August -- Ouch

Well, August is in the books for me, and it was pretty frigging ugly. I played so-so, certainly room for improvement there, and ran absolutely terrible. I played significantly better than a lot of my competition, but wtf, I better be able to do that at this level. I got a lot of money in this month as a considerable favorite, but my opponents got there way more than their share.

At one point, I wrote about being frustrated because we keep score using money, and I have been languishing at the lowest stakes for a long time (41k hands of breakeven poker @ 25NL), but being happy about how I was playing and improving. Well, I still think that I'm improving, but taking a hard look at myself after participating in CR low limit and other blogs and forums, I realize that I've got a long way to go still in my development. I work hard at the non-play part of my development -- given my work and family schedule, it's hard for me to get the table hours in, but I can and do find time for reading, writing, and thinking about the game. Translating that study and knowledge into action at the tables is pretty questionable, contributing to another chunk of loss. From that standpoint, there is a silver lining: I'm getting my poker table education pretty cheaply.

The next thing I'd like to do, but it will be difficult for me, is to take this crew concept another step farther than just blogs. I've got some ideas here, and perhaps I'll post them separately. My issue is time: job, kids' sports and school activities, tennis one night a week, golf (at least) once a week, and a wife who for some reason actually wants to spend more time with me all make it hard to be available for group activities on a predictable basis. I'm also toying with the idea of hiring a coach, if I can find one for a reasonable amount.

OK, enough thoughts, here are the pictures.

I tried to tighten up my game some (I usually run a tad higher VPIP, but not much). It looks like I'm pretty nitty getting to showdown, but even so, I'm not even winning 50% of those times. Since I'm fairly aggressive, it doesn't look like I'm calling down too much, but I may be transparent, so that my opponents are only sticking around when they've beat me...I'll need to look at that some.


Sample size is a bit small, but it looks like I'm too loose in the first couple spots, especially UTG. I also am showing down higher percentage from UTG and MP, so maybe I'm falling in love with good looking starting hands. But I'm usually going to be OOP, and therefore less inclined to show down. Another thing to look out for.


Perhaps further evidence of being weak-tight, as I'm losing money when not showing down. For those who don't know this program (and you should check it out, it's called PokerEV, and there's a big thread about it on the 2p2 software forum), the red and blue lines represent showdown hands. The red line represents what you should have won according to equity when the money went in. The blue line represents the money you actually won. The green line is your total winning (or losing, for me). So, the gap between blue and green is how I'm doing when not showing down a hand, and I'm folding more often than not. This may actually be OK at micro stakes, as I'm not as likely to bluff or get bluffed, but it may indicate I'm playing scared as well.


This is the luck graph from PokerEV, and it's pretty self explanatory. This is a really nice little tool in a downswing to prevent a total lack of confidence.


Well, at least I had a couple dozen hands in the green :).

Here's looking to September. Oh, and if anyone from Full Tilt happens to be reading this....please turn off the doom switch on my account!

Catching up on some hands

I've been playing a little bit, mostly working and finishing Professional No Limit Hold'em. I'd recommend the book, but it was not mind-blowing. The authors have talked about this being a foundation for the 2nd, and possibly more, volumes. I could see that, and I am looking forward to whenever the next books come out. It would actually be pretty interesting to see one of the CR pros play according to some of the book's recommendations, or to have one of the authors do a guest video. Anyway, here are some hands.

Hand 1: Only a few hands on villain.

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter, Courtesy of PokerZion.com

SB ($15.80)
BB ($14.65)
Hero ($25)
MP ($25.80)
CO ($54.30)
Button ($26.75)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Kh, Ah.
Hero raises to $0.95, 2 folds, Button raises to $3.95, 2 folds, Hero raises to $13.15, Button calls $8.25.

I alternate here between calling and raising, but out of position, I'm more likely to raise.

Flop: ($25.70) Qd, Th, 6s (2 players)
Hero bets $12.8 (All-In), Button calls $12.80.

I'm probably not folding out much that beats me, but I'm pretty committed with overs and the gutshot, not to mention the back door flush. Perhaps I fold out another AK. OK?

Turn: ($51.30) 3c (2 players, 1 all-in)
.

River: ($51.30) 6c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $51.30

Results below:
Hero has Kh Ah (one pair, sixes).
Button has Qh Qc (full house, queens full of sixes).
Outcome: Button wins $51.30.

Hand 2: Villain is LAG preflop, but settles down to kind of middle of the road postflop.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

Hero (SB): $25.10
BB: $26.05
UTG: $9.75
MP: $33.35
CO: $48.10
BTN: $25.25

Preflop: Hero is dealt Ad Kc (6 Players)
2 folds, CO raises to $0.85, BTN folds, Hero raises to $2.80, BB folds, CO calls $1.95

Flop: ($5.85) 5s Ah Ts (2 Players)
Hero bets $5.85, CO calls $5.85

Turn: ($17.55) 5s Ah Ts 3c (2 Players)
Hero bets $7.40, CO calls $7.40

River: ($32.35) 5s Ah Ts 3c Qc (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO checks

I think everything up to the river is pretty standard. On the river is check/call the best line here? If I bet, I think most of the time I get called, it's with a better hand, and while I'm probably in trouble calling, there is a chance that he bluffs or at least bets a hand he thinks may be good since I checked. I normally don't like check/calling on the river after having the lead in the hand, but that may be a holdover from my LHE days, as for some reason, I see more plausible opportunities to do so.

Pot Size: $32.35 ($1.60 Rake)

Results:
CO had Ac Jd (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$16.05)
Hero had Ad Kc (a pair of Aces) and WON (+$14.70)

Hand 3: This one is bad. It's a good example of how marginal/poor play early in the hand can screw you over. This is how I tilt...I talk myself into things that when I'm playing well I merely consider and then discard. I end up being too aggressive at first and then calling down when shown resistance. No balance.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $31.30
BB: $25.00
Hero (UTG): $40.15
CO: $20.00
BTN: $34.20

CO posts $0.25
Preflop: Hero is dealt Td Kh (5 Players)
Hero raises to $1.25, CO folds, BTN calls $1.25, SB calls $1.15, BB calls $1.00

I would not normally make this play, but there was some table context. I had been raising a fair amount, with decent cards, and for the most part people were folding (LOL at this hand, though). The button is very tight preflop, and the BB is also pretty tight, so all in all, not a terrible stealing situation, but definitely marginal at these limits.

Flop: ($5.25) 2d Qh Ah (4 Players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $3.60, 2 folds, BB calls $3.60

I was most worried about SB. Button likely has a pair or he would reraise, and BB could have a lot since pot odds were really good. Really, though, this is a good spot to not c-bet and just hope to spike my gutshot. Also, this bet is going to either commit me to the pot, or if I end up folding, it will have cost a lot. This is one of the commitment concepts from PNL. It would have been OK to put a bet in here with the intent of stealing, but with such a large field, I'm not stealing anything.

Turn: ($12.45) 2d Qh Ah 7h (2 Players)
BB bets $6.25, Hero calls $6.25

The turn donk threw me a bit, as I would have expected a flush to c/r me, so I thought that this more of a feeler bet. I almost pushed, and perhaps that would have been better as I have the NFD and still the gutshot in case he's not already flushed, and it would fold a lot of non-flush hands, and *possibly* (although doubtfully) a low flush. But I turn passive and call, which is likely the worst option of all, as I'm not getting odds if behind.

River: ($24.95) 2d Qh Ah 7h Jc (2 Players)
BB bets all-in for $13.90, Hero calls $13.90

I'm not at all sure about the river call, but getting 3:1 with the nuts if he doesn't have a flush, I think that it's OK. Villain has been pretty aggro postflop.

Pot Size: $52.75 ($2.60 Rake)

Results:
BB had 6h 4h (a flush, Ace high) and WON (+$25.15)
Hero had Td Kh (a straight, Ace high) and LOST (-$25.00)

Professional No Limit

@pkr_brat: I tried to get to your blog through your profile, but I got a message that said profile unavailable. Leave me a link to your blog in a comment, and I'll join in the discussion there.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Real life has once again intruded. I've been playing very little, and what playing I've done has not had such great results. I am not playing my A game, but not horrible, either. The cards just won't get there for me, or more accurately they get there too often for my opponents. I've been glancing at PokerEV (great sanity-keeping utility, although I'm not using its more powerful analysis capabilities), and I'm up to an 8-buyin gap between Sklansky bucks and actual winnings on my all-ins. That's over only 7,000 hands, so not good. What is good is that I'm feeling more and more confident in my player reads, and my decisions are better and better, which is especially good in the face of a rotten run of cards.

I've been reading Professional No Limit Hold'em for the past week or so. I'm almost done. It's well written (easy to read), but I'm struggling to apply (or how hard to apply) the biggest concept in the book -- SPR. If you haven't read the book, SPR stands for Stack to Pot Ratio, specifically taken at the beginning of the flop. Interestingly, if you play full stacks (100 BB), make a 4BB raise, and are called in one place, you have close to the worst SPR for a top pair type of hand. You don't get to an ideal SPR heads up with 100 BB stacks until you make about a 10x raise.

As more discussion evolves around this concept, it will be interesting to see what sort of impact the book has on the online game and how important SPR will be to the 6-max games specifically. A lot of SPR seems to apply more easily to lower live games for a couple reasons. For one, buy-ins are capped below 100BB, at least in the games around here. With smaller effective stacks, SPR goes up for the same preflop raise. More importantly, though, is that even with a largish raise, there are a lot of multiway pots, so the P in SPR goes up.

But online, even at the micro stakes, when someone puts in a pot-sized raise (much less a 4x raise), the pot will be HU. So, will we see a bunch of SPR-inspired short stackers? I think the benefits of playing a full stack still outweigh the SPR benefits, assuming we are on average more competent than our opponents. The goal behind SPR is to maximize your expectation in large pots, which is also one of the reasons to buy in full. There are several threads on 2+2 where the authors participate, and they are running a study session as well, so I'm sure this will be fleshed out more.

I'll try to get some hands posted soon, and make the way around the blogs to comment on others.

Joining the crowd...

I've noticed that at least a couple other bloggers have begun to post their big hands. I originally thought that's what I would do here, but instead I looked for interesting hands, and didn't even post as much as I wanted. Well if it's good enough for DODGYKEN and others, it's good enough for me, so am going to do at least a few posts of big hands, whether lost or won. For me, a big hand will be defined as 50 BB. My default will be to not post results.

I've regularly reviewed my biggest hands, and for the most part think I know whether I played them OK or poorly (and I do play far too many poorly). So, I haven't posted before. But actually, I think posting my crap hands -- even where I know what I did wrong -- will be somewhat like a penance for them. Also, there may be hands that I think I played well that you all may find problems, and if we've got blind spots in our big hands, that's deadly.

So, here goes with the first few. If you're curious about results, I'll be happy to post them later, just let me know.

Hand 1: Villain is 77/4 preflop :).

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $22.60
BB: $14.20
UTG: $12.65
Hero (CO): $25.00
BTN: $14.60

Preflop: Hero is dealt Kc Kh (5 Players)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.95, BTN calls $0.95, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.25) 4c 6c Jd (2 Players)
Hero bets $2.25, BTN raises all-in to $13.65, Hero calls $11.40

Start with an easy one?

Hand 2: Villain is loose passive over not that many hands.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 4 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

Hero (SB): $34.80
BB: $10.00
UTG: $17.10
BTN: $31.15

Preflop: Hero is dealt Jc Ac (4 Players)
UTG raises to $0.50, BTN folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BB folds, UTG calls $1.25

Flop: ($3.75) 9c 6h 5c (2 Players)
Hero bets $3.00, UTG calls $3.00

Turn: ($9.75) 9h (2 Players)
Hero bets $7.30, UTG calls $7.30

I assume it's OK to fire a second barrel here. Not sure how much fold equity I've got (probably not a lot), but I have a fair amount of pot equity, and I'm out of position. In position, I would usually check behind, given the opportunity.

River: ($24.35) Jd (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets all-in for $5.05, Hero calls $5.05

When he didn't raise the turn, I thought it was most likely he was on a draw, so I thought my best chance to win when I paired on the river was to have him try to bluff.

Hand 3: Less than 20 hands with villain, nothing to report for reads.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $7.20
Hero (BB): $24.65
UTG: $15.50
CO: $22.00
BTN: $14.30

CO posts $0.25
Preflop: Hero is dealt Jd Ah (5 Players)
UTG folds, CO checks, BTN raises to $1.10, SB folds, Hero raises to $3.65, CO folds, BTN calls $2.55

I've been experimenting with more 3 bets out of the blinds versus button raises, and I think that this is at the low end of a legitimate 3-bet (and I've yet to begin fooling around with 3-betting junk).

Flop: ($7.65) Qd 9h Kd (2 Players)
Hero bets $6.10, BTN raises all-in to $10.65, Hero calls $4.55

I assume HU you're c-betting most everything you 3-bet, but maybe not on a board this likely to hit villain, who will not be able to get bluffed out of a pot if he hit it? My thinking is to fold out the pocket pairs that did not hit, as even if he's pretty committed, that is a hard flop to call with an underpair. But if that's the case, shouldn't I just be pushing?

Thanks for the ideas/encouragement

Thanks for the good ideas in response to my last post. I've not done any actual pokering, and hardly any study/reading/review, so I feel a bit refreshed. It helps that I've been prepping for and participating in a customer meeting the last few days ;).

Over the next couple days, I'm going to catch up on my PT reviews, try to catch up on some blogs, and maybe watch a video or two. But I probably won't have much time to play. I actually feel OK from a confidence standpoint, I'm just frustrated by the results. So, I don't think I'll drop a level or anything to regain confidence. I may drop a table (or two), but I sometimes do that regardless of how I'm running, just because it's a little changeup, and I can really focus on all the hands I'm not involved with, trying to put everyone on hands, etc. I actually probably don't do that as much as I should, from a learning standpoint.

All the ideas mentioned were good ones, and I appreciate you guys taking the time to respond to a semi-whine post. Hopefully, I won't be making many more of those ;).

Screw you, Full Tilt

August has started off with a bang. I'm down 7 buy-ins in a whopping 1500 hands. PokerEV says my Sklansky bucks are positive over that time (for those of you who don't know about this tool, it -- among other things -- will analyze your showdown hands and compare what you should have won to what you did win). There's an 8 buy-in difference between my Sklansky bucks and my showdown winnings! In 1500 frigging hands!

So, the good news is that I'm getting my money in well, at least in the hands that go to showdown, but the short term results have been absolutely brutal. This actually goes back to about the middle of last month, so it's been a few weeks, and I guess I don't have the mental toughness to just shrug it off...it's bothering me when I play.

I don't know how much my play actually changes in downswings because I remind myself not to let it affect me, and I have not done anything obviously stupid. My VPIP, preflop raise, and aggression numbers over the last few weeks are about the same as normal, so the losses are not putting me on insane monkey tilt. That said, I'm sure there are some at least subtle forms of tilt that come into play, because I'm not 100% focused on the game (thinking about results and bad luck, and steaming a bit in hands). When you're not 100% focused, you're not playing your best, so like I said, I'm sure it affects me somehow, just not sure how it manifests.

More than anything, it affects my enjoyment of the game, though, and that's where I wish I could just not pay attention to the bad luck. I'm fortunate in the sense that I don't rely on poker for the bills, but I'm also competitive, and have been languishing at 25 NL for far too long -- 27k hands, and I'd like to level up at some point ;).

So, what do you all do to pull yourself out of a mental funk?

Devil of a hand

This ended up being a bit longer than I thought.

I'm trying to catch back up and look over some hands from July at the same time. I've been looking at how I play pair hands, as I feel like although I win with them overall, a lot of times, I win too little or lose too much with them. I don't know of an easy way to get to them in Poker Tracker (the closest is filtering for pocked pairs), but I was trying to evaluate hands I set-mined and then hit the set. A lot of people -- me included sometimes -- justify pre-flop calls with medium and low pairs because of the stacking potential. I assert that we don't stack our opponents (deep stacked, anyway) that often when we hit, as they have to have a hand worth stacking off.

For the hands I hit my sets when calling preflop (as opposed to being the aggressor preflop), in fact, I did not stack anyone with more than half a stack. Now, I'll caveat this by saying that this is only over 11k hands or so, meaning that this is not a large sample size by any means. And it's certainly possible that either I'm playing these poorly or am too easy to read, so I don't get full value when I hit.

In July, the two biggest pots I played after hitting a set when calling pre-flop were when I was up against flush draws. The money went all in on the flop in both hands, and the flush got there both times. That's poker, but because the pots you lose with sets are likely to be big ones, you need to account for them when evaluating your implied odds.

I think that while you're a little worse than 7:1 against hitting your flush, you should really be looking at about 10:1 implied odds when set mining. I'm sure someone has written about this somewhere, but I'm just kind of thinking out loud here. Anyway, after backing out the two big cooler hands I mentioned above, I still only won about 4 times my set mining investment, far short of where I need to be.

So, on to the hands. I looked at a couple 66 hands where I set mined and hit (finally the post title reference ;) ). These were dug out of Poker Tracker, and I didn't think much of them at the time, so I don't have specific opponent notes, and in fact don't have that many hands on the villains.

Hand 1:

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 5 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $14.70
Hero (BB): $33.65
UTG: $7.60
CO: $33.75
BTN: $11.55

Preflop: Hero is dealt 6c 6s (5 Players)
UTG folds, CO raises to $0.85, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) 6h Qc 3d (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $1.80, Hero raises to $4.00, CO folds

Here, maybe I should not checkraise the flop, since it is pretty dry. No turn cards really scare me, so I could wait, and then try it then. As an aside, I don't float all that much, and hands like this are probably good opportunities to do so, or to take the same line if the 6 were instead a 5.

Hand 2:

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $0.10/$0.25 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $15.80
BB: $50.65
UTG: $27.95
MP: $54.70
CO: $9.15
Hero (BTN): $26.80

Preflop: Hero is dealt 6h 6d (6 Players)
UTG raises to $0.85, MP calls $0.85, CO folds, Hero calls $0.85, SB calls $0.75, BB folds

Flop: ($3.65) 6c Kc 4s (4 Players)
SB checks, UTG checks, MP checks, Hero bets $3.00, 3 folds

I think my line is OK here, as I would like to protect against a flush draw, and I could hope that he's slowplaying AK, or even AA. Since he had a big stack, I would like to try and start building it on the flop.