Musings

Finally figuring out how to play a lil' looser (ie normal!), though I'm definitely being too spewy in certain spots.

4 tabling actually becomes bearable too! lol~~

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WHOOO NL50 you're my bitch here we go, I'm about 10 beers in

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Work is raping me hard.

No time to play.

No time to study the game.

Free time I have, my brain is a peanut.

So I just watch Prison Break.




But things are calming down a bit, so I might be able to dick around @ lower stakes, getting used to the game again.

YK/mikey/vlseph/KTD/Silver/Night/Babo, you guys may be see a revival in msn messages from me.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL FML.

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- back to nl50 again after spending some quality practice time down at nl25.
- playing like a nit but w/e, focusing primarily on playing 'to the villain'.
+ Show Spoiler +

Be like water my friend.

- played like 4 hours, 6 tables, 2.2k hands today, the most in a longggg time hopefully I can do this again tomorrow.
- No idea what result was, b/c I am currently doing the k2o4 no looking at results challenge. But I'm 90% sure I was in the green today despite some epic coolers (boat under boat, set under set for stacks lol)
- Got to know lazymej


My goals for April are 30k hands and to continue to improve. IDK if I can realistically achieve 30k hands w/ the RL schedule I have (only have 4.5k hands as we speak ), but hopefully I can keep improving!

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Must say that this is the most dull of the 5 day trip, so scroll down to day 2 if you missed that

Day 3 - Friday, March 13th

I eventually wake up around 4pm. Yup, 4pm. Ben and Gordon were out and about earlier, I have no idea what they were doing but w/e. Oh, right. One thing they did was go get Gordon's car @ Rhino. I had promised Steve that I would not let Gordon drive, since driving out of the Rhino in the middle of the night -> insta DUI k thnx. So after I wake up we head out to the Gun Store again (lol), this time as a party of 3. I go into life nit mode though and just opt to observe, as I feel that the money I spew won't bring me proportional joy, after having shot the shotgun the day before.

So it's already evening, so we go to Wynn buffet again to burn time. I call Myth to ask what's up, and apparently he's with his GF and Frinkx's mom, among others @ a cafe in the Wynn - Frinkx is deep in a tourney. We eventually finish dinner and I text Myth that we'll be @ the Wynn lounge so join us when they're done. Apparently I miss a msg from Myth and end up getting seated right next to him and his GF, running into each other on a whim. Karma is universal, so I take the tab for everyone (eventually becomes like 8 pple as Night and others arrive as well). After shooting the breeze for a few hours, we follow through on the original idea of going bowling (yea wut?).

Two hours of time burning @ the bowling alley, with Myth putting on a sick hustle lol. I forget his scores but they were definitely 50+ higher than the next score lol. Eventually Cookie calls us back to the Wynn, whereupon a mad rush of indecision shows itself. Half our party is moderately interested in going to Sapphire (another strip club), while the other half is lazy/wants to just play poker or smth. We all end up eventually deciding wtf to do, with 3 or 4 of us hitting the tables. Ended up having a heart to heart (LOL) with Steve over a small meal, much like we were doing @ the Rhino. I eventually get back to the hotel to find my two RL friends asleep (apparently after spewing money @ BJ and whatever else they played), and I do the same. A "slow" day by the week's standards, Friday the 13th.

OH wait actually Ben had to catch a 6am flight back to SFO so he actually GAMBOOOOOOOOOOOOLed then left the premises.

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Day 2 - Thursday, March 12th

I woke up at first around 8am, but saw Night still sleeping so just went back to sleep. I think I noticed him get up around 9am, but I didn't care and kept sleeping lol. I ended up waking up eventually, but from the trauma from the night before, I was somewhat reluctant from hitting the tables. I probably should have just gotten up at 9am and joined Night though, in retrospect.

Instead, I stayed in the room for a bit reading A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin (awesome book omg) until one of my RL friends arrived from SFO. I texted Night telling him what was up, and that I was going to meet up with my friend Ben. I met up with him @ the Lobby of Treasure Island, where my two freinds and I would stay for the next two nights (last friend was driving from LA later in the night). We had some lunch @ the lobby cafe, discussing what we should do for the rest of the day. We decided to pay Night a visit @ the Wynn poker room (he was getting mega coolered, 2nd nut flush vs nut flush, etc), then go to the Gun Shop to shoot some goods. The Gun Shop is a total ripoff, but damn it's worth it anyways lol. AK47 is honestly boring, and the shotgun is awesome imo.

We were just talking a lot and somewhat being inefficient with time, but we had decided to save most of the exciting stuff till my last friend, Gordon, arrived. By the time we got back to the hotel it was nearly early'ish dinner time, so after we did some iphone yelping, we decided on the Wynn buffet. I knew Night was famished after sitting at the poker room for like 8 hours, so I dropped off the remnants of my lunch club sandwich and fries, which he pleasantly shot me a text msg saying tyvm , which made me happy since I was kinda unsure about giving him my leftovers.

And so we went to the Wynn buffet. Ben wanted to give playing poker a try, but I knew he had zero real experience playing the game properly, so I was protesting. In the end I looked up Tien's 6max guide on 2p2 on his iphone and told him to read it and I was explaining some basic concepts to him (position, playing tight and why, etc). Anyways we feasted on the food and generally complained about it as well (lol), finding that the quality was one notch below that of upscale restaurants, but agreed that as a buffet it was exquisite (since most buffet quality sucks or is at best marginal). We sat there for a good two hours or so, as Ben struggled to get a proper Adios Mother Fucker made for him at the bar. He ended up actually writing down the ingredients for the waiter to deliver to the bar haha.

Eventually Night joined us and we moved tables, where he explained his mega bad beat where he hit his flush on the river 3way(i think), but the dealer didn't see that the 3rd player hadn't acted and the card got burnt and shite like that. Night can explain further if he wants but basically the dealer fucked up, and Night didn't get paid off with his aggro image when he finally connected. Overall, day of bad beats for him . As we sat there eating, Corwin shot me a text message, and he told us that he'd be joining us soon too. So we ate/talked for a bit, till it was decided that we were to go the the Rhino. And so it was to be.

And so begun the epic freeroll train of the night. But debts are made to be repaid, and there will surely be a day when I'll be returning Myth, Peachy, Mannercookie the favor in the distant future.

Before we headed to the Rhino, Myth gave us a primer on how to deal with the sick stripper hustling at the club, what moves sto make when and why, etc. Without it we would be doomed, and I am grateful for his words of wisdom. In summary: "Fuck them lol!".

As we made our way in (Corwin was rightfully irked that his usual seat was already taken), we were immediately attacked by a pack of 3 girls - all scantily clad and some of them frightening in appearance. They were aggressive and out for blood. Corwin just talked to all 3 of them at once and brushed them off, noting that they came in a pack b/c their skill was low and by attacking from multiple angles and inexperienced Rhino patron would find it difficult to say 'no' properly to all three attacks. I noticed Night and Ben whispering to eachother, then about a minute later realized what they must have been talking about. The girl on the left had a hideously disfigured butt, dramatically jutting out into the space behind her like... like... an overhanging boulder on a cliff. It was epicly revolting, especially from my angle where it looked like she had a giant Lego block stuck to her ass (I had a 45degree angle, whereas Night and Ben had a 90 degree angle, where the view wasn't as disturbing but still sufficiently unnatural).

Crowin's words would ring true in my ears throughout the night - if a girl comes to you and does not start with "how are you doinggg?" or "Hi what's your name~~?" etc, then just fuck her. If they aggressively come for your dough, well fuck them. And it really was true, and after about the 3rd or 4th girl it really just became comical how bad some of the girls were and how tactless they were. On the other hand, there were some sick hustlers out there, who'd just talk with you for 20 mins then come for your money. But hey, they obviously know what they're doing and ffs damn they're experts.

We were eventually joined by Peachy and Leah (the poker conceirge girl who was blogged about in Doomer(?)'s blog). Peachy's expressions are priceless I tell you. You'd never know he's the hero he is if you didn't know of him beforehand. Peachy actually called Myth when he was right behind us, b/c Myth had told him we'd be at his 'usual seat', but we weren't .

I honestly wasn't interested in spewing money to strippers, and was content to just drink and chatter away with everyone. "The game" with desperate strippers was comical and amusing, while the conversation with the gang was always intriguing. My RL friend Gordon eventually arrived, and eventually got megadrunk lol good times. Later, the party of Mannercookie + two guys he met live - Mike (who looks identical to Daut) and his buddy Steve - arrived as well and added to the sweet, sweet choas.

I struck up a converstaion with Steve and I ended up talking to him the most throughout the night on a variety of subjects that I cannot seem to recall, ranging from poker, to college, to vegas life, career, financial stuff, etc. To be totally honest, I have to say that the converstaions I had with people was the highlight of the night, rather than the strippers. Myth was a gracious host, as I noticed that he was laying low and making the others a priority before his own exploits. Didn't really get to know Mannercookie much, so hopefully I'll have a chance to chat with him next time I drop by.

Time flies. We leave at 6:30. Myth, Peachy, Leah, Night, Me + my 2 friends head to Cafe Bellagio for breakfast. We eat, Peachy loses the credit card roulette (run good one time), and we split. I end up going to sleep around 8am, with another uncharacteristically wild day behind me.

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I was going to post the entire 5 days at once, but I'm in chronic laziness / no-time mode so I'm going to post it one day at a time for a while.

Currently have 3 days done iirc.

Hopefully it's at least somewhat enjoyable to read haha.

---------------

b]The picture-deficient delayed Vegas blog![/b]
Warning! WALL OF TEXT INCOMING

So basically on a whim, I decided to join Night in Vegas for 5 days - both to just hang out and to play a lil' live poker. I departed from SFO on the morning of the 11th, and returned on the 15th (wed-sun).

Short synopsis - Craziness.

Day 1 - Wednesday, March 11th

Day 1 started off rather ominously, as United graciously delayed the flight, then boarded us, then delayed again, then cancelled. The flight was supposed to depart at 8:40am, but most of the passengers were moved to the 12:40 flight (2 flights later). Fortunately I still had premier status on United (since I tend to have to fly a lot), I managed to find myself on the 10:40 flight, yay.

So I arrive @ LAS (the code for the vegas airport) a little past noon, and take a cab to Night's place. I knew the name of his timeshare but the cabby wasn't sure where the hell it was, so I called Night about 4 times to get him to give me directions haha. Anyways I eventually get to his place to be greeted by Night's mom and grandma, who were truly very awesome and fun people.

Night was hung over and sleep deprived for the escapades of the previous evening, and it took him a while to get himself up and ready for us to move on out. I asked him how much $ I should bring, to which he replied, "Bring your whole roll".

I obliged.

In any case we headed out, grabbing a light lunch along the way. We were walking up towards the middle of the strip, when it occurred to me to send a text msg to Myth (with whom I had talked to briefly via PM's on LP.net the week before). Turned out he had been cooler busto'ed out of that day's tourney, and would be @ the Wynn. Well, we were headed to the Wynn anyways, so we told him we'd text him when we were nearby.

By the way walking up and down the strip takes a surprisingly long time! Not to mention the fact that you're constantly hassled by Hispanic dudes handing you strip club / night club / phone sex cards.

Anyways, we get the the Wynn and meet Myth @ the back of the poker room. At this point I only remembered that his name started with a "C", and Night knew that everyone called him Corwin. I for some reason was (incorrectly) convinced that "Corwin" had to be a last name. IDK, I guess I suck at names =/. So we meet up, introduce ourselves, and exchange some pleasantries. One thing leads to another and we all agree to play @ the 1/3 game @ Wynn.

Now, at this point I'm a little weary. (A) I've never played live, ever (B) for certain reasons, I'm underrolled in my live BR (C) the highest I've played is nl100, so I'm a little bit out of my comfort zone (D) FFS I'm playing with a legitimate mid/high stakes player X_X.

Anyways we sit down at a new table. After a few orbits, it is exceedingly clear to me that there are literally no fish at the table. From the dealer's left, it went (1) some 20'something guy with a Rhino cap who was fucking around but knew the game, (2) a HOT - back me up on this Night - Euro blonde who again knew what she was doing, (3) A bald dude who reminded my of Moby who seemed to be an acquiaintance of the girl, (4) I forget, (5) Myth, (6) Night, (7) Me, (8) nit, (9) nit. I'm thinking to myself, "damn, why am I sitting here as my frist live game, underrolled and scared money? lol". Early on in the session Night's chatting to me in a lowered voice that this is not by any means a standard game lol. A rude awakening for sure.

I'll spare you the dulleries of the long session, but in the end we were there for about 10 hours, from 3pm to 1am. Shit, it seriously felt like it was 2 hours or something. Some highlights. Myth was pounding down double vodka redbulls all night, telling us epic Elky et al. stories, was playing some ridiculous loose aggro game, flopped a boat with 27o lol. Night was often fucking with Myth, reraising him in position. I was playing super uber nit style, due to my multiple levels of uncomfortable-ness that I described earlier. Peachy dropped by to say hey sometime in the middle, and Frinkx joined us later and added to the laggotry. It was pretty hilarious seeing the expressions on the random guys @ the tables through the night when Frinkx laid out bricks of 100's on the table, or when Myth threw out some Flags from his bag. At one point Frinkx was betting / raising by having a stack of $3 chips about a foot and a half tall and determining his bet by hitting the top and seeing how many chips fell down. Spending a good deal of time with Night, Myth, and Frinkx, I could tell that even w/o poker or anything else, they were solid quality guys - good humored and a lil' bit crazy . I ended up +240 or so, after donating $450 or so to Myth on a terrible play where I had Aces and he had 2p. Sooooo baaaaad X_X.

Hilarities that I caused from my live-poker noobiness: I think I stringbet at least twice, and also at one point declared by bet size as "half pot" ROFL. I think I acted out of turn several times, would forget to tip the dealer (which I would correct like 2 hands later), etcetc. We had a good laugh over my retardation, incl myself, so in the end all was good. It was an entertaining and fulfilling ten hours, and was certinaly a completely new experience for me and my sheltered mind (lol). I started out incredibly nervous and not talking much and at times noticibly shaking, but by the end I was at least pretty comfortable with where I was at and what I was doing. B/c my BR couldn't handle variance I ended up nut peddling plyaing something retarded like 12/8, but well hopefully next time I can play my standard game X_X.

LOL HALF POT!

At 1am, famished and tired and our judgement obviously suffering, Night and I left the room and headed back home. We ended up going to sleep around 3am or so. I was exhausted and weary, wondering if I could handle this again the next day...

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After 4 days of no internet, I have the fountain of youth again!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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After talking with KillthemDonks and Night2o1 for a good length of time over the state of my game, a revelation was made. I had lost all the aggression I used to have in my days of naivete.

It all dawned on me when I called with 98ss from the CO against a reasonable player, flop came KQxss, he cbet, I raised 3.5x, he folded. Standard stuff. But it occurred to me that it had been AGES since I had semibluff raised like this with authority and conviction. I would occasionally bluff taggy players with air on dry boards, usually to no avail. And why should it have worked, when I myself had no faith in the bets I was making!?!?

Nothing is worse than fake aggression without force. Villains can just "tell".

Good things happen when you are aggressive. I might as well fail being aggressive, than fail while being passive and weak tight like I've been recently, wrought out of the fear of getting check raised, the fear of valuetowning myself, the fear of....

The danger is that I may fall into the pit of the aggrodonk, spewing away money in horrible spots. Hopefully it won't come to that, but even aggrodonking money away probably beats being a TAGFISH.

Here's a hand that is probably misplayed, but you get away with shit like this when you're aggressive and forcefull with your bets against the right opponents.

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/660348

Night's reaction when I showed him: "LOL what are you doing. ... You're either clueless or a genius"

LOL

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Played 12 hours and 6k hands today 4-6 tabling lol. (1/2 of it at nl50 before dropping down)

Making some headway, really feel like I'm getting my confidence back!

As I noted in my self-note blog

* open wider pf, change ranges a little

* fold to 3bet more pf unless I have reads (stats) indicating that I can profitably play back

* fold to cbet more - I'm going to end up folding to barrel anyways or get valuetowned, and the few times I do take it down on flop just doesn't make it worthwhile. Goal is to get fold to cbet up to like 80%.

* cbet more against nits

* cbet WAY FUCKING LESS AGAINST STATIONS

* fold to raise when villain/situation makes no sense to be bluffing ever.
* FOLD TO RAISE (yes it's worth saying it twice)

* VALUE VALUE VALUEEEEEEEEEE
* Am I really betting for value, or am I value-owning myself? (aka WHO AM I BETTING INTO and WHAT CAN HE CALL WITH)


GRAPHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH



last 700 hands was last session I played. Was totally fatigued even after 3 hour nap but played well anyways sticking to the above gameplan. Value-owned myself once or twice but it's a gradual process.

Results are meh, but the play is what matters!



edit: wheeeeeeeeeee sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

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