3-2-1busto's Blog

Funny ass PLO extraction

He was spewy to begin with, and most certainly on tilt. I think my sale price on the turn was too good to resist.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2533268

I <3 PLO (for the moment)

I guess since I wrote that title I should start off talking about pot limit omaha. I think the biggest reason I have such a history of tilting plo, is its hard to get used to the swings. It is just way more turbulent the playing NLHE, and its a real gambler's game (which is one of the reasons I like playing it so much). However, you need to expect to go up and down. A LOT. REALLY REALLY FAST. For instance, in 10/20 NLHE, even 6 tabling, its rare for me drop or win more than 5K in any 30 minute period, and its really stressful to lose like 8K (I usually would just quit if that happens). Meanwhile playing 10/20 PLO its common to be up or down $10K before you blink.

It used to be really hard for me to deal with this, and maybe I was playing too high at plo simply for the tilt factor. So on thursday night through friday morning I played a marathon 11 hour session of 2/4 and 3/6 plo, in which I was down 3K in the first hour, then hovered there for a couple hours, at about 2AM I was even, by 2:45 I was up $1620, by 3:20 I was down $800, and by 5AM up $5500. I had several more $2-3k swings til 7AM when I finished I was +$3473.

The main reason I am so happy (besides making my monthly withdraws right after the session), was that although I lost focus a few times, I didn't tilt the entire night, and I think I was playing very well the whole time.

Today, I'm having a really nice day with the fam. After Tony's gymnastics this morning we went shopping with the kids. Tony wanted a Lakers jersey for "Jersey Day" at school next week, and Elena picked up a "Los Lakers" jersey which she likes reppin' the LA Latinos. It was a big enough draw that she decided to buy a Kobe Jersey as it was the only one they had left. If you missed it, they wore them for "Latin Night" on easter sunday:

Speaking of this I'm watching the game right now, but am paying more attention to the nfl drat right now, as the lakers.

We also got cool family pictures taken dressed up in the old school english fashions. Actually, given my hat, it looks like I am in the 40s and about to order a hit after posing for the picture.

In other news, I think I have gotten fatter than I ever did before. I'm looking for some motivation as I am now married and do not need to attract partners for adult diversion . So if you are interested in making any sort of weight loss related prop bet with me over the next couple of months, get in touch with me. I was thinking on the order of $10K would provide sufficient motivation for me, and it would be fun to see me in vegas for much of the series actually tring to drop weight considering that I don't sleep when good games are going and generally eat like crap during the WSOP.

Oh, I almost forgot, I made a graph of my monster PLO session:

A Rough Life

On the bright side, I've made $1400/hour this week, and on the brigher side, it has been only 2 hours of work so far :D

Swings and swings, and mental toughness

The last few days have been great, and trying, and then ok, then crappy, then great, then annoying, and ended up pretty good. That last sentence sums up poker in general pretty well also.

Besides, the money and how the cards fell, there were also swings in how I was handling things. At my worst, on monday afternoon, I was super sick with a nasty cough and a bit of the flu, and I lost a big hand just as Elena was coming home early to take care of me. I lost it, I yelled, stomped, and basically threw a temper tantrum.

On the other end of the spectrum, this morning I played a challenging heads up match at 5/10 against hibatchi41 on stars. I felt like I had an edge, but he is definitely a good player. I was up over 2 buyins, then he wound up coming back and being up a buyin, then I came back, with the aid of one suck out, to finish up +3 buyins. I think my biggest edge was that when things went bad for me, I just sucked it up and played well, and when he lost a big pot, he had a noticible decline in his play.

At 5/10 you can usually find better games than this, but occasionally I like to play a match like this, because higher up, how my mentally control yourself, is the primary difference between beating the game or not.

Anyhow, here is the graph of my last few days:

Holdem:

plo:

Weee upswings are fun

Just booked another good win today. This graph shows my last 8 days of playing starting with last Friday.

As you can see, my issue with being able to take a win are doing a little better :D.

I also just got $600 of rakeback in my busto fulltilt account, so I am going to celebrate this week by trying to gamble that into a reasonable roll on there. So I will probably start by playing 5/10 HU and moving up aggressively. My own little tournament. I will quit when I am bust or have 10K. FUN FUN FUN!!!

"Do you have to go broke?"

I don't know how many times I've heard, since I've started playing poker seriously, that if you are a poker pro, you will eventually get broke at some point. However since the advent of the latest poker boom, there have been lots of internet players claiming that that is completely due to bad bankroll management, and that there is no reason to ever go broke. I have seen this time and time again, usually from people who have been playing poker professionally less than three years.

The fact is that there are very very few players out there who can mentally be strong enough to never go broke. Its just tough. Whether you like it or not, you are gambling for a living. That doesn't mean you don't have an edge, and can't make a reliable living doing this, but what it does mean is that it is hard to not fall off your A game for months at a time due to the psychological aspects of gambling. And when it happens, not matter how good your bankroll management strategy is, you will need to be incredibly disciplined and have very few "life leaks" (over spending when times are good, drugs, alcohol, etc) to not go broke during the bad times.

It is not that hard to be a winning poker player over a fairly short period of time, but it is much more difficult to always be a winning player and to always have an edge. Even when the games are really good.

Anyhow, maybe I'm just making excuses for the last few months, but seriously, I don't think I even ran that bad during this time period. I put most of the blame squarely on my shoulders.

That said, its nice to be winning again :D

I couldn't sleep

Last night my kids were all over me in bed, and I couldn't sleep at all.

So, I got up at 5AM and played a short session.

I guess I can't complain:

Defeating the gamble monster within

As I finally feel like myself playing poker, I'm trying to figure out what was going wrong this year. Before I get to that, however, today I finally made it into the black (or green if you are talking poker tracker) for 2008, for the first time since January 8th. The biggest difference about this week, is that I am feeling much less compulsive about playing than normal. It might actually be helping that I am a little under the weather, so I am monitoring how well I am focusing much better, and just quitting sessions if I am not playing well or focused, and going back to bed.

Another big help is that I haven't been dieing to play poker every day. This might sound counter intuitive, but it helps with the well roundedness of my life, if some days I just don't feel like playing.

Another thing that has helped is that I am building gambling time into my day. This usually involves playing a couple of sit and goes or some short handed limit game, and giving myself a $1000 to lose, but a good portion of the time winding up winning money. I just looked at it, and in these sessions for the month I'm down about $280, over a lot of sessions. I would guess I might even be better than break even at this, and it gives me a chance to gamble for live tournament entries and the like. I do a similar thing out in vegas, and if I am feeling too gambly, I take a break from poker and play black jack for a little while.

Anyhow, I won about $2800 today,and so far this month I'm making about a dollar a hand at about half 10/20 and half 5/10. It feels good to be back :D

Defining Comeuppance

Comeuppance:

comeuppance

Main Entry:: come·up·pance
Pronunciation:: \(ˌ)kəm-ˈə-pən(t)s\
Function:: noun
Etymology:: come up + -ance
Date:: 1859

: a deserved rebuke or penalty : deserts

I've been really lazy about updating my blog, and in that time, I ran bad, broke my computer, ran good, took a vacation, and now have been on a nice little upswing. That about covers it.

I have also been getting what could best be described as my comeuppance as a professional gambler. After the last 6 months of moving up really fast and playing really well, I went on a three month losing spree where, I learned a lot about myself and how easy it can be to fall off your game, get desperate, and frankly not be a winning player even if you have the ability to be one. I read somewhere that until someone has been a professional for 3 years, they haven't really accomplished anything, and now I can understand it a little better.

Its also nice to be winning again. I've been playing very well since I took some forced time off, having my computer break while I was at my parents house for a week. When I came back I feel like I have slowed down and been playing very well, and making very good decisions.

Anyhow, I'm up about $10K for april so far, and I could really use a big month, so heres to hoping for the best.

Final Table

Most of the bigger entry tournaments are on the weekend, and between family time, and the fact that I don't play them too often, I never really have taken a shot at any of them. But last Friday, I wanted a change of pace and added some tournaments in with my normal cash games, and I did pretty well coming in second in a smallish one (out of four that I played). So Sunday afternoon, after I worked pretty hard around the house for most of the day, I asked Elena if she would mind if I disappeared for the rest for the day.

I played everything with a $200 buy-in or bigger on Stars and FullTilt from the time I got on (which was too late to play the biggest ones), and I final tabled the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Mulligan. At the final table I think I played really well, and just didn't win my flips. At one point I got all in in the biggest pot of the tournament so far with AK against 88, and failed to improve. Had I won that I would have been the chip leader with 6 people remaining, but thats tournament poker (as is the fact that 1st in this event won $46,000 and I took $4500 in 6st).

I want to thank Russell from Poker Zion for sweating me from the bubble on. You are a great tournament player, and helped me a lot in some spots that were a little outside my comfort zone.

My Horoscope

Elena just sent me the a link to my horoscope for today because she thought the first line was particularly relevant:

"Creative accounting" is one way to describe the effect innovative Uranus in your Pisces money house has on your checkbook.

Yep, that pretty much sums up my bankroll management :O.

Limit Holdem

Its funny, there are lots of No Limit Holdem players that act as if playing limit holdem is like watching paint dry. But in my opinion, playing high stakes short handed limit holdem is a very fun gambly game. Its much more about reading people moods, and perceptions, and hand ranges and then taking the appropriate response.

I don't get to play all that much, usually just after I finish playing for the day, I gamble a little bit at the limit holdem tables. When I first started I think I was a pretty big fish, but somewhere along the line, I got decent at the game. Its a game where much of the time no one has much of anyone, and its more important to save a bet when you have the worst hand, or to get one extra bet when you have the best hand.

But this leads to some fun situations where you bet a hand for value against a big part of a persons range, but then decide to bet for the sake of a bluff on another street without anything changing. For instance, in this hand that I'm going to show you, I re-raised preflop which I normally don't do with K9, but sometimes I like to change up whether I want to play the hand as the aggressor or not. I did this because I had won several pots and been showing down big hands, and this particular opponent had raised his button almost every time he was folded to. So I was pretty far ahead of his range.

On the flop and the turn on this board I was betting King high for value against numerous draw overcard combinations that exist on this board. On the river, I bet for a different more complex reason. I thought often I was ahead, but probably wouldn't get paid off by much that was behind, and likely I would bet and he would fold. However, if I checked, he was likely to bet only if I was behind, so I was going to pay off a bet whenever I was behind anyway, so it didn't cost me any more to bet. But there was a part of his range that was ahead of me that might fold to a bet, namely KQ, KJ, KT, and maybe maybe maybe a weak A high. When I got raised however I was getting 8-1 to call and see a showdown, so I need to be right just 1 in 9 times to make a profit by calling. So lets consider the villians range here that raises. It was probably either had a 6 or a hand that had no showdown value, but put me on a weak hand (correctly) and was bluffing. The much greater part of his range that beat me, a rivered small pair, or A or King high, most likely doesn't raise and just calls me. His range in general was so huge on this board in a button versus blind battle, but by him not raising the flop or the turn, the way we had been going at it, I found it very unlikely that he had a pair of 6s on either of these streets, as I think he would raise earlier for value hoping to get called down by Ace high and get an extra bet.

So basically getting 8-1 it was a clear call with K9 high.

Here's how it played out:

Reflecting on some leaks

I've been playing a lot this week, and still winning. Its nice to see my account balance growing enough, and I'm no longer worried about being able to make my with draw this month. So I've been trying to figure out what I can learn about losing money over such a long period. One interesting thing, is that most of my really bad losing sessions, start off with me doing really well for a little bit. Strange right? Well really, often I get intoxicated with the idea of having a big big winning session, and no matter how much I've won for the session, I'm hungry to have a "really big win." This in and of itself isn't bad because it keeps me from quitting good games early and book small wins and big losses.

However, the problem is, if I lose a bunch back, and am down a little or only up a tiny bit, after being up a ton, thats when I have the biggest issues. Thats when I really start to gamble, and once that starts, thats when I have giant losses.

So once you identify leaks like this, its easy to think of bandaid solutions to alleviate the affects ("stop win" limits, if you win more than a certain amount than, lose any of it back quit, ect.), but the problem is that still doesn't address the root of the problem and it winds up manifesting on other ways. So I am going to do some reading and thinking about gambling and thinking about this some more.

A second thing I noticed is that at the beginning of Pot Limit Omaha sessions I would often pay off way to often and take too many unnecessary gambles, playing big pots with marginal hands. I have thought some more about where this one comes from. For one thing, I think that these leaks in general are common in PLO for NLHE players in general, so why at the beginning of my sessions, and not throughout? Well, I think it has to do with how I start off holdem sessions before I have reads.

A lot of players start off playing very tight and straight forward, and I do to an extent, but in general I do a couple of things that are someone unique to both my game and I think very suited to an aggressive shorthanded game NL Holdem game. If I have a close decision, I opt for the decision that establishes an aggressive, action image. Furthermore if there is a close situation in which I can call to see a showdown or fold and I don't have a good read, I generally call, because it gives me more information, and helps me develop and image as unbluffable. As you can guess, having an unbluffable action crazy gambler image, is a great image to have in shorthanded NLHE games where usually no one has much of anything.

However, if you know anything about PLO its a game where not only does usually someone have a hand, but often the nuts is out there. Furthermore, being a calling station in PLO is huge leak and having an image of being unbluffable, is not all that useful, as people don't bluff as much anyway.

I do adjust well in any type of poker game, but that sucks after being stuck a ton, then having to play a whole sesion to break even.

Oh here are my results for the last couple of hands in NLHE, I also put in about 5K hands of PLO and won about 2K.

Poker Introspection

ugg, I wrote a huge post here, and was tweaking on last thing and somehow now it is gone. Oh well, just a little bad beat ;)

I guess the gist of it is that for the first time all year, I felt like I was playing my A++ game the couple of days. And that since my last little setback, instead of just moving down a level and being upset and playing bad before I either had to move down another level, or I could steady myself, and start winning, I decided to do something different. Usually the only other alternative is to take a break from poker. This is not a bad idea, and is usually pretty good advice, but I know that that just gnaws at me as well, and its difficult to really leave go of it.

So instead I moved down, and I decided to take this "time off" to work on my Pot Limit Omaha game. Now I have spend a good amount of time studying PLO and have paid for coaching to accelerate the process, but I don't think I was a very good consistent player. I had a decent A game, but my C game was absolutely horrible, and I'm not sure if I was actually a winning player in the high stakes games. It turns out the problem is, that I just had not spent enough time on the felt getting the experience necessary to be an expert at the game. The nice thing about internet poker, is that its possible to get experience fast if you are willing to work. I find that I can concentrate very well at up to 6 tables at once and not miss much, and you get about 3 times as many hands per hour at just one online table as you do live. So I probably played about 6 months worth of live poker last week. This combined with all the study I had already done, and all of a sudden I feel like a formidable Omaha player.

So i was really excited about poker and thinking about all the basics of the game in general, when I finally moved back to No Limit Holdem, and I was really really on my game last night. Then this morning, i had the best Omaha session I've ever had (not win wise, but how I played). Also, I've put my newfound passion for the game to good use, and recorded a small stakes video focusing my discussion around preflop decisions. More on that later.

I am also starting to learn all the lessons I need to from this dramatic downswing that I may be coming out of. Over the next couple days I will be writing about weird leaks that develop in your game that no one thinks about, and trying to figure out exactly what my theory of bankroll management is. As my wife said tonight, this last year has been one big experiment in finding out what works in our new business, and we need to figure out what worked and what didn't for the next iteration.

Before I forget, i wanted to post an interesting hand from my session the other night, where I made a move that worked because of the type of opponents (solid pretty straightforward 2/4NL multi-tablers) I was up against and the size of their stacks. It was because I was willing to take advantage of this type of play if it were to arise, that I thought I could call the re-raise with a small suited connector closing the action 3 handed. Here's the hand:

I am a baaaad lazy blogger

Ok, so I dropped off the face of the earth for a while. I had been running kind of bad, and recently decided to have a stint playing small stakes plo. Fun stuff, I'm up a little and ready to go back to Holdem.

i promise at least 4 entries this week so check back.

I will have pictures and stuff.

I also found a cool flash converter that I can use to put hand histories in my blog so people who aren't online poker players can actually understand them. Check it out:

One think I hate about playing low

Its pretty funny that the amount of money I am making is not the biggest thing I don't like about playing lower stakes for the time being. Its the table coaches. I swear, I never realized how higher up there are fewer people convinced that every one else is a total idiot when it comes to poker, and that they should tell everyone just how stupid they are. Don't get me wrong, this happens occasionally in higher stakes games, but people at 1/2 and 2/4 NL really think they are gods gift to poker. I swear, its almost not worth all the information about how they play that they spew forth and makes me just want to block chat altogether.

Oh well, back to the grind.

Finally not so sick

Everyone I know has had the flu for the last week, including me. I tried to play a few times during this stretch with mostly horrible results. Its hard to focus when you head feels like a balloon, and you ache everywhere. Now I just need diego's daycare to re-open, and I will be really back on track.

Anyhow, I finally got to put in a good session last night. 8 hours, +$3600. Its nice to be back at 2/4, hopefully I can put in the hours necessary this month to win a lot, make a big withdraw and have a bankroll to move up to at least high-mid stakes.

Oh also, thanks everyone who wished me a happy birthday over the weekend, I was gonna have a few people over, but I couldn't get out of bed, I was so sick, oh well. Anyhow, I'm 32 now :D

Still running good

Since the last time I blogged, I have played 4 decent short sessions, and booked three wins and one loss, winning, about 3K more. I'm pretty happy about poker and after I grind up a big more and make a withdraw, I will move up one level.

Talkin' Smack

After like 6 hours into a marathon session last night I was feeling a little bit giddy. Alright, a lot giddy.

Example #1 AIM with TheOgRe:

Busto (4:59:00 AM): even said it to ,myself then cahnged my mind lol

TheOgRE (5:04:17 AM): lol, vegas vacation is on

Busto (5:04:24 AM): lol

Busto (5:16:03 AM): woooo, don't call it a come back

Busto (5:16:11 AM): i love me when i haven't slept!

TheOgRE(5:16:53 AM): i hate it

Busto (5:25:24 AM): you hate me when i haven't slept?

TheOgRE(5:25:31 AM): haha

TheOgRE(5:25:33 AM): no

Busto (5:25:33 AM): i'm fucking hilarious.. damn it

Busto (5:26:41 AM): i just got 1/2 of my double stack back from that guy

TheOgRE(5:28:07 AM): nice

Busto (5:29:30 AM): i'm trying to win 3000 in one session

Busto (5:29:44 AM): at 2200

TheOgRE(5:30:04 AM): lol

Busto (5:30:04 AM): thats 15 buyins lol

Busto (5:47:28 AM): at 2920 :P

Busto (6:51:24 AM): at 3300

Busto (6:51:29 AM): movin on up!

Busto (6:51:55 AM): CAN I MAKE 20 buyins!!

Busto (6:51:56 AM): !?!?!?

Example #2 Smack talking in chat: (oh it also cracks me up that I completely own this guy and he thinks I played bad)

Here is the hand, notice the chat at the bottom:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2028138

Playing micro stakes

I have been having a good time playing 1/2 NL, and I feel like I have just now I have kind of figured out how these games play. Its interesting to be able to fold overpairs and top pair at times (just doesn't happen much at high stakes).

I think I had a very good night last night, as I won about 16 buyins, but I also played a 12 hour session and put in a ton of hands.

I'm tired.

I can't sleep yet, but I am tired.

Did I mention, I am tired?

Anyhow, here is the graph:

Cool recent pictures

I was taking pictures off the camera this morning, so I thought I would share some I liked.

Diego's a hipster

Tony ready for school

Diego having fun pulling mommy's hair

And due to what I wrote here about having no pictures of me because I am always taking the pictures, Elena has vowed to take more pictures of me. Here is one of the resulting pictures:

PS: I just read the comments from a couple of days ago. There was a question about how I manage my schedule to get enough hands in. In general, that has not yet become a problem for me, I love playing poker, and it usually is the first thing I want to do every day. For now if I don't feel like playing, I don't play. I know this doesn't sound very professional, but its the truth. The things I need to schedule is time for the family, what to do on the weekends, and makig sure i find some time to sleep.

Only one kind of bad beat story

Today I made up a new rule for my poker mindset that has already helped me tremendously. The rule is simple, the only bad beat or cooler stories I am allowed to share with anyone else are times in which I give someone a bad beat or cooler someone for a huge pot.

I like this for a few reasons, first of all, every single poker player I have ever met hates hearing bad beat stories from other players, and ironically every single one of these players thinks their own bad beat stories are somehow, different, or more horrific or unbelievable than anyone else's. (Even as I writing this I am tempted to share this one crazy way I got out drawn today, but no more).

Another reason why I like this, is I think its funny to tell stories about how you got lucky and outdrew other people. It fosters my image as an action player who throws his chips in the pot too easily, and it also keeps up my image of being ridiculously lucky. I think I also play pretty well, when I think of myself as lucky (even though I am quite positive that I am no more or less lucky than anyone else).

It also seems to stop me from feeling sorry for myself by whine to my friend about "HOW DAMN UNLUCKY CAN I BE"

I've also noticed that most players always remember when they get sucked out on, but don't remember when they get lucky, which is why so many gamblers are so damn miserable and they think the entire universe is conspiring to screw them over.

So anyhow I want to end this post with a awesome bad beat I put on someone, and the best cooler I have ever been a part of, both happened today at ridiculously small stakes NL game I was playing while rebuilding my bankroll. I will also post a third hand that involved an value shove for 150BBs with AK high that was called by AJ high hehehe..

FIrst, the cooler, this river card made my whole day!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2013614

Next seeing this guy get it in against the nuts:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2013625

Finally, check out this read, I felt like this guy was gonna try to win this pot no matter what, and by his timing and some other things about his bet, I really thought he was bluffing:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2013630

By the way, not matter how bad the last month has been, I still love poker!

Rough week for me

So now that I actually have a number of regular readers, of course I stop updating my blog for an entire week. Basically, I ran really bad, and probably didn't play to well on monday night, and my bankroll was pretty well decimated. I came to the realization that I had been pushing too hard, and hadn't fully come to terms with not being able to play high stakes because I don't have enough money for it.

So, after moping around the house for a couple of days, I decided to drop way way way down to where money wasn't an issue, and just try to enjoy playing poker again. And I have, I've been playing 1/2 NL (which I haven't played for almost 10 months prior to this, and never since I have been a pro). Its fun, I had a really good time the last couple of days, and won a little bit of money. I will be moving back up through the levels pretty soon, and there are some people that might want to put me in bigger games, but its just good to realize I still love playing poker.

A few of hands from last night

I had an interesting session last night, I won only like $2000 yesterday, but I was down a butt load last night and I think I played really well and battled back. I think I really had a good feel for the players at my table, and here were two interesting hands that I played.

Passive with TPTK

http://www.pokerhand.org/?196855

In this hand my opponent was skier, who is a pretty big winner at 10/20. Last night he seemed to want to play very aggressively against me it seemed. Its kind of weird, on Poker Stars he seems to stay out of my way, but I have a feeling he doesn't know I'm the same person on Full Tilt, and I also haven't been playing there much lately, so maybe he thought I had just moved up, or had a read, that I was overly aggro from a few months ago, or something. He can also bluff and value bet really thin if senses weakness, and on this type of board, I am not folding if he raises me, but I think I am behind a lot of the time. So I decided to check/call him down, no matter how the board came. As you can see he flopped a big draw and a good hand, if he had made a flush, i would have lost a big pot, but I think his thin value bet on the river more than makes up for the equity I lost if we were to have gotten it in on the flop. Furthermore, there is a good chance with top pair and the flush draw, that he would have just called me on the flop and turn and either folded the river if I bet big, or checked behind if I checked to him.

Value betting kinda thin (not really)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1968649

This hand was predicated on the fact that he was playing way too many hands and I was crushing, I think its standard, but you can see the difference in how I sometimes will change up my play against a regular based on the game situation. Also, because I know a lot of the students at pokerzion.com read this blog, and a lot of players don't value bet enough against weak players and would have either checked back the turn here or checked behind on the river.

I came really close to laying this one down on the river, but as it is, I think I played it well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1968680

I think this is an interesting hand because it demonstrates how play should change depending on an opponent and how deep the stacks are. I also noticed a timing tell that I will mention as well. I felt like I had a very good read on this opponents post flop play, and that I could profitably play A6s OOP against his late position opening range. On the flop normally I would be looking to play a big pot with top two pair, but two things made me want to slow down. This guy seemed like once he was 200BB deep that if the money went in, he would have top two beat. In fact, against him, I'm pretty sure I would have played a flush draw really fast here trying to make him fold, because most players get weak tight when stacks get deeper online. Also, he had a distinct hesitation on the flop, that felt like he had flopped huge and was tryign to figure out how best to extract. I think the river was a fold here, because he probably either had a flush or a set at least 80% of the time and I wasn't getting the pot odds to call. So even though I may have called off too much money, I think a lot of players go broke on this flop 200BB deep.

Bad night

I have been really bad about posting when I have bad days, and thats definitely part of this, so here is a quick one. I think I summed it up best in this IM exchange:

Friend (5:25:48 AM): how did u end up last night

Me (10:45:20 AM): i got sucked out on 3 more times and quit.. i think i lost a lot, but i don't want to add it up.. i'm going to commerce

Oh, I also posted some hand histories from that 25/50 session on 2p2 and some people make such stupid jumps from seeing like three hands. I wanted to say for the record, that I think my opponent the other night was not a bad player, and I have no idea if he was a winner or not at those stakes, because I only played 244 hands against him, and I think I was on my A++++ game. Here is my response in that thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?p=2290721#poststop

weeeee gambling up a bankroll

I just played a marathon session that ended with a very good result. Over 3 sessions since I woke up Tuesday morning I played about 5000 hands, and it was swingy!

Really Swingy.

Anyhow, I was running good on stars, but running bad on Full Tilt, and I had a very short bankroll on full tilt to begin with, and I was getting sucked out on in lots of pots, fun. So I had only $1700 left on fulltilt, which is really not enough to do anything with, except making small stakes videos for PokerZion.

So I saw IamTheFranchise sitting alone at a bunch of heads up tables, the smallest of which was a 25/50 table. I figured, what the hell, lets go for it, the most i can lose is what i have in my account. So I buy in for $1,762.40 (how embarrassing, but at least my name makes sense for it). Anyhow I played him for a little over an hour before he quit me, and I now have a reasonable bankroll for grinding 5/10 and 10/20 on full tilt. hehehe, gamble gamble.. here is the graph of the session:

Hows that for bankroll management, lol..

Earlier in the day, I let myself get annoyed by this one table coach, and had at him in the chat box. I can't figure out if I wind up looking pathetic or funny. Normally i just ignore the chat altogether, but this guy was really really annoying, and he really thought he knew how to play poker. So you can decide if I am an idiot or not, here is the chat from that table (and the hand that started it):

Full Tilt Poker Game #4874182057: Table Sandmist (6 max) - $10/$20 - $600 Cap No Limit Hold'em - 20:35:09 ET - 2008/01/15

Seat 1: 3-2-1BuStO ($1,284)

Seat 2: gOOgly_mOOgly ($2,155)

Seat 3: patsy130 ($2,506)

Seat 4: zinc2zinc ($1,620)

Seat 5: wysd ($4,342.75)

Seat 6: uglystyles ($1,130)

patsy130 posts the small blind of $10

zinc2zinc posts the big blind of $20

The button is in seat #2

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to 3-2-1BuStO [Ts Qs]

uglystyles raises to $70

3-2-1BuStO calls $70

zinc2zinc calls $50

*** FLOP *** [Qc 9c 5s]

zinc2zinc checks

uglystyles checks

3-2-1BuStO bets $155

zinc2zinc raises to $530, and is capped

uglystyles folds

3-2-1BuStO calls $375, and is capped

zinc2zinc shows [Ac 8c]

3-2-1BuStO shows [Ts Qs]

*** TURN *** [Qc 9c 5s] [8h]

*** RIVER *** [Qc 9c 5s 8h] [Ks]

zinc2zinc shows a pair of Eights

3-2-1BuStO shows a pair of Queens

3-2-1BuStO wins the pot ($1,277) with a pair of Queens

zinc2zinc: lol

zinc2zinc: wp

3-2-1BuStO: lol if you think it wasn't well played

zinc2zinc: no you keep calling all in q rag

gOOgly_mOOgly: nh busto.. wp

note: zinc2zinc he had been berating other people the entire session

zinc2zinc: moronic

gOOgly_mOOgly: is he suppose to fold?

zinc2zinc: monster

zinc2zinc: no fold equity

gOOgly_mOOgly: zinc what did u have

zinc2zinc: no kicker

zinc2zinc: its a good call

gOOgly_mOOgly: when u raised and folded

zinc2zinc: i love him

3-2-1BuStO: umm there is a 600 cap

3-2-1BuStO: i play 5K nl.. this is for fun, you are a moron

zinc2zinc: lol

zinc2zinc: for fun

zinc2zinc: sure

3-2-1BuStO: but i would be happy playing you heads up zinczinc

3-2-1BuStO: if you want.. i'm easy $$

zinc2zinc: easier in ring game

zinc2zinc: donk play suits hu more

3-2-1BuStO: lol

then on this hand i raise AJ otb and he pushes in the small blind to cap bb calls with TT and i fold

dipastilleros (6:33:39 PM): Full Tilt Poker Game #4874244629: Table Sandmist (6 max) - $10/$20 - $600 Cap No Limit Hold'em - 20:40:35 ET - 2008/01/15

Seat 1: 3-2-1BuStO ($1,791)

Seat 3: patsy130 ($2,496), is sitting out

Seat 4: zinc2zinc ($1,087)

Seat 5: wysd ($4,312.75)

Seat 6: uglystyles ($1,040)

zinc2zinc posts the small blind of $10

wysd posts the big blind of $20

The button is in seat #1

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to 3-2-1BuStO [Ad Js]

uglystyles folds

3-2-1BuStO: only bad players think i a donk

3-2-1BuStO raises to $70

zinc2zinc raises to $600, and is capped note:as soon as he does this I click the fold to raise button

zinc2zinc: ok

wysd has 15 seconds left to act

wysd calls $580, and is capped

3-2-1BuStO folds

zinc2zinc shows [Ah Kc]

wysd shows [Tc Th]

*** FLOP *** [6d 8c 9c]

*** TURN *** [6d 8c 9c] [6c]

*** RIVER *** [6d 8c 9c 6c] [4s]

zinc2zinc shows a pair of Sixes

wysd shows two pair, Tens and Sixes

wysd wins the pot ($1,268) with two pair, Tens and Sixes

zinc2zinc: nh

3-2-1BuStO: lol

zinc2zinc: lol?

wysd: 50/50

3-2-1BuStO: i was insta folding AJ anyway, donk boy

zinc2zinc: lol

3-2-1BuStO: i had fold checked before he called

3-2-1BuStO: you suck at poker

wysd: calm down girl

note: i have a female avatar, so yeah, sexism is alive and well at the poker table

zinc2zinc: 1010 was a dodgy call anyway

zinc2zinc: racing at best

wysd: i like to gamble

zinc2zinc: cool

then right after this on the other table this happens

dipastilleros (6:37:16 PM): Full Tilt Poker Game #4874340010: Table Gioeli (6 max) - $5/$10 - $300 Cap No Limit Hold'em - 20:48:34 ET - 2008/01/15

Seat 1: 3-2-1BuStO ($880)

Seat 2: gprime888 ($3,064.65)

Seat 3: chinaman16 ($1,005)

Seat 4: josh3336 ($1,000), is sitting out

Seat 6: zinc2zinc ($1,261)

zinc2zinc posts the small blind of $5

3-2-1BuStO posts the big blind of $10

The button is in seat #3

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to 3-2-1BuStO [Jd Kc]

T12ER adds $895

gprime888 raises to $35

chinaman16 folds

zinc2zinc folds

3-2-1BuStO calls $25

*** FLOP *** [4c 5d 3d]

3-2-1BuStO checks

gprime888 bets $265, and is capped

3-2-1BuStO has 15 seconds left to act

3-2-1BuStO calls $265, and is capped

gprime888 shows [Ks As]

3-2-1BuStO shows [Jd Kc]

*** TURN *** [4c 5d 3d] [2c]

*** RIVER *** [4c 5d 3d 2c] [9h]

gprime888 shows a straight, Five high

3-2-1BuStO shows King Jack high

gprime888 wins the pot ($603) with a straight, Five high

3-2-1BuStO: why would you bluff like that?

3-2-1BuStO: nh

3-2-1BuStO: wow grime that was either the worst play i've ever seen on the best.. don't know which. but gg

zinc2zinc: you had KJ

3-2-1BuStO: zinc2zinc, you are amazingly bad

zinc2zinc: you had KJ

zinc2zinc: and called him

zinc2zinc: then questioned his play

zinc2zinc: hilarious

3-2-1BuStO: zinc2zinc.. i want to play you again, for sure.. just give me time place and stakes..

3-2-1BuStO: for any amount, i will get backers if i need it..

3-2-1BuStO: 100/200?

3-2-1BuStO: higher?

3-2-1BuStO: seriously

3-2-1BuStO: if i am so bad, you should be jumping at this chance

zinc2zinc: not hu dude

zinc2zinc: diff game

T12ER: its a cash game

3-2-1BuStO: 200/400? 80K feezout maybe?

zinc2zinc: you v poor ring game player

T12ER: relax ppl

zinc2zinc: no idea hu

zinc2zinc: ty

3-2-1BuStO: i would love to play in any game with you.. if you played 200/400 and i could have the seat to your left at a full ring game, i would seriously take it no matter the lineup

zinc2zinc: lol

zinc2zinc: you upset 321

zinc2zinc: chill

3-2-1BuStO: not upset, i just like ribbing you

3-2-1BuStO: i like talking !@@@ to people that think they are good at poker but really suck

zinc2zinc: lol

zinc2zinc: yo have no idea

T12ER: first sign of madness talkin to yourself

Post on moving up levels

This morning I made a post on pokerzion.com that a lot of people I respect say was interesting, and helpful for them. here is the linky

Lil Busto helps with my website

Tony wanted to help out tonight, so here's what we wound up with:

Also if you have trouble remember how to get to this url, you can also go to www.3-2-1busto.com or www.dd323.com.

So Sick

No, it wasn't a sick suck out, or a sick run, or a sick downswing, and anything else sick poker related. I just woke up this morning and felt like a truck had run over me. I had been planning to go play at commerce today, but instead I went back to bed and woke up at 2PM.

This has been my MO for years though. If I get in a mood where I am working to hard, my body tells me to take some time off.

Oh some cool stuff going on my blog though, I have figured out a way to do email subscriptions, which I will be adding in the next day or two to my actual site, but if you want to get email updates, you can sign up from this thinger here:

Elena bought us a new video camera

Grindin it out and looking for a picture

I can not find a decent picture of me from the last 4 years (ie something that looks at all like me). I'm supposed to be sending pokerzion.com a picture for the homepage, and I am realizing that because I take most of the pictures of the family, there in general are no pictures of me. I found one picture from a Symantec Holiday party a couple years ago where I look pretty pimp, but it would look ridiculous on a poker web site. I will post it here, however, so I can feel pimp however:

Other than that it looks like I am stuck with this boring thing, which although its not to flattering, pretty much looks like me sitting at a poker table. Of course it was taken in Egypt at bar, but whatever:

Oh well it could be worse.

Anyhow, other than searching for a picture of myself, I have been grinding online. A lot. Like 21 hours and 11,000 hands in the last 3 days.

After a frustrating day at commerce last friday, I decided to just drop way down to 2/4 for a little bit, and then move up as fast as I could online. I really want to thank Elena, because usually I take the entire weekend off, but I think she could tell that I was a bit stressed, and seemed to be excited about playing again, so she let me take lots of hours and play during family time (usually during nap time and at night).

The deal is this, I am not pretending that my entire bankroll is the money I have online, as I have the ability to borrow, and put more money on if I need to. So I am trying to move up a level every time I have 10 buyins for the next level. This is certainly the road to go broke, if you can't get any more money, and you need to be willing to drop down pretty fast, but I think this is giving me the best chance of getting back in the 25/50 game by next month.

I also think having a lot of money in february is potentially very very profitable, as by the end of this month there is going to be a regular 50/100NL at commerce because of the LAPC, and I would much rather have all of myself than have to take on a backer to play in it.

Things are going better now, up 8K since saturday, and moving back to 5/10.

Still here

Sorry I haven't been updating my blog. I have been running kind of crappy until friday. I had to get used to the lower games again. Tide seems to have turned. I update again later :D.

2007 Results

Happy New Years!

This thread should be a fun look back at last year. In January of last year, I had just moved up to 1/2NL, and had a bank roll of $6000. I still worked at Symantec, as a Senior Software Engineer and a key member of the Mobile Security Solutions team.

Anyhow my results.

Live Results:

Online NLHE (where I spend most of my time) annotated results:

Learning PLO, then tilted all my monies away on my last work day of the year.. ugg

Also, I got scammed for about -$8,000, won about $321 staking people (lol, I don't think I staked anyone for under $1000 ever), and lost about $15000 doing random gambling - mostly blackjack, but a little betting horses at the track and some random prop bets.

More goals

Since its the time for making goals for the new year, here are a few more. Yoga at least 2 times per week. Regular financial meetings with Elena.

Me and my 4 year old have waaay too much in common

We just came out to philly to visit my family for the holidays, and when my 4 year old, Tony, gets out to mom-mom and pop-pop's house, he is hilarious because he wants to do everything all at once. He comes in and he wants to eat cereal, and have an ice cream sandwich, and ride his car, and find his binoculars, and watch spiderman, and every other thing he can remember, and he wants to do them all RIGHT NOW!!

I think my life as a professional gambler is pretty similar to this, and my wife is constantly wishing that I would just stick to my bread and butter and not try to expand in every direction all at once. The problem is, I'm intrigued by way too much stuff all at once. This big hit I took gambling at PLO is probably a prime example, along with trying to learn how to bet sports, and wanting to learn to count cards at black jack just for a diversion in my spare time, oh yeah and how about the tournament i want to enter or learning triple draw, and staking people out of my already too small bankroll, etc.

Its important when I start to get distracted like this to think of my goals for next year:

1) Average $100K poker profit per month

2) $500K bankroll by the WSOP

3) Have a sufficient bankroll to play 25/50 again by february

4) Establish a killer winrate at 5/10 and 10/20 while building my roll back (don't take the games lightly and beat them for as much as possible)

To do these things I need to stop trying to diversify for right now, and I need to stick to the games in which I am already an expert, primarily NLHE and some shorthanded FLHE.

Happy Holidays from your favorite degenerate!!

Merry Christmas or happy holidays or happy end of the year or whatever you celebrate!

My kids just went to bed, and I'm about to finish wrapping gifts, but I'm procrastinating and thus updating my blog from my parents house in PA.

So I'm done playing for the year, and if I had played one day less I would probably be extremely enthusiastic about starting the next year, but I should have known that everytime I get to full of myself playing poker, the gambling gods give me what I need and knock me on my ass. Long story short, I can be such a degenerate gambler at times, and high stakes PLO is like crack, and I dropped about 1/3 of my poker profits for last year in a giant tilt session that lasted the entire night before we were going to fly across the country for our family chirstmas celebration. gg bankroll for 25/50 NLHE... I can be so stupid at times. To punish myself i am going to probably spend January grinding back my bankroll at 5/10 and 10/20 instead of trying to borrow money to stay in the 25/50 game, even though I have been winning at a very respectable rate at 25/50 NLHE. Also, i am not allowed into the 25/50 PLO game until I can put in at least 50K hands beating 10/20 and below.

Well off to wrap presents!!

See you'ze later,

BuStO

Random thoughts from a donk on a heater

So I'm a total luckbox fish, just ask my opponents:

Here is some funny chat from a 25/50 table in which Dustin Dirksen (JohnSmiley1) was needling BrynKenny about stacking off to me after I rivered a 15 outer against him <3.

JohnSmiley1 said, "u knew it too"

BrynKenney: folds

JohnSmiley1 said, "i know u did"

BrynKenney said, "i know that these donks run so good"

dd323 (this is me on stars if you didn't know) said, "<---donk on a heater"

BrynKenney said, "dd lets play 5k hu's"

BrynKenney said, "4 at a time"

JohnSmiley1 said, "when your name is dd"

JohnSmiley1 said, "could u be anything other than donk"

JohnSmiley1: raises $140 to $190

JohnSmiley1 said, "i don thin so"

BrynKenney said, "obv not"

BrynKenney said, "but when ur running like god"

BrynKenney said, "doesnt matter"

lol, I guess you need to put up with donks like me when you are trying to "go big or go home"

One of my friends, chase was trying to figure out how I could play pretty tight and still have an image that I never have anything. Then he sweated me when we were in vegaas together, and he was like, "you really do never have anything, now i'm more amazed people fold to you so much." I told him later the key to my success is to cultivate a loose online personna via my blog. ;) Oh and one other cool thing from my trip is that my "online friends" who I had never hung out with irl before, all call me busto. I finally have a poker nickname, baaaallllliiinn..

My results have been decent this month, for the first time ever I am having a 6 figure month online, unfortunately, I ran bad playing live and lost a ton last week, or I could have crushed my biggest month ever, but as it is, I have just a couple days left to play for the year, and I am happy with where I am at. I will post a thread later that kind of wraps up the year and puts up some goals for next year, but my month to date graph for online play is so pretty that i will post it at the end of this post.

But, before that, I wanted to talk about philanthropy for a little bit. First of all, for me, I have been involved in politics and specifically in trying to build mass movements on the left for years. I still dedicate a lot of time and energy working with the Labor/Community Strategy Center (LCSC), which has been involved in building some of the most powerful mass movements in recent history here in Los Angeles. Poker players in general are very generous, probably because at times it seems like money comes so easy to them, and I applaud the work of Barry Greenstein and others that has increased the level of charitable contributions for the poker community, but as an individual, I am more interested in funding organizations looking to not only address the root causes of what is wrong, but also that seek to challenge injustice and racism where it exists. I gave money this year (more than $10,000 in total) to many other groups this year other than The Strategy Center, including groups doing on the ground work in New Orleans (The People's Hurricane Relief Fund), San Francisco (POWER), and many groups in LA (KIWA, The Garment Worker Center, LCSC). I sure I am forgetting lots of other smaller donations I made along the way. The purpose of me writing about this, is to encourage other people to do the same. Most near and dear to me is the LCSC, and if you are looking to donate to just on of the groups mentioned, I would choose them. Drop me a line for more information, or call them directly at 213-387-2800.

So without further ado, my graph for December:

Lost a luxury automobile, getting a raise

So I got back from Vegas on Sunday night, and the throngs of cheering fans and paparazzi waiting for me at LAX were undoubtedly disappointed, as I made a last second switch and flew into Burbank so i could get home earlier. Anyhow, damage for the trip was pretty good. I lost around 60K over the course of the trip playing live, primarily 50/100NL with an ante. I think I had an edge in the game, but I have to admit, I didn't play my best poker this week. I also won about 25K online during the time I was out there, so I am still up money this month.

Anyhow, Elena and I decided, that starting in January, we are getting a raise, meaning the amount I take out of my bankroll to live on each month is going up. I think we just want to make sure that the family sees some benefit from me getting the rush of moving up.

Oh one other amusing story, I was dropping off the my 1 year old at day care on monday, and his teacher said, you seem happy you must have had a big week. And I was like, "sort of, I lost a little more than I made my first year out of college." She seemed pretty surprised.

WOOOOOOOOO HEATER!!!

So I normally don't post multiple times in one day, but holy feces!! I AM ON SUCH A HEATER!!

I played two short sessions around a pokerzion.com meeting last night and was up $27K, which was my best online day ever. Then, I woke up in the middle of the night and felt wide awake, and played some more and won another $14K

bringing me up to $43K, my best day ever. Then this afternoon, I glanced at the tables and the games still looked sick good, so i jumped in again, and BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Biggest Online Win Ever!

I rarely get overly excited about winning in poker, because then I am really down a day later when I have lost almost all of that back. But tonight I finally ran good at 25/50. After being down this month as much as $38000, and frankly not playing very well in the 25/50 games at times, tonight the games were really good so I jumped back in there on 6 tables. I wound up winning $27K in about 2.5 hours. I definitely experienced some positive variance, coolering a few people and even sucking out in a big pot (QQ > AA aipf). But I also felt like I played very well, and was making really good decisions. Here is one of the interesting hands from the night where I flopped middle set in a 5 handed pot on a really coordinated board. I decided to check-raise the flop and risk a free card coming off, because 5 handed on a board that should hit someone. I was actually very happy that the villian who had bottom set had it 200bb deep, because he had seen me been ridiculously spewy on other time with an overpair deep, so i thought he would pay me off with worse. If someone had floped a straight or 888, I was willing to go broke here.

Poker Stars, $25/$50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players

MP: $3,000

CO: $13,279

BTN: $925

SB: $8,164

BB: $1,050

Hero (UTG): $9,436

UTG+1: $6,147

Pre-Flop: 7d 7c dealt to Hero (UTG)

Hero raises to $150, UTG+1 calls $150, MP folds, CO calls $150, BTN calls $150, 2 folds

Flop: ($675) 6h 7s 8d (4 Players)

Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $450, CO calls $450, BTN folds, Hero raises to $2,900, UTG+1 folds, CO calls $2,450

Turn: ($6,925) Kh (2 Players)

Hero bets $6,386 and is All-In, CO calls $6,386

River: ($19,697) Ks (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $19,697 Pot ($3 Rake)

CO mucked 6c 6s and LOST (-$9,436 NET)

Hero showed 7d 7c (a full house, Sevens full of Kings) and WON $19,694 (+$10,258 NET)

Anyhow, this puts me up for the month, hopefully to stay. Now to just reproduce this again!

UP :), then DOWN :(, then UP :), then lol

Well I am starting to get used to the swings of playing a significant number of hands at 25/50. It helps that I have been running very good at 10/20 while I'm getting used to the way the 25/50 plays. It seems like it plays way different, but I think I was adapting my game to much. The money still seems big to me, but it doesn't affect me the way it affects most people. I don't become weak tight, I become even more of a calling station, not good, I already was too much of a station. Anyhow I was positive for the month for a few minutes yesterday afternoon, then I dropped like $20K and I was not pleased with how I was playing. I mean, the cards were pretty brutal to me, but I think I could have lost around 12-13K instead of 20. Then in the middle of the night I woke up and played for a bit, and won $18K, and even more importantly, was playing pretty well.

In other news, a friend of mine who owes me $ just won a tournament, so I will be getting some of what he owes me back :D. Oh, and I was chatting with him, and we talked about going to a low stakes table and pushing every had when you are feeling stressed. Then I remembered how funny it is to see the micro stakes players reactions to be basically offered free $ (some of them don't like it apparently lol). So I remembered I had $300 or so left in my Full Tilt Poker account, so I decided to go spread the joy at 25NL. Well I ran sick sick sick hot ! How hot?!?! For 40 hands, I pushed every hand except when I got a walk in my blinds or didn't reload in time.

The best part was there was this guy named "I Got Game" who was really really really pissed at me, because he lost a hand to me, when for some reason he decided that 44 was a good hand to get it in against a random, assuring he was almost never greater than a 55% favorite against almost any two cards (which is pretty stupid when you can pick any hand you want to get all in). Well in the chat he was really pissed, and saying how I was "Ruining the Game", etc. Well then next time he gets it all in with me I had picked up AK against his AT and won, then he won won, but I wound up stacking him again, and then quit. I sent everyone else back their $ except for him. Some people just deserve to lose.

I posted the rush including chat on the poker zion forums here.

This one's for Ryle

Well I was about to make a post anyhow, but I just got this message from a friend:

me: hey man, hows it going?

Ryle: good in seattle, gots to go though, I'm going to read your blog tonight.. there better be an entry for me

Well here it is!

So the first week of December has been interesting, fun, exhilarating, trying, etc. In family life, Christmas has my four year old Tony so wound up that he is constantly excited and stimulated, and his emotions are running over the poor kid. I mean he is having the time of his life, but he wants everything and to do everything all at once and then he gets super frustrated. This time of the year is also a little stressful for me and Elena because we know we are going to travel, and the month seems short, and there are a ton of things to do.

That said we are really enjoying the holidays this year. We bought a tree, and decorated the house. Well its mostly decorated, I need to get over my on-again-off-again fear of heights (even though I ski and have jumped off cliffs before go figure) and climb up on the roof to finish hanging the lights. Elena wants me to just hire someone to do it, and I would be down for it, but, well, all the neighbor guys, who already see me hiring people to do every manly type thing for me, saw us fooling around trying to hang the lights with this pole thing Elena bought to hang them up with, and now they will see someone that is paid to hang them up (most likely our neighbor mario who I pay to do our gardening already) and I will really feel like the guero guy who doesn't do anything himself....yeah, i know my ego is a pretty big weakness :)

Oh and here is a picture of the kids with Santa, the problem is Diego wouldn't let go of me, and was really, really scared of Santa. Oh also I took the kids last night after school to the closet mall to get their pictures with Santa. Now we live in South LA, so the closest mall is the Magic Johnson Plaza down on Crenshaw. When we were leaving, Tony and I were talking about where Santa's reindeer were, and if we had gone to the north pole, and then Tony says with a smile, "Well maybe that was a pretend Santa.." I asked him why (wondering to myself if he noticed that Santa was black). He says, "Because he never said ho ho ho when he laughed." heh

So poker is also going in a similar fashion this month. I had my biggest online day ever over a marathon 16 hour session that started last Tuesday night and ended around noon on Wednesday in which I play more than 7000 hands and won over 22K. I followed that up with a short session last night in which I won ~4K (but was up as much as 12K but I lost a few big hands right at the end, oh well). I probably would have been pretty excited, if not for the fact that due to my Saturday and Sunday night session to start the month, I'm still down about 8K for the month. God, I love my job! Its been so enjoyable that my graph even looks like a big crooked smile!

I also just shot a video of me playing two tables of 5/10 NL that will be featured on www.pokerzion.com. It turned out ok, but for much of the video several short stackers were on my table,. On the bright side, I think I play very well against short stackers, and I think I did a good job of explaining why my strategy makes sense. Hopefully this will make games a more hostile place for ratholers, so they stay away from my tables (we can dream can't we).

Oh one more thing before I got. Elena is always telling me she wants me to put this in my blog so that people don't think we are rich (yet). When I win a lot of money it is difficult, because in a sense thats not our money yet. Its still part of the capital in our poker business, which is probably about the most capital intensive business there is. I am still in the project of building a bankroll large enough to play the biggest games out there, and this will take some time. Subsequently, during this period, we take a decent salary (just a little more than I used to make at Symantec), and have substantially increased our charitable contributions, but most of the rest of the money stays in my bankroll. I think the main reason she wants everyone to know this, is because we need to constantly remind ourselves about it to keep us from spending too much money for our "Salary." Anyhow, thats all :D

November is in the books!

Well, I have played my last session for the month, and I have to say I am pleased with my turn around this month. I think by the end of the month I had back my A game in my online play, and it was nice to run really good playing live for the week when I was bust online.

In total, it was my best month ever, and my second best month for online poker. I wound up approximately +$85K. Here are graphs for how it broke down.

Live:

Online Holdem:

and Pot Limit Omaha:

There were two other cool developments that I am excited about at the end of the month. I started to play high stakes limit holdem again, with decent results after my initial adjustment period where I dropped a ton, and i wound up positive in both the 50/100 and 100/200 games on stars over the last few days.

I also am in discussions with pokerzion.com about having a bigger role in the site. I can't announce anything official yet, but I am very excited about the possibilities and hope to have an exciting announcement in the upcoming weeks.

I also finalized my plans to go to vegas for part of 5 diamond next month.

Bring on December, and I hope everyone runs good in life!

Riding out the month

I'm sorry its been so long since I updated my blog, but I was doing family stuff over the weekend as there was thanksgiving at my wife's cousin's house, followed by my father-in-law visiting for the weekend. Thanksgiving was great, as we really get along well with that part of Elena's family. The only funny thing about it is that that particular branch of the family tree loves poker. They have all been playing for a lot longer than I have, and play constant home games and home tournaments, and this includes men, women, and children. So after dinner, they pulled out the table and we played a couple of $10 buyin tournaments. There was lots of fun, and trash talking, and suckouts, and I think I was outplayed most of the time. It was a blast.

Anyhow, I didn't work until Sunday night as I was staying up playing so I could drive my father in law to the airport at 4:30AM. I am finally playing well, and running good online though. But I have learned a couple of things I thought I would share. When i am playing well and running well, I often want to play at any time, no matter what the games are like, and how tired I am. So often I pull and all nighter, then bring the kids to school, sleep for a few hours, and get up and play another session, and in that other session I often lose back too much of my profits. So I am making a rule, for the time being that if I stay up all night I take some serious time off, taking it easy the next day.

I had a very good week online so far, and I am pretty excited as unless anything goes wrong, this should be myu best month ever earnings wise. I am finally in the green for the month online, even including my shots at 25/50 where I am -$18K for the month. Here are my graphs for this week, notice even when I run good how swingy things can be:

And here is the graph of my 1 session of PLO, where I also ran pretty well:

YAIY FOR POSITIVE VARIANCE!!

Swings and more swings

Well, I feel like apologizing to my family over and over again because I have been a pain to live with this past week. Poker has just been super frustrating for me this week. I think I was pushing a little too hard. I put in 18K hands in one week, and wound up -$6K. Furthermore I went from 0 to +15K to -2K to +13K, to -1K to +6K to -$6k during the course of the week. So on Sunday, I just took the day off altogether. Then on Monday, I sat at a bunch of tables and started playing and just was not feeling it, so I quit after 10 minutes, and decided to just go to Commerce and enjoy myself playing poker for a day. There I also started out playing not so well, and lost my first 5K buy-in pretty quickly, but I came back strong, and started playing really well, and wound up +$24890 for the day. So if you are keeping track that means I am down ~20K online, but up about 57K live, so up 37K for the month, but not feeling great about my game for the moment. At least I love this fickle game still, and love "going to work."

aaaaa now thats better!!

I almost forgot this very important equation in my life (illustrated below with visual aids):

YOGA:

+

POKER:

=

PROFIT:

Yep, the above graph is from my 1.5 hour morning session, in which I thought the games were not that good. I think that its probably a sustainable winrate ;).

Oh and I had this amusing conversation with my friend Russell who has been running horribly via AIM this morning. Names have been changed to protect the innocent

*** TURN *** [6c Qd 5s] [Ad]

loosefer: checks

Bertonni 888: bets $54

loosefer: raises $84 to $138

Bertonni 888: raises $144 to $282 and is all-in

loosefer: calls $144

*** RIVER *** [6c Qd 5s Ad] [As]

*** SHOW DOWN ***

loosefer: shows [5c 5d] (a full house, Fives full of Aces)

Bertonni 888: shows [6d Ah] (a full house, Aces full of Sixes)

Bertonni 888 collected $719.50 from pot

3-2-1BuStO (11:11:59 AM): ugg

3-2-1BuStO (11:12:26 AM): you need a lucky horseshoe or something..

I_RUN_SO_BAD (11:19:10 AM): or something

3-2-1BuStO (11:13:30 AM): stop walking under ladders next to black cats, will you?

I_RUN_SO_BAD (11:20:17 AM): lol

My spewtastic and triumpant return

I was kinda nervous about returning to play online this week, and part of me (ok, a lot of me) wanted to just keep going back to commerce to play the softer live games for the rest of the year where I am fairly confidant I am one of the best players. And because I could play the 20/40 there for the rest of the year, and then the 25/50 at the Bellagio, it becomes even more tempting, as I could probably make a comparable hourly rate to what I would make online in the same time-frame.

But while thats probably the easier path in the short term, I went back to playing playing online anyhow. Why? Well a couple of reasons. I need to remember that if my primary short term goal is to move up and play in the bigger games (and eventually have a much higher hourly win rate), namely making 25/50NL and above online my main game, and my primary midrange goal is to have a 500K bankroll by the start of the WSOP, then I need to improve my game. And while there is some chance I could run really good and meet my monetary goal playing only at commerce, its unlikely, and relying solely on running way above expectation to get there. Basically, Its not a good plan to reach my goals. Also, while I will adjust and probably learn how to play deep stacked better than I can right now, there is nothing like the level of play online to make me get better faster. Also, I am still a winner online, but my confidence was a little shaken after busting my accounts trying to move up too quickly, so I needed to "get back on the horse" and show myself I can hang.

Well, I started my first week playing primarily at poker stars, where I have not been a regular for some time. I have probably made some buddylists (or "bad players to follow around lists" for non online poker people) for at least of few of the regulars on there, as 1) I am relatively unknown on this site 2)I spew pretty bad when I am off my game 3)I was really off my game for a few periods in my marathon comeback session. I'm too embarrassed to post the hand, but lets just say I value stacked myself with AA unimproved for over 300BB ($6000 in a 10/20 game). As some of my family is reading this blog who might not know what that means it translates roughly to "I really really really suck at poker at certain times." But just so you don't worry about my chosen profession my results suggest that I suck at least a little less than most other people playing the game.

Speaking of results, I don't think I ran particularly good during this session, but I played a ton of hands over 3 sessions over the last 36 hours, and started to remember what my A game looked like. I wound up +$4K over 9800 hands (5800 at 10/20 and 4030 at 5/10) for a pitiful win-rate. Looking back through hands I played I can find at least $6000 profit in blatant mistakes I made that when I am even playing pretty well, I won't normally make. But I am pretty happy, because i feel like I can still crush these games once I am back into the swing of things. And, as far as controlling the "compulsive gambler inside of me" I never was tempted at all to even look at the 25/50 line up, even after a friend mentioned there was a really juicy game going on. Self control: 1, Gambling beast: 0 (take that gambling beast)..

The other thing I'm really happy about is I got up and did a short yoga practice this morning. I had been off the wagon for a couple of weeks (since before egypt), and I forgot how addicted I was to yoga and how it helps me clear my mind and focus. I'm hoping this brings about a yoga bender of sorts this week. It may even be starting, as the games are probably the juiciest right now, but I am considering forgoing playing to go to a 5:45AM yoga class at the studio down on Crenshaw.   I'm such an addict, first day off the wagon, and I'm already blowing off work to get my fix.

Oh I had also promised some folks that I would post a bunch of pictures from the Egypt trip, so before I forget:

    chillin with the crocidile mummy

    hmm, old stuff

    wow

    yeah, this is sort of how i like to remember hanging out in Egypt

    no captions necessary, isn't this crazy cool!!

    one mean ass camel

    should I be worried?

Well i should have had a losing day yesterday

I played the commerce 20/40 again yesterday, and it was a very swingy day. For much of the day I felt like I was playing very well. I got there at 6:45AM because my kids woke me up, and I wanted to try to catch the remains of the table from the night before, and man, they looked like they had been there for the night. Which is usually perfect for my game, and its really nice to be a clear thinking fresh player. I often when I play on the internet start my sessions at 3AM PST when I feel like some of the regulars are stuck and semi tilted along with the bad players.

Then the game got even better as a really fun gambler loose canon sat down at the table. Whoever "got lucky" and won big pots against this guy was probably gonna be the big winner for the morning. One of the most important skills, in my opinion, in games with someone who is going to double someone up before to long, is to beat the other players to his money if at all possible. Since the table was playing loose and gambly, and once he entered a pot he generally didn't like to fold, if he limped it was very smart to raise big to isolate him with a very wide variety of hands. He wouldn't just give up the pots post flop, but if you did hit a good hand, you were definitely liable to get paid. So the big hand, where at least a few people at the table thought I was a donk as well as him. There were two limpers including him, and I raised Qs4s on the button to 240, the BB called , and my friend to my right called. The flop came 644, now if any decent player wanted to play a giant pot, I would be very careful, but if he had me beat with trip 4s, I was going broke. Here is why I wanted to ply pots with him, the main thing I noticed about him was that if he thought he had the best hand, i we over-bet the pot, no matter if he thought anyone would call him or not. So into a pot of 700 he bets 2000 into me, I raised to 5000, he insta-calls. The turn can a 2 and he pushes into me for another 6000, I call and he shows down TT in the hole, and I scoop a $25000 pot.

After this I wound up getting sucked out n 3 times in moderately big sized pots, and losing a big hand when someone flopped a straight on a rag board and I flopped a big flush draw with AQs.

Then came my giant suck out hand where I prove I run better than anyone else ever in live poker. I was pretty tired by this point, and I think to be honest I was a bit tilted because I had because after being up 20K, I was only up about 6500 now. Anyhow, I had been quiet for a little while and this guy raises to 140, I repop him out of the small blind to 600 with KQs. Now I think this was actually pretty bad against this guy preflop, because he didn't raise a wide enough range, and we were both about 12000 deep, and KQ doesn't play that well OOP in big pots deep. Then the flop comes K87, and I bet 1200 (this was my second mistake in the hand, as I think a 800 bet would have done the job), he thinks for a second and reraises to 2500. Now I know that his almost his entire range here is AK and QQ, he really seemed like the type this deep to 3-bet with AA or KK, and he also was the type to trap post flop but he raised for information usually and to make a hand easier to play. And I think for the most part he has AK here and I should fold, but then I think about it a little more, and I can legitimately represent both KK and AA here, and he will have a hard time calling a push with just one pair. So I decided to make a big move. He tanked for like 5 minutes and finally decides to call with AK. Oh well, turn comes a Q, and I hit my 3 outer, and will forever be able to get paid off in the commerce 20/40 from now on :D.

Just to show how sick I have run this year live, here is a screen shot of my statistics for every live session I have played in 2007:

So no matter how bad I run in the coming months I need to remember I have run hot hot hot at least live..

Maybe I should only play live poker

So I played this week on Tuesday at the Bike and Wed. and today at Commerce during the day time hours. I am running insanely hot this year playing live. I wound up +$15620 for the 3 days. Yesterday was my biggest day where I made tons of hands playing 10-20NL and won $10100, but today I felt I played my best poker I have in some time, especially when I helped start a second table of 20-40NL short handed.

During that time period I won about $3000 without ever showing down a hand. I ran one big bluff after which the player I bluffed (and he folded to my river push) got up from the table and left the game. I like to think it was because I was to his left ;). When I got moved to the main game, there was this one really aggressive player who played way to many hands, and was basically trying to run over the table. I was really happy how I handled him, as I got him to fold when I wanted him to, and call down when I wanted to, and even induced a few bluffs against him. I was playing tons of hands against him, because he was in the blinds when i was in the hijack and the cutoff, and the table was very passive, so I was raising limpers or opening with any playable hand, because he was defending his blinds out of position with almost any two cards. I think he thought I was a weak spot at first because he didn't recognize me, so he was playing almost any pot I opened, which probably wasn't as bad in position because he could make my life miserable at times, but OOP he was in real trouble against me.

Anyhow, its really nice to be winning again. Even if I have money online tomorrow, I am considering playing the 20-40 at commerce. I'll think about it more tonight.

Rock, I'm about to be back in action!!

Note to self: don't bust your account again..

After 2 money transfers between my own banks, getting a check and overnighting it today, and two days of playing live in LA card rooms, I am pretty excited that by tomorrow night I should have money online again!!

Anyhow, playing live at the Bike was fun yesterday, even though the 10-25 never got going while I was there. The 5/10 was fun to play, and pretty uneventful other than the side bets going on. Moe, one of the hosts for the game, and one of the regulars, AJ, were playing a 7-2 bounty for $100 and never being one to turn down some gambling, I joined in too. It works like this, if you win a hand holding 72 as your hold cards, everyone else participating pays you $100. So I ran really bad in this bounty. I got 72 against Moe's 72 and he was utg and I was in the small blind. He wound up putting in the last and ballsiest bluff, and not only did I lose ~$200 in the pot, but then I needed to pay him the extra $100 (I was really close to coming over the top again, because the way he played the hand, I thought there was a strong posibility that he had 72 too lol).

Then I wound up getting it all in for 400 against AQ with my 72. Also, let me just say, that this bounty is the worst (or maybe the best) for my already too crazy live image. As it is whenever I reraise, no one ever gives me any credit anyway, due to some choice showdowns from the past, but if I am playing the 72 bounty, it made it so I could almost never squeeze or make lots of preflop plays that I would normally be able to get away with, because now on top of my image, they can legitimately put me on 72 as well.. damn, should have thought of that. In all I wound up down about $700 playing.. gamble gamble..

Luckily, I made it up, when 6 of us flipped for $100, and my 68o held up by rivering a straight to take it down. Is it wrong that I got more excited about that then winning a $4000 pot with the nut flush against top set all in on the flop?

Anyhow, it was a swingy day, and I played ok, but only wound up +$500 for the day, well, better than losing.

I'm deciding if I'm gonna play at the bike again today, or if i'm gonna hit the commerce 10/20. I should probably go play the bigger game, but I really enjoy the everyone knows everyone else atmosphere at the bike. It almost feels like I got invited to a home game because everyone seems like they play there every day. I should enjoy this, because I need to grind a ton of hands the rest of this month, and probably the next time i get to play live (which I really like doing) will be when I go to vegas in december for 5 diamonds.

Alright, off to commerce, or the bike, or commerce..

Wow, even better

So just to add to yesterday's post, my wife read my blog post and was like, "you didn't even put the real reason I told you for trying very agressively to move up to high stakes." I was like, "what, now?"

So she reminds me how I have been talking about how much I want to have a ton of money by the World Series in June so that I could jump into whatever live game I think is profitable for me (100/200+), and that I seem to play very well in big live games. She also thought my staking strategy (that I'm not going to share here) will make $$. WOWOWOWOWOW I am soooo in love.

Oh, and one other thing. I got a couple of IM's after my last post about how lucky I was to have found my wife, and comments about girlfriends not understanding. Well our "poker partnership" wasn't always like this. Early in my playing days she absolutely hated poker and wanted me to quit. She hated late nights without me, she hated how i was obsessed, she hated how i would go into debt while running bad, etc. In fact, as of last summer, I had an ultimatum where I deposited the last $500 I was ever gonna put into poker, and she was hoping and expecting me to fail. Since then, she has seen me put the family first, and restrict my playing hours, worked with me on bankroll managment, so she would understand the swings, I am not ashamed to say that after our second son was born we started couples counceling which has made are relationship much stronger, and now we have learned how to run a poker business together.

Oh, and in other news, i should have $$ back on stars and FTP by tuesday or weds!!! so I will be back in action and giving updates!