6/24/2005 Update
If you haven't read this journal you might be a little confused by the title. When I started the journal I was switching from NL to Limit, but in early June I switched back. The initial entries are all about my expreiences in limit.

I noticed that I started this journal under the name StealthTT385 instead of Nathan_Hicks. So, if in the future I occasionally switch from nathan_hicks to stealthtt385 it's because I'm using different computers.


Disclaimer
My brother and I both play poker on the same accounts. If one of us isn't playing the other one is. My name is Nathan and his name is Greg. I am 24 and he is 11 months older than. And to answer your question, no my parents didn't wait very long. Often throughout this journal I will refer to the player as "I" even if it is my brother because I want to avoid confusion as much as possible. The reason is that I am not talented enough to write two different characters.

Bio
My name is Nathan Hicks as my sign in name says. I am 24 years old as stated above. My main intrests in life are my son Noah, poker and baseball. In fact, when I was 14 years old I hit 86 mph in front of several major league baseball scouts. To make a long story short, baseball never panned out for me after tearing a ligiment in my elbow. I did go on to play in college, but my girlfriend got pregnant and baseball became a profitless job. From there I dropped out of school and have yet to go back (bad idea), but I am lazy so I have an excuse.

Right now my main job is working at a Pizza place called Godfathers. It's an easy job, but the pay is crap and I only work there three days out of the week by my own request. I also coach a high school baseball team in Gaston, Oregon. Again, the pay isn't great, but it's fun taking a bunch of know nothing players and teaching them that there is more to baseball than hit, run, catch and throw. As of the time I'm writing this, my team is 9-5 tied for third in our league.

As for my brother Greg, he doesn't really do much of anything right now except play poker. He was in school to become an engineer, but sporadically stopped going to school throughout the year. Why? I'm not sure, but I think he decided that poker was more fun than school (bad idea).

How it all started
Back in June of 2004 a lot of our friends were having mini tournements at their houses. My brother won one tournement and was hooked from then on out. He immidiatley went out and bought Ken Warren Teaches Hold'em. Next step he deposited $100 into Paradise Poker before ever finishing the book. Throughout the night he won enough money playing 3-6 limit to get his bankroll over a grand. That's right, his first night of playing poker he won more than $900. Well, Greg hadn't learned a thing about bankroll management, pot odds or tilt.

The next day Greg called me over to his house to tell me how stupid the people were on the internet and how he was going to make a living playing poker. Throughout the day I watched Greg play his style of poker where a good black jack hand was all that was needed to be in a pot. Hmmm....he didn't know any better and consequently I thought it was that simple.

Where it gets interesting is that Greg took a bad beat early on while I was watching him for the first time. I can't remember the exact hand, but it was something like the nut flush beat by a boat or his boat was beat by a higher boat. Well, during this hand Greg took a big hit to his bankroll. He lost a hand where betting was pretty much capped every round. How much that is, I'm not sure, but it sent him into a downward spiral trying to make his money back. After about an hour of watching I saw him blow through about $200. The solution to this problem was simple though, he just headed on up to 5-10 to make the money back.

As you can probably imagine, the 5-10 tables didn't really fix the situation. It seemed like every time Greg had a monster hand like k10 he was beat by AK. Or every time he took his JJ to the river someone was holding one and sometimes two of the three overcards on the board. It was just flat out rediculous the bad beats he was taking. Needless to say he was flat broke the next day.

From then on out Greg read a lot more literature on Poker. He picked up 'Super System,' 'How to Win Money Playing Internet Poker,' 'some other crappy book' and that Skalasnky and Malmuth book (can't remember the name). Having no money and refusing to put more money in rigged servers, Greg woke up every morning to play in 7Sultans daily freeroll. It seemed to be his ticket to get money without having to put money back in the servers. He did quite well in these tournies and at one point got his bankroll up over $200.

From there he decided it was time to test the $50 no limit waters because he was back and better than ever. What we didn't understand at the time is that tournements and ring games are completley different......(before I go any further I must mention that I was right by his side during all of this, I would wake up and go watch his freerolls every morning.) Back on track now.....Completley different in not only are people playing with real money, but in the freerolls the competition is much easier. In fact there are people that are there just to go all in every time, so it's easy to double up on them early and often, not so in ring games. To make another long story short, the newly aquired bankroll was gone within a week after some up and downs.

It is bedtime for me now since my son will be waking me up at 7....
There is more to come, like how Poker Tracker showed me how lucky I was to have ever made a red cent, and how I have made more money than one man could ever dream of................wait a second, that's not even me. Anyway, more to come if anyone is interested.... Also, forgive all my spelling and punctuation mistakes from here on out...

P.S.
Greg if you are reading this tomorrow when you wake up, don't be mad. Trust me it will get better and I will explain how things have changed since the beginning.

Hey man, I think I mentioned this at the last tourney, but I'm from Forest Grove originally. Anyway, always cool to hear about how people got started playing.

Picking up where I left off........

After Greg's bankroll was gone again it was back to the freerolls. As for me, I thought it was time to take a stab at real money games, so I deposited $50 into Paradise Poker. Honestly, I felt like I was an expert at poker by this point and thought I would fair quite well. I jumped into $10nl and dominated those tables. Within a couple days I made back my deposited $50 and cashed it out. From there I doubled that and jumped up to $50nl. Looking back I realize that having $100 in my poker account was no where close to where it should be to play in $50nl ,but ignorance is bliss and I was making a killing at those games.

Two hands I can recall quite well from my ealier days playing poker go something like this; I'm sitting in late position and get pocket aces (I had no idea what position was by the way). A few limpers came into the pot and I went ahead and called the blind in order to extract the most value possible. The flop came and I missed completley, but my hand was invincible and so I was waiting for someone to lead out and bet. I remember some mp guy bet, then I reraised. Then all of the sudden the big blind pushed all in causing the original raiser to fold, but holding the winning hand there is no way I could fold, so I called. He had apparently flopped a 5's full of 3's full house, but my superior poker skill willed another A on the river and gave me the higher full house. The pot was $120 and I was a poker god.

The next hand I can remember quite vividly is playing k10o to a raise in a four way pot. I remember the flop coming KQJ rainbow, so I was holding top pair with the nut straight draw. It was immidiatley bet by the first player to act, then reraised...needless to say I pushed all in and the other three people in the pot called. Hmmm, am I beat? Not a chance, I'm holding top pair with a ten kicker. Cutting to the chace I rivered an ace witch gave me the one card nuts. That was the biggest pot I have won to this date and it was just under $200. The other players had real hands too; one guy had KQ, another had flopped a set of jacks and another guy had AA. I had the weakest hand on that flop, but I won. Truthfully, I knew I was beat on that flop after the other three guys called, but my bet was to push everyone out, and I caught a miracle card. I'm not really that dumb, but I was on tilt like crazy before that hand.

I actually did quite well for a while on Paradise. I was able to maintain the money I had won on Paradise from September all the way until Christmas time. At one point I got my account over $600, but cashed out $400 to spend on presents for my son and other family members. The remaining $200 in Paradise really made me realize that I wasn't as good as I once thought. Within the next week I blew threw the rest of my bankroll in $50nl. After losing everything, I decided poker was not for me.

Greg was in no way finished though. He wanted more money in a server because he felt that since we were technically up, we should at least put more money in another server to prove to ourselves that we were winning players. That is precisley what we did, but this time we put $50 into Party Poker because Party seemed to be all the rage amongst the crazy kids of today. I would like to say that this is what got everything started but it isn't. We immidiatley sat down at $25nl and lost a buy in. A couple minutes later we loaded up another table with the remaining $25 and got pocket kings on the first hand. I remember the exact way this hand played out. I was sitting in the big blind and almost every player on the table limped, the button threw out a $3 raise. I figured I had the best hand so I pushed all in. Everyone folded around to the button. The button sat there until time expired really pondering his hand. As the timer ticked away to 1 second he suddenly called. Board came xxx-A-x, and I knew I was beat. The button flipped over A5o, and my kings were sunk. I remember before leaving the table I said, ' fuck you.' Then I dug a little deeper by asking, 'What exactly goes through your head on that hand? You have 3 outer and if it hits you are going to get paid off big time? Fucking idiot.' He went onto tell me he thought I was bluffing. Either way I was out of money and refused to put any more back in those rigged servers.

Still more to come....I just have a little bit more to write about getting to the point I am at today. Then I will dive into my first couple days of playing limit and how much I hate it so far. But how I also plan to stick with it because there is no way I can continue running as bad as I am so far.

Alright, where am I?...hmm...now I remember.

Now we are to the part of the story where everything gets rolling. I came home another late night in the end of January to see my computer looking extra lonley again. I was drunk and wanted another poker fix. I loaded up some poker server and tried to deposit another $50, but this time it wouldn't take. I recieved a message stating that my bank had adopted a policy against transactions for online gambling. What!?!? I proceeded to go to every server I could to deposit the money and recieved the same message on all of them. 'Is this a sign' I wondered? It turns out that it was a sign. During this alcohol fueled frenzy I stumbled across the server I swore never to go back to, Party Poker. Something I didn't mention about this ealier was how difficult it was to get on their server in the first place. They took the money from me origionally, but froze my account over some technicality, and made me fax my license, SS card and credit card to them. First time they said that they couldn't read the images on the fax, and the same the second time. It took three tries to actually get my account working, and when I finally did get to play I blew threw my money real quick.

I had sworn off Party Poker by this point, so it was my last attempt to redeposit another $50. When I loaded up the screen I clicked cashier and saw the fine people at Party deposited $20 into my account as some sort of bonus. How perfect was this? Not only did I not have to deposit more money, but I could play with free money on a server I hated. It was great, I felt no pressure to play my best game because it was on the houses money. I decided before I even loaded up a table that I was going to play like a maniac, which is a lot easier said than done.

When I sat down at a $25nl table I wanted to be a selective maniac with my $20, so I waited about 15 minutes and down $3 to make my move. Finally I got a hand that looked pretty, it was KJ suited in diamonds. As I recall it was raised from MP as I was sitting in the cutoff. I reraised all in and got one caller, but not the origional raiser, rather the button. The flop was perfectly suited in diamonds with the ace out there to give me the nuts, or as Skalansky calls it a "cinch." The turn and the river were blanks and gave me my first double up. The hand history revealed that the button had flopped a set of aces, but my luck drew the correct ace for that board.

The rest of the night was sort of a haze. I tightened up throughout the rest of the night because my stack had grown immensly and at this point I wanted to keep it. By the next morning my Party account was right around $170. Throughout the next week I (Greg included) played about 30 hours of poker, yet the bankroll didn't really change. I think it got up over $200, but then kept dropping right about where it was before. Right around this time I had been reading through a forum that I visited regularly and saw some guys talking about Poker Tracker. Origionally I thought it was some device used by an online server to tell you what the win% for each hand was, but as I finally read the forum I saw a link to the PT website and that's when everything changed.

I downloaded the trial version of PT and immidiatley imported all saved hands from Party and Paradise. The trial version was over as soon as it started because of the amount of hands played, but it was very eye opening to see what type of players we were. Greg and I always considered ourselves tight players, but agression was a forgien concept. Poker Tracker told a different story all together. After switching the autorate rules from the ones found on bet the pot it showed that we were basically fish. Our VP$ip was between 27% and 29% and our preflop raising was below 2%!!! This doesn't even tell the whole story, because our post flop agression was under 1.0 and it seemed the only way we ever won was by great flops.

At first we didn't believe what we were seeing. We tried to rationalize how any type of player can be successful, ala Gus Hasnen and on the other end of the spectrum Dan Harrington. We felt that our profit really proved that we were good players even though statistics showed otherwise. Not long after this we read all the articles on the livepokerforum, and became frequent lurkers of the forums. I can't even begin to explain how helpful the posters were to my game. It's a lot different reading something in a book than it is seeing a discussion in a forum that gets 15 responses with different views on how to play a hand. If there is one thing I can attribute the positive change in my game to, it's livepokerforum. You can quote me on that...

Since this journal is getting long I will try to summarize the rest. Since livepokerforum and Pokertracker came into our life things have obviously changed. We went from being slightly loose/passive to being tight agressive/agressive in NL. That free $20 has doubled multiple times. We have cashed out over $1,500 and there is still another grand left for the bankroll. It is now split amongst Party and Empire, but the majority is in Empire right now, so it's the most likley place you will find me(if you care).

Lastly, I am sure people want to know why we are switching from NL to Limit, so I will explain.
No Limit has become increasingly frustrating for us as of late. One day Greg sat down at four $50 NL tables and was up about $150 after playing for nearly 4 hours. As he was taking autopost blinds off to finish up his sessions he took two pretty bad beats in a row to lose all of his winnings. He finished the day down about $12. Later that day I was up over three buyins in a $50nl game and and got dealt Aces in the hole. I raised $3 and got one caller who happend to be the only person at the table covering my stack, he was also a maniac. Flop came X7A. I checked and the maniac bet it, so I smoth called the flop because there were no drawing hands. Turn comes another blank to complete the rainbow and I check again, but this time the maniac goes all in. I recall yelling, 'YESSSSSSSS' because there was nothing out there that could beat me, and not a feisable draw. This pot was going to be over $300 and I was holding the nuts. It was going to be the biggest pot that I had ever won. The river card was dealt another 7 giving me a boat Aces full of 7's.

Needless to say I wanted to die when the little box that says, 'you lost, muck?' popped up. Twice in one day everything won was gone in an instant. I know I would have lost a lot of money on this hand in limit, but it wouldn't have been everything. After that we took a couple days off from poker. During that time I started reading some journals on livepokerforum. The one that really caught my eyes was "A Day at the Grind" by Tightwad. Even though I haven't read the whole thing, it has inspired me to keep a journal. I'm not going to go into detail about it, but I believe Tightwad and I are sort of in the same boat.

Ughh, I'm tired again and I have to get some sleep.
Tomorrow I will actually start the journal. Here's a little recap of what's happened so far in 2/4 limit. My bankroll started at about $1,300. At first I won about $100 and was feeling pretty good. Then I suddenly lost about $500 and started to feel like shit. Now after some really good sessions it's back over a grand. I am hoping that it was just a rough transition and that my improved play as of the last couple days isn't luck.

5/2/2005
The Journal Begins

Before I get started I want to post my stats over the first week of playing. These numbers are pretty close to what you can expect to see when I am playing, so if my numbers are a bit off in a certain session you can expect that I was either getting good cards or cold cards. I have allready recieved some advice on "jamming the pot on the flop," in the main limit section here on livepokerforum and found it helpful. Any more advice, and opinions how you think I should have played a hand would also be great. Without futher ado, here are my stats thus far.

5,414 hands played
13.50 vp%ip
27.72 Went to SD
59.36 Won $ at SD
5.32 PFR

2.57 AF
2.84 flop
3.36 turn
1.39 river

-0.40 BB/100
I can tell you right now that this is going to change because after the first couple thousand hands it was down over -2bb per, so things have really turned around in my favor. I must also note that these stats include this mornings mini session.

This morning I played four 2/4 sessions on empire, but it only lasted a half an hour because of some connectivity issues. In 119 hands I had a 17.65 vp$ip/5.88pfr/3.0af. I ended the session up exactly $47 up in just 119 hands. It seemed on one table I was getting all my great hands. After my first five hands on the one table I had AA, KK, AKs, and won on all of them except KK, because some douche playing j3 suited sucked out a flush.

There are a couple hands I would like to share. The original raiser was sort of a moron, playing over half of his pots and raising nearly 20%
Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is SB with , .
UTG calls, 6 folds, Hero completes, BB raises, UTG calls, Hero calls.

Flop: (6 SB) , , (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks.

Turn: (3 BB) (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks.

River: (3 BB) (3 players)
Hero bets, BB raises, UTG folds, Hero 3-bets, BB caps, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 11 BB

Results in white below:
Hero has 7c 7s (full house, sevens full of fives).
BB has Qc Qd (full house, queens full of fives).
Outcome: BB wins 11 BB.
I had a gut feeling I was beat here, but was hoping that he had AQ or less likley a 5 because he had raised. It was my only big hit of the morning, but I made it back shortly after.

My favorite hand of the morning was this next little doozy. If you think I am a moron go ahead and tell me.
Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
8 folds, SB completes, Hero checks.

Flop: (2 SB) , , (2 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, SB calls.

Turn: (3 BB) (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

River: (3 BB) (2 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, SB calls.

Final Pot: 7 BB

Results in white below:
SB has Ac 8s (two pair, eights and threes).
Hero has 3s Ks (three of a kind, threes).
Outcome: Hero wins 7 BB.
I reraised the flop because the small blind had shown an aggressive pattern, so when he called I felt that I had the best hand. When the turn came he checked it to me, so I checked in order to get a free card in case I was beat. When the three hit on the river I knew I had this hand cinched up, but the SB led out and bet, so I reraised and he called with top pair.

He went on to tell me how fucking stupid I was, and that his two pair got rivered. 'What? What 2 pair? I saw your cards, you were holding A8o.' I questioned. He replied, '8's and 3's, and you got some bullshit 3 and rivered me.' He then told me how he was no longer going to talk to me because I was too stupid and that I was too bad at poker for him to waste his time on. I snapped back, "keep playing a ton of hands." (He was seeing about 40% of his flops)

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I felt I played it correctly. I would have folded if he had bet the turn, but he didn't so I took a free card. It just happened that when I bet I had the best hand and when I checked I had the worst hand.

Alright, that's enough for this entry. I will get around to playing more hands when my son takes a nap.

The day started off well, but it turned sour really quick. My preflop raises were getting no respect and I was left going into flops with AKo in big multi way pots. Several times today I had TPTK and was beat by a set. I also lost 4 of the 6 KK I had today. It just happened that each of the 4 times I lost there was an ace on the flop and I didn't get out quick enough. The worst one was playing heads up against a guy who had a4 against my KK and he hit a set on the flop. I gave him no respect because he would have bet the same way on bottom pair.

The biggest win of the day was a guy slowplaying a flopped boat, 2's full of queens. He smooth called my bet on the flop, and I hit a third my third ten on the turn giving me a higher full house. The turn and river bets were capped and I took down a $90 pot, which is the highest so far in 2/4.

Daily Analysis
I was down over $200 on the day before my final session when I finally hit a hot streak of cards. It seemd like every table was giving AA, or flopped sets and within minutes I was only down $93.83 on the day, so I called it quits. Since my last session I studied PT thouroughly and decided that I have some major tweaking to do in my limit game. My VP$ip from the small blind was 37.66% costing me over $200. Another thing I really need to work on is not protecting my blind so much. Thinking back I felt like I overprotected my blinds with very marginal hands like T8o even in a raised pot. My biggest loser today was AKo in which I lost 54.50, which means that I was probably holding it too long. In one instance I called a river bet holding absolutley nothing but a high card and was beat by 22.

Daily Stats
1,268 hands played
-1.29 bb/100
12.85 VP$ip
4.26 pfr

2.25 flop
1.74 turn
1.00 river
1.75 Agression Factor

4.32 hours played
$-93.83
which works out for $-22.25 per hour (it's a pricey lesson)

Eww, I just saw something else that look absolutley disgusting. I only won 11 out of 32 sessions today for a 34.38 winning%.

Goals for Tomorrow
Well, tomorrow I have to work until three, then I have to take off to a baseball game, so I probably won't be home until about 10pm. After that I have two days off in a row, so there will be a lot of poker playing. I'm sure Greg will get his fair share of hands in tomorrow while he watches my son. We have discussed what we need to do to be minimize our losses and I think we both have the same plan. We have to let go of losing hands when we know we are beat. Here is a prime example of what I am talking about.

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with , . CO posts a blind of $2.
Hero raises, UTG+1 calls, 1 fold, MP2 calls, 1 fold, CO (poster) calls, 3 folds.

Flop: (9.50 SB) , , (4 players)
Hero bets, UTG+1 raises, MP2 3-bets, CO folds, Hero calls, UTG+1 folds.

Turn: (8.75 BB) (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets, Hero calls.

River: (10.75 BB) (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 12.75 BB

Results in white below:
Hero has Ah Ac (two pair, aces and tens).
MP2 has Th Kh (three of a kind, tens).
Outcome: MP2 wins 12.75 BB.

It was obvious that this hand was lost, but I called down anyway hoping that the guy was not holding a ten. There are other examples, probably more than I want to admit, but I couldn't let go. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. On that note I will leave you with the most frustrating hand of the day.

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
UTG calls, 2 folds, MP2 raises, 1 fold, CO calls, 1 fold, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG calls.

Flop: (10 SB) , , (5 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, UTG folds, MP2 folds, CO raises, SB calls, Hero 3-bets, CO calls, SB calls.

Turn: (9.50 BB) (3 players)
SB bets, Hero calls, CO folds.

River: (11.50 BB) (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: 11.50 BB

Results in white below:
SB has Kh 2s (full house, twos full of kings).
Hero has Ac Ks (two pair, aces and kings).
Outcome: SB wins 11.50 BB.

Wow man, that second hand took me a minute to understand. I was just like, WTF is this guy on?? Raises the turn then tries to check-raise the river? Calling 2 bets cold with bottom pair? What the hell is that guy on.
On a side note, like the journal so far. Keep it up.

Lol K2o

The stats below are updated from yesterday, because I played a few more sessions at the end of the night. There are only a couple hundred more hands on here, so not much is different. I did manage to lose another $20.
Daily Stats
1,429 hands played
-1.95 bb/100
12.39 VP$ip
4.06 pfr

2.15 flop
1.79 turn
1.00 river
1.74 Agression Factor

4.92 hours played
$-111.33
$-22.64 per hour

Today was a much better day than yesterday. KK was holding up and so was AKo, which were my biggest losers during yesterdays hell. I got my vp%ip in the small blind down from 37.66% to 25.74%. I also managed to only come out $-1.25 in the small blind compared to down over $200 yesterday.

Another thing I worked on was not playing low suited connecters so much in non multi way pots, but did manage a big win playing them from the small blind by flopping a flush.

The most interesting hand of the day is this AA, and I will discuss why below.
Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (8 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with , .
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, MP1 raises, Hero 3-bets, 4 folds, UTG+1 calls, MP1 calls.

Flop: (10.50 SB) , , (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, MP1 checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls, MP1 folds.

Turn: (6.25 BB) (2 players)
UTG+1 bets, Hero calls.

River: (8.25 BB) (2 players)
UTG+1 bets, Hero raises, UTG+1 3-bets, Hero caps, UTG+1 calls $2.50 (All-In).

Final Pot: 15.87 BB

Results in white below:
UTG+1 has Js Ks (flush, ace high).
Hero has Ac Ad (three of a kind, aces).
Outcome: UTG+1 wins 15.50 BB. Hero wins 0.37 BB.

The guy I was up against here was a complete fish with a pfr of 2% and an agression factor of 0.29 after about 100 hands (seeing about 40% of flops). I could not in my mind imagine this guy knew what a semi bluff was. I was positive that he had hit his ace or even two pair, thus the reason I smooth called the turn. I thought he was drawing dead because honestly, how many fish do you know that throw out semi bluffs? We capped the river because I thought I had this hand won, but he tricked me and served me my only big loss of the day. In my kind manner I congradulated him by saying, "I didn't think you were capable of semi bluffing, well played." Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a back handed compliment.

Anyway, would you have reraised the turn or do you think I played it correctly? Thinking back, he probably would have called if I had reraised it and taken me for even more on the river. Oh wel.....

Without furth ado, here are todays stats. (They will probably change before the nights officially over)
840 hands played

10.60 VP$ip
6.43 pfr

2.76 flop
1.33 turn (hmm)
0.94 river (hmm again)
1.74 Agression Factor

4.07 hours played
4.07 bb/100
$136.44 Amount won
$33.60 per hour

Much better than yesterday

I am the suckout king

I played a short session tonight, and by short I mean just over 100 hands on four tables which works out to less than a half an hour.

Why am I the suckout king you ask? Would a turn and river to the nuts be a suckout?

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with , .
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, Hero raises, 4 folds, SB calls, BB calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop: (8 SB) , , (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG+1 bets, Hero raises, SB calls, BB 3-bets, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls, SB calls.

Turn: (10 BB) (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls, SB calls.

River: (14 BB) (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises, SB 3-bets, BB folds, Hero caps, SB calls.

Final Pot: 23 BB

Results in white below:
Hero has Jd As (straight, ace high).
SB has Th Js (straight, king high).
Outcome: Hero wins 23 BB.

I was first in position to raise, so I thought I would follow it up with a reraise on the flop to represent a big hand, but then a check raise came into play and I felt obligated to call because it was a four way pot. The turn gave me an open ended straight draw, and for $4 to call I could win a possible $48, so I didn't think folding was an option. The river card was a gift from above and the betting capped in the final round was delicious icing. It doesn't happen much to me where betting gets capped on the river when I am holding the nuts. It's fun to see so much money coming my way while someone is betting out a busted hand.

Okay, this was the last session of the night for sure. I will post the final stats with earlier stats included.

952 hands played

10.29 VP$ip
6.20 pfr

2.77 flop
1.41 turn
1.06 river
1.80 Agression Factor

4.62 hours played
5.08 bb/100
$193.40 Amount won
$41.89 per hour



Summary (this will start as of 5/02/05, we'll ignore the learning process numbers)
5/2/05
4.92 hours played
$-111.33
5/3/05
4.62 hours played
$193.40 Amount won

Total
9.53 hours played
$82.07 $won
$8.61 per hour
0.86 bb/100

This section will look more interesting once I get more days in the journal.

This early afternoon session turned into an incredibly short one. We were supposed to have a home baseball game today, but since it's been raining like crazy we have to head an hour and a half south instead (yeah, it rains in Oregon). So this session only lasted 30 minutes and 127 hands, but the good news is that I won $52.50.

Biggest hand of this moring was this JJ. I was on a gut shot straight draw and missed.

Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (9 handed)

Preflop: Hero is Button with , .
UTG calls, 1 fold, MP1 calls, MP2 raises, 2 folds, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, BB calls, UTG calls, MP1 calls, MP2 calls.

Flop: (15.50 SB) , , (5 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, MP1 checks, MP2 checks, Hero checks.

Turn: (7.75 BB) (5 players)
BB bets, UTG calls, MP1 calls, MP2 folds, Hero calls.

River: (11.75 BB) (4 players)
BB bets, UTG folds, MP1 calls, Hero raises, BB 3-bets, MP1 folds, Hero caps, BB calls.

Final Pot: 20.75 BB

Results in white below:
BB has Ts Tc (full house, tens full of eights).
Hero has Js Jd (full house, jacks full of eights).
Outcome: Hero wins 20.75 BB.

For some reason I thought I was on a gut shot straight flush draw because all those red cards on the flop. I hit another miracle card and took down a good sized pot. Hmm, that seems to be the only way I am winning latley.

Today was no good. My baseball team faced the #1 team in the state and we lost 11-1 in five innings. It's not fair that we have to go up against private schools that recruit. Ughh, the talent on that team is top to bottom, and ours is split among four or five players. We were no match to them.

Anyway, the game put a big dent in my poker playing today, but I still managed to play 1.4 hours and 345 hands. I should also add that the cards I played were good. My biggest hand was the JJ I posted earlier, and my biggest hand this evening was KK where I turned a set while the villain hit top two pair.
Party Poker 2/4 Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is SB with , .
6 folds, CO raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, CO calls.

Flop: (7 SB) , , (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls.

Turn: (4.50 BB) (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises, CO 3-bets, Hero caps, CO calls.

River: (12.50 BB) (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls.

Final Pot: 14.50 BB

Results in white below:
Hero has Kh Kd (three of a kind, kings).
CO has Jc Ks (two pair, kings and jacks).
Outcome: Hero wins 14.50 BB.

I'm suprised I ddin't get more out of this guy. I would have a hard time not capping the bets on the river. If I were him I would have put me on AK or possibly AA, because he was holding one of the kings. This also leads me to my next point is that I think I am becoming too tight.

Today I only had a vp$ip of 9.86 down from 10.29 yesterday. I feel I might become to tight as a result of the past two days. I am noticing that I am almost completley eliminating KQ from my vp$ip, and AJ if it raised in front of me. At one point I layed down AJo from the SB after it was raised by the CO. He was holding qj and I would have taken down a pretty decent sized pot.

So tell me this, is it normal to not play these hands? On 2+2 I read playing below 15% was too tight, which I can understand because of the predictability factor. For instance, I love going up against the little money bags because they are easy to break when I hit big on the flop, even though they start calling down to minimize their losses.

Anyway, todays stats
345 hands played

9.86 VP$ip
4.35 pfr

6.33 flop
2.00 turn
0.86 river
2.33 Agression Factor

1.4 hours played
9.06 bb/100
$125.00 Amount won
$89.29 per hour (how great would it be to keep that up)



Summary (I decided I will post my results for the whole month instead of starting from 5/2/05. It will be easier in the future)
5/1/05 3.49 hrs $75.24
5/2/05 4.92 hrs $-111.33
5/3/05 4.62 hrs $193.40
5/4/05 1.4hrs $125.00

Total
14.75 hours played
$343.81 won
$23.31 per hour
2.43 bb/100