Monday, February 27, 2012

THATS WHAT IM TALKIN ABOUT

this last week has been one of my biggest achievments since ive been here so you might want to buckle up. ill start with poker because i think pickup might be a little long


to keep it short i made 6k in a week. but to go into details about it i fucking came back from my 6k downswing and not only did i do that im now sitting 1200 up for the month baby! it started last sunday when i had a prety hot day and won 1700 and with a couple ok scores earlier in the month i had a possible chance of only being down like 1k or 2k for the month well the next 3 days i won a little over 300 each day and then hit another 1700 score. now i was close to breaking even for the month and i had about a week left to do it. the next day i hit a 1500 win and today i won 550 and now im sitting with a profit for the month and a smile on my face. the downswing lasted about 3 weeks and if you guys read one of my posts from a couple weeks ago i stated that it seemed like my swings last from 15-25 days so that was about right. also friday i played the biggest pot since ive started playing poker and ill go ahead and go over it

so the villian in this hand is utg. a little info on him is that hes a mid 20s white guy who likes to play big pots and run big bluffs ive played with him a few times before and ive studied his plays and had a pretty solid read on how he likes to play so in this hand i felt like i played the spot well. also he just came to the table about an orbit ago and had 2k in front of him, he recent lost about 500$ in the previous 3 pots and he showed signs of being a little steamed. side note i had a 1k starting stack and he had me covered

utg straddles for 20$, utg+1 calls 20, mp calls 20, button calls 20

now im in the BB with 10 10, and with him straddling and being steamed i had a really good feeling that he was going to raise when it got to him and try and take the dead money. so i was planning on just calling and after he raises than i can repop it and hopefully just take it down right there. if not i have a decent hand and ill be comftorable on most flops that dont have a q k or A. so i call 20$

villan raises to 120$, folds around to me, and i repop it to 400$. and villan calls.

at this point i know im way ahead of his range as he likes to play a lot of speculative hands that he shouldnt and with how every thing played out so far i had played it just how i wanted to.

pot: 900$
flop comes 10 9 7 rainbow

now i know he likes to bluff on a lot of boards especially if theres weakness. there wasnt that much i was affraid of and his range is so wide and weak that i felt if i bet here he would fold. so i checked, he checked

turn: 6 putting a possible flush draw out there.

although a lot of hands are in his range i wasnt affraid of him having an 8 because hes litterally the type of player who could have so many other possible hands besides that. i think if i check here than it will induce him to bluff and than i can shove. i check, he checks

river: 4 off suit

this time i felt like he deffinitley would bluff at it unless he had a lot of showdown value, especially with how passive i was in the hand. i check and he bets 500. since its the river i dont see him calling a raise unless he happend to make a smaller set or possiblly 2 pair so i didnt want to get snaped off by the straight just in case and just called the 500 and he showed 9 6 offsuit. and i scoop a 1900$ pot


a few things happend after that. he said he thaught i was on an over pair, which was a fair assumption but mainly i really should have bet the turn. that was the perfect spot for him to raise me and if i would have bet im pretty certain he would have and i could have got it all in. next was what one of the decent players at the table said to me. he said i was extremely lucky. i agree that i got lucky to flop a set but i read the play perfectly against that opponent and felt i played it well except for that missed bet. so thats my big pot story.

now for pickup which is just as exciting. so saturday i went to a mall and did a couple approaches, 1 ending pretty quikly and then the second one ended pretty decently. i saw the girl walking and i approached her and started a conversation. she ended up being in a hurry cause i guess it was her birthday and she was trying do buy an outfit before she was going out. i was only able to keep the conversation going for like 5 minutes before she really needed to go, so i was able to get her number. although i felt like she would flake because a 5 minute conversation doesnt usually provide that much results with phone numbers. anyway i texted her a few hours later and we got a conversation going. i applied some text techniques and it seemed like she was pretty interested. i told her i wasnt going to be able to text her again till monday and she seemed pretty eager to talk so i think this one might prove worthy. next i went to a mall a little farther away and ran game there for about 6 hours. i probablly did about 10 approaches and got a lot of "i have a boyfriend" which im running into a lot. i did have another short conversation with a girl and was able to get her number as well. i texted her a few hours later too and kept the convo real short. i tried to text her again today but she didnt reply so i think that one might have flaked. so the night time rolled around and i was ready to run some night game and head to this area of night life that i havent been to before. the kid i met when i first got here that would run night game with me hit me up and said he wanted to go out so we met up. we ended up going to a couple pubs just for drinks and didnt really see any opportunities, we than went to this club that weve been to before and finished the night there. so i was chilling at the bar about an hour before closing time and a girl comes up to me and starts talking to me. she was cute about a 7 but she was a little bit thicker but not really fat or anything. i got the vibe that she was basically looking for cock. so i took that vibe to the test and went in for the kiss like 5 minutes after talking to her and we kissed for a little bit. we than went to the dance floor where we got a little dirty and than i pulled her off the floor to talk to her a little more. we talked for about 30 more minutes before i told her that i was leaving. i told her that i had to get up early in the morning so we could either meet up another time or she could go with me to my truck and have some fun.. she went to find her friend to tell her she was leaving. so we headed to my truck and she directed me to a parking spot that over looked seattle and we talked for a bit more. after a while we ended up in the back seat and things started getting hot and heavy... then disaster struck.
we had our clothes off and i dont know what it was about the interaction but i could get hard... fuck. she took it upon herself to remedey the situation and started to give me oral and i quickly got hard. then i put on a condom and was ready to go and BAM! went soft :(
i can honestly say that was the first and only time i have never been able to get it up. i was comfotorable with the situation so it was either i wasnt really that horny. which looking back on it i kinda wasnt, maybe i wasnt as attracted to her as i thaught. which i kinda wasnt, or maybe it was the couple drinks i had, i highly doubt it. either way we were now sitting there in this awkward moment as we both got dressed. now anyone whos been in this situation or a guy that hasnt cummed when he has sex. it makes the girl feel horribly unattractive and i can tell thats exactly how she felt. not to mention how imbarassed i felt. luckily she only lived a few blocks aways from where we parked and it was only a couple minutes of awkward driving. i think this time i wont call this girl lol. so on sunday i actually had a pickup meeting with another guy. we met on the forums last week and he was really new to game and he wanted to come out so we decided on sunday. after waking up and noticing i had glitter on my dick, i took a shower and headed back to the mall. i met up with the guy and he actually turned out to be a pretty cool guy with a really fun personality. we got along well and i ended up doing about 5 approaches in a few hours and i got him to do one approach. we talked about game and other things and we had a pretty fun time. he seemd pretty legit and we decided to go out for some more daygame next weeknd. also this kid i could see myself acutally being friends with outside of pickup so it was pretty cool meeting him.

sooo all in all this week was filled with a lot of first times as well as big acomplishments and fun stories. im pretty excited to end the month on a good note and see what the next week has in store for me. so untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)

Sunday, February 19, 2012

thats a start

anyone who read my last post knows i was running pretty crappy so far this month but i think it might have started to turn around.

ill start with pickup and life. well as far as life in general goes i guess things are still going pretty smoothly nothing to dramatic has happend which i guess can be good or boring. whatever way you look at it. pickup seems to have been a little more interesting this week. so friday night after poker i went out to a bar near my house that ive went to the past few weeks and ive come to the conclusion it just isnt that good of a place to get any results. most of the time i went there theres prolly a ratio of 1/3 girls to guys and all the girls are with the guys so its not really a good spot. im gonna check out another bar kinda near my place this friday night to see what kind of clientel it has to offer. saturday was very interesting. so i ran daygame for about 8 hours and i did about 10 approaches like 4 of them had boy friends (which im finding a lot of girls in washington have. i think there was a couple that blew me off and then there were two that really stood out. one was when i approached this girl while she was leaving the mall and i opened and she said she was leaving i asked her to grab a smoothie with me before she left and she said she couldnt, but the way we were staring into each others eyes kinda gave me the impression that if i would have persisted a little more i think the girl would have cooperated. thats a big thing in pickup is being persistant. not beeing a creeper, if the girl says no than it pretty much means no. but girls throw out these tests like the most common one is "i have a boyfriend" if you persist with the interaction you will find out she might not and just wasnt comftorable with you at that time but now she is. so i feel like i need to work on that more which leads me to the main approach i did this weeknd. so i saw this cute girl she was a solid 8. so i approached her and started talking to her. she turned out to be one of the more challanging girls that i have talked to yet, she was giving me all these tests and challanging me and everything. it kinda turned out fun. i actually tried to kiss her once but it didnt work and i also tried to get her number but she was putting up a shield and wouldnt give it to me. she started to walk away and i told her i wasnt going to run after her and she walked away. i was like shit theres another spot i should have been more persistant. so about 2 hours past and i see her again i wait for like 10 seconds and im like heres my chance again and i reopen her. this time we talk for like an hour. we talked about a lot of shit and in that conversation i found out she was a lesbian.. crap.
now some girls will say theyre a lesbian just like theyll say they have a boyfriend but after talking to her for a long time it was pretty valid that she was. although she said she had straight tendancies and fools around with guys from time to time. she was a fun girl though and i escalated sexually with her a lot. she would let me hold her and i even unbuttoned her shirt a little bit and we talked about sex and everything like that. i also tried to kiss her like 6 times always getting rejected but there was somthing in her eyes that said she like it. the fact that she didnt walk away also said somthing too. anyways it was time for me to leave and she walked me to an exit where i tried one last time for a kiss and again got rejected. she said she would compromise with me and she took my number. now whenever a girl takes your number instead of you getting hers it pretty much means shes not going to call or text. with this interaction im actually confident in thinking that theres a good chance that she will contact me. if she does and nothing would happen with this girl which is a high probabillity than she would still be cool as a friend. so after that i went out for some night game in seattle and i only stayed for like an hour. i was actually kinda tired and i really just dont like the venues that ive been going to down there so next week im going to try and go to another area and check it out to see if i like it more. so sunday came around and i went back to the mall. it wasnt untill i was at the mall that i realized i was actually kinda sick. i had a pretty good head cold going on and was having hot flashes and felt drained. it really took the mood out of me and i couldnt force myself to do any approaches so i left a few hours early and headed to play poker which turned out to be a good decision

which leads me to poker. so friday i took a big swing losing 1200 and then winning it all back plus like 400 but losing a little before i left. i left friday up 125 which was my first win for a whole week. on sunday after i got done running game i went straight to the casino and im glad i did. i sat at a pretty profitable table as well as getting some good cards and was able to book a nice score of 1675
so over the last 2 sessions im up 1800. its a little dent to the 5500 downswing i had but its a start. hopefully i will be able to have a really good rest of the month and get close to break even this month lol. yeah thats pretty much it not too exciting with the poker but it might be this week. so untill next time cosmonauts. stay tuned

Thursday, February 16, 2012

deja vu

ok so usually i dont post in the middle of the week unless somthing happens worth posting. so right now im just running super shitty and pretty much want to rant about it. its mainly the last 2 all in pots i played but yeah im running horrible this week and havnt booked a winning session the last 6 times i played. everyday i feel like i play good and then get beat but i always go back the next day refreshed right now im down 5300 so almost all my profit from last month is washed away. it pretty much sucks seeing a whole month go away the only good thing about this is its exactly what happend to me in vegas. right when i got to vegas i had a decent 1st month followed by a big 15 buy in upswing followed imediatley by an 11 buy in downswing. 11 buyins was my biggest downswing ive ever had live and im 200$ away from being there again. this is pretty much the doom swith i was waiting for the past couple months so once i get over this i should be ok unless varriance has a mega dowswing still on the horrizon so we'll find out. anyway i think in my last post i mentioned about playing pretty much value poker and not getting too crazy. well after this hand i played its drilled into my head that from now on untill i can dig myself out of this mess its pretty much only value poker and this is why.

utg limps, folds to cutoff who limps, and button limps. im in the BB with AKss and i raise to 40$ utg calls and the other 2 fold.

utg is an older guy who was pretty much a straightforward player but i seen him make some plays when the board was appropriate

flop comes 2 4 4 with one spade

i bet 60$ into a 90$ pot. he thinks for a little bit and raises it to 180$

i really dont see him raising dueces full here and a 4 is in his limping range but its super rare, so i pretty much put him on a range of medium pairs and figure if i shove i should be able to get him to fold and if he does call i still have about 30% equity. i shove my stack totaling 400$

he thinks for a while and eventually calls. i brick the turn and river and he shows 10 10. now that hand was just iritating. number one i felt the guy was really a compitent player and i havnt seen him do anything stupid. in my thaught process i even said to myself "this guy is compitent enough to know if i shove here then he is beat". the second thing that iritated me was the fact that he called my 3 bet allin. its like what the hell are you going to beat there, i dont ever have jj-aa? just so happens the 2% time i have AK he decideds to call.

now for the big steamer. so im a little on edge from that hand but not tilted. an orbit goes by and i have QQ in the hijack theres a couple limpers and i make it 30$ to go and theres 2 callers

flop comes A 10 6 rainbow. first player checks to me. i dont really like the ace and usually in this spot i might check because a lot of players play aces but i was really only concerend with the guy to my left and his range was pretty standard so i didnt see him having an ace that much so i bet 40$. guy to my left folds and the guy on my right calls. the turn is a 4. he checks and i check. river is a Q and he bets 80. i shove for a total of 400 and he calls showing kj for the straight. at that point i was tilted. i dont usually get tilted but this time i was and i knew i was. i played 1 more hand and got up and left

so thats my rant. i really hope the downswing isnt that much longer. although i do feel like everyday i play i am playing well and unafected by my results i just dont like being in the downswing (shocking). i dont know if i will be able to come out in profit this month. i hope i can and even if i end up a buyin up i will be fine with that. if i dont this will be my first losing month in the past i think 7 months of playing. also right now this is the most ive ever lost but i still feel good so my spirits are still high. if i lose 10k i will probablly puke and quit poker for a month. jk but possible anyways anyone who actually read it thanks, and thanks for reading my blog ill post again sunday and hopefully things will have improved. untill then , stay tuned cosmonauts

Sunday, February 12, 2012

all aboard for the downswing express


choo choo mother f***er, its time to go downhill. haha anyway yeah i can now officially say im in a downswing, in more aspects than one so i guess i will start with poker since it will be simple.

im losing the end.

jk i am on a downsing though ive probablly been in the dowswing for the past couple weeks but ive had a couple winning days here and there right now im down 3k for the month so 6 buy ins. still enough time to turn it around and make some profit for the month unless of course the dowswing continues for the whole month. right now im going to talk about an important topic to me at the moment since ive been having mixed results with it. that is the topic of tripple barreling. to be short i think im going to rarely tripple barrel anymore unless i know for sure the opent is likely to lay down. i dont tripple barrel often and in live play id say over the last 2 months ive probablly only tripple barrelled like like 6 or 7 times. well this last week i trippled barreled 3 times and each time i got called 2 of the times was when the flop was somthing like 2 2 7 or 3 3 6 and the villans ended up having 3 of a kind so that was just unlucky but all the other times it seems like the villans just cant let go of there hands which ends up leaving me frustrated and forces my self to pretty much play value poker which is fine but a little boring. now im fine playing abc/tag value poker but then it sucks when see see a regular whos lagging it up and just crushing the game and its like what the F how come they fold to this guy all the time it just makes for a frustrated experience but thats how downswings are... would you have it any other way... ok dont answer that. anyway thats how poker is going just running bad with a couple unlucky plays i suppose nothing to horrible to kill my spirits just yet.

now for a little more complaining. oh boy i bet you just couldnt wait for it. so ive said this before and ill say it again. i can directly compare pickup to poker in so many aspects. although they are different "games" they are sooo much a like. and just like in poker you can also have upswings and downswings in pickup. ill give you 3 seconds to guess which way its going for me.
so yeah this week i will consider a fail as far as physical results go. i approached about 10 girls this weeknd which ill go into depth with in a minute, but i only got one number and it was with a girl i only talked to for about 2 minutes and she had to leave so there was no room to build comfort and the number pretty much screamed flakey. i did text her a few times but thats about how far it went before she stopped texting. i dont think i can get any further with her but ill try and text her again after valentines day to see if it makes a difference. now for the individual results. there was about 5 girls that i approached that were on their way to do somthing and the conversation didnt get much farther than the opener so that was about it. theres was probablly 2 or 3 girls that just kinda blew me off so ehh. and then there was 2 girls that i ended up having a pretty lengthy conversation with. of course theres complications with those as well.
one was at a mall and after i opened i saw she had a ring on her finger and of course she was married, she pretty cute and actually really nice so i decided to just talk to her just for the experience but that was about it. then next one was when i went out for some night game. i went to this ultra lounge that i havnt been to before and opened a girl pretty early on in the night and we talked for like 15 minutes there were a couple problems though. one was she lived like 150 miles north and was only there for the weeknd and two. she said she was leaving the venue pretty soon so although we had had a good convo. nothing really emerged from it. so thats how pickup went this weeknd. it wasnt a complete fail though i worked on some techniques and things i needed to work on while i was in the conversations so i felt like i was improving a little bit. also a girl i met when i first moved to washington met me for a smoothie today, im pretty much in the friendzone with her but its cool cause female friends can help widen your female social life.

theres a lot of things different from this winter of grinding compared to last winter of grinding when i was in vegas. one thing i noticed dramatically was how im affected during a downswing. last year when i was in vegas i really didnt have any other hobbies outside of poker and i was really results oriented then. so when i would have a dowswing it took a pretty big toll on my mentality. this winter though is a bit different and now that i have pickup as a hobbie outside of poker whenever things arnt going so hot i feel like i have somthing i can turn to and put effort into aside from poker which is making a huge difference on my mentality. ive still got a lot to learn in a whole lot of aspects and im still confused as shit about everything in life as a 24 year old usually is but things are moving along and thats about how my week has been going. so untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)

Sunday, February 5, 2012

nothin wrong with a little bump and grind

so im popping a bottle of wine and toasting this week away as im glad i was able to walk away alive. so to put it short varriance has finally shown up, in both aspects of life so here goes

poker was well. not fun this week. although it was only like 4 losing days out of 6 i took a bit of a beating. nothing to crazy to report just pretty standard varriance but i guess i can talk about my last session. so it was like a 6 hour session and through that whole time there was an older guy sitting in the one seat which was two to my left, now this older guy played a big role in my downfall. early in the day i isolated a limper and he 3 bet from the button, and i folded. 3 bets at that casino arnt super rare but versus cetain opponents they are pretty polarized. now came the same instance there was a limper in the same spot i isolated and he 3 bet me on the button. this was about an hour later and i was like ok that could just be a coincidence but next time that guy limps im gonna iso when he is on the button and if he 3 bets me again im going to 4 bet. well about an hour later the same guy limped i isolated and the older guy 3 bet from the blinds now the limper called and i 4 bet and they both called. great. everyone at my end of the table was like man this guy has got your number i wiffed the flop and the older guy shoves and whatever shows KK. so i guess he was just running hot or somthing. at the end of the night i was down 800 and had 200 in front of me and i pick up AK utg. i raise and a guy on the button who i think could make a loose 3 bet did 3bet. the bb 4bet and i shoved. i realize 4 bet in that game pretty much means it but i was tilted pretty much from getting 3 bet all day and just went with it. shockingly enough i missed the flop turn and river and left the day -1000. and thats how my last session went. so i had a few of those days and a couple mediocre winning days. i did however travel about an hour north to check out the biggest casino washingotn has to offer. its about 40 minutes north of seattle. i think if im here in the summer or next winter than im going to mover near there. theres actually a couple reasons why. the first is that casino has a hotel as well and is close to canada so it gets a little bit of tourist flow into it. also theres an average of 4-5 3/5 tables going everyday compared to the casino i play at wich usually has 2 going and most of the time 3. and lastly a lot of people from seattle live north compared to south which means theres a lot better selection of females to talk to, sounds dorky i know but the town i live in has a population of like 60% elderly. the only reason im living here is cause of the casino. so in the future if im living in washington ill live closer to the other casino.

now on to life and pick up. so life has been going decent i suppose nothing too much outside of poker and pickup. i do want to do some activities while i have a chance and i dont mind doing some stuff alone but its a lot more fun when you do stuff with other people. i met another young guy about my age playing poker and weve been talking over the past month so theres kinda a friendship building there but i dont think were that alike outside of poker. thats another thing that im hoping to be able to meet a girl is so that i can actually get out and do some things. which leads to pick up this week. i should just say this weeknd cause thats when i run pickup, although if a situation comes up during the week i take it but it hardly does. so friday night after poker i went to the bar near my house and it wasnt as packed as last week. i had the intentions of trying to open a group of girls. isolating one of them from the group and then kiss closing her and possibly progress from there. after i got in i realized there wasnt much of a selction i hung out for a little bit and saw a group of like 8 people with 2 guys all playing pool. 4 of the people came over to the bar to get drinks and left 4 girls alone. i asked if those were there friends and if they minded me going and talking to them. they said ok and i went over and started a conversations it only lasted like 5 minutes before the other people returned and the focus was shifted on them. that was the perfect time to isolate one of the girls i wanted to but i was lost in the situation and took it as a rejection. looking back at it though. it really was a perfect time to isolate. and it would have gone pretty smooth cause their group was so big that they would be alright with me just talking to one girl on the side. i learned from the mistake though and its in the memory bank. now it was saturday and time to run some day game. i do like day game more because its more genuine and the girls are more likely to connect with you but its a bit harder trying to find the girls as you will see. so i went to a mall near my place and walked around a bit and saw a girl sitting by herself on a bench. i went over and opend her and about 3 seconds later a little kid comes up saying mommy mommy. i was like ooooook later. i started to walk away and the little kid runs my way to an older guy who i assumed was the father. so im pretty sure this guy just watched me try to pick up his wife haha. anyways i walk around the mall and dont find anyone to approach over like 2 hours so i leave to a bigger mall about 20 minutes away. this mall is like my favorite spot because of how big it is and its like 10 minutes south of seattle so there is a lot of people in it. that being said it took like 3 hours of walking around before i found a situation where i could approach a girl. she was walking my way i stopped her and started a conversation and then walked with her to where she was going. it turns out she lives about 5 hours away and was only visiting her aunt. i got her number anyway just to do it and maybe set up somthing even though i know it probablly wouldnt happen.
so i texted her yesterday and today but nothing so i pretty much expected that. after her i stayed in the mall for like another hour but couldnt find anyone else to approach and so i left. now it was time to run some night game and i headed into seattle. so i checked out a few bars and everything seemed to be pretty slow and it was like 11pm which was wierd. i hardly saw any girls i did open a girl probablly around 32 at one bar but that fizzled out pretty fast. i think since today was the super bowl nobody went out last night. or thats what it seemed like casue for a place that is always packed and now it wasnt there had to be somthing that was up. so i headed home without any success but i did find a couple places that i liked that i will check out probablly next weeknd which will probablly produce some results. i usually go out to do daygmae on sundays as well but since the super bowl is going i doubt anyone will be out so ill just save it.

so as you can tell the past couple weeks have been pretty varrianced filled in both aspects of life. i do think i am running especially bad with the girls i meet though. the last 4 numbers ive got it seems like there was always somthing that was keeping me from actually acieving any kind of success. but persistance is key in the game so ill keep on going. so untill next time cosmonauts. stay tuned ;)