The experiment
Mar. 3rd, 2008 | 04:06 pm
I just attended ATLARGE this past weekend. For those that don't know, ATLARGE is the ATLantic city Area Rec Gambling Excursion. It's one of the many annual events that grew from the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup (RGP). If you want to talk to some of the brightest minds in the poker world, the RGP events are where you should go. They are a lot of fun, but if you pay attention and try to talk to the other RGPers you'll be amazed at the wealth of knowledge concentrated into this small group. There's nowhere else that I know of where you can play against some of the best poker players in the world and when the hand is over ask them how you should have played the hand or why they made a particular bet that they made.
During the trip I found out that a lot more people were apparently reading this blog than I had thought, so I'm going to make an effort to update it more often. Now for the reason for the lack of updates in the past month... my grand experiment is officially over. My bankroll is still intact and I'm still hoping to enter the Main Event at the WSOP this year, but that will largely depend on satellites.
Towards the middle/end of January I figured out that to have a good shot at making my goal I would have to play X number of hours per night. The problem was, a lot of times I put my girls to bed and realized that I really didn't WANT to play X number of hours that night. At that point poker was starting to turn into a chore. Not only was I not enjoying it as much, but I started to play poorly because of it. So, for that reason I'm "officially" calling off my experiment, but I still have every intention of building my bankroll and playing in satellites to try to make it into the WSOP.
ATLARGE was a lot of fun and it was great seeing so many good friends - and apparently at least one "arch nemeses", Maverick - no not that Maverick, the fun one :)
I played in all three of the official ATLARGE tournaments, but didn't get a cashin any of them. The Sunday Seven Stud, Eight or Better tournament was the closest I came, getting knocked out in 11th (maybe 10th?) place. It paid 5 places. I did manage a cash in the Taj 6:15pm Saturday night deep-stack tournament (the only non-ATLARGE tournament that I played), but just barely. Still, it gave me a little confidence about playing in that kind of a structure.
I didn't play any serious poker, mostly sticking to the pink game ($7.50-15.00 limits, played with pink $2.50 chips), which was being spread as 2-way Hold'em and Omaha Hi/Low this year. In other words, every 1/2 hour when the dealer changed they changed the game between Limit Hold'em and Limit Omaha Eight or Better. Still, despite dropping $80 in a Chinese Poker game I paid for the trip, including a couple pricey meals. As for the Chinese Poker, while I know that Jerrod is about 100 times more skilled than I am, he's also a complete luckbox. :)
I also played Binglaha for my first time ever. A quick description of Binglaha: the game is Omaha except that after the betting on the flop a die is rolled. If the die comes up 1, 2, or 3 the hand is played Hi/Low. If the die is 4, 5, or 6 it's Hi only. Despite a tough lineup I pulled out a win, so I can now honestly say that I am a lifetime winner at Binglaha. I may have to retire from the game to keep that record in place.
To everyone that I saw at ATLARGE, is was a great weekend as always and I'm already looking forward to next year.
During the trip I found out that a lot more people were apparently reading this blog than I had thought, so I'm going to make an effort to update it more often. Now for the reason for the lack of updates in the past month... my grand experiment is officially over. My bankroll is still intact and I'm still hoping to enter the Main Event at the WSOP this year, but that will largely depend on satellites.
Towards the middle/end of January I figured out that to have a good shot at making my goal I would have to play X number of hours per night. The problem was, a lot of times I put my girls to bed and realized that I really didn't WANT to play X number of hours that night. At that point poker was starting to turn into a chore. Not only was I not enjoying it as much, but I started to play poorly because of it. So, for that reason I'm "officially" calling off my experiment, but I still have every intention of building my bankroll and playing in satellites to try to make it into the WSOP.
ATLARGE was a lot of fun and it was great seeing so many good friends - and apparently at least one "arch nemeses", Maverick - no not that Maverick, the fun one :)
I played in all three of the official ATLARGE tournaments, but didn't get a cashin any of them. The Sunday Seven Stud, Eight or Better tournament was the closest I came, getting knocked out in 11th (maybe 10th?) place. It paid 5 places. I did manage a cash in the Taj 6:15pm Saturday night deep-stack tournament (the only non-ATLARGE tournament that I played), but just barely. Still, it gave me a little confidence about playing in that kind of a structure.
I didn't play any serious poker, mostly sticking to the pink game ($7.50-15.00 limits, played with pink $2.50 chips), which was being spread as 2-way Hold'em and Omaha Hi/Low this year. In other words, every 1/2 hour when the dealer changed they changed the game between Limit Hold'em and Limit Omaha Eight or Better. Still, despite dropping $80 in a Chinese Poker game I paid for the trip, including a couple pricey meals. As for the Chinese Poker, while I know that Jerrod is about 100 times more skilled than I am, he's also a complete luckbox. :)
I also played Binglaha for my first time ever. A quick description of Binglaha: the game is Omaha except that after the betting on the flop a die is rolled. If the die comes up 1, 2, or 3 the hand is played Hi/Low. If the die is 4, 5, or 6 it's Hi only. Despite a tough lineup I pulled out a win, so I can now honestly say that I am a lifetime winner at Binglaha. I may have to retire from the game to keep that record in place.
To everyone that I saw at ATLARGE, is was a great weekend as always and I'm already looking forward to next year.
Link | Leave a comment {1} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
No, I'm not dead
Jan. 11th, 2008 | 10:15 am
Sorry about the lack of updates. The holidays kept me pretty busy, and I didn't play much and now the new year has brought a lot of new work for me.
I did play in a couple of $20 SnGs a couple nights ago and my lack of play over the past few weeks really showed. I made some horrendous mistakes and didn't cash in either of them. I'll try to play in a couple more tonight and see if I can't turn that around and hopefully get some hand histories that I can post up here for analysis.
Link | Leave a comment {1} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Poker tells
Dec. 14th, 2007 | 11:00 am
mood: 
confused
I'm trying to decide on the next poker book to move to after finishing the Dan Harrington series and I've decided that I could use some work on recognising tells. I read Caro's Book of Poker Tells years ago and thought it was ok, but not great. Searching for poker tells on Amazon.com returned a decent sized list of texts, but I thought I'd ask everyone here for their opinion if they've read any good books on the subject. It doesn't have to necessarily be a text specific to poker - books on body language which could be applied would be ok too.
I think that I'm pretty good at reading hands based on betting patterns and identifying specific betting patterns of individuals, but I'm lacking in the physical tells area.
So, any suggestions?
I think that I'm pretty good at reading hands based on betting patterns and identifying specific betting patterns of individuals, but I'm lacking in the physical tells area.
So, any suggestions?
Link | Leave a comment {3} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Sometimes having the best hand isn't enough
Dec. 12th, 2007 | 03:22 pm
It's been pretty uneventful poker-wise for me for the past week and a half since my win down in A.C. Last night I played in a couple 180-man $20 tournaments on PokerStars.
In the first tournament I managed to get my chips allin very early with QQ on a 9-high, ragged looking board and my opponent's A9 hit an Ace on the river to eliminate me. I didn't feel too bad about that one.
In the second tournament though I lost patience, which isn't good. I had about 5 or 6 good starting hands in the first two levels and every single one I had to lay down after a flop that completely missed me or after someone bet big once the board got scary (for example, my AA on a 4-flush, 4-straight board when someone went allin on the river). I was starting to think that the other players had pegged me for a weak player since every time I came in for a raise I laid the hand down once the action got heavy. When a somewhat aggressive player went up against me and my KQ we saw a flop of AQx. He raised me and out of frustration I pushed allin. He called with his A7 (x was not a 7) and I got no help. IGHN. I'm going to try to work on avoiding those emotional plays in the future. It's normally not a problem for me, so hopefully that will just serve as a little reminder for me and it won't happen again.
As to the title of this entry, it refers to something that happened in the side games. I mostly just never got any hands. If I raised preflop with AK then I would flop nothing and get check-raised if I made a continuation bet. I did finally manage to get two big hands though. In the first I had KK and after reraising preflop the flop came out 9-high. My opponent bet out and I reraised, which he called. I bet the turn and he took a long time before finally calling. I was wondering if he might have hit a set with a small pair and was worried about me having 99, but I figured that there was at least as much chance that he was on QQ or JJ. I checked down the river (which put 4 to a straight on the board) and my opponent showed the other two kings. I ended up losing money on the hand because of the rake.
In the second hand I had KJs and flopped top two pair. Ended up allin with my opponent by the river and he had KJ as well. At least in this one a third player saw the flop. So, my two biggest hands and I think I barely broke even on them.
In other news, the WSOP 2008 schedule has been released. Looks interesting. Some more non-holdem and non-no limit $10,000 events in there. The mixed event on June 4th looks interesting too. They even have a $10,000 heads-up event this year. There's a maximum of 256 players for that event, so I'm interested to see how quickly that fills up.
Good luck to everyone out there, and a Happy Hanukah to everyone who celebrates it.
In the first tournament I managed to get my chips allin very early with QQ on a 9-high, ragged looking board and my opponent's A9 hit an Ace on the river to eliminate me. I didn't feel too bad about that one.
In the second tournament though I lost patience, which isn't good. I had about 5 or 6 good starting hands in the first two levels and every single one I had to lay down after a flop that completely missed me or after someone bet big once the board got scary (for example, my AA on a 4-flush, 4-straight board when someone went allin on the river). I was starting to think that the other players had pegged me for a weak player since every time I came in for a raise I laid the hand down once the action got heavy. When a somewhat aggressive player went up against me and my KQ we saw a flop of AQx. He raised me and out of frustration I pushed allin. He called with his A7 (x was not a 7) and I got no help. IGHN. I'm going to try to work on avoiding those emotional plays in the future. It's normally not a problem for me, so hopefully that will just serve as a little reminder for me and it won't happen again.
As to the title of this entry, it refers to something that happened in the side games. I mostly just never got any hands. If I raised preflop with AK then I would flop nothing and get check-raised if I made a continuation bet. I did finally manage to get two big hands though. In the first I had KK and after reraising preflop the flop came out 9-high. My opponent bet out and I reraised, which he called. I bet the turn and he took a long time before finally calling. I was wondering if he might have hit a set with a small pair and was worried about me having 99, but I figured that there was at least as much chance that he was on QQ or JJ. I checked down the river (which put 4 to a straight on the board) and my opponent showed the other two kings. I ended up losing money on the hand because of the rake.
In the second hand I had KJs and flopped top two pair. Ended up allin with my opponent by the river and he had KJ as well. At least in this one a third player saw the flop. So, my two biggest hands and I think I barely broke even on them.
In other news, the WSOP 2008 schedule has been released. Looks interesting. Some more non-holdem and non-no limit $10,000 events in there. The mixed event on June 4th looks interesting too. They even have a $10,000 heads-up event this year. There's a maximum of 256 players for that event, so I'm interested to see how quickly that fills up.
Good luck to everyone out there, and a Happy Hanukah to everyone who celebrates it.
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Borgata=Good, Taj=Bad
Dec. 3rd, 2007 | 10:05 am
Ok, so this isn't an actual endorsement or anything, but as some of you know I went down to Atlantic City this past weekend to play some of the Trump Classic events. I took Friday off from work and after dropping my girls off at school I headed down in time to catch the 11:15am $500 + 50 NLHE tournament at the Taj Mahal. I got there about 20 minutes early, paid my entrance fee, and asked how many were signed up so far. Turned out to only be 74 entrants in the end, which I thought was rather disappointing.
I ran into ActionBob, who decided to skip the poorly attended Taj event to go play in one of the regular weekly tournaments at the Borgata. I was already signed up though, so I was there to stay.
The tournament was pretty uneventful. I had a long string of nothing. On the few ocassions that I did get a good starting hand, it was folded around when I raised preflop. I tried loosening up a bit, in case the table had pegged me for being too tight, but I still was unable to win any decent sized pots. Eventually the blinds caught up with me and after a couple missed flops I was suddenly short-stacked. I finally got called down by A8o when I pushed preflop with AQs and an 8 hit with no Q on the board. IGHN.
Although I wasn't having a lot of luck, I also wasn't too crazy about my play. I had been up late the night before, and I think that may have been affecting my concentration. After checking into my room at the Tropicana I took a nap then headed to the Borgata for their 6pm $500 + 50 NLHE tournament.
ActionBob was playing in this one as well. There turned out to only be about 70 people entered, but I didn't mind as much here since this was just a regular weekly tournament, so I didn't have the same expectations as I did for the Trump Classic event.
This tournament started out a little slow as well. After a couple levels (30 minute levels), I was still pretty much at the same starting stack. I picked up a few medium sized pots where I raised preflop and then made a continuation bet after the flop, but I still didn't like my stack. Then I had the following string of hands back to back: AA, AK, AQs, AJ. I reraised preflop with AA and took down a good sized pot. The AK won me the blinds and antes, the AQs won me the raised pot on the flop, and the AJ won me the blinds and antes again. Now I was suddenly one of the top 3 or 4 stacks at the table and we were all at about the same - 25K-30K. That nice jump in stack size was perfect considering the hand that came up shortly after that...
Within an orbit of that run I was dealt KQ UTG. Normally I'll either throw this hand away UTG if the table is seeing a lot of preflop raising or put in a raise if I think I can bully a bit. This time I decided to limp. I normally won't use this hand as one to disguise my play for various reasons (it's dangerous to play out of position, limping with it doesn't necessarily disguide it, etc.), but I wanted to play it cheaply if I could. Although the table as a whole wasn't overly aggressive, a player two to my left was raising a bit. Ended up being a 5-way hand with no preflop raise, including the aggressize player. The flop was a beautiful JhTc9c, giving me the nuts. The blinds checked and despite the 5-way action and possible flush draw I thought that there was a reasonable chance that the aggressive player would take a shot at the pot. I was wrong, but the late position player in the hand put in a sizable bet. Then, the SB went allin! He was one of the other large stacks at the table and had me barely covered, so I called allin. The late position player then called allin with that look of, "I know I'm losing, but the pot is just too big." He was the other big stack at the table. The SB flipped up Q8s for a smaller flopped straight, and the late position player turned up JT for a flopped top two pair. Neither of them got any help and I was suddenly the biggest stack in the tournament by a big margin. With 24 players left I had about 1/7th of the chips in play.
I did a bit of bullying after that, but not as much as I would have hoped. A lot of hands ended up with an allin player preflop before I could even try to steal the blinds. I picked off a couple of short stacks, but for the most part my stack just stayed where it was while a couple other people caught up a little bit. When we went down to 2 tables I was still at just over 100K in chips, while another player at the table had a bit over 80K in chips. He was also to my left and didn't seem to be afraid to go up against me (either that or he was catching some monster hands). Then I took a pretty big hit. I was in the BB with AQ and after it was folded around to the button, he put in a raise to 14K (blinds were 1500-3000, with an ante. I pushed allin (he had about 45K) and got the insta-call. Turns out he had AA. D'oh! No help for me and I was back down to just above an average stack size with about 55K.
The blinds kept rising and I wasn't winning any pots - not even blind steals. I soon found myself short-stacked with about 30K in chips and noone was getting knocked out. The tournament paid to 9 places and I was worried about not making it after having such a big stack size advantage earlier. Luckily I doubled up when I went allin with AQ again, only this time it was good against a weaker ace (A9 I think). The allin was from a short-stack in a steal position, so I had a good chance of being ahead and I was. Eventually (after what seemed an eternity) we made it down to the final table and each chipped in $20 for 10th place. I was still one of the short stacks at the table, so it seemed like a good deal to me :)
From that point on it was mostly preflop poker. I was able to maneuver my way through, avoiding unnecessary allins while stealing the blinds and antes whenever I thought I had a good chance at it. We had one brief flare up when a short-stack went allin, the chip leader called in the SB, then the BB (the second largest stack) raised allin. The SB complained about the "god damned internet players" and was pretty annoyed that the BB didn't just call to try to eliminate a player. The BB had AJo and it held up, which made it all blow over pretty quickly. I'm not sure what I think of the play. The difference in places in where we were was only about $400, so if the BB knew that the SB was going to fold (which I think he can be fairly sure of even if it's not 100%) then there could be an argument for trying to grow his stack rather than worrying about moving up one more spot. On the other hand, he's increasing the risk of tripling a player up, which will take even a short-stack to a dangerous size at this point.Of course, the conventional wisdom seems to be to try to move up that one spot. What do others think?
In the end, I held on until 4th place. I got AQ vs. AK and didn't get any help. Fourth place was enough to make it a profitable weekend though.
This is getting long, so I'm going to make the rest brief... I played the next morning in the $740 + 60 NLHE tournament at the Taj. I didn't hit a single flop and finally decided to push back at one of the table bullies when I flopped the nut flush draw with my KhJc (Ah on the suited board). Turns out that it's difficult to push the big stack out of a pot when he flops the actual flush. No more hearts for me and I'm done.
Got some lunch at Ri Ra (Irish pub at the Tropicana) and went to see Beowulf at the IMAX there. Had a freeroll on the movie when I walked up and a woman asked if I was about to buy a ticket, then handed me one when I said, "Yes". Someone from their group didn't show up or something after they got some tickets comped to them. The movie was pretty good and the 3D effects were excellent. Much better than what I remembered when wearing those red and blue glasses to the theater as a kid. I think pseudo-naked, 3D virtual Angelina Jolie can probably make just about any movie good. If only they had finally invented Feel-O-Vision(c). Oh well.
I ran into ActionBob, who decided to skip the poorly attended Taj event to go play in one of the regular weekly tournaments at the Borgata. I was already signed up though, so I was there to stay.
The tournament was pretty uneventful. I had a long string of nothing. On the few ocassions that I did get a good starting hand, it was folded around when I raised preflop. I tried loosening up a bit, in case the table had pegged me for being too tight, but I still was unable to win any decent sized pots. Eventually the blinds caught up with me and after a couple missed flops I was suddenly short-stacked. I finally got called down by A8o when I pushed preflop with AQs and an 8 hit with no Q on the board. IGHN.
Although I wasn't having a lot of luck, I also wasn't too crazy about my play. I had been up late the night before, and I think that may have been affecting my concentration. After checking into my room at the Tropicana I took a nap then headed to the Borgata for their 6pm $500 + 50 NLHE tournament.
ActionBob was playing in this one as well. There turned out to only be about 70 people entered, but I didn't mind as much here since this was just a regular weekly tournament, so I didn't have the same expectations as I did for the Trump Classic event.
This tournament started out a little slow as well. After a couple levels (30 minute levels), I was still pretty much at the same starting stack. I picked up a few medium sized pots where I raised preflop and then made a continuation bet after the flop, but I still didn't like my stack. Then I had the following string of hands back to back: AA, AK, AQs, AJ. I reraised preflop with AA and took down a good sized pot. The AK won me the blinds and antes, the AQs won me the raised pot on the flop, and the AJ won me the blinds and antes again. Now I was suddenly one of the top 3 or 4 stacks at the table and we were all at about the same - 25K-30K. That nice jump in stack size was perfect considering the hand that came up shortly after that...
Within an orbit of that run I was dealt KQ UTG. Normally I'll either throw this hand away UTG if the table is seeing a lot of preflop raising or put in a raise if I think I can bully a bit. This time I decided to limp. I normally won't use this hand as one to disguise my play for various reasons (it's dangerous to play out of position, limping with it doesn't necessarily disguide it, etc.), but I wanted to play it cheaply if I could. Although the table as a whole wasn't overly aggressive, a player two to my left was raising a bit. Ended up being a 5-way hand with no preflop raise, including the aggressize player. The flop was a beautiful JhTc9c, giving me the nuts. The blinds checked and despite the 5-way action and possible flush draw I thought that there was a reasonable chance that the aggressive player would take a shot at the pot. I was wrong, but the late position player in the hand put in a sizable bet. Then, the SB went allin! He was one of the other large stacks at the table and had me barely covered, so I called allin. The late position player then called allin with that look of, "I know I'm losing, but the pot is just too big." He was the other big stack at the table. The SB flipped up Q8s for a smaller flopped straight, and the late position player turned up JT for a flopped top two pair. Neither of them got any help and I was suddenly the biggest stack in the tournament by a big margin. With 24 players left I had about 1/7th of the chips in play.
I did a bit of bullying after that, but not as much as I would have hoped. A lot of hands ended up with an allin player preflop before I could even try to steal the blinds. I picked off a couple of short stacks, but for the most part my stack just stayed where it was while a couple other people caught up a little bit. When we went down to 2 tables I was still at just over 100K in chips, while another player at the table had a bit over 80K in chips. He was also to my left and didn't seem to be afraid to go up against me (either that or he was catching some monster hands). Then I took a pretty big hit. I was in the BB with AQ and after it was folded around to the button, he put in a raise to 14K (blinds were 1500-3000, with an ante. I pushed allin (he had about 45K) and got the insta-call. Turns out he had AA. D'oh! No help for me and I was back down to just above an average stack size with about 55K.
The blinds kept rising and I wasn't winning any pots - not even blind steals. I soon found myself short-stacked with about 30K in chips and noone was getting knocked out. The tournament paid to 9 places and I was worried about not making it after having such a big stack size advantage earlier. Luckily I doubled up when I went allin with AQ again, only this time it was good against a weaker ace (A9 I think). The allin was from a short-stack in a steal position, so I had a good chance of being ahead and I was. Eventually (after what seemed an eternity) we made it down to the final table and each chipped in $20 for 10th place. I was still one of the short stacks at the table, so it seemed like a good deal to me :)
From that point on it was mostly preflop poker. I was able to maneuver my way through, avoiding unnecessary allins while stealing the blinds and antes whenever I thought I had a good chance at it. We had one brief flare up when a short-stack went allin, the chip leader called in the SB, then the BB (the second largest stack) raised allin. The SB complained about the "god damned internet players" and was pretty annoyed that the BB didn't just call to try to eliminate a player. The BB had AJo and it held up, which made it all blow over pretty quickly. I'm not sure what I think of the play. The difference in places in where we were was only about $400, so if the BB knew that the SB was going to fold (which I think he can be fairly sure of even if it's not 100%) then there could be an argument for trying to grow his stack rather than worrying about moving up one more spot. On the other hand, he's increasing the risk of tripling a player up, which will take even a short-stack to a dangerous size at this point.Of course, the conventional wisdom seems to be to try to move up that one spot. What do others think?
In the end, I held on until 4th place. I got AQ vs. AK and didn't get any help. Fourth place was enough to make it a profitable weekend though.
This is getting long, so I'm going to make the rest brief... I played the next morning in the $740 + 60 NLHE tournament at the Taj. I didn't hit a single flop and finally decided to push back at one of the table bullies when I flopped the nut flush draw with my KhJc (Ah on the suited board). Turns out that it's difficult to push the big stack out of a pot when he flops the actual flush. No more hearts for me and I'm done.
Got some lunch at Ri Ra (Irish pub at the Tropicana) and went to see Beowulf at the IMAX there. Had a freeroll on the movie when I walked up and a woman asked if I was about to buy a ticket, then handed me one when I said, "Yes". Someone from their group didn't show up or something after they got some tickets comped to them. The movie was pretty good and the 3D effects were excellent. Much better than what I remembered when wearing those red and blue glasses to the theater as a kid. I think pseudo-naked, 3D virtual Angelina Jolie can probably make just about any movie good. If only they had finally invented Feel-O-Vision(c). Oh well.
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Steady as she goes
Nov. 26th, 2007 | 03:02 pm
I didn't play a lot this past week with the holiday, but when I did play I was uniformly successful. I'm waiting for the downswing, but so far it hasn't come (crosses fingers). I suppose I could make a withdrawal and experience the dreaded cash-out curse! :-)
In the WRGPT I just had what turned into a rather uneventful hand, which could have put all of my chips on the line. At the risk of giving away information to my opponents (it's a free tournament with no prizes), here it is:
+-+---------------------------
|#| Name |Bankroll| Action |Status|Pot#|Pot Size|
+-+---------------------------
1| Tyler Davidson | 51350 | 0 |folded| | |
2| nergfurtz | 30700 | 700 |folded| | |
3|V tayto_mcg | 19550 | 0 | NoSho| | |
4| Jim Showalter Jr. | 0 | 25300 |all-in| | |
5|D fnord | 18800 | 0 |folded| | |
6|> flippa | 14950 | 5700 |folded| | |
7| Aardvark | 26200 | 200 |folded| | |
8|V Trent Cunningham | 18450 | 0 |26 Nov| | |
9| Brandkungen | 20700 | 0 |folded| | |
10| Tomas L | 8700 | 0 |folded| | |
+-+---------------------------
! History of this hand:
! 11/21/07 16:02:01! Dealing a new hand
! 11/21/07 16:02:01! No ante
! 11/21/07 16:02:01! flippa blinds $100
! 11/21/07 16:02:01! Aardvark blinds $200
! 11/21/07 16:02:01! Trent Cunningham is on vacation and folds
! 11/21/07 23:44:47! Brandkungen folds
! 11/21/07 23:44:47! Tomas L folds
! 11/21/07 23:44:47! Tyler Davidson folds
! 11/22/07 11:49:27! nergfurtz raises $500
! 11/22/07 11:49:27! tayto_mcg is on vacation and folds
! 11/22/07 11:49:27! Jim Showalter Jr. raises $5000
! 11/22/07 11:49:27! fnord folds
! 11/23/07 18:19:26! flippa calls
! 11/24/07 06:33:40! Aardvark folds
! 11/24/07 06:33:40! nergfurtz folds
! 11/24/07 06:33:40! Pot right ($12300), flopping/dealing/drawing cards
! 11/24/07 06:33:40! 2 players
! 11/24/07 06:33:40! Flopped cards: 10d Jd 3c
! 11/24/07 10:14:38! flippa checks
! 11/24/07 10:14:38! Jim Showalter Jr. bets $19600 and is all in
! 11/24/07 10:41:59! flippa folds
! Hand over, no showdown
! Current board is: 10d Jd 3c ? ?
! Jim Showalter Jr. wins $31900 (net $6600)
I had ATs this hand. Normally an easy toss in the muck with that kind of raising. The thing is, Jim has been trying to bully the table from the start with these kinds of big raises. Early on he bet big then called an allin with top pair lousy kicker (T7 on a T-high flop), but was lucky enough that his opponent was on an even worse kicker (T6!). Yes, the hand was raised preflop.
He also called not just a raise, but a reraise with K4o and raised allin when he flopped a single 4 and has raised preflop (or reraised) about 60% of the hands. Despite this, he's backed down from me on the one ocassion where we got in a hand together. Nergfurtz has also made a couple of raises like this and then laid them down to reraises.
With that in mind, I figure that there's an excellent chance that I can jam here and take down the already large pot, and even if I'm called there's a decent chance that I'm actually ahead or at least even. Of course, then flippa called. Now I'm faced with this rather mysterious call along with the original raiser still left to act. Oh, and I'm out of position, so a call is out of the question (even if it weren't for other reasons). I also think that the pot is large enough that flippa may call a jam from me preflop, which means that my stealing equity has just dropped off of the charts. As you can see, I laid the hand down instead.
Was I crazy to be considering a jam in the first place? Was I right to lay it down after flippa called?
Link | Leave a comment {1} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
A Win and Some Upcoming Live Play
Nov. 19th, 2007 | 11:00 am
Had a busy non-poker weekend, so I didn't get to play too much. I did play in one Sit-n-go (my first single-table since starting back up). I'll check for any interesting hands when I'm back on my other computer, but I pretty much just ran over the table until it was heads up. The entire table was very timid, so I was able to constantly steal the blinds or take pots with continuation bets. If I limped in on a hand it was often checked down until I bet to take it. I kept increasing my range of stealing hands, but my opponents never tried to come after me until I had a massive stack.
By the time we were down to 4 players I had more chips than the other three players combined. At that point one of the players knocked out both of the other two, so we were heads up with close to even stacks. I was able to continue stealing quite a bit, although heads up this player loosened up a lot and got more aggressive. The tournament took a turn for the worse when I flopped top pair (Kings) and (very uncharacteristically) decided to slow play it. Normally I'm not one to ever slow play top pair, even heads up, but my opponent was showing a tendency to bet the turn whenever I checked the flop. On the turn (a 7) he checked again and I put out a good sized bet which he called. The river was another 7 and he checked. I put him allin for the last of his chips (not much at this point), and he called showing me a 7 for the runner-runner :-(
I recovered a bit by continuing to play aggressively, but eventually I went allin preflop with AQs and he called with 7's which held up for him. Managed a second place though at least.
In other news, I'm going to be heading down to A.C. on November 30th to play in a couple of the Trump Classic events. I'll probably play in both the Friday and Saturday NLHE events. If anyone else is planning to be down there let me know.
By the time we were down to 4 players I had more chips than the other three players combined. At that point one of the players knocked out both of the other two, so we were heads up with close to even stacks. I was able to continue stealing quite a bit, although heads up this player loosened up a lot and got more aggressive. The tournament took a turn for the worse when I flopped top pair (Kings) and (very uncharacteristically) decided to slow play it. Normally I'm not one to ever slow play top pair, even heads up, but my opponent was showing a tendency to bet the turn whenever I checked the flop. On the turn (a 7) he checked again and I put out a good sized bet which he called. The river was another 7 and he checked. I put him allin for the last of his chips (not much at this point), and he called showing me a 7 for the runner-runner :-(
I recovered a bit by continuing to play aggressively, but eventually I went allin preflop with AQs and he called with 7's which held up for him. Managed a second place though at least.
In other news, I'm going to be heading down to A.C. on November 30th to play in a couple of the Trump Classic events. I'll probably play in both the Friday and Saturday NLHE events. If anyone else is planning to be down there let me know.
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Fight Fire with Fire! Or Maybe Water... Whatever Works.
Nov. 14th, 2007 | 02:37 pm
I played in 4 tournaments over the past few days. All sit-n-gos and everyone a bust. On the bright side though, my bankroll is still increasing as I'm making more in the side games than I'm spending in tournament entrance fees.
One problem that I've always had at NLHE in a non-tournament situation, and which I've mentioned on here before, is that I tend to back off easily to reraises. Of course, that cautious approach isn't all bad. I'm sure that I've saved myself chips in the past because of it. The downside though, is that it allows certain types of players to practically steamroll over me. Mostly players who raise more than usual preflop and are very aggressive after the flop as well.
I may call a little too loosely preflop because I know that their raise isn't necessarily a big hand, but then when the flop isn't fully cooperative I back down and now I've given them a pot that's been raised which adds up. My usual defense is to wait until I get a big hand and punish them for their overly aggressive play. Of course, it stands to reason that if they're betting and raising more than would normally be standard then they probably have sub-standard hands after the flop a lot of times as well. Although it adds to volatility I've started playing back at these kinds of players more. I had two such hands last night...
In the first hand, I was up against a player who had taken several pots off of me already and I was pretty sure that at least one or two of them were bluffs. What's more, he was always firing out check-raises, raises, and bets. He also had position on me, being two to my left. He came in for a raise from UTG and I had AKo. I was pretty sure that I wasn't getting rid of him preflop short of a huge overbet and I didn't think the still smallish pot was worth that kind of risk. I also knew that I would be out of position for the whole hand and if I didn't hit the flop I would certainly be faced with a bet or raise from him. So, I just called preflop in the now 3-way pot.
The flop came out AJx rainbow (just about perfect) and I checked. As expected he bet out about 3/4 pot. The other player folded and I called. The turn was a rag and I checked again. This time he bet out again for 3/4 pot ($14 I believe). Now it was time to spring the trap, so I check-raised it up to $32. He thought and thought (which made me pretty certain that he wasn't on AJ) and finally he called. I was then able to get the rest of his chips in on the river. Exactly as I expected, he held AQ. Ok, so in this case I was probably going to be getting a sizeable pot no matter what - AK vs. AQ with an Ace on the flop - but I don't know that I would have gotten all of his chips if I played it for a reraise preflop and I would have put myself at greater risk.
In this case I fought his aggressiveness by playing passively at the right time to give him a chance to hang himself. Of course, as the entry title implies, you can also go the other route against the overly aggressive player. The second big hand of the night found me on a different table against a different player, but one who played very much the same. Lots of raises preflop to build pots and aggressive play after the flop to take them down. There isn't much to this story except that I found myself in yet another raised pot with the player, I checked to him on the flop and he made the usual continuation bet, but despite having absolutely no piece of the ragged flop I decided that he couldn't possibly be making as many hands as he seemed to show in his betting. I took the chance that this was one of those times that he didn't have a hand, so I made a big check raise. This player tended to overbet no the flop a lot, so when he had to fold his lost bet was enough to make up for every small pot that I had given up to him up to that point.
Of course, you run the risk that this is the time that the overly aggressive player actually has a hand. I tried to minimize that chance by picking a flop to try the resteal. It was a T-high flop wih no flush draws out there. My thought was that if he hit top pair on a T-high flop then he still couldn't be thrilled with my big check-raise, which could mean JJ or something similar. At the same time, it gave a good chance of knocking out any medium pairs like 99, 88, etc.
Another thing to keep in mind here is that the opponent makes a BIG difference. There are some players who play aggressively like this because they like the action. From players like that you will often get calls from hands like JT, etc. so this play isn't going to work as much and you have to be more sparing with it. Against those players it's probably better to wait for a hand and get paid off on it. I had noticed though, that this player was actually pretty solid, so I gave him enough credit to be able to lay down some medium and possibly even stronger strength hands here.
I hope that everyone is doing well and flopping sets (unless you're in a pot against me).
One problem that I've always had at NLHE in a non-tournament situation, and which I've mentioned on here before, is that I tend to back off easily to reraises. Of course, that cautious approach isn't all bad. I'm sure that I've saved myself chips in the past because of it. The downside though, is that it allows certain types of players to practically steamroll over me. Mostly players who raise more than usual preflop and are very aggressive after the flop as well.
I may call a little too loosely preflop because I know that their raise isn't necessarily a big hand, but then when the flop isn't fully cooperative I back down and now I've given them a pot that's been raised which adds up. My usual defense is to wait until I get a big hand and punish them for their overly aggressive play. Of course, it stands to reason that if they're betting and raising more than would normally be standard then they probably have sub-standard hands after the flop a lot of times as well. Although it adds to volatility I've started playing back at these kinds of players more. I had two such hands last night...
In the first hand, I was up against a player who had taken several pots off of me already and I was pretty sure that at least one or two of them were bluffs. What's more, he was always firing out check-raises, raises, and bets. He also had position on me, being two to my left. He came in for a raise from UTG and I had AKo. I was pretty sure that I wasn't getting rid of him preflop short of a huge overbet and I didn't think the still smallish pot was worth that kind of risk. I also knew that I would be out of position for the whole hand and if I didn't hit the flop I would certainly be faced with a bet or raise from him. So, I just called preflop in the now 3-way pot.
The flop came out AJx rainbow (just about perfect) and I checked. As expected he bet out about 3/4 pot. The other player folded and I called. The turn was a rag and I checked again. This time he bet out again for 3/4 pot ($14 I believe). Now it was time to spring the trap, so I check-raised it up to $32. He thought and thought (which made me pretty certain that he wasn't on AJ) and finally he called. I was then able to get the rest of his chips in on the river. Exactly as I expected, he held AQ. Ok, so in this case I was probably going to be getting a sizeable pot no matter what - AK vs. AQ with an Ace on the flop - but I don't know that I would have gotten all of his chips if I played it for a reraise preflop and I would have put myself at greater risk.
In this case I fought his aggressiveness by playing passively at the right time to give him a chance to hang himself. Of course, as the entry title implies, you can also go the other route against the overly aggressive player. The second big hand of the night found me on a different table against a different player, but one who played very much the same. Lots of raises preflop to build pots and aggressive play after the flop to take them down. There isn't much to this story except that I found myself in yet another raised pot with the player, I checked to him on the flop and he made the usual continuation bet, but despite having absolutely no piece of the ragged flop I decided that he couldn't possibly be making as many hands as he seemed to show in his betting. I took the chance that this was one of those times that he didn't have a hand, so I made a big check raise. This player tended to overbet no the flop a lot, so when he had to fold his lost bet was enough to make up for every small pot that I had given up to him up to that point.
Of course, you run the risk that this is the time that the overly aggressive player actually has a hand. I tried to minimize that chance by picking a flop to try the resteal. It was a T-high flop wih no flush draws out there. My thought was that if he hit top pair on a T-high flop then he still couldn't be thrilled with my big check-raise, which could mean JJ or something similar. At the same time, it gave a good chance of knocking out any medium pairs like 99, 88, etc.
Another thing to keep in mind here is that the opponent makes a BIG difference. There are some players who play aggressively like this because they like the action. From players like that you will often get calls from hands like JT, etc. so this play isn't going to work as much and you have to be more sparing with it. Against those players it's probably better to wait for a hand and get paid off on it. I had noticed though, that this player was actually pretty solid, so I gave him enough credit to be able to lay down some medium and possibly even stronger strength hands here.
I hope that everyone is doing well and flopping sets (unless you're in a pot against me).
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
AFK for a few days
Nov. 9th, 2007 | 02:55 pm
Sorry for the recent lack of posting. For those who don't know, I was hit with some kind of stomach flu, which left me pretty much incapacitated for a day or two. Didn't even keep up with my reading during that time, so I've got a little catch-up to do there.
Thanks to a reminder from RaiderFan, I've dropped down in limits in keeping with my initial rules that I set out for myself. The winnings have been slow, but steady. I haven't played in any tournaments lately though, so nothing to report on there. I think tonight I'll try to play one or two and maybe tomorrow night as well. I'll post an update at the end of the weekend on how those go.
Thanks to a reminder from RaiderFan, I've dropped down in limits in keeping with my initial rules that I set out for myself. The winnings have been slow, but steady. I haven't played in any tournaments lately though, so nothing to report on there. I think tonight I'll try to play one or two and maybe tomorrow night as well. I'll post an update at the end of the weekend on how those go.
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Off to a Blazing Start!
Nov. 1st, 2007 | 09:54 am
For those who don't know, the WRGPT has begun. I won the very first hand at our table, catapulting up to 31st place out of the more than 1200 players in the email poker tournament. Yeah, I think I've pretty much got this one wrapped up.
I've listed the hand below. You'll notice my expert play on the flop that allowed me to take this one down.
+-+---------------------------
|#| Name |Bankroll| Action |Status|Pot#|Pot Size|
+-+---------------------------
1|D Tyler Davidson | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
2| nergfurtz | 19950 | 50 |folded| | |
3| the Perl | 19900 | 100 |folded| | |
4|V tayto_mcg | 20000 | 0 | NoSho| | |
5| Jim Showalter Jr. | 17500 | 2500 |folded| | |
6| fnord | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
7|> Aardvark | 14700 | 5300 | | | |
8|V Brandkungen | 20000 | 0 |<Gone>| | |
9| Benjamin Smith | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
10| Tomas L | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
+-+---------------------------
! History of this hand:
! 10/29/07 00:04:50! Tomas L is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 00:16:22! the Perl is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 05:57:23! nergfurtz is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 05:58:28! Jim Showalter Jr. is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 06:13:30! Benjamin Smith is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 06:58:37! Aardvark is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 10:01:37! Tyler Davidson is back from vacation
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! Dealing a new hand
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! No ante
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! nergfurtz blinds $50
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! the Perl blinds $100
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! tayto_mcg is on vacation and folds
! 10/30/07 00:21:57! fnord is back from vacation
! 10/30/07 09:25:32! Jim Showalter Jr. raises $400
! 10/30/07 09:33:41! fnord folds
! 10/30/07 11:19:45! Aardvark raises $1000
! 10/30/07 11:19:45! Brandkungen is on vacation and folds
! 10/30/07 11:19:45! Benjamin Smith folds
! 10/30/07 12:05:24! Tomas L folds
! 10/30/07 13:02:52! Tyler Davidson folds
! 10/30/07 13:02:52! nergfurtz folds
! 10/30/07 18:06:02! the Perl folds
! 10/30/07 20:06:29! Jim Showalter Jr. raises $1000
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! Aardvark calls
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! Pot right ($5150), flopping/dealing/drawing cards
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! 2 players
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! Flopped cards: 3h 10h 4h
! 10/31/07 17:04:00! Jim Showalter Jr. checks
*** At this point Jim timed out during the hand. I would have bet had he checked to me normally anyway, but with a timeout it makes the decision pretty moot. ***
! 10/31/07 17:04:00! Aardvark bets $2800
! 10/31/07 17:04:00! Jim Showalter Jr. folds
! Hand over, no showdown
! Current board is: 3h 10h 4h ? ?
! Aardvark wins $7950 (net $2650)
EDIT: For this hand I held QsQc. Thanks to![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
jacksupfor making me notice that my own hand doesn't appear in WRGPT hand histories like it does in online hand histories.
PS: Anyone know how to change the font for a portion of the text? The hand would look much better in a fixed-width font. I can probably figure out how to do it in HTML, but with the ability to easily set bold/italics/underline/strikethrough, text color, text size, etc. I would have thought that font would be easy enough to play with.
I've listed the hand below. You'll notice my expert play on the flop that allowed me to take this one down.
+-+---------------------------
|#| Name |Bankroll| Action |Status|Pot#|Pot Size|
+-+---------------------------
1|D Tyler Davidson | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
2| nergfurtz | 19950 | 50 |folded| | |
3| the Perl | 19900 | 100 |folded| | |
4|V tayto_mcg | 20000 | 0 | NoSho| | |
5| Jim Showalter Jr. | 17500 | 2500 |folded| | |
6| fnord | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
7|> Aardvark | 14700 | 5300 | | | |
8|V Brandkungen | 20000 | 0 |<Gone>| | |
9| Benjamin Smith | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
10| Tomas L | 20000 | 0 |folded| | |
+-+---------------------------
! History of this hand:
! 10/29/07 00:04:50! Tomas L is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 00:16:22! the Perl is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 05:57:23! nergfurtz is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 05:58:28! Jim Showalter Jr. is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 06:13:30! Benjamin Smith is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 06:58:37! Aardvark is back from vacation
! 10/29/07 10:01:37! Tyler Davidson is back from vacation
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! Dealing a new hand
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! No ante
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! nergfurtz blinds $50
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! the Perl blinds $100
! 10/30/07 00:14:09! tayto_mcg is on vacation and folds
! 10/30/07 00:21:57! fnord is back from vacation
! 10/30/07 09:25:32! Jim Showalter Jr. raises $400
! 10/30/07 09:33:41! fnord folds
! 10/30/07 11:19:45! Aardvark raises $1000
! 10/30/07 11:19:45! Brandkungen is on vacation and folds
! 10/30/07 11:19:45! Benjamin Smith folds
! 10/30/07 12:05:24! Tomas L folds
! 10/30/07 13:02:52! Tyler Davidson folds
! 10/30/07 13:02:52! nergfurtz folds
! 10/30/07 18:06:02! the Perl folds
! 10/30/07 20:06:29! Jim Showalter Jr. raises $1000
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! Aardvark calls
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! Pot right ($5150), flopping/dealing/drawing cards
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! 2 players
! 10/31/07 06:53:03! Flopped cards: 3h 10h 4h
! 10/31/07 17:04:00! Jim Showalter Jr. checks
*** At this point Jim timed out during the hand. I would have bet had he checked to me normally anyway, but with a timeout it makes the decision pretty moot. ***
! 10/31/07 17:04:00! Aardvark bets $2800
! 10/31/07 17:04:00! Jim Showalter Jr. folds
! Hand over, no showdown
! Current board is: 3h 10h 4h ? ?
! Aardvark wins $7950 (net $2650)
EDIT: For this hand I held QsQc. Thanks to
jacksupfor making me notice that my own hand doesn't appear in WRGPT hand histories like it does in online hand histories.PS: Anyone know how to change the font for a portion of the text? The hand would look much better in a fixed-width font. I can probably figure out how to do it in HTML, but with the ability to easily set bold/italics/underline/strikethrough, text color, text size, etc. I would have thought that font would be easy enough to play with.
Link | Leave a comment {5} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Luck Comes in Many Forms
Oct. 31st, 2007 | 10:30 am
This morning I dropped the girls off at school and stopped back at home before work as I often do. I didn't have a lot of time, but I figured that I'd play an orbit or two at a side game. I found what looked to be a good $0.50/$1 game and double clicked it, but when I went to take a seat it turned out to be a $1/$2 game. That's at least the second time that this has happened. I don't really like how the PokerStars lobby is constantly updating the table lists because the individual items are constantly moving around. My guess is that it updated right before I double-clicked and where I was clicking was suddenly a $1/$2 table. Not a big deal though and since I was short on time I decided to just take the seat.
I posted in the BB and folded both that and my SB to preflop raises. On the button I picked up As5s and it was folded to me, so I raised it up to $7. The BB, who had limped for both of the hands I had already seen at the table, called my raise. Two hands isn't enough to make a solid read on someone, but at least it was an indication that he was probably a loose player.
The flop came out Qc6s4s. A pretty good flop for me. He bet out $8 and I figured that there was a decent chance that he was either aggressively defending his blind with nothing or that he hit the flop in a small way, but couldn't take much heat, so I raised it up to $20. He called. The turn was the Ac and he checked to me. I'm not positive of my play here, but I think that I made the right move. If he had turned two pair, say with AQ or A7 then a lot of players would bet out here. On the other hand, given my kicker I don't have a monster and there aren't any draws that I'm afraid of, so the whole idea of checking with mediocre hands could come into play. I decided though that if he was defending his BB then he might still call a medium bet despite the ace on the board. If he were on a bigger hand, at least I had a lot of outs. I bet $25 and he called.
The river card was the 8d. He checked and I decided to check as well. Should I have continued to try to value bet it? I don't know that my hand is strong enough for that and I definitely can't withstand a big check-raise. The pot was big enough now that I didn't want to risk losing it to a potential bluff on the river, so I checked. The other player flipped up QsJs and I raked in the pot. Wish I had gotten a little more lucky and another spade had hit, but I counted myself lucky for accidentally ending up at this table where I could get this hand.
So, who thinks that I played the river like a wimp? Anyone think that my turn bet was a mistake? Should I have checked, bet more, bet less? Thanks for any comments!
EDIT: Checked back into the hand history and corrected the cards in some cases.
Link | Leave a comment {5} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
0 for 2
Oct. 30th, 2007 | 02:39 pm
Played a couple $20 180-player sit-n-gos last night on PokerStars. I managed to go very deep in both of them, getting to the top 40 in the first and top 30 in the second. A little frustrating to go that far and not hit the money, but in both cases I got eliminated as a favorite, so in a strange way I'm happy about that - at least it wasn't some bone-headed move that got me eliminated. I like the 180-man tournaments because they don't drag on all night, but there's a chance at a decent payday if you can win it.
In the first tournament I flopped a straight on a suited board and raised when the preflop raiser bet out. I think the hand was 4 way at that point. My raise was oversized and allin since my stack was short enough that I knew I wouldn't be folding the hand if I kept playing it and the pot was large enough that I wasn't going to fold the top end of the straight, even on a suited board. My plan was to make sure that anyone with a single small spade (the flop was suited in spades) would fold and anyone with a single large spade would be making a mistake if they called. I also thought that since the preflop raiser (and flop bettor) was to my right, that he would be last to act after my raise and if noone else entered he might put me on a single spade and call me down. The oversized bet often seems to convince players that you must be stealing in my experience. Instead, it turned out that he had flopped top set. He called and the river paired the board. That was all she wrote on that one.
In the second tournament I made one suckout early on when I flopped top pair and decided to check-raise the preflop raiser. He made a continuation bet 100% of the time, so I thought that a check-raise was my best move there, giving me a chance of picking up some extra chips from his continuation bet. Unfortunately for me he actually had aces. Fortunately, I caught trips on the turn and pulled in a big pot. From that point on I played what I thought was a very good game. I continually had players to the left of me who were overly aggressive and on large stacks, which can be problematic. I was patient for the most part and once I picked up a couple of patterns I was able to take a few sizable pots off of these players. It's risky going up against the big stacks, but sometimes you have no choice and when you know that their hand selections in certain situations are much weaker than normal you have to take advantage of that. I rarely try complete bluffs early in a hand, but I had at least two of them in this tournament simply because I knew that my opponent would be playing far more weaker hands that couldn't withstand a raise. The trick is to bet enough so that the big stack doesn't decide that he can afford it and just calls on a whim and also large enough so that you know the aggressive player won't decide that he can put you allin and knock you off of the hand.
I got knocked out of this one when I made the mistake of taking my AA up against Presto (55). He flopped an inside straight draw and decided that it was enough to call off the rest of my chips. Sorry, I don't have the hand histories with me, but I know that I made a substantial reraise preflop (55 had come in for a raise in middle position) and my allin on the flop was fairly large compared to the pot as well.
In the side games I've been swinging up and down. I was up a couple hundred when I had the session from hell (lots of KK vs AA, flopped TPTK vs. set, etc.). That brought me back to even for the week. I've also started playing in a regular home game, which is a lot of fun. The stakes are fairly small (people usually buy in for about $20 and may rebuy a couple times during the night). It's dealers choice, which is fun, the players are all pretty friendly, and several of the players take it seriously despite the stakes. One of the players tracks statistics on everyone (just wins and losses, not down to the hand or anything), which has something to do with why they take it seriously. After two weeks I'm now sitting on the top of the list for average win per night. Nothing like short-term luck to make you feel good! :)
So, anyone know which winter tournaments are coming up in the AC and CT areas? I think I might like to take a day trip or a weekend down at AC to play in a few events if scheduling around the holidays allows it. I checked the Borgata website and the Taj website and didn't see anything listed there.
In the first tournament I flopped a straight on a suited board and raised when the preflop raiser bet out. I think the hand was 4 way at that point. My raise was oversized and allin since my stack was short enough that I knew I wouldn't be folding the hand if I kept playing it and the pot was large enough that I wasn't going to fold the top end of the straight, even on a suited board. My plan was to make sure that anyone with a single small spade (the flop was suited in spades) would fold and anyone with a single large spade would be making a mistake if they called. I also thought that since the preflop raiser (and flop bettor) was to my right, that he would be last to act after my raise and if noone else entered he might put me on a single spade and call me down. The oversized bet often seems to convince players that you must be stealing in my experience. Instead, it turned out that he had flopped top set. He called and the river paired the board. That was all she wrote on that one.
In the second tournament I made one suckout early on when I flopped top pair and decided to check-raise the preflop raiser. He made a continuation bet 100% of the time, so I thought that a check-raise was my best move there, giving me a chance of picking up some extra chips from his continuation bet. Unfortunately for me he actually had aces. Fortunately, I caught trips on the turn and pulled in a big pot. From that point on I played what I thought was a very good game. I continually had players to the left of me who were overly aggressive and on large stacks, which can be problematic. I was patient for the most part and once I picked up a couple of patterns I was able to take a few sizable pots off of these players. It's risky going up against the big stacks, but sometimes you have no choice and when you know that their hand selections in certain situations are much weaker than normal you have to take advantage of that. I rarely try complete bluffs early in a hand, but I had at least two of them in this tournament simply because I knew that my opponent would be playing far more weaker hands that couldn't withstand a raise. The trick is to bet enough so that the big stack doesn't decide that he can afford it and just calls on a whim and also large enough so that you know the aggressive player won't decide that he can put you allin and knock you off of the hand.
I got knocked out of this one when I made the mistake of taking my AA up against Presto (55). He flopped an inside straight draw and decided that it was enough to call off the rest of my chips. Sorry, I don't have the hand histories with me, but I know that I made a substantial reraise preflop (55 had come in for a raise in middle position) and my allin on the flop was fairly large compared to the pot as well.
In the side games I've been swinging up and down. I was up a couple hundred when I had the session from hell (lots of KK vs AA, flopped TPTK vs. set, etc.). That brought me back to even for the week. I've also started playing in a regular home game, which is a lot of fun. The stakes are fairly small (people usually buy in for about $20 and may rebuy a couple times during the night). It's dealers choice, which is fun, the players are all pretty friendly, and several of the players take it seriously despite the stakes. One of the players tracks statistics on everyone (just wins and losses, not down to the hand or anything), which has something to do with why they take it seriously. After two weeks I'm now sitting on the top of the list for average win per night. Nothing like short-term luck to make you feel good! :)
So, anyone know which winter tournaments are coming up in the AC and CT areas? I think I might like to take a day trip or a weekend down at AC to play in a few events if scheduling around the holidays allows it. I checked the Borgata website and the Taj website and didn't see anything listed there.
Link | Leave a comment {6} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
How not to play a hand... How to play a hand
Oct. 23rd, 2007 | 12:33 am
Sorry for the lack of updates. To try to make up for it, here's two hands from my session tonight. In the first is a lesson learned... stop playing crappy cards in hopes of hitting a monster. Sure, sometimes you have to play for implied odds, but much of the time the implied odds really aren't there no matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
Seat 1: teslafan1 ($69 in chips)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz ($74.15 in chips)
Seat 3: rebam ($106.10 in chips)
Seat 4: Aardvark ($90.10 in chips)
Seat 5: boozerxxx ($62.95 in chips)
Seat 8: skipp310 ($86 in chips)
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame ($108.45 in chips)
rebam: posts small blind $0.50
Aardvark: posts big blind $1
FRUIT_BAGEL: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Aardvark [4s 2s]
boozerxxx: folds
skipp310: raises $2 to $3
LaPoCaFlame: folds
teslafan1: folds
MerlinTheWiz: calls $3
rebam: folds
Aardvark: calls $2
*** Hey, my cards are s00ted!!! Must call!!!
*** FLOP *** [2h 8s 6d]
Aardvark: checks
skipp310: bets $4
MerlinTheWiz: calls $4
Aardvark: calls $4
*** I made a pair. Who cares that it's bottom pair and I have no kicker. I've got a back-door flush draw to boot!
*** TURN *** [2h 8s 6d] [Qs]
Aardvark: checks
skipp310: bets $12
MerlinTheWiz: calls $12
Aardvark: calls $12
*** I'm getting more than 3.5:1 on my call and I'm closing the action. My flush draw combined with the chance of catching another 2 should give me close to the right odds, especially if I can make a bit on the river. Can anyone see the gaping hole in my logic here?
*** RIVER *** [2h 8s 6d Qs] [3h]
Aardvark: checks
skipp310: checks
MerlinTheWiz: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Aardvark: shows [4s 2s] (a pair of Deuces)
skipp310: mucks hand
MerlinTheWiz: shows [As 6s] (a pair of Sixes)
MerlinTheWiz collected $54.70 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $57.50 | Rake $2.80
Board [2h 8s 6d Qs 3h]
Seat 1: teslafan1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz (button) showed [As 6s] and won ($54.70) with a pair of Sixes
Seat 3: rebam (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: Aardvark (big blind) showed [4s 2s] and lost with a pair of Deuces
Seat 5: boozerxxx folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: skipp310 mucked [5s 7s]
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Of course, I was drawing practically dead the whole time. The preflop call was questionable. The rest of the hand was pretty much downright horrible. Luckily, I kicked myself in the ass for playing like an idiot here and started paying attention. The rest of the session went smoothly and I booked a nice win. Part of it was thanks to this hand:
Table 'Atala' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: teslafan1 ($57.50 in chips)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz ($88.85 in chips)
Seat 3: nevadasmoke ($59 in chips)
Seat 4: Aardvark ($108.45 in chips)
Seat 5: boozerxxx ($80.35 in chips)
Seat 6: jcs45 ($38.05 in chips)
Seat 7: FRUIT_BAGEL ($96.40 in chips)
Seat 8: sekinchoola ($74.60 in chips)
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame ($104.90 in chips)
nevadasmoke: posts small blind $0.50
Aardvark: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Aardvark [6d 6c]
boozerxxx: calls $1
jcs45: calls $1
FRUIT_BAGEL: calls $1
sekinchoola: calls $1
LaPoCaFlame: folds
teslafan1: folds
MerlinTheWiz: folds
nevadasmoke: calls $0.50
Aardvark: checks
*** No reason to raise here. I'm going to be out of position for the whole hand. Let's see a flop and hope for a 6.
*** FLOP *** [Jd As 6h]
*** Woot! Flopped my set. No preflop raises means AA and JJ are unlikely (of course, not impossible). And the flop is rainbow.
nevadasmoke: checks
Aardvark: bets $4
*** Ok, so why the hell am I betting with a flopped set on a rainbow flop? At least two reasons:
1. There are a lot of players in the pot. Inside straight draws are certainly possible.
2. Someone is going to either have an ace or they won't. If someone has an ace (especially a weak Ace) I want to start building the pot slowly right away so that I don't lose them with a single big bet later on.
boozerxxx: folds
jcs45: raises $4 to $8
*** Looks like I've got a customer. Here's hoping that he has AJ
FRUIT_BAGEL: folds
sekinchoola: folds
nevadasmoke: folds
Aardvark: raises $7 to $15
*** At this point he's got $29 left in front of him. I'm pretty sure that I can get him to call here with an Ace and if he does then I should have him hooked for the rest of his chips.
jcs45: calls $7
*** TURN *** [Jd As 6h] [7c]
Aardvark: bets $12
jcs45: calls $12
*** RIVER *** [Jd As 6h 7c] [7s]
Aardvark: bets $11
jcs45: calls $10.05 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Aardvark: shows [6d 6c] (a full house, Sixes full of Sevens)
jcs45: mucks hand
Aardvark collected $77.10 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $80.10 | Rake $3
Board [Jd As 6h 7c 7s]
Seat 1: teslafan1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: nevadasmoke (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: Aardvark (big blind) showed [6d 6c] and won ($77.10) with a full house, Sixes full of Sevens
Seat 5: boozerxxx folded on the Flop
Seat 6: jcs45 mucked [Qc Ac]
Seat 7: FRUIT_BAGEL folded on the Flop
Seat 8: sekinchoola folded on the Flop
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Sure enough, once we built the pot up enough on the flop he wasn't able to get away from his hand. Yet another mantra to keep in the back of my head: "Must remember to always watch opponents' stack sizes"
Seat 1: teslafan1 ($69 in chips)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz ($74.15 in chips)
Seat 3: rebam ($106.10 in chips)
Seat 4: Aardvark ($90.10 in chips)
Seat 5: boozerxxx ($62.95 in chips)
Seat 8: skipp310 ($86 in chips)
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame ($108.45 in chips)
rebam: posts small blind $0.50
Aardvark: posts big blind $1
FRUIT_BAGEL: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Aardvark [4s 2s]
boozerxxx: folds
skipp310: raises $2 to $3
LaPoCaFlame: folds
teslafan1: folds
MerlinTheWiz: calls $3
rebam: folds
Aardvark: calls $2
*** Hey, my cards are s00ted!!! Must call!!!
*** FLOP *** [2h 8s 6d]
Aardvark: checks
skipp310: bets $4
MerlinTheWiz: calls $4
Aardvark: calls $4
*** I made a pair. Who cares that it's bottom pair and I have no kicker. I've got a back-door flush draw to boot!
*** TURN *** [2h 8s 6d] [Qs]
Aardvark: checks
skipp310: bets $12
MerlinTheWiz: calls $12
Aardvark: calls $12
*** I'm getting more than 3.5:1 on my call and I'm closing the action. My flush draw combined with the chance of catching another 2 should give me close to the right odds, especially if I can make a bit on the river. Can anyone see the gaping hole in my logic here?
*** RIVER *** [2h 8s 6d Qs] [3h]
Aardvark: checks
skipp310: checks
MerlinTheWiz: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Aardvark: shows [4s 2s] (a pair of Deuces)
skipp310: mucks hand
MerlinTheWiz: shows [As 6s] (a pair of Sixes)
MerlinTheWiz collected $54.70 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $57.50 | Rake $2.80
Board [2h 8s 6d Qs 3h]
Seat 1: teslafan1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz (button) showed [As 6s] and won ($54.70) with a pair of Sixes
Seat 3: rebam (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: Aardvark (big blind) showed [4s 2s] and lost with a pair of Deuces
Seat 5: boozerxxx folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: skipp310 mucked [5s 7s]
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Of course, I was drawing practically dead the whole time. The preflop call was questionable. The rest of the hand was pretty much downright horrible. Luckily, I kicked myself in the ass for playing like an idiot here and started paying attention. The rest of the session went smoothly and I booked a nice win. Part of it was thanks to this hand:
Table 'Atala' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: teslafan1 ($57.50 in chips)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz ($88.85 in chips)
Seat 3: nevadasmoke ($59 in chips)
Seat 4: Aardvark ($108.45 in chips)
Seat 5: boozerxxx ($80.35 in chips)
Seat 6: jcs45 ($38.05 in chips)
Seat 7: FRUIT_BAGEL ($96.40 in chips)
Seat 8: sekinchoola ($74.60 in chips)
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame ($104.90 in chips)
nevadasmoke: posts small blind $0.50
Aardvark: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Aardvark [6d 6c]
boozerxxx: calls $1
jcs45: calls $1
FRUIT_BAGEL: calls $1
sekinchoola: calls $1
LaPoCaFlame: folds
teslafan1: folds
MerlinTheWiz: folds
nevadasmoke: calls $0.50
Aardvark: checks
*** No reason to raise here. I'm going to be out of position for the whole hand. Let's see a flop and hope for a 6.
*** FLOP *** [Jd As 6h]
*** Woot! Flopped my set. No preflop raises means AA and JJ are unlikely (of course, not impossible). And the flop is rainbow.
nevadasmoke: checks
Aardvark: bets $4
*** Ok, so why the hell am I betting with a flopped set on a rainbow flop? At least two reasons:
1. There are a lot of players in the pot. Inside straight draws are certainly possible.
2. Someone is going to either have an ace or they won't. If someone has an ace (especially a weak Ace) I want to start building the pot slowly right away so that I don't lose them with a single big bet later on.
boozerxxx: folds
jcs45: raises $4 to $8
*** Looks like I've got a customer. Here's hoping that he has AJ
FRUIT_BAGEL: folds
sekinchoola: folds
nevadasmoke: folds
Aardvark: raises $7 to $15
*** At this point he's got $29 left in front of him. I'm pretty sure that I can get him to call here with an Ace and if he does then I should have him hooked for the rest of his chips.
jcs45: calls $7
*** TURN *** [Jd As 6h] [7c]
Aardvark: bets $12
jcs45: calls $12
*** RIVER *** [Jd As 6h 7c] [7s]
Aardvark: bets $11
jcs45: calls $10.05 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Aardvark: shows [6d 6c] (a full house, Sixes full of Sevens)
jcs45: mucks hand
Aardvark collected $77.10 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $80.10 | Rake $3
Board [Jd As 6h 7c 7s]
Seat 1: teslafan1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: MerlinTheWiz (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: nevadasmoke (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 4: Aardvark (big blind) showed [6d 6c] and won ($77.10) with a full house, Sixes full of Sevens
Seat 5: boozerxxx folded on the Flop
Seat 6: jcs45 mucked [Qc Ac]
Seat 7: FRUIT_BAGEL folded on the Flop
Seat 8: sekinchoola folded on the Flop
Seat 9: LaPoCaFlame folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Sure enough, once we built the pot up enough on the flop he wasn't able to get away from his hand. Yet another mantra to keep in the back of my head: "Must remember to always watch opponents' stack sizes"
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
A Good Night of NLHE
Oct. 12th, 2007 | 11:20 am
I played a bit of $0.50/1.00 NLHE last night - maybe an hour and a half. In that time I was able to just about triple up from my starting stack of $100. I made at least one nicely timed bluff after a good read on my opponent that won me a decent pot, but the majority of the winnings came from two hands.
In the first hand there were several limpers, so I limped in with my QTo in late position. The flop came out 984 rainbow. It was checked to me (last to act), so I put in a $4 bet into the $6 pot to try to take it there (this play had been working often enough to try it with my overcards, inside straight draw, and position. One of the early position players min-raised back at me. I figured that he might be testing to see if I'm on a complete bluff given my position, but if he were trying to extract money with a monster (given the min-raise) then I could probably do well if my inside straight hit.
An important note here... we both had about $100 in front of us, so there was enough money to make this worthwhile to me. The turn card was the perfect Jack, giving me the nut straight. He bet $8 into me and I raised it up at which point he pushed allin. I of course insta-called. After the river I still had the nuts and I took down the pot.
I checked the hand history and he had Aces. Turns out that he tried to get cute with Aces and it cost him big-time. It's bad enough that he gave his opponents all sorts of cheap cards to beat him, but then to not be able to get away from the aces when those cheap cards kill them... very bad play. Even if he discounted the possibility that I might have had the inside straight draw, I still could have easily had two pair or a set to beat him. Moral of the story: Don't try to get cute with Aces. Sure, change up how you play them once in awhile, but if you give away too many free/cheap cards the Aces could be in bad shape. Those times that you do decide to slow-play them, you MUST be prepared to throw them away when faced with a lot of heat and they haven't improved.
In the last hand I got outplayed, but I managed to outluck my opponent. I opened for a raise preflop in late position with AJo and was called by one of the blinds. I flopped two pair on an AKJ flop. I got distracted during the hand by a phone call (need to work on that), and after betting and getting raised I reraised more than I probably should have. He had shown a couple hands earlier that he was willing to push a flush draw hard, and a flush was possible out there, so I was trying to push back hard just in case. That left me pretty much required to call my opponent's allin at that point. Turned out that he had slow-played KK preflop. Of course, he was no match for my uber-luck and an Ace on the river gave me a bigger full-house to take the pot.
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Poker with actual live people
Oct. 10th, 2007 | 02:51 pm
mood: 
surprised
Yesterday I had the good fortune to be invited to a home game by a poker friend. Low enough stakes that it's pretty much just for the fun of playing, but several of the players take it seriously. The group tracks statistics for everyone, so that they can calculate average wins, variances, etc. As my friend says, "It's all about the statistics."
We took turns choosing the game, playing one or two rounds of that game depending on how many players were playing at the time. For my first game I chose Razz. It had the advantage that I had hoped for, which was that not everyone was familiar with the game. However, it also had the disadvantage that not everyone was familiar with the game. It moved a bit slowly both because of dealing and because there were often questions about bring-ins, who leads the betting, which hand is best, etc. Hopefully it didn't turn everyone too much off of the game and more importantly off of the idiot player who called the game. :-) For my second pick I kept it simple with pot-limit Omaha 8 or Better.
Despite missing just about all of my big draws, and losing to one particularly bad beat, I managed to be the second biggest winner for the night. I think this was mostly due to initial hand selection, being able to make some decent folds, and having my opponents unable to make difficult folds. I did make one bad fold early on though in a LO8 rotation:
I was dealt AsAc4s2d and came in for a raise. There was some surprise there. Apparently the group doesn't raise a lot preflop in Omaha. I had several callers and hit a pretty big flop for me. I can't remember the specifics and wasn't taking notes, but I believe the flop was T65 with two spades. A truly monster flop.
Checked to me, I bet and still got several callers. The turn was another 5, pairing the board meaning that my spade and straight draws might be useless. An early position, loose player bet out. It was folded to the player to my right who raised. I called the two bets figuring that my low draw was very good and that I still had *some* chance of winning the high if it hit. The early position player just called.
The river was a 2. Ok, not the nut low, but I might have to split if I had hit with my A2, whereas the 2 may have just counterfeited one or both of my opponents. The early position player bet out and the player to my right raised. Hmm. I hope he didn't just hit his A3. I reluctantly called and the early position player now reraised. The player to my right then rereraised. At this point I decided that my A4 was probably no good and that the player to my right probably had A3. For some reason the facts that the betting would now be closed and that the pot was pretty damn big didn't register in my brain. I folded. The early position player called. The player to my right showed a hand that included TT for the full house, while the early position player showed a hand that included 43 - a losing straight and what would have been a losing low had I called the final two bets on the river.
Made a novice mistake on that hand, which is that on the river I put my opponent(s) on a hand and decided to fold because I thought that I had lost. In reality, you can never be 100% sure of what an opponent has (short of them mistakenly showing you their hand). Even if you're 90% sure that you're beat, if you're getting 10:1 (or anything > 9:1) on that last call you should make the call.
Still, a good night overall though.
We took turns choosing the game, playing one or two rounds of that game depending on how many players were playing at the time. For my first game I chose Razz. It had the advantage that I had hoped for, which was that not everyone was familiar with the game. However, it also had the disadvantage that not everyone was familiar with the game. It moved a bit slowly both because of dealing and because there were often questions about bring-ins, who leads the betting, which hand is best, etc. Hopefully it didn't turn everyone too much off of the game and more importantly off of the idiot player who called the game. :-) For my second pick I kept it simple with pot-limit Omaha 8 or Better.
Despite missing just about all of my big draws, and losing to one particularly bad beat, I managed to be the second biggest winner for the night. I think this was mostly due to initial hand selection, being able to make some decent folds, and having my opponents unable to make difficult folds. I did make one bad fold early on though in a LO8 rotation:
I was dealt AsAc4s2d and came in for a raise. There was some surprise there. Apparently the group doesn't raise a lot preflop in Omaha. I had several callers and hit a pretty big flop for me. I can't remember the specifics and wasn't taking notes, but I believe the flop was T65 with two spades. A truly monster flop.
Checked to me, I bet and still got several callers. The turn was another 5, pairing the board meaning that my spade and straight draws might be useless. An early position, loose player bet out. It was folded to the player to my right who raised. I called the two bets figuring that my low draw was very good and that I still had *some* chance of winning the high if it hit. The early position player just called.
The river was a 2. Ok, not the nut low, but I might have to split if I had hit with my A2, whereas the 2 may have just counterfeited one or both of my opponents. The early position player bet out and the player to my right raised. Hmm. I hope he didn't just hit his A3. I reluctantly called and the early position player now reraised. The player to my right then rereraised. At this point I decided that my A4 was probably no good and that the player to my right probably had A3. For some reason the facts that the betting would now be closed and that the pot was pretty damn big didn't register in my brain. I folded. The early position player called. The player to my right showed a hand that included TT for the full house, while the early position player showed a hand that included 43 - a losing straight and what would have been a losing low had I called the final two bets on the river.
Made a novice mistake on that hand, which is that on the river I put my opponent(s) on a hand and decided to fold because I thought that I had lost. In reality, you can never be 100% sure of what an opponent has (short of them mistakenly showing you their hand). Even if you're 90% sure that you're beat, if you're getting 10:1 (or anything > 9:1) on that last call you should make the call.
Still, a good night overall though.
Link | Leave a comment {2} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Finally, a response to the Sept. 21st hand
Oct. 3rd, 2007 | 11:20 am
Sorry for the delay in getting back to this. I had to make an unexpected trip to the hospital, so I'm getting to this a few days later than I had hoped. All is well now though, so let's get to the hand...
After playing out the hand I thought that I might have misplayed it. Specifically, I thought that a raise on the flop might have been a better idea. I didn't think that I needed to necessarily defend against a flush draw (I don't want to be worried about monsters under the bed), but think about what happens when I call. The other player is going to either put me on a hand that I'm worried about, a monster hand that I'm slow-playing, or a flush draw. Now, when that spade comes out on the turn it's not just a scare card for me, it can be a scare card for him too. If he's betting a medium strength hand (which he often does) or a straight draw (which might be drawing dead) then that scare card could be enough to get him to give up on it. The fact that the flop is all medium cards also means that an overcard is likely on the turn - another possible scare card if he's on top pair.
Am I being results oriented when I think like that? I'm really not sure. There's something to be said for considering scare cards for your opponent when you want to get more money in the pot. On the other hand, there's a chance that he's folding to a raise on the flop as well and a non-scare card on the turn could let me get a few more chips in the middle.
So, there's my thinking on it. Opinions?
After playing out the hand I thought that I might have misplayed it. Specifically, I thought that a raise on the flop might have been a better idea. I didn't think that I needed to necessarily defend against a flush draw (I don't want to be worried about monsters under the bed), but think about what happens when I call. The other player is going to either put me on a hand that I'm worried about, a monster hand that I'm slow-playing, or a flush draw. Now, when that spade comes out on the turn it's not just a scare card for me, it can be a scare card for him too. If he's betting a medium strength hand (which he often does) or a straight draw (which might be drawing dead) then that scare card could be enough to get him to give up on it. The fact that the flop is all medium cards also means that an overcard is likely on the turn - another possible scare card if he's on top pair.
Am I being results oriented when I think like that? I'm really not sure. There's something to be said for considering scare cards for your opponent when you want to get more money in the pot. On the other hand, there's a chance that he's folding to a raise on the flop as well and a non-scare card on the turn could let me get a few more chips in the middle.
So, there's my thinking on it. Opinions?
Link | Leave a comment {2} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Why I Suck
Sep. 25th, 2007 | 02:18 pm
I think that I've found the biggest leak in my live game. I've often suspected it, but going over hand histories lately has confirmed it. Basically, I call just way too much, especially on the river. At the low limits for NLHE, it's usually a losing strategy. Sure, you'll find some players who are habitual pot thieves, and sometimes a call on the end with a mediocre hand is just what is needed. For the most part though, when a low limit NLHE player bets his hand all the way, including the river, he's not bluffing.
This afternoon I stopped at home for lunch and fired up PokerStars for a bit of poker. I sat down in a $0.50/$1 NLHE game. The first hand I posted in late position and got dealt Q8s. No raises preflop, so I saw the flop of 9TJ rainbow in a 4-way pot. Another player had QJo and payed me off when I slow-played the flop, made a good sized raise on the turn, and value-bet the river. A bit later I picked up AQs in early position and limped (I tend to mix it up a bit when I get this hand suited). The flop had an ace and my preflop limp worked out because a weak ace called me all the way down.
I was up to around $175 at this point, when I got dealt A4o in the SB. It was folded to me and I called, at which point the BB raised. Ok, I've played this pretty poorly so far I think. I figure, "He must be viewing my call as weakness and is bluffing." The flop had an ace, so I check-called (ugh!). I could have check-raised to see where I was at, but instead I played like a dead fish. The turn brought another ace and I continued to check-call. When he bet $40 on the river I really should have had no trouble throwing it away, but instead I suffered from the problem that it's just too easy to click a button when playing online. I called and then cursed my idiot play. I had given away all of my winnings and was down about $5. I won a few hands after that and booked a small win, but it should have been a big win.
Ok, so now I've learned my lesson (again). At low limits, when a player bets their hand all the way down, they almost always have it (unless of course you have a good read on your opponent as a bit of a maniac). From now on I will no longer make these horrible, weak calls.
For those of you reading this and thinking that you're going to find me online and take advantage of your newfound knowledge of my play let me just say this: I track the IP address of everyone who visits this site and that gets cross-referenced with my extensive database of online poker players' IP addresses as well as the Homeland Security database of degenerate poker players via satellite. So, if you sit at my table I'll know that you've been here and I'll use reverse psychology on you. Maybe even reverse-reverse psychology. You won't know what hit you. You've been warned.
I'm going to post my thoughts on the hand from my last entry in another day or two. I've gotten a few responses by email, and I want to give some people another day or two to post if they're interested. While I don't mind the emails, I'd prefer if people post comments on here so that it can be saved for all posterity. Some day an alien culture may discover the remains of a human society and they'll want to know everyone's thoughts on how I played that hand. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to find that information.
This afternoon I stopped at home for lunch and fired up PokerStars for a bit of poker. I sat down in a $0.50/$1 NLHE game. The first hand I posted in late position and got dealt Q8s. No raises preflop, so I saw the flop of 9TJ rainbow in a 4-way pot. Another player had QJo and payed me off when I slow-played the flop, made a good sized raise on the turn, and value-bet the river. A bit later I picked up AQs in early position and limped (I tend to mix it up a bit when I get this hand suited). The flop had an ace and my preflop limp worked out because a weak ace called me all the way down.
I was up to around $175 at this point, when I got dealt A4o in the SB. It was folded to me and I called, at which point the BB raised. Ok, I've played this pretty poorly so far I think. I figure, "He must be viewing my call as weakness and is bluffing." The flop had an ace, so I check-called (ugh!). I could have check-raised to see where I was at, but instead I played like a dead fish. The turn brought another ace and I continued to check-call. When he bet $40 on the river I really should have had no trouble throwing it away, but instead I suffered from the problem that it's just too easy to click a button when playing online. I called and then cursed my idiot play. I had given away all of my winnings and was down about $5. I won a few hands after that and booked a small win, but it should have been a big win.
Ok, so now I've learned my lesson (again). At low limits, when a player bets their hand all the way down, they almost always have it (unless of course you have a good read on your opponent as a bit of a maniac). From now on I will no longer make these horrible, weak calls.
For those of you reading this and thinking that you're going to find me online and take advantage of your newfound knowledge of my play let me just say this: I track the IP address of everyone who visits this site and that gets cross-referenced with my extensive database of online poker players' IP addresses as well as the Homeland Security database of degenerate poker players via satellite. So, if you sit at my table I'll know that you've been here and I'll use reverse psychology on you. Maybe even reverse-reverse psychology. You won't know what hit you. You've been warned.
I'm going to post my thoughts on the hand from my last entry in another day or two. I've gotten a few responses by email, and I want to give some people another day or two to post if they're interested. While I don't mind the emails, I'd prefer if people post comments on here so that it can be saved for all posterity. Some day an alien culture may discover the remains of a human society and they'll want to know everyone's thoughts on how I played that hand. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to find that information.
Link | Leave a comment {2} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
A Hand for Review
Sep. 21st, 2007 | 12:02 am
I'm currently playing in a 180-man, $4 + 0.40 NLHE Sit-N-Go. We're down to the final two tables and I'm second in chips (1st place is to my right, with a HUGE lead). The following hand came up, which I think I misplayed. Your comments are appreciated! I'll give things a few days for people to post their thoughts on the hand, then I'll post my thinking, where I think I went wrong, and why.
EDIT: Now that I'm out of the tournament (I took 8th place), I can add a bit to this. kisses777 has been limping a lot and then trying to use their stack to win the pot after the flop. I hadn't yet gotten a good read on lovosagalo since we had just combined tables and they were new. I won't go into the other players that didn't get involved in the hand, but I will point out that there had been a lot of limping preflop, and other than myself noone seemed to be interested in stealing (preflop) all of the money from the limpers, so a raise behind wasn't necessarily a high probability event.
Table '61785826 17' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 2: kisses777 (64770 in chips)
Seat 3: Aardvark (25074 in chips)
Seat 5: KrazyMofo24 (15945 in chips)
Seat 6: riveracheron (23582 in chips)
Seat 8: ray2007 (18293 in chips)
Seat 9: lovosagalo (20004 in chips)
kisses777: posts the ante 75
Aardvark: posts the ante 75
KrazyMofo24: posts the ante 75
riveracheron: posts the ante 75
ray2007: posts the ante 75
lovosagalo: posts the ante 75
ray2007: posts small blind 400
lovosagalo: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Aardvark [Jh Th]
kisses777: calls 800
Aardvark: calls 800
KrazyMofo24: folds
riveracheron: folds
ray2007: folds
lovosagalo: checks
*** FLOP *** [8s 9c 7s]
lovosagalo: checks
kisses777: bets 2400
Aardvark: calls 2400
lovosagalo: folds
*** TURN *** [8s 9c 7s] [As]
kisses777: checks
Aardvark: bets 5800
kisses777: folds
Aardvark collected 8050 from pot
Aardvark: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 8050 | Rake 0
Board [8s 9c 7s As]
Seat 2: kisses777 folded on the Turn
Seat 3: Aardvark collected (8050)
Seat 5: KrazyMofo24 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: riveracheron (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: ray2007 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: lovosagalo (big blind) folded on the Flop
EDIT: Now that I'm out of the tournament (I took 8th place), I can add a bit to this. kisses777 has been limping a lot and then trying to use their stack to win the pot after the flop. I hadn't yet gotten a good read on lovosagalo since we had just combined tables and they were new. I won't go into the other players that didn't get involved in the hand, but I will point out that there had been a lot of limping preflop, and other than myself noone seemed to be interested in stealing (preflop) all of the money from the limpers, so a raise behind wasn't necessarily a high probability event.
Table '61785826 17' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 2: kisses777 (64770 in chips)
Seat 3: Aardvark (25074 in chips)
Seat 5: KrazyMofo24 (15945 in chips)
Seat 6: riveracheron (23582 in chips)
Seat 8: ray2007 (18293 in chips)
Seat 9: lovosagalo (20004 in chips)
kisses777: posts the ante 75
Aardvark: posts the ante 75
KrazyMofo24: posts the ante 75
riveracheron: posts the ante 75
ray2007: posts the ante 75
lovosagalo: posts the ante 75
ray2007: posts small blind 400
lovosagalo: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Aardvark [Jh Th]
kisses777: calls 800
Aardvark: calls 800
KrazyMofo24: folds
riveracheron: folds
ray2007: folds
lovosagalo: checks
*** FLOP *** [8s 9c 7s]
lovosagalo: checks
kisses777: bets 2400
Aardvark: calls 2400
lovosagalo: folds
*** TURN *** [8s 9c 7s] [As]
kisses777: checks
Aardvark: bets 5800
kisses777: folds
Aardvark collected 8050 from pot
Aardvark: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 8050 | Rake 0
Board [8s 9c 7s As]
Seat 2: kisses777 folded on the Turn
Seat 3: Aardvark collected (8050)
Seat 5: KrazyMofo24 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: riveracheron (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: ray2007 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: lovosagalo (big blind) folded on the Flop
Link | Leave a comment {3} | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
I Hate Kings
Sep. 19th, 2007 | 10:59 am
I was going through some hand histories last night and found the following... In the last week I've gotten pocket kings 6 times during ring game play. Of those 6 times I raised preflop and won the blinds twice. I ran into aces twice and in both cases the board was pretty ragged, so I lost large pots in both cases (although admittedly I should have been able to get away from my kings earlier than I did in one of the hands). The other two times I lost to 97. Yes, I lose to 97 with kings 33% of the time. Ok, in one case the 97 was suited. In both cases I raised preflop and in one of those hands I flopped a set. You can guess how much of my stack I lost on that hand if the other player had me covered. So, I've won the blinds twice and lost large pots 4 times. I hate Kings. Ok, whining rant is over now.
Despite some horrible sessions I'm still doing ok, but I think that I'm going to try to play more tournaments than I have been. Ring games are convenient because I can sit down and get up whenever I want. If I play for 15 minutes and something comes up I can just pick up from the table. The problem is, my no limit ring-game isn't nearly as good as my tournament game (not just based on recent results). I also tend to get distracted during ring game play, whereas I concentrate more during a tournament.
I definitely want to change my performance in ring games, but my goal right now is to improve my tournament play and I can do that just as well or better playing tournaments. Now if I've got 15 minutes to spare I'll spend that time reading or going through hand histories.
Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend
Another Update
Sep. 13th, 2007 | 01:40 pm
I've been trying to think of a better way to handle updates to this blog. Right now it's most convenient for me to write when I'm at a computer where I have no access to my hand histories. As interesting as it is to read me babbling about being up $43 or down $18 and coming in X place in tournament Y, I'm guessing that most people would like to see hand histories.
I'm going to see about setting up a s00per sekrit website where I can download my own hand histories, so that I'll always have access to them. Hopefully that will do the trick.
Oh, and I'm down $12.75 today from a ring game. In the past week I've played in a handful of sit-n-go's. I took 2nd place in a 45-man $5 tournament and sneaked into the money in a couple $10 45-man tournaments. So, I'm ahead a bit in my tournament play and behind after a few ring-game sessions.
It's still too early to make a judgment on my ring-game play, but I don't feel as good about it as my tournament play - and not just because I'm losing there. I'm going to put in a couple more sessions and then assess it. My goal in this whole experiment is to improve my tournament play, but there are a lot of lessons in ring-game play that I think I need to learn to transition them to my tournament play.
Also on my to-do list is finding an easy way to keep my "current bankroll" graphic up to date. I made the first one in Paint (and you thought noone ever actually used that program) just to see if I could use my "portrait" graphic to show my current bankroll for goal-tracking purposes. It looks like it works, and in fact I think I can set them for specific log entries, so you should be able to see it over time. Right now I have a default portrait set to the bankroll graphic, so it's showing for all log entries. It's also hard to get it to look uniform in Paint. I'll see what I can do about it.
I'm going to see about setting up a s00per sekrit website where I can download my own hand histories, so that I'll always have access to them. Hopefully that will do the trick.
Oh, and I'm down $12.75 today from a ring game. In the past week I've played in a handful of sit-n-go's. I took 2nd place in a 45-man $5 tournament and sneaked into the money in a couple $10 45-man tournaments. So, I'm ahead a bit in my tournament play and behind after a few ring-game sessions.
It's still too early to make a judgment on my ring-game play, but I don't feel as good about it as my tournament play - and not just because I'm losing there. I'm going to put in a couple more sessions and then assess it. My goal in this whole experiment is to improve my tournament play, but there are a lot of lessons in ring-game play that I think I need to learn to transition them to my tournament play.
Also on my to-do list is finding an easy way to keep my "current bankroll" graphic up to date. I made the first one in Paint (and you thought noone ever actually used that program) just to see if I could use my "portrait" graphic to show my current bankroll for goal-tracking purposes. It looks like it works, and in fact I think I can set them for specific log entries, so you should be able to see it over time. Right now I have a default portrait set to the bankroll graphic, so it's showing for all log entries. It's also hard to get it to look uniform in Paint. I'll see what I can do about it.