How do you know who you can push off a pair?

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates/responses to everyone's blogs.  I have been dealt a very difficult project at work that is taking a ton of effort to get off the ground.  It's an important project, it's interesting, and I'm looking forward to working on it...but as the project manager, I am a big bottleneck at the beginning and so I've got to bear down and get things in place.  Once things get rolling, the guys doing the actual work will take over, and I can get back to focusing on the truly important stuff...cards :).  I got an iPhone and have been able to check in on your guys blogs using it (Google Reader for iPhone is awesome), but it takes way too long for me to type anything on the touch screen, so I've pretty much been lurking, unfortunately.  If you've got a hand/issue not getting enough love, feel free to email it to me if you'd like my input (for whatever reason ;).  I believe I am up to date reading, though.

I've really slowed the hands down the last couple weeks, too, and have done no study either.  This hurts, obviously, but even before then, things were just going tough.  I was forcing the play...playing when tired, thinking about other stuff, etc., so I just decided to bag it, and it was for the best.  I was still green in EV and way red actual, but I'm positive that a significant chunk of the poor results came from playing my B/C game...hell my A game isn't good enough yet to guarantee anything, so it's really bad when I'm not on it.  July is going to be a brutal month, maybe my worst ever $$ wise thanks to another encounter with 200NL.

So, here's one of the issues I've been thinking about.  Sometimes you'll see a video or a hand will come up where Hero makes a play in order to push Villain off a marginal hand.  Let's define a marginal hand as top pair or worse (against some guys top pair is the nuts, but against us, since we're supposed to be reasonable, I would say that top pair is at the upper end of a marginal hand).  How do you guys know who is capable of folding it when shown strength (say a c/r or a double barrel, or something beyond us just betting)?

When the cards are shown down, we can only get a read on those guys who refuse to fold a pair.  But when they fold, who knows what they have?  They might have just folded a pair, or they might have folded their crap, and since it's much easier to have crap than a made hand, it makes sense to assume they folded crap.

I'm not talking about the very loose guys who we know won't fold anything anyway...I'm talking about all those guys who have somewhat reasonable stats, at least in terms of VPIP/PFR and postflop aggression.

Is it a mistake to assume at 200NL and below that people are not really prone to fold TP at all?  Or do you guys assume that if they have somewhat reasonable stats that they can fold TP to strength unless you actually see them showdown a one pair hand when shown strength?

Not much to report

Poker's been kind of meh lately....I've lost some momentum and some enthusiasm.  I'm playing pretty well for the most part.  I'm running hot and cold (which is a big improvement, nice to have some "hot" in there).  The motivation is there; I'm getting in a decent amount of hands compared to my historical level of play.  But it just hasn't been quite as fun, for whatever reason.  Plus things have been pretty busy otherwise, so it cuts down on the amount of time I spend reviewing my play, reviewing everyone's blogs, reading forums, watching videos, etc.

I keep bouncing between 100NL and 200NL.  I've been doing fairly well at 100NL, playing well and running decent.  I've been doing crappy at 200NL, playing well until I run bad, then doing a pretty poor job of not letting it affect my play.  I know the mindset I should have, but my outlook/discipline are just not there.  So, I run up enough to take a 5 BI or so shot at 200NL, then eventually lose those 5 BI and start over.  The poker treadmill.  Last Friday, I lost 4 BI in 3 hands somewhat close together:  KK < KQs, Turned straight/flush draw < higher flush on river, and middle set < top set.  Plus a bunch of middling pots where their flushes got there and if I had a draw, it never did.  Pretty standard stuff, and I should be able to take it, but somehow found myself AI vs a preflop maniac with 64s for 80bb.  That right there should have been enough to sit out on all tables.  Ugly stuff.

The silver lining is that the overt spew-tilt is still really rare.  I think I'm playing sub-optimal, but generally on the big losers either my money is going in really well or it's just a cooler situation.  I would just like my enthusiasm to return so that it's fun again.  After all, this is supposed to be a hobby for me and is supposed to be a way to blow off steam, not to cause it :).  Usually, making the right decisions and improving is enough to keep me enthusiastic.  Even when I feel frustrated, it's short-lived, and I'm able to see the big picture.

I actually lost probably a couple days of both poker and work last week fooling around with my new iPhone.  My old "smart" phone was really a POS and if I couldn't get a credit returning it, I would have figured out some really clever way to smash it to smithereens.  The iPhone is pretty fun to use.  I've also never had an iPod (small cheapo MP3 player ftw), so I get to fool around with some fun stuff there, too.

At work, there was a top level executive change.  It won't directly affect me (and if it does, it would only be for the better based on limited history with the guy taking over), but there are a bunch of fire drills to create some decent presentations for him to get a sense of what we're doing.  Also, it's annual review time.  For those of you not in the corporate world, count yourselves lucky that you don't have to go through this :).  Actually, it can be a pretty valuable mechanism to focus you, but the administrative aspects are a pain in the ass.  And because I manage folks, I have theirs to go through and comment on as well.  It's even harder for me to do those because I want to give them decent quality feedback.  I can do it pretty well meeting face to face or on the phone, but it takes a lot longer to write stuff up.  So those things get kind of piled on to business as usual.

Finally, I'm a victim of my success at work.  Today, I got handed someone's pet project that is pretty complex and was not getting enough love from the prior owner.  So, because I've shown that I can push through some tricky projects with some good creativity and vision, it landed in my inbox.  While hard, it seems like a pretty fun project, so I'm only complaining from a time-it-will-take-me standpoint...I'm actually looking forward to it.

Hmm

SB: $175.85
BB: $100.00
UTG: $251.45
Hero (MP): $110.70
CO: $108.50
BTN: $50.00

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with 6c 6h
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BTN calls $3.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($8.50) Ah 7c 7s (2 players)
Hero bets $5, BTN raises to $10

=========================

This seems like a pretty simple hand.  I'm looking over some older sessions, so I forget whether I had any read/history with this guy, so let's just say unknown.  As an aside, my default read of someone who has a half stack for more than a few hands is that he's not that good.

Question #1:  Do we need to worry a ton at these stakes about balancing our play in these spots?  I don't think so.  Unless we're up against a regular, we won't develop enough history on them, and they won't have any on us...probably no notes, just stats.  If they have notes, they won't contain the context of the play.  And a lot of the guys we do/will have history with are either not good enough to worry about them exploiting us or are playing too many tables to notice.  Certainly at higher stakes against more regular, better players, balance is good.  But at 100NL?  On a big site?

Question #2:  If we don't worry too much about balancing our play, should we bet?  If we should bet, should we also bet with air?  If we should bet with our hand and/or with air, should we bet with Ax?  Taking any sort of metagame out of the equation, bets should get value from worse or cause better hands to fold (with some variations, like semibluffs and betting for protection).  If we c-bet with air, we do it because we think better hands will fold.  If we had AK, we'd be doing it to get worse to call, but we would hate for worse to fold because they will have so few outs.  But it's the same opponent, and our hand shouldn't matter.  However, there are 8.5 big blinds in the pot already, and so that could make betting with air correct even if betting with AK is also right.

Question #3:  What to do about his little min-raise?  First of all, if you were the one who cold called on the button and your opponent c-bet into you, what legitimate hands would you raise?  How often would you bluff-raise your opponent's c-bet?  Now, take some random I've-only-got-a-half-stack donk's viewpoint?  What do you think he does with his legitimate hands?  In other words, get inside the mind of the donk.  (This, by the way, is one of the worst parts of my game.  I do a pretty bad job interpreting people's actions, both good and bad players.)

Question #4:  What's better between calling the raise and shoving?  I actually think that this is the easiest question.  I'm not asking if we should fold, just giving a choice between shove and fold.

June Swoon

June was a weird month...in some ways really satisfying, but results wise, it kind of sucked. My graph looks like I broke pretty much even, but here's the thing...I did it in BB's because I played significant amounts of two different stakes. I played about twice as many hands at $2NL than $1NL, and my win rate was negative at the higher stakes (about -3 ptbb/100), while it was positive at the lower stakes (about 7 ptbb/100). So, my roll dropped overall. The big downward movement you see was the end of $2NL for the month, and it happened in brutal fashion, as detailed in some prior posts. I got back just about enough to jump back in at $2NL and see if the poker gods will smile on me...hopefully third time will be the charm.

On the other hand, I was able to play more hands this month than I believe I ever have, and for the most part, felt like I played solid. Not that I don't have some more to go, but I felt like I got away from auto-pilot, didn't feel lost on too many hands, and was validated even on some of the big hands I lost where my money went in as a huge favorite. I went back and looked at that little downswing in some more detail (I think it was about a 12 BI downswing), and it seemed like I was making big hands a fair amount, but too many of the ones that generated action went against me. Also in that stretch where a lot of money went in and I was behind but with good draws (where I had way more pot odds + fold equity to play), I only hit my draw once, and I stopped counting at 8 times...so I was running below expectation there. I guess that's all the stuff that downswings are made of, even when you are playing well. And to my credit, I continued to play well -- for the most part, anyway -- through it, whereas in the past, I probably would have tossed another few BI's in there out of frustration.





I've managed to loosen up my game quite a bit from a few months ago. As expected, I ran pretty cold at $2NL, looking at W$SD. But my other numbers show that I was sufficiently aggressive...I could be even more, but some of the key stats I look for are within my target range...W$WSF, 3-Bet, Attempt to Steal.

Away from the tables, I did OK reviewing my play and studying videos. I'd like to start posting on strat forums again, but I'm unsure how much time I will be able to do it realistically in July. My time will be more limited, I think. I've been getting some feedback on hands here and there from my coach, and that's certainly helped, so from that sense, I do get a chance to write out my thoughts and validate them. But what I don't get out of that is responding to other people's posts, and I think that's pretty valuable, too.

Still running like death

First, I'm just about through with a detailed review of my 10BI downswing at 200NL.  Like I thought, most of the losses were nothing that I did wrong.  A few times, I got money in great and lost, which I knew.   There were a couple other hands that were pretty marginal (but fine) that I discussed with my coach, and a couple others that were also pushing small edges that I think were fine, but didn't discuss with my coach.  However, part of being properly rolled is the ability to push small edges, even knowing they're high variance.  If that starts getting to me, it's probably one area where I can tone it down. 

An example is getting it in versus a guy who was something like 60/40/2 on an ace-high flop where I turned aces up.  He opened in the CO and I 3-bet with A8 on the button (definitely not something I do normally, but this guy raises almost twice as many hands as I play).  Flop comes Axx with 2 diamonds, he check/calls.  The turn was the 8d, and he bet/called with Ad3d and it held up.  Bye-bye buy-in, reload.

Against more reasonable players, I'm not even in this hand, but that's the way it goes.  As an aside, this also shows where EV analysis lacks...my play was based on a read and playing against his range, but if you look at the EV calc here, most of my money went in bad on this hand.  Anyway, that was not the norm, lately.  It's been going in good and I've been getting unlucky.  I still need to work on eliminating frustration at the tables when that happens, but I'm pretty good at letting it go away from the tables and being happy when I make good decisions, even if they don't happen to work out.  Some day, hopefully, some other players will be the ones to feed the poor players, who will then pass that money along to me.  Lately, I've been the one who funds the party.

So, I dropped to 100NL.  One nice thing between some recent coaching and from playing several thousand hands at 200NL is that I feel more comfortable and confident than ever at 100NL.  Not that it's translated to results.  I ran up 3BI, then dropped 4, again in typical Full Tilt fashion.  I just deleted the details (if you really want to read the gory details, let me know), but the highlights were losing 3 times when I flopped a set....once to a backdoor flush, once to a gutshot that got there, and once when TP runner-runnered quads.  Ugh.

The final stackoff of the day came on the Edu tables on Full Tilt.  I hadn't played those before (I assume CR members at least know what those are).  Geez, they are pretty wild.  I'm not sure I'll be playing those too often for my regular stakes, if yesterday was any indication.  I got stacked by the guy on my direct left who wasted no time 3-betting me...and they were like instant 3-bets, too.  It was either the 3rd or 4th time he did it when I made a stand with AQ and he showed up with AK.  If a pro was making a video, I'm sure he was saying, "See what happens when you use position and pound on a guy.  Eventually, he will get frustrated and play for stacks with an inferior hand.  Ship it!" 

Given the circumstances, I'm not sure how much I hate my play, but I definitely don't like it.  I didn't have that good of a read on him to want to play for stacks with AQ.  I'm sure there was some tilt there, but before I called his 5-bet shove, I was just thinking that he had to be 3-betting me light some of the time, and with him and a couple others all being pretty wild (and the same thing was happening on another Edu table), I just talked myself into him doing this with a lot of pairs, suited aces, bluffs, as well as premium hands.  I was actually getting ready to leave the table before that, but figured I'd play around to my blinds :P.  And then, of course, I couldn't leave right after getting stacked like that, but I never did capitalize on my donk image after that play, so I left a little while later.

BTW, it happened against a guy named Marsh Man, or something like that.  I datamine pretty extensively and had zero hands on the guy prior to sitting.  Anyone know anything about him?  He seemed a bit too LAGgro to be a CR pro or anything, but usually if someone's aggressive like that, I've got at least a few hands on them.

F*ck You Again, Full Tilt Poker!

Edit: Attempting to take some of the ranting out. I called out a lot of beats, and I'm removing those, although I'll still leave some of the ranting in there....this is supposed to be a blog about how I'm doing, after all. I also added some PokerEV graphs and commentary. Plus, a couple guys already left comments (thanks), and since I'm editing, I'll address Willie's.

For the 2nd time, my play at 200NL ends on a Friday night, thanks to Full Tilt Poker and their motherfucking doomswitch. I looked back at some of the big hands, and my decisions were right, except on the river, I was making some frustration calls if they bet smallish...knowing they probably had it, but figuring that one of these times it would be a weird bluff. I did pick off a couple, but made some pretty bad calls, too. Not for huge amounts, but they add up. But overall, I was getting money in pretty well, and overall my play has been pretty good.

The good news out of all this is that I'm 100% convinced I can beat 1/2 pretty well...I don't know how some of these people still have any money, and even against the regulars, I felt like I do fine. Not that I seek them out, but there are too many to avoid altogether. So, I'll just have to grind it back up, and hopefully 3rd time will be the charm.

I hadn't done this in a while, but I loaded last week's hands into PT2 so I can run Poker EV on them. My impression is that I'm getting money in good, and it should be able to tell me at least that much. I mostly stopped using PokerEV graphs, but I do think they can help with confidence for times like this. And it shows that it's actually been a pretty terrible week :(. Down 10 BI at 1/2. This was after running up 5 BI this month there, so the net loss is down 5 BI for the month at 1/2 (and about +5BI at .5/1).

I'm pretty aggressive with my bankroll, and I know that means I'll have to move down sometimes, and after sleeping on it, that doesn't really bother me. I just want to get better, and I think that I am meeting that goal.

Willie brought up a couple good points...he talked about quitting well, and also about posting some hands for discussion. I probably do have a problem quitting, quite honestly. My time for poker gets squeezed into so many other things in my life that if I have a chance to play, I'll probably make "the most" of it. It means I may not be in the right mental state to play my "A" game, but those times where I'm at my best, I'm usually at work or doing stuff with the family. No way around that, and it's just part of what I need to accept. Last night's session was kind of the same. Up late the night before (work, then poker). Played golf in the morning, got to work late, stayed late, dashed out for my daughter's dance recital, etc., etc. But I need to find a way to play through that, or I won't be able to play at all.

The second thing is hand analysis. I've never been one to post a lot of hands on this blog. I don't like the form, and it's difficult to get a discussion going. I probably should post more anyway, just to get thoughts. But I prefer the theory and just in general getting (and giving) updates. I do discuss hands regularly via email with my coach, though, and I'm sure he'll be seeing quite a few from last night...it's been good to make sure that my decisions are reasonable when I'm getting the money in.

My thoughts on that 3-bet hand

Thanks guys for the comments in the last post.  Brian had the best advice of all, which is to move tables against a good aggressive player who has position on you.  The hand I posted was an actual hand, and while the guy to my left was a PITA, the two guys to my right were worth it.  Anyway, I think as we all move up, we are going to face increasing aggression from the whole table, including the guys on our left of course.  And if we have some good targets to our right, we'll start raising lighter and the guys to our left will start 3-betting lighter...and we'll want to stay, and to play as well as we can against them.  Plus some of them won't be good at playing reraised pots, even if they're the ones reraising.

If I'm in the CO and the BTN is 3-betting 7%+ of his hands, that means he's likely 3-betting quite wide on the button, and I think AQ is too much hand to just give up against those guys, assuming 100bb stacks (and for sake of argument, yeah 3.5bb raise, and the guy 3-bets to 12bb).  If he's position-aware and 3-betting 7% of all his hands, let's just say he's 3-betting 10% of his hands on the button.  So, if he's doing this with like 99+, ATo+, A9s+, KJ+, we actually have more than 50% pot equity with AQ.

The question is how much to play back against them.  You guys my disagree that we should play back at them, and that's fine, but from a hypothetical standpoint, let's say that we are compelled to at least call the 3-bet.  Between calling and raising, I like calling.  Raising does force him to fold some hands at the bottom end of his pocket pair range that we would prefer he actually fold, given we're flipping and there will be decent dead money in the pot, but it counts on him folding out 99-JJ, which might be too hopeful.  But more than that, we're screwed against his non-folding range (whether we shove or not for our 4-bet).

If we call, what we have going for us is our equity against his range.  What we have going against us is that we are only going to hit our hand 33% of the time, and of that, a decent chunk of the time we will make a 2nd best hand, although not always.  The times we don't, if we c/f, then we will definitely be losing money on the deal and you guys are right we should just toss the hand after he 3-bets us.

So, that leaves us having to do something besides fit-or-fold (again, supposing we *must* at least call his 3-bet).  In other words, we need to bluff some of the time (but not all the time), in order to make up some ground.  One of the key advantages we get by 3-betting (in position or out) is fold equity, so we can fire when we miss. Well, if you know that your opponent is 3-betting light, then you have some fold equity as well.  You still don't have position, but if you come out firing after calling a 3-bet -- presuming you don't normally call 3-bets, especially OOP -- you are going to make your opponent uncomfortable to say the least.

On to the specific hand.  To recap, I raised 3.5, he 3-bet to 12, I called.  Let's say the blinds pay the rake.  There's 24 in the pot and 89 behind in each stack (he had 101bb and I covered).  I have AsQx and the flop is JsTs3x.  First of all, I think since we didn't hit a pair, there is nothing really wrong with check/folding, in a vacuum.  However, if we have to bluff sometimes, then this board is a good candidate for it, but we need to bluff big if we're going to do it.  I checked for a couple reasons.  First, he could possibly check behind and let me draw to one of my 3 outs to the nuts.  Second, if he bets, I can CRAI, and as long as my image isn't that of a total LAGtard (yet!!!), I think a lot of hands ahead of me will fold, and if they don't I do have at least a few outs.

The fact that the ten, jack, and ace of spades are all accounted for makes it a lot less likely that he's got a flush draw.  If he's any good, he's going to see my play and figure slowplayed AA, 2-pair+, good to great draw, or B.S.  Now he may have a really strong hand himself, or maybe just feel pot-committed and look me up.  In the hand, he bet 19bb and folded to my shove, so maybe I had the best hand all along and turned it into a bluff.  I'm far from convinced I made the clearly correct play, and it might not even be close (i.e., folding preflop might be the right thing to do).  But I don't think that approaching it a more aggressive way like I outlined is so -EV that we should always avoid it, either, from both a learning and a table image standpoint.

FWIW, I usually just take Brian's advice and change tables when a good aggro player is behind me.  This time, though, the aggressive player -- who seemed pretty solid actually, if not outstanding -- didn't 3-bet me again, even though I raised a lot of hands against the looser players to my right.  After a few orbits, he left.

Getting 3-Bet

Stacks are 101BB effective.  I open AQ from the cutoff and an aggressive button 3-bets me. 

He has not been on the table all that long, and we have not tangled directly.  I have been pretty active, but nothing outrageous (like playing 26/21, say).  Neither of us has shown anything down.  Villain is a regular and likely has a light 3-betting range.  He's on the aggro side, but not over the top.  He's 3-bet me once and I folded, and he's also folded to at least one prior raise of mine...in other words, nothing out of the ordinary is going on here.

OK, so I think I have too much hand to fold.  What do you think...a 4-bet or a call?  Or do I really need to fold.  What is your general plan if you call?  What about if you raise?

Let's put a specific flop out there:  JT3 with two spades, and I have the Ace of spades.

If you 4-bet this (and he called preflop), what's your plan now?

If you called his 3-bet, what's your plan now?

Still here :)

Things have been pretty busy...couple projects in go-mode at work plus end of school year.  Jennifer is room mom for both kids' classes plus is president of the PTA and things are extra busy due to another school closing and all the kids coming to our school...so I'm picking up as much of the slack as I can on the home front.

Actually, with all of the work she's doing at night, it gives me a little more time to play poker, but it's all in short sessions, as she always seems to get jammed up on some computer project and I try to help her get through it quickly.  So, I guess it all kind of balances out.

I had a few weeks where everything seemed to align...was making good plays based on good reads and getting good cards.  Maybe because I'm not able to fully concentrate or am a bit tired, my play has definitely not felt as sharp this month.  I've made some disappointing decisions that have cost a lot, and also have happened to tangle with a couple decent players (at least by reputation) on otherwise great tables.  All the problems are not totally in vain.  I'm trying to work more aggression into my postflop game, but I'm still getting used to it, and I don't realize my errors until later....but I am getting more comfortable upping the aggression somewhat, and I'm finding that people are paying off my bigger hands...although I wouldn't say it's due to any image I've established necessarily, just in general I'm realizing how much people like to call :).

Actually, it's hurt me in a lot of small pots over the last few sessions..my c-bets are definitely not getting much respect these days.  At least 3 times in a small number of hands, people have made pretty bad check/calls with crappy overcards on bad boards for them, and then got there.  But the pots have been small, thanks to not being such a double-barreling spew monkey these days.

I think where I am spewing is preflop and on the river.  Preflop by just being a bit too 3-bet happy, and also responding to perceived light 3-bets.  I don't think I play that well in re-raised pots...not terrible, but not good enough.  Sometimes to compensate, I force the issue preflop with marginal 4-bets and probably bluffing too often, as for a while, I was 4-bet bluffing once or twice a session, and a session for me is only a few hundred hands.  On the other hand, I think that reading and watching videos can only take you so far in terms of playing in reraised pots...a lot of it you have to learn by trying it yourself...or at least I do.  I tried actually dropping down a couple levels to make some light calls and play hands out...but I didn't spend much time on that.  I may do it some more, but the problem is that with so little time to actually play, I want to play at my regular game.  So, we'll see how that goes.

I'm still doing OK, it's just that things have slipped a bit focus/clarity-wise, and as I said, some of that is a little by design.  Accept some marginal spots in order to improve.

May Flowers

I may have to try playing less...seems like the months I'm not able to get in too many hands, my results are better! In April, I had the largest DS so far...20+ BI to the bad, and May started off with a continuation of that. Things turned around, though, and it ended up being a nice month :)





My stats look different than usual, but the sample size is small enough that I don't know whether it's from playing a ton differently or running well. I think some of both, as I have been working on a few different things. Anyway, my VPIP and PFR both increased a couple points. 21/17 is by no means LAG, but for a while I've been running steady at 18/15 or so. I've been looking to play some more in late position, and I think that accounts for the bulk of the increase, including a higher-than-previous attempt to steal. Bottom line, though, I see nothing to really quibble about in my stats, other than over the long haul, my turn and river AF could bump up a little.



I'm OK with these numbers. If I were going to pick some things, I would say to loosen up a tad in CO and tighten up a tad in the SB. At least as far as the SB goes, I'm completing (I think only) when there are either already a couple limpers and I have good speculative hand (connectors, one-gappers, suited two-gappers, pairs) and a passive BB behind me. I've purposely tried to widen my button range at the right tables, and I should now start looking to do somewhat the same in CO. But in all cases, I'm not forcing things.

For June, I'll continue to focus on more of the same things (seems to be a good formula). I'm also continuing to work with Jared, and hopefully before too long, I'll bounce off him whether he thinks I'm in good enough shape to start taking some 200NL shots again.

C-Betting Follow-Up

Thanks for the comments on the c-betting post I did last week.  The comments represented the pros and cons of making that c-bet pretty well, I thought.  There was a time in the past when I would have made this c-bet because I would c-bet anything at all, HU in position.  The advantage to that approach is you don't waste precious mental cycles thinking about what to do :).

I think I've swung too far the other way, not c-betting enough, for whatever reasons.  I think that the right play here is to bet.  We've got a draw-heavy board against a decent player, but we also have position and no reason when he checks to believe our hand is not good.   Whether or not betting here is correct (and I would consider it a c-bet regardless of whether it's for value), I did have one pretty big theoretical flaw in my thinking about a similar hand when I discussed it with my coach.  I said that one argument against betting is that we are in a reverse implied odds situation, but this is not really a RIO situation, as he pointed out.  If we get checkraised, THEN it's a RIO situation.  In the hand I played, it was against a loose player who was not particularly aggressive, so the bet was a bit more clear (and I made it), but my thinking about the hand was not quite there.

Poker has been pretty slow, but life outside of poker has been pretty good.  We're coming off a holiday weekend in the U.S. (for working stiffs....poker pros probably wanted to be working overtime :)).  There were no kids' games because of the holiday weekend, but I did play golf twice, went to a party down the street with a fun group of people, took my daughter to see Prince Caspian (movie was OK, but fun night with her, and we had just finished reading the book together, so she doubly enjoyed it, I think), and did some fun stuff with the kids.

The bad part is that I've packed on a ton of extra pounds over the last few years, and hit a new high after all the eating and drinking we did.  I'm like 35 pounds over the upper end of what I would consider acceptable for me, and 50 pounds over my weight when I was at 9% body fat.  My biggest problem is that my discipline completely sucks when it comes to diet, and there are just too many opportunities for crappy food and drink in my life right now.  I get a fair amount of exercise, and although I could work things to get a bit more, what I really need to focus on is diet, both in the foods I eat and the portion sizes.  I know it, but am not acting on it, and it's really bad.  In addition to my own health and well-being, I need to be setting a better example for my kids.  They're fine now, but they don't need to see their dad with a gut and not doing anything about it.  Well, you guys don't give a crap or need to know about that, but it's been on my mind today, so there you have it.  Sorry about that.

C-Bets on Draw-Heavy Flops

Let's say you open AT from CO and get a call from the BB.  BB is decent and effective stacks are around 100BB.  Flop comes T98 two-tone.  BB checks.

Hero....

Results of a hand from a couple posts ago

Brian wanted the results of the hand where I 4-bet AJs a little deep and got flatted.  Villain had AA there and held.  I wasn't surprised by his holding, and I still had enough pot equity to make the play, so that was fine.  Thought it was an interesting hand....thanks for the comments on it.

Letdowns

Before I get into this one, let me just say that in general, life is good!  A little busy, but good.  But a few things over the last few days have bugged me, so consider this my Monday Morning Rant.  (Don't know why I capitalized that, not like it's a tradition or anything...but Monday morning does seem like a good time to rant about stuff.)  None of these things are a big deal...more like minor annoyances.  Only one thing is poker related, so I'll get it out of the way first.

1.  Poker Tracker 3 commercial release.  From a customer point of view, they should not have released this without another beta (at least) to work out some serious bugs.  Josh (the developer/main PT guy now) alluded to some business pressures to hold to the 5/15 release date, and being in the software business, I know about release pressure.  But if a release isn't ready, very little can come out of releasing it to a mature market, IMO.  If he just couldn't have worked around getting it released, he should have released a trial version that was not severely crippled, or he should have extended the beta for a bit.  Instead, if you were (like me) using beta software and trying to help out PT by reporting bugs and giving feedback, you had to take a step backwards both in functionality and stability going from the last beta to the first commercial release...or you had to pay for a product that was honestly not ready for prime time.   They've established a great reputation for getting things fixed, and I don't think that this time will be any different, but the way they went about their commercial release will leave a sour taste in people's mouths.  I can tell you from personal experience that a software vendor's reputation (like real life) takes a lot shorter time to tear down than to build up, so you have to be good way more than you are allowed to screw up just to stay neutral.  And they screwed up with this one.

2.  The end of my daughter's softball season.   Her softball coach has been bugging us for a while, actually.  This is her 4th year, actually all with the same coach.  I have always thought he was a mediocre, at best, teacher, but up until this year, he made things fun, and the girls loved him, so when we kept getting him as a coach, on balance it was OK.  Well, something happened with him this year where he was in a sour mood a lot of the time, and lost a lot of the encouraging attitude that made it so fun for the girls.  I don't know him well enough to know whether something in his life changed, or he might be too stressed out coaching.  He coaches his other daughter, too.  I have a buddy whose daughter is on this coach's other team, and he actually asked me if something was different with Coach this season, so it's not just me, and it's not just my daughter's team.  A number of things frustrated us this year, but the biggest one was that he never gave our daughter a chance to be a regular pitcher.  From what my wife said, she did OK in practice, but the coach had a rotation of three that he set at the beginning of the season and pretty much stuck with it, other than when he let his daughter pitch once in a while.  One of those girls was great.  One was OK.  One was unhittable when she threw over the plate, but other than one inning never could strike out more than one girl per inning...in other words she was either great or terrible.  Thankfully, the coach missed the last two games of the season and the assistant worked in my daughter plus a couple others who wanted to pitch.  My daughter got one inning of work the last game of the season.  The results:  2 strikeouts and a scoreless inning (most innings at her level end because the team at bat scores 3 runs...they play 3 runs or 3 outs, whichever comes first).  I know...small sample size.

3.  My son's little league game.  Baseball starts with tee-ball (where the kids hit off a tee, rather than face pitching).  The next step is Single-A, where the season starts with the coach pitching to the kids and ends with a mixture of coach-pitch and kid-pitch.  My son plays this level now.  There's no balls and strikes...the kid pitches 5 times and if the batter puts the ball in play, great.  If 5 pitches go by and the batter does not put the ball in play, then the coach comes out for 2 pitches, and if the kid can't put the ball in play, he's out.  The kid-pitch can present some problems when you have a hard throwing kid because they pitch from pretty close and are not all that accurate.  My son and 3 others have been hit...one poor guy in the cheek, and he's basically a wreck at the plate now.  We are the 2nd-youngest team in the league...in  a league where the kids range from 6-8, that's a big difference.  We also have the fewest kids that played Single-A last year...only 2 of them, where most teams have 5 or 6.  So, the point is that we are small and not really experienced.  We played against the biggest team in the league on Saturday, and as expected, the game was really lopsided.  In itself, that's not too bad.  Evidently, the league doesn't make a particular effort to balance the teams, and so every year, there are one or two teams that pretty much beat up on the other teams, and next year we may be in that position if the kids stick with it.  But it's not particularly fun to have them bat through their lineup every inning, while we only send 4 or 5 kids to the plate.  Again, though, it happens.  The thing that pissed me off was that the opposing coach decided to let his best pitcher throw.  He should have recognized that we were the wrong team to do that against...there are a couple other teams that are just about the same size and experience as these guys.  I watched the kid warm up, and then asked the other coach if he really wanted him to pitch against us.  I knew we would not even get a swing off.  The other coach told me that this kid hadn't pitched for a couple games, and it wasn't fair to him just because he was so good.  I see the point, but what I tried to explain to the coach in the few minutes we had was that he should look at the schedule and pick the better teams to have this guy pitch.  In our league, a coach stands behind the catcher to gather up the passed balls, and to help the kid at the plate (and to help the catcher too, if he's too close or his gear comes loose).  I'm that guy when our team bats.  This was the first kid like I felt I didn't want to be back there...only one deflection off the catcher's glove away from something bad happening.  Can only imagine how our little guys felt at bat against him.  Thankfully, he didn't hit anyone, but as I knew, our guys were so intimidated that they never made a swing.  Instead, they just bailed out from every pitch.  I'm not one for trying to build every kid's self esteem by making sure they all succeed at everything...I think it's better for them to have some failures and some successes, even at a young age.  But no one learned a thing here or got better, so what's the point.  Meh, this is losing something for not being there...really hard to explain just how dumb it was for this kid to be pitching.

4.  Speaking of lopsided competition, the final rant is more just disappointment in what I thought was going to be much cooler.  My niece plays college softball and is also playing on a summer team which is mostly made up of the same group of girls that she has been playing with on a competitive traveling team.  Basically, a regional all-star team.  The U.S. Olympic team has been fundraising by playing college teams as well as these traveling teams.  Last Saturday, they played against my niece's team, so we went to see the game.  I thought it was going to be so cool to see her in action against Team USA.  And it was kind of cool...but more to see how excited she was than any action in the game.  If I knew more about the Olympic team, it would have been neat to see them live, but I don't follow softball whatsoever.  The game itself was so lopsided, it was pretty boring, which was the letdown.  I never thought my niece's team could beat Team USA, but I didn't realize just how lopsided the whole tour has been.  My brother-in-law said that Team USA was like 35-1 on their tour (their only loss evidently came against a pitcher who they cut from the team), and they didn't worry about running up the score.  I figured that they wouldn't show up the hometown teams like this, seeing as a lot of the fans (i.e., ticket and merchandise sales) were friends and family of their opposition.  Not that they would toss a game, just that they wouldn't run up the score.  In getting beat 18-0, though, I think my niece's team had one of the better results from this tour.  Most boring was that Team USA threw (yet another) perfect game, which if you don't know is when not a single batter reaches base.  In fact, of the 18 batters Team USA faced (they only played 6 innings), 15 struck out.  The pitching is that good.  My niece was one of the 3 batters to make contact.  Her hit, as well as the two other batters, didn't make it out of the infield and were really easy plays by Team USA.  All that being said, it was still impressive to see just how good Team USA played, at least when they were on offense...they were so much faster than my niece's team.  As a fundraiser, too, I guess it was a success, but as a vehicle to tune up for the Olympic games, it failed...their fielders spent 2 hours doing nothing more than running in and out of the dugout, and exercising their arms a bit throwing in warm-ups.  They've got a really busy tour, so I wonder when they do get time to actually work hard on their games now...who knows, though, maybe they don't need to...I'm not really sure just how good they are relative to the other teams.  And for all of that, my niece was just as excited at the end of the game taking pictures with and getting autographs from Team USA as she was at the beginning.  Her team knew what they were getting into, and it was a thrill just to be playing with the Olympic squad.  So from that view, everything was cool.

A 4-bet pot out of position

Villain is 18/16/3.5, 3-bets 7% of the time and cold calls 0.9%. Had notes on him from a prior session that he 3-bet me relentlessly in position, and this session, he's already done it a couple times and I'd folded (and he'd also folded to my raises a few times).

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $104.00
BB: $103.00
UTG: $136.00
MP: $139.70
Hero (CO): $192.90
BTN: $127.05

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with Jc Ac
2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, BTN raises to $12, 2 folds, Hero raises to $32, BTN calls $20

Flop: ($65.50) 2c Tc 9s (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $35, Hero raises to $160.90 all in

Preflop, my plan was to fold to a shove. His 3-betting range is really wide, but I'm assuming I'm pretty far behind his shoving range. I've been trying to incorporate some bluff 4-bets, and so my 4-bet size has gotten smaller if I don't shove, but I don't vary my bet sizes between bluffs and value against regs.
I was a little surprised by his call (thought he would either fold or shove). I guess he should have a big hand here, although he's a loser over 8000 hands, so it is possible he's not that good and may be calling with worse hands. Or, being so aggressive, is just looking to take it away from me on the flop. But let's give him TT+ as a range and assume we're playing for stacks. If that's the case, I've got enough pot equity (I need about 35% and I've got about 43%). So, I shouldn't mind playing for stacks if it comes to that.
There are a couple lines to take here: bet/call or CRAI. His flop aggression factor is like 6. Let's look at some of his possible hands:

• Set, 2-pair, or premium pair that smooth called preflop: either line stacks are going in, as I assume he bets these. I guess he might check back a set (I might do that in his shoes), but then I get a free card to hit my draw. And also, he strikes me as overaggro, so I think he's probably betting. C-bet or CRAI doesn't make much difference.
• QQ, JJ, Tx, 9x: I think I actually have more fold equity (not that there's a ton) taking the CRAI line. Yeah, he's going to be tied to the pot, but the CRAI looks so strongly like he's crushed, that he might fold to it, plus I get an extra bet. On the other hand, he might have called QQ, maybe JJ, looking to shove if I bet a non-ace, non-king flop. I don't think it makes a ton of difference, but in general putting in the shove gives more FE than putting in a bet, so I think CRAI is the play here. Again, he's really aggressive on the flop, so I don't think he'll check behind, but again, if he does, it gives me a chance to outdraw him.
• Lower pocket pairs: I think betting is a little better here. If he made the call with a low pocket pair, he's probably looking to hit his set or fold...it will be pretty tough for him to call a c-bet. Given this is a 4-bet pot, this is a small part of his range.
• Draws: Again, he shouldn't be showing up with draws here in a 4-bet pot, but people are surprising. I like CRAI for draws, as he gets tied to the pot, but I'm actually ahead if he's on a draw.
• Air: Not a huge part of his range, but there is a nonzero chance he's making a play, given I've let him push me around by folding to his 3-bets so far over a couple sessions. If he has air, he's most likely bet/folding if I check, so I like CRAI.

So, overall, I'm OK with the CRAI line I took, mostly because he is really aggressive and will bet for me, so overall I get more FE taking my strong line, and I've got pot equity to back me up in case he calls. But I think it's kind of close. I'm really more concerned about the analysis. To be honest, at game time I was giving more weight to draws and air than I do now looking back on it. I believe in game time, I was approaching this more as a 3-bet pot than a 4-bet pot, so the scales tipped a little more to CRAI than they do now.

Poker? What's that?

Have been even busier than usual the last couple weeks, it's all good, just very little time left for poker.  No change this week, but then it should lighten up.  I did try to sneak out to a card room for a few hours, but was still waiting for a seat 50 minutes later, so I bailed.  For you guys that play live much, is it pretty much expected to tip the floor when there's a long wait, in order to expedite things?  Or is it pretty much just the regulars in the room who are able to buy themselves a quicker seat?  Or maybe it doesn't happen?

I had a lesson with jk3a over at Deuces Cracked.  I'm looking forward to some more when I actually get some time to play.  For me personally, I like when the dialog is more two-way, and where I am initiating a lot of the conversation...I'm a big believer in that it matters less whether you got a decision right and more why you were right (or not).  In some ways, I think that's why the video format of coaching works pretty well.  It forces the student to think, and prevents the coach from interrupting.  But where it falls apart is that you can't make any real time adjustments at all.

For instance, one hand I told Jared I was planning to check/call on the turn and he stopped me to recommend that I try a blocker bet and see how that played out, and then we talked about why it was better to go that route.  But for the most part, he stayed out of the way, and rather focused on why and what-if type questions.  Perfect for a guy like me who wants to deconstruct and rebuild my thought process.

Jared confirmed I still outthink myself and give villains too much credit (for reasonable play, not necessarily for having a hand) -- no surprise to some of you.  More importantly overall, I need to value bet more and bluff less.  That last is probably good perpetual advice for anyone at small stakes, actually.  By the time all of us small stakes grinders really internalize value betting more and bluffing less to the point where we actually have it right, we'll probably make enough to move up to MSNL.  Anyway, it's not like I regularly run any super wacky bluffs, but I do think that I need to work specifically on good spots to double barrel (and the fact that villain just called the flop does not qualify as "good spot.").

Outside of poker, it's been all sports, all the time, plus some two new projects kicking off at work.  On the sports side, both kids have make-up games from earlier in the season when it rained or some other scheduling mishap caused a postponement.  My daughter's season ends on Saturday, freeing up some time.  My son's goes a few weeks later, though.  Actually, that's great, because some stuff is obviously starting to click for him...he hit the cover off the ball last Saturday, 4-for-4...huge relief to me because for the first part of the season, he was hitting really poorly, making lots of outs, and getting kind of frustrated.  Secondly, his glove work is getting tons better. 

It's funny taking for granted how to hold a glove when you catch a ball when you see how all the kids -- even the good ones -- wanted to hold it last year, and even the beginning of this year.  Over the course of the year, more and more of them have started to get it right (some with the aid of a baseball glancing off the heel of their open glove and tagging them on the chin)...and finally my son's got it.   So, I'm glad that the season is going to continue for a while because it will give him a chance to solidify his new skills.  Although he may be a bit burnt this week...3 games throughout the rest of the week, and the ones after a day at school are tougher for all the kids.

As for me, I actually snuck out of the office last Friday morning for a round of golf...first time in a long time, but going to try to do that a little bit this summer, especially since weekends are getting booked solid with family activities.  Golf is as swingy as poker for me, but for the second round in a row I had multiple birdies, so I was happy how that went.  I also had the most consistently solid round of putting in a long while.  I had a few drop, and the ones that didn't were uniformly good misses.

Half Full or Half Empty?

Was thinking about making this post BBV style, but there's really no brags...only beats and variance.  But given that we're likely to do a certain amount of utterly stupid stuff in our lifetimes, maybe it's not so bad.

Came to work, got a cup of coffee and settled in...then re-learned a basic lesson that I've learned in about 18 different sports...concentrate on your target.  Instead, I reached for the coffee while reading an email.  I drink 2-3 cups of coffee each day.  Sometimes I'm a spazz.  That combination means I'm probably going to spill a couple cups of coffee a year.  (Side note:  my usual way to spill a cup of coffee is walking down the hill in front of the 10th tee at the golf course, where I can hit the trifecta:  stain a shirt and my glove; burn my hand; not have the coffee.)

Today, at least there was a bright side...again it assumes I'm going to spill a certain amount of coffee in my life...there's probably no way to fix that. 

It went over my computer, but I use a docking station, so it just went on the cover, not on the more sensitive components.  It went on me, but I'm wearing brown slacks today, and I can't even really see the stain now.  It went on the carpet, but I'm at the office, so I don't have to worry about cleaning the carpets.  I completely emptied the cup, but I'm at the office, so I just got another one.

All in all, I guess it could be worse!

Brokedown Palace

Wow, it's been 20 years.  I'll never forget, dude.  Thanks Kristin.

--------------------------------------

Fare you well, my honey, fare you well, my only true one.
All the birds that were singing are flown except you alone.

Goin' to leave this brokedown palace,
On my hands and my knees, I will roll, roll, roll.
Make myself a bed by the waterside,
In my time, in my time, I will roll, roll, roll.

In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside, I will lay my head.
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.

River going to take me, sing me sweet and sleepy,
Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home.
It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago.
Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home.

Goin' home, goin' home, by the waterside I will rest my bones,
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.

Going to plant a weeping willow,
By the bank's green edge it will grow, grow, grow.
Sing a lullaby beside the water,
Lovers come and go, the rivers roll, roll, roll.

Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell.
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.

Ran like a god at 5/10

Well, OK, it was 5 cent / 10 cent, but it was still nice to run awesome for a change :).  I was fooling around with some HUD layout stuff on Stars where you have to be dealt in for the HUD to show, so I fired up a couple .05/.10 tables.  Haven't re-imported stuff back into my new PT3 database, but I think it was something like 63 BB/100! 

Life at 100NL was not so good, unfortunately, including a 90BB stack-off in a pot unraised preflop.  My read was right (I was up against a big draw), and it was nice pretty much knowing what my opponent had.  A bit later, same table (which was a great table), I steal with AKs, very aggro BB 3-bets, and I 4-bet.   Flop comes Axx and he checks.  Normally, I would check this back, but I had a read he would stack off light, so I bet small, planning to get the rest in on the turn.  He obliges by calling and then calling on the turn when the board paired the bottom card.  He's got AJ :).  He rivers a jack :(.

I'm making a concerted effort to judge the success of a session solely on how well I played, especially postflop, and especially paying attention to opponents and getting off auto pilot.  These couple hands were a good test because although they were nothing really special, my reads were on, and on the second one I played it a different way than usual.  Although the money was probably going in on the second hand regardless, still I used some reads and changed things up without sacrificing anything.  Plus, I lost both hands, and I still was OK with it.  From that view, the session was a success.

Life update:  going to a funeral a bit later today.  One of the guys I play golf with is an amazing guy.  He's in his 80's and still out there hacking around with us, and pretty much seems to enjoy every single day.  His wife recently passed (her funeral), but it was probably a blessing.  Her health had been just terrible for years, and for the last year or so was pretty much bedridden.  He had a ton to do taking care of her, but he still managed to enjoy life as well.  I never really knew her, but for his sake, I'm going to go to the funeral.

In happier news, our little league baseball team just graduated from coaches pitching to the kids.  What happens now is that the kids actually pitch 5 balls, and if the batter can't hit, then the coaches get to pitch 2.  My son pitched in the first game, and it was awesome...he was the total crowd pleaser.  Not because he pitched the most strikes (he didn't), but for his pre-pitch routine.  Definitely the best out there.  Plus, it's awesome to see him throwing so well.  I remember last year about this time, he could not make the throw from the mound to first base.  Now, pitching, when he misses, he's sailing the ball over everyone's heads and back to the fence.  At least he's throwing straight....just about every pitch went over the plate...just some of them were like 10 feet over the plate ;).  Next up for him is batting...gotta get him to pull the ball more...he's going right back up the middle, but with not enough power to make it by the pitcher.  So, until he strengthens up a bit, he's got to hit to the left side of the field.  He's a fast kid..no way they throw him out from 3rd.

Haven't played golf for a while, but it's my turn to get a tee time for my group on Sunday morning, so I'll be playing then, I think.  Got a birthday party on Sunday, but it's not until later....so I think I'll have some time.

April Wrap-up

April was fun. At least it's ending with some positive momentum.

Still playing too tight overall. I think I know where I can loosen up preflop, but I'm not confident enough in my postflop game to want to venture there. One of the things I want to confirm with a coach is the state of my postflop game, given how TAGnit I'm playing. There's a little gap between VPIP and PFR, but I'll talk more about that in the positional analysis. I'm sure I could steal more, but I'm OK with anything over 30%. One of the things I'd like to do is pick some more defending spots, but I don't want to go crazy. I should note that one of my seat selection criteria is that the person 2 to my right does not have a high attempt to steal...if they do, I'm looking to leave unless there's another compelling factor to stay...so it does stand to reason that I would fold a little more than normal. The other thing that jumps out at me is that my fold to c-bet is really low. That may be getting me in a bit of trouble as I'm probably making too many spewy plays, or in general just not believing the flop bets enough.

Given my overall VPIP and PFR, the distribution of the non-blind positions is OK. The CO could be higher for sure. The UTG spot is a couple percentage points higher (big relative increase) after consciously opening up a little bit, just to protect my big hands...so, some occasional opens with suited connectors, and also adding AJo and ATs into my likely opening range. Too many decent players are aware of how positionally aware the other players are, so I think that it just can't be premium hands in UTG. I'm also cold calling a bit more on the button (as opposed to taking a reraise or fold approach). Sometimes I'm doing this planning to try taking away a lot of flops in position, and sometimes I'm doing this by cold-calling speculative hands I'd previously dumped. And of course, those two factors interrelate.

The biggest question mark is my SB VPIP and PFR. I'm doing a lot of completing, relatively speaking. It's something that a few people have recommended me to avoid, and I have tried to be deliberate about it. I've reviewed some hands, though, and it looks like a lot of them are completing after 2 limpers with decent speculative hands, and then playing pretty cautiously postflop. I'm pretty sure I'm not going overboard with them, but that VPIP is kind of high and the gap between VPIP and PFR from that spot is wide. So, I'll have to keep monitoring it.

In addition to the play, I watched more videos in April than I have in a long time. A lot of that was due to really loving the Deuces Cracked vids, but I'm also trying to focus on vids in general, and in fact have been rotating between DC, CR, and Stox. The videos have come at the expense of strat forum participation, but I was getting kind of burnt with that anyway....I'm not sure how much I was really getting from posting. Not that posting is a waste of time...quite the contrary...but I hit a plateau in terms of how much I personally took away from that study vehicle. I think for May, I'll try to get back to more of a balance between videos and the forums, though.

More coaching

Thanks for the responses to my prior post...some nice additions there. I definitely have a great group of guys to chat about poker with, and I know most of you would be willing to rail/review, etc. I truly appreciate that! I still think that I would like to get a coach. In part, it's because I don't think I would be able to give back as much as I get...one of the reasons I don't ask you guys to sweat me is that I am really unpredictable and bad about being able to return the favor. My poker time during the day comes in chunks here and there between work commitments. At night, if I play, it's usually for pretty short sessions, and is also subject to what the rest of the family wants to do.

In other words, I'm not really in control of my poker schedule. That's a conscious choice and while it sucks from a poker development standpoint, it works for me overall. Even if that were not the case, I'd probably seek out a coach. I'm really looking for someone to form a longish-term arrangement who can work with me to figure out the gaps (and strengths) in my game. Being able to help someone with that is a skill in and of itself, and not all good poker players can do it...probably only a minority.

It's not enough to know what the right plays are...you have to be able to explain to someone...in a way they can understand...why the play is right, and where they are not thinking correctly. And style is important, too. Some guys will want their coach to cram in as much advice, new plays, theory, etc., as possible. That makes some sense, as you should be paying a fair amount for a decent coach. Other guys, like me, would prefer more of a two-way dialog. And in fact, for me, I like to throw out my thoughts on a situation and then have a coach give his thoughts on my thoughts. But also, they may need to take the initiative for certain topics, because I'm not even aware that they should be topics up for discussion. I think it's a pretty rare person who can balance all that.

So, I think that there is certainly merit to working with a coach in addition to having a network of guys, no matter how good. The trick will be to find one who believes the same things, is good at them, and can work with me, where my coaching window is typically pretty limited.

I've been and am on the other end of the coaching relationship in sports and business, where I'm the one doing the coaching. They're different, of course, but there are a lot of parallels. It reinforces how hard it is to be a good coach, and also how already-good coaches can always get better. And while some people are blessed with natural ability, there is no corresponding shortcut for commitment to the people you're coaching.

With that knowledge, I'm probably a great student for someone I would consider a great coach. I will work my ass off away from the coaching sessions to improve. And one thing that I think is common to all great coaches is that a lot of their reward comes from their students getting better...that's part of their commitment, and at least projecting my own coaching, the more someone is willing to really work at what I'm coaching them on, the more I want to help them. The other big thing is that even when I'm playing well and my confidence is high, I know I've got tons and tons left to learn, and once I've committed myself to a coach, while I might question something, I'm pretty trusting to try whatever they recommend. Again projecting, it's more enjoyable to coach someone who will follow your advice...you (correctly) feel like you have directly contributed to their success.

That said, I'm probably a shitty student for a not-so-great coach. My expectations of a coach are pretty high. I mean, I think they're realistic, but they're high nonetheless. The nice thing about poker coaching is that if either side doesn't like what they're getting out of the other side, they can end the relationship. Most coaching is not like that. If one of my employees doesn't like the coaching they get from me, it's pretty hard (and drastic) to stop that relationship. If I don't like one of the kids on my team, I can't really kick them off (and believe me, I wish that I could...at least one every season).

In a short sample size, I've had what I consider to be pretty bad luck with poker coaching so far. The first guy I selected as a long-term coach should have been perfect. Sick player, some solid coaching experience and references, well known and respected on Cardrunners, has even produced some videos. Plus he's a nice guy. But I think he got overextended (or who knows, maybe I pissed him off at some point...wouldn't be the first time). He asked his students to keep blogs -- not a problem for me as I already had one going -- but he didn't make a single comment on mine or some of his other students I got to know. He was never available on AIM, and he was pretty unpredictable responding to email. I gave him feedback about what was working for me and what wasn't, but nothing really changed. All that said, I was learning, and was getting value, and would probably have continued. But, after a series of emails went unresponded...a mixture of hand histories, requests for other study ideas, and trying to schedule our next lesson...I just gave up...reluctantly. Maybe I should have kept on trying to make it work, but I felt bummed that I had to work so hard for a response.

Undeterred, I started researching again, and tried some lessons with a few guys, and after a bit got going with Messiah from Deuces Cracked. He is great, but I'm a victim of his success; things are going too well for him "in the real world." So, he is stepping away from coaching for a bit because he can't commit 100% to his students. Which while it sucks for me, also shows partly why he's a good coach.

So, I've got a couple recommendations I'm following up with, as well as waiting to hear some thoughts from Messiah...and hopefully I'll be making a post similar to Barry before too long talking about working with a new coach.

What would you ask a coach before signing up?

Here's what I'm thinking I would like to know:

• What's your track record at my level?  How long ago was that?
• What do you do different/better than other coaches?  In other words, what are your strengths?
• How will you go about getting to know my game?
• How long will it take for you to get to know my game well enough to help me with a plan to improve?
• What should I expect over the course of the first 2-4 sessions (and in between)?
• What do you expect of me?
• How much do your students interact with each other (i.e., is there any sort of community around your coaching)?
• Do you provide any sort of (written or recorded) summary of our sessions?
• In a typical session what's the ratio of talking between you and your student?  Answer for different formats if applicable (i.e., may be different for theory formats vs. live sessions).
• Do you have any sort of structured curriculum/progression for different player types?
• Do you give any sort of  "homework?"  If so, what is it?
• Rates and references, of course.

That's a few thoughts off the top of my head.  What am I missing?

Motivation

Before the meat of this post, thanks for the feedback on the hand from last post.  I thought there were some good arguments presented for differing points.  I'm convinced that you could make a good case for playing the hand in the first place, and that raising preflop with the context I provided is OK.  The flop may be a bit more murky, but betting cannot be a terribly big mistake....if the rest of the hand is played smarter than I played.  Yeah, it will cause me to commit a lot of chips on a marginal hand, but the reward is pretty big too.  The problem, once again for me, was overplaying on the turn.  Even if I made a mistake on the earlier streets, it would pale in comparison to the mistake on the turn.

---------------------------------------

Been doing a bunch of reflection on my poker game lately.  I'm on a big cooler, well at least for me.  I'm not sure that's a widely used term, but cooler seems to be about the opposite of heater, and that's where I am at.  In the last 10,000 hands or so, I am down 4 BI at 200NL and 16 BI at 100NL (but currently 2 BI up from the bottom!!!).  The cooler started off at 200NL and continued to 100NL in somewhat brutal fashion, but my play seemed OK in the big and medium pots.  However, my play has also sucked, especially the last few sessions for some reason.

LOL, been writing this post off and on all day, and just came back to read it, and decided to delete everything except that first paragraph.  I had written a crapload, but it amounted to the fact that I better not feel sorry for myself, and that my emotional game isn't as strong as I would like it, or as strong as I believed it was before I started coolering.  If it were stronger, I wouldn't hate this downswing as much as I do.  Not that I should be thrilled to lose (duh), but my emotions are influenced by the results way too much, rather than being dominated by the quality of my play.

Trying to find a silver lining, it's not 100% terrible to experience this.  If you have to experience a DS, better at small stakes than larger...and not that it won't happen at higher stakes, but playing -- and improving -- through it will help handle the next one better.  And I think for almost everyone, you tend to critique your own game more on a downswing than an upswing (maybe for good reason).  Certainly there are a number of things I can do better.  Not only technically, but also in how I approach each hand and the game as a whole.

One thing that really pisses me off is making an effort at something and still failing.  This cooler wiped out all my playing profits for 100 NL, which were not astounding to begin with LOL.  It took me 40k hands over 5 months to get 20BI and 10k hands over one month to give it back.  All I've got to show for 50k hands is rakeback and experience.  The rakeback has pretty much been spent on video memberships, coaching and books, so what I really have for the last 50k hands and 6 months is knowledge and experience.  And in the end, I think that's supposed to be more of a success than whatever buy-ins I could have made....true I'm at a stakes standstill for now, but in the long picture of a career the knowledge and experience acquired now should have a multiplier effect, and as long as I'm learning and improving my foundation, I should be pretty satisfied with it.

I came up with another source of motivation, but it kind of contradicts itself.  I was thinking that Full Tilt is a generally tough site to play...lots of regs at the 100NL and 200NL tables who are, if not world beaters, at least not total fish.  Would it be worth it to play elsewhere?  From an EV standpoint, almost assuredly yes!  But I'm finding the competitive (OK, stubborn) drive to want to stick it out and beat this frigging 100NL level.  It means something to me to be able to say that I did it, now that I've gotten beaten back.  On the other hand, I'm still going to be diligent about seat selection, so I'm not exactly looking to beat the toughest game or outdo the best players.  It's more just like Full Tilt in aggregate. 

I've put enough work in, have identified some problems, want to work with a coach to make sure my blind spots aren't too terrible, and want to continue to improve.  Outside of my actual job and family time, I devote far more time to poker than probably all my other personal interests combined.  My Tivo is hopelessly backlogged (1GB storage upgrade FTW) and my Blockbuster subscription is a total waste.  I read like one non-poker book every six months.  My golf game has gone downhill because I spend no time at the range.  Hell, I probably could have found a ton of side projects at work, but instead I'm reading, chatting, thinking poker....just to get better...maybe just to prove to myself that I can, I don't know.  I wonder what the bigger factor is:  love of the game or will to succeed at something I've already invested a lot in.  (Maybe in a microcosm, that's why I find it hard to fold once I've raised :P).

Geez, this ended up being long, even with deleting all that stuff.  If you're still here, thanks!

Bad hand, cool object

The I really don't like having to follow links to hand conversion sites from blog and forum posts...mostly I'm just lazy...but if I try to make comments, I've got 3 separate tabs open: the original post; the hand history (pokerhand, weaktight); and my comments. If I could eliminate one, that would be great, and the easiest one to eliminate is the hand history. So, I much prefer inline hand histories, again on forums or on blogs. But they take up a lot of room. /rant

Anyway, check this replayer out. I don't think you can embed the CR replayer or anything like that. Let me know if you have any problems with it....not that I post a lot of hands, but maybe it will catch on in general. I kind of like it. Pause before each of my actions, and see what you think.

For what it's worth, I think that this hand shows a lot about why I don't win more. There's some good, even creative thinking, but a significant mistake on the later streets that kind of torpedoes my previous good efforts. As for context...

CO recently sat down, but I have a few hundred hands on him, and a little recent history where I managed to stack off AK vs. his AA preflop, but it was pretty standard and a day or two ago, so I'm not sure it comes into play. He is 17/15, steals 42%, folds to 3-bet 85%.

BB is relatively unknown, but seemingly fishy. 32/10 over 88 hands. He folds his BB to steals 100 of the time, but that's got to be a really small sample size.

Here's the Permalink, just in case.

My thinking in the hand is that given his propensity to get way out of line (yeah, only a few hundred hands) and me with a hand I'd like to play on the button, I'd rather raise here than just call. Against someone who doesn't seem to get out of line in steal situations as much, I could see calling. I think even though a 3-bet here is OK, a call here might be good too, since the blinds are deep, and I might be able to trigger a cold-call-fest with a good speculative hand on the button. But, I don't trust them to come along...although the BB is loose in general, he seems tighter out of the blinds. Anyway, lately, given a choice between a safe, aggressive, and really aggressive line, I'm going with the last one.

The flop seems like a good bet to me. I'm worried about the BB (as I am anytime someone calls a 3-bet almost cold, at least until I see what they're doing it with), but he's loose/passive enough that he could be doing this with big cards, maybe suited, as well as all his pairs. CO has shown me that he reraises his biggest hands, so most likely he has a pocket pair and possibly some big suited cards as well. I would have put him on a much more narrow range had it been HU, but after BB called, I think CO's range opened somewhat because he plays deepish against BB. He's also got decent relative position because he'll be able to see what I do on the flop, and how BB responds. Now, I'm not saying he's good enough to realize all that, I'm just saying that there's a decent rationale to widen his range a bit. Anyway, the pot is pretty big already, and at least one of these guys could have overcards that I don't want to see come. If they have overpairs or sets, I still have flush equity (and backdoor straight outs), and also 2-pair/trips outs against overpairs.

The turn is where I really think I blew it. This guy is a tight, pretty straightforward player who does not seem to be the type that is going to put a move on me. It is possible that he got married to his hand and made a loose call on the flop, but what I didn't realize at game time was just how terrible a card that Jack was. Let's say he was on a club draw when he called the flop. A jack is in a fair amount of that club draw range, so with such a small amount behind, he's not letting go of TP+flush draw, IMO. He *may* call another bet with a non-jack club draw. That would be great...but also since I've got two clubs myself, I don't need to be super worried about a better flush draw catching me. But anyway, let's say he calls again with it, that would be a good result. Finally, if he has a pocket pair...he could have made a set on the flop, in which case he's just letting me hang myself. If he doesn't have a set, then I think his PP's are pretty much TT and JJ, and obviously he's not folding JJ.

Now, if I check behind that turn and the river blanks....if he bets, it should put me AI. I can probably find a fold, if I have a read that he's not particularly likely to run a big bluff. He may have a better hand and put me solely on missed clubs, and check again trying to induce me (which I would not do, since it's clear no worse hands will call and not many better ones will fold). Even if I talk myself into a huge hero call if bets on the end, my chances of winning this hand are a ton better if he's the one betting than calling. Again, given stats and what that means for his range.

Edit: Graham and Willie, I responded to your comments from my last post....thanks.

Standard?

First of all, thanks for encouragement from my last post. Nice to have the moral support for the downer days/weeks, etc., even though the results of even a few thousand hands have so much variance. And the good news is that since then, in the little I've played, I've bounced back a bit.

OK, consider this situation:

Villain is 25/9/2.3 over a few hundred hands, but you have no real table context. He folds his BB to steals 70% of the time, and he folds to a c-bet 65% of the time.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $14.35
SB: $106.90
BB: $24.05
UTG: $308.20
Hero (CO): $102.00

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with Ad Ks
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($8.00) 9s Qh 5s (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $7, SB raises to $21, Hero folds

I made this play without thinking much of it, and really, perhaps there's not much to think about, especially at 100NL. You could make a definite argument for checking back this flop, since he does have a good chance of having connected with it somehow. But as long as you're not overdoing your c-bets (and one of the things Messiah pointed out is that I'm definitely not c-betting too much :P).

But I happened to be going back over some old notes, and saw one where the pro shoved (albeit with a bit smaller effective stacks) with ace-high when he thought there was a decent chance that villain was on a draw. Stoving this is cool if we can put villain on a reasonable range, but what is his range with this play?

How often is a checkraise on the flop defending against a steal a bluff or semibluff? According to an sthief09 video I recently watched, it's fairly often, on a draw-heavy board. How often is it a made hand that is trying to extract a bit extra, but which can't stand the heat of a reraise? What does the size of his raise say about anything? I'm honestly not sure what the answers to these questions are. Thoughts?

So, let's say that I 3-bet him here. First of all, what size should the 3-bet be? I think that it should be a shove because if I raise anywhere close to pot, and he calls, the pot is going to be huge relative to the amount behind. An argument for raising smaller is that he interprets a smaller bet as a please-call-me bet and therefore folds. That probably gives him credit for a little better thought process than I think he warrants, at this point anyway. Plus, bet-3-betting AI looks like a credible line for a set on this board.

Now, let's look at the types of hands he has.

Pure bluffs. He could have these some of the time...he doesn't like to fold early in the hand, and he has a moderate aggression factor...so he might be playing back on flops if he thinks he can take it down. But not a tremendous amount of the time, I don't think. Anyway, he folds those, a good result for me.

Semibluffs. There are a lot of draws out there. I don't have any notes about how he plays his draws, so it's hard to say how much of the time he c/r his draws versus how many times he c/c them. If he has a naked flush draw or naked straight draw, I'm ahead, since I hold the Ks, and he makes a fundamental mistake calling a large push like that, but might anyway. Regardless, of what he does, pushing is still better than folding for me. He's definitely calling with a combo draw, and depending how big the combo draw is, it will either be pretty close to neutral or I'll be ahead but have less pot equity than he does.

Made hands. Obviously, I'm in bad shape against his made hands, but I do have my overcard and backdoor flush potential outs. The real question here is how often he gives up his middle or pocket pairs. I said earlier that I didn't think too hard about my fold, in the sense that I thought it was a super clear fold. And I still do...mostly because I just don't trust people to fold, even when they "should." And this is where I might have it most wrong, admittedly.

If he has a made hand plus a draw, he's even less likely to fold.

I think that overall, shoving -- even if you can make enough profitable probabilities -- doesn't give you that much EV over folding, but I may be weighting things too much towards the made hand/not fold scenario. Whatever, it will certainly be a lot higher variance, and until I'm pretty damn sure about the EV, I think I should be going for the lower variance route (maybe a whole other topic).

Also, given all the scenarios, how would you play Ad Ac with this flop action?

LOL Full Tilt Doomswitchaments

Half a buy-in was from bad play that I know about (one retarded bluff and two retarded calls). Two buy-ins were from AK into KK and AA OOP to some aggressive-but-somewhat nitty players...I think those are OK. The rest...beats and coolers, especially right towards the end..but you can see it was a somewhat steady decline with no real redeeming qualities other than the fact that while I was admittedly frustrated, I didn't go on apeshit tilt, and actually forced myself to talk out decisions so I wouldn't be angrily clicking (the wrong) buttons.

After the first big dip, that table broke, and I actually didn't find another table that I liked, so I kind of bounced between 2 and 3 tables...which I think is essential if you're even close to maybe tilting, if you don't just quit altogether. Having the time and making yourself mentally (or actually) talk through decisions I think kind of slows things down and ensures you don't do the worst of the possible damage to yourself.

It was really bad how the boards broke for me a lot of the time...beyond a couple 2 outers, they looked really scary when I ended up having strong hands, so even when I had the best hands, it was hard to extract. The sets I had that didn't lose to higher sets or better, I won a grand total of one continuation bet postflop.

Other than one hand, in my biggest hands, my opponents didn't really play poorly...they did get lucky (or I failed to when I was drawing). The days where you flop a lot of good draws and whiff while your made hands get frequently outdrawn are tough. I don't know actually how often I got outdrawn because I didn't make a lot of frustration calls when they told me the obvious draws got there...I think that's one silver lining I can take from the session.

This was my single worst session, and it also knocked me squarely back down to the 100NL game for a bit...I was pretty close to my take-a-shot-at-200NL level before the session, and for me to grind 8 buy-ins back, plus the few more that I need to take my shot, will take a bit on the calendar, since I just don't play enough.

I'd like to say I'm unaffected and it's just another session, but I'm a bit dispirited to tell the truth. Feels better to write it out, though...write it out to ride it out...I like it! Good luck to you guys...this was probably my only shot at logging some hands this weekend...busy busy busy. Hopefully things get back to "normal" next week.

March Summary

Not a ton of time, but I'll put my results up. I'll get some pictures up, then hopefully follow up with a bit more detailed PT review.


It was a good month overall, and I think my game has come a long way this year so far. The month ended on a bit of a downer...a mixture of running less hot (but not terrible -- just less worse than the beginning of the month), some poor plays in big pots, and a little bit of experimentation that didn't turn out like I'd hoped.


I'm still playing on the nitty side of TAG overall. As my position stats will show, that's mainly due to being extremely tight in EP. I've run this by a few different people, including a couple coaches, and clearly I need to open up at least a little in EP. My range for a bit has been 22+, AQ+, KQs. I think for some balance, I'll start including some suited connectors and maybe AJs. Hopefully, I'm competent enough to recognize when decent regs are playing back at me after I take initiative from EP that they're not just making moves.

My WtSD and W$SD are both much more in line with my preflop style than they have been for the last several months. Playing so tight, I should on average be showing up with better hands than my opponents, and I am finding ways to show down more (winning) hands than previously.

My aggression factors are a bit lower than usual. A big part of it is that I am trying to think through my c-bets....and in fact I may now be c-betting to infrequently. One of the experimentation pieces I alluded to above is the delayed c-bet, which I use when I don't think that the board is likely to hit my opponents. I may be overusing this tactic, but I've found it to be pretty successful.

Using PT3, you can see 3-bet percentages. I'm not sure where mine stacks up in the spectrum, but I *think* that it's pretty good. It shows I'm definitely going beyond premium hands (but so is everyone else). The good regs I've come across seem to be anywhere from 4% - 8%, and I'm in the middle of that range.

Finally, my steals are a bit low. I think that may have to do more with who is in the BB than anything else. Still, I need to stay on top of that.



I already talked about the biggest problem here, which is actually playing too tight in EP, not balancing my range enough. At one time, one of the prevailing guidelines in the CR forums was to have a 3x difference between UTG and BTN. In effect, you were fooling people who just looked at your overall VPIP and PFR. There are two problems with this approach, now. One is personal, and that is that I don't get out of line enough in CO or BTN to give an overall impression of someone a bit more LAG, so I don't get enough deception, and my strong hands in EP are a little more face up. Second, the people who you want to fool have learned how to figure out who is positionally aware, and exploit it.

Harrington talks about raising suited connectors in *full ring* EP sometimes for balance. If it makes sense for there, it certainly makes sense for 6-max. I guess maybe I'll have to buy a watch (HOC reference).

The next biggest issue with my position stats is the gap between VPIP and PFR in the SB. I'm completing a lot. Smallish sample, so it may be OK, but again, something to watch out for. I will say that with good table selection and better postflop play, there's a case to be made for completing a bit wider. Also, one of the other things that Harrington talks about is being more willing to open complete in SB, and then call a raise, rather than just opening for a raise. I need to think this one through a bit. I understand why he advocates the approach, just not sure I agree with it.