Lukes Poker Blog

poker-is-fun, for-eve-ry-one

2008-06-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty gay week. Started off well then bombed in the last 4k hands where I ran pretty bad. Not really going to moan because I ran fairly good last week and reviewing sessions I'm not really doing much wrong. There was one hand in particular that I played really bad today which pisses me off more than anything. I've noticed when I'm not running too well I tend to tighten up a bit as it feels like I never hit a flop and my cbets never get through, which is stupid really. I think I'm probably cbetting too much anyway then when they don't get through I end up cbetting too little. I also double barrell much less then I usually do because I generally just feel less comfortable which is costing me in non showdown winnings.
I'll need to reread RJ's post on PT but I'm pretty sure my WTSD is too nitty, any observations welcome.

I need to work on my table selection aswell.

I'll grind it out for the rest of the week and see how it gos.

Quick update

2008-06-05T06:20:00.001-07:00

Well it's been a while. I'm finally finished 4 years of college and I can't say that I'm not delighted. I'm fairly confident I passed all my exams and fingers crossed I scrape a pass in the FYP and I'm in the clear. Coming into 4th year I was expecting a 2.1 and now I'm happy with a pass. Oh well. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself now. I was reading cookers blog where he said He'll never use his degree and I think I'm in the same boat. I think the whole CAO system sucks balls as you can hardly expect a 16 year old kid to know what he's going to do for the rest of his life. I've been toying with the idea of doing a masters part time while I figure some stuff out but I dunno. Fuck it I'm still only 20 with a degree which can't be bad so I'm just going to enjoy the summer and worry later.

Poker
I was pretty comfortably rolled for 100nl and looking forward to grinding for the summer. I crashed my car which I won't go into in detail which resulted in some pretty bad damage and I needed to withdraw $2.3k to repair it which left me with a bare minimum 20bi roll for 50nl which really pisses me off. I feel like I've been at 50nl for fucking ages and watching other people move through the levels while I'm still playing for peanuts is so depressing.

I've been going out a lot since college finished so haven't played much at all, only really in the last 7 days or so where I've played 10k hands at 50nl running hot at 10ptbb/100 which is a good start. My goal is to play a ton of hands and be rolled comfortably for 200nl by the end of the summer and then I'll see what happens re coaching/moving up.

A couple of months ago I posted stats on boards for ripping. In the 30k hands I've played since then I've loosened way up in position, my att to steal has gone from 30ish to 43 and my wwsf from 41 to 46 which I'm happy with. Also after reading Nick's well i tried adding in more tables. I was already playing 6/7 averaging 22/20ish and playing 8-10 I just turn into a 18/16 nit which I need to work on. I'm just rambling now so I'll leave it at that.

On hold..

2008-05-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Until after my exams. I've 3 which start this wednesday & poker has been on hold for the last while as it's my final year etc. Looking forward to playing properly for the summer. Until then

..

2008-02-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty bad at thinking of titles tbh. Been a while since my last post as I havn't really been getting many hands in at all as I was in the middle of exams. They went alright but could have been better could have been worse. My timetable for next semester is pretty nice in that I'm off every thursday and friday so I'll be able to get alot more hands in. Also one of the lads organised a free trip for a load of people in college to Liverpool. Flew over wednesday 5pm and due to fly back 6am thursday. Needless to say I obviously went on the lash and woke up at 8am in some random house in Liverpool. Luckily 5 of the lads from my class had planned to stay for an extra night so I went on the beer with them for a day and got in the door Friday morning.

Anyway pokerwise I had a bit of a swong at 50nl but managed to recover nicely and made the move up to 100nl this week. I havn't played many hands at all tbh although I have played a bit of HU, which I've been beating pretty well at 50nl and so far at 100nl. Not sure if I'm just running hot tbh but I feel I'm playing pretty well. Its a nice change from the grind of 6tabling 6max though. Theres no point putting up stats for 100nl until I play 10k hands but heres the latest 50nl;

so i duno, yeah

2008-01-05T08:33:00.001-08:00

Since the last post I've played like 1k hands. I've had the time to play but the xmas & new years period had me in bits tbh. I've only started to feel better on Jan 3rd but still managed to drop 2 or 3 buyins, can't really remember. I had a look over the last thousand hands but I had some really bad coolers which can't be helped. eg 2nd nut flush v nut flush, set over set, 2nd nut straight v nut straight twice against the same guy. The only thing that annoyed me was the standard 3bet double barrel bluff that follwed. I tend to get way too bluffy when I tilt which I'll work on. Also another thing that really pissed me off was when looking through my PT I was up like 13 buyins, but my br was down 1/2 a buyin from MTTs and satellites for the Irish open. lol donkaments. I don't know why I even bother with tournaments as I don't enjoy them one bit but I feel I've a big score coming. There was a thread on br management regarding mtts, maybe I should re read it.

Anyway I will be playing even less now with exams starting on the 15th which I've done nothing for, although I've just printed out loads of past exam papers which I'll get cracking on once i get to 1k hands for today.

Later

Xmas Update

2007-12-24T10:28:00.000-08:00

I had hoped to get 10k hands in before Christmas and put up an update then but I didn't make it and I doubt I'll play again until after Stephen's day or later depending on how wrecked I am. I felt I played ok in the last week but I played a few sessions hungover and/or tired where I played some hands stupidly that affected my winrate which I'm annoyed about.

Anyways, happy christmas, I'm off to get pissed.

I love being a bum

2007-12-20T15:16:00.000-08:00

Its great. I finished college for the xmas break so now I can focus on the important things in life, i.e drinking 4 or 5 nights a week and sleeping til 3 in the day which is good. I've only really got until January 2nd to be a waster as Ive finals in around the 15th or something then FYP presentations etc to do when I finish the exams so I'll have to study I suppose.

I went for a weekend with the lads in Amsterdam last weekend which was pretty mental. Won't go into details but I dropped about 800 euro, 16 quid for a double vodka & redbull is killer. One of the lads got a haymaker off a black dealer after he refused to buy powdered sugar and I got lost at 5am in the RLD with no money to get home after losing my laser(nightmare). Don't remember anything else tbh but it was good craic nonetheless. I also had 150 quid on liverpool aswell which sucked.

Pokerwise I've had to move back to 50nl after withdrawals for xmas and the amsterdam trip which is pretty demoralising as I was beating 100nl on stars for 7.4bb/100 for just under 10k hands. I moved back to ipoker and played just under 5k hands this week to be up 5 bis. I feel like a wanker writing this as the only reason I'm updating this blog is because I saw it linked on Valors where he said he made 13k this month. sigh

Update

2007-11-04T06:05:00.000-08:00

Well I was looking around for a new home so having checked bonuswhores hollywood poker looked pretty good and fishy. I stuck 500 on there and had withdrawn an hour later. The software was horrible to say the least which I couldn't get used to and my PT would only import half of my hands without errors. So I left there and decided fuck it and put 1500 yoyos on stars. 100nl is generally pretty soft and I always thought the stars software was one of the best on the web.

Got 1k hands in last night and this morning and ran at 16.81 bb/100 which is ok but would have been much more but for a few suckouts for a couple of 2+ bi pots.

Off snowboarding now may play later if I'm not bolloxed.

Proper Update coming soon, hopefully

2007-10-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

Don't think I've played any poker in the last two weeks. I've been ill for one of those and generally just been too busy with college and other stuff. I'm thinking of depositing on betfair to see what it's like, it looks like a lovely fishtank from what I've heard. I'll have a look at some rb deals and bonuses etc as I've just over 2k euro sitting in a separate bank a/c I set up just for poker gathering dust, so I'll stick that somewhere this week hopefully.

Until then.

nothing exciting

2007-09-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

Havn't got in half as many hands as I expected to since the last entry. Been really busy finishing stuff off before I leave Intel, moving back home etc. I finish work on friday and start college on monday, which is pretty shit. Not looking forward to having to study and do assignments and stuff but it's only a year so fuck it. I said I'd stop playing completely through college, which won't happen obviously, but I won't have time for 3-4 hour sessions anymore. Ordered my laptop this week for "college work", so I can play in college on wireless which suits me as I hate playing at home with people annoying me and whatnot.
Played some 20nl/50nl over the past week and ran pretty good, and cashed out 1600 off ipoker to pay for some stuff before college. When I redeposit I think I'll move site, maybe try party or pacific. I was actually considering absolute poker until the whole doubledrag/mark seif fiasco occured.
Also I played 3 games from the boards hu league. Won a couple of races to beat flushdraw, and then played poorly to lose to bottom feeder and gkenny, all be it I got unlucky in some spots, but still didn't deserve to win. I got lucky as the bottom feeder match didn't count because it was one of the last 3 fixtures.
I probably won't get to play until friday, unless I decide to play live before I move home, which is unlikely. I'll see what happens I suppose.

I think this deserves an award for the shittest blog entry of all time.

Countdown to an eight month break

2007-09-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

Moan:

Havn't made a post in ages. Since my last post I've all but givin up with live play bar the odd tourny. Having played so much online I find it too hard to be dealt 1 hand every 4 or 5 minutes and sometimes not be involved in a pot for 2 hours or so. I get frustrated, bored, start playing junk hands, open limp - calling, and basically morph into your average money spewing live dublin cash player.

The 500 to 5000 challenge never quite got there but I'd made good progress moving through the levels to a stage where I was rolled comfortably for 0.50/1.

Enter beer....

It's the usual story I've heard so many times. Come home after a good few jars. "Ah sure some poker sounds good. Whats that? Blackjack? Happy days". I log on the next day and im down just over 500. Move down levels. Decide to play some donkaments online and hit the 50e rebuy 100 k gtd on ipoker. I have never ran so bad. kk v aa, set v gutshot, kk v aq on a kxa flop no good. ugh. I bust out and make an executive decision to take a shot at 3/6. Need I say more? Get stacked with set v fd and I've a decimated br and depressed.

Anyway, I plan to withdraw my online br and take a year long break from poker. I'm starting my 4th and final year in 2 weeks and I want to concentrate solely on getting a 1.1 or at worst a 2.1 in an honors engineering degree which will take some work. I'm still going to play the boards hu league, the IPO and maybe the odd excursion into town for a donkament, but apart from that I'll be under the radar(or is it over the radar? can't remember) for the next 8 or so months. I'll also still keep reading and posting on boards, and trawling through 2+2 aswell. Ever since reading Valors well he said he'd take 2+2 over poker books any day and he was right. The place is the school of poker and my game has improved drastically since I started reading it seriously.

So anyway I wanted to rebuild after my idiotic bankroll destruction and put in some hours yesterday for a good profit of 350 leaving the br at 1300. I'll be happy to get it up to 1500-2k and withdraw allowing me to pay off car insurance/tax and college stuff for the coming year which will take some pressure off as I don't intend to work. I'll also leave a hundred or so for the boards hu league.
So for the next ten days or so I hope to get alot of hands in before the withdrawal. Update to follow.

Dronkey?

2007-05-15T01:42:00.000-07:00

Got a couple of hours in sunday and monday and tilted off $200. Was severely hungover sunday so what better time to 4 table 0.25/0.50 while using gametime+ with pt on a slow computer. Need to get a laptop. Anyway wasn't concentrating at all and dropped about 100 purely through poor play. Have to stop playing when hungover. Dropped another 100 when I bought into a $100 stt because im a dope. Putting one sixth of your online br into a 10 seated stt. Theres br management for you. Sigh. The whole point of this challenge is to have ruled that kind of crap out of my game totally (I know I'm not sufficiently rolled for 0.25/0.50 but I'm not worried about major swings at micro stakes. Maybe I should be). Anyway, playing hungover/drunk and large buy in tournys are taboo from now on. Heading to tripod on thursday so I can test myself on whether I can resist the jackpot afterwards.

Played the e10 rebuy in the jackpot last night for some fun, mainly just to pass the time until the 1/1 game got started and clear my tilt up. Standard was shocking as usual. Stack was nearing an M of 10 so i shipped it in with with kq sooooted after two limpers. Dude calls with A5 or something, K on flop, rivers a straight. Wasn't bothered. Bored dealing and the cash games was starting. Time to pay the bills.

Sat down with 100 and covered everyone immedietly. Table was full of eliminated students and now I just had to sit tight. I couldnt help but laugh at guys buying in for 30e, limping their way down to 20, and shoving with some K10 like hand. Rebuy for 30e, same again. Hit some flops and stole some pots and cashed out at 3 for 500ish.

There were only two players on the table who I could play some poker with for the most part, boardies TheresAlwaysOne and TommyGunne. Hand with Conor aka tommygunne. Can't remember exact details preflop, but I was in in early position with A5soooted. Flop comes down KJ8. I check. Conor bets 3/4 pot - pot. I'm the only caller. Turn is a 9. I check and he fires again. I've a fairly tight image and c/repot it. He thinks for a couple of minutes and I know he's folding his K. He may have been tilting a little and then played his last hand when he flopped top two with AQ and I hit a set of queens. The money was always going in and thats all she wrote.

Was a little annoyed when I checked a river having fired two bullets allowing TheresOnlyOne to rebluff me with 9high on the river. He played it well though. Anyway I'm off to have a sleep in the car now but will get a few hours in later.

2007-05-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

only got to play for just under 2 hours today for a profit of 80ish. Had br up to 850 but got stacked twice. Once when I hit bottom set and was beaten by top set, and when i got it all in pf with KK v QQ and he rivered a q. Oh well

Off to play football and then heading out tonight so won't play until tomorrow.

Online br - $717.31

Moving along

2007-05-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

4 tabled some 0.10/0.20 yesterday and i don't have the patience for it, I assume because ive been playing 0.25/0.50 for a while online and 1/1 and 1/2 live. Played a few $20 stts and 3 tabled 0.25/0.50 for about 2 hours for profit of around $180, had to take $55 from my gjp account for pokertracker also. Played a home game last night. Standard was the worst I've ever seen, not bothered as it was only for a bit of fun anyway. Didn't go to the jackpot last night as I ended up getting fairly shitfaced. Got no sleep last night so not going to play tonight and get an early night in. Hope to get 3-4 hours in online tomorrow to get closer to reaching the first target of $1000.

Online bankroll at the moment - $640

$500 to $5000

2007-05-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

Have decided to finally sort out my non existant br management once and for all. Going to build $500 into $5k. Will 4 table 0.10/0.20 and not move up to 0.25/0.50 until the br reaches 1k. So I have 400 as 20 cash buyins and the remaining 100 for stts and the odd mtt. I want to keep live and online br's separate so the 5k is only for online, and any live tournaments/cash that I play will come out of my pocket. I reckon I should do this fairly easily as I've been beating 0.50/1 online fairly easily but just havn't got the br to handle the variance. Will play 1 or 2 live tournys a week and the jackpot cash is fairly easy money in the pocket.

Played the boards $20 bi weekly mtt on monday and came second. Played solid throughout, getting value from premium hands and stealing alot later on helped by the nit image i created early on. The only hand I was annoyed about was the last hand of the tourny. Wasn't concentrating at all. Raised pf with Kx and didn't hit. Fired on the flop and called. Flop was draw heavy and I shoved the turn to be called by a flopped 2 pair. Looking back it was obvious I was beat as he had'nt flat called one draw since I had been at the table. So out of 4 entries I've finished 2nd, 4th, and two nowheres which I'm not bothered about as both exit hands were coolers.

Football cancelled last night so had planned to play the jackpot e40 freezout GJP sattellite but played the $3000 Gtd on gjp instead. Finished 4th for 280ish. Went out when I'd K7 on a K107 board, got it all in on the turn and he had k10. Was pissed off with myself as i was sure I was beat when he check minraised my flop bet and shoved the turn, but I called anyway. I need to trust my gut feelings more often. Played 3 $50 stt's, won 1, 2nd in another. 2 tabled some 0.50/10 and ended the night up 600. At the moment I've 1100 online (What are you doing playing 0.50/1 I hear you say, see the first paragraph), but am withdrawing 600 to start fresh on the 5k challenge.

Wasn't sure what game to play tonight. It was down to the 20e jackpot donkout, or a 20 runner tenner home game in Maynooth. Decided to play the home game for a bit of craic and also because I felt like getting pissed after. If I feel different I may head into the jackpot after for some 1/2 instead, still undecided.

Will probably only play online for an hour or two after work so updates later.