Jack E. Ambrose | 
12 30th, 2006| 
PokerStars
$10NL – Played 44 hands in one session, -$.40
Not an exciting day for poker. Lots of small hands and small pots. Didn’t play in any tournaments either.
Dec
29
PokerStars
$10NL – Played 57 hands in one session, $1.70
Tournaments:
- $2.20; 2126 entries; Finish: 1308th; -$2.20
My $10NL session was more exciting that it appears. On the 5th or 6th hand of the session I got stacked in the following hand:
Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.05/$0.10
5 players
Converter
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.05/$0.10
5 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
Hero: $11.35
CO: $1.85
Button: $13.75
SB: $28.35
BB: $10.70
Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is UTG with Q♦ Q♣
Hero raises to $0.4, CO calls $0.4 (pot was $0.55), Button calls $0.4 (pot was $0.95), SB calls $0.35 (pot was $1.35), BB calls $0.3 (pot was $1.7).
Flop: 3♦ T♦ 3♣ ($2, 5 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $1.9, CO folds, Button calls $1.9 (pot was $3.9), 2 folds.
Turn: 2♦ ($5.8, 2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $1, Hero calls $1 (pot was $6.8).
River: 4♦ ($7.8, 2 players)
Hero bets $7.45, Button calls $7.45 (pot was $15.25).
Results:
Final pot: $22.7
Hero showed Qd Qc
Button showed Kd 6d
I was really shocked to see the WHOLE table call my pre-flop raise. Fortunately I got a decent flop. Flush draw out there, but at the moment I thought I had a good hand. The button called my potish sized bet, its a marginal call. He just barely had pot odds to call that. In reviewing this hand I should have bet more on the flop, although I have a feeling he would have been along for the ride regardless of my bet size. On the turn he hits his flush, but he donk bets into me for one dollar. I’m getting over 6 to 1 odds to call this bet. Lets see one dollar to potentially win $6 if I hit my queen or another 3 comes down, or I get another diamond card making my flush. I make what I felt was a marginal call.
River comes a diamond making my flush, and making his for sure if it hadn’t been made already. I fire off a pot sized bet, and it looks like I’m going to have to examine my bet pot button script since the bet size is wrong. This was a crying call in some respects since I knew an ace or king of diamonds beat me. He could have had a jack or lesser two suited cards, but he didn’t. Oh well. Reload and move on.
Not surprisingly the guy cooked off his entire stack several hands later to another player at the table, but I’d get my monies back with this hand against another player:
Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.05/$0.10
6 players
Converter
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.05/$0.10
6 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $9.30
Hero: $11.35
CO: $2
Button: $12.20
SB: $26.10
BB: $42.10
Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is UTG+1 with K♣ A♦
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.5, CO folds, Button calls, 2 folds.
Flop: K♥ A♠ 8♦ ($1.15, 2 players)
Hero bets $0.9, Button raises to $2.5, Hero raises all-in $10.85, Button calls.
Turn: 2♣ ($22.85, 1 player + 1 all-in – Main pot: $22.85)
River: 4♦ ($22.85, 1 player + 1 all-in – Main pot: $22.85)
Results:
Final pot: $22.85
Hero showed Kc Ad
Button showed Ac Td
Great hand, awesome flop, even better when the button raised me. I’m not sure what he thought I had, but I suspect he thought I had missed and was making a continuation bet. 3/4 of the pot is my standard c-bet size, but it is also frequently my standard value bet size. I wanted him to call, and was thrilled when I got raised. Shove all those chips in middle. I’m not quite sure what he thought I had after my pre-flop raise, my flop bet, AND my call of his raise, but he didn’t hesitate to call my all-in. Yay me!
I won’t bother commenting on my tournament play other than to say: it sucks.
Dec
27
I have actually been playing daily, just being lazy about updating the blog so here we go. 
PokerStars
$10NL – Played 51 hands in one session, $10.65
Tournaments:
- $1.10; 1,852 entries; Finish: 558th; -$1.10
- $2.20; 958 entries; Finish: 99th; $3.64
The last week has been kind of variable, but we wiped out all our losses from some marginal NL play and recovered my entry fees for some MTTs I’ve been playing. I’ve recently added MTTs to my play mix since it seemed like a nice way to vary my play and utilize the skills I’m gaining in no-limit cash. MTT play is different than NL cash, but not significantly so. IF anything MTTs require patience and self control. Especially at these micro buy-ins where you have to navigate a veritable minefield of crazy play early on. I’m having to bunker down and be very selective in my application of aggression.
I’m fairly happy with how $10NL is going. My move up in limits started decent, and then tapered off with not major advances in my bankroll. I had a brief setback followed by today’s play where I stacked a player. I was pretty happy about that. Play at 10NL is only slightly different than $5NL. There seem to be fewer maniacs, and a few more “good” players. Its more common to see pre-flop raises of the proper amount, but this still get pretty passive post flop and an aggressive player can do fairly well.
Dec
21
No play today. Spent my time watching poker videos and fighting video Codecs to get some .WMV files to play under VLC, unsuccessfully. 
I’ve also been reading the No-Limit section of Doyle Brunson’s Super System: A Course in Power Poker
Dec
19
PokerStars
Played 73 hands in two sessions.
$5NL – 28 Hands -$5.12
$10NL – 45 Hands $7.30
My first shot at $10NL. I wanted to stick my nose in and see how it was. Clearly I didn’t do badly. Cooked off another stack at $5NL, but I don’t think the hand had any huge errors, I just ran into a better hand. Granted I didn’t give the villain much credit and he turned out to be a better player than I’m used to at $5NL.
$10NL was fun. Players were soft, but not too passive or too aggressive. Granted my sample size is so small as to be insignificant, but the player skill levels doesn’t seem to increase much $5NL to $10NL except the players seem to take the game a little more seriously.