longclaw

Yeah, I know.  It seems like every time I make a post now I talk about how long it has been since my last one.  No need for any of the other crap.  I’ll post when I get around to it.  I would like to say it will be more often but we both know how that goes.  So without further ado, let’s get to the real stuff-

POKER

Poker has really been up and down all year long and this month has been no exception.  After starting out like a world-beater this month and wondering if I might have my first +$1000 month I have come back down quite a bit.  Luckily with rakeback and the SCOOP reload bonus I should still have my best month this year.  Right now I am about +$350 with another +$150 in rakeback and bonus.  I also have a really good shot at getting Gold Star VIP at Pokerstars this month.  If I can keep this up for the rest of the year I will have a ton of FPP’s to spend around Christmas and I hope I can use them to get a nice camera for my wife from onecall.com.

As far as the games have been going, I have switched things up a lot.  I had been at the .25-.50 6max for a longtime, but then stars decided to change up their buy-ins for NL cash games.  They changed from a 20-100 blind buy-in to a three tiered system- 20-50, 40-100, and 100-250.  At first I thought this was a good thing until I discovered all the 40-100 games which I wanted to play where filled with taggy regs and the games sucked!  I didn’t want to go play the 20-50bb tables because I was way over-rolled for that game and I just didn’t feel like playing for $25 a pop anymore.  I ended up moving up to the .50-1.00 blind 20-50bb tables and I have stayed there since.  I buy-in for the max $50 still and I have to dodge the ratholling shortstack scum more, but the other players at the table are usually pretty bad so that makes up for it.  Also the VPP’s  come in twice as fast so that’s really helping the Gold Star run.

Recently I have also started playing the .10-.25 blind 100-250 tables.  I have been doing OK, nothing really spectacular, I might even be down a bit.  I like the change in the strategy though.  Playing deep makes you think a lot more because there is so much more money left on the late streets.  It really makes you think.  I have also been starting these tables, I will find an empty one, sit down with a full buy-in (which is actually MORE money than the $1.00 blind game) and wait for someone to sit and play me.  I figure this is a good way to get my feet wet in the heads-up pool too.

To wrap up the poker talk I should also mention I have upgraded the desktop setup.  Newegg.com had a great deal on a 26″ ASUS monitor for around $250 shipped so I decided to pull the trigger.  I did not realize just how freaking HUGE this thing would be.  I know its not a 30″ but it is good enough for now and about $900 cheaper.  I can tile 12 tables and still be able to have a decent HUD setup.  I was playing four tables on my 20″ before and now I think I will just stay with about six tables for now.  I also kept the 20″ on the wing to keep my lobby up and Itunes/Firefox/Skype and whatever else.  It really is a cool setup, I will try to post a pic of it a little later.

OK enough for now.  Here is a Hold’em Manager screen shot to show you how this year has gone.  The green line is my actually winnings, the blue line is winnings + rakeback/bonus so that is the actually amount of money I have made.

Well, I am off to a blazing start this year.  Almost three months in and I am up a whopping $42.  So far I have been running like shit but some short-term variance is to be expected.  Luckily between rakeback and bonuses I am up about $400 so that helps a lot.  I have been playing more $100nl and I have been doing a good job of table selecting.  I even caught a lucky break when my two pair filled up on the river to beat my opponents turned straight.  That was a nice $240 pot and it almost got me back to even at that level.  Pretty cool to finally catch a break in a big pot.

I have also been playing some super-turbo SnG’s on Full Tilt.  They are absolutely crazy.  You get 300 chips to start the tournament so it is pretty much push or fold for a majority of the tourney unless you can get down to 3-4 handed pretty early.  I don’t think there is much money in them but at least it is an easy way to grind some rakeback.

On a non-poker note I have been listening to The Jason Ellis Show on my XM radio.  He came to the U.S. from Australia when he was 18 to be a professional skateboarder.  He is now 38 years old and heavy into MMA and boxing.  Besides being absolutely hilarious he tells his listeners to get off their fat asses and get in shape.  Sounds good to me and I plan on sticking with it this time.  Last year some time I was all the way up to 255lbs.  I was really feeling bad so I decided to lose 20lbs and somehow I pulled it off.  Of course I started getting lazy and not eating as well so I am back up to about 245lbs right now.  My goal this time is 205lbs.  That would put me in the light-heavyweight class in the UFC lol.  I am going to start off with just eating better.  No more sodas and sugary drinks and really cut back on all the fast food.  We will have to see how it goes.

Anyway, time to run.  See ya!

Yeah, OK, I am a little late on this but you will just have to deal with it. Looking back at last year I would have to say I am pretty proud of my results. Early in 2009 I think I was at my lowest point ever in my poker career. I was in a total funk. I was playing bad, running bad, and tilting way too much on top of it. I had run my roll down to $194 or so. It was so bad that my friend Paul suggested I drop back down all the way to $10NL.

I should have but I just couldn’t do it. I struggled through with my eight buy-ins at $25NL and totally changed my game. I became a total bumhunter for awhile. I would pour over the lobby at Pokerstars looking for good tables. I never sat at a table where everyone had bought in for the full amount. I looked for the half-stacks who were not smart enough to turn on auto-reload who gave away the fact that they weren’t very good. If a table ever got difficult I would insta-quit my next big blind. I wasn’t playing to maximize my profit, I couldn’t. I was playing for pure survival. I played squeaky tight too, something like 11/10.

It wasn’t much fun, but it was what I had to do. I slowly climbed my way out of the hole I had dug for myself and over a few months and I was able to rebuild my roll to the point where I was comfortable with opening up my game again. I had been watching some really good videos at stoxpoker from Matt Bolt and I was actually starting to be able to read hands. I worked my way back up to a pretty good TAG stat, something like 21/18 and I really started crushing. I was also putting in a lot more hands so I was able to move up to $50NL by October or so, and I continued to run hot.

I actually made enough to let me start taking shots at $100NL by the end of the year, but that didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped. I don’t know why but there is kind of a psychological barrier for me when I move up that is hard to break through. I ended up losing a couple of buyins pretty quick and then I had to cash out some of my roll to help pay for the basement remodel and to build a new computer to replace my wife’s aging laptop. I still have a good roll for $50NL though and I am comfortable with putting in more hands there before I move up again. I really need to get my non-showdown winnings up before I play the tougher games anyway.

Looking ahead to 2010 I have set my goal at winning $5,000 and my target is $10,000. I won’t be happy if I don’t make at least 5k this year, but I would really like to make it to 10k. If I can get moved up to $100NL sometime this spring it is definitely doable, I just have to put in the time to get there.

That’s enough for now, here is my graph for last year-

One of the sexiest plays you can make in No Limit is the Ace High call down. When you can pull this off it can be devastating to your opponent. It shows him that you are inside his head so much that you can call him with virtually nothing because you know he is bluffing. All it takes is a little hand reading.

PokerStars Game Hold’em No Limit ($0.25/$0.50 USD)
Table ‘Philippina II’ 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Franes23 ($88.40 in chips)
Seat 2: Engekbert ($53 in chips)
Seat 3: lomanog ($19 in chips) 47/7/3 my target
Seat 4: mandataire ($68.40 in chips) 16/11/3 predictable nit
Seat 5: longclaw ($54.55 in chips)
Seat 6: BWStevie ($34.90 in chips)
BWStevie: posts small blind $0.25
Franes23: posts big blind $0.50

Dealt to longclaw K♦A♥
Engekbert: folds
lomanog: calls $0.50
mandataire: raises $1.50 to $2
longclaw: calls $2
BWStevie: folds
Franes23: folds
lomanog: calls $1.50
*** FLOP *** 4♦7♠9♥
lomanog: checks
mandataire: checks
longclaw: checks
*** TURN *** 4♦7♠9♥ 2♥
lomanog: checks
mandataire: checks
longclaw: bets $4.50
lomanog: raises $12.50 to $17 and is all-in
mandataire: folds
longclaw: calls $12.50

This wasn’t just a call here, it was a snap-call fist-pump. I didn’t even think about folding when lomanog shoved here. I had a pretty good read on him and it was right. Let me break this down street by street-

Preflop
Lomanog limps in here which is nothing unusual. He does this with nearly half his range so it doesn’t tell me much. When mandataire raises the limp I put him on a pretty strong range here because he is so tight, probably pocket nines or better,Ace-Jack+ and King-Queen or so. I could 3-bet my big slick here but I decide to just flat instead. I’m the best player in the hand and I have position so I will just take a flop. I’m hoping to flop an Ace and felt one of these guys with a worse kicker.

Flop
The flop comes all low cards and it gets checked to me. I could take a stab here but I wouldn’t be repping much, maybe pocket 6s or 8s or 10s but thats about it. I also know the fish is going to get sticky with overcards here so I won’t know what his call means so I just check it back.

Turn
OK, here is where things get interesting. The deuce of hearts is a total blank. It really doesn’t hit anyone’s range of possible holdings. In addition, both players check to me again which screams “I have nothing!” I put the fish on random high cards and the nit on something like Ace-King that is too afraid to do anything so I decide to go ahead and take a shot at the pot. I make a bet that is a little over half the size of the pot and now all of the sudden the fish shoves all-in and the nit snap-folds.

The fishes play really makes no sense at all. What hand would he be doing this with for value? He may have flopped a set and tried to check-raise the flop only to see it get checked through. If he did wouldn’t he have thought about leading the turn to try and get some action? Even if he did flop a set and check twice with that set would he really insta-shove on us once we bet here? I know he doesn’t have much left but I think he would have possible raised smaller for value if that is what he was doing. When looking at the rest of his range we can also rule out hands like Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks for much of the same reasons as we ruled out sets. He probably would have bet them by now. He might play Aces this way but since we have one that makes it much harder for him to have pocket rockets here.

OK, so we need to go a little lower down on the tree here, would he play a nine like this? Probably not, if he had something like A9s here he would probably just call us unless there was something in the past where he was extremely frustrated with us. He wouldn’t shove pocket 8’s or 6’s or fives this way either, probably just try to get them to showdown cheaply. That doesn’t leave many hands here that he can shove for value, which means if it’s not for value, it’s a bluff.

Could he be shoving here as a bluff? That is what I thought. Nothing else made sense to me. When you look at this board there isn’t a lot that connects with it. I will assume that my opponent looked at this board and said “He can’t have a strong hand here, if I shove he can’t have anything he can call me with.” The only problem with that was I was thinking the same thing, he can’t have anything strong here, and I also have the nut non-paired hand with my AK high so I decided to look him up-

*** RIVER *** 4♦7♠9♥2♥5♠
*** SHOW DOWN ***
lomanog: shows A♣T♣ (high card Ace)
longclaw: shows K♦A♥ (high card Ace – King kicker)
longclaw collected $38.75 from pot

and I was right.

the blog that is, and the poker career…at least we hope so. A lot has changed since my last post. The truck I wrecked should have been totaled but the insurance company decided to fix it. My boss offered it back to me but I decided against it. Just too many memories would come back with it. I ended up with a brand new truck instead that is a lot nicer anyway. It has all the bells and whistles including leather seats and a built in gps system in the dash. It also has a Cummins motor which will pull circles around that old ACCERT CAT motor I had in 137. It even gets better fuel millage to boot.

Poker has been going quite well for me lately. I spent most of the summer in a break even haze where it just seemed like I couldn’t get anything going. I went back to the video training and really hunkered down and tried to do something better. I had been kicking around at 25nl for years and was sick of it. I decided to really ramp up my aggression and go for more thin value. I am proud to say it really worked out. I just finished off the best month of my life at poker finishing +$650 for November playing all cash games, mainly 50nl with some 25nl and a single session at 100nl. I have a much better idea of what I am doing at the table now and I am starting to identify my opponents styles better and also using that information to exploit them

Enough for now, time for an obvious brag, last 3 months of play here-

I am wondering if Tuesday will be one of those life changing events for me. Here is my statement I had to give to the insurance company-

I was driving south on highway 63 just outside of Columbia, Missouri, when I lost control of my vehicle. It was raining pretty hard and the wind was gusting from west to east. I had just passed a car and I started up a small hill that had a slight curve to the right. I was driving about 65 mph in a 70mph zone. I am not sure what happened to cause me to lose traction, if it was just hydroplaning or if a gust of wind caught me in the side. I just felt the drive tires start to slide to the left, pushing the front of the tractor to the right. It felt like I was on ice. When the truck started to skid I did what I have always been told to do, I turned the steering wheel into the skid (left) and tried to correct. I did not hit the brakes, accelerator, nor the engine brake. I just steered and waited for it to catch, which unfortunately it never did. I continued to head for the right shoulder of the road with the tractor turning slightly to the right. I ran off the pavement and the tractor jackknifed into the trailer on the passenger side. I held on and waited for the truck to stop moving. After it came to a stop I got out of the truck to see what had happened and if I was the only one involved. My tractor was off the road and my trailer was just hanging out over the shoulder but was not in the travel lane of the highway. Several vehicles stopped to make sure I was alright but none of them were involved in the wreck. I put out my warning triangles over about a 300 foot span to make sure to warn oncoming traffic and then waited for the police to arrive.

It pretty much sucked. I still can’t believe it happened. I have been driving for 12 years now and I have been everywhere in every imaginable weather and road condition. I have driven through ice storms and blizzards so bad that you would not believe it was possible to get through. I have driven past thousands of cars and pickups and big trucks that had slid off the road because they lost control, but I never did. Last year I drove through a blizzard around the Iowa-Minnesota border that was totally crazy. I was warned before I left Waterloo, Iowa that if anything happened to me no one would be coming to get me until the storm had blown over. It was absolutely brutal. The temperature was around -10F with a wind that was blowing about 25mph. The snow was coming down hard and it was coming down sideways. There were several times I had to stop and wait for the wind to die down a little bit because I literally could not see the end off my hood. It was the worst thing I had ever driven through, but I made it.

Now, after having this wreck I have really had to step back and look at things. I have really thought about what I am doing and why I am doing it. What the fuck am I doing? Everyday I am in such a hurry. I hate this shit. I am always trying to get ahead. I rarely sit down and eat anywhere other than my truck. If I am stopped to load or unload I can sit and eat in peace, but most of the time I have a bag of food in the floor or a plate sitting on my passenger seat and I am eating going down the road. That sucks. I am tired of trying to squeeze every minute out of the day that I can. It just isn’t fun anymore. When I was younger it was like a challenge to ride all night and be 1000 miles from home by sunrise the next morning. It was proving I was better than everyone else when I drove through that blizzard in Iowa, that I could make it where others couldn’t. Now I look at it and I think “who gives a fuck? You could have died dumbass. And over what, a load of cat litter? So you could prove something?”

The truth is truck driving is all about being in a hurry. You try to leave your home as late as possible so you can spend time doing what you want, like playing with your kids, spending time with your wife, working on your house or yard or whatever the fuck you need to do while you are there. Then you spend the rest of the week trying to get in as many miles as possible because miles=money. If you stop and eat that cuts into your driving time. You start leaving later because you know you are not going to stop to eat, you can eat while you drive. When you are out during the week you don’t stop to eat because that could be an hour you could be sleeping. God knows you can always use more sleep. You never know when you are going to call in and hear “Can you be there in the morning?” Yeah, its 700 miles from where you are loading and you are not even there yet but it would really help us out getting these loads covered. Now you have to ride all night to get there, you lose a day at home, and when you get home you are going to be tired and irritable and yell at your kids you haven’t seen because you just want to relax and they are all wound up because they are excited to see you and just want to play. Your wife wants you to help her with stuff around the house, the lawn, the laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, and everything else a normal husband does. She missed you too, and probably wants to talk about everything that happened to her all week long. You know, how bad the kids have been while you were gone, how her/your parents are driving her nuts and you need to do something about it. What kind of things need to get done before you leave for your next trip. All this crap gets dumped on you when you get there and all you want to do is sit down and decompress from the week. Maybe have a beer and watch some TV or play some poker.

It is just so hard to fit life into a truck driver’s schedule. I am really starting to hate this stuff. I think about some of the things that have happened out here. All the times I have gotten mad at people for holding me up. I have screamed profanities at cars who are driving too slow in front of me. I don’t know how many times I have finally gotten past the car to see a little old granny looking lady driving who has no idea that she was in my way. It doesn’t make me any less angry at her though. But why in the hell am I getting so stressed out at this poor old woman anyway? Why am I stressing that someone has cost me five minutes of time? Why should I push as hard as I can no matter what the weather or road conditions or traffic or any of the other shit that happens out here? I gotta get out of this thing somehow before it is too late. It just isn’t fun anymore.

I know that is an odd thing for a poker player to say, but it is true. I don’t want your money. Don’t get me wrong, if we get in a hand together I am going to try my hardest to win as much money from you as I can. If you try to steal my blinds I am going to 3-bet you to keep you honest. I also expect you to do the same. If I am getting out of line I am sure you are going to come after me, but you shouldn’t be looking to get into a lot of pots with me either. You really don’t want to try to take my money from me either.

Why don’t I want your money? Well, all money spends pretty much the same. A dollar is a dollar and it doesn’t matter where it comes from. Why should you and I beat each other over the head in a leveling war when there are plenty of people just giving it away? I mean seriously, do you know how hard it is to stack a TAG? You are probably going to have to get into a cooler situation where you have Aces when he has Kings or you have a set when he has the Aces. When the cards even out over the long run it is hard to make any money playing this way.

What the hell are we thinking anyway? You can’t get water from a stone. Maybe we should look at the other players at the table. How hard is it to stack a guy playing 70/10? Hmm, not very when you think about it. How many times have you got all-in on a super-dry flop like 26T rainbow with pocket Kings or a set of Sixes and had the donk turn over AT? They don’t think about what hand could possible call their all-in shove, they just think “I has top-pair-top-kicker! I is all-in!”

So what is the point of all this? KNOW YOUR TARGET! When you sit down at the table you should immediately start picking out your targets and identifying the people you want to stay away from. You really don’t want to just sit down and play poker, not if you want to make money anyway. You want some fish at your table to take advantage of. If there is a good player who has position on you who is giving you all kinds of trouble there is no need to get into a pissing match. When two good players lock horns the one with position has a huge advantage. If you find yourself in this position you need a really good reason not to switch tables. If the fish ends up getting stacked and leaves the table you might want to switch tables as well. If my target goes broke and a 20/18 TAG sits down in his spot I am getting the hell out of there.

There is no need to play in a tough game when there are so many soft ones available. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you when a player is giving you trouble. If the game is too tough, find an easier one. Don’t forget you are there to make money and don’t forget where the easy money comes from.

February was pretty swingy for me. I think I am playing better now but I still have some pretty bad leaks, but I am getting better at identifying them. I would say $50NL is treating me pretty well so far, I just need to get in more hands. Pokerstars has lowered there fpp requirement for silverstar level to 1200 so I hope that will give me the extra incentive to play more. I figure I need 6000 hands a month or so to make it so I just got to put in the time. Cheers!

I had my first coaching session on Sunday and it went pretty well. My coach, Will, was pretty good. When we started he sounded lecturing kind of like a poker video. I had heard a lot of it before but that is OK. I was able to ask him questions and “what if” kind of questions. We didn’t get into too many tough spots but there was one really good one-

PokerStars Game #25234308675: Hold’em No Limit ($0.25/$0.50) – 2009/02/22 14:36:27 ET
Table ‘Phobos VII’ 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Rafty82 ($57.45 in chips)
Seat 2: Nacho Love ($73.20 in chips)
Seat 3: lalouloute ($98.35 in chips)
Seat 4: lolizanax ($39.25 in chips)
Seat 5: longclaw ($50 in chips)
Seat 6: fredd-bird ($50 in chips)
Rafty82: posts small blind $0.25
Nacho Love: posts big blind $0.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to longclaw A♣J♥
lalouloute: calls $0.50
lolizanax: folds
longclaw: raises $2 to $2.50
lolizanax is sitting out
fredd-bird: folds
Rafty82: folds
Nacho Love: calls $2
lalouloute: calls $2
*** FLOP *** 2♥A♥8♠
Nacho Love: checks
lalouloute: checks
longclaw: bets $5
Nacho Love: raises $9 to $14
lalouloute: folds
longclaw: calls $9
*** TURN *** 2♥A♥8♠9♠
Nacho Love: bets $26.50
longclaw: raises $7 to $33.50 and is all-in
Nacho Love: calls $7
*** RIVER *** 2♥A♥8♠9♠Q♠
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Nacho Love: shows Q♦A♦ (two pair, Aces and Queens)
longclaw: mucks hand
Nacho Love collected $99.75 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $102.75 | Rake $3
Board 2♥A♥8♠9♠Q♠
Nacho Love (big blind) showed Q♦A♦ and won ($99.75) with two pair, Aces and Queens
longclaw mucked A♣J♥

The thing that made this so tough was that Nacho was running at like 44/30. I told Will that these were the spots where I really feel lost and not sure what to do. He told me it was OK and that it was a really tough spot. If Nacho were a normal TAG player (22/18ish) I could probably fold here but being that he was just sooo agro I should just put it in. As it was, he only had me by a pip. I was alright losing my stack here. I think the best thing for me though was the fact that Will validated my feelings of being in a tough spot. It really helps my game to know that it isn’t just me being weak and not knowing what to do because I am a bad player. It is just one of those spots were you have to trust your read and go with it.

And just in case you think it was all bad we did run across this little gem right before my hour was up-

PokerStars Game #25235832947: Hold’em No Limit ($0.25/$0.50) – 2009/02/22 15:12:00 ET
Table ‘Phobos VII’ 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: blitzology ($50.75 in chips)
Seat 3: GodS3ntSwan ($66.70 in chips)
Seat 4: wX4′ ($53 in chips)
Seat 5: longclaw ($50 in chips)
Seat 6: Herm23 ($53.40 in chips)
Herm23: posts small blind $0.25
blitzology: posts big blind $0.50
mo_pe87: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to longclaw A♥A♠
GodS3ntSwan: folds
wX4′: calls $0.50
longclaw: raises $2 to $2.50
Herm23: folds
blitzology: raises $5 to $7.50
wX4′: folds
longclaw: calls $5
*** FLOP *** 7♣9♣3♦
blitzology: checks
longclaw: bets $9.50
blitzology: raises $33.75 to $43.25 and is all-in
longclaw: calls $33 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($0.75) returned to blitzology
*** TURN *** 7♣9♣3♦Q♠
*** RIVER *** 7♣9♣3♦Q♠J♣
*** SHOW DOWN ***
blitzology: shows K♦7♦ (a pair of Sevens)
longclaw: shows A♥A♠ (a pair of Aces)
longclaw collected $98.75 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $100.75 | Rake $2
Board 7♣9♣3♦Q♠J♣
Seat 1: blitzology (big blind) showed K♦7♦ and lost with a pair of Sevens
Seat 5: longclaw (button) showed A♥A♠ and won ($98.75) with a pair of Aces

Now normally here I would have four-bet preflop and blown this guy out of the water but Will said to wait. My raise here on the button looks like an isolation raise and blitz here didn’t really have to have much of a hand to three-bet me. He recommended to slow play my Aces here and give my opponent a chance to do something stupid, which is exactly what happened.

Most of the stuff we went over was small stuff, folding in a few spots were I probably would have called, calling in a few spots were I normally fold, and changing a few bet sizes here and there. Hopefully next time we can find a few more tough spots but overall I think I got my monies worth here. We only have a few days left in February here so my review post will be coming up shortly. My graph this month is pretty wild but I have a few days left to pad it up a bit. Hopefully I will run well and finish it out strong. See you all then.

Well, I guess I am getting serious. I signed up for some one-on-one coaching for next Sunday. I found a guy who is going to watch me play for an hour over teamviewer and give me some advice. Hopefully this will be able to jump my play ahead quite a bit. It is going to cost $40/hour but for coaching that is cheap. Some of the top coaches charge up to $1500/hour. But they say good coaching doesn’t cost you money, it makes you money.

So why now? Didn’t I just join another poker school? Well, I am tired of stumbling around by myself. There are some spots I hope to get into where I can go “OK, now what?” Things like check-raising a guy who stole on the button when I flop a flush draw and I get called. What do I do on the turn when there is still a lot of money behind? Keep firing or give up? It is really easy stuff for a good player but I am not sure what the correct play is. I have probably been too results oriented, like if a bluff is a good play but I get called I won’t do it again. I guess I need a little guidance and a little reassurance on my own play. Hey, it worked for Paul. Now if I could just put in the sick volume he does.