folding kk preflop

after reading harrington on holdem i learned that when you have kk the chances of an opponent at your table holding aa was approx 23 to 1....this made me think i would never fold kk preflop. In online tournaments i doubt i ever will. I have recently moved to cash games stemming from a long drought in tournament cashes. I like to switch back and forth now to keep myself interested and i am still not making enough money in the cash games to live on. However my cash game has gotten much better and i feel that i have a better handle on the way i should play certain situations. Most of these adjustments are to take things slower get deeper in hands and make more crucial decisions later in hands with more information available. Mistakes made in cash or magnified whereas in tournaments you can rarely make a large mistake while short stacked. Lots of times i can just write off a bad play and blame it on my chip position, or calling it a cold deck, when you have a10 in the bb with 10 bb's and the sb shoves after it folds around to him you call quickly and he shows aq....cold deck hahahha...the coldness is directly resulting from your chip position. In cash i am starting to learn how to take it easy. At first it was just with playing medium overpairs like 1010 on a 862 flop...then it was qq preflop after a raise and a call......i had started to change my game a lot after seeing a couple of $200 stacks quickly lost by raising in pos being 3bet by an active player and putting it all in and saying well i am ahead of his range there because he knows il raise in pos super wide blah blah blah....there is no harm in smooth calling...not often will that opponent fire pot on the flop and pot on the turn again with an overpair and you have to decide if its jj or kk and you have the qq.....with both those hands he will most likely pot control check the turn. If he is bluffing then the second barrel is less likely aswell. i havent seen any cash regulars at my level successfully bluffing 50 bb's on the regular. Sometimes i will pay off a turn follo with qq or jj on all unders board but most of the time i am wrong when i do it and i think i will get away from those hands earlier as i get better and more accustomed to cash. I found playing in the double stack tables has also helped me avoid making bad plays based on stack size...even 100 bb's sometimes makes me play poorly. I will 3bet a pos raiser with 46c and flop k62...and all of a sudden i have 12 bb's in preflop and 20bb's on flop....things get carried away quickly so i stick to my double stack 200bbs works for now. So the next hand comes up in a 1-2 double stack table on sunday. (right now 50-1 during the week and 1-2 on prime toad hours) My stack up to 440 from original 400 A tight player in 3hole raises pot to 7$ and an active but not crazy player in mid pos rases to 21 total with 380 back. I have 2 kings in the small blind. I thought for a couple seconds about calling and seeing a flop but i felt kk were such a high pair that i could easily pay this guy off on 3 streets never knowing if it were aa or qq. Given that the pot was already getting big i knew these payoffs could easily be half my stack. Especially out of pos he could feel comfortable i wouldnt check a set 3 times put me on a big pair and value me to death on river. This was looking like a bad play in my eyes, because of the sizing if i call 3 bets we are looking at 30 on flop 70 on turn 130 on river or something like that. of course many boards would include an ace or flush draw that could slow things down but i still thought it was best to raise now. I almost never say raise to see where you stand because it is stupid to build a pot while you dont know where you are at but in this case i knew it was the right move. His range of 3betting that tight initial raiser was not wide. I also was pretty sure he would never smooth call aa after my 4bet adn would never shove 400$ with qq. I rerased to 54 total and the action folds to him. he waits for 12-15 seconds just before using his time bank and he shoves for 380 he had left. Givin the action of a tight original raser his 3bet my small 4bet i knew he would never have qq here and i tanked..wrote has to be aa right? and then folded. The tank wasnt even really to think it was more to sell that i actually was folding a big hand. If i folded as fast as i wanted to it would look like i was on a pure ridiculous steal, which i guess could have got me action but i think my game gets me enough action as it is. This was the first time i folded kk preflop. Probably cause i play mostly tournaments but still not super fun. The part i like is that cash is allowing me to make all the good poker plays i know i am capable of and i avoid using my stack size as a crutch. For now it is just a side experiment because i have only made about 1500 a month at the 50-1 level. It also i think has helped my early tournament game, i broke my bad streak with a hu mtt win for 1600 and a fifth place finish in an mtt the same day, so now i need to find more hours in the day. i wonder if it would fuck up my game to play the slate every night along with a few cash games early in my slate i would still have 6 tables going then later i would exit out of them as my night got more busy...something to try....hopefully i cash move to 1-2 soon and then 2-4 .

on the brink

lately ive felt so close to taking down multis...these massive fields can get frustrating but ive had lots of good solid deep runs almost every night...i just havent gotten over the hump....tonight i was deep in the 10pm 25k guaren on tilt and i got 10th for 200+ and first place was 6k...like this jump is fine but when you play so long and beat out 1200 players 10th to 1st feels so close ...the past few deep runs i had been super active and ended up in big hands with marginal holdings....this time i slowed down and i wasnt in super raise mode....i chilled and picked up pots uncontested almost the whole way threw...my tiny raise was working....i raised 2.2x with jj utg and a2 moved in on me then again with jj i took a guy out with ak....i figured ppl would start to respect my raise but next rounds im all in aa vs a10 and kk vs aj.....good cards and no talent needed i felt i was prime for another deep run....something happened though and im not sure exactly what it was ....i feel like nothing happened an all of a sudden i went from being 4th out of 25ppl to gone 10th after surviving being short for most of the 2 tablings.....i had 200k and blinds were 3-6k....i lost a 70-30 but it was only for 50k ...so what can i blame this loss on....i dont even know.....ever hand i raised i stole the blinds....every time someone called me preflop i won the the pot on the flop.....did i sit back too much....i feel like i played perfect ...yet a few rounds go by adn we are 5 handed and with 90k utg i move jtoff with the blinds at 5-10k....like 4.5m which 5 handed is pretty short and lost to ak...pretty standard...but how did i get to this point....i cant quite put my thumb on it.....owell....tired tonight.....i wanted to concentrate on only the big tournies today but after busting in the brawl early and seeing a few good miniftops i ended up playing the full slate....for a migical up 20$....feels worse than down sometimes.....on ft bubble i was a river 3 outter away from being at ft....stupid short stacks doubling up costed me 200 bucks atleast and ted a few more as he had 15%.....i feel bad becausei havent linked him with a huge cash in a long time.....i need to start pulling my weight....also need to play more....cash in intermittent days i think could help on a low stakes basis.....i hate having other shit to do...its so easy to let poker take a back seat......this wsnt meant to be a debbie downer post ...i guess im just stressed about funds with this condo and shit pillling up.....owell with all these deep runs im bound to take down a big dirty soon....on a postive note nfl is back on and i have enough bets with seb to make things interesting also fnatasy football.....too bad i gamble like 20 bucks on footbal and it gets my full attention and poker i gamble 300 a day and it gets like 25% of my attention....i wish i had a crew of poker buddies and we lived like those fags in vegas on that show 2 month 2mill.....this is a cry out for motivation......ted lets get somethign going...keith bo anyone fuckkkk..

first entry

New to blogging i figured i would give an intro, even though i don't know how long IL do this or how many ppl will read it. My name is Richard and i am 26 years old, i went to school for kinesiology but am a professional poker player. I love sports and gambling and doing rediculous things, also i love drinking and girls, not in the same way ofcourse. I figure most postings will discuss one or more of these topics, and hopefully i wont get myself into too much trouble talking truthfully about the people i care about.

This weekend had a lot of weird elements to it, i went to a party in the town i grew up in. I had slept with the hosts little sister a few years back and we seem to get along now even though i am pretty sure he doesnt feel comfortable around me, nevertheless many other friends are attending the party so i was not feeling to uncomfortable. Also attending was this nightmare of a girl that i used to date, i dated her for a few weeks before i realized that she was borderline retarded, she looks like courtney love and talk like a valley girl, she also is high maintenance like a valley girl but her looks dont warrant that type of nonsense to put up with. As if i didnt shit where i eat often enough i decided to bring my new girlfriend to the party, in fact she wasnt my girlfriend until after that nights drunking conversation, dont get me wrong normally drunk richard gets me in trouble more often than not but in this case i didnt mind because i was starting to like this girl. She was pretty good at handling ruthless jokes and wasnt a push over, this is a must if your going to hang out with me.

Anyway so we show up at the party around 4pm for bbq and getting it going early, the nightmare girl is there and im praying drunk richard doesnt start shit. On top of my recipe for disaster we were doing the wizard...the wizard of course if where you duct tape each empty beer to the next full one until you have what appears to be a wizard staff, when your staff is above your head wizard status is achieved. A recipe for disaster given the lineup at this party. 24 tall cans later i was the hit of the party with many ppl having wizard envy, i had also heard the host smiling to my face and talking shit behind my back but i knew he just didnt like playing 2nd fiddle to anyone, strong personalities tend to clash but i was in too good of a mood to confront him...like i said 24 tall boys.....i felt great and was mingling with the ppl i wanted to hang out with, my new gf vanessa was great, not only was she having a good time and not giving me shit for being wasted she was essentially encouraging it. dont you hate girls that cant have a good time and they just follow you around....fuck i hate that shit...but i plunked her in the middle of 40ppl she didnt know with about 4 she had recently met and a bitter host and another bitter datee...is that a word? it should be...someone who you dated...because i would never caller her an ex gf....thats reserved for ppl i fuck sober....did i mention i can be ruthless. Anyway i was super impressed with the new girl and wasnt at all mad at drunk richard for saying he loved her,...ahhahah wow i am retarded....but lets keep the drunk richard as an alter ego it makes me feel better about criticizing him.

Also on a side note while i planned to sleep in my car that night with the new girl we got started up and sex in a car is quite annoying especially when your my size....so i thought...drunk richard thought sorry....that it was a good idea to hop outside the car to finish fucking.....then threw her on the next car beside us...happened to be my good buddies car...and finished off.....as i was well ya know....i look over and 2 people walked by and looked right at us....no more than 15 feet away.....hahhaha what a greasy whore show that party was. on the whole though i managed not to get into it with anyone and had a good time.

the next day i rolled home and played some bball with the guys before my big sunday tourny. I was excited to play the big one because the week b4 i had my nfl fantasy draft dynasty league and my concentration was elsewhere than poker...ofcourse this sunday my buddies rented madden 2010 and we were doing our draft on there while i played cards too and again i didnt concentrate much...i even let my one buddy a break even poker player in 3$ super turbo sngos hahhaha i let him play for 20 minutes while i tried to play with my new raiders draft team, out of the corner of my eye i see him fold qq preflop in a unraised pot and i take back my comp for good....ohh seebby cant handle 4 tables at once....after debating on how manytables i could handle i decide to prove it....by registering for ever mulit i could see and 90 man sitngos...i was rocking 20 screens and they were all impressed....however an hour later i had won only 1 10 dollar 45 man sitngo for a measly 170 $ and my big sunday tourny was gone. Idiot can i blame that one on drunk richard...guess not....seb is living at my place now after my sister moved out...he is only there for a month and i am hoping my other buddy holland will live with me starting oct 1....avoiding randomness would be nice.

since this should mostly be about poker im going to describe one hand and then end this 1st entry before it gets too long hahha too late? ok so my last tourny from sundaywas this dinky little $5rebuy 6 man mtt with about 800 players....1st place is 3500 .....with 11 ppl left i have 500k blinds at a very manageable 5-10k....i had been destroying every table with these weak sunday fields its not too hard...i had been raising 2.2x the bb almost 30% of the time....i could tell ppl were getting iritated but they would only call so i kept raising. Here is a hand that comes up.

utg at a 5 man table i open for 22.999 with j7s the 2 hole calls with 600k back and everyone else folds at this point he was the only one who had me covered at my table i was 4th in the tournament....the flop brigns 10s8d6s with about 70k in the pot and 480 k back i was thinking about what to do, i could easily just follow here but i didnt want to face a big raise forcing me to shove for my whole tourny with a draw albeit a nice little draw, i figured if i hit i would be winnign a pretty big pot anyway, so i elect to check the flop and he bets 60k into a 70k pot...again shoving here wouldnt have been horrible but i decided to call, the turn bring the 5h giving me some more outs with now and open ender to add to my overcard and flush draw...i check again feeling he would have to shove to get me to fold this hand...i was happy to pay for my draw with 420k still in my stack. he checked the turn back to me and i didnt have much time to analyse what exactly that meant because the second he did it the 9c hit the river i thought to myself this was the best card to hit.,...flush is too obvious plus that bet check could have been a bigger flush draw, the little straight is ok but it makes it hard to pay me off with a 4 card straight on the board...this 9 was nice also because if the off chance he had a 7 he would be hard pressed to fold to any bet i made, and ofcourse my j7 would beat his straight...so with this in thought i bet125k into a now 190k pot hoping for a call...when he instantly shoves all in. A couple thoughts briefly enter my mind in the 3 seconds it took me to call, 1st was i cant fold this...in fact i said it outloud, then i thought about how it was a sunday 5rebuy...full of morons...i called and he shows qjd and i lose out in 11th place for a shitty $170, the betting fit fine for his hand in retrospect, he took a stab on the flop, amitious givin the texture but common what am i expecting from a random 5rebuy sunday player, the turn he gives up with a few outs and hits it. The river call is tough because he could possibly have shoved a bare 7 but that would be tough to have given the action it would have to be 77....either way not a big deal just a fun hand that put me out, i need to start winnign these small tournies to build back my bankroll, 170 to 3500 is such a nice jump and i need to do it...i have been gettign late and not finishing the job...am i tryin to do too much....ofcourse i didnt have to raise j7s...i could have followed...althoguh i think most tards call on that flop with 2 overs and a gutter to the nuts....i like being aggressive but sometimes i find myself in weird spots....this was simply a cold deck i think