Litlebastrd's blog

Well not much to report in poker lately.  I've been about breakeven over the last couple weeks with 0 hands played.    It's tough to know what to do as a player from the U.S. that counts on online poker for their income after black Friday.  I've at least done well enough to be able to take some time off and not worry about paying the bills, but I definitely feel bad for those that don't have this cushion and are stuck between having to think about moving right away or look for a different career path.  

At first I thought online poker would probably be regulated pretty quick because I thought the DOJ suing was an easy way to clear the market.  There was one piece of legislation from a few months ago that would have legalized and regulated poker, but it had a mandatory 1 year blackout period on online poker in order to have the new companies prepare to launch.  It didn't pass though and I figured the DOJ lawsuit could have been just a convenient way around passing legislation but still clearing the U.S. market rather effectively.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?6043579

Logic:  SB/BB battle, this opponent frequently plays short sessions and can run some crazy bluffs.  Not sure if this is his part of his strategy to make some big bluffs and then quit before people catch on, but either way I think he's FOS quite often on the flop.  I decide to call planning to do something stupid on later streets.  The turn comes the perfect card to do something stupid.  Given his flop raise and my call I should have many more fullhouses in my range than him, so I execute my plan.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?6043498

I was hoping I could post a little prettier graph for my first one at coinflip, but 2011 hasn't been too kind to me so far.  It started off with some shots at the nosebleeds that went badly and I've tried to plow through the downswing by playing a ton of 5-10 through 25-50 but the winning days are few and far between and the five figure days below EV are almost expected.  I think what makes this downswing even tougher on me is that in 2010 it seemed like every downswing I had was followed rather quickly with a big upswing.  It felt like I couldn't really lose and a bad month for me was breaking even.  I'm not sure if I just ran that well in 2010 or if I'm running that terribly in 2011, but having a 50buyin downswing over 60,000 hands seemed very unlikely to me last year.  

Poker variance seems to be pretty standard about 95% of the time.  You win some days and lose others and usually it tends to even out for the most part.  At the least, good play will usually overcome small negative variance.  Then there's that 5% of the time where variance really makes itself known.  Some times it feels like you won the lottery and money is just stacking up at your tables when you aren't even trying.  You just hit big hand after big hand, get paid off, and you can do no wrong.  I almost feel bad during these stretches because it makes me nervous that eventually I'll be on the other end of this.

I got into Australia a few days ago to play the Aussie millions and to check another country off my list that I haven't visited before.  So far other than maybe Canada, Australia is the easiest country to feel at home at.  The overall feel is Very similar to the U.S, they have the same cousine, same language (mostly) and the currency is almost exactly equal to the U.S. dollar.  The other stuff that's different is generally pretty similar to Europe, mainly tip and tax included in the price and having to watch out for sparkling water. 

So far poker still isn't treating me too well in 2011.  After a couple rough downswings to start the year in online cash games, my first tournament of 2011 that I played here in Australia ended with me losing with the nut flush to KQ on a Qc9c5c 5 5 run out.  I've also lost about 4 out of 6 credit card roulettes which is starting to get a bit ridiculous.  At least there has only been one real big bill in there.  I feel like after everything going right in 2010 I'm going to have a tough 2011, but I'm not really upset by any of the poker losses and feel like I shrug them off better than in the past.

I went with a few friends to the Australian Open and saw Roger Federer play which was a pretty cool experience.  It's always great to see some of the legends of the sport live, even though I think we had the worst possible seats in the place since we got them the day of the event.  It was a pretty small intimate, stadium though and still easily worth the cheap tickets.  

I remember when I first was introduced to the world of high stakes poker which now seems like a lifetime ago. I was a junior in college and watching the 2003 ESPN coverage of the main event. I was instantly drawn to the game and would watch the reruns of Moneymaker and Farha battling their way to the final table and eventually clash heads up both after the same fame and fortune. Ever since I saw my first world series of poker event I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of and that was the catalyst that started my poker journey over 6 years ago.

I started playing in homegames around college but we were all pretty broke and it was tough to find people to even put up $5-10 on a consistent basis for a game.  I heard that they had poker online as well and signed up to a site and entered a bunch of freerolls, and would sometimes stay up late into the night and play those for a shot at a few bucks but more just for the entertainment of it.  Eventually I got sick of the freerolls as they ran so rarely and my roommate and I both put in $40 to a site. I promised myself if I lost this I wouldn't deposit again for fear of developing a gambling problem or losing money I couldn't afford to lose at the time. 

It seemed the pokergods were on my side though as my roommate ran pretty bad and lost his $40 and I managed to build it up gradually playing SNGs despite probably playing way too high for how much money I had.  I'm still not sure if I lost that $40 immediately if I ever would have deposited again.