JB's Grind: The life and times of a part-time poker player

June Review

2007-07-02T09:21:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of June I hated poker. I was running bad, playing bad, and in the hole. Then one day I got it back on track and shot back up the chart. I won $2,857 + $432 in rakeback = $3,289 for the month. Another good month and I am very very close to a five-digit bankroll.

Here is a nice $800 hand from the other night.

p.s. I am going to be sparse with the blog postings for awhile. It turns out some of my opponents are reading my blog and using strategy/play-style posts against me. So why did I post the JJ hand above? Because I normally don't play JJ that way, things just worked out for the better.

$3,000 pot won with ___ high!!!!

2007-06-26T14:20:00.001-04:00

This is a true story that I witnessed at the Borgata almost a year ago. People always were interested to hear it at the poker table so I figured it would be a good story to post up here.

A man franticly paces back and forth in the basement poker room of the Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ. He is down over $10,000 for the day and has the room a stir with his crazy antics. Wearing a faded jean jacket and tethered jeans he looks like a Motley Crew fan leftover from the 80's. He has been drinking a little and he just lost another buy-in in 5/10 NL. He stops his pace and meets with a floor man who knows him and they discuss re-buying. He says he has a duffle bag full of money in his room and wants to rebuy but doesn't want to lose his seat. Somehow the floor gives him a marker and they front him the newly lifted cap of $1,500 to buy back in the 5/10 NL game.

The table he is playing with is full of young sharks. I recognized all the faces as regulars who were licking their chops to get a piece of this deadbeat. The weathered man played super LAG and quick. Raising $100's preflop and pushing all-in on the flop, so to play with him you had to be rolled or you could be wiped out in a single hand. Guy raises to $40, the man yells all-in, everyone folds. Time after time, till....

Young Asian Kid sits in MP and raises up to $45, gets to the deadbeat who thinks for a minute and once again yells all-in!!! for $1,500. The Kid goes into a tank for a few minutes and tries to interrogate the man before finally calling the all-in completely nervous for all to see.

Flop is KKQ.....

Turn...Q...

River...3

The drama unfolds and the Asian kid gets erratic. He belts at the guy "What do you have?", "I don't know" replies the man. The kid looks so nervous that you know his hand is most likely dead. The man says "What do you got kid?".... embarrassed the kid replies "All I have is a ten high". The man checks his cards one more time and says "That's good kid".

I Love Sundays!

2007-06-25T10:53:00.001-04:00

For the past few Sundays I have been collecting over +1K wins. I don't know if people are chasing their Friday/Saturday night losses or what, but people play horrible on Sunday and love to pay me off. Up +9 buy-ins at 200NL for the night. I love Sundays!

How to berrate another player!

2007-06-22T14:01:00.000-04:00

Here is the best example I have ever seen by Tony G. Hilarious.

Happy Friday!!!

Motivation, a Swan, & Knocked Up

2007-06-21T09:05:00.000-04:00

Lately I haven't had the drive to grind it out at the tables like usual. My bankroll is sitting around 5K and I have been mixing it up at the .50/1 & 1/2 NL tables, both of which can be pretty easy with good table selection.

Last night I signed on AP and received a pop-up saying there was a $1K buy-in tournament about to start. WTF? I never received a message like this before and defiantly don't want to put 1K of my roll in a donkament. Anyway, I open up five tables and Serinda Swan sits down at one of my 1/2 NL tables. She plays a few hands, chats about how some of us should play in the 1K tourney, and says goodbye to go play in the donkament. While it seemed as if AP was hurting for players for this high-stakes tourney they managed to get 93 players paying out around 28K for first place. Maybe if I had 100K I would consider playing something like this but otherwise I think its just too much of a gamble because there is just too much luck involved in tournaments (Please see donkeys: Chris Moneymaker & Jamie Gold).

Ok here's what you've been waiting for, a photo of the beautiful Serinda Swan...

p.s. I recently saw the movie Knocked Up and it is the funniest movie you will see this summer. I laughed my ass off during this movie and highly recommend you go see it either with a friend or with a date.

MDP Nelly cashes at WSOP

2007-06-19T08:15:00.001-04:00

I just found out that Noelle of MD-Poker.com cashed 62nd of 2,315 entrants in Event 27 - $1,500 No Limit Holdem at the WSOP. Congratulations to Nelly for her $9k payday. I am sure that is going to make for an exciting trip report.

Weekend Report: Karma

2007-06-18T09:34:00.000-04:00

It's 5:00 p.m. on Friday and the weekend has begun. Cue the Jimmy Buffett, kick off your shoes, and pass me a Corona. Oh how I love the weekend. This weekend was busy so let's recap...

Friday I left work and bought a Wii. Nintendo defiantly did a great job with this system and I look forward to the games that will come out for the Wii the future. My favorite game with the sports disk: Boxing. What? You just sucked out with KK vs my AA for our $400+ pot (true Sunday story)! Well I am going to take a break to Rocky Balboa some Wii guy in Boxing (great stress reliever).

After my Wii purchase I headed over to meet a friend who plays a Baltimore City cop as an extra on the set of The Wire. It was my first time checking out the set and while I didn't get to see any of the main stars (they were in their trailers), I did get to see the inside of the warehouse where they have their plywood sets and where they do alot of the filming. Very cool. I met these two guys, one wearing a CNN press pass and the other wearing a CBS press pass. A few bad jokes later I figured out these guys were just extras as well. When you are on a movie/tv set everything and everyone looks real but it's not, its very surreal.

Saturday I drove up to Muncey, PA to attend a wedding reception. The drive was next to the Sequahanna river which made for a nice drive but I only stayed for six hours and drove back when I realized I didn't know anyone there except the bride and groom. Also rednecks aren't the easiest people to break ice with unless you like country, hunting, or are packing skoal. Beat: Total drive time over five hours for the day.

I woke up Sunday morning and I felt it was my day to finally win some online poker. After being beat down all last week, I sat down at a 2/4 NL (400NL) table that was really weak and doubled my buy-in in about an hour. I closed my laptop and decided since It was so nice out I was going to take a walk over to Panera to grab some lunch. On the way over there I saw a mini-van honking at a Honda Civic that was turning the wrong way in the Panera parking lot. The thing was - the Honda Civic wasn't moving and the van continued to honk. As if to say I don't care that your not moving get out of my way.

My biggest pet peeve is how often people honk around the beltway over the stupidest and smallest of things. I got to the door of the Panera and heard the van lay on their horn one last time and I turned around. My intentions at the time were to tell the van driver to f*ck off but by the time I got over there the van driver had finally realized the world doesn't revolve around her and easily drove around the parked car on 29N (Colesville Rd). I walked over to the girl and the civic and asked if she's broken down. She replied yes and I told her to put her car in neutral and I will push the civic into the parking lot. I began to push it when another good citizen walked over to help me and we got her car out of traffic and into the safe parking lot. She thanks me and I go grab some lunch at Panera as originally planned.

When I arrive back in my apartment I jump back online and grind 4-tables of 1/2 NL (200NL) for the total profit over around $1,000 for the day. While I think I played very well I also like to think some of it has to do with Karma and what mom used to say "treat people the way you would like to be treated". Everyone's in a hurry around DC and concerned about themselves, but its nice to sometimes stop and take a minute out of your day to help someone who's having a tough time. Pay it forward I guess...

How to Bluff the Nuts!

2007-06-14T10:05:00.001-04:00

Welcome to today's class, please take your seat. Today you will learn the secret art of "How to Bluff the Nuts!" (also known as the "Art of Burning Benjamins"). What I am about to tell you is a secret strategy that has been passed down through the generations and up until now has only existed in the shadows. Light a candle, dim the lights, and I will tell ye a story that will make your bankroll shiver with fright...

To Bluff the Nuts you have to have a small devil sitting on your shoulder preferably no taller than four inches. He will whisper paranoia into your ear saying "Hey kid! He's making a move on you, go all-in". You should respond "Right away Lucifer!" and proceed to Example A:

Folds around to BTN who raises to $4, SB folds, I am in BB with 66 (one short of the devils area code) and raise it to $15, BB thinks and min-raises it to $30, "Hey kid, its that move I was talking about" - OH NO HE DIDN'T!, I raise ALL-IN to $108, BTN calls and flips over AA. NH

The next night, which was a full moon might I add (werewolves?) a flop comes down KT3 rainbow, I bet pre-flop so I continue on the flop with my QJ $8, guy bumps to $28, I call, Turn K (KT3K), I check he fires $30, I push for $80ish, he insta-calls with 33 (set).. I am drawing dead. Thanks Lucifer! I enjoy burning money, whats next?

OK how about we don't bluff and just call of our stack shall we? We shall! I have T6, Folds to blinds and we check it down (Pot $2), on the river SB pushes all-in having me covered ($118), the pot is $2 and here's the board Q 9 5 J 8 . I time down to the last second and think there is no way a KT plays it like this and my finger like a retarded chimpanzee hits the call button. Villain shows KT and I win the award for King Donkey for the night.

Despite these HORRIBLE plays by myself I am only down around -3 buyins at 100NL ($300). Luckily I have over 40 buy-ins at this level or I would go into Def-con 4. Instead I am going to take a break tonight and just not play poker. Another thing I am happy that I made these mistakes at 100NL and not 200NL which I plan on playing sometime next week.

Class is dismissed...

The Poker World is a Buzz

2007-06-12T10:20:00.000-04:00

There is alot of poker news to report so here we go.

Last Friday Congress held a hearing on Internet Gambling that was broadcast live via web feed. I watched the hearing in its entirety and found it interesting but I am not sure what is going to be the next step for Congressmen Barney Frank and if he will try and appeal the IGEA act .

One member of the witness panel Radley Balko, Senior Editor to Reason Magazine, gave a fantastic opening speech and was a strong supporter against the governments prohibition on Internet Gambling. You can read his opening testimony here.

In other news, Brian Townsend reported a win of 2.15 million. Townsend has been playing Sammy Farha, Patrik Antonious, Johnny Chan, and other pros in HUGE cash games during the WSOP over the last five days.

Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth wins his 11th bracelet at the WSOP and now leads the pack as the only poker player in history with more than ten bracelets. Phil also took home $637,254 for the event.

Allan Cunningham wins his 5th bracelet and a $487,287 win for 1st place in the $5,000 PL Hold 'Em event.

On the home front I have been just grinding and building my bankroll. I am crushing .50/1 NL (100NL) playing four to five tables at a time for a consistent profit. Right now I am thinking of building my bankroll back up to 5k again and then moving up to multi-tabling 200NL on the regular. I have taken shots in the past but its a tougher game up there. I will keep you updated on my progress.

Good luck at the tables!

Sammy Farha is My Hero

2007-06-08T08:54:00.001-04:00

Most of you know that the WSOP just started a few days ago; tournaments, huge fields, and the dream of winning a bracelet alive in thousands. While the WSOP is fantastic tournament, I personally don't think it is nearly as exciting as the heads up match going on right between Brian Townsend and Sammy Farha.

Brian has been updating his blog daily and the stakes are in one word, insane. They have each put up 500k (not including rebuys) and are exchanging blows winning and losing six figure pots. At one point in the match Sammy wanted to flip for 470k, here is an copy from Brians blog:

"Then he took all the money he had in front of him, 470K, and said lets flip you only have to put up 450K. I thought a bit and would have accepted if I could easily get more money to Vegas to replace the loss, but I couldn't so I declined."

Sammy Farha, you sir are my new hero. You have juevos the size of watermelons!

A Bad Beat in Life

2007-06-06T08:32:00.000-04:00

I got out of work today only to find my car had been broken into and my GPS unit was stolen. I filed a police report to go with my insurance claim and it turns out there is a group of people (ring) doing this in Montgomery County and I was the 40+ victim. They didn't steal my SIRIUS radio, sunglasses, CD's, pocket change, or anything else in the car. They were just after my GPS. Here's how they did it.

They use a tiny piece of porcelain about the size of a bottle cap. Most pieces are broken off of used spark plugs. They stand just a foot away from the window, give the small piece of porcelain a little flick into the window and the tempered glass shatters quietly to the floor (amazing really).

The guy saw a suction cup on my window so he figured the GPS was in the glove department box (he was right), grabbed the car charger and was out. He wore white latex gloves (power prints on the car) and the porcelain piece laid on the ground. It doesn't feel as bad when you realize your a victim of an organized, what almost seems like professional,l theft but it still sucks non the less. Now I have to get a new passenger window and a GPS unit... of course I did not play poker last night. Just relaxed.

Two hands from last night

2007-06-05T08:53:00.000-04:00

Not much to say so I will keep this low content - pretty much a breakeven session.

200NL: First hand at the table I get AA against two donkeys.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1147257

100NL: I was bullying this guy in blind-vs-blind battles

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1147279

Dave Attell and Ocean City

2007-06-04T08:25:00.001-04:00

Friday night I got home for work, meet up with my girlfriend, and we head straight over to the Lincoln Theatre to see the HBO taping of Dave Attell. Coming up out of the U/Cardoza St metro station, I see a small line of people out front of the theatre only twenty people deep. Sweet! Were going to get awesome seats. Reaching the end of the (20 people) line I turn my head right only to discover the line wraps down through the alley and around the backside of the building. I was thirty minutes early and if I had a place number in line it honestly would have been around 200-250.

We eventually get in and it turns out there are no real bad seats in Lincoln Theatre. I was really impressed with the professional execution of this event by HBO, they did an excellent job. The setup was cool, the opening comic was funny, and Dave Attell was a riot. I really recommend seeing Dave live if you get the chance and I look forward to watching the HBO taping in the future. We've laughed our ass off, the show is now over, we grab the metro, and then call it a night.

Saturday morning we wake up and head off to the beach (Ocean City). We arrive around 2:00 p.m. at a friends oceanside condo and we immediately hit the beach. It was nice but the water was freezing, so we got some sun and then grabbed lunch/dinner at The Green Turtle. The food/service was mediocre and we go back to the condo to get ready to head out to Seacrets. Seacrets was a good time (as always) and by midnight half of the crew is passing out (weak I know...).

Sunday we head back home through some torrential down pours. We arrive back in Silver Spring what felt like five hours later and I miss the beach already. I received a call when I got home and I think I might be heading back down to OC this weekend as well. Ahhh the summer... the sun, sand, short skirts... there's nothing like it.

The Mountain of May

2007-06-01T10:39:00.001-04:00

Above is a graph of my play for May. Mount Everest, Kilimanjaro, McKinley, call it what you will, but I honestly learned more in the last thirty days about online poker, than in the past three years I have been playing (off and on).

At my peak this month I had close to a 9k bankroll and I was 4-tabling 400NL (2/4 NL). It was very tough and I honestly wasn't ready for the consistent aggression the regs throw at you. I am now back in my comfort zone 4-tabling 100NL & 200NL.

I won a little over $1,000 in May and I will be receiving another $800 in rakeback for a total winnings of around $1,800 for the month . Even without the rakeback, my bankroll is now sitting at around 4k. I feel confident it will continue to grow in June and I hope my graph for June will look like a consistent climb to the top.

Who needs Canaries when you have the Hoff?

2007-05-31T11:16:00.001-04:00

Digging deep into the mines, Idleminer collected over 5,000 hands from 10pm last night to 8am this morning. I am impressed with Idleminer's user friendly layout and glad that my computer is collecting information on other players while I'm sleeping or at work. If anything goes wrong I feel safe knowing the Hoff is standing guard at the mines entrance. Thank you Mr. Hasselhoff, thank you.

I just watched Will Ferrell's short Internet movie called Landlord. It was pretty funny and shot with little to no budget. Read the background NY Times story here.

Tomorrow is Friday, thank god. I plan on playing a little poker tonight, tomorrow night I'm going to hit up the Dave Attell show, Saturday I have a BBQ to attend at and Sunday is a day of relaxation.

Ohhh... why can't every week be a four day work week?

Class is in Session: Datamining & SpadeEye

2007-05-30T10:26:00.001-04:00

Take your seats and open your notebooks, its time to make some $$$. First lets begin this class with the topic of datamining.

In the past I have blown off datamining, but after a good dialogue with a solid MSNL player I am now open to the idea. For those that don't know what datamining is, datamining is the process of opening up the maximum amount of tables in a poker program (AP) and using a script to extract the hand histories that are recorded, even though you are observing . The obvious benefit to datamining is next time you sit at the table, you could possibly have hundreds if not thousands of hands on a player you have never played with. I was suggested to download Idleminer as it works well with AP.

A few days go by and we now have a strong database of hand histories, so lets apply them. SpadeEye is the ideal application we will use to find the juiciest tables. Here is some more information taken from the SpadeEye website:

SpadeEye is a windows program that makes pokertable selection and datamining easy and fast. The main feature of SpadeEye is to be able display the list of the players sitting at a poker table, their statistics, as well as the tables averages, without having to open the table window. In order to gather statistics about the players a fully customizable datamining module is included which automatically gather hands from online poker sites.

I look forward in applying these two applications to my game. In other news...

Microsoft unveiled a cool new tabletop touchscreen computer on MSNBC. It looks like something out of Minority Report (as they mentioned in the segment). View the video here.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

2007-05-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

I just finished a session of 200NL and I am down 3 buy-ins. I am having problems with LAG's in 200NL who always seem to outdraw me (because they call everything). Poker can be frustrating sometimes. It's back to 100NL for now. New goal build up to 5k and THEN take a shot at 200NL.

Here is a hand from tonight that I enjoyed. I have played with the villian many times before and he loves to take shots, bluff, outplay his opponents etc. So I put the hammer down on him.

Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $1/$2
5 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: $26.95
CO: $491.80
HERO: $252.60
SB: $253.72
BB: $403.55

Pre-flop: (5 players) HERO is Button with :10h :Qd
2 folds, HERO raises to $8, SB folds, BB calls.

Flop: :6c :4s :4d ($17, 2 players)
BB checks, HERO bets $13, BB raises to $50, HERO raises all-in $244.6, BB folds.
Uncalled bets: $194.6 returned to HERO.

Results:
Final pot: $117

Weekend in Review + Dave Atell!

2007-05-28T22:48:00.000-04:00

Well it turned out my Friday night plans were cancelled so I managed to play in the 5k freeroll as I posted earlier. Out of 108 entrants I placed 14th for a $60 profit. Small, but its free money so I will take it.

I enjoyed the rest of the weekend playing little poker. I went to a BBQ Sunday and ended up playing some Guitar Hero once the weather turned bad. It's amazing the cult following that surrounds that game. I watched some guys play the game on expert and it was pretty amazing.

In other news, I scored two free tickets to the Dave Attell comedy show in DC this Friday night. This show will be recorded by HBO and like I said, is free! There are still some tickets left, click here if your interested. Here is a clip from one of his standups:

In review, my bankroll stands at around 4.5k. There are three days left in May so I will see if I can get it up to 5k but I am in no rush. Here is a great post by Brian Townsend about being on top and not losing it all like Mahatma.

The poker diva floods Flickr

2007-05-25T09:17:00.000-04:00

If search the word "poker" on Flickr you will undoubtedly see dozens of photos of high stakes poker pro Liz Lieu. So much so that she has flooded Flickr with over 600+ photos of herself. Is she conceited or does she have a PR person that is trying to promote her through a sort of gorilla marketing campaign?

With a little research, it turns out she is not just a pretty face but the real deal. With over half a million in tournament winnings, my hat goes off to the pretty woman from Vietnam. Instead of finding cool poker related photos on Flickr I found you Liz Lieu (over... and over... again).

In other (geek) news, I purchased a Targus Wireless Keypad and I love it. I play on a laptop so all the number keys are in a horizontal line across the keyboard. This can be a pain in the ass typing in bets night after night. Now with my wireless mouse and keypad I can just sit back in my chair, completely hands free of the keyboard.

In other (poker) news, I played 5 tables of .50/1 last night. I find it hard to concentrate with the smaller bets but I think I played fine. I lost 1 buy-in ($100) where I had AK on a A73 flop and another guy had 77, what can you do. I honestly look forward to not playing poker tonight and possibly tomorrow. I need a break.

I recommend you read this post over at Tao of Poker by Pauly.
It is excellent. A+++

Anyone not have plans friday night?

2007-05-24T14:58:00.001-04:00

I just got this e-mail from AP. I would like to play in the 5k freeroll but there is no way I will be home friday night. Impossible. I need a designated hitter.

Dear VIP,

Congratulations you’re one of our TOP 400 VIP Status Point earners for the last two weeks. You have qualified for our exclusive VIP Invitational Tournament on Friday May 25th at 21:00 ET. The prize pool is $5,000 paid over the top 18 finishers. The player field will be less than 400 and the competition level will be high! You can find it under the ‘Tourneys’, ‘Special’ tab, tourney #1524236. All you need to do is click on ‘register’ any time before the tourney begins.

Good Luck!!!

WTF?

2007-05-24T08:56:00.000-04:00

Truth is a hard pill to swallow... and the truth (gulp) is I haven't had a winning session in over five days. My bankroll is down to 4.6k which isn't busto, but I have had to make adjustments. I downshifted from 1/2 NL to .50/1 NL and 2/4 NL is not even in the picture.

It is nothing new to say poker is a grind, when it rain it pours, cei la vie, etc. I honestly think I need to take a break from poker for at least a few days. If I posted a graph of my play for the month of May it would look similar to the outline of Mt. Everest.

I ran into a 95/66/2.5 villain last night. In layman's terms, that is a player who plays ever hand and he raises ever hand. Needless to say Moby Dick ate Captain Ahab and I was stuck -$700 at the table. This player was unreal hitting every flop hard with two pair, sets, etc. He ended up leaving the table up $1,200. I have never seen a bad player hit a luck streak like this guy online.

Here are five major hands ($200+ pots) between the villain and I.

Oh that's how you raise with T4!

I've got the flush... oh your horseshoe gave you a bigger one!

Bluffing off with AQ... of course he has the J.

wait a minute... did I win?

Calling the psycho down with two ladies

Upgrade

2007-05-23T11:25:00.003-04:00

I just upgraded the blog. Enjoy the new look and features.

A Vegas Promise

2007-05-23T08:32:00.000-04:00

I have truly been grinding in my last few sessions and I need to turn this boat around. I don't want to post any "poor me" bad-beat stories, so instead I will provide you with a few good links that are worth reading. I also promised my girlfriend last night that once I hit 12k online I will cash out 2k of it and take us both to Vegas. At this current pace that might be awhile.

Bills 10 things you can do to improve your poker game

If you're 21 or younger, post your current net cash assets (2+2 post)

Brian Townsend is up 1.43 Million this month in poker.... sick!

Jets, Tigers, and Bears OH MY!

2007-05-22T09:49:00.000-04:00

Ok I am not going to post up a weekend report because it was just brutal. I was sitting with 8k and I decided to take a shot at 2/4 NL ($400 buy-in). After around 1,500 hands I called it quits. I believe with a bigger bankroll (maybe 15k or so) I could easily play as a regular in these games, but right now the average session swings of 1k are too big for me. Overall I had some bad beats, set over set, flushes hitting on the river for the villian etc. so I am now back to grinding at 1/2NL but still with a healthy 6k bankroll. One thing I wanted to mention is I will give the 2/4 regular players credit. They are VERY aggressive, the tables are full of LAG's, and it is just more intense.

So you just lost 2k what do you do? You get out of the house and unwind! You remind yourself that your health is much more important than some number in your online bank account. So as they say on 2+2..... lets gogogogogoogo!

Saturday I checked out the air show (aka The Joint Services Open House) with my girlfriend. The demonstrations were awesome. The most impressive display was watching the Redbull Skydiving team, they are all insane and fearless. Here is a video of one of their drops.

Sunday It was really nice out so I took a trip over the National Zoo here in Washington D.C.. It was really cool to see all the animals and I took alot of good photos, as photography is another hobby of mine.

I hope you enjoyed my trip report. This week I will be back to grinding in 1/2 NL after work. My new temporary goal is to build my 6k roll up to 10k. It should take a few weeks but I think it is a good/manageable goal to have.

Good luck at the tables!

100BB vs 200BB... Eureka!

2007-05-18T09:25:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week I was in a discussion on 2+2, debating if it is more efficient to buy-in for 200BB or 100BB when playing NL on AP. Since I have made good money buying-in for the max (200BB), I stuck to my guns and disagreed with the shorter buy-in theory. But then I had a change of thought. I had a PM conversation with a very solid regular and came to the conclusion that I would give the 100BB theory a shot. So last night I bought in for 4 tables of $200 (100BB) instead of 4 tables of $400 (200BB). Here are the results...

Up $500 (2.5 buy-ins) for the night. I found that I played my stack more efficiently with 100BB compared to 200BB. Below are my two big hands for the night.

Hand 1 - 22 vs QQ
I don't believe I would of gotten paid off by my all-in move on the river if had $327(200 BB) behind instead of $127(100 BB). Also I think my turn-check sealed the deal on this hand, had I bet the turn I am sure he would have folded. NH.

Hand 2 - 99 vs JT
This hand worked out well, villian is putting me on an overpair by the looks of it. Once again I don't feel I would have made the most out of this hand with 200BB compared to 100BB.

In other news, I now have 8k and need to make a short term goal. I am thinking of taking a shot at 2/4 NL with 100BB ($400) sometime soon or maybe just continue to grind 1/2 NL until I have 10k and then take a shot? What are your thoughts, leave a comment.