I’ve run into a series run of losing. 2-5 outters are hitting like Barry Bonds on steroids. Just another example…
Down to 4 in a $10 SNG and I pick up big slick. I put in a raise to 3x the BB. The big blind goes all-in with A9 suited. I flop a K and he’s drawing dead. The only way he can beat me is with running nines…and of course they come. I’m out on the bubble. I was a 98.9% favorite to win that hand. Damn 1.1%…fucker gets me every time!
This morning I played for about 2 hours on Party Poker and it might have been the most brutal session of poker I’ve ever played. The Bad Beat Jackpot was over $200,000 and anytime it’s that high my table of choice is the $2/4. I had four tables open almost the entire time and I was never ahead. Not for a second.
In fact, I played 300 hands before I won my first hand at showdown. Stop and think about that for a second. 300 hands! I still can’t believe it now that I’m thinking about it again. I kept making second best hands or losing to 3-5 out draws. Over the entire session rockets were 1/4 and two of those losses were to gut shot straight draws. Cowboys lost to 47o on the river when the player called all the way with bottom pair and a 7 kicker. Ladies lost on the river to 96o who had called two raises pre-flop and another two bets on a 9-high flop. Another 9 came on the river.
Nothing went my way and I finally made a good choice to call it quits. At least the Lions kicked ass today.
Lately I’ve been trying to build my bankroll back up after a horrible streak of bad beats online in the past week or two. I was playing .25/.50 no-limit hold ’em on Full Tilt, but was getting a pretty bad run. After visiting the casino these past weekends, I decided to try my luck at limit hold ’em again, playing mostly 1/2 tables. It’s worked pretty well so far, as I’ve won money each time I’ve sat down so far. Even if I play for 10 minutes between classes, I usually win $5-10, which is nice. So far I’m up about $120 in the past 3-4 days, and only played a total of about three hours.
I also played a $50+5 this weekend and finished just inside the bubble, 8th place for $99, which was pretty damn good considering I was down to 150 chips less than an hour into the tournament, so it was quite the comeback. I made a stupid play after I was reraised preflop when I had JJ, so I called. The flop came down all rags, but pairing the board, so I bet and was reraised all-in, I had a feeling I was beat, but called anyways, and sure enough he had KK. That was the beat that took me down to 150, but I made it to the final, and won some money, so I can’t be completely disappointed.
After work I didn’t feel like doing shit, so I sat down at the online poker tables on Bodog. If you’ve never tried out Bodog, you’re missing out on another great site. They have unlimited bonuses, which means you can keep depositing and always get a bonus. Sign up with referral code P213C5D and I’ll get a nice little bonus on top of yours. The tables are soft, the bonuses aren’t too hard to clear, and the software is pretty good. I’ve been playing there on and off for a few months and like it.
I played for 4 and a half hours or so and finally had a great night. $240+ added to the bankroll. I was playing three tables most of the time. One table of $1/2 6-max, one full table of $2/4, and a full table of $3/6. The $3/6 game was killer. I took $270 from that game, finished even in the $2/4, and lost $30 in the $1/2. I made some mistakes, but my limit hold’em game is finally coming back into form. I had some nasty suck outs hit against me and I also called down when I shouldn’t have a few times. I successfully pulled the stop-and-go a couple of times. The stop-and-go might be my favorite move to pull off. I like it a lot better than a simple check-raise, because I don’t slow play very often for fear of giving a free card. When someone raises me on the flop and I’m holding a monster it’s almost a sure thing they are going to come out firing again on the turn, so then the check-raise for the stop-and-go comes right back at ’em. Low limit players rarely see it coming.
It feels good to book a nice win again.
It’s been a rough month poker-wise. Since August 28th I have 23 numbers recorded for my poker play. Each number represents play at one site for that day. Of those 23, only 7 were positive with none over $150. All the rest were negative with several over $200 in the hole. Those are some rough days. I had been trying to beat the 6-max games at several different sites. I wasn’t faring too well if you couldn’t tell. For that month period it was nearly $1,400 in the hole for poker play. Good thing for deposit bonuses which totaled nearly $800 for that same period of play. So in reality I was down $600 for the past month. Not too bad when you look at it from a different angle.
Two weeks ago I bought the new iPod nano and one of the first things I did was start downloading some old episodes (back to around 38 or so) of the Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio podcast. Tomorrow I should finally catch up with Sunday’s podcast (episode 45). I’ve been playing the shows on my ride to and from work each day, which works out great. Listening to Sean, Brent, and everyone else involved in the shows has renewed my poker focus.
Now I have more room for poker tables in my view. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I supposed it’ll help to be able to have email or a web page open on one monitor if I want to be able to see my tables at all times. Just what I need when I’m playing online poker…more distractions.
Tonight I played a total of 6 heads-up SNGs on Bodog, ranging from $5 to $30. I won 4 out of 6 and finished up $25 for the night. I’m going to concentrate on playing a lot of these for awhile as well as other SNGs and MTTs. I need a change from the limit games for a bit. Maybe I’ll be able to shake off the bad beats I kept running into at the 6-max games.
I felt good about my play tonight. One of the losses came when I had to push with
I find that in these heads up battles I fare the best if I’m aggressive, because then I’m able to trap the other player at some point. They see you raising and raising, so when you don’t come at them, they won’t believe you when you come over the top of them. All they remember is the constant aggression and when you come out with the passive play it automatically means weakness. This doesn’t work against the aggressive opponents though, so I just try to use their constant aggression against them with a few bluff raises.
If I had some long term results I think I’d find out that I win much more often against passive players than aggressive ones.
I was absent from the Poker Blogger tournament last night for three reasons:
Why do the blogger events move to a new site each time?
After a night out I got home at 2:30 and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to play some online poker. SNGs on Bodog were the game of choice. After placing 3rd in one out of 4, I decided to try some heads-up. I won a $50 and then a $20, both in less than a 10 minute period. I won’t be playing poker for the rest of the day, so I finally have a winning day on the books. Wooohooo!! The players in the heads-up SNGs are usually pretty bad. Just before I won the $50 SNG last night the other player commented in chat, “Do you raise every hand?”
Here fishy fishy…
A quick post. Last night Bodog had a $7,500 guaranteed for $10+1, so I signed up. There were only 571 playing, so nearly $2,000 was added to the prize pool. I was short stacked most of the tournament, but as we approached the money (top 54) I finally went above average with a nice rush. From there I went up and down.
With the blinds at $1,000-$2,000 I had about 7 big bets and found 99 in the big blind. 4 other players limped in. I figured I had the best hand but decided to check and see what the flop brought. If I had pushed there was one small stack that would have to call and I thought at least one other player would call. I didn’t want to take my 9s against 2 players. The flop came 2-4-2 and I was happy. I pushed out a bet of about half the pot. The small stack called and the button raised. I pushed the rest of my chips in. I was up against A9 and 55. The turn brought a 5 and the river a 3, so I lost to a full house and a straight. I went in with the best hand and that’s all I can ask for.
Looking back, I wish I had either pushed as the first to act after the flop. I still think I would have ended up against the same two players because A9 didn’t have a choice with barely over $2,000 left and 55 had a large stack where he could take the risk. Pushing would have been my best chance at getting one of them to fold. Betting half the pot could have looked like a steal. If only the small stack would have called I would still have been in the tournament with about 5 BB and on the small blind for the next hand.
That was the end of my tournament though. 17th out of 517. Not a bad showing. I think I’m going to concentrate on some tournaments a little more until I can get through this cold streak trying to beat the 6-max games.
Nick Momrik 