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I'm not usually a big drinker at the tables - one or two beers during a five hour session just for enjoyment. Last night worked out to 4 beers in 6 hours - still normally low enough to prevent intoxication from setting in, but in this case the beer in question was Great Lakes Christmas Ale, and the higher, 7% alcohol content snuck up on me. I woke up this morning with a good old fashioned hangover, one day early. Whoopsie.
Not sure if my poker game suffered or not. I lost a big pot early but played it fine against several fishy players. Six-Seven of hearts in a limped pot, board was nine-jack-king with two hearts. A blind lead out for $3 and I raised to $9, which chased away everyone else. The blind reraised to $20. Hello. Ok, he's got two pair or Q-T. Probably a fold most of the time against most players, but this guy won't fold anything bigger than two pair as long as I don't shove my chips all in when I hit. He'll go to value town with me as long as the train isn't too fast.
The turn misses, and this guy, apparently seeing monsters under the bed, bets $10 into a $50+ pot. 6-1 odds to hit my 9 outs, for direct pot odds? Yes, please! I call and then fold a strike-three-yer-out river. He shows the straight that he would never have folded.
More bleeding, bleeding - I win some medium pots but I'm having to buy back in to top my stack up to a reasonable amount (hmmm, maybe the beers were having an effect, wish I had a video of my play) - the last hand of the evening redeems me. I raise AK and get Mr. Pietzak to call (who is resplendent in his "crack you with rags" style tonight), and one other caller - the same guy with the straight earlier, calls also.
Flop Ace-Two-Four, two diamonds. Looks fine to me. I bet 9 into a 12, Pietzak reraises all in (14 more, riding the short stack), and Straight Guy calls! Hello, dead money with top pair! No guarantee I'm good right now, Mr. Pietzak can triumphantly flip over a 3-5, even with a 30 big blind stack, and straight guy might have hit the ace-rag two pair, but he also might have a flush draw or a worse ace. I think there's more money to be had from him overall, so I just call the $14 as opposed to taking the pot heads-up vs. Mr. Pietzak.
Turn is a beautiful brick, and I bet $25 into the empty side pot, forcing Straight Guy to pay big for his flush draw. I think I even said as much out loud. He pays the toll, and the internal prayer vigil starts for a non diamond river.
The prayers pay off - a black ten. We check the river, with my thought being he's not putting more into the pot anyway, and I've already built up a doozy of a pot with one pair (I lost two big pots with top pair already tonight, but both by making correct folds in the hand to obviously bigger hands, so no mistakes there, despite the Xmas ales). I show my AK. Mr. Pietzak had the flush draw (A magnificent ten-five suited gave him a gutshot as well), and Straight Guy had ace-queen. Hmmm. Maybe I could have squeezed a bit more out of him and his second-best kicker.
Ah, no matter - a big final pot pushed me into positive territory on the night for the first time. +60 big blinds. Not bad for a drunk guy.
Not sure if I'll play any online tomorrow, so we'll call it a year as far as online poker goes. Results are (sort-of) shown above. If you'll recall, I basically started over in June, dropping down in limits and moving to a full ring game. This chart reflects results from that point only.
A 2.39 bb/100 hands isn't terrific - but it's not awful, either. There is room for improvement, and I have a plan on specific things I need to improve. I will get better.
December wasn't a great month, as you can see. I went through my biggest losing hands and can't see much misplayed. Kings running into Aces. Set over Set. Set racing nut flush. Suckouts. Boat running into quads.
One of the hardest things to do is look at your results and honestly say that you're still ok - that you're still playing correctly, that you're not making (too many) mistakes. I have looked closely at the month and decided that's exactly what's going on. a 3.5 buy-in downswing isn't the end of the world, and that's what December reflects. There is still work to be done, but I feel like I'm playing well.
My 2011 goals -
- A 4.0 bb/100 win rate or better at 25NL full ring Holdem. (not necessarily in aggregate for the year, if I build up to 4.0 and sustain it for the last couple months, I will consider this goal a success).
- Learn Omaha enough to hold my own. (break even)
Happy 2011, everyone. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get ready to destroy my home game.
A minor day on the plus side. First session good, second session even but frustrating. Wave after wave of bad players at my tables and me holding crap cards over and over. One hand gets me a buyin, easy.
I watched a guy call a big river bet with A6 on a board that had and ace and four clubs. He had no club, and his kicker was crap. The best part was that it was the best hand! The other donkey, a button-clicking 60%-er, didn't have a clue postflop - he just figured if he bet something at every opportunity that it would work out ok in the end.
On a positive front, my 3bet percentage was higher. I am identifying better situations and taking down pots preflop. On a bad note, my total amount won after three betting was negavie. I raced AK with TT and lost half a stack (this player turned out to be a complete donk, but I didn't know it at the time. I guess if I had known, I would have called the all in even faster with AK). We'll keep working on it.
I was 3 hands away from closing my session for the night when I picked up KK UTG+3. I had played pretty well and had booked a half stack winning session for the night.
UTG raised. He was a 16/4 after 30 hands or so. UhOh. I briefly considered folding right there! I knew that was ridiculous, so I made a normal 3bet. The table folded around and the original raiser made the perfect size, normal 4bet.
That was enough for me. I was not getting AA vs. KK coolered on the last orbit of the night. No fucking way. I folded. Might have been the best hand, I don't care. Or it might have been aces and I would hit my 1 in 5 to suck out. It might have been seven-deuce. Doesn't matter.
With proof that I wasn't mentally ready to play correctly, I took my half stack profit and signed off, not even bothering to play the last two hands of the orbit I had already paid for.
And it doesn't even out, either. Up a buy-in, down two.
You can't help but think that the deck is purposefully stacked against you when you get crushed over and over and over. Check out this session.
- AK vs. AQ, 3bet pot, Ace on the flop, all in, queen on the river. (92 BB lost)
- Flopped straight vs flush. (85 bb lost)
- River a full house, villain has quads. (84 bb lost)
- set over set (16 bb lost)
- JJ vs. AA (15 bb lost)
- QQ cracked by J9o, runner-runner 9 high flush takes it. (16 bb lost)
These all happened in the span of 315 hands. Three hundred fifteen fucking hands!!!
"You will run worse than you can possibly imagine".
Dude is playing 63/21, flops a flush on me. I've got top pair + king high flush draw. Come on.
Add that to the guy I got all in with top pair vs. my aces, which get cracked on the turn, and it's another lovely session for me.
Down half a buyin, despite losing one and a half on suckouts. Actually pretty good. Wish I had the numbers to back up the play.
Just kidding. A quick 240 hands tonight posted a 25 BB win.
Happy holidays to all my readers out in the ether.
Quick 40 minute session of Rush tonight where everyone had a hand every time. Every cbet failed, every 3bet was called, even my one 4bet bluff vs. a light 3better was shoved over. Down a buy-in banging against people with hands. Then a mistaken call with queens vs. kings cost me another stack.
I had a good session last night and gave it all back tonight. December is a wreck and getting worse. I can't see any big differences in my stats or my play, so I'll just keep moving forward, I guess. What else can I do?
beware the feral cow packs. they hunger.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.10/$0.25 - 9 players
SB: $13.42
Villain is a blind stealing TAG 16/12. 50% BTN steal, 29% CO steal, 46% SB Steal, 25% fold 3bet (1 out of 4). 9.0 aggression factor. Seems decent except for not playing a full stack.
BB: $29.00 (Hero)
Preflop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with 
(9 players)
7 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Hero raises to $2.50, SB calls $1.75
You could argue for either calling here or raising. Raising folds out all of the garbage that a 46% thief is raising with, but most of that garbage has 30% equity vs your unpaired big slick, so it's not a bad result to make him give up that equity to you. He doesn't look like he likes to fold to 3bets though - only 1 time out of 4, so it seems like I can raise for value.
Flop: ($5.00) 
(2 players)
Blind vs. blind, trips/TK, backdoor hearts, 3bet pot vs a shortstack. Uh, yeah, I'm not folding this hand. He gets all my money if he's got AJ or pocket jacks, yay for him. If a heart comes on the turn, I'll be semibluffing all-in, yay for him again. Any other card might give him the Ax boat since all aces are in his preflop raising range (though maybe not his 3bet calling range).
Since stacks are short, I can check a street here for deception. I'm almost certainly way ahead, and villain is drawing to 2-3 outs for almost all of his holdings (except hearts).
SB checks, Hero checks
Turn: ($5.00) 
(2 players)
SB checks,
We got our brick turn. Ok, I want to bet something here. I need this bet to look like a weak stab. If he's got a worse ace and has been trying to checkraise, he'll pounce. If he's got nothing, or maybe a little something (KJ) he may decide he's good. His short stack does him no favors here in this 3bet pot. If he calls, he'll have less than a pot sized bet left on the river, and he'll be out of position. He may decide that the only way to apply pressure is right now, if his read is that I'm weak. I need to give him that read. Just a shade over half pot sounds about right...
Hero bets $2.80,
SB raises to $10.92, and is all in, Hero calls $8.12
Alright, that worked out well.
River: ($26.84) 
(2 players)
SB showed 
, and lost with a pair of Aces
Hero showed , and won ($25.50) with three of a kind, Aces
Hero won $25.50
Gutshot for him - a ten on the turn or river would have doubled him up. I got him to shove his stack in as a 9:1 dog, and I held up (always nice) for a 60 BB profit. This was the last the blind stealer played this evening.
I desperately wanted to post a win tonight. I was playing well, no big mistakes, no guessing in marginal spots. Example: I call a raise with 55, pot goes multiway, board is 667. Not a bad flop for me. Someone comes out betting. I check my HUD for his aggression but I don't have any hands on him. With players to act behind me, I fold. No floating, no turning my 55s into a bluff with a raise, no silliness - just fold and move on.
I have made a few adjustments to my game this week. In full ring, I'm now folding ace-queen and king-queen offsuit from the first three positions (still raising the suited variety). I'm limping up front with aces and kings more now since everyone loves to punish the limpers. If someone does, I backraise and try and take the pot down, or set up a low enough SPR to shove by the flop. If nobody raises, I play for a small pot and don't go crazy (out of position with one pair in a multiway pot is a great way to lose a ton).
One other adjustment - I'm trying to three bet light from the button more. I have started to look for the correct player type- a normal TAG who is raising at least 10% from the position he is currently raising. Also a fold to three bet up at least in the 60s. These stats give me an aggressive player raising wide enough, and being smart enough to fold. I have found some success working this into my game.
Because I was so eager to book a win tonight, I was continually refreshing my HEM session data. Down 10 blinds. Then 20, 25. Up to -15. This is obviously the wrong way to play poker, but it wasn't affecting my play - I was playing normally, just distracted by the stupid red line in the database software. I finally broke the water line with poker sixes. Raised a limper in position, he called me. Flop was queen-two-two. He thought for a few seconds about calling my cbet, then folded.
I refreshed my HEM screen again. +1 big blind for the session! Huzzah! I closed my tables and called it a night.
Down 4 guy-ins in the last 4 sessions, although the last 2 are just half buy-in losses, so in a twisted way you can call it an improvement.
Last month's gains are wiped out. I don't care about the cash, I was more interested in my win rate. What is my win rate? Am I a mediocre 2.8, better, or (gulp) worse? The great part is that I'll probably never know - I won't play enough lifetime hands to let variance work its way out. Great game, this poker.
Had trouble with this hand. 3bet pot, 3 people to the flop. I've got top/top on a monochrome board. SPR is under 2. Do we just go with this hand?
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.10/$0.25 - 8 players
CO: $27.34
Button: $25.35 (Hero)
SB: $31.33
BB: $27.48
UTG: $28.36
UTG+1: $24.32
MP: $25.60
HJ: $25.30
Preflop: ($0.35) Hero is Button with (8 players)
3 folds, HJ raises to $1, CO calls $1, Hero raises to $4.75, 2 folds, HJ calls $3.75, CO calls $3.75
Flop: ($14.60) 
(3 players)
HJ checks, CO checks, Hero ???
Pot is 14.40, effective stacks are 20.55. SPR is like 1.5. I feel like any hand that's willing to get it in either has me crushed, has a ton of equity, or is tied and freerolling me (Ad). But the SPR is so tiny. We might get some other AKs that don't have the Ad to fold, so there's at least a little bluff element to shoving. Is that enough? Do we just slide the slider all the way to the right, close our eyes and click "bet"?
Down 2.5 buy ins the past two days at NL25. Bad luck, really - I think I'm playing ok. Aces, Kings and a set all were losers today (Kings were vs. Aces, set got flushed on the river, Aces got 5-outed while player was all in with top pair), as was 2 pair (vs straight) and a straight (vs. a flush), both vs. players who could have had worse so I had to call a river bet. Variance having fun with me.
I checked out my stats - they all look the same as last month, when I killed. I'm not tilting or too loose. Everything appears in order - just on the wrong side. I'll keep powering through (maybe back at the lower stakes for awhile, though, to avoid my roll vanishing in a poof).
Edit: Evening session was just as bad - got KK cracked by QQ (a third player also was all in with KK, for fun), lost 3+ buy-ins (actually more, because I had dropped down to 10NL, so it was more like 5 or 6 at the levels I was playing at.
Going out of town tomorrow, so no poker. Thank God.
3 players at the table playing over 50% of their hands (and another at 40), I couldn't outflop them one time. Yeesh. Down a buy in.
Last orbit, I get aces in the small blind, all 4 of them fold. Ferchrissakes.
Thursday night cash game. New player "Action Dan Durrr" makes his second visit (his name is Dan, he's an action player, he looks kind of like Tom "Durrr" Dwan. Odd). He scans the table and sits on my left. CRAP. Gonna be a tough night.
Action Dan Durrr takes down pots with nothing, hits 2 pair with 84o, a full house with K8o. And he's on my left and gets to act after me. I patiently wait to set the trap that never comes. My two big pairs come after limpers and I'm not playing them multi-way. I win 2 streets of value with my queens and preflop money only with my kings.
Fortunately, there are other players at the table besides Action Dan Durrr. I enter a limpfest pot in late position with king-ten suited and hit and open ender on the flop, a nut straight on the turn (with a club redraw). Against some players, I would be a bit hesitant with 2 queens on the board as well, but against my villain this hand - the 2 queens give him "two pair" with the pair in his hand. If he has trip queens, he wouldn't fold if I bet his house, car, wife, and private business. If he somehow has a full house, well bully for him - he's only got 60 big blinds to start anyway. I chop my turn and river bet into nice digestible chunks to add up to the rest of his stack, and take it against his king-jack. (jack on the board and in his hand, 2 queens on the board = "two pair"). He leaves the table after that, down 120 blinds in 3 hours, pondering how someone always has his strong two pairs hands beat.
+58 big blinds on the night. I was up over 100 but invested a bit trying to loosen up my image and bluff off some chips, but the payoff on that investment didn't come in the late hours. Maybe next week.
Your converted hand, now with more cowbell.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.10/$0.25 - 9 players
Button: $25.00
SB: $25.45 24/18, 34 hands.
BB: $25.32 (Hero)
UTG: $25.17
UTG+1: $30.66
MP: $12.50
MP2: $57.17
HJ: $29.62 23/14, high steal%
CO: $13.23 75/25, only 4 hands, he's played all of them.
Preflop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with 
(9 players)
4 folds, HJ raises to $0.75, CO calls $0.75, Button folds, SB calls $0.65,
Late position raiser, 2 callers, standard squeeze with JJ. My target is the half stacker CO. If he's dumb enough to call, I'll be in a pot with a strong pair and a low SPR. I make the squeeze a little bigger just to make the decision even easier. Things go well, I fold out everyone but the 75/25.
Hero raises to $4.25, HJ folds, CO calls $3.50, SB folds
Flop is good for me, I have an SPR less than 1. I am committed. Chances are he missed this board (every board), so any bet here causes him to fold. If I check, though, he may (for the first time) realize that half his stack is in the middle, the pot is big, and he's gotta take a shot at it.
Flop: ($10.00) 
(2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $8.98, and is all in, Hero calls $8.98
Hero shows CO shows 
Hero gets his money in as an 84-16 favorite.
Turn: ($27.96) 
(2 players)
Bonus set on the turn leaves villain drawing dead, no longer have to sweat the river.
River: ($27.96) (2 players)
Hero showed , and won ($26.57) with a full house, Jacks full of Sevens
CO showed , and lost with a pair of Sevens
Hero won $26.57
(Rake: $1.39)
Live poker update - played a nice little 10 man live tourney during the Browns game. Played ok, got kings cracked by a 3 outer for an early exit (finished 9th), but hand around 10 blinds left. Villain had a big stack and top pair (AQ on Q high board)- he wasn't folding to my flop shove. Everyone played the hand correctly and when the cards came out, I was behind. I can live with it. The $16 in prop bets I lost hurt worse than the $20 buy-in.
small profits tonight, with the usual ridiculous hands, both for and against me. I get all in (vs. shortstack) with queens vs. Ace-ten, flop is ten-ten-ten. I shit you not. Is Full Tilt trying to tell me something?
The blind comes around to me at 11:30, I'm going to bed after my under the gun hand on my last table. Then, finally - pocket aces. Wheeee! There are 3 passive, loose, bad players at the table, too - time to get paid.
I raise, and then, a fantastic result - a reraise, from a tight player. Nice! I decide to call for deception. The board comes all low and unconnected, and I checkraise him all in, hoping he can't fold kings or queens. He calls, with the other two aces. A delight. We chop up our own money after sending the rake to Full Tilt.
My third session at my new level went very poorly. Down 2 buy-ins. Bullied off of kings out of position. Flopped fullhouse only to be 2 outed by a bigger full house, against a 39/30 type that there's no way I can give credit for pocket kings. Defend my blind with AJ vs. a raise, I'm up against ace-queen. Another super-loose moron with aces takes out my top pair.
I gotta shake it off and try again tomorrow. Bad luck and loose bad players with big hands. I can play this game.
I tried my hand at 25NL tonight. +25 BB in 201 hands. This would have been much greater had it not been for a 6 out suckout vs. a 92/76 whale, too. What a player this guy was. No concept of what he was doing, or what others were doing - just clicking the "Bet" or "Raise" button over and over, figuring people would fold.
In my hand, I raised up King-Queen offsuit and it folded around to him. He raised me 4 times my bet, which he had done basically every time. I raised him 4 times HIS bet, leaving him only 12 big blinds left in his stack. He... called.
The board - J23 rainbow. He put his last 12 big blinds in. I called. Seven-high for him (67 offsuit), King high for me. The turn and river ran out and he had a pair that took the pot. No faulting how I played it.
The whale doubled through another guy by flopping trips, then he sat out for an orbit. I figured he was gone, but he did come back just in time for me to flop top set of kings. I did everything I could to get this guy to stick his stack in - the most I could muster out of him was $4 - not nearly enough to cover the half stack $16 he stole from me with his 6 outer. He left the table soon after, leaving me to find money from other sources.
I don't think 25NL is too big for me. If I can survive early and not drop 10 buy-ins, I'm sure I can find a home here. Especially if that 92/76 whale (or others like him) is swimming around for any length of time.
I finished Rush week tonight - I earned 100 Full Tilt points for 7 days in a row playing 10NL Rush poker. This ended up being 10944 hands of poker in a week.
10 sessions, 8 to the positive. The 2 negative sessions were 2 buy-in losses. There were 2 buy-in wins to even those out. The net was a 2 buy-in win for a total bb/100 of 2.37 for the week.
That last number is a bit disappointing - I was over 5 until the last session tonight, which was one of the 2 buy-in drops.
I have been seriously considering making the move up in stakes to NL25. My mediocre Rush week notwithstanding, my total winnings since moving to 9 man tables is a decent (not great) 4.32 bb/100 hands. My Rush bonus + rakeback for the week will give me 30 buy-ins at NL50. This is a bit low to be truly comfortable, so the move up will be considered "taking a shot" - if I lose 4-5 buy-ins right away, for any reason, back down to 10NL I will go.
One big consideration I'm taking into account is that rake % at NL25 is lower than it is for NL10. In theory, I should make some money just by paying less rake. If that amount is even to the amount I lose by playing better players, then I have broken even. I'm also not playing Rush - I absolutely KILLED last month playing normal tables where I could play the same opponents over and over again.
So it's off on a new phase...
Rush week continues. I played a great session early, then a disastrous session of Omaha (not my game, still making mistakes there - I should be playing penny blinds if I want to play that game), then back to Holdem.
My third session was going badly also - it felt like the 3betters were out in force. I was laying down some decent hands, not going broke on a pair and all that. I was also feeling pushed around by the Rush collective. That's when some players make the bad mistake, which I suppose I could have here, but two big slick hands (within 5 hands of each other), worked out for me and got me back in the black for the night.
Converted by the cows of Feral Cow Poker
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
MP: $9.15
MP2: $9.31
HJ: $4.00
CO: $4.05
Button: $11.27
SB: $4.80
BB: $10.10 (Hero)
UTG: $6.62
UTG+1: $6.91
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with (9 players)
UTG calls $0.10, 7 folds, Hero raises to $0.40, UTG calls $0.30
UTG limper is 14/0 after 14 hands. Not much information to go on. Still, I'm raising up AK from the blinds in the face of a limper every time.
Flop: ($0.85) 
(2 players)
Hero bets $0.90, UTG raises to $1.80, Hero raises to $9.70, and is all in, UTG calls $4.42, and is all in
The flop overbet was a mistake - my hotkey software sometimes gets the pot wrong and pre-selects a goofy bet. Once again I get minraised. Clearly I'm not always good here, but I felt this time like he was making a play. Q3 isn't a playable hand. AQ, QQ, and AA usually raise it up preflop (though some people like limping with AA under the gun, hoping to get raised). So I'm worried about A3 and 33, really. Not many combos overall. It's much more likely he thinks some worse ace is good. I stick the cash in.
Hero shows
UTG shows 
Three-four suited, my late friend Freddie's hand. Aw, Freddie, why you gotta to do me that way?
Turn: ($13.29) 
(2 players)
River: ($13.29) (2 players)
I win, despite being a 51-49 underdog. Call me lucky. Hand number 2 is somewhat similar
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
CO: $20.19
Button: $6.83
SB: $8.20
BB: $12.75
UTG: $14.36
UTG+1: $10.05
MP: $24.55
MP2: $14.51
HJ: $11.29 (Hero)
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is HJ with (9 players)
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.30, 3 folds, BB raises to $0.95, Hero calls $0.65
My read on the BB is pretty tenuous - he's a 33/33 after 6 hands, with a 50% 3bet. Seems aggro, but after 6 hands, who can tell for sure?
Flop: ($1.95) 
(2 players)
BB bets $1, Hero calls $1
3bet pot, I hit my top/top, SPR is like 5, he bets half pot. I see no reason to raise.
Turn: ($3.95) (2 players)
BB bets $2.50, Hero calls $2.50
Well, with my luck, he just spiked a two outer with JJ. Or he's had aces all along. Same drill as before.River: ($8.95) 
(2 players)
BB bets $8.30, and is all in, Hero calls $6.84, and is all in
A somewhat yucky card. Did he backdoor flush me? Did he 3bet me with a 6? How often am I ahead here? Am I tilting and reading too much into a 6 hand sample? All of the above are possible. I make the call.BB showed 
, and lost with a pair of Sixes
Hero showed , and won ($21.13) with two pair, Kings and Sixes
Hero won $21.13
(Rake: $1.50)
I win again. I can't say I played either of these hands brilliantly, but I did try to go with the little information I had on each and decided my top/top was good. Maybe I just really wanted them to be good, and got lucky. Anyhoo, it worked out for me, and I booked a small profit on the night, while also earning my Rush badge for the 5th night out of 7.
