http://www.pokerhand.org/?1639525
This may be spew, or not, but I felt awesome after pulling it off. Just to tell you how the hand went down, I never reraise somebody UTG with 88. I might do this with air from time to time, but not with hand like 88. Now that's spew, but somehow in my multitabling frenzy, I misclick, and bet pot PF. Now, after I did that and BB min 3 bet, I had to put him on a huge PP. AK never does this, so initially I put him on AA,KK, and maybe half his QQs. He wasn't the strongest of players, and he was laying me such a sick sick price, that I called to set mine. I knew that I could stack him on the right flop. However, once an A flops, and he bet so small into the pot, I immediately think that he has KK. I discount AA partially because an A in on the flop, but also because against him, I didn't think that he would be the type of player that would put a blocking bet out. I think he would either check it, looking to c/rai or just bet it. So I called, because I really think this bet is a scared bet. He has to view my range as heavily weighted towards AK, so if he showed weakness again on the turn, I decided that I would rep AK and take it away from him. After I bet the turn, he instafolded.
This is a play that I never do. There are so many non-standard things that lead up to my sick fancy play. First of all, my 3bet, then his min 4bet, then his weak blocker cbet. Somehow, I had this amazing read for just this one play. Immediately after that, I wish that I didn't have auto-muck on so that I could show the guy this sick bluff, but I couldn't. Instead, I'm blogging about it.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
I'm a 5/10 Fish.
Recently I've been keeping a fish list. I've been finding awful players, and I've been sitting on there tables hoping that they'll spew money to me. Well on Thursday night, there was this fish on 3/6nl that decided to chase his losses in 5/10, and since I was sorta on a semi-heater before this, I decided to go up as well. I closed up a lot of my other tables, and decided to just 3-4 table 5/10nl. I promised myself that if I got outplayed or started losing a lot of money, I'd have a 3 buyin stop loss, and stop playing. Below are some of my hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638798
Here is one of the pots, I knew that he was bluffing here. This guy was so donkishly aggro that my hand was hovering over the call button to snap call. Here I'm a 85/15 favorite.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638804
Here I cold called in the small blind because the sb is a super donk who had been 3 betting and 4 betting in 80% of pots. So I knew he was going to squeeze.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638826
A cooler.
Well I knew that I was going to quit, but I rationalized that it was all bad luck, and that I was still +EV on my tables since there were so much fish. Well, I then lost some more money to this 45/35 fish that was the one 3/4 betting every other pot. Just to set this up, let me show you a couple of his hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638841
He puts it in with 200bb with QJo. This was after everybody knew that he was just a complete donk.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638853
I don't even know what to say.
Here are some of my hands against him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638874
I'm folding TT never. Too bad I lose a coin flip.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638880
This hand, I'm sort of on the fence. Here after he raised my cbet, I was unsure about either CC or just going with the hand. If I reraised, I was comitting myself to the pot, and I had to decide whether or not I was going with the hand. If I cold called, I could potentially get him to bluff again on the turn, however, if an overcard came I would be in a really hard spot, because he could have some hand like K7, Q7, K2, or any hands that he's reraising here with air could have overcards in his range. I already decided that he didn't have any PP higher than mine because 100% of the time, he would have repopped me preflop. So I decided to try and take it down there, or hope he gets it all in with a pair of 77s, there are also a lot of straight draws that are in his range. One problem perhaps is that there is no flush draw possible, so he's semi-bluffing a lot less here. But he was a super donk, so at the time I was more than happy getting it in.
Even after all this, I still decided to stay on the table. I rationalized to myself that eventually things will turn around. I should realize that when I think like this, I'm obviously not playing my A game. I then get into a lot of sick pots where people turn two pair on me on the turn or the river, or I call with trips with a weak kicker while the other person has the higher kicker or has the boat. Though, I think that in a lot of these pots, I should have been able to find a fold. They were against regulars, and I know that they weren't bluffing. But I resorted to thinking, "ehhh, I have trips, I'm not sure what you have, I call." This is just horrible, horrible play on my part, especially at 5/10nl.
I then try a lot of stupid bluffs and people call me down pretty light. I didn't take into account me image at the table. I should have remembered something that Green Plastic always preaches. He says that when you're losing a lot of money on the table, you should be willing to try even less moves because you don't get as much respect on the table and people expect you to be bluffing. Which is 100% true. Here are a couple bluffs that I tried, that may have worked in other situations, but obviously not then.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638984
Here, the more I think about it, the more I dislike his call. I don't know though. He may have thought that since he induced the bluff, he has to call, but I don't know. I called the flop bet with the intention of bluffing later. So after he checks the turn, I discounted any ace from his range, because I've been playing it like a draw, because he should protect his hand, and should try to extract value from any K. So I bet trying to push him off any PP like QQ, JJ, and so on. But he calls, and then the flush hits on the river. After he checks again, I decided that since I did play it like a flush draw, I might as well represent the flush. So I bet again. Obviously he calls.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1639010
Here I don't know. Does this really look like a bluff? I'm not sure about this. I guess because he check/calls all THREE streets, he's probably going to call more than not. This may have been a stupid bluff to pull. I just felt that he was weak, and that's why I bluffed, especially on the river. Now that I think about it, the river was probably a bad spot to try and pull a bluff. I've heard a couple people say that you shouldn't really be pulling bluffs when you're timing down because people give you less credit. I never really believed that, because people may be multi-tabling, but perhaps this was one of those times where he calls because I had to think a long time about this. I guess it makes sense now. I need to keep this in mind.
But since I lost 10 buyins in 5/10nl, I've been putting in an insane amount of hands to try and make up for my spew. I have made back $5,000 and at least I'm up for the month again. But this was probably the worst time for me to have a spew off downswing. Whenever I go on a massive downswing, I just can't think of anything else, but pulling myself out of my swing. I feel so bad and stupid that I'm consumed with the feeling of grinding to pull myself out of my swing. I've played for about 34 hours including my downswing on Thursday. I was going to study and go out with my buddies this weekend, but accomplished none of that because of my stupid shot. I have an exam on Tuesday that is going to be very very hard. Hopefully I don't fail my class because of my retardedness. But below is my stats for my poker sessions and my EV graph for all pots that went to showdown.
At my worst, I was running about $10,000 under expectation. Right now, I'm still about $6,500 under expectation. Although I felt pretty gross after my $5/10 debacle, I really feel that I've learnt a bunch in that brief foray. Since I was only 2-4 tabling, and I haven't done this in a while, I was picking up on a lot of things. I've felt that my game has really improved and I feel a lot better about my hand reading abilities. Because of this, I'm much much more comfortable now in $3/6 as well. I feel quite confident about my $3/6nl game and I'm actually looking forward to taking another shot at $5/10nl. Hopefully this time, though, I won't tilt, and I will have better results. Lets face it, I am results orientated.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638798
Here is one of the pots, I knew that he was bluffing here. This guy was so donkishly aggro that my hand was hovering over the call button to snap call. Here I'm a 85/15 favorite.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638804
Here I cold called in the small blind because the sb is a super donk who had been 3 betting and 4 betting in 80% of pots. So I knew he was going to squeeze.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638826
A cooler.
Well I knew that I was going to quit, but I rationalized that it was all bad luck, and that I was still +EV on my tables since there were so much fish. Well, I then lost some more money to this 45/35 fish that was the one 3/4 betting every other pot. Just to set this up, let me show you a couple of his hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638841
He puts it in with 200bb with QJo. This was after everybody knew that he was just a complete donk.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638853
I don't even know what to say.
Here are some of my hands against him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638874
I'm folding TT never. Too bad I lose a coin flip.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638880
This hand, I'm sort of on the fence. Here after he raised my cbet, I was unsure about either CC or just going with the hand. If I reraised, I was comitting myself to the pot, and I had to decide whether or not I was going with the hand. If I cold called, I could potentially get him to bluff again on the turn, however, if an overcard came I would be in a really hard spot, because he could have some hand like K7, Q7, K2, or any hands that he's reraising here with air could have overcards in his range. I already decided that he didn't have any PP higher than mine because 100% of the time, he would have repopped me preflop. So I decided to try and take it down there, or hope he gets it all in with a pair of 77s, there are also a lot of straight draws that are in his range. One problem perhaps is that there is no flush draw possible, so he's semi-bluffing a lot less here. But he was a super donk, so at the time I was more than happy getting it in.
Even after all this, I still decided to stay on the table. I rationalized to myself that eventually things will turn around. I should realize that when I think like this, I'm obviously not playing my A game. I then get into a lot of sick pots where people turn two pair on me on the turn or the river, or I call with trips with a weak kicker while the other person has the higher kicker or has the boat. Though, I think that in a lot of these pots, I should have been able to find a fold. They were against regulars, and I know that they weren't bluffing. But I resorted to thinking, "ehhh, I have trips, I'm not sure what you have, I call." This is just horrible, horrible play on my part, especially at 5/10nl.
I then try a lot of stupid bluffs and people call me down pretty light. I didn't take into account me image at the table. I should have remembered something that Green Plastic always preaches. He says that when you're losing a lot of money on the table, you should be willing to try even less moves because you don't get as much respect on the table and people expect you to be bluffing. Which is 100% true. Here are a couple bluffs that I tried, that may have worked in other situations, but obviously not then.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638984
Here, the more I think about it, the more I dislike his call. I don't know though. He may have thought that since he induced the bluff, he has to call, but I don't know. I called the flop bet with the intention of bluffing later. So after he checks the turn, I discounted any ace from his range, because I've been playing it like a draw, because he should protect his hand, and should try to extract value from any K. So I bet trying to push him off any PP like QQ, JJ, and so on. But he calls, and then the flush hits on the river. After he checks again, I decided that since I did play it like a flush draw, I might as well represent the flush. So I bet again. Obviously he calls.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1639010
Here I don't know. Does this really look like a bluff? I'm not sure about this. I guess because he check/calls all THREE streets, he's probably going to call more than not. This may have been a stupid bluff to pull. I just felt that he was weak, and that's why I bluffed, especially on the river. Now that I think about it, the river was probably a bad spot to try and pull a bluff. I've heard a couple people say that you shouldn't really be pulling bluffs when you're timing down because people give you less credit. I never really believed that, because people may be multi-tabling, but perhaps this was one of those times where he calls because I had to think a long time about this. I guess it makes sense now. I need to keep this in mind.
But since I lost 10 buyins in 5/10nl, I've been putting in an insane amount of hands to try and make up for my spew. I have made back $5,000 and at least I'm up for the month again. But this was probably the worst time for me to have a spew off downswing. Whenever I go on a massive downswing, I just can't think of anything else, but pulling myself out of my swing. I feel so bad and stupid that I'm consumed with the feeling of grinding to pull myself out of my swing. I've played for about 34 hours including my downswing on Thursday. I was going to study and go out with my buddies this weekend, but accomplished none of that because of my stupid shot. I have an exam on Tuesday that is going to be very very hard. Hopefully I don't fail my class because of my retardedness. But below is my stats for my poker sessions and my EV graph for all pots that went to showdown.
At my worst, I was running about $10,000 under expectation. Right now, I'm still about $6,500 under expectation. Although I felt pretty gross after my $5/10 debacle, I really feel that I've learnt a bunch in that brief foray. Since I was only 2-4 tabling, and I haven't done this in a while, I was picking up on a lot of things. I've felt that my game has really improved and I feel a lot better about my hand reading abilities. Because of this, I'm much much more comfortable now in $3/6 as well. I feel quite confident about my $3/6nl game and I'm actually looking forward to taking another shot at $5/10nl. Hopefully this time, though, I won't tilt, and I will have better results. Lets face it, I am results orientated.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
A Certified Degenerate
That's right. I'm officially a degenerate. On Sunday I was on AIM with Whitewash when he introduced me to a couple other Cardrunners members that he knows. We're all thinking of getting a house next summer during the WSOP, and it's going to be sick. Anybody who wants to come down and chill with a house full of poker players is more than welcome to crash at the house. It's going to be nuts. I'm actually really excited about it.
I learned that one of the house mates will be a high volume Full Tilt reg that I've played with a bunch. This guy, Jballer, puts in a sick number of hands in a month. I think he says he puts in about 80k hands a month. After talking a little bit, somehow Whitewash, Jballer and I end up doing flips. We first start off on the 1/2 table. I instantly lose $200. After that, Whitewash is done. So Jballer asks if I want to do $1k flips. Now that's way too much for me, but I agree to doing $500 flips. Long story short, I win the first flip, he wins the next two, and I'm down $500. I decide that I'm done after that, and I'm down $700 after my first flipping session. Now, I used read about other poker players doing flips, and I've always thought of them as degens. Face it, it is pretty stupid to just flip for money. But now, even I have done some flips. The scary thing about it, is that I didn't even really care that I lost the $700. The swings that I have experienced in the past month have desensitized me from the effects of losing or even winning that amount of money. Now I know that I'll never be a person that will get a rush from doing flips, but I can see myself getting sucked into a session of drunken flips next summer in Vegas. Hopefully I won't have a -$10k flip session and then go on life tilt.
Other than that, I've been playing a bunch of poker this week, and my results have been pretty good. I'm really excited for myself. So, on Cake Poker, I finally moved up to $5/10nl. There were a bunch of weak fishies playing HU $5/10 and 6max, and I felt like sitting in with them. I'm up about $3.5k there. I could have been up more, but I lost about $2.5k to this one really aggro fish playing HU. We were playing some pretty deepstack poker and near the end I lost a
4k pot against him where he 3 outered me. After that, I probably lost about $200 to tilt, and then decided to quit because I knew that I wasn't playing my best and that I wasn't willing to stomach the variance of playing against the guy, even though I knew that I had an edge against him.
Here are my results on FT and Stars. I've been playing a lot more HU, and I'm beginning to enjoy it a lot. I think that I've significantly improved this week. I only had one session where I felt that I was totally outclassed. But this one guy was extremely aggro, and was constantly 3 betting me. I just couldn't figure out how to handle his aggression. I quit him after I was down about 2 buy ins to him. I thin the problem was, that I had never played a person who was so unbelievably aggro. I was a little overwhelmed when I was playing him in the session. However, now that I've had a chance to reflect, I'm confident that I can handle that type of player and not get run over. Other than that I sat on a $1/2 nlhu table while I was playing my $2/4 hu just to get more action and I ended up being up about 7 buyins. It was pretty sick. I stacked three different guys, and The final guy ended up stacking off to me 4 times. Granted I was running pretty hot, but these guys were getting there money in so bad. They were pretty awful. But I had a lot of fun.
Over the past two weeks, I've also been playing a lot of PLO. I want to get a lot better in this game. Below are my results for those hands. Granted, I'm not playing a lot of hands right, but I'm confident that I'll be able to really learn this game. I really haven't been playing the $1/2PLO because I'm pretty sure I can beat this game. I'm trying to improve as fast as possible, which is why I'm logging in a lot of hands at the $2/4 level. I'm also trying to improve my PLO HU game. I really think that there are a lot of weak spots in PLO, which is why I'm trying to improve fast, so that I can quickly start making a lot of money. But I'm taking this pretty seriously. I'm only playing 2-3 tables at a time of PLO so that I can get the nuances of this game. Since the NLHE games are kinda tough at times, I'd really like to be able to jump into a PLO game and be able to make just as much money. If I get good at this game, I think that a realistic long term win rate will be around 8ptbb/100. And it should be higher in HU, especially if I only sit with Omaha fishies.
Looking at my stats, I think one of my main problems is that I'm playing too tight. I need to open up my game. I think that I should be running about 28/22 or so. I'm going to go watch some PLO videos now and take some notes.
I decided to post a graph of my Omaha sessions. It's pretty sick how swingy it is. My total on the graph is also lower than my total in the table because I saved the image after the table, and I lost a bit of money in the omaha games.
I learned that one of the house mates will be a high volume Full Tilt reg that I've played with a bunch. This guy, Jballer, puts in a sick number of hands in a month. I think he says he puts in about 80k hands a month. After talking a little bit, somehow Whitewash, Jballer and I end up doing flips. We first start off on the 1/2 table. I instantly lose $200. After that, Whitewash is done. So Jballer asks if I want to do $1k flips. Now that's way too much for me, but I agree to doing $500 flips. Long story short, I win the first flip, he wins the next two, and I'm down $500. I decide that I'm done after that, and I'm down $700 after my first flipping session. Now, I used read about other poker players doing flips, and I've always thought of them as degens. Face it, it is pretty stupid to just flip for money. But now, even I have done some flips. The scary thing about it, is that I didn't even really care that I lost the $700. The swings that I have experienced in the past month have desensitized me from the effects of losing or even winning that amount of money. Now I know that I'll never be a person that will get a rush from doing flips, but I can see myself getting sucked into a session of drunken flips next summer in Vegas. Hopefully I won't have a -$10k flip session and then go on life tilt.
Other than that, I've been playing a bunch of poker this week, and my results have been pretty good. I'm really excited for myself. So, on Cake Poker, I finally moved up to $5/10nl. There were a bunch of weak fishies playing HU $5/10 and 6max, and I felt like sitting in with them. I'm up about $3.5k there. I could have been up more, but I lost about $2.5k to this one really aggro fish playing HU. We were playing some pretty deepstack poker and near the end I lost a
4k pot against him where he 3 outered me. After that, I probably lost about $200 to tilt, and then decided to quit because I knew that I wasn't playing my best and that I wasn't willing to stomach the variance of playing against the guy, even though I knew that I had an edge against him.
Here are my results on FT and Stars. I've been playing a lot more HU, and I'm beginning to enjoy it a lot. I think that I've significantly improved this week. I only had one session where I felt that I was totally outclassed. But this one guy was extremely aggro, and was constantly 3 betting me. I just couldn't figure out how to handle his aggression. I quit him after I was down about 2 buy ins to him. I thin the problem was, that I had never played a person who was so unbelievably aggro. I was a little overwhelmed when I was playing him in the session. However, now that I've had a chance to reflect, I'm confident that I can handle that type of player and not get run over. Other than that I sat on a $1/2 nlhu table while I was playing my $2/4 hu just to get more action and I ended up being up about 7 buyins. It was pretty sick. I stacked three different guys, and The final guy ended up stacking off to me 4 times. Granted I was running pretty hot, but these guys were getting there money in so bad. They were pretty awful. But I had a lot of fun.
Over the past two weeks, I've also been playing a lot of PLO. I want to get a lot better in this game. Below are my results for those hands. Granted, I'm not playing a lot of hands right, but I'm confident that I'll be able to really learn this game. I really haven't been playing the $1/2PLO because I'm pretty sure I can beat this game. I'm trying to improve as fast as possible, which is why I'm logging in a lot of hands at the $2/4 level. I'm also trying to improve my PLO HU game. I really think that there are a lot of weak spots in PLO, which is why I'm trying to improve fast, so that I can quickly start making a lot of money. But I'm taking this pretty seriously. I'm only playing 2-3 tables at a time of PLO so that I can get the nuances of this game. Since the NLHE games are kinda tough at times, I'd really like to be able to jump into a PLO game and be able to make just as much money. If I get good at this game, I think that a realistic long term win rate will be around 8ptbb/100. And it should be higher in HU, especially if I only sit with Omaha fishies.
Looking at my stats, I think one of my main problems is that I'm playing too tight. I need to open up my game. I think that I should be running about 28/22 or so. I'm going to go watch some PLO videos now and take some notes.
I decided to post a graph of my Omaha sessions. It's pretty sick how swingy it is. My total on the graph is also lower than my total in the table because I saved the image after the table, and I lost a bit of money in the omaha games.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Good few days
Well, I've been grinding quite a bit the past two days, and my results are finally turning around. I dug myself out of my hole, and I'm finally up for the month. The 2/4 games and the 3/6 games have been really juicy this weekend, and I did pretty well. The table is my results for the past two days.
Here is a graph of my entire October so far.
I was going to publish some hands, but I'm too tired right now. I'll do it another day.
Here is a graph of my entire October so far.
I was going to publish some hands, but I'm too tired right now. I'll do it another day.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Digging myself out of a hole
Since I've been in this horrific downswing for all of this month, I've been thinking a lot about my game and how I play a lot of my hands and I've noticed that I have quite a few leaks. This is especially true for when I moved up to 3/6nl and the regulars know what I'm doing, i.e. 3 betting light and raising to isolate the fish.
I've also realized that using my old very tag aggro style I was losing a lot of value and only getting called by hands that have me beat. For example, lets say that I have AK in position in a reraised pot and the flop is Kxx. Using my old style, if my opponent leads into me, I would almost always raise him up there. Although it may be possible that an opponent would stack off light with perhaps QQ or JJ in this spot, it becomes increasingly rare the higher you go up in stakes, which is probably why in the beginning of the month I had a rough time in 3/6nl. Now, I've been just calling the flop lead much much more often. Then I would either bet the turn, or perhaps check the turn and value bet the river. This line, gets looked up much more often by hands like QQ, or JJ thinking that they are good on the river. Whereas, my old style, I was often only getting action from hands that had my hand crushed, like a set.
To balance my play, I've also been floating people a lot more in position. Playing against all the regulars in 3/6nl, I have started to realized just how strong position really is. This is especially true when you know people can fold hands and won't stack off light. Before I was 3 betting a lot OOP, and just getting into awkward spots, because I knew people were playing back at me light, but there wasn't much I could really do playing a bunch of reraised pots OOP. Instead, I've been countering this by really tightening up my 3bet range OOP, however, I've opened up my 3 bet range in position, so that I can play bigger pots in position. These are two things of a bunch of things that I've been working on and thinking about.
I played a ton today, and I'm glad to say that I've finally gotten positive results for this month. I think that all the thought that I've put into my game was one of the large reasons why I had such a monster session today. It felt great, especially because I've been consistently losing for most of the month. I think that this may be the most I've ever made in one day for cash games. So, here are my results for today.
Although, I'm sure that I caught a lot of hands today, I don't think that I ran exceedingly well. I checked my hands on PokerEV, and I'm actually running $300 below expectation. I know that's not much at all, but it's nice to know that I'm not sucking out. I've also lost $600 on AA today. But below is a graph of my month so far. You can see that I went on a pretty bad down swing. Although I may have run bad during that stretch, I think that I played even worse. During that downswing, I was only thinking about the 20k month I had last month, and I basically thought I was the shit. I was making too many moves and I thought that I could outplay everybody post flop. It also didn't help that I just moved up to $3/6nl, and I was basically spewing money. Well, it took close to losing $8k for me to reevaluate what I was doing. It was a learning experience, and I've definitely gotten much better from it. I'll also remember this the next time I get a monster month, and continue to remind myself to play good solid poker.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1574641
This is an example of something that I didn't do as much before, but I'm doing more now. Now, after I bet the flop, I decided to check the turn behind because at first I thought BEWdragon was on a flush draw. I wanted to give him a chance to bluff it and build the pot. Now, if he was on a flush draw, my turn bet would probably push him out of the pot, however, checking in this pot allows him to bluff it, or from his point of view, semi-bluff it with the flush draw. Now, I checked the river because I again wanted him to bluff at it. From his point of view, it looks like I have a one pair type hand like KQ, KJ, K10, perhaps even a pocket pair like QQ, JJ, TT. Now, if he has nothing, I think that an aggressive player would very likely bet this river. There is almost no way that I have a flush, because what flush would check this river, after checking the turn. It would be quite hard for a one pair type hand to call any sizeable river bet. Even an 8 would bet this river. So any hand that would call me if I bet would also bet the river, so I'm not losing any value there, IMO. However, if I bet, almost no hands would raise me on that river for "value". But at the same time, if I check raise him all in, after he bets, he is getting such a great price on the all in call, that he has to call with almost anything that he bets the river with. Before, I would most probably just bet the river because I would be afraid that it would get check through. Now, I'm more interested in maximizing value.
I've also realized that using my old very tag aggro style I was losing a lot of value and only getting called by hands that have me beat. For example, lets say that I have AK in position in a reraised pot and the flop is Kxx. Using my old style, if my opponent leads into me, I would almost always raise him up there. Although it may be possible that an opponent would stack off light with perhaps QQ or JJ in this spot, it becomes increasingly rare the higher you go up in stakes, which is probably why in the beginning of the month I had a rough time in 3/6nl. Now, I've been just calling the flop lead much much more often. Then I would either bet the turn, or perhaps check the turn and value bet the river. This line, gets looked up much more often by hands like QQ, or JJ thinking that they are good on the river. Whereas, my old style, I was often only getting action from hands that had my hand crushed, like a set.
To balance my play, I've also been floating people a lot more in position. Playing against all the regulars in 3/6nl, I have started to realized just how strong position really is. This is especially true when you know people can fold hands and won't stack off light. Before I was 3 betting a lot OOP, and just getting into awkward spots, because I knew people were playing back at me light, but there wasn't much I could really do playing a bunch of reraised pots OOP. Instead, I've been countering this by really tightening up my 3bet range OOP, however, I've opened up my 3 bet range in position, so that I can play bigger pots in position. These are two things of a bunch of things that I've been working on and thinking about.
I played a ton today, and I'm glad to say that I've finally gotten positive results for this month. I think that all the thought that I've put into my game was one of the large reasons why I had such a monster session today. It felt great, especially because I've been consistently losing for most of the month. I think that this may be the most I've ever made in one day for cash games. So, here are my results for today.
Although, I'm sure that I caught a lot of hands today, I don't think that I ran exceedingly well. I checked my hands on PokerEV, and I'm actually running $300 below expectation. I know that's not much at all, but it's nice to know that I'm not sucking out. I've also lost $600 on AA today. But below is a graph of my month so far. You can see that I went on a pretty bad down swing. Although I may have run bad during that stretch, I think that I played even worse. During that downswing, I was only thinking about the 20k month I had last month, and I basically thought I was the shit. I was making too many moves and I thought that I could outplay everybody post flop. It also didn't help that I just moved up to $3/6nl, and I was basically spewing money. Well, it took close to losing $8k for me to reevaluate what I was doing. It was a learning experience, and I've definitely gotten much better from it. I'll also remember this the next time I get a monster month, and continue to remind myself to play good solid poker.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1574641
This is an example of something that I didn't do as much before, but I'm doing more now. Now, after I bet the flop, I decided to check the turn behind because at first I thought BEWdragon was on a flush draw. I wanted to give him a chance to bluff it and build the pot. Now, if he was on a flush draw, my turn bet would probably push him out of the pot, however, checking in this pot allows him to bluff it, or from his point of view, semi-bluff it with the flush draw. Now, I checked the river because I again wanted him to bluff at it. From his point of view, it looks like I have a one pair type hand like KQ, KJ, K10, perhaps even a pocket pair like QQ, JJ, TT. Now, if he has nothing, I think that an aggressive player would very likely bet this river. There is almost no way that I have a flush, because what flush would check this river, after checking the turn. It would be quite hard for a one pair type hand to call any sizeable river bet. Even an 8 would bet this river. So any hand that would call me if I bet would also bet the river, so I'm not losing any value there, IMO. However, if I bet, almost no hands would raise me on that river for "value". But at the same time, if I check raise him all in, after he bets, he is getting such a great price on the all in call, that he has to call with almost anything that he bets the river with. Before, I would most probably just bet the river because I would be afraid that it would get check through. Now, I'm more interested in maximizing value.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
I just got absolutely cold decked
So, I just lost 5.5 buyins on Cake poker at 2/4nl. Granted, I was absolutely exhausted, and probably didn't play optimally, but there were soooo many soft spots, I felt that at any point I could have gone on an absolute rush.
I won a bunch of huge pots, however, there was this absolute donk that was on my left on 2/5 of the tables that I was playing, and he was on my right in 2 of them, but he got the deck slapped in his face. I wish I could figure out how to post hand histories from Cake Poker, but I can't quite seem to figure it out. So I'll try to summarize what happened.
So, near the beginning of my play, I noticed that there were a bunch of the same people on a lot of my tables. And I noticed that this one guy, just kept on raising and 3betting me. So on one of the tables where he was immediately on my right, he raised the button, and I see that I have AKo in the sb. So, I 3bet him, and then he 4 bets me. We were about 120bbs deep, and I thought about it for a while, and I had a good feeling that I was good, and I didn't want to play AK against him OOP because this guy is the biggest calling station in the world. So I shove. He almost instacalls with AJo. And sucks out on me to take the first pot.
Since PAHud doesn't work on Cake Poker, I was basically readless. Since I then knew that he was an absolute donkey, I target him on all my tables. This was probably a mistake. Because I just constantly tried to isolate him, and I think he picked up on this, because he kept on floating my double and triple barrels, and vice versa. So I manage to stack him once, and then he gets hit in the face with the deck. I probably wasn't playing well, and should have gotten away from a lot of these spots, but I don't know.
One memorable hand was where I was deepstacked for 200bbs, and so was he. I had AK and I 3 bet him from the button, after he raised in the CO. He opts to just call. So the board came KKx. There's about $120 in the pot, and effective stacks were about $750. He checks, and I cbet 3/4 pot, and he instacalls. A meaning less card like a 7 or something falls, he instantly checks the turn. Here, I take a weird line because I want him to think I'm weak and shove over me or something. But I bet half the pot, and then he just instacalls again. I was just like WTF. So at the river the pot was about $500 or so, and I think we still have about $600-$700 in our stacks. I'm not quite sure, but he checks and I bet about 2/3 of the pot hoping to get looked up by any pair, but he then shoves on me. I don't know if I had to call, but I did, hoping to see AA or KQ or something, but he filled up on the river with a full house holding pocket 66s. And I ship him the pot.
Well, the next couple hours proceed by me, shipping off my stack to him when he as AA, and I have QQ. He has KK, I have JJ. And then, I had one retarded call when I was on tilt with 77, after he shoved on me after I 4bet him with about 150bb. I called, looking to gamble with him, and half expecting to see AK or AQ there, but actually hoping to see him table some like A3s or something. But obv he has AA. But there I actually suck out on him by catching a miracle gutshot straight on the river, when there was a 3card spade flush on the board with him holding the As. But I sucked out, and somehow thought that I was going to finally start stacking him. But then he stacks me on another table with A10 against my AQ, all in pf. And then almost instantly after that I have QQ and we get it all in on another table pf, and he has AK and hits a K on the flop.
I quit almost instantly after that, and decided that today just wasn't my day. But because of this I just had to put some more money on the Cake Poker account, and I'm going to really put in a bunch of time there. I think that it's a money making machine. Plus I also get rakeback there. But other than that, I think I'm going to take this Thursday and Friday off from poker just to get my mind right, and make sure to stop some leaks. There were plenty of times today that I just spewed money, and I knew I was spewing money, but felt like gambling. That's just retarded. I haven't done that in a long while. So, I don't know if I'm just tired, or what, but I going to take a mini break, and rededicate myself to grinding this weekend. We have a long weekend, and get Monday and Tuesday off, and I'm actually looking forward to a weekend of poker. I am very confident that I'm going to make back a lot of the money that I lost on this downswing. I'll give an update sometime over the weekend.
I won a bunch of huge pots, however, there was this absolute donk that was on my left on 2/5 of the tables that I was playing, and he was on my right in 2 of them, but he got the deck slapped in his face. I wish I could figure out how to post hand histories from Cake Poker, but I can't quite seem to figure it out. So I'll try to summarize what happened.
So, near the beginning of my play, I noticed that there were a bunch of the same people on a lot of my tables. And I noticed that this one guy, just kept on raising and 3betting me. So on one of the tables where he was immediately on my right, he raised the button, and I see that I have AKo in the sb. So, I 3bet him, and then he 4 bets me. We were about 120bbs deep, and I thought about it for a while, and I had a good feeling that I was good, and I didn't want to play AK against him OOP because this guy is the biggest calling station in the world. So I shove. He almost instacalls with AJo. And sucks out on me to take the first pot.
Since PAHud doesn't work on Cake Poker, I was basically readless. Since I then knew that he was an absolute donkey, I target him on all my tables. This was probably a mistake. Because I just constantly tried to isolate him, and I think he picked up on this, because he kept on floating my double and triple barrels, and vice versa. So I manage to stack him once, and then he gets hit in the face with the deck. I probably wasn't playing well, and should have gotten away from a lot of these spots, but I don't know.
One memorable hand was where I was deepstacked for 200bbs, and so was he. I had AK and I 3 bet him from the button, after he raised in the CO. He opts to just call. So the board came KKx. There's about $120 in the pot, and effective stacks were about $750. He checks, and I cbet 3/4 pot, and he instacalls. A meaning less card like a 7 or something falls, he instantly checks the turn. Here, I take a weird line because I want him to think I'm weak and shove over me or something. But I bet half the pot, and then he just instacalls again. I was just like WTF. So at the river the pot was about $500 or so, and I think we still have about $600-$700 in our stacks. I'm not quite sure, but he checks and I bet about 2/3 of the pot hoping to get looked up by any pair, but he then shoves on me. I don't know if I had to call, but I did, hoping to see AA or KQ or something, but he filled up on the river with a full house holding pocket 66s. And I ship him the pot.
Well, the next couple hours proceed by me, shipping off my stack to him when he as AA, and I have QQ. He has KK, I have JJ. And then, I had one retarded call when I was on tilt with 77, after he shoved on me after I 4bet him with about 150bb. I called, looking to gamble with him, and half expecting to see AK or AQ there, but actually hoping to see him table some like A3s or something. But obv he has AA. But there I actually suck out on him by catching a miracle gutshot straight on the river, when there was a 3card spade flush on the board with him holding the As. But I sucked out, and somehow thought that I was going to finally start stacking him. But then he stacks me on another table with A10 against my AQ, all in pf. And then almost instantly after that I have QQ and we get it all in on another table pf, and he has AK and hits a K on the flop.
I quit almost instantly after that, and decided that today just wasn't my day. But because of this I just had to put some more money on the Cake Poker account, and I'm going to really put in a bunch of time there. I think that it's a money making machine. Plus I also get rakeback there. But other than that, I think I'm going to take this Thursday and Friday off from poker just to get my mind right, and make sure to stop some leaks. There were plenty of times today that I just spewed money, and I knew I was spewing money, but felt like gambling. That's just retarded. I haven't done that in a long while. So, I don't know if I'm just tired, or what, but I going to take a mini break, and rededicate myself to grinding this weekend. We have a long weekend, and get Monday and Tuesday off, and I'm actually looking forward to a weekend of poker. I am very confident that I'm going to make back a lot of the money that I lost on this downswing. I'll give an update sometime over the weekend.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
MonkeyTILT!!!
Well, instead of doing work through the night, I decided to fire up a couple tables of 3/6nl. First off, I just want to take back the fact that I think I'll be able to shot at 5/10nl in November. Unless I just get absolutely disgusting, 3/6nl is a lot lot tougher than 2/4nl. There's definitely a noticeable difference because the good regulars are really thinking players, and you can tell that they're adapting their play to how they think you are playing.
But just a quick update because I have to do work, but I lost about 9 buyins at $3/6nl. First off, I didn't realize that I can't take advantage of the regulars like I normally do. I definitely felt that there were spots where I could make a guy fold with just pure aggression in 2/4nl, that I tried to do in 3/6 and they were just calling me down light. Also, I played on Full Tilt after 3am in the morning, so there were only 5 tables of 3/6nl going on. So, it leads me to think that there were a bunch of 5/10 regulars playing at those stakes too.
I don't think for the most part I played toooo badly. But I got into a bunch of rough spots where the villains line didn't make too much sense, and I kept on paying off his value raise on the river. I think that this is a HUGE HUGE leak for me. I always think that they're bluff raising me off my hand, and I maybe catch off one bluff for every 6 that I payoff. Plus 95% of the raise bluffs that I've picked off have been from Donkeys, and not the regulars.
But a comeon scenario would occur, when I would fire a cbet with my top pair and they would float my cbet with bottom pair. On the turn, they catch a flush draw along with their bottom pair, and they float my turn bet that I actually bet for value. On the turn, though I also paired up my other card for two pair on the turn. So I fire another value bet on the river. However, unknown, to me, they actually triple up wtih bottom pair and they actually raise me. And I pay it off.
Strangely though, after that horrible session, I don't feel all that down. I used to feel really depressed and pissed off whenever I had a huge downswing, but I don't feel all that bad now. It could be partially because I'm getting use to these huge moneyswings, but I also that the fact tha tI have such a healthy bankroll helps a lot. I don't have the nervous anxious feeling that there's a chance that I could go broke, since I still have close to 80 buyins for 3/6.
I'll post a bunch of hands later, from my session., but right now I have to get back to doing actual work.
But just a quick update because I have to do work, but I lost about 9 buyins at $3/6nl. First off, I didn't realize that I can't take advantage of the regulars like I normally do. I definitely felt that there were spots where I could make a guy fold with just pure aggression in 2/4nl, that I tried to do in 3/6 and they were just calling me down light. Also, I played on Full Tilt after 3am in the morning, so there were only 5 tables of 3/6nl going on. So, it leads me to think that there were a bunch of 5/10 regulars playing at those stakes too.
I don't think for the most part I played toooo badly. But I got into a bunch of rough spots where the villains line didn't make too much sense, and I kept on paying off his value raise on the river. I think that this is a HUGE HUGE leak for me. I always think that they're bluff raising me off my hand, and I maybe catch off one bluff for every 6 that I payoff. Plus 95% of the raise bluffs that I've picked off have been from Donkeys, and not the regulars.
But a comeon scenario would occur, when I would fire a cbet with my top pair and they would float my cbet with bottom pair. On the turn, they catch a flush draw along with their bottom pair, and they float my turn bet that I actually bet for value. On the turn, though I also paired up my other card for two pair on the turn. So I fire another value bet on the river. However, unknown, to me, they actually triple up wtih bottom pair and they actually raise me. And I pay it off.
Strangely though, after that horrible session, I don't feel all that down. I used to feel really depressed and pissed off whenever I had a huge downswing, but I don't feel all that bad now. It could be partially because I'm getting use to these huge moneyswings, but I also that the fact tha tI have such a healthy bankroll helps a lot. I don't have the nervous anxious feeling that there's a chance that I could go broke, since I still have close to 80 buyins for 3/6.
I'll post a bunch of hands later, from my session., but right now I have to get back to doing actual work.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Had a Great September
So, here are my September results. The chart below is for all my play online other than Cake poker. For some reason PokerTracker doesn't support Cake Poker, so there's no way for me to track my play there. I've made 4k on cash games on Cake Poker and have just over 2k in tournament profits this month. This 20k+ month is absolutely huge for me.
Right now, I'm a little unsure about what my goals for poker should be for the next month. Obviously I want to move up, but since I've never had a month as huge as this one, I'm not quite sure how much my results is a factor of me running good, or of my playing a lot better.
Right now, I think my plan is to withdraw part of my online bankroll. I think I'll withdraw about 4k. So that brings my online bankroll to about 38k or so. With that, I think I'm going to start playing 50% on 3/6nl and 2/4. My experience is that $3/6 players aren't that much different than $2/4 players, so I'm quite confident that I can continue 6-8 tabling with some $3/6 games and not be that much worse. Since I'll be playing between the two limits, I'll game select a lot to find the most profitable and softest games.
My ultimate goal next month is to make over 12k. If I can do that, whilst maintaing over a 4ptbb/100 winrate, my online bankroll will be 50k so that I can take a shot at 5/10nl in November. This shot at 5/10nl is going to be a very big step. I know that to succeed at 5/10nl, I'm going to have to put in a lot of work and effort. Once I take this step, I'm going to drop back down to 2-3 tables to really put in a lot of effort and concentration into all my play. Lets hope that this move up isn't accompanied by a downswing.
Goals for October:
- Play 50-50 on $3/6 and $2/4.
- Make over 12k+ so that I have enough in my bankroll to attempt to move up to $5/10nl in November.
On a different note, it's funny how I've become such a bankroll nit. I remember before when I would try to move up with 20 buyins in my bankroll. But I've realized that whenever I move up with only 20 buyins, it's really hard to play optimal poker. One misstep and that's 5% of your bankroll gone. Plus if you do happen to stack somebody and then play against another deepstack with 200bbs, losing that pot absolutely hurts because it's 10% of your bankroll. Plus with the state of online poker's aggressiveness these days, it's absolutely possible to have 5 buyin swings in one session.
Well, lets hope that I don't go on super monkey tilt in the next two months and that I continue playing the best poker of my life.
Right now, I'm a little unsure about what my goals for poker should be for the next month. Obviously I want to move up, but since I've never had a month as huge as this one, I'm not quite sure how much my results is a factor of me running good, or of my playing a lot better.
Right now, I think my plan is to withdraw part of my online bankroll. I think I'll withdraw about 4k. So that brings my online bankroll to about 38k or so. With that, I think I'm going to start playing 50% on 3/6nl and 2/4. My experience is that $3/6 players aren't that much different than $2/4 players, so I'm quite confident that I can continue 6-8 tabling with some $3/6 games and not be that much worse. Since I'll be playing between the two limits, I'll game select a lot to find the most profitable and softest games.
My ultimate goal next month is to make over 12k. If I can do that, whilst maintaing over a 4ptbb/100 winrate, my online bankroll will be 50k so that I can take a shot at 5/10nl in November. This shot at 5/10nl is going to be a very big step. I know that to succeed at 5/10nl, I'm going to have to put in a lot of work and effort. Once I take this step, I'm going to drop back down to 2-3 tables to really put in a lot of effort and concentration into all my play. Lets hope that this move up isn't accompanied by a downswing.
Goals for October:
- Play 50-50 on $3/6 and $2/4.
- Make over 12k+ so that I have enough in my bankroll to attempt to move up to $5/10nl in November.
On a different note, it's funny how I've become such a bankroll nit. I remember before when I would try to move up with 20 buyins in my bankroll. But I've realized that whenever I move up with only 20 buyins, it's really hard to play optimal poker. One misstep and that's 5% of your bankroll gone. Plus if you do happen to stack somebody and then play against another deepstack with 200bbs, losing that pot absolutely hurts because it's 10% of your bankroll. Plus with the state of online poker's aggressiveness these days, it's absolutely possible to have 5 buyin swings in one session.
Well, lets hope that I don't go on super monkey tilt in the next two months and that I continue playing the best poker of my life.
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