Finishing up moving apartments so I'll have time to play again. My room now has air conditioning which is a great feature in modern day apartments. I'll probably be more motivated to play as I won't be sweating my balls off while I'm on my comp. I had a great session today and made about 5 buyins in roughly 2k hands. My poker tracker wasn't working and I think it's because pokerstars just added new features to their hand histories which caused the overwhelming defeat of my poker tracker. B/c of this I only played 15 boards, however I think I will start digressing to around 12 board of play during serious sessions. I want to start developing myself more as a player and moving up through the limits instead of just robotically beating the weaker games. I also think I got burnt out of poker due to the fact I just sat on my ass making no brainer decisions all day..
Vegas is coming up in two short weeks and I'm stoked. I will also be putting in harder sessions online up until I leave so I won't be so rusty when I get there. At this point I don't think I'll be playing in any tournaments unless I have a few ridiculous sessions online up until then. I really haven't played much at all in 6 weeks and it's had some heinous effects on my bankroll. Also moving always costs money no matter how much stuff you think you have, along with a wedding I just went too. Hopefully I can turn myself around a bit and get back in motion. I also have a minor source of secondary income coming in which will be great. If I can earn about 2k a month while I sleep to pay bills, I should be able to push through the limits rather quickly. Cashing out from online poker is always frustrating, because no matter how well you do during a month, it's always like I'm starting over again after a cashout.
Such a long and grueling drive. We only went down for two nights and it really wasn't enough time. I didn't start off great and was making some silly mistakes as I haven't been playing much lately. I really didn't start to pick it up until the second night, at which point we were ready to leave. In general though, I am pleased with the trip. 2/5nl is still as weak as ever and I am eager to play 5/10nl once I build my live roll up more. I ended up only about $200 which is rather pathetic, but I had a shit show of a session at Borgotta one of the nights. It was one of those tables where nothing seemed to work in my favor. I had an one interesting hand with AQ. I raised preflop and got two callers behind. Flop of J33 I bet out 60 into 80. The guy behind me though for a minute or two before finally calling. His hand was obviously very weak and left me with an interesting decision on the turn. I wasn't quite sure if I could make him fold it, but I was most likely double barreling him allin anyways. I feel like this would bring about a fold enough times to make the move worthwhile in this particular situation. However, I was never faced with this decision as the guy behind him went allin for another $61. Now had I been in position on this play, I would have called the bet all day. I didn't think his shove represented any sort of strength and his play had been weak and eratic thus far. I really didn't put too much though into the situation. The power play would have been to really come over the top here. If I had the balls to shove on this spot and make the player behind me fold, I would be in a pretty nice pot with a pretty strong holding. I feel like AQ is good vs. this player a good portion of the time, as his shove range is very huge and is probably bluffing a great portion of the time. I decided to go ahead and fold though with the player behind me calling. This player ended up winning with JT vs the allin bluff. The situation was somewhat frustrating as I would have won the hand had the eratic shove not been made, as well as if my position was slightly different. I also ran into a few spots where my cbets failed to take down pots and took a toll on my stack.
Another interesting hand I had is as follows. I raised fairly hard late position with ATc. I ended up getting 3 callers for about a $120 pot. The board came down T88 and the first player lead out $50. I elected a call here, although I feel that I really should have raised and put him to the test right here. I really didn't know where I stood in the hand. However, this player was very eratic as well. I had just seen him pull a monster bluff a few hands prior with very weak cards. In that case he greatly overbet the pot, which is why I was hessitant to be aggressive here. I don't think calling is incredibly weak per say, but I think it also sets me up to be double barreled pretty hard without knowing where I stand in the hand. Making the call, the turn came a 6. He fired $125 at this spot. This bet is still fairly small for the pot, as the post size is around $220 at this point. I really should have just dumped the hand here as I don't think TPTK is good too often, along with the fact that this player might be putting me on a bigger pocket pair as well. Although with my rustiness and bad play in full gear, I elected another call and took a river. The river was pretty meaningless and he bet out $250 which was basically allin. I didn't think about it too long before folding, at which point he showed me an 8 for trips. Overall I played this hand too passively. My call on the flop was questionable. On one hand I enjoy being the aggressor and taking control of the situation, although on the other hand, this player had previously shown me a considerably different line on a bluff, and was now betting 1/2 pot into 3 players. This all in mind, I don't think a call on the flop is terrible. The turn call is though. The turn in this situation is really a spot where I need to shove or fold. The board was faily draw heavy with a flush draw off the flop. Although it was perfectly reasonable for this player to be holding an 8 as well. With this in mind, there is really no value in my call and it makes the river call that much more difficult. This is a similar mistake to the one I made in Foxwoods, except this time I layed my hand down on the river. In both cases I was much too passive and didn't dictate the outcome of the hand.
I won't be too hard on myself as I really haven't played much in forever. I plan on going to Atlantic City all summer long, as long as the free rooms keep coming in. Vegas is coming up, June 9th. I do plan on playing a ridiculous amount of poker while I'm there. I'm hoping to build up some more points within the Harrah's chain so I can upgrade my player status and look for more free rooms to flow in. Overall though it was an enjoyable trip and I will be back soon enough.
Not really neglecting to post, just have nothing to post. I only earned something like 5k vpp's last month so I basically played very little poker. My drive slowed down a bit and along with the nice weather, I have no motivation to play. I've been stepping it up a bit these last few days though. Still 20 boarding and just playing at 100nl. I am really focusing on elimintating stress from my life, so I'll be playing 100nl for a while and worry about moving up later on. I've been on a somewhat bad run these last few days and am down several buyins. The hands really aren't worth posting, just getting drawn out on for the most part. I might just struggle to play in general until I move at the end of this month. There is no AC in my room and I'm just sick of my apartment in general.
This Sunday I'll be going to Atlantic City for two nights. Going to try to play at least 8 hours of poker a day. If it's nice out I'll probably hit the beach up too. I should have some interesting hands from this session and I'll post them on here when I return. Probably the other reason I haven't played as much online lately is that I am more so in the mood to play more live poker. I've found a few local card rooms to play in, but I only have three grand cash on me and it won't quite cover some of the games I've found. There should be some smaller ones around as well though so I'll keep my eyes open. If I work a bit on building my live roll I'll start playing some of the bigger games. Especially this summer during track season, I'm sure there will be some great action up in Saratoga.