Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
I don't keep close track no. My general rule is that I only tip if the pot was raised preflop, or if there is betting postflop (a pot of 20bb+). And I always tip $1 (0.5 bb) on pots I win unless it's a very large pot.
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Logan2
Legend
Silver Level
Agree on your analisis for the AK hand.
If you see that hand online, i´m sure you let it go on turn and move on to next table, but live is different, no more tables to go, more distractions like you mention , no huds and because people is so lol bad we underestimate players and overestimate our hands.
Nice comeback so far after the bad start, almost on the green again man.
Best of luck for future sessions.
oh, and lol to iron-man 14hrs sessions
If you see that hand online, i´m sure you let it go on turn and move on to next table, but live is different, no more tables to go, more distractions like you mention , no huds and because people is so lol bad we underestimate players and overestimate our hands.
Nice comeback so far after the bad start, almost on the green again man.
Best of luck for future sessions.
oh, and lol to iron-man 14hrs sessions
OMGITSOVER9K
Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
eyy Scourge have you seen this? dunno if you've got something similar but figured it might help (you need an iSomething though)
http://www.rungoodapp.com/
http://www.rungoodapp.com/
Ducky7
Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Well I've actually gone down another few BIs over my past few sessions, which is frustrating. It's def more run-bad than play-bad, and I really want to be able to say I'm winning at this, even if it's just a small amount. The other thing is that I'm so under-rolled right now that I'd really hate to go on another downswing and just have my roll decimated.
I actually already have a poker-tracking App on my phone, and it was $13, so not cheap at all. Haven't bothered to figure out how to post giraffes from it yet, but I may do that in the future.
Gonna be playing live tonight, though prob not a TON this weekend, as I've got a tourney to play at my school (and a title to defend ). It's very casual, just a $4+$2 bounty tournament, with rebuys for the first hour, and a few add-on periods. The first tournament that we played at my school was a $4+$1 bounty, ante-only. It played pretty lawl. I had one lucky hand where I got my money in super bad and spiked a full house. (It was 4-handed, I had 77, board came out 996 and I ended up shoving the flop and got called by all 3 players. Turns out I was called by T9s, JJ, and AA, and I spiked a river FH). But got to heads up with arguably the worst player at the table, where he literally check-called 90% of streets. I had a 3:1 chip lead on him at one point and he had AA and I had TT and the flop was ATx and he check-called all-in to the river lol. Ended up winning for like a $40 profit. Hoping to go for a repeat victory.
But anyway, in theory I'll be meeting up with deuces tonight, but haven't been in touch with him lately so we'll see how that actually plays out
I actually already have a poker-tracking App on my phone, and it was $13, so not cheap at all. Haven't bothered to figure out how to post giraffes from it yet, but I may do that in the future.
Gonna be playing live tonight, though prob not a TON this weekend, as I've got a tourney to play at my school (and a title to defend
). It's very casual, just a $4+$2 bounty tournament, with rebuys for the first hour, and a few add-on periods. The first tournament that we played at my school was a $4+$1 bounty, ante-only. It played pretty lawl. I had one lucky hand where I got my money in super bad and spiked a full house. (It was 4-handed, I had 77, board came out 996 and I ended up shoving the flop and got called by all 3 players. Turns out I was called by T9s, JJ, and AA, and I spiked a river FH). But got to heads up with arguably the worst player at the table, where he literally check-called 90% of streets. I had a 3:1 chip lead on him at one point and he had AA and I had TT and the flop was ATx and he check-called all-in to the river lol. Ended up winning for like a $40 profit. Hoping to go for a repeat victory.But anyway, in theory I'll be meeting up with deuces tonight, but haven't been in touch with him lately so we'll see how that actually plays out
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Played an overnight session this weekend. Wish I had left a touch earlier than I did, but I had a +3.5 BI finish!! At my peak I was +5 BIs, and I ended up bleeding for a long time just waiting for good hands/spots. All in all very satisfying though, especially since that was my first day with a 3 BI profit or more!
:congrats:
:congrats:
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Thanks - it sure was! Especially given that I had a bit of a confidence-killing convo earlier Friday night.
I had been planning to talk a bit about table image in my next post, but I think I'll talk about long sessions instead. No, I am absolutely not drinking during sessions, but I don't drink that frequently anyway lol.
I think that the biggest key to being able to play long sessions through the night during times when I'd normally be asleep is that I typically get enough sleep during the week. I have not yet tried to do an overnight session Friday night through Saturday morning, then sleep Saturday afternoon, then an overnight session Saturday night through Sunday morning... But I imagine it wouldn't go that well (plus it would totally mess with my weekly sleep schedule). The human body is pretty resilient to minor blips in the overall sleep schedule, and will bounce back quite easily, so long as you are not accumulating sleep debt (builds on roughly a 2-week span).
A hugely important factor for me is also keeping my body happy while I'm there. This means a few things for me personally:
- Staying hydrated (I MAKE them call the waitress over) by drinking water semi-constantly throughout the session.
- Staying satiated by bringing a few snacks with me for the times between about 2am and noon when no food places are open.
- Taking frequent breaks. I tend to get cramped if I'm sitting in one spot too long. I tend to take more bathroom breaks than other people because of the water that I drink, but I also sometimes take walking breaks, just for a few minutes, to stretch my legs. These tend to increase in frequency as the night goes on and my body begins to feel the stress a bit more.
But as important as all that is, I think this is probably less what you are asking. You asked about staying awake, and all the above is important to that, but you also mentioned staying motivated. I think that this is something that a lot of online players have trouble doing live. Online play can often be like a sprint, or a high-speed/mid-distance race. In comparison, the live grind can be more of a marathon. There isn't typically too much action for you per unit time compared to online, so there are fewer decisions for you to make, but you still have to follow action and continue to stay focused for a loooong time. So with that in mind, I also try to consider all this:
- Take breaks seriously: Walking breaks ad eating breaks (and even bathroom breaks) aren't just about giving the body what it needs. It's about taking your mind, or your being, or whatever, and re-focusing it. It's about removing yourself completely from the game, both physically and mentally, and "re-centering" yourself (bear with me - more on this later).
- Find a way to stay engaged: Breaks are great, but you have to keep yourself involved at the table. For me, this often means trying to keep the social aspect of the game going even when it gets to those wee hours of the morning when many people shut up and just stare at the cards. Another thing I find helpful is to follow the action closely for hands I'm not involved in. This has the added benefit of making me play better and in a more opponent-dependent manner.
- Love it: If you don't love live poker, you will not be able to pull 20-hour sessions playing it. There's just no getting around it. I'm able to pull monster sessions and stay motivated and focused throughout because I love nearly every second of it. From the strategy to the decisions to the action to the drama, I just can't get enough. This might be even more important than everything else combined, because I truly don't see myself going through that level of engagement for anything that I don't have an absolute blast doing.
When it comes to monster sessions, it's a long, slow race, and you've got to pace yourself both mentally and physically. A lot of that comes down to meeting your needs in an efficient way that doesn't take too much away from your game time, but still helps keep you present and focused for a long time. This has (appropriately) turned into a bit of a marathon post, so I'll stop now, but I'll probably return to the idea of maintaining mental focus later on, and hopefully get into some Tommy Angelo (Eightfold Path) stuff.
'Til next time!
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Solid posts itt. ^
So I forgot to mention anything about the tourney that ran at my school. Basically played like a decent-structure SnG so far, as only 9 people showed, and 4 were regulars from my home game. The last time it ran, me and 2 of my buddies were in the final 4, and that's how it went again. I actually played quite poorly in the beginning as I was getting no hands, and tried to bluff too much into people who wouldn't fold and at my buddy who kept running into hands. I busted and decided to rebuy ($6 BI) as well as added on ($4 more) so I'm in for $16 total. Top 3 will pay, so as long as I cash I probably will be in profit for it.
We played from 9 down to 4 players, which took about 3.5 hours (so we're 1 off the money atm). The 4th player, the one I didn't know, is a freshman, and he played pretty solid, though I'm not too worried about him since he seems to play pretty face up the times I was actually trying to guess his holdings. He's also VERY inexperienced, because he said something along the lines of "I'm excited I'm doing well in my first real tournament." LAWL. Kid, a $6 home-game tourney isn't real. It might be for real money, but that's about all that's real about it.
Next weekend we'll finish this tourney up, and draw seats for a HU tourney. Don't have huge hopes for the HU tourney, as round 1 will have crazy small stacks and blinds, but it wouldn't be much different from HU on a FT of an MTT, so I think I'll still have a very serious edge on whoever I draw, since basically no one who has any HU experience unless they've played online a fair bit. Played HU a few times for lawls in our home games, and all of them have basically no clue. So even if I draw someone on the more competent side it shouldn't really matter except that they might play back at me more.
Really though it was nice to have a wide range of poker going on this weekend. Grinded a bit online Friday night, then hit the casino, then Saturday night was the tourney. Though I paid for it dearly yesterday when I pulled a monster school-work session, and today I'm studying for a test and have a crap-ton of other things to do. Also a bit behind in my online game theory class, but I can also catch up on that whenever since the stakes for that are pretty low.
A bit sleep-deprived today, so I'm hoping to get back on track during the week so I can still grind both Friday and Saturday night, but I am feeling tired I will likely make Friday an early night just so I don't get totally screwed on sleep for the semester.
That's all for now. Thanks for reading, thanks for posting, and thanks for explaining in clear words how and why I suck.
'Til next time.
So I forgot to mention anything about the tourney that ran at my school. Basically played like a decent-structure SnG so far, as only 9 people showed, and 4 were regulars from my home game. The last time it ran, me and 2 of my buddies were in the final 4, and that's how it went again. I actually played quite poorly in the beginning as I was getting no hands, and tried to bluff too much into people who wouldn't fold and at my buddy who kept running into hands. I busted and decided to rebuy ($6 BI) as well as added on ($4 more) so I'm in for $16 total. Top 3 will pay, so as long as I cash I probably will be in profit for it.
We played from 9 down to 4 players, which took about 3.5 hours (so we're 1 off the money atm). The 4th player, the one I didn't know, is a freshman, and he played pretty solid, though I'm not too worried about him since he seems to play pretty face up the times I was actually trying to guess his holdings. He's also VERY inexperienced, because he said something along the lines of "I'm excited I'm doing well in my first real tournament." LAWL. Kid, a $6 home-game tourney isn't real. It might be for real money, but that's about all that's real about it.
Next weekend we'll finish this tourney up, and draw seats for a HU tourney. Don't have huge hopes for the HU tourney, as round 1 will have crazy small stacks and blinds, but it wouldn't be much different from HU on a FT of an MTT, so I think I'll still have a very serious edge on whoever I draw, since basically no one who has any HU experience unless they've played online a fair bit. Played HU a few times for lawls in our home games, and all of them have basically no clue. So even if I draw someone on the more competent side it shouldn't really matter except that they might play back at me more.
Really though it was nice to have a wide range of poker going on this weekend. Grinded a bit online Friday night, then hit the casino, then Saturday night was the tourney. Though I paid for it dearly yesterday when I pulled a monster school-work session, and today I'm studying for a test and have a crap-ton of other things to do. Also a bit behind in my online game theory class, but I can also catch up on that whenever since the stakes for that are pretty low.
A bit sleep-deprived today, so I'm hoping to get back on track during the week so I can still grind both Friday and Saturday night, but I am feeling tired I will likely make Friday an early night just so I don't get totally screwed on sleep for the semester.
That's all for now. Thanks for reading, thanks for posting, and thanks for explaining in clear words how and why I suck.
'Til next time.
pocketehs
Legend
Silver Level
Scourrge, when you play live do you buy-in for 100bbs or max? If you buy-in for 100bbs, at what stack do you add-on? This seriously drove me nuts when I was playing because its so easy to bleed ur stack when ppl raise like 8x etc.
JOEBOB69
Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
I can't speak for Scourrge. When i BI at say a 200nl game i go to the cashier,or if they pick up my chips i ask for $300 in red. I put the 200 on the table the other 100 in my pocket. When i lose 20+ i just tell the dealer i'm topping off. It saves alot of time etc. An i have not had any problem with this since i've been playing.
CAMurray
CardsChat Elite
Silver Level
I spend no less than 36 hours a week at the live tables, and thats only when the Major tournaments are not in town and there is one Cardinal Rule to bring your "A" game.
Be Well Rested and Energized
Being less than your full self will cost you, in many ways.
Peace :argh:
Be Well Rested and Energized
Being less than your full self will cost you, in many ways.
Peace :argh:
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Thanks for posting, guys. It's really great to have some life in here
In answer to the buy-in question, at my local casino you can only buy in for $200 at $1/$2. So I always buy in for 100bb.
I struggled for a while with the same problem as you - when should I top up? And also, how much money should I bring with me? How much should I be prepared to lose (assuming I play my A game in spite of losses)?
I used to just get $200 at the cashier and then pull out $100 bills for rebuys, but I found that waiting until I had a stack that was 50bb or less to let me rebuy was somewhat tilting, and it was very frustrating to get double-up spots when not full stacked.
I took to keeping both $20's and $100's with me so that I could top up in smaller increments, but I also found that (for me personally) putting cash on the table felt kinda bad in general.
My new strategy that I've taken to is to buy $300 at the cage - $20 in white (ready for blinds), $180 in red (for the table stake), and $100 in green chips. The $25 chips make it easy for me to top up before I get to any silly amount below 100 bb. The smallest stack I could get down to would be 87.5 bb, and that's close enough accuracy for me. I also prefer holding 4 green chips in my pocket to holding 20 red chips. The gain in precision isn't enough of an incentive over how cumbersome that many chips is to me. (Again, personal preference.)
In terms of how much I bring with me, it has varied. Some days I know that I don't want to grind it out if I'm down more than a BI. So I won't bring more than $300 on those days. Others I know I'm feeling good and can take whatever shit variance gives me. Those days I bring $600. It's pretty tilting to realize you've bought in with your last $100 and then get below a 100bb stack, so it's usually a good idea to leave if you get below 100bb and aren't willing to rebuy.
That got a bit rambling, so sorry if I sorta got circular or didn't address something you were interested in.
Matt Vaughan
King of Moody Rants
Bronze Level
Planning a "short" session tonight, then hopefully a longer one tomorrow. Definitely need to get the 12:30am train home at the latest tonight, so won't be more than a 6ish hour session. Should still be fish out there though - Thursdays after work hours are surprisingly full days in the poker room!
Wish me luck. :cheers:
Wish me luck. :cheers: