My blog has been moved here: http://blogs.cardrunners.com/paymy22ition.  I need more that 200 digits..............................................................................................

Yesterday was a pretty interesting day poker-wise.  I played an hour of 2 tables heads up and won a massive $0.80.  I played a 2 hour 9-table 6max session during the late night happy hour and finished own $0.85  It was kind of weird looking at the stats and being a total break-even player for 3 hours playing about 2*9 + 1*2 = 20.  Which means if I was one tabling i would play for 20 hours.  20 hours of complete breakeven just seems kind of odd.  With my deposit bonus and rakeback I think i ended up with about $30 profit, so yay for bonus.  I'm not sure why nobody likes my blog, my rating has plummeted big time.  Oh well, though.  I'll post a few ugly hands that i played bad.

Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3816479 not really sure how he showed up with AA here...whatever I guess

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3816485 This is a situation I find myself in a lot.  I never know what to do here with a draw out of position on the turn.  Checking here seems weak but i thought with 3 people in the pot it was more likely to check around.  I decided to raise here because if i just call and a diamond hits on the river I wouldn't get paid.  By raising I was hoping for a fold and a call would be worse, and a shove would be disaster.  He raised min so i had the odds and implied odds to call here.  DIdn't work out and I lost way too much money.

Hand 3: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3816500 This hand is pretty similar.  Standard c-bet on the flop.  On the turn I dont see him having an 8 too often, so a jack is his most likely holding.  The K is a beautiful card to barrell, unfortunatley I get raised.  I end up calling here because I think an ace will be a winner, and if a spade comes, he can't put me on a flush, so I'll get paid (assuming he doesn't have a full house).  Pretty blah...

Hand 4: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3816512 I called because I hate shortstackers.

Bye for now, GL at the tables.

Hello world.  The last couple days I've had mediocre results at the table.  I started off playing a really tough opponent for an hour or so on two tables.  I was only playing to try to improve myself as a player, my opponent was good and competent.  He ended up beating me out of around $160, but I beat a guy for about $100 prior to him, so just a small loss in that session.  Yesterday I played some heads up and ran pretty bad (see hand 1) and lost about $110.  I then started 9 tabling 6-max $25 NL and ran super super hot.  I won quite a few big hands where my opponent was drawing near-dead.

Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3806276 Although the 9 is a pretty bad turn card, I still like my play.  I think he's floating the flop with a flush draw a lot or and hand like KQ, QJ, Q10 or possibly just air.  I checked the turn because he has to bet all his pairs and his complete air, in which case I'll shove and leave him with a really crappy spot.  Unfortunately he had the J,10 and got my stack.

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3806292 My previous hands with this guy really caused him to call this, in my opinion.  I've 3bet him about 4 times from the button and won every single pot, so he was very frustrated.  I like his raise to $10 here, but once I shove, I think its time to fold, even though its just sick.  He can't beat anything, really.  The only thing he can beat is an overpair like 88,99 or 1010.  JJ+ i'm 3betting him all day (especially with our history).  And with those hands I'm definitely not shoving over his $10 raise on the flop.  He can beat a hand like 46,56,and 76, but even against those hands he's not a huge favorite.  I think he needs to fold.

Hand 3: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3806306 Just thought you guys would like this hand, haha.  Thank you donks.

Bottom line: I won $675.10 in January over under 10,000 hands.  I'm very pleased with that.  In February so far I'm up $57.4 over 3,000 hands.  I'm still grinding out $25 NL until I get all my bonus out.  I want to have a big enough bankroll to comfortably play without the fear of going broke.  After I clear that, I'm going to hopefully start slowly moving up.  I really have a good feeling abour running up my bankroll this time around.  I just paid for college so I could definitely need the money.  I think right now is the perfect time in my life to make a lot of money in poker.  I have a good bankroll online and I don't have any major expenses for about a year.  I'm just going to play and hopefully run up a bankroll.  I really would like to be at around $10k in a year.  Realistic?  I hope so...

Wow guys just got done absolutely crushing a guy out of 4.5 buy-ins in 141 hands.  Guy was incredibly spewy and liked to re-raise way to often.  Here's some hands, very standard.

Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3793039

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3793045

Hand 3: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3793048

Hand 4: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3793052

Yes I did run really well, but this guy was so incredibly spewy.  Just more evidence that playing straightforward can win you big bucks.  Bankroll is over 1k now, so I'm up about $400 after being down $400 2 weeks ago.  What a heater!

Yesterday I 8-tabled for the first time ever.  Strangely enough I ended up 8-tabling for about 2.5 hours, and ended up winning around $125.  Thinks have been going great lately, and I've gone from $250 to about $800 the last few weeks on FT.  I'm really learning more and more about the game and I really feel like I'm playing great poker.  I'm currently whoring the 2 table double points promotion thats going on at Full Tilt and so I can get all o fmy bonus released.  I have about $420 left to release if I'm not mistaken.  Ontop of all this I'm getting some rakeback, so between playing good, running good, rakeback, and bonus release...its been a good week.  I really feel like my instincts are spot on.  Take the first example.  I'm not sure but I just had a feeling my opponent had a big hand, and I definitely lost the minimum.

Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3789985

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3789992 I actually really like shoving on this turn.  He 3bet preflop and checked the flop.  I dont think he's ever ever ever checking JJ-AA on this flop.  I thought he had 1010 about 15% of the time and AK 80% of the time and AQ 5% of the time.  With a shove here I thought I could shove him off the AK.  Didn't work out though, I guess he decided to go crazy with 55 preflop.

Hand 3: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3790003 This is a prime example of how playing abc poker can win you big hands.  Generally speaking blind vs blind people tend not to believe you.  So when you actually have a hand just bet bet bet and you'll get paid off.

Thats all the hands I'm going to post today.  I still have spots open if you're interested in coaching, message me and I'll give you all the details.

Hello all.  I had a great 1-hour session last night on Full TIlt.  I was 6-tabling $25 NL and won 4 and a half buy-ins.  Earlier that day I won another buy-in.  Unfortunately me and my friend had no luck stakin the nightly 70k so $55 downt he drain there.  After a horrible run of cards the first month of my deposit at FT I'm just $25 under my 600.  This is quite amazing considering about a week ago I was barely at 300.  I played some heads up on pokerstars and won $0.05.  Yay me.  Also, if anybody is interested in coaching please send me a message and we can talk rates and whatnot.  Now, some hands of the day.

Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3783965 This is a good example of how making a small mistake can cause you a lot of money.  I HATE this guy's 3-bet %.  Its only 90c more so I can call there with a lot of hands.  If he makes it the standard $2.90, i cannot call and he loses.  Ontop of this I'm not continuing on many flops that I don't hit an 8.  This is a good hand to check a couple times to let him bet, since the board is really dry.  The next hand I end up betting out with a set.

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3783980  Very similar to the last hand.  He made too small of a re-raise so i was forced to call and bust him.  I decided to bet out because there was 2 clubs, and a hand like AQ might decide to check back here for pot control.  But he's not going to fold to a bet.  I absolutely hate my sizing on the turn because he's only continuing with an overpair.  Although this makes up a big part of his range.  I dont want to risk folding out a flush draw.  Also his stack size is not even 2x my bet, so a lot of his bluff's just fold.  I really like either checking here or betting smaller so he can bluff me off.

Hand 3: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3783985 This hand is very interesting.  I really, really like my turn check for a few reasons.  I'm never betting my big JJ+ hands here, he can never put me on a 5, and it leaves the river for him to bluff into me.  He bets out $9 and i contemplate calling, but decided that shoving is the best play.  No way he ever fills up on that river IMO, also, he'll call me with like A7 because the only thing that beats him is a 5 or a set, which i probably dont have

Hand 4: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3783991 I thought this hand was pretty standard.  I think the AKx hhh flop is pretty reasonable for my AQ.  First of all there's a K up there, so its less likely he has AK.  Also its much less likely he has AA.  The only thing I'm really afraid of here is KK, because the big hearts that he would 3-bet are on the board, the A and the K.  I dont see him 3-betting me with like QJ suited, but maybe he would.  I really like his play here with the 3,5 though.  His 3bet preflop was a good one for this exact reason.  No way to put him on that.  Congrats villian.

Hand 5: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3783999 I also really like how i played this hand, given the opponents stack size.  I'm more than happy getting in $10 with AQ preflop, so I dont like calling here to induce more action.  I flop gin and I want to get his stack.  He has $7.40 left so I think $2 is a good bet to induce some shoves, which he does.  Unfortunately he beat me but thats poker, i like the way I played this hand.

Well that's all for now, GL at the tables, I'll keep you updated.

Today...wow!  When I left for class at 9:50 my Taiwanese foreign exchange roomate was sound asleep.  When i returned at 10:40 he was banging his girlfriend.  Yuck!  What a way to start the day.  I immediately left and went to the student center and watched sportscenter for about 45 minutes.  Then I ate lunch with my girlfriend.  I decided I didn't want to be scarred again, so my girlfriend was nice enough to escort me back to my room.  When we got there they were putting their clothes on and acting like everything was swell.  Blah...not a good experience.  I didn't wanna stay in my room so at around 11:30 I went to my girlfriends room to study for my first test this semester.  I half-studied until around 5 when we went for supper. 

After supper I decided to go back to my room to read Oryx and Crake for my english class.  I opened the door and once again my roommate and his girlfriend were under the covers (I really hope he isn't reading this).  So yeah...I grabbed my book and darted out of the room and went up to my girlfriends dorm to continue studying.  Ugh what a horrible day!

Okay- now the poker.  I played some horribly bad people heads up yesterday.  I mean HORRIBLY bad.  My first opponent re-raised me preflop 49% of the time.  I raised him 81 times and he repopped me 40 times.  I've never played a person this aggressive.  He was stupid aggressive though.  He was sooo exploitable.

Here's a big hand I won off him: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3778334.  Honestly, I was pretty hesitant to call the river bet because he had yet to 3-barrel me.  Part of this was because I usually raised him on the flop or turn, or folded before the river.  He didn't have many spots where it was possible to 3- barrel.  Whatever though, I called and he was bad.

Here's a different opponent who is an absolute calling station.  Very exploitable.  I C-bet him with nothing so he would keep calling me.  Here's my favorite hand: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3778343.  I normally don't like defending these hands, but I defend almost anything against calling stations because the implied odds are through the roof.  I guess A6 is a big winner HU

Here's an ugly hand: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3778349.  My opponent was pretty good here so I thought he was capable of making a move.  However, I dont really like my call.  He played his hand pretty well, but I definitely like a check-shove on this flop.  He has to give me a chance to bluff right?  I dont see my opponent calling with worse, if i was in his shoes.  Also, if i had 1010 in this spot I would HATE a call from my opponent.  Check-shove definitely seems right.  Unfortunately he outleveled me and I ended up calling because I thought he could have Ax.  Bad call, but I run good.

Here is a super super interesting hand: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3778373.  I wished he would've raised bigger, because with his small raise this hand seems 100% standard.  Some of you may absolutely hate my play here but i LOVE it.  My opponent was a super nit.  He never, ever 3bet or raised without the immortal nuts.  If he raised to 4 bucks here i would call.  The only way to beat this opponent for a big sum of money without the rake eating you alive is to make a disguised big hand.  The $4 investment doesn't seem so bad after all the money gets in and you scoop a $60 pot.  I got a really crappy river as far as equity goes, but I'll take the nice pot. 

I normally won't only post the hands I win, but thats the way my session went.  I finished up about $185 on the night, which is a pretty big win for me.  My heads up winrate is through the roof at 21.34 BB/100 over about 6000 hands.  I expect a drop in this, but hopefully I'll still be making money when this number drops.  Good heads-up players seem to be around 3-7 BB/100.

Well thats all for me tonight, I have to go study for my psych test tomorrow .  I hope I run good on the test!  I could definitely benefit from winning a few flips

After about a 12-month break I returned to poker.  I had no money online besides about $20 on PokerStars.  I decided it would be fun to try to run this amount up.  I got it up to $95 the first day but went busto a few weeks later.  I then deposited $50 on full tilt.  That lasted about a month.  $50 more on full tilt, another bust.  I began to think a year's break was a major setback.  I was on the verge of quitting, but I decided to put $100 on PokerStars and try my luck once more.

This deposit went a lot better, and I had a lot more free time to work on my game.  This was the summer before my first semester at college.  I built up my account to around $200 until it was time to move away to the WSU dorms.  I had easy classes my first semester, and very limited homework.  I played poker a lot.  The first month I had some pretty big swings playing just 10c/25c 6-max NL.  I went from 200 to 600 back to 200 to 100 then to 450.  I decided to play a satellite to a $530 WCOOP 2-Day event.  It was event #5 or 6.  Well, I ended up winning the satellite and a seat to the event.  I contemplated for a long time whether to play in the event or take the W$.  I decided to play the tournament.  I played the best poker of my life and ran super good.  Unfortunately I didn't make the 2nd day, but I cashed for $3,300.  By far my biggest cash.

I had tons of confidence after this tournament.  However, I still stuck to the 10c/25c NL because I didn't want to get in over my head and end up losing a lot of the money I earned.  After all, I had to pay for college.  With $3,500 in my account, my bankroll slowly deteriorated.  I finally bought out $2500 when my roll sunk to $3,000.  The remaining $500 didn't do me much good.  I ran it up, then lost it, and the cycle became too much for me to deal with.  After a month of these swings, and after donking off a huge pot worth $100, I decided I was sick of being a 'good' player, and I wanted to be a great player.  I subscribed to PokerVT and CardRunners.  This greatly effected my win-rate.

I downloaded the 60-day version of PokerTracker v3.  By the time the trial expired, my bottom line was a green $2000.  My winrate in the 25c/50c 6-max games was off the charts.  My BB/100 was 11.32.  I also started playing 25c/50c heads up.  I found this to be infinitely profitable.  My BB/100 in this game is 20.17.  My winnings in this semester helped me comfortably pay off the Spring semester.

That takes me up to right now.  It is spring semester and I am so glad I played poker in the fall semester.  Over Christmas break I decided I wanted to become "pro."  I deposited $600 onto Full Tilt and was down to about $200 after the first few weeks.  I lost so much confidence, but I knew i was running just awful.  I was playing much worse than I was running however.  I took a break from poker after the horrible run, and just started playing again at the beginning of the semester.  I had back to back 3 buy-in wins at Full Tilt to start off the semester, then I had 2 small losses, 3 medium-wins and then a big loss.  All of this is 10c/25c mixed in with some 25c/50c heads up.  I have about $400 on Full Tilt, and $600 on PokerStars.  I really want these numbers to swell, so I won't have to take out any loans for next semester (cross fingers).

The rest of my blog will be me analyzing my playing sessions, going over the good, the bad and the ugly plays.  I really think that is the best way to learn.  In addition to session reviews I will say whats going on in my life.  Please feel free to comment on any or all of my blog entries.

Hello everybody.  I'm starting this poker blog because I hope it will improve my overall poker game.  I am 19 years old and I'm attending college at Winona State University in hopes of getting a major in computer science and a minor in math and psychology.  Halfway through writing this entry, I realized that was terribly long, so i'll separate it into a two-part series.  I first discovered poker when I was 15.  I deposited $20 onto Pacific Poker and started playing full-ring 5c/10c LHE.  At this time, multi-tabling didn't exist so I grinded 1 table at a time.  I occasionally took "shots" playing 5c/10c PLHE where I would buy in $3 and try to run it up.  I lost every time i did so.  After a few months I ran the $20 up to $100 thanks in part to the instant $50 sign-up bonus.  With the $100 bankroll I played $2 super turbo sng's and slowly built my bankroll.  I had my first real hot streak when I had about $150 in my bankroll.  I won about $100 in one night playing solely the $2 super turbo's.  I ran so hot.  I won every single all in, literally.  I remember thinking that the run would never end, so I called a shove with 7,2 offsuit and it held vs 4,3 suited.  After that night I had roughly $250 in my account.  I then turned my attention to multi-table tournaments.  I played a very, very, very tight style in these tournaments.  It wouldn't be uncommon for me to fold 50 hands in a row.  With this style I had a lot of cashes, but I was just a small winner.  I got my first big score in a $5 turbo multi-table which I took down for about $500.  I was about 16 at this point.  A few months later I got 2nd in a $20 tournament and won another $1000.  This $1500 profit payed for my first car (which I still have today).  Within the next year or so, Pacific Poker decided to no longer allow Americans.  I withdrew my remaining funds from the site and turned to PokerStars.  I was only playing play-money at this point, to get used to the different software.  I went from 1000 chips to over 200,000 chips within a few months, and I had tons of confidence.  But I knew this was fake money, and the real-money players are much much better.  I deposited $50 then got bored and moved to UltimateBet, where I also deposited $50.  I played mostly on UltimateBet, playing 2 tables of $25 NLHE 6-max.  My $50 appreciated to $200.  Again, I turned to MTT tournaments with good results.  My first break, on that site, was a $405 win in a $30 multi-table.  I continued to play cash and ran my bankroll up to about $2000.  My poker career was flourishing, this was so easy!  I withdrew $500 and put it in the bank, and continued to play with my remaining $1500.  A few months later I had $1000, the next month I had $750.  My run ended and my bankroll was showing it.  I then took out another $500 and tried to jumpstart my $250 bankroll to no avail.  I went broke shortly after, but at least I made a cool $1,000.  This caused me to take a long break from poker.  I couldn't believe that I had $2000 in my bankroll and ended up cashing out just $1000.