A family emergency...

Sorry about the lack of updates but I have not had much time to play poker. You see about 12 days ago I woke up for work and my wife and I noticed my answering machine blinking. For anyone who lives away from their family you know this is seldom a good thing.

Unfortunately it was quite possibly the worst news we could have gotten. My wifes grandmother(whom she was very close) had passed away unexpectedly. That phone call set off a very amazing and chaotic chain of events that ended with me and my whole family traveling for 30 hours from Okinawa to Indianapolis Indiana.

We have made it through the hardest part of the trip and decided to go ahead and stay in the United States for 30 days. I am playing off and on but nothing serious. I have thought about a couple non-pokery posts that should be hitting the inter-web shortly.

well thats all for now...

Ace...

Oh the agony...

Well after starting my day/night off pretty well last I ended up blanking 15 games in a row at levels between $3-$6. I ended my night after about two hours in when I decided that either the Stars RNG, or the poker gods were angry with me.

I am actually convinced the poker gods wrath was brought down upon me because during my session I looked up at the TV and there was a show depicting Dwarves(little people) playing basketball. I am sorry to say I giggled a little. This was obviously unforgivable to the poker gods as runner runner was the theme of the night.

Anyways I noticed that another blogger Donkey Thrasherhas been going through the same thing. So I guess its not the poker gods after all, but is in fact one of three options the pokerstars doomswitch random number generator has went haywire(unlikely), or I actually suck at this game(possible), last of all is just variance kicking me in the balls.

Whatever it was/is I was left longing for something that would make me laugh(no, not dwarves playing basketball... I learned my lesson). I did however find The Shower Project. I for one found it very amusing.

Hopefully I can dig myself out of the hole I dug last night, and come out to day back into the black/green.

Pressing Forward

Well I broke even play a billion hands of LHE, and I broke even playing 150ish games of 18 man SnG's. So I was in a bit of a WTF do I do now kind of mood when I got to talking to EY and he sent me a video made by "lipofund" or something like that. Anyway the guy was talking about playing multi table SnG and explains a lot about the shove shove shove style of play that seems to be right for these. I know the guy made a ton of money playing this way so
he must be doing something right.


I decided after that I was going to make a decent effort at giving this style a try. So far I have played 77 games in total. playing just about anything turbo $12 and under. However, the $12 games are really just me taking a shot and going for a quick boost. My actual BR is right above $500 so as you can see below I am concentrating on the $3.25 and playing $6.50, and the $12's sporadically.

Playing this style is tough and I am having issues figuring out if a spot is correct to shove or not. I have ended up looking quite silly a few times already. I am seeing though that when I do make it to the FT I am usually there with a decent stack. I have suffered a massive amount of very painful bad beats the last couple of days, but I guess it probably comes with the territory.

I did cut down the amount of tables I am playing right now until i get more used to playing these in this style. I am also working on getting used to playing continual instead of in sets. I honestly prefer sets, but would have to play something like 20ish tables to be able to come close to volume I want to end up getting in.

All in all I like playing this style especially as I get more used to it and pass up situations that I would have taken just a couple of days ago. I also need to be careful not to turn down the aggression to much as I have noticed that I have been getting ran over the last few final tables. I think part of it has to do with the bad beats that I suffered over the last few days, but I am not sure.

Well thats all for now ttyl...

Second Guessed

Well I kind of half quit playing LHE, and I am not sure how much if any LHE I am going to play. The problem is if I quit playing entirely I am basically giving up on making supernova this year. However, if I do continue playing ½ LHE enough to make supernova I give up having a life lose a lot of the enjoyment I have gotten in the past by playing poker.
Now I played 7500 hands of LHE and I pretty much broke even. I think in the end I was up $11 total. However, that was not what caused me to second guess what form, or how much I would play that particular form of poker. What caused to rethink my ultimate goals for this year poker is the enjoyment factor. I was not enjoying playing, and after about two days I went and played stupid games above my bankroll just to feel some excitement or fun with poker. In the end that is bad for me and I want to enjoy the time I play online poker, and if I can’t really there is no point.
So I plan on playing some LHE, but just recreationally, and I plan to concentrate on SnG/Mtt’s the latter I will only play when I have a good chunk of time to play. The SnG I am going to playing mainly 18 man games and currently I have been 9 tabling in sets. I would like to get to the point where I am 12 tabling continually, but I will have to get better first.

My rule basically is going to be that I will play anything I have 50-100 buy-ins for if I drop below 50 buy-ins I will move down to the previous level if I get to a 100 buy ins for the next level I will have to reevaluate my level of play and the level of play of my opponents at the next level and make a decision. For example I have read the difference in the level of play for the $6.50 and the $16.00 is quite dramatic and I might actually wait until I have 150-200 buy ins before I would even attempt to move up.

Currently I am playing the $6.50 18 manners, and don’t have a whole lot to report. I have only played 28 so far, and that just is not enough for me to talk about yet. I plan playing at least a hundred (72 more) by Saturday night in the states so I can try to get on the large orbit leader board on stars.

A pretty fun day...

Well I woke up this morning with every intention of grinding out LHE hands until I had cleared the required number of hands for GoldStar VIP status. That is until my wife threatened castration if we did not go somewhere politely asked if we could go see something on this island that we had not seen yet.

After weighing my options I decided that my wife was right and the family could use some time away from the house. So off we went to see a giant hole in the ground. Actually it is a 1km long cave that ended up being really really cool. I had a lot of fun and did not even once think about poker while were out and about.

Below are some of the pictures we took from the cave.


















The cave was actually part of a cultural park that we went through and had a good time.









After that we stumbled on a snake show that had the highly poisonous Habu, and King Cobra Snakes.









I even held one the vicious beasts...

The Test is over on to life and poker...

Well I took my promotion test this last Tuesday, and to be honest I am not sure how I did. I figure if I get 1/4th of the questions that I determined "I had absolutely no fucking idea what the answer was" "I might get wrong". I will then probably make it. However if I did not get the 1/4th right then I will probably be testing for promotion again next year. So wish me luck and watch as I bite my fingernails until June when they release the results.

On to a quick life update. As most my readers know I am in the U.S. Air Force and am currently stationed in Japan. I applied to remain in Japan for an additional 4 years and had laid the odds at about 50/50 for it to be approved. Well we all know how I run at coin flips so my application to stay was denied.

Since it was denied 2009 is a year of complete uncertainty for me. First I will be waiting to see what overseas bases if any will have available for my career field( last cycle had one slot and about 1,000,000,000,000 applicants Good luck me - At least is is not a coin flip). Anyways that happens in may and if there slots that I want to compete for I will turn my preferences in Mid-May and will find out Mid June if I get to go to another overseas location. We are really rooting for Europe, but do not know have any idea if will be possible to get.

After that they will be announcing in late June whether or not I made the cut for promotion. Then in July If I did not get selected to go to an overseas base then I will be looking at the available assignments for in the Continental United States. I will then put my preferences in the system and will find out in August if I will be getting any of my preferences or if the Air Force is just going stick me where they want to stick me.

So anyway a lot of unknowns and a lot of decisions for me to make in the coming year regarding real life.

On to poker although I am just going to skim the surface for now as I will put in a end of month review in a couple days. With my test over and having some more free time I am going ot be grinding out LHE for awhile I am going to attempt to make it to goldstar by the 28th. We will see if I can do it, or if I fail miserably. Either way as long as I dont lose my roll I will be happy in the end.

Dooms Test Day is fast approaching

Well I am now six days away from my promotion test. I am extremely nervous as life and quite possibly the worst case of man flu in the history of man kind has prevented me from studying as much as I like. So I am hoping to plan the next 6 days and however many hours cracking the books and reviewing things I do know I can only hope that i can do well enough to make my promotion this year.

Unfortunately I would say it is a coin flip at best... And we all know how well I run when it comes to coin flips.

Been spending any spare time I have working on getting ready for my last serious attempt at playing online poker.

The first thing I had to figure out was what my goal for 2009 was.

I decided to shoot for volume and Supernova status on Poker Stars. Overall if I make it to Supernova and make a small profit I will chalk up 2009 as successful.

Secondly, I had to decide what form/discipline of poker I would be focusing on.

I initially had thought I could multi-table 9-16 18 man SnG's at a time and try to grind out a small profit and VPP's. Unfortunately I quickly figured out that if I am to practice good Bankroll Management I would not be able to play enough games to even come close to getting supernova. Also I really think if I am going to play poker seriously through my life I do need to learn how to play ring games.

I decided to go ahead and play Limit Hold Em which I had stated in an earlier post. I know that I will have to multi-table probably 4-6 tables at first with an ultimate goal of playing 8-10 tables.

Third, Playing time

Considering that I work full time in the Air Force I don't have a ton of play time. That means I need to maximize the time I do have and play as efficiently as possible. I looked into AutoHotKey scripts and found several that I really liked. If your interested in using AutoHotKey I suggest you go over to www.overcards.com and check out their extensive library of AutoHotKey Scripts.

Anyways I was researching some things, and managed to find a program that put all the scripts in one convenient location so I spent he $25 and purchased table ninja. The main reason is the annoyance of reopening and taking seats sitting out on the next BB ect...

I also created my very own AutoHotKey Script that manages to open pokerstars, poker office, an AutoHotKey script that manages my table positions and sizes to ensure they are all stacked in the upper left corner and so various other items that i want opened while playing. For example my profit graph from the current session from poker office and the re-sizes and arranges everything exactly how I want it to be positioned.

As lazy as it sounds It will be nice to sit down DBL Click and then start play playing. I am hoping to be able to play 10 hours a week minimum.

Fourth, Improve and Learn

I know one of my biggest problems is I don't really spend the time improving my game like I should. So I was looking around the net and found a good site with some decent articles, and a forum to boot dedicated to limit hold em solely. So I am going to read the articles and after every session post my three biggest losing hands and my three biggest winning hands to be torn apart and such. I am also going to make a real effort at becoming a part of the community to learn some more. If your interested go to www.lowlimitholdem.com

Well this post has gotten long enough, and I have studying to do. Anyways I am excited over the possibilities of the next year. If this does not work out I wont quit playing online poker but I wont play seriously.