I've had a disastrous week but things are looking better. Lots of sticky situations like AK to AA with a Kxx flop, set vs set, you know the drill. I'm currently up about $30 this month so hopefully I can get it to about 50 before Feb. 29. Looks like the $100 profit a month is a fail but that was an ambitious goal anyways. 

The weather here is getting to me. For the past few days, the humidity has made my cheap linoleum floors drenched with water and drying clothes is nearly impossible. The thing is, it's cold so I can't really run the AC either. 

My volume was extremely low this last week. It was our first school week and I was quite busy, not to mention my sleep schedule had to change drastically. I still managed to crank out a few sessions. My target of $100 a month is still on pace and my pursuit of getting money on Stars is making progress. I've been flirting with the $260 mark for awhile now and hopefully I can get by again without looking back. I expect another low volume week but hopefully more than last week.

After an epic last couple of days which saw my account hover around the $260 range, a catastrophic hand happens:

I had 54 in a 854 flop vs 88 and 76. Ouch. Drawing dead and I was shipping.

So basically I shoved drawing dead against two terrible players. UTG was a 77/16 through 80 hands and BB was a 90/16 through 80 hands. I put UTG on an overpair preflop so I was glad to see a nice sized C-bet. I overbet hoping to get UTG to go all in but instead BB goes over the top of me. Worst case scenario. I've seen BB go all in on flush draws and the like so I figure I have a good shot at winning this pot. Guess not. Oh well, I was up a buy in before the hand and I ended up down 1 on the session. A good early session erased some of my loses so that's at least a small consolation. I'm still up about $40 and making over 10BB/100 hands even with this hand factored in so the grind is still on! This is just a momentary setback.

There isn't much to say about Macau that hasn't already been said. Great food, friendly people, decent poker action.

I guess I've been spoiled living in LA because when I originally heard that Macau was the poker capital of Asia, I was expecting poker rooms with 50+ tables all going...like at the Bike or Commerce. I would have even been impressed with a Hollywood Park or San Miguel Casino. 

This was not the case. I went to Grand Lisboa on Monday night and there were 3 tables running: 1 half-full table of 25-50 and two tables of 10-25. I figured the half full table would be full of regulars so I opted to sit at the 10-25. 

I'm playing 10-25 at Lisboa when a total newb sits down two to my right. 5 minutes ago I sat down with $3500 HKD. Newb has $3000. He has no idea how to play and he only spoke English even though he looked Chinese, so I could understand everything that was going on. His second hand or so he's UTG. He limps in. I raise it up to $100 with AQ. It folds around to the blinds who tag along. The newb calls as well. Flop comes Q-8-3 rainbow. Quite the ideal flop for me. Check, check, then I fire $300 into a $400 pot. Blinds fold and newb asks how much it is to call then calls. Turn is another queen for a board of Q-Q-8-3. I'm in fat city right now unless this guy is Hollywooding me with a boat. He checks I bet out $700 into a $1000 pot. He calls again. River comes a King. He checks to me then I ask him, "what do you have?". He says "Jacks". The look on his face gave it away. He wasn't BSing me. I say, "Hmmmm. I think I can beat Jacks, but I'm not sure" trying to Hollywood a bit. Then I fire out a half-pot $1200 bet. He thinks for awhile then calls and turns over JJ. Easy money. He went bust about 6 hands later.

That hand virtually paid for my trip as well as a nice relaxing afternoon at the Grand Waldo Spa.

Unfortunately, I got called into work on Wednesday, so I really only spent 1 full day there. I will definitely go back and explore the non-poker related sites in addition to playing some more. I highly recommend Macau. 

When I came back, I hit a few sessions online. Managed to scrape together 2 buyins of profit. I closed my EV gap when my JJ sucked out vs AA all in preflop. 

I considered adding more money and just jumping to the .1-.25 or .25-.5 games, but with Everleaf pulling out of the US market, depositing on Merge would be crazy. I'll just continue as planned.

I am quite disgusted with myself. I just donked off a buyin. 

Seat 1: Hero ($10.05 in chips)

Seat 2: 2 ($10.00 in chips)

Seat 3: 3 ($12.36 in chips)

Seat 4: 4 ($8.45 in chips)

Seat 5: 5 ($10.00 in chips)

Seat 6: 6 ($6.69 in chips)

Seat 7: 7 ($15.69 in chips)

Seat 8: Free Money Receiver ($22.52 in chips)

Seat 9: 9 ($18.51 in chips) DEALER

H: Post SB $0.05

2: Post BB $0.10

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Hero [Td Ks]

3: Fold

4: Fold

5: Fold

6: Fold

7: Fold

Free Money Receiver: Raise $0.30

9: Fold

Hero: Raise $1.25

2: Fold

Free Money Receiver: Call $0.95

*** FLOP *** [2h Kd Ah]

H: Bet $1.00

FMR: Call $1.00

*** TURN *** [6c]

H: Bet $2.25

FMR: Call $2.25

*** RIVER *** [As]

H: Allin $5.55

FMR: Call $5.55

*** SUMMARY ***

H: Shows [Td Ks]

FMR: Shows [Kc Ad]

FMR: wins $19.19

Now, I had folded maybe 3 rounds in a row until this hand. I can usually fold indefinitely without feeling the need to mix it up. The thing is, it was this exact same hand where I decided to put on my ipod. My song of choice happened to be Ride the Lightning by Metallica. With a cool head, I usually reraise in this spot anyways but shut down on the flop or C-bet depending on the type of opponent I have. But Metallica seemed to have turned on the "donk" switch in my head and the result was catastrophic. 

After losing this hand, I was reminded of an article I read some years ago about music and poker. The basic premise was if you listen to aggressive music, you may become more aggressive at the table. This was a message I heeded when I was playing $100 NL, but it slipped my mind today. 

I am a firm believer in subconscious thinking. When somebody tells me "if your room is messy, you will live a hectic life", I believe it. Sure, the guy might have a messy room because he lives a hectic life, but I think the other way around has some merit as well. 

I know Phil Ivey listens to music at the tables, but hey, most of us aren't Phil Ivey-calibur players. 

In summary, beware of your surroundings! Make sure you are 100% comfortable and silence is golden. Don't live in a disheveled hovel. Clean your room. What's the worst that can happen? If it doesn't affect your poker, worst case scenario will be a girl will come back to your place and she will be impressed with how clean the place is. You can't lose! Definitely +EV.

Perhaps the worst part about all this is that I am going into Macau with lower confidence. I was feeling good yesterday, but I'm not so sure anymore. Now, the main reason I am going to Macau is to watch the Super Bowl, but let's be honest–I will definitely be playing some poker as well. I just hope I can clear my head (without music!) and think about greener pastures.

Today was another OK day at the tables. 

I started out rocky, losing half a buyin (which is big because I am only 2-tabling on my laptop) when my TT got beat by JJ. The flop was rags and we got it all in on the turn (board was something like 6522). Good thing he only bought in for half a stack! 

I built my way back up and actually had a pretty good run until my 2nd session a strange hand occurred which cost me some money.

Seat 1: 1 ($9.65 in chips)

Seat 2: 2 ($2.68 in chips)

Seat 3: 3 ($20.62 in chips)

Seat 4: 4 ($4.95 in chips)

Seat 5: Hero ($11.73 in chips) DEALER

Seat 6: Villain ($20.26 in chips)

Seat 7: 7 ($6.66 in chips)

Seat 8: 8 ($9.90 in chips)

Seat 9: Initial Raiser ($10.34 in chips)

Villain: Post SB $0.05

7: Post BB $0.10

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Hero [Qd Qc]

8: Fold

Initial Raiser: Raise $0.35

1: Fold

2: Fold

3: Fold

4: Fold

Hero: Raise $1.10

Villain: Call $1.05

7: Fold

Initial Raiser: Call $0.75

*** FLOP *** [5c 6d 3c]

V: Check

IR: Check

H: Bet $1.00

V: Call $1.00

IR: Fold

*** TURN *** [2s]

V: Check

H: Bet $1.50

V: Call $1.50

*** RIVER *** [Ac]

V: Check

H: Check

*** SUMMARY ***

V: Shows [Ad Jc]

H: Mucks [Qd Qc]

V: wins $7.98

As you can see, this isn't a huge loss, and I don't think I played terribly, but there are a few things I could have done. First, I have quite a few stats on Villain. He's about a 12-5 over around 200 hands.  

The major mistake I made was not PTRing the guy. From now on I will PTR anybody I have over 100 hands of intel on. A 3 second PTR search would have revealed he is a MASSIVE losing player at .05-.1 stakes. He lost over 4 figures (at .05-.1, even more at other stakes) playing a 12-5 game which means this guy has been playing bad for a looooong time.

Using this knowledge, he was probably donking around with a hand like AJ. Of course, if I had known this, I would have probably c-bet normally on the flop because of the other player, but pounded the turn (bet the pot) and induced a fold instead of betting only $1.5. 

I'm actually glad this pot happened. Now I know the value of data mining from other sites. And no, PTR is not paying me. 

Lesson learned. You can never have enough intelligence on your opponents!

All in all, I made a whopping 6 dollars today or .6 a buyin! I'm still happy since I was down .5 a buyin about 5 minutes into my day. Grinding pays off!

I can't wait until I get back to the $100 NL games. This is definitely a test on my discipline though. It would be easy to just deposit more money and dive right in, but what's the joy in that? Climbing the mountain is much more enjoyable than taking a helicopter to the summit.

My Macau trip is officially ON. I will leave on Sunday (China time) and hopefully find a nice 100-200 game. I know what you're thinking..."So...you play .05-.1 online but you play 100-200 HKD live?" The answer is YES. Don't ask why, but I feel MUCH more comfortable live than online.

Here's my graph:

Greetings! Well, my other poker blog doesn't seem to upload pictures properly so I decided to start a new blog here.

Here is my situation: I am currently abroad in Guangzhou (China) as an English teacher. Last year I taught in Japan (which was amazing), but I decided to keep moving on to China as it's a lot closer to Macau. 

I have been playing poker since 2003 on various websites and local casinos. I grew up in Los Angeles and attended UCR which was thankfully close to several casinos since there's absolutely NOTHING else to do there. I found some success on Pokerroom.com before it withdrew from the US, then from 2005 or so to 2008 I switched between FTP and Stars. After graduating in early 2008, I took a long break from playing serious poker because it was really eating into my social life. I started up again seriously while in Japan in 2010. I was a pretty consistent winner at the .50-1 NL FR tables but between Black Friday until the start of 2012 I stopped playing except at local casinos (Hollywood Park, Commerce, The Bike, etc.)

Now I am back. 

Theoretically, I can get back on Stars since I am a resident here in China, but it's quite a hassle getting all the paper work sorted. So I made a new account on Lock Poker, Jackal667. I chose the name Jackal667 to look generic and inconspicuous, but hopefully over the course of time people will start recognizing me because I'm winning so much!

After such a long break and since people keep getting better and better at online poker, I decided to start small...like REALLY small. Like .05-.1 NL small. 

The games at Lock are pretty easy and I don't have any complaints so far. My initial deposit was $200 in early January. After playing a few SNG's my account crept down to the $180 level but now since going back to ring games, I'm up to a little over $220 as of tonight. I don't have my "moneymaking machine" with me which is kind of a bummer (all I have is my MacBook), so I've just been single tabling and occasionally 2-tabling.

Today:

I had a huge rush this evening. I flopped about 5 sets (which if playing only 2 tables is amazing) in maybe 150 hands. Some hands I got paid, others I didn't but my profit was going in the right direction. That is, until I got AA (I got AA about 3 times in 6 minutes). I raised in early position, a standard 3x, then the SB reraised me. This is a "reg" with the standard 14-10 VP$/PR. Now with regs, if I rereraise, he will probably fold QQ and lower, and I want to trap this sucker so I just called. Calling out of position makes me look like a donk, which is what I want. Flop came KJx. He leads out. At this point it's clear to me he has AK, KK, QQ, or JJ. Anyways, I ship and he calls with KK. Game over. Either way I was going to lose that hand, but I still feel comfortable the way I played it. It does look bad on my PokerTracker, though. 

I've been adopting the KISS strategy for this level (keep it simple, stupid). However, I have been picking off bluffs every now and then as well as floating the occasional flop. The squeeze play is NOT effective at these levels in my opinion. 

Goals: Before I move up to .1-.25, I want to at least double my original $200 investment. Seeing as how I'm only at $220, I think I'm still a few months away, but it's a project. Plus, this isn't a job and I'm playing casually so it will definitely take some time.

Here's my chart so far:

Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is coming to a close and the new school term starts on Feb. 13. I'm planning to hop over to Macau and see what the poker scene is like there before I get bogged down again with work. The earliest I'm planning to go is Sunday so I can watch the Super Bowl on Monday morning.