Whats up everyone? Sorry I haven't written in a while, I've been all over the place. I was in Cabo San Lucas for a week for Spring Break, which was great, and then I had my little brother Brian (bsup on Ultimatebet) visiting me for his Spring Break. So for about 16 days, I did not play much poker. It was good having a break from it, but I definitely missed playing at certain times.

Brian did, however, ask me to play some $50-100 nl while he was here, because he wanted to watch me play. He thinks that it is crazy that I could play for those stakes, and I sort of agree with him, because we do not come from a rich family or anything like that. Just a normal family who happens to have a son who likes to play poker for many thousands of dollars everyday. <READMORE>Typical situation, if you ask me. It was a pretty good 1 hour session for me, so I will share a few of the key hands that occured and give you some insight on my feelings towards cash games.

There were a few people that came in to play for a few hands and left right away, but the main players in the game were Mahatma, MagicPitch, Kluane and myself. The minimum buy in for the game is $2000, and the maximum buy in is $10,000. I don't like to buy in for the max, because if I were to lose, I would be extremely pissed off about losing 10k. I usually buy in for half of the max, so for the session I bought in for $5,000.

Now I don't want to toot my own horn, but I have to say that if someone wants to play poker at this level, they have to play with no fear, which is something that I do. In any cash game you are playing in, no matter the limits, you can not let the money involved effect your decisions or mentality. I had a bit of a problem with this when I first started playing bigger no limit cash games, but after a while I became more comfortable.

My brother was sitting next to me watching me play, freaking out half the times because he could not believe the plays I was making. He must have called me crazy 50 times during the 1 hour that I played, and I explained to him that it is impossible to win by waiting for great cards and great flops.

I will talk about a huge pot that came up in a little while that was between myself and MagicPitch. It was a funny moment, because after the hand was over, Brian was running around my room going crazy, and he said "How are you just sitting there like it's no big deal?" I told him to put his hand on my chest, because my heart wasn't beating hard at all. It's not that I'm not extremely happy when I win a huge pot or really upset when I lose a big pot, because I definitely am, but I have gotten to the point where I don’t flip out about anything anymore. When I am playing, I just stay focused on trying to make good decisions and win.

Later that day, when we were watching the University of Arizona basketball game and Salim Stoudamire hit the game winning shot with 1 second left, I was flipping out, jumping up and down. Brian put his hand on my chest then and was like, "You're heart is beating so fast I think you are gonna have a heart attack." The point is that being a winning poker player has a lot to do with controlling your emotions, and this is something that I have gotten extremely good at over the past few months. I get people telling me all the time that they took a bad beat and flipped out, breaking things in their house. In order to be a good poker player you have to be able to control your emotions and not let things get to you.

Now to the poker. This was a crazy session to say the least. I got off to a great start and was able to win a few small pots, getting my stack up to 8k or so relatively quickly. We were playing 3 handed at the time, and I was hitting a lot of flops, which is always nice when playing in a cash game. It's annoying to have to bluff all the time and just easier overall when the cards are doing the work for you.

I was at 11k when the following hand came up. I was dealt KK in the small blind, and the button folded. MagicPitch was in the big blind with about 21k in front of him. It isn't often you get dealt a hand as strong as KK in a 3 handed game, so I wanted to play a big pot if I could. I knew I could count on MP to raise if I limped in, because he is very aggressive preflop. I called the $100 big blind, and he quickly made it $300 to go. I had two options here: slow play with a call or reraise. Position is huge in poker, and I did not want to play a pot out of position with KK, just in case an ace flopped. Instead of making a small reraise which would have let him know that I had a monster, I overbet the pot, raising it to $1600. I wanted him to think that I was stealing the pot, when I was actually hoping he would reraise me. I also know that MP does not like to fold hands preflop. He called $1600 more and we saw a flop.

The flop was K J 4 with 2 spades. The flop could not have been much better for me. I did not know what MP had at this point. With a little less then $4000 in the pot, I bet out half the pot, $2000. He called me after a few seconds of deliberation. At this point I said outloud to my brother what I thought he had. I said he has JJ or AA. The turn brought the A. This was definitely an interesting card. I was a little bit worried that he had AA, but felt like he most likely had JJ. I also considered him having AK. Either way I looked at it, except for him having AA, this was a good card for me. With $8000 now in the pot, I bet $4200. He quickly went all in, putting me all in for my last $3600. Even if I thought he had AA, there was no way I could fold here, because I was getting over 7-1 on my money to call. I called, and the river was a harmless 7, and then the cards were revealed. MP showed JJ for 3 jacks, and my 3 kings took down the $23,534 pot.

My brother is the "cool" type and does not get excited or jumpy over too many things, but he was flipping out. I was sitting laid back in my chair like always and went on to the next hand, and I let him jump around yelling like a 4 year old for a few minutes. He told me to get up and leave with my $18,500 profit but I had only been playing for 20 minutes and wanted to keep playing. My stack was at $32,000 when Mahatma sat down about 10 minutes later, and I was on a ridiculous roll.

Mahatma and I aren't exactly friends. We bicker a decent amount when we play, but nothing too serious. He doesn't talk very often, and when he does, it is usually to tell me that I played a hand bad against him and got lucky or something along those lines. We have had civil conversations as well, and I think there is a mutual respect between us, because of some of the heads up battles that we have had over the past few months.

A big hand came up between the 2 of us that pretty much ended my session. We were playing 4 handed and I raised in 1st position with A4. This isn't a great hand, but considering the game situations, I felt it was a standard raising hand. I made it $350 and Mahatma called on the button. Both blinds folded, and we took a flop. I was trying to figure out what hand he might be holding, because it was unusual for him to just call behind me like that. He usually folds or reraises me, so I had no clue what he had. The flop came down 823, giving me a gutshot straightdraw, a flushdraw, and a straightflush draw. With about $800 in the pot, I bet out $450. He quickly made it $1600. I started to think and felt like he had 1010 or JJ. I did not think he would raise with a set and felt like he might even have some sort of lower flush draw. I figured if I reraised and put him to the test he would probably fold an overpair like 10s, but probably call with QQ or KK. He had 10k in front of him at the start of the hand, which also factored into my decision. It wasn't like he had 20k and could break me. I decided that if he did have an overpair and called all his money off, I would still have a great chance to win with any spade, a 5 for the straight, or an ace for a pair of aces. I reraised his $1600 bet to $7500, which basically put him all in, and he quickly went all in for his last few hundred, which meant bad news for me. A 2 paired the board on the turn and a blank hit the river. He showed a full house, 8's over 2's, and won a $20k pot off me.

At the end of the hand, I had $22,500 in front and decided to end my session up $17,500. Mahatma got the best of me that day, but winning $17,500 was fine with me. I would have rather had $42k in front after hitting a straight flush on the river, but oh well, thats poker. I was pleased that I won and that my brother got to watch me play some serious and crazy poker. I haven't played the $50-100 too much since that session. I have been playing more sit and go’s and tournaments, because there is less stress involved. I like playing for high stakes, but I am trying to finish up school well and not let poker take up too much time or stress me out too much. A lot of people have asked me to blog about heads up strategy and I told people I would, and I still promise that I will soon. I'm gonna get some sleep, but I hope everyone has a great week on and off the tables. Feel free to email me any questions or just to chat. Peeeeeeaaaaaaccccceeeeee.

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