Tonight's blog reads like a story. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will definitely at least go "WTF, who are these people?"

I played pretty tight tonight, we had a 9-man ring game so I couldn't employ my usual crazy aggression, but the game is loose enough that you don't really need to give action in order to get action. I have a bunch of interesting hands to share.

For the first hour or two I really didn't get a hand worth mentioning. I limped with Q10 in MP along with about 5 other limpers. Flop was KQ10 two suits, it checked to me and I bet 1.5x the pot and took it down. I really didn't want to deal with people drawing against me and bottom 2 pair is very vulnarable so I just bought the pot. I was probably around $40 in chips after this point after losing some blinds, ect.

I picked up A-7o in the BB, one person limped and a short stack went all-in for 17$. It folded around to me and this is usually an easy fold, by the way he was sitting and by the way he was looking at...

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Whats up, this will be my first real poker-related entry (and possibly my 3rd post today...) (yeah I told everyone I'm a nerd)

Instead of the usual NL40 cash game we play most Monday and Wednesday nights, the guy who hosts us (Jamie) decided that he's too poor to be losing $200 a week playing poker, so we played $20 tournaments.

7 players total, 140 in the pot, 100 to first, 40 for second. Start with $60 in chips, blinds start at 1/2 and raise every 15 minutes. It's kind of a strange format, but it allows for the tournament to last at most 2 hours, sometimes around an hour - this way we can play more than one a night. It doesn't really become a push-fest unless people play really tight, and then the short stacks are forced to push/fold when it gets to 3/6 or 4/8, but in a 7 person tournament you can't expect to play 1 or 2 hands in the first 3 blind levels.

Anyways...

1st Tournament:

I wish I had an interesting hand analysis to provide, but I really don't. I played quite...

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I didn't play for long online this afternoon, but I had a little bit of success at the .5/1 NL tables, I 2 tabled for probably about half an hour, +35 at one, +15 at another. I know it's not a great strategy, but I bought in short-stacked, mainly due to bankroll restrictions and b/c I feel that short stacked play can occasionally force big-stacks into errors, and it really simplifies play.

Anyways, this hand is hilarious and I have to post it. Once he called my bet on the river I was like "Err uh oh..." But I couldn't believe it when I checked the hand history.

GAME #457387141: Texas Hold'em NL $0.50/$1 2006-11-27 17:32:36
Table Cheltenham (6 max)
Seat 1: Bascule ($136.25 in chips) DEALER
Seat 3: teddyjill ($144.60 in chips)
Seat 5: plusEVdg ($30.65 in chips) (MEEEE, big blind)
Seat 6: atruefan ($30.75 in chips)
Seat 8: Haddock59 ($57.35 in chips)
Seat 10: Grigo ($196.87 in chips)
teddyjill: Post SB $0.50
plusEVdg: Post BB $1.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to plusEVdg [HA...

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I have taken the single largest step a person can take in technically improving their poker game:

I have registered Poker Tracker.

I knew I was a loose aggressive player, but after importing my ring-game stats, I've realised that my VP$IP is around 36, probably too loose, and my aggression factor is probably a little too low. I'm a sucker for raising or calling with hands like 7-6o and 6-8o in position. My position stats are also really bad - for this I will account my small sample size, but it's something I gotta work on. I also noticed that my PFR % is 13.5 :? I think I have to be more selective in my aggression...

Anyways, this is a minor update. I will be playing some Live poker tonight, but this afternoon I will be looking through my numbers, looking for my biggest leaks.

I'm excited, this program is seriously complicated, but I'm sure that once I figure it out I will learn so much.

What's up THP BLOG

This is my first post on this site, but it's not my first poker blog. A couple of you may have found it buried in the THP forums, but on the recomendations of Diamond Cutter I've moved it here to probably get more people reading it.

Anyways, the link to my previous blog is riiiight here:
http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/forum/phpbb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=160326#160326

There are about 20 posts so you blogophiles can kill a half-hour and review my progress thus far. I'm super obsessive, I'm pretty sure that I will be updating more often than anyone else. I play poker pretty often, I have a live game between 2-4 times per week, and I am also new to online poker. As long as I stay motivated, I will be able to update probably 2 or 3 times per week at least.

I keep my online bankroll sepparate from my live bankroll, my numbers right now:

Live: $710
Online: $500

Last week I had a couple hundread more in my online account, but 2 days of bad tilty play has...

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