It has been an interesting morning - woke up and started playing my 0.02/0.04 penny poker trying to get up to $30 - took a small hit yesterday (well, a big hit) and today was looking to be no different -

One table had me losing with AA, AK 5 times, and AQ - the 2nd table was barely holding on - suffice it to say I was losing heart. Then one player came and sat down - she was cute, from San Jose, and seemed to play/raise every hand after about 20 min.

So I'm just grinding along - down .50, and I move tables and find myself on her Left on a 2nd table - can't find her under the search player feature, but I quickly pick up two more games she's at, usually two-three seats on her left. At the same time, some big hands/sets start coming in, and pretty soon I'm up and then I'm up even higher, almost to my $25 peak - and I finally win with AK when she bets me to the river - I spiked an A on the river but it was irrelevant because she was betting with 9 high.

Again, the question is - Bot? - clearly someone for whom raising was about standard for every friggen hand. 3-4 tables of stress and a couple more wins and I bailed - I'm currently at 24.93 working my way up to $30 and the next limit up - whew - LOL - getting tired of this penny shit - give me a nickle/dime a bet next time :)

this is good practice for remembering the surges and dips - they come, they go - ride long enough and it should swing back up again - even if it takes 300 hands to do it - rock and roll -

rb

yes, the previous post is true - I am going to Vegas for about 54 hrs next week - gonna have to go on one heck of a streak - wish I had taken a 3rd day off - ah well -

I will NOT be playing in that $500 tourney at IP - I may hit a bellagio one, but I will probably slum the $50/60 tourneys around town Sun/Mon - I feel like playing Binion's once - also Venetian, Treasure Island, and maybe Luxor - would like to play poker in as many new rooms as possible this trip while hitting a couple old favorites (maybe the Monte Carlo for ambiance)

My 0.02/0.04 penny bankroll is up to $24 - I have doubled it, or effectively earned 300BB at my chosen limit - While I'm not esp. proud of my preflop AP, my post flop AP is steadily climbing - my river AP is now 1.00 and over - so my game is adjusting. I expect the Vegas limit games to play much the same way as 0.02/0.04 - including the free booze - LOL - but it's been a year or more since I've been out there playing for fun.

I find myself playing certain players over and over again and questioning their bot status. I'm finding players with over 100 hands and no preflop raising and stats that are suspiciously on the button - (.5, 2.0, and 1.5) as if to say a piece of software is making certain raises consistently 2 times out of 3 or something. In any case, they're not beating me, so no biggie :) - the real take and most likely spot for a bot is 1/2 NL from what I heard.

ah well - not much else to report, but best wishes and prayers to Felicia who is in rough shape in the hospital right now - was gonna go visit her at Mayo but found it it's the one in AZ, not Rochester - DOH!

pax
RB

reading the past entries of the last 4 years have been an eye opener - I was a much better writer when I was wasted :)

or maybe I was just better - willing to leave the house - dare to dream - bleh bleh bleh.

fuck this - going to Vegas next week - rock and roll babee -

rb

some interesting hits turning up in the statstracker - it appears I'm not the only one who stalks old friends and crushes - LOL.

In the quest for 0.02/0.04 penny poker dominance, I am half way to my goal - 2100 hands and I've won 9 bucks, or 50% of the bankroll needed to advance to 0.05/0.10 poker. my Preflop AF is beyond passive - only my dating style is more passive then my Preflop AF - think it's about .29 - I never break 1.0, even at the turn/river though I get a lot closer to .8 past the flop and turn. I assume most poker players know what the AF is, I even saw it mentioned in Card Player last week, but it's basically aggression factor - it's the number of times you bet+raise divided byt hte number of times you check+call - in short, if you bet/raise more then you check/call, it's over 1.0 -

I think I have a new issue that's never happened to me before - I think I have a married friend who has a crush on me - recent comments/postings elsewere made me a bit nervous, and recent song lyric postings (she's a songwriter too) suggest I was a target somewhat before I was aware of it, but of course, I could be just really stupid and overreaching. Were I a less honorable man, this would be good - as it stands, due to my religious rekindlings, it is profoundly bad - so I will continue to play ignorant lest the friendship be damaged irreversably - shouldn't be a problem - I do ignorant well.

but even during my heathen days, it was always bad - I would never be the one that broke up a marriage, even if I were interested - man, that's even one of the 10 Commandments, for fruck's sake.

aside from that bright spot, life sucks - I keep having premonitions of an early death. Not the self-inflicted kind, but just the understanding that once my task on earth is done there isn't another second to waste by my being here. Seems like 10 or 20 times a day I'm thinking this could be the day I keel over and collapse or slump back in my chair at work where they'll find me 10 hrs later thinking I've been sleeping. Sometimes, I find myself caring/praying that's not the case, and sometimes, I think it's about damn time as I prayed for it often enough a few years ago.

I find myself drifting back to old haunts, like lying on my old drunk futon (the bed I had when I was slugging back 7 shots a night, now a futon couch in the upstairs office) - listening to about 40 Townes Van Zandt tunes - all I need now is a TV at the foot of the couch and some warm Rumplemintz and I'll be back in the year 2002 - :) - more then ever lately, Townes has been an anchor. Someone mentioned recently that he died at 52 (the age he predicted) - and the guy observed - "That's a full deck" - wonder if I'll make 52?

I keep feeling like the damage is done and I haven't realized it yet - I think my right eyelid droops where it didn't before and this numbness in the neck never really seems to subside even after 12 hrs without the mouse - Think I mighta smoked one too many bowls before getting straight and killed off some part of the brain that used to do the high level mental stuff that now feels like it's twice as hard as before. - I always feel dumber then I used to and I'm never able to look anyone in the eye anymore -

of course, with 35 fast approaching, I could just be having an early overdramatic midlife crisis - but I've never imagined myself as an old man anyways.

hope I'm wrong for a little while, at least long enough to see the world go to hell and stand in the breach.

rb

Our Mother The Mountain, by Townes Van Zandt

My lover comes to me with a rose on her bosom
the moon's dancing purple all through her black hair
and her ladies-in-waiting she’ll stand 'neath my window
and the sun will rise soon on the false and the fair

She tells me she comes from my mother the mountain
her skin fits her tightly and her lips do not lie
She silently slips from her throat a medallion
slowly she twirls it in front of my eyes

I watch her, I love her, I long for to touch her
the satin she's wearin' is shimmering blue
Outside my window her ladies are sleeping
my dogs have gone hunting the howling is through

So I reach for her hand and her eyes turns to poison
and her hair turns to splinters, and her flesh turns to brine
she leaps cross the room, she stands in the window
and screams that my first-born will surely be blind

She throws herself out to the black of the nightfall
She's parted her lips but she makes not a sound
I fly down the stairway, and I run to the garden
no trace of my true love is there to be found

So walk these hills lightly, and watch who you're lovin'
by mother the mountain I swear that it's true
Love not a woman with hair black as midnight
and her dress made of satin all shimmering blue

watched the first 6 hrs on ESPN PPV of the WSOP - after that it seemed apparent that barring a total nimrod hand that Jerry was gonna take it down - a man of deep Christian faith too - I kinda admire that - I'd have been the one praying too and thanking Jesus at the final table if I made it - LOL - if I've made it that far, who would I be to deny God then :)

speaking of which, I've applied for membership at a local church of my old denomination - don't know why - no women there - or maybe that's exactly why I like it :) - easier to worship without all the beautiful women all done up in their sunday best - LOL.

but back to the WSOP - I initially expected to see hole cards, and when I realized I wouldn't I was indigent for about 5 sec. - but then you realize in today's real time text messaging environment it'd be impossible to keep players from getting info relayed to them via horses if someone were to be broadcasting that info live - kinda like sticking microphones into the Football huddles - you'd be giving strategy to the enemy who'd relay it back - and what point is PPV if it's not real time.

but Phil Gordon's expert analysis made it interesting - he knows the game very well, and hearing him talk about real players/hands instead of monkey boy who's a two bit actor at Celebrity Poker was fun - I wish I had stuck around for the Stu Unger Documentary after the 6 hr break, but I'd have had to sit thru Jamie Gold's final table analysis, and it wouldn't have been worth it :) Even Phil Hellmuth can be tolerated in small doses when paired with Phil Gordon -


I think all that expert play had an effect on my game - I'm more aggressive, checkraising more - and I just took down a $1.63 pot - which in layman's terms, is 40BB in limit - :) - quad 2's save the day - LOL

not a bad WSOP - to see naked aggression take down so many pots was genuinely entertaining - LOL

RB

A good friend of mine has informed me the WSOP is going to be pay per view tomorrow - I think we're gonna cough up 20 bucks each for the viewing and a pizza -

been doing this bankroll thing for real - and it's sorta paying off - making about 6BB/100 hands (mostly in the last 400) - and and have made almost 20% of what I need to move up to the next level after 1450 hands or so - some serious grinding -

found out this numbness in my neck that I was afraid was a stroke is most likely the result of carpel tunnel after about 13 hrs a day on a PC using a mouse - even on my days off I'm raising my arm way too much - it also gets bad at a poker table - so I've been playing more on the laptop - left handed with the TV going - better to multitask two lame tasks then playing multiple tables, I have found -

but for some reason, I want to build the bankroll right as Mason Malmuth presents it, and be getting back to limit with the 300BB threshold - (he thinks you need 300BB to play a limit properly) - I need to work on my valuebets and laydowns - get in that 30/60 game out at Canterbury - ;) - - instead of depositing 200 and playing over my bankroll, now every bet and dollar is precious - hard won - winning 4 bucks in 2/4 penny holdem is about 100BB - I will need about 14 more dollars - that's gonna take some time.

I am finding my play a lot more passive at this limit - to raise with AA or KK is to put my opponents on a read and odds to draw for that 2nd pair - I find that my attempts at putting opponents on a hand are totally useless - I can only read my hand, the board, and presume - no matter what I do or raise with, unless I see a checkraise, I can never be sure what my opponents have. Checkraise is 80% 2 pair, and 20% BS bluff.

It becomes very easy to spot the guy with an 80% vpip rating - I find it's very easy to flop a gutshot and generally be getting 10-1 odds to draw to it - LOL - with 7 players seeing the flops - it's not hard :)

In short, one who makes money at 0.02/0.04 holdem is learning a game he doesn't wanna play anywhere else - LOL - but hey - part of the task of poker is adjusting to any game - and if I can't beat this game, the 0.05/0.10 will be just as bad -

rb

listening to Rufus Wainwright cover Leonard Cohen's "Chelsea Hotel #2" - that song reminds me of Pauly for some reason - maybe the part about Janis Joplin giving him head on the unmade bed :) I so have to go stay in that dive someday.

playing 0.02/0.04 holdem has been an experience - I have tilted massively and slammed my chips and typed nasty comments in the chat window - but I remind myself it's 0.02/0.04, and despite the fact most of them are dumber then GWB on a drunken bender, I delete my nasty comments before hitting send and take it out on the chips I keep stacked by my PC - I never let them see me tilt - and I'm glad - I mean, it's friggen 0.02 penny holdem, for fuck's sake - I think this is the time where I learn to control my passions at the table - for me the money is irrelevant to the win, but at the same time, you gotta remember if you played it right and your opponent is a dumbfuck that sees 89% of the flops, that it's not your issue or problem - not really. You 3 bet the K's and lost to a J5 offsuit that called two extra bets cold under the gun, but you didn't play the hand wrong.

I play 100 hands at a time, sort of a nice benchmark - usually 2 or 3 tables, and seriously need to bring up my aggro factor - but after a couple nice runs, I'm averaging about 5BB/100 hands - but I will have to more then double my bankroll to have the option to play 0.05/0.10 cent holdem -

mostly I'm really liking the option to just play whenever I want for 30 minute burst instead of pissing away 2.5 hrs for tourney dishwater - tourney fields are brutal when they get over 1K - so I'll keep one site for tourneys and one site for my ring game play -

having an issue getting my notes imported into Pokerstars - probably getting to be a pretty big file - :)

gotta work in 5.5 hrs and I've had 3 hrs sleep - crud - maybe a carrot will do it - LOL

rb

so I was broke and I have made the minimum buyin on a poker site - or rather I have bought in for 300BB at the lowest limit at a poker site, which amounts to about 12 bucks at 0.02/0.04

If I can't beat the game and make some money at this level and move up in limits a few times before going busto I need to quit playing -

and I need to get away from tourneys a while - the luck factor is breaking my heart.

rb

I've been busy gigging - ok, just one gig, but it took a couple weeks to get ready and practice and so forth.

It's offical - the WSOP this year is going to be about 2000 less then last year.

I'm sure some will lament the decline and the fact it hasn't grown steadily as in previous years - self-proclaimed pundits will proclaim the end of poker or the start of the decline of the boom -

meh -

I'm glad it's smaller - less ridiculous - I'd like to see those who got into poker with the idea of making money get out and go back to flipping burgers -

I'd like to see it be about the game and sportsmanship again instead of trying to force a player on tilt by being an obnoxious dick at the table and calling it strategy.

I'd like smaller fields again - :) - I'm down with 2K less -

of course, I'm not THERE, but hey - another year

of course, I say that every year

:(

rb