I guess this will be my first blog post on cardrunners. I have been maintaining a blog on jaywks.blogspot.com but it seems to be all the rage to start up a blog on cardrunners. So, I guess I'll follow suit. Plus, I didn't get any views on my old blog, so, it doesn't seem like a big deal.

I guess I'll start off with just some basic info about myself. I started playing poker in the fall semester of my sophomore year in college, it was around August 2004. I had torn my ACL and had just had surgery on it and I was pretty much immobile for two to three months. I was pretty bored during this time, so I watched a lot of TV. After watching ESPN and the WSOP a bunch, I decided that playing poker on the internet was the most optimal use of my time. Found out I loved it, and I played $5 SNGS and small MTTs for a real long time. I didn't switch over to cash games till December of last year. Little did I know that this was a real beat because this was when Party Poker pulled out. I had some success in MTTs, but I was still pretty bad in poker. So, I started off in .5/1 nl games. I realized that I didn't actually know that much about poker, and really started studying earlier this year. I almost didn't graduate because I was playing so much poker. But I did end up graduating, and I'm currently going to UVA, and I'm in my first year of getting my PhD in Systems Engineering.

I currently play 2/4nl and 3/6nl, and I am a winner at those stakes. However, I have dabbled in $5/10nl a bit, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a $5/10nl fish. I'm glad that I am a vital part of the poker economy that funnels money up the poker pyrammid. I'll start off this blog by two things I enjoy most when reading a poker blog, a graph of my November results so far, and probably the most interesting hand I've ever played.

So, I'm up about 9k or so for the month. I'm up 5k on other sites which can't use Poker Tracker, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I'm semi dissapointed at myself that I have already lost 4k at 5/10nl this month. Although I did experience a suckout and was coolered in two big pots, I'm definitely not ready for that stake. I play pretty bad, and even though I'm more than adequately rolled for that game, I'm sad to say that I think I'm scared money. I don't trust my reads enough to do the right moves. So, even though I have a semi-decent AF of 3.5, I feel that I'm a complete calling station. Also, I know that 18k hands is pretty insane for just 1 week's worth of play, but I do 8 table, and I really have not felt like doing any homework this week, so to procrastinate, I play poker. On the graph below, you can also clearly see when I decide to take my shot at 5/10nl - between 15k and 17k hands. The good thing though is that each time that I have a losing session at $5/10nl I feel that I do learn and I just view it as an expensive $4k lesson in poker. Though, I'm going to try and really stay away from the $5/10nl games until I feel that I'm confident enough to not lose my cool. I had a really crappy October because of a tilty, spewfest 36 hours at $5/10nl. You can look at my old blog if you want to read about it.

Okay, now onto the hand that may be the culmination of my poker career.

Okay, so the villain here is a solid 2p2er. I know he's very tricky and is capable of a lot of moves. I'm pretty sure he views me as a TAG/NIT, that multitables and isn't capable of a lot of moves.

But there's a small back story to this hand which makes it especially proud for me. The day before this, I was reading one of CTS' blog entries where he tagged a Jman post on 2p2, where Jman bets the river against PA to induce a bluff raise. I've read this post before and the first time round it was all over my head. I wasn't a good enogh player to realize how you induce a person to bluff raise you. Think about it, it's pretty insane to think that you can manipulate a person such that they will raise the river on a bluff. Although this time round, I understood the theory behind it, you could say that this hand is where it all "clicked" for me. Basically, when we got to the river, I had one of those crystal clear moments, and I knew that my villain probably did not have anything, and I just had a feeling that if I bet, he was going to bluff raise me. So I snap called his raise. Maybe it was spew or maybe I got lucky, but I felt pretty damn proud after this hand. Looking at his hand though, I don't know why he bluff raised. If he thought I was bluffing, why the hell did he raise that river? Maybe he thought that I turned an overpair into a bluff? I don't know.

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Villain 1 ($546) -
Seat 2: Villain 2 ($958.90) -
Seat 3: Villain 3 ($431)
Seat 4: Villain 4 ($747)
Seat 5: Hero ($909.80)
Seat 6: Villain 5 ($610.20) -


PRE-FLOP:

Villain 1 posts small blind $3
Villain 2 posts BIG blind $6
Dealt To: Hero


FOLD Villain 3
FOLD Villain 4
RAISE Hero ($18)
CALL Villain 5 ($18)
FOLD Villain 1
FOLD Villain 2


FLOP:

Pot: $45


BET Hero ($30)
CALL Villain 5 ($30)


TURN:

Pot: $105


BET Hero ($72)
CALL Villain 5 ($72)


RIVER:

Pot: $249


BET Hero ($150)
RAISE Villain 5 ($490.20)
CALL Hero ($340.20)


SHOWDOWN:
Villain 5:

Hero:


Hero collected $1226.4 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $1229 Rake: $3

Final Board:


Seat 1: Villain 1 small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-3)
Seat 2: Villain 2 big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-6)
Seat 3: Villain 3 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: Villain 4 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: Hero showed [Kd Tc] and won 1226.40 with two pair, Tens and Sixes - Net Gain/Loss: ($616.2)
Seat 6: Villain 5 button showed [Ts 8s] and lost with two pair, Tens and Sixes - Net Gain/Loss: ($-610.2)



Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners