The downside of player poker for a living

Yesterday.... by far the worst day I've had. Everything has been running smoothly for the past couple months and yesterday was a reality check. I lost close to $1,000 just by playing 5/10. That's a huge loss at that level. Everything was going wrong. I'd flop top pair, and someone would turn a set. I'd flop 2 pair, and someone would trip on the river. I'd flop top set on a rainbow flop and lose to a runner runner flush or straight. I'd flop the absolute nuts and someone would find a way, any way, to beat me. It was horrible. I played well... textbook poker.... and lost a rediculous amount of money, to me at least. Days like that can make players question their abilities. I was really down for a bit when it happened, but I thought about it a little.... I knew when I made this choice of playing online poker professionally that there would be swings, and huge ups and downs. I've experienced ups and downs, mostly ups, and some occasional "small" downs, so I guess it was only a matter of time before the cards would turn on me in a big way. So after sulking for about an hour after it was all done, me and Justin rode out to Phillip's for the usual "donk-filled" Tuesday night cash game. I walked away with a respectable $148 profit, which wasn't anything compared to my losses for the day, but it definitely was a confidence booster. I know I can win in this game in the long run, and most of the time in the short run. I just have to make the right plays and not tilt, and the money will come. I made the decision to move down to 3/6 starting today, not because I feel 5/10 is too difficult for me, but because I'm willing to move down when my bankroll isn't quite as sufficient as it should be. I'm going to play alot of 3/6 this week, 2-tabling at minimum, but mostly 3-tabling. I showed a small profit today of about $50 in 3/6 in about 3 hours play.... not great, but anything positive right now is ok with me.

Bad runs are all a part of poker, and its something I accepted a long time ago. It's time to move past it and grind back up. Nothing is going to take me away from this game, not this easily at least......

Peace.....

Poker update and a final table.......

After my week (or longer) off from playing limit, I got back into it some... this time on Full Tilt. They are running a promotion for the WSOP where they are giving away $1Million in Main Event seats. The have a tourney once a month for 5 months where the top 20 get a seat. You can either qualify through freerolls (which is extremely difficult the way they have it set up) or you can accumulate 10,000 Full Tilt Points in a month's time. I saw where their first month's tourney only had 580 or so people in it, so I wanted to get in next month because its a great opportunity. I deposited some of my roll into Full Tilt so I can get my 10k points. I've been doing alright on there. Up somewhere around $200 in the 4 or 5 total hours I've played so far. I put one nasty beat on a guy the other day. It went like this......

I'm in MP with 5d6d and theres a limper. I limp too hoping more people will, which they have been doing alot. I like small suited connectors like that, you usually lose a small pot or win a big one with them. So anyway, the whole table limps.

Flop: Qc8c4d

I have nothing but a gut shot and prepare to check/fold, but the whole table checks.

Turn: 8d

Now the pot is already about $60 I believe, and its checked to me. I picked up a flush draw, and still have my gutty too. I bet, trying to represent a hand, knowing that I still have outs if I'm called. I get one caller.

River: 7d

Now it goes without saying that this was a beautiful card for me. I bet, and he raises!!!!! Hmmmmm, what should I do with the nut straight flush, lol. I 3-bet and he caps.... The guy has............. QQ! Wow, something tells me that guy played his queens pretty badly. Was nice for me though, as I dragged in somewhere around a $180 pot.


$30+rebuys - Phillip's House

Sunday night at Phillip's didn't go as well as the week before though. I couldn't get much going early and wasn't able to build my stack as I would've liked in the rebuy period. I was sitting at around 15k when I got 77 in MP. Blinds were 50/100 and I made it 300 to go. All folded to the small blind who called, and the bb folded.

Flop: AsKd7s

Very good flop for me. He checks... Now I only have about 12k left, and I'm thinking about checking here. But I figured it may looking like I'm checking a good hand anyway because I raised in MP and he's probably thinking that Ace hit me, or at least the King. I decide to bet 400 because if he's gonna call any bet from me later with the A and K out there, he probably will on the flop , and he puts me allin. I beat him into the pot and he has the one thing I didn't want him to have... a flush draw..... 3s4s. (Nice call of my raise by the way). So the 9s hits the turn and of course the board fails to pair on the river. I'm out. Oh well, I got the money in as a pretty good favorite, and thats all I can ask for.


$5+rebuys - Party Poker

I usually don't like playing many rebuy multis online, simply because they take soooooo long. Today, however, I was in the mood for some tournament poker and I decided to jump in while playing some WSOP steps at the same time. There were about 1,000 people in it, and after all the rebuys and addons, 1st place was right at $4,500, and 2nd - 5th were all above $1,000. After the addon period I started slowly building my stack... Before I knew it, I was at $175,000 in chips.... Then this hand came up....

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SkibbityUkk [ Kh Jh ]
kansas75 folds.
Bengha333 folds.
SkibbityUkk raises [24000].
Nugget50_ folds.
nightcastle calls [24000].
SONRAY111 folds.
The_Dean22 folds.
steeles05 folds.
R__LO calls [18000].
enok33 folds.

** Dealing Flop ** [ 6s, 2h, Jc ]
R__LO checks.
SkibbityUkk bets [75000].
nightcastle folds.
R__LO raises [150000].
SkibbityUkk is all-In [75424]
R__LO calls [424].

** Dealing Turn ** [ 8h ]

** Dealing River ** [ 9h ]

R__LO shows [ 6d, 6c ] three of a kind, sixes.
SkibbityUkk shows [ Kh, Jh ] a flush, king high.
SkibbityUkk wins 386848 chips from the main pot


I was just moved to that table and wanted to raise soon after to let the table know I'm there to play, so I bumped it with KJ suited. I was extremely lucky, as you can see, to catch running hearts to double up.... But hey, I've taken worse beats than that, its my turn... right?? :)



Later on, this hand comes up....

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to SkibbityUkk [ Qs Qc ]
adib57 folds.
mmike444: vnh
kaladarkid: lol
Snap_Brandy will be using his time bank for this hand.
Snap_Brandy folds.
TinNutz folds.
kaladarkid raises [80000].
mmike444 folds.
Bengha333 folds.
SkibbityUkk is all-In [400911]
MRWISE42 folds.
kaladarkid calls [340911].

** Dealing Flop ** [ Js, 4c, Ah ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]

** Dealing River ** [ Qd ]

kaladarkid shows [ As, Td ] a pair of aces.
SkibbityUkk shows [ Qs, Qc ] three of a kind, queens.
SkibbityUkk wins 889822 chips from the main pot with three of a kind, queens.



For about 30 minutes before this hand, I have been card dead, and folding every hand. Apparantly this guy doesn't notice, and doesn't respect my raise of over 300K more. I was mad when I saw the Ace, but hit my miracle on the river. That's what he gets for overplaying something like A10... lol.

At its peak, my stack was around 1.3 Million... but didn't stay there too long. Entering the final table I was the short stack after I pushed on the button a few hands before at my other table with Ah5h and the sb's JJ beat me. But still, here's the final table.....






I print screened it just in case I succeeded to pull a miracle comeback, but that didn't happen. I finished in 10th when I had to call in the bb with 86 os and was up against 1010. Oh well, I tried. And I promise you this... sometime soon I WILL cash over $1k in a multi. I'm feeling like my game is the best as its ever been right now, and I'm going to break through with a big cash soon.................. I can feel it!!!

Overdue update...

Its been a while since my last update, but no I didn't go broke lol. I was grinding at 5/10 for a bit at Battlefield and eventually went back to Pacific Poker for limit. I got rakeback at BP, but it still didn't make up for the difference in the skill level of players of there and Pac. I still believe its more profitable to be playing my limit at Pac for sure. So with that said, last week was a pretty good one, by my standards at least. I was doing pretty well in 5/10 on Pac and when Sunday rolled around I was up between $450 and $500, which isn't great, but its acceptable. At Phillip's house on Sundays, there's a $30 with rebuys tourney and a $50 regular tourney, and they rotate each week. This week just happened to be the $30 w/ rebuys. Me and Justin decided to head over there and give it a shot, and I figured if I lost I could just go home and play some 5/10 and try to get a little back before the week's end, which in my "schedule" is Sunday night.

So we get there just in time to start, and there are 21 people playing, which is pretty big compared to other home game tourneys I've been to around here. We start off with 3 tables of 7, and everyone has 800 chips to start. Blinds start at 10/20 and go up every 30 mins, so its usually a pretty quick tourney, even with the rebuys. Well we get to the break and I'm probably around 1200 chips without using a rebuy. Addons are $10 for 500 chips, so I did that. We had about 2 full tables after the break and my rush began. I was taking down pots left and right, and not to mention the cards were helping! About an hour later everyone was about to take a break and I was sitting on about 4k, maybe more, when this hand came up. I had J10spades in LP and raised 3X the bb, and Phillip comes over the top for his remaining chips. I was getting right at 2 to 1 on a call so I told him I'd gamble and give him a loose call. He flips up AKdiamonds and thats about what I put him on... that or AQ. Anyways I was live and flopped a jack and turned another one... bye bye Phil. This gave me a nice stack at the break.

Soon I was at the final table, and Justin was there too sitting pretty with a very healthy chip lead. I was lucky enough to pick up QQ and get all the money in against JJ, and get AA twice and get paid off both times there too. Top 4 got paid looking like this.... $500, $300, $150, $70. We get 4 handed and are all guaranteed money, and Justin takes a bad beat.... He's in the blind with J7 and everyone calls. The flop is J 7 x. He gets allin against KJ, and the river is a King. It cripples him and we're 3 handed. Pretty soon the shortstack is out and I'm heads up with Brandon Hall (B Hall). Well B Hall has about a 2 to 1 chip lead so we make a deal giving him 2/3 of the difference in 1st and 2nd place, so he takes $430 and I take $370. I was extremely happy with the outcome and it put me up around $800 for the week.

On Monday night, I entered a 180 man sng ($20 + $2). I stayed around my initial 1500 chips for a while, then managed to hit a rush and jump up to around 15k with about 30 people left. 18 places were paid, so I was in great position for a nice cash, and would have been extremely disappointed if I didn't make the final table. Well I managed to sneak in the final table with a below average stack. The very first hand of the FT I was dealt QQ utg. I pushed and was called by AK, and I actually won a coin flip! I was feeling good about my play for the tournament and it got 6-handed. It started raining outside and I jokingly said to Justin that this tourney better hurry up because if bad weather comes our connection is gone, because our internet connection is total CRAP. Well, not 1 minute after I said that, bye bye internet. It wasn't even storming, it was RAINING! My only real choice here was to call Alex in Nebraska and get him to finish up for me, because he had been watching me since the final 2 tables. He got on there for me while I was talking to him on the phone and after folding a few crap hands, he was 5 handed. He got KK on the button and was fairly shortstacked, so "we" pushed, and got called by A6 in the BB which was the same guy who doubled my QQ up with his AK at the start of the table. The KK held up and we were looking good. We got QQ soon after that and nobody called the raise. The VERY NEXT HAND we had AA utg, and made a standard raise. 2 people called and the flop was 7 8 J with two diamonds. This was an OK flop for our AA. We pushed allin which was about the pot size, and one guy went allin over the top and was called by the other guy.... uh oh. The over the top guy had KJ, but the other had 77, which had my AA looking like rags on that flop. If we would've won that pot, we woulda been chip leader, but thats poker and thats how it goes sometimes. 5th place was $234 so that was still OK.

So last night rolls around and I hadn't played any limit in about a week, and wasn't eager to jump back into it because I love tourneys and limit is BORING. I got in a $30 MTT on stars and lasted about 2 hours in that until I busted with 77 vs 1010. Then I jumped in another 180 man sng ($20) and was up from 1500 to about 4k after an hour, which was a good bit above average, when this hand came up.... I was dealt 99 in LP. EP only doubles the blinds to 300 (blinds 75/150), and I'm not sure what to make of it and don't want to get too involved with him because he's the only one at the table who has me covered. I just call and we see the flop heads up....

Flop: 9 8 K rainbow

This was obviously a great flop for me. He fires out 600, and I hesitate for about 5 seconds and call.

Turn: 10

I don't remember the suit of the 10 but it didn't matter. I didn't like this card too much. He could've easily made that small raise in EP with QJ suited. He bet out 1200, and I pushed my remaining 1400 or so and he instacalls with....... 6h7h. Ouch... I failed to boat on the river and was sent to the rail... highly pissed.

Just a couple minutes before I busted out of that tourney I decided to play a $10 nitro MTT on Pac. Now this is like a turbo tourney, but instead of 5 minute blind levels its only 3. I usually just play these for fun and in hopes to win obviously because they don't last very long. There were 150 entrants and 20 places paid, with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd being $450, $300, and $150. I managed to get to the final table with only 3k chips, and the blinds were 1k/2k... so I was in desperation mode. I was dealt 67 in the BB and about 3 people went allin, most being shortstacks. I had to call 1k more, obviously. The flop came 6 6 x and I more than tripled up. I was getting blinded again though and started pushing and every now and then stealing blinds. Somehow in about 15 minutes I brought my 3k up to about 50k. The leader had about 60k and the other guy was hanging on with about 10k.. Blinds were high at this point, about 4k/8k I think. I got 1010 on the button and pushed, and the leader instacalled in the sb, and I just knew I was beat. The BB only had to call about 2k more, but he folded, I guess because there was a $150 difference between 2nd and 3rd... The sb had A7 os, and I was in great shape. When he blanked out I had a HUGE lead 3 handed, with about 90% of the chips. Shortly after the other guy busts and me and the A7 guy get heads up when the break starts... Haha, it took an hour to get heads up in a multi, pretty crazy huh. Anyway we start talking in the chat and he asks if I've ever won a multi before. And really I haven't, unless you count the 50something-man wsop satty qualifier on full tilt that sent me to the $500 buyin satty... And I don't really count that. So I have about 112k and he has about 8k left, blinds are 5k/10k after the break. First hand back, I'm on the button with J8, so I call the 3k more to me to put him allin. He has 108... I was in great position to win my first ever multi.... until the 10 flopped. I was thinking "Its OK, I still have a huge lead, I'm still in great shape"... well the turn was a jack, so I didn't have to worry about any of that anymore.... I WON MY FIRST MULTI!!!!! Even though it was only a field of 150 players and it was only $450, I feel great about it. Now if I can only win a $20 or $30 MTT with about 1000 players in it, lol. Well this is by far my longest blog entry and I've gotta go anyway.....

Peeeeeeeeeeeeace.........