Gosh my posts are long.

Oh, and BR at the swedish site is finally >$4k again. Happy happy joy joy.

Back. Not fit to play poker today though. Head is ok but stomach not so much. Will probably visit the bathroom every other hour from now until sleeping time. Anyway, had fun. It was raising a bit but not too much, got a good bonfire going, nice food, good drinks and stuff, only some slight debauchery happening though. However... I think I may be getting too old for this shit.

Midsummer is the nuts... or a kick in the nuts

It's really one of my favorite holidays. I pretty much only celebrate new years and midsummer.

Oh yeah, poker...

Mjeh! Had a short session early today, dropped almost a full buyin in total. Ran $20 (minimum buyin) up to $160 at one PLO8 table, but the 3 Hold'em tables weren't treating me very good. I think I had AA like 5 times in the one and a half hours I played, but only won a real pot with it once. It went something like this:

A limper or two and I raise AA out of the SB to $6 or something. BB calls and rest folds. BB has been calling my raises a bit too much, and has floated me two or three times sponging my CB's and pushing me off the turn.

Flop comes J high with two spades (I have a spade). I bet my standard CB and he makes his standard call like the floating son of a bitch he is. Turn is a brick, I make my standard "I-missed-and-you-called-my-CB-so-I-give-up"-check. He makes his standard push-me-off-the-pot bet. Now I very non-standardly re-raise the sunnovabitch all-in. He thinks for a few ticks and calls with his [7s] and fails to hit a spade. Unfortunately he only had a $70 stack or so but I will take it.

In total NL sucked though. My bluffs were getting picked off and I couldn't hit a good hand, and when I did, I got sucked out on.

Kind of like yesterday when I lost two consecutive hands against the same guy, first my QQ against his AJs, then my AK against his AT. Nothing spectacular but you know, annoying. Since Texas hasn't been treating me that well I decided to focus on the PLO8 for my second session.

Sat down at some $20 and $40 tables and helped start the only $100 table. This game can be very frustrating sometimes because in order to win, you really need to hit. Sometimes you will outplay your opponent grossly, getting it in freerolling 3 times in a row, and he will suck out for a split everytime and you'll sit there with the same rake-eroded stack you started with. This seemed to be one of those days.

Also had a lot of people make really gross preflop call. Cold calling a raise and re-raise out of position with shit like 349J and other completely unplayable hands, and usually hitting some two-pair or backdor straight or flush to secure half the pot. Still, one has to keep in mind that this is EXACTLY why idiots love this game. They can stick it in with their horrible 459Ks hand and suck out and get back what they put in and feel like winners. It just takes a while for the math to work itself out.

Anyway, I picked up a little over a buyin playing hi/lo which put my day result in the black at ~$30. GG manufacturing winning streaks...

Played for an hour and a half at the $40 level. Booked a tiny $30 win due to not hitting any big hands. Most of my profits came without showdown and I lost a few showdowns due to suckouts* or (in one cases) horrible play**. Anyway I couldn't muster the motivation to play more.

Also got a new camera today. My GF dropped my old digital camera a while ago and finally her conscience couldn't take it anymore so she bought me a new one. It's the Sony Cybershot w85



Much better than my old one. In fact, this seems like a really good camera. Also got an extra 1gb memory stick to go with it and will be bringing it when we go to Egypt this fall.

Had my cell phone repaired and got it back yesterday. Unfortunately they erased all the pics on it, which really sucked since I had some really nice pics both of my GF and my puppy on there. From now on I'll use the new camera and store them on the comp instead. Damnit.


* For example, I raise with KQo otb. UTG limp/calls with A6o. Flop comes 6KQ. I pot, he calls. Turn is an Ace, he checks, I check behind (fearing JT mainly). River is a T, he checks again. I make a super small valuebet, he makes a mini check/raise that I call.

** I raise with KQ, flop top pair but check behind allowing muppet to hit his A with A7o.

Ok time to do some serious updating to this journal before I get too much behind...

GF mothers party was of course a rather boring event. It was drizzling, my GF's family isn't all that much fun and the food was nothing special.

Oh yeah, the 7CS rant. I was going to post the only hands I played in a stretch of like an hour.

#1
I have [3c] with showing.
brings it in, I call and another guy calls behind with

I pick up a other guy now shows [4s], I bet he calls. Long story short, I bet my Q's the whole way. He calls all the way with no pair but manages to hit his K in the hole for a final hand of [8c][6d][4s][2h].

#2
I have [As] with the showing. I raise, guy with re-raises, I raise again and somehow a guy with the decides to tag along as well. They are both all-in when we get to 7:th street and somehow the QQ guy manages to hit his 5 holecard on 7:th for two-pair. Yay.

#3
I have AA again with a 5 showing and raise. 5 people to 4:th street, I bet 4:th and 5:th but slow down on 6:th when a guy with QAT hits another T (I figure he has two-pair now). TT guy bets 7:th, I call, he did indeed hit two-pair. Yay-

Worst

Game

Ever

Thought I'd summarize June a bit late-ish.

Ended up playing 48.5 hours in total. One and a half hours short of my goal, so not satisfied with that obviously. However, I did meet my money goal with a very slim margin, at about $2160.

Out of 19 days I played, I made a profit 14 and lost 5 of them. Had my biggest loss ever in the "bloodbath" that was 4-5:th June. Down $1300 in 7 hours spread over those two days. Fortunately June 3:d was my biggest ever winning day with a profit of $1165 so the overall hole I had to dig myself out of wasn't that big.

My feelings for the month is that my NL game stagnated. In May where I won 17 of 18 days played and had my biggest winning month ever, I felt my NL game was spot on. My aggression was well timed and I was reading hands well. Didn't really go on any card heaters but picked up a crazy amount of post with well timed bluffs. In June it felt like people were often playing optimally against me, calling with TPNK when I had air and folding when I had monsters. I also didn't feel like I was playing as sharp or paying attention as much.

In fact, I think most of my profits in June came from PLO8. If you know me, that is a bit surprising. The games I play at least semi-regularily now are:

Hold'em
NL and PL Shorthanded cash
NL and PL Full ring cash
Limit Full ring cash
SnG's 10-man
MTT's

Omaha
Pot limit High full ring
Pot limit High shorthanded
Pot limit hi/lo Full ring
Limit hi/lo Full ring*

5CD pot limit

7CS limit hi
7CS limit hi/lo*


(the ones with * are only available to me at Party so I don't play them much nowadays)


Now out of all these games I think I would rank PLO8 as my second worst game after 7CS. That's why it seems odd that I would be making most of my money there. However, as I've said for a while now, the most important factor in winning is table selection. PLO8 at this site just attracts a lot of fish. I think the game is incredibly attractive to action junkies because they can push their money in with junk and often get half or a quarter of it back, basically they get to feel like they've "won" a lot and get to push their money in and out of the pot.

At the moment there are several regulars who play a lot who are making what I think are big technical mistakes and in general have a lot of weak spots. There's also a lot of random fish who will sit down and play hands like T882s to a raise and call of their stacks with a flush draw.

So therefore, my new objective is: Learn PLO8 so I can crush these games HakAllah style.

I'm sure there's a LOT of money to be made there and even though PLO8 hasn't come naturally to me I should be able to learn it well enough to have a big enough edge to crush the games if I apply myself.


Oh yeah, bought a new phone too. The HP IPAQ Messenger rw6815. It's nice:



Maybe I shouldn't be buying so much gadgets though. In a short time now I have bought:

Smartphone - $300
MP3 player - $250
Camera - $450

That's $1000 that I really didn't *need* to spend since I already had all of them (of course the new ones are much shinier...). The monitor however was pretty much a must...

Anyway, cliff notes:

I'm not so good at Texas anymore, PLO8 games are juicy.