Journal of a Poker Pro

I thought today would be me first losing post, but I managed to come out on top.

I started the day with tournaments, trying to crack the top 100, but no luck. My best finish was 4th or 5th which paid roughly $70 and put me even for the day. I must've finished the month somewhere in the top 150, which is slightly disapointing. I hardly played tournies for 2 weeks this month, and that's what cost me. If I wanted to catch up, I should've started last week. Oh well.

I tried to relaxed for the rest of the day - I read a book, watched a movie and then the basketball game. But I came back at around midnight to get an hour or so in. This probably wasn't a great idea though, b/c I had a lot of other stuff on my mind. There came a point in my session when I stopped and asked myself if I was focusing. I wasn't. My mind was racing over a million other things. I should've stopped, but I wasn't tired and had nothing else to do really. So I set a stop loss for myself, that if I managed to lose $100 I would just call it a night. I'm trying to listen to myself more in situations like this. If I wasn't in the right mindset, I should've just waited until tommorow. My feelings are that this is what seperates the good players from the great ones. Sure, another guy might have the same skill level as me, but does he have better disicpline? If he lets his emotions affect his play while I can keep mine under control, I will be the bigger winner in the long run. This is what I'm striving for.

Thankfully, a big hand came in for me at the end which made my daily graph look like this:

This was the biggest hand of the month at $312 (the previous largest was $240), so needless to say this put a nice smile on my face. Ok here goes, a little poker content for you:

I had 99 in early position. I raised my standard raise to $3 as I was the first one to enter the pot. I got three callers. With four people in the pot, 99 is usually very easy to play. Either you hit another 9 on the flop, have all three cards under a 9, or get a big draw - if neither of these happens, you can humbly bow out. What happens next is sexy. The flop comes down

Ace - 7 - 9 with two clubs.

So I've hit my three of a kind, and now try to figure out how to get someone to put all their chips in with you. An unexperienced player might look at this flop and be scared to bet. They might reason that thier hand is too big, and they don't want to scare anybody away. They want to 'slowplay' and 'trick' thier opponents into believing that they have nothing.

I have a newsflash - this is horrible. There are two major reasons to bet this flop hard. First, the flush draw. If you check and everyone checks, you are giving any player a free chance to draw to a flush and beat you. The second reason is far more subtle. As soon as I saw this flop, I jumped to attention. This is what I like to call an 'action flop'. Allow me to explain - In order to get money out of an opponent, they have to believe they are winning or have a chance to win. Of the 3 people who called my raise pre-flop, one is very likely to have an Ace and will be willing to call a bet (or raise...yum). Someone might have also called with 77, and be in love with the flop as much as you. My point is, there are lots of people who are going to be willing to put money in and gamble with you right now. Sometimes you are going to bet and everyone will fold. And again, the unexperienced player will chastise himself and believe that he wasted an oppourtunity. When the truth is, if no one is going to play with you on that flop, there are virtually no cards that can come on the turn that will make them want to (unless of course its the club, and then you're in a lot of trouble). For all these reasons, you HAVE to bet this flop.

In contrast, if the flop was 9-5-2 of all different suits, you might want to slow down and let somebody hit thier card. It is unlikely this flop helped someone, as there are no draws and no big cards.

So anyways, I obviously bet the pot and I get two callers. The turn is a K of hearts which is unlikely to have helped anyone (if they have KK or AA, then I'm just unlucky). I fire a pot sized bet again, and get raised all in. The other guy quickly calls. I thought for a second maybe the raiser had AA or KK, but felt AK was far more likely. I was wrong, as he had A8 and the other guy had a pair and the flush draw. The river is insignificant and my three of a kind is good for a monster pot.

Last thing is my May results:

Cash games: $2742
+
Tournies: $1472
=$4214

Cash graph:

OH and, awesomely, my hourly cashgame win-rate is now up to $31.81.