Lake Conjola

So I just got back from a week down at Pete’s beach house in Lake Conjola. It was a pretty chilled week and we pretty much just lazed around playing poker, PlayStation, table tennis and cricket, watched some TV, went swimming and kayaking in the lake, and of course ate, drank and slept lots.

Here's a token picture of Pete and me on the lake.


We didn’t think we’d have internet access initially but being the poker addicts that we are Fraser and I immediately went down to the Telstra shop to buy a $150 wireless connection (not including credit) when we arrived (while the others did the grocery shopping). I played the Full Tilt majors on Monday (no Stars majors as I used all my money to buy the PCA package) and was going really, really well in about three of them but only ended up cashing in the 750K (in 165th out of 3485). I also came 7th in a 100 person two seat satellite to the Aussie Millions on Cake Poker, busting out in ugly fashion with AA v AJs.

Fortunately my luck took a turn for the better later in the week when I cashed in 5th in the 65K on FTP for $5.9K, my biggest online score to date. I wonder how much of it came down to the fact I was only one-tabling the entire time and thus could concentrate better (I had woken up at 11:45AM which meant that the 65K was the only tournament left with a 10K+ first place prize and so it was the only tournament I ended up playing). I have however found that concentrating and taking notes in tournaments is fairly fruitless and annoying. You either

a) watch a hand intently only to find that it doesn’t go to showdown,
b) note down a bad player only to see him bust the remaining 30% of his stack before you even play a pot with him,
c) make a nice postflop read only to never get involved in a similar situation again anyway (probably because stacks are now so shallow that postflop becomes non-existent), or
d) (and this one really gets my goat) the table breaks!

It’s funny how much things can change in a couple of weeks though. Towards the end of last month I was on a downswing and everything seemed to be going wrong. I had 36K online and planned to spend 13K on the PCA package, meaning that with 23K or so left I’d probably have to return to playing some 2/4 again.

At that point I set myself a few sequential goals.

a) Win 7K, so that I could have 30K after buying the PCA package
b) Win 17K, so that I could have 40K after buying the package
c) Win 40K, so that I could have made 100K for the year
d) Win 47K, so that I could have 70K online after buying the package and say goodbye to 3/6 in 2009

The first two were realistic, the latter two were pretty ridiculous. Somehow though, I’ve pretty much managed to achieve them all (with a few qualifications). First, with my 46K AUD score in the APPT Sydney event I’m now safely over the 100K USD mark for the year. I’ve also won 27K online (19K in cash and 8K in tournaments) and now have 50K online after buying the PCA package and none of that is due to depositing my APPT score online (I decided to keep it all offline and just invest it basically). While not quite 70K, I’m definitely happy with it as it’s certainly a lot better than 23K and it allows me to continue playing 3/6 and 5/10 comfortably.

The only ‘drawback’ to all this is that when I said I wanted to make 100K for the year I really meant 100K in cash games as I really wanted to have a 100K graph. Due to playing a lot of tournaments and less than 25 hours of cash this month my graph is sitting at 77K and I really don’t think I can get there. I could lock myself in a room and grind for these last 10 days of the year and maybe get there if I run well, but really I want to spend this time of the year just relaxing and chilling and taking stock of what I’ve achieved this year. I don’t want to be stressed chasing this goal and I certainly don’t want to be in a bad mood at Christmas and New Years if I fail or run bad. So I don’t think I’m going to make a push for it. I think I’ll just try to make 3K more to get it to 80K for the year and call it a day (or year, you know what I mean :)).

In my next and last post for the year I think I’ll do a review of the entire year. Till then, Merry Christmas!

APPT Sydney $2200 6-Max NLHE Tournament, Part 2

So I returned the day after and we got moved to the feature area for the final table. Blind levels were now 60 minutes and the blinds were rolled back from 4000/8000 to 2000/4000 after Tony Hachem vehemently argued that it would be a crapshoot otherwise.

So obviously a few minutes in, in an effort to ensure that stacks remained relatively deep, he opened the button 5.5x to 22K.

Right.

Sam Youssef (old dude, high stakes player apparently) woke up with QQ in the big blind and shoved for 150K total and Tony called with AQs. The queens held up and Tony busted soon after (he only had 10K after the hand).

Sam also busted the fourth place finisher (Henrik from Norway, and here’s a shout out to you because I know you stalked my blog the night before and are reading this! lol) with QQ v A9 and I busted the third place finisher (Tom Rafferty, who final tabled the Main Event) with top set on KTx v QTo.

When it got down to heads-up I had a chip advantage over Sam but nothing too major. My plan for HU was to play a lot of small pots and to grind him away. I felt I had a huge edge both postflop and in heads-up in general so I really didn’t want to play unnecessarily big pots. This was probably best typified by a hand where he raised the button and I defended red sevens. The flop came 623 all clubs and I led out in an attempt to take it down before the gazillion bad cards came on the turn. He instantly raised my 20K bet to 70K and I was almost certain he had two overs with a club. He’s a slight favourite but with the amount of money in the pot I wouldn’t be too wrong to just jam and race for the win. But I decided to let it go and move on.

I didn’t 3-bet or 4-bet for the entire first hour of the match and continued to try to play small pots. To be fair I didn’t really have any hands to 3-bet for value at all. The closest I got to 3-betting was with TT which in the end I declined to do since it’s no fun 3-betting TT if your opponent is going to put you on QQ+. Good if you have air, but not if you have TT…

We only played a handful of medium pots (I’d classify a big pot as one where a bet went in on every postflop street and I don’t think we played any of those) and I usually got the better of him in them. In one hand I defended 64s from the big blind and check-raised a 66J flop. When he called and the turn came an ace I decided to go for a check-raise. At the time I thought this was definitely the best line since I put him on a jack or a floated ace high. I thought he’d be scared off the jack if I bet while he’d bet the ace anyway. In hindsight I think the guy is enough of a calling station that I should just bet turn, bet river. Anyway he checked back the turn and the river brought a queen for a final board of 66JAQ. I bet 65K and he called with QJ because ‘once the queen came he couldn’t get away from it’. Yes, three pair is awesome. I’m pretty sure if the queen doesn’t come I only get one more bet out of him so in that sense my line is probably pretty neutral compared to betting the turn. But since the queen did come I really wish I bet turn and shoved river since apparently he couldn’t get away from it. Oh well.

Eventually I had about 550K while he had 350K when the key hand came up. Blinds were 4000/8000 and I opened with black jacks from the small blind to 20000. He instantly re-popped to 70000. He had done this about twice before and I had folded both times, once with air and once with QK. Anyway I obviously shove and he SNAPS me off for 280K more. I wince as I figure that I must be beat, given that I hadn’t 3-bet or 4-bet the entire match and now that I do I’m snapped off in a heartbeat. I roll over my jacks and he rolls over…98c.

What.

The flop comes 932, the turn brings a 9, the river pairs the 3. Sammy boy shouts ‘YES, YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN SAMMY!’

I count my chips.

200K left.

Still good to go.

Two hands later I open shove 44 and he reluctantly folds T8o and the hand after that he opens to 20K and I look down at A6. I think this is pretty close but I ended up jamming for 200K. With 250K I don’t think I can shove but with 200K I can chip up by 10% if I take down the blinds. Against a better HU player I think this is a snap-shove but against this particular player I think it’s a lot closer than it looks. Anyway he called with AT and I hit a 6 on the flop and rivered the nut flush.

400K v 500K.

Come on!

A few hands later he opens 2.5x again and I defend K7c in the big blind. The flop comes down KQ6 with one club and I check/call. The turn brings a blank 4 and after I check he immediately pulls out a stack of 5K’s for a total bet of 100K into the exactly 100K pot. At this point I don’t think I can check/call and evaluate/fold river since the pot will be 300K and I’ll have 270K left. So it was either check/call turn and call any river or fold now or shove now. I felt that his range was any king, JT, J9, AJ and AT, and perhaps random air. He definitely checked behind a queen. Part of me really wanted to avoid this big pot and keep chipping away; I had after all only committed 10% of my stack. But the other part of me couldn’t see how I could continue chipping away if I planned on folding top pair all the time. So I decided to go with the hand and shoved the rest in. He snapped with AK and I bricked the river.

Awesome.

APPT Sydney $2200 6-Max NLHE Tournament, Part 1

Well my ‘MTT December’ got off to a good start. I played the APPT Sydney $2200 6-Handed Event yesterday and today and finished 2nd for a score of $45,600, or about $30K USD. The field was pretty small with only 113 people fronting up the buy-in. We got 8K starting stacks with 40 minute levels and blinds starting at 25/50.

At my first table I had Grant Levy (last year’s APPT Sydney Main Event Champion) on my left and Matt Kirk (saw him playing 50/100 PLO so I assume he’s decent) opposite me. Between them was some middle-aged dude whom they both seemed to know pretty well, on my right was a young Asian guy decked in headphones and all, and two to my right was an empty seat.

I tried to play as many hands as I could while the stacks were deep but unfortunately I didn’t get off to a great start and was down to 6800 when the following hand came up. Five handed Matt raised UTG to 150 and I 3-bet on the button to 475 with QQ. The blinds folded, Matt called and the flop came KxQh4h. Sweet! Matt check-called my half-pot bet on the flop, my half-pot bet on the offsuit 7 turn and then my full pot all-in bet on the 3 river with K3h. A nice double-up for me.

A little while later I opened ATo from the cutoff and Grant called on the button. We took the flop heads-up and it came TT2dd. I bet 200 into 375 and he quickly called. The turn blanked and I considered my options. My normal line here definitely is to bet, bet, bet or if permissible bet, bet, shove and hope to get called by a worse ten or a pocket pair. But I’d seen Grant’s final table on TV and distinctly remembered that he loved to bluff. So I decided to go for a c/c turn, c/r river line. The river brought a Jack which wasn’t the best river but I still went ahead and check-raised the river to 4100 and he folded.

An orbit or two later with the blinds at 50/100 I opened QJo from the cutoff, Grant called again on the button and Matt called from the big blind. The flop came Q77r and I bet about 500 when it was checked to me. Grant folded and Matt shipped all-in or 2100 more. I called and held against his 55.

At this point I was going really well and had built my stack up to 22-23K. I then opened Kings from the cutoff and the middle-aged guy called in the small blind. The flop came J42ss and he led into me for about half pot. I raised 3x and he instant shoved and I instant called. He had A3s for a huge draw and got there to win the 18K pot. I fell back down to 12K.

By this point a new player had been sitting in the previously empty seat for about three orbits and he hadn’t yet played a hand. He finally opened in MP and I looked down at Queens again on the button. I 3-bet to about 1000 and he 4-bet back. Ugh. I didn’t particularly like it but shipped it in anyway and found myself racing against AK for a 16K pot. This time I held and was back to 20K.

I got moved to a new table with DelaneyKid to my right and MonsterDong two my right. The other three players were middle-aged and seemed fairly tight, though the player two to my left seemed to splash around a bit more preflop (let’s call him ‘X’) and was a bit of a calling station postflop. I watched DelaneyKid raise from the small blind and then fire three barrels on a board that read something like A4624 (with a flush completing on the river). X called all the way down with just AT but fortunately for him it was good enough to best DelaneyKid’s A8. I have no idea if DelaneyKid was bluffing or value-betting…

But anyway that set the scene for my hand against X. DelaneyKid opened, I flatted with 67d and X called from the big. The flop came Kx8d5d and it was checked to me. I bet, X called and DK folded. The turn bricked and I had no choice but to check behind. The river bricked as well and X checked and I instantly went on tilt since whenever you flop a straight-flush draw you should automatically win in my opinion. I considered firing in case he missed diamonds but checked behind and he showed KJo.

I wasn’t getting too many hands so I had to do a couple of 3-bet bluffs to maintain my chipstack. Eventually I picked up JJ on the button five handed and shipped 17K in after MonsterDong raised and the next player re-raised (DelaneyKid had since been knocked out). When both players called (the second player all-in for less than me) I knew I was in trouble and my fears were confirmed when MD showed AA and the other player showed AKs. Fortunately the board ran QJ99x and I zoomed back up to 45K.

With 25 people left, I then got moved to a new table again and found myself five handed at a much better table. To my right was a middle-aged guy who kept folding his small blind when it was folded to him and saying ‘nice and easy eh?’ to me when he did so. I constantly agreed. Two to his right was the tournament chipleader with a stack of about 180K (average was only 45ish – to put this into perspective second place going into the final table had 160K). To my left was an old guy who definitely was one of the softest players left in the field and two to my left was a Norwegian with a shortstack.

I didn’t actually do anything of note at this table until we broke down to 18 people and Emad Tahtou was moved to my direct left. I was down to about 33K by this point but then went on a bit of a tear. I shoved AK from the small blind after one player limped in and 3-bet shoved AQs the very next hand after the cutoff raised. The next hand I picked up AJs in the cutoff with a stack of 44K and opened to 5000. The Norwegian in the big blind (who had now amassed a stack of over 70K somehow) then 3-bet me to 10000. I had a pretty tough decision at this point. Calling and folding both seemed acceptable while jamming was either super awesome or donkey terrible. I decided that there was a good chance he thought I was going nuts trying to steal the blinds and eventually decided to 4-bet jam for 44K total. He mucked after a few seconds claiming to have folded JJ. I don’t believe him but if he did then that was a really lucky break for me.

About one orbit later I thought my image was REALLY going to pay off when I picked up AA UTG. I raised to 5K and quietly fist-pumped when Morten (the Norwegian) 3-bet to 12K. I jammed when it was folded back to me and he called and flipped over AA too (with the Ace of diamonds). There were laughs all around. That is, until the flop came a freakin’ Kd Qd Jd…!!! I’ve never hoped for a split pot so much in my life and fortunately I was able to fade his freeroll.

My next key hand I defended A7s in the big blind versus a button open from the chipleader. The flop came Js7x3s (might’ve been 2s or 4s instead of 3s), giving me middle pair-top kicker and the nut flush draw. I decided to donk out and hope he raised so that I could get it all-in right away on the flop (and with some fold equity to boot). Most importantly I didn’t want to check-raise and then face a tough decision on a blank turn if I got called. So I led out for 7K into the 13K pot, he raised to 22K, I jammed for 65K total and he folded. Ship!

I then did a couple of live misclicks which cost me a bunch. In the first I raised QJc from the button and got called by the old guy in the big blind. The flop came 696cc and I decided to bet 8500 into the 13000 pot. Unfortunately I said 850 and had to bet just 2000. The turn paired the 9 and my opponent instant jammed. I smacked my face repeatedly and folded and he flipped over his AQ for two pair with the nut kicker. That’s tops champ.

As for my other misclick, I’m going to preface it with a bit of a gripe. I know it’s ultimately my fault but I’m going to gripe anyway. When you’re playing live the dealer will always say ‘X dollars to call’ when the action is on you. For this particular hour we had an obviously amateur dealer (he couldn’t count chips or organise antes at all) and in this particular hand instead of saying ‘3000 to call’ he simply pointed to me and said ‘3000’. Now usually when someone points at me and says a number like this without the addendum ‘to call’ it usually means I’ve forgotten to post a blind. So I put in my 3000 and it turns out that I’ve just limped in UTG without looking at my cards. Great.

Eventually the bubble burst with 12 left and seats were redrawn for each table. By complete chance the only change to our table arrangement was that I had swapped seats with Emad so that I was now on his left. Having won a huge pot with top set versus the chipleader’s aces he was probably close to tournament chipleader at this stage. It was a bit of an all-in fest at this point and I had mixed results. I lost TT v AK, split AK v A9, split A3d v K5s, won 88 v K6 and won JJ v K7. Overall I chipped up nicely though and found myself three handed with about 120K with a shortstack to my left and Emad to my right (who had about 200K). The other table had four players and with one more elimination we would be breaking for the night and coming back the day after for the final table.

The way the seats were arranged on my table, a pretty fortunate dynamic developed. When Emad was on the button, he couldn’t really afford to open light since he was at risk of getting shoved on by the shortstack at any time. This meant that he had to fold more buttons than he would like and it was therefore often up to me to decide whether to put the shortstack all-in. When I realised this, I quickly deduced that I didn’t actually want to eliminate the shortstack at all! Whenever I had the button I could raise Emad’s big blind and have position on him. Similarly when I was in the big blind Emad was in the small and again I’d have position on him. Essentially what this meant was that I could play heads-up poker against Emad alone until the bubble burst, except with the slight modification that I had position on him every time. Awesome! So I tried to grind away and pretty much raised every button that I could and 3-bet Emad all-in a couple of times as well when he opened himself. Whenever I picked up a hand (of which I definitely picked up way more than my fair share) I showed it in an effort to maintain some respect and overall my plan was running really smoothly.

We only really played one postflop pot and I ran my only bluff of the tournament in it. With 125K effective stacks Emad raised to 13K from the small and I called 9 more from the big with Q4c. A little loose but whatever. The flop came J93dd and he checked to me. Now in online 6-max cash games this is pretty much an open license to steal the pot since no one checks a strong hand on this flop and a lot of preflop raisers will check/fold hands like AK on this flop since it hits my range so hard. So I bet about half the pot and was really surprised to get called. No matter though, for I hit gin on the turn when the Ad fell and I fired 31K when he checked. He never has a flush here so I was prepared to fire 70K all-in on the river too if it bricked (in case he peeled the turn with a pair and a diamond) but fortunately he folded, albeit in a rather pissed off manner.

Anyway eventually I had Emad down to about 70K when the final hand occurred. The shortstack shoved all in with 65o for about 35K, Emad reshipped with KJo for about 70K, and I called with 99. My nines held up and suddenly I was chipleader going into the final table of five with a chipstack of 395,500. Second place had 161,000 and fifth had 91,000. I was guaranteed a payday of $17,000. Sweet!

An Interesting Hand

Well I didn’t actually end up playing any tournaments today becomes I somehow managed to sleep in till 5:30PM and plain miss them all! In the end it was probably a good thing though because I managed to have a +$5000 day in the cash games which was definitely nice and a much-needed bankroll boost.

I thought that for my next few blogs I might go through some of the more interesting hands that I’ve played in recent times. I’m going to particularly focus on hands that involve interesting turn and/or river spots because these are the spots that I have really been trying to improve my play in recently. Just about every decent player from 50NL upwards knows how to play preflop and on the flop to a decent standard, but it’s playing the turn and river well that really sets the midstakes winners apart from the small stakes winners/midstakes wannabes.

Naturally, there will be a selection bias in these hands as they will probably involve me making some sick play and winning a pot, but hey, we don’t want a boring blog entry do we now!?

The hand that I’d like to share for today is in my opinion pretty damn cool and as soon as it happened I thought “wow, here’s one for the blog!” Here’s the hand in full.

Party Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $1,164
SB: $725.05
BB: $600
UTG: $1,100.50
MP: $624
Hero (CO): $689

Pre-Flop: Q 9 dealt to Hero (CO)

2 folds, Hero raises to $21, BTN folds, SB calls $18, BB folds

Flop: ($48) Q 6 2 (2 Players)

SB checks, Hero bets $37, SB calls $37

Turn: ($122) 6 (2 Players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($122) A (2 Players)

SB checks, Hero bets $150, SB raises to $667.05 and is All-In, Hero calls $481 and is All-In

Results: $1,384 Pot
SB showed T T and WON $36.05 (-$652.95 NET)
Hero showed Q 9 and WON $1,381 (+$692 NET)

The hand is pretty standard up till the river so I’ll begin my analysis there. Just briefly in regards to the turn though, it’s a spot where I rarely pot control but with a hand that was definitely only worth two streets of value I decided to check back and look to bet the river.

When we got to the river and my opponent (a regular) checked I decided to try to bluff my opponent off a split. There was a small chance he held AQ or Ax of hearts in which case my bluff would horribly fail but I decided that he would most likely check-raise that sort of hand on the flop anyway. Since I beat the other part of his range (weak one pair hands like 78s or 88-JJ), I thought that an overbet bluff was worth my while and was essentially a freeroll at winning the pot. I definitely would do this with any AK type hand which, importantly, was completely consistent with the line that I’d taken so far so I thought that there was a good chance that this ‘bluff’ would work.

I then got the shock of my life when he check-raised all-in and indeed I typed into the chat a disbelieving ‘what lol’. I immediately ruled out Ax of hearts since that hand would merely check-call this river. My opponent was essentially representing a set or trip sixes and there’s one really nifty rule of thumb that I’ve learnt for these situations.

When your opponent check-raises the river after the turn checks through, it doesn’t make much sense since he can’t rely on you betting the river. With a hand worthy of check-raising the river he would thus probably lead in an attempt to get paid off.

So I decided to call and luckily for me my opponent had turned his tens into a bluff. The irony is that I think he played his hand almost perfectly, and I probably would have played it the same way. Let’s consider the hand from his perspective.

Preflop he decided to flat his tens which is definitely fine by me and something I’ve been doing more of. You can’t really 3-bet/fold tens but the fact is that if you get in tens preflop against a regular you’re rarely in good shape and most regular’s aren’t going to be 4-bet bluffing enough in my spot to make your 5-bet shoves with tens super profitable. Thus, for any competent postflop player, seeing a flop with tens is often a more profitable line than auto-getting it in preflop and it certainly can reduce your variance.

When the flop comes down you actually have a few options with tens. The first option is to lead out and simply hope your opponent folds. This is a pretty poor option for obvious reasons. You never win another cent from the pot since all you’re doing is taking down what’s there and if called or raised you’re shutting down which is not too cool and rather exploitable. The other option which I’ve been using a lot is to check-raise. Although you’re rarely going to be called by worse, it does make the hand easier to play on later streets since you can happily shutdown if called and it stops something like AK hitting their 6 outer on later streets. It’s also particularly good on a drawy flop like this since you can also turn your hand into a bluff if the flush completes on the turn, giving you some more options to win the pot. The most standard play however is definitely to check-call the flop probably with the intention of check-folding the turn or river and this is what my opponent did here.

The turn is pretty much a blank and nothing much needs to be said of the turn check. The river though is an interesting spot and this is where the mind games begin. I know that my opponent probably doesn’t like the ace. My opponent knows this and knows that I’ll therefore be bluffing the ace with a decent frequency. The problem for my opponent though is that he doesn’t know my exact frequencies and he is reduced to playing a guessing game. If he guesses wrong, he’ll be losing money in the long run. So what’s the solution to this problem for my opponent? Why, raise!

To see why this is so, let’s say I’m bluffing in this spot 1/3 of the time and value-betting it with an ace 2/3’s of the time. If I had bet the pot, my opponent would have a break-even call. Since I bet even more than the pot, I need to be bluffing even more than 1/3 of the third time for my opponent to make a break-even call. But who said anything about calling? Regardless of my frequencies, a raise from my opponent can/should/often will win the pot regardless of whether I’m bluffing or value-betting. If I’m bluffing, I obviously have to fold to the raise. More importantly, even if I’m value-betting, I still ‘need’ to fold to the raise since once I get check-raised I can’t beat anything but an unlikely bluff. My opponent is essentially saying ‘yeah I know you just hit that ace but I don’t care I’m still all-in!’

And that is the really powerful play that I’ve been using a lot recently. Oftentimes I’ll peel the flop with top or second pair and then face a double barrel from a thinking regular on a turned ace. Rather than calling down and hoping that my opponent’s bluffing frequencies are too high, or always folding and hoping that my opponent’s bluffing frequencies are too low, I simply save myself the decision and raise. Think about it from their perspective. If you have AK and just double barreled a J63A board, what on earth do you beat once you get raised on the turn?

Now of course I don’t know that this is the thought process that went through my opponent’s head, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and give him credit for a well-planned move. It was just unfortunate for him that he ran into the mother of all calling stations!

Anyway, I hope that entry proved insightful and I’ll see if I can find any more interesting hands to discuss in the future. Ciao.

10K Pot!

Scratch that, up 1K for the session now :) Don’t ask how this happened...

Party Poker, $25/$50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $9,935.58

SB: $5,036.25

Hero (BB): $5,000

UTG: $5,000

Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (BB)

UTG folds, BTN raises to $150, SB folds, Hero raises to $525, BTN raises to $1,000, Hero raises to $4,950 and is All-In, BTN calls $4,000

Flop: ($10,025) A 3 K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: ($10,025) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($10,025) 6 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $10,025 Pot ($5 Rake)
BTN showed 9 9 and LOST (-$5,000 NET)
Hero showed Q Q and WON $10,020 (+$5,020 NET)

MTT Time?

Just played a 2.5 hour session and lost $4000, though EV-adjusted I was only down $29. The EV-differential pretty much comes down to losing both my preflop flips and also losing two postflop flips (not quite flips but close enough; I had about 40% equity in both). Here’s the graph for the session.

I actually didn’t intend to stop when I did because I literally was not tilted at all, which is pretty amazing given how tilty I’ve been over the last week or so. But I ended up quitting anyway because after going downstairs to get some food I returned to find myself kicked off half my tables. I thought PartyPoker had a 20 minute grace period but evidently it was closer to 10. Oh well. The waitlists were pretty long by this stage too so rejoining the waitlists wasn’t a particularly enticing option given that it was 3AM already.

With that 4K loss I realised that I’m actually in pretty rough shape bankroll wise. Once I spend 13.3K on the PCA package (which hopefully will occur on Tuesday once I get my passport sorted – fingers crossed) I will only have about 23K online. I have money in the bank which I can resort to if really necessary but I don’t particularly like cashing back in money I’ve cashed out, especially with the exchange rate at the moment. So what I’ll have to do I think is drop down and play 3/6 and 2/4 only and leave the 5/10 games for the moment.

My other option though which I think I might pursue is to play more tournaments. Though I know I said I never wanted to play another online tournament again, I figure that if I’m going to play the PCA I might as well give myself the best possible chance at succeeding. It really is a once in a lifetime event for me so I really want to give it my best shot. I’d only be delaying my cash game development by one month anyway (all of December) so it’s really not that big of a deal. And sure, I might bust out within an hour of the PCA and feel like I’ve wasted a month learning tournament strategy, but I think that’s better than the alternative: making a deep run in the main event and then blowing it all (as well as thousands of dollars in equity) on some stupid amateur mistake that could easily have been rectified had I taken the time out earlier to learn some basic tournament strategy. I know that if that happened the regret would far outweigh the regret of wasting a single month learning tournament strategy instead of improving my cash game.

Anyway, I haven’t decided definitively yet, but the more I think about it the more it looks like this is going to be an MTT December for me.

Cash Game Update

Ok well cash games are kind of back on track. I’m up $7000 in my last 3 sessions. Tonight’s session was really weird. There were so many fish everywhere that I ended up sitting at something like 13 tables at one stage which was well above my norm (of 6). It was probably stupid to play so many but I think that although I made some really, really terrible plays as a result it was probably a good idea in terms of improving my dollars per hour. To be honest though I’m one of those guys who hates making mistakes and I’d rather make $100/hour making no mistakes than $120/hour making a whole host of mistakes and thinking about them forever afterwards. Like for example I’m probably now going to be on permanent tilt for the next week because of this one hand I played tonight. We got to the river three ways and a backdoor flush had completed after my flopped set had checked through on the flop. I was pretty sure that a flush was well within the range of the nit and said to myself that if the nit bet I was going to fold my set but if the fish bet I would call. So the nit bet and the fish folded and I somehow changed my mind and nevertheless made a crying call. He flipped over the flush and I was pretty annoyed. But that’s not the end of it. Nope…imagine my surprise when the pot then ships my way anyway. What?!?! Oh right, I have a full house…great check-call there Joey...

Anyway I ended up the session $2000 despite all my spew so I can’t complain. It might have been better if I had only 6-tabled (or if I was better at 12-tabling), but it might have been worse as well since I’m not sure which 6 fish I would have chosen and which fish I actually ended up winning money off.

One thing I do know though is that it would have been a $3000 session if wasn’t so obsessed with winning pots where someone has posted. Whenever someone posts for some reason I automatically go apeshit trying to win the pot. This time at the very end of the session (when I was only 6-tabling so playing too many tables was not to blame) I managed to 5-bet all-in K3s because there was a post. The poster opened in the cutoff and I 3-bet K3s on the button. So much is standard. But when he 4-bet I simply didn’t believe him and figured that he knew that I knew that he probably had nothing since he was raising his own post. So I jammed and got beaten into the pot by 88. Sigh…

I can’t really complain though. I did that once before with KQ and ran into AK and sucked out so that was $1000 I never should have won nor would have won had there been no post. So I guess I can say I’m break-even on the ‘5-bet shove air because he posted’ play.
In other news I booked my flight for the Bahamas today so I’m starting to get pretty excited about PCA. I just need to actually watch some MTT videos now so that I won’t arrive at a 10K buy-in tournament absolutely clueless. I know Adanthar’s videos are meant to be really good and I’ll probably watch some by JSchnett and Bond18 too. Hopefully after those I’ll be ready to tear PCA apart!

Anyway, let’s hope my good run continues. I actually feel like I’m still playing pretty badly despite these last three sessions being winnings ones and I really just want December to begin so that mentally I can start fresh again. For some reason I feel like I can’t play my A game for the rest of this month because in some sense this month is a doomed one anyway; it’s like it was ‘tainted’ by my bad play and bad results. However, when next month (or any new month really) arrives that mental baggage will be gone and I will be able to start fresh knowing that every dollar I make is now contributing to my new monthly winnings and not merely recovering the losses incurred thus far. Weird, I know, but that’s how I roll…

APPT Sydney Event 2 $750 NLHE Tournament

Well I just got back from Event 2 of APPT Sydney (somehow titled ‘Opening Event’ despite the obvious chronological difficulties). I got knocked out about two hours in and the whole tournament was rather uneventful. It was a $750 buy-in tournament with 235 runners, 40 minute levels and 5000 chip starting stacks.

The first hand I played I checked my option in the big blind with T9o and we saw a four way flop of TT9ss. I led out 150 into 200 and got called by the button. We were only about 8 hands into the tournament at this point but having already seen this player limp first-in a few times already I assumed he probably wasn’t the strongest player. The turn brought the As. At this point I figured the best way to build a huge pot against a flush would be to go for a check-raise and so I did. I checked and the button bet 200 into 500 and I made it 900 straight (less than 1000! Cheap!). My opponent called and the river was a total blank (3d or something). At this point I figured my opponent was never folding a flush, probably not folding a ten, and probably would call with just an ace too if he somehow had it. I considered overbet shoving for a bit but then decided to just go for a pretty large bet of 1900 into 2300 (less than 2000! Cheap!). He tanked and tanked and eventually folded (a flush he later told me) so I was pretty gutted about that. Oh well, move on.

I then hovered around the 6000 mark for ages, winning a few small pots then losing them back. Eventually with my stack at 5700 and the blinds at 50/100 the button (same dude as the previous hand) opened to 300. I 3-bet from the big blind to 1050 with AKo and he immediately declared “Man, I’m sick of this tournament” and shoved all-in for 3700 total. Uh oh lol. I didn’t particularly like his little speech but I nevertheless failed to see how I could ever get away from this hand so I called and he showed AQc. The board brought running clubs for the flush and I was down to 1975.

For the next hour or so I stole a few blinds here and there and eventually picked up black jacks with a stack of 2575 with the blinds at 150/300. I open shoved in middle position, got called by AKo and an Ace came on the river. And that was that.

Speaking of LOL_live_speech_tells, I saw a pretty hilarious one today. A guy check-called a bet on a KTTr board and then mouthed ‘f**k’ to himself when the third ten came on the turn. Yes, because that ten is a horrible card for your King right? Lol. The turn checked through and the river brought an ace and the guy led out. Now if ever there were a time to fold an ace on a TTKTA board I reckon this was it. Especially when you consider that no one is leading out QJ or a King on that board. The opponent in this hand did look him up with an ace and the guy did have quads. Cool stuff.

Anyway, let’s hope I do a bit better in the 6-max event.

Still Losing...

Ok my head is definitely not in the right place now for playing cash games. Each bad beat tilts me way more than it should and I’m paying off people left, right and centre. About five hands into this session I doubled up when a regular bluffed his stack off with King high into my full house and the omens were good. However literally one minute later I had another reg call a 4-bet OOP with JK and outflop my TT (I don’t know why but when someone makes an obviously bad play and wins it tilts me like crazy) and then two hands later the same reg wins with a straight flush draw against my set all-in on the flop. About 10 minutes after this a fish rivers his gutshot to win a 200bb pot with AQ v my AA on JT66K (150bb were in by the turn) and I’m officially on tilt.

I’m now about 2 hours into this session and I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I’m not playing well but I can’t see how I can leave when on every table I see a massive 45+ VPIP fish. I feel like I need a break from cash games but I definitely don’t want to be playing tournaments either (nor learning PLO or anything like that). I know that cash games are by far the most profitable form of poker for me and that I therefore need to be playing them.

I think I’m going to renege on my challenge again, despite having set it for myself only a few hours ago. I entered it with good intentions but as soon as I started playing I realised that it wasn’t going to change a thing. It wasn’t going to make me play better or concentrate more or anything like that. And when you think about it, it’s actually pretty obvious why that is so. You don’t get an athlete to run faster by telling him to aim to run faster. You make him train and exercise and eat the right foods and whatnot. Similarly I can’t get myself to make $X merely by setting a goal of making $X. It just doesn’t make sense.

Unfortunately in poker the equivalent of an athlete’s training is simply playing more hands, which of course is the very thing that I am having trouble doing right now. I guess you can also study up on training videos and books and read poker forums or something but I’m not really in the mood for those either right now. I guess I’ll just have to find a way to get through this little period somehow.

A New Challenge

Ok to get my head in the right place I’ve decided to restart the 3/6 challenge that I gave up on a while ago. The problem with this challenge however is that there are some very juicy 5/10 games on Party and it’s really not worth my while to not play those games if they’re available. So I’m going to have to find some compromise. At the moment my immediate goal is to have an online bankroll of 53.3K so that I can buy the PCA package for 13.3K and still have 40K left. At the minimum I’d want 30K left after buying the package. Any less than that and I’d feel that I’d be compromising my ability to play in the 3/6 and 5/10 games comfortably. After losing 15K between cash games and tournaments the last three days my online bankroll sits somewhere around 35K (haven’t checked!). So my aim is to win 20K by the end of this month. Ambitious I know!

Anyway, parameters of my challenge:

20,000 hands at 3/6 (all sites) at 5PTBB/100 = $12,000

10,000 hands at 5/10 (Party only) at 4PTBB/100 = $8000

Time to grind…

OMG...

Who the f**k boomswitched Scout??? OMG the fish couldn’t stop hitting if he tried. I was finally having an awesome session and was up 4.8K until FTP decided to thank Scout for all the games he’s started this year. WTF…in literally the space of 30 minutes he called a 4-bet OOP with JKo and outflopped my 99, he called a squeeze with Q8s and outflopped my JJ, he called a massive raise on the flop with a flush draw OOP with no overcard outs against my KK and got there, he rivered an Ace with AK v my 99 in another 3-bet pot, and he rivered a K with KK after I raised him on the turn on a QQxx board with AQ. He managed to run his stack up to 3000 and 2300 on two 3/6 (non-deep) tables which is unbelievably sick given how bad this guy is. Though I didn’t mention it at the time, Scout is also the guy who won the 9K all-in preflop pot off me when his AK outdrew my KK a few months ago. That pot set me back bankroll-wise for ages and it’s just so ridiculously annoying to repeatedly run bad against the biggest whale this side of the Cosmos.

While Scout was getting smacked in the face by Howard Lederer’s RNG I also lost QK v AQ on Q57ss versus a fish with 60 big blinds, K9s v 45s versus another fish on a K9326 board and I also lost two medium sized pots when I double barreled two different regs with 15+ out draws and missed both. So in the space of one hour and 494 hands I’d lost a cool $4620 and finished up the session a measly $152…

Combine this with the MTT results and I can conclusively say that today was not a good day…

Tournament Sunday (Addendum)

Ok I just got knocked out of the FTP 750K too. I chipped up from 3000 to 11000 and I have no idea how because quite frankly I didn’t care and wasn’t paying attention at all because I was so annoyed with the results of my first nine tournaments. I then got it in on a flop of 528cc with A3c versus someone who flatted preflop with QQ and hit an Ace on the turn to win a 17000 chip pot. Suddenly I had 20000 in chips and was coming 4th out of over 2000 remaining. Time to concentrate…

I then had around 22000 when this hand came up. I had AA on the button and it was folded to the cutoff who opened with an 15000 stack to about 820, an open of about 2.5x. I decided to just flat since there was a good chance he had nothing and would fold to a 3-bet. Also the big blind in this hand was PXFactor, a player whose name I recognised. I’m not quite sure who he is but I think I’ve seen him on some high stakes heads-up tables and his name in any case suggests he knows about PokerXFactor and hence tournaments in general. Thus I thought there was a good chance if I flatted that he’d squeeze. After I called the small blind called as well which got me a little nervous since PXFactor now had awesome odds to see a flop and I didn’t particularly want to see a four way flop with my AA with quite a bit of money behind (relatively). Fortunately PXFactor did his job and squeezed to 3777 total. The original raiser called and through my muffled excitement I decided to also flat. The pot was now big enough that I could profitably get it in on any flop and I salivated at the thought of PXFactor pot size c-betting all-in and the cutoff calling all-in on the flop. The small blind folded and the flop came T64r and PXFactor checked (probably having squeezed with air) and the cutoff shoved all-in for a pot sized bet. I called and PXFactor folded.

The cutoff showed JJ and I’m in my happy place. I’m a 92% favourite to win a 33K pot and have a chipstack of 40K+, good for second position in the tournament with 1000 people left.

I think you can guess what happened next…

FML.

And yes, I did go 0 for 11 today. Not one. Single. Cash.

I think I’m going back to the casino tomorrow (Tuesday) since the workers are coming in and ripping out our carpet. I’ll go play the 5/5 game again and register for Thursday’s opening event of APPT Sydney as well. I’m obviously due to run good so in that tournament my plan will simply be to shove every hand and watch the bad beats ensue. Wish me luck.

Tournament Sunday

7:15 AM

I decided to take a break from cash games today and play the Sunday majors instead (as well as some satellites to PCA and Aussie Millions). My first two tournaments began at 4.45AM, the Stars Sunday Warm Up and the PartyPoker 300K. I just got knocked out of the Sunday Warm Up in ridiculous fashion and immediately I remember why I do not play these things in the first place. I had 18500 chips with the blinds at 400/800 and the average stack was 23000. A known player who had me covered raised in utg+1 to 1850 and it was folded to me on the button with AKo. I considered flatting for a moment since I assumed that a good regular would be able to play this situation perfectly (fold worse and shove better) but I decided to raise anyway since the pot was pretty big compared to my stack and was worth picking up. At worse I figured he’d shove QQ or similar and I’d be in a race situation. Anyway after I 3-bet both the blinds fold and the player moved in. I called hoping to see QQ or less and not AA or KK. I then get the shock of my life when a) I see KJo instead and b) I see a jack peel off on the turn and c) I miss my 12-outer redraw on the river. Lame…

I got knocked out of the Party 300K a little while ago too. Nothing too interesting happened. I chipped up early from 5000 to about 7000 just by raising preflop and c-betting and getting my opponents to fold. I then lost a decent chunk with KK on an Axx flop, and got knocked out with the blinds at 100/200 when the button opened with JJ to 500 and I shoved with 4400 chips with 55 from the small blind.

The third tournament I joined was the Sunday Brawl on Full Tilt. I actually ended up registering nine minutes late for this one and Full Tilt has some rule where you won’t get dealt in if you register late until the big blind hits you. So obviously I get seated in the cutoff and have to wait another five minutes until I can play a hand. Fortunately, I double up on my very first hand with KJ v K7 on a KJ7 flop. Justice I guess?

Anyway I’m actually writing this blog while I’m playing so I guess what I’ll do is turn this into an event report type of thing. It’s 7:15 AM at the moment and I’ll give another update whenever something interesting happens.

7:35AM

Well I just spewed away half my stack in the Sunday Brawl. I had 7400 with the blinds at 50/100 and opened utg with 98s. The cutoff and button called and the flop came J85 rainbow. I made a c-bet and the cutoff called and the turn came an A. At this point I knew a set was a very real possibility, albeit slightly discounted since I have an 8 myself, but decided that since a jack was more likely it was worth turning my hand into a bluff and bluffing the ace. So I bet and he called. I wasn’t surprised to see him call as most people will peel the turn disbelieving your bet but fold if you triple barrel the river. So when the river came a Q I shoved the rest in and he tanked before calling with JJ. Sigh…at least I represented AA/QQ well I guess…

I’ve pretty much given up on this tournament but at least the feature events are still to come…the Sunday Million on Stars and Full Tilt’s 750K Guaranteed. Hopefully I can put up a better showing in those than what I’ve done so far…

8:30AM

I just got knocked out of the Sunday Brawl. I managed to hang around pretty well, stealing a lot and building up my stack from 3000 to 5000 without seeing a flop. In my knockout hand a player in MP with 6000 chips opened to 700 and I shoved for 5000 total with AKs. He tanked and tanked and I figured he either had AQ/AJ or 88-TT. He eventually called with QQ for either the ultimate slowroll or the ultimate “I have no idea what I’m doing” play. I lose the race.

9:30AM

My god I have 40K at the first break of the Sunday Million! I’m coming 32nd out of 5927…
My first double up I flatted AA versus a player who isolated two limpers. Both limpers folded and we got it in for 100bb’s on a flop of Q38ss (he had AQ).

My second double up was far friskier. A player opened to 777 and got 2 callers. I squeezed in the big blind to 3000 with KK and the raiser folded, the first caller called and the second caller folded. The first caller was playing something like 42/11/1 so he obviously wasn’t too strong a player. The flop came AAQ with two clubs and I c-bet about half the pot and he called. On the offsuit J turn I had 13K left to shove into a 16K pot and had to decide what to do. Eventually I decided to go with the hand and shoved the rest in and prayed he called with a queen and not an ace. He called and actually ended up showing neither, instead flipping up J7c for the flush draw on the flop and third pair on the turn. Fortunately he bricked and suddenly I have 40K!

10:45AM

Ok I’m too pissed off now to give any more updates. I have 2000 chips now at the second break of the Sunday Million…

About five hands into the break I opened my 3rd consecutive hand from late position. The first two times I had air but this time I held AK and was delighted to see the player behind shove all-in. Unfortunately he had two live cards with JTo and managed to spike a T on the river.

Down to 31K…whatever.

Fast forward a few more hands and I’m now utg with AKs. I open to 2000 with the blinds at 400/800 and utg+2 shoves for 10K. I call and watch as my AK goes down in flames to his premium holding, 55. Nice shove sir, now go stove your equity against my range you f***ing imbecile…

So down to 20K…not so cool.

Several orbits later I have 18K and KK on the button. A guy with 15K opens in MP to 2200 and I decide to just flat as I have two players in the blinds behind me with perfect 3-bet shoving stacks of about 9K. Unfortunately both fold and we see the KJ5r flop. My opponent bets about 2000 into the 5000 pot and I just call with top set. The turn brings an Ace and we get the rest in. What does he have? AA. Obviously.

I’ve also busted out of the PCA Satellite, the Stars 500, the Stars Second Chance, the Party turbo $120 and the Party turbo $55. I’ve only got the FTP 750K and the Aussie Millions satellite still to go. Busto those and I’ll have achieved the perfect 0/11. Remind me never to play these pieces of s**t again...

The 50K Ceiling and Mental Tricks

I don’t know why but whenever I cross 50K online I go on some huge downswing. The first time I crossed it I managed to hit a high of 54K before going on to lose 13.5K in the space of two days. This week I crossed it three times and each time I lost in the following session - 6.5K, 3.7K and today 9.7K. Not fun at all. It’s as though I can’t manage to string together two winning sessions if I hit 50K. I know the problem is obviously a mental one more than anything. I think it may be that whenever I’m below 50K (which for me is a big milestone) I’m striving hard to reach it and always playing as well as I can. But when I cross 50K I feel like a big weight is off my shoulders and I start splashing around more and generally playing poorer because I have all this ‘excess’ money above 50K (I don’t know why but I feel significantly richer and more well rolled with 51K than I do with 49K).

Anyway, to stop this mental barrier I’ve decided to try to do something that I’ve seen people talk about in some 2+2 threads. I’m going to try to never look at my bankroll or check how much I’m up or down for a session until the very end of the month when I do my monthly review. This should help me to treat poker as one long session and not get bogged down by stupid artifices like stringing together multiple winning sessions or getting back to even before I quit a session. It should also help prevent me tilting to a certain extent since I won’t know how much I’m down if I’m having a losing session. Often I find that if I’m down two or three buy-ins I can continue to play well but once I get stuck 4K or something I simply can’t play well since I know there is virtually no chance I can get even in that session. Hopefully by not looking at my session results I’ll be able to avoid this problem in the future. Finally, by not being able to focus on whether I’m up or down for a session and thinking things like ‘come on Joey, just five more buy-ins and you’ll be back to even”, I’ll instead be focusing on simply playing my best in every hand that I’m in. Again this should help reinforce that poker is just one long session and that the numbers that might correspond to any given session simply don’t matter.

I’ve actually found that being on holidays and being able to play every day has really helped me in this regard. I think that when you can only play every weekend or every third day it’s really hard not to regard every session as an isolated session. If I’m stuck 2K during semester I know that I won’t be able to get it back until my next session, perhaps a week later. This makes it more tempting to chase right then and there. But now that I’m on holidays I find that I can easily think “just stop now and come back tomorrow morning” or something similar since I literally can play just about whenever I like. And this means that I know that even if I don’t get even right now, I can just play later and get even tomorrow or the day after and everything will be alright again pretty soon.

Anyway, still not cool to lose 20% of my online roll today in one day. I’ll try to play 3/6 only until I get it back since it’s low variance and I really can’t afford to go on too big of a downswing just before APPT Sydney and PCA. So time to buckle down and do a Leatherass/zero2lose! I’ll go back to being a 5/10 and 10/20 raptor/CTS wannabe later I think, perhaps in the new year when (if!) I’m well-rolled and have reached my bankroll goal of 70K (net of PCA package).

10% Equity? No Problem!

Ok I just had the weirdest session. I managed to lay two of the biggest bad beats that I’ve laid all year and both in the same session. Yet despite this I managed to finish $2000 below EV. Huh?

These were like literally the two worst suck-outs I’ve made in the probably the last three or four months. In the first I got it in on the turn with A7 versus 22 on A424 (his range was literally 22, quads or air) and binked a 4 on the river. In the other I got it in on the turn with Q8 versus 66 on QQ65 and binked a 5 on the river.

But then, as if the poker gods were punishing me for my good fortune, I proceeded to lose my next five all-ins – three preflop races (I had AK in all three) and two 70/30’s postflop. Fun times!

I still managed to finish up 3K for the day though which was nice. I’m looking to continue building my roll and get it to 70K by the end of the year. This isn’t going to be easy however since I cashed out about 12K last month and I need to spend 13.3K on the PCA package, but hopefully with some hardcore grinding in December I’ll be able to achieve it. I figure that with 70K I can say goodbye to 3/6 and start the new year as a pure 5/10 player with some occasional 10/20 shots. For me that would be sick and would mean that I’ve achieved my original poker goal of being a true 5/10 regular.

My other goal is to somehow hit six figures for the year. This however would require a Herculean December as I’m only on 60K USD for the year. That does however include three months of not playing and two to four months of playing 1/2 or break-even 2/4 and 3/6. So all in all I think I could have a chance at making it if I run really well next month. Here’s hoping I can, but if I don’t, I’ll just try to make 6K and claim a six figure year anyway since 66K USD is about 100K AUD now anyway :D.

Day at the Casino

Our house is currently undergoing renovations and this week has been designated painting week. In other words, I had to get out of my room and house quick smart this morning so people could come in and paint my walls. What’s a poker player to do?

Go to the casino obviously!

When I got there I signed up to the 5/5 $500 buy-in game and took a seat at a 1/2 $80 max buy-in game to kill time while I waited. About fourth hand in I pick up JJ in the big blind and shove after there was a raise to $7 and four or five callers. I get called by a half-stack (aka $40…) with A9 and manage to hold. Yayyyyyyyy….swimming in riches! An orbit later I pick up TT utg and raise it to $10. I get 2 callers, flop a set on QTx rainbow and make a c-bet. Unfortunately I get no action and a few minutes later I take my seat at the 5/5 game.

I’ve never actually played this high before live. I’ve either been a total novice (the first summer I learnt poker), building my online bankroll (the second summer), or busto (last summer), so today was the first time I sat down with some black chips in tow and I have to say it felt pretty cool.

The first hand I’m dealt J3c in the big blind and we see a flop 7 ways. LOL. The flop comes 6c8c3d and I lead into the entire field for about 3/4 pot. While I wait for everyone to make a decision, I quickly wonder to myself whether this was actually a good bet or not. On the one hand, betting into this many players doesn’t seem too bright and I really don’t want to get raised and have to play a bigger pot than necessary out of position. Also, if I do hit my flush on the turn, if I bet and get called by multiple people I’d probably have to check the river anyway since I’d only have the fourth nut flush. This means that the normal reason to bet – to build up a big pot so you can get paid off handsomely later – doesn’t really apply here. Then I think to myself “but Joey if you bink off a 3 or a Jack on the turn it’s going to be awesome!’ So I get one caller and of course the 3 of spades comes on the turn! Good bet, sir.

I bet the turn and he calls and the river comes an offsuit King. I debate whether to check and induce from a busted draw or bet huge and make it look like I missed a draw myself. The king is an unfortunate card because it’ll make it hard for him to call with the made hand part of his range which consists almost entirely of weak one pair type hands, but I decide to bet anyway since I don’t know if he’ll even bluff a busted draw if I check. So I bet about 180 and he folds and shows his 79o for a busted straight draw. I was a bit annoyed that I didn’t check but really happy to get off to a good start in my 5/5 adventure.

The very next hand in the small blind I see an 8 way flop of A82r with A8. I can remember thinking to myself “man, I’m running so hot, today is going to be easy!” I go for a check-raise and only the original bettor calls. At this point the pot is $180 or so and the turn comes a beautiful 8. As Vince from the WPT would say, show-tunes were going off in my head! There is simply zero chance a live player is going to fold an ace on this board and I held the mortal nuts. What an awesome spot! So I bet $145 and he folds. Wait...WHAT???!!! I died a little inside.

The next five hours however proved tremendously uneventful and there were only two more hands worthy of note. In the first, I flatted 99 from the BB and flopped top set on 964cc. to my dismay, the five way flop checked through and the 5c came on the turn. I led out for $150 into the $200 pot and got one caller and the river brought the ugly Qc. I checked and fortunately he checked too and I got to showdown my nines which were good enough to best his turned set of fives. He asked me whether I would’ve folded to a river bet and honestly I don’t know. It’s pretty hard to believe he peels just the naked Ac on the turn to that big a bet with relatively shallow stacks and I also don’t think live players would bet anything less than the Ac on the river. So that would lead me to want to call. On the other hand live players never bluff. So I’m really not sure.

To introduce the final hand, I need to introduce my opponent. It was basically this Vietnamese dude who thought he was really cool because he could spew loads of money and, in his own words, ‘not care’. He’d been raising every hand and c-betting every flop and then showing his J3o type hand and declaring to the table ‘look how sick I am, can you believe I raise this stuff? I don’t even care what I have! I raise anything from 72 to Aces!’. LOL whatever. Anyway he opens to 35 and I call with AJo in the hijack along with the button and the utg limper. The flop comes Ac8c5d and I have the Jc. Utg checks and to my surprise loud crazy-Viet dude checks too. In fact, he checked so quickly and silently that I actually missed the fact he checked. I was simply told by the dealer that it was on me. I was pretty sure that he had simply given up on this hand since I had a really tight image and this flop was likely to have hit me hard. So I happily bet $100 into the $140 pot and the button and utg fold. As I mentally begin raking in the pot I see this splash of green and black and suddenly my opponent has declared that he’s all-in. HUH???

It’s $295 more to me to call and against someone this crazy this would seem to be a snap-call. Yet I had never seen him take this line before and with my tight image I really didn’t think he was bluffing. If he had simply c-bet and barreled off multiple streets I would’ve stacked off in a heartbeat, but this line really confused me. Eventually I decided to muck and he flashed his 32c for the flush draw and gutter-ball. The table roared at the sight of the nut-low but I was pretty happy with my fold as I think I’m behind his range there which is made up of made hands that beat me or semi-bluffs with which I’m flipping.

Anyway, I finished up the session a solid $5. Not bad for five hours work!

Summer Holidays!

Ok, so I haven’t written in my blog for a very long time but that’s all about to end. You see, I…am…on…HOLIDAYS!!! Three and a half months to be exact! If ever there were a time to use the following phrase, I think right about now would be apt…SHIP IT!

To give you guys an update of what‘s been happening with me, I took a break from poker about two days after my last post, having lost another $4.5K on top of the $9K I lost the day before. I didn’t start playing again until four weeks later at the very end of October and fortunately for me I went on one ridiculous upswing. I had a 12K day on the 30th and despite only having played about four days that month (the first two and the last two) ended up making my monthly goal of 10K as a result.

This month I’ve been busy with exams but when I did sit down to play I simply kept on winning. At this point I’m up 31K in the 11300 hands I’ve played since coming back from my break and my hourly rate is sitting at $900/hr over those 35 hours. Pretty sick stuff! Here's the graph and stats of my last three weeks.

The Australian dollar has also taken a massive nosedive against the US so my winnings in Australian dollar terms have jumped tremendously. I cashed out 10K the other day and it came out to be over 15K AUD. If I had cashed that 10K out earlier this year I would’ve only gotten 10.5K or so! I knew that chapter on Forex would come in handy!

I’m really looking forward to playing some live events too this summer. APPT Sydney is around the corner and although I can’t play the Main Event (Lisa’s having her 21st during it) I’m definitely going to be playing some of the side events. At this point I’m set on playing the $750 opening event and the $2200 6-max event. If I feel up to it I may play some others but I don’t really feel I have an edge in tournaments so I’ll probably just give them a miss and stick to the cash games.

The other live event that I really want to go to is the PCA. I remember when I first got into poker three years ago the stop on the WPT that really caught my eye was the Bahamas and the Atlantis Hotel. It looked simply incredible and it has always been a dream of mine to go there. Unfortunately, I’m fast running out of time to qualify and I haven’t had much time to try either. I’ll probably end up just buying the PCA package in full from PokerStars. It’ll be expensive but whatever…a dream is a dream!

Anyway, good luck at the tables!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

There really is no other game like poker. One day you’ll feel untouchable, ready to take on all comers, the next you’ll be wondering where the hell your next pot is going to come from. Though I don’t think Charles Dickens had poker in mind when he wrote his famous line, I think it’s rather apt for the poker player. At least, it certainly was for me. Yesterday, I had my best day ever; today, I had my worst. When I went to sleep last night, I could scarcely believe that I had made $8000 in a day, $25000 in a week and over $55000 for the year thus far. Today, I watched in despair and dismay as my opponents dragged in pot after pot from me; a total loss of $9200…

Looking at the hands, there really wasn’t much I could have done. Of the 14 times I got stacked, I only really regret 2. The other 12 were simply unavoidable.

Twice I flopped the virtual nuts heads-up versus fish only to see them holding the actual nuts; 56 v JT on 789 and 69 v J9 on T87.

Twice I got it in with the best of it but my hands couldn’t hold up; KQ v TT on JT9 and KKs v AQs on JT5ss.

Preflop I ran QQ into AA once and JJ into QQ once. The JJ hand was particularly brutal because the table had broken up the hand before so this was actually a heads-up hand. Indeed, I immediately checked the sit out box after being dealt the JJ, so to run that into QQ in my only heads-up hand of the day did not make me very happy at all.

I also managed to lose twice after flopping trips on dry paired boards. The first I had 86c and got check-raised on a 988r flop. I obviously just called in position and the turn came a 7 and I called down and he had JT. In the second I had 54c on a 558r flop and let the UTG raiser barrel off his overpair. Unfortunately he had a suited ace instead and ended up backdoor nut flushing me…

My ninth stack was lost when I rivered the nut flush versus 76 on a 67J7T board blind versus blind.

My tenth stack was a standard suited ace 4-bet shove over a light 3-bettor; I know this play is profitable, albeit involving a ton of variance, and I don’t regret it at all.

My eleventh stack was just a lost race, AK v QQ.

My twelfth stack involved me value betting AA all the way with my final all-in river bet only being a half-pot bet. Unfortunately, my opponent had rivered two pair with 54c on 5cJx6xKc4x.

The two hands that I regret both involved me turning made hands into bluffs. I rarely do this and I guess I regret it mostly because I usually would not try to run the bluff and therefore would not usually have lost the money. That said I think these bluffs are actually quite good and I should probably do them more often as they might be more +EV than simply showing my hand down and seeing if it’s good. I think if I’m winning I don’t make these bluffs nearly as much as I should because I’m scared to lose back my winnings and I don’t want to risk going on tilt.

Anyway the first hand involved me defending against a 3-bet with JJ. Against this particular opponent this preflop call was actually pretty marginal and out of position I definitely would have folded. However with position and stuck $8000 I decided to make the call. The flop came QT3r. This was not a particularly good flop given that everything but AK now beats me but I decided that AK was a big enough part of his range (and AQ a small enough part) for me to peel one and see what developed. The turn came a Q and he hesitated and checked. At this point I decided he probably had KK or AA and that I was going to bluff him off it. I knew that there was no way I could credibly rep a queen by simply shoving the turn so I decided to make a tiny turn bet and then shove the rest in on the river. However I miscalculated stack sizes and in the end the stacks were so shallow that my opponent had no choice but to make a crying call on the river getting 2.5-1 odds. He had AA. Given that my opponent tanked for ages before calling, I think my bluff works at least 70% of the time if I have another $200 in my stack but as it was I couldn’t leverage nearly enough chips for this bluff to work.

My second bluff was far sketchier. I raised preflop from the small blind with 97s and a weak player called in the big blind. The flop came 985 with one diamond and I bet and he called. The turn came the 7d and I check-called. At this point I’m intending to check-fold to any river bet (unless I fill up of course). The river brings the Td meaning the board now read 9857T with three diamonds. At this point I felt that my opponent either had 2 pair, in which case he would check behind the river and I would probably win, or my opponent had a 6 for the straight with a hand like 86s, 56s or 67s. The question for me on this river was whether it was now worth trying to bluff him off the 6. I decided that it was and overbet shoved all-in. Now, this is a spot where I would rarely try to bluff a good regular off a 6. My line simply makes so little sense that I think I’m getting looked up very lightly by a good player. Against a weak player however I have a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand, weak players are quite likely to fear the worst and put me on a jack high straight or a diamond flush. On the other, weak players also have a tendency to not think beyond the strength of their own hand and thus snap-call this river with any 6 despite the scary board. I think my river play here is really opponent dependant and I think in this instance I simply didn’t know my opponent well enough to make a river bluff-shove. It may be the case that despite being readless, shoving is the best play here against the majority of weak opponents and will turn a profit on average. However I learnt long ago that making the play that is best on average is not quite good enough; you really need to try to make the play that is best for the specific situation at hand. In this particular situation, I was really just guessing and hoping.

Anyway, let’s just hope that this day doesn’t repeat itself too soon. I’m going to put in another session tonight and see if I can get my bankroll back to $50K. Wish me luck!

A Session Against CTS

So I was having another really good day yesterday and was up about 4K when I saw CTS sit down at one of the 5/10 tables. Since I was running well and it’s not every day you decline a wait list seat to see Cole sit down instead I decided to rejoin that table’s waiting list as well as the other three tables that Cole was sitting on. I knew that playing Cole probably wasn’t the best idea in terms of short-term EV but I felt that, since Cole was almost certainly recording a video, I might get some nice feedback on my play which would make it somewhat worthwhile in the long run (much the same reason that I sat down in Eric Liu’s video earlier in the year). I also think that testing yourself every now and then by playing against a top pro (as well as the four other regs who want to challenge him) isn’t that bad an idea and is an opportunity worth taking.

Anyway, in the hour or so that I play at Cole’s tables I proceed to get stacked by him not once, not twice, but three times…

The first was the worst and happened just a few orbits into the session. I definitely think I should have folded to Cole’s 4-bet as he’s not going to be opening too light with the shortstack in the big blind to begin with and he’s certainly not 4-betting air versus an unknown (which I was) immediately.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($200)

UTG ($1015)

MP ($391)

CO ($180)

Cole South ($1092)

Hero (SB) ($1005)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 8

3 folds, Cole South raises $35, Hero raises $120, 1 fold, Cole South raises $235, Hero raises $880 (All-In), Cole South calls $735

Flop: ($2020) 4, 9, 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($2020) 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($2020) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $2020

Cole South had J, J (one pair, Jacks).

Hero had 8, 8 (one pair, eights).

Outcome: Button won $2017

The second hand was really standard. I had QQ in the big blind and Cole had AK in the small blind. Not much is ever happening here other than us getting our stacks in preflop. I lose the race.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($185)

MP ($1000)

CO ($356)

Button ($180)

Cole South ($2159)

Hero (BB) ($1000)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q, Q

4 folds, Cole South raises $25, Hero raises $90, Cole South raises $230, Hero raises $900 (All-In), Cole South calls $740

Flop: ($2000) J, 10, 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($2000) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($2000) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $2000

Cole South had A, K (flush, King high).

Hero had Q, Q (one pair, Queens).

Outcome: Cole South won $1997

In the third hand we’re 170bb deep and I proceed to run KK into AA for the fifth time this week. Cole opened UTG, I flatted in MP, and a player on the button squeezed. Since I had no previous hands on this player I was pretty sure he was taking a shot at 5/10 and was simply excited to be playing with Cole. Indeed he kept asking CTS whether he was recording a video and his stats so far suggested that he was probably a bit fishy. So I was obviously really happy with this squeeze and expected Cole to fold and me to get it in against the button in great shape. When its folded back to Cole however he proceeds to 4-bet which I guess should set off alarm bells but I have KK so I don’t really think twice before 5-betting. The button folds and Cole ships it in and straight away I realise I’m pretty much stuffed. I type ‘man…’ in the chatbox and think about tanking as I think this is genuinely a spot where I’m up against KK+ only. But then I realise that a) I’m probably not going to fold this anyway and b) if I tank and call and end up being ahead I’m going to look like a tool in the video so I make the call in pretty quick time. He does show AA and I can’t suck out. I think if we were a bit deeper, maybe 250bb and definitely 300bb I could find a fold here. I’d probably tank and tank and tank and eventually time out muttering how sick it was. But I don’t think I can ever really fold Kings v Cole for 170bbs.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($4839.50)

Button ($1007)

SB ($2745)

BB ($1067)

Cole South ($2316)

Hero (MP) ($1702)

Preflop: Hero is MP with K, K

Cole South raises $35, Hero calls $35, 1 fold, Button raises $147, 2 folds, Cole South raises $255, Hero raises $631, 1 fold, Cole South raises $2026 (All-In), Hero calls $1036 (All-In)

Flop: ($3566) 4, 5, 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: ($3566) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($3566) 4 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $3566

Cole South had A, A (two pair, Aces and fours).

Results in white below:

Cole South had A, A (two pair, Aces and fours).

Hero had K, K (two pair, Kings and fours).

Outcome: Cole South won $4177

By the time I quit I actually managed to recoup my losses which was really nice. I won a race versus a reg (AK v QQ), stacked one of the fishier players after he cold-called a 3-bet from the small blind and I flopped trips with 75s, and generally managed to chip up nicely from people trying to make moves for the video when I held the virtual nuts. Overall I finished up $4,800 yesterday which was a really nice result for me, especially after my big $8000 day the day before. Let’s just hope the good luck continues (i.e. I keep hitting loads of sets but I stop running kings into aces and my sets start to hold up versus draws)!

Here’s my graph for the last week, by far my best week ever.