Re-cap of my week of non blogging:

1) After my horrible defeat from step 2 I decided to make an honest effort at some studing. I am a member of Stoxpoker so I watched a few videos, read a bunch of forum posts bot at Stox and  2+2 forums. I decided that some serious studing was in order.

2) My step 1 did not go any better, I ended up going busto on that last dollar. It’s ok though, I had my money in with the best hand. AA. They get cracked now and then. I’m ok with it.

3)I decided to put a little money onto Full Tilt. I’ve been avoiding them because I have not been able to get rakeback. What finally caused me to deposit was thier Full Tilt Academy lessons. It has helped me to tighten my game further and I have been somewhat successful too.

4) I’m heading to the Canadian Poker Expo on Saturday thanks to the good folks at the Canadian Poker Expo. I won a pair of tickets from twitter.  Should be fun. They are having a few lectures there and the chance to play live.  I’ll write a report on Sunday.

5)In Xbox news I’ve been playing Fable 2. Just as enjoyable as the first game.  I haven’t got very far. I’m looking forward to a little more spare time to play that game.

Well, thats all I have to report for now.

Mike Out!

I started off pretty good, but then it all went to hell. I was playing against 2 guys that had pretty much called every hand. And every time the flop was against me or I just plain played badly.

My leaks were a-plenty:
#1. -  When you have pocket pairs and you miss the flop, don’t bet when there are overcards.
#2. -  Just beacuse you have guys that call every hand, doesn’t mean that they never connect or … have a hand!
#3. - When I have a hand, BET. See what happens and then evaluate from there.

What did I learn. Apperently nothing. I’ve spent the last day and a bit thinking about poker and yet I played worse than the fish. What does that say? I’m off to do some studying.

However, I did get to play a board game this weekend. The Settlers of Catan. For those of you that have never played before the game is pretty fun game to play. The object of the game is to build settlements and cities on a map by collecting resources. The game has a board that changes every game. The pieces of the board are divided into different quadrents that give you resource cards if you have a settlement or city on the tile.

The game involves a lot of strategy as you have to decide the best way to to build your settlements while making sure your opponents are not getting further ahead of you. You also need to keep your relations good with your opponents as trade is a very important aspect of the game too. Lastly picking the right spot to build is key in the early stages of the game. If you pick the wrong resources you can get screwed pretty easy in the game.

I played against my wife Rhonda and my friend Kyle, both of which I consider to be better players than me. I don’t have the best track record of winning Settlers too often. I did win this time though, I got off to a bit of a rocky start in the first game but the dice seemed to be on my side later, which was a bonus to me.

We decided to play a second game using the expansion Cities and Knights, which is a whole different way of playing. The game took us into the wee hours of the morning and I won again. At that point I believe they let me win again.

So I played some .01/.02 NL last night. I’ve played this limit a bit in the past, and I’ve found the players to be erratic at best so I thought I’d play tight.  Played for 1.5 hours and I did make the goal, turn $1 to $3. Oddly enough I found myself to be pretty patient while playing. I took some notes on players, and I stopped to think about betting patterns and what the board texture was like. I just need to work pot odds into the equasion. Perhaps I’ll make a chart as soon as I get Excel running again.

One of my key hands went like this:
BTN: $2.41 (120.5 bb)
SB: $4.77 (238.5 bb)
BB: $1.87 (93.5 bb)
UTG: $5.45 (272.5 bb)
UTG+1: $6.34 (317 bb)
MP1: $6.18 (309 bb)
MP2: $4.97 (248.5 bb)
MP3: $5.41 (270.5 bb)
Hero (CO): $1.51 (75.5 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is CO with K A
UTG calls $0.02, UTG+1 calls $0.02, 3 folds, Hero raises to $0.10, BTN calls $0.10, SB folds, BB calls $0.08, UTG calls $0.08, UTG+1 folds

Flop: ($0.43) T 3 J (4 players)
BB checks, UTG bets $0.10, Hero calls $0.10, 2 folds

Turn: ($0.63) A (2 players)
UTG bets $0.10, Hero raises to $0.50, UTG folds

Results: $0.83 pot
Final Board: T 3 J A
Hero mucked K A (a pair of Aces) and won $0.83 ($0.53 net)

I don’t have much to say save that I think I played it ok. I might have been able to draw more money if I had just called the Turn and bet the River.

In the end I met my goal for the session, and I look forward to moving to Step 2..

BR before session: $2.00
BR after session: $4.22

I’ve been having some difficulties making the money in Sit n gos, and since I’m not a volume player my bankroll has taken a bit of a hit lately.  So what to do? After visiting the 2+2 beginner forums, I found a post on turning $2 into a BR. There was a post outlining a $2 challenge.

I’ve decided to take the challenge using the stray $2 in my account. It will give a chance to not focus on trying to make the money back from Sit n Gos and just have some fun.

I’m going to try to find some sort of meter or maybe create one to show my progress. I am also going to try to post every day. My posts will not always be about poker.  Most often they will have some sort of gambling or gaming theme though. So if you like video games, board games, casino games, I urge you to come back and read my blog.