God, I LOVE Friday nights!!!

First off let me start by saying that this is not going to be my normal blog posting. This post is a celebration. You see I just had my biggest single session ever finishing up $335 over 625 hands (53.75, totally sustainable, BB/100). What a way to start the month.

So anyway what I'm going to do tonight is show you every stack I won. I knew the night was going to be good when this was my very 1st hand of the night:



I know I rail against slow playing your monsters but with so many limpers here I figured at least 1 of them would bet the flop or that maybe someone would make their flush. When we were raised on the turn I knew he had a Queen and wanted to get it all-in before a flush card came out to scare him off. 1 hand, 1 stack! Next!



At the time made the call (well raised by $4 technically) I didn't feel great about this one, but I honestly thought he was on an overpair with a single spade. Needless to say I was thrilled when he turned his cards over.



This hand is a little different. Our villain here is like 6/5/.3 over 125 hands, so I knew going in I likely didn't have the best hand but I also knew that I could probably take the pot away by just showing max aggression on a scary flop. Well then I went and flopped good (that's the secret of poker kids) and he never bet or raised but he did call all the way, including the over the top push on the end. I noted that I couldn't steal pots from him but that he would pay off value bets all day long. :)



Villain here was a total idiot (85/17/4 over 60 hands). I knew he'd call the flop bet with nearly any pair or even a weak draw but even I was surprised how light he called down. Thank you sir. May I have another?



Yeah I know it's not technically a stack job but it's basically a full buy-in so I'm counting it. :) Anyway, out villain here is nitty and normally very aggressive (10/9/5.5 over about 300 hands), so calling with any pair is a no brainer. He checks into 3 callers, I'm sure hoping to Check-Raise, only to have everyone check behind and allows me to get that beautiful turn card. I debated raising the turn but honestly I was scared that if we got our stacks in my boat wouldn't be the winner (yes, I played a FH for pot control!). I was very glad to see him just call on the river. If he had shoved there, I would have shit myself.

So those are the big ones. Yes there were other stacks taken but mostly from horrible short-stackers and I won't bore you with me getting AIPF with AQ vs a horrible (90/25/1) shorty who had AT and taking his $10 for the sixth time in the session.

I think I love August (at least so far)!

July Wrap-Up And August Goals

Ok, all I'll say about the last few days is they sucked hard. I've dropped a total of $70 since my last update and I've been all over the place on a huge rollercoaster ride. Tonight's session for example stared with dropping 2 full BIs in 10 hands! QQ less than JJ when he flopped a set and KK less than AA when I didn't get my set!

Here's how my goals played out:

1) Play 15,000 hands - Passed easily (21,307)

2) Clear my mid-year $100 bonus - Done with ease

3) Maintain a 6BB/100 win rate - Managed all month until my last session (5.9) :(

4) Grow my BR by $450 - Yes. Total BR gain with rakeback and bonus - Stox fee = $909

5) Be ready and rolled to play 50NL by the end of July (BR > $1500) - Started at 50NL on 7/18/08

6) Make finding hands to post here everyday harder for myself - Failed miserably.

So a mixed month all told and the end of the month really put a bit of a damper on things. Here is the graph:


August Goals

1) 15,000 hands at 50NL

2) Withdrawal 1/2 of my August profit (or $500 whichever is less)

3) Maintain a win rate of at least 5.5 BB/100

4) Grow my bankroll by $500 after withdrawal

5) Quit spewing chips pushing with under pairs and crap draws (they're not going to fold)

6) Tilt less.

7) Post at least 5 hands for analysis on CC

8) Watch a ton of videos over at Stox.

Some 6-Max And Fighting My Way Back To Even

As I mentioned yesterday I've decided to play at least 1000 hands of 6-max for c9h13no3's break out of your comfort zone challenge. So last night was my 1st session. I ended up playing 264 hands and winning $25.80 (19.5BB/100) on 4 tables in about 40 minutes. I actually recorded the session and I plan to add commentary and make it available this weekend. My stats over this shortish session were 23/21/4 with 11% 3bet. So still pretty tight but it seemed so loose to me since my usual stats are like 15/12/4. I hit a few big hands and only made one major mistake in my opinion. Here it is:



Calling his river bet here is pretty spewy. I was very surprised to see him play QQ this way. Had he 3bet preflop, we would have flipped for stacks because there is no doubt I would have pushed. Oh well, can't be expected to play them all correctly.

So after that 6-max session, I opened 8 FR NL50 tables and went into extreme freefall. At 300 hands into the session I was down ~$90 but I stuck with it, quit doing everything wrong and managed to turn the session around actually finishing up $6,85 after 553 hand (1.25BB/100). I guess considering the way I started the session I can't really complain about the end result. Here is the worst hand I played (warning this hand should not be viewed by women or children):



What can I say other than dumb. To my opponent in this hand I say you're welcome.

In better news, I did cross the $500 MGR threshold this month which means I'll get an extra $25 from my rakeback site for my monthly Stox Poker membership. I've been doing a ton of studying on there lately and I really think the videos they produce over there will help my bottom line. Maybe there will be a video about not pushing with pocket eights.

What Goes Up....

... must crash back to Earth with a sickening thud! After I posted last night I decided to play a long session to try to earn a bunch of rakeback and maybe get my MGR up to $500 to pay for Stox this month. I ran insane. I finished up $215 over 1000 hands (21.5BB/100) and felt that I played very well throughout the session. I had my month's winnings up over $1000 and I was feeling great. Then today happened. I played 718 hands for a total loss of 186.05 (-26BB/100)!

Yes, some of the losses were standard cooler type hands. Some were suckout losses and some (most) were just bad play. For whatever reason I was back to calling down everything (WTSD over 33%) and I just kept spewing chips all over the place (W$SD under 35%). Here is the worst of it:



When I called the villain's 3bet preflop I said to myself that it was set or fold postflop and then I go a 3 barrel when the board is all unders. Just as I was about to throw the last of my stack away I though to myself that he probably had QQ and that I should just check fold but I didn't. Just couldn't do it. Spewtastic!

So thanks to this post by c9h13no3 on CC, I've decided that for the last couple of days of the month I'm going to try my hand at 6-max (I'm thinking 25NL). We'll see how it goes. I've always heard that 6-max has more horrible stacktastic donks per table than FR so I should fit right in.

Back On Track And Getting Stupid With A Pair Draw

Well I managed to quick;y lose $50 at my buddies live game Friday night. I just never had cards and when I did they were always 2nd best. In the time I was there, about 3 hours, I won only 3 hands and the biggest of those was with 35os in the bb, that flopped trips. Fortunately one of my opponents had decides to limp with AA from EP and he paid me off. Other than that I played rather poorly and was too impatient the whole night.

So when I returned home I managed to get in a session on Full Tilt so I could keep my gold medal dreams alive for the month. I actually managed to win about $58 in 275 hands (21.1BB/100). This was the dumbest play of the session:



The biggest mistake here is of course calling the initial raise from the shorty. We're getting almost no implied odds and we really should just be mucking our hand here.

I also had a winning session this afternoon, finishing up $86 in just over 700 hands (12BB/100). It was a very swingy session which started down $20, then I went up $100, then back to even, and finally working my way back up to where I finished up. The following is what I consider my worst hand of the day:



Our villain here is a very bad 54/22/3 who I thought might fold to my all-in (I figured him for a draw or a weak made hand). I'm not sure why I thought he would fold anything he would bet here and of course just folding and waiting for a better hand to take his stack would have been the better play. Although he did give me action in a later hand (this time he only had TPGK to my set) and I took it all back (with interest) before he left the table.

Running Bad Makes Me Play Even Worse

Well since my last totally up beat post I have yet to book a winning session! All told I am down $125 over 1000 hands (-12.5BB/100). Now some of this loss is certainly due to some variance (twice I've had sets of deuces lose to bigger sets) but a very large part of it has actually been some sick need I've had to make hero calls on the river. Trying to catch your opponent bluffing gets VERY expensive and I'm not sure why but I just can't keep my cursor away from the call button. A particularly bad example:



My God I'm like the biggest calling station on Earth. I have bottom pair on a flop that's all over a button raisers range and end up calling all the way. I beat nothing here but a bluff so I guess I put him on a bluff. Just bad.

I guess some of the cooler type hands had to be expected as I was just running too good for it to last long. Even with this horrible 1000 hands I'm still running at 6.5BB/100 at 50NL, although after paying Stox my BR is just above where it was when I moved up.

Well I'm getting ready to head out to a friends for some cash game poker. He's actually having a tourney tonight that started about 2 hours ago but since I hate his structure I made up an excuse to go late and just play cash with the early losers! Also tomorrow is Mrs. Hillbilly's 15th class reunion so who knows if I'll get a chance to update tomorrow or even play. Maybe I need a day off.

Joining Stox And A Bluff All-In Takes A Big Pot

Ok, so after running hot for the 3rd day straight (up $130 over 465 hands or 28BB/100) I decided to go ahead and join Stoxpoker today. As I mentioned in a previous post my rakeback site, rakebreak.com will cover the monthly fee ($25) for Stox for every month that I have a monthly gross rake of $500 or more. Not sure I'm going to get there this month but since I'm positive I will beginning next month, I went ahead and joined. So the math works like this; I paid $189 to Stox for 6 months. For that fee I pay the sign-up fee ($75)and get 6 months access to all their videos ($150) and 2 books ($30 Theory of Poker and NL Holdem Theory and Practice). I'll get at least $125 back from rakebreak.com, so it seemed like a fair deal. It will only get better each month after 6 when the monthly fee ($25) is an added benefit from rakebreak.com (basically free $$). Hopefully I'll be able to pick up enough advice from Stox to make the time spent watching the videos worthwhile.

So anyway, like I said I ran great once again last night. When I reveiwed my session afterward I really didn't find too many mistakes and certainly no big mistake until I looked at my winners (I normally look at my losing hands first). Then I noticed that my biggest pot of the day was essentially a bluff CRAI on a monotone flop.



Not sure what our villain (43/12/2) was thinking here other than I had a single club and was pushing with a draw. Of course I figured he may be doing the same and that's why I pushed. I was very pleasantly surprised when his cards were turned over. Not sure this play is profitable against most players because I think it generally limits his calling range to hands that have great equity on us.