more adventures up high

270 hands of .25/.50 tonight - the table was tough again early on, but I played ok and eeked out a small profit. Then the table turned to limper heaven, and non-believers who would call your flop (or turn, or river) bet with bottom pair or friggin ace high, so I had to switch to "hit a hand and bet it hard" mode. Not easy when your cards dry up.

I need to learn how (and when, especially when) to isolate limpers. I tend to revert too much to my cards at these limpy tables. I stop stealing blinds because the 38/8 guy and the 55/16 guy have both limped in front of me. I need to get some experience in raising these yahoos up and taking their limps, and not waiting for AK to do it.

I did manage to get 2 outed and 5 outed and get stacked twice - these things happen of course, so my net for the night was negative. Wish I could have played at that table all night - lots of bad play in the second half.

using your reads.

I moved up to the .25/.50 capped 6-max cash game tonight and played about 150 hands. The sledding was much tougher - most of my opponents seemed to know what they were doing, and were playing either tight-aggressive or loose-aggressive poker. I had to make my money using reads and some decent cards.

First off, the player to my immediate left seemed to be taking extra time with every decision. This is often an indicator of a multi-tabler. Another indicator was that he was the tightest player at the table - playing around 10% of hands. Sure enough, I looked him up and he was playing 6 tables at the same time. This is a good player to have to your left - one who isn't paying very close attention. I was able to steal his big blind about 5 times or so when the action was folded to me.

There was one loose aggressive player when I sat down. After 20 hands, his stats were 35/25. I raised up pocket nines and he shoved all 30 blinds in over me. This was the third time he had 3-bet shoved in the 20 hands I witnessed, so I called. I was up against King-Eight suited and my nines held up.

One player made an unusual 5x preflop raise to $2.50, and then folded when a king-queen-x flop showed itself. Since he didn't hit the king or queen, and he didn't have pocket aces, my theory was that a bigger raise from him meant a weaker hand (maybe a smaller pocket pair). Later in the action, I got pocket aces in late position, and Mr. 5x was in one of the blinds. Trying to use his own logic against him - I made it a 5x raise as well, hoping he would think that I was playing like he did. Sure enough, he defended his blind against the 5x raise. I also made a weak c-bet on the flop, and he minraised over me. In a capped game, you never have a problem justifying a shove with pocket aces on the flop, so I shoved and got a fold.

I raised up KQo, another blind defended me. He was a 43/29/4.0 - super-aggressive. My queen paired as the top card on the board, and he lead into me. I called instead of raising, figuring he would bet all three streets, and the only card I was afraid of coming was an ace. When the river paired the queen, giving me trips, I no longer had to fear the ace, either. He fired again, and I called. There wasn't enough left on the river for him to do anything except shove, and so he did, and once again I called, with the best hand by far (he had a busted draw), and I had walked the aggro-dude right down the path to a capped pot.

I was $20 up when the aggro guys left the table and were replaced my more "normal", TAGGY players. I didn't feel like I had an inherent skill advantage over any of these players, so I left the table and switched back down to .10/.25. While waiting for the blinds to come around to me, I watched a player call all-in with ace-ten, lose the rest of his stack, then leave the table.

This was more like the poor play I was used to.

I played two .10/.25 tables at once and was able to continue to play well. I earned another $20 before my first big loss of the night- getting stacked with AJ on a J-2-3 board vs. a set of threes. His preflop call of my raise with pocket threes is not correct in a capped game - the implied odds aren't big enough to make a profit setmining tiny pairs, but he hit so good for him, no biggie for me. I hit the bed with a $30.74 profit.

Losing the Drama in Cash Game world

No online tourneys for quite awhile. I considered playing in a big Sunday affair last night but got a few other things done instead.

I've been plugging away at the 6-max, .10/.25 capped cash games instead. Fairly boring poker, really - hit top pair and go to the wall. Sample hand:

Button raises to $1.10 (4.5 BB).
I shove with AK. (capped game, the shove is $7.50).
He calls with KJs.
I win $7.50. (if i avoid the 3 outer).

Don't get tricky. Don't slowplay anything. Don't 3 bet light with connectors (you could argue not to play connectors at all b/c of the cap). Don't defend your blind with ace-seven or other easily dominated hands. Play more in position.

The quality of play down here is low. Players are playing way too many hands, especially for a capped game, so there's easy, easy money to be made. When people are playing incorrectly at a poker table, money is flowing away from them. Just sit at the table and give that money a new place to travel to.

I'm hoping the play is similar up in the next couple levels - I am going to move up to .25/.50, hopefully permanently.

I'm liking the cash game - if somebody sucks out on you, just click a button and reload, and you live to fight another day (and perhaps exact some revenge, even).

Annoyed with my play

I made a poor showing in the Thursday night cash game. I was not aggressive enough, got involved in some marginal situations, and made some poor river showdown calls to lose decent pots. I was not happy with my play. I chipped up enough small pots to keep from losing my stack entirely.

I was down $30 or so when the monster hand of the night came up. I took a free look at the flop from the big blind with 6h9h, and liked what I saw when the board was dealt 5c 7c 8s. I had the nuts. It was a multiway pot so I checked with the intention of checkraising. Mr. Pietzak made his standard $3 "feeler bet" and I got a caller in between us. I briefly considered smooth calling, but decided there was no need to get fancy here - I didn't want to do anything stupid to lose a pot I was most assuredly winning, at least at the moment. I made it $16. Mr. Pietzak announced that he was all in, without barely two second's hesitation.

I checked my cards and the board one more time to make sure I hadn't misread anything. 5-6-7-8-9. Yup, that's a straight. All black on the board, but no flush - two clubs and a spade. Most poker theorists agree that you should call an all-in with the best possible hand, so I took their advice.

"I call".
"Whaddaya got over there, 6-9?".
"Yes, I do".

It wasn't over. Mr. Pietzak had 4c6c - he had flopped the small end of the straight, and had the flush draw to go with it. 2 of the flush cards gave him a sweet little straight flush. His straight was almost no help, though - a nine would give us a chop, and the nine flush cards made for 10 outs. (with the nine of clubs removed from one of those two groups). He really got cold-decked here. He could have easily been ahead of a flopped set or a pair/flushdraw combo, or even a badly-played overpair (especially with the way I was playing tonight) - I had the one, single hand that put him behind here. But he still had plenty of ways to catch me by the river.

"You want to run it more than once?", Mr. Pietzak offered. I thought it was a splendid idea with one of those colossal, no-way-either-of-us-was-going-to-fold hands that hit us both hard, and left us with a 60-40 shot at a $100 pot. A chop would be fine. I posed "Let's run it twice", and Mr. Pietzak agreed.

In a shocking turn of events, the next four cards were club-less, and I got my late night double up to pull out from the red into the black. One more well-timed squeezed with pocket kings took down another pre-flop "raise, call, call" pots to add just a bit more.

In a sign of an honest, clear self-evaluation of my game, I was irritated with myself all night, even after winning the monster pot - which was the result of a cold-deck and luck rather than any sort of skill. My 10 year old daughter would have won that pot. There were several lost posts earlier in the evening, though, where a well-timed raise or fold would have kept my stack more healthy.

the real grind

467 hands tonight, net profit $1.14.

LOL

here's a guy you want at your table

Check out the ninja on the far right of the table. Yes, his stats are 100/15 after 46 hands. He's played every hand.

I took 72 blinds from him in 27 confrontations. Interestingly, he won 18 of the 27 confrontations, but won $5.35 in those 18 hands, whereas I won $23.35 in the 9 hands I won.

It's not about winning pots, it's about winning money.

Notetaking at the table

Some people were curious about the notes I take at the table. Here is a scanned page, along with some explanation

The first line is a chip count. I started at 120, am currently at 98.

The next block reads

QT straddle chop
TJK bet/call
check/bet/call
check/check

This means I limped with QT during a straddle for $4. On a flop of ten-jack-king, I bet my bottom pair, open-ender and got called. On the turn, I check/called. On the river we both checked. The top line "chop" tells me the villain also had QT.

The next hand reads

A7 Btn straddle - donkey play
called 10-15
folded 50 on A3388
Quad 8s.

Translation- I limped for a $4 straddle on the button with A7 off.
I called $10 on the flop, and $15 on the turn,
Then I folded to a $50 river bet with the final board Ace-Three-Three-Eight-Eight.
The villain shows pocket eights, for quads.
The note "donkey play" refers to my own play - I realized at the table I played this poorly.

The last line reads "AQs UTG whiff".

This means I raised with AQs while under the gun, missed the flop entirely, and gave up on the hand.

Some of the notes are almost illegible later - I find my hands shaking to the point of hardly being able to write after a huge hand. More evidence that I need to work on controlling emotion at the table...