Video showing off my upgraded Google Nexus 7 system in my car. I actually did this like a year ago but have just been too lazy to record new footage lol.
Holy shit, anybody catch this yet? It's another original series by Netflix. Man this show has been hitting homeruns since the very first episode. I gotta hand it to Netflix, they know wtf they're doing. All you investors out there should be buying up stock. They're basically HBO without all the bullshit now. They are their own network, so they can produce whatever they want, and air it however they want. I really really reeaaaalllly applaud their new "all episodes at once" concept. The only reason society has to watch their favorite tv series across the span of half a fucking year is because the cable networks make them, so that people feel obliged to continue paying for their shitty overpriced tv packages week after week. Netflix took a gamble and said "maybe people will like our material so much, that we can just release the entire fucking show, all 20 episodes at once, and they'll stick around for the next installment". IT FUCKING WORKS. 8 bucks a month to get shows like House of Cards and now Hemlock Grove? With more new series on the way? Hell yes! Without the shackles of comcast/direcTV on their ass they're basically everything HBO wishes they were. And shame on HBO for not having the balls to challenge the networks, because netflix now beats them in subscriber base, and doesnt have to share any of the profits. These last 2 shows are just as good as anything HBO has come out with save for Game of Thrones, and I'm sure in due time Netflix will best them in that category as well.
Anyway Hemlock Grove reminds me a lot of True Blood. Set in a fictional reality where supernaturalism is considered standard, except without all the goofy fuckin retarded characters. I mean I like True Blood and all, but they have a few cheeseballs in there for yucks. Hemlock is all serious all the time. Love the new actors too, good to bring some fresh faces to the game. Everyone is doing a great job, superb acting, great story, just all around solid show. Make sure to watch Episode 2 to see the sickest werewolf transformation in history.
That was the question of the night, when I adjusted my preflop raise strategy to always consist of 3.5BB+1/limper. I recently asked for some advice on how to deal with preflop overbetting in loose live games. Anyone who has played live surely knows what I'm talking about, as it is a very common occurrence. Basically fish have evolved to open 8-10BB's on average to try and limit how many players actually call them. They're trying to "weed out the rift raft" as they often put it, as they only want good hands to call them. That way when they lose they dont feel bad about being sucked out on, cuz "hey, at least you had a good hand". I started doing it too, albeit only because I expected to get massive value out of inferior hands. But it just never worked out right. So I said fuck it and played like I would online.
I ended up running $200 up to $1100 in 6 hours. It was like nothing. Sure I got a few extra callers at times, but really nothing that made life difficult for me. And now I'm not investing 40BB's every fucking hand I play. I even got a few jabs when people were like "lol, why are you raising so small, this isnt like last night". The greatest was raising $8 utg and being told "wow I didnt put you on aces with such a small raise" after I stacked one guy. And then 5 hands later stacking someone again with 24s when I raised $7 in the CO (guy tried to slowplay me in the BB with AA). While it might seem silly to balance your range vs fish, they do sorta notice what you're doing a little bit. They dont really adjust their ranges vs you, they just adjust their calling frequency.
What I found really advantageous about using online betsizing is that it allowed mt to raise speculative hands preflop like suited connectors and all my PP's. I could never raise $20 utg with 44 previously, but $7? Sure. And it works out great that 6 people call because thats exactly what I want with 44 anyway. And if I have AK and flop top pair, chances are it's the best hand anyhow and most of the table will fold to a cbet, and the 1-2 people who call are dominated as usual. So getting the pot HU doesnt really seem to serve any great purpose, since their ranges are all garbage in the first place. Online isolation is much more relevant since you actually expect callers and limpers to have playable hands. You really arent happy with AK when you raise $8 vs a bunch of regs and get 3 callers. But live it's fuckin ez peezy, because there's really no threat other than blatant suckouts which are far and few between.
Ultimately, I just felt so much more comfortable, like I was playing online more or less. The SPR was always fitting, I wasnt overcommitted to hands, everything just clicked since I felt like I was in control of every hand I played. Going to keep up this strat for awhile and make sure I wasnt just running hot.
Had a PLO session today vs a bunch of donks, so I'm all like
and proceed to extract value by dissecting their ranges and putting them in tough spots to spew chips on weak draws. I have no idea what I'm doing
but thats ok, I can already feel the tides turning. Before I know it I run into a 70/50/5 player who is up 9 BI's at my table.
EZ game, just 3bet/4bet him with 130% of your range. I instantly run my stats up to 35/25/4, and felt like
Over the span of 3 hours my bankroll has magically dwindled 7 BI's, and all I can feel is
So like a navy seal, I remember my training. Just get your stats down to around 22/18/3 and pray the donk doesnt leave. Step into the shadows, and await your prey
In less than an hour I recover my 700BB's and finish up 3 after I stack my nemesis for a 500BB pot flush vs flush. He rage quits all my tables, even though he's still up several stacks, and I finish another session in the green.
I've been doing some financial soul searching after being inspired by wh00sel's blogs the last few months, and figured if he can pull the trigger and ditch the GTR for an econo-crapbox with his financial status, surely I can too. Right now I drive a 2012 Mustang GT and absolutely love it (save for the fact that I'm a tiny bit bored of it, but thats just my short attention span). I could flat out save 50% of all car expenses by down-sizing to something like the Fit. Problem is I dont think I've quite achieved the mental maturity yet to let go of the "fun car" part of me like wh00sel did and still require something that well, quite frankly looks good.
Thats where the speed3 comes in. Personally I think it's beautiful. It's a sports-hatch. The idea is to be the Honda Fit on steroids. This thing can actually keep up with my 5.0. Has perfectly respectable racing characteristics, and has more then enough power for daily driving since it's not like I race my car every day. It's cheaper, saving me maybe $100/month, and offers one critical piece of hardware that I've been sorely lacking with the stang, and that's cargo room. Now the mustang actually has a shockingly good amount of cargo space. I can fit 2 huge ass suitcases in the trunk for extended travel purposes, it has 2 surprisingly comfortable back seats, and the interior is very roomy and comfortable. The speed3 of course has 10x more of all of this.
Now I'm pretty heavily invested in the mustang. I did the tablet thing (I upgraded to a nexus 7 and cleaned up the cutlines, been meaning to shoot some new video of it), and was going to blow christmas funds on a new exhaust and engine/transmission tune. Plus there's all the money that I've spent so far maintaining the thing. I'm almost to the point where I'm kinda pot committed with it if you know what I mean, so my trade would probably be totally unnecessary. I mean I'd like the extra carrying capacity of the speed3, but I've managed this far without it, I'm sure I can continue.
But thats not the point. What do you guys think of this fucking car?
Well I havent learned how to beat PLO4 on my own yet. Much like in holdem, it seems my biggest difficulty is playing vs maniacs. I just get so irritated that I end up trying to play back at them and always run bad in the process. In PLO it's only magnified that much further. 80/50 players with 35% 3bet routinely own me. Seems like everyone is just gambling though. Cant tell you how many times I've seen 4 way allin's with just a bunch of low connector or suited cards. It's like 1 fish goes for a random 3bet, but it doesnt work out because the pot is then 4bet and 5bet back to him. At this point I guess he just says fuck it and recognizes everyone is about to go allin anyway so they all just ship on each other. I tried playing their game right back by relentlessly 3betting and 4betting, but they just call and I'll somehow fail to make even 1 pair and end up folding to a 1/3 pot bet on the turn or something stupid. I'm down about 30 buyins at the lowest limit of PLO possible, so I'll assume it's more me than them. I mean, it's one thing to lose to maniacs repeatedly, but without the fundamentals to beat normal fish or even thinking players, I'm just losing every hand I play.
So I'm going to sign up for DC for 3 days or a week or whatever free trial they offer and just see what it is I'm doing wrong to start. Hopefully that will be enough to plug my game.
Back on the job hunt, working for banks sucks lol. I used to work for a small company of 40 people which I loved, but the recession hit them too hard and as a result I suffered a 30% paycut for 4 years. I eventually had to quit and move on. I then got a gig at a local university, which was super cool at first, but quickly got boring with nothing to do, to the point they started asking me to help out with unrelated shit like assisting in the library and stuff. I have a lot of pride and felt insulted they would ask me to do something so trivial, so I quit and got another job at a local bank. At first it was great. Good benefits, good hours, good location, etc. But then 2 of our team members quit and the amount of work thrusted upon us has become insurmountable. I asked for a raise and they basically gave me the whole "we'll think about it hehe" routine. Other employee's have told me it is standard practice here for them to call your bluff 100% of the time, so you really have to put in your 2 weeks notice before they'll even consider your request. So I nailed an interview last week and they called me back for another one next week. Pretty sure I've got this one in the bag unless I get outclassed by an even better candidate, or they're simply not willing to meet my pay demands. But I'm to the point where I'd take a small pay cut just to get out of my current situation because I hate my job so much (I'm a computer technician by the way), and this job is literally 2 blocks from where I live so I could walk/bike to work every day. Aside from recovering my pay cut through gas savings, the luxury of working so close to home, and the relaxed environment of this company make up for most of the deficiencies in pay in my opinion.
So I'd ask to run good one time, but since I've recently ran gun twice already, I guess I'll ask for "THREE TIMES!!!11 (queue Hevad's voice)".
One area I'm definitely not running good in, and thats PLO lol. I dont know the first thing about this game, but it's still been fun trying to learn it. I think I've cut my loss rate from -50BB/100 to -15BB/100. Still trying to learn preflop fundamentals, namely which hand ranges I should be playing. I'll be tightening up to TT+/NFD's from now on. Connecting cards will still be counted but I guess I'll disregard their suit, since my goal is to only play for nut flush draws when I have one. I'm getting better at folding 2 pair and bottom set, at least to consecutive pot bets. Looking forward to MiPwnYa's PLO vid. I have avoided studying the game but I think I'm ready to get a little help here and there without completely following someone elses script.
to be a gansta. I mean to be back playing online. For starters lets give a quick rundown on my live experience -
Total live results playing homegames this year:
So as you can see, pretty much a whole lotta nadda. God what a grind live is. Visiting the ATM for money, driving to random places across town, eating and drinking like shit, playing till 12am, coming home exhausted and smelling like smoke, getting 6 hours of sleep before going back to work and doing it all over again. Sure it has some fun elements, the whole social aspect, but it's still such a chore doing it, I dont know how anybody does.
So I decided to try a new deposit method for Hero and lo and behold it worked! I gave Bovada a brief shot a few months back and the software is so punishingly crippled it simply is not worth playing there. Plus the withdrawal system is gimped, and you're lucky to get a check in 2 months it seems. Meanwhile Merge keeps humming along nicely. Despite BF there still seems to be a decent play pool available.
That being said, dipping my toes in the water on Hero today felt really really good. It's just so remarkably nice to be able to play at home, with the window open and a slight breeze blowing by, cup of juice in one hand, mouse in the other, just relaxing and watching the day fade away from the comfort of my leather computer chair. I just dont see myself going back to live. I mean, I'll play every now and then just to say whats up to everyone and have some beers, but thats about it. In fact, playing online today was such a joy that it has completely shifted my focus on job relocation efforts. A few months ago I was scouting Vegas and other live poker mecca's to see where I would like to live and grind. But fuck all that shit now, online is the only salvation. This points me back square at Vancouver again. Joeingram did a great service with a recent blog detailing his impression of Vancouver. I cant say I'm a fan of the rain or cold, but good god being able to play back on Stars again practically makes it all worth it. Plus Vancouver has its perks when it's not shitty outside. More on that later.
So to get off to a good start, I went and upgraded my old HEM license to a HEM2/PLO2 license. You see, for no reason whatsoever other than to keep things interesting, I've decided I want to try and learn omaha. But not by learning from other people's mistakes, but by learning from my own. I want to teach myself how to play. It seems like the best players at any given game today are always self-taught. There's just something unique about learning from your own experiences and developing your own thought processes that cant be rivaled by coached efforts. That isnt to say coaching doesnt have its place. No professional athlete can ever say to have truly "taught themselves". But, I just want to see where this goes by using my limited knowledge of PLO thus far.
As it stands I know the following:
The rules
You should almost always be drawing to a nut hand
You want to have 2 pairs of cards that play well together
Danglers suck
Pot control (not quite sure how to implement other than checking OOP vs aggro opponents)
Pretty much never fold to a 3bet IP
Be weary of bottom set
Playing in my usual 1/2 live game last night, and someone made a startling comment while chatting. He referred to this game as a 2/5 game. For some reason I was surprised to hear this, I guess because it meant he was actually thinking about the game objectively. But it's true, with the average preflop raise being $17 and the average pot on the flop $75, for all intents and purposes this is a 2/5 game. With this in mind, it meant I could reduce his hand strength in spots to what would be more typical of a 2/5 game.
You see I've normally been too afraid to do something like 3bet JJ or AQs because I figured there's no way anybody is calling a $60 raise in a 1/2 game without having a decent hand. It just always seemed like a RIO situation. I also pitch a lot of suited connectors for the same reason. I figured fish overbet like this preflop to protect their hands, and that I'll never have the odds to call.
NOPE.
As soon as I said "fuck it, lets pretend like we're half stacking 2/5" the chips started rolling in. I was seeing so many QJo and JTo type hands turned over in 3bet pots where I made it $60+ it was silly. Their ranges handnt adjusted at all! I'm not sure why so many 1/2 games play like this, but it sure gave me a lot of newfound confidence postflop.
What's even more bizarre is that I was invited to a 2/5 game I had never played at, and recognized many familiar faces. In this game, it played like 2/5. I was afraid people would be opening to $50 utg and stuff, but the avg preflop raise was $15-$20 and everyone played accordingly. So why are these 1/2 games playing like a 2/5 game? I have no idea, I guess they just mutated this way after fish progressively increasing their opening raise size to account for general preflop looseness.
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