A little turbulence

Still flying high. I have a good cushion of winnings beneath me. Did run into some ups and downs today though. Pretty standard stuff I guess, stuff like:

* Flopping top set on an all spade flop and somehow I couldn't push the guy off of the flopped nut flush. I was already committed anyway and well priced in to shove the rest in based on boat outs which didn't materialize.

* Having top set run down by a flush draw.

* Flopping the nut flush draw and not getting there.

* Flopping the nut straight and having a guy freeroll on me with the same straight and a flush redraw which got there.

* Etc. etc.

Given that I am buying in for the minimum at .01/.02 tables I am surprised that I am dipped down as far 3 bucks off of my peak. But with the margin of error that I've built up I'm not panicking and I have zero interest in buying in bigger or moving up stakes. I'm still just getting started and I'm going to stay on track. Despite the deficit that I created I still managed to eek out a .29 profit for the day which feels like a victory after being so deep in the hole. I'll take it.

This game is easy

Really. It is. How do you rake big pots? Let me count the ways.

* Get a big starting hand like AAxx, pot it or re-pot it whenever possible pre-flop to commit yourself, shove the rest in on the flop and fade whatever draws someone else may be on.

* Raise it up, flop top set and get a lower set to pay you off. Not much work on this one.

* Flop top pair and the nut flush draw and get there.

* Get your money in bad but suck out. Not recommended. Well, the sucking out part is recommended if you get the money in bad but try not to follow step one too much.

I had a bit of a hiccup today when I tried to get a little fancy. I flopped kings full of nines, the nuts, in a limped pot and just flat call a min bet in front of me hoping to get someone with a king to raise. No luck. Turn is an eight, harmless. Same min bet in front of me and I make it .10, a call, then a fold from the min-bettor. River is an ace, the absolute last card I wanted to see. I'm OOP and, in a desperate attempt to get as much money in after the river as I should have put in before I pot it in a classic "the only hand that can call me has me beat" bet. Not only that but I am raised and make the crying call for my last .11 before seeing a guy with AA23ss who limped in pre-flop catch a two outer to take a chunk out of my roll.

No matter, I quickly make it up after my miscue. I'm already up over $5 and thus 5% after a weekend plus rakeback. Looking forward to taking down some prop bets.

Things are looking up, up, up.

Treading water

I find myself firing up FTP when I sit down for a meal. Breakfast consists of juice, cereal, watching something on the DVR, and a couple tables of Omaha which meets USRDA of nutrition and degenerate gambling. Works out real well. I also had a dedicated session but they were mostly mini-sessions today. Overall I was down a penny in raw bankroll but was in the black after factoring rakeback. I'm still not happy about the whole rake thing. Getting rakeback feels like getting money back from the IRS at the end of the year. Yeah it feels like a bonus of sorts until you realize that it was your money to begin with.

Pivotal hand of the day was when I limp in with AcKdQh2s and catch a flop of Ah8s3c. Looks good. Guy OOP bets .06 and I min-raise to .12. Why? Because I have top/top. He flats. Turn is Ad giving me top trips now with top kicker. I bet .16 and now villain min-raises me to .32 which I call. River is a 7h and villain shoves which I call. He shows threes full of aces and my hand is notched by bottom boat. Top/top is crap in this game. I should know that. I did know that. I dumped .86 on that hand and that single mistake turned a reasonably up day into a break even one. If it were a cooler I'd be OK with it but I knew better and that's the disappointing part. Still, after 1119 hands I'm up almost 5% even with that snafu.

Nothing to see here, move along citizens

I know I've been blogging the first this and first that stuff. Just like a new parent marking each new milestone of an infant I can't help pointing out my own series of first accomplishments but that is only because my illustrious online poker and blogging adventure is still shiny and new. Once the luster wears off I'll get down to more substantial items and more in depth analysis...ut until that time I just have to point out the hand of the day:

I pick up AhQs9dTs, three broadway cards single suited. I always prefer to have a suited ace but sine I'm in the BB I'll certainly play this hand for free which I get to do as the table limps to my option, check. Three to the flop of KsJsAs and I do a quick scan of my cards. I see a lot of spades so that's good but again the problem with not having a suited ace is that you don't know where you stand necessarily. Wait a second. I guess I do know where I stand after the ultimate "now we flop the nuts" moment. Operation chip extraction commence! I'll start off with the oh so cliche min bet when the SB checks to me and I collect two callers. Good, maybe someone has a smaller flush or a straight or two pair looking to boat up (and I hope they get there). Possible someone has a set but usually people pop it with AA or KK. Maybe a JJ set but we'll see. Turn is Kh. Excellent. That could have just improved someone to a better second best hand. SB checks, I min-bet again, third player min-raises. Delicious. SB folds and I min-raise back (yeah, I know). He flat calls. River is 5d and I let the timer run down a little before firing a bet of .14. He thinks a little then calls showing Kc3d6c6d for trip kings with irrelevant kicker and on that board trip kings is pretty much the nuts. Don't think I could have gotten much more out of that hand. Like the saying goes, for a big pot you don't just need a big hand you need another player with another big hand, like trip kings on a paired, suited, three liner to a straight board.

Just plugging along. Another 381 hands good for $1.62 of sugar. After two days my chart looks like this:

Day 1 comes to a close

It's as though I can do no wrong. I put in another 18 minute session while having a snack. That puts me a shade under two hours for the first day and I am up a total of $1.47, $1.75 with rakeback. That's almost a whole dollar per hour. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself or anything but at a dollar per hour I will double my bankroll in...wait for it...100 hours.

No time to rest on my laurels though I have to keep plugging away. Those hands don't fold themselves you know. Unless you time out in which case they actually do fold themselves but you get the idea. I need to get back on the horse tomorrow and keep grinding away because those hands don't fold themselves...oh never mind.

Session 1 in the books

I ended up stumbling through 131 hands in an hour and a half. Had some bumps along the way but ended up with a net of .52 to the good for an astounding earn rate of .33/hour. On this pace I can double up in no time...or 300 hours, whichever comes later. I did end up setting a new high bar with a three way pot that ballooned up to $1.28, also known as almost a big blind in the casino.

Session 1 graph looks like this (green line represents actual winnings. Blue line includes rakeback. Already lamenting not getting 33%):

Winner winner chicken dinner

Finally notch one in the win column. I pick up 6sTcAhAd, pocket Aces with a ten and a six dangler. Good enough. When it gets to me in the SB I pot it to .10 and get one caller. Flop comes 2d2hJs. Pretty good as I'm likely way ahead or possibly way behind. I throw caution to the wind and pot it again for .24. He folds and I take down my first pot and I pay my first penny in rake which is hopefully just the first of many. Well, I don't mean that I like paying a lot of rake except that it means that I will be pulling about 15 pennies for each time I pay one for rake. OK, that would actually be only 73/100 of a penny after I get my rakeback. Good to get the first one under the belt. I've printed out the hand history, framed it, and placed it over the monitor. After a few minutes of fist pumping the air and dancing around the room I return to the grind.

First REAL hand

After four more agonizing folds I decide to jump in when I pick up 4dAhKdJd giving me three broadway cards with a king high flush draw. I'm in late position and limp in. Flop comes JcTcJs. Cool, trips with top kicker. I bet .10 into a .12 pot. All folds and one flat call. Uh oh. I would rather have just taken it down right there. Very draw heavy flop so Villain could have anything from a boat to two pair. Turn is 3s. He checks and I bet .16 this time and he calls. River is a 2h. He checks and I check behind. He shows JhAd3cKh which is the identical hand except that he has a trey to my four. After he boats up on the turn I went from a 51% favorite to a 13% dog. Jacks full of threes. Should have known. Now down .33.

"Second hand!" - Sushi Cowboy

After the debacle that was the first hand I have settled down and strengthened my resolve. Seconds later I pick up ThJdKh5c after I sit in on the BB on my other table. Fold, limp, and two folds behind me. Then from out of nowhere the button bets pot, nine big ones. SB folds and I'm in a quandary. I have three broadway cards single suited. The offsuit five bugs me since it doesn't really belong. I don't have the nut flush draw either, just king high. As the saying goes, find a reason to fold your hand instead of a reason to play it so I decide to let it go. Maybe too tight a fold but I think I can find a better spot than being likely heads up out of position with no idea where I stand and a limited amount of flops that I can be happy with. Limper behind me folds as well and I surmise that I have just been stolen from by a button raise but am really helpless to do anything about it since I will likely face another pot sized bet if I check or perhaps even a pot sized raise if I lead out. Regardless of how the flop comes out who's to say that he didn't actually hit it or otherwise has me beat?

So after two brutal hands now my chart looks like this:

This game is a lot easier on TV when you can see everyone's hole cards.

"First hand!" - Oliver Hudson at 2005 WSOP

For those of you who aren't familiar with the reference, here is the video clip to explain it.



Fortunately, my first hand was decidedly less spectacular. At a nine handed table I buy in for the default .80, sit down, and post my BB as does the highjack seat. So much dead money out there already, ripe for the picking. I pick up the powerhouse Tc5d4s7d which can flop a straight flush or one for four different quad possibilities. I'm already salivating over felting everyone else at the table for a first hand to 9x-up my stack. UTG folds, another fold, I check to slow play my potential monster. Behind me there's a call, fold, check, limp, call from the SB, and a final check from the BB. With the folds I am limited to a maximum of only a 5x-up but there is already .12 in the pot which would be good enough to get started. Flop comes 4c9s2h. Not quite as nutty as I was hoping for but I could still catch running fours or a running rainbow three, six to make the nut straight. Running tens, fives, or sevens likely good as well but I'll discount them for now. Both blinds check and I decide to check to let this thing develop a little more then the guy behind me bets .04! Followed by four more flat calls. Decision time. I have second pair moderate kicker getting 8:1 on a call. After some quick math I reluctantly decide that I am not getting the right price to continue and make the tough decision to release my hand. Though I feel I made the correct decision I have to see how the board played out. Turn is 6d, one of my perfect runners for the nut straight. Crap, did I misplay this thing? A .02 bet from the same lead better and calls all around would have almost given me the right price to call to catch my perfect river card. Alas, a Jc comes on 5th street and I can rest assured that not only did I make the right fold but I didn't even have to go on ROT tilt for the rest of the session. It checks all around and the cutoff takes down MY .40 pot with a measly top and bottom two pair. I feel like I could have repped a huge hand and bet pot on the end which no one could call but I'm playing it conservative. Maybe too conservative?

The first hand was a tough lesson for me. I realize that I'm not just going to have chips handed to me on a silver platter by people drawing dead. After the first hand I'm down .02 or 1/50 of a percent of my seed money. At this rate I'll never get my bankroll going in the correct direction.

There is only one course of action now...time to step up my game.

What's the game going to be?

I've already decided to start with the game of pot limit Omaha (hi only). I believe that game is the best choice to get my roll kick-started for the following reasons:

• It is less popular than Texas Hold'em so I think there will be less familiarity and expertise from the crowd playing Omaha. I believe I will hold a comparative advantage over the competition and can leverage that into accumulating chips especially from players who are applying Hold'em thinking to this game.
• I consider it a more "honest" game. Sure there are still bluffs but by and large if you have a flush and someone bets big after the board pairs it is more likely that you are beat than in Hold'em. As such it will be easier for me to just play ABC poker and not have to make expert reads. Based on my hole cards and the board cards I can make what should be very accurate assessments of where I stand in a hand.
• It rewards good pre-flop hand selection. Since I tend toward the tight/nitty end of the spectrum my play should pay benefits since I'm going to stack they guy willing to go broke with with the second nut flush (or worse) while holding the nuts.
• Nearly every hand is a scoop hand as opposed to O/8 where you are often chopping a large pot minus the not insignificant rake. Playing O/8 properly dictates that you are trying to scoop but that doesn't always happen and even when you have the nuts both ways you can still end up only 3/4'ing the pot against another nut low.

I do want to get familiar with all of the different games but to start off with I am going with Omaha to form the foundation of my bankroll.

Account setup

While most of my comrades in bankroll management are playing on Cake, I've decided to play on Full Tilt Poker instead because they have a larger game selection and a higher volume of players. I am interested in learning more about all kinds of poker games and not just the standard flop games. I also plan on playing multiple tables at once and FTP will allow me to get a lot of tables going at once regardless of the time of day. I am paying a penalty for doing so since the maximum rakeback for FTP is 27% compared to the 33% that the players on Cake are getting but I feel that being able to have more tables available to me will allow me to be more effective so I'm okay with the tradeoff.

As Confucius once said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." For me that means downloading the software. Heeding the advice I've heard many times, I get my rakeback set up first since it is basically impossible to do it retroactively. Do not underestimate the devastating effects of rake on building a bankroll. It is a necessary evil which pays to keep the servers running, produces those swanky FTP ads, and lines the pockets of the pros that we get to watch on TV all the time. But even though the rake tax is a fact of life I am going to do what I can to get my share of it back. I did a quick search and everyone seemed to offer the same 27% for FTP so rakeback seems to be pretty much a commodity item. I decide to sign up through rakeback.com since I figure they were on the ball enough to snag that domain name that they should have the rest of their act together. Sign up is painless. Before installing FTP I need to make sure that I delete my cookies and I make doubly sure that I do it correctly so I don't screw up my rakeback. I follow their link to FTP, install the program, set up my account, and finally complete the fund transfer from a friend's account to seed the bankroll. Done. Now let's play some poker.

Here we go...

I've joined some fellow poker players in an effort to start with a $100 stake online and build it up as much as possible. I'm taking this opportunity to learn more about various forms of poker, bankroll management, and probably some life lessons somewhere along the way as well. I will be publishing my observations, bankroll updates, interesting hands, and whatever else seems noteworthy. So sit back and enjoy the read.