Hand Analysis

I want to just take the time to talk about this one hand which shows my development as a player.


Villian is 60/20/2, I have a standard TAG image. No previous confrontations.

SB ($640.30)
BB ($231.40)
UTG ($186.85)
Hero ($200)
Button ($447.70)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 8c, 8d.
1 fold, Hero raises to $8, 1 fold, SB calls $7, 1 fold.

Standard raise w/ 88 in the CO. Nothing special.

Flop: ($18) Th, Ac, 9c (2 players)
SB bets $6, Hero raises to $24, SB calls $18.

SB leads weak into me. I have a hand that pretty much have no showdown value. If villian has a T or 9, he could easily make this same line. But hands like J8, JQ, 87 2 clubs would make a similar line. I know he doesn't have a huge hand, so I raised him up 4x his bet. He calls, I was prepared to c/f the turn if he led.

Turn: ($66) 2h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

Turn is a blank. I wasn't going to bluff here, whatever called me on the flop is going to call me here

River: ($66) 3d (2 players)
SB bets $50, Hero calls $50.

Villian makes a huge bet on the river. This is where it gets tricky. I have a hand that is as good as K high here, specifically a bluff catcher. My question is, why is this villian making such a big bet on the river? Does he have Ax? He could, but since he's so loose, he has to possibly worry that I have a better kicker. And a flopped 9 or T makes this line like never. So I'm essentially putting him on 2P+ or a busted draw. Given the stats of this villian, and the amount of hands that could be bluffing(straight draws and flush draw), I felt it was profitable to make this call here against a fairly aggressive/crazy villian.


SB has Jc 8h (high card, ace).
Hero has 8c 8d (one pair, eights).
Outcome: Hero wins $166.



Even if villian showed me a huge hand here. I think it's a good call in a long run. Playing HUs and really thinking about villian's range help a lot in knowing where your hand stands by the river. Also playing in position helps a lot obviously.

Hand Dedicated to...

... Pawel.

He always have bags full of HH that he can pull out almost instantly. And he loves to show these "donkish" plays that he made successfully. So I decided to dedicate this hand to him:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1222244

Standard. Pretty easy decision on the river, but whatever.


*************


Anyways, for today, games were super soft. I made money when I should not have. People just kept throwing money away. It's nice to have a decent day after having almost 2 weeks of breaking even.

Lazy Poker

I think the reason for my downswing is because I've been playing really "lazy poker". Basically I'm playing completely predictable and exploitable. Maybe this is the difference between 100nl and 200nl, people are a little smarter. You need to get more value by exploiting what you know about them, if they have a strong hand, they probably will call a huge bet.

I'm trying to play with more deception and play according to villian's holdings. I have been playing the same lines and playing the same manner for a lot of typical situations. This is bad and it's costing me in value. I feel the way to beat this stake is by winning more than you are losing, this is true for poker in general of course. I just need to learn to better exploit villians and play solid winning poker(and hopefully got super sucked out/coolered in the process).

Tilt! (Whine Alert!)

I did an extremely short session, been really looking for a big upswing or at least slowly climb up. But since last Tuesday, the only way it's been going is down. I'm pretty honest to myself, ya there were spots I could play better but I really felt I played really well the whole week.

So I really felt this week, my pp just weren't hitting much sets. At least the action is very minimal. So today, I played this short session and sets were hitting!

This is the first big pot of the session.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1210554

Not too happy with that result, since I was really looking forward to having a winning session or two. Oh well, keep moving on.


This hand is against a regular sitting on my left.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1210558


TILT!!! I guess my tilt comes from having expectations and when it doesn't go my way, it just blows.


Shortly after the last hand, this hand happened. I was still dealing with tilt from the last hand. But it's easy to get just your money in with a set, you almost can't play it poorly. But honestly I played it differently than I would have if I wasn't tilted. Either way I don't hate how I played it.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?1210583


I quit my session right after I lost this pot. I was extremely tilted, so it was best before I donk off more money.



Anyways, sorry for the bad beats/cooler whine. I hope things will turn for the better after tonight and tomorrow's night's lesson.

Rethinking My Lines

I've been noticing these days that people are way too aggressive for their own good. Like they will bluff themselves into a better hand a lot. My lines are almost designed to let these donks play perfectly. I'm still going to play my big hands strong, but the marginal hands, I'm really thinking of picking my spots and let them hang themselves. People are using positional raise a lot more than me, that's something I really should do more.

I'm just trying to think of ways to exploit these overaggro donks who bluffs too much. My straight forward play is exploited over a long run. I think I just need to switch it up more.

I had decent results today, I'm up a BI but considering how swingy the days have been, that doesn't mean anything.

Fighting Back

I'm trying to fight back my losing streak. I don't know, it's just not working. I'm not losing big pots, I'm just not winning big pots. I played another 1.2k hands today, I guess the day is total of 4k hands? Well here's the biggest pot of the session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1208374

I think I set villian up perfectly and since I 3bet him like 3 or 4 times within the last 5 or 6 orbits, if he had anything, he's 4betting me. Well it happened and just no luck. Ended up down another 1.5BI.

I know I'm not playing horrible, I'm just not sure if I should rely on hands to win. It's frustrating every pot won is accompanied by a suckout/cooler. Oh well, enough complaining. Mentally and emotionally, I'm 100% perfect. I just like to see some results in the time I invested. I guess I still have a lot to learn.

Dry

I'm pretty indifferent about whether I should loosen up my pf 3betting or leaving it the way it is. Lately, I've been opening more in the MP and UTG positions, people rarely 3bets you light there. The toughest players I have to deal with day to day are the ones that 3bets light, I end up having to give up a lot of hands and playing more tight from LP than I usually am. In some ways, it disrupts my play and kind of throw me off rhythm. I've been 4betting these regulars, and end up running KK vs AA two times today. That's just great.

I feel I'm playing pretty good overall, I didn't spew where I thought I was spewing. But I suspect there might be a leak in my overall game. I just can't get my hands on it yet. We'll see.

Anyways, results these days have been horrible. Basically been breaking even the whole day, I think I'm down about 2.5BIs total. I tried not looking at my results during my sessions, but I knew I was down a bit. I want to eventually incorporate this soon, but at the moment, I want to solidly get my feet stable in 200nl. When I feel confident about my play there, I'll definitely stop checking my results for the day.

I'm looking forward to Tuesday and Wednesday's session. It'll probably my small slump right now.

Sick..

I feel a little sick today, but I started sticking with just 6 tables. I'm getting pretty good solid results. I didn't win any stack vs stack, but I have been exploiting players with their tendencies. Yes, I bluffed them! ..but only when it's profitable. Also when people see you bluffing, naturally your other hands will get paid off much easier.

Lately I've been reading "The Mathematics of Poker" by Chen, the lesson about ranges and exploitive players are very good. It open up my eyes to how to make bluffs profitable. I think it's a pretty basic part of the game, but it's something that I wouldn't see how it can be profitable. I'm still deciding if this book is on the list of books I'd recommend. First 5 chapters are basics which I knew already, it seems to be getting better now that I'm deeper into the book.

Anyways for today, I'm up 2.5BI. Good results. I'm actually thinking of not looking at how well I'm doing after each session. I feel as long as I am confident about my play and play good poker, how much I'm up or down after a session is unimportant. It also makes me play my best poker and this will stop affecting my mood/thoughts for the day. It will force me to think long term results, not short term(session by session, day by day). I probably won't start doing this until a week or two from now because I'm still feeling my game. But as soon as I feel confident, this is what I'm aiming at.

Not much progress...

I played solidly for 1.4k hands, came back up 1BI. Not too shabby I think. I am trying to incorporate certain things in my game:

-make the best play based on my reads, and trust my reads
-high variance plays are fine(bluffing, 4% edge coinflips)
-play less tables(sticking with 6 for now)
-spend more time in pokerstove

Crappy Day

7 BI downswing today. Hopefully things turn around soon. I don't think I made more than max 2 BI error, just losses are overwhelming my wins.

Second 1k+ day!

This one goes to my lesson today with Brian. I have to admit that I got more value on some spots than I usually would because Brian and Pawel were sweating me. These past couple days though, my 200nl sessions have been dead dry. I'm not sure if I was not catching hands or what was going on. But I am winning but not winning much. Tonight, within 500 hands, I made 5 BIs. Later, we quit the 6max and started playing some 100nl HU. I stacked some bad players and gained a small profit there. Honestly I never expected a lesson night to turn out such a good day, actually I think I was down for all my past lessons! Of course it's not anybody's fault, just bad luck.

Anyways, hopefully I'll be celebrating 20k BR soon!

Crazy Session

Wow today I was on some really crazy tables. Almost every 2 orbits, there was a 3bet. I played like a nit and still got 3bet in LP. I started 4betting some big hands to try to get people to stop, ya that didn't work. So apparently I started cold calling in position very lightly and people bluffed their stack into me with hands they really shouldn't be 3betting with. I'm talking about 22 or 9To type hands. I stacked 3 guys who had solid stats on different tables just calling them down with TP.

I was feeling the pressure and it was frustrating me to no end. But it's nice to see I made the right assessments and adjustments. I have a feeling the games at 2/4 or higher is similar to this except the players are not quite as crazy. In some ways, when someone 3bets this lightly, 100bb stacks start to look smaller and smaller. I mean I know why this is so, but the game is still the same except instead of playing 40bb pots, you are playing 100+bb pots. But this does start to up the variance in the game, your decisions will be based on profitability in a long run. You can't make a perfect decision every time.

First HU Session

I played some 100nl HU. I think overall I did well, I ended up being down $17. I think at some point, I was down 3BIs but I stacked one guy 3 times. He was tilted and bluffed his last BI into me. The psychology of the game is so important. I'm going to start playing more HU, I already feel the influence it has with my current game. But I'm going to stick with the lower limits for now, I don't feel confident enough about my game to start spewing.

I don't know if I was playing a bot or something, but this guy was seriously limping his button into me every time and I was raising him while he check folds 90% of the time. I probably played him for over 200 hands. At the beginning of the session, he was basically c/fing to all my cbets. By the end of the session, he was calling me down with ace high. The weird thing about his play was that he literally instant check,instant fold,instant call without fail. I had never seen him tank on any situation. Well he ended up losing his stack to me, so it must be a really crappy bot if it was one. But I have to admit that he was super nitty, only money I was taking from him was flop cbets.

Funny

I played another session for today, my first session was very few in hands. But I ended up down almost half a BI. It was a pretty dry session and I made one key mistake that would have costed me half a BI less if I played it better.

But the funny thing is that my BR ended up exactly at 10k and I still kept my +1k for the day. It's nice to not ruin my last post.

Woo!

I got two things to celebrate for. First is today being my first +1000 day! I guess that's not that uncommon for 200nl when you are running well. Second is that my BR reached 10k!

The games on Fridays are extremely soft in 200nl. I mean I was getting paid off with TP or OP almost every time. Guys were sooo bad, even worse than I've seen in 100nl. Also it's nice they don't suck you out with some random rivered 2Ps. Playing solid TAG is extremely profitable.

That said, I want to take the time to really thank those who have supported me. I can't thank them enough, these people included those who left comments on my blog giving me encouragements and obviously my mentor/teacher Brian and Pawel, I learned so much from them in these 1.5 months. I hope I can continue to show progress and give some back for what I've taken.

200nl

I started playing 200nl sessions now. The plays are very similar to 100nl, I just feel a little uncomfortable not knowing who the regulars are. Obviously I can tell easily by their stats whether he is solid or not. Not to mention, I haven't done much datamining so no stats on most players is definitely another factor. I ran pretty good today but I have to admit that cards went my way on the big pots and I wasn't stuck in a lot of marginal decisions.

I think I want to officially move up to 200nl. But I'm going to do many more sessions with just 4 tables(maybe 6 at max) to feel completely comfortable before 9 tabling this stake. So far, I don't feel much difference from 100nl other than bet sizing and stack sizes.. That's a good sign I guess.

Solid ABC Poker

Just playing solid ABC poker. Doing very well. I was down 7 playing kind of crazy yesterday, was only 4 tabling. A lot of coinflips/bluffs didn't go my way. So I decided to just grind back up with 9 tables, ended up only down 4 for the night.

Rakeback is good for many things. For me, it's helpful psychologically. Knowing that you can cash out and your downswing look more minimal is nice. Like last night, I was down 4. Though 4 BIs is not that big, I cashed out 1.5BI from rakeback now it seems like I'm only down 2.5! It's good to pay tricks with your mind to make yourself more content.

Today, I just played solid ABC poker, making all +ev plays. I ended up my biggest winning day, making almost 6BIs over 1.3k hands. These days, I feel confident I am beating 100nl quite easily. Though I'm not beating it by much, it feels good I can be down 10BIs and still be confident that I'm a winning player in the stake.

A Change of Focus

I think at a point in your poker career, you should look back into the basics of the game and make sure you got all the foundations perfectly. I'm spending these days to really work on these basics and foundation. As I keep building my game on soft grounds, I will crumble down sooner or later. Before I start building a 3 story high flat, I'm going to make sure the ground can support the weight.

To give you an idea what I'm talking about, still at this point, I am unsure what is a pot size raise. Maybe this doesn't matter that much, but other things will come up. So I'm re-studying the game and hopefully see it in a different light.

Math! and Weekend updates

I'm doing pretty well this weekend. My BR is at new heights after climbing out of my 10BI freefall. Other than that, everything is normal. Hopefully I don't drop BIs at the beginning of the week and have to play 20k hands catchup again. Though it was a rewarding experience imo.

Anyhow, I ordered 2 books today. One was recommended by Josh, "Mathematics of Poker" by Chen and the other which I thought would be interesting, "Weighting Your Odds in Holdem Poker" by Yao. I know MoP is going to be a difficult reading, and I'm very optimistic about it. My goal is to see the game more as a mathematical based versus a "feel" based.

The basic and most simple question I've been asking myself lately is "is this going to be profitable?". Honestly, this question rarely comes up for me. I generally know what will make the profits, but am I really trying to make profits? or am I just doing it because I *think* it's right or it's okay to do? I guess the fundamental question I lack is what is the purpose of the game? Of course, to make profits! This is the same question I somehow stopped pondering about.

After many many many hands...

I'm finally back up to where I was as far as BR before I went on my downswing. Geez, at the beginning of the week, I always seem to lose some BIs. I'm always optimistic at the beginning of the week too! But being down is a great motivator to keep playing more hands. I feel I learned the importance of "grinding"(is that even a good thing?). If you want more money, grind it out! Hopefully I'll take advantage of some juicy action tomorrow and make some profit for the week.

4BIs to go

I managed to grinded out(+plus some rakeback) back up 6BIs. I need to do a lot more. I'm playing less fancy and just going to with solid plays. One thing I kind of want to focus more is table selection and just leaving tables where it's PROBABLY -ev. Even though I 9table, I think I need to exercise something like that.

Other than a few really odd situations, my plays have been pretty solid. I'm really working on my rr pot games, it seems to be a trouble spot for me. The reason it was a trouble spot is because I was playing with a crazy image and people could be doing it with the nuts or crap, so it's always a tough spot. I might just stick with a more loose solid image, it'll make my life easy.

These days, it's funny. Brian's words have been screaming in the back of my head. For example, here's the situation: I open raise with a hand like AQ or JJ, and a shorty with ~50bb open shoves. My first reaction is "where's the fold button?", then I suddenly hear Brian yelling "folding is horrible! call!" Funny thing this situation happened twice today. I won a coinflip w/ JJ vs AK and AQ dominated AJ. Free money. I guess this part of the game, I really don't think enough about. I don't mind AQ going all in, but JJ still feels just so odd. Maybe I need to look up the odds how often JJ flops against QQ+. It's really nice to have someone tell you what you are doing wrong, and where you are possibly losing value.

On a 10 BI downswing

I'm on a ~10BI downswing right now. I mean I would say it's 50/50 bad plays and bad luck. I'm just going to keep grinding it out to try to get back to where I was. Sorry for those who wants to rail me or are looking for help from me, I just want to get things back on track.

Comfortable but Down

I think I developed a lot of comfort at 100nl now, as evident by my stacking off pretty lightly on a lot of hands. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but I know I'm still playing extremely solid. Tonight session, I honestly had very few hands that hit hard. I had 2 major suck outs. These suckouts seem to happen a lot these days, kind of frustrating.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?1147557

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1147565


Frustrating these hands happened like within the first 200 hands of my 2k hands session. I ended up being down 5 BIs. The feeling of confidence that I will make these BIs back is really good. Good luck to me..

Down $3 dollars!

I had a 3 session day, though 1 session was only 200 hands(lost 1.5bi) because I was interrupted by my mom. On my second session, this hand came up:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144569

I wasn't worried he had AA until on the flop where he played it like he had the nuts. If he played it "normal" I would probably be playing my KK for stacks on an nonace flop. While contemplating whether to call, I was thinking "shit, is this happening to me?". I reflected on my image, it was "normal" to my standards, I haven't been 3betting anybody on that table, and I had nothing going against this villian. Thinking back, I should have made the fold. Even if he was making a play, he could easily have me dominated anyways. Sigh, I hate shipping 200bb to a 30/10/3 player.

At the end of the day, I came out only down 3 dollars! I'm actually pretty happy with the results given I was down 3BIs at the start of the 3rd session.

GF update

Thanks for many that had sent me pms/comments about the gf issue. We had a really long talk tonight and I think everything is going to be fine. She definitely still doesn't agree with gambling in general but she's willing to accept my opinion and will try to understand. I love her to death! I know the path ahead might get bumpy but I think this is a good sign.

Up 3.5, down 4

Up 3.5BI early today then down 4BI, Up 1 for 3 sessions then down 3 in one session, this just doesn't end. When will this cycle stop? Of course I can't expect to win every session but just kind of frustrating to be winning so little. Oh well, at least just by rakeback I'm making decent amount.