You're hilarious. Sad to see your WTF wasn't so great this week.

I'm TightWad, and I approve this abbreviation.

Seriously, though, glad to hear someone other than my degenerate roommate reads this thing

-TW

I read it, and also make the occasional blog comment.

On a side note, I'm trying to do the same thing you are doing but with a part time job as well. I'm about at your bankroll level, i estimate, so success for you is encouraging for me.

Briachek, I did see your comment - much appreciated! As far as your situation, best of luck, and from reading your posts, I'll think you'll do well. Honestly, if a scrub like me can scrape out a marginal living off of these games, imagine what a competant person could do!

-TW

I'm currently in a losing streak of about 5 days so I'm doubting myself after a couple weeks of good performance. I'm just glad I have my job's income to fall back on if I have a bad week or month of poker. I respect you taking a shot at doing it full time (which is a possible plan for me in the future). At the moment, I only need a marginal living so I'll be fine with marginal profit.

BTW, TW, your blog rocks!

I told you guys Tighty was hilarious

Just got back from Atlantic City, and yeah, it kinda sucked, only because the damned bus trip only gave me about 6 hours to actually spend there, which, in my humble, unqualified opinion, is not enough to really have a grand old time, especially if it's your first time there, which in my case, it was. I believe I just broke the record for most commas in a sentence; that record was previously held by a well-regarded poker analyst by the name of "Adam the Expert." If you don't know who he is, then you don't get it.

Anyway, the bus dropped us off at Resorts, which is right next to the Taj. I say to my loyal comrades, "Hey, let's play at the Taj, I hear they have a super-big poker room!" My friend says to me, "Hey, didn't they film part of Rounders in the Taj?" to which I reply, "Fuck you." I can be a very abrasive guy when I put my mind to it.

So, we head into the Taj, and quickly discover that about 50,000 other people have also heard that they have a super-big poker room. And about 49,860 of them were wearing visors/sunglasses. The remainder were old guys who were laughing at the young guys with visors and sunglasses. I don't know about you, but I'm with the old guys.

So, after a ten minute wait, we manage to get on the waiting list. About 15 minutes later, the hyperactive lady who was having way too much fun with her microphone rattles off our names; about god-damned time! We sidle over to a short, belligerant-looking lady who's franticly waving to us with a clipboard, and find out that "whoops!" they don't actually have a seat for me. So, I walk back up to the desk, where Ms. Hyperactive-Blond-Lady-Put-Me-On-A-Microphone-And-It-Goes-Straight-To-My-Head rattles off another list of players for 2-4, none of whom happen to be me.

I walk up to the desk to explain what happened, and spoke to a different lady who was taking names for the list. This one wasn't hyperactive, but she was hyperventilating and possibly on the verge of tears. She had that look in her eyes that said, "Please, take me away from this god-awful place, even if it means leaving me in a ditch 200 dollars lighter!" I calmly explained that my name had been skipped due to a mix-up on their end, and she promptly scribbled my name back on the bottom of the list. I then tried to explain that no, I was not asking to be put on the list, I was asking to be RE-put on the list, back at my cushy top-spot that had taken 15 minutes and 23 cigarettes to obtain. She said it was "policy", and that all she could do was put me back on the bottom. I was about to protest, but then realized that this woman was on the verge of complete nerve collapse and I didn't want no damned suicide on my hands.

Anyway, half an hour later, I finally get a seat. Lotsa fun characters at my table, extremely soft and pretty passive, but I couldn't find a frickin hand to play. So I folded...and folded...and folded, and folded, and folded...

Then an interesting hand came up that I'd like to share. The first three players limped in, followed by a raise by the woman to my immediate right. I looked down at 9-3 offsuit...and folded.

Anyway, I folded some more, then I flopped trip queens and rivered quads in a nice big pot, then I folded some more. Played a couple hands along the lines of AKs and ATs, flopped a draw with both, missed, and folded. Saw a couple super-multiway flops with 33 and 55. Missed and folded.

Two hours later, 30 bucks lighter, it's dinner time. We head over to the Irish Pub, which is a very nice place to eat for those not looking to spend a lot. Simple, but good. Downed a couple Guinnesses and a Corned Beef on Rye, and now it's 8 o'frickin'clock and we only got two hours left. Head over to Resorts, which has 3 Hold 'em tables shoved in with the rest of their table games. By the time we found it and got done waiting, I only managed to book another hour and a half at a 3-6 game, where I came out a whopping 12 bucks up! Also met the biggest asshole I've ever seen, but never got into a pot with him. I would've loved to, would've felt great to beat him for a nice, fat mountain of chips...but then again, everytime I meet these assholes I manage to lose a massive pot with a fabulous second-best hand against them, which gets me even more pissed, so I'm kinda glad I didn't get into it with him.

I'll tell ya what I'm kinda sick of hearing: the old "don't tap on the aquarium" line. Concept being that you shouldn't berate or belittle bad players because you don't want them to leave. Okay, yeah, makes sense. What I don't hear enough is the old "don't be a fucking asshole" line. Concept being that you shouldn't berate or belittle bad players because it's just plain rude and obnoxious. I'm a little worried that some "pros" get a little too drawn into the cutthroat aspect of poker, which doesn't need to be there. You don't need to call a guy a fish, or an idiot, or a moron to win money off of him. I saw this dorky little sunglasses-wearing dude leaving the Taj's poker room today while confiding in his friend, "Man, my table was FULL of fish! None of 'em had a CLUE!" What I heard was "Man, my table was full of highly succesful people who make more money than I ever will, are happier than I'll ever be...but they didn't read Sklansky so I'm frickin BETTER!"

Okay...kinda went on a rant there...better quit before I fall any farther behind.

-TW

Title: Tequila/Goals for the week

Someone, please explain to me why drinking Tequila is ever a good idea. And saying "because it gets you drunk!" does not qualify as an answer. There are plenty of other liquids out there that get you just as drunk without tasting that awful. Just look at the efforts people go through NOT to taste Tequila, ya know, with the salt and the lemon, and it should be a bit of a tip-off.

Okay, back to the important stuff. Since I missed a work-day on Saturday due to the AC thing, I decided I should really book a nice, long session on Sunday, at least 8 hours. Well that went right to the crapper; I woke up at about 1:06 pm, played a couple hours, then had to run out to refill my fake-aunt's coal furnace and buy a bunch of crap at Walmart...then I had a pain-in-the-ass friend come over, so I only managed to book another hour and a half, after which I downed a couple double-shots of Tequila, and so much for playing poker.

The bright side is that I came out 270 bucks ahead. I did have one pretty funny hand that I'll share. I'm on the BB with 10-2, a.k.a. "the Brunson." I check in after two limpers, and the flop comes up T-6-3. I bet out, get called by both...sure enough, I hit a 2 on the turn and a T on the river to boat up and win a grand old pot out of it, just like Doyle himself did to win one of those WSOPs. I thought it was funny anyway.

I have three simple goals for this week: I want a minimum total gain of 600 bucks, I want to book a minimum of 40 hours, and I'd like to buy a really nice bottle of gin. I think I'll take care of goal #3 right now.

-TW

great journal tightward. just read the whole thing.

when you set up for a long session, say 5 hours, do you play the 5 straight? or do you take breaks?

Personally, i like dividing my play time into 200 hand sessions/quit once i lose a big hand. i find this is the best way to keep my game at it's top notch while i'm playing

Stel,

First off, thanks for reading! I usually wind up playing 2 or 3 shorter sessions per day, around 2-3 hours...but sometimes shorter. I'm trying to build up the mental stamina to play longer ones. Right now, my longest sessions are still only 5 or 6 hours, but I'd like to improve that. My longest sessions are usually those where I start out stuck, which defies conventional wisdom (that you should keep playing if you're winning, quit earlier if you're losing).

Goal for tomorrow, actually, is to hammer out an 8-hour-straight session. We'll see how that goes

-TW

We're gonna try something new here, a little segment I like to call "The Question of the Day!" This is a limited-time-only promotion that will only be running until March 2, 2005...so enjoy it while it lasts!

Today's question : What do you call a sex-change operation performed on a female?

The answer can be found on page 76.

Okay, so I started yesterday with a quick NL session in which I promptly lost two buy-ins, got pissed off, and quit. Lost 46 bucks and made a resolution to avoid NL games in the immediate future. Then, I played about an hour and a half of 2/4, 4-tabling, and came out 194 bucks ahead. Yeah, I think I'll stick with limit.

That session officially brought AQo, that infernally irritating hand, into the profit-zone on PTracker. And it's about god-damned time!

Then, I decided I'd hop into some 3-6 games, test the waters a little, shit like that. 3-tabled for about 4.5 hours, lost 45 bucks, but didn't really notice too much of a skill difference except for one table, which was playing pretty tight. Not sure if that was just an exception, or if these tables are more common at the 3-6 level. Time will tell. I still plan on sticking with 2-4 until my bankroll hits 2000...but I don't think mixing in some occasional 3-6 sessions is really that dangerous.

After that, I started downing shot after shot of Bombay Sapphire, and then sat down at one of the toughest .02/.04 line-ups I've ever seen on Stars. As expected, I rose to the occasion and made a complete arse out of myself, but it was a good time playing with some fellow-BtPers nonetheless. Next time, I think I'll play sober. I can't afford to be taking those 4-cent big bets so lightly.

Okay, here's my summary for the month of February, taken from PTracker:
Total Hours : 99.80
Total Win : 1669.98
Hourly Rate : 16.73

The first two numbers are definitely lower than I'd like, primarily because, as you can see, I didn't book NEARLY enough hours. A forty-hour week would mean I book 160 hours per month. Depressingly enough, I fell a massive 60 hours short; had I managed to make my hours-goal, my total win should've been around 2500-2700. Granted, as I book more hours, my hourly rate may drop a bit, but on the other hand, my winrate should increase as I improve, which I like to believe I am.

So......next month, I'd like to hit that 160 hour mark, and a win of 2500. I said when I started this journal that I thought the hours would be the main obstacle, and that's true thus far. Hopefully this month will be better.

-TW

Ladies and gentlefolk, I'd like to start by saying that I'm on the tail-end of a gallon of beer, so if I wind up being incoherent, please forgive me. Likewise, excuse any minor/drastic/catastrophic spelling errors!

Okay, so today, I proved that my work ethic is only slightly superior to that of a seriously injured/comatose water tortoise stuck in the middle of the Sahara Desert. I managed to book a solid 1.5 hours of 3/6 limit, but on the bright side, I made about 300 bucks. Okay, 300 bucks in a day is NICE! But, at the same time, if I'm gonna be doing this for a living, I should start getting used to booking 6-8 hours per day. Especially since my goal was to book 160 hours in March. Off to a bad start on that one!

Yeah, so anyway, after my limit quickie, my irritating bastard of a room-mate dragged me out to the bank/mall, where we picked up "Karaoke Revolution", an infernally irritating video game that involves, as far as I can tell, a lot of singing...but a whole lot more drinking. Hence the gallon of beer, hence the no more poker. That wasn't a sentence. Let it go.

-TW

Title : Decisions

A great man once said, "Son, didn't I tell you to take out the trash today?" That man was my father. The quote itself holds no relevance in today's entry.

The theme of this journal update is decisions, and that's a topic on which I like to consider myself an expert. Because over the course of my life, I've made a ton of decisions, and I believe the fact that most of these decisions have been awful ones does little to detract from my expert-status. Here's some decisions I made over the last couple of days:

Decision 1: I played about an hour of $100-buy-in PLO on Empire yesterday, despite the fact that I know very little about the game. Over the course of that hour, I made a number of bad sub-decisions, along with one hand that I played right but lost me my stack nonetheless. Overall, I booked an impressive $194 loss. Chalk up a tick mark in the "Bad Decisions" column.

Decision 2: I finally got around to buying Super System 2, and it's absolutely delicious. I mean helpful. Sorry, kinda hungry right now. Jennifer Harmon's section on Limit Hold 'Em really opened my eyes to the true meaning of "Tight-Aggressive." However, this is a double-edged filet knife. On the one hand, her advice on isolation plays and pre-flop aggression can certainly help anyone breach the gap between a dull-straightforward-ABC-unimaginative-uncreative-I'll-just-sit-here-and-wait-for-AA...playing style...and a more dynamic, take-control game. However, if you already have some closet-loose-aggressive in you, as I do, you could find yourself taking the whole aggression thing to far, as I have.

I think the key point is not to "look for" situations where you can justify/rationalize making a bet or raise you normally wouldn't...but rather to "look AT" the situation objectively and decide whether it's best to take the lead, tag along, or just be done with it. Not sure if I'm making any sense here. Anyway, Decision 2 was definitely a good one, well worth the 35 bucks.

Decision 3: Ordered egg-foo-yong from the local chinese place. AWFUL decision.

Decision 4: I sat down at a 3-6 table this afternoon, and there was a maniac to my immediate right. No, not just your ordinary every-day maniac. She didn't once fold a hand, and only rarely slowed down enough to call. Seriously, say the final board was A-A-K-J-9 with a possible flush. Player 1 bets, Player 2 raises, Player 3 reraises...our lovely maniac would still put in the final raise with 5-2 offsuit. No, seriously! I'm not kidding! I almost think that whoever it was actually hijacked someone else's account just for the sake of blowing the poor sod's money at a 3-6 table.

Okay, so the first couple hands I played against her, I lost in dramatic fashion. The first, I flopped a set of sevens, but lost on the river when she hit an improbable runner-runner gutshot sort of thing. Next hand, I flopped TPTK with AJ, but lost because this time, she happened to have QQ. Ugh!

Needless to say, these two huge pots made me steam a bit, almost enough to walk away. But I managed to slap some sense in myself, stuck around, and wound up 150 bucks to the good on that table alone before she left; so obviously, sticking around turned out to be a good decision.

Decision 5: I made a dramatic/heroic ace-high call-down today. Turns out my opponent had KK for kings full of fours, and thus, a boat. Dramatic/heroic does NOT imply "good."

Decision 6: Decided not to do any drinking today, but instead, actually book a good number of hours. Got in seven hours total, made 325 bucks, good decision.

Decision 7: I shaved today. Really been lettin that one go a little too long.

I think that about raps it up for today's ramble...Over the last two days, I only made 12 bucks, which is sorta bittersweet. On the bright side, I recouped the losses from that ridiculously ill-advised PLO session. On the not-as-bright side, I'd be up about 800 for the week if I hadn't broken down and played a game I suck at. We live and learn, though in my case, it appears sometimes that I just plain live.

-TW

Jennifer Harman's limit section is really good, but it's geared towards tighter, more aggressive games. That's not to say you shouldn't be aggressive in the loose passive games, but you can throw a lot of those isolation plays out the window at the lower limits.

I like the last two lines in her chapter.