I haven't updated in awhile, but I'm not much of a blogger and I've been pretty busy with school. I wanted to share something I'm pretty proud of. It's not quite balla like a new ride or a ridiculous night of booze, coke and strippers but I'm not really the type that would be spending money on such things.

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It wasn't exactly healthy for my BR to keep withdrawing, but I set my mind on paying for my tuition this semester and fortunately I was able to do it. I'm a BR baby and am not comfortable with playing with less than 50 buy-ins so I recently had to drop back to $1/2 for a little while because of it. I'm getting to the point where I can put my ego aside though so it wasn't much of a problem. This is just a hobby to me, but it's pretty cool I can pay for my education with it. My new goal is to pay for my entire med school tuition. My free time is quickly becoming less and less though so I don't how realistic a goal it is. Next semester I plan to max out my subsidized loans and pay the remainder directly. I should have done that this past semester and put the rest in a money market account or something since I don't have to pay interest on sub. loans until after I graduate. Live and learn though.

As for poker, I'm back to Primarily playing $2/4 again. I think my game has improved over the past few months and I'm more aware of my emotional/mental state when I play. I'm finally starting to realize that as edges become smaller, the thing that seperates the winners from the losers is discipline. Someone that consistently plays no better than their A-/B+ game is going to come out ahead of a comparably skilled player that plays their A+ game most of the time but then lapses and plays when angry/tired/drunk/tilted/etc. I still have my moments but they're becoming less and less frequent.


And finally a couple hands, including the best value bet ever....

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (7 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP1 ($194.05)
MP2 ($365.70)
CO ($184.30)
Button ($428.20)
SB ($396)
BB ($100)
Hero ($422.65)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q, K.
Hero calls $4, 3 folds, Button calls $4, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($16) A, 8, Q (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, Button bets $4, SB calls $4, BB calls $4, Hero raises to $28, Button calls $24, SB folds, BB folds.

Turn: ($80) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $54, Button calls $54.

River: ($18 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $336.65 (All-In), Button calls $336.65.

Final Pot: $861.30

Results below:
Hero has Qs Kh (one pair, queens).
Button has Qd Jh (one pair, queens).
Outcome: Hero wins $861.30.

I can't honestly say I put him exactly on a weaker Q. It was pretty obvious he was weak though. I thought he'd fold all 1 pair hands here and maybe even a weak two pair. Obviously I was wrong though, but luckily he decided to make the heroic call. It was lost when I converted the hand, but his friend was also talking to him as the hand was playing out and I think that probably influenced him some.



PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $4 BB (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO ($1146.75)
Button ($214)
SB ($396)
BB ($480.75)
UTG ($94)
UTG+1 ($394)
Hero ($453)
MP2 ($341)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with J, J.
2 folds, Hero raises to $153, 1 fold, CO raises to $1146.75, 3 folds, Hero calls $300 (All-In).

Flop: ($1605.75) 5, 9, Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($1605.75) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($1605.75) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $1605.75

Results below:
Hero has Jd Jh (one pair, jacks).
CO has Ks Ad (high card, ace).
Outcome: Hero wins $912. CO wins $693.75.

Obviously a misclick on my part. I was using the number pad and meant to open for $15. Well the 3 is right beside the enter key and my fat fingers hit it right as I was making the bet. The guy instantly pushes when it's his turn to act. There was no wtf? pause or anything. I immediately thought of a hand that happened a couple weeks ago when Aba was playing Ivey HU on FullTilt when he misclick overbet PF with something like A6 and Ivey pushed with rags and aba made the call. Who the hell knew if this guy saw the hand or is otherwise observant enough to realize I fucked up. It's not like I'm Aba and the competition at $2/4 isn't exactly the caliber of Phil Ivey anyways, but nevertheless it was on my mind. This guy was one of the few people that you see on Stars $2/4 FR that actually had a decent stack so I gave him some credit for being at least semi-competent. I thought about it for a bit and decided that he is pushing hands that I'm ahead of enough of the time for a call to be +EV.