The Poker Players Alliance is a nonprofit organization that consists of poker players and poker enthusiasts who have joined together in order to promote the game, ensure its integrity, and protect the rights of poker players... and I'm a proud member! I joined the PPA a little over a year ago and it's really growing. The Alliance is now boasting over 930,000 members and still climbing in hopes of reaching 1,000,000 members. If you're a poker player or just have a thing for the game, please sign up. You can do so for free, but there are other levels of membership to help donate to the cause.
When the UIGEA was put into play, but PPA vowed to fight against it in order to right things. In 2005, the PPA spent nearly $260,000 and in 2006, they spent $540,000 lobbying against the bill. This past year it was $940,000 spent in lobbying efforts to help retract the UIGEA and get things back on the upside for the poker players. I am proud to have dedicated some time and some of my money to this cause and I really feel everyone should do the same. Even if you don't have any extra cash to spare, you can sign up for free and send a letter to your Congressman in order to help push the cause. The more people we have behind us, the better the lobbying will go.
I highly encourage everyone to get on this and help the push on Washington to get the UIGEA removed. Join now!
I had another terrible, terrible day on the tables Monday. I played a ton, over 1,500 hands, but just couldn't get anything going or anything to work out. I lost a lot of hands I should have won and I ran all of my big hands into even bigger ones. I am going to stay positive and remember that it's a long grind for a cash game player.
I took a break from the action and read some articles over at Card Player. I came across an interview by Lizzy Harrison with Kenny Tran. Kenny is a very well respected professional and I admire he grinder mentality so much. Here is a quote from the interview when Tran was asked what characteristics great cash game players share that stood out to me:
"Guts. Great cash-game players are fearless. They just have to be really gutsy. Experience is also important. And I have to say that they must be able to play under pressure. The players who handle the pressure best take all of the money in the end. Also, a great cash-game player will never second-guess his reads or his instincts. He must be willing to go broke at all times."
I am working really hard at poker and trying to get as good as possible. I know I am only playing the micro-stakes, but you have to start somewhere. I have played enough poker that I completely understand what Tran is talking about when he mentions that great cash game players will trust their instincts. I will always trust my instincts, even when I may be scared or tend to back off. It's something that everyone should really try and work on, especially when starting off. The more you trust yourself, the better you will be. If you can learn to trust yourself and your instincts early on, you're reads will improve over time with experience and you will progress steadily.
Sometimes when you're finding it hard on the felt, you just have to get some inspiration elsewhere.
I thought I was getting off to a good start to the month, but then it all went south. I fired up my first few cash sessions for March and did well. I score some good wins and was moving along just like I thought I should be. Then, all of a sudden I made a couple bad decisions and it was a spiral downfall after that. The bad plays weren't all that bad, I just made some weak calls when I should have folded (or maybe raised). But after that, I fixed things and got my mind back to thinking un-donkey like. It's too bad luck wasn't on my side after that because I had my AA cracked four times in the remainder of the session, and my hands repeatedly went down to worse hands that caught up. Sometimes it just doesn't work out your way. I didn't tilt and figured it was just a matter of time before my luck turned in the session and I'd get it back back. I built some of it back up and was halfway back to even for the day when I took some more beats and got knocked right back down to where I was. After a few minutes of contemplating the session and hands, I realized that despite my bad play early on, it was wasn't my luck today.
I truly believe poker is a game of skill, but you do run bad at times. It happens to me, it happens to everyone, it's just the game. I also believe that anyone serious about the game should look at poker in the long run of things, rather than the short run. Yes, I had a bad session and could keep battling to get it all back, or I could go home and lick my wounds for to be back for battle another day. I choose the latter. The games will still be there, the fish will still be spewing money. I'll take my session loss and move on, just a few bumps in the road.
That's the bad news of things. I always preferred the bad news first. I'd rather be broken down and then lifted up as opposed to the other way around. Think about it this way... would you rather start a session off losing and then win, or start off winning and then lose?
The poker crew at my school has been a pretty good group of guys for the past few years. We started off playing cash games and tournaments a while back and have continued it ever since. Players have come and gone, but the core group is in tact and is as solid as ever. And, we're playing so good right now, all of us, especially online.
KakaFC22 was found at the final table of a $10+1 KO tournament on FTP last night. He went into the final nine in the middle of the pack, only to emerge victorious! He bested 849 other entrants to take down first place. I'd gladly have no problem backing this guy in almost any tournament. He also cashed in the Sunday $750k major. What a way for KakaFC22 to start off the month with a score of over $1,800!
JOBtheNUTS also scored big this weekend. I got a call Saturday night from him to get on the rail of his tournament. When I pulled it up, he was down to the final two tables of the Daily Double B on FTP sitting in fourth chip position. I watched the tournament from here on out and I have to say, the play was quite bad. Raises were anywhere from 4x-8x BBs PF and there was no reraising, just shoving. The blinds weren't even that high and I feel there could have been a lot more play in the tournament. I tend to see people getting anxious and crazy when the blinds get big and they are deep in a tournament. But you have to remember, the blinds need to be big in relation to your stack before you start going nuts. JOBtheNUTS seemed to understand this and sat pretty tight, picking off a few people on his way to the final table. When he got there, the play was just crazy, people firing everywhere. JOBtheNUTS stayed out of the way for the most part and picked his spots very wisely. He found himself heads up, but dominated by a 5-1 chip disadvantage. He did manage to get it in with AKo versus A3o, but a 3 hit the board and JOBtheNUTS finished in 2nd place for just under $1,700! Very well deserved.
Clopis87, another member of our group also had a good weekend and start to the month. He began by taking down a $10+1 90-man KO tournament for $230. After a night off, Clopis87 got back on the tables and went deep in a few more tournaments. He placed 2nd and 5th in two more $10+1 90-man KO tournaments and also finished 4th in a $10+1 MTT for a total of $370 in winnings. But wait, he wasn't done there. Last night, Clopis87 made his way into the money in both Daily Doubles for a double cash and went deep in the Daily Double A, coming in 10th place. He managed to run AJo into AKo all-in PF and busted on the final table bubble. He earned a nice $168 for his effort and brought his total over the weekend to over $750!
These guys all did an awesome job and I hope they keep it up because they are just on fire right now. I also hope they don't start playing over their heads, I know how a few wins can make you feel invincible at times. They are all solid players and it's just amazing that we're all peaking at the same time. If you ever find any one of us deep in a tournament, you'll surely see most of the crew on the rail watching all the action. Congratulations fellas on some great finishes and stellar starts to the month of March!
I'd also like to mention that BJU_18 is heading to AC this weekend with KakaFC22 to dabble in some live action. BJU_18 is a solid live player and hopefully hits some big scores in the WSOP Circuit events he will be playing this weekend. He has the ability to go deep and take one of these down and I really hope he does. He finished on the bubble, and I do mean ON THE BUBBLE of a WPT event at the Borgata last year. It was such a killer to him and he just needs to realize that shit happens. We've all been out on the bubble, but you gotta play to win. I'm confident he'll be right back on his game come this weekend. The trip report and updates will be over at The B_LOG, so definitely check them out to see how he's doing. I'll also try and post some stuff here as well.
It's been a few days since I've posted, but only because I've been playing my ass off lately. I'm truly grinding online as hard as I've ever been this week. FTP was offering up double points and I was going to take full advantage of it. I've netted over 8,000 hands this week alone. I'm still sticking to my schedule of weekly cash game play coupled with weekend tournament play and it's working. I'm feeling really, really good about my game over the past few weeks and hope I can keep it up.
It's about time that FTP finally updated their software and improved upon some things. I really like the site and I love the players their, haha. I am going to make a couple deposits on some other sites either this month or next month. I'm thinking about putting money back on Stars and Bodog, along with maybe starting up at Cake Poker. Cake seems to have some cool gimmick ideas going on over there that I might want to try out and they also have a bonus where I can score a free year's subscription to Poker Savvy. That's right up my alley.
Phil Ivey took down the LAPC this past week. He's just a poker machine, but I'm going to have to throw my congratulations elsewhere. My good friend who plays under JOBtheNUTS on FTP came in second place last night in the Daily Double B for a cool $1,600. He did really well going into the final two tables and was able to maneuver his way down to the last 4 or 5 when he picked up KK and was called all-in by A9o. As we seem to want to complain about so often, the ace flopped, but the river brought a K to give it back to my boy. He got down to heads up, but was dominated with only 18 BBs to the other guy's 50+ BB stack. A few hands into heads up, JOBtheNUTS got it in with AK versus A3 and a 3 spiked to take him out in second. It happens and that's poker. So much congratulations go out to him for a good score and I hope he can keep it rolling in MTTs.
Like I said before, I've been playing a ton this week. I have really been slacking on producing some hand histories here, but it's only because I've really been multitabling hard and haven't been saving them. Don't get me wrong, I have been reviewing key hands, I just feel the need to sleep when I'm not playing or doing something school related. Here are my spreadsheet and graph for the week.
My graph this week is a lot more steady and flowing up. I said I wanted to get my BB/100h up around 4-5 from last week when it was at 2.5. This week I was over 19 BB/100h, which is an amazing rate. You should always have a good sample size when analyzing these numbers, and I played over 8,000 hands. That is pretty good in my opinion and I am very proud of my play and my results. I hope I can keep this up and be able to move up limits sometime in the near future.
I dabbled some in some $.25/.50 games as you can see in my session spreadsheet, and I didn't fair to well money wise. The big losing session, I was up and then took two consecutive beats on some big hands that caused a big swing in my stack. I battled to get some of it back, but still finished the session down a good amount. I'm sure with some more honing of my game, I'll be ready to move up in due time. Before I move up though, I do want to make sure I can get 30 buy-ins for the game I'm going to be playing. I am a pretty big bankroll nit, even though I spew sometimes. Lately I've been doing really well with my money management and I vow to keep it up! I also want to have three consecutive winning sessions under my belt before moving up to the next limit. So once I hit 30 buy-ins, I'll be looking to score three winning sessions before I start playing the bigger limit regularly.
In other news, I qualified for Silver Iron Man $15,000 freeroll this past month and also the One-A-Day $2,000 freeroll. Hopefully I can go deep in both of these and pad the BR with some big scores. Both of these freerolls have plenty of participants that either don't realize they qualified, don't care to play in it, or just simply blind out. Which makes it for a seemingly easy field to get down to the money. In the Bronze freeroll last month, a friend of mine didn't even play and he cashed.
My goals for the month of March will be to continue to play good and increase my BR. I hope to be able to qualify for Gold Iron Man status, maybe Iron if I really push it. I am going to try and score some bonus Iron Man medals this month, too. I think I can definitely get at least 10 of them by earning 500 FTPs in a day, which will give me two bonus medals each time I do so. Look for me to make some big moves in March, I'll be doing my best and grinding my ass off once again!
