When you’re ten years old, and a car drives by and splashes a puddle of water over you, it’s hard to decide if you should go to school like that or try and go home and change and probably be late. So while he was trying to decide, I drove by and splashed him again. –Jack Handy
Instead of trying to come up with something interesting to say every day, I thought I might just save it up and post a summary.
Friday, July 2:
Ok, I almost got off track tonight. I played the normal 3 tables and got killed on one. I was down over $80 at one point but I clawed my way back to show a $33.50 profit before the night was out. Interestingly, I went up almost $200 on another table and as I gave back my winnings on that table I was making up my losses on the other table. Overall, I cleared $229 over 892 hands and was able to earn $50 of my pending $100 deposit bonus. I’ll do another deposit to try and get another $100 bonus credit which will be an easy $200 just for parking $1000 in my account.
Here’s the stats per table:
Table 1: +$152.00
Table 2: +$33.50
Table 3: +$43.50
Bonus: +$50.00
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Total: +$279.00
That brings my total winnings to $540.75 which is over 1/4 of the way to my 60 day goal in just four days. I know this can’t last forever but I’ll take it for as long as the poker gods decide to smile upon me.
I reset my PokerTracker prefs to only show results since I started this quest and I’ve noticed some interesting trends. Ok, so 1500 hands is not exactly a huge sample but I’ve always been a little cautious about using my total hands to date as a data sample because I really played poorly when I first started and it’s hard to get a bead on trends when you notice that at one time you used to raise A6o in early position 🙂
AQo is a particularly bad hand for me. I’ve only won with it less than 40% of the time and I’ve lost $42.00 in the 18 times I had it. In fact, when I look at the suited and unsuited broadway hands (except for pocket pairs) I’m finding that I tend to stay with the hand too long. I need to slow down a bit if I miss the flop. I think that’s what’s killing me.
Saturday, July 3:
The poker gods finally decided not to smile upon me today. I just kept running into bad beat after bad beat. I was also playing against some sneaky players on the table I took my beating on (wiping out my profits on the other two tables). If I had been able to better limit my losses I would have been in up for the day.
No pre-flop raise. I have QJo and the flop is rags. I bet, he calls. Turn brings a Q. I bet, he calls. River brings a 10. I bet, he raises. WTF? Pocket tens? Two pair? Nope, pocket aces.
These are the types of guys you’re supposed to beat but today was just not it for me. If I had AK of diamonds, the flop came suited spades.
I played 398 hands and I might have played more and tried to end up in positive territory but I was getting a little frustrated and noticed that I was not playing very well in that emotional state. I decided to take my small loss for today and enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Table 1: +$49.00
Table 2: -$134.00
Table 3: +$37.00
Bonus: +$20.00
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Total: -$28.00
So today marks my first loss. I’ve had 4 huge days and this small loss. All in all, I’m feeling confident I’ll hit my $2000 goal.
Sunday, July 4:
Wow, what a beating I took last. Overall I lost $165 but with deposit bonuses my realized loss was only about $65. I actually thought I was playing one of my better games too. Wait. I as playing one of my better games. I wouldn’t say I was playing perfect but I was tight and getting properly aggressive when I was in on a hand. I was extracting every bet I could when I had the best of it and laying down big hands when I knew I was beat or I didn’t have the odds to keep drawing. So why the beating?
I was curious about that myself so I looked through PokerTracker and it confirmed some of my gut feelings. I played about 1800 hands over the course of late eve July 3 into the early morning of July 4 (which I’m counting as my play for July 4) and here’s my distribution of pocket pairs:
AA – 9
KK – 5
QQ- 4
JJ – 4
TT – 8
99 – 5
88 – 8
77 – 6
66 – 9
55 – 11
44 – 3
33 – 15
22 – 12
The entire session I felt like I wasn’t getting any playable hands and although the above is only representative of pocket pairs, looking at other playable hands confirms that this trend went deeper than the pocket pairs. I was dealt KK – JJ less times than I was dealt 33. The pocket aces (and my AK hands) were a mixed blessing as when I won with them I either won pre-flop with a raise (big whoopie) or on the flop when a K or A hit and I bet out. In fact, I think the only thing that pushed me into positive territory on the AK hand was two hands against the same fish:
Hand 1:
QJTxx
I’ve got AK, he’s got K9 and he gets into a raising war with me on the river. I thought for sure we were splitting the pot but I then he turned over K9 and I almost fell out of my seat.
Hand 2:
Flop comes three suited cards and I have a suited ace but an offsuit K (I also had a straight draw). This guy is betting at me with everything he’s got. I bet, he raises. I already know he’s a little loopy so I put him on trying to represent the A but . . . I have it so I just call. Turn brings nada. I check, he hesitates and then bets. I call. River brings the lovely fourth suited card. For some reason I just know this fish will either bet if I check to him trying to bluff me or lay it down if I bet so I check. Of course, he bets and I raise and he calls. He had a small pocket pair. He types on the IM “I knew you had the flush.” I typed back “Yeah, I got pretty lucky.”
Other than that, I didn’t make much money on the big hands. I wanted to cry because there were so many fish and they were giving away so much money but I couldn’t get a hand to save my life. You’re sitting there watching hands go to A high or a board full of broadway cards and some fish turns over his pocket sixes. It was like starving to death and the only tv channel you can get is the Cooking Channel.
And me? I kept getting those hands juuuuuust good enough to keep calling. You know, you have AQo and the flop comes JTx. Turn is junk. The pot is huge because of the raise pre-flop and I have to call one more bet. River is junk. Fold. I was also giving away my money on those boom or bust hands like 33 in late position. Limp in on the button or in the CO hoping to see a cheap flop. SB raises. God Dammit!!! (in my best Eric Cartman voice). Flop comes AQ7. Bye-bye. Enjoy my $4.
And that’s exactly why I’m not too disappointed with tonight’s beating. I really feel I got off those hands when I could and I stayed with them when I should. Sure, I made a few mistakes here and there but going back and mentally reviewing the game and using PokerTracker to confirm some things, I don’t think I made any real big errors. It was a lot of drip, drip, driping of bets to see a flop on a playable hand and then getting out of there when it was obvious my hand was dominated. My big cards didn’t pay off as much as they should and I couldn’t seem to hit the big draws as often as I would have liked. In fact, I would say that had even just 4 or 5 hands gone differently (like AQ not running into a flops like KK2 or everybody not folding pre-flop to my AA), I probably would have broken even. $165 is about 41BB. So, maybe 4 or 5 is too big a range. Maybe even 3 or 4.
Well, I’ll keep plugging away and we’ll see how it goes.
Monday, July 5:
Grinded out a very small win to end out my first week with a $480 profit. $200 of that was from a deposit bonus so winnings-wise, up $280 which still a little ahead of my goal pace.
Whew, now let’s see what next week brings. 🙂