FKIII: My thoughts...My dreams...My life...

Oops...played that hand terrible!

2011-12-11T23:14:00.002-05:00

It has been tough these last few outings at the poker table. I’ve played in a few tournaments this week (two with 300-400 entries and one with 70 entries) and haven’t made a deep run or cashed in any of them. It has been kind of frustrating but I keep reminding myself that this is not going to be an overnight process and it takes time to improve my level of play at the poker table. Today I entered the $245 buy in WPT event at Derby and I was determined to build a good stack early by playing smarter hopefully aided by catching some decent hands. Lately I haven’t been able to build my stack early and had been forced into push or fold mode due to blinds and antes creeping up on me. We started with 15K in chips and I started out slow early due to not getting many playable hands in position. I maintained my patience and focused on developing my reads and learning the players around me.

A few hands before the first break I picked up KK in early position. I raised about 2.5 times the BB and got 3 callers which was not what I was hoping for. The flop came 334 which seemed to be a great flop for me as long as no one called with A3, 33, 44. Those were the only hands I was worried about at that point because I was pretty sure someone would have re-raised me with AA. So I bet the flop into the 3 callers. I think I bet about 1/3 the pot or so. One player calls then the next player to act raises to a little over 2K I think and gets called by the player to his right. I’m still pretty sure my hand is good and I want to isolate or win the hand now. I had about 13K behind and I thought a shove would only get called by hands that have me beat but a re-raise to about 6K should isolate one player or get both players to fold. Just in case one player was hanging around with one Ace in their hand hoping to hit it. The raiser folds but then the other player called. I have to say I was surprised by his call and decided that I had to shove no matter what card came next. Hmmmmm…a J pealed off on the turn and I shoved it all in. The guy thought for a few then called and tabled 88…WOW! He must have put me on top pair (a four) or a straight bluff. River was an Ace and I busted him. One player said he folded QQ (good fold by him). At the first break I was at about 36K which was a nice step up from the starting stack of 15K and comfortably above average. I caught a few more good hands by hitting some flops and build my stack up to somewhere in the 50K range. Now I am the chip leader at the table. This game is easy LOL. I wanted to avoid the other big stacks at the table. A lady was just seated to my left with about 70K, one guy had about 40-45K, and there was quite a few players with around 20K. The lady was playing a lot of hands and calling all ins with VERY marginal hands but she was getting lucky. She was the one player who could bust me at the table so I didn’t want to play a big hand with her unless it was a VERY good hand.

Then this hand happened…I’m in the small blind with K10 off and it limps around to me (3 or 4 limpers), so I limp also and the BB checks. Flop comes KJ10 rainbow. I check and the lady to my left bets 1600 and is re-raised by a guy to 3500. I think my 2 pair may be good here so re-raise to 8K. The lady (BB) folds and the raiser calls. Uh oh is what I am thinking at this point. Yet the siren in my head did not go off that he HAS to be calling me with an extremely good hand. I should have shut it down once he called my re-raise because not many players are calling that bet with less than 2 pair not to mention he had only about 40K starting the hand so he might have been saying to me that he was going all the way with this pot unless it blatantly got ugly from his perspective. I should have paused here and thought to myself about what hands a player would limp with in middle position. If I hand of done this I could have got away from the hand early or played it differently. The turn brings a 7 and I decide to bet again thinking that (or more hoping LOL) that he unlikely floated my bet and would fold here. He insta-called my bet. Needless to say all kinds of confused thoughts are going through my head and I know that I am in trouble, yet I don’t raise the red flag or turn on the siren in my head signaling me to give up. HE HAS A GOOD IF NOT GREAT HAND FREDDIE!!! The river brings another 7. Well this didn’t make my hand better, but I manage to convince myself to bet AGAIN SMH!!! I bet 12K and he shoves for 24K and change. Now the pot is huge, something I didn’t want to do with less than a great hand against another big stack, and I am in a very bad position. I tank for a few since we are now on break there is no rush for me to call and manage to dig the hole even deeper and call. Player shows 10 10 for a boat. What was I thinking!!! There were so many hints in this hand where I should have came to the conclusion that he had a monster. Many players limp with 10 10 in middle position instead of raising then potentially getting re-raised and facing a tough expensive call. His re-raise on the flop should have signal at least 2 pair if not a set, KJ, 10 10, or K10 (same as what I have) since I’m sure he would have raised originally with AQ so it was unlikely that he had a straight. I could have called his re-raised on the flop to see If I would improve, but I could have also folded and waiting for a better spot to play a pot against him. Even though laying down 2 pair sucks, I know that in some situations, when taking everything into account, it is the higher value play. I could have lost only 800 or 3500 that hand instead of almost 40K and waited for a better spot to chip up. Yet I decided to continue to dig a hole deeper and deeper for me to get out of and getting out of that hole would not be easy. Needless to say, we come back after break and I pick up AK on the cutoff and shove for 14K after a few limpers (blinds were 500/1K/100). I get called by 10 10 (again LOL) and whiff! Busto!

It is amazing how quickly I went from 2^nd in chips at the table to busted in a few hands. I wouldn’t feel as bad if it was a cooler or If I got sucked out on, but the situation could have been avoided by slowing down, rethinking the action in the hand, and making a better or well thought out decision as far as my course of action in the above hand. Sometimes I move to fast at the table, for whatever reason, and I need to learn to slow down and take my time thinking about my course of action or line I’m going to take. I’ve learned a lot while playing more consistently over the last 6-7 months. I’ve played more poker during this time period than I have played previously combined. My game has gotten better but as I know it isn’t anything that you ever perfect. It is a game that is ever changing and it requires non-stop learning and evolving with it. I’m in my toddler stages of learning, as far as I’m concerned, so I have a lot more work to put in at the table. But, I have shown myself flashes of good play that have motivated me to continue my learning process in this game. I know that I will continue to learn and play better by more consistently making better decisions and slowing down my actions during play. I understand that I will continue to make some mistakes, but as long as I keep those mistakes small or to a minimum, I know I will be on the winning side overall.

Poker is a tough game, but I’m determined to improve!

Fred

Reflecting On My First "Big" Tourney

2011-10-31T18:53:00.003-04:00

Reflecting on my weekend of poker I can’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment and disappointment simultaneously. On one hand I feel disappointed by not making the final table of nine, finishing higher in the money, and maybe playing a little nitty on Sunday (that’s too tight for my non-poker readers). But on the other hand I feel encouraged because I outlasted 90% of the field in this tournament and was able to put myself in a position to have my biggest cash so far. That being said I guess I will lean towards being encouraged and having a sense of accomplishment for my play this weekend. Playing for about 12 hours on Saturday was harder than I thought it would be. I was definitely tired both physically and mentally by the end of the night. Yet I was still able to make solid decisions through the whole night. On Sunday, coming back for day 2, I was a little tired and less comfortable than I was on Saturday which I believe was a combination of nervousness, tiredness, and maybe a few other feelings.

While playing on Saturday I didn’t have expectations of making it to the money or winning. I was focused on playing the best poker I could play and making the best decisions in each hand taking into account all the circumstances involved. I didn’t even pay attention to the “players remaining” number until it broke 100 (started with 257 in day 1B). Once it did, I remember thinking to myself, “wow I’ve made it far and outlasted all but one other guy I play with”. I knew that I needed to be in the top 26 to advance to day 2, but my stack size was somewhere around average and I knew I would have to pick up more chips. I continued solid play and avoided bad spots and was able to pick up big hands in good spots to get an above average stack size. Although, I did ride the roller coaster up and down a few times in route to being 15^th in chips heading into day 2. SWEET!!! This includes being all-in on the bubble twice. That was not a good feeling but I know that I made the optimal play in those situations taking into account my stack size, position, opponents not wanting to give away chips before day 2, etc.

On Sunday I couldn’t help but have those thoughts of winning the tournament and making the final table, yet also being surprised that I was able to make the top 51 out of 505 in combination with being as high up on the leader board as I was. I was really hoping that I could pick up some big hands early and be able to coast to the final table, but that wasn’t the case. During the entire time I played, which was about 2 hours, I picked up two pocket pairs JJ and QQ, and an Ace two or three times but with WEAK kickers and only suited once. So I didn’t have many spots to chip up and it was difficult picking up when/when not too steal due to the small stacks pushing a good amount of the hands I was in. In hindsight I believe I played too tight and wasn’t focused enough on observing other players to pick up the best steal opportunities and stop the bleeding of my chips. For whatever reason, I feel as if I wanted the tournament to be handed to me and I wasn’t going to have to work for it or earn it. There were many spots where I could have made bets, raises, calls or even folds that were more optimal plays than what I did and this could have bought me more time to chip up when I did pick up a big hand. But, I wasn’t focused enough in these spots and I was unable to get lucky when I needed too on the hand that I was put out on.

I know now that I am better prepared for tournaments that I will play in the future and I have a better understanding of what to expect from myself as far as how I may feel physically and mentally during certain times during play. This was a great learning experience which has motivated me to continue to improve my game and my observation skills at the poker table. I started playing poker as a teenager with my family then a little during college. After college I played in homes games once every few months up until 5 months ago when I decided to really focus on improving my game and playing more often. Since May I have cashed in slightly over 30% of tournaments that I have played in with a good majority of those tournaments being MTT (multi-table tournaments). Some were home games with only two or three tables. My game has improved dramatically over the past 6 months and I am looking forward to improving my game even more over the next 6 months just in time for the 2012 WSOP!

Fred

Thoughts From Today

2011-10-26T17:53:00.000-04:00

I’ve been really slacking on writing in my blog. But I’m not going to make any excuses though. As always there are many things that make an appearance in my mind that I would like to write about. Many of these things could be controversial and I tend to not to express those thoughts to many people. One of the reasons why I tend not to have those conversations with others or write them in my blog is because I know that a lot of people aren’t open minded enough to attempt to understand my perspective or understand an idea that is not the norm. As I have said many times, I am traditionally nontraditional and I work hard to understand others perspectives even if I disagree. Many people feel like they have to agree with someone/something in order to understand them/it, but I feel as though that is not true. Too me, this is a common problem amongst our culture. If we would practice a little more understanding and/or empathy for each other we wouldn’t have many of the problems that we have today. Our culture reminds me so much of crabs in a barrel…which is extremely sad and who knows if/when this will change.

Fred

29

2011-10-08T17:21:00.000-04:00

Another year has gone by and I am a year older and wiser. At least I tell myself I’m wiser LOL. I’ve had some great experiences over this past year and I’m thankful for having the opportunity to experience those things. Although I am one year closer to being “the big 3-0”, as some people would say, it doesn’t bother me. I try my hardest to have a different perspective than most about life. Every year and every day that I am allowed to spend ten toes down is a great day. I’ve seen people lose their lives very young and very old and I know that any day could be my day. So I remind myself often to take advantage of my time on this Earth and try to experience as much as I am able to. It’s not always easy to push yourself to do those extra things because it’s easy to become complacent and comfortable in your everyday life. There is nothing wrong with becoming complacent and comfortable, but for me it is not ideal. There are too many people to meet, too many places to see, too many cultures and societies to learn about, etc. I will push myself to experience as many of them as I can. The next trip plans are in the works and hopefully will be ironed out soon but it will be a blast!!!

On that note…I’m off to enjoy the rest of the night with some great food and entertainment by the Blue Man Group. Should be a great time!!!

Fred

Another Fiscal Year In The Dust

2011-10-02T20:02:00.000-04:00

Ahhhhh…fiscal year 2011 is in the books and for once I finished early. YES!!! It was nice to be able to relax for a week and not have to worry about getting any work done. I spent all week relaxing, working out, catching up on reading and playing just a little poker (OK maybe more than a little LOL). After grinding out work for 12 months a week off (at least) is needed in order to recover from the grind and mentally prepare for the next fiscal year.

On another note, I finished another book this week. The book was Read ‘Em and Reap by Joe Navarro. The book explains poker tells and observing people in poker and in life. I consider myself a keen observer of people and my observation skills were tested many times this week playing poker. I made great observations a few times and it felt GREAT! But I also lost focus a few times and missed information (tells) on people during a few hands and it cost me. But the lessons are learned and I do feel as if my observation skills in life and at the poker table have improved after reading this book.

This week it’s back to work and the day to day grind. But, definitely looking forward to next weekends get away to Orlando for my birthday. Should be a lot of fun!

Fred

The Mis-Educated Negro

2011-09-21T20:52:00.001-04:00

I recently finished an amazingly mind opening book. The book is called The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Woodson (Amazon, Wiki).

"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”

Without giving away the details of the book, because I believe that this book is a MUST read, Mr. Woodson explains the mis-education of the negro as he sees it and I believe that many his theories are still relevant today even though this book was published in the early 1900s. He breaks down and explains his opinion on many things including: the difference between training and education; how blacks don’t support black owned/operated businesses; how we don’t associate being smart with being black; not supporting HBCUs by attending them, not reinvesting in them with time or money, etc; not teaching African history to our kids along with American, European, Greek history, etc. in our schools especially since a lot of these societies are tied to Africans…and I could go on. Many of my own ideas and opinions have changed or been expanding on do to reading this book. I pride myself on having an open mind and being open to receiving new ideas from any source and I am extremely glad that I picked this book up to read. Mr. Woodson examined many things that I had thoughts about before but hadn’t yet examined further myself.

As I said before, this book is a must read by anyone black, white, latino, etc. If you want to borrow mine, I’ll mail it to you. Let me know…

Fred

This post is a day early and I missed my post from last week due to me being out of town and having no internet access. Therefore, there will be another post this week and I already have a juicy idea…

Blame It On Football

2011-09-09T08:17:00.002-04:00

I’m a day late writing in my blog, but it’s all to blame on the beginning of the NFL season last night. Gotta love the beginning of football son! It will be nice to be able to relax on Sundays lounging on the couch watching football again. I may not watch all the games that come on each day, but I’ll catch at least one.

I had solid last weekend at my first Florida Gators football game. It was a very entertaining crowd to say the least, but unfortunately I forgot my camera so I didn’t get many pictures other than the few I took with my iPhone. All in all it was a fun weekend in Gainesville and it was nice to be around kind southern folk. I felt a little old Friday night while we at a bar/restaurant called The Swamp. There was a group of students playing drinking games that made me reminisce of the good ol’ MSU days…good times. I can’t do things like that anymore though. My body wouldn’t be able to handle it LOL. Shot out to Dave and Shema for escorting us around campus all weekend and making our UF football game experience that much better.

Fred

Heading To The Swamp

2011-09-01T21:30:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow I will be having my first experience of a University of Florida football weekend. I’m looking forward to some good ol’ college football. I’ve enjoyed the games that I’ve went too over the past couple of years and I wish I would have went to more games while I was in school. The college football atmosphere is definitely one of a kind. Hopefully I’ll be able to capture a few of the amazing moments from this upcoming weekends shenanigans with my camera.

Cheers to opening college football at the swamp!!!

Traditionally Non-Traditional

2011-08-22T19:16:00.000-04:00

One of the things I pride myself on is being traditionally non-traditional. As I have gotten older I’ve developed a habit of asking the question “why?” when it comes to traditions that I was taught growing up and many other things that I was taught as a child. Upon looking into these things further, I began to find out that a lot of traditions that we have and a lot of the things that we accept don’t make much sense. I could list many things but I won’t. What this has taught me is not to accept something just because I am told this is how it is or this is tradition, etc. I am an extremely logical person and things are very difficult to accept if they don’t make sense to me. I feel like people would be better off in many ways if they stopped and asked why more often in their lives. Do your own research. Don’t accept things just because one person told you this is how it happened or this is what we do. You may find that things were/are quite different if you look into things yourself and you may have a different opinion than the person whom fed you the information originally.

Fred

So Many Thoughts...

2011-08-15T17:37:00.006-04:00

Today I have so many topics racing through my head that I feel as if I could write for hours about them. These topics include our education system (including college), economy, travel, traditions, and family…just to name a few. I can’t seem to fully collect my thoughts and focus in on one yet so until then I won’t express my thoughts. By my next post I will definitely delve into one of the many things currently in my thoughts.

Until then…here are a few pictures from my family reunion which was in Charleston, SC a few weekends ago. I spoke about it here. I’ll post more to my Facebook page.

Fred

My Poker Face

2011-08-08T21:05:00.000-04:00

Lately, well I guess within this last year, I’ve been playing more and more poker. I started playing poker in my teens with my family for change, mostly quarters and dimes. I remember wanting to play with them at a young age but they wouldn’t let me play until I was 16 LOL. Then, I played a little in college but never played consistently. I guess I was more focused on school (just in case you’re wondering I’m trying to convince myself that this is the reason and that I was really more focused on school not other things). After graduating from school and landing my job, I definitely became interested in poker again but there weren’t many options to play besides online living in the DC area. I’ve never been a big fan of online poker. One of my strengths is reading people and this strength is drastically decreased in value in online play in my opinion. I played in a few home games during my years there, but still never played consistently enough to really hone my game.

I’ve been living in Florida a little over three years now and I’ve definitely enjoyed the opportunity of being able to play more live poker at home games and at the card rooms here. Poker is a challenge for me and I enjoy the challenge of the game and the challenge of reading/observing people. I am a problem solver by nature, which is one of the reasons I studied engineering, and when I am sitting at a poker table I am faced with a different problem to solve each hand that I am in. Sometimes I solve it correctly and sometimes I don’t. Either way I enjoy that challenge that I am faced with. There aren’t many things that I am challenged with in my everyday life and I missed that until I began to play poker more consistently. I’m not playing for stakes that will make or break my bank roll. Therefore, it isn’t about the money. If I get good enough at it then maybe one day it will be. Now, playing poker is about the challenge. During my time at the poker tables I am faced with figuring out the math involved in each hand, calculating the percentages of outs and pot odds, and using my observations skills to dissect the players whom I am in a hand with. This is not an easy thing to do. To be good at it will take a lot of time and more hours at the card table. But, for me it is all worth it when I make the right call on a river bet from another player trying to bluff me :D

Fred

Family Reunion

2011-08-01T20:16:00.001-04:00

I’m feeling quite good after attending the Drakeford, Gaskin, Kirkland family reunion this weekend in Charleston, SC. I had an amazing time conversing with family members that I haven’t seen in almost 10 years and it was great to see my 95 year old great aunt moving around as if she was at least 20 years younger.

We took a tour of Drayton Hall Plantation on Saturday which was extremely mind opening. The guides explained the lives of the enslaved Africans at Drayton Hall and also some of the history of the plantation. I learned that my ancestors (on the Kirkland side) originated from Kershaw County South Carolina and the one of the owners of my ancestors was a man by the name of Daniel Kirkland who’s father John Kirkland was born in Scotland in the 1750s. I also learned about the Gullah people who were the African Americans who lived in the Lowcountry and that night we had some Gullah cuisine which was phenomenal.

It was amazing to look at my family tree and see the connection that I have to the men and woman of my family who lived during the slavery era of the United States. The slavery era seems so long ago but I’m only about 5 generations separated from it. That’s mind blowing to me to say the least.

The little that I learned this weekend about my ancestors was amazing and definitely motivated me to learn even more about them. Overall, I had a great time this weekend with family and friends, and I definitely am looking forward to spending more time with them in the future.

Fred

Enjoying the Moment

2011-07-22T09:51:00.003-04:00

So far so good as far as sticking to my blogging schedule. The schedule definitely helps me out. I’m sure once I consistently follow the schedule that I set writing in my blog will become even easier.

Originally I was going to examine a topic which I have seen many people comment about recently, Planking. But after further thought, I will delay my opinion on it and possibly not even write about it at all.

One thing that I focus on daily is living in the moment. I finished an amazing book a few months ago called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (Find it here)and reading that book changed me in many ways. I now focus more on living in the moment and enjoying the time that I am given. I’ve observed so many people, even myself at times, focusing on past decision good or bad and worrying about what may or may not happen in the future. These thoughts take us to a point where we forget to take advantage of now and we can become obsessed with reliving past moments to the point where we subconsciously take ourselves from the present to the past.

“No use thinking of the past for its gone, don't think of the future because it has to come, think of the present because that’s where you are.”

If we allow ourselves to step outside of the box which we place ourselves in, we will realize that no moment is more important than now. The actions and thoughts that we have now shape our path that we will travel in the future. But, you cannot live in the future now for it is not here. You can only live in the moment and it is our choice to take advantage this moment or let it go to waste never being able to have that exact moment in time again.

I am still working daily at becoming better at living in the moment. It takes practice. But, I am learning more and more that the past has happen and there is nothing I can do about it. But, what I can do is enjoy my coffee that I am having this morning and enjoy typing my thoughts to share with others. What happens next? Who knows…but I will remain present and focus on now not the things that happen before and hope for more moments in the future.

Fred

Sticking to the Script

2011-07-15T11:11:00.002-04:00

I’m sticking to my schedule today by posting this. I have a topic that I wanted to write about but I have a visitor staying with me this weekend and don’t have enough time to devote towards writing on that topic. So today it will be a quick post. Next week I’ll write about the topic that I planned on writing about today.

Getting ready to head out to the beach today, which is always relaxing to say the least. But, it is getting about that time that a vacation needs to be planned. I promised myself that I would vacation at least once a year and I WILL stick to that promise. A friend of mine keeps nudging me towards visiting the French Polynesian. That place is definitely on the list of places to go and I will travel there. Not sure when though. Regardless of where I will be going and when, I feel that it is important to travel as much as I can no matter how big or small the vacation may be. Traveling gives me the opportunity to experience new things outside of my regular routine and comfort zone. Which I feel is important for everybody.

Cheers to getting stamps in my passport soon!!!

Fred