C-Bets and 3 Bets

Another buy in up after tonight's play.  I was up a buy in early and should have logged off and went to bed, but i wanted to play so I kept going.  I slowly bled out chips not catching anything until I was back to even for the night.

I took a 5 minute break and came back to load up some new tables.  The cards were ice cold for quite a while and I ended up getting down by about a dollar before I found some playable hands.  I won a couple small pots then had a 6 2 in the small blind flop 2 2 A.  I checked and button bet half pot.  Turn was a Queen.  I check and he bets pot.  River brought an 8.  I led out half pot and he goes all in.  I call to see his A2.  Now I'm down over a buy in. 

Everything turned out ok though as I started catching cards on all my tables.  I threw out a couple c-bets to help me build back up across all 6 tables when I wasn't catching cards along with a couple 3 bets.

Tilts Galore

It's been a hectic week at work.  We have had auditor's here as well as me doing payroll in a new system that has a lot of bugs.  Throw in some billing issues and I've got myself a real mess. 

I've been staying late every night just trying to get what I can done.  It's not enough.  My desk looks like a tornado hit it.  Papers I am working on are slung everywhere.

This week I have also had 2 soccer practices as a coach.  So it's been work.  Soccer Practice.  Back to work.

This weekend I need to hit the lake again and clear my pounding head.

Maybe this is why I went on a losing 10 buy in rampage a couple nights ago when I tried to play.  I lost a few buy ins to complete suck outs.  Instead of quitting or continuing to play correctly I went on major tilt.  If I had 2 face cards I went all in.  Somebody called me every time on every table with an Ace and they won every time.

I cooled off after a few minute break and changed tables.  I got back 1/4 of what I lost over the next 700 hands. 

Last night I played again about 700 hands and made a couple buy ins when my aces held against an all in on the flop open ended straight draw with a high pair, on the one table I was up a half a buy in on already.  He had a slightly bigger stack so I got a full double up.

All In Misclick

Saturday and Sunday were disappointing.  I made the final 2 tables in multiple tournaments, then something would distract me.  The doorbell would ring, the phone would ring and the wife was feeding the baby.  It seemed that every time I made it deep something happened and I would get distracted.  Next thing I knew I was short stacked then out. 

Tonight I loaded up some cash games and 1 tournament.  I was doing well in the cash games, then for some odd reason I thought I hit 3/4 raise and when I pressed the bet button all my chips were on the table 5.75.  It folded to the big blind and he let the timer run down for a while before calling.  He had me covered in chips and cards.  He held a KK to my measly A10 that I was going to try to steal with.  The board ran out 69QJ.  Come on 8 or K.  Jack.  Had it not been for that mistake I would have been up over a buy in after 700 hands.  Instead I was break even the rest of the session.

In the tournament I finally got to concentrate when I made the final 2 tables and managed to sneak my way into 5th before finally going out.

My poker time is about to get cut short.  I was volunteered to be the soccer coach this year for the U8 team.  I'm not a soccer player by any means and my only experience playing has just been for fun as a kid.  We will have several games a week all April.  Both the boys will be playing.  I hope this doesn't make me miss many of my younger son's games.

This weekend we are traveling North to have our baby baptized.  The following weekend is the bachelor weekend at the cabin.  Then tornado chase week.  I'm surprised the following weekend hadn't been planned yet.  Oh yeah.  Soccer.  Then soccer.  Glad we have a mini van.  Then April is over.

I'll still have time in the late evenings to play some.  One of these days I need to plan a trip to Vegas.  It may be October but I want to get out there before the end of the year.

Was Not Feeling Poker This Week - Better Now

This week I was not feeling poker.  I guess I was burned out a little.  I played very little while my family was out of town.  It was a great opportunity for time to play but I just couldn't do it. 

The family got back last night as well as my urge to play.  I wonder what that is about.  Routine maybe.  I loaded up 3 9 man sng's an 18 man sng and a 2.20 knockout tournament.  I had a 2nd and a 3rd place finish in the 9 man's a 1st in the 18 man and finished 8th in the 2.20 knockout for 8.00 with 4 knockouts.  I should have finished higher but ran my 88 on the button into AK in the BB.  He caught his A.  I wasn't out yet but had my JJ got crushed by a A6o a couple hands later.  I would have called me with my stack too.  I was hoping for that call.  It just didn't work out. 

An odd thing happened in the tournament.  Four people on different hands went all in against me and caught their sets with lower pocket pairs to my higher pairs.  It never really affected me.  Usually if I take 3 beat downs like that in a tournament I'm pretty much out.  This time I had an ATM on the other side of the table that would call me with any A no matter what I bet, so I would take a beat from them and get it back plus some more from him. 

I also played a couple hundred hands of NL with a profit of 3.00 in that.  In all it was a 20.00+ profit night.  It was a relatively short session, but I didn't feel like playing any more so I shut down the computer and went to bed early.

While I was playing I watched the movie Hot Rod.  It was made in 2007, but mimicked an 80's movie all the way down to the cover.  It was a slapstick comedy (Adam Sandler like), and ended up being really funny.  I'd never heard of it until I found it on Netflix last night.  I asked my wife what she thought and she really liked it too.  When the movie started out I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.  As the movie progressed, the 80's vibe got us and we were hooked.

Tornado Chasing Kansas in April

Last night I got a call from a friend in Ohio.  He is coming out in April to do some tornado chasing with me for a few days.  We made some initial plans but will wait until closer to the time he is coming out to set everything in stone.

We will meet up close to where there is a threat of severe weather.  Then we will start following promissing  storms for a few days until it is time for him to return to Ohio. 

We will put a lot of miles in during those few days and may even chase right around my house if it is anything like last year in April.  We had all kinds of tornadic activity within 30 miles of here last year.  I didn't spot any personally but did see funnels and followed quite a few storms that eventually dropped tornadoes.  I had some good footage of one almost touching down right in front of us but my boy video taped over the top of it.  He actually got the footage on his video recorder somebody gave him. 

In that same storm I ended up taking cover at our house as the cell of the storm moved towards town and came across the top of our house.  We had 2-3 inch hail that beat the crap out of our vehicles.  We lost power and were kind of nervous since we didn't have renter's insurance.  The sirens never went off in town both times we were in eminent danger last year.

If the power goes out the sirens don't work.  If a tornado is approaching town it will likely take out the power.  We need to find a better warning system for the towns residents before a tornado actually makes it into town.  Many people had no idea how close we were to getting hit last year. 

 

House to Myself

It was exciting to think that I would have the house to myself for a few days.  I thought that I would be playing a ton of poker.  That hasn't been the case.  What happened was that I played some poker, couldn't sleep the first night.  Felt like crap all day the 2nd day.  Didn't play any poker the 2nd evening.  I watched a couple movies and fell asleep instead.  I feel better now and it's the last night. 

I'm not sure if I even want to play tonight.  If I can't focus there's no reason to play as I will just lose money.  If I do play, do I continue working on my cash game that I keep getting crushed at, or do I focus on sng's that I have been doing o.k. on, thanks to what I have learned from cash games?

It's nice outside so I will spend some time outside first, grilling up some brats.  Then I will have a couple drinks and contemplate how I want to approach the rest of the evening. 

The world is mine and I just want my family back home.  I'm glad they won't be gone for the full week.

You Can't Win Without Being Able To Lose

I opened a fortune cookie yesterday with that saying.  I do need to accept that I will have losing days.  I want to win every time I play.  Who doesn't.  I want to grow my bankroll faster than it is currently growing.  Each time I get that attitude I lose.  If I just play poker to play and don't worry about making money from it, I usually do a little better.

My bad habits keep coming back.  I fight with myself to stop from making poor calls, because I have to see if they really have it, or playing certain hands out of position.  It's a constant battle to try to correct my play so I don't keep making the same old mistakes that cost me money.  I will keep working on it until it comes natural to me. 

Going forward I should only play when I am able to concentrate fully on the games I'm playing.  I'm looking at getting a desk so that I am in a working type environment when I play instead of lounging on the couch.  I like being comfortable but I cannot pay full attention to multiple tables when I can barely see the stats when I'm only playing 4 tables.  I could play less hours by adding more tables, but I have to have greater concentration if I do that.

I also need to start using a mouse again.  I cannot move on the track pad on the computer as fast as I can with a mouse if I start multitabling more than 6 tables.  I still won't play over 6 tables of NL but I would be fine with SNG's. 

Poker Week - Grind 30

The kids are on spring break, my wife is off on maternity leave and I have to work.  That's a good thing!  This weekend after we visited my parents they went to stay with her Mom this week.  I am home alone. 

I can start my grind at 5:05 when I walk through the door and play all evening without any worries.  No "Dad I need a drink", or "Dad lets play", or "Husband, Do everything for me".  Really, I don't have it that bad when they are at home.  I could play and they don't ask for much, I just feel bad if I play when I should be spending time with them, so I play later in the evening when the kids go to bed.  This week there will be no guilty conscience and a lot more time to play.

It's grind 30. 

Fishing in Freezing Fog

After a good day of fishing yesterday Dad and I got up this morning and headed back to the lake.  Yesterday was cold but today was frosty.  We drove through freezing fog to get to the lake.  Once we got there the fishing dock had ice on it.  The temperature was 29 degrees with 20 mph winds.  I broke my line right away and my hand froze while I tied on another lure. 

We took a break about every 30 minutes to run back to the truck to warm up.  I didn't try licking the metal pole and it turned out to be a pretty good day fishing.  Dad caught 3 saugeye, one of which was a keeper.  I caught 4 short saugeye and a drum.  It was still 29 degrees and foggy when we left the lake at 1:00 pm.

Last night after my post, I decided to load up some tables and play.  It was a bad idea.  I was tired and lost a couple of buy ins.  Then I started playing horribly and lost 3 more buy ins.  It's crazy when people suck out on you over and over, you think you need to try it.  It never works.

After fishing I drove back home.  Tonight I decided to try a tournament, some sng's and some NL.  I was down .20 after the tournament.  In the sng's I was up 6.65 and in NL I was up 5.37. 

Day Off From Poker

This morning we headed to the lake a little after sun up.  I made a few casts for a bass with a spinnerbait before hooking up a crappie jig to fish under the dock we drove to.  Dad started casting away from the dock right away and in a short amount of time had a saugeye at the dock.  It looked to be about 20 inches but it came unhooked before he got it in.

I switched lures and tied on a jig head and twister tail and started casting for saugeye.  Dad caught several more before I got my first one.  They were all too short to keep.  Then I had a fish that fought a little harder than the others.  I got it up to the dock and saw it was a keeper.  I tried lifting it up on the dock and my line broke.  The fish teetered on the edge of the dock.  Dad dove for the fish, almost falling in the water in the process.  My reaction was a little slower but as I went down I had to dart to the side to keep from knocking Dad on in.

We got ahold of the fish before it flopped back into the lake.

We caught several more short fish, then I caught one more keeper just over 18 inches. 

The temperature was 35 degrees all day with strong winds coming across the water at us.  It was a little chilly and if we weren't catching fish it would have been cold. 

The fish stopped biting around 2:00 so we called it a day and came back to Mom and Dad's.  I took a little nap as I warmed up, then we had supper and relaxed watching some T.V.

It's been a good day off.

The Extras

Finally, I had a winning night.  It should have been a lot better or even just a little better if my KK would have held against AJ all in or my set of 9's would not have been chased down for a straight, or my AK would have beaten AQ or A6 in back to back hands against the same player.

What saved me was that I tightened up and my other hands that I played held up.  My win was only .90 in NL, I also had a win in sng's for 1.30 and a loss of 1.10 in tournaments.  It's not much, but it is a win.  I also cleared a small bonus to make me feel a little better.

I doubt I'll be playing much if at all this weekend.  It will be nice to take a little break doing something other than poker.  

Bachelor Weekend in April

Last night we finalized plans for a bachelor weekend for a buddy I met in my college days.  He's getting married this summer so we decided to do a bachelor weekend this April.  We had considered getting a houseboat but after looking at the distance we would need to drive, and the cost, we decided to rent this awesome house on 30 acres of land at Grand Lake of the Cherokees in Oklahoma.  This'll do. 

Flip Flop

Finally, I have broken my losing streak in cash games.  I tightened way up and concentrated on playing correctly.  It wasn't a lot 1.62.  It was good considering the largest pocket pair I had all night was 77 and I did not get AK suited or off suit in the 200 hands I played.

I only played 1 table of NL while I played sng's.  The sng's were the loser tonight -3.20 so I still lost money for the night.  I played a pretty short session. 

When I got home from work we had kids all over the house.  My nieces and nephews were over as well as one of my son's classmates.

When most of them left I fried up some taco salad bowls and made taco salad for supper.  Amazingly it doesn't take as much as I thought to fill the shells so now I have enough lettuce, meat and cheese, that we will be eating taco salads all week.  That's ok with me.  I'll be buying some sour cream though.

After supper I looked up flight prices to Vegas.  I've got the itch to go back out there.  It's around 250.00 for a flight in May.  I have a bachelor party weekend in April so if I decide to go it will have to be after April.  May is getting into good fishing season so it's pretty unlikely for me to go out then.  I will probably wait until fall like usual.

Playing more SNG's

Last night I got home and the kids were watching T.V. downstairs.  I was tired, my back was hurting and all I wanted to do was sit down.  Since I was sitting down resting I figured I'd go ahead and play some poker. 

This was another losing session at cash by 2 buy ins.  After looking at pokertracker I saw that I need to tighten my game even more.  Most of the hands I have been losing hands are hands I should not have been in, in the first place. 

I played a few tournaments and lost right before the money in a couple of them.  Then I loaded a few sng's and did well in 2 of them.  I was break even between the tournaments and sng's.  NL drug me down for a loss on the night.  A loss with a set of 4's on the flop to a runner runner straight for a loss of 6.00 ruined my chances of a profit for the night.  He went all in on the flop.  He had top pair with a decent kicker and all of his stats said he was going to give me money but he had a nice suckout and left right afterwards.

It's been a long spell of not having a winning day at NL.  It has crossed my mind to go back to playing only sng's and tournaments.  I like the sng structure's at Lock and I have found a couple tournaments now that I like.  It seems like that is where the fish swim.  I need to keep playing NL and getting better at it.  Each improvement I am making in NL is helping my sng and tournament game greatly.

I do think that I will be throwing a few more sng's and a tournaments in the mix each night while I am playing.  That is where my real love for poker lies. 

I'm trying to decide if I want to pull my boat 4 hours to take it out to the lake on Saturday.  I have a couple other options.  We could fish off the bank, the fishing dock, or take out Dad's inflateable pontoons.  I'm fine with both of those other options, but I want to take my boat out bad.  I could take it up this weekend and leave it up there for easter weekend as well.  Then bring it back or leave it up there to sell it. 

There's no water around here.  All of the lakes within 2 hours of here have been drained for drinking water elsewhere.  It's not a real wet part of the country so it could take years for the lakes to fill back up leaving my boat useless unless I want to pull it over 2 hours to use it. 

Moving Sessions to Later in the Evening

Last night the kids wanted to walk to the grocery store after I got home.  It's only a block and a half away so we made the walk to find some grilling meat.  My oldest son said he wanted chicken legs and baked beans so we picked those up and some ice cream.

I fired up the smoker/grill and threw some hickory in to get the smoke started then glazed the chicken in barbecue sauce and placed it on the grill.  An hour later we were all enjoying the taste of barbecue.

The rest of the evening I hung out with the family until 9:00, then I fired up a couple tables of NL.  Right away I have pocket J's and 3 bet it against a reg.  He called and the flop came AK#.  He led out and I fold to his 30% AFq flop bet.  Nothing I can do there.  Then I get 99.  It folds to me.  I raise.  Flop comes low, 8 6 3 two spades.  BB checks.  I bet pot, he min raises, I min raise back at him and he goes all in.  He either has air or a made hand, and I don't have enough stats to tell so I fold.  Not a good start.

I play for a while longer while everybody passes chips around the table.  I get QQ in mid position and raise with a limper behind.  He has a short stack and goes all in.  I call to see his AA.  I'm down about a buy in at this point.  I start to work my way back to 1.00 down when a  player chases and catches a back door flush and catches on the river.  I typed Keep Chasing in the chat box.  That was a bad move.  Nobody would call me for anything after that on that table.

I would continue between 1.00 down and a buy in down the rest of the night ending the night at a buy in down when my baby started crying.  I held her and watched a couple episodes of Bones while I was trying to settle her down.

As much as I like playing early, I think I'm going to have to play later in the evenings during the week.  The boys are starting to make comments about how much I have been playing.  It was mainly about this weekend, but I don't want them to feel like poker is more important than them, so poker is getting pushed into the late evening hours after their bedtime.

This weekend we will be heading to my parents to visit.  I told Dad that I would like to sneak out to do some fishing with him and the boys while I'm there.  I haven't caught a fish yet this year and have the itch to go fishing.  He said they have been biting up there.

Italian Bread

After a full day of play I came out ahead by .41.  I played the 10000.00 guaranteed.  I lasted for 3 1/2 hours before I took my 4th major suckout of the game.  All of them came from the same person.  I would build a stack, he would go all in against me with crap when I had a hand and then draw out on me.  It was horrible.

While I was playing I finished the 2nd season of The Walking Dead.  Now I have to wait for the 3rd season to come out on Netflix.

The last 2 nights I've made a loaf of Italian Bread from scratch.  It was so good the first night I had to make another loaf tonight.  The kids and wife loved it too. 

Reality TV

I've been watching The Walking Dead all day.  It is an awesome show that really draws you into the zombie apocalypse frame of mind.

Besides that I've been playing poker last night and today.  Last night I lost a buy in and a half at cash but did well on sng's.  Today I started with a couple tournaments.  I placed in the money in both.  The 2.20 bounty went well and I finished in 3rd.  I played 570 hands in cash and made .20.

I also won an 11.00 ticket so I can get into the 15000 guaranteed tournament on Carbon tomorrow.

R&R

The last couple of nights, I have put in some long hours at work and have not played a lot of poker.  I think I'm about break even for the 2 nights.  I lost the first night and gained the 2nd night. 

This is one of the longest stretches I have stayed home on the weekends for quite a while.  We had been going going going for a long time.  Now that we are staying home I'm wanting to do something again.  I should just enjoy staying home and saving money while I can.  There's so much I want to do at home but I feel so tired when I am there that I don't do much at all.

This weekend I want to relax, watch t.v. and play poker.  I need to build shelves for the basement, get the car ready to sell, get the boat cleaned and ready for spring, and take the camper to get weighed to see if we need tags for it.  I also wouldn't mind going to the lake for a few hours.

It's no question in my mind that any of the stuff that needs to get done will get done.  It's supposed to be warm and rainy this weekend.  That may motivate me to do something.

It's only a matter of time until we will be on the fly again so I need to get my R&R in now. 

Not

Nothing exciting in tonight's session, besides the fact that a guy with 3 6 three bet big against my pocket aces.  His full house on the turn made me get sick all over my keyboard.  I also had a set of 9's on the flop fall to a 4 6, and I fell to numerous other horrible suckout's.  Then I played bad for a bit, thinking I was the king of the tables.  I was more like the duece of the tables. 

I finally straightened up after I lost another buy in and went to work from 5 buy in's down.  I played 1300 hands and ended up being exactly 3 buy ins down for the night.  Bah!

I got off late tonight as I'm getting ready to install a new system at work and have to work the bugs out this week.  When I got home I set up the crib that I've been putting off doing for several weeks and moved the dresser into my girls room.  She's all set now.  I guess we'll have to keep her since I went through so much work.

Another Baby Girl

My sister in law had her baby girl this afternoon.  My wife went to see the baby when I got off work.  I was left with my baby, and 6 other other children 8 and under at the house.  It wasn't as chaotic as it sounds, except for the baby.  She is getting fussy if you don't do exactly what she wants.

My wife got home and I probably should not have played since I didn't really have much time.  I decided to play anyway.  I started out decent and by the end of my session I was up almost a half a buy in.  My last hand of the night I was dealt a KK in early position.  I made a small raise, trying to get somebody to 3-bet me.  There was a 3-bet and a call.  Both players had high VPIP and the 3-better had a 14 3 bet.  I re-popped it and the 3-better went all in.  I called.  He showed QQ.  The flop came 3 suited in his suit and a straight draw for him.  I've seen this before.  Then the Turn and River ran clean.  I logged off after 100 hands being up a buy in and a half.

Not bad for a night I shouldn't have played.

No Play Sunday

When I am able to stay home, Sunday's are the day I look forward to playing the most.  This Sunday I did not play.  After being sick for several days my body decided it had enough and I slept for several hours after we got home from church.

Once I finally got up and oriented again, I decided to get the toy room moved to the basement so our baby girl can finally have her room.  It took a lot of work as we had to go through every box of toys to see what we would keep, throw away, or take to the second hand store.  It's hard to get rid of toys that people have given the boys, but they have way too much.  I filled 3 more trash bags - that makes 6 total bags of broken or junk toys.  I also filled up the back of my truck with toys to take to the second hand store. 

The boys weren't too happy as they lost a bunch of toys that they never play with anyway.  It is nice to have it all organized and moved so we can set up a crib and move the dresser into the clean room.  The room was getting to be quite the eyesore.  The next task is to make sure all of the toys are kept nice and tidy from now on. 

I thought about playing after we got the room cleaned but I still wasn't feeling well so I laid around for a bit then went to bed. 

Rollercoaster Day

Today started out pretty good as I was up close to 1/2 a buy in after 300 hands.  Then I lost 14 big hands in a row dropping to more than 6 buy ins below where I started by the time I reached 550 hands.  I still had a lot of day left so I continued to play, slowly working back up.

After 1200 hands I am still down but made a large dent in the hit that I took earlier.  I ended the day being down a little over 2 buy ins.

It was tough playing as a lot of my continuation bets were getting called or re-popped.  I had to fold a lot of good hands, and make some difficult calls in some tough spots to get back to where I am now.  It would have been tough to swallow a 6 buy in loss.  I'm glad I had the time to play to get some of that back. 

March Off To A Good Start

It was a late night at work, then I drove 30 miles away to drop off a co-worker and pick up some chinese takeout.  I stopped at Wal-mart before driving back home.  Once I got home I logged on to play my first session of March.

I only got a short session in tonight of 276 hands but had a profit of 5.88.  It wasn't looking good at first when I got QQ in the small blind, all in against a high VPIP high PFR player on the button.  He had J7o and caught 2 pair to shorten my stack by 2.96.  The rest of the night I slowly kept moving in the right direction as I got trips, straights, and full houses.  I even held with KK once.

Last night my fever broke and it felt like my skin was on fire.  This morning I woke up feeling like a whole different person.  Now as I type this I'm starting to get a wheeze in my throat.  I'm going to take some more nyquill and head to bed.