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.
Monday, October 27, 2008
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.
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