Days Of The Week

Crazy how Fridays and Saturdays are full of loose maniacs, but on Sunday, my tables are full of the tightest rocks. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising. Anyway, it’s like pulling teeth tonight.

Slowrolling

Apparently tonight is slowrolling night on UB. Not slowplaying, but slowrolling, where you don’t show your nut hand until the very last second and then you laugh at someone. I was slowrolled by quads 2x, a set once, and a nut flush once. It’s bad enough to run into those hands when you have a good hand, but it’s worse when you become sure you have the best hand because the guy is waiting forever to call, then wham, nuts. That just being a douche.

Van Halen Concert Review

I’m old. That means that I remember Van Halen in the David Lee Roth years. The 3 of you that read this probably don’t know who Van Halen is. People have been waiting for this reunion for over 20 years. Well, I’m going to see them in a few weeks, and things look favorable. Bring back the rock! Hopefully they don’t break up before the show comes to my town.

Adsense

I reread the Adsense terms of service, because I don’t want to break it. Here’s an exceprt:

Encouraging clicks
In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers may not request that users click the ads on their sites or rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. Publishers participating in the AdSense program:

May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language
May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks
May not place misleading images alongside individual ads
May not promote sites displaying ads through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites
May not compensate users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party for such behavior
May not place misleading labels above Google ad units – for instance, ads may be labeled “Sponsored Links” but not “Favorite Sites”

Sites displaying Google ads may not include:

Violent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization
Pornography, adult, or mature content
Hacking/cracking content
Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
Excessive profanity
Gambling or casino-related content
Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking on ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites, or reading emails
Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages
Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site’s search engine ranking, e.g., your site’s PageRank
Sales or promotion of weapons or ammunition (e.g., firearms, fighting knives, stun guns)
Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol
Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products
Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
Sales or distribution of term papers or student essays
Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others

So, for the record, I won’t be encouraging anyone to click any ads. This one makes me curious: “Gambling or casino-related content ” – I don’t believe poker to be gambling, it’s gaming, like chess or a sporting event, because there is clearly skill involved. So, I’ll continue to provide my poker updates. While I think the rule is silly and pseudo-morally hypocritical, I won’t be discussing any gambling pursuits such as lottery, slots machines, bingo, blackjack, or any gambling activity.

I’m such small potatoes that it doesn’t matter, but if, for some reason, my site takes off, I figure I should get it out of the way.

The Office

I love The Office on NBC. Tonight was the season premiere, so no poker. It was pretty funny, but really, I don’t think it was worth the wait, or the full hour show (30 minutes of commercials). Oh well.

Blog Updates

So I made new changes to the blog. I created an Amazon affiliate account. So, you’ll probably see some additional changes as I work out the kinks. Trying not to violate my terms of service.

Not Paying Attention II

I was too busy clicking away last night that I accidentally reraised someone $3+ with nothing. I was trying to hit the ‘get chips’ button to refill, but as I clicked it (to be ready for the next hand, I had just lost a few bucks in the previous hand), ‘get chips’ was replaced with ‘bet pot’. Ugh. I was up$2 for the night, but it would have been $5 (half a 10NL buyin).

It would have been $15, but in my last orbit, I blew $10. A caller in front, I raised to .45 with AKs (hearts). He calls. He hasn’t been at the table for any amount of time, so I don’t have a read. Flop is AT5, 2 clubs (you know where this is going). He checks, I bet the pot, he calls. Turn comes a club. He checks, I bet the pot, he raises a decent raise. I don’t know know whether or not this guy is a bluffer or if he has a real hand, or a draw (A of clubs for smaller top pair with the draw.) I know if I call, I’m close to committed, if not already committed. I call. He shoves the blank river, I call. He has 89s, 2 clubs. Bye bye 10 bucks…. Man I played that poorly. I should have released on the turn when he raised. I had been bluffed and shown so many times in the evening, I felt like it was happening again. I guess I let my emotions get the best of me on that one. It’s stupid, though. I’m behind a bunch of 2 pair, baby sets, flushes, it should be an easy fold. the only hands I beat are a couple of bad aces, AQ and AJ, which he probably wouldn’t have because he called in semi-early position. Stupid. I fell in love with a mediocre hand, I know better than that.

Not Paying Attention

I’ve been sick the past couple of days, so I’ve played some poker during the day while I’ve been home. Yesterday, I played in a 1.20 45 man on Stars, figuring I had a few hours. I got stacked in less than 10 hands with high pair vs. a flopped garbage 2 pair. I overplayed it, but I usually do against guys that play too many hands. Whatever. I decided to try another 1.20 45 man because I expected I still had a couple hours. After about 10 minutes in I realized that I didn’t choose a regular 1.20 45 man, I instead chose a 1.20 45 man that’s really a satellite into the Sunday $100 Grand. I tend to do pretty well in satellites like this where the payout is the same for the final x players. I played really tight early, made a couple of raises with AK and AQ, missed, c-bet, and folded to raises. I was shortstacked fairly early, well under 1000 in chips. I decided to just wait for a spot to shove. I kept waiting because my hands were garbage and there was always a lot of action in front of me. Finally, I had an opportunity to shove. It was garbage, but at least it had been folded to me. I shoved, no call. A couple hands later, I shoved again, no call. A couple hands later, I had KK, shoved, called, doubled up, and I was back in it. I had to make it to the top 4 in order to earn a 10+1 ticket to the next tourney. I proceeded to take pots from this person that played every hand preflop for a call, just raising preflop, and that padded my stack. I hit a couple of money hands, and I was in the lead. When it got down to the final table, things tightened up considerably, but the blinds were high, and the small stacks started going down. I was still hovering in the top 4, so I took my time, figuring I could fold my way in. Unfortunately, some of these people didn’t realize that the big stacks should try to put the small stack out, and kept giving the small stack chips by raising and then folding to the small stack shove. It didn’t make much sense, and I started to wonder whether they were colluding, but then they would make a weird play against each other that made collusion seem impossible. So, I went from the big stack to the small stack. Then came the make or break hand.

I had K9o in the SB. Because I had an M of about 5 at this point, I figured I was probably going to have to shove it if it was folded to me. I expected to get called, however, I had some fold equity because these guys would occasionally fold to a shove if they called preflop, even from the small stack. Well, the 3 guys in front of me called. I wasn’t sure if they all called to see if they could keep me from shoving, or if they wanted to all call me when I shoved, but it was uncharacteristic of them, because they hadn’t done it to the other short stack. Well, I wasn’t shoving into all those guys, so I called in the SB for the 1/2 bet, and the BB checked. Flop came KT9 rainbow – I have a good 2 pair, but have to be concerned about a better 2 pair, set, or straight. Shove or minbet? I chose the minbet, figuring at least one other person hit the flop, and hopefully they would shove and I’d get it heads up so at least I could get rid of the possibility of losing to some weird backdoor draw. I’m not folding my 2 pair. Sure enough, the previous shortstack, to my right, shoves. I instacall. He has AK which surprised me, so I had to just avoid an A. No A, and I double up. A couple hands later, he shoved, we all called, and he was gone.

It turns out the Sunday $100 Grand is a doublestack tourney (T3000 chips to start), and it allows up to 20000 entries, double the usual max of 10000. I don’t see myself having 8 hours to play that tourney, which means I have a tourney entry I’ll never use, so I withdrew. I’ll probably just use the money on some SNGs. It would be nice to have a shot at a big payout, but there’s no way my wife is going to let me blow an entire Sunday playing poker. She hasn’t let me do that since I tried to qualify for the WSOP 2 years ago on my birthday.

I’m down about $30 on Stars in cash games. I don’t even remember how.

On the UB front, I’m down about 2 $25 buyins at 25NL, hovering around $250 again, so I’m back to $10NL. I was stacked once by AA vs. KK (as usual), and another was a set over set. I don’t think the 25NL players are any better, although they are more aggressive, but once again, I’m just running into hands. Does anyone ever fold KK preflop? I may start. The guy was tight and reraised me, so I suspected I might be behind, but I was just hoping he had AK.

So, I’m at about $340 total, so it’s back to being patient at 10NL.

Update On .25/.50 From Last Night

Well, after some reflection, I figured out where the extra money came from. I’m definitely missing hands from .25/.50. If you read my previous post, I got half-stacked early on, and lost $25 I overplayed a medium pocket pair and folded on the turn after a large bet when it was apparent I was behind. I filled back up to $50, so it was like a $25 add on. Moments later, I got all in heads up on the flop with AK and a K on the flop vs. AK for a split pot and lost a couple bucks in rake. I then doubled up a couple times, once with a set, once with a pretty big steal. I won a few more insignificant hands. When I left the table after 150 hands or so, I had about $110. So, Pokertracker is missing about $35 dollars from my .25/.50 session. If I can find those hands and enter them, I will, if not, my .25/.50 stats will always be off about 70BB. Oh well. I wonder how many other hands I’m missing.

Ok, So I Went Insane

Must be the alcohol. I had a beer tonight (yeah 1 beer), and I guess it sent me off my rocker. I played some .05/.10 on Stars and won a couple bucks. I logged into UB and opened one .05/.10 table. I doubled up in about 5 minutes with some good cards, and I made the most of the hands. Well, shortly there after, I lost all the UB money back, and an additional stack by getting committed with medium hands against people that can’t fold (88 with a gutshot vs. AA – this guy can’t fold aces to save his life, and I’m a terrible player). What do you do when you get stacked 2x in 10 minutes? You decide to play a .10/.25 game get all in with an OESFD (open ended straight flush draw, and stack off. So, you get in another .10/.25 game, and a .25/.50 game. I’m stupid like that. The games looked juicy, and I figure that Friday nights are better than most for crazy play.

So, I got half stacked almost immediately at .25/.50. How? AK vs. a guy, I missed the flop and the turn and the river, and folded. So, I rebought

Fortunately, I got it all back at .25/.50 playing tight. I caught a couple of hands, and basically broke even.

In addition, I double up quite a few times at .10/.25, set and flush mining.

What I’m not sure about is how my sessions for .10/.25 say that I lost, yet according to UB, I’m over 300 now – first time ever, which is about +25 for the night. On Stars I’m at 132. So, I’m at 432 total. Something is wrong with my DB I think or several hands did not get imported correctly. Whatever, I’m over $300 – W00t!