Loss is my middle name

Shit I was crackin'...for a minute. I think I got called on every single bluff except one. That's like four huge bluff and the people called me with weak hands. Both times the guys were just like "fuck it" and called. I actually built my stack up with solid play.

Well, this lady was an idiot. I had QJ. She's on the button, I'm one seat in front of her. She raised pre-flop to like 20, about four people call. Flop comes QJx. I wanted to see where I was at so I bet $30. She called, other two folded. Turn is a J. I check, she checks. River is a Jack. So the board is QxJJQ and I have QJ. I bet $50 and she calls with TT, so essentially she called with a 10 kicker and the board, lol. She had no clue.

So I had my stack at like $500 and I get 55. She raises again to like $20 and three people call. The board comes KsJs8h. I check, other guy checks. She makes a weak bet and I call, planning to outplay her on the turn or river. Then the other guy calls. The third spade peels off on the turn and I check. The second guy checks and my read on him is that he doesn't have the flush. The lady then bets $50 and I move all-in for like $450 or something. The other guy calls immediately and is all-in for $200 or so. She folds. River is a blank and the guy called with a pair of eights and the ace of spades, so he was just praying for a spade but also had the 8 and I lost.

Like three hands later I have Ac3c in the small blind. EVERYONE limps. I know they have me on some bullshit after the 55 loss so I just limp with everyone. Flop comes three clubs. Nuts. UTG bets $20. Short stack (around $90) raises to $40. I hollywood and look at the original bettor and ask him if he's gonna raise, etc. Then I call and he calls. The turn is a rag of spades and I check. The original bettor makes it $100. The other guy puts in his last $50 and now I'm acting again. Looking at my cards and all that BS. I move in for my last $320 and he calls with very little hesitation. The river is nothing and I win, the other guy had 5c7c and the short stack didn't show.

Very next hand I'm on the button with 10-7. Flop is 7-7-10. Everyone including me checks. On the turn (ace) I bet $5 and three callers. River is a king, everyone checks and I bet $100 trying to make it look like an overbet bluff and everyone folds.

The hand that really hurt me, I had 9s7s. One guy who had been raising a lot raised to about $25. Few callers. Flop comes AsJsQh. He bets $50 and seems pretty weak. Two callers. River is a 7. He bets $50 again, gets one caller and I push for $600. He thinks for a long time (he has $350. I thought he had $250 but he had a hidden white chip) and finally calls with A-10. I had a bunch of outs but missed and he's a genius.

Lost two buy-ins, which sucks!

Overally I played pretty well but I clearly picked the wrong two people to bluff. The first guy was just banking on his ace high flush draw with one card to come, and the second guy made a good call. I really risked way too much money on those bluffs.

Just getting Steamrolled

I've just been getting my ass handed to me lately. Steamrolled for like 1500. I'm gonna post more detail and number updates in the next couple days but it's been ugly and uglier, in that order.

New Blog Started

For anyone reading this, I've started a new blog that is for a wider audience then just people interested in hand histories and bankroll attempts. The new blog is http://www.backdoorstraight.blogspot.com . The second blog is more for writing and entertainment. I will still be posting on this blog.

Update On the Sizzessions

Backyard Beer-a-ment

Man, in all honesty I couldn't have asked for a better set-up then this tournament. Everyone was drinking. The structure was slow and great. The players were bad (with a few exceptions). The buy-in was $50 and first-place was $900. I really was on cruise control and built my stack despite losing some MONSTER pots. The first one, I had AK and pushed against a raiser. One player called (had him easily covered) and so did another (had her covered too). I was up against AhQh and Qs10s. So I have them dominated and what happens? The hearts flush hits and a 10 hits the board, so I lose the main pot and the side pot. I rebuild my stack only to lose a huge pot to a rivered flush draw against the second biggest stack at the table when we're down to 10 people. I had AK, Ace hits the flop with two hearts, you know the rest. So I ended up bustin out 9th with five places paying. There were about 25 people and about half of them rebought. It was a lot of fun though, but I should have won it.

Anyways, -$60 to a home tourney.

Hollywood Park, Saturday afternoon

Well I went straight from the home tourney to HP and promptly lost my ass off. Played too loose, called too many pre-flop raises and pretty much stunk it up. I don't even remember any hands. I know I didn't hit any, lol. I played for about three hours and had to leave at 930p to go to the movies. Saw "Vacancy," which was actually pretty decent. I jumped once. So anyways at HP I lost two buy-ins, $400. Shit now I remember some hands. I had AhQh in the blind, I raised to $30. One guy calls. ONE GUY! Flop comes JJT. We both check. Turn is a king, but putting three diamonds on the board. I bet $30. He calls. I say "Did you flop a full house on me?" He laughs. Turn is a blank. I bet $30. He raises $200. My dumb ass calls and he shows JT for the flopped full house. Definitely should have folded but his $200 bet was so much I thought he was stealing. I was wrong as ever. Lost $400 in this session.

Hollywood Park, Monday night

Yesterday I started my new running/scheduling plan and it went well. I ran after work and then showered up and went to HP and got there around 10 pm. I got to a table that was tight as HELL. The table literally folded the first five hands I saw to the blinds for chops. I couldn't believe it. The funny thing is, everyone was complaining about the action and no one would play. I started raising in position, getting a couple callers and betting big on the flop. I pretty much ran the table over and probably won at least 12 hands without having to showdown cards. The pots were small due to the table character but I left after less than a couple hours and won $171, which I was very happy with given how tight the table was. I'll be back soon.

Home Tourney: -60
Saturday: -400
Monday: +171

Bankroll Plan To Date:
Home Tourneys: -60
4/8 Limit: +33
1/2 NL: +195
2/3 NL: +650
3/5 NL: +1756
Bankroll: +2574

Another Losing mothaf#$*ing session

Unbelievably, my last session was more than a week ago, on Wednesday, April 18th. Obviously based on the title of this entry, it was a loss. I haven't played a hand of poker since then. I think I'm a bit discouraged by my recent losses so I've taken a bit of a break. I've also been really busy with life. Wednesday I played poker. Thursday a couple of my boys from Seattle came to town and stayed overnight with us. I smoked with one of them, who coincidentally was on "Judge Mathis" the next day on 420. Apparently he sold his dog to his friend and then never gave it to her. Good stuff. Then Friday, which is the infamous 420, I smoked and went to a couple bars with my partners in grime M-Tweezy and Sanetomo. First we went to Zanzibar, which was horrendous. They were playing techno and it was over 40 night. We left after a horribly-spent $10 cover charge and went to our default spot "Carbon." Wow is all I can say about the state that this bar has evolved into. First of all, this place is like 10 square feet. They have a bar with benches and a wall that is about two feet behind the benches. Then there is about a five-foot dance floor. But they play hip-hop and it's close to our apartment and there's no dress code and no cover charge, which is why it's our default spot. So we go there, they make us wait in line like it's some sort of club or something. They tell us it's a 45-minute wait and then they let us in after eight minutes. We go in and the girls all look like they came from Star Trek's forgotten episode "Beast of the greater galaxy" and I decide that I must be drunk in this situation. So we head straight to the bar and we get long islands. They taste like shit. I can't even finish mine it tastes so bad. So we go back for shots of patron, my favorite. I'm barely buzzed and this monster is trying to get me to dance with her. "I'm tired." "I'm injured, I hurt my leg playing basketball." "I don't know how to dance." I used every excuse in the book. So what does she do? She starts giving me a lap dance. As soon as she heads to the bathroom/pig sty I tell my boy Mark "Let's get the FUCK OUT OF HERE." Normally, Mark likes to wait around not only until the bar closes, but until the last female has left the parking lot. He can tell that I mean business so he reluctantly agrees to leave. Plus he's seen me getting treated like grapes at a vineyard by this wildebeast. So we bounced.

Damn that was only Friday! Needless to say, my 420 was not so great.

421 I went to a birthday party for my boy that moved to Dallas. It was good stuff, saw a bunch of old friends that I used to work with and that's about it. Saturday night I actually came home and fell asleep. Then Sunday I had a baseball game (1-2, R) and hung out with my UCLA buddy who is doing big things. We went grocery shopping too. The wild life I live!!

422 We have softball practice for my work team. Damn I knew we would be bad but this was just an ugly situation. People didn't know what position was what, how to throw, how to hit, how to catch, you name it. It's gonna be a long season. I've been trying to eat healthier and really set myself back about three weeks when we went to Pink's famous hot dog stand and I happily ordered chili cheese fries and a hot link. They might as well have toilets as the chairs people eat on.

423 I had a softball game for my old team in the valley. Traffic sucks going out to the valley but I think if you head from Hollywood to the valley around 5-6pm, you're guaranteed to see at least one celebrity in traffic and at least one porn star in traffic. It almost makes it worth it. Anyways we played the team that I hate in our league. Their team name is the Dawgs. How corny is that shit? I would really hate on them but our team name is the Rockets, which I think is the only name worse that the Dawgs. We lost to them as usual and there is a chick on the other team that I used to date. Our history is pretty much I blew it with her by not calling back regularly, etc., typical Kev fashion. Now she always looks good and wears extra tight pants at the softball games and it kills me. So I hate her team and after the game I don't even want to talk to her because I hate her team so much and we always lose to them. But she catches me while we're in the parking lot and starts clowning and somehow we end up at the bar having drinks watching the Lakers game.

424 Went to the Dodgers game and saw Barry hit number 4,564,874.5 into centerfield. That made it worth the trip alone. Gotta love Dodgers games. For some unknown reason there is always a plethora of fine women at Dodgers games. I can't figure it out. I used to go to a ton of Mariners games in Seattle and there were never fine women there. I made like twenty mental notes during the game to get some good seats to the Dodgers games and take all my boys that are single. At last night's game I was with my co-workers, so I was kool kev, not killa kev. And actually I think we were sitting in the 400 section somewhere between Heaven and the Orion star constellation. My boy and I had to leave the game early to make the company softball game. We got there and it was a mess. We had seven players to start, lost 20-8, but I managed a home run, double and four RBI.

Damn I haven't even talked about my last session yet. It sucked. I got to the casino, lost my first buy-in, rebought and was up about $400 when I started playing way too loose, going after way too many pots and just tricked the cheese off. Everyone on my table was getting monster hands like aces and kings and I was getting shit so maybe I was just trying to crack everyone out of pure boredome, I'm not sure.

Anyways I dropped $400.

So here's are the numbers up to date:

4/18/07:
3/5 NL: -400
Overall: -400

Bankroll Plan To Date:
4/8 Limit: +33
1/2 NL: +195
2/3 NL: +650
3/5 NL: +1985
Bankroll: +2863

Losing is not as much fun

I've played three sessions since my last entry. At times I feel good about my play, at others I feel terrible. I've been making a lot (a ton) of moves. Almost every pot I'm in I try something. Some work, some don’t. Most of the time I have a pretty good read on what my opposition has. It's just a matter of getting them to lay it down or whatever. Either way, I've had three losing sessions out of my last four so that is not good. I need to refocus and get back on the winnning track. I also might take a new angle with this blog. We'll see.


1. -430
2. +757
3. -900 (-100 in 2/3 NL, -800 in 3/5 NL)
Total from three sessions: -573

Bankroll Plan To Date:
4/8 Limit: +33
1/2 NL: +195
2/3 NL: +650
3/5 NL: +2385
Bankroll: +3263

Over playing my bad reads

Played a bad session on Tuesday night. Historically I feel like Tuesday night is a bad night, not sure why. Sat down and won a small pot to get up like $40. Then I got pocket jacks in the cut off. I raised to $35. The button re-raised me to $100. I thought for a long time and put him on QQ at the worst, most likely AA or KK. However, I called hoping to spike a jack. The flop came all low cards. I checked, he went all-in and for some unknown reason I called him and lost.

My second buy-in coincidentally ended up th same way, me with JJ against another players KK all-in pre-flop. At least this time I didn't KNOW that he had KK like the first time. A loose player who was raising to $15 every hand made his standard raise. The big blind called him for the extra $10, then another good player re-raised to $50. I thought he was re-raising in an attempt to take the $45 pot down. I put him on KQ or AJ type of hand. I moved all-in and he called me with KK. He was real nice about it as we were neighbors and talked to me about playing JJ and how it can get me in trouble. I agreed, especially since I lost over $400 on jacks pre-flop that night, lol.

Third buy-in was lost when I tried to push a guy off his hand when a flush hit the board. He raised pre-flop to $25 and everyone called. I called with 7c8c. Flop came AT5 all hearts. He bet $55, everyone folded to me. I raised him to $110, putting him on a high ace and representing the flush for myself. I was going to push on the turn no matter what. He thought for a long time on my raise. I'm not sure if he was thinking about folding or raising. I'm pretty sure he had me on the flush though. The turn was an ace and I knew he had the ace but I felt if I moved in he would still lay it down. I pushed (with nothing) for $250 more and he insta-called with A-10. I'm out!

Tuesday Night:
200NL: -$600
Overall: -$600
Hourly: -$300/Hr.

Bankroll Plan To Date:
4/8 Limit: +33
1/2 NL: +195
2/3 NL: +750
3/5 NL: +2858
Bankroll: +3836