(Continued)

Apparently someone should've taken the odds for me playing last night, because I did. And I did turn my day around - so that's two for two. Best of all - I actually got a good night's sleep in my new bed too - so I'm actually in a good mood, plus its Friday. I even got to work and got one of two chocolate bagels - which is a lucky day indeed... (Sad isn't it...)

Oh yeah - back to last night. Lindsay popped an allergy pill last night because she was having a reaction to something (what that something is - we're still not sure - but her eye was swelling up and it got better after the pill - so who am I to question...). The pill of course made her drowsy, so she laid down after dinner and didn't wake up until this morning. Left to my own devices, plus after having a good time with my kids - I was in a good mood - so that's why I decided to play.

I didn't really want to be up late though, so I signed up for a $2/$4 table on Pokerstars (Omaha Hi/Lo) and noticed there was a turbo-lite tournament (10 minute levels) starting in a few - so I jumped in. After it started, I also opened up UB because I couldn't find a good hold'em table to play on Pokerstars. UB had both a $2/$4 Omaha Hi/Lo and a $1/$2 Omaha Hi/Lo table running - so I jumped on both and started playing. At the $2/$4 table there were a couple of people from various forums - so it was a good time. Especially since I was between two major calling stations...

The ring game at Pokerstars was pretty good - with about 5-6 people per flop, but I was hitting nothing the entire night. I finished there down $18 after about 2 hours and 100 hands. 60 of the hands qualified for FPP.

The tournament was an interesting one - and I only lasted as long as I did because of some major suck outs. One of them was my KTo vs KQs where I was so shortstacked that I had to play. The flop was 692 and a seven and eight came on the turn and river respectively. I just couldn't help but laugh. Oh and here's the kicker - the guy also had the flush draw on the flop - so I had only 3 of each to hit...

I ended up finishing 119th out 1077 - a very solid showing, but still outside of the money. There weren't any truly good hands from it - but I might still post a report on it if I get the chance.

The $1/$2 table on Ultimate Bet was nothing special - and for the most part I fluctuated from down $10 to up $10. The last hand of the night, I hit a hand and finished up $13 (my high point of the night there). I also unlocked about $5 in bonus money from this table.

The $2/$4 table, however, was a thing of beauty... Here I played only 78 hands and finished up $158. That's 50BB/100 if you're wondering... It was a great table - with 6-7 players per flop. Also, there were two forum people that I knew there - so when they were in the pot pushing things around, it was quite easy for me to get away. Likewise for them. When I was ready to leave the table, it pretty much broke up anyway - so as juicy as it was - it was easy to leave.

Here's the numbers for the day:

3/17 9:33pm $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $80 buyin, 11:37pm, 100 hands, -18
3/17 9:35pm $10+1 NL HE turbo-lite multi (1077) 6036916, 119th, 11:27pm, 115 hands, -11
3/17 9:33pm - 11:37pm, 100 hands, 65 FPP collected (423 total), $0
$974.57

3/17 9:45pm $1/$2 O8 ring (10) $50 buyin, 11:34pm, 98 hands, +13, 46.75 UB points
3/17 9:54pm $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $100 buyin, 11:33pm, 78 hands, +158, 65.75 UB points
3/17 9:45pm - 11:34pm, 176 hands, +11.24
$444.52 ($158.08)

Net change for the day: $153.24
Net time for the day: 2.050 hours; 7.433 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: $583.01
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 38.500 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 91.517 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: $15.143/hr
Table-Hourly rate: $6.371/t-hr

March 18th, 2005 (Friday)

Well, the month is shaping up quite well and I'm only about halfway through it. The hourly rate is looking good, the bottom line is looking excellent and there's still more good news to be had.

1. I still haven't finished the bonus at Pokerstars - but I'm close. 177 more FPP can be polished off in a few more hours, so that'll be another $120 to my total. Also, I'll probably continue to play the UB tables until I finish off that bonus - because it has been a long time coming. There's $150 in bonus money there to unlock - so there's no reason for me not to try.

2. There may or may not be a bonus for Empire. If there is, I'll need to drop a few hundred there to take advantage. If there is one - that's another $100 in bonus money.

All in all, I feel the $1000 mark is within reach - though I'm still going to need to work to get there. A $250 withdrawal at the end of the month will renew my bank account (more of course will make even more of a difference). In terms of bankroll - I'll be finishing around $2k - so theoretically I could move up to $3/$6. However, I've only played about 2500 hands at $2/$4 Omaha Hi/Lo - and I'd liked to put in more time at this level before I move up. While my bankroll may be ready - I'm not yet.

In terms of reasons, I am mostly gunshy about the amounts I could lose in a session. I hit ($240) once - and that was a hard hit to take. I've recovered and then some - but at $3/$6 - that same loss would have been $360. While I still might recover - I think I'm a little farther away from making that number a comfortable number (or at least not a will-crushing number...).

For hold'em, I've only played 1300 hands at $2/$4 and am currently showing a loss (a whopping ($35)), so there again, I want to see my numbers improve before I move up. For Omaha, I'm showing a good win rate (5.589BB/100), but I want to see it stretched over a larger number of hands before I conclude that I'm truly winning.

I also don't want to move up in limits and stunt the winnings for the month. If I end up losing when I move up - then I might not have the benefit of knowing that I can cash out some of the winnings according to my plan. Also, if I stick to $2/$4, it will give me some time to make adjustments in my game if I feel they are necessary.

I am going to start watching the $3/$6 tables - so I know the kind of opposition I'll have there but also so I know when they are the loosest. I've found at Pokerstars that the $2/$4 tables tend to be looser in the early evening (say up until 7 or 8pm and then tighten up until around 1am - when they start getting looser again).

I'll probably still play a few of the $10 rebuy tournaments - but I'll need to keep myself in check with these - because they can start to really take a chunk out if I get crazy about the rebuys or if I'm simply not performing well in my ring games. Of course, even one reasonable cashing spot here would be a big difference to my bankroll... and it would be welcomed...

Eventually, I'm going to start mixing in some of the $40 and $50 buyin Omaha Hi/Lo multitable tournaments. I've played them a few times with staked money - but I have yet to cash in one. Hopefully, I'll be able to play them occasionally after my bankroll hits around $2k. I've all but cut SNGs from my regular play - but that's mainly because I've been showing such success at regular ring games and I've been expanding out on the tournaments I play. I'll probably still jump in on them on occasion, but for now - I'm content with my current playing selection. This also has something to do with the fact that I'm playing other sites for bonuses a lot of the time now.

--------------------

I'm still gearing up for next Friday's show at Foxwoods. I think we're living my place around 2pm - so I'll be getting down there around 4 or 5pm. That should be enough time to get some Wampum cards (for myself and Lindsay and a friend of ours) for those of us coming again in May. I'm being optimistic that I might even get to play some poker - but if the others don't want to, I might just stick to whatever they feel like doing. We won't really have much time to kill anyway since we'll have to get dinner too. Maybe I'll just sit at a Let-it-ride table and hope to hit quads on the first hand like a friend of mine did on my first visit to the casino.

Just a quick note - for those of you who have been keeping tabs on me since my UPF days:

Sept 13, 2003 - Dec 31, 2003, $328.71, 252.417 hours, $1.302/hr
Jan 1, 2004 - Dec 31, 2004, $1665.58, 696.983 hours, $2.390/hr
Jan 1, 2005 - March 20, 2005, $1646.49, 191.467 hours, $8.599/hr

And my wife wonders why I feel like my game is really good these days...

Your 2005 looks terrific. Keep up the good work.

Thanks MG - I'm hoping that by the end of the year I'll be moving up again (and possibly again), while still taking some money out to help my life out. More importantly, I feel my tournament game has been revived in the last few weeks - and that has me excited about finding another final table (its been a while...).

/d

March 21st, 2005 (Monday)

I can't explain how excited I am about the results of this month. I mean - I'm up $736 and there's still 10 days left in the month. On one hand, I just want to bank it - declare the month won and start next month ten days early or even just take a 10 day vacation from poker. I won't be - but its a feeling I've never had...

I'm actually not sure if I am even going to play cards tonight - even though Monday is technically a day that I have "permission" to play all I want. I got into the habit of playing a $10+1 Omaha Hi/Lo tournament on Mondays and its just a thing I was doing - and I have been doing it for the better part of the past year. Now that Pokerstars has expanded its tournament schedule though - and now that I'm exploring other games - means I don't have to play it on Mondays. For that matter, I can play it on Friday and be pretty satisfied. The $10 rebuy tournaments have proven to be much more intriguing to me - and I have a feeling I will continue with those for a while, but again, they run every night - so I don't need to play tonight.

So assuming I'm going to play some cards tonight - what should I play? I was actually thinking about opening up either a stud (or stud hi/lo) game or a draw game. I haven't played either online in a while (for draw - I haven't played online yet), but if I do - I'll have to accept the fact that my good hourly rate will probably drop (because I'll play $.25/$.50 at most probably).

I could of course, continue playing my regular game - because there's no need to deviate. I would love to hit the magical $1000 for the month which seems to be in reach (though I'm not convinced it isn't an illusion...). For that matter, I am very much looking forward to withdrawing some of my winnings for my own account, since it will help make the bills easier. By making the bills easier - hopefully it will mean I won't need to make a sizeable withdrawal in the near future (except for my already-planned trip to Foxwoods in May).

I'm really tempted to play a few tournaments tonight. I just checked - the last time I made a final table was in October (a 5th place finish out of 837 players in a $1 tournament - $46.04). Actually, I did have the satellite tourney - but since that one finished once we got to the 9 and it wasn't a standard tourney - I wasn't going to count it. I'm really hoping I can turn around my game in this market and make another solid finish soon - just to give myself an even bigger boost about my game...

I will probably play a few more satellites to the $350k tournament on an occasional basis - though using up 3k of them on Saturday has seriously depleted my balance of them (I think I'm down to around 2-3k). However, since I started playing $2/$4 - my FPP balance has virtually exploded...

Well, this week is the $500K tourney with a $530 buyin so the FPP satellites are considerably more expensive. This tourney is seriously worth taking a shot at, though, and I would recommend that you play a few FPP and cash satellites for it. I'm planning on spending around $100-150 to try to get in, with the potential payoff being huge. The tourney also has an extended blind structure which allows for more playing time.

If you want to play tournies, there are plenty of good NL tournies running today. The $20+rebuys is Mondays only I believe. There is also a $150+12 that runs on mondays and wednesdays, although that might be too steep. Then you have a PLHE tourney and the usual $11+rebuys.

If not, you should try something new. 6-handed SNGs. These are a lot of fun and are offered at $12+1 and $35+3. I have lately been getting into the $38 ones and they are a blast. Really allows you to play your game and take a lot of flops.

(Continued)

The kids went to bed early/on-time last night, so Lindsay and I had some "us" time before my usual tournament. This was composed of us talking about our days and the next few things on our "to do" list. We're still getting ready for the trip to Foxwoods - and every day she comes up with something else she wants to do to prepare - last night it was to get her hair done and to get a couple of excercise videos because she wants to work out more. Believe it or not - there is a connection there.

In any case, she played a little on Pogo and then asked if I minded if she played a SNG (which of course I don't). She sat down and registered for the $5 limit hold'em SNG and it was filled instantly. She's still vastly better than these players and by the time my tournament started, she was first in chips and there were four players left. I took over (also because she had started to get a migraine), and played spectacularly by dropping all of her chips without hitting the money. The word bonehead doens't begin to describe my play there...

My Omaha tournament went well enough - though for most of the time I was struggling to keep my head above water. I will do a report on it later, but here's the pivotal hand to get me knocked out:

I'm on the button with 35TT. UTG (short-stack 4584 chips) raises to 4k (limits are 2k/4k) and it folds to me. This player has proven to raise any Axxx hand with a wheel card, so I felt I was probably ahead with my tens - and my low draw could work if an ace came on the flop to counterfeit my high. I reraised to 6k - he called all in. He shows A259.

As it turns out, with his hand, he had 56% of the pot equity - so I was going to have to win a race here. With the flop of , he jumped up to 72% of the equity - and hit a deuce on the river to boat up. This was a rough hand for me - but it stemmed from the fact that I over valued my hand - I will do my best not to let that happen again.

I ended up finishing in the money (30th out of 396), but I was disappointed with the way I finished. Shortly after that hand, I finished the night off with 239Tds.

I also played the $10 + rebuys tournament. Here I was doing fairly well as well, but right near the end of the first hour, I hit a bit of a road bump.

This is hand #48: I'm in the BB with J5s (diamonds) and there are 3 limpers plus the SB in already. I check to see the flop and it is - giving me a solid flush draw. The SB checks, I check, and the first limper checks. The next person bets 500, the last person folds, the SB calls, I call, and now the first limper pushes all in. This player has us all covered and has made this move before. Every time that he has and been called down he had either overcards to the board or a single pair (not necessarily top pair). The original bettor calls, the caller calls and it is back to me. My portion of the pot would be 8720 and it is another 1555 for me to call all-in.

Now this is a rebuy tournament and we're still in the rebuy period here. According to my guess, I'm mostly up against single pairs here - and they are most likely duplicating. However, one or two - possibly three of my diamonds are probably out already. However, I'm getting more than 4:1 on my call here - and I suspect if I hit my hand - it will be good. Even with as few as 6 outs, I'm still at about 3:1 against to hit my hand. Since a big stack can do much more here - and I hadn't rebought yet - I decided the risk for getting a big stack was worth it and called. Unfortunately, an offsuit 5 and an offsuit 2 hit on the turn and river and I was forced to rebuy.

According to twodimes.net, here's the hand:

7d5d 31.5%
As9d 25.9%
Ah9s 25.9%
Kd7h 16.7%

In case you are curious, the guy who moved all in had A9o without the 9d.

So I rebuy twice and it is still before the end of the hour and only three hands later, this one comes up:

I have pocket jacks in the cutoff and it folds to me. I raise to 400 (4xBB) and the button (the same guy who raised in the previous hand) raises me the minimum. The blinds fold and I push - without hesitation. He calls and shows KTo. He doesn't improve enough and I double up to 6k right before the break. I busted him shortly after the break.

Here's the hand that knocked me out. The blinds are 200/400 with a 25 ante. I'm in the BB with pocket jacks. UTG+1 raises to 3xBB and is called once. Both of these players have my 9k stack covered (the raiser has 25k, the caller has 11k). It folds to me and I call.

The flop is 567 rainbow and I push. The raiser calls and the caller folds. He shows pocket kings and I'm out.

In this case, I was a little optimistic that he had AK or AQ and would fold or would have a hard time calling with pocket queens. Running into kings though - there's just nothing I could do here. I'm not even sure if I would've folded to a bet had I checked - so I was most likely going broke here. I finished 380th out of 1065 - at the same time as the other tournament.

I played on a $2/$4 Omaha Hi/Lo ring game and was up anywhere between $20 and $50 for most of the night. At the time I got knocked out of the two tournaments, I was only up $20 or so. I played until my next blind, hitting a hand along the way and finished up $52.

Overall, the night was pretty much break even - but it had the potential to be so much more:

3/21 8:24pm $5+.50 HE SNG (9) 6307013, 4th, 9:28pm, 76 hands, -5.50
3/21 9:15pm $10+1 O8 multi (396) 6255822, 30th, 12:19am, 139 hands, +8.80
3/21 9:38pm $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $80 buyin, 12:30am, 145 hands, +52
3/21 10:15pm $10+1 NL HE multi w/rebuys (1065) 6255826, 2 rebuys, 1 addon, $41 total, 380th, 12:19am, 117 hands, -41
$356.37

Net change for the day: $14.30
Net time for the day: 4.100 hours; 9.067 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: $751.25
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 49.950 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 121.383 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: $15.040/hr
Table-Hourly rate: $6.189/t-hr

Let's face it.

NLHE tournaments >>>> Omaha Hi/Lo tournaments

Well, at least you are beginning to join the dark side.

Just a quickie - % ITM NLHE tourneys vs. Omaha Hi/Lo tourneys:

18.24% Omaha Hi/Lo (170 tournaments)
12.07% NL HE (58 tournaments)

# Final tables:

4 Omaha Hi/Lo
0 NL HE

But yes - I'll probably play more of the NL HE tourneys because of the overlay in cash. However, don't expect me to drop the Omaha tourneys anytime soon...

March 23rd, 2005 (Wednesday)

Well, I survived my two root canals on Tuesday - and now my dental insurance is depleted as well as most of my bank account... fun times...

In any case, I didn't play at all on Tuesday because I was in severe pain and tired from two hours in the dentist chair. I thought about playing - but managed to keep myself to just watching TV - a much better use of my bad state.

On Wednesday, Lindsay needed coverage for the kids and we couldn't find a babysitter - so I took the day off from work. I wasn't too happy with taking the time off (because I seem to be using it all for unplanned things...), but sometimes you just have to. Yesterday was one of those days.

Surprisingly, after lunch, Gabriel and Guenevere both went down for a nap (though Guenevere didn't nap for long...). Gabe had actually fallen asleep in his booster seat (something he does on occasion), so he was easy to put down. Guenevere is always a pill - but a small bottle later and she was out.

When the kids were down, I played a short omaha session on Ultimate Bet (because they had 2 $2/$4 tables open). One of them broke up after 10 minutes; the other lasted until I was done. On both tables, I managed to cash out a $50 winner - so I'm up by about $100 for the day - and I still have the night to look forward to.

At night, again, after the kids were asleep, I opened up another 2 tables on UB (both $2/$4 Omaha Hi/Lo), as well as the 500FPP multitable satellite to the $500k tournament and the $10+1 rebuy tournament (both on Pokerstars).

I couldn't get anything going on the tables and was down by more than $100 for most of the night. However, near the end - I recovered nicely, and with the bonus money I earned - I managed to post a small loss of $5 or so.

In the satellite - I was doing okay until my jacks ran into AQ preflop. Nothing helped on the flop, but the turn was an ace (I had a flush redraw too) - and I didn't improve on the river - so I was out. I don't feel bad about the hand - it was one of those moments when you are short stacked - that you just need to win that coin flip.

In the rebuy tournament, I was doing well enough - considering I had a guy who loved to push all-in on my right. He rebought at least 10 times and went all-in about every 2-3 hands. I only ran into him once with this hand:

I'm UTG with pocket sevens and limp. There are 3 other callers back to the BB (maniac) - who pushes allin. I have him covered by about double and I know he can do this with any two cards. The other limpers all have me covered by about 2:1. I push all-in - and only one of the limpers folds. I show my sevens, the two limpers show A9 (one suited, one not), and the BB shows QQ - what timing. Still one of the A9s (the offsuit one ironically) hits a flush on the river and takes the pot.

Still, I ended up rebuying once more and doubled up off the maniac when I flopped a set from the BB on one of the rare occasions he didn't push preflop. Unfortunately, I didn't last - going out unspectacularly on a hand I don't even remember now...

So, with my early session combined with the later session - I pulled out a profit of around $60 - driving me above the $800 mark for the month. I'm really hoping I can hit $1000 - that would be more perfect than words could describe...

Numbers for the day:

UB 3/23 12:43pm $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $100 buyin, 1:49pm, 61 hands, +46.75, 54.25 UB points
UB 3/23 12:53pm $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $100 buyin, (6 players), 1:03pm, 14 hands, +49.25, 8.75 UB points
UB 3/23 12:43pm - 1:49pm, 75 hands, +6.29
$533.25 ($134.10)

UB 3/23 9:35pm $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $100 buyin, 1:06am, 189 hands, -23, 154.50 UB points
UB 3/23 9:51pm $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $100 buyin, $50 rebuy, 1:15am, 128 hands, -11, 136 UB points
UB 3/23 9:35pm - 1:15am, 317 hands, +29.05
$528.30 ($105.05)

PS 3/23 10:00pm 500FPP satellite to $500k guaranteed (201) 6255220, 72nd, 11:09pm, 75 hands, 0
PS 3/23 10:15pm $10+1 NL HE multi w/rebuys (958) 6255924, 1 rebuy, 1 addon, $31 total, 313th, 12:37am, 120 hands, -31
$325.37

Net change for the day: $66.34
Net time for the day: 4.767 hours; 11.700 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: $817.59
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 54.717 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 133.083 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: $14.942/hr
Table-Hourly rate: $6.143/t-hr