Sorry that I haven’t updated in a while, poker has been kind of up and down this month. I’m up $300 or so online but down $645 in live play. We took a trip to the HSBC earlier in the month. I saw lots of the same weak tight regulars and ran into a plethora of calling stations and over aggro bullies. Playing overly aggressive tables isn’t my forte’ and I dumped 2 buyins in a little under 6 hours. I finally got all $90 of the money that I had left with me into the middle on a big combo draw. The pot was huge but I ran into a bigger FD who ended up making a pair on the river to beat my turned pair.

As for online play, my graph looks like the Andes mountain range since I’m having the hardest time beating 50NL consistently. I’m crushing 100NL at a 17BB/100 rate over >700 hands, but that’s just taking shots. I think that I’m playing more cautiously on my shots and am not making the stupid errors that I am at 50NL. Take this hand for example that I played this afternoon:


POKERSTARS GAME #16166664151: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.25/$0.50) - 2025/03/22 - 13:45:35 (ET)
Universal pokerstars Poker HH Converter Tool from TwoRags.com

SB ($47.95 in chips)
BB ($38 in chips)
UTG ($72.50 in chips)
UTG+1 ($61.25 in chips)
MP ($10.45 in chips)
MP+1 ($26.40 in chips)
Hero (CO) ($49.50 in chips)
BTN ($64.90 in chips)
SB: posts small blind $0.25, BB: posts big blind $0.50

PRE-FLOP:
Dealt to Hero [K Q]
UTG: calls $0.50, UTG+1: folds, MP: folds, MP+1: calls $0.50, Hero: raises $2.50 to $3, BTN: folds, SB: folds, BB: folds, UTG: calls $2.50, MP+1: folds

FLOP: [9 4 K]
UTG: checks, Hero: bets $5, UTG: calls $5

TURN: [9 4 K] [6]
UTG: checks, Hero: bets $12.50, UTG: calls $12.50

RIVER: [9 4 K 6] [6]
UTG: bets $2, Hero: raises $27 to $29 and is all-in, UTG: calls $27

RESULTS:
Total pot $100.25 | Rake $3
Board [9 4 K 6 6]
UTG showed [K A] and won ($97.25) with two pair, Kings and Sixes, Hero showed [K Q] and lost with two pair, Kings and Sixes

The guy was 28/2/1, what’s he calling w/ here that I beat? I put him on a FD and still shoved it!

I think my problems now are mostly psychological. I’m running on autopilot a lot because I’ve started playing just to earn the Goldstar bonus (which I should hit by the middle of next month.) I’m stacking off too light, which is a strategy that worked wonders at Bodog but just isn’t feasible at Pokerstars. I’ve still got this hubris problem that plagues me. I expect to win by default and I expect people to put their money in bad against me. This expectation causes me to get upset at 3bettors and makes me want to throw things when my A-Ko gets ck/raised on a Jack high flop. I will definitely have to get adjusted to the 3betting since I plan to move up soon, and I really feel that I am a good player that isn’t playing his A-game right now and isn’t fully engaged mentally.

I did find and plug some leaks earlier in the month. Both in live play and on the Internet I was making too many cbets and wasn’t allowing worse hands to bluff or catch up. I worked w/ Threads13 from 2+2 and read some stickied articles about the subject and figured out that 100% Cbets was just too much. Firing 100% of the time worked at 25NL for a 6.67 BB/100 win rate, but has caused me mental anguish at 50NL. Cbetting on missed flops should be first villain dependent and second board dependent. Some people just don’t fold to cbets that often and a lot of players recognize the fact that a paired flop has probably missed everyone!

Also, Cbetting when you hit also needs to be judiciously done. I was always of the opinion that checking the flop w/ top set on a dry board was a rather obvious play that indicated that you held that exact hand. I bet the flop when I crushed the board every time because Cbetting was what I did. After some coaching I’m now trying to recognize when I’ve got a good lock on the hand and can squeeze out some value from a worse hand. I’ve learned that some people interpret a flop check as weakness and not the nutz. I’ve started extracting good values with this new mentality and feel that it shored up some big leaks in my game that were getting exploited by the 50NL regs.

I guess that’s it for now, I know it’s vague but it hit the highs and lows. A big shout out to Edmond for closing on his big card room deal last month. If you haven’t checked out his blog lately then you need to see what “the man” is doing. Hopefully, I’ll get my graph out for March right after the 1st, until then, I’m bailing water and pluggin leaks!

February turned out poorly. I was having a decent month then I decided to take a shot at 200NL under sub-optimal conditions. I quickly dumped 1.5 buyins and then proceeded to lose several more buyins at my normal stakes of 50NL. I dropped down to 25NL and proceeded to win 6.5 buyins which got me up to over 20 buyins for 50NL again, but the momentum didn’t hang around and I have been stagnant to losing ever since. I had KK 6x on the 28th and ran into AA 2x and lost to sets and a flopped str8 on some of the others. When the 2nd strongest starting hand can’t hold up for you when you are dealt it 6x, then you are destined to lose money. Crap, I had AA get 4 bet by K-Jo. I smooth called with position to trap him into another bet, and of course he flops the joint on me.

Enough whinning, Feb turned out like this:



($73.92) at FRNL - Lost $325.90 taking a shot at 200NL
+$10.00 in FT bonus
+$0.46 in Rakeback (just opened a new UB account, one session)
+$8.80 at HORSE
Total, ($54.66)

I could have squeaked out a winning month for Feb, but I got one outted when my top set ran into middle set. We got it all in on the flop and the villain proceeded to turn quads. Still though, I haven’t had a losing month since Sept and losing $55 isn’t so bad when you look at it in comparison to my wins.

I started March off on Saturday by winning one buyin at 50NL, but that got erased last night when I dropped $80. Apparently my Aces are auto losses against KK no matter when the money goes in. Also, TPTK is no good against J-2s in a raised pot. The villain defended his BB, flopped bottom pair then turn trips on me. I never put him on a deuce of any kind, but it cost me $10 or $15.

In general, I feel that I’m running bad and subsequently that I have started making more mistakes. Hopefully, I can get these leaks plugged and get back to some winning ways.

March Goals:
Earn bonus + rakeback on my new UB account
Maintain Goldstar on Pokerstars
Make $1k online
Make a trip to the casino to take some easy money from the live donks
Find and plug some leaks