Operation new car

I'm in graduate school now and I don't have nearly the free time that I did when I was slacking off my senior year of college. I was playing 30K hands of poker a month back then, now I'm lucky to get in 10K. That being said, it's very important for me to take advantage of what free time I do have and put it to good use, instead of screwing around on the Internet or playing breakeven poker because I'm not bringing my A game. So I decided to start one of these "operation" threads to record my progress and hopefully force myself to do a better job of managing my poker time.

I just moved to northern California and I want to be able to make lots of weekend hiking trips starting next May when the weather warms up, so I'll need a car, which I currently don't have. I don't feel safe driving on the highway in a beat up old POS so I'm looking to spend between 8-12K on it. Accounting for taxes, that means I need to make about 15K from poker over the next few months. I'm sure I could do it if I played more often, but since school started I haven't been playing enough / well enough to get there. I'll record my progress in this thread.

What games/stakes/site?

Anyway, gl sir!

school/major?

gl

a/s/l

I'm in the math program at UC Berkeley.

I plan to play mostly 1-2 NL 6-max at PS, occasionally taking shots at 2-4 if I see a whale at one of the tables. Good table selection is going to be one of my keys to making the most of my poker time.

I guess my plan is to post my stats for the week on Saturday night at the end of the week. I had an awesome week this week. Berkeley had a holiday so I got a chance to play a few more hands than normal, and I ran well and played great. The 200NL game on PS has lots of really aggressive players and I made a lot of my profit this week by making some tough calldowns against them. This is a step forward for me for two reasons. First, I've had trouble against this type of opponent in the past. Second, in the past I feel like most of my profit has come from fish, and I've broken even at best against other decent players. But now, I feel like I've improved enough that I have an edge against many of the other regulars. I hope I keep playing well.

Stats for the week: 4517 hands played at 11.1 BB/100 for a profit of $2011.45.

nice. keep playing like this and you can up your new car price to like 50k?

hey mcat, can i ask what you think of berkeley in general? any thoughts at all would be good. i'm thinking of applying there for the Ph.D program in chemical engineering, though as a junior i'm in no rush.


thanks.

Originally Posted by mb2447

hey mcat, can i ask what you think of berkeley in general? any thoughts at all would be good. i'm thinking of applying there for the Ph.D program in chemical engineering, though as a junior i'm in no rush.


thanks.

I can't tell you anything specific about any departments other than math, but as a whole Berkeley is a very demanding school. It's been a bit of a shock to only take two classes and still have to study 10 hours a day to keep my head above water.

The community is really amazing. The Bay Area is beautiful, there's tons of fun things to do, lots of cheap and delicious places to eat (and some that aren't so cheap), I love it.

I'm not planning on playing today so I'll post my results for the week now.

Results: 4778 hands of 1-2 and 3-6 at 11.5 BB/100 for a profit of $2710.90. Yesterday I had my biggest day ever at cash games, making $1500. I've made more than that in a day a couple of times but it was always because I won a donkament. At this rate I'll have my new wheels by January. I know I won't be able to keep up a 11 BB/100 winrate but if I could just make $1000 per week that would still rock.

Here's the biggest pot of my life, which took place when I was taking a shot at 3-6 because some donkeys were at the table. I didn't do anything spectacular but it always feels different to play for a lot more money than you're used to.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (7 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP1 ($529.05)
MP2 ($202.20)
CO ($600)
Button ($687)
Hero ($604)
BB ($700.60)
UTG ($539.45)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7, 9. CO posts a blind of $6.
UTG calls $6, MP1 calls $6, 1 fold, CO (poster) checks, Button calls $6, Hero completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($36) 6 2 Q (6 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks, MP1 checks, CO checks, Button checks.

Turn: ($36) 8 (6 players)
Hero bets $25, BB folds, UTG calls $25, MP1 calls $25, CO folds, Button calls $25.

River: ($136) T (4 players)
Hero bets $100, UTG raises to $200, MP1 folds, Button folds, Hero raises to $573, UTG calls $308.45 (All-In).

Final Pot: $1217.45

Results in white below:
UTG has 2c 2h (three of a kind, twos).
Hero has 7h 9s (straight, ten high).
Outcome: Hero wins $1217.45.

Edit: fixed flop.

You need some flop cards on there boss

Done playing for the week because I'm going home tomorrow morning. I don't have a number of hands or a BB/100 because I played a few different limits and a couple of tournaments, but I made $2669.65 between Sunday and today. I've moved up to the 2-4 NL game on PokerStars, and unless I start to suck, the move should be pretty much permanent. I'll say hi to Lukie and johnny fish if I see them there.

very nice

keep playing well!

I made another $1300 this week, but I played over 13K hands and didn't do that great of a job of learning the math that I was trying to learn this week. I need to play less and play better when I play. I moved back down to 1-2 NL for the time being, unless I see a great table at 2-4 NL.

By the way I've pretty much decided that I'm going to get an Infiniti I35 from 2002 or 2003.

Been awhile since I updated this thread. I'm up about $1200 since the last update, but that's over about 15K hands and $650 of it is from the PlatinumStar VIP bonus. I should rather have a crappy job waiting tables if I'm going to keep playing mediocre poker.

In any case, I'm going home for Christmas on Monday and I won't be playing poker at all while I'm home for about a month. I probably won't be posting very much, either. I cashed out my bankroll this afternoon because it's better off in my Emigrant Direct account earning interest than just sitting in my PokerStars account, if I'm not going to be playing.

Still, I'm up about 11K overall since this operation started, so I'm more than halfway done. If I can find my A game again in January, I should be able to finish in time.

Or not. Operation cancelled because I apparently can't win money any more. I'll have to settle for a car that costs 3K and I already have more than enough money to buy one.

WTF? Downswing of downswings?