Marshall28's blog

The 2/4 gods ... they smile down on me ... but the 3/6 gods, they only want to piss on me.




this happen to anybody else ? lol ...

0 votes

Comments (5)

Some funny hands from playing a bunch of live poker in vegas ....

Okay so I played a bunch of 5/10 and 2/5NL in Vegas at the Wynn ... Some of these players are so stupid, my jaw is just constantly dropping at some of the things that I was seeing. Others were just funny things that happened, this first one was from 5/10.

In all these hands, I was pretty much playing probably like 40/35 or something ridiculous, basically if it was playable and it was folded or limped to me, I was raising. So anyways, this fish sitting w/ like 20k at a 5/10 game who claims to be a pro and plays like 60 hours a week? WOW 60 hours a week = super degen. Anyways, he opens like 40 from UTG+1 or whatever, and I'm in like 4th pos, and I have the 53s so I elect to 3bet to 120, cuz if I call there's gonna be like 6 other players in the pot. So it's folded around to the fish and he calls, I'm about 2k deep and he's like 20k deep. Flop is A55 (ding ding ding), so fish checks to me, and I bet ~200 into pot of ~240. So fish instacheckminraises me. I ask the dealer how much, he says minimum, I chuckle, count my chips, then reraise to 1200. Fish looks at me in disgust and folds, i turn over the 3h and muck the 5. LOL.

So I played a bunch of hands w/ this guy over the course of the next 25 minutes. Basically if he ever entered a pot, I was calling or 3betting him. He was getting really irritated, but I knew I couldn't bluff him again, so not much longer I'm sitting UTG and pick up the QTo so of course I raise to 60. People at live tables really give you a lot of respect if you raise UTG, even if you raise a lot of hands. Anyways, fish calls me in the SB. Flop comes A37r. So he checks and I c-bet like 110 into pot of ~130, in retrospect I think this was maybe too much as he's either calling or he's not, but either way, he snap called. At this point we're like 3k deep after the previous pot I won off him, and now pot is like ~450. Turn is an offsuit J. He checks, I check. Okay so now river is a T. He checks to me, and I start salivating because I know it's time to take him to value town. I bet 400, he instantly calls me, and I turn over the QT. "It's good" ... "Yeah, I know, buddy."

So like a few minutes later we play another pot. He opens to 40 from early, I pickup the KJo so I 3bet from 5th or 6th pos or whatever, folded to him, he calls. (Don't ever just keep calling someone that is pounding on you like this, it's a recipe for disaster, you have to start 4betting light, or check/jamming the flop to have any chance at all against a good player who starts doing this to u. This guy obv had no idea how to handle it which is why it was so easy to take his money). so flop is like T85dd I have no diamond. He checks, so I just check, because I know he's going to call me w/ all sorts of random crap, so I figure I'll just give this one up if I don't improve. So turn is another T, and he checks again. Now I think I actually might have the best hand if he's checking twice. Or it could just be that he thinks I'm so retarded / agro that I will bluff whenever I'm checked to. Either way, the T is a terrible card for me to bluff, and I'm happy to check this one down. So anyways, the river is a J (bingo). He checks to me, I'm like, hmmmm, pot is about 240 ... "300" I said. He calls, I turn over my hand and he mucks again. LOL ... live pro .. he probably sits there w/ 20k all day and never plays a pot bigger than 3 or 4 thousand. Unless he's getting stacked. Immediately after this last hand, the fish gets up and takes the empty seat to my immediate left, I laugh. Anyways, after winning about 3k in roughly an hour at this 5/10 game, I leave it to play a far more difficult 2/5 game to sit and play w/ FrinkX and Myth. I have bad game selection obv.

Okay so this hand was from one of the first days I was there. This donk sitting directly to my right was overvaluing his hands bigtime, and didn't have any concept of value betting. I'd see him checkraise the river all in on a KJT65 board w/ K8 ... I asked him if he was turning his made hand into a bluff or if he thought he was value raising the river. He didn't quite understand my question, so I knew what to expect from this guy, lol. So anyways, one of the very very few instances that it was folded all the way around to the SB, the donk limps, and I raise up the 78o to 25, he calls. Flop is like JsTc8d. So he checks and I have bottom pair so I'm happy to try to get to showdown cheap, so I check also. Turn is 6s, he checks and i obv check behind. So river comes duece of spades, completing a backdoor FD. Villain checks to me, so I'm like ... Okay I guess I have to value bet, so pot's like ~60 so I bet 30. Donk says "I raise." I ask "how much?" He counts out his chips and says "100 more." i call before he can even count the chips and put them in the pot, turn up 4th pr and tip the dealer before he does anything. lolz. (On a side note, I've tried to do this to JonnyCosmo in heads up games and the results haven't gone so well. If you aren't really sure, you look like an idiot, lol.)

Okay so this hand is from a different day, I honestly couldn't believe that this crap happened, I've never seen anything like this before in my life. So I'm sitting 2/5 w/ JonnyCosmo, and our friend's girlfriend, Mango. I pick up the 9Tcc from like 3rd pos and open to 25. I get called by this cowboy OTB. flop is like 589 w/ 8c. So I c-bet 50 into ~60 pot, and cowboy decides to raise me minimum. I think he is probably either really strong or he's bluffing, and I have top pair so I don't think I have enough information to fold just yet, so I call 50 more and pot is now ~260. Other thing is, I'm playing very aggressively and probably opening like 4 out of every 9 hands. We originally had 500 effective stacks, and turn card is the Jc, so the board is 5s8c9dJc or soemthing like that, and I have 9Tcc for pr and open ended straight flush draw. So I think for a second and check to him. He goes into his stack, and picks out roughly 100$ worth of 5$ chips, and he starts to count them out in front of his cards, stacking them in 4 stacks of 5 chips, 25$ a stack. So as I was watching him do this, I was thinking like ... I need to make this look really strong, so as soon as he had measured up the 4 stacks of 25$ each, before he could move his hand back from the chips, I say "ALL IN!" LOL THEN THIS DOUCHE BAG, he picks back up the first stack of 25$, stacks them on top of the 3rd set, then stacks those on top of the 2nd, and stacks those on top of the first ... He takes his chips and puts them back into his stack, AND HE MUCKS HIS CARDS ? LOL ? I'm sitting there stunned, trying to figure out what just happened, I look at the dealer and ask her (But these dealers you know, they all hate these young internet punks so we never get a break), and SHE ALLOWS IT! LOL. Anyways, I say to the cowboy, "wow, you are SHAAAYYYY - DDDDD" "I hope you know that you're a shade ball" Then he stuttered something in his Texas accent saying something like "I might'a done ... (Could'nt make the rest out), so I said back to him, mocking his accent "You might'a done what?" Then he just said "sorry," I said "Well, I guess if you need it that bad that you need to cheat, whatever dude, you earned it, nice work." He didn't say another word. He left about 5 minutes later ... Douche bag.

(On a side note ... At the Wynn, there is no betting line, so your cards are considered your betting line, if your chips are in front of your cards, it's a bet. This dude's chips were definitely way in front of his cards)

Okay so this next one I played at a different 5/10 table from the earlier one. I had just sat for about 15 minutes and was watching this kid open a lot of hands. Like as many as I had been in previous games. I doubled up in the first hand I played, so I was about 2k deep. He musta been sitting there with like 8k or more. So he's like UTG+1 and opens to 50. I look down at the 89o from MP, so I decide it's good enough to start to establish my image, so I 3bet him to 150. So it's folded to him and he calls, flop is 8TJr. I think, wow, I couldn't have asked for a much better flop for 3betting this hand. So he checks to me, and I bet 250 into pot of ~300. He checkraises to 650. I look at how much cash I have in front of me, think for like three seconds, and jam all in. He instamucks and I think to myself "haha i play good."

Last story isn't about any particular hand, it was my last night in Vegas, and I was moving between a 2/5 game w/ JonnyCosmo and a short handed game w/ Lyric, some chick that was apparently Daniel Alaei's girlfriend (who he backs and teaches), and some fish. Lyric didn't stay for long, so after about 15 minutes it became a three handed game. The chick wasn't very good, she was like, really passive. Over the course of about 40 hands, she 3bet me once, and she was opening her button like 1 out of every 4 times. I was acting cocky and teasing her for playing so passively when she acts like she's so good. (The night before she was playing a hand where some dude raised her on the turn then winked at her. She thought for like two seconds, moved all in and was like "you're not winking anymore are you?" Like really seriously, not joking at all, this chick was cold.) So she starts telling me I'm obnoxious, that I'm annoying, she actually says that she cant even stand to think of her and me in the same sentence, LOL? She keeps trying to tell me to leave the table because she "doesnt want to be near me" ... But obv she wants to get this super fish heads up. I'm like, "I know you're type too well, you are transparent to me, I've dealt with chicks like you too many times to know that the last thing I should give you is what you want." So after this she immediately starts trying to qualify herself to me. She tries to claim that she is different from all the rest (yeah right like I haven't heard that 100 times, lol). So I was like "well, if you didn't care what I thought you wouldn't be trying so hard to convince me otherwise." So she immediately softens up a grip, and actually blushes a little, I teased her some more, and she starts doing this ridiculously goofy laugh. I make fun of her laugh, and she swats at me. I give a really surprised look at her and I say "YOU LIKE ME." (duh if a girl is swatting at you it means she likes you). "You know how I know? ... Cuz you're not denying it." Anyways, she is embarrassed so she tries to take another jab at me, but I obv dodged it, and shortly ater, the fish decides to get up and quit, (I think I scared him away because I kept betting into him and raising him) lol but just before he leaves he says to the girl "if you asked me to give you all of my chips, I would" ... I'm sitting there thinking to myself, "wow, you are such a tool," I glance at the girl, and she glances back, we both give each other this weirded out look because we knew how pathetic that was. I tried to convince the chick to stay and play heads up with me, but I think she didn't wanna get stacked, so she quit, and I went back to play the 2/5 game.

2 votes

Comments (13)

Ok so, like three months ago or whatever I made a prop bet w/ BigRed0000. The terms of the bet were, the first one to make 50k from October 1st would win 2500$USD from the other. So just yesterday I cracked it.



ship it

2 votes

Comments (14)

i had just typed up a pretty long blog post about my trip to vegas and a few hands i played, but when I was just finishing up, i accidently pressed something that made the browser go backwards, I tried to go back to where I was, but for some reason I lost the entire post. I'll have to write the rest up in Word from now on and copy paste when I'm finished. Anyways, the point of the post was going to be that I had had some interesting discussions w/ a few players recently and that it gave me a good idea for a blog post, and that I should be writing it tomorrow if I have time (but might not since I have a bunch of stuff to do before Xmas). Anyways, gl and stay tuned.

0 votes

Comments (5)

I’m leaving for Vegas in about an hour, and I’ve had more requests for this so I just thought I’d say screw it and put it up even though I think quite a bit of it is constantly regurgitated and it might be a little boring. So to everyone that wanted this .. enjoy.

I’ve had a serious lack of input coming in from outside sources about things that have sparked my interest in poker recently. I think a lot of this has to do with how soft the 400nl and 600nl games have been on stars lately. The weaker the opponents, the more necessary it is to play ABC poker. The more necessary it is to play ABC poker, the fewer interesting situations you will inevitably get into. So because of this, I thought I’d answer a question I’ve been asked quite a bit lately—What is it that helped me to improve so quickly from SSNL to MSNL? Just before I do that though, I want to remind anybody that’s interested that I am available for coaching from 50nl up to 200nl. I have three students now who I would definitely say have been improving, and if you are struggling, I’m pretty sure it’d really be worth it for you to give it a shot. Please PM me if you are interested. (To you haters out there, it’s probably not worth it to read this post if you are beating 400nl or better).

So anyways, about 4 months ago I was struggling to beat 100nl. I had actually spent about 8 months initially trying to beat 50nl. I must have gone bust about six times after building my roll up to at least 3k each time. And what they wanted to know was, what is it that I’m doing differently now that I wasn’t doing before?

I’m going to try to cover pretty much everything that I think has helped me to improve my game.

Keep records. I keep an excel sheet detailing every session I play. The top of it is listed in columns as follows: Date; Time In; Time Out; Time spent; Money In; Money Out; Net; Total Hands played. I separate these from 6max to heads up to tournaments. This way I know what games I’m struggling at and which games I’m doing well in. Of course pokertracker will do this for you, but this has some other advantages that pokertracker doesn’t allow. I do this religiously, as soon as I open up a session, I input the time I start and the bankroll I started with. I believe that by doing this everyday, it reminds me that I do this for a living and that when I open up the poker tables, it’s time for work, and it’s not time to mess around. I hate logging losing sessions, and I actually find that when I’m playing while away from my home computer without this excel spreadsheet, I tend to take the game much less seriously. This is also good to have for tax purposes, and if you are thinking about purchasing a big priced item, as you have a good idea as to how much you are making monthly, and hourly. I’d also recommend that you calculate exactly how much you are making by the hour, take that number and write it down, then put it up on your bulletin board, or somewhere you can see it every day. Then realize that that’s how much your time is worth when you are sitting at the poker table, or doing any other random task that isn’t helping you to achieve your goals. I really believe it will help a lot in time management, and to keep you off of tilt. It’ll also help you to…


Maintain your focus. I know you’ve heard it a million times, so I won’t spend much time on it, but it’s just so essential to being a winning player. While I was struggling at 50nl, I would 8-table for 3 hours at a clip, sometimes even up to 6 or 8 hours in a row—this got me no where. Some people do have uncanny abilities to multi-table and take all information in without missing much, but if you’re like me, as I assume most of you are, this is not going to help you learn the game. Nowadays, my sessions usually won’t last more than an hour. I average about 1.5 sessions a day, and I make so much more money than I ever did mass tabling.

Free yourself from distractions and give yourself permission to succeed. My distraction was a girlfriend. I struggled and struggled and struggled while I was with her. I couldn’t beat 100nl, and I had been trying for months. Right after we broke up is when I started to focus all my attention on improving my poker skills, I guess I always had an excuse to not be good—and as long as I had that excuse, the majority of my focus wasn’t on beating poker. Coincidentally (or not), we broke up roughly 4 months ago, this was pretty much exactly when I began beating 100nl. I’m definitely not advocating giving up on your relationships, but I really believe that you can’t succeed until you’ve made the choice that you are going to succeed and nothing is going to stop you. I had always chosen to be with my girlfriend over succeeding, so as soon as we broke up, I gave myself permission to succeed. It’s definitely true that you become whatever it is you think about, and if you are constantly thinking about doing well, chances are the results will follow.

Okay so, this part should be a little more interesting, I’m going to explain what I think you need to do about your game to move up in limits and improve your skill quickly.

The first thing is PLAY TIGHT! Beating micro stakes and small stakes is all about grinding. There is a reason you are playing these stakes and aren’t beating higher limit games, it’s because you don’t have the fundamentals to do so. So this is where you need to spend the time developing them. It’s true, grinding is boring. Grinding has to be the worst, but it’s necessary. Thinking about this actually reminds me of a scene from the movie Boiler Room. The one where Ben Affleck is talking to all of the trainees about to work at the firm, the dialogue goes like this…

“Your first six months at the firm are as a trainee... you make one hundred and fifty dollars a week. After you're done training, you take the Series Seven test. When you pass, you become a junior broker and you'll be opening accounts for your team leader. After you open forty accounts you begin working for yourself and then... sky's the limit. Now a word about being a trainee. The other brokers, your parents, whoever: they're gonna give you shit about it. And it's true, a hundred and fifty a week is not a lot of money, but pay no mind. You need to learn the business and this is the time to do it. Once you pass the Series Seven none of it will matter.

Your friends are shit. You're gonna tell them you made twenty-five thousand last month and they're not going to believe you. Fuck them! Your parents don't like the life you lead? Fuck you Mom and Dad! As a trainee you will be building a foundation for yourself. Think of it as the foundation to a building. Right? Gotta build the foundation before you can put up your skyscraper. You know what I built? (takes out a model). The fucking twin towers. Now go home and think about whether this is for you. If you decide it isn't, nothing to be embarrassed about. It's not for everyone. But if you really want it, then give me a call on Monday and we'll talk. Just don't waste my time. Alright. That's it.”

This is the same way I look at grinding micro and small stakes, and subsequently the reason for why I advocate what I do.

Don’t withdraw your funds. I’m sure some of you have to, but if you can do anything to keep this from being necessary, you will become much better much quicker. The reason for this is that you won’t be able to develop the skills you need in poker at small stakes. You get better by playing against better players, if you are always stuck playing people who have never played the game before, how much better can you expect to get?

Move up in limits as quickly as possible, and take shots often. This is very important. I really think the only thing necessary to moving up in stakes is being comfortable risking a larger amount of money. The more you are comfortable risking, the easier it will be to transition. Now I’m definitely not saying to use a 10 buy in bankroll for each limit. But if you seem to be doing well at the limit you are at, give it a shot and move up. The key here is to make sure you are able to move down after losing 2-3 buy-ins. If you aren’t capable of doing that, then you need to wait until your bankroll is bigger. The other reason I think it’s a really good idea to take shots is that maybe you will get lucky and run well when you do move up. If this is the case, you will become very comfortable very quickly with the limit, and this will in turn give you the confidence to beat those players. This is the reason good players will move down whenever they are doing poorly. They want to rebuild their confidence by playing against weaker players. And having confidence in yourself is probably the most important thing of all.

The last thing I’d recommend you do is hire coaches. Poker is the type of game where there are many correct ways to play, and the way you’re playing may be working out right now, but I think it’s really important to get outside perspectives. Even if the coach isn’t that much better of a player than you, I’m sure he thinks about the game in a very different way, and to have an open mind about what he tells you I think will help immensely in your attempt to become a better player. Don’t just hire one coach, hire many. There are a lot of them out there now, and some very good ones who will coach SSNL for like just 125$ or less. This is a deal considering a lot of these players are making 300$ + an hour just playing. Over the time they are sweating you, you might be able to pay for the hour of coaching just with your profits from the session in which he sweats you. I also think this is a very good idea for when you are taking a shot at a new limit, is to hire a coach to walk you through it, somebody who has already made the move successfully. Well, without getting into specifics about how to think about the game, there isn’t really much else I can think of including. GL.

1 votes

Comments (13)

0 votes

Comments (2)

2 votes

Comments (11)

1 votes

Comments (31)