Hella Hold'em

Well! I just have a bunch of random tidbits to post about before heading off to bed.

Yesterday, I took the $50 I have in PokerStars and sat down to two $10+1 SnG's. Did not fare well. Busted out in 7th in one (quite the rush of un-luck), and got knocked out 5th in the second one. Hmm. That sucked.

This morning I sat down in one more before work. Bubbled. I probably could have tried to squeeze my last couple chips for a limp into the money, but I think I'da been blinded to death. I went out in a blaze of glory, all-in for 3x the BB with A8 suited versus Q2 offsuit. Too bad a Q fell on the flop, and a 2 on the turn, none of my suit. Oh well!

Tonight, I sat down with my remaining $18 or so at a $.25/.50 NL table. I was looking for a pot limit table after reading DuggleBogey's take on pot-limit versus no-limit, but there were no active ones to be found. Maybe I just wasn't looking closely enough; I thought it was strange. I turned my $18 into $36. I'll take it! Being the first NL cash table I've ever sat at on PokerStars, I found it to be pretty passive. Rarely was there a bet or raise over $2.00, and very few all-in's. Betting the turn on a checked flop grabbed me a few small pots, regardless of what was in my hand. These people must have been laying down middle and bottom pair - it was way too easy. Of course I was really only taking stabs at pots that I still had outs to win, or that I thought my hand could have been good. You know me - too chicken to truly bluff. Someday I will be come a Bluff Jedi Knight. Gimme time...

I was able to unlock my newly purchased copy of the Poker Tracker Guide today. I had some problems last night when I tried to unlock it, and couldn't tell if the problem was on my end or the unlocking server. HDouble was super prompt in replying to my emails and helping me out, and we got the problem resolved this morning. I immediately got my laser printer cracking on printing out a copy to pore over. I only got through the first 20 pages or so, but my oh my - this e-book is going to be quite helpful to me. It's immediate impact will be in helping me to formulate a routine system that I use to examine my poker sessions, preferably soon after each session. I don't have any sort of routine right now - just a random "let's see what PT has to say today..." kind of thing. My first goal is to use this book to create a set of checkpoints for myself that I use to routinely evaluate each session I play. Thanks, guys!

In other news... I've starting making up the table of contents for my little "Blogger template modification/creation how-to" book. I have no idea what this project will become; I submitted some ideas to O'Reilly (the computer book publisher) but haven't heard back yet. If you have any questions or ideas that you'd like added to my list of mods and hacks that I'll be including in this project, let me know.

Alrighty - off to bed with me. G'nite all....