Fuck micro stakes

A few hours into the night playing NL50 live everyone decides they want to play a $10 rebuy + 1 addon SNG. I'm already tilted after getting 1 outered AA vs A3 (someone showed the case 3) and "flipping" AKo vs JTo aipf, so I oblige. I've played SNG's before, and have a basic grasp of push/fold mode, stealing blinds, pounding short stacks, etc. But what is this? Suddenly, the people calling 6BB raises in our cash game with hands like 82s and whatever the fuck, have all become a bunch of tamed timid little monkies. Awww, im sorry, does the threat of busting out suddenly influence your decisions my pet? Are you short already by level 3 because you limp folded half your stack away and now even a basic preflop raise puts you to a decision for all your chips?

Wow, these fucknuts suddenly went from being the loosest donks in the history of poker to the tightest nits you've ever seen. And when they finally do decide to get it in, the 30/70 flip they're being offered holds and they bust. Or they're a favorite and lose to variance. I'm liking this. Thats the one thing I always did like about tourney's, letting donks knock each other out for you, and improving your EQ as a result of them dropping out. One less idiot to contend with.

I win the first one for $100 1st place, "fuck yea". I got it in bad a couple of times BvB, but with some sick luck outdrew my opponents. They played it terribly anyway. Flatting A6o in the BB, flopping TP, and waiting till the turn to stack off. GTFO. We play a few more that I bust from and then the game goes back to cash. BOOM, here come the suckouts. I get felted AQs vs 73s. I'm having a pretty hard time holding it together and not just lashing out at everyone, so he says (and I shit you not) "theres a method to the madness man. I was dealt this exact same hand my previous hand. 73dd twice in a row? I had to call" Just like fucking that. Naturally flop came 797 for him.

Soooooooo... maybe I'll stick my head in a few more low stakes SNG's. I always hated the concept of playing for an hour just to win $0, but I fucking love using my edge to just completely fuck up their ability to play, and letting other players do some of the work for me at the same time.

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So now that I squandered my roll for NL200 im going back to NL50 live. Looking for advice on most optimal way to play again, as I'm still not sure I've really figured it out.

I used to approach the game playing like I would online. If I'm first to enter the pot, it better be with a raise. PP's/AT+/KJ+. Raise CO with 45s+. Raise button with Ax, Kxs sometimes, some semi-connectors etc etc. This seemed to be a recipe for mega fail. Too many callers, always OOP, no way to isolate and exploit.

My adjustments were to only raise AT+ and TT+. Everything else was a limp. I'd often limp utg with 78s and 88 for instance, other times I might just fold a suited connector. The idea being to see flops as cheaply as possible, hit, & get paid off. No need to balance my range. This seemed to work overall, although I'm not sure it really worked that well.

Biggest problem comes from the whole pot odds thing. For an NL50 game people are still routinely raising 6-8BB's preflop. Thats $3+ at an NL50 game. I assume they are just protecting their hands with somewhat premium holdings, but I see a lot of bullshit too. Is it really +EV for them to raise $4 with 77 in a 5way limped pot? Or $3 utg with QJs? I feel like I'm sorta priced out of calling with anything. Unless I can 3bet, I should just fold given the price.

Since I'm still a little tilted from last nights horrendous session, I think I need to start back with the basics. Remember this is live, so people are playing about half the deck. Any suited cards, any ace, any connectors, and any semi-connectors.

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......................................................................................................................................................................... *snicker* ......................................





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anyone wanna take a guess?

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- "Rollin up a stake and goin to vegas"

So I've been battling it out at the NL50 home games, running ridiculously bad but not letting it phase me because I could clearly see how far above EV I should be that it's just a matter of time. Well I finally won a few deserved pots and ran up enough to take a shot at NL200. (My definition of shot is 2 BI's). Finally got to sit down at an NL200 game again, gosh how I miss thee. Tripled up, became bored, called an hour left, and booked a win. Just feels good to play again.

Made some very painful adjustments to my game after lots of theorycrafting and reading the "weak games" chapter in harrington on cash. Goddamn it feels so fucking weird to limp 99 in the CO in an unopened pot, or 67s OTB when it's folded to me. Just playing as exploitable as I possibly can, and being dumbfounded when they pay me off time and time again. Just literally playing every hand face up. Session started with a moment of rage after I raise some guys straddle with AA my 3rd hand at the table and he shoves $80 straight into me preflop with 72s and flops a flush to my top set. But I quickly won it back and then some.

Lady variance was harsh with me at NL50 a few weeks back. I saw more suckouts in fewer hands than I had ever seen live or online. Hopefully I can dodge some of that shit and actually do something with what little I have. Seriously, all I have to do is not run bad lol. I still have a few bucks sitting around online that I continue to meddle with, using the same basic strategy, really nothing more than warmup practice for live though.

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Man oh man, just got back from some live NL50. As I type this I cant help but stare at the screen damage I have inflicted on my monitor, all from sessions that were about half as bad as tonight's. Yet I am quite happy, feeling content, and in a good mood. Why? Because I played live. I lost to so many bad beats, but yet there I was, laughing and patting them on the backs, it was all in good fun. I came with 2 fucking buyin's, didnt stress one bit, and played my A game as if I had 50 buyins. This is what I've been talkin about, playing online just sucks so bad for me. I cant believe how easily I tilt online and yet live doesnt bother me at all. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I should simply stick to live play. What a good night. I'm sitting there shipping A6o from the SB knowing it's good and wanting them to call, and I get obliged by 67s, and lose. No worries I got it in ahead. Then I ship AKo the very next hand and get called by 77 and win. At this table I'm playing for value, I'm literally fist pumping when they turn over a dominated hand. Online I'm literally squeamish hoping they dont somehow suckout. This is a huge fucking problem for me as a poker player. Basically everything I do online I do backwards. I mean I play for value the same way but do it for different reasons, I dont know how to describe it. In any event, tonight's session even further solidified the reality that I should just stick to live play. I still havent deposited online per my plan to take a silly shot at the shallow tables on stars, and now I'm realizing this will just be a recipe for disaster when I lose my 4-5 BI's to some fish. But I can take that same money and play those same limits live and be totally happy about it.


Oh yeah, I somehow miraculously broke even tonight, to the dollar from my initial buyin.

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Fist hurts, just beat the shit out of my monitor after losing 3 allin's preflop back to back at rush starting from my very first hand. You know, sit down, buy in, STACKED STACKED STACKED. Awesome. 5 BI's total within 30 hands or so. So I raged and now I have even more dead pixels and crazy lines going down my nice 22" lcd. Took what was left to NL50 hu and just dumped to some random player. Didnt hurt that he caught KK and AK first two hands in a row. So im busto again.

I always find some new "system" that I want to try out before quitting for good. By system I dont mean some gay betting strategy or whatever, I just mean a gametype + bankroll that I feel confident I can work in my favor and run up. This time it was single-tabling rush so I could focus on every hand. Was on a sick heater, winning 12 BI's in probably less than 1000 hands, dunno I dont have HEM installed anymore. Fuck that, it was no heater, it was pure and simple good play. I routinely read peoples hands in the dark, meaning at a rush table I'm putting them on precise ranges without ever having played them before. I like that I can do that.

So at the moment theres only one other system I have left in my head, and thats playing the 20-50BB tables on stars. I've been observing them for a few days now and they seem ultra soft. Yeah the stack/pot ratios blow, but fish seem to flock to them so they can play NL200 with 100 bucks. Even from observer mode I get to see enough showdown to laugh and see how profitable they are, probably moreso than the 100BB tables. Gonna use what was supposed to be my live bankroll and make a run at em, as long as I dont run bad I should build a nice little roll real quick.

It's so funny too, when I sat down tonight I gave myself a 1 buyin stoploss. Thats right, a single buyin, because I'm playing right before bed and dont want to get all pissed off and unable to sleep if I get sucked out on. I didnt expect to hit my stoploss the very first hand with AA to a 2 outer on the turn though. No way I can just play 1 single hand and quit.

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Not for me but for my man Uwe Boll. Just watched some new movie he wrote/directed/produced called Rampage. I netflixed this thing last night and I have to say WOW! Uwe finally made a good movie! I'll let you research the details, but basically this guy is one of the worst movie directors of all time. But maybe his problem has just been doing hollywood's bidding. This little gem is his own work, and I gotta say he did an outstanding job.

The movie is some psychotic revenge thriller were this guy decides to go on a random killing spree just cuz. But it's highly realistic, both in its violence and execution. By that I mean the plot elements and strategy our "hero" goes through to pull it off are very believable.

The film's half way point begins a 60 minute continuous shooting spree with no end in sight, almost to the point of getting boring because he's just killing so many people without purpose. But there are a few interstitials throughout to break up the gun violence and give you a moment to rest and think about why he's doing this.

Anyway, an entertaining film for a freebie netflix rental such as myself, and a shocking turnaround from Uwe. I'm very interested to see what else he's capable of if he just starts sticking to his own shit.

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So weird. Lately I can barely muster up the spirit to log into any poker site. My stomach turns in knots, my heartbeat starts racing, i start gnawing on my finger nails. The whole thing is just one big miserable experience. It's not the result of any particularly bad sessions or bad beats or anything either, it's just the whole faceless aspect of it all. I just get personally offended when someone calls me with K8o or 92s and all I can see is this faceless icon + screename. I feel like theyre hiding from me or something. I dont know how to describe it, it just bothers me. When I play live I take all sorts of bad beats and it doesnt bother me that much at all for some reason. Maybe it's just because I'm already in a good mood from the social atmosphere, maybe it's because I'm usually enjoying a free meal + drinks on the house. I enjoy talking to people, listening to people joke around and be funny bastards with their table talk, etc etc. All I know is when I go to play live I go feeling pumped. When I sit at a microstakes table online I just feel miserable. Maybe it has something to do with the money or something. It's not that I'm underrolled or anything, but I think it's just rather a lack of meaningful results. It's a real chore to play for an hour to win 80 cents or 2 bucks or whatever. Poker already sucks the life out of me, both live and online. I'm feverishly focused on every hand, to the point of wearing myself out when I get home. I think this extreme stress with no real results just runs its toll on me. At least live I can book a few hundred dollars in a winning session and get that sense of accomplishment. Online it's just another "uhhhhhhg gaaaawwwwd back to the grind, and for what? Pennies? Christ". I feel like how a McDonald's employee probably feels, just "please kill me now" kind of feeling.

Think I'm gonna hang up online play for awhile. I wonder if this has anything to do with why so many online regs have become live regs in the end.

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Played live last night, and almost lost my shit after some call-station brags about how he would have folded TP HU if "someone so much as breathed on the pot", a mere 3 hands after calling off about 50BB's with bottom fucking pair. Seriously? You call flop and turn with A3s on a QJ34 board, and then claim you would have folded JQ to a river bet on a J7289 board. Go fuck yourself old man. Fish just love to show how disciplined they are laying down monsters or whatever the fuck. "Look im not as terrible as even I think I am, I'm going to muck KK preflop because someone 4bet me, I have sick reads".

An otherwise crap session running cold all night. Maybe try again later this week.

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Just got a random $8 from a single 2500 hand session of NL5 rush I played earlier this week before busting. Should I split it across 4 tables and minbuy at rush again? Or put it all on one table of NL10 rush? You decide.

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