I’m running so hot I feel guilty, up $18,000 in the last 36 hours! I like to think that I’m playing pretty well too, but there’s no denying the fact that when you crack AK with AK, turn sets over sets, river flushes over flushes, and flop straight flushes versus turned ace high flushes, you’re definitely running well above average.
I have however made a few adjustments of my own which I think might have helped me eke out a little more value than I might have a few months ago. Firstly I’ve been playing almost HUD-less (I have no stats on the table but I still use a popup) and I think it’s really helped me to get a better feel for the table and where my opponents are at (not in terms of their hand range, but in terms of how they’ll react to my plays). Of course, it may be a complete coincidence but my big bluffs have been getting folds and my big value bets have been getting calls with a frequency that has surprised even me. Secondly, I’ve been playing multiple short sessions with breaks in between rather than playing one massive one. I know a lot of people probably do this anyway so this is probably not news to them, but I’ve definitely noticed my focus and alertness improving and my susceptibility to defaulting into ‘robot-mode’ decreasing. Thirdly, with uni now taking up the majority of my time, I’m actually really eager to play poker once again. Towards the end of the summer I was getting pretty burnt out from poker and every session seemed a chore. Now that I can only play weekends and can’t play for days at a time I’m really enjoying it again and making the most of every chance I get to play. I know it sounds cliché but like anything else in life, if you’re enjoying your poker, you’ll probably play better and have better results to show for it (admittedly the causation runs both ways).
The final thing that I’ve been doing, and the thing that I want to talk about in more detail here, is making a lot of overbets. I used to do this a lot but for some reason it slowly filtered out of my game. Anyway, quite often I’ll be faced with a situation where my opponent’s hand is face-up on the turn as say Jx or 99 on a J726 board and I won’t bother trying to move them off it since I’ll probably have to fire three barrels to do so. What I’ve been doing again recently however is overbetting the turn and preparing myself for a slightly above pot-size river shove. This has turned out to be far more effective way of moving people off one pair since they now know on the turn that a) they’re facing a huge bet and b) they’ll probably be facing a river shove for their whole stack. This is much scarier from their perspective than a normal triple barrel line and elicits a lot more folds on the turn. This in turn means that although you’re overbetting you’re actually committing a lot less of your chips to win the pot since oftentimes you won’t even have to fire the third barrel.
The problem with this style is that you need to balance it with your monsters, meaning that you’ll now need to overbet, say, a set on the turn when it’s clear that your opponent has a marginal one pair hand that can’t stand a lot of heat. This is obviously an undesirable result if your opponent would’ve called you down had you bet normally and means you won’t be getting as much value as you would like from your big hands. What I’ve been thinking about doing therefore is something that raptor said in a video ages ago. That is, balancing your overbet bluffs with marginal hands that you know are good and saving the monsters for normal bet-bet-bet lines. I remember thinking he was crazy when I heard it but it makes a lot more sense to me now. Basically, the idea is that when you make a river overbet your opponent will put you on a range of nuts or air. From his perspective, his medium strength hand is a bluff catcher that will either win if you’re bluffing with pure air or lose if you flip over the nuts. The important thing is that because of this, he doesn’t distinguish between the strength of his bluff catchers – bottom pair is a good as any other pair to him – meaning that if you start overbetting top pair he’ll still call you and, more significantly, still lose, just as if had you flipped over the nuts. This means that you don’t need to ‘waste’ your nut hands for balancing anymore and can use them to value-town your opponent in more conventional spots instead. The big issue with this style is that you need to really understand your opponent and you need to be a really good hand reader. You don’t want to start overbetting weak hands that you think are ahead and end up getting constantly check-called by better (your overbet range would become entirely bluffs in this scenario).
Anyway I’ve only been experimenting with this style for a week and a bit so I obviously don’t have much experience to go on but I think (in theory at least) it looks very promising and if I’m able to master the fine balancing act that it involves I think I’ll become very difficult to play against. To give you guys an idea of how it works in practice, here’s one example of a hand where I was able to pull it off in a big way.
Party Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker
CO: $1,253 (125.3 bb)
BTN: $1,000 (100 bb)
Hero (SB): $1,005 (100.5 bb)
BB: $1,000 (100 bb)
UTG: $1,773 (177.3 bb)
MP: $467.15 (46.7 bb)
Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with 7h Th
4 folds, Hero raises to $35, BB calls $25
Flop: ($70) 7s 2s 4c (2 players)
Hero bets $55, BB calls $55
Turn: ($180) 9h (2 players)
Hero bets $144, BB calls $144
River: ($468) Kc (2 players)
Hero bets $525, BB calls $525
Results: $1,518 pot ($3 rake)
Hero showed 7h Th (a pair of Sevens) and won $1,515 ($756 net)
BB mucked 7d 8c (a pair of Sevens) and lost (-$759 net)
The turn value bet in this hand is pretty standard but on the river I’d usually check-call or ‘range-merge’ by betting for value (but bet a normal 3/4 pot amount). Since I was pretty sure my hand was good here though, I decided to use this river as a spot to balance my overbet bluffs and at the same time was able to induce a call where a normal 3/4 pot bet might not have (since my range in his eyes becomes infinitely more polarised when I overbet).
Switching topics now, it looks like I’m definitely going to Vegas for the WSOP Main Event! I’ve got some friends who are eager to come so there should be about six of us down there in July. We’re staying for two weeks and are currently looking at hotels to stay in. I’ve never been to Vegas before so I’ve really got no idea which hotels are good but at this stage it looks like we’ll be staying at the MGM Grand for one week and either Caesar’s or the Mirage for the other. If I can get a good deal at the Venetian or the Bellagio though I’ll definitely be looking to stay there. Wherever we stay, it should be an awesome two weeks regardless. Watch out for six 21 year old Aussies wreaking havoc at a hotel near you!
Finally, I’ve decided to set myself a few poker goals for the year. I realised that ambitious as I am there really is no way that I’ll just stop at 5/10 and 10/20. Although reaching those stakes has always been my long term goal, now that I’ve got there, I really want to see if I can be a 10/20 and 25/50 regular one day. The difference this time though is that I’m really in no rush to get there. When I was trying to get to 5/10, I always felt like I had to get there quickly because I felt like if I didn’t I was a failure. Now though I don’t feel like I have anything to prove anymore and if I don’t ever reach or beat 25/50 I don’t think I’ll see myself as having failed since 5/10 and 10/20 is still really good money and 25/50 really is the land of the full time pro so there’s no shame if I don’t make it. Anyway, to set myself on the right track, I’ve set myself the following goals for 2009:
a) Make 100 buy-ins at 5/10 (70 to go!)
b) Make 100 buy-ins at 10/20 (105 to go! :()
c) Amidst all the cashing out, somehow have an online roll of 200K at the end of 2009
d) Start 2010 as a 10/20 and 25/50 regular and say goodbye to 5/10!
I know that’s a pretty ambitious long-term goal to say the least, but I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge :). Anyway, good luck at the tables.
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