Semi Bluff- A New Definition and a Few Interesting Hands

So last night I was at a final table for Aruba super sat on UB and the following hand arose. I raise button (4 way) with 10-7 sp. BB calls - bad player, bluffs way too much, and we take flop HU. Flop is Q J 7, with two hearts. He checks, I check. Turn is a rag. he checks, I bet, he calls. River is 8c, making board Q J 7 x 8. He bets 1300. Pot is 3200. I know he is bluffing and this is something I don't do often enough. I should raise there to get him to fold a hand like pkt 99 or an 8, or even a J, just in case he is bluffing with the best hand. On the other side of that argument is that my hand has showdown value and why raise when I most likely have the best hand if all he had is draw? I call. He turns over 10-8, for better pair on river. Puke. But, I digress. The fascinating thing about this hand is that in the chatbox, I wrote, nice bluff. It was obv you had nothing, but you were able to turn ur bluff into a value bet. And he says, no I had the best hand. I responded, come on you can admit your bluffing it is part of poker. And his response- the best of all is "WELL I was semi bluffing". LMAO. I was like, well if semi bluffing is betting when you are uncertain what to do, then that's right. And his response is "right." Oh my god, I almost fell of the chair laughing, I didnt even care about the hand.

FOLDING AA AND KK

On another note, I spoke to Dragon in AC yesterday. He had two very interesting hands, both in the same session where he was able to get AA and KK, to fold during post flop action. The surprise element to this conversation is that in the past, we have discussed the times when AA and KK, or any over pair needs to fold after the flop, but in today's state of 'unbluffable' poker, especially in a cash game where money has become seeemingly meaningless to an increasing # of players/gamblers, it is extremely hard to get those hands to fold, and is it really worth it? However, Dragon told me two scenarios, once when the board paired top card on the turn and a guy had slo played AA in a multi way (8 way I believe) pot (good job dude, seriously- you are the reason we make money) and Dragon raised when top card pair, and dude AA had to fold. Duh.

KK V. AJ in POSITION

A semi-tight guy at Dragon's table (5/10nl) raised to 50 on button and Dragon informed me he was sure the guy had a strong hand. Dragon is in bb with AJ. Dragon, decided, in order to get hu and isolate, to reraise, and see if, even though this guy had a strong hand, it might not be strong enuf to call a reraise. So Dragon re-raised to 225$. All folded and guy called pretty quick. Flop was QJx. Before Dragon saw flop, based upon the fact that this guy called so quick, Dragon decided he was probably done with the hand. However, on that flop, if his opponent has AA, KK or AK, he doesnt really beat many hands that Dragon couldve reraised with and he was a good enough player to fold to a big bet with a hand like KK or AA on that flop. So Dragon modified his plan and made a decent size bet. The guy folded KK face up after thinking about it for a long time. Whew. lol. Gooo dragon. Twice in one session, like a miracle worker.

Interesting PS $100 Tournament Hand

3 way in sng, Jon has 4000 chips in sb, button has big stack with 7500 and bb is short with 2500. B raises to 600 with blinds 100-200. Jon has 77. Jon decided to just call because he had reraised big stack a few times already. Another upside is if bb pushes and b calls, jon can call 1/2 his stack and then fold, or checking it down, in an opportunity to move up in the money. BB shoves, and then the button reshoves. What do you do with 77 here in sb? Factors to consider:

1. First inclination is to fold and let these two battle, however the outcomes to the hand lend itself to make a different decision;

2. If jon folds, he is either dominated in chips by big stack, or becomes short stack in 3 way sng;

3. If jon calls and wins, he has a monster stack hu;

4. If jon calls and big stack wins, jon gets second place money; and

5. If jon calls and short stack wins, but jon beats big stack, jon wins a big side pot and now big stack is short; chip pos doesnt change, he is still in second place; or

6. this is the bad scenario- if jon calls all in and comes in third where the short stack wins, and big stack beats jon.

Out of all of these scenarios, six(listed above) is the only one jon is worried about. But 4 out of 5 scenarios makes sense. Additionally 77s should be best or 2nd best. 77s rates to be usually better than the big stack's hand, but almost always better than the short stacks hand, so the likelihood of the short stack coming in first, the big stack coming in second and jon coming in third is slim. Consequently, Jon calls all in. Big stack has JJ, SB has 22. On the river, 22 hit a gutshot on the river and jon gets knocked out in the unlikely scenario that jon reasoned out. I thought this was a very interesting hand.

Comments/questions/concerns?

Good money and peace,

Lucky C and her sidekick Ace.

Happy Easter!

To all- Happy Easter Sunday, and if you are not catholic or christian, Happy Sunday =)

Yesterday was the end of my first week full time (which was really part time). I played approximately 30 hours this week and profited approximately 900$. Very interesting. I do need to get to the point where I double the number of hours I play in order to get the return on investment I am seeking. Also, Jon cashed 2nd in 50/50 on Full Tilt- goooo O face! So awesome. Tonight and tomorrow I will be at Foxwoods playing shoot out and some sngs so I will post the results of that trip later on. Other than that, everything else is going well. Apartment still has not sold and the real estate contract expires in a few weeks, so I will try to sell it on my own. We will see how that goes.

That's all for now.

Good money and peace,

Lucky C and her sidekick, ace.

=)

Second day of Full Time

Hey guys!

Ok, so Monday, Day 1 of full time went extremely well. I final tabled 30$ r at 10pm and ended up cashing for close to $1200. Net profitability for the day: $1700. And that's with a crazy amount of sukouts, one outters and two outers all day long. Yesterday, I only played 5 hrs, and ended up deficiting 70$, but had invested 380$, so felt good to almost break even.

Today. I only played two tourneys so far. Went very deep in one, 25/988 people on FT, for a small profit of $100. I take it. I did not feel well today, so it would not have been profitable to invest more. I feel much better so I multi table 4 at a time starting at 8pm. I might do a session at 10pm as well, and if I am still in all of the 8pms, I may be 6 or 8 tabling, should be interesting.

Anyway, give you more of an update tomorrow on tonight's results.

BY THE WAY big shout out to Ostrichman aka Jon my boyfriend...he came in 3/170 in last night's UB rebuy ( I finished 14th) but we were both in first and second for awhile, wouldve been nice to take home 40% of prize pool...weee! Good job ostrich!

Good money and peace,

Lucky C, and her sidekick Ace.

DAY 1: PRO POKER

Hey guys:

Per my last post, today, Monday, March 17 (Happy St. Patty's/Drunk Day by the way), today was my first day as full time online player. I have committed to 5-6 days a week, 12 hr days for one month. I want to see if my profitability/lack of is affected by volume and consistency in the tournaments and times that I play. I decided to start my day at 12pm. I also decided for the first day, I would play four sets of MTTs with a few sngs mixed in, and see how I do, and which times work better for me.

First set 12pm

As a side note, I am also starting with smallish buyins, 20$, 10$, 30$, all with guarantees, but don't want to kill online bankrolls on first day. So at 12pm, I played UB 2k guarantee ($22 entry), direct entry sat on UB for 9pm tourney ($22entry), $26 14$k guar on full tilt, $22 10k guar on stars, and 10$ r on ub at 1:30pm. I cashes in UB 20$ like 11th, I was chip leader and lsot three big hands in a row. eh, ,what can i do. So my ROI for 12pm was approximately -80$. Moving on.

Took a ten minute break.

Second set 2pm

At 2pm, I was still in UB's $10r (which I got out 12th, blah, with 6 spots paying), $26 on Tilt, lost kk to kwad qq, ps $10 15k guar, and series of 4 sngs on Tilt. Went 0 for 4 in sngs, busted early in 26$ and 10$. was done by 3:30 with everything. i was a bit frustrated, but decided to stick with my plan and play 3rd set at 4pm. This session my ROI was -$200 about. So sick.

Third set 4pm

Things livened up. I am used to playing 4 tables at once at this point. I am super focused. Just had a 1/2 hr break. I signed up for $55 mtt on UB, $5 daily doubles, times 2 on Tilt and 10$ R on stars. I bubbled rebuy on stars, had huge stack and lost with A3, trips to a gut shot. Puke. In any case, I took down $55 tourney for a $1k profit and went deep in both daily doubles, and I beleive I had the best double finish (if so, I will post link here). I placed in both 20 something out of 1100 (I was really hoping to final table both). Yesterday's winner got $436 for best finish and I checked names, I was only one left in both, so i think I will get best finish too, I hope. That would be sweet. I am not sure if I will definitely get it though, we will see. In any case, bottom line is my profitability for 4pm set was approximately 950$ and overall for day, around $700. If I get the $400 from daily double, my profit up to $1100, so I will let you guys know.

I am playing another 10pm set which includes 180 person, $20 sng on Stars, $30r on UB, $26 on Tilt and maybe one other, I seee how it goes.

I will post total profitability tomorrow regarding today. Tomorrow I have real work to do all day for a client, so I will only play a set tomorrow night if I am not tired.

Will let you know how it goes. Also as an aside, I find myself much more focused when I am multitabling. Situations where i can make a move, or I know someone is blfufing is easier to spot as well. Overall, I think the volume and the discipline required to MTT is going to equal bigger

profits for me.

Will let you know on how tonight ends. Good luck at the tables!

Good money and peace,

Lucky C and her sidekick, Ace.

Where were my three outs?

Hi all, I final tabled the $50 on UB this afternoon which was nice. Came in fourth after shoving A4cc, with 7 bbs right into pkt KK of the bb, where in f's name was my A? LOL. You all know what I mean, Ace rag is the nuts... except when u drawing dead when K hits turn, haha. In any case, i got 7x return on my investment which is good, still building online account slowly but surely.

I took a break for a little while and then decided to play 8pm- lost monster pot with full house v. full house. i flopped bottom two and he flopped set, but my opp min raised flop, so I just called. I ended up only losing to his value bets but maybe I shouldve folded since Iput him on a set. Very hard to fold once I filled up on turn. Then, ten min later, I was all in with 11 bbs with 88 v. JJ and missed.

On a different topic, but poker related, I need advice. I play about 5-6 hours a day, maybe 2 or 3 sngs and some various mtts, between $10-$100, usually only ultimatebet but sometimes on Full Tilt, most screens I play is 3, but usually only one or two. I final table often enough, but

(a.) I am not a good closer and I need to become that,
(b.) my account fluctuates between the same numbers all the time without steadily increasing which is what I am looking to do, and
(c.) I want bigger cashes/more frequent cashes. Several full time players have informed me that the key to THEIR success has been volume....5-6 screens at a time, a few sites, etc.

What Do you guys think? What can I do to accomplish my goals, how can I improve? Please drop me a note, Iwould appreciate it.

Some thoughts of my own, to improve. Exercise for one hour per day. Sleep late and play 8-9 hrs straight of tourneys, or however long I need to play and set up a schedule of tournaments I will play every day. Set up a dual screen system w my computer and start knuckling down.

Jon is frequently telling me that my skill/quality of play is not the issue (of course, I am always learning and looking to improve), its volume and consistency in playing time. Jon is right about so many things, i think he is correct about this all.


All of your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys for reading, good money and peace.

Lucky C and her sidekick, Ace.

A Very Good Tuesday

Good evening guys. Today was an excellent day. I had a court appearance for one of my lawyer-clients (I do work for other lawyers, who are too busy. they employ my services on a per diem basis) in Manhattan this morning. Jon took a ride with me because he wanted to go to the Farmer's Market in the downtown area. I was done rather quickly and after court, we had a great lunch at Natural Spring Street Restaurant, a place I used to frequent when I worked and lived in Manhattan. It was amazing as usual, food is so good and yummy, and prepared so fresh.

After lunch, Jon persuaded me to take a walk to Chinatown to do grocery shopping. As you may know from my previous posts, Jon is an amazing cook, and one of his favorite pasttimes is shopping at unusual, ethnic groceries for exotic foods. So to Chinatown we went. The outcome was pretty good, I got a knockoff handbag and Jon got 4 bags of groceries for $20- like free!!! I have to say, being in Chinatown, and specifically the Chinese Grocery was like taking a trip to Asia. As you can imagine, everything was written in some form of chinese, the language was all foreign, asian music playing over the loudspeaker, it was kind of cool.

We got home in the mid afternoon, and Jon took Lady Melinda, our little kitty to the vet, because she has been itchy and looked a bit sickly. Thankfully, she just had a slight fever and no fleas (I could not deal with that!). Jon made awesome homemade vegetarian soup and I slept for three hours. Then I decided it was time to get to work. I played the 6:30, 7:30 and 10pm rebuy on UB. Busted out of 630 and 730 in very annoying fashions, and have fairly large stack in 10pm rebuy right now. We will see how it goes!

On Sat, I will be playing Ladies Event at Caesars, so I should have a slew of horror stories for my blog then. Because I have not been playing live much these days, I do not have any hh's for you guys, but they will be forthcoming once we get going with live play. The following week, I will be at FW for some of the Poker Classic events, so that should be fun also (and hopefully profittable)!

The Apartment IS still for sale. If any of my readers cash for $1 million or more, please please please take mercy on me and buy my apartment- after all, how cool would it be to have a place on Long Island, 30 min from Manhattan, 10 min from the beach, and it could all be yours for a measly few hundred thousand... In all seriousness, I am optimistic it will sell this year. If not, then maybe we were meant to live here, forever. Lol.

The next big decision in our life will be....NJ or Vegas? Who knows where this poker playing lifestyle will lead us....

Have a good night and I will write more soon!

Good money and peace,

Lucky C and her sidekick Ace.

Happy March and a New Promise

I apologize for not writing in over a month. Its very bad of me. The past two months have been a seemingly never ending roller coaster of emotion. Doubting my abilities, bubbling every freaking tournament I enter, getting two and three outted like its my job. Makes playing full time very stressful. In order to deal with this reality, I took a step back and lowered my buy ins to 10$ , $20 and $35 mtts just to get through it. I have experienced more success recently. I have cashed in four or five online tournaments, with three final tables. No big scores, all a few hundred here and there, but enough to rebuild the account. Additionally, I am running so horribly sick in cash- two out of my last ten cash sessions have been profittable. I am playing well, just getting sick coolers. The silver lining (because I always like to see the silver lining) is that I have actually saved a lot of money. I have made some sick, sick folds, knowing I was behind by the river, folds that, if I had not, wouldve cost me thousands of dollars over the long run..pretty big silver lining I think.

My ability to read hands is so on the ball. Especially live. Online, its a bit more difficult but live, I can pretty much call out hands on a regular basis- it feels great. I really have to step up my online game. It has been lacking lately. I have reverted back to more tight, and less aggressive style play and there is no reason for that. However, I think the reason for this is because I notice more and more, that players never fold. Do not fold. Fold, not ever. Sick isn't it. Top pair is the nuts almost all of the time for these players. Sickening. It is extremely difficult to play against these players. I also though, think its my responsibility, as a professional, to deal with this reality and find a profitable solution to this inevitable obstacle. Revise my strategy, rethink hands that I play, play more post- flop, reshove more preflop, whatever it takes.

In any case, for the next month, Jon and I have decided to focus on online and play live starting at the end of March for FW Poker Classic. I will be playing shoot out on March 24 and I might play ladies event at Caesars at the end of March, we will see. I am focused on a few projects now for attorneys (I love working for myself) and getting through my little rough poker patch.

In closing, my promise to you, (all five of my readers =) )is to write more, be honest about poker and what I think we as poker players need to do to be successful, and to continue contributing as often as possible. Thank you for reading!

Good luck and peace,

Lucky C and her sidekick Ace.