been a while

Greetings....it's been a while since I have posted. I have been real busy with work. I am still banging away at the poker tables nightly. My last 90 days my ROI is 13% and my average profit per game played is $1.11. Now it's a matter of cranking out 500 games a month then increasing that to a 1000. Will be tough with a baby coming....
I am wishing everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and please be safe!
Love to all,
T

ALMOST TIME

I just realized the baby will be here in about 43 days and we have a lot to do. I mean we do and we don't....I can probably knock everything out in a day....the baby will be sleeping in our room but we need to re-arrange everything. I am very excited and can't believe how much it has changed the way I think and act, and how I take care of myself. Since August 23rd I have lost about 65 lbs but want to lose another 40 to 50 more. I have had a physical and blood work and other then being overweight everything else is cool. Cholesterol was a bit high but that should be under control now. Blood pressure was good, heart was good etc. On the poker front I did great Sunday, I profited about $150.00 for the day. When I figure in what I make per game I could make more then $1000.00 a month if I could just get more tables going. 4 is my max and even at 4 I screw up some....I need to find something on multi tabling strategy...like should I start them all at once, that doesn't seem to be the answer because it is hard to play someone heads up, and concentrate on 2 tables that I am on the bubble....It seems like if I play 4 games I try to make 2 turbo's and 2 regular speed. I usually play 2 $6.50 turbo's and 2 $10.00 games at the same time. Monday I went in the hole about $40.00 and last night I went in the hole but only for about $7.00. At the right point Monday night I realized it just wasn't working and I bailed earlier then usual. I think that is a good decision....it wasn't so much that I was on tilt, it was that everything I played was getting hammered. If I had aces, they got cracked, if I caught a set someone had a bigger set of a straight, if I had a straight someone had a bigger one so I finally said screw this and stopped playing. It was happening again last night at the beginning but I finally won the last two so that helped. Tonight I plan on getting home, making supper for my beautiful wife, and hammering the tables again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OMpaFvTOFk

CHARITY POKER EVENT

I played in a charity Poker tournament last night at 3rd Base Sports bar on 6th and Mopac last night. 1st place was a seat at the WSOP next year for one of the $1000.00 buy in no limit tourneys. 2nd place was a buy in to Howard Lederers BBQ charity tournament at the Golden Nugget on Fourth of July weekend. About 90 people showed up and there were around 150 Re-buys. I never did a re-buy though I did 2 ad-ons. I played good poker but was dealt awful cards. I finally caught pocket Aces and went all in and had 3 people call and I won that race and had a good pile. I was then moved to another table and was next to a little old lady who had a middle size stack. By this time we are down to two tables and have 18 people left. I was in the small blind and caught pocket Queens. It had been folded to me so I raised it 3x and the little old lady called. Flop came Q-5-2 rainbow. I go all in and she calls. She turns over a 10-5 of spades. The two was a spade and the turn was a spade and river was another spade and took the pot crippling me to now about 8 Big blinds. I politely asked her....when I raised preflop why did you call with a 10-5? She shrugged her shoulders and said "They were suited". I fought my way to 13th and won a FullTilt mouse pad. On a brighter note, the charity was for helping veterans who suffer from PTSD and we raised $11,000.00 for them so that made me very happy.

Weekend report

Let's get the bad out of the way. This will be the last time I rant about this. The Cowboys are horrible, The entire coaching staff should have been fired in Greenbay and told to take commercial flights back to Dallas. An armed guard should escort them into the locker room at Valley Ranch and stand by them while they pack their stuff. I am done with the Cowboys until Wade Phillips is fired so please someone let me know when that happens. Saturday I didn't play much poker because of the Farmers market and then my wife and I drove to Blanco for a family feast Saturday night. Pork and Green Chili stew. It was so good I made a batch last night for us to eat for the next few nights. Nothing better then pork and green chili stew when it's cold outside. Sunday morning I woke up at 4:00 and drove out to the pasture to deer hunt. It was very cold and I only saw one small doe. I passed the time by listening to Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and Barry Greenstein's Ace On the River over my I-phone. I am not sure how I made it all these years without an I-phone. After getting home and doing some chores I finally got online to play. The first thing I won was a satellite for a seat at the Poker Stars 1/4 Million. I got blasted out of that pretty quickly. Then I started playing 18-man SNG's and ended up making a profit of $83.00 so that made me happy.

Smack Talking

I love when people get pissed off when they are playing me. Because of the new style I have learned, I get to a point in an SNG where if I have 10Big blinds or less, I push. If I have a huge stack and other players are at 10 big blinds or less, I push. You play tight aggressive at the beginning then you push while you have fold equity.  Against recreational players it upsets them sometimes. Then if they see you pushed a not premium hand but still win, they call you names, say you don't know what your doing etc. When I see players upset enough to attack me verbally I think "A: that was a solid move and they don't know how to play so that's good for me, and B: They are on tilt so lets see if I can push them over the edge." If they are already tilted I want to tilt them more so much that they come at me with terrible hands. This is an advantage. In the real world of pro players, I hate Hellmuth and I hate Bobby G. I might actually punch Bobby G in the face if I ever played him and he talked shit...but online I am the king of smack talking. I don't start it but if someone gets mad at me, I try to tilt them worse. It's an advantage.  I  am one of the worst people to verbally attack because my head is full of the worst possible things you could say to another person. Last night I was playing who I guess was a girl...at least their avatar was a girl who was the chip leader at the time. I picked up J-9 Diamonds in the big blind. It was called so I checked. If I would have been raised I would have folded it.  The board flopped 5 of Diamonds, 10 of Diamonds, Jack of Clubs. So I have a flush draw and top pair. I bet 3X and the first person folded but this girl "predy66" called. Next card was a whif and I checked to see what she would do. She bet a minimum amount so I called it. River brought me a 2 of Diamonds so I had a flush. I checked it again hoping she would bet and she bet half pot and I raised it to the size of the pot. Now at this point I am praying she doesn't have a higher flush but I just didn't sense she did. Why did she min call the Turn? Cause she was weak. So I take the pot down and she mucks it and the smack talking starts. I was called a fish, a donkey, how could I play it like I did. The first thing I say is "well your mother is laying in bed with me and she said you bluff a lot." Now she is steaming...I see she is from Mexico so I start in with the Mexican jokes. Are you saving up for a raft to float over here on? what kind of mud does she use for the roof in her house? Does the mud on the roof match her mud floor? Is she not making enough working the donkey show? Every time she got a chance she came at me on the table and she was finally knocked out. She went all in with pocket kings when there were 2 jacks on the board. It was quite obvious to me and everyone else that the other guy had a Jack and 3 of a kind. She then railed it and kept talking smack...usually by this time the administrator comes out and warns me to stop with the smack talking but either he thought my stuff was funny or he was in the bathroom. I can't tell you how many Pokerstar warnings I have gotten....I started busting her chops about how stupid she was for going all in with those kings when everyone knew that guy had 3 of a kind.During the break on the table I looked up her graph on pokerlab. Oh my God she is soooo much better then me! She has profited 1K+ over the last 1000 hands she has played....I haven't even played 1000 hands yet and I am in a serious hole when you look at it that way. I have played about 600 hands and am in the hole $600 or more....but over the last 90 days I am showing a nice little profit. I can't wait to bury that loss over 100 games in the next half a year which I will. I am playing so much better since I decided to take lessons. Of course as a rec player I lost a lot of money...now I am better and am trying to find rec players and take their money. Again my goal is to profit $500 a month. I profited about $200.00 last month so we're getting there. In the mean time as far as smack talking goes my rule is "don't want none, don't start none."  Peace!

LATE REPORT

This weekend's poker was pretty bad. I did concentrate on more large tournaments including the Pokerstars quartermillion Sunday Tournament which are about like hitting the lottery. I think there were 31,000+ people in that one. I need to quit screwing around with such large tournaments and concentrate on the 18 man SNG's. I also need to stop watching the stupid Dallas Cowboys while I am playing because when I see bad things happening to them, it rubs off on my game.  I played about 20 of the 18 man SNG's from Saturday through last night and whiffed on everyone but last night I decided to jump into an 18 man $25.00 + $2.00 and I placed 2nd which gave me about $130.00 back into my bank roll so I am a little in the black for the week. Last night I had an hour live coaching session with Ben Reasons from grinderschool.com. If you don't take lessons and your struggling and losing or even breaking even, I highly suggest taking lessons, downloading hold em manager, downloading a hand evaluator and SNG Wizard. All of these have helped my game. I try to play 5 nights a week and I try to do an hour of video lessons at lunch everyday while I am at work. Luckily we have extra offices with computers so I can go in and watch and not eat which helps my diet. I am now down 60 lbs with another 40 to 50 to go. Saturday nights I don't play poker. Rhonda doesn't have to work so we do the farmers market on saturday, I play a few games in the afternoon, then we go out to eat and come home and watch a movie. Last Saturday night we watched Kick Ass. It was pretty good but I have to say I was a little shocked to hear a little girl who was maybe 10 or 11 call a guy a "cunt". Not like I am old fashion by any means but that was a bit much. Right after the movie Rhonda had some false labor pains...contractions 15 minutes apart. Scared the hell out of me. I thought we were going to have to run to the hospital and have the baby right then. We have about 7 1/2 weeks to go. I have found that when Rhonda is laying in bed, if I put my face on her belly and talk soft to the baby, he hears me and moves around to the sounds of my voice. It maybe the neatest thing I have ever experienced.

I can see Friday from here!

Last night I had the worst night I have had in a while. Played in about 8 games only won one so I was in the hole about $30.00. It was my first losing night in quite a while so I am happy about that. I played 4 games at a time and it was a bit tricky for me when it was getting closer to the bubble...the action just comes at you so fast. I can handle 2 or 3 games easily but have to get used to 4. I will probably try dropping down in buy ins and playing 4 at a time to get used to it. My goal is to play 8 games at a time eventually.  I am down almost 60 lbs on my diet since August 1st so I am happy about that too...I don't eat lunch so I try to go into one of our more quiet offices and watch video's at grinder school. www.grinderschool.com I think has some pretty decent videos for people who are playing in low dollar games. My favorite instructor has to be Ben Reasons because I have taken lessons from him but I like another guy named Faulk Dogg who concentrates on Multi table tournaments. I know they are harder to win but damnit I want to win one! Am already signed up for the Sunday Quarter Million Dollar at Pokerstars. Starts at 3:00, the Cowboys should pretty beaten up by then now that we will be lead by a quarterback who is what  47 years old? Didn't he play when Clinton was still in the Whitehouse? Tonight my wife is off work so not too much poker tonight.  Reading a book called The Baby Manual. Pretty cool. We are due in about 8 weeks. The rest of the week we will be concentrating on setting up a nursery and rearranging our bedroom. Probably post again Monday. Hopefully it will be a story of scoring big in a large tournament but if not that's ok too.

Sunday Tournaments

Played a bunch of poker this weekend though I did not play my regular 18 man SNG's. I played in four large multi table tournaments. I placed in the money in 3 of them but two of them I was just barely in the money. In fact one of them I was doing pretty good in, but I had to leave and run an errand that could not wait so I blinded out into the money. The final tournament I played was the 6k Guarantee which I placed 39th out of about 2800.That is the highest I have placed in a large tournament. I hit quads 3 times in that game....That has never happened....I got quad 3's but it didn't pay much, three hands later I hit quad 9's but that one didn't pay much either...about an hour later I had quad aces and that one paid off....I got two guys stacks and was probably the main reason I got as far as I did.  I know one Sunday soon I am going to final table one of these large tournaments. All my friends have and to be honest the quality of these guys I am playing against in these Sunday games are not that good. I think the biggest thing to remember is you cannot bluff a Donkey.These asses will ride a 2 outer straight then make it everytime....have a ace high straight? No problem some donkey will call your all in with 2 pair and river the full house.  For the first time in a long time I played cash games last night. I did really good though the stakes were micro. I tripled up my money.  I like it and if I thought I could make a good living doing it (Ala Dusty Schmidt AKA Leatherass) then I would do it but tournament play excites me for some reason more then cash games. I like the structure and the blind increase. One thing I do think is funny is there seems to be a lot more smack talkers at the cash tables then the tournaments. I guess guys are used to the bad beats in tournaments...it happens...your down to 10 big blinds or less, you gotta start shoving with anything that is a 40% shot or higher. 

MID WEEK REPORT

I am fighting some nasty crap. Lungs full of flem, headache, scratchy throat. The weatherman the other night said that it's rag weed and that since they have been recording it, this is the highest amount they have ever seen. It's really kicking my ass. So I am pumping myself with Claritin. G.D. Meth heads have made it difficult to just walk into a store and buy allergy medicine...now the pharmacist look at you like your buying it to make meth. got to show ID, they run you through some kind of data bank to see if your a tweeker..... The last two nights I have scored pretty good online. Full Tilt I am doing lousy, and have spewed away about $60.00, but I have profited about $150.00 over at Poker Stars last two night. Funny...If I play the $3.40 - $6.50 18-man SNG's which is what my bankroll dictates I am having a hard time placing, but if I play in the $16.00 18-man SNG's I tend to place more. Is it because I am concentrating more because of the higher buy in? Is it because those guys are good players and they don't take as many chances? Probably a combination of both.

Sunday Results

Because of things that kept popping up, I did not get to play as much poker as I would have liked over the weekend but I still managed to profit about $150.00 between Full Tilt and PokerStars. Probably the variance involved but I seem to be placing pretty regular in the 45 man $10.00 SNG on Tilt. Off the top of my head I think I have placed in 4 or 5 of them while playing around a total of 8 or 9. Hit one Friday night for a gross of 70-something and yesterday scored one for $112.00 something. Something else I have discovered is that even though playing multi table turbo's are more profitable per hour, it seems like for me playing regular speed gives me a few more orbits to find my spots. I am trying to make my poker schedule work around when my wife is working. So tonight she works until 10:00 I plan on going home making us some supper then grinding some games out. Also going to try and contact Reasons14 to see if I can get one of my lessons in this week. What can I say about the cowboys.....how does a team who the week before basically cost their selves a win because of a celebration penalty, get another one celebration penalty a week later??? Do they not talk to them during the week? I am not clear on this but it seems to me Wade Phillips would have said "no more celebrations we are terrible I don't want to see any celebrating even if we win the next 3 in a row! If I see anyone...if I see Tony Romo celebrating and it cost us a penalty he will be benched the next week. This team lacks discipline more then any team I have ever seen on any level. Back to poker I will now every blog show if I am up or down. I started both pokerstars and full tilt with $100.00 and here is where I am:
FULL TILT: $215.00
POKERSTARS: $425.00

getting better

Things seem to be a bit better on the tables. The last two days I have made up the money I lost and am showing a small profit of about $45.00 which is much better then being in the hole. I know my biggest issue is I need to be more aggressive around the bubble and take advantage of the smaller stacks but it seems like I do it 2 or 3 times, collect the blinds, then catch A-K go all in again get called by some douche with Q-8 and they catch an 8 on the river. At least this is what happened Sunday - Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday were good. What I need to do is make a good chart that shows what hands are push hands when you only have about 10-12 Big blinds left.  I hate hearing about other peoples bad beats and it seems like that is all people want to talk about the time when they had AA and a guy beat them with a set of 4's...it happens get over it.....for everytime you go all in with AA you will lose 1 out of about 5 times, more if the race is 3 or more people. So my pledge on this blog is to never whine about suck outs...it happens, it's part of poker if you can't live with it, you need to be playing something else. Last month I was cruising along real good in a mini-Ftops event and then blew it because of stupidity...it's been haunting me since. I have already marked my calendar for December's MiniFtop events. I think Pokerstars has better players then Full Tilt...in fact I am always amazed at how bad people on Full Tilt try to bluff people off hands. I also think that the Full Tilt donks tend to hit more of those impossible flushes then the people at Pokerstars. I am using a very disciplined approach to playing on Poker Stars as far as my bankroll. I am only playing 18 man SNG's on Stars because that is what my training is on, 18 man SNG's. I have money over at Fulltilt and am playing a bit more risky there, not in my style of play but my buy-ins, size of tournaments etc...over the last few days I have played in the 10.00 45 man SNG turbo's on FT and placed 6th and 3rd. So I will probably play a few more of those over the weekend. Today is Farmers market prep day. I have to pick up our orders at lunch, then take them home and wrap the tortillas, load the truck, load the car, then I will squeeze in a few games tonight, then tomorrow the market will keep me busy until around 3:00...I will probably squeeze in a few games Saturday afternoon/ evening but then Saturday night is movie night for my wife and me....we have Invictus, Kick Ass and some independent flick with Ben Stiller...can't remember the name but got strong reviews. Sunday is harcore poker until 3:00 then will watch the toilet bowl between the Cowboys and the Vikings. I am pretty sure whoever loses is done for. I wouldn't be suprised to see Favre retire if the Vikings lose and I wouldn't be suprised to see Phillips get fired if the Cowboys lose, especially if they lose because of something stupid like they have the last 3 out of 4 games they have played. Sometimes rooting for the Cowboys is like rooting for your heroin addicted hooker mother. They seem great, clean, sober so your thinking "hey she's turned the corner" you find her in the alley with her panties around her ankles and a syringe in her arm and your like Damnit here we go again."

I'm sucking a big one!

Since Sunday my game has been awful. Personally I blame the Cowboys! Seriously I know part of it is the variance but part of it is reverting the old style of play and being a little tentative towards the end....last night for example I am playing in a 10.00 buy in 45 man SNG. Pays 6 spots. When we get down to two tables I am on the table with a jackass...jackass from some country I have never heard of was being extremely aggressive. He is the chip leader but everyone is playing tight and he is stealing tons of hands. He is in the BB and I am the button. I hit KA suited. I raise the blind 3 X, SB folds, he calls my raise. Flop comes and I hit nothing. It's a 2-10-5 rainbow...He checks so I check, Turn brings an 8, same thing he checks I check. River comes and it's a 4. He raises to 2K, so I think whats this asshole doing? Does he had a pair and slow played me? I don't think so cause he just loves to raise every hand but maybe....did he hit a 4? Maybe that is my biggest worry or that maybe he had pocket 4's and he hit a set....I had hold em manager running and he VIP 70%!!! So I think naw dude screw you your bullshitting me and I think my A-K is best, and I am suspicious about the check's then the stab. Usually if your checked to the river and you have A -10 and up with only two players usually you have the best hand....so I call and wham I win...He had a 3 - 7 off suite! I send the message "nice try" and he tries to say I am a bad player because I called. I pointed out that #1 he called my 3X with 3-7 off suite and that that his VIP is 70% which makes him a horrible player and he sucked. After that the table stop buying his bullshit and he was gone at #9. I love busting idiots...but then am I the idiot? So we are at the bubble and I am average stack with about 20 BB's. There are 2 players with monster stacks. One is very good and one is so so. I get lucky. I am pushing when I can at the smaller stacks taking advantage of there weakness around the bubble. I hit AJ suited and the person in second who has about 2 1/2 times my stack size calls...she has AQ Suited. Crap! Like these things happen I caught a J on the flop and double up. Hooray! I am now in second. After 30 minutes the bubble finally burst. I am third now....the top spot pays around 170 something? second pays low 100's, third pays around 75....sixth pays 27.00 so basically a 17 profit...I have been playing for two hours and I don't want to win 27 I want big money...not because of the money I want to get up and dominate and win. What do I do?
I have that good player to my left a few spots away and I push with A-J suited again and he calls with AA so I am knocked out at 6th so I win 17....so now comes the second guessing....should I have just called or raised and see what he did? (probably) stacks were getting shorter so really at that point it was shove or fold...should I have folded? with the chip leader to my left the answer probably was yes. However earlier in the game I had a guy go all in who was a tight player but short stacked. I am sitting there with A-Q suited thinking when it gets to me I should push, but then another guy calls his all in and he is pretty big stacked....so I folded believing that against 2 all in's from two pretty tight players my chances of winning just dropped a bunch....of course the board would have given the A high flush but I still think I lose that more then I win it so it was correct but it still doesn't mean it doesn't mean I second guess myself. Back to last night...I think the answer should have been to fold the hand....what does everyone else think?

12 weeks to go

Wow we have 12 weeks to go until the baby arrives. We are 90% sure the babies name will be Wyatt James Sanders. Or maybe Cody James Sanders but everyone loves Wyatt. My wife wants to give him my middle name which is Houston. It's a family name but I used to get teased pretty hard about it growing up and don't want him to go through the same thing. James is my fathers first name plus Wyatt James Sanders just has a ring to it. Very Western, cowboyish. Speaking of Cowboys.....I still can't believe the Cowboys played so awful. They are the most talented team in the NFL. Name one team that has the same caliber of wide Recievers. Roy Williams is now playing like a beast. Miles Austin wow what a stud and Dez Bryant plays like a seasoned pro. Yet the Cowboys just play stupid. I think this is it for Wade Phillips. I am hoping Jerry Jones gives Bill Cowher an offer so big he will have no choice but to take it. If Bill Cowher is the Cowboys coach right now, you don't think they are 4-0? Every game they have lost it's been because of stupidity and being undisciplined. How can two multi millionaire players (Witten and Columbo) not know about the celebration rule? I played terrible yesterday. on Poker stars my bank roll went from $475.00 down to $420.00 but by last night I had inched it back up to $455.00 so I was only down -20.00. It seems like the players on Sunday's are terrible but these are the same buttholes that chase Flushes and hit them or hit full houses when I hit straights and flushes.

doing ok

My wife's schedule has changed. We are blessed because we are having a baby. Both of us are 44 and that might be a little old to get into the baby business but I feel we will be more patient and appreciate the little things more then if we were in our 20's. Also because my wife works from home so this should save us thousands of dollars in day care. Her shifts are now 10 hours long four days a week. Her hours stretch into the evening so on these days we don't get to spend as much time together. while she is working I have really hammered the online games. I am playing 18 man Turbo Sit and Goes. Usually the $6.50 buy in's mixed in with a few $3.40 and the occasional $16.00 dollar ones. The difference in player skill is huge. I have gotten into the habit of running players at the table through pokerlab. Most of the players at the 16.00 games make $1000 a month or more. I have seen two players that made 7K in the last 90 days. My play today versus how it was even 45 days ago is night and day. I was a losing player with bad skills. I have tightened those skills up because of Ben Reasons instructions. I know I will hit bad spells but right now everything is going great.

lessons learned

after watching my first video from Ben I realize that I play too many stupid hands....I think the reason I do it is I think I can run over people most of the time by raising and continuation bets.....It works a little but shouldn't be my strategy. Play it tight then become aggressive. I am concentrating on two table sit n goes. My goals have changed. first goal is to just play better. My ROI needs to be 15 to 25% which shouldn't be difficult....
Second goal is to then multi table. Third goal is to move up from the 3.40 tables to the 6 dollar tables. Eventually probably in a full years time, my goal is to profit a dollar a game and try to be playing between 600 to 1000 games a month. It will be easier to accomplish since my business is ice machines and we are starting into the slow season for the next 8 months. It will also be tricky having a newborn.....I am 44 and this is my first baby....Rhonda has been through it before so she will be my Sherpa. Life is good.

a ladder to climb

Hi. My name is Tracy Sanders. I am a 44 year old married man with a baby on the way. I have lived in Austin, TX since 1991 and my primary source of income is in the ice machine business. I married back in January to  a wonderful woman who I have known since I was 11 years old. We were best friends in Jr. High then my family moved away from Houston to the big metropolis of Blanco, TX and we lost touch. She found me on Facebook about two years ago, we met to have lunch and that was that. I knew we were going to get married and we were seven months later. Back in April I slipped one past the goalie and now we are expecting a son in late December. As I said earlier I work for an ice machine company and on Saturdays I work at the Barton Creek Farmers Market selling my families salsa's, candied jalapenos, chip dips and tortillas and chips. In the middle of that I play online poker. I love playing it but know I need help. I joined Grinderschool.com and am now about to be coached by Reasons14. I would love to make enough playing part time that it would make a difference in my families life. I am taking this very serious and cannot wait to start my lessons. I plan on using this blog as a diary to keep up with my progress. It's going to be like climbing a ladder and I know I am at the bottom rungs but I also know I will take this one step at a time and hopefully I will reach my goals. My goal is to make a profit of $1000.00 a month. Do I have what it takes? We are going to find out.....