The last few days I've been putting together a few small wins and starting to turn this thing around, and then just now I had a AWFUL session on interpoker. I had so many premium (ATs+, KQo+) hands and I just missed every fucking flop and had absolutely no respect. Lost a little over $2400. COMPLETELY wipes out the small gains I've been making, and then some. FUCK.

sorry to hear about the downswings, xas.

just curious... how, if at all, do you change your game when you are not hitting flops and get "absolutely no respect"?

when i play HU, i know i leave the table if i don't think i can get a guy to lay down. that's probably a bit drastic for 6max, but stil...

You can either tighten up until you demand respect or do the exact opposite and play a little faster, giving the impression that you're on tilt. The former stops the bleeding can make back some of the losses and the latter can get you back to even if you hit some hands or bury you deeper if you keep missing (precisely what happend to me today!)

Xas... I thought you were back in the black...? Guess you used up all your horrible suckouts on that HU masterpiece...

I've been playing on Interpoker mostly lately and I'm generally already on all the tables of the limits I want to play.

*cough*....good luck on the highway there.

Holy crap.

120K?


Good luck!

Trip Report:

I wake up real early (read as 9:15) and get ready and all that shit and head over to Matt's (Shamrock20) house to pick him up. He has a dentist appointment so I go there and after he finishes there we grab some dangelos (sandwich shop around here, like subway, I don't know if they have them we're ya'll live) and then get on the highway for the long drive.

We switch off every 10 minutes listening to his crappy hardcore music from his MP3 player to lsitening to my crappy pop music on my ipod. I speed by 2 speed trapping cops and don't get pulled over, I must be running good. Then a little later on the New York State Thruway I am in the high speed lane doing about 92 or 93 and I say jeez, I should probably slow down a little, so I lay off the gas a little. All of the sudden on my left I see a cop and Matt and I know this time I'm definately toast. Luckily I had decided to slowdown about 30 seconds before so when I fly by him I'm only doing around 85. He pulls me over and informs us that he is a New York State Trooper, which really came as a shock to Matt and I. He asks me if I know why he pulled me over and I said "I think I was speeding." He says "That's right, do you know how fast you were going?" I said "I would guess probably around 85." He says "Yea, I clocked you at 83, I appreciate the honesty." He grabs my liscense and registration and goes back to his car for whatever reason and comes back and says "You know I don't like pulling people over and getting out of my car and letting them off with just a warning." I then had to hold back every sarcastic bone in my body from saying "Apparently you do." But luckily I was able to supress that side of me and I drove off. He also asked where we were going and coming from, maybe he is a big gambler and likes Turning Stone and that's why we got off, I really think it was that honesty thing.

But I digress, we got there at like 7 or some shit and check in to our room and jump on the beds and act like little retards for a little while then grab some food at the season's harvest and head to the poker room at about 8:00. We were both fairly tired from getting up early and the long drive and such so we only played for 3 and a half hours.

I was playing $20/$40 (biggest they were spreading) and he was playing $100 max NLHE. I booked a $491 win and he lost a whopping $20. Matt heads to the poker room at around 1:00 the next day and I sleep a little later and don't get down till 1:30ish and after lots of waiting for a seat at $15/$30 I decide to sit and play some $10/$20 while I wait for $15/$30. One middle aged gentlemen at my table attempted to go all in on the river for about $70 which was pretty entertaining. After and hour and a half I get called over to the $15/$30 game, after winning $240 in the $10/$20 game. The guy to my left at the $10/$20 table tells me that there are "A lot of good cardplayers in that game." Well I beat those good cardplayers for $963 in about 2 hours. It was a pretty darn funny scene IMO. The guy to my right at the $15/$30 was prolly in his late 20s, and there were maybe two people in their 40s, and everyone else was 50+, then there was me, this little 11 year old looking thing with a pyramid of red chips in front of him. Good times. Matt successfully booked another losing session, this time a little more, about $60!

We go up and watch the Penn State game which I had $200 riding on (I won!) but aren't able to go down for another good session after the game since it went into 47 overtimes. We played heads up in the hotel room for a while though, but we didn't have any chips. Matt went down and bought a rack of whites and brought them back, but when we decided to play stud, we needed different denomination chips, but neither of us wanted to go down to the poker room to get more, so what did we do!? Well we used my $100 bills as antes of course, because at this point I had so damn many of them! Damn it feels good to be a gangster.

We get up early the next morning for checkout, and pack up the car and head back to the poker room for one last session. I hopped in the $15/$30 game and Matt played $100 NL, and after blowing another $70 there he decided to go to the bottom feeding game of Turning Stone, the $1-$3 spread limit game. Well let me tell you guys, those players didn't know what hit them, they were completely outclassed by Matt! He made back about half of his $100 NL loss for the day in the $1-$3 game and I made a very modest $126 in the $15/$30 game after 4 hours and we headed home. Much complaining about running bad and sucking at poker was provided by Matt on the ride back.

Totals:
Jaime: +$1820 before expenses (food + gas + hotel).
Matt: -$150ish before expenses (food).


Interesting Hands:

$15/$30 my image is good, I'm getting respect but not too much, the guy two seats to my right has even been saying how impressed he is with my play, especially for someone of my age and the table seems to agree. Villain in this hand is also young, maybe 22, and is pretty good. He seems to 3 bet a little too loosely and doesn't fold 1 pair hands heads up even when maybe he oughta. Good player though. Anyway I open raise AKo in MP and he 3 bets in the cutoff. Given his first quality I want to 4 bet, but because I'm not gonna pry him off of TT or JJ on an under-board with a pre flop 4 bet I decide to just call. The flop is AK8 with 2 diamonds. I've seen him muck a big pair when led into on an A high board but will definately fire if checked to, but check calling seems way way too obvious to me, so I decide my best bet is to hope he has an A and check raise here. I do and he calls and the turn is a big fat brick and I fire and he quickly calls again. It seems to me he has AJ or AQ here and definately wants to show it down. Because he is young and I think he will agressively value bet rivers with 1 pair hands like myself (old guys tend to check in general), I decide I can check-raise the river. I check the blank non-diamond river and he gets a very confused look on his face, ponders for about 10 seconds and bets, and I raise and he calls and MHIG. I really think is one of the best hands I have ever played because I extracted the absolute max and had my opponent confused and guessing all along. The gentlemen 2 seats to my right again talks about how well I played.

$15/$30. Villian in this hand is new to the table but I VERY briefly played $10/$20 with him on my last trip and saw him in $30/$60 then too. He is apparently a very very wealthy jeweler and a consistent large donator. So far at this table however, he hasn't gotten too out of line. I open raise KQo in and he 3 bets in LP. The flop is 892 and I check call and the turn is an A and lead out and he ponders for a few moments before mucking his TT or JJ. I am so good at this game some times.

$10/$20 Villain #1 in this hand is new to the table and clearly impressed by Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem and has decided to come to the local poker room and play a little poker. He seems like an absolutely excellent human being, but pretty dreadful cardplayer. Villain #2 is a old regular, who is kind of a "nit." He won't chop, even at full ring, although pretty much everyone else does. He is very capable of folding decent hands for 1 bet if he strongly thinks he is beat. He has been raising way too much so far this session, he may be raising with any A because $10/$20 is too small or because he's on tilt, or perhaps he is just running fairly hot. Either way, I think he is capable of trying to isolate a stupid weak limper like Villain #1. Someone just left the table so I have to post a small blind on the button, and there are 2 big blinds. Villain #1 limps UTG and Villain #2 raises in MP. I look down at QJo and say "this may be the worst call I've ever made," before tossing out $15. The flop is K45 with 2 diamonds, and I have a diamond! It goes check check to me and I can't contain my youthful aggression and fire out a bet and lose neither player. Yuck. The turn is an offsuit deuce and it checks around. The river card is a 3 and all of the sudden one of my hole cards turns into an A when it goes check check. I fire and Villain#1 folds and Villain #2 says "Your ace is good," and proudly folds his JJ faceup. I then show him my QJo.