12:57am: Today was very long. First off, it’s a lot easier to put in my volume quota when my GF isn’t home to distract me. She is out of town visiting her uncle in Dallas. That being said, I miss her and I wish she was here because I consider myself lucky that I have someone to take my mind off poker every now and then.

On the poker side of things, today was a little bit of everything. I was on both sides of the coin today, as I got both lucky and unlucky a number of times. I started out the session a little rougher than I would have liked (down 3 games at one point), but eventually I pulled it together. I was feeling really good heading into the seventh set. It was starting to look like a $500-$600 day, but one of my opponents in the seventh set got rather lucky a number of times. See those hands below.

PokerStars Game #19578666173: Tournament #101835758, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level III (25/50) - 2008/08/13 - 01:26:38 (ET)
Table ‘101835758 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2295 in chips)
Seat 2: tonyk007 (705 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 25
tonyk007: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Qs As]
trujm: raises 100 to 150
tonyk007: raises 100 to 250
trujm: raises 2045 to 2295 and is all-in
tonyk007: calls 455 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (1590) returned to trujm
*** FLOP *** [5c 9h 3s]
*** TURN *** [5c 9h 3s] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [5c 9h 3s Td] [7s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tonyk007: shows [Ah 7d] (a pair of Sevens)
trujm: shows [Qs As] (high card Ace)
tonyk007 collected 1410 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1410 | Rake 0
Board [5c 9h 3s Td 7s]
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Qs As] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 2: tonyk007 (big blind) showed [Ah 7d] and won (1410) with a pair of Sevens

and

PokerStars Game #19578684812: Tournament #101835758, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level IV (50/100) - 2008/08/13 - 01:28:01 (ET)
Table ‘101835758 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (1340 in chips)
Seat 2: tonyk007 (1660 in chips)
tonyk007: posts small blind 50
trujm: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Ts Td]
tonyk007: raises 100 to 200
trujm: raises 1140 to 1340 and is all-in
tonyk007: calls 1140
*** FLOP *** [3s Kc 2d]
*** TURN *** [3s Kc 2d] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [3s Kc 2d 3h] [7s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Ts Td] (two pair, Tens and Threes)
tonyk007: shows [8s Kh] (two pair, Kings and Threes)
tonyk007 collected 2680 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2680 | Rake 0
Board [3s Kc 2d 3h 7s]
Seat 1: trujm (big blind) showed [Ts Td] and lost with two pair, Tens and Threes
Seat 2: tonyk007 (button) (small blind) showed [8s Kh] and won (2680) with two pair, Kings and Threes

This match turned out to be crucial. That is, what I call a “hinge game”. I will write more about hinge games in my next article. Thankfully, I was able to close out my final set 2-1 to hold serve on the same four game lead that I had been carrying around since the fifth set. Here are the final results, set by set:

1. 2-1
2. 1-2
3. 1-2
4. 2-1
5. 3-0
6. 2-1
7. 1-2
8. 2-1

Good luck to everyone playing a late night/early morning session. More later..

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

1:49am: Throwing literally every single edge in your favor is key in maximizing both hourly wage and profit when it comes to poker. We have already talked about how important note taking and data mining are, but surely there’s a couple of stones we left unturned, right?

So here’s something you probably didn’t know about Sharkscope, and is GREAT, specifically for heads up sit n go players. Next time you’re logged in to Sharkscope, click “Options”, then click “Preferences”, and change your “form style” from “Hot/Tilt” to “WLLWLLPWLW” (see pictures below)

Now that you have that selected, instead of displaying “Hot” or “Tilt” in the “form” column on a Sharkscope query, it will tell you the outcome of the last eight sit n gos played by the person you’re inquiring about. (i.e WLWLWLWL)

What this does is gives you more exact information about your opponents mindset heading into your match with him/her. Before changing this setting, the only time anything was displayed under the “form” column on a Sharkscope database query is when the person in question has won or lost more than 3/4 games respectively in a row. This could be misleading because while it might say “tilt”, the person’s win/loss data for the last eight games might look something like this: LLLLWWWW, which might not necessarily qualify as “tilt”. It also leaves out information because your opponent might actually be on tilt, but has not lost four in a row yet  — i.e, LLLWLLLL. The picture below shows this preference in action:

I don’t know about you, but I like to know EXACTLY how my opponent has peformed in the preceeding hours before stepping into the ring with me. In the example above, some assumptions you might make going into the match is that your opponent:

- Might be in a bad mood/emotional because of recent results
- Might be in a period of questioning their own judgment
- Might try making moves early on to make up for recent losses
- Might be prone to calling you down too light
- Might draw without proper odds to do so

All of which we can totally agree are not optimal conditions to play poker in, and catching someone in a cluster of less-than-desirable results can throw the advantage in your favor, big time. Attention to detail is what separates break even players from winning players, and this is one detail I don’t think you should miss.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process