For A Better Tomorrow

This is one extremly wild ride as you can see.  This graph here is my result for July.  Actually, I still have a full day today (Monday, since it is almost 4am right now as I write this entry)  I’ll likely wake up at 12pm or 1pm hit the gym till 3pm, then grind again till late night.  To be honest, I went on one of the worst streaks ever the past two weeks.   All together last week I lost about $2,000, which is an absurd amount of money when I think about it.  But, what you have to realize is that I was on a really unlucky streak.  Everything was just going wrong.  Sunday and this morning (monday) I picked a lot of it back up as you can see at the very end.  I lost $2,000 last week and made $1,500 of it back today!  I’m pretty proud of this.  I still have a full day tomorrow, I hope I can do more than just claw backto where I was a couple weeks back.  I hope to put in more hours today.  Yesterday, I played literally from 3pm to 3:45 AM.  Two of those hours, I spent working out and then eating.  The rest was pure poker. 

Here’s an overview of my overall.  Note* the end of the graph, you can see how terribly bad I went as I downshifted off my course a bit there. 

To be honest, I wanted to make a shit load more money.  But I can’t get too greedy as I did suffer through some crazy swings.  A week and a half ago, I got on some tilt and made some poor plays, I then readjusted myself to play some good poker last week, but I still had dead cards and unlucky situations.  Towards the end of the week, I started taking a break and went out drinking to not think about poker for a bit.  I mean it did sting a bit to go on a - 12.5 buyin downswing - that’s the worst I have ever experienced.

~12.5 buyin = ~$2,500

Yikes!  On the weekends, I decided to play some tournaments ONLY, that is, without sitting in any cash games.  I just wanted to relax and play my agressive tournament strategies.  It was going quite well until I bubbled(knocked out right before the money). 

On Sunday, I honestly believe that I played extremely well.  I made the correct reads and made some outrageous plays and folds.  I did however, made a couple of bad bluffs because my opposition in the hand was a terrible player and there was no way I could’ve bluffed him out.  A decent player however would’ve laid it down easily. 

Now, since all I do is talk talk talk, I’m going to show 3 hands that I find very interesting.  Also, it’ll give you an idea on how this game can be profited.  I don’t want people to google search their Full Tilt Names and land themselves at this site finding out what I’ve been talking about them, so I’ve changed my name to “Me” and their names to “Player X”.  I hope this doesn’t confuse you but it should be self explanatory.

Dealt to ME [Kh Ad]
Player 0  folds
Me raises to $8
player1 folds
player2 folds
player3 folds
player4 folds
player5 raises to $25
Me calls $17
*** FLOP *** [6d Td 9d]
player 5 bets $30
Me calls $30
*** TURN *** [6d Td 9d] [Ts]
player 5 checks
me bets $202.55, and is all in
player 5 folds
Uncalled bet of $202.55 returned to Me
Me wins the pot ($108)

In this particular hand I made the initial raise but was reraised behind me in the blinds.  I call of course, hoping to hit my A to try to extract this guy or outplay him out of position.  I usually don’t like to out play these players because I just want to make money off my big hands.  However, I saw opportunity here and had to take it. 

On the flop, I drew the nut flush draw with 8 outs as I only had one diamond. He bets a decent near pot size bet so I called as I have 8 outs for the nut flush and 5 overcards.  I do suspect him having QQ or KK with this kind of bet on the flop but you never know, he can easily be doing a continuation bet. 

The turn brought a perfect scare card for him if he were to have QQ KK or AA.  He checks with weakness and I just overbet the pot moving all in.  By my passive play on the flop, I can easily have 10x, or flopped flush.  With that turn, I can move off any QQ or KK or AA because I can represent getting trip 10’s on the turn.  THe reason why I also overbet rather than a standard bet is because I wanted to move off a KK with one diamond.  I didn’t want him to just call 2/3 pot size bet to catch the 4th diamond.  I’d be in a lot of trouble if that were to happened, so what did I do? I gambled and made the right play.  This can all be bs talk as this guy could’ve overplayed 88.  But at these levels, when players reraise preflop, they’re like on QQ KK or AA, especially against a player like myself - they should know they need a hand against me.

Ok this one, instead of going by Player 1 2 3 etc.. I did seats 1 2 3 as it was much easier to manipulate the hand history.  Here it is.

FullTiltPoker Game : Table Arlington Bridge - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold’em - 23:07:21 ET - 2006/07/30
Seat 2:    ($199.15)
Seat 3:    ($93.45)
Seat 4:    ($137.60)
Seat 5:    ($186.10)
Seat 6:    ($113.40)
Seat 7:    ($200)
Seat 8:    ($149.30)
Seat 9: Me ($197)
Seat 6 posts the small blind of $1
Seat 7 posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Me [Kd Kh]
Seat 8 raises to $7
Seat 9 Me raises to $21
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 raises to $137.60, and is all in
Seat 5 folds
Seat 6 folds
Seat 7 folds
Seat 8 raises to $149.30, and is all in
Seat 9 Me has 15 seconds left to act
Me folds
Seat 8 shows [Kc Ac]
Seat 4 shows [As Ad]
Uncalled bet of $11.70 returned to Seat 8
*** FLOP *** [Ts 6h 9h]
Me adds $24
*** TURN *** [Ts 6h 9h] [8s]
*** RIVER *** [Ts 6h 9h 8s] [4h]
Seat 8 shows Ace King high
Seat 4 shows a pair of Aces
Seat 4 wins the pot ($296.20) with a pair of Aces
This is quite a fold on my part.  The reason is not because I have the 2nd best hand it’s because the all in was not even a FULL BUYIN.  If I can remember correctly without having to do the math, all I had to call was $136 to showdown, but I was really worried about seat 4 as he looks like he has AA.  To be honest, I would’ve called if seat 8 folded.  Seat 8’s all in convinced me that one of them had to have AA.  This here is such a close fold, that I honestly think that I am mathematically wrong to fold here.  But hey, the showdown proves that I am right, I just cant use this hand as a reason to fold KK preflop when similar situations come up in the near future.  Just gotta do what my instincts tell me at the moment. 

FullTiltPoker Game: Table Jade Hills - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold’em - 20:14:19 ET - 2006/07/30
Seat 1:    ($202.60)
Seat 2:    ($400)
Seat 3:    ($70)
Seat 4:    ($199.95)
Seat 5:    ($429.65)
Seat 6:    ($37)
Seat 7: Me ($190)
Seat 8:    ($120.70)
Seat 9:    ($20.45)
Me posts the small blind of $1
Seat 8 posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Me [Ah As]
Seat 9  calls $2
Seat 1 folds
Seat 2 folds
Seat 3 folds
Seat 4 folds
Seat 5 calls $2
Seat 6 calls $2
ME     raises to $12
Seat 8 folds
Seat 9 raises to $20.45, and is all in
Seat 5 calls $18.45
Seat 6 raises to $37, and is all in
Me     raises to $75
Seat 5 calls $54.55
*** FLOP *** [7s 6s 5c]
Me     bets $115, and is all in
Seat 5 has 15 seconds left to act
Seat 5 calls $115
Me shows [Ah As]
Seat 9 shows [Jh 8h]
Seat 5 shows [Qh Qs]
Seat 6 shows [3s 3c]
*** TURN *** [7s 6s 5c] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [7s 6s 5c Js] [2d]
Me shows a pair of Aces
Seat 5  shows a pair of Queens
Me wins side pot #2 ($306) with a pair of Aces
Seat 6  shows a pair of Threes
Me      wins side pot #1 ($49.65) with a pair of Aces
Seat 9  shows a pair of Jacks
Me      wins the main pot ($80.80) with a pair of Aces
Seat 6  is sitting out
Seat 9  is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $439.45 Main pot $83.80. Side pot 1 $49.65. Side pot 2 $306. | Rake $3

This hand was extremely bizarre.  I raised in the in the small blind of limpers and they all still called my raise.  Two of them were all in and one of them (seat 5) was thinking preflop.  He thought about it long enough and decided to call.  The flop came rags and I just moved all in as I wanted the pot then and there, no need to gamble any further.  Seat 5 sits there and thinks some more and calls right before his 15 seconds were up.  He shows QQ and my jaw dropped.  Lets go back a second and watch his QQ play preflop.  There were two limpers in front of him and he also LIMPED with QQ!(this is before my raise in the small blind with AA).  I find that such a horrible play!  I guess he wanted the short stacks to be all in on the flop.  But what makes is worst is that I obviously have KK or AA when I raised preflop.  Yet he just called my raise passively while the other guys were all in.  THen he calls an ALL IN on the flop with QQ!  I seriously have to be overplaying AK or JJ here for him to actually be ahead. 

The Philosophy:

Why is it that everyone thinks that winning poker is all about “bluffing”.  Bluffing is just one way to win in poker, it is NOT THE ONLY WAY.  I find it amazing how many people complain to me about playing low stakes. 

 ”Everyone calls you to the river, so how do you play that kind of game when you can’t even bluff?”

“ Higher stakes is a way better game because people are willing to fold big cards”.

 -_-             < )- is my face everytime people tell me this. 

As you can see in the last two hands, I pretty much demonstrated how to profit in poker.  I showed you a hand history in which I FOLDED KK successfully when someone had AA.  Can the majority of other players do this? No.  Will I make money overall like this?  Yes! why you ask? Well, look at the last hand history, I then gave you a sample on how a random player cannot even FOLD QQ TO MY AA! 

So the in conclusion the winning philosophy is this.

If I am capable of making strong reads and disciplined laydowns against players when they pretty much tell me they have a better hand, I will profit in EQUITY when there are players who are unable to make the same laydowns.To many advance players this is a very basic idea to them.  But to those who are interested and are curious about the game, here’s a taste. 

So as you can see, if you were to play extremely high stakes good players who are capable of making those laydowns, you will have a very hard time making profit in EQUITY, if those players are folding their KK to your AA. 

“The further you get in poker the more it becomes like a game of chess”

I ordered some classic DVDS on Amazon last Friday and I was truly shocked that it came on Monday.  I figured that if I have more time to watch movies, I want to take advantage of being able to study the movies that inspired the director that inspired me, John Woo.  Of course, these titles also inspired many current big directors today.

1) Final Fantasy: Advent Children - new but not yet classic but definitely will be some day. 

2) Deer Hunter - One of Deniro’s and Walken’s finest films. 

3)Le Cercle Rouge - Directed by Jean - Pierre Melville.  It’s one of Woo’s favorite French films.  There’s obviously something special about this director that I would like to find out about. 

4) Le Samourai - Another Jean Pierre Melville film.  “The closest thing to a perfect movie that I have ever seen” - John Woo

5) Raging Bull - A classic with Robert Deniro as the lead quarterback and Martin Scorsese as the Head Coach.  A must watch. 

6) Buch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - This movie is like a favorite for every single director I’ve studied.  I really have to scope this one out and see what all the big fuss is all about. 

I want to point out a trailer that I find absolutely exciting.  http://tmnt.warnerbros.com/  < - Please do watch it before you read the following as I am going to elaborate on it a bit.  It may spoil the trailer only if you care…  I would .

I’ve mentioned in the past that I believe that Final Fantasy: Advent Children will be a film that many directors today will look at as the next big thing.  I honestly believe that this “cgi” film is going to revolutionize the action genre.  If it doesn’t, I will be sadden as the action genre is not appreciated anymore.  I thought Superman Returns was a superb film however it seems that the “general audience” did not like the film as much.  I guess it’s because I understood the limitations on that film and I put myself in the directors shoes a bit knowing how difficult it’ll be to revive the Superman series.  In all honesty, I give Singer much more respect after this film even though it didn’t do so well.  Anyway,  I never thought that they would do a CGI film of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  The choreography in that trailer looks amazing.  This is how TMNT should be.  I am honestly jealous of the director who gets to make this film as this would be something I would love to get my hands on.  There is just so much they can do with this film to make it great.  I just hope they don’t mess it up.  However, by the way the trailer looks, it seems that they know exactly where to lead the audience.  It got me excited, why can’t it get the general audience excited.  Hopefully this will help revisit many of those kids (myself included) to see their favorite cartoon show on screen again. But definitely, if they created any action sequence similar to FF: Advent Children, I’m pretty certain, that it will be a big hit.  THat is my prediction.  I’m just envisioning a huge ass fight choreography that includes all four turtles.  Man, the things they can do with this film!  I’m excited! 

Transformers’ fan’s cry has been nurtured over the weekend

I was at Comicon on Friday and I sat in on a very brief discussion on Transformers.  Michael Bay was not there however he did appear on screen to announce a “new cast member” that has joined in on the movie.  Later some guy on stage came up with a cell phone and brought it to the microphone for everyone to hear (it was actually my sprint Treo 650).  He turned it on speaker and it was Optimus Prime speaking….the original Optimus Prime voice  from the 80’s.  Congratulations nerds, you’ve won the war, your damn original Optimus Prime voice is going to be in the movie.  I honestly don’t care as I am not a die hard fan of the cartoon.  But if something like this were to happen to a Metal Gear film, I’d hold people hostage just to get the original voice actor for Solid Snake, murder to get Hideo Kojima on as the director and beg him to do it in CGI.  So I do sorta understand their cry? 

*Another very interesting development for the sequel to Batman Begins.  Earlier this year, I was already shocked with my jaw dropping when they made a list of who to play The Joker.  One of them was Johnny Depp.  Obviously, that is an automatic blockbuster hit.  I cannot emphasize this enought and with that I didn’t want anyone else to play the Joker.  However, I found something else very interesting recently.  I have to admit, that this idea already is an excellent ploy to market the film.  But as dead as action movies are, I believe that this is the time for the film studios to go through any lengths to hype up the film.  Now, can you imagine that they are also looking at Michael Keaton to play THE JOKER!?  Holy shiz ballz, as much as I like Johnny Depp, I think that is one of the craziest ideas.  I doubt it will happen but for sure it will make the film very interesting.

As for poker, I’m going through a tough swing and I will show some more graphs on that later.  Lets just say, I am not too please with it right now as I have been getting outdrawn like a madman.  On one hand I was a 95% favorite to win a $700+ pot but was rivered by a one outer.  It was pretty painful especially with all the other hits that I took this week.  It pushed a few buttons of mine this weekend and at  one point I was really on tilt - so I had to quit.  But that’s over with now,  I still have a full week left to continue my progress for this month.  I’m hoping to end well this month but we’ll see.  Only time will tell

OK that title sounds pretty cool I guess.  But it is definitely not as cool as experiencing it.  I’ve been doing this for the past two days now and it is quite a different experience than I thought it would be.  I’ll explain more about that later as I still need to get into the real grove of playing poker 8-10 hours a day. 

Full Time Poker Player

A few years back my friends and I watched this Hong Kong movie called Full Time Killer.  We used to make fun of the title every single day because it sounded so funny.  FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TIIIIIIIIIIIME Killuh (In a japanese accent). LOL  It just sounds too funny.  I am uhhhh FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL DIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMME KILLHER!  I just thought that was hilarious and the title above reminds me much of it.  Good Times. 

After the tournament victory, I went through what I called the lazy spoiled poker phase.  It happens when a poker player wins a tournament and is eager to win more money, hence not playing his same game anymore…  So as a result this is what happened.  Again I am sorry as you may have to right click save as to get a clearer view:

Exhibit A or Arrow A:  Is the downswing I talked in this post http://myluckyskills.com/?p=101

As you can see, I went up long ways past that. 

Exhibit B or Arrow B:  Is what I am experiencing Currently!

~5.5 buyins = In my NL200 = -$1,100

Sunday night, I killed the game as I went on an incredible winning streak of +$1,500.  And on Monday and Tuesday, I experienced that downswing in Exhibit B. 

To be honest, I am not too happy with myself as I KNOW for a fact that I was not playing my A game.  Surely a lot of it came from bad beats (Set vs Set, KK vs AA, Opponents two outter came on river, etc…)  but there were some moves I made in the game where I knew was incorrect but still did it because of my undisciplined nature.    I made some very bad calls this week and for that I am pretty pissed off.  Not only was I getting bad beats but I was making some bad calls.  There were quite a few times when I just new the bastard had a set, yet I called them with my AA or KK or AK with A high on the board.  I swear, I should just let it go.

I think I could’ve literally cut this downswing to - 2 buyins as I got stacked like 3 or 4x by not making the correct folds.  If I continue playing like this, it could be pretty devastating.  I must punish myself and rethink about what I’m doing.  Like I said, winning that tournament is great and all but it cannot interrupt my initial objective.  This downswing is a lot steeper but much different from Exhibit A as that swing contained more bad beats. 

I’m going to take the day off tomorrow as I am going to a Lifehouse Concert.  That’ll cool me off for a bit.  When I get back into the game this is what will be on my mind.  I’m going to just play the game smartly and tight - aggressively.  I’m going to have pure discipline in my blood and avoid targeting players.  I’m just going to sit here and wait it out for 8-10 hours a day.  AA KK QQ will all come my way plenty of times so there is no need to be married to them.  In fact, I want to throw away AA preflop just for the fuck of it.  - I’m kidding I love AA <3333. 

Just be patient, just play your games and wait on the hours and everything with come in place

I got extremely drunk Friday Night and I did not feel good at all Saturday morning/afternoon.  It was my fault as I lost track of how many drinks I had at the club.  I got really sick while playing the WSOP 20 seat Freeroll on Full Tilt, I woke up 5 mins before the game started - Yikes talk about being undisciplined!  I was playing extremely aggressive and picked up 8,000 chips within the first 4 rounds.  The players at my table got extremely sick of it that they started playing really weak hands to defend themselves.  Of course, I was holding premiums in which would lead me to put them all in.  Unfortunately they outdrew miserably.  I was sick to my stomach when I got knocked out in like the 6th round after starting out so well.  Agression is good but it is not good when your big hands don’t hold up.  You literally lose your entire stack.  My image was so aggressive that when I had a big hand, I was forced to put all my chips in the middle because I knew for sure the players got fed up with me and had crappy holdings.  On 3 occassions they outdrew me and eventually this knocked me out of the tournament  as I was not respected anymore with a small stack. 

I decided to play the 100+9 buyin tournament at 3pm since there were no more WSOP Main Event Satelites.  And this was my result:  You may have to right click save the picture to view it better.

I’ve been waiting for this for awhile now.  Earlier this year, I took 2nd in a smaller tournament that got me about $2,500.  Just as I was thinking that the year 2006 is going to be slow for tournament success due to my cash game focus, I find myself knocking down this tournament today.  This is definitely going to make my roll healthier.  My last day of work was on Friday, and on Saturday I took down a tournament that consisted of 564 players. 

I am truly proud of this victory.  I had some buddies over to witness my victory and to share that with them, we went out to Houstons for steak and red wine for celebration.  At around 30 players left, I told my buddy that if I take 1st place, we’re going to go out for a steak dinner.  Nothing but +EV for them as they had nothing to lose.  After the tournament, I called some other buddies to join us and at the end of the night I picked up a tab for $400.  That’s two buyins for me in NL200 LOL.  I’m excited more than ever to play poker full time and this is definitely a good way to start off.  I do want a WSOP seat though.  I don’t care, the 2k Prize Package or the 12k Prize Package!  I just want a reason to go out there!  I’m going to shoot for it more this month until the WSOP is over. 

Everyone’s been asking if I’m attempting to win a seat to the WSOP main event.  The answer is yes, I am gunning for it.  However, keep in mind that I am not focusing on it like I did last year.  My main focus is to be consistent in my winrate for cash games.  Winning a seat to the WSOP is a perk and it would be great if I can do it.  It obviously has it’s life changing opportunities.  However, one thing I learn about the poker world is that you shouldn’t rely on those life changing prize pools.  My goal is to be consistent and give myself as many chances as possible to play in those huge prize pool tournaments without going broke.  

I would be relaxing this weekend since I start poker full time next week.  HOwever, all of the Full Tilt WSOP poker semi finals are happening.  And I’m playing in those tournaments.  I’m on the freeroll for the 20 WSOP seats and I’m certain I’ll be up against at least 800 players in that tournament.  They’re also offering a 1 million guaranteed tournament which gives out 100 WSOP seats at the price of 500+35 buyin.  I will also be playing in this tournament.  And depending on what other tournaments they have, if the prizepool offers at least 3 WSOP main event seats, I will likely play.  I don’t like to play in tournaments where only 1st place gets the prize as it is very hard to get it.  I think top 3 is very reasonable. 

My friend told me to prepare for hell week next week.  I was kinda lost at first as to what he was talking about.  I totally forgot that I’ll be hitting the gym with him next week.  I’m going to hit the gym at 5x a week according to the routine he’s putting me on.  This time, I have no excuses for not going.  In fact, I have to go as my health will be very bad if I were to just sit in front of the computer playing poker all day.  My plan is to have a good week at the gym and hopefully by the end of the weekend I can hit up a casino, get a massage, and play poker at the same time. 

Now I can’t say I’m going to have a lot of free time because I don’t!  I’m going to be play 40-50 hours a week of poker + gym, and when September comes around, I’ll be going to school as well.  However, I will be able to manage my time around things as I can play poker anytime I want!  That is a great perk.  I just hope the Senate doesn’t pass the bill to ban poker.  I’m actually very worried about that, but I can’t imagine that happening.  THe government is going to ban it and not take 3 billion dollars on tax money?  I mean come on…

Ok, I’m going to bed now.  Got work in the morning