I've been playing alot of poker lately, both live and online. Couple things about each... Online is definatly tougher speaking stakes for stakes (nl1-2, nl5-10 cash games etc.). Edges are much thiner online because your opponents play a much more fundamentally solid game AND because stakes are generally shorter online (100 bb's). However live there are times where you can simply make more informed decisions based on the fact you can see your opponents. Whereas online you have to rely more on mathematics and some metagame considerations. Live sometimes you can make a call or fold based on the manarisms of your opponents (tells i guess?). I'm not convinced that is completely tells though. It is sometimes something that you have unconsiously picked up on an opponent. Also, athough table chatter is generally not my game I've found that sometimes you can make a premeditated, pointed comment that can be used to exploit an opponent later on in the game. I don't know if this makes any sense to any of you but that is the best way I can explain it. Online generally when I make a non "standard" play I can generally articulate why I made the play using concrete facts (i.e notes, stats, game flow condiserations, etc.) Live sometimes I simply can't articulate why I made a call or tight fold other than to think that it's some type of sixth sense or uncounsious reason. All of this leads me to believe that my skill edge is deep live games is simply so much greater that in an online 100 bb game. In the state of the games today with so much more knowledge available to the average player it becomes SO important to find these games in which you have a substancial edge. I think anyone who strictly plays online who has access to a live casino game or club games is sacrificing a large amount of value. Not to metion that even if your making more per hour online via multitabling its good to mix it up sometimes for balance purposes. For me the social aspect of live play makes it much more fun to play live than online. I'm sure that alot of people here on cardrunners already know this but I still here many people say that they hate live play and that it is not for them. I think that all serious poker players should be playing a mix of online and live to become a more balanced player. That's all I have for now.

So I had intented on doing a blog entry sooner but sometimes things get in the way. I left for atlantic city late this Wednesday and got there after midnight. My origninal intentions were to get there on monday morning, but like usual I procrastinated and didn't wind up there till' Wednesday. So once I got there I decided to play some 2/5 nl at Borgata. I was pumped to play live since I haven't in a little while. I got seated at a table with your "average players". So within the first 15 minutes I get stacked. Fairly standard but tilting for some reason. I was on the button w/ ajhh and cuttoff raised to 30. I called as did two other players. I believe we all had around $500 effective stacks. So we took a tqkhh flop 4 way. The cuttoff bet like 60 into 125 or so and I paused and thought for a bit before making it like 204 to go. My thought process was kind of something like "I have no idea how he plays and I have a huge hand let me just raise big and see what happens". To my dismay one of the other preflop callers shoves and it comes back to the cuttoff who thinks for like 5 minutes before finally calling. Now I aware that the guy who shoved over my raise probably has a kj or a j8 for the straight and pretty much nothing else. Due to how long it took the cuttoff to call I thought he prob had like a set that he couldn't fold. So with me having an open ender and the nut flush draw I made the call. This call I calculated would be +EV even if up against the nut straight and a set. Well thats what I was up against and unfortunately I didn't get there. I bought back in for like 3 bills and within two hands got stacked again. This time I overlimped KK in lp. I know its not a standard play but I like doing these things sometimes especially in live play. So I don't get the limp reraise I want and we take a flop like 7 or 8 ways. Flop comes down good though, 888. Checks to me and I check as well thinking I want to see someone catch a pair so I can get paid a bit. Turn is a funny card a K and utg limper bets 10 into me. I thought about raising but decided just to call because it was so unlikely he had anything due to what I was holding. River blanks out and he bets 35 into me and I snap make it 75. He thinks for a long while and ships. It's now 190 to me and I smile knowing he's repping quad 8's. I think for a bit and call thinking that maybe hes going crazy with a king or that since he was utg he may have limped with aa looking for the reraise. So I call and he tables 8c6c and I show then muck. I say nice hand and pickup the remaining $10 from my stack and get up to go to the cashier as I felt like quitting. The guy two to my right says to me as I begin to walk away that it was an easy laydown. I lol and say "yeah I play bad". I go to walk away again and he says "yeah I knew the guy was slowplaying, I can't believe you called that." I then asked if he would coach me since he was obv. a great player and the rest of the table laughed. Any way I cashed out and was licking my wounds from my 750 loss (in like a half hour). As I left the poker room I admitt I was a bit irritated that I lost at such a quick rate. I then cooled down realizing that it would be better to get some sleep as I wanted to get a workout in the next day.

Next day I got a great workout in and as I was driving back from it I was again feeling good and ready to play. Unfortunately I had another losing session and now was down like 1600 for the trip thus far. Basically I played fairly lag particularly post flop as I felt that alot of people at the table were "live pros" and I felt that they were playing a weak tight style and could be exploited by playing more hands and winning with showdowns. I felt I played the style well but ran into a cooler or two, a few bad beats, and some unfortunate turn and river cards and that was that. Basically this trend continued into the next day and my losses peaked at like 2400. I decided to play one more day (Saturday) and I won like 3300 so I dug myself out of the hole and actually won like 800 or so on the trip so I was ok with that. Kind of don't feel like talking about any of the hands that I had on Saturday during this huges winning sesh. but they were basically all fairly standard hands.

So it's Monday and i'm still a bit tired from all the live play but I did have a good time. The players are absolutely awful and you can really make some bank in the games. I really think if I ran a bit better I would have taken home several grand. Oh one thing that I forgot to mention is that there was some big tornament going on there (I think the Borgata summer open). I think maybe that made the cash action a bit better. I was thinking about playing but i'm not that big of a donkament fan (although I have been playing some mtt's and sitngo's online lately). Anyway thats all for now. - MB

As a CR member and frequent reader of some of the blogs on this site I felt it would be a good idea for a number of reasons to start one as well. I will prob. try to make approx. two entries a week (maybe just one if i'm not ambitious) or maybe not even continue if I find it boring. But I think I will at least try it for a few weeks to see how it works out. I think one thing I should mention before continuing is that i'm not an amazing writer so these entries may not be the most interesting to read but I will try my best to keep things interesting.

I think creating a blog will have several advantages:

• give me more structure to my poker related activities (just not play and watch videos)
• give me a chance to improve my writing skills
• talk about certain hands that i've played in a non-forum format to change things up (not to say I will talk about poker even 50 % of the time because I kind of want to talk some about everyday activities as well)

Anyway maybe some about me next entry but for now i'll touch on weekend activities. Was a drinking weekend and went down to a college friends house on both Friday and Saturday. Friday went over and my friend Dan's and he was playing some hands on his comp. He plays nl25 and some tornaments recreationally and is not into the training sites or forums. That being said he is a good player and is a winner in the nl25 full ring games on stars. So I get there and we chop a $10 sitngo that was a 9 or 10 person. We played well and went out before the money on some standard play. After that me, Dan and one of his roomates decided to go to some bar that was newly opened and was offering a $.50 drafts. When we got there something funny happened. As we walked in and the bouncer checked my ID I asked if draft promotion was pints or 12 oz glasses. He kind of laughed and replied "oh neither, you'll see". I said to my friends that this would be interesting to say the least. When we got to the bar and ordered a few of these drafts I get why the guy was laughing. They were prob. no more than 7oz. glasses. So my buddy Dan had ordered 4 (one for each of us). After we got them and saw how small they were I told my friends to get a table and I proceeded to order 16. I brought them to the table 4 at a time and we got a good laugh seeing 16 tiny beers lined up. We had a few and noticed a fusball (spelling?) table and me and Dan got a game with some other people there (2 on 2). It was a nice table and we were out to a decent lead playing to 10 but somehow blew it up by 3 with one goal to go. I was kind of pissed because i'm competetive and like to win in everything. So after that we played a few more games against my other friends and then headed back to there house at around 1 or so. Played Dan in a heads up tornament and got beat both times (thats why I said he was good, so I could cover myself, lol) and by that time it was late so just called it a night. I'm seeing now how long winded this got so screw talking about Saturday right now. It was kind of boring anyway so...

I'm normally don't go out a bunch but I decided that I needed a weekend without any serious poker since I have been on a downswing at nl100 6max. I feel it has been some coolers/me getting cold decked and me tilting a bit. Maybe I will post some hands in my next entry if I get around to it. But that being said I put in some nl50 hu hand on saturday and sunday and had fairly good results so that was a confidence booster.

Anyway I think that's about it for now. I may play some live poker this week seeing that it is so much softer than online so maybe I will make an entry on the trip I take to AC. I'll see what happens. Thanks for reading and till next time. - Mike