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!