History of teh Internetz!

Best video you'll see today, explaining in some detail how this whole "tubes" thing came to be.


Up over 6500 hands, still showing profit, still grinding away. The major difference I've been employing as of 1500 hands ago is much less preflop aggression, and much more passive play.

Uh, wow... Work happens.

It's been a whole week since I played any poker. Damn. I guess I actually do have a day job.

Speaking of the day job, I am loving it. I'm working on a huge project (7 day shoot, woot!) that has me spending a bit of time each day on set, cutting proof-of-concept snippets so my clients can see that it's coming together as planned. It's always cool to show up as they're shooting it and showing that things are going to rock. As far as I'm concerned, we've got all the best people involved and it's showing in the footage.

I plan on logging a thousand hands or so tonight, but we'll see how that goes. The MIL is in town as part of a junket that was supposed to include Boston, but that part got cancelled. She's been staying with us in the CatCondo (don't ask) for the past week. It's been great having her here though. She's been working in China for the last year and a bit, and the wife doesn't get to see her as often as before the move (obviously).

I've got to go in early tomorrow, (CUT MONKEY, CUT!!!!!) so getting 1000 hands in might be tough... Wish me luck!

EDIT: I signed up for Statcounter, and man oh man, it's so cool to know that people out there are actually READING this thing.

Sigh...

Well, back to the drawing board. Just under 5000 hands and I'm right back where I started. I wonder if any of it has to do with playing on the weekend. I don't think my play adjusted all that much, but it appears that no matter how much betting i do on the turn, people are calling with almost no odds and making their hands.

One thing I did notice, is that I'm finding it difficult to fold two pair on draw heavy boards. I is teh suck.

Is there anybody out there that can help me analyze my hand database?

2900 hands later...

And I'm still showing profit. Don't have the stats in front of me, but in the neighborhood of 13.5 BB/100 hands. Is that good? I'm not really sure. As long as my graphs are showing an uptick, I think I'm golden. I'll correct these numbers later if I'm way off.

Can I say again how much I love multitabling? It's easily the most important thing in my recent improvement. A Hud helps a lot too, but by keeping my attention focused on four tables at once, I'm dumping hands that I might have played if I were a single table noob.

I'm new to the Hud concept, but I've been finding some players that are playing nearly 80-90% of their hands (VPIP). These guys are the fish, right?

It's working!

Running PTO and Pokerace Hud. Through WinXP on Bootcamp. It's all very snappy and I'm not noticing any lag or slowdown. It's very helpful being able to look at my stats. I've only logged a meager 500 hands, but I'm finding multitabling to be extremely good for my game. I'm still dealing with the speed at which I have to make decisions, but it's so much easier to lay down junk-ish hands and awful draws.

So far so good, but it's way too early to say I'm teh expertz leet PLO'er.

A whole new world.

I've decided to take a break from tournaments. Despite some early success, I think I've opened up a little too much and have started playing too loose. I've also forgotten some golden rules and gotten a little sloppy. Might be time for me to focus on starting fresh with a different discipline. Consider it a New Year's Resolution.

I'm going to switch over to PLO cash for awhile and start near the bottom. I'm starting at PLO$10 with 20 buyins to see what I can do. Sadly, I think I'm going to need to do an install of XP in bootcamp (on my Mac) so I can start running Pokertracker. I'd do everything on the Mac side, but crossover and PT3 don't like each other. And I refuse to buy a PC. Just can't do it.

I'm going to be very strict in my approach. No more than an hour a day multitabling four tables at 10¢/25¢. $200 starting roll.

I've also started going back to the gym. It felt really good to hit the treadmill and weights again. I ran into my old personal trainer on Monday and the pangs of guilt were too strong to stay away. Oddly enough, after three solid months of not going, I set a new personal best for the mile. Weird. I use the Nike sport kit with my iPod and I absolutely love it. Very motivating to keep track of your runs, and to watch subtle improvements.

I also subscribed to Deucescracked. Let me just say that this is a terrible investment, and nobody looking to improve their game should do it. You will learn nothing from the pros and it's like throwing away your monies.

Okay, WTF?

So I just got busted in the strangest way in the nightly $30 PLO game. Check out this nonsense:

PokerStars Game #23680982663: Tournament #131676782, $30+$3 Omaha Pot Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2009/01/07 23:28:55 ET
Table '131676782 11' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: rockbot (6325 in chips)
Seat 2: cabriboy (3215 in chips)
Seat 3: datEman (3710 in chips)
Seat 4: djg420 (5639 in chips)
Seat 5: MR CH0W (5290 in chips)
Seat 6: 121themac (2905 in chips)
Seat 7: mattythatguy (4176 in chips)
Seat 8: Joe_Banks (6090 in chips)
Joe_Banks: posts small blind 50
rockbot: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mattythatguy [Js As 6d Ah]
cabriboy: raises 200 to 300
datEman: folds
djg420: calls 300
MR CH0W: calls 300
121themac: calls 300
mattythatguy: raises 1650 to 1950
Joe_Banks: raises 4140 to 6090 and is all-in
rockbot: folds
cabriboy: folds
djg420: folds
MR CH0W: folds
121themac: folds
mattythatguy: calls 2226 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (1914) returned to Joe_Banks
*** FLOP *** [4s 2h 5c]
*** TURN *** [4s 2h 5c] [8d]
*** RIVER *** [4s 2h 5c 8d] [Qs]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Joe_Banks: shows [4d 5s 3d 2s] (two pair, Fives and Fours)
mattythatguy: shows [Js As 6d Ah] (a pair of Aces)
Joe_Banks collected 9652 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9652 | Rake 0
Board [4s 2h 5c 8d Qs]
Seat 1: rockbot (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: cabriboy folded before Flop
Seat 3: datEman folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: djg420 folded before Flop
Seat 5: MR CH0W folded before Flop
Seat 6: 121themac folded before Flop
Seat 7: mattythatguy (button) showed [Js As 6d Ah] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 8: Joe_Banks (small blind) showed [4d 5s 3d 2s] and won (9652) with two pair, Fives and Fours

Afterwards he types, "thought there'd be a lot of dead money out there". Come on? Really?

I just checked this guy's stats, and they're through the roof.



What the dealie-o? Someone help me out here.