Monday Monday Monday

Well it has been a while since the last blog but i have had a few weeks that have been very challenging away from the tables. i have had my daughter in the hospital in the last 2 weeks twice and she caught pink eye on top of it. i had plans to write my blog last night but at 330am we had the ambulance here taking my oldest to the hospital with breathing complications. thank god everything was ok and she was treated for kroup which is a breathing complication kids can get. i mean there is nothing more scary then having your oldest kid wake up and cant breath. so as you can imagine between the illness of my daughter, mothers day and my usual crazy weekend with 3 jobs on the same day and my usual family time i haven't had a ton of time to play.

i did play a few sng's through the week and really wanted to play the pl draw scoop event this past week but didn't. decided not to play this Sunday as it was mothers day and i promised my mom and wife a day without cards. i did play a few sng's after everyone went to bet with some ok results basically making 4 buyins. i played ok with a few tourneys just to make the money but didn't win any as i didn't have the killer instinct and i was tired from the weekend so i shut it down and watched the pacific(awesome mini series on hbo-kinda like band of brothers) and operation repo. then of course the issue with my daughter got me out of a dead sleep to call the ambulance. but thank god she is ok now. this lead me to take the day off from my day job as an insurance agent to catch up on some sleep and watch over my kids as the night before scared the hell out of me.

it was like everything happens for a reason as when i got up this afternoon and had lunch with my family and man i love being home during the day. it puts me in such a goods frame of mind as i am relaxed and can just enjoy the best part of the day with my family. during nap time i thought i would fire up the laptop to play a few sit n gos and see what was going on. i used 280 fpp to enter a satellite to scoop event 23-low 11+rebuy. well anyone who has played a rebuy tourney its like someone calling bingo for the first hour. guys who don't care about there cards moving there double buy in with next to nothing. one guy in particular re bought in 5 times all doubles and ended up finishing out of the money. i questioned him about his strategy as he proceeded to barred me and laugh at me and tell me i didn't know how to play rebuys. he is partly true as i don't play alot of rebuys but moving in hand after hand with nothing is a very interesting strategy. to his credit he did end up as a top chip leader at our table but he still used the same strategy the entire tourney. i ended up placing in 1117th place. u might laugh but u have to remember there was 8600 runners and double that in buyins. for a nice cash of $68.12. not bad for a tourney i freerolled into and rebought 1 and added on once. i played ok but i was short stacked alot as this tourney was a turbo so most of the table played under 10 bb's.

i did play a few sit n gos and i crushed them played 3 while i watched gotti and another buddy acesup0779 play in there respective tourneys. gotti was doing well but got card dead and barley made the money which is too bad as he is a fantastic player and guy who deserves to win every tourney he plays in. but when u run card dead and u make a move and get repoped it is hard to call with 96 off. but i am true i will support my boys any day they play and i will rail for them anytime they are online. i just starting talking poker with a new friend of mine acesup0779-joel he is from the same city as me and is a recreational player trying to get a little bit more serious. its nice to have so many different types of players to watch and chat with as everyone brings something different to the game. i watched josh play a few games tonight with not much success but he was concentrating on making the right decisions. then we finally got a game against each other on stars after numerous attempts to play heads up we settled for a 9 man sng 340 on stars. we both did well and ended up heads up and joel got the better of me after i pushed all of my chips on a bluff and he called me and it was over. something very strange happened when we were 3 left is a guy brought up that we are from the same city and that we were working as a team or colluding.i couldn't believe it as i would never cheat to win and was something i brought up to joel before we played but since we couldn't get a heads up going we settled on 9 man. i can tell u we will never play another 9 man again. i don't need the hint of collusion around me as i am straight up legit.

i did play a very exciting hand for me tonight in one of my sng's
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/825465
check the link and read on its where i post my hands and it is much easier to read.
guy raises into me 3 handed i am in the bb and he had been abusing my bb alot since we got 4-5 handed. i repoped him a few times but he either folded or went all in. i had his range as very wide and using more of the push fold strategy against me. i call this raise with the intention of taking this pot away on the turn or river.k710 comes down rainbow and he leads out for 400 into 1156 and being his raise was less than 2,5x preflop i figure he is making a very weak c bet. i decide to flat call and see how the turn develops with the intention of betting if he check with air. the turn comes a 2 he check i bet 1300 into 1956 pot with the message i am sending that i have a piece of this board and i ain't going anywhere. well he goes into the tank and then folds. i collected 1956 with air as i trusted my read and went with it. now making that play live would be easy for me as i can read people very well and get a feeling for how they play alot more then online. live i can look at them talk to them and stare them down. i can see how the act in previous hands and the tells they give off. online its more math and knowing there ranges and tendencies. the adjustment has been hard for me but this is the first time that i felt i really looked through the screen and saw wat the other guy had and exploited it. i have heard and read alot of online pro's say that they saw or felt something and they exploited it. i really felt that was a real turning point in my game today and gave me more of a confidence boost then the cashing in the scoop or crushing 3 sng's. that one hand means more to my development then all the other cashes combined. i know i understand the game and i know i can play with the pro's online it's now learning how to read these tendencies of the other players at my table and exploiting them.

the other concept before i finish that i have been trying to concentrate on is when someone raises utg the normal 2.5x or 3x the bb with weak holdings or air. the concept i read was in bluff magazine by an online pro on the last page of the magazine that i just loved and have reread it 10x. he talked about the utg raise with weak holdings as something he helped to bring into the game and now uses that knowledge to play against it. he talks about how he knows its a move used by alot of pros and knows that he can play against it properly as he is prepared for it. he talks about being able to understand the move that is being made have a counterstrike ready if it happens. i have honestly never thought of it like that. i think of it like when i used to play baseball. when u are playing u are thinking about if he hits it here this is where i need to throw or go to cover or where to back up. but you were always thinking of what to do if this happens. bringing it back to poker is exactly the same. if someone raises light utg a few times you know what your move it and how to play against it perfectly. i look at it as bringing the experiences together and knowing what to do in each situation you face at the table. its something so simple but i guarantee the 9 other guys at my 3.40 sit n go tables aren't thinking about someone raising light utg or making a position raise in lp for the 11th time. the players are better at those limits over wat they used to be but they are still playing abc poker. i think i have evolved my thinking to be into the second or third level of playing there hand not mine and playing my hand against what they think i have. i try really hard to think of this game on such a higher level that sometimes it can be a bad thing as i over think things but i just need to keep breaking it down into bite size pieces and i can put the plan into action