-1500 hit.

come on mr.song, stop screwing around.

Yeah, I lost $1500 today. How? I decided to play some 1/2 NL where teh buy in is $400. Sigh. I lost a $200 pot, made that back +100, then I lost a $500 pot where he called my all in w/AK overcard + flush draw and spiked the ace. That made me go nuts.

Oh well.

huge hit but this is a chance to prove to myself that I have what it takes to play in this world. Lonely though. I think my broll is about 2-2.5k, I'm not really sure. Some people owe me money and my $$$ is spread out.

Want to know how I dealt w/the 1.5k loss? I decided to go and buy two chain necklaces and a pendant for $200. Funny how when I lose big I decide I want to spend my money on something legitimate.

Focus. I need to focus. I want to live freely, I want to help my friends, I must make money.

I feel like a degenerate right now. I feel like throwing it all away over a girl who doesn't seem to want any of my attention. And that sucks balls, especially when you're pretty close friendship wise. I can't shake it. I can't even get angry or depressed over her or poker. I just feel so blah about it all. Like, shrug, I hope I lose it all and just fade away, but my conscious mind tells me to hang in and make it back.

So the plan?
Clear out the fullcontactpoker $300 bonus playing 3/6 and then play 5/10 once I hit 3k. I'm going to beat it sirs.

BooHoo Part 2

Grrr. 3am - I look around, one other 4/8 table and 2 no limit tables - one which had a very cute Chinese girl. What to do what to do...NO LIMIT it is! $1/3 - buy in $100-300. I figured I'll make a go at it and see if I could impress her or not. So I buy in, I have like 280 or 290 on me. She's chatting away, didn't really pay me much attention though D:

What's her name by the way...I don't know! I saw her walking around. She's really skinny..as for height, I couldn't tell you because I never stood up so I couldn't measure. Um, she had tight jeans on, I think some kind of chain belt, a pink low cut shirt and a light light jacket/sweater on? I don't know what those are called. She wears lotsa make up and has a high kind of voice, not squeaky high but fairly high.

Anyhow, she was chatting it up, in a cute way too. While I was playing 4/8, I said 'wow she's cute' and the dealer said "yep." I asked him if she plays here a bunch, "yep," is she good? "Yeah, she's really good at no limit"

Well I'll tell you right now, I have absolutely no idea if she's good. I'll explain.

So we're playing the game. Chubby woman in seat 6 or 7 keeps betting big when people limp in and it's obviously pissing everyone off. From what I gathered from their remarks, she has a reputation for doing this and plays the 1/3 regularly - haha. At one point she goes all in in the dark. Cute Chinese Girl says she's all in in the dark as well. Whaaaaaaat? yeah, she loves to gamble. I find that attractive and scary at the same time. People who are willing to gamble and can still smile and laugh it off have a lot more to them than just a smile, I can tell you that. It takes a scary amount of discipline and will power to do so, at least in most circumstances - being insanely rich, super smashed (bros! hahahhahah :o), high are some of the exceptions.

So ya, chubby woman gets AQ and wins that battle, haha.

I should've broken this post into two. Oh well. Omg omg omg. I hit enter a few times and the page went back to the main page. Ahhhh i was scared. Then I hit back and everything I wrote was still here! I love you blogspot :) And I love you you comp nerds who programmed this. Beautiful work. Much appreciated.

I didn't pick the best seat to play in by the way. Guy on my left was super chip leader w/like $1000, guy on my right played very aggressively. Frown face dudes. Well, lucky for me, I picked up pocket 10s. I limp under the gun, super chip leader raises to $20, everyone folds except for aggro on my right, he raises to $100. For the love of God man. I call, and so does chip leader, noooo. Flop: 994. Let's see, there's like 300 in the pot, I want it down now so...I move all in for about 160. Guy on my left is just thinking, he wants to call, he wants to call, finally he folds and so does aggro on my right - he had pocket 3s. Chip leader told me he had AK - I'm so glad he didn't race. I was thinking that variance would've still screwed me over. Taking down that $300 was good enough for me.

Another beautiful moment happened after this hand. I had a3 and limped in cut off, big blind raised to $20 and i called. Flop was Js 9c 2s. He bet $20, and I was thinking about raising it to $60, to see a free turn - this is a textbook play you make in limit hold'em. Heh, while doing that, I even took out the chips and started counting them in front of me, then I told myself no and just called. Turn, 4d. Yay, at least if a 5 comes out he won't see it coming. Now he bets $40 so I call - I'm obviously looking to stack him - take his whole stack if the flush hits. River is a 9 - doh! I was putting him on a set. But...he checked. I immediately sense weakness, immediately sense it. There was no doubt he was scared. I didn't even have to study him, one glance and I knew it. He would've bet it if he had it. I knew exactly what to do. I took a stack of $100 and bet it. He folds, "nice boat," and I show him the a3spades. Man, nothing like making a great read and executing a nice play, no matter how small :D

Haha, so right after I show him,
cute chinese girl says: you're korean aren't you.
me: yeah, how'd you know?
cute chinese girl: Because koreans are aggressive, and they rub it in people's faces when they bluff.
me sheepishly: wow...I've never had my ethnicity identified by the way I play poker..

Hot. I found that to be really really hot. Cuuuuute girl just won a lot of points in my book. After that first mini-chat, she started to speak a few korean words to me. When I told my friend this, he said she was flirting with me. Was she really? Damn I'm oblivious. I really am. Oh well. Even though I found this girl to be really cute, I don't really see myself ever dating her. She's definitely make out material but 1) she smokes 2) I'm pretty sure she's aggressive as hell. Girl: I beat the shit out of my roommates dog in front of her. I woke up and I always smoke when I wake up and he chewed my new pack of cigarrettes" 3) I get the feeling she's also been around. I know it doesn't bother some people but, I don't really like that kind of thing. I'd rather get it right once with a girl than have to date multiple times. You can learn so much about one person, I just dont' see or feel the need to "learn" about more girls in an intimate way.

Oh, and if showing your cards is really disrespectful, I didn't know. I just wanted him to know that I didn't have the boat so he wouldn't be stuck thinking about that hand for the rest of the night. I even said: I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to disrespect you like that, I just wanted to show you the hand.
to which he replied: No I understand, that's poker.

At one point, there was a pot between super Chip Leader and big aggressive guy on my right. The board was something like 10h Qc 2c 7h Jd. Already like two or three hundred in the pot. Chip leader first to act says, I'm all in, and guy on my right instantly says call. Chip leader: shit.

Hands:
Chip leader: AcKc - flush and gutshot straight draw.

Guy on my right? Boy did I feel sorry for him. Kh9h. yeah what? To me, it was incredibly obvious the chip leader had a straight. The guy was in love with AK. I noticed everytime he had it, he raised to $20. So guy on my right is really down and now he's trying to redeem himself (tilt) and buys in for $100. Starts betting big, goes all in in the dark, and guess who called? Yup, cute chinese girl with pocketpair and lost. Man I felt sorry for her. This happened a few times and she kept losing with pocket pair. I think he busted her out so now aggro has $200 again. grreaat. Girl goes on a smoke break and then this hand happens:

A 6 A. This is a jackpot hand. Aces full (fullhouse) beat by 4 of a kind or better takes down the jackpot. The winner of the hand would get 25% of the pot, so 4k in this case, loser takes down 8k - 50%. Chipleader says - hey guys, listen, I'm just going to check. Dude with music on bets like $50 - what the hell man. Other person folds (he folded pocket 10s). Turn 4 - chipleader says he's going to check, and then the dude with music on bets $270. We're all like, what are you doing, there's a jackpot hand right here. He didn't really say anything...chipleader thinks for a long time, and calls. Wow - what a gambling. River - blank. that was a downer. big big downer. The chipleader was so steamed that after the next hand he racked up and cashed out. We explained to teh guy who finally took his earphones out, haha, and he apologized. At least he knows now.

Money hand!
So anyways, chipleader now leaves, and then soon after man-who-messed-up-jackpot (doesn't that sound indian?) takes a break. There's like 5 of us left. I get pocket As in the big Blind, can you ask for a better spot preflop with these guys? Guy on my left raises to 19, cut off calls, and aggro-tilting-ma-on-dealer-button raises to $38. I said in a frustrated voice, "ok, $100." Guy on left hems and haws and then folds - he folded pocket 10s, wow, he was really tired too, I'm kinda surprised he folded. cut off goes all in, he has like $40 more, and then aggro guy goes all in for an additional $100 so I instacall. What do I have? Come on, it's pretty obvious.

I have AA $$$$$$$$

yeah, you thought there were going to be exclamation points again. Wrong!!! Cut off has KQ - what? and aggro has pocket Jacks. ouch. one of the guys watching says: AJ10! I'm like what the hell, don't say that. And now my heart is beating fast, very very fast. thump thump thump thump. Flop is all low, 2 8 4 4 6. YES!!! YES!!!

That. was. awesome. I was so happy they stood. sooo so happy. Aggro guy says nice hand, you have a good night sir. Aww, I felt bad about taking his money, but I was a little too happy at the time.

So now it's short handed, jackpot man comes back, we play some more hands, cute girl comes back but doesn't want to play so dealer asks if we want to continue or not. The guy on my left says no, so I say, alright, one more hand, let's all put $10 and just check it down. Flop - 889, I look at my hole cards "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" I had 88. Last hand of the night, and I flop a house! Guy on my left has pocket 4s! haha, and the other dude has 2,3hearts. Oh man..I wish I didn't do that, there's a good chance guy on my left would've bet that pot out. Oh well, I think that's how all no limit games should end. Put 3 times the big blind and watch the cards do their stuff.

In the end, I cashed out $842. Not bad for a 2 hour session where I started with like $280 :)

This post took forever to wrote. I'm going to bed. Thanks for reading!

Boohooooooo bbbuttt Woohooo???!!!

Get ready for a VERY VERY LONG POST.
*edit* I decided to break it into 2 posts. It really is pretty long.

ok, first of all, I realized that my links work again! Before they were stuck at the bottom of the screen which is just plain retarded. yay.

Friday - I played 3/6 short handed for 5 hours. Oh was it painful. I've never seen myself get rivered so many times. It was disgusting, sickening. The only tilting that I did during the session was I called someone down w/an awful hand that I normally would've thrown away. That's the only "tilting" I'm aware of. Tilting in limit isn't that much of a problem for me anymore, in fact, I'm more likely to tilt in a tournament than I am in a cash game for obvious reasons - you only lose your buyin instead of $762!!! yep...after a 5 hour session, I lost 127 big bets. Ouch Ouch ouch. So you know what I did that night?



I went to see a movie!!!

I saw The Omen. L-A-M-E. Very. Now, I'm not a fan of horror movies. I hate graphic violence. I don't need to see someone slowly and painfully lose their knee. It's pretty sickening and honestly, I don't think there's much skill/technique to horror movies. All you do is think of a fun way for someone to die and slap it on the script. BUT...I am a fan of suspense. SIGNS is the scariest movie I have seen. I saw it on a sunday afternoon in a theater of like 8 or 9 people. seriously, at one point, I thought aliens were gonna creep up from the seats and harvest us, and I started to get sick to the point where I was going to throw up. That's how scared I actually got. I found the movie to be terrificly realistic.

but

what sucks about suspense is that there are people who pay 10 bucks and walk into the theater thinking "what a dumb movie. I'm not going to be scared. I'm going to laugh at it and look like a coooooooooool person" - fucking asshole. It's such a waste of money, time, and energy. If you're going to see a movie, why not try and get involved with it as much as possible? I love movies! I hate it when people talk in theaters. Drives me nuts. I wanted to yell at the kids behind me while watching Omen. They're lucky I was in a passive mood...I did stand up and yell at a kid during Lord of the Rings III but that's another story :)

So guess what, guess what, what did I do after the movie???



I went to GAMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, I went to the casino, got there at 11, and sat in a 4/8 limit hold'em game. Played very lag, which is something I like to do when I play live limit hold'em. Why? Well lag is very fun and you only get one table instead of 4 to multitable heh. It's fun figuring out people's hands and outplaying them or making great laydowns. It's annoying yet beneficial moneywise to see people criticizing you for playing certain hands or making certain moves. I just wanna tell them that they're the reason why many of us make money, because they're too close minded and lazy to understand the game. Come on people, this applies to life too, why be close minded? There's more than just one way to make a living, to execute an action, to create a strategy, etc etc etc. Think I'd get along with conservative extremists? or even liberal extremists? lol...

So. I brought $500 with me to the casino and lost $300. The bad side of variance continued...grrrrr. Wanna know how bad?

Very Bad!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best hand of the night: I have 88, few callers.
Flop: 8,6,6.
I check, someone bets, another calls.
Turn: blank, I check, same guy bets, another calls, I raise, guy re-raises, I'm like, alright, re-raise, he re-raises and dealer says: no cap. In a frustrated voice - though I'm excited inside - I'm like, look, I'm going all in, re-raise. So finally I'm all in. He shows 6,6. Oh lord. Boat vs quads from teh flop. Gotta love it, gotta love it. I'm hoping for the 1 outer, if it hits, we take down a very nice jackpot worth 16.9k.

River: Dealer - Ahhhh.....no.

Wow, way to crush my heart dealer. I was really sad. Now, normally, I would've realized that I was definitely beat here and would've just called down after another re-raise or two. The guys that play limit at the casino are such pansies. If you 3bet someone who has top pair with AK, he probably would call down the rest of the way. Some guys don't even raise with AK. That's how scared these "gamblers" are.

Greatest part about this pot. For the next 1/2 hour, no one would shut up about it. Someone would say "man i woudl've loved to have that jackpot" "So close so close" WHAT ABOUT ME SIRS? AND GALS? I HAVE FEELINGS!!!

I bought in for the 4th time time, had $100 left in my pocket, and if I lost this buy-in was I going to continue? Hell yeah! Luckily, I didn't have to buy back in. Fought that $100, almost went broke, made money on my allin, and racked it to $180 and then the game broke. Grrr. 3am - I look around, one other 4/8 table and 2 no limit tables - one which had a very cute Chinese girl. What to do what to do...

~To be continued :)

Done for the Day - Superstition or Pansy

current broll: 4121

yeah that's sexy! Even though I'm $6 down from my last post! I finally got to play yesterday after that long break and ended up losing about $200 (33bb) yesterday, which was a downer of course. One guy hit a rush and omega slammed one of my tables, and the rest I was getting ouch'd, KK vs 22 - 22 hits a set, nooooooooooo. Painful painful painful.

So I wake up this morning to play, started off losing $150 in like 10 mins! I kept missing flops, and then when I got AQ, A2 2paired me, wthhhh. So I reloaded, played strong, and ended up busting the table. It got down to a heads up between me and this one guy, and I broke him! I've tried heads up games in the past and haven't been very successful at it so I was really happy to see that I finally PWNED someone.

I started getting a little tired so I decided to try some 1/2NL - buy-in $200max. That was a sexy session, earned $198 in 1 hour. My friend told me about cardrunners.com so I after doing some reading I decided to buy the membership and I'm happy I did. I have a strong understanding of both forms of hold'em so I didn't need the videos to teach me, but rather show me how a high stakes player approaches the game. Understanding the mindset of Green Plastic helped me a lot mentally, and to me that's one of the most important aspects of the game, mentality along with guts.

GP labeled himself as a lag player yet while watching him, I realized he isn't very reckless. His moves are very methodical, calculated, and low-risk. He goes with the flow, whereas I'm more of a player who tries to buy pots and make you fold top pair. I learned that my style isn't necessary and I played like him today during the NL session and found it to be quite successful :)

In any game I play and understand, my biggest goal is to control the game. I want to put pressure on the opponent, I want him to make him feel like he's losing, even if statistically it shows otherwise. That feeling can lead to one big blunder and that's all it takes in NL games. Besides, I love that feeling where you're in charge and everything is falling according to plan. It's beauty and it's extremely hard to gain and maintain that image.

haha, when I was first playing poker, I used to call raises, even though I knew I was beat, so that I could fold on the turn. What? Basically, I hated losing the power struggle and by folding on the turn, I'd tell myself - at least he won't know that I was bluffing.

So now that I made $380 today in teh course of basically 2-3 hours, I lost the urge to play for the rest of the day. Do you guys do this? Have a quick good session and then quit? I have this stupid fear of playing again and possibly losing my winnings. There's just no way I can play today with that mentality. How illogical right? My stats say I'm a winning player and I know I'm a winning player, yet I don't want to risk playing because there's always a chance I'll lose. I'm just going to enter the arena tomorrow believing I'll crush the opposition again.

Superstition? That my luck/variance will run out and go the other way? Or am I being a pansy? I'm going with pansy : (

Toodles
mikey song

3/6 SHE

remember how I said i was going to finish out the remaining bonus w/some 2/4 short handed? Ya...I decided to just play 3/6 instead. Man, the first day I was playing scared. I also happened to bump into some really aggressive players. I dropped like 60 bb the first day but hit a rush and ended up making like 70 back. That was a definite confident booster.

So the next day...

I made 76 big bets! I also hit a nice little rush where I hit a straight flush - although the flush was good enough - and quads. But dude, I ran into quads twice! how sick is that? One of the pots involved me w/pocket K's. So it was kinda funny that I raped and got raped at the same time. I like 3/6 though, the competition isn't very tough. I wish pokertracker worked better with PokerRoom though...it stopped keeping track of my hands =/ I don't depend on PT that much though, I just like it because it keeps my stats. I'm always writing notes on players and categorizing them myself with notes.

I definitely have a lot more to learn about short handed but right now I definitely know I can beat the 3/6 game. BR: $4127!!! I just need to earn 150 more big bets and I can play some 5/10! Whoof, that'll be sick. I hope I don't lose 100 big bets there the first day, I think I'll put a 150 Big Bet loss max for me? I don't know...depends on how well I can feel the game out.

Truthfully, I wish you guys who read this would comment more often. Feedback is really important. Just so I know if you're bored about a topic, want to hear more about a topic, or want to offer me advice in general.

Well, it's morning, and I'm going to go play some video games and then perhaps some more poker, see ya!

Crazy, 20 year old film student gets over his gambling issues from last year and is now making a nice profit at cards :) Screw getting a "real" job whatever that means.

hahaha life is so funny

so I was stressing about struggling at 2/4 right?

Well, I hit a rush (saw AA like 3 or 4 times in 2hrs and KK at least twice, with JJ 2x at least, and QQ somewhere) but I also played well. Rather than imitating some of the heads up play I've seen where ppl 3bet and cap with the weirdest hands, although I still do it, I've calmed it down some, picked better starting hands, and played my position better.

I know I was playing pretty damn well because on one table this kid started to get relly pissed at me "he always raises with fucking nothing" blah blah blah blah.

in 1hr 50 mins I made $349 - 87.25 big bets :)

Poker Tracker sucks with poker room, or vice versa. For some reason poker room has a weird problem where sometimes poker tracker can't recognize the hand history - so my awesome session was ignored =/ Oh well, I'm going to clear out the remainding 1000 points I have for PR to pick up my $150 bonus and then I'll move up to 3/6 short handed if I'm still a winning player.

As for my day, it went very well. I'm so happy even though I gained nothing of possession ( besides poker money). Please guys, if you're struggling at poker, post hands at fullcontactpoker! or any other poker forum. My game constantly improves as people give me advice on what to do and what not to do - but rather than listen mechanically, I also give my own thoughts and ask more questions.

a happy fellow,
Michael Song

Scared, Intimidated To Play

I don't know about you guys but I go through cycles of fear and confidence, and not with just poker, with anything. I imagine that this would happen to anyone who is not a top performer and is constantly thinking about the game including swings, whether certain plays are +ev, potential sharks, etc.

Like, right now, I'm struggling at busting a profit at the 2/4 short handed game. And yet I imagine myself playing in the Big Game eventually? Granted they all started out small but still, how do I know I have what it takes to make it there? I have to go on a faith based thought and believe that I'll keep improving as long as I take this game seriously and put in the effort. Past experiences have told me that once I get the hang of something, I become a pretty damn good fox at what I do. Still, I've never won a trophy or anything of the sort. I wish I didn't lose my confidence so easily.

What started all this was reading pokerpages.com. Someone who goes by the username Flintsword (I wonder if that's from the game Chrono Trigger) posted on FCP and told me to go look at the site and read someone's articles. I ended up reading Jason Pohl's articles instead because he writes about short handed hold'em. I then read a few other articles by some kid who plays short handed and what he wrote seemed to be too conservative at the short handed game. But who am I to criticize right? I'm only playing 2/4! Beh, having a mentor would help but oh well, I have a whole summer to see how good I really am. I feel like if I really am good, I should make more than 10k easily, meh. I once again feel like I don't know how to play the game.

night

Short Handed funnnnn

ooo so after that one hour where i made a nice $241, I ran into two 50bb losing sessions. That hurt the self-esteem train a little but today was nice, I played for a few hours and after being down an additional $150, i managed to overcome that and make 9bbs.

More importantly, that definitely helped my self-esteem. I was afraid that I am a huge loser at the short handed game but coming back from another semi-big losing session was a nice confident booster. Gotta keep my head straight, play calm, and make +ev moves :)

I've been goofing around too much at home though! I've only put in like 12 hours this week of hold'em. Um...I originally planned to put in 40 hours a week? hah...Ya, friends are too distracting. But also I have a weird sleeping schedule...I sleep at like 3amish and for some reason I can't sleep past 9am!!! Then I get tired around 3pm and take another 3-4 hour nap. Meh.

I think there's such good potential for me to make $$$ in the short handed tables that it's really important that I learn to beat them, even if I lose a lot of money at first. Mainly, aside from the money, you see so many hands that it tests your knowledge of the game, especially when you're playing a LAG style rather than an easy TAG style in a 9 handed game.

I love bonuses, I'm almost done clearing a $300 bonus at full contact poker, and it's nice to get back some money you may have lost :p I'm going to keep putting in hours in 2/4 short handed until my stats convince me that I'm a winning player, then off to 3/6.

I gotta improve fast!!!! I made up my mind. I really really really want to go to Hawaii this summer, for fun. I'll have to find a friend to take (I learned from my mistake of going to Korea alone) but ya, i'm excited!!!

So now I have to make more than 10k to fulfill that goal and to have enough to have a fun vacation. Ciaooooooooooo.