longclaw

The journey from small stakes to the biggest games in the world… we hope.

Calling all board bangers!

I am looking for any old board bangers from MSR who would like to get back together. We have a new home. Click on the link for the sports stuff and that will take you to the forums.

July 2009
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Readt for a Change

Posted By admin on April 1, 2009

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 don’t want your money…

Posted By admin on March 16, 2009

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 reveiw

Posted By admin on March 1, 2009

feb09

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!

Latest news

Posted By admin on February 25, 2009

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.

Got a coach

Posted By admin on February 16, 2009

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.

Getting Stuck

Posted By admin on February 10, 2009

I booked my first losing session at $50nl yesterday. I knew I had been running well since moving up so I was able to take it pretty well. The cards just seemed to break against me this time. I had only played about 30 minutes before I was stuck three buy-ins. I handled myself pretty well though, only tilting a little bit for about five minutes. Nothing too big, just opening a few more hands than I should have been. It also helps that I think I played the early parts of the hands correctly, and my opponents just outdrew me.

Here is one that really blindsided me-

$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players

CO: $65.85 (131.7 bb)
BTN: $50 (100 bb)
Hero (SB): $50 (100 bb)
BB: $53.15 (106.3 bb)
UTG: $41.75 (83.5 bb)
MP: $54.80 (109.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with K♦K♥
UTG folds, MP raises to $2, 2 folds, Hero raises to $6, BB folds, MP calls $4

Flop: ($12.50) T♥6♠2♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $9.50, MP calls $9.50

Turn: ($31.50) 9♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $12.50, MP calls $12.50

River: ($56.50) 3♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $22 and is all-in, MP calls $22

Results: $100.50 pot ($3 rake)
Hero showed K♦K♥ (a pair of Kings) and lost (-$50 net)
MP showed 8♠7♠ (a straight, Six to Ten) and won $97.50 ($47.50 net)

I really put this guy on a Ten here, something like Ace-Ten or Jack-Ten suited. I was pretty much shocked to see that he had called my 3bet with 87 suited and then called a pot-sized bet on the flop with nothing but a gutshot. That flop was just so dry I didn’t put him on a draw. I was a little worried about 9T on the turn but when he didn’t raise me I though I was good so I stuck it in on the river. There is no way this is a profitable play for him long term. I just don’t know if I should have played it so fast. Idon’t want to be results oriented but it makes you wonder. He would probable play his sets the same way so that is what I really need to worry about here.

I had another couple ugly hands before this. One table was playing four-handed and the guy to my left was being a total maniac. He was playing something like 60/45 with a 30% 3bet stat. I picked up Ace-Queen under the gun and raised it up to $2. Maniac 3bets me to $6 and I 4bet him to $18 and he calls. The flop comes down QTT and I have a pot-size bet left so I ship it in. He insta-calls me and rolls over pocket Aces. Even though they are maniacs they sometimes pick up hands. I just happened to run into one here. The other one I actually saved half a stack on the river. I raised it up with AQ on the button and the big blind calls. The flop came JT9 with two hearts, which gave me an open-ended straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. Only problem is the big blind leads into me. WTF? I decide to call and see the turn. It comes the 4 of hearts. Sweet! Now the big blind fires AGAIN. I decide to make a semibluff and raise it up to $20 and he calls again. The river is another 9 which does me no good. Now the Big blind checks to me. I move the bet slider all the way to the right which would put me all-in. Then I stop and think. I don’t think I have enough left to fold out anything he called my turn raise with. I give up and check and he shows me KQ of hearts. He had flopped the nut straight and turned the second nut flush. I am just lucky he didn’t shove over the top of me there because I would have went broke again. I guess I got lucky there.

I managed to make a comeback though and I won a huge pot with QT suited vs QJ and QT offsuit when I hit a flush on the turn. That helped out a lot. I don’t know though, yesterday was kind of weird in general. I was stuck $150 but I didn’t lose my cool as much as I would have being stuck the same amount at $25nl. I would have been throwing stuff and swearing off poker again if that would have happened. Hopefully I can stay calm and play well at $50nl. I am not quitting $25nl yet though. I really want to get my non-showdown winnings up. I have to get more aggressive with my play and I don’t think I want to do that at $50 just yet. Too much variance while trying to learn something new.

All right, enough for now. See you all later in the week.

A few more thoughts…

Posted By admin on February 5, 2009

It is Thursday evening and I am sitting at the McDonald’s in Park Rapids, MN.  The reason I am here is because I get free Wi-fi because I have AT&T DSL at home.  This is pretty cool for the times when I am out on the road and need more speed than I can get from my cellphone connection,  like if I want to download a podcast or a new coaching video.  The only problem with this is that 75%  of these McDonald’s have NO plug-ins for your laptop, meaning I only have a couple hours before my battery dies.  I guess it isn’t  too big of a deal unless you are stuck somewhere waiting for a load or something.  I thought about playing some poker before I got here but running Stars and Hold’em manager would probably run my battery down even quicker.  Oh well, maybe I will get to bed at a decent hour now.

Last night was one of those nights that just drain the life out of you.  My first appointment was at 2a.m. and I did not get out of there until about 4:30.  My second drop was at 6a.m. so I squeezed in about an hour of sleep before I got that one off.  Drop three was at 8:oo and I unloaded that one myself so no nap there.  Number four was the bulk of the load so I hired a lumper and crawled into the sleeper.  I was so out of it when they knocked on my door to tell me I was done I wasn’t sure where I was right away.  This happens sometimes when I am dreaming and get woke up suddenly.  I doubt that normal people are used to seeing it at 12:30 in the afternoon though.  After I got empty I drove up here to Park Rapids and swept out my trailer so I would be ready to load in the morning.  Now I guess I am just killing time before I go to bed so I don’t wake up at 4a.m. ready for the day with nowhere to go.

On the poker front, I listened to episode 56 of the 2+2 pokercast last night.  Their guest included Phil Galfond, who is one of the biggest winners of all time in the world of online poker.  He cleared about $7,000,000 last year alone.  Phil gave a lot of good advice on the show, but one thing really jumped out at me.  He talked about reducing the variance in head-up NL hold’em to help keep yourself playing at a consistent level.  He recommends passing up marginal +EV spots to keep yourself from losing too much money.  The reason for this is that when you are losing you tend to play worse than if you are winning.  It is just human nature really.  Who hasn’t lost three or four coinflips in a row and gone on monkey tilt?  Even if we do pass up a little bit of money in the long run, it can keep us from lighting our rolls on fire when it puts us on tilt.  I know I have tightened up considerably since I hit that horrible downswing last year.  It may take me longer to pull back out of this hole but it is better than digging it so deep that I can never get out of it.

I also want to comment on $50nl.  I figured out how to explain the difference between it and $25nl.  When I have watched my poker videos there will be spots where the coach will do something like make a check-raise for close to half their stack.  They will say something like “My opponent knows I am committed here so he either has to move all-in or fold.”  I try the same move, wether it be for value or as a bluff, and wait for my opponent to  fold or move in only to have them do what they can’t- call.  Now I really don’t know what to do.  It’s like when you show up for a test and none of the stuff they are asking you was in the book.  At $50nl the players seem to know these things a bit better than at $25.  I know that on 2+2 one poster had a theory that $50nl is tougher than $100nl because $50 is full of people who have moved up from $25 while $100 gets more fish who don’t want to play any lower than that because the money isn’t worth it to them.  I don’t know if this is true or not anymore.  I can only hope that it is.

Well, it looks like I need to find some fire for my wire before my battery goes dead here.  I guess this is enough for tonight.  Hope to have some good hands from the weekend for my next post.  Later!

longclaw.com 2.0 and a January review.

Posted By admin on February 1, 2009

I blew up my blog.  It had been so long since I had written anything I decided to start over.  So here it is.  What is different?  Well, we have a new look.  I am still learning how this template works so things might be a little off for awhile.  It has been a long time since I messed with any HTML code but I will do my best.

As far as poker goes, January was an up and down month that fortunately ended on an up note.  I have been a member of stoxpoker.com for a little over a year now and I have learned a lot.  Unfortunately I was having a hard time applying it to the microstakes I was stuck at.  I tried the strategies they recomend but could not get out of the rut I was in.  I finally decided I needed more help so I joined Deucescracked.com, which is another poker school.  So far I think I am learning more.  The good thing about DC is that their videos are released as a series containing eight seperate videos.  It helps to be able to build on things progressively over a couple of days rather than trying to piece things together by yourself.

In addition to more video training I was also able to get in a sweat session with my friend Paul who I met through stoxpoker.  Having someone to talk poker with is great, but if you get a chance to sweat a good player it is an invaluable resource.  We use two free programs to pull it off.  Skype lets us talk to each other just like you would on the phone but it is free which is really nice considering Paul lives in Australia.  The second program is called Team Veiwer which lets one person broadcast their computer screen to their partner.  I can watch Paul play while we talk about why he is making the decisions in real time.  It really lets you get into the other persons head and I hope it can jump my learning curve up a bit.

After he was finished he watched me play for a bit and gave me some good advice, the first of which was moving up to 50NL.  It seemed to help me with my reads because the players where easier to put on hands.  They were not as completely random as 25NL can be.  I was able to make some thinner value bets with a hand like second pair without getting shown some kind of goofy top pair hand that they should have been betting themselves.  He also helped me get my stack in with pocket Queens even after the top card paired on the turn.  Normally I might have slowed down but we ended up all-in on the river against the villians pocket Nines.

Anyway, January started out a little rough but I think I have made some headway.  Here is my graph for the month which is mainly 25NL with a couple sessions of 50NL and some $.50-$1 limit thrown in-jan09

Gotta love when that variance breaks the right way!