ugh... so many hands.

hand 1
i'm not sure you're that far behind on the turn (assuming villain has two pair, which he does). you have a gutter, a draw to a set, and a handful of outs to counterfeit his 2pr. run the twodimes and check it out.

i probably would have check-folded the turn against a tight player (common at UB), but i'd really need reads.


hand 2
terrible push on the turn. you don't have either flush draw, so a lot of your str8 outs are dead.


ok, i'm going to read through the rest but not comment because i hate scrolling up and down and i don't have my two monitor set up going at the moment. post specific hands to the omaha forum (one per post please) for comments. some of these hands are interesting.

Finished up $14.50 tonight. First two sessions were completely bland - never up too big or down too big - was down $15.80 after those two.

Sat in on a PLO$50 game again - got AAxx on the very first hand in BB, so I just check. 6 people saw a 22x flop and it's checked all the way down to the end, and I win the small pot. 4 hands later, get AAxx again. I limp, it gets raised behind me, so I re-raise. He re-raises me, so I push and he's all-in (he only had $20). I thought for sure I was dead when a K hit on the flop, but he flipped over the other two Aces for the chop. Table broke up shortly after that, so only ended up with 11 hands and a $0.80 profit.

When that table broke up, I hopped back on a PLO$25 table. 5th hand in, I get AA77ss in LP and raise - two callers. CB on a KQx flop - one caller. Turn is a heart (I've got A7h) and I check behind. River is another heart and he leads into me with a full pot bet. He had KQ and correctly put me on AA - too bad for him one of Aces was suited. I'm going to post this one in the Omaha forum, because MVP was giving me a hard time about the flop CB. Anyway, that hand alone was enough to put me back in the green, so I decided to call it a night and book a winning day. (that, and the wife is back in town after being gone all weekend. There are a few things more important than poker, after all. )

Another day, another solid $43.75 session, helped somewhat by the donk hand I posted in the LC forum. I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but for the past couple of weeks, something has just "clicked" and I've been playing better than I have at any time in the past. I spent some time thinking about this tonight, and here are some of the possible reasons:

1. Previously, I was in the "never raise pre-flop in Omaha" camp. Now, I do raise with big hands in position - especially if there's been a raise in front of me and I can isolate them. I feel more confident throwing out a big bet pre-flop, because I know i can get away from the hand if I miss the flop entirely. Also, I'm finding out that other people have a harder time getting away from a pot that's been raised pre-flop than from one that hasn't - which means more money in my pocket when I do hit the flop hard.

2. I'm betting my draws a lot more aggressively now, rather than waiting until they hit (at which point I wouldn't get paid off). I've actually been surprised at the number of smallish pots I can take down on on the flop when nobody else wants it.

3. I'm not donking off nearly as many chips as before. Back when I was doing the "gauntlet", I lost my 4 buy-in stake largely through hands where I got my money in as an underdog - sometimes a huge underdog. Except for last Saturday morning, when I temporarily reverted to donk state again and lost 2 1/2 stacks (and in only one of them was I was a favorite when the money went in), I've avoided getting my money in the middle when I don't feel that I'm a big favorite.

I think I see this best when I look at my session results. Since 5/1, I've played 18 session of PLO$25, and I've won exactly half of them. But compare the winning sessions -


$68.55
$43.75
$37.25
$29.50
$25.45
$10.65
$10.40
$3.95
$1.40


with the losing sessions


$0.60
$2.46
$4.25
$6.30
$7.20
$11.55
$11.79
$25.50 <-- Saturday morning session
$29.05 <-- Saturday morning session


My wins have been big wins, and my losses have been small losses (with a couple previously-noted exceptions)

4. I now have a comfortable bankroll for playing PLO$25 (40+ buy-ins), so I'm completely at-ease putting my entire stack at risk when the hand calls for it.

5. I've been running twodimes on every big pot I've been involved with to find out whether or not I was a favorite when the money went in.

6. I've been able to recognize when I'm not on my A game and stop. Case in point - after that fiasco last Saturday morning, I stopped for a while and did something I rarely do - played a small buy-in MTT followed by a small buy-in qualifier to a WSOP qualifier. Sure, I didn't finish ITM, nor did I expect to, but the money I spent on the entry fees was far less than I would have lost had I continued playing PLO at that point. In fact, after taking that break, I was able to come within $4 of breaking even for the day.

So, since the first of this month, I'm running 21.53 BB/100 in 1,229 hands of PLO$25 - a figure that would be much higher if you take out my donkfest of this past weekend.

You know when you've dropped to Page 2 that it's time for an update.

It's been pretty much more of the same - grinding away at the $25 PLO tables for the most part, with an occasional foray into $50 land. Deposited $100 on Party for the BTP PLO game and ran it up to $250 over the next few days, at which point I ran it right back down to $100 before cashing out.

Last month I took $350 out of the bankroll and put it back in the household account - that $350 was the rest of money that I had originally taken out of the household funds for clearing bonuses and such. What that means is that from here on out I am playing entirely with other people's money. Woo-hoo!!

Rather than just aimlesslly grind along for another month, I think I'm going to try something different - actually setting some goals for the month. So here goes -

1. Play 7500 hands this month, broken down as follows:
a. 4000 hands of PLO, split between $25 and $50 games (probably 2/3 of that at the $25 level)
b. 2000 hands of LHE - for this month, anyway, it will be all $1/$2.
c. 1000 hands of LO8 at $.50/$1. I want to eventually start playing PLO8, but I need to develop a better "feel" for the game before I dive into that.
d. 500 hands of 7CS at the lowest levels I can find, just to mix things up a little bit.

2. Don't play a single hand without clearing a bonus.

3. Post at least 20 interesting hands on BTP.

4. Respond to at least 20 hands posted by others.

5. Keep the journal more up to date.


Another thing I've started doing is tracking my poker bankroll with Quicken. I've been doing it for a couple days now, and I have no idea why I wasn't doing this earlier. I can see at a glance exactly what my current BR is ($1089.11 right now), track bonuses, and run all sorts of cool reports to see where I'm making my money. Here's the month-to-date summary report -




Needless to say, June has gotten off to a hot start. When you win $33.45 on your very first hand of the month, what can you expect?

Yesterday, as usually happens when I post good results here, I got slammed hard. Lost about $86 between two $1/$2 limit tables before I decided to take a break. When I played again in the afternoon, it was more or less the same (was down maybe $20 or so) until The Donator showed up. You know the type. By the time he busted out, he was 95% VP$P with 80+% PFR and he would bet/raise nearly every street with nothing. Luckily, I caught a few good hands against him (I literally called him down with pocket deuces and won), and he almost single-handedly provided me with a $65 win. Including a $10 bonus that I cleared, I finished the day down $9.15. Not too bad considering how I started.

Another solid day, very much like yesterday - started 2 tables of PLO $25, finished about $26 down between them (including running top full house into quads - always fun when that happens). Both yesterday and today my really bad sessions came when I was 2-tabling... Coincedence? Probably.

Played some $1/$2 LHE after that - finished up $23.

Then tonight, saw that Ojingo was on the PLO $50 table at UB, so hopped on. By the time I left, I was up $31 and change.

So, with those sessions and cleared bonuses, I finished the day up $48.01

Every Sunday night, I'll post my results for the week... Here's the first one (it's not for the entire week, as i started new PT databases on 6/1)




* That "transfer from player" - some guy on UB promised $5 to the first person who could identify what movie a particular line came from. Of course I found the movie using Google, but he only gave me $2 because he said I "cheated". Oh well, it's still free money, right? What am I going to do, argue with him?

Tried to play some $.50/$1 LO8 tonight at Full Contact Poker, but the tables kept breaking up before i could really get anything going - only got 35 hands between 2 tables and finished down $6.35.

So, I hopped on a PLO $50 table. Smart move, as 26 hands later I was up $52.70.

A good chunk of that came on this beauty -

Omaha Hi $0.50-$1 PL (real money), hand #574,377,886
Table Bradford, 6 Jun 2006 10:35 PM ET

Seat 1: jason44x ($54.30 in chips)
Seat 2: Starkees ($67.60 in chips)
Seat 3: LimpTriscuit ($50.00 in chips)
Seat 5: bmgh ($40.90 in chips)
Seat 6: ScottyRoxx ($50.00 in chips)
Seat 7: den621 ($6.00 in chips)
Seat 8: dmoney4518 ($23.60 in chips)
Seat 9: stickperson [ ,[6c],[Ac],[9s] ] ($47.50 in chips)
Seat 10: sirflatland ($3.90 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
jason44x posts blind ($0.50), Starkees posts blind ($0.50), LimpTriscuit posts blind ($0.50), ScottyRoxx posts blind ($0.50).

PRE-FLOP
LimpTriscuit checks, bmgh folds, ScottyRoxx checks, den621 calls $0.50, dmoney4518 folds, stickperson calls $0.50, sirflatland folds, jason44x checks, Starkees checks.

I hadn't been playing long, but the table had been pretty loose-passive up to this point - very little pre-flop raising. So, I thought it was worth seeing a flop from LP

FLOP [board cards ,[2s],[3h] ]
jason44x checks, Starkees bets $0.50, LimpTriscuit calls $0.50, ScottyRoxx folds, den621 calls $0.50, stickperson calls $0.50, jason44x calls $0.50.

Not a great flop, but I've got a gutshot, and odds to chase it with this minbet nonsense.

TURN [board cards ,[2s],[3h],[5h] ]
jason44x checks, Starkees bets $0.50, LimpTriscuit folds, den621 calls $0.50, stickperson calls $0.50, jason44x calls $0.50.

Kids, this is why minbetting is bad. it lets other players draw out on you. Normally I'd just pop it here, but something told me to wait one more card this time.

RIVER [board cards ,[2s],[3h],[5h],[Qc] ]
jason44x checks, Starkees bets $7.50, den621 folds, stickperson bets $30, jason44x folds, Starkees calls $22.50.

Wow... somebody really liked that Queen. NOW it's time to pop it and see just how much he really liked it. Fortunately, he liked it a lot (anyone want to bet he just spiked his set?)

SHOWDOWN
stickperson shows [ 4S,6C,AC,9S ]
Starkees mucks cards
stickperson wins $66.50.

SUMMARY
Dealer: sirflatland
Pot: $67.50 | Rake: $1
jason44x loses $1.50
Starkees loses $31.50
LimpTriscuit loses $1
bmgh loses $0
ScottyRoxx loses $0.50
den621 loses $1.50
dmoney4518 loses $0
stickperson bets $31.50, collects $66.50, net $35
sirflatland loses $0

Another 87 hands of PLO $50, another $35.05 added to the bankroll.

My plan at the beginning of the month was to play about 75% of my PLO hands at the $25 tables, and the rest at the $50's. What I'm finding, though, is that the $50 tables really aren't that much different. In fact, at least at the sites I'm currently playing, it's more or less the same players at both levels.

So, the decision now is whether to stick to my plan, or to go ahead and jump to the $50 tables full time. My BR after tonight is just shy of $1200, which is 24 buy-ins for the $50's. Any recommendations one way or the other?

EDIT: I started a new PTO database at the start of June, but in my old DB (the one I started when I got my new laptop), I had 5600 hands of PLO$25 with a win rate of 4.87 BB/100, if that makes a difference to anyone. I'd have to look at my desktop machine to see the stats there...

My MIL is in town for 10 days, and she likes her slot machines, so my wife and I and her and another friend of ours all went to jackson Rancheria casino yesterday. Talk about slot machine heaven. A few table games off to one side, the poker room upstairs, and lots and lots of slots...

The poker room wasn't really a room (I guess they're opening a new room later this summer), but it was upstairs away from the rest of the casino, and it was non-smoking. All in all, nothing to complain about. We got there about 10 am, and they didn't have any games going (not too surprising for a Saturday morning), so i went back down to -EV land and just hung out until I heard them announce a $3/$6 game starting up. The game was your typical live low-limit game - wait for a big hand, pound it, and get paid off.

By the time everyone else was ready to go, they had 3 limit and 3 $1/$2 NL games going. I walked away up $142 on the day - like I said, typical low-limit play..

Online, things are still cruising along. Just finished up the June Party bonus, and actually won $75 in the process.

And, since it's Sunday night, my MTD results -