here are some PLO cap hands. Flop a boat and get it in, standard. Then I overplayed a weak draw. Sometimes when it comes to omaha I just feel like getting it in, disregarding the fact that my draw is sorta weak. In retrospect I like a check behind there. Although my equity in this particular case isn't that bad, about 37%.

Here is the silliest hand from the night. We had been playing HU for about 20 minutes (other guy at table had just sat down). He had started to 3 bet me fairly often and I could tell he was getting fed up with me stabbing at every pot and raising close to every button. I thought there was a good chance he didn't hit the flop and just couldn't call, so I put him in. Even if he does call with some of his range I'm not in bad shape against like AJ, TT. Even QQ I have 7 outs against. Anyway, he found a call and somehow has a worse hand, and I run good.

The hand that got me even on Stars for the night. I was just jamming to gamble it up, and was shocked to have the best hand when called, let alone scoop with my pair.

I also ended my first month of getting rake back on Full Tilt. I'm really happy that they decided to give me rakeback now and I will be getting 180$ in rakeback. But it is pretty sick to see how much money you really spend in rake each month. I spent 670$ in April!! Pretty silly.

Anyway, I'm actually at work right now and probably shouldn't be blogging but whatever.

Well, even if nothing else comes from making this blog it seems it has already proven useful. The morning after my first post I got a message from another member, DaGrind about a live game in my area. Works out especially well as I haven't played live in months now and it has been killing me.

Past two nights have been alright. No hands to report, as most of them were rather standard and I didnt save the hand histories. I don't use poker tracker either -- I used to but this past fall I got fed up with Windows for the last time, and switched to Ubuntu Linux (A great decision, might I add). Pokertracker is one of the very, very fews apps I was unable to get the windows emulator to run. I think there is a way to make it work, but I haven't spent the time to figure it out.

Anyway, I won about 200ish last night playing 50PLO and a lil 50PLHA. Oh yea, I did save one hand. Standard, but it was kinda tight cause it was my very first hand of the session. Best part was, after he plays it so awful he chats about how "sick and unreal" it was and that "ftp is rigged". Love it.

Tonight I started out with a table of 50PLHA and 100PLHA, 3 handed with 2 guys that play those games regularly. We actually started playing the 7-2 game on both tables for 15$ a person too. I ran soo bad at it. I didn't pick up 72 at all while we played, and I ended up stuck 45$ playing that. However, I ran mediocre and won enough to just about break even after the 7-2 stuff. After taking a break for a bit I wanted to play some more but the PLHA games run so infrequently its sick. There are 50-60k people logged onto Full Tilt and you can't get a game of 50PLHA going often at all. Really sick. I ended up sitting at two capped .5/1 PLO games and they ran extremely loose and juicy. I won about 140 in about 45 minutes before the games broke.

Well, I had been thinking about starting a blog on here for awhile now. I have been reading many of the pro blogs for awhile now and really enjoy the poker content and insight. I plan on posting some hands, my thoughts on them, and what have you -- and hopefully get feedback about my play.

A little about myself -- I am a 23 year old recent college graduate from Salisbury University with a degree in Information Systems. I work full time at a software company in Bethesda, MD as a QA Engineer (aka computer nerd). I have been playing poker avidly for about 4 years now. Throughout college I supported my drinking, fast food, and luxury purchases via poker, and now that I do not need to spend theg money I win, I am attempting to let it accrue online and play higher. I always had trouble moving up limits cause every time I would get my account over a grand I would cash out like 3 or 4 hundred. For awhile I was just grinding tons of sit and goes at the 11 and 22$ level but now am concentrating on PLO. Currently I regularly play .25/.50 and have been taking some shots at .5/1. Things have been going well, as March was my most winningest month ever.

Today makes for a good day to start posting, as I played, and won my biggest pot ever online. Rather nonstandard hand. The villain is a regular at the 50 and 100 level PLHA games, and I've played with him extensively. He is a solid aggressive player, and in this hand I felt that he would never continue with just AA on that flop with me raising him with 2 players behind. He plays his draws very aggressively, so my feeling was that I was likely ahead. I've seen him overplay 2 pair a couple times before too. And plus I had the nut flush draw, ldo get it in.

Fun little cold 4 bet with 7 hi

Same Villian. He is a habitual 3 better in and out of position. Especially this session, he was 3 betting very light. When I came to the table he had a 1k stack, and ran very bad to dust off the whole stack, then rebuilt to what he had for this hand. So I was viewing him as steaming a bit. I hadn't 4 bet at all this session, and with the stack sizes I thought this play would look super strong, and I could get him to lay down as much as QQ either preflop, or by firing any flop. And it worked. Not something I pretty much ever do, but based on game flow it just seemed like something that would work.

Standard, shocked I was so far ahead though

A bluff on a turn scare card... and then 5 hands later it appears he just didn't want to be outplayed again.. and it worked against him

Alright, hopefully I can keep this blog up. I do kinda hate this joomla wysiwyg interface, but w/e.