February Review - Short and Not So Sweet

Being a short month, I'm only slightly disappointed that I managed a hair over 100k hands in February. Unfortunately, my runbad from January continued so pickings were somewhat slim. To make matters worse I ran far worse at 200NL than I did at 100NL this month, which is how the ~2ptBB winrate but paltry sum of table winnings happened. On the positive side, the game structure changes that went into play were a definite positive for 100bb poker.

The bottom line:
$4174.55 table winnings
+$2544.30 FPP value (45434 VPPs * 3.5 FPPs/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$400 stellar bonuses
+$285 coaching
----------------------------------------------------------
$7403.85 USD total profit.



Definitely one of my weakest months ever, though it is no October 2010! Hopefully March is better from both a volume and winnings perspective.

BBV Style Quick Hits

Brags:
Attended the Heritage Classic on Sunday. The Flames dominated a Montreal squad that outside of their goaltender didn't come to play. It was -10 to -15 degrees Celsius during the game, though as bad as -25 in the wind chill. We were able to tough it out however, and despite the actual view being poor had a very good time. The two points are also huge for the Flames as a few teams who are racing us for a playoff spot actually have been losing games lately!

Also, the 4th entry in my Full Ring: Theory and Practice video series comes out tomorrow on Cardrunners! I think it should be really good for micro and small stakes regulars alike.

Beats:
I'd like to be playing Tactics Ogre right now. It's a fantastic game. Unfortunately, 20 minutes ago my PSP stopped detecting its memory card. It's 10PM, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to get a replacement along with a card reader to see if it is truly the memory that is blown. I do have an older PSP that I could stick the current card in to test which hardware is malfunctioning I suppose - I'll try that once I'm done blogging.

*Edit*
After trying out the memory in my old PSP, it fails as well. So bye bye to lots of saved data. Lame, though the less expensive of the two points of failure from a monetary standpoint. I'm still going to pick up a card reader though just in case by some miracle the data can be saved - I could use the hardware anyway for the future.

Variance:
The Stars trading Neal and Niskanen to the Pens for Goligoski seems like one of the most lopsided trades in recent memory, and an absolute steal for the Penguins. Maybe the Stars GM (Joe Niewendyk) was concussed while playing in the Heritage Classic Alumni Game and is out of his mind?

Blast From The Past

The 20-50bb games are almost all but dead, and 100bb poker is back with the vengeance on Stars. It's definitely nice having 24 tables of either 40-100bb or 100-250bb action open. It's been almost a year since I could say that. While the game quality in both those game types has certainly improved significantly since the change, one thing I have found odd is how juicy the 100-250bb tables are compared to the 40-100bb. I think a significant number of regulars exclude the deepstack tables, and as a result on average they seem to be much fishier than their 40-100bb counterparts. No complaints here.

My Thursday session ended up not being a disaster, but only because I had to grind through a bunch of nastiness. The hand below helped get me stuck significantly early on, but as I talked about in my last blog post resilience is key! The villain is obviously a huge fish.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (8 handed)
UTG ($488.05)
UTG+1 ($497.10)
Hero (MP1) ($227.05)
MP2 ($209.85)
CO ($627.45)
Button ($524.90)
SB ($197.60)
BB ($655.80)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A♠, A♦
UTG bets $6, UTG+1 calls $6, Hero raises to $32, 6 folds, UTG+1 calls $26

Flop: ($76.20) 2♣, 5♦, A♣ (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $58, UTG+1 raises to $144, Hero raises to $194.65 (All-In), UTG+1 calls $50.65

Turn: ($465.50) 8♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($465.50) 4♦ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $465.50 | Rake: $3

Results:
UTG+1 had 3♦, 3♠ (straight, five high).
Hero had A♠, A♦ (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: UTG+1 won $462.50

Friday at the tables went pretty well. Hopefully I can put together a decent 8-10k hands of grind on Saturday to wrap up the weekend.

On the game front, the Tactics Ogre remake for the PSP is exceptional. Much of the team who made the original went on to work on Final Fantasy Tactics, and the producers returned for the remake of Tactics Ogre. Expectantly, most of the changes made seemed to make the game play closer to FFT, and given the latter is regarded by most as the best TRPG ever this is a good thing! Very impressed so far.

Resilience

Over the last couple months the Calgary Flames have been one of the most resilient teams in the National Hockey League, and because of it are battling for a playoff spot. I'm going to enjoy taking in the Heritage Classic outdoor game against the Habs on Sunday (enjoyment provided the weather is in the ballpark of the forecast, of course!). For a poker player however, attempting to be resilient can be a bad thing. Playing tilted for some is much worse than not playing at all. For me though, any excuse to put in volume is usually a positive thing.

I put in a few hands on Tuesday and got off to a pretty brutal start. After a little perseverance and very little tilt however, I ran into two "session saver" type hands. In the first the money goes in with 71% equity for a 300+bb pot 3 ways holding top two + FD, while in the second a reg who lets just say is a little robust, is kind enough to snap 3b/5b jam 100bbs in at 600NL with J4s vs my AA (an 83% favorite in this case). Remarkably, I held in both. It's worth noting that in the first hand the PFR is loose aggressive regular while the other player involved was a huge fish that loved to bet/raise which is why I played the hand so passively. I timed down a long time on the turn debating whether or flat or raise myself, but I really didn't want to blow the fish out of the pot and thankfully he ended up getting the money in for me.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed)
SB ($100)
BB ($112.60)
UTG ($102.50)
UTG+1 ($101.50)
MP1 ($101.50)
MP2 ($162.70)
MP3 ($109.15)
CO ($102.90)
Hero (Button) ($109.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q♥, K♥
5 folds, CO bets $2.55, Hero calls $2.55, 1 fold, BB calls $1.55

Flop: ($8.15) Q♦, 3♥, K♦ (3 players)
BB checks, CO bets $5.80, Hero calls $5.80, BB calls $5.80

Turn: ($25.55) 8♥ (3 players)
BB checks, CO bets $18, Hero calls $18, BB raises to $48, CO raises to $94.55 (All-In), Hero raises to $101.15 (All-In), BB calls $53.15

River: ($322.40) J♣ (3 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $322.40 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had Q♥, K♥ (two pair, Kings and Queens).
BB had K♠, 8♣ (two pair, Kings and eights).
CO had J♦, A♦ (one pair, Jacks).
Outcome: Hero won $319.40

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (5 handed)
BB ($600)
UTG ($301.90)
Hero (MP) ($613.70)
Button ($600)
SB ($761)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A♦, A♠
1 fold, Hero bets $18, Button raises to $54, 2 folds, Hero raises to $126, Button raises to $600 (All-In), Hero calls $474

Flop: ($1209) 5♠, J♦, 3♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($1209) 8♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($1209) 2♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $1209 | Rake: $2

Results:
Button had 4♣, J♣ (one pair, Jacks).
Hero had A♦, A♠ (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $1207

My February has still been garbage at the tables overall, but maybe this is the start of a turnaround?

Patience

Today was judgement day for shortstackers, but unfortunately a lot of 50bb max tables have not yet died. Some have however, and by the next server reset Stars will be pure!

My February started pretty terribly poker wise, though I finally put together a solid session today. Also, over the last month and change the Calgary Flames have gone on an absolute tear and are now battling for a playoff spot! Quite a few teams have a couple games in hand on them so they certainly aren't out of the woods or anything, but given that people (myself included) were writing off the season 8 weeks ago that is a spectacular improvement.

Not much in the way of interesting hands to post recently, so instead I'll throw out a link to "INTERNETPOKER's" blog. He recently wrote a very long two part entry about a million dollar prop bet he made with a friend (with some of the action held by WCG|Rider aka Doug who a lot of SSFR regs from Stars will know well). I thought it was a pretty well written and insightful piece, though it definitely shows some of the bad side of what can happen to kids with too much money and not enough sense. I'm definitely a huge life nit compared to a lot of people making their living from poker, and I like it that way.