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Nothing to write home about, results-wise. 1.35 bb/100. A resounding "meh". - just over a one buy-in profit.
Looking to the positive, I was able to play 13,500 hands of NON-Rush this month because of my ability to increase to 4 tables. I briefly tried six, but wasn't quite comfortable there (though I almost never use the timebank, so using it will help me).
I also banked about 3 buy-ins of rakeback with my increased volume.
I clearly have work to do - ace-king was a disaster (well-documented here), and I misplayed a hand as early as tonight where I froze after hitting trips in a 4 way pot, which allowed someone to catch up and hit a two outer on the turn, then I didn't fold to his raise and river bet when I didn't beat anything. Luckily his raise and river bet were on the small side or I would have lost much more.
Not where I want to be yet.
I didn't feel much like writing about poker today.
Tons of stories to tell. My big tourney went nowhere - I got seated 2 seats to the left of a brutal calling station, and all manner of preflop bluffing was neutralized. I made one decent hand early blind vs. blind (flush vs. straight), but that was the only hand on note until shoving time.
My first shove all in was with 6 blinds and ace-queen, I was called by someone with only three blinds and 45. He won that hand, giving me 3 blinds. My last shove was ace-king, called by ace-two, with a 2 in the door, I was gone. It didn't phase or anger me - just another hand in the endless stream of hands. Everybody had played correctly - the 45 had too few blinds to fold, the A2 had too big a stack to fold against my puny raise. Everyone did what they were supposed to do- the poker gods gave us the outcome.
The coolers come, the bad beats, the suckouts, both for and against me. Maybe I've finally seen enough of them that they don't inspire me to write about their idiocy anymore. (not good news for this blog, but perhaps a sign of growth as a player).
The cash game after the tourney was pretty ridiculous from a card standpoint too. A maniac came to the table and gleefully raised every pot and smugly showed bluff upon bluff. I hit top pair top kicker on AQ, Q-high dry board, and checkraised him all in (riding a short 50 blind stack at the time). He hemmed and hawed for a bit and then flipped over pocket kings. I accused him of a little slow-rolling, which he didn't like much, but it seemed to slow down his showboating a bit. After he left, I got to deal with a drunk guy and the same calling station from the tourney - in every pot. I tried an 8x preflop raise with aces and they both called. By the turn, the board was 5s6s7s6c and the drunk bet over pot and the calling station called. I easily folded my 2 red aces on the super-dangerous board and felt good about it until one flipped over king-4 for a sucker side straight draw, and the other flipped over a naked 5 for one pair. Nobody had trips and nobody has a flush, or even a flush draw.
Again - ridiculous, but just another hand. Didn't bother me. I went home for the night down 30 blinds or so, unable to crack the fish on this night.
500 online hands tonight, down 60 blinds. No hands won or lost bigger than 20BB, so no major mistakes. I had a feeling my session would not go well by the 9th hand, when my top pair was up against a set. I ran out of the way with little damage, at least. I had a few chances to hit a big hand with a set of twos and two guys chasing same flush (with mine higher), but neither won me the big pot I needed.
A thousand poker stories to tell, but they didn't inspire me today.
Down 2.5 buy-ins - the big culprit was AK again, ran into aces and a fishy player who overbet the flop. It was a bizarre night - tons of preflop shoves and flop raises with garbage and I couldn't tell what was going on. Bad players all over-but I couldn't capitalize. I lost half a buy-in from a donkey who called my all-in with jack-ten offsuit when I had ace-king. Frustrating. My kings got cracked by ace-ten, too, AFTER I hit a set of kings on the flop. But I kept watching people on my tables play 80% of their hands and inevitably give their money away on a silver platter - just never to me.
My only winning hand of any import was a suckout too. Maybe a tilt call, maybe not - I was looking hard at this guy's stats and felt like he was pushing me around. He was tight/aggressive but his 3bet percentage was up in the 7.0% is - range. (maybe the sample size was too small). Anyway, I got all my money in as a big dog as sucked out on him. Skill not required. So I played fine and lost, and played bad and won. Why do I have a wall of poker books I have in my bookshelf downstairs again?
My month is back to a big fat Meh for stats. I am down over 2 bb/100 on ace-king alone - it is my worst starting hand of the month. How do you fuck up ace-king? 3 bet with it, get it all in when you hit a pair. If you miss, cbet. Heaven help my bankroll if I ever start winning with this top 5% hand.
Well, fuck it, gotta put it all behind me. Tomorrow night is the neighborhood monthly tourney, and we're going double buy-in for $100. 45-50 players means a big prize pool, and I'm not screwing it up. If the poker gods want jack-four to crack my aces like last time, fine - but I won't be knocking myself out.
Live 1 table tourney last night, player C raises the pot from early position and takes the blinds with no action. She reveals her hand, pocket aces. "You should have limped!" someone tells her. "Oh, no, I never limp with aces" she replies.
Interesting.
Some time later, she limps. I am sitting to her left, next to act, and I have Ace-King. I raise on the larger size, enough to commit her (I'm happy to go with my hand vs. anyone else at the table too). Everyone folds, as does player C.
Next orbit, everyone folds to C in the small blind, she limps into my big blind. She's got about 6 or 7 blinds left, and she knows the push/fold game (she has pushed already).
Any chance she's got a big hand here?
I say no. I shove. She folds.
My cards? 46 offsuit.
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
MP: $3.01
MP2: $11.93
HJ: $8.64
CO: $6.80
Button: $10.00 (Hero)
SB: $10.15
BB: $10.00
UTG: $9.65
UTG+1: $16.41
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is Button with 
(9 players)
2 folds, MP2 calls $0.10, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.45, 2 folds, MP2 calls $0.35
MP2 is a 13/9, average aggression. I punish the limper, this time with a real value hand for a change.
Flop: ($1.05) 
(3 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $0.50, MP2 calls $0.50
This limp/call, with those stats, can only mean two things. Either he has a set, or he has a weak overpair right now and doesn't believe my cbet. 13/9s don't play many suited connectors, they sure as hell aren't playing 35. This guy has pocket 2s, 4s, or 6s for a set, or 77-99, I am pretty damn sure sure. I am also surely going to check the next street for pot control and fold to a big bet on the river (but maybe call a small bet, depending on how bluffy I think he might be)...
Turn: ($2.05) 
(3 players)
MP2 checks, Hero bets $1.20, MP2 raises to $4.50,
...until I hit my queen, of course. It's a spade, just to give me something to think about, but I decide to trust the HUD stats. 13/9s that limp/call a raise are setminers, not sooooted-connector guys, and I have just set-over-setted him. His checkraise tells me unequivocally now that I am up against a smaller set as opposed to 77-99. Since I'm ruling out the made flush, I am going with the hand - now I just have to decide if I want to shove it in now or wait a street. The three spades are a concern, but if my read is right -there's less than a 1/3 chance he even has a spade in his hand. If he has pocket 2s or 4s, then he can't have a spade (it's on the board, ldo), and therefore can't suck out with a silly 1 card flush on the river. And if he has pocket 6s, then there's a 1/3 chance he doesn't have the spade, also.
I can't do this math in my head - I just realize there's very little chance of him having a spade (it turns out it's about 22%), and there's only an 18% chance of it coming on the river anyway, so I'm officially not worrying about my set being beaten by a flush (it would end up happening just 4% of the time). This allows me to make an interesting choice - if I just call this bet, there, will be $11.05 in the pot, and he'll only have $6.48 left. He will be in desperation shoving mode most of the time. If I shove over his bet now, there's a tiny-tiny chance that he folds by putting me on a flush. There are benefits and drawbacks to each (if a fourth spade does come on the river, he may lose his desire to put his last money in).
The correct choice is usually to get it in before the scare card comes, but I feel that it's probably close. I decide to flat and provide maximum stack pressure on the river, and hope for a blank.
Hero calls $3.30
River: ($11.05) 
(3 players)
MP2 bets $6.48, and is all in, Hero calls $4.55, and is all in
I get my blank and all goes as expected. I call and wait to see if my analysis was correct.
MP2 showed 
, and lost with three of a kind, Fours
Hero showed , and won ($18.81) with three of a kind, Queens
Hero won $18.81
(Rake: $1.34)
I obviously felt pretty good about myself after this one. I could have felt just as stupid when he turns over 3s5s and I'm crushed from the flop forward, or As3s to crack me on the turn, but my HUD stats didn't betray me this time. I read him as setminer and was correct. It allowed me to lose the minimum when I was behind, and then win the maximum when I re-sucked-out on him.
I offered to write a "Concept of the Week" article on the 2+2 Micro Full Ring poker forum, and my article was accepted. That article was posted today - check it out here.
I spend an enormous amount of time on 2+2 - an amazing resource. (I'm sure I'm not saying anything new to people that read this blog).
Oh, I paid for one one-out suckout in my evening session...
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
CO: $8.07
Button: $19.07
SB: $7.33
BB: $14.91
UTG: $13.69
UTG+1: $10.00
MP: $6.80
MP2: $10.00 (Hero)
HJ: $15.14
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is MP2 with 
(9 players)
2 folds, MP calls $0.10, Hero raises to $0.45, 2 folds, Button calls $0.45, 2 folds, MP raises to $1.95, Hero raises to $10, and is all in, Button folds, MP calls $4.85, and is all in
MP was a 58/17 spazz who was just clicking buttons, then berating people in chat. I was more than happy to get all in with this guy with big slick - even more happy when I saw the hand he chose to go to war with.
Hero shows MP shows 
Flop: ($14.20) 
(2 players)
Turn: ($14.20) (2 players)
River: ($14.20) 
(2 players)
MP showed , and won ($13.26) with three of a kind, Twos
Hero showed , and lost with a pair of Twos
MP won $13.26
(Rake: $0.94)
Villain proceeds to primp around and tell the table how good he is. I wait for my payback.
Feral Cow Poker Hand Converter
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players
BB: $8.40
UTG: $17.69
UTG+1: $10.00
MP: $4.70
MP2: $8.29
HJ: $11.19
CO: $27.59
Button: $13.03 (Hero)
SB: $10.00
Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is Button with 
(9 players)
3 folds, MP2 calls $0.10, HJ folds, CO calls $0.10, Hero raises to $0.75, 2 folds, MP2 raises to $2.10, CO calls $2, Hero raises to $13.03, and is all in, MP2 calls $6.19, and is all in, CO calls $10.93
Flop: ($34.50) 
(3 players)
Turn: ($34.50) 
(3 players)
River: ($34.50) 
(3 players)
MP2 showed , and lost with a pair of Queens
CO showed 
, and won ($32.50) with a flush, Ace high
Hero showed , and lost with three of a kind, Aces
CO won $32.50
(Rake: $2)
No revenge for me tonight. I also got all in with trips and a flush draw vs a made full house (was dominating preflop again - AJ vs. JT), and top 2 vs. bottom set. Lots o coolers and bad beats for me to whack me out of 3 buy-ins. What was that I was talking about in my earlier post?
Oh yeah - "sheer ridiculousness".
I was following a poker blog a few years ago where someone said he was quitting the game - he said he simply could no longer take "the sheer ridiculousness of it all". He stayed true to his word - that was the last post on his blog for months, until I finally deleted it from my reader.
Today was one of those types of sessions for me - a dual table Rush session to squeeze in a quick 1000 hands before football takes up the rest of my day. I couldn't win a hand to save my life. Rush poker has become a three-bet haven - it's barely worth even trying to steal blinds anymore (unless you're ready to start 4bet bluffing). I was dealt the hard-to-pay ace-queen about 100 times. Ace-king whiffed every single flop. Pocket kings was up against pocket aces for I believe the 6th time this month (though I avoided stacking myself again).
Every hand won was met by an equally large or larger hand lost, usually within seconds. I knew I was losing and there was nothing I could do about it.
Redemption doesn't always come: today it came in the form of one of those sheer ridiculous hands my fellow blogger got hit with right before he quit poker. A 5/5 raised from under the gun. Smelled like aces. I called with pocket twos in the small blind - implied odds galore if I hit my set on someone so tight. And then I did - a 258 rainbow flop - meaning his aces, kings, queens and even jacks had little to fear from me. I checked. The big blind (who also called preflop) donked out into the preflop raiser, who flat called. I popped it up. the big blind flat called this popup (uh-oh #1), then the original raiser minraised my raise (uh-oh #2). Well, sorry, I'm not folding a set for 100 big blinds, alarms might be sounding, warning bells, foghorns - too bad. This ain't Omaha, it's Texas Holdem, and a set on a dry board is a monster. I stuck my stack in. Big blind got the message and folded, and UTG called and revealed his pocket eights for set over set.
This was to be my last hand of the session - when you lose a bunch of small pots, then hit kings to aces (pretty sure at least), and then get set-over-set - the poker gods have told you all they need to.
The 2 on the river, giving me my one-out winner - was not met with excitement or triumph. Just another head-shaker in a game that never fails to make you question it - the sheer ridiculousness of it - over and over.
I left the tables up 20 big blinds, a positive session redeemed by the last deuce in the deck.
2 sessions on an ice cold Saturday made for a 78BB profit. One suck-out prevented the night from being spectacular (the old 71%-VPIPer hitting trips on my kings, sigh).
I think I made one call out of 1600 hands that I wasn't happy with. Otherwise, I'm very pleased with my play right now.
Looks like the doomswitch is off - 3 positive sessions in a row, and I have erased my awful week and I'm back to the positive for the month (+1.5 buy-in, I'll take it, after losing 11 buy-ins in one week. EVIL).
I have also added tables slowly this week to find out my limits. 4 is definitely playable. I tried 6 briefly tonight - I think I could do it - I need some help with some default bets. (I like to fire .13 into a heads up limped, .20 pot, or .28 into a 3 way limped .30 pot. If I can configure those amounts to a shortcut key via TableNinja, we'll be in business.
Poker is more fun when you're winning. I can take losing big hands - I lost a 3 way all-in vs. A2 and 33 tonight (they BOTH caught me, lol) for 60 BB, but I was playing well and making good decisions and taking advantage of bad players and I was able to overcome one sucky hand, which will always happen. Playing 800 hands in one night helps spread out the pain, too. (much harder to recover a big loss in 200 hands).
Actually, I probably play this entire hand badly on every postflop street. But I bail myself out with some quick thinking on the river.
Feral Cow Poker
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 7 players
SB: $7.38
BB: $10.23
UTG: $4.15
UTG+1: $3.90
HJ: $11.94 (Hero)
CO: $8.15
Button: $29.54
Preflop: ($0.10) Hero is HJ with (7 players)
BB folds, UTG calls $0.10, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $0.50, 3 folds, UTG calls $0.40
So I punish the limper with AQ. Villain is a 40/3 after 30 hands.
Flop: ($1.10) 
(2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks
Working on not cbetting 100% of the time. This was probably a good board to do it, but villain's aggression factor is under 1.0, meaning he's much more likely to call (though this bet might still be a value bet if I think villain is so bad that he calls with unpaired overs).
Turn: ($1.10) 
(2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.70, UTG calls $0.70
Ok, once villain checks to me twice, I'm going to bet. The flush card is not pretty, and gives him plenty more hands that will call a bet and make this bet not work by itself. My plan is to fire again on a non-heart river.
River: ($2.50) (2 players)
UTG bets $0.80,
Well, that's not the card I wanted to see. It gives me a pair, but many of the hands villain called the turn bet with are now flushes and better than my pair. When villain bets so small into this pot, I start to type "small heart?", and my plan is to call the bet getting 4:1 odds (is there a 20% chance he has no heart and my ace is good? I think so). But when I hit the enter key, my keyboard mapping software puts in a raise in addition to entering my text in the chat!
Hero raises to $2.90,
What a disaster! I've turned a weak showdown hand into a bluff that has a high likelihood of being called. Fishy villains don't like to fold flushes, even if they are ten-high. That's why you bet big or shove when you hit a big flush against them!
The villain begins to tank. Quickly, I check over the situation. I have just asked the villain "small heart? in chat. Maybe there's a way to change the meaning of that message. I add the following extra message.
"mine's bigger".
UTG foldsHero won $3.83
(Rake: $0.27)
It works! I turn my top pair into a wicked bluff raise and get him to fold what might have been the better hand (though there's a chance he had a weak ace also that I would have won at showdown).
