Dtiffin's Blogs

A fresh start at new poker room

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 7:39:58 -0500

I've been doing poorly at FT so I'm a bit feed up with the place or my lack of ability, maybe some of both. I thought I'd try a place which supposedly has softer competition. I choose Victory Poker after some quick research and a bit of gut instinct. The important thing I realized is I have a new identity, and no one has any data on me. So far the game play has been loose and fishy, with about 25% of players knowing what there doing. Unfortunately, I can't use Holdem manager's heads up during play. It doesn't seem to be able to find anything during live play, but I can import after a session and check things out. I had a pretty good session last time.

***** Hand History for Game 2374012734000027 ***** (Cake Poker)

$10.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Monday, October 04, 08:18:36 ET 2010

Table - Paris (6-max) 12734 (Real Money)

Seat 2 is the button

Seat 1: Villain 1 ( $6.68 USD )

Seat 2: CakeSeat2 ( $8.02 USD )

Seat 3: Hero ( $20.24 USD )

Seat 9: CakeSeat9 ( $8.85 USD )

Seat 10: Villain 2 ( $21.25 USD )

Hero posts small blind [$0.05 USD].

CakeSeat9 posts big blind [$0.10 USD].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to Hero [ Tc Jc ]

Villain 2 raises [$0.20 USD]

Villain 1 calls [$0.20 USD]

CakeSeat2 folds

Hero calls [$0.15 USD]

CakeSeat9 folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 9c, 6c, Jd ]

Hero checks

Villain 2 bets [$0.30 USD]

Villain 1 calls [$0.30 USD]

Hero raises [$1.50 USD]

Villain 2 calls [$1.20 USD]

Villain 1 calls [$1.20 USD]

** Dealing Turn ** [ Js ]

Hero bets [$4.00 USD]

Villain 2 calls [$4.00 USD]

Villain 1 folds

** Dealing River ** [ Td ]

Hero bets [$8.00 USD]

Villain 2 calls [$8.00 USD]

Hero shows [Tc, Jc ]

Hero wins $27.26 USD from main pot

Villain 2 shows [Kc, Ks ]

Didn't have many hands on this guy, but I seen him play aggressive if no one played back too much. I also seen him fold a few times to strong boards, so I don't know if he would have called ALL IN on the river, so I value bet him for about half his stack.

I'm up a few buy ins and hope the trend keeps heading in the positive.

Taking bonus from FT seems to coincide with negative poker variation

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 1:50:26 -0500

It may be just an amazing coincidence, but upon accepting a bonus earning option from Full tilt, I experienced quite the negative poker variation. It seemed like I was card dead for longer periods of time than usual, that I was hitting second best hand to often, and every time I picked up aces no one else was picking up a playable starting hand. I play at the micro stakes, so not many would notice I was playing only a little tighter, so why no action on aces? I was playing some of these garbage hands preflop, to make sure people wouldn't think I was a nit.

This also caused me to realize that the other time I lost my bankroll was after taking a bonus. I'm a pretty open minded guy and I don't want to instanly believe that the company (FT) actual would bother causing things like this to happen in their software. I realize I may be playing a little different, but really, would I be playing that much differently. We are creatures of habit, and I've learned to play a certain way in general and don't believe I was playing that much outside of my standard game.

So, when I got back down to almost my original deposit amount, I was seriously considering cashing out and opening up something new at party poker, cake poker, or where ever. I ended up changing my mind, and played some more, and lost some more....hmmm well this is great.( I thought to myself).

Fed up I did something crazy, I took 70% of my bankroll and hit 1 higher stakes (by my standards) table. I realize this is totally not reccommended by any serious poker player, but I've always wanted to know what it was like to play in a higher buy in game on Full tilt. Luckily, I picked up some strong starting hands early and was able to get in there and mix it up without having to bluff. Although, I didn't need to go to showdown, I would have done it with the hands I had.

So now I'm back to within pennies of my original deposit amount, I guess I should be glad I bounced back. So the plan is to go back to square 1, at my usual limits and take this to be another real life lesson in poker. I'm really getting to understand why they call it "the grind", it seems you get ahead a bit and then poker variation kicks you back down.

DWT

Are you focused?

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 5:34:18 -0500

Hi everyone,

This is my first blog here, and was looking for something really great to talk about. When no profound ideas came along for me, I decided to quit stalling and just write about what's on my mind lately.

So, lately I've been digesting a bit of reading material of the self- help / improvement type. I've been thinking about how I can best use this knowledge to help my poker game. In one of Tony Robbins books he talks about the average persons reason for failing or falling short of goals is because of a lack of focus, determination, and inability to stick to plan to the end. When he began to talk about people that start with some lofty goal or dream occupation, make a go at it for a while and then just kind of drop it or get distracted by some other interest, it hit home. I realized that this might be a problem I had but just didn't want to admit to myself. After all, here are some the things I've spent time trying to master.

Playing guitar, drums, bass, and doing vocals. Learned to golf (fairly well). Learned how to record music and work in a home studio. Draw and paint various artwork. Learned to play Texas hold em.

So, in all these I've seemed to get pretty good at, but never quite good enough for anyone to say to me Holy @#!! this guy is really good at Golf, music....etc....he should be famous or wealthy!

So, perhaps it's time to break the cycle, and get focused and determined and have a goal in mind. I gotta tell ya though. It isn't easy, life has a way of constantly distracting you from a main goal, especially as a working class family guy. I'd really like to hear from some of the pros here, and like to know if they went through similar stages. Best of luck at tables all, hope all of you run hot!

DWT