FTP has the dumbest railbirds on the net.

And it's not debatable. They sure are funny, though.

Also someone should write something interesting in this blog. Sure as hell won't be me though.

Phil Ivey? A fish? Surely I jest?

How sick is it that Phil Ivey was the fish in a 200-400 NL game last night on FTP? I booted ftp last night to see the following scenario:

Aba sits alone at several 6max 200-400 and one 300-600 HU table. Phil Ivey joins him at the 3/6 HU and at the 200-400 6max. Several players who were previously playing 100-200 join phil and aba at the 2/4. Phil leaves a buyin on the table and quits. Immediately after, the previously mentioned 100-200 players either leave or sit out with aba alone willing to play.

This just reinforces that Aba is currently the best NLHE player in the world. It's just sick how he's become so good so quickly.

Holla @ the UK one time.

My friends from the UK Bullitpete & FoxyUK move on to Day 2 of the WPT Bellagio Championship event with 42.5k and 47k in chips respectively.

Play resumes monday.

Best of luck to Pete & Stu. Take it down fellas.

Bleh. Meh. Puke. I suck. Etc, etc.

I should not play HU tables when I'm tired and 8 tabling. Booked a small loser($1200ish) today because I lost 6-7 buyins playing HU to someone who I've already lost 4 to previously. Yeah, I'm getting killed and the worst part is that it's mostly my fault.

At first glance I thought villian was nitty donk. Over a few hundred hands my opinion changed to reasonable but beatable. So today I booted up a HU on pcom alongside 5 cash and 2 tournaments - bad idea.

Bled chips left and right and basically just got abused hard. I ran ridiculously cold, rarely making a pair, forget anything that beats one. Didn't help that villain ran like fire. Set? Set when I have TP? Another set? Turn a set when I make TP + Fdraw? Flopped straight to my OP? More please? Can I win a coin flip? (Just kidding, you know I can't win a coin flip.)

Okay. Forget the whining and coolers. I was going to lose regardless, that's just how the cards came...but I should have lost a lot less. I've been sort of deviating from my standard HU game and trying some trappy with moderates - it's been working well on FTP (maybe I'm just hitting more) against more sophisticated opponents but has put me into a blood bath on pcom.

...

[I almost wrote a whole bunch of strategy (don't worry it would have been bad strategy since I'm down like 10K playing hU) and my thought process involving some situations based on analysis, but then I realized that this blog is getting somewhat popular and I don't know who's reading it so I'm going to be vague instead.]

I imported 20k or so Pcom hands into PT just to analyse whether or not I had an edge in aforementioned HU games. I do, but I haven't been exploiting it. I'm down about 10k total to 3 different opponents. One clearly has game and I don't think I could have played more than 5 hands differently. It wouldn't have made a big difference anyway.

The two others are transparent (and donks - always go with the first read!). I'm giving credit for plays they're incapable of. Both appear to have major (but different) leaks that I haven't been exploiting as much as I'd have liked. And some of the calls that are instant and standard vs a lot of opponents I've played lately are probably folds against their ranges.

All this means that I've been doing a piss poor job of adjusting to weaker opponents. Or that I suck. I'm pretty sure it's just me sucking. Doesn't help that I've been cold either. When you haven't made a pair in 75 hands and you suddenly see top pair no kicker, it starts looking like a straight flush. (Villain obv rivers 2 pair FTW!)

I may also need to implement a stop a loss. I would have been much less disgusted with myself than I currently am if I had lost the same amount over more sessions. It's clear that after some point my game descends into the third level of retardation and I start ignoring the captain obvious tells coming from their computers.

Meh. I should be down only 50% of what I've actually lost.

I think I may purposely start playing HU only (like 4 tables and only when I'm fresh for periods no longer than 3 hours) for the rest of the month. That should improve my ability to adjust to various opponents. Heads up is all about adjusting to your opponent, going with your read, and seeing who can tilt who first. And if I lose another 10k, I think I just won't play it anymore.

Welcome new readers!

I'd like to welcome our new readers from PAW. Make sure you bookmark us and tell all your friends. Kick back, spread the word, and leave lots of comments - we're here to amuse you. Also, I'd like to extend a personal thank you to one Jeremy Enke of PAW - thank you for linking the blog. We appreciate the free traffic.

Oh, almost forgot. A very special thank you to NewPokerGirl/Nicole79xx of PAW. Thanks for being so incredibly stupid - I couldn't have done it without you baby.

If it's wrong to love stupid people, I don't want to be right!

Stay tuned - I promise to go on drunken tilt and lose thousands of dollars really soon. REDPILL888 WHO?!!

Jay

P.s. Jeremy, thanks for not being a judgemental prick who jumps to conclusions without knowing all the details...oh wait. My mistake.

What the hell am I doing?

Is what I've been asking myself a lot lately. I've been booting up sessions and totally neglecting to actually pay attention to the actual games. No it's not the robot multitabling lack of attention, it's the what the hell am I doing playing this hand like a complete freaking idiot lack of attention. And the bad thing, I've been doing it over and over and over. Let me explain:

I've been sick. Really sick. Really sick to the point that I now look like a zombie, haven't left the house for several days and have been on a steady concoction of tylenol, advil and vodka for god knows how long.

And I think I've coughed up a lung last night.

So because I've been sick and stuck inside the house, I literally had nothing to do but sleep and play poker. And I've logged a ton of hours during this time - a ton of LOSING hours.

Let's go back to March. I had a half decent March other than the drunken tilt I went on (chronicled a few posts below). In fact, on the last day of March I was quite a few thousand away from my target and you know what? No problem - a few hours at the tables come April 1st I was over set goal. Nice. I am good. (Not really)

So, since I think I'm so good at this game, I decide to cashout a sizeable chunk of my roll...I have bills to pay and stripprs to buy. Besides, I'm good at poker.(No, I am not.)

The reason why I had a good March (other than playing lousy 1-2 for most of the month) was because I was "in the zone". It's not like I ran super well - I didn't, I was just in a great mental state pokerwise and I think I can attribute that to playing only about 30K hands the entire month, with the last 10k during the last couple of days. That's pretty much peanuts to any serious multitabler. For comparison, Threeup plays 30k hands in a week.

Now I'm not sure exactly how to maintain being "in the zone" (maybe I should take up meditation or something) but I know how to get out of the zone very quickly (yeah, big surprise).

Burnout - it's worse than tilt, baby. So what's burnout and how do you know you have it? Well, it's a weird state. It's when you hate poker with a passion and don't want to play it but do so anyway. It's when you have 5-6 tables open and can't help but browse some site or watch tv instead of paying attention to the action. It's when all your decisions are automatic, idiotic and without thought. You're not thinking about what you're doing, you're going through the motions and your motivation isn't to play your best possible game but to just "win a few grand and be done for the day."

It's a kind of emotionless and thoughtless state - which is why it differs from tilt. When you're on tilt, you're experiencing some sort of emotion from soemthing (a beat, a bad play on your part, whatever) but on burnout, you're watching numbers change on a screen and not caring.

It's what I've been going through lately. It's from playing lots of hours while I was sick and at the end of last month to meet expectations. I guess the fact that I was on a combination of meds and vodka didn't help either. I can't stand poker right now. In fact, to be honest, I don't enjoy it anymore and I haven't for a long time. The last time I can remember when I actually enjoyed playing was when I was playing strong, very creative opponents Heads up at higher stakes than my norm. It's been "just for the money" for so long now...no wonder I get burned out so quickly after playing only a few extra hours. Gone are the days where I could log 8 hours a day for a week and still want action on monday.

Over the past week, I've busted two of my accounts, and crippled another. It's a really good thing I got this cold or I could actually claim to win money at this game. God forbid.

FCUK Colds
FCUK Burnout
FCUK POker

P.s. Aba is the best NL player in the world right now. Step aside, Ivey. How sick is it that he was playing 400NL last year?

If it Wasn't For Big Pockets, I could Make money at this game

We've all heard, or bitched ourselves that "aces never hold up for me".... Well they dont hold up for me either, but more so, i was reviewing my Stats using my favorite stat keeping program, and i'm right where i want to be as far as VPIP, AF and WSD.. SemiLoose Aggressive baby!!!

However, I'm only up very little for the past 10k in hands, with how good i've been playing lately i should be averaging way more BB/100..

After a quick review i've found my biggest losing hands for the past 10k have been AA and KK, hell 22 has made more for me, and i'm even for playing J4o so thats doing better for me than AA or KK...

I reviewed my play on these hands and discovered that AA, can not beat 95s (especially when 95s pushes from the Button and you're in the BB with AA) A set of AA can not beat KJo especially so it is especially bad to keep betting the pot all the way to the river when that T hits..

My KK will not beat someone elses AA but if I have AA and someone has KK, I might as well just burn my money and use it to light my cigarettes with...

My AA and KK are looking at about a 10% win ratio right now, and they're getting all in preflop the vast majority of the time...

I cant complain too hard, I am currently up, Thank God for flushes...