Make sure to use signup code jhub for 33% rakeback when signing up for Cake Poker. There's also a 100% deposit bonus up to $500.

For those that haven't yet, read these 2 previous posts before reading this. The links to them can be found here:

http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/2008/04/17/

http://jhub3000.livejournal.com/2008/04/22/

I'm finally gonna do another blog entry, but it's probably not going to be as long as it could be as I won't go into too many details.

One night Little Kraut, Clamface, and I decided to play some MTTs. Me and Clam were both pretty deep in the nightly (he had 28K, I had 21K) & he called me asking if I wanted to swap for 50% of each other. Since we're both good players & it's high variance I said yes. It was a roller coaster the ride the rest of the way. Both of us were in and out of the top 5/10. I obviously wasn't going to try to climb the pay ladder & was playing for 1st so when an aggressive player raised in the CO I made a standard re-shove w/ something like QT (can't remember if it was suited or offsuit) considering stack sizes & his ranges. He obviously woke up w/ AK & held so I busted around 47th. I was on to sweating Clam. Clam made a couple of the nittiest folds I had ever seen. I won't go into detail but it all worked out. Then when they were 4 handed he made basically his only move of the tournament, re-shoving 86s. The guy called w/ A9 but the flop came bink, bink, giving Clam trips. GG sir. What a box. When they were 3 handed all players were pretty good and even in chips & someone asked to discuss a chop. Everyone agreed. Clam had a slight chip lead so he got just under $30K. That means that just under $15K went to me. Nice swap sir. It was about 2 am when the tourney finished so me, Clam, & Kraut went out to celebrate. Clam chose his 2nd home, The Rhino, for the occasion. What a degen.

The 3 of us decided to play a $550 Venetian deep stack tournament one day. Upon arriving I looked around the room & saw a lot of gray hair. Let's just say there were a lot of nitty old men. I like to see this in a poker tournament as these players often overplay their big pairs & pay you off 200BBs deep when you hit the flop big w/ a small pair or suited connector. They also seem to be the type to berate you for what the mathematical young players see as standars shoves late game. We started w/ 15K in chips w/ the blinds at 25/50. There were about 500 entrants & the top prize was around $50K. I sat down at my table & soon realized there were a few aggressive young players at the other end of the table who seemed to be playing well. It was almost certainly a tougher than average table for the tournament but at least the good players were at the other end of the table. The players seemed to be pretty easy to control so I started out playing very aggressively, raising hands like K2s in middle position & J2s in late position. I ran into a couple big hands early where I lost a lot of chips that I couldn't have avoided. In one hand I made it 125 under the gun w/ 55, the donk fish calling station lady to my left called, & an aggressive young European made it like 425 in late position. Considering that we had 15K behind us I considered it a very easy call to try and flop a set & win a big pot. Donk fish calling station lady called behind me as well. At this point I put DFCSL on basically any hand in the top 50% or so since she seemed to hate folding, & I put the re-raiser on a big pair or AK. The flop came QT5. Bingo. I flopped a set of 5s. I thought about leading out but decided to go for a check-raise. I checked, DFCSL checked, and the re-raiser made around a pot sized bet. I check-raised for an amount around triple his bet, DFCSL somehow folded her hand so she must not have had a pair, & the re-raiser called. At this point I thought his most likely holdings were AA, KK, or QQ. I certainly don't think he's calling that check-raise w/ AK. There's an outside chance he could have a hand like JJ or TT, but I thought that was pretty unlikely. I didn't think he was very likely to re-raise a UTG raise so deep w/ either of these hands & he'd most likely fold JJ after the check-raise anyway. On to the turn: in my head I'm saying "no ace, no king, no ace, no king". Doh. A king spikes on the turn. I wanted to puke but held back. The pot was very large & I didn't see much point in leading out and committing a large portion of my stack at this point. I checked hoping he would just check behind. He declined and made about a pot size bet (about half his remaining stack). At this point I was pretty sure I was folding but I tanked to think through the hand & try to get some sort of physical tell on him. There's an outside chance he has a hand like AA or JJ, but I think he's actually pretty likely to check behind w/ both of those hands on that turn, or fold the flop w/ JJ. He seemed pretty calm as well, so I thought it was pretty unlikely he was pulling some random bluff, which is very unlikely anyway since he called a flop check-raise from a UTG raiser. I figured there was no way I could talk myself into calling against his range & folded. Puke. Not long after I pick up AA at 50/100. I make it 400 after Limpasaurus Rex makes his favorite limp 50% of hands play right in front of me, DFCSL obv calls behind me. The rest of the table folds & to my surprise limpasaurus rex folds as well. The flop comes ace, rag, rag w/ 2 clubs. I made a continuation bet looking 1/2 pot bet & DFCSL called. I thought about making a bigger bet but had seen DFCSL fold to bigger bets earlier, while always calling small to medium sized bets. Also, before I go any further, I had seen her bet T4s the entire way on a KJT85 3 heart board earlier in a raised pot (multiway on flop & turn). I still don't know if she was trying to value bet or bluff & I don't think she knows either. The turn was a blank, I bet between 2/3 & 3/4 pot & she obv called. The river was a club. Yawn. I saw no point in betting at this point, especially since she seemed to love to bet mediocre hands. I checked, she bet a little under the size of the pot, & there's no way I should ever fold top set against this lady but unfortunately she had chased down a flush this time. A couple of unlucky hands early that left me w/ under 9K. Had things gone my way I could have chipped up. However, I continued my aggressive ways raising a lot of hands & destroying the donks at my table & still managed to chip up to 19K before the 1st break. Little Kraut had a nice 30-40K stack & break & Clam had about 12K. Clam busted shortly after break. I soon got moved to another table, which was a bad beat. About half the table played for a living. I had to switch gears a lot & pick my spots at this table as opposed to keeping my foot on the gas the entire way as I did at my last table. I had about 25K when I sat down. I won about 18K off one lady when I raised from the hijack w/ KK & smooth called her re-raise. She then overbet shoved a J-9-rag flop w/ AQ & I held. In another hand, a short stack in the CO immediately to my right w/ about 8K opened for 2100 in the CO. I had QQ & made a standard re-raise. Everyone folds back to the original raiser who went into the tank for what seemed like forever. At this point I figured I was way ahead & really really wanted him to call. How could he possibly be tanking w/ a hand that does decent against QQ when he opened for over 1/4th his stack in the CO & got re-raised by the button? He finally says "alright I call since I like ya." I was then shocked when he flipped over AK. How anyone could possibly tank w/ AK in that spot is beyond me. The first card that's flops is an ace but the 2nd card is a Q & he's sent packing. I was then chip leader at the table w/ somewhere between 45K & 50K. However, the blinds continued to climb at a ridiculous rate & nothing really went right. I lost some pots standard raising & getting re-raised or continuation betting. Even a small pot like that was pretty big w/ the blinds & several of them add up. I then lost 2 big coin flips to bust out: 55 vs AQ & 99 vs AJ. I finished around 240th. GG 7 hours of my life. MTTs truly are horrible unless you play a lot of them to get in a decent sample size or you can just run like a Greek God. I do neither unless I'm swapping w/ someone.

I won't go into detail about the rest of the trip. It was the standard going out to eat, going to shows, going to clubs/strip clubs, etc... I did managed to get owned at credit card roulette a couple more times. One bill me & Clam chopped for about $400-$450 each & another I got stuck with for $400-$450. I run good at that game. I didn't really do too much the last couple days in Vegas because I felt like death. I still feel kinda shitty but am feeling better. I'm at my girlfriend Paula's right now so I'm playing pretty minimally on my laptop while she's at clinicals. I've been playing more on Pokerstars & my third site since you can shrink the tables smaller on Cake & I can play more tables on my laptop. I plan on going camping & fishing this weekend w/ Paula's family. Hopefully I feel better by then.

I really don't feel like posting daily/weekly stats since I didn't play as much in Vegas & it's time consuming so I'm just going to post monthly & yearly results this blog. I'm merging MTT, cash game, live, & HU SNG profits all into one. The hourly rate listed is only for 6 man & 9-10 man SNGs & does not include any of these or staking. The hours played listed as also only SNGs but I've probably only played 20 hours of other games all year. I'm going to count my swap w/ Clamface as staking.

Results:

Month of July:
24.6 hrs played
Monthly Profit From Playing SNGs: $7,068.85
MTTs, cash games, HU SNGs, live: -$366.07
Rakeback/Bonuses: $11,204.19
Total Profit From Playing: $17,906.97
Staking: $25,509
Total Monthly Profit: $43,415.97


Year of 2008:
843.39 hrs played
Total Profit From Playing SNGs: $218,737.02
MTTs, cash games, HU SNGsm live: -$3,406.70
Rakeback/Bonuses: $76,993.54
Total Profit From Playing: $295,730.56
Hourly Rate: $350.65 (excluding staking)
Staking: $48,715.04
Total Yearly Profit: $344,456.60






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