Fuck micro stakes

The wife and I just got back from vacation in North Carolina where I had the opportunity to drive to the Harrah's casino and finally play some poker in a real casino environment. I've never been to a casino before. This one is probably nothing compared to anything they have in Vegas, as poker only became legal last year. The casino has thus existed entirely on slot machine players, so it's basically just one big mammoth building with about 10,000 slot machines in it. Kinda weird looking at first, just row after row after row of degen fuckin slot machines. Their poker room looks more like an afterthought, tucked away to the side with about 10 tables. You wouldnt even know whats going on over there until you got close enough. The tables being used are those electronic PokerPro machines where everyone sits in front of an LCD touch screen, very internet friendly.

I had a hard time getting the fucker to work properly, it would never register my inputs or show my cards to me when I tried to peak. People were telling me to jab it with my finger, or flip my finger upside down and tap it gently with my nail, or use an ink pen, or use a credit card, etc etc. There were some serious FUUUUUUUUUUU moments where I'm gettin irritated making people wait and timing out and shit and people leaning over to help push buttons for me lol. They would tap my screen and presto it works, I do the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING and nothing happens. I finally got "good enough" using a combo of techniques that I could play. Over the course of an hour I tripled up sending 2 fish walking before I cashed out so my wife and I could go eat dinner. I was really just testing the waters and she sat right behind me watching, so I didnt want to make her wait.

The overall experience was awesome though, being in a casino that is. I was always skeptical about how I would view life living in one of these things, working a job as a professional player. I thought I might feel worthless, or like some horrible degen or matt damon wannabe, cursing myself for throwing my life away to play in an adult version of a video arcade. Thoughts of looking myself in the mirror and asking "wtf are you doing?" were always my worst fears. Well those fears have been officially put to rest. I loved every minute of that place. The lights, the sounds, the sprawling indoor campus, the restaurants, the faces, just the whole damn experience. It is definitely for me, and I think I would fall in love with Vegas casino lifestyle even more when I get a taste of that some day.

So where to from here? Well the question is how the fuck do I get to vegas playing professionally? There's always online poker, but me and the internet dont get along so well these days. Live play always keeps me cool and collected. Online im so quick to play back at people and trash talk (chat banned myself a year ago from ftp and stars) and just get tilted beyond belief that it really ruins my play. Because I cant be a total douche live, I play so much better. I really think the only way I'll ever be successful is through live play, just because of the anti-douche factor.

So the way I see it I really have no choice but to start grinding the home games in my city again to build a life roll I can use to migrate to vegas, like 10-20k I imagine. I have NL200 and NL500 at my disposal 7 nights a week. While nowhere close to being rolled for these, my edge is so huge vs these live fish that I think it should be doable with a little rungood/reloads over the next few months until I get some momentum and can play with a real roll. From there all targets need to be set on vegas, reaching that pivotal moment where I can finally hop on a plane and fly the fuck out there. There are other places to play, but honestly none of them really seem as good of a deal as vegas. AC is a shithole from what I've read, living near foxwoods is expensive plus the weather is completely fucked during the winter (i hate the snow), Florida is ridiculously hot/humid plus the people are all cocksuckers down there. Their casino scene still isnt as well established as others and is more like a vegas/AC junior, especially with the recently uncapped NL buyins. Oh it's also expensive as fuck to live in Ft. Lauderdale. So that really leaves no options other than vegas. The upside to vegas besides the superior casino environment is that home ownership is ridiculously cheap out there with all the foreclosures and what not. It's still hot, but not humid. It's reasonably close to some cool shit on the west coast, namely california and all the places it has to offer. Overall just seems like the best bang for your buck.

To date I have been kinda flaky with my poker ambitions simply because I just wasnt sure if I could do it and more importantly, if I wanted to. Now I feel the answer to both question is yes. So hopefully my euphoria wont wear off and I'll get back out there before too long.

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Comments (9)

4th 180sng today I push OTB and the BB wakes up with fucking QQ+.

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Comments (9)

Bought an iPhone 3GS off of craigslist. Seemed to work fine, once I got home I just did the little "wipe memory" option readily available from the system menu of the iphone, thing turned into a brick and just started rebooting infinitely. Only option was to upgrade the phone OS through a special recovery mode, phone updated to latest version of 4.0. Apparently 4.0 cannot be cracked to use on other networks like I'm trying to do, so I tried to use a tool to downgrade to an earlier OS. Apparently said tool does not work on windows 7, and now the phone is completely fucked and cant even be turned on.

I have spent the last 8 hours on this. I'm gonna try to take it to an apple store to see if they can fix it. I hear they are gracious and will often just give you a new phone. If I leave the store with a $325 paperweight, expect a glorious youtube video tomorrow of me smashing it to pieces with a hammer.

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Comments (6)

Mr. Huabing of China. You want to slowroll every single fucking hand on me HU? Whether you intend to fold, limp, call or raise, you're seriously going to run the fucking clock out every single time? And when I sit out for 3 hands just to make sure you're not playing starcraft, you immediately begin minraising my blinds, and go back to stalling as soon as I sit back in? Ok mother fucker, well this post serves as public notice that I intend to do physical bodily harm to you. Thats right, this is a legally enforceable threat of violence against you on the internet. I know I'll probably never meet you, let alone play you again, but maybe, just maybe, one day you and I will happen to find each other, perhaps at a coffee shop if I'm in Beijing, or maybe in Florida if you visit a beach in the USA. But the best place would be at a poker table, oh the sweet sweet justice of having us meet for the first time in our game of choice. We wont know each other at first, but maybe the table will become social, and we'll all recant about our poker histories, and someone will drop a comment about playing online. It'll go something like "yeah FTP is rigged, I always lose there" and then you'll chime in that you nod and agree, and I'll toss out a question about screenames, to which each will reply with theirs, ultimately landing upon you. You wont notice it, but once the words "huabing" are uttered from your mouth I will become a fiery red, incensed with anger and rage. I'll calmly scoot my chair back, stand up, and casually walk up behind you, you not even aware I have left. Then I'll donkey punch you in the back of the goddamn head knocking your fucking glasses off or whatever you are wearing on your head. The table will gasp, people will think im nuts, you'll even call me nuts after turning around with your hair disheveled, saying "what the FUCK man" or some such thing. My eyes will be bright white, beaming at you in full stare, fists already clenched, body rigid as a board. Possibly not the best fighters stance, but then again im not a professional kickboxer, just some guy with enough strength to fucking hurt you, and hurt you bad during my initial adrenaline rush. I'll do everything possible to entice you to stand up and face me, even though I expect you to be so scared you'll do nothing but sit in your chair. But God help you should you stand up towards me. I'll hit you. I'll hit you in your fucking face, over and over. I'll straddle on you and just keep hitting you and I wont stop until my hand hurts too much or I am satisfied with the damage. Perhaps if you begin crying like a bitch I'll feel bad for you and stop early, otherwise you will go home with stitches in your face and swollen lips. The one good thing you will take with you is the lesson you have learned. Never ever ever fuck with someone you dont know, you classless fuck.

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Comments (7)

Can I transfer funds to AP and UB as painlessley as FTP and Stars now? I emailed UB a long time ago and they practically didnt accept US players, b/c they had no echeck options and half their payment processors would not accept US transfers to gambling sites like Netteller and ePassporte. But it looks like they are offering eCheck type options now, bank wires/transfers. I'm worried it's all a bunch of convoluted bullshit and if I somehow get money on there I'll never get it out. Are these 2 sites now as friendly as ftp and stars with funding options or what?

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Comments (5)

So I took shot #2 today at NL200 live. I flop an open ended straight flush draw and c/r some guy I've never played before allin for $400 and he covers. He had actually flopped the straight and asks if I want to make a deal. Normally I think deals are gay but I felt like being the nice guy and said sure, "run it twice? Pull back the bet and play for the pot?" And he says "no, i take the pot now plus $100 and you fold". To which I promptly said "wait wat? fuck that let it run, run it once, run it now!" and miss completely. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu..... Everyone started berating me telling me what a great deal that was, that I should have just forfeit the pot plus a cherry on top and keep my stack of $200 remaining. I'm like HELL NO thats a shitty deal! Im not gonna just pay him money for nothin on a draw and give up the hand, and they're all like "o rly?! thats good to know buddy, GOOD TO KNOW!"

I threw the hand in pokerstove and it came out a flip, so his deal was shit, at least considering I had already put in like 70BB's, and missing out on the chance to be sitting chip leader with 400+ BB's.

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Comments (12)

Maybe.... I've actually been refunded for some HU SNG's on FTP whereby apparently I was playing a bot. This was a few months ago and I never reported it b/c we didnt play enough for it to really register on me, but FTP emailed me about it and gave me $15 or so which amounted to my losses in the session. I knew where it happened b/c I had only played some $1 HU sng's and remember some psycho just speed shipping hands at random and insta-rematching me until he just stopped all the sudden.

Well I just ran into exactly the same thing again today. Cept this time the guy hung around for 40 matches I think, namely because we were semi-breakeven. These were the $1 hu sng's again and the play was identical. This time I decided to actually email FTP about it because after last time I feel I knew what to look for. Below is my account of the issue;


1) Every one of his actions was too fast to be human. He would always instantly check, instantly fold, instantly shove allin, instantly raise, etc. Not even 1 second in delay between actions. I wouldnt even have my finger off the mouse button before he would have already made his next action. He was only playing 1 table vs me, so not table ninja or AHK actions signifying someone just playing fast.

2) At the rematch screen this particular player would often wait 5-10 seconds before choosing to rematch me. You can tell this by observing the rematch status under the player names, it says accepted or declined. However if I chose to rematch him before he chose to rematch me, he would instantly accept and the next game would start.

3) While it is hard to judge the quality of someones play, a lot of his betting patterns seemed to be scripted. I called a few of his random shoves out of curiosity once I became concerned he was a bot, and I saw completely random hands that made no sense. I know players can bet any way they choose, but combined with the above factors it seemed more like a series of triggers were prompting the bot to make these plays. And they werent always shoves. On occasion it would be like half pot, or a minbet, or whatever. The sheer randomness makes it seem more botlike than any human would do.

4) He made a few random comments such as he enjoyed playing vs me, smiley faces, "hehe" and "nh" auto comments, etc, which looked to be attempts to sound human. My chat is banned so I could not respond to verify.

5) After I started winning several sessions in a row he suddenly disappeared from the site.


I probably would have assumed this was just some maniac with the fastest hands in the world again, but after being refunded for cheating before I obviously have to give some credibility to the issue. Ultimately I'm more disappointed that I lost to AI than some maniac lol. I finished this little excercise - 6 BI's, which I guess aint that bad really. Plus several of those were some insane suckouts, like aipf with 23 vs my A3 and he runner runners a straight, or getting 2 outered 44 vs 88. When I suspected he was a bot I started open shipping a few hands on him like Qx and Kx and he snapped with stuff like 95o and J6o and Q2o, etc. But then OTHER times he'd actually fold. Really bizarre. I know that makes it the most poorly programmed bot in the world, but maybe there is some stupid shitty romanian bot software out there that fucks up the game when people use it and plays like this.

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Comments (3)

Decided to take a minbuy shot of $100 at live 1/2 today after doing well playing shallow tables on FTP. I seem to play a lot better when im risking less and freerolling profits so I wanted to see how it would translate over to live. Played for 8 hours starting with $100 buyin, grinded it up to $400, catch an OESFD, board pairs and I miss, so I ship river on a bluff and get check/called by a boat lolz.

Drop to $200, get AA, ship a 4way flop on KJ4cc after 2 people donk into me, GET FOUR CALLERS LOL, thats right an $800 pot, and some guy scoops the whole thing with A2cc on the river. Dont even know what the other guys had. GG.

And wtf is this; Some nit makes an uncharacteristic $22 preflop raise UTG, everyone folds, and the SB ships $140 and flips up 88 after UTG folds, and says "i had to protect my hand". And UTG raiser like never raises. He looked pretty pissed that he folded but whatever, random.

I was very pleased with my live performance as usual, and hope to take more shots again soon. After reading some guys blog on 2p2 who played homegames and ran up a 30k roll and then moved to vegas and now plays 2/5 for a living I have some newfound motivation. For starters I will never again take my live earnings and donate them online. Once I have built a live roll I will probably try to play live exclusively. Besides I need to get in the habit of driving around and sitting in a chair for hours if this is what I intend to do. It's also a super sweet spot for me since I'm just outclasses at NL400+, but am right in my comfort zone at NL200 and it's live counterpart, which means I'm also comfortable with playing 2/5 live..... probably... maybe even 5/10, no idea what kind of people play that though.

Ultimately I dont feel buying in half stacked helped me any this time. Maybe online it does b/c I'm just so jaded playing micro stakes, but I dont see myself making any big screwups live where a deep stack is -EV for me. Anyway only note for tonight is to just bluff less lol. At least when it comes down to these monsterous allin bluffs. I dont mind raising some $15 donkbet to $50 or some shit, but it ends there.

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Comments (5)

Last time I did a session review I wrote off a lot of my losses to bad beats, and they sorta were, but at the same time I feel I may have been overplaying a lot of hands, namely the TPGK type stuff. I ingeniously sorted my HH's by those hands in which I won money, and those hands in which I lost money. My winners are sets and flushes. My losers are TP, or a quality PP like JJ or QQ that gets outdrawn.

I figured raising small PP's and SC's is really a deception tactic reserved for table precedence, after you have grinded it out with some regs for awhile you need to mix up your play. Since rush is like playing a bunch of new faces, theres no deception in raising a PP. The only hands calling a raise by an unknown are hands that are just folding on the flop unless they improve, or I'm gonna get 3bet by a better PP. Might as well just limp most of my playing hands and just raise AJs+ and JJ+. And when I flop TP I need to keep some pot control in mind, namely value betting 2 streets and checking river a lot.

These adjustments have resulted in the following playstyle. I played a slightly shorter session by instituting a stop loss and this is where I ended up.



We'll see if this is optimal or not. I've been doing some thought analysis on it and at least at these limits where theres very little 3 betting or iso-raising, it does indeed seem to make a lot of sense. And these results are in perfect tandem with my session review, all pots won from sets and flushes, and a few TPTK stuff mixed in but not for stacks.

Honestly, I feel this is how I should always run at this limit. 72 wintrate may seem unsustainable but every time I'm in a pot I assure you it's with the best hand.

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Comments (0)

No, seriously, this cant be possible.



I have gotten my money in so far ahead on so many occasions it's beyond comprehension. 20 BI downswing? This is beatable? Everyone keeps ragging on me for moving up where they respect my raises, yet I consistently just run this bad for my entire poker career at micro stakes?

I stepped back for a moment earlier after losing the first 10 BI's and thought maybe, JUST MAYBE, it really was my fault. So I looked at like 2 hands but realized they were all suckouts, so I just decided to adjust my play to be a bit more exploitable but make my decisiions easier. Afterall it's rush and it's doubtful anyone is making many moves, at least at these stakes. I dropped my vpip from 24 to 18, and PFR from 18 to 10. Just a little more nitty passive is all.

I kinda like the new style, it's certainly easier, but I mean for gods sake what in the goddamn fuck? Personally I rather prefer winning 20-30BB pots over and over at NL200 than having idiots just spaz shove the turn and 3-6 outer me on the river with overcards. I mean, the numbers dont lie. Im puttin in some fuckin hands here and all I do is get sucked out on.

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Comments (11)