Could go broke, who knows

Erm...ya. Down to $1800. 300bbs left to play 3/6 short handed. I really don't want to drop down and I still feel like I'm playing great poker. If I lose it all, maybe I'll take a semester off from school and get a job. Personally, I hate school, and I hate jobs, but I'd much rather have make some money than do homework.


https://www.pokernetwork.co.uk/games/handhistory/?gameCode=P4&handNumber=1072310337

another great hand
https://www.pokernetwork.co.uk/games/handhistory/?gameCode=P4&handNumber=1072173439

ugh -70bbs

yuckkk, $420 down. I'm getting coolered pretty badly. I feel like I'm playing better than ever tho, and I learned a thing or two about aggression.

some hands:
https://www.pokernetwork.co.uk/games/handhistory/?gameCode=P4&handNumber=1070013557

https://www.pokernetwork.co.uk/games/handhistory/?gameCode=P4&handNumber=1070006407

weekend goal

20-30 hours of poker play. Yes. I'm going to put in that many hours and I'm going to hit 5k+.

bankroll, about 2900

Bummed out.

ugh. I woke up this morning to play in another satellite event to qualify for the $1,000 LHE event. So, I rose up to 2nd out of 50 and then...my internet went out. Top 8 give seats. My net cut back in 1/2 hour later but I couldn't get any momentum going and busted out 16th. I really want to play this event. I may put in $100 to play in tonight's satellite but ya, it's just kinda gross to be teased like that. Oh well...

Dedication.

I was going to put in some hours tonight but for some reason FCP won't let me deposit.

Anyhow.

I want to win. This post is a reminder to me that I must take cards with the utmost seriousness. The only "fast" money I should be looking at are prizes from winning tournaments, not from gambling. I should only make smart investments. I'm feeling this mood because as I was talking to my girlfriend, she mentioned that she and her friends are starting up a little business. I wanna be the superman boyfriend who can help out and pitch in to help it move along. Freedom and power baby, that's what money represents. With freedom one can achieve happiness, it's not the only way, but it's the way I prefer as do many others.

Right now I'm trying to qualify into the WCOOP Limit Hold'em Event. I feel like I have such a strong chance at making some good $$$ there. Altho right now the blinds are getting kinda high, so it's becoming a race :p You know what's sick? I was doing really well in this tournament, and I'm 9th out of 17ppl. As I'm writing this and playing in the tourney, my net cuts out. I had a really good chance at winning a seat...I hope when I wake up to check what happens, that i'll have placed 10th to win that free seat into the $1050 event. O well.

Smart moves mike, smart plays. Keep your head up, play your game at 3/6 and make it all back.

That is all. Redemption time.

Almost broke

shake your head and fingers at me everyone, for I am almost broke.

After the losing session yesterday, I played some more today, this time 5/10 and lost another $600 or so. So what did I do? I decided to take a shot at 10/20! I played one table and at one point was up $300 or something, just 15bbs. And rather than cut my losses at that point (just at teh table), I decided to keep playing since honestly I felt teh game was pretty damn weak and that I was outplaying people. Honestly, I really did get coolered a lot. I didn't really tilt, but I did get sucked out on a lot.

Anyhow, so I lsot $1600 today. Yes. That makes for about a 2.2k loss. I think I'm a pretty bad poker player. Oh well. I've got about 1.7k left. Can I really recuperate? I kind of doubt it. I don't practice bankroll management and i've honestly let the swings get to my head.

Feelings right now: hopeless. More than ever I want to drop out of school, focus on poker play, life itself, and nothing more. I don't want to be distracted. The highest goals for myself right now are:
making $$$ at poker
getting in shape
spending time with my wonderful girlfriend.

This'll be a good post in the future I think. For now, enjoy and revel in my stupidity.

___________________________________________________________________________________

an update. My $1600 loss today has been reduced to a $900 loss. I decided to sit down at blackjack. I ran $400 into $1192. I sat down w/$200 telling myself I'll only take a shot with this set amt. I was betting in $25 increments. I went broke and then put in $200 more saying this'll be the last time. Betting in $25, i rose to $500, then I would bet $50 until I started cranking out a profit. I finally hit 1200. yuck.

What's wrong with me. What happened to the kid who's confident at poker, etc. I don't know. We get into the worst problems when we try to make quick money. I deserved to go broke today. I got lucky, and I want to make a big comeback.

Bankroll is about $2400. I'm almost done clearing a bonus, so hopefully I'll be back to the 3ks again.

I'm an idiot. Think straight mike! think straight! Put in hours. Still got 400bbs left, can easily do it. Can easily make 200bbs back. Easy.

100bb..MINUS!

Well, my bankroll hit 4,000ish on Friday or Saturday, sweet! I didn't get to put in the massive amt of hours that I wanted to, I think I put in about 5...haha. So yesterday I ended up losing $600 in 2hours, yikes.

Funny enough, that 100bb loss hasn't really worried me too much. I feel like I did get coolered and that I was playing my game, the same game that got me up to 4,000. Oh, I'm starting to 6table and I plan on working my way up to 8 at a time. If I can successfully do that, I could technicaly make $100+ an hour. sickkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. So we'll see what happens, if I lose 200bbs more, then I'll start to panic. Until then, work work work! I just want to put in the hours and make some money. I'd like to have a 10,000+ bankroll by winterbreak, and if I work hard enough, I can get it before thanksgiving.

I'm really tired right now, was up all night on the phone, going to bed. Gnight people.

Weekend Goalllll

I wanna make $1,000 this weekend. I'm giong to try my best to put in 20 hours of play. I cleared my bonus today and now my bankroll is around a healthy 3,700 :) I'd like to push that back into the 4k's again. Basically, I never wanna see the #2 in front of my triple 0's ever again. I was stuck at the 2,000 level for soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long. Yuck yuck yuck.

I got my new monitor today! I was sooooo happy. I couldn't stop smiling. I saw the UPS man walk by so I had to get the door. Dude, answering the door cost me $30-60 : ( haha. I had a q7 in the big blind and was about to play it...when I came back, my hand was folded and I would've taken down a $60 pot. Oh well. I wasn't playing very well today. Started to get sloppy and then I was just downright confused. blehhhhhh. That's why I didn't put in very many hours today as well, thought it'd be a good time to take a rest. So what did I do? I just played video games all day long. Super productive.

But ya, I would like to make $1,000 this weekend. I'm putting my hopes realistically around $7-900 but $1,000 would be nice. I won't be 4tabling 5/10 yet, I may way til I have 5k and start giving it a shot. But I am going to try and play 8 tables. The plan is to play 4 short handed and 4 full ring, and then gradually I'll play 5 short handed, then 6, and so on.

What I really like about short handed limit hold'em is that it's a really difficult game to make money at. if you're a losing player, you'll lose your money quickly whereas if you're a winning player, you'll take down nice pots but still go through big swings. There's a certain prestige that comes with it I think. It's like you're in the middle of a battlefield surrounded by the enemy, constantly fighting!

Doesn't poker sound super exciting now? :) But ya, short handed really takes a lot more skill than full ring so I really want to improve my game and show I can hold my own. That said, today once again I was reminded of how much of a gap there is between me and the top short handed lhe players. Even when I do make teh switch to No Limit, I'm definitely giong ot keep playing short handed once in awhile so I stay sharp. I'm working hard for this, I don't want to forget it all you know?

Well, time for some more video games and movies. Gnight everyone :)
~Mikey Song

Confidence rising

rawrrrrrr

I feel like I have a good hold on short handed games now. There are plenty of times where I cringe when I think about putting in hours to play poker. I hate losing money, i hate it i hate it i hate it, who doesn't? So it gets to me because in games like limit hold'em, its pretty swingy, especially when you're playing 5 or 6max games.

Anyhow, today I started out playing pretty sloppy. But a strange thing happened, and I haven't felt this kind of confidence in awhile! I was completely fine, my inner self was telling me "it's ok, even tho you're down $100-150 already, you'll make it back as long as you put in the hours." That's an incredibly nice feeling, to suddenly believe and know that you're a longterm winner! It's been hard for me to get that kind of confidence, because in July I experienced a horrible swing/didn't really know wth I was doing when I jumped into 3/6. I think I lost at least 1,800 that month. Ugh. So two months later I'm on a comeback, ya? ya.

I quit early tonight tho, I wanted to clear my bonus @ fcp and quickly play on other sites but the fullcontactpoker has been crapping out on me so no more. I don't like to get distracted by outside things, which includes crappy software.

Heh, what's funny/annoying tho is either I'm down $30 or I'm up $150. haha. It's kinda hard to explain why, it's something like, basically the windows started to freeze, so I closed the app and opened it up later, but the table I sat at still popped up! And I had $200 on that table, so if the program updated fast enough, then I am down $30, but if it did not, which I hope it didn't, I'm up $150. Instincts tell me I'm down $30 but oh well, i'm happy w/how I played.

I'm going to clear the bonus by tomorrow, I only need to play for about 2 more hours. Also, if I get my monitor tomorrow, I'm going to establish a big goal for this weekend. I want this weekend to be just poker because I've been so lazy lately. It's important to put in the hours and also to figure out if I can really average $100 an hour :P

See ya!
Mikey Song

Short of Goal...Money Spending Issues

So I was hoping to clear the FCP bonus by Sunday. Basically I just needed to put in 5-8 hours this weekend and NOPE, didn't do it. God I'm too lazy. I wanna clear it soon so i can go back to WPX and work on my game some more. I also wanna buy some stuff from fcp store :p Such as "The professor, the banker, and the suicide king" and some other stuff like cards. I don't like playing w/out rakeback but the points + the $300 bonus make up for it. 1400 more to go. And btw, I'm really not sure at what rate I clear them. Yesterday I played for an hour and I cleared about 300, but the other day I played for about 1.5hrs and I cleared 500 pts. Hmmm. So about 3-4 more hours and I'm done.


___________________________________________________________________________________

money! I'm spending too much! Heh, I bought myself a $200 19" monitor this past weekend, a really sick deal actually. Lemme pull it up... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824014111

I also bought some other stuff like wine and too much food. Man does food add up. You would think that someone who plays Limit Hold'em would be aware that small little mistakes can add up to really bite you in the butt but um, spending money can be fun heh.

So with the new monitor coming, I plan on playing 3 tables of 3/6 short handed and 4 tables of 5/10 full ring. I'm hoping to average $100 an hour w/out rakeback. W/rakeback I'd make approximately $140 I think, assuming I'm a 1.5bb/100 winner @ 3/6 5max and 2bb winner at 5/10.

I def. should be a winner at the 5/10 games. I just think they're so easy, especially at low stakes. It's just pretty automatic, count odds, look at your cards, they good enough to play? yay! I've got only 2,000 hands logged in but so far i'm a 2.33bb/100 winner. And at least on FCP, the 5/10 fullring games are SOFT. I had someone call me down w/A7...unfortunately he pulled a runner runner gutshot straight, but ya, the play there is horrendous. So I'm pretty confident in my game :)

My preflop raise in 5/10 full ring is 13.7% with a 20.71% whereas my raise in short handed is 23.33% w/a 31.16% vpip. That means i'm playing LOTS of hands short handed, which is fun but kinda painful sometimes.

really boring mathy post, sorry. I wanted to update with news that I'm done clearing the bonus and blah blha blah.

Bankroll - about $3,050 yay!


Oh yeah, I almost made a ton of money yesterday. I bought 20% of Zach6668 from fcp, meaning I paid 20% of his entry fee for 20% of his winnings. This guy made an impressive run this past weekend. I saw him make 4 final tables in the $20 180man sng's so I thought, what the hell, I'll risk $106 in hopes of making 72k if he takes down the 1.5million pokerstars tourney. Well, he was doing really well, outlasted 4000 people and fought his way at a really tough table, only to be taken out by Micon, a respected mtt'er who ended up taking 10th place. I made a nice $118 profit from that. I really believed that if Zach was able to make it out of that table, he'd have a good shot at making the final table, netting me at least $2k for doing nothing but sweating :p

byeeee

DO I KNOW HOW TO PLAY?

I DON'T KNOW.

I think I played decently well today. I haven't 4tabled in a bit since wpx only lets u 3 table. Man, that 1 table really does make a difference, especially 5 handed. I started out playing well, and then as time passed, I realized I was caught up in a blur so after some time I decided to call it quits.

Lost about 27bb today, that's short handed limit for ya. I don't know what most ppl go through, but I feel like I never win for more than a day or two in a row. shrug. I just need to put in more hands on a consistent basis so i get a feel for the kinds of swings limit players go through. Gotta keep playing and gotta keep working on my limit game.

oh...one table ended up going HU. This guy joins in and after he wins a few hands against me, he starts talking trash. "I love you, you give me money!" Stupid punk. I closed my other table and concentrated on this one. All he did was limp, check/call w/pair or A high. Only re-raised with trips or better. So I punished him for a bit, then left since I was starting to lose focus.

gonna put in some more hands tomorrow, night

Back in Boston

Whew so...I'm currently writing this blog at 11:50pm on September 11, 2006.

I just flew in on thursday and have been going back n forth to Ikea to get some furniture and crap. It took me two days to get my bed completed and now I'm procrastinating hardcore...gotta build a DESK! Dude, the bed came w/an 8 page manual, and my desk came with a 20 page manual...mann.....

So let's see what has happened so far...

Thursday, the steelers won and I took down a 1k bet. Friday, I saw the lines for federer's saturday match and the lines were too big, -1700! Bet 1700 to win $100 on him. eh no. I was tempted to bet the 1k on sharapova to win her final but my friends kept telling me NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Had I bet that..i would've won 1900! Bleh

I broke down on Monday, today, and played some hold'em online. I didn't want to play or touch any accounts because right now I'm leeching off someone's wireless til I get my own. But ya, broke down and played 3/6 shorthanded LHE on FullContactPoker. Crushed the game, absolutely crushed teh tables. Made 32 big bets in 30 mins ($193). Playing at WPX definitely made me a better player and I still plan on playing there, even though the competition is a lot tougher. I figure if I can get to the point where I can beat it for 2bb/100 soundly, I won't have much trouble playing the 5/10 and possibly 10/20. I was surprised by how drastically different the 3/6 game at wpx is vs. absolute and fcp. So many limpers on those sites. In wpx, everyone's raising etc. Makes it tough.

Anyhow, i've got a stomach ache. Been eating waaaaay too much. Gnight fellas. Hope no one hacks my stuff and steals my $$ :(

bankroll: 2883

SICKKKKKKKKKK

So one more post before I leave!

To anonymous from last post
-Um...I don't really want to go into specifics about my personal self. This blog is here mainly to track my poker play and how I deal with it. And it serves a great medium for me to be able to interact with whomever would like to post :) Sorry, I just want to keep as much of my personal life out of this as possible, it's just part of who I am, heh. CHEESY! To be vague, I plan on being a man. I haven't met too many adult males I would consider to be actual "men". What is a man? Read "The Godfather" :)

to anonymous from 2 posts ago
- I had about 2400, was I really playing out of my broll in 5/10? You need 300bb for full ring which is 3000, playing 5/10 limit w/ 240bbs counts as playing out of my br? That's a little unfair, isnt it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So today is my last day in San Diego. I get to make my good byes and such. I hate good byes, I'm so bad at them. Gotta make enough money to buy plane tickets to come back!

After all goodbyes were made, I decided to hit the b&m. My plan was to play there all night, at least until like 3-4am. Limit of course, no more jumping to NL when it's out of my broll.

Man...I got varianced :( Owie owie owie.

3/6 Kill (kill means the game is doubled, so it's now 6/12 for the hand). KQ vs AQ, nice hand sir!

This is just the beginning. My thoughts are erratic and I'm hyper, I don't know why but I'm continuing the story.

I get my seat at 4/8 and I find that there's LOTS of action. Lots of limping and calling to the river. Sweet! No real hands come my way. I do get Ace King but we split the pot, he also had AK.

Soon, people start to leave. It's now 5 handed. I'm in paradise. I am the shark at this table, none of them know how to play short handed. It's so obvious, limping under the gun, are you kidding me? Every hand I play, I'm very aggressive with. Reading the board, reading the people, determining if they have a hand or not. And I'm talking up a storm, so that even when I'm not playing that many hands, people still think I have an extremely loose maniac image (the way I was playing postflop was scaring them).

This is where it gets fun

AJ, I 3bet from small blind and big blind + lp calls. J on flop - I check-raise so it's now 2 small bets to big blind who CALLS, turn brings the 3rd heart. I bet, big blind calls, and late position folds. river - 4th heart. Hey great, I don't have a heart. check check, he shows 4,3 offsuit (he had no pair or straight draw btw) - 4 of hearts. He's like "i get so many of these hands I had to play it, der de der de der"

Sweet!

The very next hand, I had QJ and he had 8,2offsuit. He turned and rivered two pair. Oh....nice hand!

Last hand of the night

Dealer button with JJ - btw, all 3 hands that i've posted here happened IN A ROW. It's a kill pot so we're now playing 8/16. Utg raises, I 3bet, small blind caps - same 4,3 and 8,2 dude. Well, I dind't have very much money left, so I was all in and knew I only had 2 outs to improve, he hadn't shown aggression like that all night. JJ vs KK, he got it.

Oddly enough, I'm not too disturbed. In fact, I'm proud of the way I played. I read them all pretty damn well and played my hands well. The river ate me up, but at least I was making +ev moves. I really wanna play some more tonight online but...I'm pretty tired =/ And online, my play worsens. I just get really good reads live, subconsciously too, I don't look for like certain movements. I just get a good feel of what a person has or not.

Anyhow, this is my last post til probably next week when I get my net. I hope you all have some good fortune this weekend.

Gnight people

Back to School...Some Thoughts

I'm going back to school this thursday, the 7th. I don't know when I'll be able to play cards. I hope to get the net set up by friday but it's probably going to be more like monday =/

I'm going to miss so cal. Especially the wonderful girl that I met up with these last few weeks here. This summer has been very relaxing and is ending rather nicely, if you can disregard the fact that I'm about to physically distance myself from someone I deeply care about.

Poker has been a great adventure this summer. I believe the total amount of hours I put in nears 220 hours for cash games. Nowhere near the hours I wanted (40hrs per week, about 160 per month x 3months = 480 hours). I lost a big portion of the money I worked so hard to earn but regardless, I'm working back up, and improving my own game. I believe I could've had a more steady stream of income had I stuck with full ring but I'm determined to beat the short handed game of hold'em. I want to build up to 10k playing short handed, it's more fun, daring, and it really tests your reading abilities. The benefits that come from learning this style are too great to pass up. All abilities transfer to other card games.

I'm grateful for the experience. I'm grateful for this summer. I feel I've learned some, but there's definitely so much more about limit that I need to really learn and absorb. Even though I did not meet the summer goal of 10k, I still feel I did not completely fail. I've learned to let some things go and have begun to accept the whole "let the dice fall where they may" concept, which includes cards, life, and in general, myself. I feel as if I have been enlightened somewhat, my perception has been widened, and I am slowly improving myself to be the person I want to be. I've accepted who I am, meaning that I've realized there are some qualities I cannot change about myself, some characteristics that will always be a part of me, and rather than trying to change them, I'm going to adapt and work hard so that those characteristics, such as stubborness, do not interfere. After all, you are supposed to be yourself, rather than an imitation of someone you think is "cool". However, we all have our faults, and I'm going to rise above it. Whether I succeed or not doesn't really matter so much. It's that journey, and since I have a plan, a general idea of how I am going to approach the next ten years of my life, I feel quite secure. I definitely do.

By the way,

I will not be playing cards for the rest of this week. Instead, I'll be hoping that my football bet wins and the two future tennis bets I'll make with those winnings. By Monday, there will def. be an update :)

Cheers

Michael Song

5/10 Rush and a Blogger

Yay, I played some 5/10 full ring today mainly because I wasn't in the mood to play some shorthanded. I just wanted to take it easy and play mechanically. Did I say play full ring? More like sat down for 30 mins, hit super nice cards, and left $276 winner after 33 minutes. Add $20 to that in rakeback. nice day.

On the personal side, not such a nice day. I wanted to see someone but couldn't. Very annoyed, annoyed that I wasn't free at the time.

My close friend, "mused", ya he doesn't want me to use his real name, makes his $ from playing SnG's. He's the same kid I have the 1k bet with. 1st one to hit 10k wins the bet, oh, and loser buys dinner as well :p Anyhow, he's got game (used to 15 table, now 9 tables) and if I were you, and REALLY bored, I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY BORED, then maybe check out his blog :p

gnight

p.s.
Br is about 2.7kish. Sweeet!

Nooooooooooo

well
i played some 5/10 fullring yesterday since there weren't many shorthanded games going. I truly hit a downswing. I tilted about $150 away but the rest was bad luck (overall I lost 500) KK running into trip Aces, the usual shenanigans. It was torture too! To pass the time and keep my patience, I read a book while playing full ring, yes, I think full ring is really that boring. But man did I struggle, at one point I fought back from -30bbs to being up $20! But then I got crapped on, got hit, got hit, got hit, and finally I stopped. I was also a little tired.

BUT

because of rakeback, it was a -$200 rather than $500 hit. And let's see, if I didn't get pissed, I probably would've been down only $50

Today was good. I had to withdraw $1.1k from my wpx acct because mansion.com basically has a freeroll where u place 1.1k on the steelers,if they win, u win 1k! If they lose, u get REFUNDED. So ya, def. gonna get in on that. You know what's sick? Let's say I win and get the 1k, if Federer is in the finals, I'll place the whole 1k on him. Unless he's up nadal, then I'll place $500 on him...maybe.

Oooh, the chance to make a free 2k is so exciting. If I get lucky twice that is :) And you know what I would do with that 2k? I would buy a few hundred dollar bottles of wine for my apartment, and get a 1hr massage. The rest I would save up, gotta make some films this year at school you know.

Btw, ABSOLUTE poker is SO MUCH EASIER than WPX. I played on AP today and was apalled by the level of play. Does this mean I'm def. going to play at AP from now on? Kinda. I still like WPX because you get your rakeback every week and also, I know I improved because of the competition at WPX. But eventually I would like to get enough to buy a monitor, and play 7 tables (3wpx and 4AP).

Alright, sorry if this is boring. I'll catch you guys laterrrrrr

Mike Song