The Curse of Pocket 4s

I'm not even joking. Not a hint of sarcasm. I am cursed by this hand. It started roughly 1 yr ago when I started with Holdem Manager. I started to notice I couldn't win a a pf all in vs. 44. Whether you call it the Obama, Syracuse, Magnum, Sailboats, Flags, Jackie Robinson + 2, I call it Fuck. I can't beat this hand. 3s, no problem. 5s, whatever I'll river an ace. 4s, no f'ing way I can win. It started off as a little mental joke with myself. Oh, lol, I lost again. But then it just kept happening. Over and over and over. I'm probably in month 12 of this. I need someone to teach me how to filter HEM to verify these stats. This isn't some "oh, I just remember the bad and forget the good." I seriously never win. I should mention that when I say "never" I mean RARELY. It's so rare. I do win on occasion, and when I do it's more meaningful than shipping a 1st place finish. Seriously, that's how bad/friggin hilarious it is. The longer the curse lasts, the more improbable the outcomes get. Outrageous boards you'd never imagine. I had 2 today so far. With one I had 8bbs in the sb at bb150. The btn limped, I made it 450 with aces and both the limper and bb flatted. I shove a flop of 848. You know what the bb had. The other one, which I was fortunate enough to find, shows you that it's not just when I am up against pocket 4s. It also occurs when I can benefit from someone losing with 4s. This guy with 4s, a wannabe reg who clearly has massive leaks, makes this awful reshove. But no problem. 4s are unbeatable.

PokerStars Game #36018292910: Tournament #217163048, $15+$1 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level VI (100/200) - 2009/11/29 11:36:10 PT [2009/11/29 14:36:10 ET]
Table '217163048 1' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 2: custom_k (1735 in chips)
Seat 4: Parck (6610 in chips)
Seat 5: Shaft81 (3955 in chips)
Seat 7: Glitlr (1200 in chips)
Glitlr: posts small blind 100
custom_k: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Glitlr [8h 3d]
Parck: folds
Shaft81: raises 600 to 800
Glitlr: folds
custom_k: raises 935 to 1735 and is all-in
Shaft81: calls 935
*** FLOP *** [Ks Ad Qh]
*** TURN *** [Ks Ad Qh] [Ac]
*** RIVER *** [Ks Ad Qh Ac] [Kd]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
custom_k: shows [4d 4c] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
Shaft81: shows [Jd Js] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
custom_k collected 1785 from pot
Shaft81 collected 1785 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3570 | Rake 0
Board [Ks Ad Qh Ac Kd]
Seat 2: custom_k (big blind) showed [4d 4c] and won (1785) with two pair, Aces and Kings
Seat 4: Parck folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Shaft81 (button) showed [Jd Js] and won (1785) with two pair, Aces and Kings
Seat 7: Glitlr (small blind) folded before Flop

This tilts me so hard. If he has 5s, I don't care. I still smile at how bad this play is, but nonetheless I don't care. So to you guys I say this. If you have 4s against me, don't fold. If it's bb20 and I 4bet shove, just call. If a guy has 1 chip on the bubble, and I have you covered. Call my shove. You can call any hand where you have about 90-95% equity pf:).

Home for Thanksgiving

So right now I'm in the Bay Area in California where I grew up. Seeing family and friends is nice cause it makes me forget about cards. I purposely didn't bring my RCA chip so there is absolutely no way of meeting that need that wants me to "omg just play one set." Taking 3 days off is really nice and very relaxing. I've been heavy headed for a while about playing. You know, that feeling where it feels like the game is controlling your thoughts. You can't go 5 minutes without thinking, "Well, I'd shove but ICM makes me fold" or some crap like that. I should be heading back tonight or maybe tomorrow morning. Hopefully, I'll get some good grind time in. I need to get back into the swing of things and get back to a more steady playing routine like I used to have.
Also, I think a big thing that gets overlooked within the lifestyle of a grinder is health. I've let myself pack on some pounds. Getting lazy, sleeping in, and overall feeling very lethargic most of the time while I play. Back in May, I kicked my own ass to lose weight and I lost 10lbs. Maybe it's a coincidence I also made 1k/lb. I lost? I dnno. I felt more engaged while I played, and it was nice. I epically failed to lose weight this November. I started off ok, but then I was like "oh, snap, Taco Bell sounds good," or "Meh, Thanksgiving is around the corner." I'm not fat or anything, probably 180-185, but I definitely wouldn't mind losing like 25lbs total. So without further ado, this leads me to my prop bet for December. Although it's not finalized, the basic premise is that I could lose up to $300 if I don't lose 15lbs. I'm gonna give my GF 15 20 dollar bills. For each pound I lose, I get a bill back. For every pound under 15 I don't lose, she gets to keep $20. So it's either I lose weight, or she gets a Nintendo Wii. Game on.

Crazy Day

200 games in a day is ridiculous. How do people do this normally? And I bet no one was as stupid as me to give 25-1 to somebody IN THEIR FAVOR! I bet mayuri-sama I could play 200 in a day (about 8 sets or so) and I put up 50 (lol so baller, rite?) to his 2 bucks. F me. RU Serious? I played 200 games to win 2 bucks? I just needed motivation to play more, and the thought of losing 50 bucks for a stupid reason would tilt me. At least I finished though. Yay, I win money, great rite? How does it make you feel when I tell you the second set was +390 ALONE...only to lose how many days there are in a year the very next set. fml.

Poker is a Game of Skill...or is it?

Well, duh of course it is. But I think our brains trick us into believing things that are just statistical fibs. Kinda like this little bit of craziness from last weekend. This is my graph from the time tbini87 left to drive down to my place until the time he left plus the next 2 sets after he was gone. And yes, you know exactly where the point on the graph is that I'm talking about.



***can someone teach me how to make this full image show ARGH! If you click it and drag the image you can see the full pic for now. Ugh, this tilts me.


We had a great time though. Played a lot, had some kick ass food, played music, and chilled. I think he walked away up 250-300 or so for the weekend.

Good news though! I'm gonna be coming out with 4 new vids for sitngogrinders so I'm stoked to make some new films for ya guys. And for myself too. Hopefully this will boost some confidence.

On a side note, I'm thinking of trying to make bad beats more fun. I want to have like a "card of the week" or some crap like that. Like, if you get 4 outed or worse by that specific card, a group of guys would have to each ship you like 1 buck or something. So if we could get a group of guys together to have fun in this, we could look forward to getting drawn out on instead of despising it. Any takers?

Tbini87 in The House

...literally. That one 2+2 guy you see around and in 6.50s too is coming over this weekend and I'm amped about it. I met him through coaching in March-ish I think. Maybe Feb. At the time he was playing on Absolute Poker and had some small profit I think. After the coaching sessions (maybe 2-3) he was +1.2k on AP. Way to go, holla. I guess I'm not a luck box afterall. We didn't talk really from the end of coaching till a few months ago when he switched to Stars. He was in the hole 400 bucks from the 6.50s. We started chatting on skype a bit and I helped it out since he is/was hands down the nicest/sickest guy I ever coached. We started talking a lot actually. Using teamviewer, doing HH reviews, discussing hands and theories, etc. During the last week of September (about the time he started playing tons) we made a bet. He'd have to play 300 games in a 5 day M-F stretch and I'd have to play 1k games + 2k profit. It was purely a motivational tactic. Although he didn't hit his profit amount of 300, he still made 150-200 I think. I ran good and hit 2.3k HOLLER except it was short lived b/c after a few more running hot days I hit my October 1st armagedden and it's been bad - as you know - since then. But, nonetheless, we've still been talking and studying a lot. When his bet started he refreshed his Stars acct. to 300. Just recently he crossed the 2k mark! Way to go, bro. It's a nice reminder that maybe I have a slight clue wtf I'm doing if I can turn someone into a winner. Btw, this guy, is the sickest multi-tabler out there. I don't care what people say about Boku playing 50, or Elky playing 62 at the WSOP to break the multi-tabling record. Tbini can play 24 games, while chatting on skype, WITHOUT a mouse. Just that gay little mouse pad you have to drag around. And this was done with 3 stacked tables of 8 and skype in the other corner. I'm sorry, but I can barely handle 6 games with that pad. Oh, and, one more thing, he had no hot keys. And most shocking, NO TIME BANK CLICKER. Jesus. So this weekend will be sick. Chillin, studying, playing, learning. Hopefully this guy will soon be crushing the games even more.

OMG

Enough said...

I Play The Trombone

Maybe if things turn around I can smile and include something positive in this blog. I feel like I'm a trombone player for Stanford in the final seconds of the famous 1982 Cal vs. Stanford game. (:30 mark).



I need to have a new piece of motivation. Maybe something like this...

And, oh, didn't loose the 5 lbs BUT lost 2. So, some success one time! I hope Darvin Moon loses tonight...

Motivation through Music: Eminem

I'm on day 35 now of this weird 2400 game stretch. I still think I'm at my highest point, but 4% roi is just not something to smile about. Let's go back to the 12% days, ty. Anyways, I listen to this song when I get discouraged and wanna give up. The beginning just makes you wanna rip through a pack of 10 redbulls and grind your ass off.

Till I Collapse - Eminem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3oBZ4_TNys

Douche of The Day (DoD) Awards

And the DoD award goes to RaisyDaisySF from Berlin who slammed me every chance he/she/tranfestite got. I would love to include quotes but a) can't find the HHs and b) most of it was just filled with a lot of asteriks anyway. So, I'm sure you get the gist. But basically, to sum it up, this person is up 2k overall on scope so Glitlr to you, sir. This guy was running 6/2 and would seriously open shove 20bbs effective at 100/200 bvb. So, um, ya, pretty much tells it all. The funny part is this is the first time I've played with chat on in like 6 months! I wonder if this has been happening all along?

So, on a side note, I'm shooting to lose 15 lbs. by the end of the decade. I'm gonna try real hard to bumrush the beginning phases b/c obv. that's when the weight comes off the fastest. So I'm gonna try and burn 5 lbs. in 5 days and then keep a gradual pace till the end of '09.

November is going well (lol short run) so far. I've only played 97 games today (didn't play yesterday), but I've already made 1/6th of what I made last month HA. God, October, go away please. You have stinky dog breath as one guy would say. I feel the same way about October as Stewie does about breast feeding from the wrong boob.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OkcucXIuVI&feature=PlayList&p=56B8694B49F6FFF8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=41