Trying to make it....my blog revewing my progress

Nice Blog ;)

Still enjoying it man, keep it up!

This is a blog post from my site http://www.thebrokenchip.com/author/paul/. If you would like to read more up to date blog posts from December and January or see pictures from my trips/sessions you can check out the site. Enjoy!

The WPT was beginning on November 15th and the day before on the 14th I received an email from Snakes Poker Club in Montreal holding a $10K Guaranteed Wednesday tournament with only a $120 entry. I am not an exceptionally good live tournament player, having only won about three of the twenty live tournaments that I’ve played in, but I still figure myself to be above average and far more skilled than the low buy-in tournament players that this tourney would attract. Since I was excited to get to Montreal, I went with a friend of mine a day early to give this tournament a try.

We arrived an hour before it began and the owner was happy to let us in early and offered us a few free beers while we waited. We happily accepted his gesture and took a look around the poker room. I guess Snake’s had been gearing up for a busy couple of weeks even though the WPT was being held down the street at Playground Poker Club since he was in the middle of training some new staff and he had mentioned to us that they’ve changed their hours of operation for the next couple of weeks.

My table began with only four players and six empty spots that were being blinded away as the tournament only started with 40 players but the owner was expecting 100+ considering he was giving a three hour late registration. No one wanted to bust before some players had even gotten to the tournament so I wasted no time by involving myself in a lot of pots and quickly became the table captain. Finally as my table began filling up, I met some resistance when I raised my pocket 9’s from MP and was reraised by the small blind. We saw an A, 10, 4 flop and when checked to; I led out with a half pot size bet. Immediately my opponent check raised me and I flicked my cards into the muck. My opponent gave me a grin and showed pocket 2’s but I didn’t want to give him any satisfaction from the bluff and made no reaction.

After the second break, I got my revenge when I called his raise out of position with pocket 6’s. My opponent seemed like a capable player and I didn’t want to 3-bet only to open the door for him to 4-bet shove. The flop came down 6, 3, 3 giving me a boat and I decided to check raise his flop bet. I figured he might remember that this was the same move he put on me earlier and he’d likely call pretty light since he was in position. Again I bet out small on the turn to be called. Finally on the river, I wanted to continue my story that I’ve been bluffing, knowing that he had been floating me the entire time and would have to bet in this spot. Almost as if I was scripting this well played out movie myself, my opponent shoved his stack in the middle, I snapped called, and he showed Ace-Queen high. This time I got to give him the grin but like a good sport, he said “nice play” as he walked away from the table. Sadly, it was never meant to be and I eventually ended up busting out roughly around 40th position out of the eventual 120 players that had showed up.

The friend I had come to Montreal with was still in the tournament so I jumped in a very deep $5-$5 game. I’d begun the session losing with KK to AK all in preflop for my first $500 and decided to rebuy for $1000. I continued playing well for a few hours and finally was able to double through another player when my QJ beat my opponent’s J-10 on a 9, 8, 6, 10, 7 board, giving me the higher straight.

I had finally built my stack up to about $1800 when I played a massive pot. A young female player who had been very active with her preflop raises but was otherwise passive post flop made a raise to $30 and got several callers. I looked down at AQ on the button and decided that I would like to play this hand heads up against her since she was likely folding on the flop. I raised it up to $150 and the big blind tank called which worried me. She also made the call and the rest of the players folded. With the pot ~$540, we saw a flop of Q♠ – 10♠ – 4♦ . The player in the big blind led out for a really small $180 bet and I got the feeling that he was only trying to see where he was in the hand. The girl decided to call after some deliberation and I continued to show strength and raised to $650. The big blind finally tank folded bringing the action to the girl. She sat there for 2 minutes and was clearly uncertain about what to do. I realized that she was on a flush draw and was debating to herself whether it was worth chasing the flush for her entire stack. Eventually she announced all in, I took a moment to replay the action in the hand and made the call. I announced “top pair”, she nodded that I was good and confirmed that she was on a flush draw. I tried asking if she wanted to run it twice or three times, but there was a pretty big language barrier between us as she only spoke French. Finally I just told the dealer to run it once since we were taking too long to agree. The 4♥ came on the turn and the 8♥ on the river. I snap rolled over my hand thinking I was good but she proudly showed K♠4♠ for a turned three of a kind.

The table congratulated her on the roughly $4k pot and I sat there in disbelief that in one of the biggest pots of my life, I couldn’t stay on the positive side of variance. Around the same time my friend busted from the tournament near the buddle so since we were both down money, instead of staying overnight, we began the two hour drive home, giving us plenty of time to discuss and analyze our bad beats.

The Beast named Montreal had won Round 1…..

If you like what you read and want live updates, you can also follow me on Twitter @TheBrokenChip. I share this account with my two friends who are professional sports bettors for a living, so you get some pretty interesting tweets

* The pictures from my blog dont seem to post here on Pokerstrategy, but you can check them out on my blog site: http://www.thebrokenchip.com/author/paul/ **

March started off so well that I began getting ahead of myself and was envisioning another $10K month.

I had come back from Montreal after getting fourth in a tournament for $1500 and continued grinding at my local casino. Since the Montreal trip, I rattled off five consecutive winning sessions and had pushed myself to be up $6500 with only one week left in the month. I wanted to hit $10K for the month so badly to try and recover the lost time/money from February, so I decided to take four days off work during Easter weekend and go back to Montreal looking for some higher stakes action.

I arrived Thursday night and made my way to the Montreal casino poker room. Although there are many options for poker in Montreal, I like the casino the best simply because you regularly see blackjack/baccarat players passing some time by playing poker, a game they are only familiar with from seeing it on television. Whereas the other card rooms are solely poker rooms and therefore if someone is taking the time to drive specifically to that place, then they are obviously not a beginner.

Anyways, my first day went alright and I booked a small $600 win in a 2/5NL game. On the Friday, I decided to accomplish one of my goals and take a shot at 5/10NL. I was on the table when it first opened around 6pm and it started out okay. I was able to pick up a few pots by C-betting and semi bluffing, but as the night wore on, the average age at the table decreased and all of a sudden it was clear that the game was filled with online grinders. I should have walked away, but my ego made me stay and try to beat the game. I triple barrel bluffed with A high and got caught on the river after a 3-4 minute tank by my opponent and then lost a flip with AK vs queens all in pre flop. Just like that I was stuck $2800 and decided to call it a night before losing anymore.

The next day I made my way to Playground Poker club for some more 2/5NL action. They were running a 5/10NL game but after the heavy loss the day before, I assumed I wouldn’t be able to play my A-game at that table. The action at my table was also really good and I was able to get a quick double up when I flopped a set against aces and we got the money in on the turn. We ran the river out three times and I was able to fade the two outer each time and scooped the pot.

Later on, I got into huge pot but have been debating whether or not I played it correctly or missed value. Effective stacks are roughly $1500. After a few limpers, I raised on the button with 8♦ 10♦ to $25 and two limpers called. We saw a 7♠ 3♣ 9♠ flop and one limper bet $50, the other limper called and I raised to $175 to which both players called. The 6♣ fell on the turn to which the short stack player shoved for his last $150, the other player called and I made it $450. This time, the player gave a pretty long speech about how he knows I have 8-10 but has to call anyways. He put in the extra $300 and instantly checked dark. The river came the 3♦ and the action was left to me. I took two minutes deliberating about what he could have in this situation that I could get value from, but I was worried that he had a set. I checked and the short stack player mucked his missed flush draw, while my other opponent tabled 5♣ 8♣ for a straight with a flush draw on the turn.

I plan on showing my friends the write up of that hand because I am really not sure if I should have shoved river, but to be honest, I never put him on a gut shot straight draw on the flop. Either way I booked a really nice win that night but still left Montreal on Sunday down for my trip.

Here is a look at my stack at the end of the night:073

Here is a look at my goals for March:

[x] Play 20 hours a week – I finished the month with 90.75 hours played.

[x] Reduce spending while playing – Only twice did I order food/beers while playing in march (outside of the places that offered free beer/food while playing)

[x ] Travel somewhere new – First time playing at El Jumelgi and I’ve already booked 10 days in Atlantic City in April from the 5th – 15th so I’ll definitely be playing new places next month.

[ ] Begin staking other players – Not too many opportunities came up, but when they do, I’ll look to get involved.

[ ] Reduce spewing at lower limits – I was down $867 playing 1/2NL and 1/2PLO

[x] Eliminate Gambling – I didn’t play a single hand of blackjack or a single roll of craps!

[x] Post weekly on The Broken Chip – So far I’ve kept this promise

[x] Take shots – I played 5/10 but it didn’t end the way I’d hoped.

Here is my 2013 graph thus far:

Some stats: In March I played 90.75 hours and needed $256 for hotels/gas expenses. I finished the month with a $4613 profit giving me an hourly of $48.02 after my expenses. However for the year I am only up $5192 with $322 expensed and an hourly of only $27.24. If I’m going to pursue this poker career, I’m really going to need to increase my hourly over the next couple of months.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter over April as I have a road trip planned to Atlantic City where I’ll be stopping off at Sands Bethlehem, Harrah’s Philadelphia, and Mount Airy Casino on the way and I’ll be tweeting a lot each day.