Thursday, December 10, 2009

Warning: Whiny Content


Just trying to break even & run up VPPs to get this freaking Stars $2k bonus -> Nam-style flashbacks of my ill-fated SNE Run. Seriously, WTF?

No more tourneys, no more poker-related email, no 2+2, no Cake Gold Stack fun, no poker anything except PokerStars cash game VPP grind until I get this albatross of a 200k VPP bonus off my ass.

Oh, and SuperNova probably out for 2010. Why? Because fuck them and their 14-buyin below EV downticks in a week, that's why.

Friday, October 30, 2009

2009 in (way early) Review

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

tossing a bucket of water onto the donkament heater

Just in case i was starting to feel a little too good about myself or how i'm playing, luckily I played like an unreal donk the last 2 nights to come back to mediocre-to-lameass-playing earth.

- 3rd in chips out of 6 remaining in an uber-soft Cake satellite giving away 3 seats, decided to open-shove for 14BBs from the button with 43o. why, i cannot say, but I got what I deserved and busto.
- With a healthy above avg stack in Cake rebuy with 80/250 left, i check-raise shoved a button raiser on a QT4 board with 66 when I was pretty sure he had a decent hand Again, I don't know why, but justice was served and busto.
- I managed to get all my money in bad in PLO FTP donkament not 1 or 2x, but 3 by sucking out the 1st 2x before my suicide attempts finally worked.

Poker gods were obv punishing me for the latest series of brag posts, so I'll go nack to noticing how much I usually suck & maybe the upticks will resume.

Man was that fun to run like Harp in short-handed minbet for a week. I made more final tables over 7 days than I had all year.

Maybe online donkaments + live cash are the new staples, I dunno.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

lol comebackaments

Email #1 - me to Pat 4pm
(he had 20% of me in a $55 Cake bounty tourney that started at 3pm)

seriously can i run any fking worse in these cake donkaments?

here's the grossness
Cake hand link
(started hand with above avg stack 8,527 in chips, 4-bet squeezed a smooth caller with AQ, he snappo-called for 7k with KJo, and I ended the hand with 319 in chips with blinds at 50-100 & all ramped up for my tilty air shove for 3BBs)


I made a little comeback in that same tourney though...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 8:50 PM
Subject: Tournament Prize Detail
To: jaypoker@coskie.com
Congratulations Sloppo,
Out of 310 players in Tournament 5787865 ($15,000 GUARANTEED BOUNTY!!), you came in 3rd and have won $1,085.00.
Best wishes,
The Cake Poker Team

nice sweat on coin flip for 350k pot (total of 900k in play in tourney)
Button opened for 40k, I 3-bet shoved with 66 into AdQd, flop 3 diamonds :( turn 6 : river brick, waah waah busto)

That was sick, sick fun

Friday, July 24, 2009

Heater uptick

Yeah, Splasher's a lock for the Cake rebuy Hall of Fame.

I have to say it does not suck to have friends who have entered some sort of Zen-like state of poker almost every night over an extended period, especially when they're generous enough to swap big pieces with you during the heater. Thanks, Pat- pressure's on now for me to make a deep run the WSOP ME with Horner at age 50 so I can fire a huge piece at you. I'll let him fill in details on his last run in his blog, but last night he put on a fun show.

Here's a visual representation of our chops this week

On the pro front, the results are in - I blow chunks at live poker in virtually every form. Ship the live poker win rate for 2009 of, wait for it, $3.75/hour. Sadly / pathetically, this is a huge improvement from the negative rate a couple of months ago. Also I cannot for the life of me avoid playing and/or running like crap in every bubble situation I climb my way into on Cake.

But apparently, if I swallow my ever-shrinking pro pride and plunge waaaaaaaay down into Donkey Stakes Land, it looks as though I crush the Omahaha-8 droolers. Think I'mam I running any good in my last dozen or so omahaha donkaments (at least the ones with buy-ins you can drum up shaking out in your couch cushions or returning SmarteCartes at the airport for 15 minutes) ?

Date Tournament Game Buy in Entries Rank Prize
23 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 218 2 $665 (2-way choppo)
20 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 178 7 $139
19 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 62 24 $0
19 Jul 09 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLPL $5.50+ 752 4 $812
19 Jul 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 276 14 $65
18 Jul 09 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLPL $5.50+ 635 57 $25
13 Jun 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 120 17 $56
13 Jun 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 54 3 $209
06 Jun 09 No Limit Omaha Hi/Lo OLNL $5.50+ 126 22 $0
17 May 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 70 22 $0
14 May 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 57 14 $0
08 May 09 No Limit Omaha OHNL $5.50+ 61 1 $459

Monday, July 20, 2009

Heaterama

In today's beat the dead horse department, Cake donkaments are delicious. Pat has been absolutely crushing- cashing in 1/2 and hitting the final 1 or 2 tables a handful of times just this week. Sloppo & theSplasher vs. The Droolers $30 rebuy & bounty matches are playing nightly on Cake at 9 & 10pm, join in the LAGtardic fun.

After a mind-numbingly scary month of nightmarish thoughts ala "ohmygodifidontstartwinningihavetoupdatemyresumeohgoditburnseshelphelphelp", I went on a nice donkament bender-heater combo Sunday.

Over 12 1/2 hours Amy's tiny laptop screen was filled with rotating tourney chaos. Some stats:
- Donkaments:20 (Cake - NL, FullTilt - PLO, PokerStars - PLO8, Bodog - NL)
- Plates of food + cups of coffee delivered to couch or counter by my folks: double digits (I think I owe my Mom a cut for the poker-friendly environment)
- Breaks over 10 seconds long: 0 (donkaments don't really care how many cups of coffee you had, ship the constant laptop companion in the bathroom)
- Cashes: 7, Final Tables: 4, $s: +$2,400 woohoo!


DonkaQuiz

1) Play along at home & test your Hellmuth factor

FTP, final 3 of PLO/8 tourney...

1st = $2,000
2nd = $1,300
3rd = $1,000

Villain who bets turn is pretty decent, but could show up with a lot of hands other than nuts/set

a) So what's your turn play, call or fold?
This assumes the best play is not available (i.e., go back in time to stop yourself from stuffing in chips with air on the flop).
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4490681

For those of you who are on some Big Brother at Work server and can't see poker stuff, Villain bet enough to put us all in on turn & we have between 11 to 15 nut outs, plus 6 more cards that improve our hand & could possibly win.

b) OK, let's pretend you somehow knew Villain holds T987 for one lame-ass pair plus a semi-wrap and 2 diamond blockers, now what do you do?

Turns out it doesn't matter at all what you do as far as EV goes, even with 19/40 cards on turn to win and take huge chip lead or 21/40 to bust out in 3rd.

When you stuff the payouts & chip stacks into this ICM calculator:
EV of Tourney Equity if fold: $1,355
EV of call if win (~48%) $1,760 + $1,000 payday if lose (52%) = EV of call $1,351

c) Now that you know you'd be paying $4 to participate in a $750 coin flip vs roughly comparably skilled opponents, would you fold or call? (Although Villain did call a flop pot-sized bet with ten high and a draw to a draw, wtf? How did I lose to this donk?)

Basically I think this question tests whether you're Phil HellMouth and would fold a draw with correct / 0 EV odds to dodge variance & play it out OR would you decide to leave it up to the gambool poker gods?

Shocker, but I tanked then did the Blackjack dealer clap-handwave combo, embraced the variance, & stuffed it in. I'd like to believe I called thinking it was a solid +$EV play but um, yeah, that's pretty much delusional. More like ship the wonkin' coin flip wheeeee....


2) Who's the bigger spewMonkey, me or Villain?
CakeSpewHand

Thursday, June 25, 2009

LAGtard amylouwho, extra slices o' cake

My budding donkament prodigy wife Amylouwho took down the nooner at Mohegan today to bring home a stake for me to bring to AC tomorrow (about $1k) - woohoo!

I haven't gotten the full debrief yet, but based on early reports, it sounded like it was a giant non-stop pile of her grabbing free chips with naked aggression, with lots of grumpy people folding like beaten dogs and muttering about how many good hands she keeps hitting. I guess they look at her chips firing over & over, glance at her tidy little outfit & hand sanitizer and get a-scared she must have a hand every time (she didn't).

Oh Barney Frank, pave the way for Charlotte to win her college tuition at Harrah's Online Poker Emporium between baby-sitting jobs, she's got some gambool gene potential.

PSA - Cake tourney overlays have gotten pretty ridiculously good.

Since Lee Jones joined, they have shortened the late registration times but kept the same guarantees (at least for now). Satellites into these things are still way soft (both cash & gold card). As a benchmark, I'd say probably 2x the softness with way more people utterly clueless about bubble strategy vs. the FTP 1800 point 1-table SNGs for $26 tokens.

2 examples from tonight:
- $20k gtee with $100 buy-in -> 152 people = $5k overlay ($30 per entrant)
- $25k gtee $30 w/ R&A -> just 232 buyins, 250 rebuys with 180 left just before break, so likely a nice overlay there too

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Marathon Session trip report

Well it turns out I'm not the only one reading the occasional short bust of blog production, so here's a blow-by-blow of a grind it out session from tonight...

As midnight rolls around, I've fired up ESPN, surfed 2+2, and lined up the remote-beverage-snack combo, and start thinking I'd better oh I don't know, play some poker today

Sit right in with $100 at only open seat on $2-$4 Bodog PLO table & post in cutoff. (Yup, I know, Sloppo = short stack weenie buyin boy. I usually top off after a lap or two, I'm not really that soft.)

Kd Jc 9c 6d, five limpers to me (yup, 5 of em), I check, button & SB calls, all is right with the world.
Big Blind ruins the party by bumping it up $12 - callcallcallcallcall, I mutter jackass but I call so just 7 or 8 of us nits see the flop
Satan's lives! 6 6 6
Guy to my right insta-fires for $40, and despite being uneasy about my dream Number of the Beast flop, I decide I shouldn't to make the big (but questionable) laydown with my quads and I call. The oh-so-generous BB not only overcalls the flop but sweet sassy molassy even my tank-then-not-shove-the-river bet of $36 too (yup, I did the uber-ridiculous AdamLambertesque "oh I'm so weak, see look I'm leaving $10 behind because I'm afraid you have quads and I don't" tank-bet drama, but hey, it worked).

As the BB starts blinking and I start bouncing up & down chanting rhythmically "call call call" I notice that the turn & river of 2c & 3c actually made a straight flush possible. But no, this is not a trip report of the most Evil slowroll in history, so ship the strong call with QQ to the BB & the 3-hundo pot to me.

I immediately wonder if it's gonna get any damn better than that for a session, as in ever. Seriously, who am I to ruin a win rate of over $10k or maybe $100k+ per hour? Poker gods/demons threw me a bone here and all. So I insta-sit out with a nice little $200-something uptick after 90 seconds of work (yeah, it's a grind), spark up another drink & ESPN360.com to watch live streaming of Barry Greenstein playing the $10k PLO event for a couple of hours. (OK, I did collect my free Sklansky bucks and play around to my Big Blind. But hey, I'm a serious, disciplined and dedicated professional, here.)

I've had worse days as a pro than this I think.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

poker karma awol

A couple o' good beats:
- trusty iPhone has now survived its trips to the toilet and the bottom of my water glass A-OK
- up to 451 miles as of 1st day of summer
- just finished 2nd in PLO donkament for just under $1k

Here's where poker karma gods screwed the pooch, with chip leader in this hand being A #1 Tool
Pretty surprised to see my pair o' 2's was good on turn here...
oops

donkament winner then typed "LOLOLOLOL you fell into that like the cheap hooker you are with your skirt all hiked up"
nice
ah where was the karma?
pretty psyched about the score tho, since Father's Day will now be a guilt-free day of noooooooooo poker

Friday, May 15, 2009

A Variance Haiku

Ah, the Slop he thought
"Ship me half a huge split pot?"
But Cake, it did not...
It's a comin'


Amylouwho, may all you flops be as tasty as
THIS

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Donktastic finish to $5 donkament

I did play better than this for the 1st 5 hours, really I did

I'm a comin' :)

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Sloppy Poker 2009 Part 2 Update (aka Escape from Stars Hell)

My less exciting, lounge and diamond-card-free update follows...

Summary for the rushed and/or not-so-interested
Post-PokerStars Elite grindy life is better. You know, with less painful angst and non-stop losing and stuff. Non-Stars hourly win rate actually not too far off my 2008 rate -> glimmers of hope for no jobamant (please oh please let the Saving Heater find me)

Oh, YTD mileage = 350
Hey! Mr Math just gave me some great news related to my mileage tally folks! If someone gave me just $2 into my PokerStars account for every mile I've logged, I'd be up nearly 7 bucks there for the year! Wow, not too shabby. And some of you thought 20-tabling against regulars might not be a good idea. Ha!


lol donkaments

Just bounced out 5th in Cake $33 rebuy for $1,500 as of 2:45am Wed. I think I agree with Mark's comments after he busto'd 6th for $1,600 - 1st and $1,000s more might have been a smidge more satisfying. Yeah, I'd say self-destructing this late after chugging 4 cups of uber-strong coffee then some tea on top to stay sharp is less than optimal.

Here's a link to my stupid? unlucky? brain-dead / cursed? gambool from SB. (Backdrop: I was tied for shortstack with 12% of chips in play, and BB had raised ~50-75% of hands pre-flop since we got to 6-or-7-handed including shoving on me from BB once or twice. FWIW my image was likely pretty weak-tight-nitty from a combo of being card dead at FT & working up payday ladder without seeing too many floppos.)

OOOOOOOOPS

To be fair, even though I'm sad / hating myself for the bust-out hand, any cash I got above $167 was pure LuckBox-flavored gravy since I got ~98% of my stack in oh-so-bad with QQ vs Villain's KK but (Imacomin!) hit 2-outer on flop to survive and dodge finishing ~30th . Also moving up to 4th was worth $500, I was trying to keep my eye on the $5k pop for 1st more than 1 more notch up. Like Vanessa Rousso says, I made the Agressive Call here.

Over/under on how long after I wake up & how many times I see visions of that sweet hand replaying in my brain tomorrow? How's 3 1/2 seconds and 27. (Pssst, parlay the under then the over for the W.)

Also, nice job by me failing to bet on the Celtics 2 games in a row to avoid winning $s from dramatic 4th quarter comebacks. nh,wp,tlaHRm (nicehand, wellplayed, thatslameassHomerRollmanagement)



PokerStars - FPP->$s

For May, 3 FPP -> cash items in VIP store at max value. 500 FPPs->$8, 1k FPPs -> $16, 16k->$160. Nice ways to continue to empty the Stars FPP vault and reduce the pain.

I look at my Jan-March log and feel sad, confused & more than a little brain dead when I ponder the 952 hours played averaging 18 tables there as a not-quite-break even-after-rakeback-added "pro". Good times.



FullTilt - Ah sweet, sweet cash

Western Union added as a Withdrawal option. Trip report: 2 cash outs for $200 each, 36-72 hour turnaround, Amy picked up cash no problemo at a RiteAid spot 2 miles from our house. (The only problem is the stress of worrying I might forget to declare cash withdrawals next April. I'm losing sleep nights.)

PLO Games are so-so mostly with some bright spots, but better than Stars I think.

I dipped my toe into Fullring NL some more there. Kind of sort of a little bit fun I guess, probably because I ran better than I played. I did uptick a couple of buyins but obviously more important: ship the FullTilt Academy points tally upticks (FTPA points, now with new Warm Tingly sensation of Achievement flavored with pennies of value!)



Cake - good karma in my 2nd go-round there

Randomly noticed quite a few overlays for guaranteed prize pool donkaments (e.g., $30 rebuy $25k guarantee had ~700 buyins)

What's cooler than cash flipaments? Cake Kamikaze donkaments - everyone forced all in every hand, most fun way to spend 60 seconds online I can think of. I have a pro-like ROI in them so far - "Out of 143 players in Tournament 5196544 ($3 - Kamikaze Tournament!), you came in 8th and have won $15.44"

PLO, PLO/8 NLO/8 games are a bit sparse, but occasionally nice & juicy. My playing style has ranged by the hour (& beat) from NITtyMcNit to LAGSpewTard, but I've run up my $110 rakeback payment I used to seed the account up to ~$450 in May while generating $160 more in rakeback due June 1st.

Emailed Cake I had server problem after raising to $6 preflop (brace yourself, I was playing $3-$6 minbet O/8), called $3 dark postflop because a Cake server message blocked the flop on me, then got booted from table on turn.
Obviously I expected FullTilt style response plan 1) After a random amount of time, receive "we got your email" stock reply 2) 2-3 days of radio silence 3) Copy & paste email saying something relevant like "Your Iron Man points were correctly credited for play in June 2007. Please visit www.fulltiltpokeracademy.com for details, or refer a friend and receive $50!" Got a response from Cake in 30 minutes saying "we didn't detect any server problems, but we credited you $18 for the inconvenience."


Bodog - Overlays, occasional juicy juicy

Noticed some overlays in Guaranteed prize pools here too.

PLO games sometimes uber-TAG (30% <20bb class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">oooooooooh PartyPoker pre-UIGEA PLO / PLO8 games with 50-60% flops and 50-100BB avg pots. If dubhead or blaz1992 is
playing, have a seat. Seriously.

Rakeback available, and you can use Bodog Poker Points to play in SNGs to get T$s.



Absolute - wha?

I know what you're thinking.... "Cereously? Absolute?" Cereus network puns are fun.
Anyway, I fired $70 in rakeback payment to re-seed account. Pretty sure most of the 2+2 / multi-tabling TAG-pro crowd is gone from there, so I may just see how games are.

In all Cereusness, I know the track record there and UB is uber-shady. but I think for any online site, being concerned / paranoid that
1) we might be cheated
2) we might or have our accounts hacked
3) the Kewanakeekookoo gaming commission is useless / corrupt
4) they might never pay us
is just part of an EV calculation.
If a site is populated with cheaters and/or bots but I'm winning, then meh.


Reward for the dedicated, unemployed or bored at work who made it this far

NSFW but if you've seen Silence of the Lambs, you'll either laugh hard or think I'm a sick puppy for finding this funny. Worth clicking, really.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

For the Welcome Back Suckouts...

...we play at Full Tilt Poker
aaaaah this felt nice
(good thing you smooth called the flop and checked the turn, sir. wpnh)

Link to Bodog bet against the Lakers promo
Ship the $50 action on Celtics to win $175 with refund if Lakers win- anyone want a piece?

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Degree All In Moment

5 1/2 hours into Stars $70k rebuy donkament
14th / 43 left, 1st = $12k, 43rd = $132, anything below final 2 tables = crapola $s

Table LAGtard raises for 9,433rd time in last 2 orbits, so ship my first all-in to go to showdown...
Somehow I think cosmic justice was probably served here
Click here to witness as Jay grows tired of LAGtard stealing his thunder and goes wacko

Save us Tony G...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtE5Hx740Pc

Sunday, April 5, 2009

I try to get out, but they keep sucking me back in....

All those NittyMcNitNovaEliteGrinderProLifeVampires slowly draining the soul and bankroll out of me at Stars can go suck it, I'm on Stars cash game sabbatical for a while.
FTP's $600 bonus bribe worked - fired $600 on today using eChecks so I'm back on Tilt for a bit.

Good times at Mohegan yesterday The life of a VideoPoker semi-pro is a good one.

Pat, not trying to torture you here, but maybe you can borrow a quiet FTP account for a while or fire up one in your Mom's to play in these miniFTOPs? I can also see you & I getting addicted to accruing Academy points.

1) Have any of you guys signed up to do any of these Academy challenges? Looks like their ridiculous, but basically a freeroll right?
http://academy.fulltiltpoker.com/challenges/

2) Per FTPDoug on 2+2, FTP points can be used to buy some weekly donkaments & ALL miniFTOPS events 5/7-5/17

I'm going to be splashing in lots o' these - anyone who wants to do some chops email me.

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/mini-full-tilt-online-poker-series/schedule

$750K Guarantee ($216, Sundays at 18:00)
The Double Deuce ($22, Sundays at 16:22) - 4,400 pts
The Daily Dollars ($1 rebuy every day at 15:15, $1 freezeout every day at 20:15) - ship the donkey shoves for 200 pts

3) I'll probably be qualifying & playing in the freerolls to win a WSOP ME seat.
Since I've failed to grab us a Palms Suite at 2010 via NovaElite, you guys are all freerolling for a piece of me when I win one

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Good beat for a change - Jayco is dead, long live amylouhoo

Apparently my Jayco account being Doomswitched was the only real problem.
I guess I should have made NovaElite run as Amylouhoo since that account's LuckBox is not old, tired, and cranky.

Sustainable ROI?
amyloohoo SuperGodMode account stats
(If yes, life will be good)

Oh, and check the time stamp. Now I remember why I stopped playing $10 donkaments that start after 11pm. So sleepy.

Brag #2:
My wife gets some pretty epic birthday presents from the Slop. You can expect to see Amy sporting a snazzy new Snuggie in our next home game. You know, come to think of it, I have never failed to crush a donkament when wrapped up in a Snuggie. Hmmm... think the Rio allows them during the WSOP ME? (I'm sure Foxwoods has banned them as a combo fire hazard / electronic cheating device.)

From: PokerStars Support <support@pokerstars.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 5:35:24 AM
Subject: Results for PokerStars Tournament 149950348

PokerStars Tournament #149950348, Pot Limit Omaha
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
162 players
Total Prize Pool: $3360.00
Tournament started 2009/03/28 23:15:00 ET


Dear amylouhoo,

You finished the tournament in 1st place. A $772.80 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 255.92 tournament leader points in this tournament. For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/


Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Just to make it official...

Barring a miracle and/or sudden, massive softening of the Stars games, SNE chase for 2009 is officially Busto.

I'm at 164k VPPs (75% of 220k to be on pace) and burned out struggling to mega-multitable / not-quite-break even in mediocre-at-best Stars games. After a few hours playing live PLO tonight at Mohegan, I'm going to go out on a limb and say the avg $0.25-$0.50 PLO player on Stars crushes tonights $1-$2 lineup, and except for one good player we ran into, $0.05-$0.10 PLO players would hold their own. Really. Live PLO & PLO8 = juicy. Ah, if only they'd spread double-board.

On an up note, ship the lopsided deal for Mohegan donkament - 3-way chop today. What's that sir? Will I take $1,500 of the $4,900 prize monies as the shortest stack with oh maybe just maybe 20% of chips in play? Yes, yes, I think I will. Math is fun.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Fat lady's clearing her throat

First, the good news.

After bottoming out a week or so ago stucko for the year over $2k (yes, this included all rakeback / FPPs, etc.), this Happy Hand helped spark a comback.

Who's the Big Winner? Jay is!

YTD Results (including FPPs):
+$14 WOOHOO!
156k VPPs (84% of pace)

Now rather than dwell on the fact that I'd be up more $s if I had returned one 12oz can deposit per hour that I played poker, I am feeling damn good to be out of the Bad Place of being a net loser.

But I think odds oI'm going to make SNE are low and dropping. I could make ~750k on my own I think, but unfortunately Harp's seen just how awful the 6-max lol-min-bet games are on Stars, so that's not a profitable or fun place for a Shill to grind out the VPPs. (Think 4 or 5 SNE grinder-TAG-pros per table).

I can't say the PLO 6-max games are much better, and playing the # of tables I need to play to get the required 500 VPPs/hour, I'd be beating the game if it was rake-free, but sadly, it's not.

So I'm playing basically every full-ring PLO game running from $100-to-$400-max available (ranges from 6 to 12), earning 250-400 VPPs/hour, and basically managing to break even. I think I may even be squeaking out a small edge, which combined with not running 23,739,456 std deviations below avg on all-in luck has created a few upticks lately.

What this means barring some kind of intervention, revelation, or me sucking less at the pokerz is that a more realistic target is more like ~600-700k VPPs. I'll finish March and maybe 1/2 of April playing 100% on Stars. At some point I'll need to think if mixing in some Tilt, Cake, etc is more profitable. Maybe we can create Team Sloppy to McGuyver a brilliant solution using nothing but PT data, a minivan, 1 Dong cable, and a 5-hour drive to AC in April?

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Beat, Brag, or Variance?

Is this a good fold here?

Yes, this is a trick question.
See if you can figure it out before hints...



Hint #1: I nominate this particular fold as a potential new Champion Laydown which may supplant the one Harp & I witnessed on the Mohegan Tek tables.

Summary of that Epic Fold was something along these lines:
4 people left in SNG, top 3 pay. Perhaps brain-damaged or possibly just very kind-hearted & generous woman with short stack of say T1,050 (avg = ~5k) antes & posts BB, but when the SB raises her an additional, wait for it, T50, she folds. Yes, she put in 95%+ of her stack in the BB then folded on the bubble.

My fold, um, probably worse on a few levels.


Hint #2:
Would it be a good fold if someone walked by and dropped a bag of money filled with 1,100 $1 bills onto the table to go to the winner before the hand started? Because if it would still be a good fold when getting implied odds of >1,100-1 for that oh-so-precious dollar I decided not to invest, then yeah, it was a good fold.

Hint #3:
Hand number might have ended in 000,000.

Yup, I folded for $1 UTG in a milestone hand. Oooooooh how it burnses.
SuperNovas get $550 if they lose a milestone hand, $1,650 if they win it.
But only if they aren't mega-tabling and FREAKING NOTICE THE CHAT BOX.

So yes, winning $550 was definitely way cool.
I will say I didn't reaaaaallllly enjoy it as much as I would have if I hadn't folded. The railbird chat was not kind.

Now accepting nominees for name of folds for a buck getting over 1,000-1 odds (The MilliSlop?)

I may feel a twinge when I wake up tomorrow and remember I clicked the Fold button.
On the other hand, ship the LuckBox activation maybe? Please?

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Stars 25B promo - robofoldo Sat anyone?

Link:
Stars page

Summary:
- 25% reload bonus up to $250, clearing requirement = 20 VPPs / $1 bonus, 6 months to clear
- $s given away every 1M hands starting tonight (until Sat)
- $250,000 giveaway to 1 table for hand # 25,000,000,000

Anyone interested in doing the robofold thing again? Prize would be bigger than 10B promo - $250k chopped 6 ways if we hit.

No real clue on our chances, but if I had to SWAG it I'd say odds of hitting would be somewhere from 200-1 to 2,000-1. I'll try to better estimate our chances if it looks like we might be able to get 6 people together again.

hit supernova today

yeehaw.
feel the excitement.

First, the grim stats update:

A sick bone-crushing the 1st week of February brought my YTD results to below $0. Yup, that does includes the FPPs. Ship the losing Pro.
YTD total = -$313
FPPs = 102k (91% of SNE pace)
Miles = 110


The possible glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel:

I reached the end of my rope Sunday playing & running like complete crap ($3k from bad/losing play, $3.5k more from all-ins below expectation, obv I did something evil to P.O. the poker gods). So I decided I needed to force myself to kick the testosterone up 3 notches and play SloppyAngry or not at all. I even watched a few Cardrunners videos to help psych myself up for a) no more short-stack weenieness, b) no more wimpy-wimpy-open-limpy, c) WAY more 3-jacking in position

I guess I succeeded in ramping up the aggro...
Stats in PLO 6-max for 1/1-2/7: VPIP 22.2%, PFR = 3.0%, Agg factors 0.14/5.6/5.3/7.4
2/8-2/10: VPIP 18.4%, PFR = 10.0%, Agg = 1.1/8.1/6.5/5.7

I can't say the transition to opening up the aggression pre-flop's and FIRE FIRE FIRING relentlessly with c-bets in position has gone 100% smoothly. I absolutely positively SPEWED chips most of Sunday, Monday, and this morning.

But it has started to feel like maybe my brain has opened up a few cracks occasionally to let some light in. Like tonight as my robot hand was auto-reaching to rapid-click the pot button when checked to, I had radical 6-th level thoughts come to me like "hey, I could actually check behind sometimes in a 4-way raised pot with 7654 when it flops AKQ, can't I?")
I kid you not, I'm actually UP $200 (in Sklansky AND real money $s) over my last 4,000 hands

Cute little illusion: This game rebuild is like Tiger rebuilding his swing after winning 10 majors to take it to the next level.
Reality: I'm more like the guy on The Biggest Loser who gets winded pumping his fist wilidly because he just dropped a monster 20 lbs to weigh in at 480.

But you gotta walk before you run, and I think full-stack with aggro at least has some chance at getting me closer to at least break-even poker with this many tables. I also ramped down the # of tables from 15-18 to 10-14. This feels like it boosts my chances of playing a bit better. I'm falling behind SNE pace, but for now I'd rather focus on not bleeding my roll to death, I can add tables later if I get back to not losing 99/100 sessions.

Actually I think maybe I have the formula for max tables I can manage without DeathMonkeySpew... 4 x # of coffees downed in last 2 hours.

Amy back from Vegas any minute. My quick summary of her trip...
She & my sister where strong Coupon-Nits-in-training for +$80, supplemented by complete uber-nitty food bankroll management including, wait for it, a 2 for 1 buffet at the IP. Oh amylouwho, even a coupon nit has to set limits, so sad. She went 0 for 4 in donkaments with 1 bubble & 1 other final table out of money, but +$800 on cash games. Nice to see 1 Coskie doesn't suck.

Check out this email she sent me...
"If only I were playing at the Orleans..
Got all my money in with middle set against overpair and top set-I lose. Turn quads- I win! River makes bigger quads- I lose. Would have been 80k bad beat jackpot at the Orleans. :-("

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Some good news (this is irony-free, I promise)

Well I guess there are more of you reading than who show up as official registered blog followers, so I'm going to keep up the self-therapy via the bloggydoo for a bit longer anyway.

I do hereby self-decree that whiny graphs & bad beat stories are verboten for a while, so from now on nothing but 100% pure think-HappyThoughts-post-HappyThoughts all day every day. (Which means if you see no updates for a while it's probably not because I'm crushing Ivey at the Thunderdome table.)

On to the good news.
Not sure if any of you saw this alert from the PPA a few days ago..

"Recently, State Representatives Brian P. Wallace, Martin J. Walsh proposed HR 3954, a bill that seeks to expand casino gambling in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This bill also includes a proposition that would make it a crime for you to play poker on the Internet (See: Section 18(j)(lines 1446-1453) Under this provision, online poker players will be subject to a maximum term of 2 years in the house of correction, a fine of $25,000, or both. Ironically, HR 3954 is pro-casino gambling legislation, yet it makes Internet gaming a crime. This is an unacceptable double-standard!"

I called both Reps offices and had a good time ranting, not-too-artfully hammering out the phrases "stay-at-home Dad" and "hypocritical" at least 3 or 4 times each. No surprise probably, but I enjoy the occasional wallowing around in and spewing self-righteous indignation.

Anyway, now the cool part... after being pounded with calls & emails, Rep. Wallace's office sent out this email yesterday:
"The section was inadvertantly added to the bill. I am going to move to strike the entire section about internet poker. Sorry for the confusion
Brian Wallace"

Nice.
Rep who responds in a pro-gambool way to phone beatings >>> Rep who can spell "inadvertent".
So now we can officially root conflict-free for the MA Casino gaming bill (you know, the one that Harper assures us will bring oodles of VPIP 80% tables, scantily-clad women bringing us Red Bull and free snacks, and the repeal of the UIGEA)

A good day. :)
I even cracked triple digit miles today, ship the 100 mile tally
:)

YTD results before tonight's massive uptick:
Net Total with FPP value added = +$116 (hey, it starts with a "+", so it could be worse)
VPPs 91k (92% of pace)

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Fresh start, Ship the new month, wheee....

I am a freaking artist- check out Feb 1st EV graph...



Oh how I wish this was a joke. I'm pretty sure my ears were on fire during the last 2 all-ins that went less than happily.

YTD running tally of Luck Box = $3,031.98 below expectation on all-ins. (The 98 cents is the part that really hurts.)

Maybe I just need more cow bell?
Yeah. Obviously I need play my next session listening only to songs with cowbell. Never ran below expectation one time that I can remember when Don't Fear the Reaper was playing, so I think this is a good plan.

Look for a strong update soon once I've made a solid Cowbell playlist. Assuming my head doesn't explode before then.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

January rules!

Finally, a couple of hand to turn things around last night and today :)

Sweet slowplay of quads

One mo' time

Well, OK that's just 2 hands in a vacuum. I'm actually playing like God and running even better over the last week...



So who wants to go pro with me? Non-stop fun!

Oh, and you know you're running good when your rakeback provider figures out they overpaid you & fixes your balance to make it -$162.

Awe-inspiring totals for the month:

Non-stars (liveaments, FTP, misc junk) = +$348
Stars = +$1,100 (-$3,700 cash + $4,800 FPP value)
But VPPs are on pace at 87k, so I'm a pro who dominates obviously.

Assuming I actually manage to run at $0 all-in luck going forward while playing the same crap not-quite-breakeven game I played for 1 month, here's what my year would look like:

Cash "Win" = -$26k (-$4k Jan -$2k x 11 months)
FPP bonus value = $56k
Milestone bonuses extra value = $23k
Elite Packages = $10k cash + Main event package (entry + $2k cash + hotel) + WCOOP ticket

Projected 2009 = $63k cash + $10k WSOP ME seat + $5k online donkament seat


Oh the glamor and glory of the rakeback pro. This is as sexy as being Snout Man at the Sara Lee bologna assembly line.

But I'm still pretty damn psyched for it. Sweatpants >> income, and bizarrely I'm starting to look forward to playing tomorrow after thinking I'd vomit if I saw another hand an hour ago.

Friday, January 30, 2009

If a baby seal waddled by to ask how I'm running, it's even money I'd club it, stuff it with Sklansky bucks, & send its fuzzy head to Myron in a box


I'm just sayin'.


Miles = 75
80,303 VPPs (101% of pace hooray i loooove the pokerz)
+$2,690 Net (-$1,725 from play +$4,415 FPP value)


Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Here comes the sum

What makes me more of a degenerate fringe member of society?
a) Seeing the scary glimmer of sunrise as I'm off to bed 3 nights this week
b) Cackling alone and making oh-so-white-boy ghetto finger gestures at the monitor at 4 am because of this...
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3680938
How you like me now beeyotch? -> spell-checked suggested I change that to bewitched, but I won't
c) Noticing that right now within my line of sight in my "office" I have no less than 3 casino dice, 1 lit up dice lamp, a geeky poker hat piles o' poker books, a deck or two of cards, a coffee mug with 50 $1 casino chips?

Ship the uptick, freaking finally

In the twilight between Day 6/7:
Miles = 16
16,600 VPPs
+$896 Net (-$39 from play +$935 FPP value)

Oh and bye-bye Full Tilt, cleared the $500 Year-End bonus. Being done with IronMan for anywhere from 1 month to forever feels like running naked down a hill in Vermont to jump in a pond at 40 degrees. Which is fun, ask Amy (or Josh).

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Some numbers

Stars Day 3 1/2
10,478 VPPs
+$240 Net (-$347 from play +$587 FPP value)

I'm just going to lump all the non-Stars poker crapola into one lump sum (all the live play, occasional FTP bonuses, Cake freerolls, Absolute pathetically bribing me to come back by randomly sticking $40 into my account, etc.). Plan is to only track and look at that junk monthly.

I can tell already this SNE grind is going to be semi-sweet sick self-inflicted pain. If I'm going to be alive March 1st, I think I'll need to bag the Pokerz when we hit Aruba Feb 19th for a week. So my goal until then is to not lose my whole $5k Stars roll while cranking out 3k VPPs/day until then. If I make that, I'll have 150k when we get back 2/26 (on pace will be 156k).

As for the $s, If I make it to 150k with a busto $0 balance but making no more deposits I'll be up about $4k (from earning $9k worth of FPPs - $5k of bustoness). Definitely meh at best, but the big $s come from 500k-1M anyway. At least that's the rationalization I pretty much need to keep playing almost but not quite breakeven poker without poking my eyeballs with a stick.

I'm not updating Mr. Blog again until I actually win once.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

2nd thoughts

Get it? Jan 2nd? This is what 4am with no carbs does for the Humor factory. Except now it's the 3rd, so now we have both wrong & not funny.

Overkill maybe?
Click me, I'm one wacky hand!

(Oh right, for those of you who have jobs and can't see this because it's on a gambling-related website... sucks to be you. Really. Sweat pants >>> income IMO)

Miles = 7
VPPs = 6,840 (under 994,000 more, I can taste the Elite goodness)

I've decided to include the value of FPPs earned to make myself feel better by padding my stats. I'd still have made more money staying in bed for 2 days with a YTD net of -$159. How does a Pro make up for a negative win rate per hand you ask? Volume, baby, volume.

Jay's random Life Tip #1:
Try not to drop and then drive over your iPhone headphones-microphone. I've found it reduces sound quality. Really, it does.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Let the degenerate stupidity begin...

Decided to start the year by being both healthy and practical. Woke up at 1150pm, took this as an omen that I should get up on 3 hours of sleep, suck down 3 cups of old coffee and play until the sun showed up.

14-to-20 tabled PLO ($0.50-$1 and $1-$2)

Shape of the curve a lopsided semi-smirk

Won the first pot for a sweet $40 uptick. The thought of "Oh please oh please let that not be the peak of my year" came unbidden into my head, this is not a good omen but winning the first all-in sure is.
This was followed by gorgeous Grimstar-like steep 7-buyin freefall with the capper being top set no good vs middle set. Of course followed by violent head rubbing and 5 minutes of ramping the LAGtastic spew factory into full production. So hours 1 & 2 of 2009 not so good.
Lucky for me laptop lost internet connect when I got stucko $800 at 3am, so I got a chance to cool down. 4 hours of grindy-grindy, sun burning the bejesus out of my eyeballs at 645am, and we're back to -$84 and 3,630 VPPs.

1.3 hours of FTP grind 1-2pm to clear 10% of 10k points for $500 Jan bonus and up exactly to the dollar what I lost in am.

So much drama for no real results, but I'm on pace baby!
Miles = 0
VPPs = 3,630 (6.2 hours on Stars)
Win/Loss = $0

ONLY NINE HUNDRED NINTEY-SIX THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY VPPs TO GO! IT'S LIKE I'M HALF DONE ALREADY!