Live Poker

I am playing in a local MTT tournament in NY. It the buy-in is $50 plus $15 for the house.  Most online grinders will say the rake is too high but the field is so soft that is very profitable.  There are between 35-50 runners and the top prize is between $900-$1300.  They normally pay 3 tops and the 4th place player gets a seat in the next game.

I normally take the tournament down once a month, and I cash 1-2 times each month.  The players are so bad and so nasty. They are one of the reasons that I didn't play poker full time, I didn't want to be like them.  I didn't want to be like those overweight, smelly, sloppy, bad skin, angry, ugly people. I was turning into one of them. I made a lot of money but my social life suffered.

At the time I reached that point of no return I met a person that took me his wing and gave me a new career.

I just ran deep in today's tournament.  I ran my trips to the villains trips with a bigger kicker.  It's hard to run so deep and not win it. I am happy I played better,  I made a good all-in bet with 99 on a Q high.  I opened UTG with villain 3bet on the button.  The villain slow played AA earlier and I have seen him squeeze A7o so I felt that he was weak. I wanted to see a flop and go all-in any flop without a ace or K. I pushed and called off with just K high. It ran true and I built a nice stack.

I need to get better at reading weakness. I end up in to many 50/50 pots. I need to push them out more on turns and flops.  I still have many holes in my tourament game.

Fat Guys In Hip Hop

This is what I'm listening to when I'm grinding.  I am up 5 Buy-ins

Building Sound Fundamentals

Staking - Losing a Horse

My main horse had a good run of cards and wanted to be own his own.  He was crushing a 5/5 NLH game in NY.  Then he wins or had deep runs in the cash in tournaments. Now he has a bankroll.  He wanted to be on his own.

He is a good friend of mine, and was OK with with him being on his own.  He has his own money but had it was tied up in his new house.  He didn't want to risk the loses since he also took a break from the game and was rusty.  So I staked him.  The rust is off and is playing winning poker. I am happy for him.

I other horse is another subject. He is concentrating on school and sports betting.  His poker is suffering due to it.

Micro Stakes - Trying to Figure it out

It has been a roller coaster ride so far. I peaked at up 80 buy-ins and I was close to moving up in stakes.  I was playing the style I played from 2008-2010 were I was a big winner at mid stakes games.  I was destroyed. I lost it back and I ended down 5 buy-ins. What happened?

I am too loose and aggressive for the micro stakes games. I was losing every flip, and I running into the nuts when I had the 2nd nuts every time. To top it I was tilting too often. Every mush and losing play say the same thing. I need to make a change.

First thing I changed was playing less tables.  I like playing 4-6 tables at a time. I lost track of the game flow and was paying off to many player with 2nd best hand. Now I only play 2 tables at a time. This way I don't play on auto pilot.

The players are tighter and are grinding rake or bonus which them make even more tighter.  They can be a losing player but still have a profit collecting rake and bonus. I was 3bet machine but I was doing it out of position. Due to that I spewed tons of chips when I didn't hit.  I also defended my opening raise to often.  The players are tighter so when I did hit the players didn't pay me off. I stopped 3betting out of position, and limped stronger. This kept my pots smaller and control of the pot sized.

So far it has helped my last 2 sessions.  Tightening my range out of position and reading the board in position has showed a improvement of my results.