•  flopped quads (v my AA) which i’d play the same way every time
• flopped flush (v my overpair with what i thought was a flush redraw) that i need to look at
• flopped flush (v my flopped top 2 in a three way pot with a shortie) that i think i could have folded the river

so, suffice it to say that the nice little start i had in coming back to the game was shot and then some.  all short term results mind you, but i’m remembering why i lost the draw towards this game quite quickly. 

ok, off to play the drums.  oh, before i forget, a quick . . .

Hockey Blurb – i played the geriatric game on sunday.  at one point i won a race for the puck in the O zone and slid a pass sideways into the slot, where my trailer caught it and deposited it into the net.  two days after it happens i realize that young gilger rubbed me out on the play, taking me into the wall.  two thumbs up for johnnie.  it was my first game since the philly tourney and i was in “move the play” mode, but now that i replayed it in me noggin, I realized that young Gilger is now old and big enough to take me out.  (actually, he’s got 20lbs on me).

good for you, kid!  but . . . it still ended up in the net.

DRUMS – been playing pretty much twice a week between band practices and gigs.  that’s a lot more than same time last year.  none of the playing was practicing the instrument though, it’s been memorizing songs or playing performances.  as of last night i thought, “screw it, i’m going to work on X or Y aspect of my game this week”.  so i’ll be plugging in the metronome tonight and getting some “drum calisthenics” in. 

the rock band just finished the auditions for 2nd guitar spot.  now, we need a stinking name.   lol.

CARDS - it’s been sooo long since i played cards that i think it’s starting over from the start.  last night i got a couple of hundred hands in after work.  i thought i must’ve been playing 26/20 while i was playing.  it turns out i went 15/11 over 200 hands. 

so here’s the realization.  i played 40 minutes or so, and ended up ahead 62bb, so over 1/2 a BI.  not earth-shattering, BUT i went to showdown 25% of the time and won every single one of them.  and the most i lost in a pot was 4bb.  results-wise, it probably could not have been better.  it just struck me that the cards couldn’t have treated me any better, and it’s still not like i was racking up BI after BI.  it’s a slower moving thing than i remember. 

now, watch that totally turn around next session.

i’m off to start the day, hopefully the coffee will kick in and i’ll get some giddy up in my ass.

villan had K3, and caught his three outer on the river.   we killed the guy and took the money back.

videogames are soooo satisfying.

i was going to ship any winnings off to a charity that does microloans in third world situations.  instead they’re getting a bill for 3 buy ins.  i’m sure they could do without supporters like me

CARDS: on the homework front, i’m reviewing hands to see what my range is.  or more specifically, what range of cards do i play profitably. 

probably should’ve been doing monthly recaps all along, but as played, do i win with . . .

• big pockets – check
• actually all pockets – check.  with a meager winning for 99, and there might be something to that.  i play 99 differently than 88 (BIG winner), and maybe i give 99 too much credit.
• suited Aces – check
• JTs/T9s – check. 
• other suited connectors, one-gappers and  suited two-gaps – LOSERS
• non-suited connectors, gaps – LOSERS.  but not by as much as thier suited counterparts.  that makes sense in that i’ll avoid the flush over flush big pot losses.

in digging, i noticed that KQs is a loser, and it probably has something to do with how i play that hand.   in fact, if i remove KQs from the SC results, it’s break-even. 

thumbs up to finding a hole !! 

the thing is that my VPIP/PFR with these hands is 50/32.

one-gaps i’ll get into next time.  for now, i’m dropping them until i get a better grip on it all.

other hands in the red that i need to fix:

• AQo
• AJo
• KQs
• KQo
• KJo

hmmph.  i think i have some things to look into a bit more deeply, and then some changes to make.  i hope they make a difference.

Long teaching experience has taught me that students say they have read an entire chapter of a book on basic electronics poker, yet cannot remember what they have read.

That’s because getting to the end was the goal, not getting the most out of the reading.

Speed kills. Give your brain time.

this, uh, might describe me a little more than i’d like.

i had a bundle of frustration over my inability to break through the game and put up some decent numbers.  so, i dragged out the HM, and quickly found out that if my luck were average, i’d be down $10 over 45k hands at 50NL.  that’s not so swell.  but, i think i can see why.  yay databases.

there’s the initial adjustment period, and then a whole lot of coupling the words run and play with the word bad.  i’m running 15BI behind expectation.  so, i’m sure those incidents led to me injecting enough sizzle into my game to wipe out any minor gains i’d have been making. 

the good news is, that stretch of hands wasn’t littered with this string of monkey-tilt episodes (i had ONE good one, as opposed to many).  the bad news, whatever amount of self control i have turns out to be not enough. 

so, for better or worse, i decided to cash out half my roll, do a home improvement project, and work my way back at the tables. it may or may not be a god idea, but it’s a done deal.

for a while on this trip i’d been “trying to play through it”.  because basically, it’ll even out.  now, i think i should put it down for a few days (well, for a bit, but looking at my schedule, that’ll turn into a few days ’cause things are coming up).  not so much because “i can’t take it anymore!”, but because i don’t want to start changing things. 

results are a strange thing, since in so much of the rest of life they are a pretty good indicator. 

in the meantime, i have to remember that a 10BIds is nothing and that that fat green line can lag behind that skinny green line by a good stretch, and for quite some time i suppose.

caught a bonus offer at stars, and got one deposit made (where they limited me to a $100 deposit, so i got a whopping $50 waiting for me).  then life got busy and i never got the other deposits made.  ack.  still $50 is better than the usual, which is nothing. 

ADD – stopped in at tilt and found the “push this button and get a $100 bonus with no deposit” situation.  so, i pushed the button.  that’s good.  bad is that i helped out a friend with a transfer, so i’ve got like $500 in there.  so i’m not rolled for $50NL at that room.  as a result i’ve dropped to $25NL so i can play off that bonus.  i’m 1/3 of the way there. 

i don’t have the patience to 4table for this adventure, so i’m playing 6.  have 4.7k hands in over 9 hours running 8ptbb/100 to the good.  6 is fun, and it’s all quite exciting, but i miss the nuances because i’m not watching hands that i’m not involved in with the same scrutiny.  whatever, this won’t last too long.  then i’ll take the profits from this busyness, hand them to the wife and say . . .

“here’s for those tickets to the B.C. Eagles game in October”.  

we’ve got a road trip planned, and it should be great.  i don’t think i’ve been back to that campus since i lived there, and without a doubt i’m roaming for a bit and enjoying that afternoon.  plus, if shinskie finds a way to start without sucking, it’ll be super-fun.

PUSHED BUY on some flyers tickets this afternoon as well.  i’ve put together trips with some die-hards from the tavern before, so i’m on the call list.  and, i got a call.  tickets for EVERY game are available for the “add-on” seats (luxury boxes, club boxes, assorted crap of that ilk).  i picked up 4 (so that’s me and the mrs plus two) for a suite experience in March against the Blackhawks (i own two NHL jerseys, Flyers and Blackhawks).  should be awesome.  might catch another game after that one, either red wings or rangers.

have a jam tomorrow, which i think is going to keep me on my toes since there are going to be a lot of holes in the usual folkin’ blues line-up.  i’m sure i’ll be able to fill in the spaces just fine, but it’ll involve a lot of stretching out – past the usual folkin’ blues experience.  in fact, i’m going out to pack up the kit in a few moments.

was gonna post up a couple of hands, but i decided that they’re bet/fold experiences.  (tp on a 3 flush board where i have none of the suit- AK).

ok, gotta pack up the kit, listen to some new tunes.

i looked over the hands from the session, and although there’s more inspection to be done, some things jumped out at me.  i lost two coins flips for full stacks (KK vs AQ to the nearly naked fd on the flop, AK aipf vs 99 my button steal to his bb defense)  the AK v 99 made me happy because it’s just one more time that shows getting it in with KK will mean you’re ahead a LOT of the time.

i won one flip, but it was only for half a stack, and so greenLine dips.  add one very odd hand where i think i butchered it, and i’ve got most of the bankroll movement accounted for.  

and then after the jam, i sit back down and pick up, oh, about 4BI.    two of my top 4 losses were AI with 2:1 me and 85:15 me, so i was getting it in good in general.

i think what i mean to mention out of this is that at the end of Part One of the day, i felt odd about having started the month -6BI, and not feeling odd about it.  and then of course it’s nice when you come back to it, get the cards, and they hold up.  so the whole day was a big break-even, but it had it’s ups and downs.

more to mention – obviously i’m in pay attention to 3bet mode since watching a vid on it.  my 3bet last night was 7%, which is up a smidge, and i think there were maybe 4 spots that i 3bet where is usually wouldn’t have.  other than that it was just QQ+/AK. 

the red line - hehe.  i had one above break-even last night, which is terribly odd for me.  usually it moves in increments roughly as big as a blind steal.  and i had a WSD of 37%, so there weren’t a lot of hands that ended early.  i think people would limp/call a lot and then fold to cBet, or they’d call the flop but not the turn.  i also caught someone who liked to bluffRaise flops then muck the turn.  i guess that all adds up.

going forward . . . today i have work and hopefully tomorrow is hockey!!  so, i may or may not get a session in tonight.  i generally like the late night saturday tables.

stars has a reload bonus going.  i’ll do that, once i get the funds transfer to my bank account finished.  right now i’m at “silver” on the stars scale, and halfway to gold.  so,  i’ll play off the bonus and that should get me pretty close to an ipod on the FPP front.  and i kindof want one, so i can quit borrowing one from the wife or boy child every monday night for the background sounds during Team Trivia at the tavern. 

so, i think i’ll be staying at stars for a bit. 

ok, off to get a little something done before the afternoon gets away from me.