Hands of the Day #2

Early this evening while I was taking a break from poker I watched a sob story on the news. A young kid who just turned 22 was struggling to come up with money to move out to Las Vegas to pursue his dream of playing poker. At then end of the story there was a number at the bottom of the screen for donations and I wanted to see if I could try and help. I turned off the TV and jumped back online after an already good day and was able to gather about 76bb in donations playing 10/20 draw. A special thanks to Akellare, TimeToJam, Johnny and many more. My heart goes out not only to the kid but the donators as well. I promised Akellare and his family that I would give them a shout out so this one's for you guys !


Hand 1

Seat 5: BBQbowser ($179 in chips)

Seat 7: akelarre ($212 in chips)

Seat 9: pippooooo ($114.05 in chips)


ANTES/BLINDS
BBQbowser posts blind ($5), akelarre posts blind ($10).

PRE-DRAW
pippooooo folds, BBQbowser calls $5, akelarre folds.

SHOWDOWN
BBQbowser wins $20.



Hand 2

Seat 3: BBQbowser ($413.75 in chips)

Seat 7: akelarre ($131.80 in chips)

Seat 8: Piers_ ($500 in chips)


ANTES/BLINDS
BBQbowser posts blind ($5), akelarre posts blind ($10).

PRE-DRAW
Piers_ folds, BBQbowser calls $5, akelarre folds.

SHOWDOWN
BBQbowser wins $20.



Hand 3

Seat 3: BBQbowser ($438.25 in chips)

Seat 7: akelarre ($106.80 in chips)

Seat 8: Piers_ ($500 in chips)


ANTES/BLINDS
BBQbowser posts blind ($5), akelarre posts blind ($10).

PRE-DRAW
Piers_ folds, BBQbowser calls $5, akelarre folds.

SHOWDOWN
BBQbowser wins $20




That's three folded big blinds.. You care so little, I mean so much I'm speechless. Thank you !!

Let's not get too excited.

My dreams have changed.... again.

At first glance everything i want seems more realistic. And certainly much more attainable. I'm using poker to ease my worries of supporting myself. I have it in my head that this is it for me. Freedom to live like i never thought i could. But then i look, and im sitting with a little over 1000BB at 1-2. What the hell am i thinking.

I've been playing 1-2 head up holdem for exactly 17 hours and 21 minutes. That is total playing time kiddies. At about 18BB an hour things are looking great, right? Wrong. I'm constantly doubting myself. I keep telling myself, that if i get to this amount or that amount of money, ill stop worrying about whether or not i can do this. This obviously has not worked yet.

At my very very conservative calculations, i should be sitting very healthy by the month of september. And even more healthy by next year. This is when i plan to move, with 2 years rent, too... VEGAS? What the hell is wrong with me? I have yet to step foot into a CASINO let alone card room. So yeah, my goals are realistic, and my meek daily goals make it very clear that i can achieve what i want to by the time college is over.

Can i train myself to stop caring so much about 10 big bets? I spent 20 minutes picking the hairs i pulled out of my head out of my laptop keyboard. I basically have to change a huge part of my personality. We shall see...

So my dreams? I don't want to be a rock star. I don't want to be a studio musician. No, no, no... I want to play music whenever the hell i want with friends. I want to golf. I never want to put on a winter jacket again. And, o yeah, i want to play poker for a living. Much more realistic right?

I don't even walk through powder snow because i want to keep my pants dry. I'm king conservative. If chances of rain are 4:1 against, i wear a hat so my hair doesn't get wet, just in case.

If my hair is still brown in september, i think ill be on the right track.

This should be fun

Heads up talk/Hands of the Day

Leftover chinese food is the greatest thing on earth.

After giving it a lot of thought I am fairly sure I will be moving to Las Vegas in september. The places I'm looking at are humongous and inexpensive. It would be fun to get a huge house with five bedrooms even though I could probably only fill up three of them. There would be an 'office', a music room, and maybe a studio for photography. I even found a place with a waterfall in the backyard ! How fun would it be to get into a speedo and get the neighbors all riled up while I play in the waterfall. My sister will still be in Vegas too so hopefully we'll be able to hang out a lot and maybe even be neighbors.

Lately, I've been trying to tackle heads up limit hold em again. I used to be so much better at it a year ago I don't know what happened ! Right now it's 3/6 while I get my feet wet and get some more experience. At the very least I'd like to have a minimium of 16bb/hr before moving up to 5/10. I've been playing extremely aggressive and that seems to be working well for the most part. I just need to work on tightening up my play against some opponents. I bought Pokertracker which has been a big help too. Of course I had to chaonge a lot of the default rules for rating players so they would be geared more towards my head up play.

With all the poker lingo out there, Jamie and I decided to come up with some creative terms of our own. So far we have 'BRBI' which is when someone buys in for what we think is their entire bankroll when they first sit down against one of us heads up. The other term is for a player who is a calling station who frequently hits runner runner draws. We are calling this type of player a 'Carl Lewis.'

Lots of interesting hands came up when playing heads up so I figured I will post a bunch of them. I may even have a short lesson with some of the posted hands. So here's my horrible attempt at running a 'Hand of the Day' sort of thing...


PRE-FLOP
BBQbowser bets $4.50, kaunis neito calls $3.

FLOP [board cards 9H,JH,10C ]
kaunis neito checks, BBQbowser bets $3, kaunis neito calls $3.

TURN [board cards 9H,JH,10C,QH ]
kaunis neito checks, BBQbowser checks.

RIVER [board cards 9H,JH,10C,QH,9C ]
kaunis neito checks, BBQbowser bets $6, kaunis neito calls $6.

SHOWDOWN
BBQbowser shows [ JD,AC ]
kaunis neito mucks cards [ 3H,7C ]
BBQbowser wins $29.25.

Nice river call... kaunisdorkis


PRE-FLOP
BBQbowser bets $4.50, cbr65 bets $6, BBQbowser bets $6, cbr65 calls $3.

FLOP [board cards 10C,10H,AH ]
cbr65 bets $3, BBQbowser calls $3.

TURN [board cards 10C,10H,AH,10S ]
cbr65 bets $6, BBQbowser calls $6.

RIVER [board cards 10C,10H,AH,10S,6H ]
cbr65 bets $6, BBQbowser calls $6.

SHOWDOWN
cbr65 shows [ 5S,JS ]
BBQbowser shows [ 6C,8C ]
BBQbowser wins $53.25.

I knew he didn't have an ace here or even high cards for that matter and was debating on whether or not to raise the turn when I made the flop call. At the very least on the turn a call was correct because of what I call 'extended outs.' I figured to have three outs with any six, three outs with any eight, plus my extended outs which were any one of the three remaining aces or the remaining ten to chop the pot up.

Official Poster

Listen up bitches, i'm official now.

UTG Mindy..

Just so we're all on the same page.. UTG Mindy is a name I came up with for fish who like to raise the minimium amount UTG in sit n gos. It's very annoying and accomplishes nothing. A player should be raising for one of three reasons:

1) To Isolate the pot
2) For value
3) To take the pot down right then and there

Silly mindy raises... if you are a mindy and think you have good reason for making this raise please comment.

~Keith Ruddell

First post

Long night I can't get to sleep.. I've been reading a lot of blogs that fellow pro poker players have written and finally got inspired to start one myself. So here it is, my first post ! How cool is it to hear about these young guys making a TON of money. I just spoke with a 19 year old who has bought a BMW, Mercedes, a $7000 tv, and a house in the last six months. It really makes me want to get my shit together and really start putting more hours.

Tonight's session was full of swings ! That's how it goes and you won't find I will be bitching about it either but towards the end of the night I was steaming for the first time in awhile. Eventually, I just grit my teeth and hit the 'sit out' button.

I went to the mall earlier today here in Palo Alto, CA and visited the Apple Store to check out the 30 inch LCD. It is truly jaw-dropping and I will be purchasing it as soon as I get back to Boston :)

I'm craving a game of spades now.

~Keith Ruddell