Just Play

Well, I read an awesome article by GP on building a bankroll and how he advised cashing out so that you increase your win rate at your current level so that you have the proper experience before you move up to another level. I have decided to follow that advise, move away from the sng’s and increase my level of buy-in’s to the pro status advised by Fox. He advises 45 buy-in’s for a “pro’s” bankroll and I think striving for such a high amount of buy-in’s will increase my overall win rate and hopefully help me become a better player.

GP also stated that he doesn’t track his stats as far as how much he his down or up. I think I have focused too much on charts, graphs, and data and not enough on my actual play. Hopefully, me sittin down and realizing this will strengthen my play and how I do in this next month. We will see. . .

-Locks

23 like MJ

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days. It has been a crazy last few days and I’m here to give a brief update as I’m trying to grind my roll back together.

Okay, on Thursday of last week, I turned 23 years old. (Happy Birthday to me!) It rained that day (which sucked) but for the most part, it was cool. My girl bought me an art set, some Ray-Ban lens, and, a Sean John outfit.

Saturday we had a big birthday/anniversary dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. A lot of my friends came and we eat and cracked jokes and really had a good time. They embarrass birthday people though. I had to stand up dressed like a hula dancer and dance while the crowd sang Happy Birthday. I don’t embarrass easily though and I shook my moneymaker for the crowd.

That night, Kourtney (a.ka. the wifey, Mrs. etc.) got a room at a resort and spa and we crashed for the evening. The room was very nice and pretty expensive at $250 but she’s worth it. We ended up getting into a fight about bullshit and to say the least, I didn’t enjoy the room to its full potential. That argument rolled on over til the next day and we got into an even bigger fight on Sunday which involved body shots and slaps. It was pretty ugly but we made it out alive and are trying to patch things up. Now before I’m viewed as a womanizer, I would like to clearly state that I in no way started the altercation,  nor do I condone hitting woman, nor did I actually, kick, punch, slap her. I merely defended myself and even that may have been too much.

On a much worse note, my bankroll is now down to $2300. I spent some of my roll on my birthday weekend which included the cost of the room, anniversary gifts, etc. and then my father snuck in the fact that my car insurance is/was due the day of my birthday and he wanted me to pay it so subtract $1k+ from the roll there. I decided to take this month of November and the duration of October and focus on sng’s.  A good sng player at the $33level ($36 if it’s a turbo makes roughly 16% ROI), I want to play 100 sng’s for the rest of the month which is about 15 sng’s a day. At 16% ROI, I will make $5.28/sng or roughly $528 for the week. That’s my minimum for the month and I’ll post the goals for November closer to the 1st.

That’s enough for now.

-Locks

Lost File

Today I spent the majority of my day looking for a contract between myself and a homeowner. This one piece of paper is the difference between me keeping and losing $8k. I’m not in the business of throwing away money but I will admit that this is all my fault. I’m not organized at all and this is capital punishment for not being organized. That form sat around for days, months, weeks, and never moved and as soon as I need it, want it, have to have it. . . It’s gone. It’s a tough spot and I’m going to keep looking and try to straighten my room which swallows everything. It’s a man made black hole which feeds itself on socks and tv remotes.

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The tables were somewhat fair today. I never caught any big flops or hands but managed to chip up a few buy-in’s. I also made some good folds that saved me some chips. Quick tip that I’m trying to remember is big pots equal big hands and small pots equal small hands. For example: I have been betting strongly at a pot since pre-flop. I bet the flop when there were two flush cards on the flop. I have top pair, top kicker. The turn seems to be a blank and I bet again. Though online, his calls seem to be beating my chips in the middle. On the river, the flush card hits, and he pushes all his chips into the pot. His stack is larger than the pot and now you’re risking your stack on one pair on the river. Will he always make that play with a flush? Not always. Hsve you seen him make a similar play? If I’ve seen him make a similar play on the river with a weak hand and someone looked him up, well I may consider it but the key is, without a strong read, it’s impossible to make such a call. On the flop, the situation changes dramatically. With a Kd 8c 2c flop, and you hold AhKh, the number of combinations of hands that you are behind too are few. They have to either have a set or two pair, and it’s that often people call (though it does happen) raises with 8×3x or Kx8x but if you’re opponent has called your flop bet, turn, and now the river is showing clubs, you can find a better spot to put your money in with.

-Locks

Fashion Show

Yesterday was a pretty dry for the most part. I hung out with the Mrs. that morning and she had a lot of errands to run and I did a few of those with her. She was in a fashion show that evening so she had to get her hair done, and get some fake eyelashes. (weird) Mist of the day was put together of me doing nothing really. I had to pick up a battery for my father’s Jaguar and I helped put it in that evening. (If he would’ve been patient, I would’ve done it all but he’s hard-headed and he had been working on it for 1.5 hours.)

The fashion show went well. My girl was beautiful. Makes me happy that a snagged her up. Today actually makes four years that her and I have been together and we probably do it big this weekend since it’s my birthday tomorrow. I’m trying to get a room at this Resort near here for a night or two. The “sweetheart” package is about $230/night so I better hit the tables hard so I can pay for this.

There was a whack after-party at her college. Well, it wasn’t totally whack but they had food sponsored by the SGA and didn’t didn’t last fifteen minutes. As a matter of fact, they only had 2 bags of nachos, one plate of cheese, and one bowl of punch. At a free event, I’m surprised it lasted that long.

-Locks

The Cooler

A cooler in poker terms is a hand or a situation that you can not get away from due to the fact that the situation dictates you to. Here is an example. (i.e KK in the SB, button pushes all-in for $500 chips. You have $1,000 and call and the BB folds. The player turns up AA.) This is a cooler because you’re not getting away from this hand pre-flop. I had a lot of “cooling” situations today… QQ vs. AA 4 handed in the blinds. Open-ended straight/flush draw with an overcard vs. made straight straight, etc.

My point is this. Cooler situations will arise and and you will be on both ends. Focus on making the correct play each and every time and and not allowing the effects of prior hands and previous cloud your decision makig process for the current. Poker is random. Just because you received a bad beat when you got your money in with AA doesn’t its ever correct to fold pre-flop. Make sense? Hope so.

-Locks

Sued?!?!/Little Girl

For those who don’t know me yet, I moonlight as a poker player. Poker Player = Spiderman and by day I have to be Peter Parker, a regular guy with a regular job. So, my regular job is the owner of my own real estate development company. After two years and a little luck, we are finally beginning to make moves to become a dominant force in my area.

My first project consisted of me building my own home in a high priced neighborhood. In the beginning, my home was a typical garden home consisting of 1600 square feet that grew into a three-story home with a basement and at least double that square footage. It was for the best for myself and family (though I have no kids, I do expect to take care of my parents in the next few years).

I hired a general contractor that I will be working with on other projects and went through the process of hiring subs. This in particular sub who is suing me did some terrible work on my home and then tried to overcharge me. I refused to pay and I guess that’s why you’ll see me in court.

It’s funny how our disagreement began over $10k that he tried to overcharge me for but I’m getting sued for $73,580.00. Sure do which Johnny Cochran and his rap skills were here. “If the work is not okay, Jay must not pay!” We’ll see what the jury says on that.

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My best friend Rodney is having a 2nd child. I won’t go into great details for the world to see put he’s not in the most stable spot in life or relationship wise with his baby mama-to-be or his current baby mama. I told how this would end before it started and I hate to see it play out badly but that’s the way it’s headed. Child support is like cancer to a paycheck. Hopefully he can bounce back like round-ball but I seriously don’t see it happening. Pray for him.

-Locks 

Introduction/Resurrection

Allow me to reintroduce myself. . . My name is Locks. I am 22 years of age (I’ll be 23 in 6 days) and this is my first entry of my new blog. I laid to rest my old blog as I changed screen names on my main site and felt compelled to wash myself clean of all things related to that name. So here I am. Back at square one trying to inspire thought on this game of poker.

I began playing poker like many others in my age group. I was waiting on Sports Center to be shown or channel surfing and kept running across this game that my father and I played for pennies. Back then, I played 5 Card Draw or 5 Card Stud. We didn’t play that often but those were my beginnings. I love my ol’ man and wouldn’t take those memories away for anything.

Uncommon to my surroundings is the game of poker. I’m from the hood to be blunt about it and none of my friends play. Growing up around here, we played tonk, spades, bid whist, pluck, or knucks (a variation of pluck) but poker in any form was never part of the home game.

I must say I’ve always had some gamble in me. During middle school, many days I played a game called “Get Like Me“, a game in which you flip coins or dollars and your opponent must match what falls. (i.e. I land tails, you must land tails) I spent many days in pissy bathrooms doing this. Pretty disgusting as I think back to it. (lol) I usually made enough for a afternoon snack on the way home or lost enough to miss lunch the next day. This is a real coin flip.

Fast forward half my life and my first remembrance of actually watching poker is reruns of Greg Raymer crushing that year. It intrigued me. the art of playing and I was instantly hooked. I remember being excited to go to Wings and eat. They had the video version of Texas Hold’em but I didn’t understand much about it. I know what pairs beat what but understood nothing about hand strengths, betting, position. The definition of being fed to the wolves.

It was fun but I was losing. It was basically a video game but I’m too competitive to take losing and see it as being “fun”. I wanted to be that guy standing there with a bracelet. So I set out to learn how to play. Like anything else I do with any seriousness, I studied. i think I bought every e-book, hard back, magazine… Anything I could find with a tidbit of something new, I read it and afterwards. . . I was still a fish (A player who loses money. An old saying is “If you can’t spot the fish at the table, *you* are the fish.”). I started on Party Poker. I made a deposit of $50 a few times and donked that off or donked off some before realizing that I needed a set way of winning. I eventually cashed out and played single table tournaments, (sng’s) and head’s up matches on Pacific Poker.

It wasn’t an easier year and a half to say the least. I went from terrible to bad over the course of a few months and didn’t understand any concepts on bankroll management but I have come a long way since then. I made my first real cash in my third live tournament I ever played in. I came in 1st place for $968 and I wasn’t really that good. I combine suck outs with timely good cards that got me through that. I remember many hands vividly where I had coin flips (two overcards vs. an. underpair) or was totally dominated with only one overcard and sucking out. I remember thinking that that was the way to win.

Bills stacked at the time so I use the majority of my knew “roll” to get me out of a jam. I still played online though and ventured out into real gambling. To separate the difference, poker is a game of skill. To bluff, calculate odds, and understand position, outs etc. is not the same is betting in roulette on 25 with 37:1 odds and getting paid 36:1. Even when you win, you lose. That’s why you can’t beat the house. I dabbled in blackjack, roulette, and craps. I won good for a week or two and lost big the next. I see-sawed with that til i was back to square one. I stopped “gambling” the same way I started. . . with $300. I decided to get back to grinding in poker at this point. It’s November of 2005 and I’m playing $10 sng’s. I remember it well because Gidders was beginning his site, CR was just popping off, as well as RPT. I remember wanting to win so bad, I signed up for all 3. I thought the more info I had, the greater chance I had at making some serious money. Over the next few months, i turn $300 into $3k but bills again ate up my roll. It felt like I was playing Monopoly and I was headed around the board and I pull a card saying “Go to jail/Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Push play and it’s today. I traded in the grind of sng’s and upgraded to cash game. My roll isn’t huge yet but its a work in process. Ask about the 2pac pic? If he can be resurrected and his named isn’t Jesus, then I’ll give it a shot.

-Locks