The Daily Grind

Alright, so I haven't played too many hands over the past couple nights, but that might not be such a bad thing. Anyway, over the hands I have played I've been playing and running very good. I've snapped off some river bluffs with marginal hands, actually won with AK (AKs was my biggest loser for the month at NL 50), and in general have had a lot of success with ABC poker. Once you table select well, NL 100 really isn't all that much different from lower levels. Last night, I found a 75/1/1 uber-fish and was directly to his right. This was ridiculously profitable, as he was limp-folding all over the place, and calling down with any piece of the board. Finally finished him off with AKs vs. A7o on an ace-high flop.

Graph (the one negative hand was A9 vs. 88 on an Ax89 board vs. a 40/20/10 LAGtard):

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As terrible as yesterday was, tonight was that good. For the first 300 or so hands, I was unstoppable. It's an awesome feeling to go on a huge rush, and absolutely own people left and right. I had a guy bluff me with a busted draw on the river not once, but twice within one orbit. I doubled up with aces when some guy called my PF reraise with KJs and pushed on the KxxJ board (he probably should have noticed that x and x paired the board). It seemed I had a monster every other hand, and they were getting paid off at an excellent clip.

Then the inevitable downswing came. Obviously, when you're running at 60+ PTBB/100 over a small sample, things are going to cool off, but this was night and day. I couldn't hit a hand, my c-bets were getting called or raised, and any hands I did pick up were getting no action. I thought about just calling it a day and taking my ~2 buy-ins profit, not a bad recovery from the disaster that was last night. But I played a few more orbits, hit one monster hand (called a raise with 77, SB minraises, initial raiser calls, I call, and the T75 flop is all she wrote for the SB's AA). Final totals were +$379.00 over 1,192 hands.

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OK, so I put in my first session at NL 100 last night after passing the 3k BR mark, and proceeded to get raped. Hard. And repeatedly.

I ran terribly, played like ass, and ended up down 4 buy-ins in a little over 1700 hands. Some fun hands:

AK on an A42 flop vs. a complete maniac, obviously he has A2 FTW.

AQ vs. AA on a Q73 flop against another maniac, this guy was a 60/20/4 who thought middle pair was the nuts.

AJ vs. a calling station, who calls a PFR with Q5s, calls pot-sized bets on the flop and turn with a naked flush draw, and of course gets there on the river.

Those were the rough hands, also had a lot of stupid stuff like AK < shorty's 63o (63o!) AIPF for like $15. Lost a ton of medium sized pots like that.

Made one really dumb move, a check-raise bluff on the turn followed by a bluff shove on the river. Looking back, it's pretty frigging obvious that villain had a monster. My hand had some show down value, so I could have easily called the smallish turn bet and check-folded the river, but nope, I decided to turn my hand into a bluff and then shove the river after he called my turn raise.

I also missed out on one huge pot, had JJ in a raised multiway pot, there's a RR to $23 from the blinds (initial raise was to $4.50). I think for a while and fold (was close, probably should have called with odds since another player in between called, and definitely would have if I knew the player behind me would call as well). Obviously, the flop comes J76r and the first cold-caller shoves in his last $45 on the flop.

So yeah, my first day at NL 100 was horrid. Games were also pretty bad at UB, a lot of competent players suprisingly at this limit. 2 players with VPIPs of 35+ was rare, and of course when I got them, they sucked out or coolered me. Tonight it's back to the grind, so hopefully my second night at NL 100 will be beter than the first.

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Alright, so last night I was really tired from my first day of classes and just wanted to relax, I pretty much slept and did nothing. I put in a short session of NL 50 and ran very well, finished up $89.70 in 224 hands.

Tonight, my plan is to do some HW, then grind out 2 hours or so at NL 100. I'm looking at a 10 buy-in shot, which should give me a good chance to gauge whether or not I'm a winner at that limit. I've run really bad there in the past, and overall my NL 50 record isn't really too hot, so I'm thinking this is a last gasp. I think I've got NL down pretty well, but if I fail at this shot, I'm thinking of switching over to some tourneys for a while.

That's all for now, will have an update later tonight with the results from my first NL 100 session.

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After getting back to school Saturday, I wasn't really in the mood to play any poker, just hung out, catching up and stuff with friends here.

Today, I started out playing some donkaments. I satted in to the $200+$15 $200,000 guaranteed at UB (almost won two seats, finished 14th in the one I missed when KK < AKs AIPF, top 9 got seats). I actually planned on unregistering for that and taking the T$, but came back at halftime of the Bears-Saints game and was too late to unregister.

I played pretty well, made it deep before I went card dead, and wound up in 80th for a cash of $400, which put me over my BR goal of $3k for moving up to NL $100.

After that, I played just a little NL $50, and ran decently, picking up $34.55 in about 150 hands. My BR is now about $3200, and I'll be taking a shot at NL $100 starting tomorrow. Tomorrow's also my first day of classes, so I'll probably be cutting down on my playing time in the near future, but I'll hopefully be able to keep grinding out a decent number of hands.

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Tonight was a sold night and a relief after it started off like so many bad nights past. Doubled through very early in my night when I picked up AKo and flopped a boat on an AKK flop, stacking KJ. Then I flopped a set with 22 and made a bad river call, paying off a turned flush, and was back down to barely above even. This sort of pattern has haunted me the last 30k hands or so: I'll start a session off hot, then invariably donk off a buy-in, tilt, and end up down for the day.

Tonight it was not to be, as I kept my head straight, and kept playing good poker. After I lost with my set, I wouldn't win another big pot all night (net 60 BBs +). But I won a TON of medium pots against shortstacks. I won half a stack with KK on a JT8 flop against a shorty with AT, another half a stack when I turned the nut flush with AQs, and another 40 BBs when I flopped the nut flush against a shorty with two pair (and held!). Overall, I won about 6-8 pots that netted me 30-50 BBs, and a few more that netted 20 or so BBs, and finished up a bit over two buy-ins (+$117.05 in 834 hands). Would have been nearly 3 buy-ins if I hadn't made that bad call with 22, but what can you do? I'll just have to learn from the hand, move on and hopefully get to NL 100 soon. After today, my BR is slightly over $2800, so that's less than 4 buy-ins at NL $50 that I need to win.

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Haven't been able to update this or get in as many hands as I had hoped, busy getting ready to go back to school for the Spring semester.

Wednesday was a rough day, got stacked on back to back hands when I pushed a gutshot + flush draw on the flop and didn't improve, then got it all-in with the nut straight on the turn and lost to a rivered flush.

Yesterday was even more frustrating. I made a good read early and called a check-raise all-in on the turn with JJ to go up a buy-in early. Then the doomswitch was turned on. I lost with aces to a massive donk who hit a runner runner flush, where he called off 2/3 of his stack on the flop and turn. Then I shoved 99 on a JT2 flop against the same guy in a reraised pot, he called with AK and rivered a King. A few hands later I made up some of it when he called my push on a 742 flop with A7o. I had JJ and turned a Jack to seal the hand. Finished up about $10 in about 250 hands.

I'm still hoping to get to NL 100 by the end of the week. The plan was to move up and take a shot when my BR hit $3k, and right now it's at $2700. I'll be putting in some hands tonight, heading back to school tomorrow, and then hopefully should be able to get in a decent amount of hands before classes start on Monday.

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A little about me: I'm an 18 year old freshman at Cornell University. I started playing poker seriously in my junior year of high school, and have been studying the game ever since. At the start of my fall semester, I took a $50 instant bankroll at Absolute Poker and built that up playing limit hold'em and bonus whoring. I switched to No Limit in October of 2006 and am currenly playing NL $50 6-max at UltimateBet, planning to move up to NL $100 by the end of the week. The transition from limit to NL hasn't been easy, but I think I've finally got it down and am ready to move up. I'll be posting daily updates, random thoughts, etc. here.

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