Session over, hard battles fought

Today was a pretty tiring session. There were a lot of players that were bluffing, especially against me because they do work on me. It's the players that don't value their stack that bluffs aimlessly. I almost generally never bluff because it's just too hard to sense which player you can bluff and which you can't. Trust me, I've done my share of bluffing before. Ya, sometimes they work like a charm but sometimes you get called down, man you'll feel like shit. But I think the fact I don't bluff makes me a more predictable player. In these limits, it's almost unnecessary to bluff. If your bluff fails more than half the time, you will be shown immediate loss.

I do know bluffing does add a good amount of winrate to some players. And it adds a dimension of being difficult to read. I don't know where you draw the line when to bluff and when not to. I wish I can dig into other people's minds so I can see how others perceive me. And yes, some more aggressive players know how I play and I suspect they are taking advantage. I probably need to think up a battle plan against them or I'm always going to be haunted by them.

Anyways, I had a pretty decent session, I went up a couple BIs. I made less mistakes, and most mistakes were relatively cheap.


This hand I caught a bluff here. At the time though I couldn't put him on a flush draw. This person was overaggressive most of the time. He seemed pretty solid for most part. I need to be better at hand reading. The play he made is very similar to ones I do but it never works on bad players, I can sense how powerful it is against decent players because I obviously experienced it.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (4 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

Button ($50)
SB ($31.90)
BB ($12.35)
Hero ($26.40)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Kh, Th.
Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, SB calls $0.90, 1 fold.

Flop: ($2.25) Td, 9c, 2d (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.5, SB raises to $4.5, Hero calls $3.

Turn: ($11.25) 7s (2 players)
SB bets $0.25, Hero calls $0.25.

River: ($11.75) 6h (2 players)
SB bets $7, Hero calls $7.

Final Pot: $25.75

Results below:
SB has Jd Ad (high card, ace).
Hero has Kh Th (one pair, tens).
Outcome: Hero wins $25.75.


The min raise on the turn was really what gave it away. He claimed that the minraise was a mistake. If he was to fire another large barrel there, I think I might have folded. On the river, I struggled making that call also. But I went through the whole hand, I put him on an overpair or a set. Overpair and set would not slow down on the turn. Only hand I could seriously put him on was JJ. QQ+ preflop, he would surely repop me. With JJ, he might not be too confident, but I guess thinking about it some more now. Overpair or sets would not checkraise on this board unless he knows for sure I was going to bet out. That assumption might be correct though since I frequently cbets. I should be more experienced to spot the possible flush draw, I definitely wasn't at the time. It would have made my decision much easier.


Here is another interesting hand, I don't have much read on this villian. He's pretty decent I assumed.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

BB ($37.70)
UTG ($12.40)
MP ($24.65)
Hero ($49.10)
Button ($20.25)
SB ($42.85)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 6h, 5h.
2 folds, Hero raises to $1, Button calls $1, 1 fold, BB calls $0.75.

Flop: ($3.10) Kh, 7h, 3h (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $2, Button folds, BB raises to $4, Hero raises to $8, BB calls $4.

Turn: ($19.10) 7d (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $6, BB raises to $12, Hero calls $6.

River: ($43.10) 2c (2 players)
BB bets $16.7 (All-In), Hero calls $16.70.

Final Pot: $76.50

Results below:
BB has Jd Td (one pair, sevens).
Hero has 6h 5h (flush, king high).
Outcome: Hero wins $76.50.


This hand was extremely difficult for me. I really believed he had 33 here. The only reason I made this call was due to pot odds. If he didn't push into me, I would have been happy to check it down. Deep stack poker is really hard to play, I am extremely bad at it. I'm too chicken shit to lose like 2+ BI in one hand honestly.

Apparently, villian thought he was playing against a fish on the table. That fish was pushing me around the whole time, he was sitting on my left. Hence perhaps that's why villian made this costly mistake. Anyways, about this fish, every time he had the button and I bet in CO, he would call and basically outplay me postflop. He had like 60 VPIP, but when I have nothing, I can't do jack against him. So I tightened up and stopped raising in CO with marginal hands. This was a good adjustment and I profited a bit off him later.

Another note, I was hunting down this extremely deep stacked maniac on this table. He was a total fish, calling station and bluffs way too much. The sad part of this is that I went too crazy trying to play many hands against him and I actually stacked him 2 times, but in the end, I only came out of the table just 1/4 of a BI ahead. This makes me sad, and teaches me a good lesson about fishing. You just gotta be patient.