Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

I have been staring at that biggest loser post for a few days, and i’m sure most of you are as tired about reading about me losing as i am. I had a winner last night and haven’t had a loser since saturday.

I did drop to 200nl for about 2k hands just to snag my confidence back and moved back up to 400nl last night and had a pretty nice winner, with one pretty silly hand where i flopped top 2 with KJ into a 3-way pot. I checked to the raiser who was not a regular and seemed to be a poor player. He bet $20. I check raised to $65. I get insta-called. Now i’m up against one of 2 hands. AA or AK. I think its more likely AK as i think AA gets in another raise there but in actuality i have no idea how this guy plays. But i decide its time to ditch the fancy plays that i usually do and get into 3 streets of value. Turn is an offsuit 10. I bet $104. He snap calls. My read is actually the same the only card that makes me truly unhappy is an A or a Q. River comes off as a Q. Sigh. I check and he obviously shoves with the nuts and i fold after puking. Had the guy right where i wanted him, and he manages to pick up the nuts.

Something, i’ve been focusing on a lot more recently is getting my turn aggression factor up. I’ve noticed myself losing alot of value by not getting enough money in on the turn or even the flop for that matter. Most of the regulars likely already view me as the guy who has permanent FPS. Now it is time to change gears and exploit that. I don’t intend to change my play against the shortstacks and donks tho. I will continue to trap and put them in places where it will be very easy for them to slip up without previous knowledge of how i play. Also, i’m going to try to take down my Flop AF against regs so that I can balance out all the 2 and 3 barreling.

I have also added a few stats to my hud to help me know which players are more prone to check-raise c-bets, and float c-bets light. PT3 has stats for both of these so these should both be helpful and i am currently using them without knowing much about what numbers mean what. I am trying to get a decent sample size so that i can get a feel for what these numbers mean. I am really starting to get into what the numbers mean, focusing deeply on exactly what ranges the regulars are raising, 3-betting, c-betting, c/fing with. I haven’t really used a hud that extensively before, but i think its really a leak i have no excuse for not plugging. I think once i get that plugged i can almost play poker like a puzzle. Once i figure out what each players numbers mean, i can figure out EXACTLY what hands the player is showing up with where. That is my next goal.

On a side note, it would seem that the higher stakes games have been running recently! I saw 5 600nl games running last night and 3 2000nl games! That’s great news. It seems that a number of regs from 400nl have started taking steps up. Players like novel20 seem to have hit their BR requirements to move up (but if my database is correct, he might be coming down again soon). I didn’t play 600nl last night, because the game just wasn’t good! As a matter of fact they were awful, with all the 1knl regs plus the best of the 400nl regs, with a sprinkling of donk at the table. These higher stakes games running really open up the 400nl tables tho with only the worst of the regs really playing 400nl still.

I hope for my sake that those higher stakes games stick around, but i think they are almost destine to run in the next few months. There have to be at least 5 400nl regs that have more than enough roll to play 1knl and are getting bored with 400nl. I hope they can manage to keep the 600nl games running so that I can take the necessary steps up. My roll is over-prepared for 600nl but I am still not mentally comfortable with it yet.

I know that post was all over the place. but fuck it, i’m kinda all over the place this morning.

Inevitably this was going to happen. I was going to have a not only -1k day but a -2k day. Things just didn’t go for me. However, i took a shot at 2knl today. I know I am still shooting at 1knl but today i found the best game i saw and it happened to be at 10/20. I decided that i had enough BR to possibly lose that 2k, but this game was so passive that there was almost no chance i would lose that much. At the same time i found a 1knl table with no regs and apparent fish across the board on it, so i sat there too.

I won a few pots uncontested on the 2knl table. and then I had a 500 loser on the 1knl table. I decided i should tilt and i needed to leave the 2k table cause if i tilted at all, it would really hurt there. I stopped playing took a break.

Now i came back fully refreshed and really not worried about the $300 lost i had at the tables, i played a 400nl sess with a 600nl game going too. This is pretty typical for me. Today didn’t go well. I just hit a few spots that were just awful and took a few bad beats too. Before, i post, i made one HUGE mistake. It was a -320 mistake at a 400nl deep table. I have to say, these tables are fantastic but sometimes i forget that i need to stop outthinking people on multiple streets. I lost a 1400 pot with AA after i check/called the flop and turn. Honestly i had the right idea, but failed to not tilty call on the river. Here’s all the hands… and i bet you can guess the one i misplayed.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660869- This one i just had a hunch his range was in the mini-pair range and for some reason i abandoned that thought after he bet 81 on the turn. It just looked like no bet i’d ever make with a full house… and with that much weakness shown by me it was likely a boat would wanna keep me around lighter. He played the hand well and honestly i think made a brilliant raise on river, as i probably would have just called with the underfull as 77 or 33 would have made more sense for my line than AA. good play and hand, madswitch. I just gave money away here imo.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660873 – knew she was capable of this one… and got her allin with 89 (essentially pre-). No complaints here. I stack her so much more than i get stacked her its just a complete bad beat.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660875- standard. I honestly wasn’t expecting to have JJ look me up here… but i’m glad he did. My range is so strongly tilted to KK or AA here, that its super profitable for me to get a call from JJ here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660879- The 5/10 hand that tilted me from the cake 10/20 table. I think this hand is played perfectly too. I just had a bad place running into a smooth calling QQ on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660882 – gag me with a rusty fork. Can’t believe he called my nitty ass with AK here and also, i wanted to die after the flop

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660886 – this player was on tilt at the time, and i was pretty certain he had no hand. This isn’t something i do on a regular basis but good lord, does he catch. I think he would make a similar play if he missed the 6. I had personally stacked him about 10 hands earlier.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660889 – sigh. and i run into the monster drawing shorty.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2660893 – my radar was up after this guy tilted a bit and wanted to get too aggressive. I picked him off here. I was expecting a coinflip at worst, and likely a pissed fold but he shoved in with 55. The one good thing that happened to me. I’m sure if it was a coinflip i was gonna lose.

Anyways, the bottom line of this whole thing is i lost -$2285 today. $700 of which was a complete misplay so lets say i’m actually down 1600 today. I played pretty good day just so happened the one mistake i made was in a deep stack situation, a situation i usually thrive in. Anyways, that dents the month but still not doing bad and feel good about my game. Later guys.

I have trademarked my name now!

you can now get to my blog from the easy to remember address, www.damnringer.com.

I hope to start making the page a little bit more interactive than just a blog. It will still be mainly a blog but i’ve got a few ideas for different little doo-dads to put on the page.

Remember here at damnringer.com, our motto is to remind people how much money they could be making while not actually working. haha, jk, kinda.

May is starting to come near an end. I have been having a good may so far. Hopefully, i don’t pull an April and just have the shittiest end week ever. I have finally started to compile a reasonable database again. I have been playing roughly 13/9/3.5. I think this is a pretty optimal style at 400nl. Its nitty as hell but that’s how full ring is suppose to be. In my database, the player that is up the most is ’storm god’ (who generally only plays at night). He’s up roughly 6k over the last 15k hands, which is solid with him running around 6bb/100. The reason i mention him is that he has IDENTICAL stats to myself. He basically plays exactly the same style. I am studying his play to plug some leaks in my own play. I know personally i have been a bit spewwy as of late. I hope to learn a few new plays and spots to do plays from studying his play.

It seems like 12 tables might not be the best thing for me. I am still a winner, at about 2.5bb/100 but its not to the extend i was a winner before at 4bb/100. I am gonna try another 12 table session and see if I can get things to do right today. My friday afternoon sessions are typically very good as there aren’t many good regs who seem to play during the afternoon on fridays.

Another thing definitely worth mentioning is my wednesday. I went out wednesday for trivia night at a local bar but before i went, i decided i wanted to get in my iron man points. I didn’t really wanna play so i went ahead and just played 12 1/2 tables to get the points. I ran like god! 45bb/100. Wow, that’s $1100 in about 45 minutes at 1/2. No complaints there, got my points and made a little side cash. 1/2 is so bad in comparison to 2/4. After being at the 2/4 tables for so long, 1/2 just doesn’t even seem comparable, its just terrible play.

that’s about all i have to report today… oh and one more thing, DAMN YOU VIZER02!

I’ve been thinking alot recently about my younger poker days. I wasn’t one of those players who sat down and became instantly successful at high stakes. I have been playing for about 5 years now. I was looking at my old blog today which was when i first started taking poker seriously. I only managed to blog sporadically for about 2 months but its still funny to look at.

http://www.damnringer.blogspot.com/

When i started that blog, i had been playing poker for 4 years already. One year ago i was happy about a $1000 month. Now i feel like i could have had a better month if i make 10k a month. Its amazing. The question really lies in what happened in between then. Well lets go over what i did:

Well I came up with a plan about a year ago (in may 2007 to be exact, when was in between school and my job). I decided i’d start at the lowest level i could fathom playing. I started with a bankroll of $1000 and at $25nl. I said i was going to play a 30 buyin rule and go until i couldn’t go any further. I said I was only really going to play full ring and i was going to learn a game from the ground up. Honestly, 25nl and 50nl were the toughest stakes to conquer. Its tough to come home and try to play 1000 hands and shoot to make $50. It just doesn’t make you feel adequate. I grinded those stakes, truly grinded them for months. I moved up to 100nl with a win rate over 8bb/100 at 50nl. I then moved up to 200nl about 2 months later with a win rate of 7.5bb/100 at 100nl. Whoa, that was quick i thought. All of the sudden i was seriously motivated. I started killing the 200nl game. People started to take notice. I was getting people who wanted to know how the heck i was beat that game for over 6bb/100 and just started at it. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure and honestly i’m still not quite sure. I am now playing 2/4nl with my roll plenty ready for myself to take another step up using my 30 buyin rule. I’m stopping here though for the moment. 2/4nl was that point where i always thought ‘this is where the real poker starts’ but now i’m beating it for 4bb/100. Well to be completely honest with you, its been real poker the whole time.

Every donkey at one point after taking a bad beats says ‘I wouldn’t take nearly as many bad beats at a higher limit’. If you think, you can’t beat 50nl but can beat 600nl, you are goddamn delusional. The things i’ve taken from each step along the way help me understand everything about the point i’m at. It really is like each level has a skill you must master before you move up. For example, 25nl is all about pre-flop hand selection. 50nl is all about learning position. 100nl is all about learning when it is correct to set-mine and becoming capable of laying down AA postflop. 200nl is a place where value betting gets you to the promiseland. And i’m not necessarily a master of 400nl yet, but i think the answer to the next level is adaptation, restealing pre- and thinner value bets. As your edge becomes less significant, the things you must learn become far more precise. I’ve gone from learning that AJ isn’t a raise from utg to learning that its likely ‘andrew song’ is restealing my isolation bet against a weak fish from the CO, and shoving 99 because i know his range is wide enough that it warrants it. Wow, that’s a hell of a scope. If i could give a piece of advice to a player who was like me at one time, looking up to 400nl grinders and just imagining how it must feel to win and lose $1000 pots on a regular basis, it would be this. Start from the bottom. Start Humbly. You aren’t as good as you think you are. If you are as good as you think you are, it will show in one year.

I always thought I had what it took to make it to the top of online poker. Being a very solid Magic: the gathering player (yeah i just admitted it) in my younger years, i had alot of the concepts instilled in my brain. Anyways, now that i’m sitting where i really strived to be i almost forget what it is like to be a grinder at 25nl again. I am not the same player I was a year ago. I’m not even close.

Sitting on the brink of going pro, i gotta wonder what the next year holds for me in poker. I think the possibilities are endless. As I’ve mentioned before, my goal by the end of this year was to be beating 400nl. I never imagined i’d be beating 400nl and 600nl (over a super small sample size) by April of 2008. I am now setting my goals higher. I want to live off poker. I want to live the dream of being my own boss. I want to feel the struggles, the freedom and hopefully the ultimate victory of playing poker for a living. All that study, thinking and hard work has paid off. Its worth it. It really is.

Sorry if that sounded like a graduation speech but its kinda how i feel at the moment.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2640889

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2640892

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2640897

-$969.40

The new poker tracker HUD apparently lags my computer like shit. Yesterday, i played 1000 hands. I can honestly say i didn’t have my A-game yesterday and that combined with the fact that my computer was lagging was just awful. I was kinda tilty from the lag and stuff being slow as well as getting my c-bets raped all the first half-hour. I really shouldn’t play when i don’t have my A-game but with my current schedule, i don’t have much of a choice. I have to play every day to keep my income coming and with working a job and doing alot of coaching its really tough to keep myself focused on my own game. Yesterday, i was super nitty, nut-peddling ringer which is what i turn into when i’m not playing my A-game. I’m pretty nitty by nature (wow that’s a funny name). My UB name might have to be ‘nitty by nature’ if i ever sign up there. So no one steal that name after reading this blog! But i am pretty nitty generally, but i use that to my advantage and find some great spots to take pots away and I mix my lines up so much I think its tough for regs to get a serious beat on when i’m floating/bluffing as opposed to when i flopped top 2 or set.

When i am playing poor, i am just playing my ranges and honestly not assessing opponents ranges and literally just palying like a robot. I managed to hit the nuts against jphil007 and ship a 1200 pot against him when he overshoved a flush draw and top pair. I ended yesterday down about $250.

Later on in the evening I was just observing the tables like i normally do. Just taking notes on certain regulars and their tendencies. I was taking notes on ’shesnogood’ when i noticed a dream table of 1knl. I took the 9th seat at a table with only 1 regular and that reg was directly to my right (countstackula, or however you spell it). the waitlist immediately turned to 6 players deep with regs waiting to get on and i knew i had found gold. However, i didn’t manage to make any bit of anything, so i didn’t make anything. Ended up handing over $85 before I left as regs started flooding in. Anyways, Today i’m not going to play unless i bring my A game.

On topic of A games, that’s what makes great players legendary, is the ability never to let that A game turn off. I think i have a decent shot at doing this when I don’t have to worry about a job too. Phil Gafond had a great ESPN article that i remmeber reading and how he described the best in the world just don’t have an off switch for their best poker game.

Anyways, that’s all i got.

With my new found ability to 12 table, I decided to play 5.2k hands today. This equates to about 6.3 hours of poker. I played about 3 sessions and pretended like i was doing it for a job finally. The tables all day were surprising soft. For whatever reason, not many regulars decide to play on sundays. I was basically in the poker zone. I made a few mistakes early, like donking $450 off to Morris Chestnut. Goddamnit. If any of you have ever played against this guy, he runs roughly 12/2/2. I decide to 3-bet him pre- with QQ. Retarded. If he opened he’s got AA or KK. Then i decide to call his raise allin for $300 more on the flop of JT7.

Poor play be me. He obviously shows up with AA and i’m immediately punch myself. I made a few mistakes like that, but i think that was the worst mistake I made all day. I’ll post a few notable hands from the day now.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630194-This is so stupid. Like i said up there, he’s a total nit. Also this is the real morris chestnut from boyz in the hood. Celebrities getting my money, grrrrr.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630200-Standard. This guy was playing pretty sporatic, and i was honestly expecting him to showup with worse than AK here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630206-Here’s a pretty big mistake i think. This is same villain as above. He’s been playing some really bizarre/aggro lines. I read him for 77 here after his river play. I decide to go for the kill in the deep stack pot. This was a mistake imo. I should have bet $222 and i think i incude a check-raise allin and at least get $222 more. I give him a decent shot to fold here, as all he beats is a complete bluff by my river bet. Whoops. It did kinda tilt him tho, but still i think it was more +EV to make a smaller bet. If you have an opinions on this one, let me know via comment.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630232-Its amazing what a check on the turn will make an inexperienced player do. And thanks for the monies.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2630238-This hand is a pretty good example of a player who has AA or is bluffing hard with a weaker hand. This is why I never fold kings at 400nl. His line screams AA, however i think if i had put pressure on at any point in the hand, I probably lose him. I just wait him out and he busts himself.

Here’s my graph from the day… can you say WEEEEEEEEEEEE? That’s a rollercoaster ride right there boys and girls…

And here’s to hoping my car doesn’t get broken into tonight.

So friday morning, i wake up to the sound of someone knocking on my door. This is very strange for two reasons, one its 7:20am and two you can’t get to my front door unless you have a key into the airlock which only maintenance and other tenants have. I throw on shorts, punch my dog in the neck cause he won’t stop barking and go answer the door. Its the guy who lives across the street and he just says ‘dude your car got broken into again’. I was still have asleep but i was like you gotta be kidding me. So i shower and do all the morning stuff i usually do. I do it a little faster and more pissed off than usual however. I go downstairs and check it out. Sure enough, the same window is broken and glass is once again everywhere. I didn’t have anything in the car this time so the guy stole the spare tire kit i keep in my glovebox. For those keeping score at home, that’s 4 lugnuts and a tire iron. Probably with value of $6. Well, that’s annoying. However, this time i wasn’t the only person with my car bashed. There was a guy with an exterra who also was broken into. This guy had a rock on his dashboard. The thief threw the rock through his passenger side window and it hit his windshield and cracked it! Wow glad that didn’t happen to me, that looked expensive.

Anyways, I come to realize i did this the wrong way last time. Do not take your car to a shop for the window. Call Safelite. They are nationwide and fantastic. They come to wherever you are, and replace the glass and a very reasonable price. I just threw a towel down, and drove to work. The people came and did the window while it was in the garage at my work. Very convenient. Hopefully, this doesn’t even happen again but if it does, i know who will fix it conveniently for $150. Hopefully, the guy doing this realizes i’m not dumb enough to leave anything in the car after last time, and stops breaking my windows. I honestly don’t know how i’m going to approach this tho. I mean I guess i could get an alarm but i don’t think that’s gonna stop them from breaking the window, its just ognna stop them from stealing anything. Another option was tint the window, as a tinted window doesn’t shatter so therefore his rock method really isn’t gonna work well. That’s probably the best solution honestly. Cheap and it will make my car look good.

Ok enough about my shitty life beats. I went out last night with a few friends and my roommate. We had an utter blast. In all hoensty i haven’t been that drunk in a long time. We went to a bar called dixies and just killed $2 miller lites all night. Ya i know. Miller is so shitty. Yes but i’m not paying $1 extra for basically the same beer just slightly better tasting. We ended up having a great night and I passed out with my phone in hand and drunk texts and calls galore! Man, I am bad about having texts fly out when i’m hammered. According to the texts, i was laying on the floor. Well i don’t recall that but it would seem to make sense. Anyways, I woke up this morning to my dog licking my face cause he wants to go outside. So i take him out looking like a fucking bus hit me. My roommate is already up and cooking breakfast. Honestly, i have no idea how she does it. Drinks 16 beers the night before and wakes up and is a normal human 6 hours later. Needless to say i was not a normal human. I was fucked up. I knew the hangover hadn’t even come yet. So i take the dog out, come back upstairs and lay on the couch watching the preakness coverage. I decide that i feel suitable enough to play a session. So i fire up a session and get about 800 hands in before i start feeling shitty.

I decide its time to stop and i have GoldSeraph iming me to go play COD4 with him. Well that’s a good idea i think. I get on there, play. We were doing $10 propbets as to who would score higher. I won the first 2 and vizer02 joined us. Seraph managed to break himself even and surprisingly vizer wanted no prop bet action from us. We always just talk dumb poker stuff as we kill 8 year old kids talking shit in our ears. Anyways, about 6 games into COD4 i start getting nauseous. Fuck me, here comes the hangover. It was bad too. I literally couldn’t function. I had to lay down and sleep it off. I woke up about 2 hours later and it was now 7pm. I feel perfect and have now made the decision that i am not doing it agian tonight. I VERY rarely stay in on weekend nights but i kinda enjoy being productive the next day. Anyways, onto the poker stuff.

I start up a session at about 9pm. I decide i’m gonna 12 table. I setup a way with my tables that has them overlap but not in a way that annoys me. 12 tables really isn’t as difficult as i remembered it being. I must be a better poker player now and a better multi-tabler. I think i’m gonna stick with 12 tables til it really starts to bite me. Anyways, the session started shitty but got better. I played for 3 hours and made a few hundred bucks and took some NASTY beats. I was actually really happy with the fact that i made money when i lost 2 big pots as a large favorite. That would have been a $1600 swing. Anyways, I’ll post the graph from the time i got PT3. Its pretty choppy but honestly i don’t feel like the graph looks. I have been playing very solid making few mistakes today. Just variance starting to rear its ugly head.

On a sidenote, i still haven’t gotten my money from FTP! I’m starting to get really annoyed but i am glad I didn’t go pro before this happened cause it would not only be inconvenient but it was be tough to get through 2 months off of 1 months cashout.

My Favorites Include:
The Golden Gate Bridge
Cheerios
Both of Barack Obama’s Parents

http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/

Definitely a clever site.