2nd place in $1k Gtd.

lol, may have been a waste of my time, but I actually tried to play well and was able to take 2nd. When I got HU I was like a 4/1 dog and the busto hand, villain maniac limps for 2400, and I check J7o, and it comes AJ3, and I c/call his pot bet then CRAI on the 3 turn because I didn't see many aces in his limping range, and there was a f/d on the flop. He snapped with AKo and won. Oh well, first was like $420, and I received $256 for my efforts hehe. I am going to go play some 4/8 at the Silver Dollar with Henry. At least I paid for my BI there.

God Bless,

JG

Oh ya...

Poker is fun...especially when you get action like this. Man I love playing a couple hands super monkey aggressive and imprinting that image in my opponents' minds. I had 3-bet quite a bit but hadn't really 4-bet very much, so, whereas I really like this guys' balls, I think this is atrocious. And of course UB couldn't turn him dead - had to jack up my heart rate. Without further ado...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3633161

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

p.s. Why do I always make a post then do a run-good session then add another post that day. I need to work on that. Hope you all enjoy.

Merry Christmas + 2nd in $8k

Merry Christmas everyone! (all 2-3 of you) I hope all of you are enjoying being lazy, eating/drinking too much and getting fat just in time to declare that next year will be the time to get in shape (maybe that's just me).

It's been 2+ weeks since I posted. Since then, I finished finals which weren't too difficult, and my final grades turned out to be below EV :( Either way, I pulled a 3.5 and didn't work all that hard. My cume GPA is a 3.49, so I don't think I raised that at all. I am going to try and work hard and get a 3.7 next quarter which might be tough because I am taking my first 400 level class as well as econometrics which is going to suck.

Some highlights from the past two weeks include partying with my Italian friend Francesco on his last two days in Bellingham before he heads back to Italy (exchange student), hanging out with my old high school friends Ross, John, and Greg, seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still in IMAX which was meh, our friend Carl's bachelor party and tailgating for the Hawks game.

Last weekend on Friday, I went to dinner with John, Greg, and their/our friend Jason at Azteca. I opted to pass on food and stuck with chips/salsa and two very large Coors Lights. After that the night took us across the street to Wizards where we had to obtain the obligatory Matchplay coupon from the Cashier Cage for $25. Basically this means that if you place one $25 bet and you win, they pay you $50. I obv wanted to punish the house and pay for the night of debauchery so I went straight to the Pai Gow table. I pushed my first 2 hands then woke up with Kings and Tens which is probably a win 65% of the time, a push 25% of the time and a loss 10% of the time. I held the two pair and was elated.

John was going to play blackjack as is his game of choice, but I convinced him to play Pais. He had never played before, and I taught him my rituals as I learned from my mentors. These include taking the top card off the deck and putting it horizontally in front of you then taking the bottom card and placing it symmetrically vertical on top of the other card. This is then followed by looking at the first card, and if it is a J+, you show your friends and get excited. You then slowly (and I mean very slowly) pinch the other 4 cards. You then pick up the vertical card followed by the horizontal card. Anyways, John pushed his first 3 hands I believe and then found a pair of 3's and KT up, which is not good. Somehow the dealer rolled out a pai gow, and John also won. While at our Wizards stop, I think I had 4 beers served by our favorite waitress Barbara, who could/should be my grandma.

After that we went downstairs and played pool where I was most definitely on the downward end of my drunken bell curve in terms of being able to play these types of games. I don't think I won a game, and we retired the night around midnight.

The next day was Carl's bachelor party which started off at Carl's house followed by Red Robin, which was fun, and then back to his friend Todd's house. While we were caravaning from RR to his house, we sort of got lost and ended up playing in the snow for a while. The worst part of this was when Derek said, "hey everybody, let's tackle Joel" and I knew I was in trouble.

After that, we played a game of poker at Todd's which was a blast. We came up with several drinking games, and the first player eliminated had to chug a beer, run around the house twice (in 25 degree weather + snow) then chug another beer. Our friend Anthony was the unfortunate one to get knocked out first when he had 87 against his brother's A7 and my 10-8 when we got all in on the turn of a A J 8 8, and the river was a T to give me the scoop. I ended up running well and got down to heads up with Carl, the bachelor. Everyone was rooting for Carl to win as was I, and Derek ended up rigging the deck giving me AK against his 33 AIPF on a board of xxxK3 for a fun little sweat LMAO!

We then obviously went to the nearest casino, the Silver Dollar where all of us lost but had a good time. Derek drove us home, and we set our alarms for 5:25 the next morning to go tailgate. We struggled out of bed and got everything ready only to have Derek's car get stuck in the snow just out of his driveway. We tried shoveling the snow out from around the tires but still couldn't get it going. We tried putting wooden boards on each wheel which also didn't work. We eventually moved it to the bottom of the hill and were able to lucksack our way out of there. We arrived downtown around 7:30 and proceeded to put down about 60-70 beers between like 8 of us while playing the most fun/addicting game in the world - bean bag toss. For those of you who have never played and think that it sounds lame, I feel for you. You really don't know what you're missing out on.

The game was pretty fun. When we arrived to our bleacher seats, they were all covered in snow, so we had a good time digging through the snow to find our seats. After having probably 8 beers, Derek apparently went to a bar and had 4 shots and another beer. Needless to say, when he entered the stadium halfway through the 2nd quarter, he was quite sloppy. The highlight of the game, besides the Hawks winning, was Derek getting kicked out for throwing snow and then proceeding to walk down the steps and pick up a huge snow ball and hold it over his head yelling and then throwing it on the side of the bleachers.

Anyways, besides these few events, break has been a ton of sitting in front of the TV watching Pete play College Football '09, going between the kitchen and back, and grinding out hands. Things hadn't been going that great until Tuesday. I played in the 6:20 $8k gtd. tourney. I decided to really knit it up and wait for good spots to accumulate. The field was surprisingly weak, and I was able to double up on a few occasions and was chipleader with 70 left with 45 paying. I coasted into the money with ease and, tbh, never 3-bet anyone light but was just raising in position, picking up the blinds and antes enough to stay afloat.

With 18 left, I decided to post on my facebook status that there were 18 left. Within 5 mins, there were about 15 responses from people which made me feel good that I had like 3 railbirds for such a small tourney.

I made it to the FT 3rd in chips of the 9 and was able to get to 100k before we went on break with 6 left. The first hand back from the break, I picked up JJ, and the chipleader who started the hand with ~280k made it 15k at 2500/5k. I had a marginal shove for like 90k, and he called with AQ and I somehow held to get up to 200k.

From there, I went on to lose like 3 pots in a row and somehow lost half my stack. I stayed around here and we got down to 4 when I had around 80k at 4k/8k, the guy in 3rd had like 90k, the guy in second had like 200k, and the chipleader had ~300k. Then a really weird pot came up. UTG potted to like 30k, the SB (2nd in chips) flat called, and I had a trival shove for 80k with 99. The UTG, with 50k left tanked. I couldn't believe he could raise/fold, but he ended up calling, and the SB somehow folded getting like 4:1. Amazingly, the UTG player had 98s!!!! I was ecstatic and was a 7:1 fav. to nearly triple up. I held, and we were down to three. Simultaneously the two big stacks got all in and the chipleader won, so I found myself HU with a 4:1 chip disadvantage.

This guy had been playing like a monkey, so I really tried to slow the action down and find good spots to re-ship. The blinds started off at 5k/10k, and I had like 160k to his 600k. I started limping a lot of buttons, and he kept 5x'ing it from the BB, and I would fold. I guess I should have switched gears and start re-shipping light, but idk, I just didn't really have any great spots. I doubled up twice, but just wasn't able to adjust to the high blind levels and ended up shipping 77 into his KK and lost.

I took down $1480 for my efforts which is cool and I am excited about this. It hopefully will be the start to a good upswing. I have been watching tons of CardRunner cash vids and it has actually helped my tourney game. I am thinking on higher levels and am really progressing.

Anyways, it is Christmas, and I am sitting with my brothers watching South Park, so I am going to stop this blog before it gets too out of hand.

Happy New Year and God Bless,

JG

Session Recap

Wow...I can't believe that I am writing a 2nd post in the same day! But I did just put in a good 900 hand session at $100 NL and ended up $350ish. I felt that I played very very well and never monkey spewed or anything which was good. Here are some of the losers:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3569987 - I'd have to look back at the hands, but this was at least the 3rd or 4th time this guy had 3-bet me, so I assumed he was picking up on the fact that I was isolating by 3 betting. This was probably not the time nor the hand to make this move, but I felt that it might be a profitable play long term. I never would have even considered making this move before watching CR's, lol

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3569992 - This one was really interesting. It turns out this guy was drunk which explains things. But this was the 2nd or 3rd time I 3-bet him, which I thought might actually give me some more respect. But I guess I am just leveling and maybe he wasn't thinking that deep. Anyways, I actually really like my sizing and I think my turn bet is +EV because he is probably folding 77-TT, and I'm not sure if JJ+ is a big part of his range, but a J or a T might be good also. Oh well, he owned me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3569998 - In this one, I get owned by the guy calling 3-bets with J2s. Not too much to say about this one.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3570001 - This one happened just as Grant was walking in, and I was pretty confused on the river. I felt like he either had a 7, a flush, or a missed f/d. His turn check is weird, but I guess I can't fold this river too often with no reads.

Now to the good ones

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3569984 - This was kind of cool. I decided to squeeze and got flatted in two spots which I didn't like too much. I opted to check the flop because AK is a huge part of their range, and I also wanted to disguise my hand. I maybe could have gotten more value, but I think the only other way I do is to either bet the turn or bet more on the river. Oh well, at least I got money from the guy monkeying with KJo

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3570013 - This was a product of my image being pretty loose. I have heard CR pros debating as to whether this is a fold or a call. I don't think a 3-bet is good very much. I can't stress the importance of making one goofy play early on in a session. It gets you action like this.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3570019 - This one I was also proud of. I didn't think this guy's flop lead was very strong, and I thought I could rep a bunch of turns. When the player called behind, I didn't know what to put him on. On the turn, the flop better tanked then checked, so I opted to lead like 2/3. He then tank/called, and I was like 90% sure he was on JT. So I opted to go just over 1/2 pot on river to make it look like I was value owning him.

Over all, it was a very good sesh, and I am proud of the way that I played and also encouraged. I have a 8am final which I will have to get up at like 6:30 for, so I need to do a little more studying then go to bed.

God Bless,

JG

Attention: Joel finally updated his blog!

Wow. It has been a while. I can't count how many times one of my 3-4 readers has told me that they wish I updated this thing more often. So, rather than studying for my last final tomorrow, I opt to write on my blog and share some thoughts.

Things have been pretty good lately, life-wise. This last weekend, my brother Pete came up, and we had some Bellingham adventures including him getting kicked out of a bar (obv) for stealing some guy's ID. We did, however, go to the Slo Pitch on Friday night and actually played sober. I felt like I played amazing but went 3+ hours without winning a pot when I moved to the main table :(

Saturday we drove back down and hung out at Paul and Ramie's, watching football and drinking a lot of beer. Derek and Bubs also arrived, and we busted out two fresh decks of cards and played Chinese. Every 10 minutes or so, someone would come up with a new rule that would basically just increase the stakes. I was up a decent amount when we decided to take a break and go to Sushi Land.

Then Derek and Bubs decided to buy dice and implement them into our game. This is where things get bad.

While walking back to Paul's place, I mentioned that I was running pretty hot and knew that a downswing was coming. When we got back, Bubs and I couldn't win. It was like the Chinese gods took a dump on our cards while Derek rolled the dice every other hand. What really killed was when I implemented a special quads and a special straight flush which would allow that person to roll double the dice. Derek and Bubs each hit that once, which meant 4 rolls each at $5 a point.

The thing that broke the bank was the very last hand, where I looked down at a spade straight flush, which was the jackpot suit. I became elated, as this might be my chance to get a good chunk of change back. I set my hand with glee, then Derek showed me his hand, and he had aces full, which meant that I was going to get bad beated. He was debating not playing aces full and instead play like flush, straight, ace high up. But because our game puts so much emphasis on the side action rather than who actually wins, he played Aces full, and I immediately went ballistic.

I lost an unspeakable amount of money, especially given the fact that I don't have a job right now and haven't luck-sacked a donkament win in a while. Not good. It is good, however, that Derek is nice enough to not put any pressure on me and even took 6 points off ($30 value) for getting him a burger and a pop at the Seahawks game (I paid like $11). It's cool to have nice friends who rape you for a ridiculous amount of money and then are caring enough to let you shave points off by buying them whatever they want.

After that, we went to play poker at a casino called Goldie's. Paul said I was on his tab, which was cool, but I obviously went cold again and couldn't win. I wasn't that drunk but just wasn't playing very well - limping then calling a raise with A9 and calling down on a A 4 3 x x in a spot where he had to have AK. I then called a UTG+1 raise from the SB with AJo (spewy) and paid off 3 bets on a J x x x x, and he had KK.

Derek and I left early and didn't get to see Pete run over the table while slow-rolling every single pot and subsequently getting kicked out. HAHA! His record of getting kicked out of gambling/drinking establishments is top notch.

Anyways, on the way home, I was feeling emotionally down because it seemed like things weren't going very well. I told Derek that I was so fucking sick of the highs and the lows of gambling and playing poker. It is so much fun to play when you win a tourney and are feeling good and stuff, but playing poker knowing that you need to win to have enough money to pay bills and stuff just isn't fun. He told me that he had been there before back in the day and that I have it better than most other college students. I told him that, if I could be in my current financial situation without gambling, I would feel good. But because I feel the need to grow my bankroll so I can be a baller and stuff just doesn't translate to good results.

Luckily I have people around me that want the best for me and that are there for me when things are good and when things are bad. I know that I have tremendous skill at playing poker and am just sorta in a dry spell. It is so tough to put in the amount of hands that it takes to show a large enough sample size when you are in college and when there are social things happening every night - not to mention school and finals and stuff. I am looking forward to break to be able to just relax and play whenever I want.

All that being said, I did subscribe to Cardrunners a couple of days ago and have been watching a ton of videos trying to absorb as much information as possible. Something that I have definitely improved on and have been thinking about just in the past few days is focusing on game flow. David Benefield had a video where he mentioned that he doesn't use Poker Tracker because it turns you into a robot and you don't focus on the players and game flow. I put in a session of 4-tabling .5/1 NL and didn't have poker tracker running and wasn't really looking players up but was just trying to concentrate on the table dynamics. What I mean by that is trying to:

A) Identify weaker players at the table and implement tactics to isolate and get heads up with them.
B) Look for spots to profitably re-steal. I have never really mixed in light 3-betting into my game, but it is something that has definitely evolved to become the norm in online live games these days.
C) Start with a strategy and wait until players start to react and adjust to my strategy before switching gears. I cannot even mention the importance of this. I do not know my poker stats from yesterday but I would imagine that I was playing something like 24/20 with a 3-betting percentage of like 7-9%. This is much more aggressive than I am used to but really started to pick up on the fact that, when you are changing gears as soon as the table starts to pick up on your aggression, this can be so profitable. I was able to 4-bet light a couple times the third or fourth time that a player 3-bet me, and I knew they were 3-betting me light because it was like the 5th straight button I had opened.

I can already start seeing improvements in my game, and, although I ended up losing like $80 yesterday, I over-played 2 big hands and played a $240 pot against a player probably playing 90/0 when I had 6 2 on a 3d 4d 5x 9x Ad board where I bet/3-bet the flop, then 3/4'd the turn then puked when I saw the river but decided to go for thin value only to get min-raised and pay it off. But at least these are things that I can tangibly improve on, which is exciting to me.

I just finished a paper for my history class and now have one remaining final in Environmental Economics tomorrow which shouldn't be too bad. After that, the plan is to hang around here in Bellingham for a few days and try to get back in the grinding mode before heading down to Seattle for break. I am really looking forward to it.

That's all.

God Bless,

JG