Rush poker log

Firstly, if theres a specific section this is supposed to be in feel free to move it. Puting it here as im trying to learn poker myself, and also others can learn from any help i might get etc

Background on me to start..started playing maybe 4 years ago, didnt play much for the first year or so. From the first time i played i was a winning player (no limit holdem) against friends, even before i knew what hands were best etc After playing live a couple times recently, and cashing in both tournaments, im thinking that was most likely just because i might have a nack for reading body lang/tells live. From this i do think im a better live player but my thinking is theres a just not enough live play to make any money at smaller stakes.

Ive now played quite a bit online, not enough to get a royal flush if theres a rough number that might be, but still a fair bit. First couple times i put money in online i lost it pretty quick, within a month or so each time. After that i had ups and downs for several months, never making much of any money before i started getting somewhere around $40-50 a day average over 3 weeks playing 2 and 3 table sit and go's.

At that point i felt like i was way above the standard i was playing against and decided to 'risk it all' playing a big game, i cant remember how much the entry was now but i remember it was a 1 table sit and go and it was just under $2000 for the winner. I can remember playing really well, feeling like i was completely out playing everybody, id bust i think 3 or 4 players and had almost half the chips in play with 1 to the money. Almost all the other chips were with someone i can only remember to be a complete idiot, possibly either drunk or i dont know but playing really terribly and getting very lucky a couple times. The two others players had less than a thousand chips each and were about to be blinded out so i was playing tight and just going to let the donkey suck out on them. Then i get the one hand i dont want to see, pocket aces, and the donkey has stuck it all in as hes been doing most hands. I came so close to folding them but eventually called. He had something like 4-7 off or 4-8 off and hits a straight on the river. I lost pretty much my whole roll. I played a bunch of heads up games after that as i was reading heads up is the game where the most skill is involved. I got what i remember to be an unthinkable run of suck outs and lost the rest along with my mind. I quit poker.

About a year after that i started playing again after reading about the double or nothing games, thinking it would suit my play well, initually i lose, then i start winning, i try the $100 game instead of the $20's ive been playing just to get an idea of if it's much harder. I win 8 100's in a row. I have nearly $1500, i lose it all in 3 days with an insane run of suckouts and coolers puting me on tilt, playing badly for the last few hundred. I quit poker.

About 2-3 months back i start playing again, i start playing bigger tournaments, i cash in a few, start as a winning player. I start playing regular cash games for the first time, going up and down. I play a large rebuy tournament, cant remember the exact prize pool but was just under $10,000 for 1st place. I make it to the final two table, feeling like im playing really well, im tired but i dont feel like ive made one mistake the whole tournament. I think i was in 7th place chips wise. I get two cowboys in late position, great. A small stack shoves it in from under the gun, and he gets called by +1, who has about half my stack, then a third player from mid position, with a healthy stack, raises. It comes round to me, i call, and the other smaller stack calls for the rest of his/her chips.

We already have a monster pot with two all ins, flop comes up a virtual blank, nothing of any worry, 10 high. I feel like one of the small stacks could very well have pocket aces, im not really sure what im up against, i figure it could be aces, queens, a-k, maybe jacks, maybe the small stacks have two of those hands. Check, raise, call, turn comes a blank, check, raise, call. At this point im thinking he has to have two 10's or two aces, the river comes a king, i have three kings with no possible flush or straight on board, i cant be beat! Even though i know im getting a call with how much is already in the pot, i make sure by pondering for 30 seconds or so before shoving all in. CLICK..but my screen is froze..what the hells happening?? im disconnected!!! the clocks counting down, 60 seconds till i lose the biggest pot of my life in more ways than one, and with the absolute nuts! i cant for the life of me find a way to get back online as my server apparently goes down. Instead of what was most likely garenteed $1000-2000 even if i sit out, and more than likely $4000-10,000, i get 80 odd dollars, getting blinded out just before the money starts to jump. I had not been disconnected for probably 8-9 months prior to this.

After that im pretty much tilted for the next couple days, ended up going in a big cash game to win back losses, lost my whole roll to quads with aces full.

Now im trying rush poker, have been playing it for maybe a week, again ive played too big for my roll getting tilted by bad beats. Lost another $200, put another $200 in, lost most of it playing rush tournaments trying to win big, getting my pre flop aces cracked to trips in all major pots late on.

I know every losing player says this, and i know it's my fault because i keep playing well out of my limits, which i just simply cannot do again, but i do feel ive been stupidly unlucky a lot of times, so i am finding it hard to keep the faith.

However all you need is a chip and a chair, right? or maybe a laptop an a few bucks? well, i have a little over 100 dollars and 2,500 ftp's with all the free time in the world, so im gonna see what i can do with it.

I figure rush poker cash games are the best way for me as clearly, i have a problem with wanting to play big (i always think the small stakes are too boring and slow), and since i dont have the roll for that i figure playing a lot of cash hands is the best way forward. I wont multi table as i have tried that playing rush a few times and i do feel it takes a lot of play away / i wont be putting another cent into my account so im gonna have to play well with the 20 $5 buy ins i have.

I took a note of the hands played earlier in regards to time and i played roughly 175 in a half hour (prefer full ring to 6 max), so on that basis, 7 hours a day id be putting in almost 2500, i think this should be the aim for each day, making sure to put in 10,000+ hands a week, without fail.

I dont play well tired and dont have access to the laptop 24/7 so thats why it's not 14 hours a day. As for strategy, any advice from those who have had/have success playing rush? my strategy is playing tight pre flop, little looser in cut off and button, otherwise mostly top 10 hands, with the odd low suited connector, j-9s etc i know some people say you should use a standard bet size and stick to it but i like to randomly vary my bet sizes and will be seeing how that pans out. Will be continuation betting in position a lot of time unless i feel theres a strong chance im getting check raised. Turn and river play pretty much instinctive. I need to work on getting more value on the river, hopefully the vast number of hands will help me improve that aspect of my game.

Have been reading a few books these past few weeks, the last one being doyles. I have been finding it hard to get things to sink in and need to keep reading it over but obviously with rush things are different as you have no real table image. Although i know you still play against every player a good number of times and no doubt players have notes on me. I will be colour coding/typing up a few notes on players as i review my hands, which i will do every day possible. I will also start using my poker tracker 3 trial again an start getting some hands on any regs, help me know when i can 3 bet etc

Im gonna play another couple hundred hands then get some sleep ready for 2500 more tomorrow.

P.S is there an easier way to produce a video for hand review other than recording the screen with my webcam?

Any advice is appreciated,

Paul

So, just to get the obvious out of the way and so I can beat everyone else to it.....just make sure you practice better BRM. There are tons of posts on that all over this site, so check them out.

Besides that...Rush is all about playing tight. Its also good to use a tracking software, because there is more 3betting in rush than on regular tables. People think they can just 3bet and run. If you have a HUD you will be able to catch this and 4 bet a little lighter or call the 3bets in position. 3betting is really the biggest difference (I think?) of rush compared to normal tables. I've put in 70k hands of Rush so far this month, so I think I'm pretty much getting the hang of it.

wes - yeh i know, and i know i need people to say it too, i only have plans to play $5 rush and the odd ftp tournamant for a while. I guess 50,000 hands till i move up depending on how much ive won? I have pockeR tracker 3 running so can track whos 3 betting light and the nits etc just need to get more hands on most.

Ended up playing 487 hands last night, lost 4/5ths of a buy in, which was pretty much one pot where i made the dumbest call ever. I had 5's, two limped in, i called, bb checks, so did the limpers, flop came A-A-8, everybody checked, turn came a third ace, everybody checked, i decide to see where my full house is at, bet just over half the pot, get one caller, third heart, 7 of hearts on the river and i get a shove. Obviously, they have the 8, but id had so many people shoving into me on the river when i had big hands an plus how it was a massive over bet, i dont know what the hell i was thinking, i was gonna fold but then the clock was almost out and i called. Worse call ever. I also lost a decent size pot to a full house with queens full of jacks, calling an overbet with queens and 10's. It was played weird, i knew it was either the nuts or nothing and ended up calling. Flop was Q-J high, 4 players, everybody checked, turn comes a third Q, then all of sudden he bets pot, eh?? i called it, and then he bets near pot again on the river, confused me enough to look him up (you would think he would check a full house against 4 players with a flush and straight draw out there). Overall i played pretty well and saved a couple buy ins though, i had a ton of big hands getting out turned or river'd and made a lot of what im sure were good folds. For example i had A-9 suited on the small blind, i called the buttons raise, the bb also called, flop came A-2-9, check, check, check. Turn comes a 10, check, i bet, raise?? A-10? then re-raise, what the? slow playing a set of aces? had to fold.

Will check in after 2500 or more hands.

I checked my logs, most of the downs I had playing rush poker wer due to incredibly huge bad beats. People going all in with everything and youget aces kings, or even straight or big pairs defeated with ridicule hands and worse players.

It takes away one of the essences of poker, opponent reading.

If you check out the April cash game thread over in the "cash games" section you will see that I made a horrible call recently as well. It happens to everyone. No one here is perfect. If they were they would be poker pros!

Rush has TON of variance...so to be down only 4/5 of a buyin is normal. On any given day I have swings of 4-5 buyins.

Yeh it seems pretty crazy, kind of thrown me off, but i have made a lot more bad calls today too. Have now played 3017 hands today, am down just over two buy ins since i started last night, however i should have those back as A-A got cracked by K-K pre flop all in for over a buy in (what ya gonna do??).

Even so, i feel like i have not played my best, ive felt like i was being bluffed or bet into light a bunch of times an made some bad calls, and some right reads with the light part, but got called anyways by low pairs etc dont really understand why thats been as ive not made it look bluffy, played just like i would if i had the nuts.

The other major factor has been just running into bigger hands with big hands, has happened a pretty uncanny amount of times, ive had to fold a lot of pots. I dont know for sure there not all just crazy idiots but has seemed pretty obvious they must keep getting huge boards with how things have gone down. I folded K-K to a 3bet full buy in shove, im guessing thats standard? they have aces too many times to call right? ive been 3bet a lot but has been by nits half the time so again, i have to be running into hands. For example i will have queens or jacks pre flop and i get 3-bet by one nit, and then another 4-bets, i mean, they have to have K-K or A-A right? feels like ive been ran over a bunch of times but i dont see how they cant have monsters.

Will review hands now, i think i need to be folding to river bets a lot more, will be interesting to see how many times people have bet the river against me and not had a very strong hand, i cant remember many.

Ok so just been through many of the hands. Ive noticed a trend of losing medium size pots when i have strong holding e.g A-K on low board, or 8-8 or 10-10 to A high board with the A being the only over. Whats happening is in these cases im getting small bets into me on every street e.g being milked, and for some reason ive payed too many off. First thing i need to change is not calling bets on the flop unless i have top pair or better, or a good draw. Even if i am being bluffed a lot, not calling will save me money. Second thing ive noticed is just what i thought, im calling river bets bad, which really goes from the first point, i shouldnt be involved after the flop in the first place. The third thing ive noticed is i need to be value betting A-A / K-K more when im an over to a low board, ive being trying to trap by shutting down after the flop, like i was c-betting A-K. Most of the time im up against 10-10 / J-J / Q-Q and have lost a lot of value with them being in check-call mode and me not betting into them.

Ive sat back down and increased my stack by another $3, i have over $15 at the table, should i generally bank the $10 dollars or no?

Finished playing over 3500 hands, just lost over a buy in, got stupid unlucky, guy min bets (i HATE min betters) on the button, i 3-bet with A-10s, he calls, i bet out big on the flop, he calls, i knew he wasnt strong and bet the turn big again, he calls for everything but $0.80, i shove him in on the river. He had A-9, caught two pair on the river...me done for the day

Have played 1041 hands so far today, have made 3 buy ins so far, and am slightly better off than when i started now, i could easily have finished $20 more yesterday but i feel like ive adjusted my game fairly well. I think another factor is tightening up a little more out of position, and also not cbeting as much because i seem to get re-raised a lot but will have to review later. Will probably only play another thousand today and then play another ftp tourney later. Ive played two already, finshed 10th and 49th out of 180 in sunday brawl sat qualifier. Really have not had anything to play with in either, went out with A-k in the last one.

Im thinking of giving it a go myself ... Wish me luck.

Good luck BigJamo

Only managed to get 1202 hands in and am going to call it good for today (will play ftp tourn later), im not counting weekends as days i have to play two thousand but dont want them to be complete off days either. Will review all hands again. I made one big mistake for sure when i had cowboys in the cut off, i raised 3x, button calls, flop comes 3-Q-J rainbow, i min bet (i know it's a good play as it confuses the hell out of me), hoping to get re-raised so i can instant shove/raise. I get called, turn comes another queen, i min bet, get raised, i call, and i check the river - what a complete moron play that is! as soon as i did it i was thinking it was totally stupid. Sure enough he checks down A-J, i should have made a big bluffy bet on the river, im sure i would have got a reluctent call. Otherwise, ive played better, playing pretty well, made some good calls and not so many bad ones.

Made another buy in so up four buy ins today, up one buy in total.

Just finshed up ftp tourny for main event sat, 90 seater, made final table, first one to get knocked out, three way all in pre flop, i had bullets against A-9 off and K-J off, A-9 made a flush. Me done for the day. Think i need to play tighter utg and +1 after reviewing hands, i think i should be mucking A-Q off here, will try limping A-Qs, see how that pans out tomorrow if i get to play. Have been watching a lot of poker after dark i downloaded in the past few days. Also have last years main event from start to finish to get through.

Update.

Didnt get to play much sunday and didnt play much more than a thousand hands yesterday although i played a lot of tournaments, the reason why was because ive had trouble with pocker tracker 3 and was losing some pots because i couldnt get the stats i wanted. I wanted to know how often players 3bet and cbet but i couldnt get the stats to show. When i played ftp tournaments i noticed i could click the stats under the player and i would get a grid to come up with all the info i needed. I must have messed things up in cash mode and felt like i would be pretty much giving away free money if i didnt stop to fix it before i start playing again. Think i have the info i need now so am about to fix it and start playing again. Used up most of my ftps trying to get entry into big tournaments, mainly just wanted to see what kind of level the players are at in each one. Got unlucky in some, miss steped in others but lost the bigger ones. Won entry into a main event seat qualify and then won entry in the daily dollar second time around. It was a 9 seater table with two qualifying and i seriously only played two hands. Went out nigh on straight away to pocket 10's with A-K in three way all in pot. I like the tournament though because you start with 3000 chips instead of 1500, and the blinds are every 10 minutes instead of 5 like a lot of the other big tournaments. Could definately be profitable. I told myself im not going to put any money into anything but $5 rush until things turn around so only going to use ftp points as entry but will try play it couple times a week.

Rush is unusual because it is difficult to play the player.Most times you are playing level one poker that is the cards before you only.

Players in the CO button and SB could be regarded as possibly gathering dead money or bluffing/stealing but with no fix on their style it is hard to decide this.

Ok so my computer got not one but two different viruses, i have not been able to get on internet, have been able to play poker, only on fulltilt though, cant get into pokerstars anymore and my computer keeps randomly playing audio from videos or adverts or something, i dont know what the hecks going on. Ive done a bunch of scans with different stuff an is showing everything is gone but yeh still acting up.

So as for how the rush has gone, it's gone very badly, i basically got a lot of bad beats playing the cash tables, i figured i should have been up 30-40, instead i was down 60, just got really unlucky a lot of times, players hitting sets of jacks shoving all in to my kings pre flop or calling all in on the flop with broadway draw and getting there against my set. Anyway i felt like it was pretty pointless me playing on, yeh the luck could turn around but i just didnt feel like i had the bankroll for it anymore with less than half of what i started with.

I decided i would give the $1 rush tournaments a go, the ones with 3600 (i think) max but only ever go 700 or so. Plan was play 5 of them, see what i think. Turns out there are some of the worsed players ever in those tournaments, and i mean, really stupid players. It's so easy to get a lot of them all in with a really low chance. However, ive done just that time after time after time, and they just keep on sucking out. Everytime it's coming up to the big money it's happened, they call with under pair, river a set, im out or crippled when i would have been top 5. Thats happened a lot of times, also a bunch of times ive had them all in with an overpair vs there top pair and wham, they have two pair on the turn. An the thing is, some times i could understand them calling, say if the top pair is a queen or a king and they have top kicker, that i might understand, but when they call 3xbb raise from under the gun with A-7s, and the flops 7 high with runner runner needed for a straight, why would you put all your chips in the middle when your so close to the big money with a healthy stack? i mean come on, if i have AA-88 your WAY behind, and of course i have AA. Ive been called with pocket 7's in that same point in the tournament from a similar stack size when ive 3bet shoved with AA under the gun. I dont know if they just know there gonna catch a set or there just plain stupid, i think it's the last one though.

Anyways despite being a big time fav to hit a lot of final table in good shape with up to $200+ for first ive only ended up hitting a couple in bad shape and have only just managed to keep my bankroll alive with a couple of decent cashes and a lot of small cashes. I have $20 left. That will end me playing the rush cash/tournaments for now as i feel i just dont have the bankroll for it. However i definately think the tournaments are potentially very profitable, i could easily have $500-600 right now it really has just been terrible beat after terrible beat all day long. Ive played badly from time to time but ive definately got better from day to day and will definately plan to play some rush tournaments again if i can get my bankroll up. The cash i felt didnt suit me as much, definately made more mistakes in that but again ran about bad as possible.

Ive played the daily dollar a few times also, which ive had no luck in, have not really hit any cards any time ive been in it, had it folded down to me with aces or kings on the blinds when i have and didnt feel like i was playing it well at first. Last couple times however ive definately got better, a lot of things have been starting to click with tournaments for me and i like my chances in any i enter now. A couple days ago i built my stack up to like 30,000 from the 3,000 you start with and i hit hardly any flops and the best hand id had till that point was A-Js, i think i got 5's, couple small pairs. I made a lot of good reads on people, ive always felt you can do that online and i was just getting everything spot on. I remember instantly folding pocket queens just before i went out, i instant folded them on the turn with a j-j high board and checked being last to act on the j-6-3 flop, not because i was trying to trap but because i was 100% sure i was beat by the way he couldnt hit the check button quick enough. I fold to the third players bet on the turn and sure enough he ends up showing jacks full of 6's. I was so annoyed with myself when i went all in with top pair from the blind on the turn, i though i was pushing someone off a draw but they floped the straight, i just couldnt believe i bet at all with 3 players out there and a bad kicker. One of the worsed plays ive ever made, 4 hours of perfect play goes to shit. NEVER doing that again.

Now im gonna be playing freerolls and probably micro limit holdem, ive downloaded a limit holdem dvd set. Just played the first of the freerolls, got knocked out with A-5 to my A-K pre flop all in on one (standard). On the other i played well, did make two mistakes but was very happy with how i played. I turned 1,500 chips into over 20,000 in about an hour, again without getting any big hands other than pocket aces on the big blind (of course it gets folded to me). Just playing a lot of position, making reads, picking up dead money etc Then patiently build my stack to 30,000 and sat on it till i won (top 250 go through to $1000 freeroll). One guy called a raise of over 100,000 chips with pocket queens, puting himself all in when he had over 100,000 himself, and there was 251 players left...

In my experience this only happened in freerolls and chepeast tournament, just be patience and wait at less 1hs before this people lose.

everyone gets bad beats stop moaning about it.
Rush variance is sick as well btw

I would have to be a cyborg not to moan about it, i know everybody has bad beats and i expect to get them but the amount ive had at the worsed possible times is not even close to what 'everybody' gets. I know thats poker and it's fine, but it's not a normal thing, fact is i have been very unlucky.
I appolagise for the rants.

Really ?
I lost over 50$ in 2 hours last week at rush pocker. My aces went to hell every time beat by sets shoving preflop , my kings bumped into aces, my sets were beat by flushes on the river. I could not win a hand even if my life depended on it. It is not something incredible. Just variace. Rush pocker is not something you play without a bankroll of 50 buy-ins or more. A bad strike and you are down quick. But also a hot run and you can double up your bankroll in no time. Just play tight postflop, value your sets, fluses, draws, and shove only with maded hands. Do not defend your blinds, steal when it is your turn , do not ivolve in multiway pots with Aces or Kings. Reraise an isolate. Call 1-2-3 BBs in early position with pocket pairs, suited connectors, Ax suited and when you hit value it. Do not slowplay even a little.