Wow, busy month.
I am terrible at blogging. I think I've had at least five blogs by now where I've started it up, gone crazy in the first week, and then just lost interest. Sorry!
Anyway, on to the newz.
Current Bankroll: $4,175
Two weeks ago I had $300 on party and was playing the $25 PLO games. I ran freaking horrible bad for one session and lost $250 playing 10 tables. Needless to say, I was somewhat dismayed. Yeah, I play a high variance style, but I have NEVER EVER lost more than 4 buy-ins in a single session playing $25 PLO. NEVER. My job pays my bills and allows me to live comfortably as a single guy, but I hardly have a bunch of money to pour into poker. I also had a computer that I was paying off in installments (a 2 year old POS Presario that cost me $150 a month).
So anyway, I didn't know what to do. Do I transfer the $50 over to stars and play $0.01/$0.02 or something until I have enough to get back into the $25 games? That doesn't sound terribly fun and is not likely something I would do. Instead I did an instacash on Neteller for $300 and sat back down in the same games that night and made $100 back over the next hour or so. The catch? I didn't really have $300 in my bank account to cover the instacash. It was a few days a way from payday and I knew I could cover it if I *had* to, but that's not how TheRempel rolls.
That Friday, I crushed the $25 tables a bit more and took a shot at $100 PLO, buying in for $50 on two tables. By Sunday, I had $900, enough to cash out $600 to cover my neteller account. I need $300 to cover my pending EFT (Neteller will not let you cash out unless you have more than you 'owe') plus the $300 to cash out on my ATM card and put in my bank account. I squeaked it out and my foolishness was rewarded.
A week after that, I'd managed to build my roll to $1800, mostly through playing $25 PLO with some irregular shots at $100. On Saturday, January 14th, I ran into some harsh beats and somewhat tilty play by myself and ended up playing from 3:00 PM until 6:00 AM Sunday morning. I went through a continual torturous cycle of lose-get even-lose-get even-win-lose for 15 freaking hours. My Buddy Chris showed up at 6:00 AM because I'd given him a key so he could get in and use my computer while I was sleeping. He showed up and I was still playing, so he sat back on my office couch and sweated me.
By 10:00 I'd broken even again. It was probably the most frustrating night of poker I'd ever played. It seemed as though people were calling ridiculously thin (2 outs, 3 outs, 5 outs, 1 outs...)
and hitting, always taking a large portion of my money. Finally, in frustration, I scanned the Party Poker lobby and found a $400 PLO table where the average pot was $350. I sat down with a monkey buy in ($100) and got AhsAJs9h on my first hand in the BB. Raised preflop, got two callers, potted the Q93 flop, got raised all in by QQxx, called for my last $30 with an overpair, a backdoor straight draw and the nut flush draw. The turn came Ad and the river was the beautiful Ac and I won a $250 pot.
A few hands later I have KK63r in late position. I limp after 5 or 6 limpers and we all take a flop of 665 or 664, I can't quite remember. It's checked to me, I make a pot-sized bet and get 1 caller. On most turn cards I'll simply check behind if it's checked to me. The reason being that in PLO, with a high pair in your hand along with trips, you're either slightly ahead or way behind. I had no reads on the other player so I had no way of knowing whether or not he'd check-call with something like A678, which has me in a world of hurt, or if he'd do the same with just an overpair. I'm basically looking to take down the hand on the flop since I have five outs at maximum to improve to a full-house.
Anyway, the turn was a great card, one of the two remaining Kings, giving me the stone cold nuts as my opponent could not possibly have quads (not usually much of a concern anyway). He checked to me, I bet about 60% of the pot and he smooth called again. I'd make this same bet with something like 689T if I feel like I'm drawing live and of course I'd also make it if I hit a great card and have my opponent drawing dead. The river was a 7, he lead out with a pot sized bet, I raised all-in, and he called with 6789. I'd broken even and closed the table, planning on going to bed. I became involved in a big pot with an OE straight draw and the nut flush draw versus two obvious sets on a $100 table and took it down, hitting my straight on the river. I've never been one to leave during a rush so after a few minutes I sat back down at the same $400 table, this time with $200.
I doubled up my second hand back with the nut flush versus a ten high flush (no kidding!). Next hand I flopped middle set vs a shortstack that pushed an OE straight draw and took it down to build my stack to $528.
Then the deciding hand of my session:
UTG raised to $14, almost always KK or AA when he's raising in this position. The button reraised to $40 which could be almost anything as he had reraised at least 15% of his hands at the table. I called in the BB with QJ9T ds and the UTG player reraised to $124. The Button called and I also called, figuring to win a big pot if I hit the flop hard. I'm unlikely to be a big dog since there's about a 90% chance that both players have pairs here, probably KK and AA, as long as my cards are mostly live. The pot was $429 to the flop.
The flop came and hit me hard: 9d 6d 9h. The UTG player bet the pot leaving himself with $15, the button called all-in, and I raised for UTG's last $15. The turn was a fantastic queen of spades and the river the seven of spades, and my full house was good for a $1579 pot, the biggest pot I've ever won to my recall. I played two or three more hands, turned a straight with a wrap draw against a LAG with top two pair, and won another $900. At 11:00 am, I closed Party Poker, having won $2500 in 15 minutes. My absolute crazy shot taking paid off.
I cashed out $1000 to finish upgrading my computer so I could take the original parts that belonged to the presario, throw them back in the original case, and send it back to the company I've been 'purchasing' it from, not spending another dime on the horrible POS. I did so, bought a new monitor, mother board, chip set, and RAM and now have basically a brand new computer for my gambooling efforts.
Two weeks later, a few more shots at $400, two shots at $2000 (one good, one bad, break eve altogether) and I have a nice comfy bankroll for playing the $100 games.
Sometimes crazy works out for you.
LOST MONKEY, AKA RIBBO, AKA RIBS, AKA THEREMPEL's BIZNATCH
]
]
]
]
]
