Here's the answer to my last post,
I did call, but it's not what I wanted to do or what I would've normally done against this type of player. First problem I had was putting him on a hand that could warrant a cold call on the flop and turn, the flop was KQ6 rainbow, so thought he either had KQ or J10, so when I bet on the turn, he most likely would've laid down J10, or raised with KQ, but he only called which really confused me and made it hard for me to figure out what he had. He didn't have a set of 6's, or Q', beecause Q's he would've reraised preflop and 6's he just wouldn't play to a raise. So when I bet the river I picked up FOUR tells when he reraised, usually I only need one to make the right decision, all of his tells screamed strength. So now I have a big problem, II have invested over $185 of my kiddies and do not wanna let them go easily, AND I was getting a large price on my money on the river, But the only hand that he could possibly have here is either KQ or a stone cold bluff, I was telling myself to fold, because this dude simply didn't bluff, but for some reason pushed my chips in the middle and he showed down KQ. This is a prime example why I should be splitting my time between online and live as I need to keep my game in shape to follow my reads live and make these tough laydowns, like my poker conscience (sp?) tells me. It was a very tough laydown, but a laydown I should've been able to make.

On to some other things now, I just finished the month and the downswing finally ended thank god! I ended up making $313.20, which I am actually VERY happy with as was down over $1000 a little over a week ago. My excel program got erased somehow AGAIN, so I made another one, and my stats for the year go like this:
Total Report

Cash Earnings $3,341.49
Cash Hands 38,173
Cash Hours 243.8
Cash Hourly Rate $13.71
Cash per 100 Hands $8.75 about 5BB/100
Tourney Earnings ($1,693.80)
Tourney Hours 96
Tourney Hourly ($17.64)
Tourney Events 55
Tourney Cashes 13
Cash % 23.64%
Total Earnings $1,647.69
Total Hours 339.8
Total Hourly $4.85

Not too bad, not too good either, my tourney cash percentage is pretty good throuogh the last two months, but I can't seem to get deep into them to get the real cash. Another gay sidenote, my truck got broken into for the FOURTH time, and this time they got everything, and totally fucked everything up, these fucking lowlifes not only had no clue what they were doing, but they may get caught all for stealing a $1500 system that they probably only sold for $300, unfortunately won't be gettinig my stuff back, but if I can charge these fucking douchebags with anything I will. I am sick of deadbeats breaking into my truck and taking my shit. The best part about it is they broke my window, so its parked outside wide open to anyone, no big deal thoo, there isn't anything left to steal, weell some idiot, went through my whole truck last night looking for something to steal!!!! Seriously, how dumb are people, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that my truck had already been burgarlrized, (sp?)I mean come one, window broken, dash tore out, handles ripped off, not too hard to figure out that everything is gone already. Seriously, I never get mad enough to get into fights, but if I ever saw one of these lowlifes, I would beat the mother fucker to a bloddy pulp. Well, that is about it, until my next rant.

-Bakken

Talk about nice weather, it was 75 degrees and sunny today. I decided to do some golfing with my buddy Daniels, and two members from TPC of Summerlin. I played pretty well, minus a few horrid shots, shooting a 78, the members we played with were very cool, and apparently both VERY rich, one of them owned his own private jet. We are having another match with them on Monday, and hopefully Daniels and I can prevail this time. I found out that TPC of Summerlin is hiring some bagroomers, so I think I'll snag a job there for a little extra income and the FREE golf at a GREAT course. One of the members and I also sparked a conversation about jobs, and I think he was going to offer me a job at one of his companies, but he stopped mid sentence for some reason? A job with this dude would be sweet as it would probably pay very well and maybe open future doors just in case poker doesn't workout, so I will continue to network and try working those angles, you can never know too many successful people ;-)

Now onto some poker stuff, I got paid this week for pokerworld finally and got a nice little $780 for 8000 hands, pretty good change for rakeback =) Also, I am far and away in first place for the WSOP freeroll for the $1500 seat. If I win it, I will be giving my seat to my roommate, taking 50% of his action, along with the $600 spending money since he won't need it. I came out of retirement the other night and played some live poker down at Binion's, they didn't ID me =) This is supposedly one of the tougher games in town and this game was VERY soft. Here is a particular hand that I will pan out the decision, for those of you who read, leave me a message of what you think the player had and what your action was, and then I will tell you what I did. Here's a hint, if I would've been playing five days a week live, I would've made a different play. So here is the hand:

I pick up AKos UTG, and make it $15 to go (blinds $1/$2), VERY loose player to my immediate left calls, and a rock also cold calls in cutoff position. The flop is KQ6 rainbow, I bet $30, loose player folds, and the rock cold calls. Turn is an offsuit 8, I bet $60, and he just calls again. River is a 2, I bet $80, and the rock says "Well, I wanted to go" and moves in for $130 more. So a few more things I noticed, he was breathing heavily, sitting back in his chair, but altho he was a rock, he was a bad, inexperienced player. So what do you do? There is $417 in the pot, and you have a VERY good hand on a unthreatening board of KQ682 rainbow, do you fold or call? And why? I'll tell you what I did, and what I was thinking at the time, etc, etc.

I also finally put in a winning session on pokerworld and finished 5th in a tourney, so that was nice, it seems things may be turning around for me finally. Although, I did get hosed in the tourney out of 2 or 3 payspots, like this: Player A has 85,000; B has 60,000, I have 35,000, C and D each have 15,000. Players A,B, and D get it all-in on a flop of 235 rainbow, A has A4, B has 1010, D had 88. So both players were drawing to runners to split or win the pot, turn A, river 4, for a godforsaken split, arg! Ah well, at least, things went well until that point. So until me next venture....

-Bakken

It's quite astounding how this brutality continues to ensue. I am now almost positive I am going to have my first losing month in three years!!! I am down $500 since I switched sites and just cannot get a hand to either holdup or else I have the second nut, run into the nuts. Take tonight for instance, I decided to drop down to $.50/$1.00 NL to ride out the rest of the downswing, but it didn't matter. I doubled up early when a plyer pushed in against my quads (pretty much the only way I can win is with the stone cold), then probably an hour later when I think things are going somewhat normal and steady, the dirtiesness hits. I played A2 of diamonds from the button, and got min raised by the small and the big folded. I was pretty sure this player didnt have aces or a pair for that matter as he seemed to like to cold call with those hands, or else just move in with them, so being the good price I was getting I saw a flop. 258 rainbow, a very good flop for me I believe, I fire $20 into the $15 pot, to try and shut him out then, but he called. Normally that call would make me stop betting, but not against this player, I knew he only had a couple of overs, or was at least 90% sure. So the turn is a great card for me an Ace, giving me aces up, and hopefully giving my opponent top pair. I proceeded to bet, and he moves in, SAWEET!, I instacalled and he showed AK. Well wouldn't you know the King falls on the river. Normally I dont complain at all about beats, but god damn, a fucking month of this shit is unbearable. It also doesn;t help that this was the ONE month I did not need to be running bad. I think jesus may hate me, (inside joke) this is one of those times in my life where I feel absolutely everything that can go wrong; will, I feel like the only way things could be worse was if I was living on the street. Lets go through the list, My truck breaks down, $600, there goes my saved rent money, I am running like shit, my rakeback got fucked up last month, and is again screwed up and payment is delayed, I haven't found a job yet, I don't know how I am going to pay for my bills this month, I can't go back to school for awhile, my student loans come out of deferrment next month, here's the best part; When I do get a job, i'll be scraping by, dropping every penny I have into bills and groceries, but thats why I have poker for a nice part-time job, oh wait, my fucking bankroll is probably going to bills this month, unless I go on a heater, which seems impossible at this point.

So there ya have it, I am just loaded to the brim with stress, and the chain of events just continues to get shittier and shittier, I fully expect to get into an accident when I pickup my truck and be hospitalized, because that would make perfect sense, being as I only have minimum coverage on my truck and no health insurance. I stuck between the biggest rock and a hard place, I am not sure how I am going to recover from this one, but I guess we'll find out, ah the adventures of life, how much they suck sometimes. I am going to go out on a limb and say if I knew this was gonna happen, I would've stayed in MN for at least a few more months, to pad the bankroll a little more. It would've been nice of our apartment complex telling us about the $3500 to move in, before we got here, that was the beginning of it all. Ack, I am just gonna stop complaining and figure it out like I always do, I just hope when I do find a job, that 1) I dont have to keep it very long 2)I'll have at least a little bankroll left to play with. Wish me luck with going back to this gay job thing.

-Bakken

well god damn, I remember when used to bitch about being on a downswing for four or five days, well I have been on one for 16,000 hands!!!!!! It's frustrating, and I hope a sick, sick heater follows soon, because I could really use it. I also made a budget today to follow (My Aunt would be proud of me) and will be keeping track of my expenses. This will help me hold onto my money and get me on a "plan" for the next few months. I may have to get a job next month, which would blow, but if I have to, I have to. That'll be all for now, just a short little update.

-Bakken

Ok, so I was a little tilted when I wrote my last blog, but who wouldn't be after losing a couple $1000 pots and thinking they have gone broke. Well, I found some cash, and recouped about $300 of my losses today so I can deal with that. More importantly I played like 2000 hands today, so that will be some nice rakeback, BUT here is the problem. I now know that my bankroll is extremely fragile on this website as the games are EXTREMELY loose, so I have decided that I WILL be getting a job (20-30 hours) to help with bills and pad my bankroll along the way, I figure I will only need it for a month or two, but it should take a ton of stress off my shoulders and really help me focus and play my "A" game. I also want to go back to school and finish my degree, so I need to register still, so I don't have to pay out of state tuition. I figure for this site i'll need at least a $6000 bankroll, which normally wouldn't be a problem, but since I just moved here and other bills that popped up, my bankroll isn't large enough. I'll have it up to $6000 in two months maximum, so I think I can suck it up and work for two months. Until my next blurb...

-Bakken

Unbelievable, I have never had such a cold streak in my life, and guess what it busted me. I can't believe these clowns on this website fucking outdrawing me over and over, my bankroll is gone, it got depleted in two hours playin WITHIN my bankroll. The only thing with these games is there isnt a max on them. Lets go through the donks drawin out on me. I call in late position with 1010 vs 3 players, flop is QJ10, EP bets $30, I raise to $150, trying to shut out any draws and get two calls!!!! turn is rag, $500 in pot, I move in for $350, and get two call again! River is an ace, just fucking great, I know that card had to kill me, yup, they both called all those bets with KJ!!!!! Seriously, what the fuck, how do players put in that much money on the flop or turn, unbelievable, this was a .50-$1 game!!!!!!!!!!, how these players get that much money on that game i have no clue, its so furstrating. I proceeded to run bad until I eventually stuffed my last $400 into a $300 pot with 1010, and board reading 7622 rainbow, player calls it with 89, and naturally hits his str8 on the river. Talk about sickening, I'm starting to think the poker gods think its funny to fuck me over and over. Well they've done it, I have gone broke, have no clue how I am gonna make it out here, because a regular job just wont cover the bills. I am at the bottom of bottom right now, and have no idea what to do, sometimes I wish I was just god awful at poker, so I wouldn't think of making a living playing it, and wouldn't have gotten kicked out of school for playing it, and in turn would have my life back on track. But no, I know I can play this stupid fucking game for a living, but I continue to get shit on by things, the deck, my truck, other bills and fees. I guess the only thing i have to look forward to is since I have hit rock bottom, there is only one way to go, and that is up. Time to look for some work, oh wait, I can't because my fucking truck is broken down and I have to use money to pay my bills this month, things just couldn't be any worse than they are right now.

I SUCK AT PB&J SANDWICHES. Just made one tonight, and I officially suck. Now onto some other things. My roommate decided to check out pokerworld, a site we used to prop on. Now this site pays 100% rakeback on all games, bu they never really had any NL games going, and since I like to multi-table those, it was a short lived relationship. Well, he now saw that the site has merged with someone and has an abundance of games going, so I have gotten back onto the website, and should be making roughly $2000 in rakeback alone!!!!! Not to mention this particular site had really soft, loose games, which is what I was looking for. Eurobet was WAY too tight for me. I think it shouldn't be that hard to make anywhere from $4000 to $6000 month on this site, so I am quite excited to see how this goes. I am also teaching junior golf for an extra $200 a month, to help out with some drinking, golf, bowling, and beer money.

Now onto something a little different for me. For all of you that know me personally, know I have been trying to gain weight for the last three years, and to no avail have been stuck between 140 and 155. So I did a little bit of research last week, and found out that you can't just simply workout and expect to gain weight. Some people are able to do that, but most cannot , you must eat properly to gain/lose weight as well. I will be starting a diet consisting of 6 to 8 small meals a day, focusing on consuming LOTS of protein and calories. The important thing is the calories, with most calories comes protein, so I need to consume lots of calories and burn them off working out, keeping the protein. Therefore I will be doing, one week of "bulking," eating and weightlifting, and one week of "cutting," not eating much, lots of cardio. This should provide a steady, strong increase in my weight, but we will have to see.

Also, my uncle is doing an NCAA board so if any of you degenerates want in, send me an email and i'll get you the link.

Until next time...

-Bakken

I SUCK AT PB&J SANDWICHES. Just made one tonight, and I officially suck. Now onto some other things. My roommate decided to check out pokerworld, a site we used to prop on. Now this site pays 100% rakeback on all games, bu they never really had any NL games going, and since I like to multi-table those, it was a short lived relationship. Well, he now saw that the site has merged with someone and has an abundance of games going, so I have gotten back onto the website, and should be making roughly $2000 in rakeback alone!!!!! Not to mention this particular site had really soft, loose games, which is what I was looking for. Eurobet was WAY too tight for me. I think it shouldn't be that hard to make anywhere from $4000 to $6000 month on this site, so I am quite excited to see how this goes. I am also teaching junior golf for an extra $200 a month, to help out with some drinking, golf, bowling, and beer money.

Now onto something a little different for me. For all of you that know me personally, know I have been trying to gain weight for the last three years, and to no avail have been stuck between 140 and 155. So I did a little bit of research last week, and found out that you can't just simply workout and expect to gain weight. Some people are able to do that, but most cannot , you must eat properly to gain/lose weight as well. I will be starting a diet consisting of 6 to 8 small meals a day, focusing on consuming LOTS of protein and calories. The important thing is the calories, with most calories comes protein, so I need to consume lots of calories and burn them off working out, keeping the protein. Therefore I will be doing, one week of "bulking," eating and weightlifting, and one week of "cutting," not eating much, lots of cardio. This should provide a steady, strong increase in my weight, but we will have to see.

Also, my uncle is doing an NCAA board so if any of you degenerates want in, send me an email and i'll get you the link.

Until next time...

-Bakken

I SUCK AT PB&J SANDWICHES. Just made one tonight, and I officially suck. Now onto some other things. My roommate decided to check out pokerworld, a site we used to prop on. Now this site pays 100% rakeback on all games, bu they never really had any NL games going, and since I like to multi-table those, it was a short lived relationship. Well, he now saw that the site has merged with someone and has an abundance of games going, so I have gotten back onto the website, and should be making roughly $2000 in rakeback alone!!!!! Not to mention this particular site had really soft, loose games, which is what I was looking for. Eurobet was WAY too tight for me. I think it shouldn't be that hard to make anywhere from $4000 to $6000 month on this site, so I am quite excited to see how this goes. I am also teaching junior golf for an extra $200 a month, to help out with some drinking, golf, bowling, and beer money.

Now onto something a little different for me. For all of you that know me personally, know I have been trying to gain weight for the last three years, and to no avail have been stuck between 140 and 155. So I did a little bit of research last week, and found out that you can't just simply workout and expect to gain weight. Some people are able to do that, but most cannot , you must eat properly to gain/lose weight as well. I will be starting a diet consisting of 6 to 8 small meals a day, focusing on consuming LOTS of protein and calories. The important thing is the calories, with most calories comes protein, so I need to consume lots of calories and burn them off working out, keeping the protein. Therefore I will be doing, one week of "bulking," eating and weightlifting, and one week of "cutting," not eating much, lots of cardio. This should provide a steady, strong increase in my weight, but we will have to see.

Also, my uncle is doing an NCAA board so if any of you degenerates want in, send me an email and i'll get you the link.

Until next time...

-Bakken

I have no idea what to do. I had a real gut check today and started thinking about things, so I figured I would put them down on the blog. I had another brutal session today; I didn’t win a single hand where I was ahead when all the money went in. I never have any sessions of losses under $500, it’s always more, and today was the same. The one time I lost a $400 pot, was to a next to impossible laydown, KK vs AA. I am starting to wonder about the online rooms Random Number Generators, I have been running like this for almost 30K hands now, and making small earnings. I have had KK run into AA at least eight times in the last two weeks, its probably happened to me live twice in my whole life! Now, I am not saying online is rigged, but looking at my earnings, it just doesn’t make any sense, for every losing session of live play I have, I come back with 5 winning, For every losing session I have of online play, I come back with 1 MAYBE 2 winning sessions. Now, maybe it is because I am a much better live player than online, I pick up loads of tells, and the action seems to be MUCH looser. But you would think that mutli-tabling would make up for this? I am also STILL running god awful in tourneys, naturally today the two biggest pots I get involved in, have me pushing AA preflop, only to lose to KJ and Q9. I wouldn’t mind if I were getting the money in bad, and was getting outplayed by my opponents, but it’s the opposite, it isn’t even hard to outplay players these days, yet they suckout on me so much. Now I expect a suckout or two, but whenever I get sucked out on, its always in a big pot, I got outdrawn 9 times today in two hours, the smallest of those pots was $102, and the largest was $490. Maybe it feels like it’s just the big pots; because those are the only pots that seem to really upset me when I lose. It’s like the saying in Rounders “Most players can recall every detail about the outstanding bad beats they’ve been handed, but I can barely remember how I built my bankroll.”
I know this is what I want to do for a living, and I know I am good enough to do it, I have never had a losing year playing poker, since I started keeping records, freshmen year of college, but it is so emotionally draining, maybe it is because I moved out to Vegas too early and after having one rough month, am stuck playing at a limit with a very small bankroll, or maybe it is the fact that getting outdrawn in 1 or 2 large pots a day, can turn an $600 win into a $200 loss. These seemingly never ending bad beats are enough to put me into a mental institution, but on the other side of the coin, when I am having a good day and things are going, as they should, I am the happiest person alive, always in a good mood, and not stressed out. I have a whopping $1000 left in the bankroll, and hopefully this variance turns upside soon, or else I am going to have to do what stresses me out more than anything, get a job.
I am extremely uneasy about my situation right now, not because I may not make bills at the end of the month (I know I’ll make those), but because I don’t want to get a job, I like having the freedom to make my own hours, I like being able to golf 4 times a week, I like working out at noon, I like sleeping until 11, I know this is the lifestyle I want to live for now, I just wish I had a large enough bankroll for these swings, and wish it didn’t bother me so much. Now I know what they meant when they said “hard way to make an easy living”
Just thought I’d get all my thoughts down, and give you a look into what its like to be a poker professional on an extreme downside of variance.

-Bakken

Mike and I 

Grandpa riding along, smoking ceegars

Grandparents and I

So, I haven’t been up to much lately, just the same old playing poker, smoking cigars, and golfing. Poker has really been draining on me as of late; the cash games have been going pretty bad, until last night. I’m pretty sure I am either going to be an emotional rock, or have a nervous breakdown by the end of the year, lol. Here are my end of the month stats, I played 127.6 hours of cash games, made $2497.25 for an hourly wage of $19.57, I played 50 hours of tournaments, and lost $1370, for an hourly wage of -$27.40, but in my last 11 events I have made three final tables and five cashes, so those are starting to turn around. So the end of month figures are Total Earnings $1127.25, Total hourly wage $6.35. Not a bad month, once the tourneys turn around it will be a lot better, it doesn’t help that my rakeback affiliate stiffed me out of $2000. I did switch affiliates this month, and he is giving me a $600 bonus next week, and I am making about $250 a week with him. I’ve already received my first payment from him, so I know he is legit.

Now, onto some other things, we bought a beer pong table the other night, so we could practice for when all the dudes get into town tonight. We had a three-man tourney with regular season and playoffs. I was extremely rusty and ended up finishing third, BUT I have a new shot, that once I perfect it, I will be unstoppable. Our house rules state that you can bounce a shot in for two cups, but the other team can swat it as soon as it bounces, so you have to be sneaky. Well my shot is a lob shot, as long as it hits just before the cup, it takes a dead bounce and goes in, it always works too, because its too risky for the other team to swat it, because they may knock over their cups. After the tourney we went to watch a movie and bowl, we saw Running Scared which was an awesome flick, and then I proceeded to bowl my ass off. The first few games I bowled 175, 190, 223, 188, and was up a quick $120 on Daniels, but then the beer hit me, and I followed those games up with a 111, and 117, ending the night up $65. The next morning, Mike and I, wandered on over to Pahrump, NV, to check out a course there, as it was only 45 minutes and $25 with a cart. This course was a great course for $25; we will be playing this course once a week, because it’s so cheap. The only thing that sucked is we got paired with some douche bags. They were very quiet, slow and pretty bad. The on guy was OK, but he thought he was Sergio Garcia, just took forever, and the other dude, took like 8 shots a hole, and lost a ball on each which they always went to look for OB in the desert! At the turn, they said they were getting something to eat, Mike and I saw the opening and took it, and we were free of the douche bags =)

That’s about it, I paid all my bills for this month, so that is one month that I have survived in Vegas, my buddies get in tonight, so we will have a pretty crazy weekend. We plan on checking out the National Heads-Up Poker Championship at Caesars; then we will be playing golf at TPC of Canyons on Sunday, Reflection Bay on Monday, and Dragons Ridge on Tuesday. Should be a pretty sweet lineup, hopefully I don’t blow too much money, until next time….
-Bakken