A Review of my Vacation (Long Post)
I've been back for a few hours and I'm a little more rested, so I figured I'd go over what has happened in the last week.
I went to San Jose for business last weekend, then went to San Francisco for the remainder of the week to hang out with some friends and have a little vacation. I was able to play a lot of poker when my friends were unavailable due to things like work and sleep.
SUNDAY:
The first time I played was while hanging out in the lobby of my hotel in San Jose waiting to get a ride to San Francisco. Apparently the city of San Jose has free wifi provided by the city, for which I thank them. I won about $160 while playing for about 1/2 hour, most of which came from this hand:
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (7 handed)
CO ($200.00)
Button ($425.60)
SB ($166.80)
Hero ($197.00)
UTG ($135.70)
MP1 ($146.90)
MP2 ($328.40)
Preflop: Hero is BB with 4c, 5d.
UTG calls $2, MP1 raises to $5, 1 fold, CO calls $3, 1 fold, SB calls $4, Hero calls $3, UTG calls $3.
Flop: ($25) 3c, 2h, 6d (5 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $12, UTG calls $12, MP1 calls $12, CO folds, SB folds.
Turn: ($61) Ac (3 players)
Hero bets $40, UTG calls $40, MP1 folds.
River: ($141) Qh (2 players)
Hero bets $80, UTG calls $78.70 (All-In).
Final Pot: $299.70
Results below:
Hero has 4c 5d (straight, six high).
UTG doesn't show.
Outcome: Hero wins $299.70.
We went out to some bars in the "Marina" area of San Fransisco that night, and I didn't play again until the next day while everyone was working.
MONDAY:
During the day I played about 550 hands and won $45 or so. A fun hand from this session:
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (10 handed)
MP2 ($275.45)
MP3 ($485.50)
CO ($193.70)
Button ($258.00)
Hero ($163.40)
BB ($74.70)
UTG ($197.00)
UTG+1 ($83.20)
UTG+2 ($83.65)
MP1 ($54.20)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Qd, Qh.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $7, UTG+2 calls $7, 4 folds, Button calls $7, Hero raises to $30, 1 fold, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 calls $23, Button folds.
Flop: ($76) 8h, 3s, Js (2 players)
Hero bets $54, UTG+2 calls $53.65 (All-In).
Turn: ($183.65) As (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($183.65) 7h (2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $183.65
Results below:
Hero has Qd Qh (one pair, queens).
UTG+2 has 4c Ac (one pair, aces).
Outcome: UTG+2 wins $183.30. Hero wins $0.34.
His flop call -- "wow" is about all you can say about that.
That evening after people got off work we ate some diner and watched American Psycho. Good film -- one of the guys I was staying with actually dressed up as Patrick Bateman (the main character in American Psycho) for halloween last night. After everyone went to bed I decided to stay up and play some more. I played about 500 hands and won another $65.
I lost a bunch during this session by having a few top pair vs. set/straight/2 pair hands. I also lost with 2 pair 4 times during this session. 3 of these times were against a better two pair and one was against a flush. So I got fairly cold-decked and still ended up with a win, which is a huge plus in my book.
TUESDAY:
I played again the following day while everyone was at work, winning about $500 over 330 hands. A lot of the profit was gained by winning a bunch of smallish pots, but about $300 of it came when I got all in with Ac8c vs. QQ vs. AA on an 25Q two club board and won with the flush. I actually played the hand kind of badly; it was bet and raise in front of me on the flop and I make a large check-raise on both of them instead of folding like I should have. Oh well, sometimes bad plays work out.
WEDNESDAY:
I played again on wednesday afternoon, winning $110 in about 250 hands and I don't really remember any hands from this session.
Then I played again that evening, where I ran up a huge stack in my $1/$2 game. All told from this night, I won $1777 in 350 hands. To re-cap in case you didn't read my eariler post about this game, I sat down to a game that had two extremely poor players in it, both of which had a bunch of money on the table. Here is my first hand at the table, where I fold the 2nd nuts to a very large overbet check/raise on the river:
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (5 handed)
SB (Donkey1) ($420.75)
Hero ($200.00)
UTG ($175.90)
MP (Donkey2) ($701.70)
Button ($70.00)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Kh, Js.
1 fold, MP (Donkey2) raises to $5, 1 fold, SB (Donkey1) calls $4, Hero calls $3.
Flop: ($15) 7h, 4h, Qs (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 checks.
Turn: ($15) 9h (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 checks.
River: ($15) 8h (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero bets $8, Donkey2 calls $8, Donkey1 raises to $100, Hero folds, Donkey2 folds.
Final Pot: $131
Results below:
Donkey1 doesn't show.
Outcome: Donkey1 wins $131.
A few things became quite apparent after just a few hands of watching and playing with Donkey1 and Donkey2. Donkey1 almost always went for a large check-raise on the river with a strong hand if he was out of position. This meant that I had to do less value-betting in these situations (I found this out the hard way by value betting KK on a 25Q9J board and getting c/r'ed by his 95o). Also, he tried to play very big pots with almost any hand that had value. I decided to just try to play solid against this guy and try to catch him with his pants down.
Also Donkey2 was willing to fire a lot of bullets on his bluffs, and in fact he did so regularly when people didn't appear to have big hands. This meant that the strategy for Donkey2 was to check/call the whole way with anything as strong as a mediocre top pair or something. My first big pots at this table came at the expense of Donkey2, where I implemented my "check call with top pair" strategy and let him bluff all his chips to me.
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (4 handed)
SB ($196.30)
BB (Donkey1) ($647.20)
Hero ($219.20)
Button (Donkey2) ($705.75)
Preflop: Hero is UTG with 4s, As.
Hero calls $2, Button (Donkey2) raises to $10, 1 fold, BB (Donkey1) calls $8, Hero calls $8.
Flop: ($31) Qs, Ah, 9h (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $25, Donkey1 folds, Hero calls $25.
Turn: ($81) 9d (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $35, Hero calls $35.
River: ($151) 8h (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $150, Hero calls $149.20 (All-In).
Final Pot: $450.20
Results below:
Hero has 4s As (two pair, aces and nines).
Donkey2 has 3h 5s (one pair, nines).
Outcome: Hero wins $449.40. Donkey2 wins $0.80.
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (5 handed)
Button ($217.50)
SB (Donkey1) ($907.10)
Hero ($541.60)
UTG (Donkey2) ($209.35)
MP ($256.50)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Ks, Jh.
UTG (Donkey2) raises to $10, MP calls $10, 1 fold, SB (Donkey1) calls $9, Hero calls $8.
Flop: ($40) 4d, Kd, 6c (4 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $15, MP folds, Donkey1 folds, Hero calls $15.
Turn: ($70) Qs (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $25, Hero calls $25.
River: ($120) Ts (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $159.35 (All-In), Hero calls $159.35.
Final Pot: $438.70
Results below:
Hero has Ks Jh (one pair, kings).
Donkey2 has 8h 7h (high card, king).
Outcome: Hero wins $438.70.
This ended Donkey2's short stay at the table, and I was appreciative to him for giving me the chips to be able to hurt Donkey1. Notice that over the course of these hands Donkey1's stack has been growing at an alarming rate. He had pretty much been overbetting every hand and showing up with the 2 pair that he flopped with whatever random cheese he happened to have in his hand. In other words, he was getting hit by the deck and getting paid off big time.
I ran my stack up even further to about $800 by playing smallish pots, where I was able to double my stack in the biggest pot I've ever played (look for the HH for this hand here).
I can't get over the fact that Donkey1 put in 38BBs on the flop in a heads up limped pot with 2nd pair no kicker on a dry board. This hand built my stack to about $1600. By this time a couple of other seemingly solid players had gotten into the game and had built up reasonable stacks as well. The last big hand at this table (a hand actually not involving either of the named "Donkey" players) happens when I pull a limp/raise with AA and run into a guy who overextends himself with AQs. We get all in preflop and I stack him for about $500.
This hand gets my stack to around $2100, which is about where it's at when I leave the table for the night.
THURSDAY:
I played golf during the day on thursday then played some tournaments during the evening. I ended up winning a very small $10 PLO8 tourney that paid me $152. It's cool to win something, but such a small amount of money doesn't really seem to matter when compared to the amount I've been winning the rest of the week.
FRIDAY:
I don't play any during the day. At night we make it out to some bars and go all out. I got home at around 3am and played about 950 hands while very intoxicated, winning about $1000 in the process. Most of this was due to running REALLY good. Set over set, overpair vs. overpair, flopped str8 vs. flopped set, etc. I was also in a good state for snapping off bluffs, which I did rather liberally and with a good amount of success. I end up getting to bed at about 9am.
SATURDAY:
I wake up at about 1pm and decide to play the $10-rebuy on Stars that starts at 1:30pm. I played well and got fairly lucky in a couple of spots during this tourney and made the final table (9th/1700 for $975). I'm still a little disgusted with how this went -- I lost 2 races against the same guy, either of which would have put me in great position for a huge score. I really can't seem to get the one or two more breaks I think I need to win one of these large-ish tournaments. I guess I just need to be patient, as it will happen eventually if I keep playing well.
After the tournament was over we got dressed up in our halloween costumes (I was a football coach) and went to some house parties from about 9:30pm to 12:30am. After this we went out to some bars, then headed over to an old college freind's house for some post-bar drinking. I had an incredibly good time there, and we ended up leaving at about 4:30am so that I could pack for my 9:30am flight leaving from San Jose.
SUNDAY:
When I got home I showered, packed, etc, finishing up at about 6:00. Since we weren't planning on leaving for the San Jose airport (which is about an hour from where we were) until about 7:00 and everyone else had gone to sleep, I again decided to play a bit of poker to keep myself entertained. There weren't really any meaningful hands here, but I won about $100 over the course of 120 hands or so.
I was able to get some sleep on the 1.5 hour flight from San Jose to San Diego, then I slept for another 3 hours when I got home.
SUMMARY:
So this week I played 2976 hands at $1/$2 and won $3701.25, which is a totally insane win rate. I also final-tabled the $10rebuy on Stars for $975 and won a small PLO8 tourney on Pokespoker for $150. All said and done I'm up about $4700 for the week -- not bad for playing $1/$2 cash games and $10 buyin tourneys.
I also don't think I'm going to move up to $2/$4 yet, mostly because I haven't yet meet my goal of winning $4,000 at $1/$2 (I lost $500 over my first 10,000 hands at this level!). Even when I hit $4,000 I doubt I'll be moving up to $2/$4 immediately. I'd imagine I will hit this number soon since I am rather close to it, but I'm just starting to feel really comfortable in the $1/$2 games. I might wait till I hit $6,000 or something, but it really will depend on how I feel at the time.
I also have a lot of work to catch up on this week so I probably won't be playing much poker. I'll probably try to get to the casino this weekend and I'll definitely have the home game on Thursday, so I probably won't update this blog again until at least then.
I went to San Jose for business last weekend, then went to San Francisco for the remainder of the week to hang out with some friends and have a little vacation. I was able to play a lot of poker when my friends were unavailable due to things like work and sleep.
SUNDAY:
The first time I played was while hanging out in the lobby of my hotel in San Jose waiting to get a ride to San Francisco. Apparently the city of San Jose has free wifi provided by the city, for which I thank them. I won about $160 while playing for about 1/2 hour, most of which came from this hand:
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (7 handed)
CO ($200.00)
Button ($425.60)
SB ($166.80)
Hero ($197.00)
UTG ($135.70)
MP1 ($146.90)
MP2 ($328.40)
Preflop: Hero is BB with 4c, 5d.
UTG calls $2, MP1 raises to $5, 1 fold, CO calls $3, 1 fold, SB calls $4, Hero calls $3, UTG calls $3.
Flop: ($25) 3c, 2h, 6d (5 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $12, UTG calls $12, MP1 calls $12, CO folds, SB folds.
Turn: ($61) Ac (3 players)
Hero bets $40, UTG calls $40, MP1 folds.
River: ($141) Qh (2 players)
Hero bets $80, UTG calls $78.70 (All-In).
Final Pot: $299.70
Results below:
Hero has 4c 5d (straight, six high).
UTG doesn't show.
Outcome: Hero wins $299.70.
We went out to some bars in the "Marina" area of San Fransisco that night, and I didn't play again until the next day while everyone was working.
MONDAY:
During the day I played about 550 hands and won $45 or so. A fun hand from this session:
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (10 handed)
MP2 ($275.45)
MP3 ($485.50)
CO ($193.70)
Button ($258.00)
Hero ($163.40)
BB ($74.70)
UTG ($197.00)
UTG+1 ($83.20)
UTG+2 ($83.65)
MP1 ($54.20)
Preflop: Hero is SB with Qd, Qh.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $7, UTG+2 calls $7, 4 folds, Button calls $7, Hero raises to $30, 1 fold, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 calls $23, Button folds.
Flop: ($76) 8h, 3s, Js (2 players)
Hero bets $54, UTG+2 calls $53.65 (All-In).
Turn: ($183.65) As (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($183.65) 7h (2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $183.65
Results below:
Hero has Qd Qh (one pair, queens).
UTG+2 has 4c Ac (one pair, aces).
Outcome: UTG+2 wins $183.30. Hero wins $0.34.
His flop call -- "wow" is about all you can say about that.
That evening after people got off work we ate some diner and watched American Psycho. Good film -- one of the guys I was staying with actually dressed up as Patrick Bateman (the main character in American Psycho) for halloween last night. After everyone went to bed I decided to stay up and play some more. I played about 500 hands and won another $65.
I lost a bunch during this session by having a few top pair vs. set/straight/2 pair hands. I also lost with 2 pair 4 times during this session. 3 of these times were against a better two pair and one was against a flush. So I got fairly cold-decked and still ended up with a win, which is a huge plus in my book.
TUESDAY:
I played again the following day while everyone was at work, winning about $500 over 330 hands. A lot of the profit was gained by winning a bunch of smallish pots, but about $300 of it came when I got all in with Ac8c vs. QQ vs. AA on an 25Q two club board and won with the flush. I actually played the hand kind of badly; it was bet and raise in front of me on the flop and I make a large check-raise on both of them instead of folding like I should have. Oh well, sometimes bad plays work out.
WEDNESDAY:
I played again on wednesday afternoon, winning $110 in about 250 hands and I don't really remember any hands from this session.
Then I played again that evening, where I ran up a huge stack in my $1/$2 game. All told from this night, I won $1777 in 350 hands. To re-cap in case you didn't read my eariler post about this game, I sat down to a game that had two extremely poor players in it, both of which had a bunch of money on the table. Here is my first hand at the table, where I fold the 2nd nuts to a very large overbet check/raise on the river:
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (5 handed)
SB (Donkey1) ($420.75)
Hero ($200.00)
UTG ($175.90)
MP (Donkey2) ($701.70)
Button ($70.00)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Kh, Js.
1 fold, MP (Donkey2) raises to $5, 1 fold, SB (Donkey1) calls $4, Hero calls $3.
Flop: ($15) 7h, 4h, Qs (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 checks.
Turn: ($15) 9h (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 checks.
River: ($15) 8h (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero bets $8, Donkey2 calls $8, Donkey1 raises to $100, Hero folds, Donkey2 folds.
Final Pot: $131
Results below:
Donkey1 doesn't show.
Outcome: Donkey1 wins $131.
A few things became quite apparent after just a few hands of watching and playing with Donkey1 and Donkey2. Donkey1 almost always went for a large check-raise on the river with a strong hand if he was out of position. This meant that I had to do less value-betting in these situations (I found this out the hard way by value betting KK on a 25Q9J board and getting c/r'ed by his 95o). Also, he tried to play very big pots with almost any hand that had value. I decided to just try to play solid against this guy and try to catch him with his pants down.
Also Donkey2 was willing to fire a lot of bullets on his bluffs, and in fact he did so regularly when people didn't appear to have big hands. This meant that the strategy for Donkey2 was to check/call the whole way with anything as strong as a mediocre top pair or something. My first big pots at this table came at the expense of Donkey2, where I implemented my "check call with top pair" strategy and let him bluff all his chips to me.
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $2 BB (4 handed)
SB ($196.30)
BB (Donkey1) ($647.20)
Hero ($219.20)
Button (Donkey2) ($705.75)
Preflop: Hero is UTG with 4s, As.
Hero calls $2, Button (Donkey2) raises to $10, 1 fold, BB (Donkey1) calls $8, Hero calls $8.
Flop: ($31) Qs, Ah, 9h (3 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $25, Donkey1 folds, Hero calls $25.
Turn: ($81) 9d (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $35, Hero calls $35.
River: ($151) 8h (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $150, Hero calls $149.20 (All-In).
Final Pot: $450.20
Results below:
Hero has 4s As (two pair, aces and nines).
Donkey2 has 3h 5s (one pair, nines).
Outcome: Hero wins $449.40. Donkey2 wins $0.80.
PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (5 handed)
Button ($217.50)
SB (Donkey1) ($907.10)
Hero ($541.60)
UTG (Donkey2) ($209.35)
MP ($256.50)
Preflop: Hero is BB with Ks, Jh.
UTG (Donkey2) raises to $10, MP calls $10, 1 fold, SB (Donkey1) calls $9, Hero calls $8.
Flop: ($40) 4d, Kd, 6c (4 players)
Donkey1 checks, Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $15, MP folds, Donkey1 folds, Hero calls $15.
Turn: ($70) Qs (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $25, Hero calls $25.
River: ($120) Ts (2 players)
Hero checks, Donkey2 bets $159.35 (All-In), Hero calls $159.35.
Final Pot: $438.70
Results below:
Hero has Ks Jh (one pair, kings).
Donkey2 has 8h 7h (high card, king).
Outcome: Hero wins $438.70.
This ended Donkey2's short stay at the table, and I was appreciative to him for giving me the chips to be able to hurt Donkey1. Notice that over the course of these hands Donkey1's stack has been growing at an alarming rate. He had pretty much been overbetting every hand and showing up with the 2 pair that he flopped with whatever random cheese he happened to have in his hand. In other words, he was getting hit by the deck and getting paid off big time.
I ran my stack up even further to about $800 by playing smallish pots, where I was able to double my stack in the biggest pot I've ever played (look for the HH for this hand here).
I can't get over the fact that Donkey1 put in 38BBs on the flop in a heads up limped pot with 2nd pair no kicker on a dry board. This hand built my stack to about $1600. By this time a couple of other seemingly solid players had gotten into the game and had built up reasonable stacks as well. The last big hand at this table (a hand actually not involving either of the named "Donkey" players) happens when I pull a limp/raise with AA and run into a guy who overextends himself with AQs. We get all in preflop and I stack him for about $500.
This hand gets my stack to around $2100, which is about where it's at when I leave the table for the night.
THURSDAY:
I played golf during the day on thursday then played some tournaments during the evening. I ended up winning a very small $10 PLO8 tourney that paid me $152. It's cool to win something, but such a small amount of money doesn't really seem to matter when compared to the amount I've been winning the rest of the week.
FRIDAY:
I don't play any during the day. At night we make it out to some bars and go all out. I got home at around 3am and played about 950 hands while very intoxicated, winning about $1000 in the process. Most of this was due to running REALLY good. Set over set, overpair vs. overpair, flopped str8 vs. flopped set, etc. I was also in a good state for snapping off bluffs, which I did rather liberally and with a good amount of success. I end up getting to bed at about 9am.
SATURDAY:
I wake up at about 1pm and decide to play the $10-rebuy on Stars that starts at 1:30pm. I played well and got fairly lucky in a couple of spots during this tourney and made the final table (9th/1700 for $975). I'm still a little disgusted with how this went -- I lost 2 races against the same guy, either of which would have put me in great position for a huge score. I really can't seem to get the one or two more breaks I think I need to win one of these large-ish tournaments. I guess I just need to be patient, as it will happen eventually if I keep playing well.
After the tournament was over we got dressed up in our halloween costumes (I was a football coach) and went to some house parties from about 9:30pm to 12:30am. After this we went out to some bars, then headed over to an old college freind's house for some post-bar drinking. I had an incredibly good time there, and we ended up leaving at about 4:30am so that I could pack for my 9:30am flight leaving from San Jose.
SUNDAY:
When I got home I showered, packed, etc, finishing up at about 6:00. Since we weren't planning on leaving for the San Jose airport (which is about an hour from where we were) until about 7:00 and everyone else had gone to sleep, I again decided to play a bit of poker to keep myself entertained. There weren't really any meaningful hands here, but I won about $100 over the course of 120 hands or so.
I was able to get some sleep on the 1.5 hour flight from San Jose to San Diego, then I slept for another 3 hours when I got home.
SUMMARY:
So this week I played 2976 hands at $1/$2 and won $3701.25, which is a totally insane win rate. I also final-tabled the $10rebuy on Stars for $975 and won a small PLO8 tourney on Pokespoker for $150. All said and done I'm up about $4700 for the week -- not bad for playing $1/$2 cash games and $10 buyin tourneys.
I also don't think I'm going to move up to $2/$4 yet, mostly because I haven't yet meet my goal of winning $4,000 at $1/$2 (I lost $500 over my first 10,000 hands at this level!). Even when I hit $4,000 I doubt I'll be moving up to $2/$4 immediately. I'd imagine I will hit this number soon since I am rather close to it, but I'm just starting to feel really comfortable in the $1/$2 games. I might wait till I hit $6,000 or something, but it really will depend on how I feel at the time.
I also have a lot of work to catch up on this week so I probably won't be playing much poker. I'll probably try to get to the casino this weekend and I'll definitely have the home game on Thursday, so I probably won't update this blog again until at least then.
posted by the_real_zano at 7:51 PM
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