A few theories

Very average night last night, was only a short while in when I was distracted and called it a night. The standard start included losing a coin flip against a short stack JJ vs AK. From there I scraped my way back to a reasonable win, playing fairly well and running OK. My W$WSF was 56% without being overly aggressive. There was one point where I had about 8 PF raises in a row. This was not me being a LAG or anything. The first was a QTs button raise against tight blinds, then I had AQ, AK, KK, AK, AJ, 88, TT. I ended up making the minimum over that amazing stretch, in fact I might have lost money. Still I felt like I played OK again, and table selected well enough, that is, the three tables I had open were getting worse and worse as loose players left, so I left with them.

I still managed to pickup something out of the night. The first thing you see when reading forums is that there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. In poker terms, how to approach a hand. Especially at micro stakes, players have such weak reads they tend to just post a hand that looks like a toss up between folding and shoving. This itself confuses new players, as you post a hand and get 5 ways to play it. You knew there were 5 already, but want to know the best. Sometimes it really is just an impossible hand to read, but other times having hand ranges would actually solve the problem nearly perfectly.

A couple of interesting things have been jumping out at me recently, being the "he'll never call with worse", reverse implied odds and only beat a bluff points. Especially the "he'll never call with worse" is a function of bad hand reading skills by micro players, and I'm definitely to blame here too. It comes down to poker confusion. You find yourself in a situation that doesn't feel right, and have no idea if you are ahead or behind. You might have had a monster pref flop, but scare cards have hit, and your hand is looking pretty weak, but you bet the river anyway without any real reason why. To avoid this, I think you have to hand range as accurately as possible pre flop, and eliminate hands as the hand goes on and he does different things. Now with some sort of hand range on the river, ask yourself what in his range he'd call a river bet. This has to do with how thinly he'll call, and what hands are still in his range. If there is only one rare hand that will call that you beat, you shouldn't be betting. If there are several lower poket pairs, top pairs, etc, that this player will call with then you have to lay a value bet down. It doesn't matter if you are ahead or not, what matters is you had a hand range and thought he would call with worse.

The reverse implied odds, is an interesting topic too. You see A4s in the SB and two players are in the pot already, so you call too. The idea is if you hit a flush, you may get a big pay day. Well, the flop brings no flush draw, but you hit top pair. Reverse implied odds simply says that if you are going to have a big pot here (without two pair or trips), then it's likely that you are actually behind, yet if you win the pot, it's likely you'll win very little. Given you have no position, you really want a read on the player before continuing on. In fact rewind it a little and look at the hand pre flop. If you weren't comfortable playing the ace high flop (which you shouldn't be), and are going to find it tough to draw to a flush OOP, then might as well fold pre flop, and save the pain. I see this situation a lot at micros where people call 3 streets with a dominated ace with the 5th kicker, just ordinary play against a standard player.

The last is facing a turn or river raise/bet. You were aggressor with QQ preflop in position, and cbet a KT2r. He calls. You didn't think his range had many kings in it, but check the turn which is a T, knowing the "he'll never call with worse." Now he bets full pot on the river. So you look at the cards. If he has top pair, you are beat. If he had 2nd pair, you are now beat. If he had 99, he's turned his hand into a bluff, as he might have shown down as winner against AQ or 88-. So basically he might value bet JJ or everything else beats you. So your up against a better hand value betting, or a bluff. I'm not saying this isn't a call, but you have to ask how often he is bluffing here, and how often he has the hand he's representing. If you don't know the answer to that, it's a fold, because people should be betting there for value more often than bluffing. If he bluffs a lot, it's a call, but again, you never bet, because he only calls with hands that beat you, and even the call won't see you ahead all the time.

These 3 theories have seen me hand reading a lot more to catch up my situations more effectively. I find myself striving for the information now, so that I can know how thinly they will bet/call and how often they will bluff. I don't by any means have it down to a science, but as long as I am working towards improving that area, my poker will be moving forwards rapidly I think.

I'm still quite limited in bankroll for NL25, but starting to move up a little, and hope to be fairly well BR'd for it by the end of this month if all things go my way. I'm considering putting more money online (less than what I withdrew) and having a serious crack at NL25/NL50, but maybe grinding my bankroll back up is better for confidence anyway. I also got another free CR month out of FTP, and will probably have another coming up next month, but won't be chasing Iron man again this month. It's just not part of my focus right now.