Rough Session

Had a lot of big hands that did not go my way (and a couple that did).  I think I played fine, but you be the judge on these big ones (they're not all necessarily losers...the key is they have postflop action.

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Villain is a regular with TAG stats, on the tight side.  I've been pretty active on the table, but with cards, so I haven't shown down anything out of line yet.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $261.20
Hero (CO): $203.00
BTN: $193.00
SB: $200.00
BB: $148.70
UTG: $268.55

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with 9 T
1 fold, MP raises to $6, Hero calls $6, 1 fold, SB calls $5, BB calls $4

Flop: ($24.00) 6 8 T (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP bets $20, Hero calls $20, SB folds, BB folds

Turn: ($64.00) T (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $50, MP raises to $235.20 all in, Hero calls $127 all in

River: ($418.00) Q

Not a hand I'll always play, but the circumstances were good here.  BTN is tight, BB is loose, most of the time I'll have a pretty easy hand to play postflop.  That said, I don't think this hand ended up being easy.  Can't fold on the flop, but not sure a raise gets called by worse, and can't stand to be reraised, which would make me give up TP+gutshot.  I didn't think through his range well enough at the table, though, and played the turn pretty poor.  He's got to have something, or I don't think he makes the flop c-bet.  He's aggressive, but there are 3 other people in the pot and the board is drawy.  When he checks the turn, I think that I'm probably ahead, but the more relevant question is whether I'm ahead when he check/calls (maybe), and whether I'm ahead to his c/r (almost never).  I think now that the bet was fine, but I need to fold to the CRAI, which is such a strong move.  Or, I could get lucky and have him play AA as the nuts!

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Villain here was total LAG smack tallker, big plays, big loser in my database, although I didn't have any specific notes on him before the session.  He showed a double barrel turn/river bluff after I folded the river, and it was on a scare turn.  He plays over 50% of his hands and will get in light.  Same table as the hand above, and it happened soon after.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $471.20
Hero (BB): $203.00
UTG: $200.00
MP: $213.00
CO: $146.20
BTN: $258.75

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with J J
1 fold, MP raises to $6, 1 fold, BTN calls $6, SB calls $5, Hero raises to $30, 1 fold, BTN calls $24, 1 fold

Flop: ($72.00) T 4 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $50, BTN raises to $228.75 all in, Hero calls $123 all in

Turn: ($418.00) 6

River: ($418.00) 2

With the read above, I'm fine with the hand.  I showed that I will play a marginal hand, if he was paying attention.  Against a sane player, I would fold to the raise.

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A different LAG...this ones somewhat reasonable stats wise, but have no notes on him.  He's 27/15, but his 3-bet preflop is 11%!  Over a couple thousand hands.  Postflop he is also very aggressive.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $155.00
SB: $221.45
BB: $200.15
Hero (CO): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with J J
Hero raises to $7, 2 folds, BB requests TIME, BB raises to $24, Hero calls $17

Flop: ($49.00) 7 2 T (2 players)
BB requests TIME, BB bets $36, Hero calls $36

Turn: ($121.00) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $92, Hero raises to $140 all in, BB calls $48

River: ($401.00) 4

My biggest question was whether to shove preflop or wait for a non A/K board.  I planned to get it in somehow if an ace or king didn't show up.  Mission accomplished :).

Goals and sabotage

Here's the bulk of a comment I posted to an entry on Malfaire's blog.  I don't know how many other people deal with the same stuff, but we tend to be at least somewhat ambitious, so maybe it's fairly common.  Anyway, I'm not sure if my comment is any good or helpful, but it's long, so I thought I would re-post it here as general food for thought.  It's not poker-related, although it could apply.

Yeah, I've got the same issue. I don't know if I'd call this exactly a problem, you need to figure out yourself how much you really want to change that aspect of your personality.

I've got quite a few years on all the poker-blogging guys I read, so I guess I speak from experience somewhat, and I'll sometimes wonder where I'd be at now if I'd stuck with one of my own Big Goals. My life is filled with guys I used to be equal with at something (sports, girls, business, even poker) who have gone on to greater "success" but I'm not sure they're more successful or happy across the board. Better/happier in some ways, worse/with regrets in others.

The thing is, the Big Goals don't get met for free; they take a fuckload of work and sacrifice. The guys who can meet those goals and still be happy are the ones who only care about that goal...nothing else matters to them. Otherwise, they either meet the Big Goal and feel some sort of negative towards what they gave up...or else they get distracted from their Big Goals. IMO. So, until you decide that you're willing to sacrifice whatever in order to meet whatever your Big Goal is, don't beat yourself up too much about it.

All that crap said, I totally know what you mean about self sabotage...and I've done that to myself way too many times even with regular old Goals...they don't have to be Big ones. Actually just knowing I'm prone to it has helped a lot, so you are doing something right by questioning it. I think the best thing I've come up with to stop self sabotaging is to find someone to share whatever my goal is, how I think I can reach it, and hold myself accountable to checking in with them in terms of how it's going. I hate to admit defeat in something that I'm actually trying to do (a pretty big part of why I self sabotage...I just stop trying, so I won't fail). So, that's what's worked for me. Another thing I've tried is just to put stuff in writing. Something about that takes away the excuse to self sabotage, I guess. I used to do that with monthly poker goals, actually.

Wow...kind of hippie stuff.  Better head on over to Noel's blog, now :).

Catching up with some larger hands

I finally got a chance to play just a little bit, and will post the big hands that had some postflop action.  You guys can thank me for not putting in 2 times I lost set under set and once set under turned flush....but in spite of feeling really rusty, things went OK.  It really is funny how a week or so off messes up your rhythm, though.

Villain is an unknown, just a few hands with him, nothing stood out.

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

Hero (UTG): $109.00
CO: $27.10
BTN: $87.55
SB: $38.55
BB: $100.00

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with A K
Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BTN calls $3.50, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($11.50) 6 3 A (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $9, BTN raises to $38.50, SB folds, Hero raises to $105.50 all in, BTN calls $45.55 all in

Turn: ($179.60) 5

River: ($179.60) 9

When he raises, my range for him is a club draw (possibly pair plus flush draw or a gutshot + plus flush draw), 33, 66, Ax, and a bluff (whether air or turning a pocket pair into a bluff).  I decided to go with my hand, but I think now I could find a fold, or if I didn't want to fold, call and shove a non-club turn and check/fold a club turn.
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Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $146.25
Hero (BB): $100.00
UTG: $79.00
MP: $208.00
CO: $87.05
BTN: $72.15

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with A T
2 folds, CO raises to $3, 2 folds, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6.50) 4 7 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5, Hero raises to $16, CO calls $11

Turn: ($38.50) K (2 players)
Hero bets $25, CO raises to $50, Hero raises to $81 all in, CO calls $18.05 all in

River: ($174.60) T

I think that preflop and flop are fine.  The flop probably missed him, and obviously I have a lot of pot equity if he calls.  The turn was a bad play.  I think that I was trying to rep a stab on the flop turning into a hit on the turn, but there's nothing that's calling the flop and folding to my bet  on the turn, and in fact AK is a somewhat likely hand for him at worst.  I could maybe fold out a pair between 77 and KK, but I'm not so sure about that, as really the King is not very likely to have hit me.  After I make the initial bet, though, I'm committed.  The turn pretty much sucked here.

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

SB: $100.00
BB: $102.35
UTG: $139.00
Hero (CO): $104.40
BTN: $51.50

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with K K
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 2 folds, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50) K 8 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

Turn: ($17.50) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $10, BB raises to $20, Hero calls $10

River: ($57.50) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $25, Hero calls $25

I think I played this one OK.  His min-raise spells trouble for me on the turn, but I've got odds to call.  Getting 3:1 on the river, I think the call is OK, too.  Does anyone push their set?  Does anyone fold?

Catching up

Haven't played any since last time, but can catch up at least on some reviews and as promised some big hands. 

I think that I'm going to exclude hands that got all in preflop (I guess unless there's something interesting).  I had 3 that were when we both had big pairs, and I imagine that pair vs pair or pair vs AK, etc. is both boring and going to balance out over time.  Also, when I flop a set or better, play it fast, and get it in I'll also exclude...win or lose, because what's the point in that?  If I flop huge and play slow, I'll probably post those, though, just to make sure I don't get too fancy.

Villain is 32/18/2.6, and I've got a note he can be pretty spazzy, for what that's worth.

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

BB: $104.10
UTG: $95.00
Hero (MP): $101.50
CO: $115.35
BTN: $98.50
SB: $44.05

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with J A
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50) 8 5 7 (2 players)
BB bets $5, Hero raises to $18, BB calls $13

Turn: ($43.50) T (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($43.50) A (2 players)
BB bets $45, Hero calls $45

Preflop and flop seem pretty standard.  Against a more straightforward, tighter player, I would follow up on the turn, but I think here that I have pretty little FE once he calls the flop, and in fact there's a small chance he could have gotten there or made a pair on the turn, since he's pretty loose.  The river is close, but without a better read than I have and his high aggression, I am OK with a call.  I'm certainly beat a lot, but I'm also getting 2:1 odds.  His missed draws will bet even with the Ace.  Since the Ace has to hit me a decent amount of the time, and he bets so large, I think a fold would be OK, too.  Given the strength of his bet, I think a fold is marginally better, but like I said, it's close.

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Villain is 53/20/2.4, no other notes.

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

MP: $164.10
CO: $93.50
Hero (BTN): $100.00
SB: $115.85
BB: $100.00
UTG: $61.05

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with K A
UTG raises to $6, 2 folds, Hero calls $6, 2 folds

Flop: ($13.50) K 5 4 (2 players)
UTG bets $5, Hero calls $5

Turn: ($23.50) 9 (2 players)
UTG bets $50.05 all in, Hero calls $50.05

River: ($123.60) 9

Preflop is usually a 3-bet, but I'll flat AK once in a while.  However, usually, that's against someone I think could be decent (based on stats or a note), so they don't just put me on a pair when I flat them.  And especially against this guy, I won't mind playing for 60bb (or even 100bb) if I 3-bet and he comes over the top.  So, preflop is probably a mistake in this situation.  Once I play weak preflop and hit the flop, I'm going to play for stacks .  My plan was to raise the turn (or bet if he checked).  Flop is so dry that I don't mind waiting for the turn.  His huge overbet means I'm either way ahead or way behind, but I can't play it the way I did, hit TPTK against a LAG, then fold, so I'm OK with it.

Best Laid Plans

Had high hopes for the last couple weeks for poker...not necessarily for playing, but for getting back to some of the things I've been neglecting, like reviewing all sessions instead of every 4th one or so, watching videos, posting here in general, and specifically getting back to posting big hands.

Well, the big project at work got bigger, the visibility to the senior execs got higher, and the importance of it to the company roadmap got bumped up.  So, I've been scrambling to prepare not just one, but several plans for how to git 'er done, each with plusses and minuses, risks, contingencies, etc.  I like that stuff, but it's hard and time consuming.  So guess what?  Everything else took a back seat.

Add to that, soccer started this week.  The other coach and I met a couple times to come up with practice plans, notes for the girls and their parents, etc.   And then we had a team meeting Wednesday and practice Thursday.  We're practicing a couple times a week and soon games start on a 3rd day, so that will add to the general busy-ness.  All good, but who knows what it will mean to poker.  Plus, I'm trying to stay disciplined about not going to sleep too late and getting up early.  Late nights are unfortunately my main window of uninterrupted play.

All that said, I think once the start-up mode for the work project gets past (needs a couple more weeks) and the new home/family routine gets going, I'll be able to start scheduling/working more poker time.  It's not bad that I'm taking a forced mini-break, now.  Results have continued to bounce all around which has been frustrating, but I also haven't felt particularly sharp at the tables.  Of course, those two things are related.

I don't think that my play has been terrible, it's just that I'm not on top of things at the tables like I want, so the danger of bad play is increased.  Upon reviews, I believe that I'm making the right decisions, in other words.  But, they're not coming easily, so I don't have as much room for error.  Kind of like in golf, how you can be shooting even par by missing birdie putts and tapping in, or you can be shooting par by scrambling and making 6-footers.  You're much more likely to slip into bogey-mode in the second scenario.

Also, I have noticed that I'm losing a lot more big hands than I'm winning.  A small percentage are retarded on my part.  I run some of the others by my coach.  But most I think are pretty standard, or at least they're played fine.  When I do get back into study mode, I'm going to start posting all big hands again here.  Might not get a lot of comments or anything, but writing them out will force a little deeper thought, and there's always the chance that I'm just blind to my mistakes.  Plus, for any hand that I do screw up, posting it will be a good punishment.

Remind me why I do this again?

July was another fun month :(. Poker's a pretty sick game sometimes, as you know. It's frustrating to do a lot of stuff right, put in a lot of work, and have results like these. The thing is, I'm not (yet) a great player, and the smaller your win rate the bigger your swings, I believe. I'm just on a variance roller coaster (and yeah, I think variance accounts for a lot of the upswings as well as downswings...I'm not trying to only blame my bad results on variance).

I think I still enjoy it. By that I mean when I go a day or two without playing, I miss it...but who knows, I might just be a degenerate looking for a fix. I think I'd still like to prove to myself that I can be as good as I think I can...at least given what I choose to commit to the game. But also, seeing how hard some of the guys work, I guess my upside is somewhat limited without making enough of a life change to devote more to poker. And that's not going to happen, so my results will be what they'll be.

I still feel like my game is pretty solid, and now I've had enough coaching sessions with Jared that he can make an informed agreement. At the worst case, I suck less than my opponents (their mistakes are bigger), and sometimes I don't suck at all (yay me). The gap between me and my opponents isn't enough for me to overtake rake and variance, and not sucking doesn't mean I'm a sick player. Just a grinder, still learning.

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.