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I logged onto Full Tilt tonight to check and see if they were allowing withdrawal requests yet. 2+2 users reported earlier today that Pokerstars has started allowing U.S. players to cash out.
No luck on that front, but as I signed on, my preferred tables came up in the lobby, and the first table that came up showed 3 players with a little blue triangle next to their name. Blue is my personal color code for bad player. A table with 3 bad players at the same time! Such an opportunity...
..wasted.
I got invited to someone else's house to play cards for a change - things started off with a full table of dealer's choice, Holdem or Omaha. It seemed like everyone was dealing Omaha, so I chose Holdem just for variety. The host, a solid, math-based player with whom I had played before, flashed me a look and said something to the effect of "hey dummy, why are you dealing Holdem when it's obvious that most of these players don't know crap about Omaha and are just itching to give their money away?". He voiced this in a much more subtle, non-insulting way, but the message was received.
It was received even further as I watched the host bet over the pot on a monotone flop, and then shove the turn, to get called both times by a nine-high flush. The losing player says "I finally hit something in this game and am crushed by a higher flush". One might not worry about flush-over-flush in Texas Holdem, but putting lots of money into the pot with non-nut hands in Omaha is a quick recipe for finding your chips in someone else's stack.
We ended up playing the cash game for only an hour, as the host also wanted to play a Texas Holdem tourney. $30 buy-in with a $10 kill chip. I fared quite well in the tourney - Ace-Queen outkicking one of the bad players for one chip, and winning a race with another, to get me into the money, at which point we executed a 4 way chop for all but the last $20 of the prize pool, for which we played to the end. I was the first one out after this point, but I love the way I played the final hand, and even ended up with 19 outs on the river to basically a guaranteed first place finish, but the final card didn't come my way.
I ended up breaking even in the cash game, and posting an $80 profit in the tourney.
I managed to keep myself busy all week with no poker around, but Thursday finally came and my home game gave me the chance to try and remember if a flush beats a straight or vice-versa.
First hand of the night, only 4 players at the table, I raise up pocket tens and get two callers. Board is King-jack-Rag - there's a bet and a call, and I fold my underpair with the greatest of ease.
It was good to be back.
One monster to report - I minraised Ace-Five, both diamonds, figuring on a ton of callers, but got only 1. I couldn't hope for a much better flop - two of diamonds, three of clubs, 4 of diamonds - a flopped straight with a flush redraw and a straight flush wheel possibility. I also couldn't hope for much better action, my opponent donked into me, I raised, and he shoved. Uh, ok. Five-six? Nope, three-four for two pair. Neither one improved and I raked a big one early.
My opponent was apoplectic - what the hell was a I raising a hand like ace-five for? (mind you, he would definitely play the hand, but he would limp). How could he ever put me on a flopped straight? How is there any way he's beat there playing three-four (offsuit, natch) and flopping two pair? This hand sent him into a spiral of second-best losses all night and he was the first one to make the walk of shame up my steps.
As for the rest of the night, I played ok. I was too passive preflop - content to join the limp-a-pa-looza a bit too often. When I did wake up and get aggressive, I won some pots to make up for the poor whiff-and-miss limping.
We broke into some Omaha in the last hour and I managed to not go broke there. I ended up +38 big blinds, a fine night considering I had played no poker in seven days.
Well, it seems that I'll be playing less poker in upcoming days/weeks/months.
Maybe forever.
No answers at the moment, waiting with everyone else to see what's going to happen.
That run of no bad luck I've had - it's officially over. Wiped out in 320 hands. 2 outed 3 times. Down 120 big blinds in 30 Rush minutes.
I couldn't believe it. I was just sitting at my desk, blinking repeatedly at the computer. I wasn't tilted, just a bit in shock.
You're not supposed to chase your losses, but I still felt like I was playing well, so I fired the tables back up and jumped back on.
Right away my luck turned. I pushed into a shortstack who 3bet me. I had AQ and he had 3bet several times already. He called with kings and I sucked out on him. Someone 3bet me while I had AK - he also had 3bet stats. I shoved into his half stack and he folded. Flopped a set of jacks and won some chips. Top pair held up. Finally, I stacked someone on a scary play. Ace-Five suited in position. I raised up a limper, he called. I had all of three hands of history on him - he had played them all. Board was Ace-Ten-Two with two diamonds, and he bet .75 into 2.85. I'm not folding top pair for those odds. The turn brought me two pair, but also a diamond for a flush on board. Suddenly he bets pot. Pot? So the minbet was to get to the flush, and now that you have it you're going to push real hard? Well, maybe, I guess, but it didn't add up. No checkraise? No smaller bet? No, I figured now he had an ace but wanted me out of the pot. Or he had an ace with a diamond and figured he could be hard with a redrew. Could have been a misread, but I thought I was ahead. I shoved and he called, and I figured right then I was all wrong and had just shoved into a made flush. Nope. King-Queen with the King of diamonds. No pair, diamond and gutshot draws. A 4.1 favorite.
This time I held up and pushed my night positive. I logged out seconds later, knowing I had gotten away with one.
not much time to play tonight, but I need to play a bit every day this week to quality for the Full Tilt Take 2 program, so I needed to squeeze in a half hour of Rush.
I had a plan - something I learned from CardRunners coach Verneer. When you're playing bad or your luck is bad or whatever - change your focus to play break even poker for awhile. Don't get tempted by the borderline stuff (like 4bet shoving AK like I did last night from under the gun). Don't outlevel yourself when you're three-bet. Play solid poker, make the solid +EV plays, and shoot for a break even night.
I'm pleased with the way I played overall. I waded into one hand with king-eight (a blind steal), and I probably should have folded to a turn bet even with top pair. That was my only play pushing my luck a bit. All my other lost hands were basic, solid, don't-outthink-things poker.
13 BB profit in 30 minutes. Mission accomplished.
I did it again. Last hand at a table that all the fish abandoned. Fucking Ace-King suited under the gun, and immediately three bet by the guy on my left, also in early position.
This guy is a high three-better. Over 6%. He terrorizes the blinds, but of course this wasn't the blinds. This was three betting an UTG raiser. Of course, he had already 3bet me once from early position, and I had folded. Was convinced he was targeting me and my 85% fold-to-3bet percentage (I'm sure he is, actually).
I just 4bet shoved. Lets me realize my full equity against jacks and queens because I get to see all 5 cards. It comes with a price - a near-guaranteed stacking vs. aces, and pretty close vs. kings. This time it was kings.
Last fucking hand. Had to be that one player, at that one table, with the monster. Couldn't be the other 5 nits with 1% 3bet percentages. Couldn't have dealt me the some cards in the bottom 97% of hands instead of the top 3. Set up perfectly to lose all my money.
Was happy with my session until the last 10 hands - I got into a dick measuring contest with someone who would NOT FOLD THEIR FUCKING BLINDS no matter what - we got stuck in a 4 bet pot and he shoved an ace turn and I had to fold (flush draw, too, damn).
Considering his stats, I liked my preflop 4bet. Then he did something ridiculous - he flatted the 4bet. What the hell hand is that appropriate? Aces or kings, I guess. We checked the flop, king high. When the turn brought and ace and gave me a flush draw, I decided I could bet that ace. He check-shoved and I had to fold. Oh well, he outplayed me, not much I can say there. I've marked him down and I'll get him later. A few 4bet shoves or calling his 3bet and gutshot shoves will do the trick against him in the future.
Lose that big one, and then get two more raises 3bet preflop, and I was down close to a buy-in, after clawing and scratching all night. Considering I had a grand total of one big hand postflop, and got kings and queens both cracked for pretty big pots, my session was pretty good. Biggest losing hands - KK, QQ, my 4bet bluff above (Q8s, lol), and an AKs that I made a nice solid river bluff that I'm sure should have worked overall but not this time. Dude couldn't let go of top pair 9. Ugh. Considering he was a 53/30, his range was weak enough to try it out.
A frustrating session tonight with great tables full of bad players but no cards. I bobbed around just enough to stay within a dozen blinds of even.
Then I moved to Rush for 30 minutes, hoping I could make it up there, when I got tangled in a high variance-big draw type hand that didn't work out for me. I don't mind the way I played the hand, but I stacked myself and my night doesn't look so hot now.
Oh well, it's all one long session, right?
There is money to be won in my weekly cash game - there are enough good players that you can make the occasional moves on, and mistake-prone players that will give you a ton of money if you can manage to hit a hand on them.
My move came against Mr. Pietzak - a stranger to our cash game for months now. A new job with increased travel has cut into his live poker schedule (the nerve of some people), but he joined us last night and started up where he left off - as the most aggressive preflop player in our game. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a maniac - but he's good enough to play a wide range of cards and he's not limping with many of them.
Our table gets more on the limpy-limperson side when he's not in the game, and some of the players didn't like having to pony up $4 or $5 to see flops with their 6-3 soooteds. (Others don't care about the price and pay it anyway).
Mr. Pietzak loves to steal my blinds because he knows I don't defend aggressively. I figure I can win my lost blind money back stealing myself or through straight fat value at this table. But my online days have taught me a trick or two, and occasionally I bust them out in the live game. On this night, I chose to 3bet to $11 preflop with the monster ace-deuce offsuit. This is a straight bluff, obviously, but the ace in my hand serves as a blocker to the big hands he's continuing with.
Mr. Pietzak calls my 3bet, not a happy result, and I have to pray to hit the board hard. Both good and bad news on the flop, in the form of an ace, to go with a 4 and a 9. Dry as hell, meaning almost no draws he can terrorize me with, but also nothing for him to be afraid of, either, if he's got an ace with a better kicker (and they're all better kickers). This means a check-shove will almost have to be called if he has an ace, so no bluffing ability there.
I'm not sure what to do next, to be honest. If I bet and he raises, I really can't continue, unless I can put him on a stone bluff. I can't checkraise myself unless I'm just hoping and praying he's on a stone bluff when he bets. And he's one of the few players in the game that I know is capable of a stone bluff, too.
Serious no-man's land. I decide to lead out- I have shown strength with a 3-bet (rare in my live play), and I will continue the strength now. If he raises I'll be in a serious pickle.
I make it $15. He thinks a long time and folds. I know he went over every possibility in his head, including if he could make me fold a hand as powerful as AK or AQ. In the end, he probably determined the board was too try - he just couldn't represent enough to make me fold top pair, good kicker, and laid down whatever he had.
On the other side of the coin, I held pocket queens in early position and raised it up to 5 big blinds. I can actually vary my bet size based on the strength of my hand in this game and certain players won't pay enough attention to notice. One of these players, the God-Love-Em CB said something very curious after my call. He said "you stole my bet", and then made the $5 call.
I have played with CB enough times to know that when he raises to $5, he does so with a good hand but one that is difficult to play postflop. In my mind, there are two hands that fit this bill - ace-king and pocket jacks. Life is pretty good when you feel like you can narrow your opponent's range down to 2 hands.
We see a heads-up, all low flop (something like nine high). I'm out of position, and I am no longer messing around with my bet sizes when I have big hands against weaker players. I bet $9 into a $11 pot. CB calls, and I'm pretty sure I'm ahead. He either has jacks or he has ace-king and he's looking for the runner-runner draw possibility (something he does routinely).
All is well until the turn hits the table like a rock - a jack. I'm about 65% sure that CB has just 2-outed me. There are $30 left in the stacks, and $30 in the pot. Any bet I make commits me to the pot. Is my read solid enough to check/fold, against this player that will call with so much less? I decide no - even if there's a 25% chance I'm wrong, it's enough to commit here. I bet, he shoves all in, and I call what I now know is the loser.
I don't hate the way I played the hand, even at the end. I kept betting my overpair hard and got two outed. Against this player, it was the correct play. Fortunately for me, I made the best decision of the evening - I reloaded the $60 right away.
In the same orbit, pocket kings. There's a limper this time, I make it $7 to go. The same player calls me. This time the flop is ten-three-three, and I'm not scared in the least. I bet $15 into $18 and he calls without a moment's hesitation. Turn is a queen and my foot's not coming off the gas pedal. $27 and he calls without a thought. I'm vaguely worried about ace-three now, but I'm not doing anything except shoving all in unless an ace hits the river. It doesn't. I bet my remaining $45 and the call is immediate. I'm 75% sure I've got the winner, and my opponent appears just as sure, which is odd. He has queen-ten for two pair. I've have two pair also, kings over threes. He checks the board and his card one more time to now realize that an overpair beats his two pair because of the threes on the board. It's the first time he has considered what cards I held in this hand. I have won back all my original money and am back to even.
I had to push an overpair like a bat outta hell to get there. The rest of the night goes well and I clear 125 big blinds profit.
Thank the poker gods for the paired board. If the bottom card isn't paired my kings are cracked by queen-ten, and I'm a salty guy today.
Not sure if you can read this guy's HUD, but I'll help you through it. I've got 547 hands on him. The third line tells me how the player deals with attempts to steal his blinds. The first number is the percentage of folds, the second his percentage of flatting, and the third the number of times he three bets. They add up to 100.
This guy folds his blinds to steals 97% of the time, and flats the other 3%.
I was quite happy to have this player on my left tonight.
I actually ended up with a slight losing session tonight (16 BB lost), but I was originally down nearly 175 big blinds. Someone flopped a set with 44 in a 3bet pot, I had AK on a dry board and went broke. Not problem there. Then I flopped a set against aces and he two-outed me. No problem there, either. Variance, it happens, that's poker, yadda yadda. But I came back.
I definitely don't squeeze enough. Most of it is looking for the right situations. I had a trivial one tonight, and I nearly missed it.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.10/$0.25 - 9 players
Button: $29.88
SB: $27.35 (Hero)
BB: $32.39
UTG: $23.81
UTG+1: $52.41
MP: $26.45
MP2: $25.99
HJ: $49.44
CO: $25.31
Preflop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with 
(9 players)
3 folds, MP2 raises to $0.75, 2 folds, Button calls $0.75,
I was all set to fold my crappy one gapper in the small blind, but for some reason I took a glance at the original raiser's stats, and one stat jumped out at me.
fold to 3bet: 90%.
Ninety percent! I looked it over again. I've got 1400 hands on him, so it's not a small sample fluke. I checked his opening raise percent - he was 13% from middle position, and he's folding everything to 3bets except the top 1.3% or so. That's JJ+, not even ace-king!
Then I checked out the cold caller. You don't want to squeenze 45/2 fish, they'll just cold call your squeeze and put you in a big hole. This guy was a 20/10 - on the fishy side, but looked like he knew how to fold.
The situation was perfect for a squeeze.
Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds
Hero won $2.50
(Rake: $0)
Just didn't really feel like playing. I felt timid, not mentally ready for the aggressive mindset you need to steal, resteal, bluff-raise and so-on.
I played 113 hands of Rush and won both of my showdowns, then shut-er-down. The wrong mindset is a fine way to lose a big pot or two.
You're not supposed to look at short term results in poker. Your winnings in one session, one week, one month - should be immaterial. We are taught to focus on the quality of our decisions, and if we make enough of them, we will win in the long run.
I'm horrible at applying this philosophy, of course. I check my results all the time, and often post them on the blog for all to see. I have tried hard to stop checking my results mid-session, because doing so can affect how you play. You might press if you're behind, or ease up on the gas when ahead.
I had peeked a couple times tonight, and was up half a buy-in. This information was in hand as I played one of my last hands of the night, right before my big blind came to me. Nine (and a half) times out of ten, I fold these last hands - I play something like a 5% range of hands in early position, and was ready to fold these next couple and close it down for the night, but the poker gods had other ideas.
Ace-king, both diamonds.
Big slick is a mandatory raise from any position, of course. I made my standard raise. The button called me - a fairly nitty, tricky player. He had three-bet one of my opening raises once before at this table - I folded ace-queen. His three-bet percentage was right on the edge of loose - about 4.6%, but quite a bit of that coming from the blinds. This time, he had flat called, though, and his nitty stats suggested the most likely candidate would be a pocket pair trying to flop a set. I had to be careful.
My heart sank just a bit when I saw the flop. Four of clubs, nine of hearts, eight of hearts. I had flopped just about the strongest hand possible without having a pair. I had two overcards and the nut flush draw. The correct way to play this hand is fast - all-in on the flop if necessary. I am a favorite vs. any pair right now (except aces or kings), and even have 25% equity vs. someone lucky enough to have flopped a set.
Trouble was, I wasn't in the mindset to play my draw fast - I was ready to take my half-buy-in win and shut it down.
Being first to act, I made my standard continuation bet. My opponent thought for a minute and raised it up - to 3 times the size.
Ugh. Did he hit his set on me? A distinct possibility, of course. But without seeing his cards, there were other possibilities as well. He could have pocket tens or jacks - still over this board, and a strong favorite vs. most unpaired overcards. Many players like to raise baby overpairs because they are easier to play this way. They chase away hands they're crushing, but they also don't have to worry about every overcard that falls and whether their opponent has just caught them or not. The raise is +EV - they are clearing out 25% equity that opponents with unpaired overcards has on them.
Many players will make the same raise with any pair, say pocket fives. They have a pair, and assume their opponent usually does not, let's just raise this cbet and take the pot down, as opposed to calling down and guessing.
Any other ace-king in my hand, this raise of course works perfectly. But this ace-king, whose suit matches the two on the board, was too strong to simply fold away.
I didn't want to do it, but I knew what the correct play was, and that was to shove my stack in. The classic semibluff - I fold out all his little pairs, and his bigger pairs are a dog against me with 15 outs. If he flopped any of the three sets, his correct play is to call as a 3:1 favorite, but I've got enough equity to crack him occasionally.
Vs. his entire range (all pairs), the shove is the correct play. I wasn't in the right mindset to do it - I didn't want to risk turning my half stack profit into a half stack loss, but I did it anyway. Poker is one long session, and you should strive to make the correct, most +EV play every time. This time, that was risking my entire stack.
I risked it. I shoved the rest of my virtual chips to the middle. My opponent folded his cards almost instantly, and I added 17 big blinds to my stack.
My last 2 hands were easy folds, and I shut it down with my half-buy-in profit intact. Maybe I'll work a bit harder at not peeking in the future.
This illustrated hand history made me literally laugh out loud. The baby pic cracks me up particularly.
Check it out here.
Best month ever. I moved up in stakes and won 10 buy-ins. I know much of this is simply running hot, but I also feel like I have sealed up some leaks and am really paying attention to opponent and table statistics. I am playing the best I have ever played on the cash side.
Let's see if we can keep it up in April.
