[davidross]

Well much to my surprise, they want me to come out to Seattle for 2 days this week, so I’m starting my journey today. I have a 2:30 flight from Buffalo to Washington DC, then a 5:00 PM flight to Seattle. Hopefully I’ll get in in time to catch the Survivor Finale. I’m to work for 2 days and then we’ll see if they want me on a regular basis or not, and whether I can put up with the trip. I think between this and Christmas I will take a break from keeping the journal and we’ll see about resuming it in January. I rented a laptop again so I can play from the hotel at night. If I get a contract with them I will buy a laptop to take with me. I’m also hoping to get to a live game on Tuesday night, since I can’t get a flight home until Wednesday morning, and I wasn’t able to play live this week as I had hoped because I spent Wednesday running around making travel arrangements. I had to give them a fixed price quote for the 2 days work, which means they won’t pay my expenses, and I’m already ahead for the trip. I gave them a price of $750 US for my flight, and then discovered the quote was in CDN dollars, and the price had gone down, it was only $620 CDN. I’m up over $300 already. I’m also thinking of checking out of the hotel Tuesday morning and just playing cards through the night. My flight is 8:30 AM so I need to be at the airport by about 7:00, and if I go out to play after work I can’t imagine I’d be home much before 3 or 4 anyway. Another $155 US in my poker budget.

It was another strange week for poker. If you remember, I had a horrible finish to last week, turning a great week into a good one, and I continued to struggle on Sunday, having my first Sunday loss in 8 weeks. I lost $206. Then the usual Monday troubles and I lost another $181. That made 4 losing days in a row, and 5 out of 6. Strangely enough though, they were good results as far as I was concerned because I had a huge number of bad river losses. I can handle the KK vs AA losses, and the AQ vs AK in the blinds, those are just going to happen. It’s the times that you make the perfect read, hold your raise until the turn, make him pay the max only to get beat by a kicker matching deuce on the river that seem to set me off. But as it always seems to happen, just when I’m completely fed up, something good happens and Tuesday I ran hot. A good afternoon followed by a great evening after curling and I won $1,387. Tuesday is now officially my favorite day of the week. Not only do I get out with the boys for some curling and beer, but in the last 3 weeks I’ve won over $4,700 on Tuesday alone. Maybe I should just play 1 day a week. The frustration returned on Wednesday where I lost $306, making it 6 losses in 8 days, which is pretty unusual for me, but most of the losses were pretty small, and again a huge day on Thursday made me forget about it. I won $1,499. I have felt for a few weeks now that I was about to have a huge week. Just one week without a $900 loss and I might do something spectacular. I thought last week was going to be it until the big loss on Saturday. Well it turns out it was this week. With 2 huge days already in the week I had the greatest hour of my poker life on Friday afternoon. I took my 8 year old out for lunch and only got home at around 2:00 PM. In the one hour before I had to go get my son I won $1,200. That’s a pretty good hourly rate. I continued to run hot and while I only played about 4 hours for the entire day I won $1,876, putting me at $4,069 for the week. My best week by a mile. I decided not to play Saturday night since I have to drive to Buffalo Sunday morning. Weeks like this make me wonder why I want to go back to work at all. I need to go back and read a post from a bad week before I leave.

As I go deeper into this experience I’m handling the losing better, since I’m confident the winning will return. I’m actually quite surprised how small the weekly variance is overall. I’m starting to feel like the house must feel in the casino business. As long as I play the hours the money will come in. In 33 weeks I only have 2 losing weeks, and none of those in the last 5 ½ months. My biggest week before this week was $3,100, and I’m averaging around $1,800/wk since moving to the shorthanded 5/10 games. The full table 3/6 games brought in around $1,200 / wk. My game has improved so much in 7 months, mostly in the area of hand reading. I’ve also gotten better at leaving tables where I don’t have an edge. I think I’ve proved that you can make a living playing low-limit online games by playing multiple tables, even a comfortable living if you don’t have 4 kids and a mortgage to worry about.

Had an interesting experience on Thursday night. I had started to run real hot after struggling all day, and I sat down at a table where a known strong player was berating someone for his general play. I’ve seen this guy do this again and again, you know the schtick…”You are so bad”, “Q4o is my favorite hand too”. The kid answered back and it became clear he was a young kid, 20 he said, who was just having fun. He had run his bankroll up to around $600 winning with outrageous hands, but he seemed to be taking the abuse to heart, he was folding more pre-flop anyway. I sent a private message to the abuser, asking him to back off, saying something like “your going to drive him to buy a book”. Anyway he left the table at the same time I sent the message (coincidence I think, it was the exact same time I sent it), but I promised myself I wasn’t leaving that table until the kid did. We played 3 handed for a long time (I usually leave the tables at 4 handed or less because the hands go so quick I can’t maintain focus on 4 tables) but I made an exception for this guy. Sure enough within an hour his $600 was gone, and I had $300 of it. I just can’t believe that seemingly good and successful players continue to abuse the bad players, and then leave before letting time wear them out.

I made a royal this week, my 5th I think, and I also made a straight flush against the A high flush that was good for a huge pot. The funny thing about the Straight flush was that I didn’t realize it was a straight, and thought I had flush under flush when his hand showed. It took me a minute to figure out when the chips slid to me.

Weirdest happening of the week. 2 hands in a row, heads up with the same guy. 1st hand I have AQ and the flop is AKx. We cap the flop and bet out the turn and river. He has AQ also and we chop it up. Very next hand I get AQ again. Flop this time is AA7. We cap the flop and the turn, and bet call the river. He has AQ again too. At least on the 2nd hand we each won $6.

The big event around here this week is my wife graduating from school. She has to write a provincial board exam in January to get a license, but she is a college graduate now. I can’t describe how proud I am of her, and what a fine example she is for our kids.

When AK misses. I picked this hand because this happens so often, and there is clearly no set way to play it, although heads up this is probably my standard. UTG limps and so does utg+1. I raise from the button with Ah Ks. Both blinds fold and the limpers call the raise. Flop is Th 4s 3h. Checked to me and I bet. 3 handed I will almost always bet no matter what, and with that flop there is a good chance it missed everyone. I only get 1 call. Turn is the 5h. Checked to me and now it’s decision time. I’m never sure what the right play is here so I vary it by opponent. I believed I was behind, but I had a lot of outs. I like the maxim, bet when you have few outs, check when you have lots so I checked. River was the 2d, giving me the butt end of the straight, and he came out betting. I just called and I was good, he had turned a set of 5’s. This is one of those hands that can go either way on the turn, and my good read actually cost me $20, since I’m sure he was going to raise the turn.

Here’s what happens when you’re running well. I have Jh Th in the SB. UTG raises and 2 cold callers to me. I call too and the BB plays as well 5 of us to the flop. Flop is pretty good for me Js Jc Ts. Normally I would be tempted to slow play this, but someone else has to have a piece of this, and the pot is already pretty big. I bet out, and it is quickly raised and 3 bet. I smooth call this time and it gets capped anyway. 3 of us see the turn. Turn is the Qh. I check waiting to raise, and the flop capper checks too. Oh no! Luckily the 3rd guy bets and I raise. The guy in between us calls and the other guy 3 bets. I cap and they both call. River is the 2h. I bet and they both just call. The flop capper had Ks Qs and was pushing his HUGE draw. The other guy had AK and turned a broadway straight. That was a $260 pot.

What a chicken. At another table the same night I get 44 UTG and I limp. I haven’t been playing the baby pairs in EP as much, but I was running really wel and this table was ripe for it. I got 2 calls and the BB played too. Flop is 4c 3c 2s. SB bets and I raised. With the flush and straight draws on board I decided to play it fast. 2 cold calls and the SB 3 bets. I capped and all 3 called. 4 to the turn and $100 already in the pot. Turn is the 3d. Yessssss. SB bets, and I raise again. Finally someone folds and the 4th guy types in “Do both of you have 32?”. Then he calls 2 more and the SB 3 bets. I type in “maybe” and cap it. He calls 2 more and the SB calls. There is now $220 in the pot and I’m starting to worry about 33. He has to know there is a ful house against him doesn’t he? I mean the other guy has already mentioned it. River is Kh. Finally the SB checks. I bet and the 3rd guy calls all-in. Now the SB raises me. Uh oh. I finally chicken out and just call. SB had 65 for the flopped straight and the 3rd guy had A5 for another flopped straight. And I was ticked I left $10 more on the table. I guess I should be happy the SB gave me about $80 extra with excessive raises.

Before I close I want to thank all the guys that have replied each week to these posts. I am so glad I started doing this. For one thing it gave me an outlet for my frustrations, but it has also been so lucrative for me. It was through these posts that I was steered to the Party 3/6 games, then to the shorthanded games. And I wouldn’t have had anyone sign up under my affiliate program either without them, so it has probably been the smartest thing I did during the 7 months. My play will be interrupted over the next few weeks with the Seattle trip and Christmas, but I’ll keep posting when I can, and I’ll see about starting the journal again in the New year. I have to make up my mind about the book thing too. I’ve done around 4 chapters now, but it seems pretty lame to me. I can’ imagine anyone other than we die-hards being remotely interested in this, except then I go to a Party and everyone asks me all about it. Maybe I need to redo it and instead of using the posts, rewrite them as a story and explain more about the game to people. We’ll see.

Have a great and safe holiday everyone, and if anyone in the Seattle area can get to Muckleshoot on Tuesday night please try and say hello. I’ll be the guy speaking Canadian eh!