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!