Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

I am writing this bad boy before I go out for some awesome day drinking with my friends. I managed to do it again this month, and have a massive heater on the way out of the month. I cleaned up a 3/6 table today, which is always nice. I got in 36k hands, which is one of the largest volume months i’ve ever put in sadly. I ran ok. I ran 8.8bb/100 at 1/2 and only 2bb/100 at 2/4. I started the month running horribly at 2/4 so it was nice to get back to at least even.

This month, i’ve been starting alot of new tables and really starting to hone my hu game against some of the regs on cake who start with me. I haven’t felt outclassed by anyone yet, and most regs won’t even sit in to start a new table. I have to have one of the largest winrates on cake, which is a good feeling.

I finished receiving my coaching from Rask and I gotta say it really opened the door to a few new plays and considerations when I’m playing in pots. I think i’m a much better player but i’m not going to follow my plan to play 2/4 on FTP. I just have grown so accustom to not using a hud and my villains not having one either, and I really enjoy it. I am trying to imagine FTP without the use of a hud and I bet the games would be 2 folds better if no one used them. Fish can see how much they lose, and how bad their numbers are… and i think that kills games.

I will be moving out of my condo in the next few days and making final preps for going to vegas. I can not wait! The blog might suffer due to that though. I promise I will update a ton while I’m in vegas. Also we have just decided to get a cornhole set in our backyard at the house, so that should be awesome!

Here’s the graph/WR’s:

(Click for Full Size)

As you can probably assume, I’m still on course for my yearly fiscal goal. Ship it.

Alright, I know this isn’t my normal poker blog post, but this one is gonna be all about the television show heroes and the most recent occurrences on the show. If you don’t watch the show, then just skip this entry.

The season finale this time, finally gave me a serious thought of never watching the show again. They turn sylar into nathan… wtf kind of cheap shit is this? I’m assuming that its because the actor for sylar is getting alot of movie offers, and he will not be able to shoot all the coming episodes. OK, so i guess i forgive you for that, as its basically out of their hands. They can’t kill sylar as he is by far the best character on the show. They took an entire epsiode this year season to explain angela’s long lost sister who is ’storm’… wtf was that for?! “Its gonna come into play next season i’m sure dude”… yeah at the rate they are going, there’s not gonna be 2 more seasons. They need to pull the plot together big time. It’s just all over the place.

The greatness of the show is gone. There are too many characters, there is too much cheese going on. They took powers from peter, and hiro. Those were two of the main reasons I watched the show… Peter was my personal favorite good guy. His ability was awesome in the first 2 seasons… and hiro can use his powers around a baby? like wtf is happening on this show?

They need to show far more hiro, and give everyone back their proper powers. The premise is ridiculous at this point, and how no ‘hero’ has managed to kill the hornrim glasses guy is outrageous.

Anyways, I think i’m finished watching the show after that horrible finale. Taking away your best attributes will ruin a show.

I am finally done with this test. The hell is over, and I’m 75% sure I passed this time. I raped the early morning section of the test, and got tore up on the end (which was stuff I didn’t really study). I definitely did 2 points better than last time, and that’s really all i need to pass. Alright so its smooth mothafuckin sailin to vegas!

So I got a ton of running around to do until may 14th when I am starting the 3 day trek out there. I am pretty pumped about doing the cross country drive and will get to stop in Arkansas on the way, which is where I grew up and went to most of high school. I plan on seeing a few people I haven’t seen in probably 8 years… maybe even more. I will then stop in New Mexico and then go straight to vegas baby! Its about 2 12 hour drives and then an 8 hour one into vegas. I can’t put into words how excited I am to have a ridiculous poker house. I am tempted to buy a video camera too, cause I feel like a camera won’t do this trip justice… and I’m sure other people will wanna see some of the hilarity that will inevitable ensue.

So I got the PLO add-on for Holdem Manager. I was really excited and started to import all my hands from the past. To my shock however, I’m not even a winning omaha player. This is mostly due to a little drunk night I forgot about from ages ago, where I dumped $2k on a 200plo deep table. Other than that session I’m almost completely break even. I would post the graph but it’s exactly like i’m explaining. Just picture breakeven with a 2k downswing in the middle. I’m actually not too upset about being down $1500 at omaha. It is my drunk game of choice and I usually play hu drunk… so that’s not too bad all things considered. It is the best drunk game ever as I can get it in pre-flop after spazzing with garbage and still be 60/40.

Anyways, I will grind out the rest of April and hopefully can pull this month up close to a 10k winner. Peace.

I’ve been hella-busy recently with studying for the FE, as well as trying to get a reasonable number of hands in PLUS getting ready for a vegas move. Weirdly enough, not a lot of time to blog. Bear with me though. The blog will start to blossom with outrageous Vegas stories within the next month.

Alright so first things first, I am going to pass the FE this time. I am meticulously studying like nothing I’ve done in 3 years. I am in the process of taking a practice test and even my dreams are getting flooded with FE stuff. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to engineering, and honestly right now, I’m leaning towards just being a pro my whole life… but I want this parachute badly. The test is as always at the same time as the Virginia Tech Spring Game. So I will be in blacksburg in a test while every one of my friends + girlfriend are out getting shitfaced in tailgate situations. However, Leigh (my gf) did tell me she will be waiting with a beer in hand at 5pm when I get out so I couldn’t be more excited for that. That, boys is how you know your GF is a keeper. The test is 8 hours long and this will be the 4th time I have taken it. Every other time, I’ve just strived to get a 70%. After the first time I failed with a 69%, I have just been assuming I would squeak one above that number and pass. It hasn’t happened yet. So I am shooting for an 85%. Here’s to doing work on that.

On the poker front, I’ve actually played more hands than usual this month. I am currently sitting on about 34k hands which puts me on pace for about 45k for the month. Not bad. I’m running at 8bb/100 at 1/2 and even at 2/4… The even at 2/4 is painful, cause I just can’t seem to have anything good happen to me on those tables. I also can’t seem to gain any steam this month. I keep having a winnings session followed by 2 breakeven sessions. It is just frustrating because I want to have like 6 winning sessions in a row and finish the month up 10k. Oh well, I guess I need to have a down month this year, and if this is the worst of it, so be it (I don’t actually think running 8bb/100 is going to be the worst month I have this year btw). Hopefully I finish strong, and make over 5k on the month before rakeback. That’s a reasonable goal i think. I have played 120k hands this year, and that’s definitely the most i’ve put in in such a short period of time. It feels good to run solid over that sample though, especially considering how much FTP loves to rape me.

Once I take the FE on saturday, its smooth sailing to Vegas. I will just have to move things out of my house, and that’s really the only thing I have left to do before I leave. With this house already on the horizon, I am really pumped. I’m actually going to do this. Me and Vizer talked about it last summer, but in the back of my head, I always assumed that something would happen that would keep me from doing it. Well nothing did. It’s going to be the time of a lifetime, and afterwards, I get to go live with Leigh in DC. Granted DC sucks, but living with her should be great. I can’t wait to see how much my game improves from just being around poker 24/7 and thinking out loud around other solid pros. It’s weird, because none of my friends in Charlotte really understand how the poker thing works. They all assume its just free money, which for the most part is true, but having people understand that just because I made $1500 last night, doesn’t mean I am picking up the tab, will be nice.

Anyways, the countdown begins and there’s 24 days until I’m sitting pretty in our Vegas house. Wish me luck on this god damn test, and I hope to see most of you in vegas at some point this summer.

FUCK YOU!

So I manage to put in alot of studying today, and actually put in a pretty good poker session on FTP as well. I then play some xbox live with a buddy. All went great. I then manage to run a few errands, and after checking the mail see that ’slumdog millionare’ showed up. I’m all sorts of pumped, and rush upstairs to turn it on… ask my roommate if she wants to watch, and she’s in. I fire up the xbox and WHAM! 3 red rings of death!! WTF.

I have gone through 3 xboxes since my first one about 5 years ago. It is absolutely insanity how this is possible to do to customers. I am not sure if I still have it under warranty, but I god damn hope it is. Its insane how a game system can possibly be this unreliable. I will be calling xbox support within the hour. Just thought i’d share with you guys first.
On the brightside, it might not be such a bad thing, considering I really need to study and having one less option of ’slack off’ things is good.

On the topic of things not working that are ridiculous, my brand new computer currently sounds like a buzzsaw. The fan for my graphics card is making ridiculous amounts of noise. It isn’t affecting the computer performance yet, and i spoke with HP already and they will be repairing it. I just think it obviously sucks that I can’t go to sleep with my computer on because it is so loud. Hopefully, they come fix it with no issues. It should definitely be a pop it out, pop the new one in kinda fix though so I’m holding my breath that its that easy.

On the poker front, my month has been pretty uneventful. I am up around 2k and running ok, but I just can’t seem to string together a few good sessions, which is definitely frustrating. I am shooting for another 8k+ month and I think i’m on course for it, but I need to get on the ball i think as far as concentrating and game selection go.

Anyways, Just thought i’d rant about the red rings of death… and for those that don’t know what that term means equate it to ‘the xbox is eternally fucked’.

Welp my month is up and going. I stayed in tonight to make some good money to get my month going well… and i just couldn’t get my friday night life going well. I played on cake, then ftp, then back on cake. I managed to only make around $500 in like 2k hands. The worst part was that I was up at least 3 to 4 buyins on each session at one point and then got slammed back. I managed to get my AK from a LP raise in on AA twice against the bb at 400nl. Thank god Scott Fischman is still an ATM for me…

Full Tilt Poker Game #11496164919: Table Brooks – $2/$4 – No Limit Hold’em – 0:43:22 ET – 2009/04/04
Seat 1: Scott Fischman ($429.50)
Seat 2: Damn Ringer ($400)
Seat 5: Mr Donkey Doo ($98)
Mr Donkey Doo posts the small blind of $2
Scott Fischman posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Damn Ringer [7s Td]
Damn Ringer raises to $12
Mr Donkey Doo folds
Scott Fischman calls $8
*** FLOP *** [2d 3h Ts]
Scott Fischman checks
Damn Ringer bets $16
Scott Fischman calls $16
*** TURN *** [2d 3h Ts] [Th]
Scott Fischman checks
Damn Ringer bets $44
Swede58 sits down
TILTASAURUSREX sits down
Scott Fischman raises to $124
Swede58 adds $160
TILTASAURUSREX adds $400
Damn Ringer has 15 seconds left to act
Damn Ringer calls $80
*** RIVER *** [2d 3h Ts Th] [Qc]
Scott Fischman checks
1Italianguy sits down
1Italianguy adds $304.45
Damn Ringer has 15 seconds left to act
Damn Ringer bets $248, and is all in
Scott Fischman calls $248
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Damn Ringer shows [7s Td] three of a kind, Tens
Scott Fischman mucks
Damn Ringer wins the pot ($801) with three of a kind, Tens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $802 | Rake $1
Board: [2d 3h Ts Th Qc]
Seat 1: Scott Fischman (big blind) mucked [Qd As] – two pair, Queens and Tens
Seat 2: Damn Ringer (button) showed [7s Td] and won ($801) with three of a kind, Tens
Seat 5: Mr Donkey Doo (small blind) folded before the Flop

I mean i see what he was trying to do, and hoping that I would turn 88 into a bluff on the river, but if you are gonna raise why not do it on the flop? also its 3 handed poker, 3b’ing i think is pretty standard with AQ there. Either way, I knew I had him killed on the turn, and fistpumped when he called. I was actually expecting something far worse like A3 or something.

I really liked the full tilt 400nl tables tonight, but for some reason my hud wasn’t working with my hem. It tilted me, so i had to get up. Either way though, it was a frustrating night, because typically on a weekend night i’ll make at least 5 buyins on a bad night but tonight was just not the case. I guess its to be expected.

Anyways, I’m off to bed. Night ya’ll.