January Wrap Up

Hi all. This has been an extremely frustrating poker month for me. First off, I am utlizing a new spreadsheet that shows me my monthly and aggregate profits and losses. I know that there are plus and minus months, however I am not used to seeing it at the top of my spreadsheet, in my face every time I open it. Hopefully February is a beter month.

We are in Atlantic City for the next couple of days. Jon is playing a satellite for the BWO Main Event, $3600 buy in. I am buying a piece of one of my friends. I played a satellite last night. It was ok, 18 seats, almost 200 players in it, I busted like 70 something. It was a bit aggravating, yet I think I picked my spots well to get chips. I was very card dead and had to depend on moves to accumulate some chips.

On my business front, things are looking very good. My partner and I have some great ideas that we are going to put into action very soon. Hopefully, we are able to recruit one or two big clients to really assist in growing our practice. I will keep you updated on that. I am excited for this year. I really would like poker to turn around. It helps my confidence so much when I have a decent cash.

I have one interesting hand from the satellite last night that I thought was a good hand. I have 77 utg with 11k in chips, blinds are 400-800. The big blind is loose passive, but I did not know this at the time, I was relatively new to the table. So I raise utg to 1800. It folds to him and he says, "ok lets see a flop." So I right off the bat give him a mediocre hand and he really just wants to "see a flop." Flop is J 9 3 which is a decent flop for my hand. He leads 1600 into me. At this point, I don't believe he has a AJ, KJ QJ. I give him any 9, q10, k10, a10, etc. He has about 14k total. So, I decide that my raise utg is so strong, that I raise right here looks extremely strong. So I make it 3950. He thinks for about 30 seconds. He mucks and says, I hit that flop hard. I laughed in my head. The guy on my left asks me what I have and I flip one 7. The guy was visibly annoyed. It was funny.

Ok that's all for now. I will explain more about the monkiness I have been playing against later. Talk to you soon,
Good money and peace.
Garnet.

Random Rambling...

Hey all. This is going to be an eclectic blog of random thoughts, a few poker hands, and generalities of life.

January has been a roller coaster month, however my BR has not been positive since January 1. Jon, on the other hand, won the 50/50 on FTP January 1st, so he started the year with a 10k cash, which is awesome. I started using Jon's spreadsheet for Poker 2010 and its great. I have been going very deep in mtts, but not finishing. Thank goodness for mtt sngs- they have allowed me to keep afloat of my downswing in regular mtts. I also came in 2nd in The Dime last night on UB for $1700 so that made me almost even for the year. It felt good to go so deep, 2 out of 1355.

I am playing more and more on FTP and less on UB. I really prefer FTP's structure, however the players on UB are so much weaker. I am also interested in playing Cake Poker next month and expanding into more non- holdem games.

Next week, we are going to Borgata for their Winter Open. I am excited to play live. I really feel like my game is getting better and better. I am looking forward to bringing my online game to my live play at Borgata. So far, I am playing the Ladies' Event and maybe 3 other events. It depends on how well I feel I am playing, etc.

We closed on the house in Vegas last week, yeaaaa!!! So excited about that. Its amazing that we own a condo in NY and a house in Vegas, it is fantastic!

I satellited into the 1k on FTP last Monday, that was so good. It was my birthday. I had a great day online, I profitted 1200$ for the day plus the satellite entry. There were a few hands from the 1k that I think are worth sharing.

1. 44 in middle position. UTG + 1 raises to 150 (blinds 25-50), I call and two others call. The flop is K 9 4, rainbow. UTG + 1 bets 350 (2/3 of pot). He was a relatively tight player, so his range was pretty narrow- AA, AK, and possibly KQ, maybe a set of 99. I raise right there to 900. It folds back to the original raiser and he three bets 1200 on top. We were pretty deep. He had about 4k behind, after the reraise to 1200, and my all in was another 3k more to him. I four bet all in, because I felt like he wasn't going to fold, and I believed by making this play, he would most likely give me AK if he had AA. He timed out and called with AK. I doubled 8700. Any thoughts, comments?

2. I got ground down to 5k after getting reraised three hands within 20 minutes. Please know that this hand was partly a product of my frustration and secondly, the utg raiser lost 3 big pots in a row. So he raises to 500. I am in middle position. I have JJ w 5200 chips. I had 26 bbs. I normally smooth call here. However, considering my frustration with getting reraised, plus his image, I decided to reraise. In hindsight, because this is a 1k event and the first time I am playing it, I should have smooth called and play post flop. So, UTG shoves, I reluctantly call. He has AK, and flop is A A K and I am drawing dead. I finished 200 something, about 360 started.

That's all for now, I will write more later.. Enjoy your week!!

Good money and peace,
Garnet.

Merry Chanukah and a Happy New Year!

Hi All. I hope you all had a spectacular holiday. Jon and I were extremely busy in December, with Christmas and Chanukah, the work on the apartment, the purchase of the house in Vegas etc, etc...We had a great end of the year, and a pretty good start to 2010. Jon won the 50 50 on FTP on New Years Day, congrats Ostrich! We are closing on the house in Vegas this week. I have been cashing and going deep in many tournaments, just not closing. I made 3 final tables on line in December, and my volume was very low.

This is going to be an exciting month. We will go to Las Vegas for a few days to deal with the house and get it ready for rental, and borgata tournaments at the end of January. I have also volunteered to run UB Beauties which is a Ladies only weekly tournament on UB, starting Jan 10th. Its a small tournament and mainly for fun- my mother and a bunch of online chic friends like playing, so it should be nice.

For my new years resolution, I am going to practice a healthy lifestyle, blog more often and lastly, practice my non hold em games this year. I really want to become a good Omaha player and improve the nuances of my stud game. If anyone is interested in discussing strategy for these games, let me know.

In my next blog, I will discuss poker trends in the last year or so, and things I have noticed- both online and live..and how things have changed.

Good money and peace,
Garnet.