Trip report and 50NL progress.

I had a trip this Saturday down to Ceasars in Windsor, CA (few hours from home). I arrived around 10 AMish and played until 4 PM, which wasn't enough time if you ask me. I bought in for the max buy in at the $1/$2 tables, $200, and made quite a few mistakes. I ended up -$140, but it actually wasn't my fault so I don't feel too bad about it, just a bit disappointed. I went there knowing that the only way I was going to lose was if I get sucked out on. Sure enough...

I call a pre flop raise with KQ, 3 to the flop. Flop comes 9TJ. The lady checks, the pre flop raiser (typical balla with sunglasses) bets $20 or something. I raise to ~$60 and the lady ships it, all in for like $180 or something. I'm jumping up and down on the inside, knowing I'm about to ship a huge pot. Balla guy thinks for way too long (he had AK... which gives you an idea as to the skill of live $1/$2) and folds, I snap call. The lady flips over QJ. I sigh. Turn is... 5. Ship $300+ pot to not me.

I also had KK and AA twice, but misplayed them. It was early on in the session, and when I had AA there were like 6 limpers, so I raised to $30. This table was a little nitty for a live game and pre flop raises were only $7-$15 usually, but I didn't know this at the time. Everyone folded and I picked up their stupid limps. One of the times I had KK I raised to $20 pre and only got one caller, took it down on the flop. I realized afterwards that I lost a ton of value on those hands, which bothered me.

My newness to live poker showed when I made a total noob mistake and string bet on the river by accident with the nuts. I had AQ and got one caller pre flop. I bet the flop which was J high and he called. Turn put another on board so I had the nut flush draw. I figure maybe, just maybe this guy knows how to fold so I fired another barrel. He calls. River is and I jump up and down inside. He insta bets like $40 into a $150 pot or so. I hollywood it for a few minutes so as not to give away what's going on... then I slide my one stack of chips out, and then the other. The dealer looks at me and asks 'Did you say raise?', I reply 'I'm all in', and then the dealer explains to me how string bets work and that I just did one. Only my first action counts, so I have only called his bet and don't get the option to raise. I've heard of string bets before, but never even thought about it. The guy flips over KJ for the second nut flush and I miss out on the $130 he had behind because I'm a total idiot. I said to him 'Wow, you're lucky I'm an idiot.' and he said 'Yeah, I would have called for sure if you went all in.'... sigh.

I lost a coinflip for a couple hundred, but that didn't bother me too much (although it did suck). What really bothered me was my noobness and missing value on my flush and my aces and kings. I would have been even or up a bit if I didn't mess up in the 'live' part of 'live poker'.

I've played 4 sessions and 2,300 hands at 50NL and am still getting comfortable to the limit. It feels different than 25NL, with more pre flop aggression and it's even harder to extract value unless it's nuts vs. second nuts. Thus far it feels like everyone floats every flop and never folds, but that's likely just variance rearing it's head given that I have such a small sample. I played my first full 8 table session yesterday and it didn't go well. I started up $75 within about 30 minutes and was going to just call it a session since I didn't want to play too long, but thought to myself I'd try to put in more time. As I discovered last time, the longer I play the worse I play, so I ended up playing for about 2.5 hours struggling to break even. I think that for me shorter sessions are definitely +EV since I feel that my play slips pretty quickly after the 1.5 hour mark, so I'll stick to my shorter sessions from now on. On the last session I played I really, really started to play badly and it felt like the same way I played back at 5NL before I was even beating the limit... not good. So far at 50NL I have gotten lucky though, as evident by the following:



Clearly sustainable.

I'm still waiting on my books to arrive from PokerStars and can't wait to read them. I feel like I need an injection of some intermediate/advanced theory and play because right now my game is fairly basic and standard, it needs a shot of something more. 50NL seems to give out mad FPP's so I should make GoldStar this month and hopefully can start getting some bonuses going on PokerStars. I'm trying to put in more volume and I feel that I will, but it might be a bit less than I'd like since I'm still adjusting to 50NL, but oh well. I should make more this month than last month, so it's all good. I've surprassed my March goal of $1,200 bankroll which I didn't even think I'd make, hopefully I can keep my head above that line for the rest of the month.