A healthy hangover

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Jul 022012
 

I probably still have enough alcohol in my blood to fail an alcohol test but it was worth it! Last week I watched most matches of the Euro Championship and for the finals me and a bunch of my friends wanted to watch it in an Italian restaurant where some of my friends used to work. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to drink but since it was Sunday and most of the guys had to work the next day I thought it was a good idea to have some wine during dinner and maybe a Limoncello afterwards. Spain was better so there wasn’t anything to celebrate but we still managed to down 5 bottles of Limoncello and nobody wanted to go home so we went out in town. I can only remember where we’ve been but that’s about it, I woke up with a huge hangover and a smile on my face so I think I had fun 🙂 

Drink once every 2/3 weeks is fine, unfortunately with a hangover like this I won’t be playing any poker this afternoon so I feel a bit guilty but on the other hand the Euro Championship is over now and I behaved pretty good the last two weeks. I’m not only skipping alcohol because of the effects the next day but also because I want to lose weight and I normally eat a lot of bad stuff when (or after) I drink. I didn’t eat any bad stuff this time and I actually lost weight compared to yesterday so I’m a happy man. I’ve exercised 6 out of 7 days last week and tonight I’m going to hit the gym again. I got a tennis bet with a buddy in which I only have to win 5 games in two sets and the last time we played I won 6-1, 7-5 so I’m pretty confident I’ll get there. He normally always wins but 5 games should be possible. I also cycled yesterday and discussed a possible trip to Alpe d’Huez at the end of August which I’m already pretty excited about!

I wanted to write a blog about poker this week but I can be pretty short about that. I played two good sessions in the afternoon and one terrible session Monday evening. This could be variance but also the competition at night is better than during the day. This means I’m going to try to play more poker during the day on Mon/Tue, to bad today isn’t really working out. Still I’m not worried because I’m really happy with my new schedule and yesterday was really a one-off. Last week I played plenty of poker as planned and tonight and tomorrow I should play some as well. I’m considering playing some of the MicroMillions II tournaments which starts the 12th but as you all know I’m not a big fan of tournaments so we will see. I’m also in Spain from the 13th till the 16th but might play some poker at the pool 🙂

Next week some more updates again, time for the Tour de France! 🙂

 Posted by at 4:37 pm

This might work out after all

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Jun 242012
 

It’s just one week after my previous blog in which I said I wanted to change a lot of stuff and most of it actually already happened. Sure it’s only one week but I’m motivated and don’t really have to keep myself away from “breaking bad”.

I went to the gym almost every day except Tuesday, when I cycled and yesterday when I played some Tennis. 8 out of 8 for exercising is something I’m not planning to keep up but it’s a good start. Today I won’t do anything but tomorrow I’m planning to be back at the gym and I hope to keep exercising on a 1/3 ratio. So every 3 days I should take 1 day rest although a bit cardio can’t do any harm. Yesterday it was too windy to cycle but because our gravel court over here lies between two dunes it was okay to play tennis. I didn’t play tennis since the Bahamas in January and it showed, so it’s time to get some more practice again.

Eating healthier was pretty simple. I probably ate to little this week, max 2000 calories a day and I’m a big guy so I should be careful not too eat to little. I normally just eat 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) but I try to change that to 5/6 times a day at least on the days I’m working. I should eat at 07:00/10:00/12:30/15:00/18:00 and maybe a healthy snack after the gym. If I have diner after gym I could eat a snack before going to the gym. I start every morning with two slices of bread with chicken, turkey, roast beef or fricandeau. Currently I don’t eat anything at 10:00 but I’ve ordered protein flapjacks  with low fat which should give me the needed proteins to resupply my muscles. I’ve already started to cut my lunch in half so I eat half of it at 12:30 and the other half during the afternoon. I often order half a french bread with salmon and egg, chicken or roast beef so that should be fine as well. Diner is the hardest part of my schedule, I always eat a lot and overall it contains to much fat as well. This week went great except when I had to resist Macaroni a la Veenman, my favorite meal. I’ll do my best to cut fat and eat less but even when I eat a bit too much it shouldn’t be a problem as my schedule during the day is pretty low in calories. I’m trying to cut on milk again as well, I’ll maybe not cut it completely but I’m used to drink milk during lunch and dinner and probably have close to a liter a day, 2 glasses a day would be fine but I’ll try to replace it with water as often as possible.

I’m planning to keep this up until I’m 30, which is about 80 days from today and that would make it 91 days in total. I started around 103/104 kg and my aim is at least below 100kg (should be easy) but preferably below 95kg. I did plan a long weekend away in July so hope that won’t mess up my schedule to much, normally vacations are either the start or the end of a healthy schedule! I want to drink as little alcohol as possible but I’m not going to say that I won’t have any, that’s pretty much the same for any food as well but when I feel motivated like this and exercise a lot I normally don’t feel the urge to drink or eat a lot of bad stuff.

I want to throw a big party when I’m 30 but I’m still thinking what to do. I don’t have a yard for a BBQ and my house doesn’t fit 60/70 people to throw a party, maybe I’ll try to book a venue somewhere but that could cost a lot of money. After my birthday I’m going to Barcelona for a week with my girlfriend, enjoying the good life! I booked the Grand Hotel Central which is really in the centre of Barcelona so that should give us plenty of opportunity to walk around and enjoy the city. Since we are staying for a week I wanted an hotel with a pool and I think we got ourselves a nice one.

 

My first poker session last week went fine and this week I should play a full schedule again. I want to log at least 16 but hopefully 20 hours in the coming three days and I’m curious how I’ll do. The Tour de France also starts next week and I really can’t wait! I’ll probably also watch the last 4 matches of the soccer championship, the quarters finals were pretty boring so far compared to the group matches but I hope to watch some good semi-finals. I think Spain will win again but hope Italy could surprise everybody or maybe even England. Next week I’m planning to give a poker related update and might look back at my Vegas trip as well so stay tuned 😉

 Posted by at 2:25 pm

Time for change! (Yes again)

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Jun 182012
 

I haven’t blogged in a long time but I don’t really feel like catching up on all things I’ve done since my last blog. One thing is for sure and that is the fact that I’ve enjoyed myself during this period, life is great but it really is time to look a bit further down the road again and that is mainly what I’m going to write about today.

I’m an ambitious lazy guy. I have many dreams and many goals I still want to achieve in my life but day to day I’m a pretty lazy guy. If I can get someone else to do something for me I’m happy to sit on my couch and do nothing. This makes achieving things in life pretty hard but so far things have always come very easy. The fact that things always came pretty easy makes me even lazier, it also makes me a bit arrogant and less ambitious. If I would only look at the short term I would say my life is really good and that shows by the fact that I enjoy my life almost every day. I’m a happy guy, I do a lot of fun things and hardly ever do something I don’t want to do. Some people would wonder what the hell the problem is then and a big part of me fully agrees with them. You should enjoy life when you still can and I’m really somebody who embraces that fully. However between long and short term there is also something in the middle and that’s what I want to try to keep in mind a little more often.

The last 2/3 months I haven’t played a lot of poker, I’ve done what’s necessary but that’s about it. My main focus, especially just before my trip to Vegas, was to finish an assignment at work which required me to put more hours in then the regular 24hrs/week. I cycled a bit but never more than once a week, I didn’t play any tennis or visited the gym. From the 15th of May I did play a lot of Diablo III and loved every second of it! I was either playing SCOOP or playing Diablo during that first week, I really felt like 16 again! I also had some great weekends with my friends like the weekend cycling the Amstel Gold Race in April. The vacation with my buddies to Vegas in June was really the greatest two weeks of the last 3 months, what a blast again! I might write some more about it later in this blog or another, Vegas still feels like a second home to me! When I got back from Vegas I also didn’t miss a single European championship football match, including the talk shows after the matches. The problem is that I want to keep doing all these things and for almost all these things I would also like to put some more effort in them. Looking at the last 3 months this especially counts for poker and exercising. I can shift priorities whatever I like but that doesn’t give me 28 hours in a day and that’s basically what I would need.

So it might be good to focus on some of these things but I’ve tried to complete that puzzle and I just can’t seem to solve it. Two years ago I didn’t really have to choose between work and poker but nowadays it’s becoming harder and harder to find the right balance. Just playing poker isn’t enough anymore to keep winning money, I also need to invest time in learning and studying the game. Limit hasn’t become any softer so if I want to keep beating it I need to work for it, I’ve thought about switching games but that would require even more study time for at least a couple of months and I just don’t have that time. However quitting poker is really something I don’t want to do. So why not quit work a lot of people would say? Well that isn’t that simple either. Besides that fact that I really like that stable income which makes me play poker comfortably, I also really like my job and think in the long term it holds more value. Two years ago I had a busy job but I was really experienced in that line of work so it gave me little stress and it was pretty easy to do in the 24 hours I worked. However since then I’ve moved up and I’m really a junior in my current role. This means I have to work harder and limiting it to only 24 hours a week is really hard which bites with my poker ambitions. So what to do? I’ve pondered about this for months and still don’t know it 🙁

For the midterm it would also be good to get some more exercise and try to look at what I eat and drink. This has been a topic many times before in my blog but despite writing about it and putting in some effort for 2-5 weeks it never really changed anything the last year. I promised myself never to get above the 100kg again and I can’t remember the last time I was below the 100kg, it’s probably almost a year ago by now. I really feel good and healthy and being 103kg isn’t really an issue but I don’t want to wait till I’m 115kg and my health is going downhill which will make it even harder to lose that weight again.

Well combine the above and you understand why “Time for change!” is the topic of this blog. Luckily I didn’t even start-up Diablo III after my holiday so that gives me some more hours to spent on other things. The Netherlands (worth a complete blog as well) didn’t qualify for the next round so that will save me a lot of time as well. I could also be a bit less lazy and hopefully these things combined give me those extra hours I’m looking for! The next thing is prioritizing the things I do want to do and exercise is going to be my top priority for the moment. I think it’s the hardest thing to keep doing if it’s not your top priority as it’s pretty easy to not go to the gym for one day while it’s unlikely to skip work for a whole day. Next on the list is poker for the same reason as exercise, it’s easier to skip a poker session then a day at work. Third on the list will be everything else and no that doesn’t mean that if I have to choose between my girlfriend, family or friends and poker that I chose poker above them, this is only about prioritizing time. I really hope I can find a good balance between all these things, I know it’s going to be hard and I really have to work for it but I do think it’s possible. Work is going to be a huge factor in this and I just hope I won’t get flooded. I already know that I’m going to get a pretty tough assignment till the 1st of October (and I doubt that will ever stop) and it’s really hard to say no at my job since there is no manager that really wants to hear no at the level I’m working at in the company but they will just have to accept that in some cases. I got a contract for 24hours, I’m willing to work a bit more when needed, I’m always flexible but I do have other obligations as well. It’s way easier to skip a gym or a poker session then to say no at work and I think when this isn’t working out I really have to make a choice between poker and work. Basically this is my last effort in finding a balance between the two of them and when it doesn’t work out I will force myself in making a decision.

I already started with my new exercise routine. I’ve been 4 times to the gym the last 7 days and 3 times in the last 3 days. Tomorrow I give myself a break in the gym but might go cycling for an hour or so. I teamed up with a buddy of mine who is always really serious for longer periods of time and he just had a small break and started last week again as well so hopefully that’s going to be really stimulating. So far the sessions went really well and I hope exercising more will also give me more energy at work and poker. Tomorrow I will start playing poker again (didn’t play since my return last week from Vegas) and I should put in at least 6 hours and next week I should be back to my normal routine(20hours a week). This week I’m also starting my new assignment at work so it’s going to be very interesting how everything is going to work out! Oh yeah, the Tour de France also almost starts, don’t forget the Olympics and let’s not even think about what will happen if the sun comes out and it’s really going to be summer over here……..

 Posted by at 10:41 pm
Apr 022012
 

I don’t want to write a blog, I want to play poker, poker, poker! Well actually I would like to watch the new Game of Thrones episode first and then play poker but since my last blog was 3 weeks ago I can’t really postpone it any longer.

I assume most of you have read how my career as high-stakes LHE pro ended at the beginning of March. I got offered being staked for 50% in those games but I decided to really start all over again. When I made the switch last year from FR to 6-max I grinded a lot of $2/$4 and $3/$6 to get used to the game. This was also during a PokerStars Promo in which you could win daily VPP Leaderboards and the combination of these two lead me to grinding 16+ tables of $2/$4 and $3/$6 6-max for 2 days straight with not so fantastic results. I got out of it what I wanted, my first real experience in 6-max poker and I made a really tiny profit after rakeback. Since those days I moved up to play $5/$10 and a lot less tables which worked fine until I got my ass whooped last month.

Now you should of course be able to beat the lower limits if you want to win at the High Stakes and I never really doubted I could beat these limits but my PokerTracker said otherwise. After a week of no poker this seemed like the perfect challenge to get back to the tables. The idea was pretty simple: I could only play $2/$4 6-max until the numbers turned from red to green, as soon as I was up lifetime I could move up and repeat it at $3/$6. Now this is how anybody should move up stakes normally, so why not me? The hardest part of this challenge was that normally I’m okay with breaking even on the tables since in limit poker you pay a lot of rake and thus make a lot in rakeback. To get in the green I actually had to win, just like a real pro! Now to win the best idea is to play less tables and table select really well but that limits the amount of tables you can play and makes the process a lot longer. At $2/$4 I fired up all the tables I could find and it actually worked out pretty good.

I only needed 20 hours and crushed the $2/$4 by winning 1.71BB/100, a pretty decent winrate. The next challenge was however a bigger one. The $3/$6 tables have a worse fish/pro ratio and there are less tables running. Also the amount of money I lost at $3/$6 was a lot more then at the $2/$4 especially in BB/100 (-2,50BB/100). If I could win at 1BB/100 it would still take me 100.000 hands to win back the $5.835 I’m down. It’s pretty simple, if it has to be this way, it will have to go this way. I’m currently in the middle of grinding back those $5.835 and I’m not doing that bad so far.

This challenge really motivates me as I want to get over with it as soon as possible. If I’m back at the $5/$10 tables I’m already grinding mid-stakes again and from there we will see how it goes. It also shows that I’m a structural winner at the low-stakes which gave me the confidence back which I lost at the beginning of March. I’m currently really confident about my game and playing really focused almost every session. The drive to win might even be bigger than when I was playing the High Stakes, it’s the need to proof to myself I’m good enough to be a winner in this game.

I finally got a pretty graph again! As said it could take a while before I grinded those $5.835 back at the $3/$6 and my current aim is to do that before Diablo III comes out at the 15th of May. From the 15th of May till the 28th of May I can then allow myself to play Diablo III before taking off to Las Vegas!

 

Still I didn’t forget that March was my worst month ever. I’m happy that I found the motivation again to start over again at the $2/$4 but this is obviously a huge difference compared to grinding $100/$200. Looking at the results does give a bit of a bitter taste and I just hope that one day I can start a challenge to also convert these red numbers into green ones!

My March graphs also look really bizarre. Winning a decent 0,58 BB/100 but down almost $18k shows these big differences between my graph in BB/100 and $.

 

So what other things are happening in my world? Let’s stick a little longer to poker first. My PokerStars Team Online buddy Tyler (Frosty012) Frost had his Team Online video launched last week. I’m a bit jealous because I think the guys from 918Films have a really great vibe in their videos and I can only hope it’s going to be my turn one day!

I’m also really happy that he talks a lot more about girls in his latest blogs, he seems not really happy about the fact that he has to many one night stands…. I always thought that that was the goal when being single? He also did an interview on the 2+2 Podcast which are always great to listen to.

PokerStars Team Online finally got its first Australian member! Roy “GodlikeRoy” Bhasin made it to the team and I think he is a great addition. I’ve known him from his posts on 2+2 in the Supernova Elite Thread back in 2010 and have followed his blog since. His blog was already on my blogroll and I was happy to “one up” it to the Team Online blog section. There was already an announcement made earlier that George “Jorj95” Lind III is back in Team Online after moving to Canada (Vancouver) to get back into Online poker. Jorj95 is one of the legends of Online poker and I can’t wait to see him crunch during the SCOOP coming May.

 

In the non poker related section it’s pretty simple what I want to talk about, TV-Series! I haven’t been watching a lot of Series lately, I haven’t even finished the last season of Dexter which was always one of my favorite shows. However I did watch the finale episode of Spartacus! It was hard to get used to the new guy who played Spartacus (after Andy Whitfield tragic dead earlier) but the show was as strong as in its first season. Yesterday the 1st Episode of Game of Thrones Season 2 aired and currently I can’t wait to publish this blog so I can start watching it. I’ve already read what’s going to happen since I’m halfway the second book but that only makes me more excited! I’ve said it before but if you haven’t watched Season 1 yet, you really should clear your schedule and watch it now!

Another series I’m looking forward to is Season 5 of True Blood.

Now it’s time for Game of Thrones!

 


 Posted by at 1:43 pm
Mar 122012
 

I’ve just had the worst week I’ve ever had in my poker career. I’m pretty sad that my days as High Stakes LHE player are already over but I have no regrets at all. I’ve had a lot of fun again playing poker this last 1,5 month but I have to be realistic and I just can’t handle the swings money wise. I literally had a Mike McDermott (Rounders) blow-up moment, playing in games you feel you can beat but if your pockets aren’t deep enough you might not be able to play long enough to beat your opponents.

As mentioned in one of my earlier blogs I switched to 6-max somewhere last year and when I returned from the Bahamas I accidently got into a $50/$100 game. I had been pondering about jumping in these games for a long time and this was the right time. I wanted to do something else then playing 16+ tables of low/mid-stakes and playing 1-4 tables of high stakes was the solution. Normally you need at least 500BB’s but preferable 1.000BBs to be sure to handle any swings and that is only if you are a winning player. If you are a losing players your pockets can never be deep enough. I wanted to go as far as 200/250BB’s, so it was nothing more than taking a shot but there is nothing wrong with taking shots in poker. Sure it had to do with some ego as well, playing the highest games with the best in the world but during this 1,5 month my ego has never won it from my common sense. I played as high as $50/$100 as long as there was at least 1 big fish in the game. If I had a bad position at the table I often skipped the game, especially when the 4 others guys were monsters. Always when I played high stakes I quit all my other tables to have full focus on the game and I never played more than 4 tables. I could play $100/$200 as well but only if there were at least 2 fishes in the game, I would not play any higher. As soon as the fish left, I had to quit. While waiting for the high stakes games I would play $5/$10 and up and basically with the same rules as above. Only play with the fish and leave as soon as the fish leaves. The only difference was the amount of tables I would play at the same time.

I only played 4 days in January but I had a good start:

So I rolled into February and was swinging up and down. I don’t think anything really strange happened, I could have had a bit better winrate but the sample was still pretty small. I was running hot on the higher limits and it’s hard to see in the graph but I ended the month roughly $2.400 up again. The lobby hunt game went better and better since it’s pretty important to be one of the first to join the table. Often nobody wants to get up from a good table so it’s important to sit as soon as the fish sits and hopefully be able to do some seat selection as well. I spotted more fishes every day just by watching the other regulars sitting down or getting up. Nobody plays each-other at these high-stakes so when a game is running you basically always know there is a fish playing in the game. (Mike McDermott: “It’s like the nature channel… you don’t see Piranhas eating themselves, do you?”).

With a full month behind me on the high stakes I was getting pretty acquainted with the swings involved. I didn’t had any huge swings yet, both ways. I was discussing these things a lot with a buddy of mine and I knew that I would get into heavier swings at some point. I talked about it with two other guys who are playing these games as well and they warned me for the heavy swings. The question was whether the first big swing would be up or down? In the first 11 days of March I found the answer. I started with a plus $2.1k session on Saturday (3rd of March) followed by another good session on Sunday afternoon winning $2.6k. A pretty good start and Sunday evening I was chilling on the couch playing an online homegame tourney with friends on my laptop. I wanted to go to bed to lock down the profit and catch some sleep but saw a good $30/$60 game running with two fishes. One thing led to the other and a couple of hours later I was down $6.4k for a total loss of $1.7k. I was pretty pissed at that moment since all Sunday evening I was really happy being up $4.7k for the weekend and somehow lost it back trying to play one more game before going to bed. On the other hand I had done nothing stupid. I saw a fish, played him and chased him around as he moved up and down in stakes. This time I lost but that’s really part of poker.
The best about this whole thing was the fact I was really eager to play at all times. I tried to squish in small session anytime I could and that was something I hadn’t done in a long time. That’s also exactly the difference between seeing poker as work or hobby. When poker felt like work I would only play on the days I had scheduled myself to play, now that poker really felt like a hobby again I was playing all the time. That also happened on Thursday evening when I came home at 23:30. I saw a $50/$100 game just getting started and I jumped in. I pretty much one tabled $50/$100 and played 188 hands in which I won a total of 2 hands at showdown. A lot of other hands I made a pair or better and couldn’t win, resulting in putting in a lot of bets in pots which I didn’t win. Not a single pot I could have won if I had played it different, I might paid 1,2 maybe 3 bets to much in those 188 hands but even that is probably thinking to result oriented. I knew that a big swing would come one way or the other, unfortunately it was down and not up.

A pretty bizarre feeling to lose $9k like that on a Thursday evening in not even 2 hours of poker. Sure I wasn’t happy but it didn’t affect me that much the next day. I normally just need a good night sleep and I’m ready again to play some poker in the morning and this time it was no different. I was down $15k from my highest point, that was pretty disappointing but nobody wins in a straight line. I still had some money left for my “shot” and at least I knew now how worse things could get. I was still as eager to play, maybe even more eager and when I came home Saturday Evening at 02:00 I saw a juicy game and jumped in again (Mike McDermott: “It’s immoral to let a sucker keep his money..”).

Sunday, always a great day for poker. I didn’t want to skip the Sunday Million 6th Anniversary but apart from that I wanted to play cashgames. The evening started with a couple of good $30/$60 games and soon two $50/$100 games started. I did pretty bad in the $30/$60 games but was doing good in the $50/$100 games. Games died as soon as the fish left but others games got started as fast. From the start I was down all the time but I was still playing in pretty good games. However around midnight I was down $3.8k. Two good $50/$100 games had just stopped and there were no good high stakes tables left to play. I was down $6.2k at one moment so I was happy I grinded some of it back but obviously I wanted to win it all back. A $200/$400 game started with a fish I had played earlier, not a lot of regulars seemed to be online but jumping into a $200/$400 game would be pretty stupid. Then two $100/$200 games started with one of the biggest fishes which I had also played earlier that evening. Argh! I wanted to play in those games especially since the other regulars were not the best regulars at those stakes. Still these players are good but normally the line-up is a lot worse. Then all of a sudden in one of the $100/$200 another fish gets a chair and I put myself on the waiting list. A couple of minutes later I somehow get a chair in the game and I’m playing a $100/$200 game with two fish on my left. Right would have been better of course but I’m still playing a lot of pots with these guys. (Mike McDermott: “I want him to think that I am pondering a call, but all I’m really thinkin about is Vegas and the fuckin’ Mirage.”)

The first hand I play:

Poker Stars $100/$200 Limit Hold’em – 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter
Pre Flop:
(1.5 SB) Hero is CO with A of clubs T of diamonds
2 folds, Hero raises, 2 folds, BB calls
Flop: (4.5 SB) A of diamonds J of spades T of hearts (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB calls
Turn: (3.25 BB) 4 of hearts (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB calls
River: (5.25 BB) J of clubs (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks
Final Pot: 5.25 BB
Hero shows A of clubs T of diamonds (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
BB shows A of spades 5 of diamonds (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
BB wins 2.618 BB
Hero wins 2.618 BB
(Rake: $3.00)

Nothing really special but I rather win hands like this of course. After this hand I lose some pots where I had or flopped a pair so I have to pay some bets. Then I get AA and the hand played as followed:

Poker Stars $100/$200 Limit Hold’em – 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BTN with A of hearts A of spades
3 folds, Hero raises, SB calls, BB 3-bets, Hero caps!, SB calls, BB calls
Flop: (12 SB) 2 of hearts 3 of diamonds K of clubs (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB calls
Turn: (7.5 BB) 4 of diamonds (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB folds, BB calls
River: (9.5 BB) 5 of clubs (2 players)
BB bets, Hero calls
Final Pot: 11.5 BB
Hero shows A of hearts A of spades (a straight, Ace to Five)
BB shows Q of hearts A of clubs (a straight, Ace to Five)
BB wins 5.742 BB
Hero wins 5.742 BB
(Rake: $3.00)

Being in a 4-bet pot pre-flop with the two fishes is the best thing that can happen in a game like this. Not winning this $2.300 pot and splitting it again is pretty annoying. I felt like Dorothy tumbling down the rabbit hole. An orbit later I get into the following hand:

Poker Stars $100/$200 Limit Hold’em – 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is CO with T of spades T of hearts
2 folds, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, SB caps!, BB calls, Hero calls, BTN calls
Flop: (16 SB) 4 of clubs 7 of hearts J of hearts (4 players)
SB bets, BB raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN calls, SB calls, BB calls
Turn: (14 BB) T of diamonds (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, BTN calls, SB calls, BB raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN calls, SB calls all in, BB calls
River: (25.677 BB) K of clubs (4 players – 1 is all in)
BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks
Final Pot: 25.677 BB
Hero mucks T of spades T of hearts
BTN mucks Q of hearts Q of clubs
SB mucks A of spades K of hearts
BB shows K of spades K of diamonds (three of a kind, Kings)
BB wins 0.968 BB
BB wins 24.695 BB
(Rake: $3.00)

A pretty bizarre hand. I open, fish 3bets, the other fish caps and the BB (good player) calls. The fish that capped the pot c-bets, the BB raises and then it’s on to me. Since no A, K or Q hit the board there is no way I’m going to fold my TT here. I can cold-call two bets or 3-bet and try to get the button to fold (hopefully at least one over as well) so I get last to act on the turn. The BB doesn’t necessarily has to have a really good hand and since the board is drawy his raise doesn’t have to mean a lot. I 3-bet and everybody calls. Now on the turn the T hits (I get lucky) and I think nobody puts me on TT here. Probably most people put me on an overpair or AJ, some other hands are possible as well. I bet the turn and after two calls I get raised by the BB again. I rule out that the 2 fishes have me beat but what about the BB? JJ and 89 have me beat, I beat all other hands and I’m ahead vs the other 2 fish which are probably never ever going to fold a pot this size as long as they have one out (or maybe even already draw dead). I raise, see no cap and I know I’m ahead in a $5k pot! I don’t want to see any A,K,Q or 9 but the K already hit the board. I’m not certain that I’m beat but I check anyway. The BB shows KK and the show is over. I click on the “sit-out next big blind” button, split another put and manage to lose another $600. In these 39 hands I lost $5.7k for a total of $9,5k.

I open my PokerStars Cashier, convert 500.000 FPPs into $8k to at least still have a 5 digit bankroll and stare at my PokerTracker for a while. Is playing $100/$200 with such a roll a smart thing? Maybe not, but I do not regret it at all. The game was really good, it was part of the “shot” I took and I didn’t violate any rules I had set myself. If I don’t split those 3 pots and win this one I’m actually up for the evening, variance is a nasty factor in poker. (Mike McDermott: “You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle. But you can’t win much either.”) I watch how Bandano (who was playing in that $100/$200 game as well) finish 3rd in the Sunday Warm-Up (grats!), see two other great high stakes game start without me. I surf to YouTube and watch the full Justice – A Cross the Universe Documentary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7meC_9hVFE). I played the high stakes for 5 weeks and my bankroll was not big enough to handle the swings. The total amount of hands I played at the High Stakes ($15/$30+) was only 9.3k hands, there is a lot of variance in such a small sample. Too bad I got beaten with the wrong end of the stick or maybe I’m not good enough but to me it didn’t feel that way.

Today I woke up seeing a good $50/$100 game running. My shot is over, so I leave the open chair empty. I see a fish sitting with money, I know I can beat the game but for all these years as professional poker player it’s my mind which has made me a winning player, not my ego. Luckily I have plenty to do this day, doing something different then watching the PokerStars lobby. When I get home in the afternoon I see 3 good high stakes games running and I tell myself I just shouldn’t look at those games anymore. I never did before and I shouldn’t look at them for the coming time. I’ve been up and down stakes many times before and this time should be no different. I’ll move down and do what I’ve always done, grind it up again. However you don’t have to start grinding the next day, you probably shouldn’t. Playing $100/$200 one day and $2/$4 the next is probably not really motivating. Still my fingers itch to play, literally now another $50/$100 game starts. I’m definitely not playing tonight, I might even take a longer break so I can work on my cycling or at least shift my main focus to cycling and play some poker on the side for the coming 2/3 weeks. I wanted to go to Valencia at the end of this month but I don’t think I’m going to do that either, although it could also be good to play some live poker. What I do know for sure is that I’m going to Vegas, the World Series of Poker! (Mike McDermott: “First prize at the World Series of Poker is a million bucks. Does it have my name on it? I don’t know. But, I’m gonna find out.”)

 

All hands since the 1st of January (High: $11.328 Low: $14.284)
All hands at the High Stakes $15/30+ since the 1st of January (High: $13.785 Low: $11.133)

 

 

 


 Posted by at 6:48 pm