Well another week of "serious" poker is pretty much over, and I feel like I came out of it pretty healthy. I lost $50 last night, but really didn't feel bad about my play or game selection. So overall for the week, I'm up a few dollars, but mostly just have a bit more experience under my belt and have some more thoughts about poker, which is my goal right now.
I feel like my poker mind is on the freeway right now, rather than being in the parking lot 3 months ago. I'm just adding to my thought processes every day. I now feel very comfortable thinking through hands while in a hand, and even find myself doing extra analysis after the hand is over too automatically. It's a great feeling, like I am giving myself an extra chance to win at poker. I'm still not putting my opponent on hands as much as I should. By the river, I should be saying, he's played this like KQ/QJ or air, therefore... More often than not I'm just saying, I'm ahead of most hands he could hold, without really thinking about what those hands are and how to effectively bet/play against those hands.
I'm also looking at getting better at bet sizing, which is something I've never given enough thought. The new Negraneu (sp?) podcast on PokerRoad is really solid, and full of must hear advice. The current episode I'm listening to is really focusing on bet sizing, and so is VitalMyth's second video which I've been watching. I tried it a little last night, and felt confident with my opportunities to use it, and had mixed results. But again, as a decision by decision game, putting $2.20 in to win a $6.60 pot doesn't have to work every time to make you money. For example if it's unlikely I have the best hand, but don't think he'll call (don't bet just for the hell of it, must think he's missed the board), I could get called twice and take down the third pot, and I'd still have only spent $6.60 and won back $6.60. I'd like to have a better winrate than that, but definitely betting small to make a bluff more +ev is good in some spots, of course taking into account some people call down very light in HU.
But overall, I'm crushing poker right now. Maybe not results wise (although still good), and maybe not as a skill level, but more as a speed of development. I was writing a response to a forum post yesterday, and my response changed 3 times, each time giving me tips about my own game. The question was starting ranges in HU. My original response was it's player dependant, and hand ranges should change player to player, but I thought this might be a bit vague to respond with, so I started again. I then said that you should be trying things preflop to work out your opponents, and how they respond to raise/cbets/minraises/3 bets, which I realised as I was typing I don't do enough of. Then I started again and started writing it really doesn't matter what your hand is unless you are seeing a lot of showdowns, which is really correct. If you are getting people folding too much before the river, then what does it matter whether you have ATo or 52s? I took my own advice, and started looking at that last night, and will put in some effort to work out which players see a lot of showdowns and which ones chicken out once the heat is on.
Finally on last nights play. I have a couple of problems with my play right now. Firstly, I'm really only 3 betting for value, so it's too easy for people to avoid. Also where people are raising too much PF, I'm not getting enough value calling OOP, where I could be 3 betting a lot more. Plus I should just 3 bet a lot early just to see how the villain reads it. I also worked out that whenever I get my hand in as overpair to top pair, I always get sucked out on. Have to fix that leak :)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Lack of self control
Had a pretty rotten run of self control. I firstly played a bit of 6 max, and am very happy with how in depth I can analyse situations now. However, my notetaking needs to be refined. Firstly, I need to reduce it to only relevant points. Things like how they bluff, how they play monsters, how they play weakly made hands etc, not so much of the less important things. Also I need to think more generically. Rather than writing "Raised ATs, double barrelled K446dd, gave up on turn", I need to be more general. I need to think this through, but maybe "Double barrelled dry flop with Ace high." Then I need to cut this down in size in a way that's not to difficult to understand like "DB DF A high"?? OK, something along those lines. I was even contemplating starting every notes with a simple list of important things to help analyse, like "Slowplays monster???" where I can keep these in a low section and have a high section when I see it actually happen. Or maybe just keep a notepad open in the background which shows all the things I should be looking out for, and copy paste when I see one happen. Anyway, results wise, I took a hit to about -$15 on a loose table, but ended up profiting $5 before quitting to play HU.
HU started well, finding a real gem of a player, but I ended up just taking his small stack and not making much after rake. I then played another short stack who reloaded. We got that 2nd stack in with AK vs K4, but he sucked out and continued to run over me. I got hands, but either got insta folds, or came up 2nd best whenever he stayed on. I didn't feel outclassed, but was tilting, so I quit, down about $30 in the end to be about breakeven for the night. I then played two players I've labelled as good. One was betting over pot for everything, but I just never got there in the bigger pots. I must admit I felt a bit lost in this situation, because I'd be committing half a BI to see a river, and went that far with the worst hands, and probably folded the best hand sometimes due to extreme pressure. It took a while to quit this, as I was really hoping to just hit a hand against his aggressive bets one time, but when I did get the hand I wanted, he sucked out on the river, and I had to quit it. Down $60. The other guy played much more regular bet sizes, but was aggressive PF and on the flop, and again made it difficult to play my normal game. I ended up calling too many 3 bets, and generally making some mistakes, and quit down about $35.
All up at this stage I was sitting about $100 down for the day, and had downed a couple of beers, which had started to effect me I think. I started on a 3rd, and noticed one last player to conquer. He was sitting with $130, and I thought I'd see if that was a permanent thing, or whether he luckboxed it. I called him down early on and won, and from there he seemed to just tilt off stack after stack, until I was up to over $100 and he was below $60. From here he made a bit of a comeback, which turned into a nasty time for me. I'd had one more beer, was started to play too loose, and found my way back to $45 at one point. I decided to grind it out a bit more and eventually found my way back to about $70 which felt good, and this hand happened.
I raised with 97o. He was 3 betting a lot and I was calling a lot given the implied odds, but he flatted here. Flop is T86r, for the nutz thank you very much. I cbet as usual and he calls, very standard, we were floating each other a lot. He checks a 5, I continue with a $4, he raises to $11. I have the nutz still, and can easily put him on a hand like a set/2 pair, maybe even a 74 which I crush. I decide he's going to have to pay this time if he wants to continue, so I make it $34 and he calls. At this point I'm praying the board doesn't pair, and a Q hits. No flush, no boat. J9 got there, but I'm not checking behind here and ship for $37 more, and he calls with T5. $147 HU pot (490BB)!!!
I got him down low enough that he had to reload, after holding at least $130 stack at one point. He made a bit back before I quit, but I finished up enough to get back all my losses and a bit.
Still the lack of discipline was annoying. I figured I'd have a couple of drinks while watching some TV, but my mind slipped and I found myself playing poker instead. I don't think I played badly, but it couldn't have been as good as I could have. I hope to make some real inroads into this mentality this weekend and next couple, and will be again out of poker somewhat the weeks after that.
HU started well, finding a real gem of a player, but I ended up just taking his small stack and not making much after rake. I then played another short stack who reloaded. We got that 2nd stack in with AK vs K4, but he sucked out and continued to run over me. I got hands, but either got insta folds, or came up 2nd best whenever he stayed on. I didn't feel outclassed, but was tilting, so I quit, down about $30 in the end to be about breakeven for the night. I then played two players I've labelled as good. One was betting over pot for everything, but I just never got there in the bigger pots. I must admit I felt a bit lost in this situation, because I'd be committing half a BI to see a river, and went that far with the worst hands, and probably folded the best hand sometimes due to extreme pressure. It took a while to quit this, as I was really hoping to just hit a hand against his aggressive bets one time, but when I did get the hand I wanted, he sucked out on the river, and I had to quit it. Down $60. The other guy played much more regular bet sizes, but was aggressive PF and on the flop, and again made it difficult to play my normal game. I ended up calling too many 3 bets, and generally making some mistakes, and quit down about $35.
All up at this stage I was sitting about $100 down for the day, and had downed a couple of beers, which had started to effect me I think. I started on a 3rd, and noticed one last player to conquer. He was sitting with $130, and I thought I'd see if that was a permanent thing, or whether he luckboxed it. I called him down early on and won, and from there he seemed to just tilt off stack after stack, until I was up to over $100 and he was below $60. From here he made a bit of a comeback, which turned into a nasty time for me. I'd had one more beer, was started to play too loose, and found my way back to $45 at one point. I decided to grind it out a bit more and eventually found my way back to about $70 which felt good, and this hand happened.
I raised with 97o. He was 3 betting a lot and I was calling a lot given the implied odds, but he flatted here. Flop is T86r, for the nutz thank you very much. I cbet as usual and he calls, very standard, we were floating each other a lot. He checks a 5, I continue with a $4, he raises to $11. I have the nutz still, and can easily put him on a hand like a set/2 pair, maybe even a 74 which I crush. I decide he's going to have to pay this time if he wants to continue, so I make it $34 and he calls. At this point I'm praying the board doesn't pair, and a Q hits. No flush, no boat. J9 got there, but I'm not checking behind here and ship for $37 more, and he calls with T5. $147 HU pot (490BB)!!!
I got him down low enough that he had to reload, after holding at least $130 stack at one point. He made a bit back before I quit, but I finished up enough to get back all my losses and a bit.
Still the lack of discipline was annoying. I figured I'd have a couple of drinks while watching some TV, but my mind slipped and I found myself playing poker instead. I don't think I played badly, but it couldn't have been as good as I could have. I hope to make some real inroads into this mentality this weekend and next couple, and will be again out of poker somewhat the weeks after that.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Some OnGame results
Well, I'm pretty much stuck with 1 tabling right now. I feel it's really curing my biggest problem in poker, which has been not taking all factors into consideration. With only one table open, I'm not missing players moves, not rushing decisions, and feel like I can grind a solid session. Of course I've also been mixing in some HU, and this is pretty much always a reading game. However, I am applying those reads a lot more now. I honestly feel like I'm taking a lot of factors into consideration when making calls or raises now and even if my poker brain is still in it's infancy, I feel like at least I'm using the grey matter in my skull to play poker now, rather than looking at my cards and making bad calls/horrible bluffs.
So some things I've been paying attention to:
1. How often are people bluffing? You see it sometimes, but even if they aren't showing down bluffs, they can be betting too often to be always good hands.
2. Make notes on how they played different hand types like good one pairs, bad one pairs, two pairs, monsters, bad draws (no showdown value), good draws, combo draws.
3. What they call with pre flop? Apart from PP's and SC's in position, what other things do they show up with.
4. What leaks do they have? Always note the badly played hands, like not pot controlling, or calling gutshots, or calling a shove with top pair when an obvious draw hits etc.
5. Bet sizing. Not a bad tool, but especially on rivers, where the pot is at it's biggest, bet sizing can tell a lot about a hand, but everyone is different in how they bluff/value bet/blocker bet hands on the turn or river.
So it's working out so far, and the idea is to make it second nature of course. Once you know a players, and know how to play against those players, well poker is really pretty easy I'd say :) OK, long way to go.
So some things I've been paying attention to:
1. How often are people bluffing? You see it sometimes, but even if they aren't showing down bluffs, they can be betting too often to be always good hands.
2. Make notes on how they played different hand types like good one pairs, bad one pairs, two pairs, monsters, bad draws (no showdown value), good draws, combo draws.
3. What they call with pre flop? Apart from PP's and SC's in position, what other things do they show up with.
4. What leaks do they have? Always note the badly played hands, like not pot controlling, or calling gutshots, or calling a shove with top pair when an obvious draw hits etc.
5. Bet sizing. Not a bad tool, but especially on rivers, where the pot is at it's biggest, bet sizing can tell a lot about a hand, but everyone is different in how they bluff/value bet/blocker bet hands on the turn or river.
So it's working out so far, and the idea is to make it second nature of course. Once you know a players, and know how to play against those players, well poker is really pretty easy I'd say :) OK, long way to go.
Monday, October 27, 2008
A HU hand
I've thought more and more about a HU hand I won last night, where the result was the difference between a losing night and breakeven night. This is long by the way. First some history about villain. I looked him up very early, and surely enough he had the nutz. Now this guy was tight in the sense that, if he called a cbet/turn bet, he usually had something worth showing down. Top pair or 2nd pair, sometimes much better. In other words he folded a lot to bets. Because of this, I'd raised almost ATC from the button and cbet about 80% of my flops, checking only very average flops and the occasional top pair/2nd pair hand to balance out a range or extract value against a weaker hand. And it was profitable. I could easily release if I didn't hit and he called my cbet or raised. I didn't easily get a feel for his bets, as I rarely had something to look him up with, and he wasn't betting as much as he was calling. He did slowplay a monster though, when he raised AQs and flopped a flush (2nd time he hit the nutz on me) and got minimum value against my top pair hand. His PF betting was fairly erratic, going from limping, to minraising to 4x raising, but the 4x were more often solid hands from what I saw, so I gave his bigger PF bets more credit. Since I was pounding him from the button, I started to notice some 3 bets coming my way. I 4 bet the first one, and he folded, so I knew he wasn't always super strong, but he still kept 3 betting, to which I folded a couple of times.
So the hand comes up, and I'll try to follow through with my feelings at the time:
Stacks are about 80BB's effective, which is what he has. I raise KJs from the button, he 3 bets medium sized, like 2.5x. Now he'd most recently 3 bet about 4x, and the time I'd 4 bet and he folded, it was also 2.5x sized, so I started thinking that like his button betting, his 3 betting raise size was hand dependant as well. I figured against a 6 max TAG, KJs was crushed a lot, but in HU, KJs is much less rarely crushed IMO. It can be behind hands like AT/TT/AQ but being crushed is like a AK/KQ/AJ where you have only one good pair to hit. That is if the flop comes down A84 and he has AT, you can easily let go of KJ, but if it's J84 and he has AJ, you are set to lose money, so you want to avoid those situations as much as possible. Anyway, people don't wait for AK/KQ/AJ at HU, and he had been especially active in 3 betting lately, so I called figuring I'd continue on a couple of streets if I flopped top pair. Board comes down K64r, beautiful. He cbets about 2/3 pot. I continue on with my read that I'm probably good here most of the time, but a big raise will just scare off a worse PP or missed AT type hand, and my hand is very unlikely to be drawn out on, with only an ace to scare me, so I just call. It's mostly a blank as he didn't 3 bet K9/96, might have sucked out with 99. He bets 2/3 pot again. All my thoughts here were "does he really have a hand here AA/AK/KQ?" There was a fatal flaw with this thinking, but I'll come back to that. He'd been 3 betting me a bit, and I'm really far ahead of his range here, only his continued betting makes his range really narrow in. I called, hoping he's continuing on with a KT/QQ/JJ/TT type hand, or just bluffing, figuring I'd check behind a checked river. It's a complete blank and he bets his last $8 giving me over 4 to 1 on the call, so I have to make it and he turns over A9 and leaves the table.
Now, up until the turn, I think things are OK from both players. I'll look at things from here from both perspectives. Firstly, mine. Now I was thinking "AA/AK/AQ?", what I should be thinking is "what does he double barrell here?" I mean, lets say he had QQ, board is K64r, he cbets which is fine, but why double barrell and pot commit yourself on the turn? The board is so lacking in draws, that he can't think I'm drawing to a flush or straight, as they just aren't there, so he's either way ahead or way behind if he has QQ. So my read was I'm behind AK/KQ/AA/KK/99 now, but ahead of QQ/JJ/TT/88/77/KT/K8 made hands, and bluffs probably ace high bluffs by now, like AQ/AJ or maybe A9/A6/A4. But those QQ-TT hands have way too much showdown value to bet and pot commit themselves here. I don't know for sure he understands pot control like that, but most people do shut down on the turn even if they don't. In fact checking down the river as well with QQ, may be most profitable mover after the cbet is called. Because even though I can hold a weaker PP, I'm as likely to hold a king after calling a 3 bet and then his cbet. So my biggest mistake was not noting that some hands I had crushed will mostly be pot controlling this turn card, turning my hand into a bluff catcher. For this reason, and the fact I haven't seen him bluff much yet, this should be a fold on the turn. I should be ahead of only bluffs, and even though it's HU and top pair is the nutz, there is too much evidence now that I'm crushed.
Now from his point of view. I'd been betting too much from the button, so A9o figured to be miles ahead of my range, so a 3 bet is OK. I don't love it, as A9 can be called by dominating hands, but some players out there will call with worse aces too. He then cbets the flop. There is nothing wrong here. His hand may be the worst here, like against some smaller PP's/65s or even better aces like AJ so getting them to fold would be good. Also even the hand he does beat may bluff the turn and A9 really isn't strong enough to call a bet with, so might as well try to take it down. But either way a cbet should be profitable as a king is in his 3 bet range. Now the turn is a 9, giving him 2nd pair. Betting here was a huge mistake. I'd paid him off earlier when he hit his flush, so it's reasonable to assume I can't fold top pair. However there are no reasonable draws, and most PP's I was holding have either setted up or are crushed by his pair on 9's now. So he's putting in far too much of his stack hoping to fold ony QQ/JJ/TT, as anything else I hold is a 2-6 outer against his now relatively strong hand. I think he was either thinking my call of the cbet was with a weak king and that I'd now fold thinking he's AA or AK, or that he has me crushed now and wants extra value. Yes, the folding a king should be possible, but he has no proof I could do that here, so without that read, it's burning money. The river is neither here nor there. If he bet the turn because he thought he was ahead, then he may as well bet the river too, as he'll realistically call a river bet from me even though his hand is relatively weak.
So the hand comes up, and I'll try to follow through with my feelings at the time:
Stacks are about 80BB's effective, which is what he has. I raise KJs from the button, he 3 bets medium sized, like 2.5x. Now he'd most recently 3 bet about 4x, and the time I'd 4 bet and he folded, it was also 2.5x sized, so I started thinking that like his button betting, his 3 betting raise size was hand dependant as well. I figured against a 6 max TAG, KJs was crushed a lot, but in HU, KJs is much less rarely crushed IMO. It can be behind hands like AT/TT/AQ but being crushed is like a AK/KQ/AJ where you have only one good pair to hit. That is if the flop comes down A84 and he has AT, you can easily let go of KJ, but if it's J84 and he has AJ, you are set to lose money, so you want to avoid those situations as much as possible. Anyway, people don't wait for AK/KQ/AJ at HU, and he had been especially active in 3 betting lately, so I called figuring I'd continue on a couple of streets if I flopped top pair. Board comes down K64r, beautiful. He cbets about 2/3 pot. I continue on with my read that I'm probably good here most of the time, but a big raise will just scare off a worse PP or missed AT type hand, and my hand is very unlikely to be drawn out on, with only an ace to scare me, so I just call. It's mostly a blank as he didn't 3 bet K9/96, might have sucked out with 99. He bets 2/3 pot again. All my thoughts here were "does he really have a hand here AA/AK/KQ?" There was a fatal flaw with this thinking, but I'll come back to that. He'd been 3 betting me a bit, and I'm really far ahead of his range here, only his continued betting makes his range really narrow in. I called, hoping he's continuing on with a KT/QQ/JJ/TT type hand, or just bluffing, figuring I'd check behind a checked river. It's a complete blank and he bets his last $8 giving me over 4 to 1 on the call, so I have to make it and he turns over A9 and leaves the table.
Now, up until the turn, I think things are OK from both players. I'll look at things from here from both perspectives. Firstly, mine. Now I was thinking "AA/AK/AQ?", what I should be thinking is "what does he double barrell here?" I mean, lets say he had QQ, board is K64r, he cbets which is fine, but why double barrell and pot commit yourself on the turn? The board is so lacking in draws, that he can't think I'm drawing to a flush or straight, as they just aren't there, so he's either way ahead or way behind if he has QQ. So my read was I'm behind AK/KQ/AA/KK/99 now, but ahead of QQ/JJ/TT/88/77/KT/K8 made hands, and bluffs probably ace high bluffs by now, like AQ/AJ or maybe A9/A6/A4. But those QQ-TT hands have way too much showdown value to bet and pot commit themselves here. I don't know for sure he understands pot control like that, but most people do shut down on the turn even if they don't. In fact checking down the river as well with QQ, may be most profitable mover after the cbet is called. Because even though I can hold a weaker PP, I'm as likely to hold a king after calling a 3 bet and then his cbet. So my biggest mistake was not noting that some hands I had crushed will mostly be pot controlling this turn card, turning my hand into a bluff catcher. For this reason, and the fact I haven't seen him bluff much yet, this should be a fold on the turn. I should be ahead of only bluffs, and even though it's HU and top pair is the nutz, there is too much evidence now that I'm crushed.
Now from his point of view. I'd been betting too much from the button, so A9o figured to be miles ahead of my range, so a 3 bet is OK. I don't love it, as A9 can be called by dominating hands, but some players out there will call with worse aces too. He then cbets the flop. There is nothing wrong here. His hand may be the worst here, like against some smaller PP's/65s or even better aces like AJ so getting them to fold would be good. Also even the hand he does beat may bluff the turn and A9 really isn't strong enough to call a bet with, so might as well try to take it down. But either way a cbet should be profitable as a king is in his 3 bet range. Now the turn is a 9, giving him 2nd pair. Betting here was a huge mistake. I'd paid him off earlier when he hit his flush, so it's reasonable to assume I can't fold top pair. However there are no reasonable draws, and most PP's I was holding have either setted up or are crushed by his pair on 9's now. So he's putting in far too much of his stack hoping to fold ony QQ/JJ/TT, as anything else I hold is a 2-6 outer against his now relatively strong hand. I think he was either thinking my call of the cbet was with a weak king and that I'd now fold thinking he's AA or AK, or that he has me crushed now and wants extra value. Yes, the folding a king should be possible, but he has no proof I could do that here, so without that read, it's burning money. The river is neither here nor there. If he bet the turn because he thought he was ahead, then he may as well bet the river too, as he'll realistically call a river bet from me even though his hand is relatively weak.
Little of OnGame
Got my taste tonight. I found these players on the 6 max table so confusing that I one tabled! Stats of 73/18, 45/0, 45/33 etc etc etc. Minbets, overbets, slowplays, overplays etc, etc. I finished up a buy in but never really got much going. headed over to HU and played a grinder, hit absolutely nothing. I was down about 1.5 BI's when I got it in with 88 for a coin flip, only he had JJ, gg. I grinded most of that back against worser players, but I still could have table selected better, as most guys I played were tight if nothing else. I ended up breaking even when I called an uncallable 3 barrel bluff down. His line made perfect sense, but I just couldn't put down KJ on a Kxxxx board, and he turned over A9 for turned 2nd pair. He actually played the hand OK, he just picked the wrong opponent :)
I'm probably going to mix in some HU now. 6 max should be a lot easier to multi table, but now I'm finding the reason I miss so much action is because of the amount of tables I have open. You have 3 donks on a table and are losing/break even, why? Because you only know partial reasons why they are donks. It's hard to get a feel for a player playing 40+% of hands, without watching a lot of those hands. I'm sure I would have broken even without some reads at that 6 max table. Still I'm sure this is just a learning curve for me, and I'll be picking up reads easier once I focus on what's really important and train my brain to follow those things.
I'm probably going to mix in some HU now. 6 max should be a lot easier to multi table, but now I'm finding the reason I miss so much action is because of the amount of tables I have open. You have 3 donks on a table and are losing/break even, why? Because you only know partial reasons why they are donks. It's hard to get a feel for a player playing 40+% of hands, without watching a lot of those hands. I'm sure I would have broken even without some reads at that 6 max table. Still I'm sure this is just a learning curve for me, and I'll be picking up reads easier once I focus on what's really important and train my brain to follow those things.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
More HU details
I forgot to mention one thing about winning 5 BI's at HU last night. How I did it! I said I ran good, but feel like blogging about it now.
Well I was logging on just to get the OnGame ball rolling after not playing there since my tilty days. As I mentioned, the filter was left on micro HU cash, and I just felt like I've been playing so much HU lately that I should give it a go. I was up 30c when one guy quit on me, then another came on for $20. I lost 2 medium pots to him, but felt he was playing bad, just too loose. I stacked him pretty easily in the end and he left, but nobody joined up the table with me sitting on over $45, so I went over to another table with a $9 stack. This was the fun table.
Basically, I took half of that stack with the rivered nutz (or close to), and then he doubled up with an all in spiking against my better hand (like A9 vs K4 or something). He then insta shoves the next hand and I have A9 again, and I call again to be up against T7s and I hold, he rebuys $10. I then get dealt A9 again, 3rd time in 4 hands or something, raise it and he shoves, I have A9 and hold again. He then rebuys for $20, and raises for which I call with T9s. The flop comes down QJ8ss and it's all I can do to stop laughing when he open shoves the flop after I check to him. I call and he has Q9 and doesn't improve and he leaves.
I now have $45ish after buying in for $10 (just covering the $8 stack) and someone buys in for $30. OK, this may be more serious poker perhaps. It's fairly obvious pretty quickly that he's way too aggressive. PF is raising $1.50-$2.50 for 30c blinds, and he's 2/3rd potting every street regardless of position or board texture. I'm getting some decent top pair hands, and just calling him down and winning EVERY pot I enter. He's probably down $30 before winning a small pot. He's never letting his stack go below $30, so all I'm seeing is my stack grow and his reload. I'm up to about $60 when I get a big all in with the best of it and hold. Then the reload, and again I get a good hand and sink his stack again. Reload again, this time to only $21.38 or something random. Yep, this is his whole bankroll now. It's at this point I stop running like god, and even thought I'd buried him, but instead double him up as he has the nutz for once. Again he's just way to aggro with air though, and I get him down to $20 and I have a hand where I'm good right the way through but end up rivering the nut flush against his Q flush and straight draw. I knew he'd have a flush and overplay it, so I checked to him on the river and he 3x the pot shoves. I have the stone cold nutz and put an end to his bankroll, sorry for that. Quite a fitting end I thought.
Unfortunately, the end of the year is looking a bit slim for poker. I have just returned from holiday and have almost 3 weeks until my mum arrives now. She stays for 3 weeks, so poker will be minimal during this time. Then it's daughters birthday, Christmas, new years etc. It's unfortunate, but I'm going to have to play fairly lightly between now and then, so will work on my core problems, but not sure how much I will trully put into poker this year. I can't even give much thought into seriously improving my bankroll between now and 2009.
Next year will be big though. I plan to finish off this year with at least some big gains in my game, so that next year I can focus on grinding and working my way up the poker levels. Call this the pre-season if you will. I'll spend time looking over leaks and ways to exploit the game, and then by next year, I'll be ready to crush the game. I really look forward to this and think it's very possible for me to do.
Well I was logging on just to get the OnGame ball rolling after not playing there since my tilty days. As I mentioned, the filter was left on micro HU cash, and I just felt like I've been playing so much HU lately that I should give it a go. I was up 30c when one guy quit on me, then another came on for $20. I lost 2 medium pots to him, but felt he was playing bad, just too loose. I stacked him pretty easily in the end and he left, but nobody joined up the table with me sitting on over $45, so I went over to another table with a $9 stack. This was the fun table.
Basically, I took half of that stack with the rivered nutz (or close to), and then he doubled up with an all in spiking against my better hand (like A9 vs K4 or something). He then insta shoves the next hand and I have A9 again, and I call again to be up against T7s and I hold, he rebuys $10. I then get dealt A9 again, 3rd time in 4 hands or something, raise it and he shoves, I have A9 and hold again. He then rebuys for $20, and raises for which I call with T9s. The flop comes down QJ8ss and it's all I can do to stop laughing when he open shoves the flop after I check to him. I call and he has Q9 and doesn't improve and he leaves.
I now have $45ish after buying in for $10 (just covering the $8 stack) and someone buys in for $30. OK, this may be more serious poker perhaps. It's fairly obvious pretty quickly that he's way too aggressive. PF is raising $1.50-$2.50 for 30c blinds, and he's 2/3rd potting every street regardless of position or board texture. I'm getting some decent top pair hands, and just calling him down and winning EVERY pot I enter. He's probably down $30 before winning a small pot. He's never letting his stack go below $30, so all I'm seeing is my stack grow and his reload. I'm up to about $60 when I get a big all in with the best of it and hold. Then the reload, and again I get a good hand and sink his stack again. Reload again, this time to only $21.38 or something random. Yep, this is his whole bankroll now. It's at this point I stop running like god, and even thought I'd buried him, but instead double him up as he has the nutz for once. Again he's just way to aggro with air though, and I get him down to $20 and I have a hand where I'm good right the way through but end up rivering the nut flush against his Q flush and straight draw. I knew he'd have a flush and overplay it, so I checked to him on the river and he 3x the pot shoves. I have the stone cold nutz and put an end to his bankroll, sorry for that. Quite a fitting end I thought.
Unfortunately, the end of the year is looking a bit slim for poker. I have just returned from holiday and have almost 3 weeks until my mum arrives now. She stays for 3 weeks, so poker will be minimal during this time. Then it's daughters birthday, Christmas, new years etc. It's unfortunate, but I'm going to have to play fairly lightly between now and then, so will work on my core problems, but not sure how much I will trully put into poker this year. I can't even give much thought into seriously improving my bankroll between now and 2009.
Next year will be big though. I plan to finish off this year with at least some big gains in my game, so that next year I can focus on grinding and working my way up the poker levels. Call this the pre-season if you will. I'll spend time looking over leaks and ways to exploit the game, and then by next year, I'll be ready to crush the game. I really look forward to this and think it's very possible for me to do.
Some more HU
Well, HU is where its at for me I think. I transferred money to OnGame, and rather than just sit back on NL10/NL20 6 max there I go straight to HU cash, NL30. Underolled? Hmmmm... yes, but WTF, for old times sake. Lounge filter was still set on HU cash, so why not fire up a table??? About 1.5 hours later I'm up 5 BI's, including mega rake of OnGame. OK, so it's called running good, but still a lot of fun, and nice to see some dollars in my bankroll for once. I haven't played a hand of 6 max for a couple of weeks almost, and really feel like I play HU OK. Obviously I'm still relatively new to it, so I'm not a great player by any means, but I feel like I can get the best of the players at these levels right now.
Sufficed to say, nice to have a win, now matter where or when, look forward to dealing with OnGame donks in the coming weeks :)
Sufficed to say, nice to have a win, now matter where or when, look forward to dealing with OnGame donks in the coming weeks :)
Friday, October 24, 2008
Take a break...
Yeah I did. Very nice holiday, no need for details, but very little poker thought, very much fun.
I did play a couple of HU SNG's while away (my mum's computer now has Pokerstars) and while drunk. Actually I played while drinking last night too, so my whole no play while drinking is not working at all well. Since I haven't played a serious hand of poker for a while, I guess that's OK, but I now need to knuckle down and play seriously, which means no drunken play. Self control is still on top of my list of must do's to move forward at all.
I also transferred my money off Full Tilt. I'd been contemplating this, but basically I read they no longer condone data mining, so it was a no brainer. Less donks, less rakeback (maybe) and now no data mining. So I'm back to OnGame for a while. I haven't played a hand there yet, but figure I'll be grinding the micros there for a while. We'll see.
Anyway, this next week will be back to the grind, so a few goals:
* Self control, no drunken/tilted play
* Get right back into the forums. I was feeling good about my posting, so must keep this going
* Put everything into reading the players at 6 max games, and overthinking situations
* Put more effort into good note taking
More than anything I want to label players as certain types, have a list of exploitable moves against those types, and make notes as to how they differ from that player type. If I had all this, poker would flow very easily through me I think.
I did play a couple of HU SNG's while away (my mum's computer now has Pokerstars) and while drunk. Actually I played while drinking last night too, so my whole no play while drinking is not working at all well. Since I haven't played a serious hand of poker for a while, I guess that's OK, but I now need to knuckle down and play seriously, which means no drunken play. Self control is still on top of my list of must do's to move forward at all.
I also transferred my money off Full Tilt. I'd been contemplating this, but basically I read they no longer condone data mining, so it was a no brainer. Less donks, less rakeback (maybe) and now no data mining. So I'm back to OnGame for a while. I haven't played a hand there yet, but figure I'll be grinding the micros there for a while. We'll see.
Anyway, this next week will be back to the grind, so a few goals:
* Self control, no drunken/tilted play
* Get right back into the forums. I was feeling good about my posting, so must keep this going
* Put everything into reading the players at 6 max games, and overthinking situations
* Put more effort into good note taking
More than anything I want to label players as certain types, have a list of exploitable moves against those types, and make notes as to how they differ from that player type. If I had all this, poker would flow very easily through me I think.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Ship The Stox membership
Well, I was less than inspired to play last night. I played 2 HU SNG's with the hope that maybe I'll get my Stox membership approved and be able to download some ipod files before leaving for holidays on Thursday. I lost both, and tilted on the 2nd one, where I couldn't get my money in good once. I never won a single pot. In a tilted state, I did some holiday packing and organising, and downloaded some other videos to put on the ipod if Stox didn't come through. It looked as though Stox cost me about $45 after the two SNG losses... until... yep, I'd packed, I was waiting for a process to finish, and the urge to win it back hit. I felt relatively calmed down after the tilt, so I fired up another two HU SNG's and won both fortunately. I happily shut down at this point, and will not tempt fate again. Stox poker 12 month membership for $US22 and basically one nights playing, not so bad :)
Anyway, I emailed Stox to let them know I'd completed the scheduled points, and hoped to hear back by Wednesday night saying I was clear to download. I switched off the computer, and hooked it up again this morning, and Stox had replied saying my account is now fully upgraded, even though they don't have approval yet. Login, and sure enough I'm able to download and watch videos. What a great deal, and a great company for pre-approving my membership, and so quickly. I now have at least a few decent ipod compatible files to download, and I'll be set to go for my trip.
I suspect tonight and tomorrow will be loading suitcases and ipod's (my wife also wants some vids on hers), and I really can't find any inspiration to grind NL25 on Full Tilt. I'm also seriously considering going back to the OnGame skins, as the constant hard work finding tables at Full Tilt is tiring compared with sitting on NL25 tables with heaps of donks on those sites. I'll have a holiday to think about all of this, but I'm probably looking to leave Full Tilt again, and look for greener pastures.
Anyway, I emailed Stox to let them know I'd completed the scheduled points, and hoped to hear back by Wednesday night saying I was clear to download. I switched off the computer, and hooked it up again this morning, and Stox had replied saying my account is now fully upgraded, even though they don't have approval yet. Login, and sure enough I'm able to download and watch videos. What a great deal, and a great company for pre-approving my membership, and so quickly. I now have at least a few decent ipod compatible files to download, and I'll be set to go for my trip.
I suspect tonight and tomorrow will be loading suitcases and ipod's (my wife also wants some vids on hers), and I really can't find any inspiration to grind NL25 on Full Tilt. I'm also seriously considering going back to the OnGame skins, as the constant hard work finding tables at Full Tilt is tiring compared with sitting on NL25 tables with heaps of donks on those sites. I'll have a holiday to think about all of this, but I'm probably looking to leave Full Tilt again, and look for greener pastures.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Stox videos for Ipod
Feels like I've had a break from serious poker again. Thursday was the last night I played 6 max, and apart from that I played a little HU SNG's and a few $1 tourneys while having a couple of drinks. Both were risking very little money, and in fact turned out +ve cashflow.
I'm going on holiday midweek so this week won't be much better, but an interesting trail led me to joining up with Titan poker. First of all, this holiday will be computerless, but not ipodless. So it seemed reasonable to cram the ipod with some videos. I remembered converting avis to ipod format before, found the program (Videora) and converted a couple of music videos. I then tried a Cardrunners one, but the DRM stops that happening. So I did a quick search, and low and behold, Stox announces they are putting up their next videos in ipod friendly format (Cardrunners to follow soon). They posted this literally two days ago. Cardrunners will also follow. So anyway, I reconsider the Cardrunners deal, which is Cardrunners members get Stox 12 month premium membership for $150. Not bad, not even $15 a month. I go to their site to decide if those ipod videos are ones I'm interested in, because I'd instantly join up if thats the case, and I notice (you can't not notice) they still have affiliate deposit bonus plans, but now to get 12 months free. The cost in terms of Titan Poker was 90 points, or about 12 $10.50 HU SNG's. Now I don't claim to be a mathemagician here, but playing even Phil Ivey results in a guaranteed +ev compared with the discounted $150 cost. Not even to mention I play OK at HU SNG's when I try. I joined up and played some. Unfortunately their point tracker was lagging, I think I only needed to play one or two more, but I was just too tired to keep going anyway. I finished down, but I had my share of bad luck, and at least a couple of the opponents were semi decent. I still nearly cracked the free membership for under $15 loss so far, so it can't all be bad. I hope once it's cleared I'll get the membership up quickly, but either way, I'm pumped that for the next 12 months I'll be getting poker videos onto my ipod, as I spend at least an hour a day with that thing, so will only benefit from having more poker content coming in from it.
Other than that, things are brewing. I'm working on a situational spreadsheet, as a sort of test to my own understanding of the game. It's difficult to really just blanket statement things, but it comes down to keeping a Verneer like set of villains. From memory old man (nit), TAG, drunk, tourist. Then on those villains working out what lines mean on certain boards. So if drunk donk leads a drawy board after calling preflop, what range do we give? Polarised between strong and air, always strong, always weak, etc. Now if he check calls that same flop? Now if he check raises? The answer in poker is never 100% correct and it's never going to work out 100% of the time, but the point is to get the money moving your way much more often than it's going the other way. So understanding which players are which player type, then understanding their standard lines, then adding personal reads on top of that, should lead you to +ev if executed well. We'll see how we go, but I hope this will help me extract more value and further understand what substance their is behind some of the common lines I take.
I'm going on holiday midweek so this week won't be much better, but an interesting trail led me to joining up with Titan poker. First of all, this holiday will be computerless, but not ipodless. So it seemed reasonable to cram the ipod with some videos. I remembered converting avis to ipod format before, found the program (Videora) and converted a couple of music videos. I then tried a Cardrunners one, but the DRM stops that happening. So I did a quick search, and low and behold, Stox announces they are putting up their next videos in ipod friendly format (Cardrunners to follow soon). They posted this literally two days ago. Cardrunners will also follow. So anyway, I reconsider the Cardrunners deal, which is Cardrunners members get Stox 12 month premium membership for $150. Not bad, not even $15 a month. I go to their site to decide if those ipod videos are ones I'm interested in, because I'd instantly join up if thats the case, and I notice (you can't not notice) they still have affiliate deposit bonus plans, but now to get 12 months free. The cost in terms of Titan Poker was 90 points, or about 12 $10.50 HU SNG's. Now I don't claim to be a mathemagician here, but playing even Phil Ivey results in a guaranteed +ev compared with the discounted $150 cost. Not even to mention I play OK at HU SNG's when I try. I joined up and played some. Unfortunately their point tracker was lagging, I think I only needed to play one or two more, but I was just too tired to keep going anyway. I finished down, but I had my share of bad luck, and at least a couple of the opponents were semi decent. I still nearly cracked the free membership for under $15 loss so far, so it can't all be bad. I hope once it's cleared I'll get the membership up quickly, but either way, I'm pumped that for the next 12 months I'll be getting poker videos onto my ipod, as I spend at least an hour a day with that thing, so will only benefit from having more poker content coming in from it.
Other than that, things are brewing. I'm working on a situational spreadsheet, as a sort of test to my own understanding of the game. It's difficult to really just blanket statement things, but it comes down to keeping a Verneer like set of villains. From memory old man (nit), TAG, drunk, tourist. Then on those villains working out what lines mean on certain boards. So if drunk donk leads a drawy board after calling preflop, what range do we give? Polarised between strong and air, always strong, always weak, etc. Now if he check calls that same flop? Now if he check raises? The answer in poker is never 100% correct and it's never going to work out 100% of the time, but the point is to get the money moving your way much more often than it's going the other way. So understanding which players are which player type, then understanding their standard lines, then adding personal reads on top of that, should lead you to +ev if executed well. We'll see how we go, but I hope this will help me extract more value and further understand what substance their is behind some of the common lines I take.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Self control - one step at a time.
Very confused tonight, as the Mrs decided a good opportunity to have take away and a wine. I wasn't really up to drinking, due to my self control poker situation, but decided to let the drink(s) happen and not play poker. However, when dinner was over, and two wines had hit and we retired to the couch, that "might as well fire up some donkfest" feeling came right back in.
Tonight I overcame the feelings. No poker was played, milestone no doubt. It's important to stick to it I think, I really believe this is a big step towards becoming much happier with:
1. My poker winrate.
2. My poker/life balance
3. My feeling that I control poker, rather than sometimes feeling poker controls me.
All good, happy with results, lets move onto day 2, which is Friday night (eg a big drunken poker night for me).
Tonight I overcame the feelings. No poker was played, milestone no doubt. It's important to stick to it I think, I really believe this is a big step towards becoming much happier with:
1. My poker winrate.
2. My poker/life balance
3. My feeling that I control poker, rather than sometimes feeling poker controls me.
All good, happy with results, lets move onto day 2, which is Friday night (eg a big drunken poker night for me).
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Two good CR videos
Well since my last blog a bit has happened (whole half day it was). I watched Zaitsev's 2nd video and most of VitalMyth's first. I won't bore too much with the details, but Zaitsev's was very good, and something I definitely want to watch again and try to understand more about, but VitalMyths was like watching pure poker genius. You can't just go from where I am to where VitalMyth is, it isn't always possible. I think this video pretty clearly outlines the differences between a player like that and a player like me, and the gap is enormous. Assuming it is even possible for me, well that's pretty much my aim now, to be like VitalMyth. Both videos talked a lot more about finding spots to +ev bluff at rather than just playing solid ABC, and both showed a lot of success at it.
So of course I went into last nights play looking for more spots. I definitely bet in places where they weren't great spots, and found a few "good spots" that ended up turning sour, but overall the intent was there, and I was using my reads, so I'm pretty happy with my efforts. I just need to hone in my skills for finding the right spots, which will involve more thinking at the table, which can only be a good thing. I'm playing 2 tables right now, and feel like I can improve my thought process a lot while doing that. I won't move up to more tables until I feel like that thought process is becoming 2nd nature. I also improved my HUD a lot, and have stats on there that make sense now. Overall last night I finished up 0.5 BI's, more by luck and a hero call (3rd pair where his line just made no sense at all by the river) than actual skill, and I spewed off in a few too many pots for NL25 players who just aren't ever folding top pair no kicker (nor should I hope they ever do of course).
One other thing I thought about while watching the videos and thinking about my leaks is that betting is much different to calling. These guys bet in spots that makes baby Jesus cry, but are massively nitty when it comes to calls. It's almost the case that if you don't have a big draw, or a hand that beats his range a lot, then there is no reason to call a turn, only to hope you are above the bottom of his betting range or a bluff that he won't continue on the river. In this case, playing a similar nitty style that I've been playing, and adding some more bluffs can't be a bad start. So very soon, maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll hope to have compiled a list of decent opportunities and start working it into my main technique.
At the moment I'll keep working at my reads and go from there. Seeing the gap between myself and VitalMyth for ingame thoughts really opened my eyes, that I just need to work at it. After time that will become 2nd nature, and I'll wonder why I even thought it was an issue, but for now, forcing myself to think things through is the best I can do. I plan to start small, which is:
* Put a player on a hand range
* Assess the factors
* Imagine how he'd react to a bet/raise/call/check with different hands in his range
Point 2 about assessing the factors is really what is different between a Zaitsev and VitalMyth IMO. For me that will be things like his range preflop, my range given his thoughts (which may well be none), how the board hits his range, what his history/stats are in regards to folding to flop bets, what my current image is. There are stacks more, but that is easily a handful right now for me.
I might play a little tonight and do that, but I'd expect little poker to be played this weekend due to my new self control stance to do with drinking.
So of course I went into last nights play looking for more spots. I definitely bet in places where they weren't great spots, and found a few "good spots" that ended up turning sour, but overall the intent was there, and I was using my reads, so I'm pretty happy with my efforts. I just need to hone in my skills for finding the right spots, which will involve more thinking at the table, which can only be a good thing. I'm playing 2 tables right now, and feel like I can improve my thought process a lot while doing that. I won't move up to more tables until I feel like that thought process is becoming 2nd nature. I also improved my HUD a lot, and have stats on there that make sense now. Overall last night I finished up 0.5 BI's, more by luck and a hero call (3rd pair where his line just made no sense at all by the river) than actual skill, and I spewed off in a few too many pots for NL25 players who just aren't ever folding top pair no kicker (nor should I hope they ever do of course).
One other thing I thought about while watching the videos and thinking about my leaks is that betting is much different to calling. These guys bet in spots that makes baby Jesus cry, but are massively nitty when it comes to calls. It's almost the case that if you don't have a big draw, or a hand that beats his range a lot, then there is no reason to call a turn, only to hope you are above the bottom of his betting range or a bluff that he won't continue on the river. In this case, playing a similar nitty style that I've been playing, and adding some more bluffs can't be a bad start. So very soon, maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll hope to have compiled a list of decent opportunities and start working it into my main technique.
At the moment I'll keep working at my reads and go from there. Seeing the gap between myself and VitalMyth for ingame thoughts really opened my eyes, that I just need to work at it. After time that will become 2nd nature, and I'll wonder why I even thought it was an issue, but for now, forcing myself to think things through is the best I can do. I plan to start small, which is:
* Put a player on a hand range
* Assess the factors
* Imagine how he'd react to a bet/raise/call/check with different hands in his range
Point 2 about assessing the factors is really what is different between a Zaitsev and VitalMyth IMO. For me that will be things like his range preflop, my range given his thoughts (which may well be none), how the board hits his range, what his history/stats are in regards to folding to flop bets, what my current image is. There are stacks more, but that is easily a handful right now for me.
I might play a little tonight and do that, but I'd expect little poker to be played this weekend due to my new self control stance to do with drinking.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
I have two sessions to post results and play about. First one I played last night, and it lasted probably 1.5 hours. I felt good but found myself on a bad table with a LAG on my left. I'd decided to leave when I got dealt AKo and 3 bet squeezed from the button. Aggro 4 bet me, and I was a bit stuck for ideas. He could be value 4 betting, or he could think I've squeezed, maybe lightly. I decide it's very possibly the latter or a coin flip and shove. He tanks and calls with KQ, nice. OK, he hits. The interesting thing is he instantly laughs in the chat, and I say "very funny." I wasn't too tilted. But it was nice to see every other player at the table then berate him for laughing after sucking out. It felt good to ease the great run I have preflop lately.
The rest of the session went smoothly, and I had very few tough decisions, and all the ones I did have I had the best hand and hopefully made the right plays. Up 1.5 BI's.
Today my daughter is sick, so I looked after her in the morning, and played while she slept. I felt fine, but overall don't feel confident playing at night. It's like drinking in the morning, it just doesn't have the same feeling. I played OK I thought, but lost 2 BI's, which I'm disappointed about. However, it was coolerville. A couple of key pots. I had KK vs 86 on a 665dd board. I thought a 6 was a part of his range, but in this pot so was the flush draw, TT-QQ, even straight draws. I lost a full stack. AA saw a mid position isolator with a tight range. I considered flat calling his raise but decided he was strong and may just stack off pre. He didn't, but he flopped a set, and again I could see dozens of hands I was ahead of. AA vs KK pre, I won that, reverse cooler. Straight vs flush, not for a full pot, but 70BB's so still painful. Limped pot I got an OESD he flopped a flush, and played passively until the river. I'd turned a straight and wasn't really worried about the flush 100%, but when he raised the river I really didn't see him bluffing, but called. I'm not sure why, I knew he had it and wasn't playing a worse straight/two pair that way. Finally flopped set vs nothing, then runner runner flush. I raised the turn which he called and I wondered if it was a backdoor flush he was calling for, and it came and he bet fairly big, but I was ahead of so much I had to call and it was backdoor, and he did have it of course. AQ on QJ7 board, lost another stack to an aggro 50/4 with 77, very much just a cooler. Finally, I thought I'd coolered somebody, but had them beat on all streets and hit my two pair on the river to seal the deal, and he paid me off. Really quite an odd session where I seemed to get played back at only when I had a strong hand, and quite a sour result, meaning a lot more work yet before moving up.
Now, the important thing. How am I playing. I'm pretty certain better than ever. I'm hand ranging!!! Yes I'm putting villain on some sort of preflop range, and applying that to the board before making a decision. I've got preflop hands on quite a few players after datamining, but yet to know how to easily get their post flop tendancies. Still, I'm very happily making semi-informed decisions based on real examples of what villain calls with etc. It just fills you with confidence to know you have real data you are working from when making a raise/call. I just need to fix my HUD now and I'll really happy with my information level, then I'll be working on using it the most effectively.
I've been happy with all forms of progress in the last few weeks, and feel like my skills are definitely moving in the right direction. If I find mysefl BR'd for NL50 someday, I'll be sure to start looking up coaches to take my game to the next step officially.
The rest of the session went smoothly, and I had very few tough decisions, and all the ones I did have I had the best hand and hopefully made the right plays. Up 1.5 BI's.
Today my daughter is sick, so I looked after her in the morning, and played while she slept. I felt fine, but overall don't feel confident playing at night. It's like drinking in the morning, it just doesn't have the same feeling. I played OK I thought, but lost 2 BI's, which I'm disappointed about. However, it was coolerville. A couple of key pots. I had KK vs 86 on a 665dd board. I thought a 6 was a part of his range, but in this pot so was the flush draw, TT-QQ, even straight draws. I lost a full stack. AA saw a mid position isolator with a tight range. I considered flat calling his raise but decided he was strong and may just stack off pre. He didn't, but he flopped a set, and again I could see dozens of hands I was ahead of. AA vs KK pre, I won that, reverse cooler. Straight vs flush, not for a full pot, but 70BB's so still painful. Limped pot I got an OESD he flopped a flush, and played passively until the river. I'd turned a straight and wasn't really worried about the flush 100%, but when he raised the river I really didn't see him bluffing, but called. I'm not sure why, I knew he had it and wasn't playing a worse straight/two pair that way. Finally flopped set vs nothing, then runner runner flush. I raised the turn which he called and I wondered if it was a backdoor flush he was calling for, and it came and he bet fairly big, but I was ahead of so much I had to call and it was backdoor, and he did have it of course. AQ on QJ7 board, lost another stack to an aggro 50/4 with 77, very much just a cooler. Finally, I thought I'd coolered somebody, but had them beat on all streets and hit my two pair on the river to seal the deal, and he paid me off. Really quite an odd session where I seemed to get played back at only when I had a strong hand, and quite a sour result, meaning a lot more work yet before moving up.
Now, the important thing. How am I playing. I'm pretty certain better than ever. I'm hand ranging!!! Yes I'm putting villain on some sort of preflop range, and applying that to the board before making a decision. I've got preflop hands on quite a few players after datamining, but yet to know how to easily get their post flop tendancies. Still, I'm very happily making semi-informed decisions based on real examples of what villain calls with etc. It just fills you with confidence to know you have real data you are working from when making a raise/call. I just need to fix my HUD now and I'll really happy with my information level, then I'll be working on using it the most effectively.
I've been happy with all forms of progress in the last few weeks, and feel like my skills are definitely moving in the right direction. If I find mysefl BR'd for NL50 someday, I'll be sure to start looking up coaches to take my game to the next step officially.
Monday, October 6, 2008
I'm in control baby.
First day of self control went fine. Felt like a couple of beers, but stayed away while playing, and eventually had one after the session. The only interesting thing that came up was after I'd sat down for a while, surfed a bit, forum searched a bit, I noticed an urge to crack open Pokerstars and donk around a bit. Fortunately I understood the danger of doing that just one day into my self control phase and opted not to, which felt good I guess, pretty standard really.
I'm trying harder and harder to get real reads before playing players, but it's really taking way too much focus off early game. Even with just 2 tables, I'm really only concentrating fully after about 20 hands once I have had a look at the history. Then I'll notice two of the original players have been replaced by other guys I have datamined and try to look through their history. There has to be a quicker way. Ideally, this is what I want. I want to be able to sit down, and within an orbit or two, have specific goals for how to deal with all players on the table, knowing as much about their post flop tendancies as possible. Then I want to be able to specifically say how I'm going to crush a couple of them... or if I have nothing, then leave. "If you can't spot the fish then you are the fish" type of thing.
It comes down to how do we effectively play the player at poker. We doing it by knowing how he plays hands and acting accordingly. It's one thing to know a player plays tight, but a whole other thing to see how they go broke and how they play in tough spots, like facing aggression with a draw or top pair. If we see someone cbet then 3 bet shove a flop with a bare flush draw, we know he can play flush draws aggressively. If we see someone donk lead then shove, or donk lead then fold, then we get a better idea for what they are doing that with. Now lets say you have datamined 450 hands on a player playing on your table that you just sat down at. His stats say he's a reasonable player, but there are weaknesses/trends I'd like to know. So far, finding these out takes too much of my playing time, and I don't see people on a regular enough basis to put my history of reads into practice.
Oh and my session last night was break even. I played fairly solid, but felt a little timid due to my brain putting much more emphasis on post flop tendancies rather than just going with a hand, which is probably a good thing. Like I isolate QQ OOP and the flop comes out Axx, and I check folded. Firstly, his range indicated he limp calls Ax hands sometimes, but also I just had no postflop reads, so didn't know how he'd play if I cbet, or if he'd be honest if I checked to him, etc. I probably missed an easy cbet, but I just don't feel fully equipped to make certain choices now.
I'm trying harder and harder to get real reads before playing players, but it's really taking way too much focus off early game. Even with just 2 tables, I'm really only concentrating fully after about 20 hands once I have had a look at the history. Then I'll notice two of the original players have been replaced by other guys I have datamined and try to look through their history. There has to be a quicker way. Ideally, this is what I want. I want to be able to sit down, and within an orbit or two, have specific goals for how to deal with all players on the table, knowing as much about their post flop tendancies as possible. Then I want to be able to specifically say how I'm going to crush a couple of them... or if I have nothing, then leave. "If you can't spot the fish then you are the fish" type of thing.
It comes down to how do we effectively play the player at poker. We doing it by knowing how he plays hands and acting accordingly. It's one thing to know a player plays tight, but a whole other thing to see how they go broke and how they play in tough spots, like facing aggression with a draw or top pair. If we see someone cbet then 3 bet shove a flop with a bare flush draw, we know he can play flush draws aggressively. If we see someone donk lead then shove, or donk lead then fold, then we get a better idea for what they are doing that with. Now lets say you have datamined 450 hands on a player playing on your table that you just sat down at. His stats say he's a reasonable player, but there are weaknesses/trends I'd like to know. So far, finding these out takes too much of my playing time, and I don't see people on a regular enough basis to put my history of reads into practice.
Oh and my session last night was break even. I played fairly solid, but felt a little timid due to my brain putting much more emphasis on post flop tendancies rather than just going with a hand, which is probably a good thing. Like I isolate QQ OOP and the flop comes out Axx, and I check folded. Firstly, his range indicated he limp calls Ax hands sometimes, but also I just had no postflop reads, so didn't know how he'd play if I cbet, or if he'd be honest if I checked to him, etc. I probably missed an easy cbet, but I just don't feel fully equipped to make certain choices now.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Man I play good drunk...
OK, this is the last step for me. I feel like I'm working hard at crushing the game, and still donking off dollars while drunk. My long weekend started innocently enough losing about $20 having some fun on Pokerstars, which was mostly intended. I stopped and didn't intend to play again, but a couple of drinks later Full Tilt is up, and $20 more gone. Next night, watching a movie (new Indiana Jones) and the wife falls asleep. Again a couple of dinner and post dinner drinks downed, I open up Full Tilt just to "watch", the intention being to try and hand read while not actually playing. I'm looking for a tight table to see how well I read regs, and I notice the perfect seat on a real donkish table...and I'm there. NL50 while drunk and underolled, nice. Another $30 to donks hitting, and I finish it off by busting (just about) my Pokerstars account which had $50 before the weekend. OK, so now I'm down $120 all up for just playing a bit of poker while drunk. WTF!!!! That takes me weeks of EV at NL25, what a waste.
Last night was a good chance to have a couple of drinks due to a long weekend, but I decided I need to choose between drinks and poker, and poker won out at first, with the intention of staying up late and having a couple of drinks later. I grinded for a little over an hour, and was pretty happy with my play, and booked a 1.5BI profit, somewhat helping the mood after donking while drunk. Absolutely through with drinking poker, I cracked open a drink and noticed I still had $3 in my pokerstars account. I decided to go out with a bang and play it as aggro as I could. Tripled it on NL5, then HU SNG's. Grinded, grinded, grinded, drank, drank, drank. I couldn't lose. I got in good just about all the time, and held almost always. I was also extracting value like nothing else, getting people to hand over their entire SNG with top pair no kicker on the first blind level. A heap of fun. Up to $47 again, lol.
So that's it now. Poker is officially a serious hobby now rather than a pastime, as I can't stomach the losses I have when not in full control. So this week and weeks/months going forward are all about one main leak fix. Self control. I want to be able to pick and choose when I play. If I'm not reading boards well, quit. If I'd drunk, don't ever play anything, there is just no point. If I'm tired and need to stop, stop. I want to actually write how I am feeling before I play. If I'm tilted or tired, I want to identify that before playing, and just go read forums or do something else for a while. There are no more excuses in my game now. I don't want to not have a reason for making a play, and certainly playing tired or tilted or drunk help you ignore decision making.
I feel very pumped about this, as we are talking playing while in good mood, my play is constantly improving anyway, and I feel like I've officially made the right mental moves to control a big leak in my game.
As a side task, I still need to do a lot more hand reading. My reading is kind of like my hand is this good, and he'd have to have one of these hands to have me beat. I'm not saying, what is his likely full range just yet. So my moves are all about protecting my hand or maximising it's value, rather than fully maximising value by knowing what he'd have and how he'd react to my moves given his range and tendancies. I'm getting there though. Also I'm working extra hard looking through hand histories to pickup how people play post flop, and I think ideally I need to simplify this. So when I have a tilted or tired moment, I'm going to work on a program to help get reads from PT3, which seems to be running again somehow.
Last night was a good chance to have a couple of drinks due to a long weekend, but I decided I need to choose between drinks and poker, and poker won out at first, with the intention of staying up late and having a couple of drinks later. I grinded for a little over an hour, and was pretty happy with my play, and booked a 1.5BI profit, somewhat helping the mood after donking while drunk. Absolutely through with drinking poker, I cracked open a drink and noticed I still had $3 in my pokerstars account. I decided to go out with a bang and play it as aggro as I could. Tripled it on NL5, then HU SNG's. Grinded, grinded, grinded, drank, drank, drank. I couldn't lose. I got in good just about all the time, and held almost always. I was also extracting value like nothing else, getting people to hand over their entire SNG with top pair no kicker on the first blind level. A heap of fun. Up to $47 again, lol.
So that's it now. Poker is officially a serious hobby now rather than a pastime, as I can't stomach the losses I have when not in full control. So this week and weeks/months going forward are all about one main leak fix. Self control. I want to be able to pick and choose when I play. If I'm not reading boards well, quit. If I'd drunk, don't ever play anything, there is just no point. If I'm tired and need to stop, stop. I want to actually write how I am feeling before I play. If I'm tilted or tired, I want to identify that before playing, and just go read forums or do something else for a while. There are no more excuses in my game now. I don't want to not have a reason for making a play, and certainly playing tired or tilted or drunk help you ignore decision making.
I feel very pumped about this, as we are talking playing while in good mood, my play is constantly improving anyway, and I feel like I've officially made the right mental moves to control a big leak in my game.
As a side task, I still need to do a lot more hand reading. My reading is kind of like my hand is this good, and he'd have to have one of these hands to have me beat. I'm not saying, what is his likely full range just yet. So my moves are all about protecting my hand or maximising it's value, rather than fully maximising value by knowing what he'd have and how he'd react to my moves given his range and tendancies. I'm getting there though. Also I'm working extra hard looking through hand histories to pickup how people play post flop, and I think ideally I need to simplify this. So when I have a tilted or tired moment, I'm going to work on a program to help get reads from PT3, which seems to be running again somehow.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Give me just 5 minutes of running good...
Fold, fold, BAM!!! WTF was that? I had AKs PF and now I'm down a buy in. OK, fold, fold, BAM!!! There it is again, make that 2BI's, set over set. Now what to do?
I got there in a few hands, and after a few more orbits in 2 tables seeing nothing good coming my way, I gave myself 10 minutes. I wouldn't say I was totally tilting, but I knew I couldn't play 2 hours like this, or I'd be down 5+ BI's. If I'm up (yes, completely results oriented) in 10 minutes, I'll keep playing. I got no cards to even play the first 5 minutes, then lost a pot, but did take down a medium pot to be +ve after 10 minutes. A waiting list came through, and I got 3 nice tables going. Only about an hour later, I had worked back the 2 BI's and profited 1.5 BI's. I played OK, but ran well. I honestly didn't suck out like has happened to me a lot, but I just had good hands preflop, and post flop. I was over 200BB's on all 3 tables when I left.
It's easy as anything to quit at this point, and I'm very happy to book a winning session after yesterday, and todays start. I'm pretty sure I need to get a little more aggressive postflop. I've been table selecting almost too well, and find myself against 40/12's so much that calling 2-3 streets is profitable if I hit, as I'm so far ahead of their range preflop that hitting means I'm crushing their range on most flops. However, I'm finding myself with no idea what they have and getting sucked out on a bit. I'm worried about raising people off worse, or getting called by better, but if I think it's going to be another street or two without any information, it may not be a great strategy. Plus I'm mixing up some of the player types amongst these guys, as some are tight weak postflop, others are quite bluffy.
Reasonable week, probably have a bit of a break again now for the weekend, but believe me I'll be thinking through a lot of what's gone on this week, and looking for ways to improve my tiny poker mind.
I got there in a few hands, and after a few more orbits in 2 tables seeing nothing good coming my way, I gave myself 10 minutes. I wouldn't say I was totally tilting, but I knew I couldn't play 2 hours like this, or I'd be down 5+ BI's. If I'm up (yes, completely results oriented) in 10 minutes, I'll keep playing. I got no cards to even play the first 5 minutes, then lost a pot, but did take down a medium pot to be +ve after 10 minutes. A waiting list came through, and I got 3 nice tables going. Only about an hour later, I had worked back the 2 BI's and profited 1.5 BI's. I played OK, but ran well. I honestly didn't suck out like has happened to me a lot, but I just had good hands preflop, and post flop. I was over 200BB's on all 3 tables when I left.
It's easy as anything to quit at this point, and I'm very happy to book a winning session after yesterday, and todays start. I'm pretty sure I need to get a little more aggressive postflop. I've been table selecting almost too well, and find myself against 40/12's so much that calling 2-3 streets is profitable if I hit, as I'm so far ahead of their range preflop that hitting means I'm crushing their range on most flops. However, I'm finding myself with no idea what they have and getting sucked out on a bit. I'm worried about raising people off worse, or getting called by better, but if I think it's going to be another street or two without any information, it may not be a great strategy. Plus I'm mixing up some of the player types amongst these guys, as some are tight weak postflop, others are quite bluffy.
Reasonable week, probably have a bit of a break again now for the weekend, but believe me I'll be thinking through a lot of what's gone on this week, and looking for ways to improve my tiny poker mind.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
I can't get enough of this...
Well, what an ordinary night. I got 600 hands in and was smashed. 2 of the top 3 pots had my money in as 80% and 90% favourite and lost of course. Out of the others I had top two pair against an absolute donk who rivered a straight (didn't pay him off much after he sucked out), had QQ overpair against a straight draw, who sucked out and got one more street of value from me, a flush draw and overpair in a low pot 3 bet PF, of course he flopped a set of 6's after calling my 3 bet, and a better kicker for a pretty big pot with only top pair. The last two were the worst, but overall, I think that's called running bad.
Enough whinging about my cards, I'm partially responsible for the debacle. My reads were missing tonight, and I was really scratching my head on many decisions, and ended up calling too much due to running bad, rather than raising more for protection or value. So I was a long way from my A game for sure. I lost over 2 BI's, which is pretty nasty given I never seem to make more than 1/2 BI going the other way, even though I feel like I'm playing my best poker recently.
I can at least say the luck didn't go my way much tonight, and tomorrow is of course another beautiful sunny day (or something like that).
Oh and get fucked Full Tilt, I never get sucked out on so bad as I do on Full Tilt:
Here is some of the fun I endure right now:
FullTiltPoker Game #8301395037: Table Willis (deep 6) - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 8:26:05 ET - 2008/10/01
Seat 1: Seth_Qc ($20.80)
Seat 2: sb944 ($41.90)
Seat 3: cop2007 ($26.15)
Seat 4: thecometodaddy ($19.25), is sitting out
Seat 5: hbvb ($28.60)
Seat 6: Gnotschi ($25), is sitting out
sb944 posts the small blind of $0.10
cop2007 posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to sb944 [As Ad]
hbvb calls $0.25
Seth_Qc calls $0.25
sb944 raises to $1
cop2007 folds
hbvb calls $0.75
Seth_Qc calls $0.75
*** FLOP *** [3d 9d 4h]
Gnotschi stands up
sb944 has 15 seconds left to act
sb944 bets $2
Fiona888 adds $25
hbvb folds
Seth_Qc raises to $19.80, and is all in
sb944 calls $17.80
Seth_Qc shows [2d 9c]
sb944 shows [As Ad]
*** TURN *** [3d 9d 4h] [5s]
*** RIVER *** [3d 9d 4h 5s] [6d]
Seth_Qc shows a straight, Six high
sb944 shows a pair of Aces
Seth_Qc wins the pot ($40.85) with a straight, Six high
sb944 adds $3.90
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $42.85 | Rake $2
Board: [3d 9d 4h 5s 6d]
Seat 1: Seth_Qc (button) showed [2d 9c] and won ($40.85) with a straight, Six high
Seat 2: sb944 (small blind) showed [As Ad] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 3: cop2007 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: thecometodaddy is sitting out
Seat 5: hbvb folded on the Flop
Seat 6: Gnotschi is sitting out
Enough whinging about my cards, I'm partially responsible for the debacle. My reads were missing tonight, and I was really scratching my head on many decisions, and ended up calling too much due to running bad, rather than raising more for protection or value. So I was a long way from my A game for sure. I lost over 2 BI's, which is pretty nasty given I never seem to make more than 1/2 BI going the other way, even though I feel like I'm playing my best poker recently.
I can at least say the luck didn't go my way much tonight, and tomorrow is of course another beautiful sunny day (or something like that).
Oh and get fucked Full Tilt, I never get sucked out on so bad as I do on Full Tilt:
Here is some of the fun I endure right now:
FullTiltPoker Game #8301395037: Table Willis (deep 6) - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 8:26:05 ET - 2008/10/01
Seat 1: Seth_Qc ($20.80)
Seat 2: sb944 ($41.90)
Seat 3: cop2007 ($26.15)
Seat 4: thecometodaddy ($19.25), is sitting out
Seat 5: hbvb ($28.60)
Seat 6: Gnotschi ($25), is sitting out
sb944 posts the small blind of $0.10
cop2007 posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to sb944 [As Ad]
hbvb calls $0.25
Seth_Qc calls $0.25
sb944 raises to $1
cop2007 folds
hbvb calls $0.75
Seth_Qc calls $0.75
*** FLOP *** [3d 9d 4h]
Gnotschi stands up
sb944 has 15 seconds left to act
sb944 bets $2
Fiona888 adds $25
hbvb folds
Seth_Qc raises to $19.80, and is all in
sb944 calls $17.80
Seth_Qc shows [2d 9c]
sb944 shows [As Ad]
*** TURN *** [3d 9d 4h] [5s]
*** RIVER *** [3d 9d 4h 5s] [6d]
Seth_Qc shows a straight, Six high
sb944 shows a pair of Aces
Seth_Qc wins the pot ($40.85) with a straight, Six high
sb944 adds $3.90
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $42.85 | Rake $2
Board: [3d 9d 4h 5s 6d]
Seat 1: Seth_Qc (button) showed [2d 9c] and won ($40.85) with a straight, Six high
Seat 2: sb944 (small blind) showed [As Ad] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 3: cop2007 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: thecometodaddy is sitting out
Seat 5: hbvb folded on the Flop
Seat 6: Gnotschi is sitting out
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