Local Poker Game Robbed

Last night I had a free evening, so I drove over to Tunica for some pokers. I've been trying to grind up a bankroll at Harrah's, but they only had one 1/3 game going, so over to the higher variance Horseshoe I went. I'd like to say it went well, but it did not. The short version (because I really don't want to talk about it lol) is that I was winning the small pots and losing the big ones. Losing to backdoor flush draws of all things...TWICE. Backdoor flushes. Ok, then. That was enough for me. Good luck, see you later. So, it's back to Harrah's and watching paint dry next week. ;)

At the table, I overheard the guys talking about the poker game armed robbery that happened last week at the Colonial Country Club in Memphis. I have often wondered why we can't get bigger games going in Tunica on a regular basis and private games like this are likely the reason! I don't like private games or home games, as robbery is a big possibility. No thank you. I'll stick with the casinos.

They said this is usually a much bigger game, but at the time of the robbery, there were only 6 players still playing that night and about $16k was stolen from them at gunpoint. Scary stuff. The robbery was apparently set up by a country club employee who knew about the large amounts of cash in the game and had access to the gate to enter the property.

The Memphis paper requires a subscription, but I found this article that tells the story. Moral of the story; be careful in private games! There is more than one way to lose your money...

Pics For Lightning36

These pics are for the comment left by Lightning on my last post. I don't know what he did exactly, but DN's hair has definitely changed recently! From Jason Mercier's twitter:

As for me and my hair, we have been lazy lately. Well I wouldn't say lazy as I've been working a lot! But for my free time, I've just been relaxing, no poker. But I will be playing for sure this week. It looks like I'll have a free night this Wednesday, so there will be a blog post on that for sure. See ya then. :)

Poker Dreams

I've been thinking about poker so much, I've started having silly dreams about it! Last night, I was at a party in Barcelona with a group of poker players that included, of all people, Daniel Negreanu, new hair plugs and all! ;)

That's extra silly, because for one, I'm not that big of a DN fan. I find him kinda annoying sometimes. I know he has haters..I'm not a hater, I have a lot of respect for the guy, I'm just not a big fan. The second reason it's silly is because I do not fly. I have no desire to travel the world playing poker, so dreaming of being in Barcelona doesn't make much sense at all!

I'll blame Bart Hanson and his podcasts. I've been listening to them in bed on my ipad just before sleep, which is probably not the best time to listen to them, because although the content is excellent, his voice is soooo relaxing, it's really hard not to fall asleep listening! So, I probably need to pick a better time for listening to the podcasts. Hopefully, that will end my partying with Kid Poker! haha :)

Saturday Picks

I think I'll just make Russell a football blog..in the meantime, he says: 

Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered. What a brutal day in college football. We went 2-7 with the late total addition in Miami. I've seen blind chicken pick better. Lets look for a better day in the pros today. We're going with the Bills +10.5, Titans +7, Saints -3, Bengal +3, Browns +2, Panthers +3.5, and Dallas -3.5. I also have a couple of totals I am looking at. Follow me on twitter @RussellRoss75 for those and any other late decisions I make. Lets get 'em!

Guest Post for Football Picks

Here's a message from Russell with his football picks...

Well we hit both of our picks last night in the NFL thanks to Peyton Manning's career performance. The first week in the NFL is difficult to pick because we don't know what teams are doing yet. So, we won't have many plays this Sunday. One that I like for sure is the Bengals +3 at Chicago. As for college, I have a few gems that I like. We had Temple last week in South Bend and they hung in there to get the cover. We're going to ride them again at home getting 3 vs Houston. Cincinnati made Purdue look silly last week and I think Illinois is another bad Big 10 team. I'm eating the 9.5 and taking the Bearcats. Also like Syracuse +17, Oklahoma -21.5, Texas -8, Notre Dame +4.5, Washington St +16 and Stanford -26. Follow me on twitter @RussellRoss75 for all my picks and any last minute plays I decide to make. 

Odd Lines with Aces and Some Football Picks

I noticed some strange plays with pocket Aces the other night at Harrah's. In the first example, the player (a younger guy who looked like an aggressive player, but obviously was not) limped on the button against 3 other players. You don't see that very often, especially from late position. Too much can happen, garbage 2 pair hands are the usual culprits busting limped Aces. But it worked out for the guy as the flop came J high and he got all the money in on the turn against KJ and won. Why KJ was 3 bet shoving, I have no idea, but he did. Nice hand, AA guy.

In another hand, a middle aged guy raised UTG with AA to $6. Six whole dollars, first to act. You are inviting a multiway pot with such a small raise and that's the last thing you want with Aces! But he did. He only got a few callers, though, so it could've been worse. He won a small pot, but he did win...maybe they know something I don't...but I don't like their play too much. I feel like the guy with the $6 bet really missed out on some $, because the pot was only $18 preflop. I also got dealt Aces that night and I got $72 in the pot preflop and took it down with a c-bet on the flop. Bet as much as they will call is my motto! If you've got people at your table who love to see flops (we had 3 at the time), raise it up, they'll call it.

On to the football. My husband likes to bet on football. He's pretty good at picking winning bets, too. Last weekend he was 8-1 for the college opening weekend with 7-0 picks on Saturday. He's considering getting into paid handicapping next season (football only), so I thought we'd follow along with him this season to see how he does and have a record of it on the blog. He's been doing this for 5 years and hasn't had a losing season since he started, so let's see how he does...

Tonight's pick:

Denver Broncos vs. Baltimore Ravens 9-5-13

Broncos -7 and over 49.5

I don't know what that means...hope you football fans do. ;)  

My Sad Little Winrate

Well, I signed up for Bart Hanson's Crush Live Poker training videos and the podcast, too. The videos involve live cash games from The Bike with the games being 5-5 NL and 5-10 NL. That's higher than what I play, but I'm hoping Mr. Hanson can take me to 2-5. Although 2-5 basically only runs on the weekends in Tunica and that is the highest game ever run here (so says Bravo). I don't know why we can't have more 2-5 games with some 5-10 here! I may have to move lol.

Anyway, there are some videos where the buyins are $300-$500 and that's the same stack sizes as the 1-3 here, so it should play similar enough. The opening raises are only about $10 more than the average in my games, so not much difference. I like the way Bart thinks about hands and he explains his thought process well, so hopefully this will help the way I think through hands. We shall see.

I'm posting my embarrassing winrate here and we'll see if the training helps improve it any in the coming months. I've kept very detailed notes in a day planner since I started playing NL cash games in March, because if you don't track your sessions, you're just lost really. You might think you can remember your P/L and hours played, but you really can't, so if you're serious about improving, either get an app like Poker Journal to track it on your phone or do it the old fashioned way like I do and write it down. ;)

If I didn't have the results on paper, I would think I was a big loser (that's what it feels like!), but actually, I'm not losing...I'm just not winning very much. My YTD numbers for cash games since March are:

17  1-3 NL cash sessions
P/L + $171
71.5 hours played
for a whopping winrate of $2.40 per hour

Yep, I should retire and go pro already, right?? Ha! I'm pretty embarrassed to post this, but it is what it is. BUT! I am determined to get better, move up and uh...crush live poker, yo. Off I go to study...

Penny PITA

This is our Penny, an American Pit Bull Terrier. This is not the breed of Pits recognized by the AKC, as they are considered a mix breed and sadly, are mostly bred for fighting in this area. They are high energy, friendly dogs who love and crave attention. Whatever is going on, she has to be in the center of it. That's mostly why I changed her middle name to PITA (pain in the ass lol), jokingly of course. :)

She and her brother wandered into our backyard back in February while I was out doing some spring prep yard work. They were super friendly and so cute, but I didn't want another dog! We already had one, a 7 yr old mutt rescue, who is wonderful, but enough to clean up after. I tried very hard to find their owner. I put up flyers in the neighborhood, I posted about them on facebook and called the shelter to see if anyone had called looking for them; they hadn't. I left my number in case they did; no one ever called. I think they were let out on purpose. They had no collars, no tags. We took them to the vet to see if they had ID chips; they didn't. They were about 4 months old, not house trained, most likely a Christmas present and deemed too much trouble to care for, so they were turned out. That was my read, anyway. I felt sorry for them, but still, I did not want to keep them at the time. Especially after all of the mess I was cleaning up after them!

But my husband instantly fell in love with this face and my arguments against keeping her failed. My father in law agreed to keep the male and we kept the female. It wasn't long until I fell in love with her, too. She was house trained easily, she's so smart. She's had some issues with chewing things, but keeping her exercised helps a lot with that. She does require a lot of physical activity. But she is great..funny, smart and a big part of our family. We love her. <3