After a school year where I played almost no poker, I am back at it. Basically spent the year balancing overcompensating for only playing poker the year before by not playing it this year. But I really can't stay away from poker, as proved by my constant refreshing of high stakes db every few hours this year. I played a little on ACR(America's Card Room) where I had a pretty sick $15---->$8k----->BUSTO PLO run (10/20 not good brm???). I didn't really notice it because I don't usually check my bank account, but without money coming in my funds started to go south pretty hard during the year. I was pretty shocked at where they were at the end of the spring semester which was probably due to having a lot of fun. Going into the summer I knew I had to work for my dad and the way that works is I make not a lot of money but i get a lot towards my college. So I knew I had to get back at it Matt Damon style. Reasons14 served as my Edward Norton and before I knew it I was sitting at Foxwoods playing 2/5.
First day of summer and I won $500, but I played like shit. I had no idea what was going on and was lucky in card distribution/ some very easy straight forward spots that came up for me. Driving back I was thankful for the money but very aware I was rusty. I was also aware that for the first time in at least two years I wanted to improve my game more than anything else. I had switched to PLO cash from NLHE, but Foxwoods only has a 1/2 plo game and that only runs on weekends. I needed to learn no limit again.
Back at my house I hit the training websites hard. I looked at 2+2 forums for all the live hands I could find, I started watching High Stakes Poker and other cash games shows(mostly entertainment value, but it fueled the fire to learn). I started figuring stuff out, especially about live poker. I have an EP limping range(crazy I know), am 3-betting slightly less, and I am picking up on some live tells that I think have been pretty helpful to me. I am basically becoming a live pro. I also have messed up though. I made a live misclick in a big pot that ended up going my way. I don't take enough breaks and don't pay attention to the action enough when I am out of pots. I am also unsure as to if I give off massive live tells or not. But I feel like I have hit a stride with playing and have been reading hands very well. I am up about $7.5K this summer in live cash games playing 2/5-5/10. It's a small sample, so these results are not super significant, but what is significant is that each time I sit down at the table and each time I leave I feel more comfortable and confidant. I have had a sick lucky run of 5 winning live sessions in a row, so expect me to slow down a little, but I think in general my live future is bright.
After talking a lot with Ben(reasons14) I started to play online tournaments the last two days. And by deciding to play online tournaments I mean I had $15 left in my blackchip account and entered what I thought was a $11 fo because I was up watching hellmuth and ivey try and ship bracelets(yep im a fanboy too now). I then realized it was a 11 1R1A and ben shipped me an extra $20. Obviously I won the tournament for $900 and am back on the online grind as well. Feel like I played the tournament well, but I really dominated HU play. I switched my game up at 30+ bbs a lot (possibly because I was watching Ivey play a 30bb HU match) and played smaller pots where I could exert my edge post flop more, and chipped him down from him in the lead to me with a 2.5-1 chip advantage without a single all in. I then re-shipped A5s for somewhere around 15-18bbs into A8o but chopped than won A9 against KJ i think. But the point is im running hot as shit right now and feeling good. I am also doing a lot of daily fantasy sports with my friend and we are up like 2k on the summer. We bet on this website called Draftstreet.com , (promo code jshilling09) and it's a lot of fun.
Long story short I am back in the poker/ gambling scene and ready to go. This is usually the section where I set goals and then try kinda hard to achieve them. But for the first time ever I am not going to set $ goals or volume goals. I have made over $10k so far this summer and it has been less than a month, so right now I feel like I can really focus on improving my game and getting me in a good spot for when I return to school and am much closer to Foxwoods. I want to play a lot of tournament sessions, but i am cutting my tables back a little, and never having over 6 because I want to be thinking and learning. I do want to play this deepstacks series at foxwoods in two weeks, it looks like some good buy ins/prize pools to get my feet wet in live tourneys again. The only specific goal i have is to be at next year's WSOP for at least two weeks. To do that I need to build my bankroll and continue to improve my game. A goal that feeds off that one is winning the $2,500 Razz event. Im like 2/1 to win that I am sure so it won't be hard. So I apologize for the tldr nature of this post, but I had to put something out there after i saw Frenzuh and BigBluffzinc putting out some recent blog posts.
Good luck everyone,
jshilling09
