Up and down....loss for the month.

Hey all (or anyone):

Well, on my stage 2 WSOP qualification, I finished 3rd...that sucked. One guy kept hitting hands on the river to stay in....pissed me off royally.

A bit of a strange week. My sit-n-gos that I played the week were a common theme...fifth. I seemed to be able to get to the midpoint but that was it. Very weird...a little too weird.

I did some research and I found on a discussion board a strategy for playing these events. I tried it out....and got a 2nd place!!! Cool! It did show some leaks that I had with certain cards that were causing me to lose chips. I'll be keeping this handy.

I finally played my 500k qualifier on Tigergaming.com. There was 150 people where first place got a seat into the 500k event! I decided to use my sit-n-go strategy for the most part...and I placed 50th. Not too shabby considering that I usually don't play in larger tournaments. I was fine with it as I was making good decisions (with the exception of one hand that crippled my stack). I went out with Ad9d against Ah8h when my opponent hit an eight on the flop.

The big event this weekend is the Negreanu Protege event on FullContact.net. I'm hoping to play that one.

Later.

Great weekend for poker!

Hello to any readers!

I had a pretty good weekend for poker. I played a 0.50/1.00 game for a brief period of time and made a $5.00 profit for a half-hours work. Loved that. I hate to hit and squirrel, but it may be necessary until I can get things built up.

I get weekly emails from Tigergaming.com when I opened an account over there. It was just a play account but they are having a 500k tournament and I had a free entry to one of the satellites. Anyway, I reinstalled the software and checked my account. In addition, I had 0.20 cents in real money for some reason.

Actually, that change came in handy. Tigergaming has started their WSOP main event satellite tournaments and the first level's buy-in is just 5 cents...so I had four entries.

Here is the deal. A five cent entry fee gets you into a 5 player short-handed game where the winner gets an entry into a stage 2 satellite. There are 6 stages in total (see tigergaming.com for details....please click on the link on the right hand side...it would be appreciated).

I could have bought directly into stage 2 with the 20 cents but I wanted more playing experience so I bought into stage 1 events...my final results?

One 1st
Two 2nd's
One 3rd's

I thought I played well overall using some concepts that I learned in Harrington's book...plus I got a seat into a stage 2 event. I still have my entry ticket into this 500k tournament that I have to cash in yet as well.

So overall, things are looking up. Wish me well in the stage 2 event!

Just checking in...

Hey folks (if anyone reads this):

I haven't been playing online over the last few days (other than Poker Academy and World Series of Poker for Xbox). Playing these games has their advantages if you look at it as practice or training. I use them to work on my pot odds calculations and such. I'm looking forward to Stacked when it comes out...

Well my wife is heading east in April for work reasons. Since my folks live where she is going, she is taking our daughter and making it a mini vacation. It will be good for my folks in that they can see their grandchild for about a week and a bit.

I'll be staying home since I would only have a couple of days vacation accrued by then. However, since they are gone...I'm taking a day trip to Niagara for some poker while they are gone. Looking forward to that.

I've noticed that some of the websites seem to be having freerolls for the WSOP...Full Tilt comes to mind. I'll be trying my luck at some of those...

Soon time to get back online and try to administer CPR to my bankroll....

Still trying...and losing...

Hello one and all (or just me if no one is reading this):

Well I tried my luck at a $6 SNG and finished fifth. Can someone explain this to me...why do people try to go broke on the first level of these things? I don't understand it. Sure, I get that the blinds will go up after 10 hands but it isn't like you are short stacked after level 1 is over.....

Anyway, if the deck was any colder to me, it should have given me frostbite. I didn't get any cards whatsoever. I limp in with club suited connectors (6c5c) and the flop would come Ah Kd Js...you get the idea. I wasn't in a pot past the flop...except for one.

The best hand I had was a pair of 10's. The flop brought rags. I bet...2 people called. The turn brought another card. I bet....one raised, the other called...I folded and the person did have their straight with the turn card. My reads were pretty good throughout but I could not get any cards going at all. Very frustrating.

I'm going back to the drawing board. I have been reviewing my history on Poker Academy since I play a similar way on that software program. I was losing money with A-rag (A-2, A-3 etc..). I think it is time to bring out the starting hand chart again. I suspect I have strayed from that and am leaking money in the blinds and stuff. I suspect my starting hands are a little less than optimal...time to tighten it up.

I finished off Matt Matros book this morning. A pretty good read I must say. Now I can look more at Harrington's book...plus I think I'll have to dust off Lee Jones Low Limit book again....time to turn things around.

Later.

Worst....session...ever...

Well....that sucked.

Lost about $16 bucks playing 0.50/1.00 limit hold'em. I'm disgusted.....

I have had time to think about it and really I only lost the money on two pots...both flushes with someone making a bigger one. I started with $25, lost the first big one...and hung around $18.00 or so until my last hand. Needless to say, my bankroll is on life support (around $25 of that free bankroll is left).

So now what?

After sleeping on it, here are some thoughts that I have had.

1. You will have bad sessions. Nothing you can do about it.
2. Trust your instincts. This has been working for me. I have bet when I had the best hand...and folded when I no longer had it and was drawing slim.
3. I did win several pots in the session..just the big ones did me in.
4. Now I'm forced to play extremely tight...no room for error. I told myself that I wouldn't be putting my own money in and I am planning to stick to that.
5. You will win again. There isn't much you can do when (a) you don't get decent hole cards or (b) the flop is lousy or people make their beating hands on the river.

I now need to decide whether to play hold'em ring games, Omaha 8/b (since apparently you can play it with a smaller bankroll), or stick to SNG's since I seem to have had past success with them. Decisions, decisions.....if you have any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to comment.

Time to lick my wounds and get back to it.

Just a few thoughts...

Hey.

Well I didn't play much last week...at least not for real money anyway. I've been doing a lot of reading plus playing with some ideas on Poker Academy for the PC and World Series of Poker for the Xbox.

I'm currently reading two books (the multi-tasker that I am). Matt Matros book "The Making of a Poker Player" is a good read. It isn't a strategy book per se but more of his stories of how he got into the game and the challenges he has faced along the way. I can certainly recommend it to those who like to read about poker in general.

The other book is Harrington Volume I. GREAT BOOK! I'm learning a lot in this one about tournament poker in general.

I finally got a referral on my Poker Source Online account. Cool! If you are looking to get free stuff when creating money accounts on poker sites. Check out the image on the right hand side of the page. Can't be beat....don't forget about the free bankroll you can get with either Party Poker either! Just use kk_rush as your referral code (end of plug).

I'll probably play some online poker the weekend....got to get rid of my deficit for the month!

Later.

Finished up for January....down for February.

Hey all (if anyone is reading):

Well I finished up around $4.00 for January. However, I'm currently down $6 for February as I didn't cash in a Sit-N-Go last night. I don't think I did anything bad or anything like that...just didn't work out. Pocket Aces getting cracked for example.

I'm currently reading Harrington's Volume I. GREAT BOOK! I must say that I am learning a lot in it. I'm also reading Matt Matro's book. Pretty good read.

Unless you live under a rock, all poker fans probably know that Andy Beal is back in Vegas to take on "The Corporation". Frightening levels they are playing at from a financial perspective.

Later.