Empire 36 limit, 1725 hands, 70.75, 7h
Stars 100 NL, 125 hands, 122.65, 1 hour
PokerRoom 12 limit, ca. 50 hands, 8.50, 20 minutes
Rake return, 34.67
Total: 236.57
Time worked: 8 hours 20 minutes (the last 5 in a shitload of frustration)
Playing two tables of 100 NL at Stars and I post behind the button on both. One table I am dealt KK and flop K and river quads with action. The other table I get QQ raise to 5, get reraised to 9 by button with only 34.00. I choose to put him all in and he calls with 77, I hit the Q on flop and it is good night Irene. I hit two sets and got a liitle action on both of them as well in the next round. I wish it was always this easy:)
On the other hand I witnessed just the total meltdown of a young kid that had signed up under me for a rake rebate about ten day ago. He told me that he had been playing online for about a year. I talked to him quite a few times since over Yahoo messenger while I was watching him play and although not a bad player he just played a bit too loose and tried too many fancy plays. When I initially watched him he was playing 12 limit and appeared to be beating the game. I would make a comment from time to time about how he could have better played the hand or that he should have mucked a certain hand preflop and I always got a answer such as "I like to see the flop with Axs because I can get away from the hand if an A flops", although I saw him more than once call a raise heads up with such a hand. In the last couple of days I have watched him play 36 and 510 limit which is quite a jump from 12 limit and I suspected that he probably didn't had the bankroll for playing that high. Yesterday he won a couple of nice pots at 510 limit and was happy when I last spoke to him before I logged off and went to bed. Today I did a search for him and saw that he was playing a 510 table and I opened the table to watch. He was sitting with 50.00 at the table which for me is a definate no no because you don't have enough money to get you through a big hand if there is any heavy raising involved. I typed him a message through Yahoo and asked him how he was doing and this was the response I got, "Not the fuck now" and continued on with how he had been getting bad beats and had lost all of his Empire bankroll and nearly all of his Party roll which amounted to about 600.00 collectively. I told him that he should really consider playing a smaller limit to play within his bankroll to protect himself from such things as this and that playing 12 limit wasn't anything to be ashamed of and got the response that at that limit he didn't even feel like he was playing for money. Well I left it at that and watched him bluff of the rest of his money with KJs with a flop of 1082 none of his suit, got raised on the turn by A10, he reraised with nothing and bet off the rest of it on the river with K high.
Poker is a TOUGH, TOUGH game to beat and the honest to god truth is that most people don't have the ability and desire to get the job done. A couple of my friends have commented to me about how they would like to do what I do for a living and how they envy me being able to work at home playing poker for a living and can I show them how to do it so they can play cards for a living too. I tell them no way am I going to try and teach you to play for a living and perhaps do a lot of damage to them financially and otherwise. And I bet they wouldn't envy me so much if they sat through a couple of weeks of getting my teeth kicked in through horrible beats and losing money for a time period. All I can say is be honest with yourself. If you like to play poker for a little recreation and for minimal amounts then by all means do so but don't think you can just pick this up as your new job and all will be fine because as I said before you probably don't have what it takes to get the job done for the long haul. And if you do have the right stuff then you are one of the few. Be proud of your skills and always work to keep the game good. nuff said.
Well put in a 5 hours session of 36 limit at Empire tonight and for the most part it was just frustrating as hell. At one point in the session I am down over 300.00. Managed to finish up only 41.00 down for about 1350 hands and I feel like a champ. Here are a couple of tasty morsels of hands for your viewing displeasure or what could be called Mouse Breaker Hands in Limit Holdem Speak!! When looking over my hands in PokerTracker and seeing what some of these guys are playing and how they are playing it I am amazed that I could ever have a losing day.
Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (9 handed)
Preflop: Hero is MP2 with
,
. MP3 posts a blind of $3.
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, MP1 folds,
Hero raises, MP3 (poster) calls, CO folds, Button folds, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: (6.33 SB)
,
,
(3 players)
BB checks,
Hero bets, MP3 calls, BB calls.
Turn: (4.66 BB)
(3 players)
BB checks,
Hero bets, MP3 calls, BB calls.
River: (7.66 BB)
(3 players)
BB checks,
Hero bets, MP3 calls, BB calls.
Caller has 52o
Final Pot: 10.66 BB
Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (10 handed)
Preflop: Hero is BB with
,
.
UTG calls, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 folds, MP1 folds, MP2 calls, MP3 calls, CO folds, Button folds, SB completes,
Hero raises, UTG calls, MP2 calls, MP3 calls, SB calls.
Flop: (10 SB)
,
,
(5 players)
SB checks,
Hero bets,
UTG raises, MP2 calls, MP3 folds, SB calls,
Hero 3-bets,
UTG caps, MP2 calls, SB calls, Hero calls.
Turn: (13 BB)
(4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks,
UTG bets, MP2 calls, SB calls,
Hero raises, UTG calls, MP2 calls, SB calls.
River: (21 BB)
(4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks,
UTG bets, MP2 folds,
SB raises, Hero folds, UTG calls.
SB has Q9o and UTG has AJo
Final Pot: 25 BB
So you want to be a limit holdem pro!!! Take more than a few of these in your session and try to keep from banging your head against the wall. This is a tough damn job.