I’ve been on about a 6 month hiatus from poker. After my hot streak between February and March, winning almost $9k in under two months, I had a bad run. I lost about 15-20 buy-ins ($3-4k) straight, almost solely from bad beats on the river. There were a few hands that I played poorly, costing me a buy-in here or there, but most of these were hands where I had top two pair vs. an overpair or a set vs. an overpair. Every time, villain and I would get all our money in on the turn, and with only one card to come, I would be about an 80-95% favorite to win the hand. It went without saying that my opponent would always catch his 1-5 outer, giving him a better hand to scoop the pot in each of these situations.

I know that many poker players are too full of pride, often looking back and ignoring their poor play when they got stacked. For this reason, I really had to think about my play and if I truly was not analyzing the hand from an optimally strategic standpoint. But when I recall the hands I played, I truly was a mathematical favorite in the large majority of these scenarios. As I stated, I certainly admit that about three of these hands where I was stacked were poor play or hands where I read my opponent correctly and still put my money in (with a strong hand that had outs at least), but more often than not, I simply took a pretty consistent onslaught of sickening beats.

I think that’s a big part of why I’d like to get back into the game. I know that my play is pretty good for the stakes I’m attuned to, and I am fairly consistent with regards to my strategy and my overall winrate. I return to Atlantic City for the first time since April a little over a week ago, visiting the Borgata. I played some $1/2 for awhile, ultimately losing the $300 I brought to a set-over-set, a scenario that is relatively unlikely.

Undeterred, I decided to return once more this weekend. I was going to head there on Saturday, but there were flash flood warnings due to the hurricane headed northward along the coast. As such, I made my way back to the Borgata on Sunday. I brought $400 with me, but I only needed to buy into the game with my initial $200. I played a solid game, and after 8 hours, I managed to build my stack up to $803, booking a $603 profit on the day. Combined with my last visit, I’ve already made up for my initial $300 loss, earning an additional $303.

I usually sleep in my car at the casino since the room rates are unarguably steep for my financial status, but I couldn’t seem to fall asleep this time. I decided to get a cheap ($35) room in Absecon for the the night, and I fell asleep shortly after grabbing a bite to eat.

. . .

Monday did not go too well for most of the day. I hardly played a hand all day, as I was significantly card-dead. The few hands I raised with, I always managed to get multiple callers and completely whiff on the flop. Most of these pots I had to give up, costing me a few chips here and there. I finally had my first pocket pair for the day, pocket tens. An early position player raised, and I called in the cut-off. The button called too, and we saw a flop of QT9 with two clubs. The pre-flop raiser checked, and I bet about 3/4-pot. The button raised making the play heads-up, and I decided that I was going with my hand here no matter what. I figured the worst-case scenario was that I was up against a made straight, to which I had enough outs to a full house or quads. Unfortunately, it turned out he flopped a set of queens, leaving me with only one out that I of course did not catch.

After about seven hours of play, I was hovering around -$400 for the day. Finally, I started hitting a few flops, and I built my stack up a little bit. Soon, I found that one old guy who joined the table was bluffing constantly with very large bets, and I decided to take a stand against him. I raised QTs in middle position, and both the small blind and the old man in the big blind called. The flop came 988 rainbow. The SB checked, and the old man bet full pot. I smooth-called, and the small blind folded. The turn was a blank, and the old man bet full pot again (about $40). I raised to $100, and after he insta-folded, I flipped my bluff face-up to let him know I mean business.

Showing my bluff set me up perfectly for the hand that played out about two hands later. I raised JJ to $10 first to act, and there were about six callers, building the pot up. The flop came 8-high with a couple draws, and the old man bets $40 into me. Just like the previous hand, I raised to $100 right away, and after everyone else folded, he called me without hesitation. The turn was a Q making me a little bit nervous, though not entirely, but I checked behind just to play it safe with the intention of calling most river bets. The river paired the bottom card on the board, and he bet $100 into me. Given our history from the prior hand, my knowledge that he’s a bluffer, and the fact that I slowed down on the turn making it look like I could be given, I felt compelled to call. He flipped up J8 for a pair of 8’s, and I showed my JJ to scoop a ~$460 pot. After brining myself back up to +$99 for the day, I decided to get some dinner.

After dinner, I decided to play a bit longer. I was seated at a different $1/2 table, buying in for another $200. After only a short time playing, an interesting hand played out. A middle-aged gentleman who recently sat to my right limped into a hand after a couple other limpers. I raised to $10 with 99, and several players called. When the action came back to the new guy on my right, he re-raised all-in for about $100. I was initially confused about his play, but after some deep thought, I decided he probably has a hand like AK or perhaps a middle pair like 88 or 77, which I’m ahead of. I didn’t want to flat call inviting other players into the pot, so I re-raised all-in. Another short-stack (who I later found out was a terrible, terrible player) decided to call the all-in too, which I wasn’t expecting. As I suspected, the new guy had AK, and my 99 held up against both players after flopping a set.

Perhaps the most interesting hands in my trip was one that happened at this table. After limping 63s behind a couple other limpers, a young guy with $600 in front of him raised to $15. Two players called, and with the pot already so big and the implied odds of hitting against the kid, I shrugged my shoulders and made the call. The flop came 852 rainbow, giving me a gutshot straight draw. The kid bet out about $20-25 after being checked to, and I decided to call one time even though I normally don’t chase gutshots in hopes of doubling up. The turn was a Q, and we both checked. At this point, I assume he was playing AA/KK a little scared or decided to slowplay a turned set. The river was the 4 I was looking for, giving me the second nuts to 76. I immediately bet out $100, and the kid was completely stumped. He took about 5 minutes, and he even had to have time called on him. He flipped up 63o (the same hand as me) saying that he thinks I have 76 for a better straight given how I played the hand. He finally decides to call, and he breathes a sigh of relief when I tell the dealer to chop it up. I’ve got to say, I didn’t put him on that hand at all!

After a bit more play, the table finally broke after a couple players busted and others decided to leave. I ended up booking another win of $375 on top of my $99 win earlier in the day.

I wandered around for a bit, as I wasn’t feeling tired, and I sat down at a different $1/2 table. My run here was very short, and I dropped $200 when I played a flopped pair + straight draw strongly vs. an overpair. The guy with the overpair wasn’t afraid of my having a made straight or set despite the board texture on the flop, and he put me all-in after I check/raised him. I was getting proper odds to call, and I missed my 9 outs twice.

A bit irregular for me, but after reading a little bit on card counting, I decided to take $100 to the blackjack table. Since I was inexperienced at counting cards, I had a little difficulty — specifically I was sometimes adding when I was supposed to be subtracting and vice versa. However, despite my difficulty in counting accurately, I still managed to keep a relatively close running total, allowing me to modify my bet sizes accordingly. After a couple hours, I managed to make back the $200 I lost plus another $120 in profit.

Feeling particularly satisfied, I decided to get some rest. Not wanting to sleep in my car again, and also not wanting to pay for another motel room, I decided to try a tactic I read about on the 2+2 forums. I asked for one of the keycard sleeves at the check-in counter, which they quickly obliged. Since security checks that visitors have keycards to enter the elevators and lounge area, I simply flashed the envelope to the security guard in order to get by. I took the elevator to the spa & pool, and I took a long nap in one of the recliners by the pool.

. . .

The next day I planned to head home, but I wanted to get in a little play first even though I was concerned that I might lose back some of what I already won and didn’t want to feel like I had to stick around longer than I wanted to in an effort to win it back. Fortunately for me, I did get a seat, because I easily had one of my top three runs at the cash table. I was getting tons of good hands, and I was hitting almost every single flop. I had AA three times, KK once, and TT once, and each time I either stacked someone or won a significantly large pot. I flopped a set with 22 vs. a player who couldn’t fold QQ, and I flopped two pair with A8 in the blinds vs. a girl who tried to play KK tricky by limping and couldn’t fold it post-flop. I flopped top two pair w/ QTo in the BB and got a few callers who didn’t believe I could have another good hand. I flopped trips with 72o in the big blind another hand. After all this, I won $1008 in about 2 hours!

Overall for the trip, I left with $2195 more than I brought with me. I wasn’t nearly expecting to win that much, but I’m very thankful that I did, especially after things looked like they were turning sour the second day.

I’m hoping to return for the $300+50 event during the Borgata Poker Open next Monday. I expect that there will be a lot of players since it’s during the World Poker Tour event, meaning that first prize will probably be $50,000+ easily. I’d rather not pay the full entry if I can help it since I just started getting back into the game and because tournaments have more of a luck factor than cash games, so I may ask my dad if he wants to buy half of me since he’s recently been able to see the potential I have at the table. But who knows, maybe I will buy my way in anyway even if he’s not interested.

I’m about to head to AC with my girlfriend for a couple days, so this is just a quick update.

I ended up going to the Borgata yesterday for their $215+35 satellite into their upcoming 3-day deepstack $500,000 guaranteed tournament. First of all, I got there at about 10:30am (the tournament was scheduled to start at 11), and the line lead out of the poker room, all the way back to where the hallway in the casino splits (by the cashier’s cage). I’d estimate there were about 200+ people in line in front of me. It took about 45-50 minutes to get through the line to get a tournament ticket, and while I missed a few hands, I didn’t miss any blinds.

The tournament itself went really well with regards to my play and my stack size. I tried to play more conservatively than I have before in tournaments, as I know I raise too many weak hands (e.g.: QJs) in early position. I ended up folding more paint cards when there were more people to act behind me, and I think it helped me out a ton.

Everyone started with $6,000 in chips, and by the second break I was up to about $30,000 in chips. With about 600 players and the top 10% (60 players) receiving satellite seats, then each of those 60 players would have an average of $60,000 in order to survive.

Finally, with about 70 players left (10 more players to bust out before winning a seat), I was starting to get a bit short in chips. I had less than $30,000, and the blinds were $3000/6000 with a $1000 ante, giving me an M of about 1.5. Harrington suggests shoving with an M of about 5 in hopes of stealing the blinds and antes when they are worth so much relative to your stack, and other players still have some fold equity. As such, when it folded to me with K9s in the cutoff, I shoved my remaining chips hoping they would help me survive another orbit or two. The small blind woke up with JJ and insta-called me. Unfortunately, he had me slightly covered, and my hand didn’t improve. So long, 5 hours and dreams of winning a sum of money that could significantly change my life!

Because of the enormous player field in the tournament, the cash games were blowing up. I decided to not miss out on this opportunity after busting out in the satellite, and I sat down at a $1/2 NLHE table with $200. After 4 hours of play, I ended up +$412. This is even after losing a $500 pot when I flopped an underset, and losing another $320 pot when my QQ lost to a loose player who called my early position $40 reraise with T8s. I’d say that being up $412 despite having those two big losses is pretty significant! (Though really, I’m only up $162 on the day since I lost $250 in the tournament.)

Also, I didn’t have a chance to mention it on Saturday, but I played a bit more $1/2 LHE on Full Tilt. I 4-tabled for only an hour or so since I didn’t have much time to play, but I managed to book a win of $44.75 (7.22 BB/100 hands).

When I first started, my VPIP, attempt to steal blinds, and perhaps my aggression factor were a bit too high. I have toned these down a bit, which is reflected in this short session as well. (However, it may simply be due to variance in the cards dealt, players at the table, etc.) Over 310 hands, I had a VPIP of 27%, attempt to steal blinds 39%, won at showdown 52%, and aggression factor of 2.88.

As I mentioned, I’m heading to AC the next couple of days. I’m going to get some poker play in, but not as much as when I go alone since I’ll be spending more time with the girlfriend. I’ll be updating when I get back. Also, I may drop back down to 0.5/1 LHE for a bit on Full Tilt when I get back since I unknowingly had a previous deposit reversed, taking $300 out of my online account. Nothing major though; it will give me more practice at smaller stakes while the risk is cut in half.

Well, as I mentioned earlier today, I achieved the milestone of 300+ BB’s in my Full Tilt account for $1/2 LHE. After getting home from the new Harold & Kumar and relaxing for a bit, I decided to put some more time in at the tables for the day. This time, however, I 4-tabled 1/2 instead of .5/1 as I’ve been doing for the past several days.

After playing for about an hour, I’m up another $94 on the day. Over 323 hands, I ran at a very nice 14.55 BB/100 hands. This brings my profit for the day up to $150.15, with my winrate a nice 8.62 BB/100 hands over 1197 hands played. Although I was running considerably hot, I was also playing very well for the majority of this session. I made good call-downs and thin value bets & raises when I really felt like I had the best hand.

Below is my final graph for the day. (Hand 875 is where I switch from 0.5/1 LHE to 1/2 LHE.)

One thing that has helped me a great deal is the quality and excessive use of note-taking on players that I’ve been using since depositing. In the past, I hadn’t used the note-taking feature, and when I did, I had too many notes like “this guy’s a jerkoff”. Obviously that’s not going to help me play better!

Lately, I’ve been wording my player details very well such that I can later recall if there is anything noticeably significant in their play. For example, my comments help remind me as to whether they are passive or aggressive, if they are constant bluffers, how what kinds of hands they call down, how they act in or out of position, how they play as the pre-flop raiser or against another pre-flop raiser, and how they play in blind vs. blind situations. These notes have probably doubled my winrate at the very least. My play has been significantly impacted by being able to check out how people play, and I’ve made some great plays during hands that I otherwise would have folded.

I just finished up another 2 hour session of 4-tabling .5/1 LHE on Full Tilt. Just like my first session from yesterday, this one started on a quick upswing, followed by a bit of a downswing. I eventually worked my way back up though — not quite to the point I was during my first upswing, but still up for the day — and I ended the session up $19.50 (2.65 BB/100 hands). Nothing phenomenal, but I’m certainly not one to scoff at booking a win!

I tried to focus a little harder on reducing the number of questionable raises I made preflop with marginal holdings, especially with regards to position. I made fewer raises with suited connectors and weak suited aces UTG and UTG+1. Although I can’t say whether or not it improved my results in the short run, I certainly think this will prove to increase my long term potential winnings.

Over 737 hands, I had a VPIP of 28%, attempted to steal blinds 35%, won at showdown 48%, and an aggression factor 2.05. The aggression factor and attempt to steal blinds are significantly lower than yesterday’s stats. While I will continue my effort to be the aggressor when putting my money into the pot (when appropriate), I think trying to steal fewer blinds will benefit me in the long run, as I’ll more likely get a higher level of respect from competent players when I raise on the button.

My account balance now sits at about $589, a bit more than 11 BB’s short of having a solid 300 BB bankroll for the next higher stakes. Again, I still may shoot for about $650-700 before I move up, but I’ll still feel much more accomplished once I reach the point where I could comfortably move up should I decide to.

Below is a graph of my day so far.

Update: Just a quick update. I managed to get another 30 minutes in before going to see the new Harold & Kumar movie, and I had a very nice run. Over 137 hands, I won another $36.65 (an unsustainable 26.75 BB/100 hands). Combining this with my earlier play from today, I averaged 6.42 BB/100 hands.

As a result, my Full Tilt bankroll is now a little more than $625. In other words, I now have enough to give some $1/2 LHE a shot next time I play (later tonight or tomorrow most likely).

Also, as always, here’s an updated graph for the day.

I just 4-tabled $0.5/1 LHE on Full Tilt for a little over 2 hours with some good results, and I’m about to take a short break before getting back to the action.

My session started off well, and I was quickly up 40 big bets. However, things started to turn around a bit, and I had a distraction at home that took my focus away from the games for a bit, which certainly didn’t help. As a result, I ended up being down 10 BB’s for a little while.

I continued to grind it out though, and my hands started holding up more frequently, and I was pairing more cards than I had been during my very short downswing for the day. This helped me to get back up more than 47 BB’s for the day, for a total profit of $47.55 over 757 hands (6.28 BB/100 hands). Below is a graph of today’s progress thus far.

As it stands, my stats for the day are 32% VPIP, 50% attempt to steal blinds, 54% won at showdown, and a total aggression factor of 2.42. Between yesterday and today, my stats stand at 32% VPIP, 47% attempt to steal blinds, 54% won at showdown, and a total aggression factor of 2.27. If nothing else, I’m pretty consistent so far. However, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

I no doubt need to work on my hand selection and cool down with how many hands I’m raising pre-flop. There are too many times when I see a middle suited connector (JT, 98, etc.) in early position, and I raise it thinking “okay, just this once”. The problem is that I do it the next time I get that hand too, and I’m more inclined to do it if I haven’t seen a playable hand recently. Fortunately multitabling helps to prevent this, but I know I’m still raising too many hands. (I’m also raising hands like T8o when it’s folded to me on the button, and I probably should not be doing this as often as I am, if at all.)

I plan on refreshing myself on hand selection to help instill those concepts in me. The problem is, though, that while I still have a generally good grasp on what I should be raising and folding, I have a tendency to not follow this after awhile when playing. This is especially true when I’m facing crazy opponents who I know raise almost every hand, betting every street whether they have the nuts or 4-high. That kind of play encourages me to stay in pots with them when I have a weak holding (middle pair for example, sometimes A-high), which can sometimes be detrimental. I need to focus on bettering my play in such scenarios.

Update: I logged about another 2.5 hours at the tables tonight. I started with trying two successive $3+0.30 90-player SNG’s; however, I busted out of both relatively quickly. As such, I ended up 4-tabling some more .5/1 LHE. After another 724 hands, I won another $52.35, which brings my daily earnings up to $99.90. At a rate of 7.23 BB/100 hands, this brings daily average up to 6.75, which is about a 7.5% increase from earlier. Below is an updated graph for the day.

Since depositing $400 onto Full Tilt two days ago, my account balance is just a few pennies short of $570. Once I reach $600, I’ll be comfortably bankrolled for $1/2 LHE. However, I may try to work my balance up to $700 first just to give myself a little extra cushion — I haven’t decided for sure yet.

For my first day since reevaluating my approach to the game, I played a single session of $0.5/1 LHE on Full Tilt for 4 hours straight. I mostly played 3 tables at a time, but I also 2- and 4-tabled for some stretches depending on each table’s flow. I won $29.40 for this stretch, or 2.64 BB/100 hands (over 1,112 hands), which is a great result.

I also played a single $3+0.30 MTT, in which I didn’t cash. This brings my total earnings for the day to $26.10. The graph below outlines my ring game statistics for the day.

Update: I decided to sit down and play a bit more. After another hour, I played another 284 hands. I ran much better than I did earlier in the day (I lost to multiple runners earlier today, which didn’t happen this time), winning another $49.15. This brings my winrate for the day up to 5.64 BB/100 hands. I’ve also included an updated graph for the day below.

As can be seen in my prior blog post, my bankroll has been hurting lately as a result of a continuously bad run of cards with (I’m sure) at least a bit of poor play mixed in. This bad run of cards has resulted in my being rivered continuously, which has in turn left me feeling stressed. It also made me take a step back to see what I can with regards to my bankroll management at this point in time.

Because I need to pay bills, I still need to take out funds from my bankroll for a self-payment, as I’ve done for the past two months as well. After taking this into account and tallying my losses for this month, I see that my bankroll is at about $2,000, which is substantially lower than it had been for awhile. Furthermore, this amount is significantly lower than it should be for playing 1/2 NLHE comfortably (about half as much as it should be) — especially considering the fact that I basically don’t have any other form income, meaning I must withdraw funds from my poker bankroll for bills each month.

Further compounding my problems is the distance from home to the casinos (and back) — not only the travel time, but also the cost of gas and toll expenses.

With these thoughts in mind, I clearly need to reevaluate my current approach to the game with regards to my bankroll. As such, I’ve decided to take my online play much more seriously than I have in the past. Previously, I’ve made deposits online, and I end up playing tournaments for much higher dollar amounts than my bankroll can truly afford — especially considering that my tournament play is far worse than my ring play.

After reading about Chris Ferguson’s approach to bankroll management in his $0 to $10,000 challenge in this month’s CardPlayer magazine — in addition to reading the first several chapters of Professional Poker: The Essential Guide to Playing for a Living — I deposited $400 onto Full Tilt Poker.

I’m almost primarily going to stick to cash games, specifically $0.50/1 LHE. This means I’ll be starting with 300 big bets, a comfortable amount for these limits. I’m going to attempt to play at least 6 hours per day (ideally 8 if possible, just like a “real” job), breaking my sessions up into two 3- or 4-hour periods if necessary.

Similar to Chris Ferguson, I may also play some very small tournaments, making sure that the buy-in does not represent more than 5% of my bankroll for 1-table SNG’s, or 2% of my bankroll for multi-table tournaments. As of my initial deposit, this means I can play $20 SNG’s (I personally won’t play higher than $5+0.50 at this point in time due to my lack of experience in them) and $8 tournaments (though again I probably won’t play higher than $3+0.30 or perhaps some $5+0.50 tournaments due to the high variance). Furthermore, I won’t allow myself to put any more than 5% of my bankroll towards multi-table tournament buy-ins per day, meaning that I’m still limited to $20 per day at this point.

I strongly believe that defining these figures and keeping them in mind when deciding what to play throughout the day will have a significant impact in how my bankroll grows on the site.

April has sucked. Every visit to the casino has resulted in a loss. My bankroll is somewhere between $3-3.5k right now (haven’t taken an exact count due to my current level of frustration) after some brutal beats I’ve taken.

I know this next statement is going to sound like I’m in denial about playing poorly or something, but to be honest, with the exception of some loose pre-flop calls and a couple of poorly played hands, I’ve been getting all my money into the pot with the best hand. Typically, the largest sum of my money goes into the pot on the turn, putting me or my opponent all-in, only to be sucked out on when the river hits.

My sessions have started off well, each one winning up to $100-150 at 1/2 NLHE, but in the end, I’ve been losing multiple buy-ins left and right. It’s been getting frustrating to say the least, and it’s seriously been making me question my level of play and whether I should continue playing at all.

My girlfriend and I booked a room for two nights compliments of Hilton at the beginning of next week. However, I’m not sure how much I’m planning to play at this point. There’s a $215+35 tournament I may play at the Borgata in an effort to satellite into a $500,000 guaranteed deep-stack tourney, but I haven’t decided for sure if I’m going to be playing it. Other than that though, I may simply try another casino if I decide to play. Perhaps I’ll try the Showboat, as I’ve heard they have a great new poker room. We’ll see how I feel come next week though.

This week proved to be pretty bad. In fact, my typical 3-day trip was only one day long. I don’t feel like getting into it (I’m sure I’ll update in the next progress post), but I ended up dropping $800, bringing my roll down a little more than 10% of where it stood before.

In short, things just weren’t going my way at the 1/2 table. I mostly played well, but I lost coinflips when I needed to win them most, and I lost to 2- and 3-outers in several all-ins against the same moronic player who kept getting exceptionally lucky. (Quick example: I’m showing aggression pre-flop and every street post-flop on a ragged board, and he calls me down all the way with A8 to spike an 8 on the river in a $400+ pot.)

I ended up coming home simply because there is a chance I wasn’t playing well, which it would be harder for me to see at the table in the heat of the moment. Looking back, I don’t think I played poorly for the most part as I stated, but I still think it was best to leave at that point. In any case, I’m hoping I can make up for it during my next visit.