Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

ON A TERRIBLE NOTE!

Tonight, had to have been the most ridiculous/bad session i’ve played since i’ve started running bad recently. So wow, i don’t know how i keep doing it but honestly i do. I have lost $2899 since April 22nd. Probably putting my total lost since the downswing somewhere in the ball park of 3k. I really wouldn’t be that upset if it was at least laced with winning but quite frankly it was not.

I was negative with KK over the last week of the month, and my biggest loser of all hands was QQ. I was down $240 with all my pairs over the database i have.

I was determined tonight to play for an hour and a half and not tilt no matter what. I hadn’t played longer than roughly an hour without quitting because i was doing so poorly. So i decided to fight through it. The session started great, the tables were super soft. I thought ‘this must be my night’. Honestly, there was one regular playing and he’s not an annoying type of regular so I was very happy. Sure enough the utterly ridiculous happened. I made 2 terrible plays, one of which i think was slightly justified and the other of which is just plain awful.

The absolutely terrible is here:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2546712

I never make this play. Period. I am just so frustrated recently it seems like i’m trying to do what i tell my students not to do. Now i just have to take my own advice and not try to force things.

Here’s the beginning of the night and first big pot:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2546715

Promptly after the hand is over the villian types ‘nice try’ like it was some elaborate bluff i was pulling off. This isn’t good. The night rolls off the tracks shitty.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2546719

This is a very good idea of how my night was going and when i spiked the A on the river, i was honestly atonished.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2546720

Honestly, Come on. I think i have this player by the balls, and turns out he’s the only member of stackme city. Just grueling.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2546728

I can’t even manage to stack a guy with KK when i have AA. How this guy manages to keep a cent of his money with my line is amazing. I think this hand really just continues to summarize how sick my luck has been here. If you can’t get someone to shove on this dry board with KK against your AA, wtf are you suppose to do?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2546740

This is my other bad play but honestly i’m not that upset about this one. I saw this player stack off with K high in almost this exact spot about 50 hands before this one. So i really was expecting him to be frustrated with a huge range. But obviously something i’d never do against really any player. And this wasn’t the spot for me to try and pick him off. Check the turn and check/fold the river. Got it.

So after being up $7200 at mid-month it looks like i gave about half of that back. Making it a measely $4k month likely after rakeback. I’m honestly so frustrated. My good friend has told me to consider dropping down stakes which i’m gonna do for a few days til i have a winning session. I will play 1/2nl til i have a +800 day there.

I am still rolled with over 60 buyins for 400nl but its getting really really frustrating. If my luck continues at 1/2, it will be less of a drain on me. Anyways, a terrible month’s end but it was still a positive month so i can’t complain too much still this month probably put me on course to hold off going pro another month.

We shall see tho. Night all.

Contrary to what the title of this one says, I’m not gonna bitch. I honestly think i’m playing well and the spots just aren’t coming together. So that aside, everything will fall into place. I’m one of the better players at 2/4 and i need to just stop making so many petty errors i know i shouldn’t because i am running so bad.

I’m making calls and plays i would never make. This is really what i think deters people into the abyss of losing 15+ buyins in a downswing. The idea that since their not hitting their sets or their KK is losing to AA over again, they should play their hands differently. I know personally I have caught myself giving up on flops when i know my opponents range is so polarized to nothing just because i didn’t hit anything. This isn’t the way i got to where i am. I am just not thinking as much as I normally do. I think this is mainly do to my comfort since the computer crash. I think I’m just not use to using PT3 and the beta really does crash alot (leading me to believe that PT3 ain’t coming out for at least a month).

Anyways, i’ll come outta the slump just fine and i’m not gonna change my style. My style is i think novel at this stake by using my excellent hand reading skills to trap players in places they normally are falling for a trap. I think i excel at that.

So without further ado, Here’s my past few days.

I honestly haven’t even run that bad. I’m down -$1932 over 3k hands. Which honestly is nothing!

I’ve only played that many hands because i’m had my time tied up with work and lessons and every time i sit down to play a big session, i end up getting raped in the first 45 minutes and cut myself off. These stats also don’t include about another $1100 i’ve lost on my laptop, but i’m not gonna count that because i’m won over $1500 on stars on my laptop. Speaking of the devil, if i keep crushing stars omaha, I’m gonna have a 2/4 roll in no time on two sites.

On the omaha idea, i won close to $800 tonight playing omaha and i wish i could find the hand histories from it. I played a $600 pot at 1/2plo and the villian showed up drawing dead on the flop for the most part. He bluffed completely with 150bb in a 4 way omaha pot. It was absurd, i couldn’t believe it when he flipped his cards up.

So all said and done, i honestly have no idea how much money i’ve lost in this downswing. I lost a few days of losing on my computer, so I know this. I was sitting at close to 30k online. I cashed out 3k and now i have 25k so you do the math. On another brightside, people must think ‘Damn Ringer’ is terrible because i haven’t had a really big winning session on the name. I would be hard pressed to think people realized that DR is the same has VT Hokie Poker.

I’m starting to ramble. Overall, good things are happening, and the bad beats will stop coming at some point cause that’s poker.

Alright, so being at work i gotta keep this one short. But basically i had a great session last night playing HU PLO. I made about $800 off one guy on stars, really worked out nicely and i actually have managed to run up a decent roll on stars of about $1k. Pretty good considering i only had like $150 from lessons on there.

This weekend is sudflood. This is the biggest drinking event for a pikapp at VT. Its fantastic and there’s gonna be some great bands at the all day drinking festival. Here’s the carbon leaf performance from last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UUo3YBLPWs

I’m actually in that video at the beginning you can see in a white hat right at the front of the stage, with my ex in front of me. Pretty cool performance and definitely very meaningful after the shootings it was exactly what we needed. Anyways, i’ll be there this year… Hopefully taking alot of pictures with people. I’m gonna cram in a session before i leave today but prolly won’t have time to write about it unless it goes really well or really shitty.

Later guys.

I just read a CNN article with collective bitching about high gas prices in the USA. People calling for action from the USA to get gas prices low again. They are wanting it to go back to $2.60 a gallon. Before you read this, know that people in Europe pay up to $8/gallon for petrol (aka gas). Canada is paying over $4.50/gallon for gas on average. Our government has managed to keep the cost of oil low at the cost of a war over it. The American people want the war to be over and the cost of gas to be low. Well, wake up america, you can’t have both. STOP CALLING FOR ACTION TO LOWER GAS PRICES! IT LEADS TO WAR!

We’ve let it get this way. We’ve empowered a president who has been a pawn of the oil lobbyists. He has taken us to war over something that isn’t completely necessary. We have ways around using gasoline and oil. The technologies are there but the oil companies are out there spreading filth about these technologies so the american people have no faith in them. Well Great Britian pays double what we do for gas. How do they do with it? More practical cars, more mass transportation and less greed. We as americans are STUPID! Sorry i hate to break it to you but you can’t expect the USA to break the world wide trend of gas costs. We aren’t immune, so when you bought that SUV or bought that Cement Mixer of a truck, you should have been aware of what was likely to occur. Its occured.

Action? Stop demanding action in the form of lower gas costs! Seriously, you are asking the wrong questions. You are asking ‘Why are gas prices so high?’ and ‘What can we do to lower them?’. Well we could essentially steal from the middle east like we’ve been doing. But if you want lower gas prices, you will have more war. If the war ends, the gas prices go up. We let the middle east barons grab us by the balls as a country. If we got embargoed (if that’s a word) by the middle east, we’d be at war with all of them in a second.

The question we should be asking is ‘what else can we do?’ I’m by no means a tree hugger or a green individual but jesus christ, you people can’t complain about gas costs, period. You can’t! We did this to ourselves. We wanted to be greedy american pigs and not pay for it. Well it doesn’t work that way.

Being an american doesn’t make you superior, as a fact of fact from the way i hear alot of americans talking recently, it makes you stupider than the rest of the world. We are living in our happy little bubble. Well the bubble is busting people. We need another solution for gas now.

As much as i hate to say it, if Al Gore was president right now. We prolly wouldn’t be at war and we probably wouldn’t be the gas baron’s bitches. This is just a rant by me because i hate seeing these articles where americans complain about high gas prices. Well wake the fuck up people they aren’t getting any lower… so its time for a real solution and for us to put billions (did i say billions, i meant trillions) of dollars into that instead of a war. Its an overall better solution.

alright so first things first.

I played a quick session today at 2/4 and still can’t seem to break my slump. Again, just running into ridculous places. Seems like the opposite of last week, every time i have a hand everyone is folding and if they aren’t they suck out. I was negative on the week with AA and tonight that didn’t change one bit.

Here’s a few hands from that sess and give you an idea of how badly it went… first the only good thing that happened to me all night tho.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2507964

Very aggressive player who i know would never check the flop with a set or top pair here. I think this is a good call down as just about none of his range beats me and i know he does this expecting me to fold TT and JJ all day on the river. (please note that was the only significant pot i won today)

Now for the fun stuff…

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2507973

This player is a pretty poor player imo and i took the best possible line to stack him imo. It just turned out as usual that the tiny part of his range that beats me, he has. Overall, i think his range is way wider than this and he will stack off with just about any J given my line on turn.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2507983

notice its the same player and this hand occured roughly 3 minutes after the other hand with AA. So i figure he assumes i’m tilting and obviously i make the nuts on the flop… I expect him to call all day with overpairs expecting me to be tilty here. After, he tanks i know i’ve got him with my nuts and then when he flips up 89, i remember i don’t have the nuts and that my life this week isn’t getting any better. Again, the VERY small portion of his range here that beats me, he has.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2507996

Standard line against a late position player without a full stack. But once again, the very small portion of his range that has me killed, this player has.

That should give ya a pretty good idea of how my sessions have been going as of late. I lost another $800 tonight. But I can’t really complain after having a 7k week last week, i was just really hoping to have a 20k month this month, and its not looking good at the moment unless things drastically turn around. But again, i’m not too discouraged, its just poker and these things happen. I think all my lines were played well and certainly are profitable given villain’s ranges and lines. I don’t just think they are profitable, i think they are very profitable long run.

So i find in times like this its always important to remember and analyze your sessions and make sure you are doing good stuff. I played alot of small pots today and won most of them which was the only reason i was down only $800. I think my play is still as profitable as it was previously with a slight chance of the regulars adjusting to my play. I am also adjusting to them so i don’t think that’s a problem. I gotta remember in times like this, that there’s a reason i am where i am and focus to get through it.

On a completely different note, I have just setup the ultimate poker station. My 60″ TV! I have some pictures as me describing it really can’t do justice. Its so sick, its crazy. I can do 9 tables each being about a foot and a half high! Here’s the pics:

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/eburtzla/IMG_0536.JPG

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/eburtzla/IMG_0537.JPG

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/eburtzla/IMG_0538.JPG

Please enjoy the silly ballaness of those photos. My living room is now complete (minus shit on the wall, and surround sound).

I got my desktop back!

Thank God.

Now with that outta the way, my pokertracker2 license seems to have misplaced itself in this entire ordeal. I have no way of accessing my pokertracker2 database and its not postsqel(or whatever that is) so I am unable to convert my old databases to pokertracker3. I’m currently datamining my face off trying to get enough stats to work with pokertracker3 so I don’t have to worry about this license issue.

I am just using my knowledge about the regulars at this point to play. It is still really tough though. You really don’t know how many decisions you base off someone’s stats until they aren’t in front of you anymore. I catch myself forgetting whether a player is 17/12 or 12/9 and still having to make a decision whether to 3-bet their mid-position raise. It really makes me feel naked on the tables and most certainly at a distinct disadvantage. I’ve had 1 winning session this week/weekend without my hud. I haven’t had a big losing session either tho so that’s solid. I don’t have an exact number of dollars i’m down as my PT isn’t running, but i’d say i’m down about $600 over the weekend. That’s not bad all things considered. I had a few situations last night playing that really made for ugly play. I got outflopped in an allin pot by QQ while i had AA for 100bb and i got set over setted by a slow-playing AA while i had KK. The AK7 flop is dirty there. Lucky for me in the set over set, i didnt’ go bust due to the player playing the hand so poorly and the turn and river coming J and T. The player only got about $250 from me which was solid all things considered in that hand.

The tables last night were REALLY REALLY aggro. I played and couldn’t even really tell who the regs were but I knew that there were alot of them at the table from all the 3-bets and 4-bet restealing. I even managed to get it allin with a 6-bet with AQ and was up against 99! A Q on the flop shipped the pot for me, regardless of getting my money in slightly behind, i was pretty proud of myself adapting from my nitty ways and really smelling out when a 5-bet wasn’t strong. That’s the stuff that good poker is all about. I still ended up losing around $350 due to that QQ vs. my AA and the AA vs. KK on the AK7 flop. But all things considered I figure that was a solid run and not bad results.

I don’t have any hand histories either for you guys! I feel so bare without a PT screen to see how I played. I honestly have no idea how i ever played without the stats. Hopefully, this speed bump will be over with the release of PT3 in a few days (i hope in a few days).

On a sidenote, I really have alot of respect for a player by the name sukittrebek. It seems as though he was playing 1/2 a year ago, and was playing 10/20nl last night. I think he’s fantastic to watch and plays very close to my own game and honestly is the kind of success i want to achieve in the next year. My January goal was to play 2/4 regularly, who knew i’d be playin 3/6 regularly and trying to step up to 5/10 in april! I can only hope by year end i’m sitting at 10/20nl competing with the best. So SukitTrebek, i’m impressed and i think you play very well.

On that note, I’m outta stuff. Peace.

Well this is about the worst thing that could have happened to me. I believe my hard drive is corrupted and currently my desktop is giving me the weirdest error message when i try to start it up so i have to try and update all this jazz. I had so much stuff on that computer it was crazy so i REALLY hope it isn’t done.

Thank god my new laptop came 2 weeks early cause i’ve managed to ghetto rig it to to one of my big monitors and hopefully my 60″ here soon so i can make out ok by the end of this. I also always find that when i’m playing on a new computer setup i play poorer as i’m not in the same comfort zone as i usually am. I guess you could call it home field advantage.

Anyways, I ended up playing about 1200 hands so far today… and i’m down a whopping $5.35. Ridiculous. I’ve been playing pretty poorly tho, a little too passive in places i would never be passive. I’m also catching myself making continuation bets in places i’d never make a c-bet and just generally trying to get to fancy. I am forced to use the PT beta as i don’t have any other PT and i very well can’t go without results. But i’ve lost all my hands on players which was ALOT!

honestly just more annoying than anything else. So once i get this computer situation figured out maybe i can play more solid. Or i’ll just have to focus extra hard.

on a life note, My sister came to visit me today which was fun. We walked around downtown charlotte and just showed her my lifestyle. Anyways, i’m tired of typing and i’m gonna go chase my dog around the house. Later.

Gone from winning big time to just being all over the place and this always leads to me losing.

I’m not focused on the tables i’m good at today because i had a losing session friday. This is one of those things i kinda fear about going pro. I always get so discouraged if i have a big losing day. I didn’t play bad on friday either, just got bad beated in a number of really ugly places. I had a set over set in a $1400 pot which didn’t even look like the opponent had set at all. So to that he played a good line but the reason he didn’t look like he had set was he was scared to lose his money to nut set. So playing scared worked out for him there because i honestly put him no where near a set of T’s. So i lost 1.2k on the 2/4 tables on friday and have been kinda all over the place now.

On a sidenote, i hope to God that my face doesn’t show up on a Cardrunners video because i just did one of the dumbest plays against Wiggins. I saw he was playing HU PLO so i decided to take a shot at him. He’s playing my limit so i might as well give it a go headsup. I always like to play against players i know are better when they are at a stake i play so i can test myself. Anyways, i manage to bust him the second hand when i make the nuts and shows up with top set. So instantly i’m up to $800 and feeling good. I then manage to get metagamed to hell. He was playing so aggressively trying to get a play out of me. He was raising every big blind and 3-betting every time i opened from the button. I knew what his play was and i had already devised a strategy around it yet i decide to make one of the dumbest plays i’ve ever made and bluff him with no outs. I bluffed so obviously, that as soon as the river bet hit the felt i realized what i had done. I don’t really want to post it, as i feel like a moron. And i really hope it doesn’t make its way to a Cardrunners Video.

Anyways, I’m currently just giving money away at random games as my brain is all over the place. The ‘Damn Ringer’ doomswitch might in fact be in place. Anyways, I think i’m gonna get on the tables again around 5 and give a real session a shot. For the time being however, i am going to do something else.

I get the dream e-mail today from Full Tilt. They informed me that i could get rakeback on my previous account in my name today. I guess they are offering rakeback on existing accounts to certain players to get them to come back or something. Anyways, I moved all my money back to my name after creating a rakebackpro account. Anyways, i’m pumped about having an account with my name on it. So i am no longer VT Hokie Poker, I am back to Damn Ringer.

That said it makes me kinda sad that i’m gonna have to put that name to rest. I really liked the responses I got and I met alot of hokies and had alot of hokie people sweating me at the tables on a regular basis. So for that i’m sad i’ll miss that. For the fact, that i don’t have to do the run around with full tilt, I am pumped!

I gave another coaching session today and i really felt like i was giving the student alot of plugs for his leaks and kinda blowing his mind in the process. I look forward to another coaching session with him. Nowadays it seems like i have a coaching session every day, i guess my rates are too low or something. I always feel bad charging players out the ass for an hour of me watching their hands. I mean there’s only so much anyone could do for an hour of sweating. So i always like to keep it within reason and keep players paying something they can easily win in the session i’m sweating them. It just seems like I am gonna have to keep coaching higher stakes to make my time worth it at all but whatever, giving back to the poker community can’t possibly be a bad thing so Fuck it, you all get discounts!

Alright, onto the poker for the day. Well to be quite honest with you, i didn’t get alot of poker in. I had my first session i tried to start at 2/4 get interrupted by my roommate which let me say isn’t a bad thing. She needed help and i was more than willing to walk her through what she needed. I then tried another session only to see that there were so many regulars at the table it was just stupid to play. So i got in a whopping 394 hands today at 400 and 600nl. I ended up down $44. I’ll go ahead and attach the stats so you guys don’t start to think i only put pictures up when i’m winning. I wasn’t feeling the holdem so I decided i’d do what i normally do when i run mediocrely, PLAY OMAHA!

So i did. I seriously need to stop playing hold’em all together, and get better at omaha cause let me tell ya. I have cleaned up every time i’ve played 1/2plo. Its like a fun joke where people just decide that i’m worthy. I will attach stats for that too but basically i won like $800 in a matter of about a half hour. So my mediocre day still turns into a winner which is good but i’m definitely overdue for a break-even day at least. Maybe even a losing day haha.

Anyways, here’s the pictures… oh and since its mid-month, i’ll do the mid-month graph of holdem (this graph does not include the $2057.80 that i’ve made so far at omaha this month, running at 28.34bb/100 haha)…

side note… SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO GRAPH OMAHA!

Actually all that talk about 10k months… i just realized i’m already there with rakeback. So lets go for a 20k month eh? That’d be a fun new first. Night ya’ll.

Remember the 32 who died this day one year ago.