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Poker

$2500 Spin & Go win on PokerStars

I spun my biggest Spin & Go ever on stream last week!

I felt so lucky and happy to spin and win that $2,500. It was a tough game and I definitely had to have things go in my favor to win it! I feel extremely fortunate to spin my first 25x in my highest buy-in, as well. I had added $30s to my rotation because Spin traffic has been really slow during WCOOP, so I only had a 35%-ish chance to spin the big one at $100s! Talk about lucky.

Poker went badly last month and wasn’t going so great to start September, but I’m definitely on a mini upswing this past week. I hope it continues through until the end of the month! Twitch streaming has also been a bit up and down because of WCOOP. Overall I can’t complain, though. It’s been incredibly fun and rewarding, and my viewers are fantastic. If you watch my Twitch stream, thank you so much for your support! If you don’t but you would like to start, here’s my channel: twitch.tv/courtiebee.

September 20, 2015 by

Projects everywhere! Life is busy and awesome!

It’s been a while! I’ve been so busy with other things lately and, as a result my blog here has been sooo neglected. But SO much is happening right now. It’s so exciting!!!

The biggest thing I did recently was leave the $200 hyper heads-up division this past month. This was an extremely difficult decision for me and one that took me months to make.

I decided to leave mostly because of my Twitch stream. It’s not easy to stream heads-up because of the waiting times in between games (have to sit in lobbies and wait for people to sit). It’s also made more difficult by the fact that triers can sit me at any time while I’m in the lobbies. I like playing regs, but I don’t wish to play them live on stream. Not only is it ten times more difficult to play poker while streaming, I also don’t want the general public to know all my reg ranges.

For these reasons, I decided to leave. It was a very sad day for me, to be completely honest. I worked on my hyper HU game A LOT over the past year, and I had gotten infinitely better as a result. It was just time, though. I have new goals, and heads-up just wasn’t fitting in.

Most of the time I spend playing poker these days is on stream. I’m really loving Twitch! It’s fun to interact with people and it really motivates me to play longer hours. It is distracting and therefore it forces me to play around 50% of the tables I would normally play, but I really think it is worth it because I enjoy poker so much more this way. If you want to watch me play, you can find me at twitch.tv/courtiebee. I stream every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, as well as some Sundays.

courtiebee twitch

I will say that streaming live is a lot harder than I thought it would be. The number of mistakes I’ve made while live on Twitch is actually quite staggering, haha. And people are often VERY quick to jump on mistakes. For example, the other day I accidentally folded a straight flush draw to a flop jam. I got absolutely BERATED by one guy in chat for doing this. He told me couldn’t understand how I was ever in the $200 division and he couldn’t understand how I could possibly be a pro.

There’s a lot of reasons for making mistakes on stream. The main reason is that I am simply more distracted and much more likely to make careless mistakes. I’ve checked back straights on the river due to being distracted and not realizing I had the nuts. I’ve incorrectly said my opponent donk bet when he was, in fact, in position. In the case of the straight flush draw, I didn’t realize he had a straight draw and completely neglected to see half my outs.

Sometimes the mistakes are inexplicable. I’ll be chatting away, see my hand, know EXACTLY what I have, but still do something stupid. And then I’ll think about it later and say, wtf, why did I do that? I’ll also just simply run out of time to make decisions because I’m spending too much time talking. I’ve timed out of huge pocket pairs and top pair situations too many times to count.

The good thing is that my mistakes are getting fewer and that streaming is getting easier. Like all things that require practice, I know it’s just going to take time. The experienced Twitch streamers can all play tons of tables and chat with their viewers like it’s walk in the park. I hope that soon I will be there too!

I’ve been playing mostly spin & go’s on stream, although lately I’ve also been playing MTTs. I have work to do in both formats, since both games are slightly different from HU SnGs. Like streaming, slowly but surely I’ll get better!

Life is so busy because my husband and I also launched a DFS website! It’s called Stack & Fade and it’s all about news and community. We have a daily fantasy sports forum for discussions and we’re really hoping to build the best DFS community around! If you have any interest in daily fantasy sports or you want to learn about it, please visit the site and have a look.

I’m definitely going to start updating this blog on a more regular basis. I have a lot of stuff to do, including setting up more social media and my YouTube. But it’s all coming. I’m so excited!

P.S. I feel so much better this year. Infinitely better. I think I’m overdoing projects slightly because I feel like I have to make up for lost time. But that’s the thing: I don’t want to waste this time that I have feeling good. I’ve learned that life is precious, gotta gogogo while you can.

August 19, 2015 by

twitching it up

I first heard about Twitch thanks to the fact I follow a couple Magic: the Gathering players on Twitter. I’d never really watched it, but I knew they streamed, and I wondered whether it would be a good idea for me to stream Magic. I’m not very good at Magic, though, so I gave up on that idea and forgot about it.

Poker then started to get pretty popular on Twitch, so I started paying more attention. My friend Bryan started to stream, and I really enjoyed watching him play poker and interact with his viewers. A different friend suggested that I stream, too, so I decided to give it a try.

I’ve done two short test streams and one 2 hr stream so far. I didn’t think streaming would be easy, but it’s definitely harder than I thought it would be! Playing poker and talking and reading chat all at the same time has definitely been a challenge. It’s been pretty fun, though, so I’ll probably keep at it for a bit more and hopefully it will get easier 😉

My stream can be found at twitch.tv/courtiebee if you are interested in watching. I currently play up to $200 hyper HUs and $60 spins on stream. Action has been pretty terrible lately so I haven’t been playing as much HU as I would like to, but I guess that’s just to be expected during the summer.

I haven’t quite decided on my streaming schedule yet, so it’s best to just following my Twitter to find out when I’m streaming.

Oh and if you decide to watch, be nice. I’m a huge Twitch noob 😛 And say hi!

June 21, 2015 by

lupus and poker

So glad it’s June! I had my worst poker month (dollar-wise) ever in May. I guess the good thing is that it came after my best poker month ever in April (since playing HU). Unfortunately, both months pretty much cancelled out and I’m around break even playing poker this year. Yawn.

Unsurprisingly, I haven’t played a lot of games so far in 2014. The reason I was able to have my best/worst months despite lack of volume was that I raised my average buy-in due to playing heads-up turbos in addition to hypers. Last month I ran hot at my highest buy-in turbos and this month I ran bad. I also ran bad at everything else I played this month, so there’s also that 😛 Overall I ran 40 average buy-ins below EV which is pretty standard but still pretty annoying.

I’ve run bad all year which has been easy to do since I haven’t played many games. It honestly really sucks being unable to play volume because downswings seem to last forever. I have to just keep telling myself that this is the way it is while I’m sick and unable to put in the hours.

Due to my currently unstable medications, I’m not exactly sure when things will turn around and I’ll be able to put in more hours of poker. I’m really hoping it’ll be sooner than later, although I probably shouldn’t expect it as long as I’m tapering off prednisone. I hope that sometime in the next few months I’ll at least figure out which medication my liver and body can handle. And then hopefully I get off prednisone by the end of the year.

In addition to rust and variance and maintaining skill, I’ve also had to deal with the realization that I possibly can’t achieve what I wanted to achieve in poker before I got sick. Poker has been my life the past however many years. It’s been the only thing I’ve worked on, and it’s been a lot of time and effort to get to the stakes I’m at today.

It’s pretty depressing to realize that because of lupus and the fact that I can no longer put full time hours into the game, I probably can’t move up in stakes like I had wanted to last year. Last year I was playing some $300 HU hypers, but this year I definitely can’t do that. Moving up takes a lot of hours, hours that I don’t have right now.

I don’t think this will always be the case, but for now it definitely is. Thankfully I do well at the stakes I’m at now and I’ve worked pretty hard to ensure that I remain at the top of my game. At least if I keep doing that, I might have the option to pick up where I left off once my medication is figured out and my body becomes stable.

June 2, 2014 by

quick poker update

I wasn’t able to play as much poker as I would have liked in February due to tons of doctor appointments and blood tests. I also found out that I can’t really plan to play poker on any given day. I tried to do that a couple times and on those days I just randomly felt like crap, so wasn’t able to play poker after all. I guess in general I’m learning that I can’t really predict my life at all right now and I just gotta go with the flow.

The days that I did play seemed go to pretty well though. I really limited my tables because at first I was definitely rusty. This improved as the month went on.

While I was a little bit rusty when it came to the actual poker, it was more the quickness of my decisions that was most rusty. I knew what to do in most spots but it took a bit longer than before to figure it out. This improved as I played more and now I think it’s almost back to normal.

My discipline was also worse at the start of the month than at the end. At the start I was making calls that I knew I shouldn’t make but I wanted to call because I just wanted to see that I was right. It’s the most donk thing ever and I’m pretty sure I’ve fixed it by now, but you never know when it will come back…

I also had some tilt issues after I wrote that “lupus cured my tilt” post. I ran extremely bad in February, probably the worst I’ve ever run since starting hypers. Bad timing for sure. I got better at handling it as the month went on, though, and I really do think my entire tilt control is much better than pre-lupus days.

My EV for the month was really good and I’m really happy with how I’m playing right now. I think I’m improved from November, which is a great sign. If I can keep feeling decent, I should eventually be able to increase my volume, ride out the variance, and actually make some money.

March 3, 2014 by

If you have tilt problems, consider getting lupus :)

I think lupus might have killed tilt.

I just played a reg for an hour and ran about as bad as I’ve ever run. All sorts of shenanigans happened, like losing 3 hands in 3 hands, losing with 2nd nut flush to a boat, blah blah who cares. Finished with positive EV, though, and didn’t tilt at all. Actually kinda had fun, it’s been a while since I got to play a reg for longer than one game.

I also noticed less tilt when I was playing Magic (the Gathering, yes I know, huge nerd. It’s awesome btw) when I wasn’t feeling well enough to play poker but wanted to play a game. Magic has a lot of variance and when I was playing after I got diagnosed, I found that running bad didn’t really bother me anymore.

Obviously I need more sample and maybe this is just a novelty, but that would be so sweet if it were actually the case. I’m pretty sure I might get rich 😉

February 10, 2014 by

slow going

I finally strung two days of poker together! I played 8 hours between yesterday and today. Not exactly impressive numbers but it’s really good considering I’ve played less than 30 hours all month.

I didn’t feel like playing at all today but some reg that I had to put on auto-sit was in the lobbies, and it motivated me to click some buttons. That’s kinda nice that a reg war would cause me to play poker when I might otherwise not have done so.

I’ve mostly played regs this month. There are so many regs in the games lately that it’s sooo slow going if I don’t play regs. A lot of players add lower stakes instead but for the most part I prefer playing regs instead. It’s more variance, but I enjoy the competition and it gets me thinking in ways playing just fish wouldn’t.

October 28, 2013 by

trying to get back

Long time no write. I need to stop writing that, although the only way to do it is to start posting again. And to start posting again, I need to start playing again.

I played a few hours over this past weekend because I needed to clear my WCOOP bonus on PokerStars before it expired. I was worried that I’d need to put in a bunch of hours to do it because action has been bad due to the number of regs, but luckily for me I got to rematch a couple regs at $200s and it was cleared in no time.

I played four straight hours on Sunday and was really happy with how it went. I ran really badly for most of the session, getting my face coolered off for like 100 games, but I felt really good the entire time. I didn’t tilt and I didn’t feel frustrated. I don’t know why I was in such a good place that particular day, but if I can keep controlling myself like that, poker is going to be awesome.

I felt very tired after both my sessions this past weekend, partly because I had no breaks and was playing regs, and partly because I’m out of practice. I have a busy week, but I’m looking forward to playing again and will try to squeeze in some hours.

I’m back! I hope?

October 8, 2013 by

long time no write

I went away for the week of Canada Day to visit friends. It was relaxing and I had a great time, and it was a nice break from life at home.

I considered going to WSOP to play the Main Event, but I felt like the $10k buy-in would serve me better in my bankroll for HU SnGs at this point in time. I could have sold some action, but I make more money staying at home to play online in that case. Hopefully I’m there next year!

I also went to the PokerStars VIP party in Vancouver. I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was. I’ll be posting a short trip report on PokerListings soon in case you missed it and want to see what it was like.

I haven’t played much poker since coming back from my short vacation yet this month. The hours I have played have mostly been late afternoon and evening, which have been a lot slower than usual. I imagine the summer months have something to do with it.

I’m doing what I can to enable myself to play longer days. I have to start earlier than I’ve been starting to get quality hours in. My biggest problem is always getting going in the morning; usually when I start playing, I am happy to keep playing. So ensuring that I have food to eat first thing in the morning and other such things will help get me going faster. That’s the plan at least.

July 16, 2013 by

reg battles

I’m having a good week. I’m sleeping a lot later than I should be every day, but I physically feel much better than I did last week or the week before.

Obviously this has helped me get back on track with poker. I’m having a bit of a battle with a $200 reg on PokerStars. I originally started sitting him after we simultaneously sat a lobby one day and I saw that he has some pretty big leaks.

He obliged me and rematched me when I sat him. He then got pissy in chat when I quit my session for the night because he said I was hit and running. I told him not to worry, that I would be happy to play him again in the future.

We played again a few days later and he told me I’m “sat for life” for all my hit and runs. For what it’s worth, I’m up several thousand versus him, so obviously when I quit I’m going to up more often than I’m down. This simple logic isn’t easy for him to understand, though, so apparently I’m sat for life 🙂

The point of this story is to explain the background for this thread:

2p2 HU4rollz

Since I posted this thread, he hasn’t said a word in chat. He has continued to sit me, though. In fact, now he sit/declines me in an effort to ensure I don’t get fish. What he doesn’t understand is that I WANT to play him.

I feel like I’ve gotten much better at poker this past week thanks, in part, to these games. It’s been a great exercise in adjusting to a “competent” opponent. I’m running very good against him, but I am happy with how I’m playing and my EV ROI is high.

I haven’t played as many hours as I would have liked so far this week, but there’s still a couple more days to go. Hopefully I can get my sleeping back on track and rack up a bunch more hours before the week is over.

June 27, 2013 by