Card-nal Knowledge

June Swoon

2010-06-18T09:57:00.000-05:00

Poker has a way of setting you straight right when you start to feel good about your game and that you've figured things out.

Thus, I shouldn't have been surprised that my comeback post, with its dangerous expressions of confidence, would mark the beginning of a nasty stretch.

I can't say I've been playing my best, but I'm also not sure that some of bigger losing hands have been played incorrectly. Let's just say that I have some thoughts forthcoming about when it might be OK to fold 2nd set.

Back to counting down the hours to my Vegas flight tonight.

LV Trip Plans

2010-06-16T09:32:00.003-05:00

Nothing dampens the thrill of an impending poker trip like a bad downswing in the preceding week. Neverfear, whines/incriminating charts are forthcoming. Downswings really sap my desire to play. But I only get one chance this year to play poker in Vegas, so I've got to try to stoke the fire manually.

I'm definitely not playing any more PLO between now and Friday, and my current thought is that I won't plan on playing much PLO cash in Vegas. I hear that the PLO games play big in Vegas - they're generally $2-$5 and play deep and wild. I'm probably a little too rattled by PLO right now to want to take that on. Which is a bummer, since it's probably my strongest game right now.

That said, my weekend plan is starting to look like this:
- Friday: Head to Rio while my crew (3 other friends) register for event #36 on Saturday. I think I may play 1, maybe 2 satellites at most for that event. If I fail, then I'm just going to ditch it and hit the $1-$3 NLHE cash games, either at the Rio or at Aria (where we'll be staying).
- Saturday: Again at Rio, sweating friends and grinding cash. Playing WSOP on outside chance of satellite win. If I have some early success at $1-$3, I may jump up to $2-$5 and dip my toes in the PLO games. Saturday night, party with friends from LA who will be coming in.
- Sunday: Play either the Venetian deepstack or Caesar's megastack (both around $350 buyin) at noon. If I bust early, play more NLHE cash.
- Monday: This day is open. I might play another deepstack event. I might just want to play another full day of cash games. Or, I might do some extracurriculars, like hitting the 100x odds craps tables downtown.
- Tuesday: Very small early morning window before flight. Probably no poker.

Alright, this is working. I'm getting psyched just thinking about my plans. And I didn't even mention plans to make badly uninformed bets on World Cup games, spend some modicum of time at the Vdara pool (can't be surrounded by filthy poker dudes the whole trip, right?), and dump money into the casino coffers playing Pai Gow and BJ.

4 Months In One Post

2010-06-15T22:09:00.001-05:00

February was mostly a big bad downward spiral, salvaged by some serious run-good all-in EV. Barely positive after rakeback.

March was more of the same, without the benefit of February's good all-in fortune.

And then sometime around April, I shifted my approach and things turned around.

May was good too, although I continued to run behind in all-in spots.

So that's the story in charts and numbers. The only missing piece is several hundred dollars in rakeback.

I Don't Bluff

2010-06-11T16:18:00.005-05:00

A new look for the comeback! The new Blogger templates are far better than they were before.

The title to this post captures the key the my PLO turnaround over the past 4 months. It's pretty simple, but it's working well, so why mess with it? I've talked a couple of times here before about how optimism clouds the thinking of poker players and skews rational analysis and judgement. I found a much better term for it: optimism bias, or, even better, the valence effect.

The poker player's desire to win a hand overcomes his rational understanding of the likelihood of winnig the hand. As a result, we have all kinds of bad crying calls.

How do we exploit this tendency? Don't assume your opponents (especially unknowns) are bluffing, and do assume that your opponents will think that you are bluffing. Thus, bluff less, and bluff-catch less. Be rational, not emotional.

Although I mainly just wanted to talk about a key to beating $25PLO online, the concept does tie in loosely with this recent hand:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com
CO ($34.11)
Hero (Button) ($27.54)
SB ($60.66)
BB ($31.60)
UTG ($46.27)
MP ($55.82)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 10s, Kd, 10c, 9h
3 folds, Hero bets $0.85, SB raises to $2.80, 1 fold, Hero calls $1.95

We can get into when to call 3-bets some other time (probably one of my biggest weaknesses). This is possibly a fold since I have no suits, but let's just move on, since it's aside from the point of this hand.

Flop: ($5.85) Kc, 4s, Jh (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($5.85) 6c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $4, SB calls $4

I think it's good to bet here. I retake initiative and reduce the amount of guessing that I would otherwise be doing on the river. By which I mean that it takes a lot more strength for my opponent to check/call and then lead the river, than it would for him to lead out on the river after it checking through on the flop and turn.

When he calls, I'm probably not good, since I already expect him to have AAxx a lot. There aren't a whole lot of AQTx/QTxx type hands that wouldn't have led out on the flop with such good equity.

River: ($13.85) 7d (2 players)
SB checks, Hero?

So now the question becomes, can I shake him off of AAxx? The river completes some low straights, so it's at least a little bit scary. I bet the turn, so he may give me credit for K6. The problem is, by checking the flop, it seems unlikely to my opponent that I would have a stronger hand like KK/JJ/KJ.

Nevertheless, it's PLO, and you can't call 2 big barrels with just 1 pair, right?

Hero bets $11, SB calls $11

Total pot: $35.85 Rake: $1.79
Results:
Hero had 10s, Kd, 10c, 9h (one pair, Kings).
SB had Ad, Ah, 5s, 10h (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: SB won $34.06

The Valence Effect in full display. But really, this is one of those times where you just have to admit defeat, since it can be really hard to make people fold in PLO. This is especially true when you are only betting 2 streets, and not threatening to bet all 3 streets and potentially stack someone.

Pre-WSOP Rebound

2010-06-10T16:11:00.003-05:00

I'm going to make a gradual attempt to revive this blog to a semi-regular posting state in the leadup to my Vegas trip during the WSOP (that would be June 19-23). There's a lot to catch up on, and I'm going to resist the urge to try to knock it all out in one post. So expect a couple of short posts while I get back into the groove and figure out how to layout where I am and where I'm heading in the world of poker.

I've been gone for a number of reasons, but I've been playing plenty. So why no posts? First, I think I just needed a break, in order to take my limited free time and put it all towards play.

Second, I was running thin on strategy content. Just before I started my hiatus, I was playing almost exclusively Rush PLO (.10-.25), and I hadn't gotten a full handle on how to play the game well. I was running through my processes in posts here, but it was very raw. I've played for 3 straight months since then, and my understanding of the game was progressed considerably.

The third reason I took a break was because I had an awful month in March and got burnt out. I have since plugged some leaks and turned things around. My confidence is high and I'm really enjoying the PLO action.

So that's that. I'll gather my results from the past few months and post them in a few days.

I can't get back into posting without a little hand history. So here's one to remind all that despite my professed confidence and recent win streak, I can still be a massive bonehead in big PLO pots:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com
BB ($25)
UTG ($27.50)
MP ($10.14)
Hero (CO) ($25)
Button ($37.56)
SB ($10)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 9s, 5d, 10d, 7d
1 fold, MP calls $0.25, Hero calls $0.25, Button calls $0.25, 1 fold, BB checks

All 3 options are OK here IMO. It's a borderline playable hand, but I should probably prefer raising to limping. That said, I do use a mixed strategy that includes limping hands with big pairs (increase likelihood of set-over-set occurrence) and also limping from up front with strong-but-non-premium hands when I don't want to get 3-bet or to bloat a pot from OOP.

Flop: ($1.10) Kd, 5s, 8c (4 players)
BB checks, MP checks, Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: ($1.10) Js (4 players)
BB checks, MP checks, Hero bets $1.10, Button raises to $4.40, 2 folds, Hero calls $3.30

I bet after picking up a wrap on the turn and then get raised. I should have broken it down like this: villian either has a big made hand or a draw. KKxx is possible, but he probably bets it on the flop to start building up a pot. JJxx makes sense and fits the line. He also could have picked up a big draw on the turn with something like QT9x with spades. Does he makes this big raise with KJ or some other 2-pair? Maybe, but this should probably be discounted.

In sum, I'm either behind against made hand, facing a bad spot on the river even if I hit, since I probably have to lead out and give villain a clear chance to get away. I also face the possibility of hitting my straight on a flush card, which would put me in another bad spot. The final possibility is that I am badly dominated by a bigger straight draw. Pretty rotten altogether, should be a fold.

River: ($9.90) 5c (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $9.90, Hero calls $9.90
So here we are...I've missed by draw, but rivered bottom trips. I check and villain pots it. The essence of the grossness of this spot has been highlighted. Consideration #1: The big pot-sized bet on the river usually means a monster. Why bluff for full pot when you can bluff for less. Consideration #2: Villain wouldn't be bluffing a counterfeited 2-pair hand. It has good but vulnerable showdown value, so why fire big? Consideration #3: Draws should be discounted on the turn, since villain has to fear that I have a big hand that might re-pop him off of a draw. Of course, I didn't think of that until long after the hand was over.

Not much in the way of good reasons to call, but that didn't stop me.

Total pot: $29.70 Rake: $1.48
Results:
Button had Jh, 4d, 8d, Jc (full house, Jacks over fives).
Hero had 9s, 5d, 10d, 7d (three of a kind, fives).
Outcome: Button won $28.22

I'm back and as bad as ever!

I'm Reasonably Sure...

2010-02-18T22:50:00.008-06:00

...that the difference between a mediocre and a solid winning PLO player at low-stakes is the ability to identify times when the 2nd nuts is no good. It's easy to get caught up in the absolute strength of your hand when it's the 2nd nuts. But it's a critical mistake to discard the context of the hand and to abandon your normal thought process and hand analysis.

Consider...

H1)
Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($27.29)
BB ($11.14)
UTG ($14.75)
MP ($36.30)
CO ($13.22)
Button ($26.39)
Preflop: Hero is SB with J, J, K, 7
1 fold, MP calls $0.25, 1 fold, Button calls $0.25, Hero calls $0.15, BB checks

Flop: ($1) 3, Q, 2 (4 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $0.50, 1 fold, Button raises to $1.50, Hero calls $1.50, 1 fold

Button makes a small raise but I'm definitely not folding the K-high flush.

Turn: ($4.50) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $4.50, Hero calls $4.50

I check and villain pots it again. Any chance that villain holds a small flush is gone. There's always an outside chance that he's blasting away blindly with a set, or possibly making a pure bluff, but that's mostly wishful thinking.

River: ($13.50) J (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $13.50, Hero calls $13.50

It's hard for this barrel to be anything but the nuts. Would the Q-high flush play it like this? You see, when you're holding the 2nd nuts in a spot like this, there's this self-pity trigger that comes into play. You know you are almost surely beat, but you have to call so that you can tell your tale of woe and bad luck. It's like you're calling just for the bad beat/bad luck story you know you have coming. This makes you (and me) 1) a self-absorbed sad sack and 2) a bad poker player.

Total pot: $40.50 Rake: $2.02
Results:
Button had A, 7, 4, 3 (flush, Ace high).
Hero had J, J, K, 7 (flush, King high).
Outcome: Button won $38.48

H2)
Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.50 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB ($97.30)
Hero (BB) ($91)
UTG ($50)
MP ($50)
CO ($154.80)
Button ($24.70)
Preflop: Hero is BB with K, Q, J, 9
3 folds, Button calls $0.50, SB calls $0.25, Hero bets $2, Button calls $1.50, SB calls $1.50

Flop: ($6) K, 10, Q (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $4, 1 fold, SB calls $4

Pretty lovely flop, top 2-pair plus 2nd nut straight. Only the SB calls, who could have anything from the same straight to a set to 2-pair.

Turn: ($14) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $8, SB raises to $38, Hero calls $30

First, I thought about checking back this turn, given that we were playing almost 200BBs deep and I would hate a check-raise. Then I figured I'd bet to get a set to call and draw to a boat. Boom, the big check-raise. Again, I almost folded, but I convinced myself that he would make this play after picking up a spade draw to go with something like a set or 2-pair.

River: ($90) 8 (2 players)
SB bets $53.30 (All-In), Hero calls $47 (All-In)

I made the mistake of discounting the nuts on the turn, so when the river whiffed for the spade and boat draws, I figured I had to call the river. Another case of wishful, self-manipulative thinking. And a cardinal sin in this case, since it led to stacking off 200BBs deep.

Total pot: $184 Rake: $3
Results:
SB had 6, A, J, A (straight, Ace high).
Hero had K, Q, J, 9 (straight, King high).
Outcome: SB won $181

Bloated Pot, Scary Flop

2010-02-09T11:31:00.002-06:00

An interesting spot came up twice in a short session last night - after 4-betting a single-suited AAxx PF, the flop comes monotone and my opponent ships into me. So gross, given the pot odds and the potential to be drawing close to dead.

In the first spot, the pot was actually 3-way:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button ($8.87)
SB ($21.94)
BB ($11.43)
UTG ($25.81)
MP ($7.40)
Hero (CO) ($45.11)
Preflop: Hero is CO with A, 4, A, K
UTG calls $0.25, MP calls $0.25, Hero bets $1.25, 2 folds, BB raises to $4.35, UTG calls $4.10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $17.75, BB calls $7.08 (All-In), UTG calls $13.40

Dead money from UTG makes this a must-4-bet. UTG bizarrely decides to call, leaving $8 behind.

Flop: ($47.28) 10, 9, J (3 players, 1 all-in)
UTG bets $8.06 (All-In), Hero folds

Wow, not sure how to script a worse flop. I'm getting almost 7-to-1 and I'm still not sure I can call. It's a 3 way pot and I can count 1,000 ways that I'm totally crushed here. I guess it's a fold.

Turn: ($47.28) 9 (2 players, 2 all-in)
River: ($47.28) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)
Total pot: $47.28 Rake: $2.36
Results:
BB had A, A, K, K (two pair, Aces and nines).
UTG had 6, 6, 8, Q (straight, Queen high).
Outcome: UTG won $44.92

The 668Q PF call off 70% of my stack to see a flop maneuver. Justly rewarded. I guess it was a good fold, but I still feel dirty.

This one was a much tougher call:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.50 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP ($13.55)
CO ($66.20)
Button ($27.45)
SB ($47.55)
BB ($68.85)
Hero (UTG) ($69.25)
Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, J, 6, A
Hero bets $1.50, MP calls $1.50, CO calls $1.50, 2 folds, BB raises to $7.75, Hero raises to $26.50, 2 folds, BB calls $18.75

We start 140 BBs deep, so calling PF in position isn't a bad option either. But I still think 4-betting is better - I'll be shipping it or calling off on a vast majority of flops, and I'll be ahead a vast majority of the time.

Flop: ($56.25) 2, Q, 3 (2 players)
BB bets $42.35 (All-In),

An otherwise dry monotone flop, and my opponent shoves. Pretty nasty because the shove here is far bigger and the pot odds far worse than in the first hand. I'm holding the dry Ace, but it doesn't matter much b/c I expect villian to check far more often when he flops the nuts here. In fact, he should be checking almost all of the time when he flops a flush, since is almost surely calling off, and by checking, he gives me a chance to shove a ton of worse hands.

If he's somehow worried about me flopping a set or 2-pair and filling up, then he shouldn't, b/c I'm shipping those hands if checked to anyways.

There's 2 ways/reasons he is shoving here:
1) As a bluff/semi-bluff (hit the Q for one pair) on a scary board
2) He hit a flush or set on the flop and didn't give much thought to the fact that he might scare me off with a shove
3) He hit a flush or set and is trying to level me (i.e., shoving in a place where a flush shouldn't be shoving).

I think I want this one back. I give more creedence to 2) than 3), but I think it may be 1) enough of the time to call.
...
...
Hero folds
Total pot: $56.25 Rake: $2.80
Results:
BB didn't show
Outcome: BB won $53.45

Anybody hate this? Who calls off here?

I 4-bet planning to get it in on most flops, but I think I happened to run into a few worst-case scenarios here.

January

2010-02-06T22:26:00.003-06:00

January was marked by a crushing downswing where I lost some $500+ (30 or so buy-ins across both $25 and $50 PLO) over less than 3K hands. But I fought all the way back to beign $10 away from breakeven by the close of the month. That upswing corresponded directly with the introduction of the Rush table at FTP. Not fully sure what that means...I'm sure that the bad players trying out the Rush tables helped some. But I'm scared to think that I play in some predictable manner that makes the relative anonymity of Rush a real boost to my game. I guess time will tell.

For the record, this month counts as a win in my goal to have 10 out of 12 profitable months. Sometimes rakeback feels like a bonus, but really, it's money that I won. It just so happens that I only get 27% of it back.

PLO Online: -$10.22

Rakeback: $125.29

NLHE Live: -$140

2 Rush Hands

2010-02-04T22:37:00.000-06:00

Ah yes, the most fun part of playing Rush poker is that you get to use "no stats, no reads" as an excuse for making bad plays. Well, that's not exactly true anymore, now that HEM is writing stats into the FTP player notes. But for these hands, I had nothing, so I was left considering what should be my "standard" play in these tough spots.

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
BB ($32.12)
UTG ($16.28)
MP ($25)
Hero (CO) ($26.12)
Button ($25)
SB ($40.80)
Preflop: Hero is CO with Q, 10, 2, 8
1 fold, MP calls $0.25, Hero bets $1, 2 folds, BB calls $0.75, MP calls $0.75

Flop: ($3.10) 4, 10, 10 (3 players)
BB checks, MP checks, Hero bets $2, BB raises to $5.55, 1 fold, Hero calls $3.55

I'm never folding here with trips in position, but at the same time, I'm very weary of naked trips, especially without top kicker.

Turn: ($14.20) J (2 players)
BB bets $8, Hero calls $8

The J is bad...if my opponent was check-raising a naked T, there is now a good chance that he has filled up, since J and T go together like gin & juice. I though hard about pitching it here, since I could be drawing really slim. But, the smallish bet gave me pause...if my opponent is full, he should be inclined to bet big, knowing that I'll have a hard time folding a naked T and wanting to charge me for the chance to fill up myself. If it had been a PSB, I think I would have folded. Instead, I made the nervous call.

River: ($30.20) K (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River is another bad card, but I get to exhale when my opponent checks to me. I basically only beat a bluff or semi-bluff so I snap check it back.

Total pot: $30.20 Rake: $1.51

Results:
BB had 7, K, A, A (two pair, Aces and tens).
Hero had Q, 10, 2, 8 (three of a kind, tens).
Outcome: Hero won $28.69

Interesting that my opponent didn't 3-bet PF with a strong suited AAxx, and also that he check-raised with a FD on a paired board. These are all the sorts of actions that I might have had good insight into with any extent of notes or hands against this opponent. So the combo of naked trips + facing heat + Rush poker = tough spot. I'm just lucky I got spared on the river from making another tough decision.

In this next one, I created a giant mess...I think.

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
CO ($25)
Hero (Button) ($53.48)
SB ($48.73)
BB ($28.25)
UTG ($20.15)
MP ($35.85)
Preflop: Hero is Button with A, A, K, 10
3 folds, Hero bets $0.75, SB raises to $2.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $7.75, SB calls $5.25

So I 4-bet here without giving much thought to our stack depth. With most hands, I think that would be a mistake, since I have position and we are 200BBs deep. But my hand is so strong that I think I'm happy to build up a pot.

Flop: ($15.75) 4, 4, 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $15.75, SB raises to $40.98 (All-In), Hero calls $25.23

Not the worst flop...I'm happy to see low cards, but not to see the 2 hearts. Is this an automatic bet and call off spot?

Turn: ($97.71) J (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($97.71) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: $97.71 Rake: $3
Results:
Hero had A, A, K, 10 (two pair, Aces and fours).
SB had 6, 8, 4, 7 (straight, seven high).
Outcome: SB won $94.71

Turns out I was in rotten shape. Here again 3-bet stats would have told me a lot - is this guy's 3-bet range wide enough to include a lot of 4s? But still, given this flop, I'm not sure I can fold, since my opponent should be shipping it in with any piece of this flop, including something like 567x or any 2 high hearts. So if you agree with that, I'm still left wondering, what was the mistake? Your options:
1) 4-betting PF. You should have called and played with a strong, underrepped hand in position.
2) Betting full pot on the flop. Bet smaller, since you will learn either way whether my opponent has anything, and with a smaller bet you may be able to get away.
3) Nothing wrong, just gross luck.
4) Being born. You suck at this game and deserve every bad thing that happens to you in life.

Go easy on a battered poker player, friends.

Superfluous Rush Poker Commentary

2010-01-26T16:02:00.000-06:00

A ton has already been said on the topic of the new Rush Poker format on Full Tilt, but it's still in it's early infancy, so it's hard to imagine that a whole lot has really been figured out. So far I can say that there is a lot that I really like about it.

There is, foremost, the sheer innovation of it. I mean, the format of poker has never been tinkered with so dramatically in my time playing the game. Whatever game you happened to be playing online, you could always imagine playing the same game live. But with Rush Poker, they've invented a variation of the game that couldn't be feasibly reproduced in a live setting. They've created their own truly original form of poker.

As far as play is concerned, they have basically reproduced everything that makes multi-tabling so attractive - high volume of hands and short downtime between hands - and added a few little benefits that are specific to the format - instant table selection at a guaranteed-to-be-full table.

So now the benefits of multi-tabling are available to all players, which leaves a critical question floating in the air - whither the single-tabling donks and their 80/10/1.0 stat lines? These are the guys that we multi-tablers have been feasting on for years - the ones who sit down and open up one table and, either out of boredom or cluelessness, play way too many bad hands and spew money as a result. It seems like it will be obvious enough, even to these guys, that it doesn't make sense for them to play all of those garbage hands anymore. Could they possibly still be producing 50+ VPIP numbers at the Rush tables? Of course there's a lot more to a donk than just poor PF hand selection...but it's certainly a big part of what makes them so exploitable. Will the end result be that the Rush games are tighter and tougher than the standard tables? Seems reasonable to think that they will be tighter, but whether they are tougher remains to be seen.

I started an analysis of my HEM statistics last week and then starting playing winning PLO again. I was inspired to do that analysis when I was slumping, and now all I want to do is play play play. But it would be foolish to ignore the value of such an analysis, so I am committing here to an ongoing look at my numbers and what they might mean. Sorry if it's a boring slog, but I plan to dump it out here for my own benefit as soon as I can gather it all together.

Brief Interlude...

2010-01-16T17:11:00.002-06:00

...to reflect on the cruelty inherent in this game:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.50 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (CO) ($80.25)
Button ($74.75)
SB ($49.40)
BB ($118.80)
UTG ($111)
MP ($53.65)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 5, 8, A, 8
1 fold, MP bets $1.40, Hero calls $1.40, Button calls $1.40, 1 fold, BB calls $0.90

Flop: ($6.45) 3, 8, 7 (4 players)
BB bets $6.45, MP calls $6.45, Hero raises to $32.25, Button raises to $73.25 (All-In), BB raises to $117.30 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero calls $46.50 (All-In)

Turn: ($243.65) 8 (3 players, 3 all-in) <--- DQB!

River: ($243.65) 10 (3 players, 3 all-in) <--- It always takes a second to set in...

Total pot: $243.65 Rake: $3
Results:
Button had 5, 9, 7, 6 (straight flush, ten high).
BB had 7, 9, J, A (straight, Jack high).
Hero had 5, 8, A, 8 (four of a kind, eights).
Outcome: Button won $229.65, Hero won $11 <--- booby prize (side pot)

C-betting in PLO

2010-01-13T23:56:00.009-06:00

Ok, so I started creating some filters to look at how my current PLO C-bet rate is working out for me. I decided to use just the last 3 months of play as my sample space. I've played ~15K hands over that period, which is a decent enough sample size to extract some useful info.

My first simple filter looks at all hands where I am the PFR (single-raise only) and the C-bettor (first to bet the flop). The results here were a little vexing - in hands where I C-bet, I am overall a big winner:

Perhaps I'm a bit biased by my recent struggles, but I expected this to be worse. It makes some intuitive sense to see profits here - C-betting does result in winning a lot of uncontested pots, and of course, when you raise and flop a big hand, this filter should capture all of the occasions where you extract value and win big pots. But the amount of winnings is so high that I started to wonder what scenarios account for the money that I'm losing...

So now, although I still plan to do some detailed filtering on C-bet situations, I also plan to look at other scenarios (limping, playing from blinds, cold-calling raises, playing 3-bet pots) and see if I can identify spots where I might be leaking pretty badly. Basically, there have to be some situations where I am a big loser which counteract how much I am winning in C-bet spots.

But we'll get there in a later post. In this post, I'll lay out some results based on what kind of hand I hold on the flop. We'll start with the dregs - flopping no hand, no draw. The results of C-betting these spots:

I've always held the belief that this spot requires betting since my pot equity is so poor - basically, betting is the only way to win. The results here indicate that it might not be worth it. Missing so badly may increase the odds that my opponent(s) did hit a piece. But it's a mistake to draw blanket conclusions. I am almost inevitably losing money in pots that I give up on, so C-betting could still be better than forgoing when I have very little equity. Perhaps the key here is to take one stab and then surrender, and to resist the inclination to barrel off.

This next image shows my results for flopping just a single pair (including overpairs) with no draw:

The results here are better, probably aided by the times that I hold strong overpairs. These flops are also good candidates for checking back. I have decent equity but can also improve, and having just a single pair doesn't necessarily merit the protection of a C-bet.

And now we get to the spots where I flop well - the first one is 2-pair (plus any draw), and the second is trips or better:

Clearly, these are the money-making spots, but it's dangerous to conclude that these are the only flops you should be betting. I'm sure there's money to be made without flopping big hands. It's just a matter off improving my ability to assess what the good spots are.

So next, I'll filter for flop texture and see if there's anything interesting there.

Too Much C-betting?

2010-01-13T13:12:00.006-06:00

So I'm mired in a downswing right now. It's looking like December redux - start out with a boom and give it all back really quickly. I've had 5 straight losing sessions, all for at least 2 buy-ins.

Seems like a good time to take a look at a problem area. The one I want to focus on is C-betting. I haven't figured out C-betting in PLO yet. I think I'm still holding on to some NLHE habits that are -EV in PLO, namely C-betting too much and too indiscriminately.

I'm going to save a more complete discussion on this issue for after I have fitered through some data in my HEM database. I plan to analyze whether I'm making money on my C-bets or bleeding it away. I also plan to talk about what kind of flops to C-bet and how my opponent's stats/tendencies should affect my C-bet frequency.

My specific plan is to apply a filter - what is the outcome for hands when I raise PF and then lead out on the flop? Am I losing overall when I do this?

After that, we can add more variables to the filter: How profitable is C-betting when I completely whiff the flop? When I catch a big draw? When I catch a small draw? When I flop 2-pair? When I flop just 1-pair?

And then maybe I'll look at the tone and texture of the flop - What kinds of flops elicit the most folds to C-bets? What kind elicit the most check-raises? Some of this may be intuitive (A-high raggy flops elicit folds, middle-connected cards elicit check-raises), but I want to see if mapped out for my actual experience.

So, I'll probably take a few posts to go through some of this data. Hopefully it doesn't get too terribly boring. And just maybe, we'll uncover some unconventional wisdom.

2010 Goals

2010-01-11T21:17:00.000-06:00

Goal time again. Kind of a tired blogger trope, but it's still valuable if you plan to use it as a motivational tool.

The biggest question mark for me is what game will I play? I will definitely be starting out with PLO, but it's hard to say whether or not I'll wear out on it and want to get back into NLHE again. I'll try to make my goals general enough to encompass whatever game I end up playing.

Quantifiable Goals:
1. Don't go broke (based on my online BR as of Jan 1).
I consider this to be very modest, since I am starting with a good bankroll for the 25PLO and 50PLO that I'm playing. The real test of this goal is to drop down in levels if I see my roll taking a major hit.

2. Play at least 2500 hands each month.
This is another relatively easy goal, seeing how manageable it was in 2009. But I need this goal to keep me going through 2010.

3. Finish at least 10 months out of 12 + in profits.
Okay, finally a reasonably tough goal. This one will require that I really play consistently well. Well enough to overcome variance and fight back from tough stretches to keep my monethly totals in the positive.

4. Withdraw 30% of my profits for each $500 in profit earned.
This is more like a rule than a goal. But I guess I need at least $500 to make it happen, right?

5. Climb my bankroll up at least $2000 and start playing 100PLO/NL.
I guess this represents my real money-making goal. And given that I'll have to make a much higher monthly win rate than I currently make to hit it, it's a reasonably tough goal. Which makes it a good one.

6. Keep accurate records of live play.
Modest goal, just need to execute.

Other Minor Goals
1. Quit when tilting.
2. Have at least 1 $250+ MTT score.
3. Put together another WSOP tourney challenge.

2009 Goal Review

2010-01-07T15:49:00.000-06:00

First a couple of year-end charts. Here's my NLHE chart for the year:

This seems almost comical in retrospect. I played far more NLHE in the first half of the year - by October I had moved almost exclusively to PLO - and I guess I just don't remember sucking so bad at the start of the year. But I'm certainly happy that I managed a comeback, arriving at breakeven just in time to shift my focus.

And it's hard to argue, results-wise, with my decision to switch over:

Final Tallies:
PLO: +$516.11
NLHE (online): -$7.40
NLHE (live): +$1002
Rackback (all games): +$788.80

O divine rakeback! How you deceive us into thinking that you are some sort of magical bonus, some nuggety treat delivered out of the goodness of Full Tilt's soul.

But before we all start writing poetry and odes to glory of rakeback, I'll post one more number, representing the amount of money I payed Full Tilt for the right to play online this past year. This is my total rake paid (rakeback already subtracted out) - $2132.68.

I pulled my list of 2009 goals up the other day, having pretty much forgotten about them. I think I forgot about them early in the year when I was going through my NLHE downswing - around that time, I had resolved to accomplishing none of my goals, and I had no interest in punishing myself by referring back to them. So I hardly expected to look back at the end of the year and see that I had actually done a pretty good job of reaching my goals. Here's the breakdown:

Quantifiable Goals:
1. Don't go broke (based on my online BR as of Jan 1).
Success, although I believe I was down within my last $100 somewhere in the March timeframe. But I dropped down to 25NL and managed to climb slowly upwards.

2. Play at least 2500 hands each month.
Success. I didn't ever really have a problem with this goal. Although I had some busy stretches during the year, it turned out that my obsession was strong enough to keep me playing even when free time was hard to come by.

3. Finish each month + in profits.
Failure. I underestimated the variance in the game (both NLHE and PLO) and overestimated my ability to play enough hands to climb back up from downswings within a month timeframe. I'm not sure I would set this kind of goal again - a better goal would be to try to limit the number of unprofitable months to just 1 or 2.

4. Withdraw 30% of my profits for each $500 in profit earned (assuming I earn it!).
Success. Although I didn't get a chance to make a withdrawal until September when I won $1k in a PLO MTT. And since then, I've won enough to make another withdrawal but haven't done it yet. So I need to make one more withdrawal to be true to this goal carrying over into 2010.

5. Get my online bankroll up to $2500 and move up to 100NL by the end of the year.
Part success, part failure. Since I shifted over to PLO, I have no intention of playing 100NL in the rusty NLHE shape that I'm in. But after tallying all of my 2009 winnings, I'm pretty close to that $2500 number. So let's mark it down as halfway accomplished - bankroll mark reached, but stake transition declined.

6. Keep accurate records of live play.
Success. Or partial success, since I didn't start keeping record of my live poker results until March. But I have everything since then, and I'm pleased to know that live NLHE is a lucrative venture for me.

Vague Goals:
1. Reduce frequency of crying calls.
Overall, I improved in this regard. If anything, I fold too much now and am susceptible to bluffs.

2. Quit when tilting.
I guess I did okay here - I'm aided by the relatively short sessions I tend to play, which prevent me from chasing losses for a long time after going on tilt.

3. Make at least one biggish score in an MTT. Big meaning maybe $300+?? Hard to set MTT goals since they are hard to work into my schedule.
Success! Unexpected too, since I played very few MTTs. But I had a great run in a PLO tourney back in September, and won well more than the $300 goal that I set.

4. Put together another SNG challenge.
This didn't happen, but we had the Nold WSOP Challenge, which was a blast and which I plan to host again this year.

So there you go, a solid poker year for me, and a good number of goals reached. I'll be back later this week with some modifed goals for 2010.

December

2010-01-05T21:36:00.003-06:00

Back from a holiday disappearance, during which I really didn't play too much. There have been some PLO ideas swimming in my head, but I'm still working a lot out at the online tables.

As for December, it was a bit of a wild month - a killer streak to start off the month, followed by a massive swoon, followed by a comeback marked by luck and suckouts. As a result, I ended up with a decent winning month, but a big gap between profits and EV (over $200). So, it was hard to really think that I played that well.

PLO: +$149.44 (EV -$66.30)

NLHE (live): +$265

A solid month to close out the year, and there's nothing like a hot streak to keep the fever alive (cue brutal EV downswing!). So I don't guess I'll be getting away from PLO at the start of 2010.

I'll be pulling together some 2009 year-end results and doing a goal analysis as soon as I get a chance, so look for that shortly.

How Bad?

2009-12-08T15:47:00.000-06:00

I think you know the answer already.

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.50 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button ($50.45)
SB ($20.20)
BB ($62.35)
UTG ($97.75)
MP ($77)
Hero (CO) ($52.65)
Preflop: Hero is CO with 6, 5, 3, 4
1 fold, MP bets $1.75, Hero calls $1.75, 1 fold, SB calls $1.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($5.75) 4, J, 8 (3 players)
SB checks, MP checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($5.75) 5 (3 players)
SB bets $5.75, MP calls $5.75, Hero calls $5.75

River: ($23) 7 (3 players)
SB bets $12.70 (All-In), MP calls $12.70, Hero calls $12.70 <--- How bad?

Answer: Pretty bad. If the MP folds, then I'm not really all that upset about calling, since SB could be spazzing with a set or, more likely, jamming his 67 (which I just caught up with). When MP calls, he almost certainly has his own made straight. So now, if I call, I'm either hoping for either a 3-way chop or for MP and myself to chop up the SB's chips.

Total pot: $61.10 Rake: $3
Results:
SB had J, 4, J, A (three of a kind, Jacks).
MP had 9, 10, 10, 9 (straight, Jack high).
Hero had 6, 5, 3, 4 (straight, eight high).
Outcome: MP won $58.10

MP plays it wisely by just calling with the nuts, allowing it to creep into my head that he may just be keeping the aggro SB in line with a low-end straight or even a set. This entices me to make a spewy call behind.

Of course, it's easy to focus on my river play here as the source of my woes, when I should be looking at the bad turn call. I'm drawing slim against a made straight, not much better against a set, and on top of it all, I don't have any flush draw. I'm basically praying for one of 3 non-diamond deuces, and then for everyone else to shut it down. It's hopelessly optimistic and a losing proposition from the start.

Catching a Small Piece

2009-12-06T20:41:00.000-06:00

So I wanted to examine another difficult spot in PLO cash games. It's a pretty straightforward odds calculation scenario, but there are a ton of variables that make knowing the precise odds very difficult.

Although PF 3-betting has increased in frequency in 6-max PLO games as more regulars settle in and figure out how profitable it is, you will still often find villains who are only 3-betting AAxx hands. Oftentimes, the same type that is 3-betting with only AAxx also has no intention of ever folding that hand. So, although strong hands like suited rundowns actually fare very well equity-wise against AAxx, it seems wiser to me to take advantage of the playability of suited rundowns postflop, rather than shipping it in PF.

The goal is to flop a big piece and get it in, but what constitutes a big piece and what do we do when we only catch a small piece?

Well, the big piece part is easy. Any two pair, any sort of wrap, any pair + flush draw. The small piece part is a bit tougher. What do you do with just top pair on a 2-flush board? What about on a rainbow board? Not a trivial question to answer.

Here's the hand I played that prompted the investigation:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG ($29.03)
MP ($20.20)
Hero (CO) ($31.93)
Button ($16.30)
SB ($23.45)
BB ($15.90)
Preflop: Hero is CO with Q, 9, J, 10
2 folds, Hero bets $1.15, Button calls $1.15, SB raises to $5.15, 1 fold, Hero calls $4, Button calls $4

Flop: ($16) 10, 3, 5 (3 players)
SB bets $16, Hero?

Time to run some odds.

To simplify, let's assume our villain is holding an AAxx hand. How are we sitting, knowing we are behind with just 1 pair, but that we have a lot of 2-pair outs and some backdoor straight draws?

Against a rainbow, poorly-connected hand (As-Ad-9h-5c), we get about as good as it gets at about 40-60:

Against a slightly better AAxx hand (single-suit, some connectedness), it comes down to 35-65:

That's the good news. It gets bad (22-78) when villain has a diamond draw:

My guess is that it averages out somewhere around 33%. So then it becomes a simple matter of pot odds. Villain bets $16 and leaves $2 behind, so essentially, I need to call $18 to win $34. So the pot is giving me 1.9-1. 33% is 2-1, so that means it's just barely a fold.

Pretty interesting result IMO. All you have to do is shift that 33% up to 35%, and the odds are right on. Holding just a pair, you can get your stack in against AAxx - the key is how much goes in PF, and with 100BB stacks and a pot-sized 3-bet, it will usually come out just about even.

In the hand in question, I suppressed my gambling itch, but next time, I'll probably do it differently:

...

Hero folds, 1 fold

Total pot: $16 Rake: $0.80
Results:
SB didn't show
Outcome: SB won $15.20

November

2009-12-02T13:25:00.002-06:00

PLO Online: +$238.72

NLHE Online: N/A

Rakeback + Bonus: +$78.87
NLHE Live: +$189

So my PLO month was pretty good, although I did run a good $90 over EV, which is pretty lucky (but doesn't come close to cancelling out the -$225 I ran against EV last month). I played just over 5K hands and won at a 17.7 BB/100 clip. At this point, I'm ready, both mentally and bankroll-wise, to move up to $50 PLO ($.25-$.50). So at some point this week I'll just go ahead and make the move.

As for strategy and posts, I have a few hands and ideas to get into, but in general I don't have a whole lot to post. I think that's partly because I'm playing pretty nitty and straightforward and partly because I'm too green to try to talk authoritatively about PLO concepts. All of that said, I think I still have some glaring leaks, which I aim to root out and then air out here. So look out for some demonstrations of me at my PLO worst.

As for NLHE, I'm just running too good and enjoying PLO too much to want to play much NLHE online. The PLO novelty hasn't worn off yet. But I still plan to play some live NLHE, and when I do I will be sure to share those hands and experiences here.

650BB PLO pot tyvm

2009-11-27T22:19:00.000-06:00

In PLO, it's common to see 2 opponents get their chips in on the flop. And although it will sometimes be a case of one player having a dominating hand (set over set) or draw, it seems more common to find the equities on the flop to be in the neighborhood of 50/50 or 60/40 (usually a draw vs. a made hand). Both opponents take aggressive lines on the flop, hoping there's a faint chance off having some fold equity - ultimately, neither is making a very big mistake equity-wise by getting it all in.

But while it can be fine to jam it in on the flop, odds and equities can change significantly and make it a mistake to apply the same blind aggression on the turn. You can induce these mistakes by taking a less aggressive line on the flop with a plan to jam the turn if a safe (blank) card peels off. At low stakes, this is most commonly observed when someone flops a nut straight with no redraws and, facing aggression, waits for a safe turn to get it in. The hand I played here is an example of another good spot to wait until the turn to turn up the heat...

This was the biggest PLO pot I've won by a good margin (all at 25PLO).

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (Button) ($99.83)
SB ($32.05)
BB ($24)
UTG ($47.21)
MP ($36.41)
CO ($68.64)
Preflop: Hero is Button with Q, K, Q, A
2 folds, CO bets $1.15, Hero calls $1.15, SB calls $1.05, BB calls $0.90

Flop: ($4.90) 7, Q, 2 (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets $1.25, CO raises to $5, Hero calls $5, 1 fold, BB calls $3.75

BB donks out small and CO raises, all very nice. Two factors make this a good spot to call instead of raising:
1) The board is dry, with no straights possible to come in on the turn
2) BB is very likely to call behind with a dominated hand. If I don't have the BB dominated, then they might both be on flush draws holding 2 of each other's outs.

The key here is to not freak out about the flush draw. If it gets there, then I should be able to make a simple evaluation of odds on the turn and fold if the action gets heavy. As always in PLO, it's nice to be in position.

Turn: ($19.90) 3 (3 players)
BB bets $17.80 (All-In), CO calls $17.80, Hero raises to $91.10, CO calls $44.64 (All-In)

Very blankish turn and BB ships it (fist-pump). With the call, it seems fairly obvious now that CO has a FD, so here I get him to make a questionable call for the rest of his deep stack.

River: ($162.58) 3 (3 players, 2 all-in)

River pairs the board and I rake the monsterpotten.

Total pot: $162.58 Rake: $3
Results:
Hero had Q, K, Q, A (full house, Queens over threes).
BB had 7, 8, 4, 2 (two pair, sevens and threes).
CO had A, 7, 5, K (two pair, sevens and threes).
Outcome: Hero won $159.58

This is a flop where a disciplined player may be able to let his hand go if repot it and he is holding just the naked flush draw. Or, he may call and have decent enough odds with 2 cards to come. But on this turn, it's pretty bad to call off an almost 200BB raise with one card to come.

Special thanks to the BB for making the horrendous PF call and bad turn ship with the janky 2-pair.

PLO: 3-Way All-In

2009-11-20T14:15:00.000-06:00

I pledged to actually start posting some PLO cash hands and mine for interesting content, tough spots, and major leaks in my game. Well, I had this hand go down the other day...all of the action is pre-flop, but PLO can be a funny game pre-flop, playing far differently than NLHE, and providing a much higher frequency of multi-way all-in scenarios.

UTG is 43/9/2.5 over 92.
BB is 63/19/1.3 w/5.3% 3-bet over 41 hands.

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button ($47.10)
SB ($37.91)
BB ($30.09)
UTG ($29.01)
Hero (MP) ($28.42)
CO ($70.40)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, Q, A, 6
UTG bets $1.15,

Hero calls $1.15, <-- Kinda hate my hand, what with no suits and that ugly 6 dangler. But I'm never folding any AAxx hand to a single raise, especially in position. The set over set possibilities are yummy enough on their own to make this call automatic

CO calls $1.15, Button calls $1.15, 1 fold,

BB raises to $7.30, <-- It gets interesting here. This is almost always AAxx, although there's always the chance he's just some complete gamblerrific maniac. It's less likely, but he could also have a really strong rundown, like AKQJds or KQJTds.

UTG calls $6.15, <-- This is most definitely not AAxx, since he would be getting it in 100% of the time.

Hero raises to $28.37 (All-In), <-- One thing I know for sure - I can't just call, since there will be so many unattractive flops. But I think folding may actually be fine. Some analysis coming below.
2 folds, BB raises to $30.04 (All-In), UTG calls $21.66 (All-In)

Flop: ($88.99) 7, 8, 5 (3 players, 3 all-in)
Turn: ($88.99) Q (3 players, 3 all-in)
River: ($88.99) 4 (3 players, 3 all-in)
Total pot: $88.99 Rake: $3
Results:
BB had J, Q, 9, 10 (one pair, Queens).
UTG had 9, 9, 10, J (one pair, nines).
Hero had A, Q, A, 6 (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: BB won $1.18, Hero won $84.81

I remember pushing the button to ship my stack in, and I remember immediately regretting it. Then I saw all of the cards turn up, and the board race out so fast that I couldn't compute quickly enough whether my hand had held up or not. For some reason the Q seemed particularly bad. But then, I see it all being shipped my way.

I quickly went back and ran the odds, and here's where I was really stunned:

That's right, I was a 67% favorite to win in a 3-way all-in pre-flop PLO hand. I smiled at my good fortune and immediately felt vindicated for my pre-flop play. But then I started wondering about my original assumption - that at least one of my opponents held AAxx. So let's see what happens when we keep the rundown and give the 3rd opponent a mediocre single-suited AAxx hand:

This is pretty dramatic. Less than 7% to win outright, and only 22% equity. In other words, I most definitely want to avoid getting it all in here. And, interestingly, the suited rundown jumps up to being the favorite at 44% equity. So basically, given my assumption that I was up against an AAxx hand at least as strong as this one, I should probably have folded.

Now let's look at an even stronger AAxx hand, a double-suited hand with some connectedness:

My equity sinks down to 17%! And this confirms my original fear and bolsters my opinion of my starting hand - without suitedness, it is garbage.

But, we have to note a growing trend in PLO. As more players come to understand how well strong rundowns play against AAxx, we have to consider the possibility that more players will be willing to get all-in with these hands, and may even be the all-in aggressor. And as this hand reveals, when you end up going multi-way, if you have 2 hands with overlapping rundowns, you get a disastrous card cancellation effect (stealing each other's out) that absolutely murders your equity.

Ultimately, we have to know our opponents to know whether it will be wise to get in with a bad AAxx hand. Have we seen them get maniacal with rundowns? Have we seen them call off with these types of hands? In most cases, you will see 2 AAxx hands, and you are in big trouble. So I still think I should have mucked here.

One final note: Regarding the BB's PF 3-bet with the Q-high rundown, I think it's pretty bad, mainly b/c you have very little fold equity and will almost surely be taking a flop 3-handed or worse from OOP. And once the 3-bet has been called in 2 places, you are holding less than a PSB. Nevermind the possibility that someone with a dominating AAxx hand might be ready to get it in and have you in bad shape.

2 In The Flesh - Results

2009-11-16T13:01:00.006-06:00

Alright, thanks for the comments on the 2 live action hands. I got a nice range of responses.

Hand 1)
Preflop: 4 limpers, I have Ad-Ts in the BB and check. Pot is $11.
Flop: Th-6c-3s. I lead for $7, 1 MP calls, CO raises to $30. MP has $80 behind, CO has $110 behind. What's the best play here?

This is a really awkward spot. The flop is ultra-dry, and I'm getting my TPTK raised by a non-aggro villain. It looks pretty strong. At the time we were playing, I thought there had to be a good chance that he had a set of 3's or 6's. But I convinced myself that he might make this play with KT or AT, or possibly 45. After all, I'm leading from the SB, so he has to think that I may be leading a lot of T-x hands that can't stand a raise. So I called, thinking I could get away if the 45 OESD got there, or if something like a Q or K peeled and he kept blasting away. The MP girl folded.

So the pot was $78. The turn was an A, giving me top 2 but not really changing anything if my read was right. I checked, he bet another $30, and after some deliberation I decided to ship in the rest. I figured he may still call with KT, not expecting the A to have helped me. Or, he may make a bad call with 45 and try to river his straight. He tanked for a minute and then called off his last $80. He showed 3-6 for a flopped 2-pair, and the river bricked.

We jawed at each other a little bit afterwards, with him basically calling me a donkey for thinking my AT was good after his flop raise, and me countering that I didn't expect a decent player to be in there with 3-6. I told him I thought he might make that raise with a T, and he said he would never do that.

Good call by Wonka, Mojo, Meister. Bad call by me (and great turn!), and especially bad call by Hef. :)

But in all seriousness, I don't think I would ever re-pop that flop, at least not against this villain. It's a limped pot, so a 3-bet here is only getting called by better hands - sets and 2-pairs. It was a mistake to add 4-5 to his range, and that's the only hand you would want to be 3-betting for value on the flop. The last thing we want to do against KT is 3-bet and let him get away easily.

Another point on this hand is my initial comment - it's harder for me to lay down hands like this live, since the action is so much slower, and it's hard to know how long it will be until you get a hand as playable as TPTK. And since I only get 3-5 hour live action windows, sometimes I can go for entire sessions without much happening. So I force things to happen, which rarely turns out good. But this was one of those fortunate times.

Hand 2)
Villain in this hand has a small clue about how to play, but has no idea how to size his bets, and I have seen him make some random bluffs.

Preflop: I won the previous pot so I post a $5 kill and I'm on the button. 2 EP player limp and I check 45o. SB folds and BB calls. Pot is $21.
Flop: 7-8-Q rainbow. It checks around to me and I check it through.
Turn: 6. UTG limper leads for $7, UTG+1 calls, and I call. Pot is $40.
River: 8. UTG leads for $23. UTG+1 folds. It's on me and UTG has $60 behind. Hero?

I thought it was interesting how many of you are suggesting a river shove here, especially when the river card is so ugly, pairing the board and putting me behind a bunch of hands. Only Mojo seemed committed to a call, everyone else suggesting a shove. I was actually waffling between calling and folding.

Let's examine the action - UTG checks the flop and then leads the turn...this suggests a couple possibilities:
a) He had a big hand on the flop and was hoping to trap (Q8/77/88...78 less likely, since I think most people would bet to protect a vulnerable bottom 2 pair)
b) He has made a hand on the turn and wants to get value (66/76/86/9T/59/54)
c) He now feels good about a weak made hand after the flop checked through (Q-x/8-x)
d) He has decided to bluff or semi-bluff (5-x/9-x) from OOP with a small 1/3 pot bet.

Now on the river, the 8 pairs, and he leads out again from OOP, and this time for more (still only about 1/2 pot, but I think in his eyes it was a big bet). To my mind, this eliminates all of the Q-x hands in category c), and also eliminates some of the hands in category b), like 76. What's left? A bunch of boats, some 8-x hands, and the unlikely bluff. It's a small pot and I'm only in it b/c I posted a kill...do I really want to ship it here and risk dumping off 50BBs in a limped pot?

I actually thought he was strong, and had it been a bigger pot, I may well have folded. But I made what I thought was the crying call, mainly on the thought that he would be making this bet with a wide range of 8-x hands. He showed A-6, which really falls into the unlikely bluff category. Shipping wouldn't have gotten a call here, but it's worth wondering whether it would have gotten a call from 8-x.

I had a pretty solid session, starting with $160 and leaving with $410, so now I'm all psyched to get back out there again. Back home, I'm still grinding PLO, but I'm losing patience, so I may be back at the 6-max NLHE games before too long.

2 In The Flesh

2009-11-15T21:08:00.002-06:00

After negotiating my way into a night of live poker ($1-$2NLHE), I found myself in a funny but familiar position - having just a few short hours to balance my desire to get in as much action as possible with the need to play a smart, winning game. This is such a common story for me as a poker hobbyist (an enthusiast, but still, given the short shrift of time poker gets, ultimately just a hobbyist). I love the nuance of the live game, but the online game gives me the fully immersive action of multi-tabling and having the action come by spitfire.

Anyways, keep that in mind as you considering these two hands I played. What's the right action in these spots?

Hand 1)

The CO in this hand is a Middle Eastern guy that I've played with many times. He plays a lot of hands but is a thinking player. He's not terribly aggressive but limps with a wide range and may continue with a wide range, especially in a small pot. MP is a young Asian girl playing a short stack who I have never seen get out of line post-flop. I expect her play to be very straightforward.

Preflop: 4 limpers, I have Ad-Ts in the BB and check. Pot is $11.

Flop: Th-6c-3s. I lead for $7, 1 MP calls, CO raises to $30. MP has $80 behind, CO has $110 behind. What's the best play here?

Hand 2)

Villain in this hand has a small clue about how to play, but has no idea how to size his bets, and I have seen him make some random bluffs.

Preflop: I won the previous pot so I post a $5 kill and I'm on the button. 2 EP player limp and I check 45o. SB folds and BB calls. Pot is $21.

Flop: 7-8-Q rainbow. It checks around to me and I check it through.

Turn: 6. UTG limper leads for $7, UTG+1 calls, and I call. Pot is $40.

River: 8. UTG leads for $23. UTG+1 folds. It's on me and UTG has $60 behind. Hero?

October

2009-11-02T22:42:00.004-06:00

So I did a little disappearing act this month, at least blog-wise. And yeah, I guess the sentiment does also apply a little to poker. Specifically, I have disappeared from the live poker games here around Austin, TX. Just haven't been able to clear the nights to play.

As for my online play, I'm still going at it, but I spent almost the entirety of October playing 6-max PLO on Full Tilt. After the run I had at the end of September, I really wanted to keep riding the PLO wave. Unfortunately, the wave crashed down on me in a nasty way. Here were the month's results.

PLO variance put me to the test here, as I ran a full $200 behind EV over the 4.5K hands that I played. The good news is that I'm still playing a winning game, since my EV was above water.

I still have some major leaks. I call way too many big river bets with non-nut flushes and not holding boats on paired boards. On the upside, I'm getting better at picking my value betting spots, and actually sticking to a bet-fold strategy in thin spots.

The really good news is that the 25PLO games are still swarming with awful players. You just have to be ready to withstand some lumps before they hand it all over to you.

NLHE Online: +$123.97 (just 800 hands)
NLHE Live: N/A
PLO Online: -$189.20
Rakeback: +$83.31

In terms of posting, I guess I have been feeling like the PLO hands I've been playing have been pretty ABC and haven't contained much worth discussing on the strategy side. At low levels where the fundamental play is bad, you really just need to play solid ABC PLO and not get too tricky. But I'm sure there are enough interesting spots that I can start diving into with some more depth. It always seems to help my game when I do so, and maybe that will be part of the trick to getting my profit curve point upwards again. Then again, this is PLO, and the variance is wild and cruel, so maybe I should just keep focused on that EV number, and let the profits come around when the PLO Gods are damn well ready to let it happen.

Oh yeah, I'm headed back to the local live felts this weekend, as the wife and daughter are out of town. So I'll keep a close tab on the action this Friday and Saturday and report anything interesting or noteworthy towards the end of the weekend.

Sweet September

2009-10-05T22:31:00.004-05:00

NLHE Online: +$65.27

PLO: +$289.08

NLHE Live: -$131

Rakeback/Bonus: +$91.05

Tourneys: +$1250

Even though I didn't get a whole lot going on the NLHE front, this was by far my most successful month, owing mostly to my $4K guarantee 2nd place finish. Then, I had a monster PLO run to close out the month, running at a cool 132.9 BB/100 over 881 hands. To manage that, I had to run well ahead of EV, but even if I had run well behind EV it would have been hard to register as a loser over that period. Here's the chart:

And after my one day tourney run netted me $1K+, I actually made my first poker money withdrawal on the year, yanking out 8 benjamins, which I will probably take directly to the live house games to squander! It's a vicious circle.

About That 3rd Tourney

2009-09-27T19:38:00.005-05:00

So I left off the last post when I was still playing a $4K guaranteed rebuy PLO tourney on Friday, and I haven't gotten a chance to report on the results. Well, here's how it ended:

I'm pretty sure you won't hear me talking about how upset I am that I didn't win this thing. 2nd place is pretty nice, and so is the $1K prize.

Early on, I was in for 2 buy-ins and took a river beat on a pretty wretched call (naked Q-high flush draw calling off his stack). It was right before the rebuy period ended, and I really didn't intend on buying in for 4-5 buys, but given the quality of play that had busted me at that point, I figured I still had a solid edge, so I bought back, took the optional 2nd rebuy, and then also took the add-on. So there I was, in for $50 in this thing, and feel a little stupid about it.

But sure enough, I stuck around, and hit the final table in ho-hum position:

All I can say about this run is that I hope I didn't use up all of my poker luck for a while. I had to dig out of some nasty spots and hit some very lucky cards to survive as long as I did. Consider a few hands here....

Just inside of the money, with 14 players left, I played this hand:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha Tournament, 1200/2400 Blinds (7 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
saw flop saw showdown
MP1 (t55468)
MP2 (t33600)
CO (t63904)
Hero (SB) (t65434)
BB (t108438)
UTG (t65941)
UTG+1 (t88296)
Hero's M: 18.18
Preflop: Hero is SB with J, 7, K, Q
UTG calls t2400, UTG+1 calls t2400, 1 fold, MP2 calls t2400, 1 fold, Hero calls t1200, BB checks

Flop: (t12000) 8, K, 10 (5 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 bets t5000, 1 fold, Hero raises to t21000, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls t16000

Turn: (t54000) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t42034 (All-In), UTG+1 calls t42034

River: (t138068) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t138068
Results:
Hero had J, 7, K, Q (straight, King high).
UTG+1 had 9, A, J, K (straight, Jack high).
Outcome: Hero won t138068

So I was a 3.4-1 dog going to the river there, and hit one of my 10 outs.

I tried to offer my condolences, and the chat conversation went like this:

noldmax: u had me crushed...tough beat

TopKorneR: u and u were 2 stupid to see it

noldmax: so what, you're just mucking in my spot? please

TopKorneR: not shoving

I'm pretty sure he's wrong...I pretty much have to shove here, since I am still going to have to call if I check and he shoves. And at this point, I have 2-pair to go with my OESD and 3rd-nut FD, so this could well be for value.

I had one more miracle go my way, midway through the final table. I was short-stacked and just looking for a hand to shove. I saw what seemed decent to shove with, and turned out to be pretty far behind:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha Tournament, 4000/8000 Blinds (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
saw flop saw showdown
SB (t69464)
BB (t75893)
Hero (UTG) (t64159)
MP (t233222)
CO (t137732)
Button (t358530)
Hero's M: 5.35
Preflop: Hero is UTG with 7, Q, Q, 2
Hero bets t28000, 4 folds, BB raises to t75893 (All-In), Hero calls t36159 (All-In)

Flop: (t132318) 2, 9, 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)
Turn: (t132318) 5 (2 players, 2 all-in)
River: (t132318) K (2 players, 2 all-in)
Total pot: t132318
Results:
BB had A, 7, A, Q (one pair, Aces).
Hero had 7, Q, Q, 2 (two pair, sevens and twos).
Outcome: Hero won t132318

With my opponent holding both a Q and 7, I'm hurting badly pre-flop, but even as a 4-1 dog, I luck out and hit a miracle 2-7 on the flop, which holds up and keeps me alive.

I took this snapshot with 4 players left, on the assumption that I'd be documenting some sort of meltdown when I went from chip leader to busto with 4 left.

But I managed to outlast 2 more, getting heads-up at a pretty big disadvantage. The final hand went like this:

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha Tournament, 8000/16000 Blinds (2 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) (t181732)
BB (t757268)
Hero's M: 7.57
Preflop: Hero is SB with 2, J, K, J
Hero bets t38000, BB raises to t114000, Hero raises to t181732 (All-In), BB calls t67732

Flop: (t363464) 3, 4, Q (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: (t363464) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t363464) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t363464
Results:
Hero had 2, J, K, J (two pair, Jacks and nines).
BB had 9, A, 7, K (three of a kind, nines).
Outcome: BB won t363464

Hey, if my lucks gonna run out, it might as well be once I've wrapped up a $1K prize, right?

It could be a long time before I get a wide open day to fire up some more tourneys like this, but when that day comes around, there will be a pretty high standard to reach after this monster tourney day. Until then, I'll be back grinding the 6-max tables.

Tourney What??

2009-09-25T15:31:00.003-05:00

That's right, I played in a real honest-to-goodness tourney. I happen to be in Atlanta, far from the dual-monitor, PT3 stats-assisted comfort of home, burning away hours in a hotel room while the wife engages in various bridesmaid activities whose details I am happy to know nothing about. This means I have a rare large block of time in which to fit some decent sized tourneys.

I only fired up 3 tourneys - a $22 buy-in, $5K guarantee on Stars, which I was running well in until I ran KK into AA vs. one of the few bigger stacks at my table. Then I started a $13 90-man turbo/kill tourney, and I somehow pulled out the miracle:

I had to make a pretty big comeback from being the shortest stack left with around 14 left, and then when we got down to 3-handed, I had 34K up against 100K and 134K. But I'm most proud of the 2 big heads-up hands that allowed me to finish the deal.

My opponent was a complete aggro-monkey, who knew very little more than to shove or otherwise overcommit himself. I picked up on this early, when he would shove his stack PF nearly every time that I just called out of the SB. I was patiently waiting my turn when the following hand came up:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 2,000/4,000 Blinds, 500 Ante, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): 103,962
SB: 166,038
Pre-Flop: (7,000) A 2 dealt to Hero (BB)
SB calls 2,000, Hero raises to 13,000, SB calls 9,000

Since villian has been raising big or shoving, I'm slightly concerned that he may be trapping with a real hand, but since I've been waiting patiently for something as good as an A, I have to raise while I'm pretty sure to be well ahead.

Flop: (27,000) K 2 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets 132,000, Hero calls 90,462 and is All-In

I connect in a pretty small way, so I'm happy to have it check through. If I c-bet, he may make some sort of aggro-shove, but by checking, his aggro-shove looks even more bluffy, whereas a shove over my c-bet may be a value move. Even though I suspect a bluff, this is a really thin spot, since he will clearly have decent equity with 2 overs, even if he has air. But against a total aggro-monkey like this guy, I have to take my chances in a thin spot.

Turn: (207,924) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: (207,924) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: 207,924 Pot
Hero showed A 2 (three of a kind, Twos) and WON 207,924 (+103,962 NET)
SB showed T 9 (a pair of Twos) and LOST (-103,962 NET)

So that turned out beautifully, and I was prepared to settle in and wait for another spot to catch him overplaying something bad or marginal. This happened only 3 hands later...

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 2,000/4,000 Blinds, 500 Ante, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): 200,924
BB: 69,076
Pre-Flop: (7,000) 5 7 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero calls 2,000, BB checks

Flop: (9,000) 7 A 9 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

No need to fire here and get myself into a marginal spot with bottom pair.

Turn: (9,000) 2 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (9,000) 9 (2 Players)
BB bets 64,576 and is All-In, Hero calls 64,576

Given how aggro this guy has been playing, there's virtually no hand that he is holding here that he wouldn't have either shoved pre-flop or shoved on the flop. This is pretty close to a guaranteed bluff.

Results: 138,152 Pot
Hero showed 5 7 (two pair, Nines and Sevens) and WON 138,152 (+69,076 NET)
BB showed T 6 (a pair of Nines) and LOST (-69,076 NET)

And like that, I scored a $288 win (plus 10 knockouts for $20!).

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the 3rd tourney. I'm currently playing in a $10, $4K guarantee rebuy PLO tourney, I've already made the cash, and I'm sitting 5th with 11 runners left.

That Kind of Night

2009-09-23T23:41:00.005-05:00

I had this night last night...

But as you can see, I cut it off after things got really bad and I started steaming hard. As much as people claim to hate bad-beat posts, we secretly enjoy it a little, right? In case you do, here is the steam-inducer, for your gratification...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (BTN): $81.95
SB: $22.55
BB: $50.55
UTG: $115.35
Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (BTN)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $1.50, SB folds, BB raises to $4.60, Hero raises to $14.05, BB raises to $50.55 and is All-In, Hero calls $36.50

Flop: ($101.35) A 9 5 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: ($101.35) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($101.35) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $101.35 Pot ($2 Rake)
Hero showed Q Q (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$50.55 NET)
BB showed 5 5 (three of a kind, Fives) and WON $99.35 (+$48.80 NET)

And then Presto had to go and do me wrong from both angles, for and against...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $27.04
BTN: $25
SB: $28.65
BB: $56.40
UTG: $55.65
Hero (MP): $25.60
Pre-Flop: 5 5 dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.85, CO raises to $2.75, 2 folds, BB calls $2.50, Hero calls $1.90

Flop: ($8.35) 5 6 T (3 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($8.35) Q (3 Players)
BB bets $4.75, Hero calls $4.75, CO folds

River: ($17.85) 3 (2 Players)
BB bets $5, Hero raises to $18.10 and is All-In, BB calls $13.10

Results: $54.05 Pot ($2.70 Rake)
BB showed Q Q (three of a kind, Queens) and WON $51.35 (+$25.75 NET)
Hero showed 5 5 (three of a kind, Fives) and LOST (-$25.60 NET)

Okay then, if you can forgive my little purge, I'll move on to an interesting hand I played recently. File this one under "Gotcha."

No history or reads on opponent.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP ($56.15)
Button ($63.50)
Hero (SB) ($51.80)
BB ($138.30)
UTG ($50)
Preflop: Hero is SB with J, A
2 folds, Button bets $1, Hero raises to $4, 1 fold, Button calls $3

Standard 3-bet for value against a likely button steal.

Flop: ($8.50) K, A, 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $6, Button calls $6

For value and to charge draws. The ranges in these button vs. blinds battles tend to be wide, but given the 3-bet and call, we can narrow it a little. It includes a lot of PPs, any A-x, any K-x (with junkier K-x kickers discounted), any 2 broadway with a diamond, and a bunch of other hands with a diamond (e.g. Qd-9x). It also includes made flushes and 44, although 44 would be more likely to raise than call.

Turn: ($20.50) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $15, Hero calls $15

Time to surrender initiative, try to pot control, and see what villain does. He make a big bet, which sets off some alarm bells. The only made hands that I see making this big bet are the hands that really hate seeing another diamond peel off - 33, A3, and a small flush like 7d8d. So this bet has served to polarize his range. If he is bluffing with something like a gutshot, a small pair, or air, he may fire big like this, leaving the threat of another big river bet.

River: ($50.50) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $38.50 (All-In), Hero calls $26.80 (All-In)

I guess there are some villains that would play a small made flush like this, but when the same river arrives and he knows he's good, I figure he is making a smaller value bet, something like $15-$25. So, now I'm really only worried about A-x 2-pair hands and small sets, and this line is pretty odd for those hands too. The rest is air, and I think there's enough air to make the call.

Total pot: $104.10 Rake: $3
Results:
Button had 7, 7 (one pair, sevens).
Hero had J, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $101.10

I am slowly but surely learning to detect funny lines that don't make much sense. It always involves me making a lot of assumptions about ranges and betting styles that don't always add up, but when it does, like this, it feels pretty darn good.

Trio of Trouble Results

2009-09-17T22:45:00.003-05:00

So this trio of hands ended up having a common strain, one that I didn't recognize until after I had posted them up. The common theme is misjudging your opponents' ranges. I sometimes get into trouble by projecting a standard range on a nonstandard player... the most common mistake is to remove strong hands from a villain's range when that villain plays them passively.

H1)
No stats at the time.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $88.80
BB: $28.30
Hero (UTG): $76.55
MP: $39.80
CO: $50
BTN: $101.25
CO posts $0.50
Pre-Flop: Q A dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $2.25, MP raises to $5, 4 folds, Hero calls $2.75

Flop: ($11.25) Q 8 3 (2 Players)
Hero checks, MP bets $7, Hero calls $7

Turn: ($25.25) 9 (2 Players)
Hero?

This is a weird spot because my hand seems strong, but given my opponent's awkward stack size and your lack of position, it isn't easy to know what to do. I think it's really tempting to lead out, but what would be the purpose? I.e., what worse hands to we expect to call us here? Well, we have to start with the small 3-bet, which I interpret as pretty strong, meaning only pairs (probably TT+) and AK. The kind of regulars who 3-bet with suited connectors and other weaker hands will always make bigger 3-bets than this. Given this range, the only worse hands would be J-J or T-T. 99/QQ+ all have us beat, meaning that we are just getting more money in behind.

In a deeper stacked game, I think we would definitely check, since we don't mind having it checked behind (free draw to nuts, plus it means we are probably already good), and if villain bets, we can make a big, scary check-raise to push opponent off of a better or equal hand like AA/KK/AQ.

But here, with a $25 pot and our villain having $27 behind, we have to make a decision now whether we are willing to stack off or not. Basically, if we plan to check/call the turn, we are almost forced to call off on the river. So if we concede that we are getting it in either way, we might as well lead out to ensure that we get value from TT/JJ/AxKh.

I waffled back and forth on this one several times, but I end up feeling like the best move here is to lead out on the turn and call off if villain shoves. And it so happens that that's what I did...
Hero bets $16, MP raises to $27.80 and is All-In, Hero calls $11.80

River: ($80.85) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $80.85 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed Q A (two pair, Aces and Queens) and LOST (-$39.80 NET)
MP showed 8 8 (three of a kind, Eights) and WON $77.85 (+$38.05 NET)

So I'm fine with my play, but clearly I misjudged my opponent's range, since I certainly didn't expect him to make a small 3-bet with 88.

H2)
I didn't have any stats at the time, but villain ended up 23/12/1.4 over 69 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $71.75
MP: $81.65
Hero (CO): $50.75
BTN: $50
SB: $48.20
BB: $53.80
Pre-Flop: A J dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BTN folds, SB calls $1.50, BB folds

Flop: ($4) 5 J 4 (2 Players)
SB bets $2.50, Hero raises to $6.50, SB calls $4

Turn: ($17) T (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $8, SB calls $8

River: ($33) 6 (2 Players)
SB checks,
Hero?

JT would make sense here, but I would expect JT to make itself known here, either by raising the turn or leading the river. I know we can't completely discount that or a hand like 56 or even a set, but I think it is ultimately a mistake to check back and forego the opportunity to get more value from J-x hands. I like making a small value bet, like $10-$13, and folding to pretty much any raise. Ain't no J-x hand raising this river, there's no way I'm giving a random credit for a river bluff raise here.

But somehow I chickened out, which turned out to be a good thing...

...

Hero checks

Results: $33 Pot ($1.65 Rake)
Hero showed A J (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$16.25 NET)
SB showed Q Q (a pair of Queens) and WON $31.35 (+$15.10 NET)

Once again, I misjudged my opponent's range, thinking that there was no way he wouldn't 3-bet QQ+, and if he did slow play these hands PF, he would certainly make a raise somewhere in the hand.

But ultimately, I think this is a spot where, despite the good outcome, I made a mistake by checking. The majority of the time, I'm passing up a big river value bet.

H3)
Villain was 29/6/5 over 35 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): $33.83
BB: $14.56
UTG: $8.85
MP: $63.59
CO: $25
BTN: $31.14
Pre-Flop: T T dealt to Hero (SB)
3 folds, BTN raises to $1, Hero raises to $3.25, BB folds, BTN calls $2.25

Flop: ($6.75) 6 8 4 (2 Players)
Hero bets $4.50, BTN raises to $27.89 and is All-In,
Hero?

I guess it's pretty standard to call off here, but I wanted to see if anyone makes the fold here, just on the "find a better spot" principle or something similar.

My line of thinking here is that there's no way the villain has a monster like a set or straight, since he wouldn't just ship it all in. But Scazmatic makes a good point here - some villains really don't know any better than to shove it all in. But in general, this is one of those spots where you should be more scared by a smaller raise (and much more likely to fold), while the big raise just doesn't make any sense if he has a monster.

I could be up against something like JJ or QQ, but it seems just as likely that I'm up against a pair + gutshot hand like 87/67/65/77/55, or even 99. So I snap it off without much hesitation...
Hero calls $23.39

Turn: ($62.53) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($62.53) Q (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $62.53 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed T T (a pair of Tens) and LOST (-$31.14 NET)
BTN showed J J (a pair of Jacks) and WON $59.53 (+$28.39 NET)

Trio of Troublesome Hands

2009-09-16T16:22:00.003-05:00

Been pretty busy around here, between fantasy football drafts (2 last week), friends visiting and visiting friends. But I got in enough poker last night to find myself in a good bit of trouble. What do I do in these 3 spots?

H1)
No stats at the time.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $88.80
BB: $28.30
Hero (UTG): $76.55
MP: $39.80
CO: $50
BTN: $101.25
CO posts $0.50
Pre-Flop: Q A dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $2.25, MP raises to $5, 4 folds, Hero calls $2.75

Flop: ($11.25) Q 8 3 (2 Players)
Hero checks, MP bets $7, Hero calls $7

Turn: ($25.25) 9 (2 Players)
Hero?
Obviously a nice turn card, but how best to play it here?

H2)
I didn't have any stats at the time, but villain ended up 23/12/1.4 over 69 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $71.75
MP: $81.65
Hero (CO): $50.75
BTN: $50
SB: $48.20
BB: $53.80
Pre-Flop: A J dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BTN folds, SB calls $1.50, BB folds

Flop: ($4) 5 J 4 (2 Players)
SB bets $2.50, Hero raises to $6.50, SB calls $4

Turn: ($17) T (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $8, SB calls $8

River: ($33) 6 (2 Players)
SB checks,
Hero?
Is this a must-bet spot? If so, how much?

H3)
Villain was 29/6/5 over 35 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): $33.83
BB: $14.56
UTG: $8.85
MP: $63.59
CO: $25
BTN: $31.14
Pre-Flop: T T dealt to Hero (SB)
3 folds, BTN raises to $1, Hero raises to $3.25, BB folds, BTN calls $2.25

Flop: ($6.75) 6 8 4 (2 Players)
Hero bets $4.50, BTN raises to $27.89 and is All-In,
Hero?

August Results and Don't Bluff Me

2009-09-04T20:19:00.000-05:00

Although August wasn't a roaring success, it felt pretty good to log the online profit that I did since I started out with a few really awful sessions.

NLHE Online: +$124.66
NLHE Live: -$400
PLO: $26.37
Bonus + Rakeback: $104.81

The Live NLHE number is a bit of an eyesore there, but it basically boiled down to one nasty, brutish, and short session I played last week. I played ok, ran into bad spots, was dealt garbage for 3 hours and went home empty-handed. That was my one and only live outing this month.

Back on the virtual felt, I still have a lot of room to improve. I have been spewing off a lot of chips making bad bluffs lately. I really need to rein that in. Here's a bad one from the other day...

Villain is 25/23/.33 over 79 hands

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BTN: $25
SB: $25
Hero (BB): $49.09
UTG: $25
CO: $47.84
Pre-Flop: 7 8 dealt to Hero (BB)
3 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Hero raises to $2.25, SB calls $1.50

I won't always 3-bet here, but I often will once I determine that the SB is raising with a high frequency, since it's so hard for the SB to play from OOP when I 3-bet. I'll usually want to be holding something a little stronger than this.

Flop: ($4.50) 2 J 5 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $3.25, SB calls $3.25

Dry flop is good for a C-bet. Calling range is unlikely to include be bigger than any 2 clubs, J-x, any pocket pair bigger than 55, and sets.

Turn: ($11) K (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $7.50, SB calls $7.50

K is a great card to barrel, but no dice.

River: ($26) 9 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $12, SB calls $12 and is All-In

When we get to the river and no club falls, I feel confident that I can shove to get my opponent off of a J or any 2 clubs. I'm just hoping he doesn't have a hand like Kc-Xc.

Results: $50 Pot ($2.50 Rake)
SB showed 8 8 (a pair of Eights) and WON $47.50 (+$22.50 NET)
Hero showed 7 8 (King Jack high) and LOST (-$25 NET)

Villain followed this up in the chat box with "Don't bluff me". A belated warning.

Nice call I guess. I guess just b/c I know that I'm capable of 3-betting for value pretty light (with a K for sure) doesn't mean that my opponent does. I guess I just look super polarized, to the point where there end up being more bluffs in my range than monsters.

The same guy turned around and pulled a similar move against another opponent at the same table a few orbits later...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $25.45
BB: $42.75
Hero (UTG): $25.50
MP: $34.73
CO: $26.10
BTN: $46.19
Pre-Flop: J A dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $0.85, 3 folds, SB raises to $2.80, BB calls $2.55, Hero folds

Flop: ($6.45) 4 T T (2 Players)
SB bets $4.25, BB calls $4.25

Turn: ($14.95) 2 (2 Players)
SB bets $9, BB calls $9

River: ($32.95) 8 (2 Players)
SB bets $9.40 and is All-In, BB calls $9.40

Results: $51.75 Pot ($2.58 Rake)
SB showed A K (a pair of Tens) and LOST (-$25.45 NET)
BB showed J J (two pair, Jacks and Tens) and WON $49.17 (+$23.72 NET)

I looked this guy up and found that he's a winning player over a good number of hands, so maybe he's on to something, but to me, it looks like he's being awfully optimistic in both of these spots.

I'm still not sure I hate my line, but I definitely plan to make careful note of the types of players who are capable of calling down this light.

I Hate Trips (Hand Results)

2009-09-02T14:15:00.001-05:00

This post includes the hand results from the 2 hands recently posted in which I hold trips and face heat:

H1)
Villain here had solid stats - 17/12/3.0 over 84 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $84.70
CO: $32.20
Hero (BTN): $56.75
SB: $50
BB: $60.85
Pre-Flop: 3 K dealt to Hero (BTN)
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, SB folds, BB calls $1

Standard button steal.

Flop: ($3.25) 8 3 J (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $2.25, BB calls $2.25

Turn: ($7.75) 3 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

River: ($17.75) 6 (2 Players)
BB bets $10,
Hero?

2 for call, 1 for raise. This is the type of spot where I will almost always be looking to maximize value. My villain's line is really funny - He check-calls 2 streets on a board with some draws, and then after none of them come in and a blank hits the river, he leads out for just over half the pot. It's tempting to think that this might be a bluff attempt on a missed draw, but if this is the type of guy to get aggro-bluffy with a draw, wouldn't he have stuck in some sort of raise on an earlier street?

It looks more likely to be a value bet, leading the river to ensure that I don't check behind with a middle strength hand like J-x/8-x/99/TT. The most likely range of hands is something like this - AJ/J8/88/66/3-x. AJ and J8 are probably discounted here, since they are vulnerable to overpair hands and are likely to be looking for a cheap showdown. That leaves 88, the unlikely 66, and 3-x. Unfortunately, the most likely 3-x hand here is A3, although I suppose a loose 34s or 35s can't be ignored.

All of that said, I decided to pass up a raise. Something just didn't feel right about that line. I still sort of think I should be raising here, but here's how it played out...
...
...
...
Hero calls $10

Results: $37.75 Pot ($1.85 Rake)

Hero mucked 3 K (three of a kind, Threes) and LOST (-$18.75 NET)

BB showed 8 8 (a full house, Eights full of Threes) and WON $35.90 (+$17.15 NET)

H2)
I'm pretty sure I had some sort of stats on my villain in this next hand, but I don't have them now. So assume a random open-limping type.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $26.70
UTG: $12.94
MP: $13.51
CO: $25.15
BTN: $22.49
SB: $3.25
Pre-Flop: Q 3 dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.25, CO calls $0.25, BTN folds, SB calls $0.15, Hero checks

Flop: ($1) Q 5 Q (4 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.80, MP folds, CO calls $0.80, SB folds

Turn: ($2.60) 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $1.75, CO raises to $5,
Hero?

Pretty gross spot. I have no kicker, meaning that there's almost nothing I can beat here besides a horribly overplayed pocket pair or 7-x (this would definitely classify as Optimistic Misdonkification), or a bluff/semi-bluff. If I'm gonna dig my heels in, then my plan has to be to call here, and then check/call the river. Otherwise, I should fold straightaway to the raise. The one absolutely stupid and donkerrific thing I cannot do is call the raise and then fold on the river. Uh oh...
...
...
...
Hero calls $3.25

River: ($12.60) 8 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $10, Hero folds

Results: $12.60 Pot ($0.63 Rake)

CO mucked and WON $11.97 (+$5.92 NET)

Buckle Up!

2009-09-01T13:13:00.003-05:00

Sat down at a table that was playing pretty wild with PF raises - a lot of 3-bets, 4-bets and shoves. Now, I like to think I have a decent understanding of how to play these tables - selectively bluff-4-betting, 3- and 4- betting for value with a wider range, and tightening up if I start getting loose call-downs. The problem is, knowing the right way to play effectively doesn't change the fact that the play at a table like this is going to be high variance, guaranteed. So it takes a certain about of stomach to go along with the right strategic approach.

In the following hand, my villain was playing 38/34/5 with a 3-bet of 18% over 60 hands. He had 3-bet my button steal the past 2 orbits and I had folded both times.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
MP: $60.95
Hero (CO): $121.25
BTN: $25
SB: $54.50
BB: $23.25
UTG: $52.30
Pre-Flop: 7 7 dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BTN folds, SB raises to $5.75, BB folds, Hero calls $4

Flop: ($12) 6 4 5 (2 Players)
SB bets $8, Hero raises to $23, SB raises to $48.75 and is All-In, Hero calls $25.75

Turn: ($109.50) 6 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($109.50) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $109.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed 7 7 (a straight, Eight high) and WON $106.50 (+$52 NET)
SB showed K J (a pair of Sixes) and LOST (-$54.50 NET)

Right strategy or not, playing against a villain like this requires getting your stack in light. If that type of high-variance game doesn't jive well with your emotional stability, then I can understand stepping away, however +EV it might be if you commit to playing it correctly.

So what's your general reaction to tables like this?
a) Strap me in, I love the rush - this is what we play this game for!
b) Sounds hectic but I can manage it. I can stand the swings and if I play sound, I should come out on top.
c) Why bother? I'm more comfortable with lower variance games, and there are plenty out there. Less experience in this type of game means I'm more likely to make a costly mistake.

I ended up doing pretty well at the crazy table, but ran into some tough spots at my other tables. How would you approach the following two spots?

H1)
Villain here had solid stats - 17/12/3.0 over 84 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $84.70
CO: $32.20
Hero (BTN): $56.75
SB: $50
BB: $60.85
Pre-Flop: 3 K dealt to Hero (BTN)
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, SB folds, BB calls $1

Standard button steal.

Flop: ($3.25) 8 3 J (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $2.25, BB calls $2.25

Turn: ($7.75) 3 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

River: ($17.75) 6 (2 Players)
BB bets $10,
Hero?

H2)
I'm pretty sure I had some sort of stats on my villain in this next hand, but I don't have them now. So assume a random open-limping type.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $26.70
UTG: $12.94
MP: $13.51
CO: $25.15
BTN: $22.49
SB: $3.25
Pre-Flop: Q 3 dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.25, CO calls $0.25, BTN folds, SB calls $0.15, Hero checks

Flop: ($1) Q 5 Q (4 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.80, MP folds, CO calls $0.80, SB folds

Turn: ($2.60) 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $1.75, CO raises to $5,
Hero?

Reconsidered

2009-08-28T13:45:00.001-05:00

Here's a hand that I didn't really think was all that interesting until I took a second look at it. Please examine the point of interest and provide your thoughts. I'll chime in later in the comments.

Villain is 13/11/6 over 118 hands

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BTN: $26.65
SB: $86.20
BB: $34.30
UTG: $50
MP: $49.55
Hero (CO): $63.90
Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG raises to $1.50, MP folds, Hero raises to $5.25, 3 folds, UTG raises to $16, Hero calls $10.75

4-bet by a tight player. Folding QQ is probably not awful, but nittier than I, frankly, am capable of. I have position and my thinking here is that I can sweat a flop and get it in if AK whiffs. This may not be the best line of thought, but nonetheless, here we go!

Flop: ($32.75) 6 A 2 (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($32.75) 7 (2 Players)
UTG checks,
Hero?

Optimistic Misdonkification

2009-08-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

That's a phrase I just invented for when you have a temporary lapse in sound poker judgement, characterized by optimistically assuming that your opponent is a donkey, so that you can justify making a really bad call. It also happens to be a really bad leak in my game.

I looked back over my weekend sessions, which added up to small loss, and identified Optimistic Misdonkification as the difference between red and black. Here are 2 of the bigger hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $50
MP: $68.90
CO: $26.70
BTN: $20.80
Hero (SB): $55.35
BB: $24.80
Pre-Flop: 6 4 dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG folds, MP raises to $1.75, CO calls $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, Hero calls $1.50, BB calls $1.25

This is a fold against 1 or 2 villains, but I don't mind it in a 4-way or better pot.

Flop: ($8.75) 5 K J (5 Players)
Hero checks, BB checks, MP bets $6, 2 folds, Hero calls $6, BB folds

Turn: ($20.75) K (2 Players)
Hero checks, MP checks

River: ($20.75) 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $9, MP raises to $30, Hero calls $21

This is a pretty easy value bet, but I think it has to be a bet-fold spot. I do think there's always a small chance that I could be facing a villain capable of raising AK for value here, hoping that I'm holding a weaker K-x. But most opponents will call here with any K after the flush comes in. That leaves the raising range as monsters (KJ/JJ/55) that got there on the turn, and drawing hands that got there on the river (any 2 big spades, 77). When I call here, I'm really just praying that my opponent is bad enough to be ignoring the flush card and raising AK cause he thinks it's the nuts. And when you go and assume that your opponent is a donkey, it often, ironically, makes YOU the donkey.

Results: $80.75 Pot ($3 Rake)
MP showed T Q (a flush, King high) and WON $77.75 (+$40 NET)
Hero mucked 6 4 (a flush, King high) and LOST (-$37.75 NET)

So that one was a $21 blunder. This one doesn't cost quite as much, but still burns. I didn't really have any stats on the villain.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $50.25
Hero (BB): $81.85
UTG: $36.10
BTN: $68.75
Pre-Flop: 9 A dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG raises to $1.50, 2 folds, Hero calls $1

Flop: ($3.25) A K 5 (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $2, Hero calls $2

Turn: ($7.25) 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $5, Hero calls $5

Here's where it gets questionable. I guess I'm giving him credit for either a 2-barrel bluff or a light second barrel with a worse A-rag hand. You know how those donkeys just loooove their aces! Yep, folding here is probably fine, without more info on opponent.

River: ($17.25) 6 (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $6, Hero calls $6

So let's say villain makes a big river bet. Well then his range is pretty heavily polarized, and although it's unlikely that he's making a 3-barrel bluff, I at least can consider the possibility. But here he bets small, looking very interested in squeezing some final value out of a strong holding. A post-oak bluff? I don't think so. But here I come along all Pollyanna star-bright running my fingers through my long yellow curls, smiling wide to yammer - "By golly, he's just got to be firing 3 barrels with A-8 here!"

Results: $29.25 Pot ($1.45 Rake)
Hero mucked 9 A (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$14.50 NET)
UTG showed 5 5 (three of a kind, Fives) and WON $27.80 (+$13.30 NET)

River PSB from a Fish

2009-08-20T15:41:00.000-05:00

Villain is 69/24/2.1 over 29 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $94.70
BTN: $37.05
Hero (SB): $50
BB: $55
UTG: $50
Pre-Flop: K K dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, BTN calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.50, BB calls $2, BTN calls $2

Flop: ($7.50) 8 7 7 (3 Players)
Hero bets $5, BB folds, BTN calls $5

Turn: ($17.50) 4 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($17.50) A (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $18,
Hero?

Is it a mistake to check this river? Should I be making a blocking bet?

Bluff Happy

2009-08-19T08:40:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em, and yes, I know it's ridiculous that I would pay $100 for a poker book when it takes me 2 months to make that much playing online. :)
But that's not the point. The point is that the Barrelling section of that book, which is great, has inspired me to aggressively steal pots post-flop. For the most part, it's working well. A few examples from a session two nights ago...

Villain is 35/26/4.5 over 68 and seems solid (these are often the best type to bluff big against).

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BTN: $15.27
SB: $28.92
BB: $70.57
Hero (UTG): $26.85
CO: $12.50
Pre-Flop: J K dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $0.85, CO folds, BTN calls $0.85, SB folds, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($2.65) 6 2 T (3 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, BB raises to $6, Hero calls $4.25, BTN folds

I thought about shipping it here, but with position, a strong draw, and possibly live overcards, I called instead.

Turn: ($16.40) 2 (2 Players)
BB bets $7, Hero calls $7

This call is a lot closer. There's no guarantee that my diamond is good, nor my K or J. And I probably shouldn't be relying on any chance of stealing the pot without making a hand. So yeah, this may be bad (maybe raising is better?).

River: ($30.40) 6 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $13 and is All-In, BB folds

When he checks here, I'm pretty sure he has either air or his own busted draw. Since I can't beat an A-high flush draw, shipping it in is my only play. A Ten is still possible, but I can't imagine he comes this far and folds with top pair. A middle pair may play it this way, looking for a cheap showdown but unwilling to call off his stack.

Results: $30.40 Pot ($1.52 Rake)
Hero mucked J K and WON $28.88 (+$15.03 NET)

About 20 minutes later, I get involved with the same LAG-y villain again.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $32.95
BTN: $22.85
SB: $53.34
Hero (BB): $35.68
UTG: $25
MP: $12.50
Pre-Flop: 6 7 dealt to Hero (BB)
4 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Hero calls $0.50

My plan here was to float almost any flop and try to steal it on the turn. Players are being taught to steal aggressively from the SB, and in my opinion, it's really exploitable, since their ranges are so wide, they're out of position, and they rarely have the will to take it past the flop.

Flop: ($1.50) T 7 Q (2 Players)
SB bets $1.50, Hero calls $1.50

Third pair is more than enough to float with. The full pot is a bigger bet than I usually see here, so I begin to wonder if he has a real hand.

Turn: ($4.50) 4 (2 Players)
SB bets $3.75, Hero raises to $9, SB calls $5.25

A big second barrel is unexpected, and I consider folding. But I decide to stick to it and represent a 2-pair+ hand with a raise. When he calls, I'm pretty much ready to give it up.

River: ($22.50) 3 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $24.43 and is All-In, SB folds

But the river is such a complete blank, and I can't imagine that he could call another big barrel here. Of course, I may have been good here with 3rd pair, had he missed a straight or flush draw, but I think my shove still folds out a lot of his Q-x/T-x hands. And what's more, I prefer to not have to show down my hand after the way that I've played it.

Results: $22.50 Pot ($1.12 Rake)
Hero mucked 6 7 and WON $21.38 (+$10.13 NET)

In this one, I just decide to take the more aggressive line. When holding a draw and facing aggression, I have historically tended to go on the defensive. But if there is any chance that villain is check-raising light or bluff raising, the more aggressive line can be more profitable, and bolster your image.

Villain is 19/12/1.7 over 74

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $24.70
CO: $33.92
Hero (BTN): $34.47
SB: $42.05
BB: $25
Pre-Flop: 9 J dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, CO raises to $0.85, Hero raises to $2.90, 2 folds, CO calls $2.05

Flop: ($6.15) 7 K T (2 Players)
CO checks, Hero bets $3.50, CO raises to $8.50, Hero raises to $31.57 and is All-In, CO folds

Results: $23.15 Pot ($1.15 Rake)
Hero mucked 9 J and WON $22 (+$10.60 NET)

Of course, the problem with bluffing is that you stand to lose big when you fail. And I finally got my comeuppance in this hand.

I had no history on my opponent.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $50.75
BTN: $130.85
Hero (SB): $86.65
BB: $52.10
UTG: $50
MP: $50
Pre-Flop: 8 8 dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, CO raises to $1.50, BTN folds, Hero calls $1.25, BB folds

Flop: ($3.50) 3 2 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $2.50, Hero calls $2.50

I'm ahead of an average player's C-bet range here, so I think folding is way too nitty. Raising is an okay option, but I risk bloating the pot and having to either check later streets and become susceptible to a bluff, or basically turn my hand into a bluff by continuing to fire barrels. Of course, I could also win the pot outright or get re-raising and have an easy fold decision.

Turn: ($8.50) Q (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $6.50, Hero raises to $15, CO calls $8.50

So I decide to check-raise the turn instead. The Q is a good bluff card, and my check-raise represents major strength. When he just calls, I'm planning to fire a big barrel on the river, hoping to fold out a weakish Q-x hand (QJ/QK/QT) or a middle pair (JJ-99).

River: ($38.50) 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $22, CO calls $22

I wonder if shipping it wouldn't have gotten the fold I wanted, but I doubt it. No one likes folding AA, especially on a dry board. I opted for a bet that looked more like a value bet. Fail.

Results: $82.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
CO showed A A (two pair, Aces and Sevens) and WON $79.50 (+$38.50 NET)
Hero showed 8 8 (two pair, Eights and Sevens) and LOST (-$41 NET)

Tricky 99 Hand

2009-08-15T13:19:00.002-05:00

I brought up this hand in my last post, since it was a weird spot and I was a little lost at the time. Here's the hand and the results...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): $50.25
BB: $51.60
UTG: $52.60
MP: $51
CO: $55.60
BTN: $49.25
Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.50, CO folds, BTN raises to $2.25, Hero raises to $8.50, 2 folds, BTN calls $6.25

I raise here PF because 99 is pretty far ahead of most players' button raising ranges. I stand to take it down PF a good percentage of the time. But when I'm called, I can end up with some difficult decisions. To wit...

Flop: ($18) 2 Q 8 (2 Players)
Hero bets $12.50, BTN calls $12.50

Turn: ($43) Q (2 Players)
Hero?

The Q is actually a pretty decent turn card. It's less likely that my opponent has a Q, and if he did, then I was already beat anyway, so my standing hasn't changed. The only problem now is that there's no way I can bluff someone off of a weak Q-x hand.

Returning to my postulate that post-flop play in 3-bet pots tends to be very straightforward, I think we can deduce that my opponent is very unlikely to have air or random high cards, which leaves us with a few possibilities - Q-x, 88, 22, any 2 big hearts (Qh-xh is more likely to have raised the flop), JJ, TT, 99, and maybe A8s, K8s, or 98s. I discount KK and AA, since those hands almost always raise the flop. I'm way behind the Q-x, 88, 22, JJ, TT and in good shape against 2 hearts or 8-x.

Now, I have to act first, there's $43 in the pot, and I have $29 behind. Since I'm likely to be behind here, I think we could check-fold and it wouldn't be the worst decision. But I actually prefer a shove. Our $29 bet would be a good sized bet, enough to make most opponents fold TT or JJ. This also makes it a mistake for a drawing hand to call, even with 13 outs (2 overs + FD).

Hef suggested the possibility of a small bet, intending to fold to a raise. But I don't really think there's any way we can bet-fold here. A $5 bet is way too small - we would gain very little information, since our opponent could call us with something as weak as a gutshot, and we could induce a bluff-raise from a FD-type hand. Betting anything more pretty much commits us to the pot.

As for the action...

Hero bets $29.25 and is All-In, BTN calls $28.25 and is All-In

River: ($99.50) 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $99.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed 9 9 (two pair, Queens and Nines) and LOST (-$49.25 NET)
BTN showed 8 8 (a full house, Eights full of Queens) and WON $96.50 (+$47.25 NET)

We knew 88 was in our villain's range, but I still think shoving here is fine. Although I meant to highlight the fit-or-fold play of 3-bet pots, I still think there are some semi-fit type hands, like TT/JJ/draws, that merit the type of continued aggression that I ended up applying.

As always, thanks for the comments and I hope to get back to playing and posting some more soon.

Pots and PF Bets That Precede Them

2009-08-13T21:30:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a bit about post-flop play and it's relationship to the number of PF raises that were made. This stems from a couple of 3-bet pots that I played recently (one of which I will get to shortly). The increased frequency of 3- and 4-betting PF means more post-flop pots starting big, with small SPRs. At 25NL and 50NL, these pots tend to play much differently than pots with just one PF raise. It's almost like everyone puts their serious cap on once a 3-bet has been made and called. Here's a slightly more detailed breakdown of how I see it:

1 PF Raise - This is by far the most common type of pot. I won't go into it much, because there's so much to cover. These pots can be seen up to 5-ways or more, and hand ranges are at their widest. Players have the greatest number of options available. If someone feels like getting tricky, this is the type of pot where they'll try out their moves.

3-bet PF - In 3-bet pots, you are usually heads-up. If you are playing 100 BBs deep, and PF raises are pot-sized (1st raise is 3.5BBs, 3-bet is 11 or 12BBs), then the pot will be about 20-25BBs going to the flop. These big pots tend to discourage trickiness...once one bet has gone into the pot post-flop, the pretty much the only move left is to shove all-in. It's a risky and expensive move to make. Thus the main point - In 3-bet pots, the play is generally straightforward, assuming players aren't deepstacked.

4-bet PF - Happens rarely since 4-bets are rarely cold-called PF, but when it does, the rest is usually getting in pretty quickly. Not much analysis needed.

With all of that said, here's a hand I played recently. How do these ideas apply here? I'll save my thoughts for a little bit later...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): $50.25
BB: $51.60
UTG: $52.60
MP: $51
CO: $55.60
BTN: $49.25
Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.50, CO folds, BTN raises to $2.25, Hero raises to $8.50, 2 folds, BTN calls $6.25

Flop: ($18) 2 Q 8 (2 Players)
Hero bets $12.50, BTN calls $12.50

Turn: ($43) Q (2 Players)
Hero?

50NL Blues

2009-08-11T11:54:00.003-05:00

A short recap of an epic online session for me from last night, where epic equals 2+ hours, since squeezing in one hour quickies is the way I roll these days.

The past week has been bad, but no alarms and no surprises, as I knew the moment that I uttered something about finding a groove and feeling like I had things figured out, I would hit the skids hard.

My third hand after sitting at a 50NL table tonight...
Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $57.60
MP: $33.55
CO: $23.40
Hero (BTN): $50
SB: $7.75
BB: $77.15
Pre-Flop: J J dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, MP raises to $2, CO folds, Hero raises to $6.75, SB folds, MP calls $4.75

Flop: ($14.25) 7 5 4 (2 Players)
MP checks, Hero bets $10, MP calls $10

Turn: ($34.25) 9 (2 Players)
MP checks, Hero bets $17, MP calls $16.80 and is All-In

River: ($67.85) 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $67.85 Pot ($3 Rake)
MP showed 7 7 (three of a kind, Sevens) and WON $64.85 (+$31.30 NET)
Hero showed J J (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$33.55 NET)

We'll skip the lecture about calling a 3-bet OOP for 20% of your stack with a small PP. As for my play, I think against a short-stack, if I'm gonna C-bet, I pretty much have to shove for half-pot on that turn. Retrospectively, I think a lot of the hands that I beat are check-shoving that flop, including big club draws (Ac-Xc), and even 88 and TT. So when villain calls, he is often going to have me beat and be reeling me in, either with a set or a big overpair like AA/KK. Nonetheless, given the stack sizes, it's almost impossible to give up on this hand.

One full orbit later...
Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BB: $66.45
UTG: $61.10
CO: $18.65
Hero (BTN): $50
SB: $76.40
Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (BTN)
BB raises to $1.50, Hero raises to $5, BB calls $3.50

Flop: ($10.50) T 4 8 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $7.50, BB raises to $15, Hero calls $7.50

Turn: ($40.50) 3 (2 Players)
BB bets $15.50, Hero raises to $30 and is All-In, BB calls $14.50

River: ($100.50) J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $100.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
BB showed T T (three of a kind, Tens) and WON $97.50 (+$47.50 NET)
Hero showed Q Q (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$50 NET)

The small check-raise is so menacing, but given that I know nothing about this opponent, I have to think I'm in some trouble here. The strongish hands that I beat, AT and JJ, are both very vulnerable on this flop, so if my opponent is wont to check-raise here, then I expect a bigger raise and an attempt to get more FE.

So this is soul-crushing right? But so is continuing to read about hands like this, so I'll drop in one that went my way...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $113.20
BTN: $60.35
Hero (SB): $50
BB: $50
UTG: $91.70
Pre-Flop: 9 A dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG folds, CO raises to $1.75, BTN folds, Hero calls $1.50

Flop: ($4) T Q 8 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $2.75, Hero calls $2.75

Turn: ($9.50) J (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $6.50, Hero calls $6.50

River: ($22.50) 6 (2 Players)
Hero bets $11, CO calls $11

Results: $44.50 Pot ($2.20 Rake)
CO mucked T T (three of a kind, Tens) and LOST (-$22 NET)
Hero showed 9 A (a straight, Queen high) and WON $42.30 (+$20.30 NET)

Questionable PF call, and tough spot to float from OOP, but with backdoor flush draw, gutshot straight, and the A a possible out, I decided to peel and was rewarded.

When villain bets the turn, his range is polarized, since most 1-pair hands will check back such a scary turn. On the river, I figured I had to lead out, since only a T is firing a 3rd barrel there. But I wonder if I shouldn't have gone for more value on the river. If villain has 2-pair or a set, he may call a bet up to $17-$18. Not sure I had really seen that one through.

And finally, a tough spot and a quandary...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $10
BTN: $25
SB: $25.10
BB: $21.89
Hero (UTG): $25.80
MP: $26.12
CO posts $0.25
Pre-Flop: A K dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $1.10, 2 folds, BTN calls $1.10, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.80) 2 9 A (2 Players)
Hero bets $1.75, BTN calls $1.75

Turn: ($6.30) J (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($6.30) 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $5.25, BTN raises to $22.15 and is All-In,
Hero?

July

2009-08-03T12:38:00.000-05:00

July went pretty well...just what I needed after a disappointing Vegas trip at the end of June. It wasn't a gigantic sample space as far as online play goes, since I only played about 1500 hands each of PLO and NLHE. So maybe it was just lucky 3K hands. On the live poker side, I got in a decent number of live sessions - 6 - and made a profit in each and every one. Once again, maybe a lucky month, or maybe I'm finally figuring something out. Perhaps August will help us discern the truth.

In PLO, I ran ahead of EV, but would've been in the black even if I had run even with it...

And NLHE...

Online NLHE: +$182.03
Live NLHE: +$458.00
Online PLO: +$156.11
Rakeback: +$29.77

HA Quiz - Results

2009-07-30T13:58:00.003-05:00

In the first hand, I faced a min-4-bet from OOP, then a strange tiny C-bet. I discussed this hand with friends, and the opinions seem to divide along folding or making a small feeler/information raise...

50/2/2 over 58
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

MP: $26.84
CO: $34.33
BTN: $46.39
SB: $5
Hero (BB): $25.70
UTG: $23.96
Pre-Flop: Q K dealt to Hero (BB)
2 folds, CO raises to $0.75, BTN calls $0.75, SB folds, Hero raises to $3.50, CO folds, BTN raises to $6.25, Hero calls $2.75

Flop: ($13.35) Q A 3 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $3.50,
Hero?
...
...
I was ready to fold to any normal-sized C-bet, maybe even a bet as small as $6, but the $3.50 bet meant 1 of 2 things to me - either he flopped huge, and wanted to milk it for whatever value he could (AA/QQ/AQ), or he flopped bad, and was making a weak probe bet (99-JJ/KK). There's a chance that he has AK/AJ/AT here, but I see those hands making a bigger C-bet. But who's to say what a donkey is thinking here?

As for those who would advocate a small raise, I don't really like this, since, unless we want to turn our hand into a bluff to shake off KK or a weak A, we would only be folding out weaker hands that are drawing slim, or building up a pot against hands that have us crushed.
...
...
Hero calls $3.50
Turn: ($20.35) Q (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $6.25, Hero raises to $15.95 and is All-In, BTN calls $9.70

It gets much less interesting on the turn here, since I pull ahead of KK/AK/AJ here and am now obviously getting my stack in. It isn't much for the villain to call, so I shove my last $10 in.

River: ($52.25) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $52.25 Pot ($2.61 Rake)
BTN showed J J (two pair, Aces and Queens) and LOST (-$25.70 NET)
Hero showed Q K (a full house, Queens full of Aces) and WON $49.64 (+$23.94 NET)

Villain couldn't have played this worse. A decent sized 4-bet shakes me PF, and a decent-sized C-bet shakes me on the flop. I got to see the lovely turn for almost as cheap as possible.

The Omaha was less interesting than I initially thought it might be. Pretty much everyone agreed on the necessary action....

Bodog Poker, $0.10/$0.25 PLO cash game, 6 Players
BTN: $21.50
Hero (SB): $28.58
BB: $17.15
UTG: $22.79
MP: $26.80
CO: $40.27

Pre-Flop: Hero dealt As Qc 5s 5d
UTG calls $0.25, MP raises to $0.65, CO folds, BTN calls $0.65, Hero calls $0.55, BB folds, UTG calls $0.40

Flop ($2.85): 6c 9c 5h
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP bets $0.85, BTN raises to $5.40,
Hero?
...
...
Hero folds, MP folds.

I think this fold is made easy by my position and the fact that I have put nothing into the pot. If I call, I become pot-committed if the board pairs, and that might not be the best outcome here.

I think it becomes a little bit different if I am in position, since I can see CO's action on later streets, and possibly bluff if a 3rd club falls. But being OOP here is retched.

HA Quiz

2009-07-29T13:14:00.007-05:00

Anyone actually know how HA stands for pot-limit Hold-Em and Omaha? Was the O just already used up, and A the next vowel that came to mind? Couldn't they have re-appropriated the O, given it's more obvious association with PLO? I've already thought too much about this.

We're going round-n-round today. One NLHE hand followed by one PLO hand.

This hand was puzzling. It's a case of an opponent (I won't say donkey yet) making a series of unorthodox moves which froze me in my tracks.

50/2/2 over 58
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

MP: $26.84
CO: $34.33
BTN: $46.39
SB: $5
Hero (BB): $25.70
UTG: $23.96
Pre-Flop: Q K dealt to Hero (BB)
2 folds, CO raises to $0.75, BTN calls $0.75, SB folds, Hero raises to $3.50, CO folds, BTN raises to $6.25, Hero calls $2.75

Original raiser had a PFR above 20, so it looked like a great spot for a squeeze. Then the BTN made a min-4-bet. I really wasn't sure what to make of it, but I wasn't folding with such great odds and a decently strong hand. At this point, I'm planning to fold if I don't hit the flop hard.

Flop: ($13.35) Q A 3 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $3.50,
Hero?

I don't hit hard, but I do hit. Still, I'm ready to fold to any reasonable C-bet. Then villain leads for just $3.50. What do make of this, and how to plan for the rest of the hand?

Now for the Omaha round. I had no HUD running and no reads on any opponents.

Bodog Poker, $0.10/$0.25 PLO cash game, 6 Players
BTN: $21.50
Hero (SB): $28.58
BB: $17.15
UTG: $22.79
MP: $26.80
CO: $40.27

Pre-Flop: Hero dealt As Qc 5s 5d
UTG calls $0.25, MP raises to $0.65, CO folds, BTN calls $0.65, Hero calls $0.55, BB folds, UTG calls $0.40

Flop ($2.85): 6c 9c 5h
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP bets $0.85, BTN raises to $5.40,
Hero?

Donk Out

2009-07-27T14:57:00.006-05:00

Over the last few live 1-2 sessions, I've enjoyed watching opponents play really badly from OOP. Not enough check-raises, almost no check-raise bluffs, and bets being poorly-sized and transparent. My favorite bad OOP move is the donk-lead or donk-bet- betting into the PFR on the flop.

The main problem with the donk-bet is that so few players are capable of making it with a strong made hand. Therefore, the donk-bettor's range can be narrowed to air, draws, and one-pair hands. The only exception might be on a draw-heavy flop where the donk-bettor has flopped 2-pair or a set (e.g., 7d-9d or 7d-7h on a 7c-8s-9s flop).

As the PFR in position, you are now presented with a lot of information and a lot of options about how to play the hand. Against a calling station-type player, if you have completely whiffed, you can fold easily. If you have an overpair or better, you can raise for value.

Against bluffy types, your best bet is to call and let him put more money in from behind, or to wait and represent real strength, I move that I pulled off here.

The donk lead will often be an information bet - a hand like top pair, which is willing to take down the pot or to fold to strong resistance. In this case, you can play optimally - call with an overpair or better, or bluff-raise with worse. You can also play it like a float, peeling with the intention of bluffing a scare card.

This hand wasn't exactly a float, but it demonstrates how one can put themself in a world of trouble from OOP...

Villain is 40/11/2.8 over 63

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: $50.75
MP: $61.10
Hero (CO): $53.50
BTN: $50
SB: $86.40
BB: $50

Pre-Flop: 9 8 dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, MP calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.25, BTN folds, SB calls $2, 2 folds

Flop: ($5.50) J 5 T (2 Players)
SB bets $4, Hero calls $4

The real benefit of villain's lead is immediate - I think he will almost never make this bet with 55/TT/JJ/JT, but would instead go for the check-raise. I can assign a range that is mostly made up of J-x hands - AJ/KJ/QJ/J9 - but also includes, with less frequency, some weaker hands (AT/KT/QT/9T/99/88) and some draws (89/KQ/Q9).

It's clearly fine to raise here. I have fold equity and a strong draw to go with it, but I somehow doubt my villain is folding to just one barrel. So if I raise here, I have to be willing to follow up with multiple barrels, and no guarantee that my villain will fold. So I call with my decently disguised draw.

Turn: ($13.50) 6 (2 Players)
SB bets $5.50, Hero calls $5.50

The turn card is a blank...it misses me, but it also improves none of my villain's range. Villain fires a 2nd barrel, and of course there's no way I'm folding here. The 2nd barrel further decreases the likelihood of T-x and small pair hands, which are likely to slow down here, although I don't put a small blockish bet out the range of possibilities. OEDSs are still possible, but J-x is most likely by far.

River: ($24.50) K (2 Players)
SB bets $5, Hero raises to $23, SB folds

I whiff the river, but Villain makes a really sheepishly small bet that looks a lot like a J hoping for a cheap showdown. The K is a great card for me, since it hits a lot of my range for PF raising and calling the flop and turn (AK/AQ/KT/KJ and the less likely KQ/Q9...nevermind the slowplayed sets or KK). I make a raise here that's big enough to induce a fold, but small enough to minimize risk and look like a value-raise. Villain folds without much hesitation.

Results: $34.50 Pot ($1.70 Rake)
Hero mucked 9 8 and WON $32.80 (+$16.05 NET)

This is a pretty good demonstration of why it's so hard to play OOP against a PFR. Donk-betting only compounds the problem by narrowing your range and bloating the pot.

I would remiss if I didn't mention this caveat - advanced players can and do turn this logic and thinking against you. But even still, most players will prefer a check-raise to a donk-lead, since it gets more money into the pot. So even against strong players, you will rarely see this move made.

Disconnected

2009-07-24T14:54:00.003-05:00

Been disconnected from online poker for most of the past week, but not fully disconnected from poker. In a strange twist, I've found myself playing a good amount of live poker lately. I've been squeezing live sessions in by pushing them late into the evening, starting around 10pm when the homestead is starting to ease in for the night. This has made for some rough days following late-night poker sessions, but it has been worth it.

Being able to play in these live 1-2 games with buddies (usually David, Stephen, or Scott) is really the difference and what makes it worthwhile, since having someone to chat with and sweat out hands helps me overcome my biggest weakness in moving from online multi-tabling to the slooow full table grind - patience. Of course, I also love talking strategy at the table with my friends. I realize it is generally a big no-no, since it gives up a ton of information - how well I understand the game, my take on certain situations, etc. But, if you've played live, you know that it's nearly impossible to whisper to a neighbor quietly enough that no one else can overhear you. And it looks sketchy to be constantly whispering directly into someone's ear while sitting at the table and my draw outcries from other players. So I've decided I'm willing to give up a little edge in order to stay entertained and keep a discussion going with a friend.

No matter how much I mumble about strategy with friends, I doubt it will do much to improve the play of guys like one I played with early this week. I was at a 1-2 game with 2 friends, and all 3 of us managed to score huge pots, all in somewhat tough spots, all against the same maniac.

I had the benefit of watching both of my buddies make correct hero-calls against this guy before it got to my turn. Both times, he raised pre-flop, C-bet, checked the turn, then made a big bet on the river. Both times he was on a pure bluff and got caught.

One final piece of history. I played one hand with this villain in which we saw a flop of 7-7h-Th, and the villain made a donk-lead (he wasn't the PFR), I called with 8h-9h. He checked offsuit 8 turn, I bet and he folded. He told me after the hand that he had A2, and thought he could take it on a scary board. Nice to know, thank you very much.

Here's the relevant hand:
I have ~$290, villain covers me.

I get 56o and limp from MP. LP guy with big stack raises to $12, Villain in SB calls, one other EP player calls, and I make the loose call.
I was trying to see a lot of cheap flops, hit something big, and stack somebody. The table was limpy enough that I think this was a good approach.

4 way flop comes 4-7-K rainbow.
Villain donk-leads from SB for $25. I call and everyone folds.
I almost raised here, but thought I might prefer a bigger pot with a few more players, in case I hit one of my decently well-disguised OESD outs.

Turn is a 7, putting 2 clubs up. Villain checks and I check behind.

River is an Ad. He takes his time before counting out $75 to bet into a $100 pot. I have about $175 behind, and after about 10 seconds, I shove it all in. Villain instafolds.
I honestly think he had no hand-reading skills, and put almost no thought into my actions. I thought my shove would like like 44/A7/K7, but I doubt he gave it that much thought. He would again admit to having complete air.

It felt nice to make the kind of move that I never have the guts to make, and have it pay off. That's the kind of move I would almost never make online, so chalk it up to live feel and read, which is something I never thought I'd practice enough to really develop. But extra time on the live felt has me feeling a little differently about it this week.

PLO Hands - 1 tourney, 1 cash

2009-07-21T12:13:00.005-05:00

2 interesting PLO hands, IMO, that have been marinating for a little while in my mind. The hands aren't really related in any way, but I figured I would knock them both out here at once.

Tourney Hand

The first hand was from an online Pot-limit HA (half holdem, half omaha) tournament. Somehow, I lost the HH, but should be able to remember most of the details. The tourney started with just over 100 runners, and at the time of this hand, we were down to the final 2 tables. I think there were 16 players left when this hand came up. The tournament paid out 12, so we're nearing the bubble.

The blinds are 200-400 with 50 chip ante, and I'm sitting on a stack of about 14000, which is slightly above average. It's the PLO round, and I get dealt 6c-7c-7-8 on the button. The CO, with a short stack of 4000, pots it to 1700. It's borderline, but I decide to call. The SB, with about 11K, also calls, and we see the flop 3 ways.

The flop comes 5-6-Q rainbow. The SB checks and the CO moves in for his last 2300. Given my pair plus OESD, it's a pretty easy call. Then, the SB ships in his remaining 9K+.

I don't play a whole lot of tournament PLO, so this was a weird spot for me. But let's start with the PF action... I hold a decent PLO hand, one worth seeing a flop cheaply, and which benefits from good implied odds. In this case, I can play pretty close to perfect against the CO, since he is almost guaranteed to get the rest of his chips in. But this close to the bubble, should I be calling a raise for 15% of my stack with a marginal hand? Folding PF would probably have been fine.

I think my call of the CO's push is easy, but once the SB shoves, I am in a tough spot. I would be calling ~7K to win almost 19K. But losing puts me on a pretty short stack of ~3K. If I'm up against a set and a draw similar to mine, I'm in really rough shape, and the same goes if I'm up against a dominating draw (7-8-9). At best, I'm up against 2-pair (SB) and high connected cards (CO), in which case I could be as good as 40% to win.

I ultimately made the call and found myself up against 2-pair from the SB (Q-J-9-5) and high cards (A-Q-J-9) from the CO, pretty much the best case scenario. But I bricked out, and busted out 14th a few hands later.

My guess is that the primary mistake was the one PF, where I should be giving bigger consideration to where we are in the tournament, and not putting myself at risk to lose a lot of chips. If I am entering pots, I should be raising, and not calling, to take advantage of FE. Anyone hate my play, at any spot in this hand?

Live Hand

The second interesting hand came from live $1-$2 PLO play during my recent Vegas trip. The villain was a young guy who seemed to know what he was doing and hadn't made much noise in the 45 minutes or so that he had been sitting at the table. Villain has $220 and I cover.

An EP raiser makes it $10, MP villain calls, I call from the CO with Ah-Qc-Jc-Td, the button calls, and the BB calls. $50 pot.

Flop is Kc-2h-5h. EP checks, Villain bets 20, I call and others fold.

There are a couple of interesting things about the action here. One thing I find in PLO, especially in multi-way pots, is that the action from early position tends to be extremely straightforward and honest. Given the dryness of the board, the Villain betting here likely means 2-pair or a baby set, bet for value. Unless he has a monster straight+flush draw combo, he probably doesn't want to lead out and find himself out of position with just a one-way draw. My opponent is handicapped by his position in a big way...I know he isn't semi-bluffing the nut flush draw, since I have the Ah. So I'm in a good spot to make a dry-A bluff if another heart falls.

The second thing to consider is my hand and the strength of my backdoor draws. There are quite a few cards in the deck (any A/Q/J/T/9) that can fall and give me a big nut-straight wrap draw heading to the river. Plus, I have a backdoor 2nd-nut club draw. Now, it isn't always correct to call a flop bet with only backdoor draws. The key factors are stack depth and opponent bet-sizing. Stack depth is key since backdoor draws are by definition less likely to hit, but get paid well when they do since they are disguised and tough to read. Bet-sizing is critical because if you are facing a pot-sized bet on the flop, and another likely PSB on the turn, then you are unlikely to be getting the right odds to draw, even if you get part-way to your draw on the turn. But against an opponent making a small flop bet, you can often anticipate either a check or another smallish bet on the turn. After all, why would they suddenly change their story from weak to strong when the turn falls.

Now back to the hand...

Turn is the Ad, giving me top pair and a 9-out broadway wrap. Villain bets out 50 into a $90 pot, and I have an easy call now.

The river is the Tc, giving me the nuts. Villain bets $100, leaving only $40 behind. I shove for his remaining chips, and shockingly, he folds pretty quickly, leaving me to think he was either stone bluffing with a heart draw that whiffed.

Of course it takes some luck to have a backdoor draw come in like that. But if you recognize good hands and situations to play strong, multi-way backdoor draws, you can make a decent profit of it...and also enjoy the berating you'll receive for catching up from so far behind.

June

2009-07-16T08:08:00.005-05:00

You'd think such a horrific PLO chart would leave me disheartened and discouraged, but no, I want more. I am, in fact, torn over how to devote my precious few available online poker-playing hours. The numbers suggest one thing, the heart croons for another.

NLHE: +$12.24 (1100 hands)
PLO: -$180.93
Live Poker: -$293
Rakeback: +$56.99

Ah, the peace and serenity of knowing that at least the Rakeback number will be positive each month.

I have a few interesting PLO hands to discuss, one from Vegas and one from a recent tourney. I'll be back with those hands soon.

Lost Time

2009-07-13T10:33:00.009-05:00

It would seem odd that a purported poker blogger would hype up a trip to Vegas and then fall completely silent once that trip has come and gone. Well, I can only explain it like this - it went pretty badly, I was fully burnt out by the end of the trip and ready to take a month+ break from poker. But I wiped that silliness out of my head pretty quickly.

I'm pretty sure it goes like this for all poker enthusiasts... When you're winning, the appetite is pretty much insatiable, and you play as much as you can, in which case your level of degeneracy is determined by how many other important facets of your life you put aside to make poker the #1 priority. When you're losing, you burn out quickly and promise to take a break or quit completely, in which case your level of degeneracy is determined by how quickly you forget about the whole thing and return to the felt.

The Vegas trip thrust me into the latter scenario, and it basically took me about 10 days to get over it. Not sure where that puts me on the degeneracy scale, but either way, I feel alright about it.

Basically, I started out my Vegas trip on a losing streak and never fully recovered. In literally my first orbit playing 1-2 at Imperial Palace, I got all-in PF with AA vs. KK vs. KT, and saw 9-J-Q hit the flop. Fortunately, the KT was a $60 short-stack, but it still turned a coulda-been $230 win into a $110 one. The pain of that loss was doubled when the KT guy, a loose-passive redhead (we'll call him Red), who was ready to leave on the all-in hand, later hero-called my river bet to take down a $170 pot.

In that hand, I raised J9s from MP to $10, got called by the tight old cowboy to my right and by Red in the BB. The flop came 2-4-5 rainbow, and I C-bet $20, which both players called. The turn was an 8 and it checked through. The river was a K, I fired $40 into $90, cowboy folded, and after tanking, Red called with AQo and scooped it. I guess he figures I'm 2-barrelling the turn with pocket pair better than 8's, which polarizes me on the river to AK/KQ or air. It was a good call, but I would later find out that Red was a total spewmonster, and I would eventually get a piece of it too.

So I ended the first night down $165, but felt good heading into Thursday, where I planned to play the Caesar's $330 megastack event. I enjoyed that event, which has a great structure, but I was completely card-dead, catching nothing better than TT over 5 hours of play, before finally shipping it in from UTG with 44 and an M of 6. Got called by KK and that was that.

Over the remaining course of the weekend, I rarely got much going at the NLHE tables, although I did end up back at a table with Red from the first night. We were at the Rio playing 1-3NL. We played 3 big hands...basically, this dude was calling any raise with any 2, so these are really just all of the hands that I raised. In the first one, Red, sitting 3 to my right, limped for $3, and I raised to $17 from the button. I ended up isolated against him, and we saw an 8x-8c-5c flop. I led for $28, he shoved for $85, and I called. He had been playing any 2, but had generally been a calling station and not an aggressive raiser, so perhaps that should have been a sign. However, given his short stack and the number of draws out, there was no way I was folding. He turned up 82o, I missed my 2-outer, and he scooped it. I was fairly well steamed and the entire table was shocked (and also drooling over the fact that he now held a $200 stack).

I would get a small piece back later when I flopped my first cash-game set of the trip (3 days in!) with 99, extracting 2 streets before he folded the river. It was a limped pot, so I only got about $25 off him in that hand. But I would get the rest from him shortly thereafter, when he decided to slowplay a turned 2-pair, checking a turn that eventually got checked around and allowed me to river an OESD. He shipped it in and I snapped him off for a ~$150 pot.

Those were the NLHE cash game highlights as I remember them. There were some more interesting spots that I remembered for a while, but have slipped my mind now that we're 2 weeks past the trip.

I only played one tourney after the $330 one, when we returned to Caesar's for their $160 7pm megastack tourney. This tourney was also a good value, with a decent amount of play for the buy-in. 218 players entered, and I ran really well in this one, making it down to the final 2 tables (18 paid). I was thriving on a short stack until, with 12 players left, I called an EP shove with KK. Opponent turned up A9, and A hit the flop, and I was done. Had I won that I probably would have cruised to the final table and pulled down at least $1K. Sigh. I still won $225 for my efforts.

Despite feeling crappy about my poker play, when all was said and done I was only down about $250 for the trip in poker tourneys and cash (I forgot to mention that PLO treated me quite well...I won some $300+ in PLO cash games). The kicker was the money I blew at table games. I didn't walk away a winner from a single one of the table games I played over the course of my 5-day trip. I lost at Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, and Pai-Gow, to the tune of $730. The next poker trip is going to be poker-only. All it takes is one trip like that to lose your taste for games that are stacked against you.

Okay, that's enough about the trip. I'm trying to get back into the online swing. And I'll have a post coming soon with my overdue June results.

Shifting Back

2009-06-21T10:27:00.004-05:00

PLO month comes to an end. After 2 straight weeks of focusing exclusively on PLO, I am shifting back to NLHE in anticipation of next week's Vegas trip and the NLHE cash game action I plan on getting into.

I played ~3700 hands on PLO at 25NL, and the results were pretty bad. But there were lessons learned, and I ended on a small encouraging uptick. See the gross graph here:

I ran 22/11/2, with a loss rate of -16.6 BB/100. What a donk I am. Here are all of the numbers:

But after all of that, I have to say that I am definitely not done with this game. Although more regulars have moved in, I still have to think it is overall easier to beat that NLHE. There is still a ton of spewiness in PLO, the problem was just that I was contributing to the spewing. But it got better towards the end, and I took some ugly beats at the end to, which prevented me from making a more complete profit recovery.

Now back to hold-em. I'm just hoping I wasn't away too long for rustiness to set in and take over.

I'm also starting to make plans to play some deep-stack tourneys in Vegas next, including the Caesar's deepstack and possibly the Venetian's. Advice on juiciest, best-structured tourneys would be greatly appreciated. Also considering some satellites into the 1500NL WSOP next Saturday (Event #51). No way I buy in direct...way outside of my bankroll, and I'm just not that good of a tourney player. But I'll take one or two shots at a satellite.

PLO Lessons Learned Pt. 2

2009-06-19T15:57:00.000-05:00

One of the first things you learn about Omaha as a NLHE player is to adjust your hand strength valuation. Hands are much stronger, and as a result, you find that the decent-and-better PLO players play pretty tightly with non-nut holdings. The corollary to this observation is that it is difficult to extract thin value with good-but-not-great holdings. I suppose you could say the same thing about NLHE, but NLHE play is generally looser and more bluff-heavy than PLO, leading to more opportunities to extract value with these types of holdings.

Lesson 4 - Refrain From Thin Value Bets Against Most Opponents
Lesson 5 - Don't Bluff In Small Pots

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
BB ($27.87)
UTG ($7.63)
Hero (MP) ($29.29)
CO ($10)
Button ($32.41)
SB ($12.28)
Preflop: Hero is MP with 5, Q, 2, Q
1 fold, Hero bets $0.85, 2 folds, SB calls $0.75, 1 fold

Flop: ($1.95) J, 4, 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.45, SB calls $1.45

Pretty good flop, good C-bet spot. Villain's call could mean a wide range, including any J, a lot of worse FDs, and some low straight draws.

Turn: ($4.85) 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

The pair isn't great but it isn't too concerning. Villain more often holds a J than a 4. Regardless, no point in betting here...my QQ may still be good.

River: ($4.85) A (2 players)
SB bets $1, Hero raises to $3.15, SB calls $2.15

Flush comes in and it's extra nice that it's an A, making my Q-high flush the 2nd nut flush. Villain leads out tiny. I read it as a baby flush and figure it's a good spot for a small value raise.

Total pot: $11.15 Rake: $0.55
Results:
SB had 2, J, 4, 2 (full house, fours over Jacks).
Hero had 5, Q, 2, Q (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: SB won $10.60

Super-loose call PF, and super tight play with top-2 turned boat on flop and turn. But this point is the lesson - most decent PLO opponents aren't calling a river raise on a paired board with a weak flush. This is mostly because so few people raise with anything weaker. Low-limit PLO players tend to play really straightforward, and that makes thin value raises much less valuable. Lesson 4 learned.

On the flip side, it should make valuish-looking bluff raises a really nice tool. But timing is everything, as evidenced in the following hand...

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP ($28.55)
Hero (Button) ($30.94)
SB ($7.39)
BB ($16.10)
UTG ($48.22)
Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, 9, J, 7
UTG calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.25, 1 fold, BB checks

Flop: ($0.85) K, 4, 2 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $0.85, BB calls $0.85, 1 fold

Dry board = C-bet.

Turn: ($2.55) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($2.55) 5 (2 players)
BB bets $1.27, Hero raises to $5, BB calls $3.73

The great things about river raises in PLO is that they look so strong that they can fold out a really wide range of hands that aren't close to the nuts. The problem is, it can be a lot harder to get away with a play like this in a small pot where the raise doesn't look very intimidating (Lesson 5). Also, you can run into a lot of loose opponents who will still call with weaker holdings. Figuring out who to value bet and who to bluff is the real challenge in these games. This was clearly a guy I should have been value betting, not bluffing...

Total pot: $12.55 Rake: $0.62
Results:
Hero had 9, 9, J, 7 (two pair, nines and twos).
BB had 6, Q, 3, Q (straight, six high).
Outcome: BB won $11.93

PLO Lessons Learned Pt. 1

2009-06-11T22:40:00.000-05:00

I'm getting spanked at the PLO 6-max games on FTP so far, down about 5-6 buy-ins after just over 2000 hands. But it isn't a total waste of time and money. I'm learning some important lessons, tricks, and tips that I hope will lead me back to profitability.

Lesson 1: Be Very Selective About Multi-Barrel Bluffs
Lesson 2: Beware the River Trap When a Draw Comes In
Lesson 3: The River Raise Is Not a Bluff

Three lessons in one post, and I have not 1, not 2, but 3 blunderous hands to illustrate all of these points.

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB ($20.10)
BB ($19.20)
UTG ($11.71)
Hero (MP) ($25.01)
Button ($28.11)
Preflop: Hero is MP with A, 8, A, 6
1 fold, Hero bets $0.85, 2 folds, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) 4, 3, 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($1.80) J (2 players)
BB bets $1.80, Hero calls $1.80

River: ($5.40) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3, BB raises to $10, Hero calls $7

Potentially scary card (Lesson 2), but villain has bet the turn (looking like a made flush or a complete bluff) and then checked the river (looking scared of the board pairing). With the nut non-boat, I can bet and expect a Q or K-high flush to call. But villain raises, and I have to learn Lesson 3 the hard way.

Total pot: $25.40 | Rake: $1.27
Results:
BB had 6, J, Q, 10 (full house, Jacks over sixes).
Hero had A, 8, A, 6 (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: BB won $24.13

Here's another one, but this one's different in that I have no showdown value to fall back on. It's a complete bluff...

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG ($62.15)
MP ($43.37)
Hero (CO) ($25)
Button ($14.22)
SB ($30.93)
BB ($20.93)
Preflop: Hero is CO with 3, 3, 4, 4
UTG bets $0.85, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.85, 3 folds

Flop: ($2.05) 6, 9, J (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($2.05) 10 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.85, UTG calls $1.85

Scary turn for a lot of villain's raising range (any AAxx or KKxx), and he's checked twice. Good spot to fire and try to take it away.

River: ($5.75) 9 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $4.50, UTG raises to $17.25, Hero folds

If villain's plan was either hoping for a diamond or for a free showdown, I figure I can fire here and fold out most holdings. Given my lack of showdown value, it's pretty much a must-bet spot. And so is the subsequent fold to the check-raise. Lesson 2, and maybe a little bit of Lesson 1, although it seems to me like a perfectly decent spot to bluff. A non-paired rag would have been even better though.

Total pot: $14.75 | Rake: $0.73
Results:
UTG didn't show
Outcome: UTG won $14.02

One more, all 3 lessons on display...

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (4 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (Button) ($25.78)
SB ($25)
BB ($42.96)
UTG ($26.93)
Preflop: Hero is Button with J, 7, J, 8
1 fold, Hero bets $0.85, 1 fold, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) 3, Q, K (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($1.80) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.45, BB calls $1.45

After checking twice, this bet is basically just an attempt to get villain to fold a weak Q or K, and to prevent any additional scary cards from falling.

River: ($4.70) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.40, BB raises to $9.50, Hero calls $6.10

Trips on the river gives me plenty of showdown value, so I think a bet here is pretty automatic. But perhaps I should be happy with the showdown value of this hand. Once I get raised, it's just a matter of determining whether villain could possibly be loose enough to raise with worse trips. It's very unlikely. Hello Lesson 3.

Total pot: $23.70 Rake: $1.18
Results:
Hero had J, 7, J, 8 (three of a kind, sevens).
BB had K, 2, 7, A (full house, sevens over Kings).
Outcome: BB won $22.52

Making big mistakes on the river is a major leak, since the pot is usually inflated at that point. All of these lessons pertain to river actions and mistakes, making them especially important.

May Results and Rare Tournament Hand

2009-06-08T17:38:00.000-05:00

Been sitting on my May results for a few days. Uneventful and boring, so I was lazy about getting them up...

The chart:

The numbers:

Rakeback: $51.36

NLHE (online): -$21.31

NLHE (live): +$127

PLO: +$108

I really don't have anything to say about the numbers. It's obviously frustrating to register a losing month at online NLHE, but there's obviously some pretty serious leaks and issues in my game, given how long I've been stalled out, making minimal progress.

The plan for this month is to play a lot more PLO. I've already started, and I should have some posts about PLO observations coming down the pipe. Then at the end of the month, I'll be in Vegas, staying at the Rio and playing juicy cash games for a long weekend. So, leading up to that trip, I'll switch back over to NLHE an get warmed up in that game.

One hand I wanted to mention, because it's the rare case of me making a hero call and getting it right. And it's also the rare case of me playing in a tournament. This was a live $40 buy-in ordeal, with rebuys and add-ons. The hand occurs shortly after the rebuy period has ended. There are around 21 or so players (started with 24), and payouts to the top 4.

Stacks: Me - 14000, Villain - 7700
Blinds: 200-400
Position: UTG
Hand: 99
Action: I limp for 400, having just raised my last hand, and wanting to avoid an awkward pot size with this hand from OOP. MP villain raises to 1200, it folds around, and I call. Pot is 3000.

Flop: Q-Q-4
Action: I check. This is a spot where I could easily bet, since I rank to be ahead a lot of the time and could end up in a weird spot if I check-call and another overcard peels off. But I figure I can tell a lot about villain's holding by his action here. Villain, as it turns out, is left holding ~6500 in chips, with one yellow chip denominating 5000 in chips. He looks down at his pile, hesitates for a moment, and then throws in the yellow chip, overbetting 5000 into a 3000 pot.

Now I should say that I don't give this player a ton of credit for knowing what he is doing, so I'm not giving him credit for any real 2nd or 3rd level strategizing. In other words, I can't envision him making this play to extract suspicion and get value from a hand that crushes my 99. There's really no way he makes this move with a Q, since it is the absolute worst way to extract value and double through me.

That leaves some unpaired overcard hands, like AJ/AK/KJ, and a lot of pairs, ranging from 55-JJ. AA/KK is also possible, but he is less likely to make a "protection" bet, which is what the 5K bet looks like to me. The only problem is that a few of the pair hands, namely TT/JJ, have me crushed. Those are the hands that I fear. But given that I can make this call, most likely be in quite good position, and have 6K in chips even if I lose, I made the hero-ish push for the villain's last 1500.

I asked if he had a big pair and he said "No, a little one", and tabled 66. I showed by 99, the board ran out 8-9, giving me an unnecessary boat on the river, and I jumped up to one of the biggest stacks. I went on to chop at the final table for a profit of $220.

Fun With PLO Tools

2009-06-03T14:37:00.000-05:00

I haven't rounded up charts and numbers for May yet (I promise that report on my mediocrity is forthcoming), but I do have a new tool (Holdem Manager Omaha) and some fun new charts (any old PLO session will usually do)...

Nothing like the ultra-swinginess of a PLO session. That's what makes it such an insane and addictive game. I am getting back into it, and considering splitting time with NLHE (where I continue to tread water). A couple of training videos and a few articles have helped me re-commit to a few important principles, namely:
1) Position, position, position. Play tight from the blinds, looser from the CO (unless Button is decent & aggressive) and Button, and apply tons of pressure from OOP.
2) Play straightforward. No tricks, virtually no slowplays, and give credit when someone is bombing the pot.

It seemed to click, as I have had a couple of decent sessions and am up a little bit in my recent play.

I was feeling quite good about the whole experiment, until I flipped on the All-in EV graph...

No complaining about suckouts here! Just enjoying the good luck while it lasts.

Here's one spot where I played it like a hold-em hand, and learned the hard way how hard it can be to play OOP in PLO against an aggressive opponent...

Villain is running 27/13/3.0 and has been stealing blinds at a high rate.

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (SB) ($25.61)
BB ($13.26)
UTG ($37.65)
MP ($26.12)
CO ($33.93)
Button ($45.73)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, 10, 3, K
3 folds, Button bets $0.85, Hero calls $0.75, 1 fold

Flop: ($1.95) 5, K, 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $1.95, Hero calls $1.95

Villain has a 27% steal rate, so I think I can call here profitably, even with just top pair. Villain is C-betting pretty frequently in this spot, on this board.

Turn: ($5.85) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $5.85, Hero calls $5.85

This is a good turn card to 2-barrel on, so I make a loose call, hoping to send a message that I like my hand and won't be pushed off of it easily.

River: ($17.55) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $17.55, Hero folds

Third time's the charm. 3 full pot bullets, after a bad card comes on the river, and I'm finally surrendering.

Total pot: $17.55 Rake: $0.87

So many mistakes here, where do I begin? This is an OK hand to defend with, but against a competent opponent, I can get myself in loads of trouble, just as I do here. So I'm better off just folding PF.

On the flop, if I really want to send the message that I like my hand and apply some pressure, I should be raising the flop, not calling. Calling just doesn't signal the same level of strength in PLO that it does in NLHE. But the real problem is that, if I really want the pot, I should be trying to take it down now, as my hand doesn't improve very easily with this board. Basically, I'm stuck knowing that I'm never going to be thrilled about my hand, and really just hoping my opponent gives up.

On the turn, when he doesn't give up, I should be done. The turn call is a pretty big spew, just overly hopeful thinking.

One thing that my opponent can take advantage of is the tendency for PLO players to bet their strong hands, and rarely slowplay. So even if the villain hasn't connected by the river, he can continue to apply pressure, knowing that if I would almost never be checking 3 streets with a hand strong enough to call a big river bet.

Contemplating A Move...

2009-06-02T16:15:00.000-05:00

Two spots where I was tempted to make a move...how do you follow through here?

Hand 1)
Villain is 31/21/2.7 over 282 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $20.71
MP: $21.76
CO: $32.57
Hero (BTN): $25
SB: $28.05
BB: $19.45
Pre-Flop: A Q dealt to Hero (BTN)
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, SB calls $0.65, BB folds

Flop: ($1.75) 3 7 4 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.25, SB calls $1.25

Turn: ($4.25) Q (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2.75, SB calls $2.75

River: ($9.75) 3 (2 Players)
SB bets $4,
Hero?

No, I'm not even close to considering a fold here. Weird spot for villain to lead...maybe a blocking bet? Raise or call? If raising, how much, and what action if villain comes back over top?

Hand 2)
Villain is 35/12/2.2 over 76 hands

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $26.32
BB: $38.33
UTG: $9.38
Hero (MP): $41.05
CO: $25
BTN: $23.24
Pre-Flop: 8 8 dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1.10, 3 folds, BB calls $0.85, UTG folds

Flop: ($2.55) 6 K 7 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.75, BB calls $1.75

Turn: ($6.05) 2 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.25, BB raises to $15.80,
Hero?

I guess this might seem like a pretty straightforward fold, but it's pretty intriguing to consider. Given the highly polarized range, does that lead you to lean towards folding or calling (or shoving)?

Lost On The River - Results

2009-05-27T16:12:00.003-05:00

(Edit 5/29: Finally dug up villain statistics and appended to hands)

Apologies for never getting the villain statistics up with these hands. I tend to grab hand histories from home, throw them up, and then edit and post while I'm at work (c'mon, who's really doing this in their free time?). Meaning that I can't access villain stats while I'm composing here. I'll try to edit this post later when I finally have access to the numbers. But for now, on to the results...

Hand 1)

Villain is 21/10/3.3 over 81 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (MP): $95
CO: $21.80
BTN: $95
SB: $33
BB: $45.15
UTG: $103.65
Pre-Flop: Q J dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.25, 2 folds, SB calls $2, BB folds, UTG calls $1.75

Flop: ($7.25) 2 T K (3 Players)
SB checks, UTG bets $1, Hero raises to $5, SB folds, UTG calls $4

Turn: ($17.25) J (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($17.25) J (2 Players)
UTG bets $14.50,
Hero?
...
...
Hero calls $14.50

Results: $46.25 Pot ($2.30 Rake)
Hero mucked Q J (three of a kind, Jacks) and LOST (-$21.75 NET)
UTG showed 2 2 (a full house, Twos full of Jacks) and WON $43.95 (+$22.20 NET)

Such a gross river (shampooed), but you have to consider the relative strength of my hand here and compare it to the range of hands that makes a big river bet. It's hard to give credit for a straight, unless we give our opponent credit for floating with AQ or Q9. So I figured his range was heavily weighted towards flushes and air, and the less likely KJ/JT. I was really stunned to see a set of deuces played this way, and not re-raised on the flop or lead on the turn. But regardless, I think it's OK to fold here, since we only beat air and hands like AK/KQ, which don't bet the river like this very often, and when they do, usually bet smaller, trying to get thin value. Depends on the opponent, but there's often enough air in an online player's range to make this call, guilt-free.

-------------------------------

Hand 2)

Villain is 14/13/4 over 157 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $22.17
MP: $6.66
Hero (CO): $31.56
BTN: $9.11
SB: $40.23
BB: $33.12
Pre-Flop: A J dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.85, 2 folds, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) A 9 Q (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.25, BB raises to $4.50, Hero calls $3.25

Turn: ($10.80) 9 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($10.80) Q (2 Players)
BB bets $9.50,
Hero?
...
...
Hero folds

Results: $10.80 Pot ($0.54 Rake)
BB mucked and WON $10.26 (+$4.91 NET)

I chickened out here. I think it would have been perfectly fine to call, since I'm looking at so few combinations of cards that beat me - AK, which checks back the river more often; AQ (4 combos); Q9 (4 combos) QQ (1 combo); 99 (1 combo). 10 possible monster hands, and then some other Qx/9x garbage hands that stumble into gold. But those should be discounted, since they are more likely to call the flop (relatively scary) and look for a cheap showdown. Again, there's usually enough air in an online opponent's range to make calling correct here.

-------------------------------

Hand 3)

Villain is 24/19/2.1 over 101 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): $50
BB: $50.90
UTG: $72.15
CO: $78.70
BTN: $50
Pre-Flop: K Q dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, BTN raises to $1.75, Hero raises to $5.75, BB calls $5.25, BTN folds

Flop: ($13.25) K 6 4 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $7, Hero calls $7

Turn: ($27.25) 9 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $18,
Hero?
...
...
Hero raises to $37.25 and is All-In, BB calls $19.25

River: ($101.75) 5 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $101.75 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed K Q (a pair of Kings) and LOST (-$50 NET)
BB showed A A (a pair of Aces) and WON $98.75 (+$48.75 NET)

It looks like a make a mistake here by not C-betting the flop. If I do, it's easy to conceive my opponent raising with AA, and then I can fold rather confidently.

My thinking was this: I've 3-bet and been called. If I fire this flop, I probably fold out all worse hands...maybe QQ/JJ calls one street and hopes that I give up. If I lead and get raised, I'm done. If I check-raise, I overrepresent my hand, and once again, get all worse hands to fold. So instead, I figured I could check the flop and get just as much information, based on my opponent's action. I don't learn a whole lot by check-calling the flop - he could do that with his entire range. But when he fires a 2nd barrel on the turn, that's very rarely worse than AK (and now it could also be 99). The only hand I beat is something like AdQd, continuing a semi-bluff... but it's a small part of his range, since he'll often check behind and take a free card to hit his draw.

In other words, regardless of whether I C-bet or not, it's a mistake to shove this turn, since I'm never getting any value here, and I'm getting snapped off by the hands that have me crushed.

Lost On The River

2009-05-26T14:49:00.003-05:00

Every chance I've had of late to post here, I've instead chosen to play more poker. As a result, I've been accumulating a handful of post ideas and a number of tough hands, and hopefully I'll get them all out here before they drift out of my head (as things do at a rapid pace these days).

I had a pretty bad losing session yesterday. It was precipitated by losing AA vs. KK (AIPF)...I turned a little bit aggro after that, making way more hero calls that I normally do, and more bluffs too. All were ill-timed, and many were poorly thought out. But regardless, I had an inordinate number of tough or weird spots. Three of them are included here. In the first two, I was facing big river bets holding marginal hands. In the 3rd, I got myself into a tricky spot by 3-betting light from the blinds. Any feedback is appreciated...

Hand 1)

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (MP): $95
CO: $21.80
BTN: $95
SB: $33
BB: $45.15
UTG: $103.65
Pre-Flop: Q J dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.25, 2 folds, SB calls $2, BB folds, UTG calls $1.75

Flop: ($7.25) 2 T K (3 Players)
SB checks, UTG bets $1, Hero raises to $5, SB folds, UTG calls $4

I basically ignore tiny donk bets and just treat them like checks, betting the amount that I would normally C-bet anyways. I would say it's commonly done when donks flop draws, using the stupid "juice the pot, just in case I hit" logic. What's especially nice (for me) is that it gives away information without affecting the size of the pot. But anyways, this is mostly tangential to the action.

Turn: ($17.25) J (2 Players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($17.25) J (2 Players)
UTG bets $14.50,
Hero?

I've backdoored trips, which is pretty well disguised, but all kinds of other hands have gotten there. What's my action here?

-------------------------------

Hand 2)

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $22.17
MP: $6.66
Hero (CO): $31.56
BTN: $9.11
SB: $40.23
BB: $33.12
Pre-Flop: A J dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.85, 2 folds, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) A 9 Q (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.25, BB raises to $4.50, Hero calls $3.25

Turn: ($10.80) 9 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($10.80) Q (2 Players)
BB bets $9.50,
Hero?

You can argue that this is a fold to the flop check-raise, but I had position and was playing through a stubborn, tiltish phase. The turn and river cards make the action a bit more interesting, by greatly reducing the likelihood of a set of 9s or Qs. Not sure I can beat anything other than a bluff here though, right?

-------------------------------

Hand 3)

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): $50
BB: $50.90
UTG: $72.15
CO: $78.70
BTN: $50
Pre-Flop: K Q dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, BTN raises to $1.75, Hero raises to $5.75, BB calls $5.25, BTN folds

I would much prefer the Button to call, which he might do with a wider range that includes some hands that I beat. The BB has a strong range to overcall here. Stats would help...sorry I don't have them now.

Flop: ($13.25) K 6 4 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $7, Hero calls $7

Turn: ($27.25) 9 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $18,
Hero?

Hand Range and Hand Probability

2009-05-19T13:19:00.005-05:00

Humor me for a moment while I lecture in an area where I am perfectly unqualified to say a single authoritative word. When considering hand ranges, it is facile to make simple calculations using basic information: possible hands and the number of combinations that make up those hands.

Of course, hand ranges are not static. One's picture of a villain's hand range should evolve with each action that is taken in a given hand. The hand range PF is narrowed by the action on the flop, and the hand range on the flop is further narrowed by the action on the turn.

This all seems straightforward enough. But when considering hand ranges in terms of hand combinations, it is easy to make the mistake of assigning equal probability to all hands in the range. This is my cardinal sin, and this entire thought process brought on by a hand that I mangled yesterday (details later).

The problem is one of oversimplification, and also of blind optimism. Here's an example:

Say you hold AKo, raise PF, get one TAG caller, and the flop comes K-8-5 rainbow. You bet and get raised. You assign a hand range of AK/KQ/88/55/67 and some small amount of air. You call and the turn comes a 2. You check and the villain bets 4/5 of the pot. Now, the hand range that you assigned hasn't changed much, but the hand probabilities have. That's because it isn't equally likely that he fires a big turn bet with each of the hands in his range. A lot of players would check back 67 and take a free river card. Same goes for KQ, for pot control reasons. So now the probability of your opponent holding those hands goes down. In other words, things just got worse for you, because the two hands that you beat just dropped off in probability. Even though there are far fewer combinations of 55 and 88 in his range (6 total), the probability that the villain is holding that hand just went up, since he makes that big turn bet a high % of the time with those hands.

Now on to the hand in question:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $29.50
BB: $104.75
UTG: $50
MP: $64.70
Hero (CO): $50.70
BTN: $63.20
Pre-Flop: K J dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.75, BTN calls $1.75, 2 folds

Flop: ($4.25) 2 T J (2 Players)
Hero bets $2.40, BTN raises to $6.30, Hero calls $3.90

Here we can make our first hand range asssessment. It could be 22/TT/JJ, although we can discount TT and JJ since we'll often see a 3-bet from the button with those hands. It could be JT/AJ/KJ. With no flush draws, the possible semi-bluff drawing hands are 89 and KQ.

Turn: ($16.85) 5 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $12, Hero calls $12

Turn is a blank. Villain bets 4/5 pot. At this point there's still a chance that my opponent is semi-bluffing an OESD, but that chance should be much lower now, since opponents will often take a free card and try to hit their straight. Also, QJ/KJ/AJ become much less likely, as those hands will look to pot control here, fearing that I am holding an overpair.

The key in analyzing this spot is to apply probabilities to the hands in my opponent's range. Sure, AJ is in my opponent's range, but he's raising the flop AND betting the turn no more than 15-20% of the time. With 89/KQ, he may only be continuing the semi-bluff 30-40% of the time. But with 22/JT, he's firing a 2nd barrel very frequently, between 80-100%. So even though there are more combinations of the hands that I beat and are drawing, when you apply probabilities, I am way behind the hands that he likely holds.

But ever hopeful, I call.

River: ($40.85) 3 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $20, Hero calls $20

River is another blank, putting a spade flush up. I check and the villain bets $20, half the pot. Here, thinking about how many ways my opponent has 89 and KQ (praying that my opponent has fired a 3rd barrel with either air or a missed draw), I make the clown call. Had I properly assessed the hand range AND probabilities, it would have been an easy fold. On the river, and on the turn.

Results: $80.85 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked K J (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$40.05 NET)
BTN showed 2 2 (three of a kind, Twos) and WON $77.85 (+$37.80 NET)

River Raise Sizing

2009-05-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

I ran into 2 similar spots in a recent session that have me wondering about my approach to river raises with strong hands. In both cases, against different opponents, I river the nuts and get led into with a PSB. Now this is where my reasoning and assumptions may start to falter. Smart poker players will often make big river bets, near pot-sized, with strong made hands, knowing that it is often perceived as bluffy ("Why bet so much with a monster? Don't you want to bet an amount that will get called?"). Well, there's that little bit of reverse psychology, but there's also the important details of that hand in question - What has my opponent done to reveal the relative strength of their hand, and based on that probable strength, how big of a bet can I get them to call?

If I know my opponent likes to make a PSB with a strong hand, then I should be inclined to make a hefty raise, knowing that it will be hard for my opponent to fold.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $50.75
BTN: $91.40
SB: $82.55
Hero (BB): $52.20
UTG: $50
MP: $23.45
Pre-Flop: 8 7 dealt to Hero (BB)
4 folds, SB raises to $1, Hero calls $0.50

Flop: ($2) T 2 J (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($2) 6 (2 Players)
SB bets $0.50, Hero raises to $2, SB calls $1.50

River: ($6) 9 (2 Players)
SB bets $5, Hero raises to $21,
...
...
So not only do I river a flush, but I river the immortal straight flush, which is extra lovely given that it so well disguised and likely to get action from big flushes. So I make a full pot raise and...
...
...
...
SB folds

Results: $16 Pot ($0.80 Rake)
Hero mucked 8 7 and WON $15.20 (+$7.20 NET)

I think I miss a couple of clues here. One is the PF min-raise, a likely sign that I'm not up against the sharpest of poker players. Not only does this make it more likely that he would call a smaller raise (say to $12-$14), but also that he might come over the top with any type of flush.

The second time around, against a different opponent, the line and situation are quite different...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $30.66
Hero (MP): $32.99
CO: $25.57
BTN: $31.53
SB: $25.10
BB: $25.76
Pre-Flop: 8 7 dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.85, 3 folds, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) 6 2 5 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.20, BB calls $1.20

Turn: ($4.20) K (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

I could certainly 2-barrel here and likely take the pot down, but I'm willing to take a free card, and figure to get more action (if I hit) after taking a bet-check-bet line.

River: ($4.20) 9 (2 Players)
BB bets $4.20, Hero raises to $16,
...
...
Bingo once for the 9, and twice for the pot-sized lead. Now, given the line here, my opponent's range is pretty wide. There aren't a lot of monster hands out there, so the hands that I should be targeting for value are hands like K-x, and medium and small pocket pairs like 77/88/TT/JJ. Sets are much less likely given the action. So, a medium-sized raise is probably in order, somewhere along the lines of 2.5x-3x. Instead, I make it 4x....
...
...
...
BB folds

Results: $12.60 Pot ($0.63 Rake)
Hero mucked 8 7 and WON $11.97 (+$5.72 NET)

Any insights out there on how to approach these spots, or river raising in general?

Hindsight's 20/20, so we'll check in the next time I make a sad, small raise, and get called by the 2nd nuts. At least, the next time around, I hope to have fully considered my opponent and the situation.

Avoid Shortstackers?

2009-05-11T14:30:00.001-05:00

All of the 6-max regulars and training site pros are always lamenting the prevalance of short-stackers, since they throw off stack-to-pot ratios and render the heavy 3-bet strategy ineffective.

There's a whole 'nother set of weird spots that comes up when a shorty makes an awkward-sized PF push. Here's one I ran into recently...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $46.20
BB: $39.10
UTG: $21
MP: $6.25
Hero (CO): $55.70
BTN: $18
Pre-Flop: T T dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG raises to $1.50, MP raises to $6.25 and is All-In, Hero raises to $11, 2 folds, BB raises to $39.10 and is All-In, 2 folds

Here's a spot where I lose a decent chunk of dough where I would otherwise have lost much less. TT is too good to fold here, especially against a shorty shoving his micro-stack with a wide range, looking to gamble it up. My goal is to isolate against the shorty and have the UTG's raise contribute as dead money. If I call here, I invite LPs and blinds to call, as well as the UTG. I want to raise, but my intention is to advertise my strength without committing myself, so I simply min-raise, which should get the point across. And I'm sure it does, which makes BB shove that much more ominous. The subsequent fold is easy, but it's hard to stomach losing 22BBs PF like this. Take the shorty out of the equation, and I probably 3-bet to $5.5, and then folding to the BB 4-bet....losing only 11 BBs in the process.

Flop: ($30) J A 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: ($30) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($30) 9 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $30 Pot ($1.50 Rake)
BB showed K K (two pair, Kings and Twos) and WON $28.50 (+$17.50 NET)
MP showed J Q (two pair, Jacks and Twos) and LOST (-$6.25 NET)

After the fact, it's relieving to know that I would have lost to the shorty regardless. But there are 2 things to recognize here: 1) That short-stackers can complicate pre- and post-flop decisions, and 2) That short-stackers are by and large giant donkeys!

This second point is the reason that I don't go scurrying away from tables that have one or two. While you may have to pay a little bit closer attention to stack sizes when sitting with donkeys, and while you also may have to tweak your betting strategy, based on who ends up in the pot with you, I would say that you can almost always make up for these annoyances by crushing shorties in the pots that you do play.

Here's one of a million examples:

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $33.77
UTG: $58.93
MP: $21.93
CO: $35.40
BTN: $12.12
SB: $21.62
Pre-Flop: Q K dealt to Hero (BB)
3 folds, BTN raises to $0.75, SB folds, Hero calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.60) 4 K 9 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $1, Hero raises to $3, BTN raises to $5, Hero raises to $16.60, BTN calls $6.37 and is All-In

The min-reraise (Donkey Squeal!) actually had me momentarily convinced that I was up against a strong hand like AK/AA/KK/99. But this is a shortstack clown, so you get it in anyway.

Turn: ($24.34) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($24.34) T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $24.34 Pot ($1.21 Rake)
Hero showed Q K (a pair of Kings) and WON $23.13 (+$11.01 NET)
BTN showed J J (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$12.12 NET)

Say what you will about shorties throwing off your optimal strategy...I'll be happy to collect their donations in your absence!

Close Call (For A Non-Degen Nit)?

2009-05-07T21:54:00.002-05:00

I was going to post this hand under the post title "Faith Restored," citing it as evidence that there is still easy money out there and plenty of incentive to keep the grind going. Then I started looking closer and wondered if I made a mistake...

Villain is 22/18/2.27 over 700 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $29.06
BTN: $16.10
SB: $46.24
BB: $39.28
UTG: $25.35
Hero (MP): $42.38
Pre-Flop: T A dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.85, CO calls $0.85, 3 folds

Flop: ($2.05) 3 6 8 (2 Players)
Hero bets $1.40, CO calls $1.40

Turn: ($4.85) 4 (2 Players)
Hero checks, CO bets $4.85, Hero raises to $16,
...
...
I will 2-barrel a turn like this about 75% of the time, but I will occasionally check back, especially during a session like this where I had already been seen taking a C-bet flop, check/fold turn line. The pot-sized turn bet is nice, since it is more often a bluff than a 2/3-3/4 pot bet. Figuring that my FE is pretty high now, I make a strong raise, expecting to take it down.
...
...
CO raises to $26.81 and is All-In,
...
...
So my opponent moves over the top without much hesitation, and although I'm not thrilled about it, I assume straight off that I'm committed. But looking back, it's actually pretty close.

If my opponent has 2-pair or better, I'm 4.5-1 to win, and getting almost exactly 4.5-1 in pot odds.

Of course, if you add in weaker flush draws and pair + FD hands, even some hands like JJ/QQ (which my hand is 25% against), it becomes an easy call. But if my opponent is only a little bit deeper, say $5-$10, and plays such that I can reasonably put him on 2-pair or better, this could become a nitty fold.

Then, factoring in my opponent's aggressive-ish stats, it becomes a pretty easy call. I'm not saying I would ever fold, but I am saying that there are some slightly modified cases where maybe I should.

And anyways, back to the part about restoring faith. Take a look at what he shows down.
...
...
Hero calls $10.81

River: ($58.47) 3 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $58.47 Pot ($2.92 Rake)
CO showed K J (a pair of Threes) and LOST (-$29.06 NET)
Hero showed T A (a pair of Threes) and WON $55.55 (+$26.49 NET)

Made me sweat his 6-outer river draw, but still, man, what on earth was he thinking. That I really was nitty enough to make that fold?

In unrelated news, I'm watching last night's Poker After Dark cash game, which is of quite good quality. PAD has now earned a spot on my DVR queue, at least as long as it stays a cash game.

The Question Begs

2009-05-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

I had a go-nowhere month in April, swinging up and down around the breakeven mark, never really going on any extended runs in either direction. Here's my chart, which for some reason is leaving off my last 300 hands of the month, over which I won my way up to the +$40 figure listed below.

Results
Online NLHE: +$39.96
Rakeback: +$86.23
Live Poker: +$439
PLO: -$227

PLO was down this month. I had a 3-day period where I decided I was going to give PLO my full attention. I downloaded the trial version of Poker Tracker Omaha and started 4-tabling on Full Tilt. Then, due to a combination of running bad and realizing that there are a lot of PLO grinders out there who seemed to be exploiting me and generally running me over, I decided that I needed more training. I've watched a few videos, but I need quite a few more before I venture seriously back into the PLO space.

On to the begging question - Why are you sinking so much into online NLHE when you seem to be spinning your wheels in place, and when there seem to be more profitable avenues (live poker, for instance)? Good question, Voice In My Head. 7000 hands, at about 300 hands per hour, comes out to 23 hours (please wife don't be reading my blog today). The answer's pretty simple. As much as I love live poker, it is a slow grind and it just takes too much commitment. I can squeeze in hour-long online sessions with ease, but I have to plan in advance to get away for at least 3-4 hours of live play. And, like I've said here before, I'm a big dork for stats, so I get titillated by all of the lovely numbers that PT3 crunches for me. The convenience, the stats, the analysis, and the eternal optimism about turning the corner and becoming a regular winner. All keep me hopping online to play, profits or none. Until I hit the frustration threshold and give it up for good, I'll be here posting away about my progress. Stay tuned.

Bluffcatcher Fail

2009-04-28T22:19:00.006-05:00

Played a hand last 2 nights ago, and I've thought a lot about it since then, mainly because I wasn't thinking a lot about it while it was playing out.

I'm pretty sure I had a small amount of info on my opponent at the time, but it wasn't anything super-donkish, laggy, or nitty. Something in the middle.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 PL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BTN: $25.55
Hero (SB): $50
BB: $46.60
UTG: $56.95
CO: $50.50
Pre-Flop: A K dealt to Hero (SB)
3 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, BB calls $1

Standard PF raise in blind battle
Flop: ($3) A T 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets $2, BB raises to $4.50, Hero calls $2.50

Flop is an automatic bet, since my hand is at the top of my range and I'm getting value from a ton of weaker hands that will call. Villain's raise means either monster (AT/A3/33), air, or one of really only 2 hands that I'm ahead of - AQ or AJ. I called, thinking it could elicit at least one more barrel from a worse hand. Should I have reraised?

Turn: ($12) 8 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $12, Hero calls $12

Okay, so I got my wish, another barrel. I have to say that I'm not entirely comfortable with the full pot sizing, but the 8 doesn't change anything. By calling here, I make it pretty clear that I am not going anywhere and have at least a decently strong A.

River: ($36) 4 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $28.60 and is All-In, Hero calls $28.60

Here comes the major breakdown. I've constructed for my opponent a pretty clear picture of the strength of my holding. His continued barreling therefore means that he either has 2-pair or better, or that he is trying to pull of a big multi-barrel bluff. My AK may as well be A2. For that fact, it may as well be T2, since I doubt he would turn a 2nd pair hand into a bluff. In other words, my hand is strictly a bluffcatcher. The strength of my kicker is irrelevant.

But that's the problem. Without much thought, I made the call, and I made it based on the strength of my kicker. Without realizing it, I was purely hoping that my opponent was bluffing. I was not so lucky.

Results: $93.20 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked A K (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$46.60 NET)
BB showed A T (two pair, Aces and Tens) and WON $90.20 (+$43.60 NET)

I chalk this loss up to 2 mistakes. One is a common theme here...overvaluing hands in blind battle situations. Been over this many times - one pair is still one pair, and I should not be stacking off in this manner just because it is a blind battle. The second mistake was not thinking through the hand. I saved that for the hours and days after this hand had ended. And here, I finally got my thoughts out. Next time, I'd like to be able to manage all of this before the hand ends and (bad) decisions are made.

The Live Grind

2009-04-21T10:03:00.004-05:00

Last week I played at a local poker house in a $1-$2 NL game. It's always a somewhat strange experience, given how frequently I play online 6-max, to sit in a full ring live game. My strategy and style of play is calibrated to online shorthanded games, so I find myself making some big mistakes in these games. Here are the biggest ones:

1) Not noticing stack sizes

This is easy to do for several reasons: One, there is no little number floating over each player's head showing the exact size of their stack (waiting for the software upgrade on that one). Two, the game is slow, such that when you wake up and find yourself in a hand, you often haven't taken a good look at each player's stack in some time. And three, it isn't all that easy to look at someone's stack and determine exactly how much they have.

As a result of this mistake, I've found myself trying to steal pots from committed opponents. I've also made bad calls due to miscalculated implied odds.

2) Firing multiple barrels against calling stations

The 1-2 games I play are dominated by people who want to spend a couple of hours playing poker. This means playing a good number of hands and seeing a lot of flops. It also means sticking around in a lot of hands, whether it be wise or not. I donked off a decent portion of my stack double-barrelling in 2 different spots. One on a K-high board against a loose fish with K-8o, another on an A-high board against a guy with A-5o. The lesson against most of these players is simple: value bet them to death, and if you want to take a stab at an orphaned pot, one stab will do.

3) C-betting too much

This is a corollary to problem 2), accentuated by the fact that, even in a raised pot, there are usually 4 or more players calling and seeing the flop. As a result, when you miss the flop, unless it is a super-dry flop, it is likely that someone got a piece. In general, the C-bet doesn't have the effect that it used to, and in live games, that statement is even more true. So unless it's a 2- or 3-handed flop, I will forego a C-bet on a lot of flops that I would automatically bet online.

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

So yeah, I make some common mistakes. Overall, I love these live games. It's always more fun to add in all of the little details of a live game - the chips, the reads, the banter. And, these games are far easier to beat. But, it takes an amazing amount of patience. Grinding these games is really grinding, because these games can be so loose that you are best off waiting for made hands to get paid off.

Some time back, I asked a group of poker-playing friends how I could open up my game to play more loosely, thinking that this would be a good way to adjust my style to try and take advantage of some of the bad players at these games. It's probably fine to try to make a change like that, if I commit to it, and deal with a painful adjustment period and some higher variance. But I have realized that I really just need to stick to a TAG approach to crush these games. Which means long periods with no action, and some night where I play for 4 hours and only have 1 or 2 noteworthy hands to show for it.

To wit: last night, I played 1 big hand early on, then lost a few later in the night by exercising live game mistake 2). Here's the big hand, most notable for my mistake on the flop:

It's a kill pot, so an LP player has posted a $5 blind. My stack is $119. Other significant players in the pot all have me covered. LP is an old man who has been playing loose. SB is weakish too.

Hand: 8h-9h in the BB
PF action: 2 MPs call the $5, the SB raises to $15, I call, the MPs call, and the LP kill pot blind poster calls.
Pot = $75

Flop: Qc-Js-Th
Action: SB leads for $25, I call $25, 2 MPs fold, LP raises to $50. SB calls, I shove for $54 more. LP calls, SB calls.
Pot = $387

Here's where I make a mistake. On one hand, it is risky to overplay bottom straight, given the fact that SB will sometimes have AK here, and K9 is also a possible holding from an LP player. So I call thinking I can sweat the board pairing and get it in on a later street.

But, with this thinking, I am ignoring my stack size. My stack is small enough that I should basically be willing to get it all-in when I flop the 3rd nuts. Also, as noted earlier, these games are full of poor players who will make bad calls with lots of 1 and 2-pair hands, and also with draws that I am way ahead of. So I should be making a raise here, maybe to $65-$80, and planning on getting the rest in on the turn no matter what comes. By just calling, I give a lot of hands the right odds to draw, and with any A, K, or 9 on the turn, on top of any board-pairing card, I risk falling behind and being in a tough spot.

Luckily, the loose LP made a raise and allowed me to get my stack in on the flop. The rest was just sweating it out.

Turn: 5d
Action: LP shoves, SB tanks and folds, saying he had KQ.

River: 7c
I turn up my bottom straight and LP turns up QTo.

Value Betting a Scary Board - Results

2009-04-15T14:31:00.002-05:00

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BB: 167.36 BB
UTG: 98.60 BB
MP: 93.56 BB
Hero (CO): 134.52 BB
BTN: 100 BB
SB: 100 BB
Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to 3.4BB, 2 folds, BB calls 2.4BB

Flop: (7.2BB) 3 9 Q (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets 5.8BB, BB calls 5.8BB

Turn: (18.8BB) 3 9 Q [ J ] (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets 14BB, BB calls 14BB

River: (46.8BB) 3 9 Q J [ 8 ] (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero?

I didn't really think too long before deciding this was definitely a good spot to value bet. Even though there are a decent number of 10s in my opponent's range, he will on average be betting them on the river, since I almost have to have either a straight of my own, a set, or maybe top 2-pair to be considering value betting here. The rest of the time, I'm checking behind and he's losing value.

But this is clearly a bet-fold situation, since I will almost always be facing a 10 if I get raised. A bluff-raise is possible, but unlikely enough such as to not make it warrant much of a fret. Here's how it played out:

Hero bets 24BB, Opponent moves all-in for 87.8BB, Hero folds.

It sucked to get raised all-in on the end like that, but not really much of a decision at that point, IMO. Beg to differ?

Value Betting a Scary Board

2009-04-13T17:30:00.001-05:00

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BB: 167.36 BB
UTG: 98.60 BB
MP: 93.56 BB
Hero (CO): 134.52 BB
BTN: 100 BB
SB: 100 BB
Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to 3.4BB, 2 folds, BB calls 2.4BB

Flop: (7.2BB) 3 9 Q (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets 5.8BB, BB calls 5.8BB

Turn: (18.8BB) 3 9 Q [ J ] (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets 14BB, BB calls 14BB

River: (46.8BB) 3 9 Q J [ 8 ] (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero?

The new me looks for more far spots to get extra value on the river than the old me. But is this a good one? Boils down to a few factors, I would say:
1) Are there enough hands that I am ahead of that will call a value bet on this board?
2) Would a rivered straight check to me here, knowing that I'm unlikely to fire a 3rd barrel on a board that has become pretty darn scary?
3) Is my opponent capable of bluff-raising this board?

Blind Battle Big Bets - Results

2009-04-09T09:14:00.003-05:00

Results from the 2 blind battle hands from Tuesday.

Hand 1)
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $21.29
BTN: $20.46
SB: $24.25
Hero (BB): $45.56
UTG: $24.77
MP: $6.61
Pre-Flop: T A dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG calls $0.25, 4 folds, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.60) A J A (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $0.25, Hero raises to $0.90, UTG calls $0.65

I raise the flop here with trip A's, good kicker, mostly to build a pot and get value from a J or weaker A. Since villain limped UTG, AJ is the only hand I am worried about. There are a ton more A-x hands in his range, and a lot of J's too.

Turn: ($2.40) A J A [ 8 ] (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $5, Hero calls $5

I check the turn, hoping to make my flop raise look like a one-and-done bluff, or else a weak J, insufficient to continue firing. The villain does something weird here, though, and fires 2x the pot. This is almost never a value-type hand, so I really don't think he can have a weak J here. That leaves bluffs and monsters. Now I'm only worried about AJ and A8. But since monsters might also include some A-x hands that I crush, I don't think I can fold here.

I can raise here to get value from a weaker A, but he'll probably fire the river with that hand anyway, and in case he is running a bluff, I figure my best shot is to leave him some rope and let him consider firing the river again.

River: ($12.40) A J A 8 [ K ] (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $18.62 and is All-In,
Hero?

So now it's 2 consecutive overbets. This is a really strong line, and I'm not sure I've ever seen it as a bluff before. Can I call here? Should I have played the turn differently?
...
...
Hero calls $18.62

Results: $49.64 Pot ($2.48 Rake)
Hero mucked T A (three of a kind, Aces) and LOST (-$24.77 NET)
UTG showed 8 8 (a full house, Eights full of Aces) and WON $47.16 (+$22.39 NET)

Villain hits a gross turn and works me over for the maximum. It's really hard to get away from my hand here, but perhaps I should have picked up that the big overbet was a shrewd attempt to maximize the value of his improbably monster. Is it too results-oriented to say so?

Hand 2)
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $25.51
BTN: $27.99
SB: $37.69
Hero (BB): $48.71
UTG: $16.40
MP: $85.74
Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (BB)
4 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Hero raises to $2.25, SB calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.50) 5 5 J (2 Players)
SB bets $4.50, Hero calls $4.50

After 3-betting PF, villain leads out for full pot. There are obviously a lot more J's than 5's in his range, and also some hands like 66-TT that might lead out in a similar way. I can raise and possibly get value from a QJ-AJ type hand, but I risk folding out medium pocket pairs on weaker J hands that are more likely to pay me off on later streets.

Turn: ($13.50) 5 5 J [ K ] (2 Players)
SB bets $13.50,
Hero?
...
...
Hero calls $13.50

River: ($40.50) 5 5 J K [ 7 ] (2 Players)
SB bets $0.25, Hero calls $0.25

This is a somewhat interesting street too. After leading for full pot 2 streets in a row, villain leads for the minimum, broadcasting serious doubt about the strength of his hand. I briefly considered a raise for value, but remembered that he may be slowing down here with a number of hands that I am still behind, like AK/KJ/KQ. So I just called.

Results: $41 Pot ($2.05 Rake)
SB showed J J (a full house, Jacks full of Fives) and WON $38.95 (+$18.45 NET)
Hero mucked Q Q (two pair, Queens and Fives) and LOST (-$20.50 NET)

Both of these hands are basically minor coolers, but my intention was not to vent about my crap luck in these spots. Rather, it was to demonstrate that a lot of caution should be taken when facing solid players making really big bets.

In hand 1, my opponent overbet the pot, knowing that it was likely that I was holding an A and would not be able to lay my hand down against his turned boat. This was a smart move to extract maximum value from a strong but not monster holding.

In hand 2, my opponent made a big bet, taking the risk that I might fold in order to build up a pot from OOP with a monster, and possibly to induce me to raise. You could argue that I should have folded the turn, but I feel confident that I lost the minimum in this spot. I was lucky that he tried to induce a bluff or value bet on the river, instead of just shoving it in, putting me in a wicked spot and possibly stacking me.

Blind Battle Big Bets

2009-04-07T16:28:00.004-05:00

Two hands, both blind battles, and both times facing pot or bigger bets. How to interpret and how to react?

Hand 1)
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $21.29
BTN: $20.46
SB: $24.25
Hero (BB): $45.56
UTG: $24.77
MP: $6.61
Pre-Flop: T A dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG calls $0.25, 4 folds, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.60) A J A (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $0.25, Hero raises to $0.90, UTG calls $0.65

I raise the flop here with trip A's, good kicker, mostly to build a pot and get value from a J or weaker A. Since villain limped UTG, AJ is the only hand I am worried about. There are a ton more A-x hands in his range, and a lot of J's too.

Turn: ($2.40) A J A [ 8 ] (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $5, Hero calls $5

I check the turn, hoping to make my flop raise look like a one-and-done bluff, or else a weak J, insufficient to continue firing. The villain does something weird here, though, and fires 2x the pot. This is almost never a value-type hand, so I really don't think he can have a weak J here. That leaves bluffs and monsters. Now I'm only worried about AJ and A8. But since monsters might also include some A-x hands that I crush, I don't think I can fold here.

I can raise here to get value from a weaker A, but he'll probably fire the river with that hand anyway, and in case he is running a bluff, I figure my best shot is to leave him some rope and let him consider firing the river again.

River: ($12.40) A J A 8 [ K ] (2 Players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $18.62 and is All-In,
Hero?

So now it's 2 consecutive overbets. This is a really strong line, and I'm not sure I've ever seen it as a bluff before. Can I call here? Should I have played the turn differently?

Hand 2)
Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $25.51
BTN: $27.99
SB: $37.69
Hero (BB): $48.71
UTG: $16.40
MP: $85.74
Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (BB)
4 folds, SB raises to $0.75, Hero raises to $2.25, SB calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.50) 5 5 J (2 Players)
SB bets $4.50, Hero calls $4.50

After 3-betting PF, villain leads out for full pot. There are obviously a lot more J's than 5's in his range, and also some hands like 66-TT that might lead out in a similar way. I can raise and possibly get value from a QJ-AJ type hand, but I risk folding out medium pocket pairs on weaker J hands that are more likely to pay me off on later streets.

Turn: ($13.50) 5 5 J [ K ] (2 Players)
SB bets $13.50,
Hero?

March

2009-04-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

March results are in. I wanted to make a joke about how laughable a 0.76 BB/100 winrate is, but since I had losing months in both January and February, I decided to put a lid on the cynical me. For some reason, I couldn't generate a chart that included the last 350 hands of March, where I was up a bit. So I actually won $85.83 for March, and not the $65 or so that the graph indicates:

Here's the better news - I crushed PLO this month. $550 is only approximate, since I don't have tracking numbers. I was playing almost exclusively on Bodog, where the generous fishies swim, IMO. But I'm thinking about getting Poker Tracker Omaha and playing more on FTP, just b/c I'm such a stat junkie. Seriously, if I can't have my stats, I am about half as excited to play poker. Weird huh?

Live poker turned out good too, but would have been better had it not been for a down night last week to the tune of $370.

Live Poker - +$165

PLO - +$550

NLHE - +85.83

It's How You Close

2009-04-02T16:51:00.000-05:00

Any b-ball player will tell you, starting from back in the day shooting hoops in the driveway, through high school practice, up to today's old man gym pick-up games, you always end with a made shot. It's a subtle confidence booster, something that allows you to walk away with your head up, no matter how many other bricks you shot through the games/shootaround.

This principle has great value when applied to poker. Ending on a big double-up, a well-timed river value-raise, or a nicely executed bluff is the perfect thing to keep my confidence high, and to drive my excitement for my next session....regardless of how big of a flop the overall session has been.

It's one of the biggest bummers about tournament play. Literally everyone but the champ ends on a bustout. And in live poker, you often leave after busting. To hell with those who invoke some sort of etiquette principle about hit-and-run - that it's wrong to leave right after you've won a big pot. It's a stupid concept, designed by the bitter losers who want a shot to win their money back. I will usually just play another round or so after a big pot, before asking for a rack and hitting the street.

Okay, I got off on a tangent there. I meant to segue into my session from Monday night, where I crashed and burned pretty hard as things kicked off...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BTN: $24.76
Hero (SB): $37.42
BB: $29.23
UTG: $25.35
CO: $30.66
Pre-Flop: 5 4 dealt to Hero (SB)
3 folds, Hero calls $0.15, BB raises to $0.75, Hero calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.50) 8 7 5 (2 Players)
Hero checks, BB bets $1.50, Hero raises to $5, BB raises to $28.48 and is All-In, Hero calls $23.48

Pair + FD + Gutter? Yep, I'm getting it in.

Turn: ($58.46) 8 7 5 [ J ] (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($58.46) 8 7 5 J [ A ] (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $58.46 Pot ($2.92 Rake)
Hero showed 5 4 (a pair of Fives) and LOST (-$29.23 NET)
BB showed 4 6 (a straight, Eight high) and WON $55.54 (+$26.31 NET)

Board goes brick-brick, and it turns out I was only looking for flush outs to scoop the pot.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $9.57
Hero (BB): $26.33
UTG: $73.15
MP: $30.03
CO: $37.52
BTN: $31.68
Pre-Flop: T A dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG calls $0.25, 2 folds, BTN raises to $1.10, SB folds, Hero calls $0.85, UTG calls $0.85

Flop: ($3.40) J K 7 (3 Players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, BTN bets $3, Hero raises to $8, UTG folds, BTN raises to $30.58 and is All-In, Hero calls $17.23 and is All-In

NFD + broadway gutter? Yep, I'm getting it in.

Turn: ($53.86) J K 7 [ 3 ] (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($53.86) J K 7 3 [ T ] (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $53.86 Pot ($2.69 Rake)
Hero showed T A (a pair of Tens) and LOST (-$26.33 NET)
BTN showed J 7 (two pair, Jacks and Sevens) and WON $51.17 (+$24.84 NET)

Brick-Brick and I lose to a flopped bottom-2. Don't spades always get there?

So I'm annoyed but not quite steamed. After all, a coin flip is exactly that, and neither play was a mistake. But it's getting late and my time is winding down, and I hate closing the session with those 2 hands being the main focus points. Then, right about the time I'm going to close it out...

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
BTN: $60.60
Hero (SB): $59.05
BB: $55.80
UTG: $50.75
MP: $26.80
CO: $25.80
Pre-Flop: J Q dealt to Hero (SB)
UTG raises to $1.75, MP calls $1.75, CO calls $1.75, BTN folds, Hero calls $1.50, BB calls $1.25

Flop: ($8.75) 9 8 T (5 Players)
Hero bets $5, BB calls $5, UTG calls $5, 2 folds

Bingo! Pretty sure I am dodging diamonds, since most sets would raise this flop.

Turn: ($23.75) 9 8 T [ 6 ] (3 Players)
Hero bets $17, BB calls $17, UTG folds
I guess villain could still be playing something like 88 conservatively, looking for a full house card before jamming it in, but it seems much more likely to be the flush draw still.

River: ($57.75) 9 8 T 6 [ 6 ] (2 Players)
Hero bets $35.30 and is All-In, BB calls $32.05 and is All-In
I obviously don't like that I no longer have the nuts, but I don't think I can check-fold, so I may as well shove and hope to get value from hands like 67/78/JJ/T9/T8/JT.

Results: $121.85 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed J Q (a straight, Queen high) and WON $118.85 (+$63.05 NET)
BB mucked 7 5 (a straight, Ten high) and LOST (-$55.80 NET)

Wow, didn't even think of the combo draw. And of course I wasn't perceptive enough to realize how great the 6 on the turn was, since I was discounting the possibility of my opponent holding a 7.

And like that, I'm back to even, and ready to bail out for the evening. So I turn off my "Auto-post" button and take in my last few hands. Turns out I'm on the button at one table, and the action isn't quite done yet.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
CO: $28.39
Hero (BTN): $25.58
SB: $25.75
BB: $26.92
UTG: $32.22
Pre-Flop: 4 8 dealt to Hero (BTN)
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.85, SB calls $0.75, BB folds
Right on the edge of my stealing range. Being suited seals it.

Flop: ($1.95) J 4 T (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.40, SB calls $1.40
Pair+FD, pretty darn nice for 84s. Villain's calling range could be wide, but is probably a J or T that means I'm behind right now.

Turn: ($4.75) J 4 T [ 2 ] (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $3.25, SB raises to $10, Hero calls $6.75

I fire again here to try to get a T to fold, but retrospectively, this might be a mistake. A lot of players won't fold a decent 2nd pair to a 2nd barrel here against a loose Button stealer. And a J is probably set to call me down. So this may be a good spot to take a free river, with a chance that my 4s hold up (against Q9/KQ/89, or a missed FD), and a decent chance that I improve. Once I get raised, it's pretty much an odds decision, and it's a close one. I'm getting a bit less than 3:1, and I might only be drawing to a flush, with 9 outs. If so, I need implied odds to make it a call. If an 8 or 4 is also good, then it is definitely a call.

River: ($24.75) J 4 T 2 [ K ] (2 Players)
SB bets $13.50 and is All-In, Hero calls $13.33 and is All-In

Bladow! Perfect card, hard for villain to put me on a diamond draw, and if he had a bigger diamond, so bet it.

Results: $51.41 Pot ($2.57 Rake)
Hero showed 4 8 (a flush, King high) and WON $48.84 (+$23.26 NET)
SB showed J Q (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$25.58 NET)

This is basically a running halfcourt jump hook to close out the shootaround. Leaves a sweet taste in the mouth, and has me pumped and looking forward to my next chance to play.

Top 2, Part 2

2009-03-30T13:13:00.003-05:00

Hef's response to my post about playing top 2 pair in PLO got me thinking and made me realize that I barely scratched the surface of a topic that could be expounded on in pretty good depth. No, I'm not going to write a thesis on 2-pair on the flop in PLO, but I did want to respond and mention some other considerations.

Hef's contends that it is a better idea to not lead out of the flop with top 2, instead choosing a check/call line and re-evaluating on the turn. While this may be the correct approach in some situations, I think it is a flaw to always (or even frequently) take this line when flopping top 2.

Certainly, one's tendency to lead out with top-2 should depend mostly on the aggressiveness of other players in the pot. Basically, I would agree that we'll have a hard time continuing against a raise (without any draws of our own), so we need to evaluate that likelihood. Conversely, if we lead out and get one or two callers but no raises, we will almost always have the best hand right now. This is because low-stakes PLO is typically being played in a very straightforward manner right now. Players tend to push hard with top or middle set, and solid players will also push hard with big multi-way draws (and thus my suggestion that we play much more cautiously on draw-heavy boards). But with simple draws, like OESDs or naked flush draws, these players will just call, and they will also call with weaker 2-pair hands (top+bottom or bottom 2).

We create a number of problems for ourselves when we check into multiple opponents after flopping top 2:

1) We do nothing to define our opponents' hands. If a player in position leads after it checks around on the flop, does he have a strong hand, or is he just trying to steal the pot after no one else seemed interested? We could easily end up in a position where we check-call multiple streets and get taken direct to Valuetown.

2) By checking we potentially allow it to check around, giving a free card that is very unlikely to help us, but is likely to help someone else, either by generating a backdoor draw or spiking a set for someone who would have folded their pair to a bet on the flop.

3) By checking we forego extracting value from draws that are unlikely to pay us off on later streets. By which I mean that drawing hands will only call bets when there are still cards to draw to. If you check the flop and then bet the turn, you will be getting at most one street of value from a drawing hand. But if you bet the flop and then also bet a blank turn, you may get 2 streets of value, and you might also get a third street of value by taking a check-call line on a brickish river in order to induce a bluff from a missed draw.

For these reasons, I prefer leading out when flopping 2-pair from OOP. But, not always. One other consideration is how big your top 2-pair is. Getting value from a top 2-pair hand is of course contingent upon obvious straight and flush draws not coming in, but it is also contingent upon someone else not making a bigger 2-pair. So, when your top 2 is 9-5 on a 9-5-3 flop, or 7-8 on a 7-8-2 flop, I would be less likely to fire out, since your top 2 will sometimes be beaten when an overcard hits on the turn, making your opponent a bigger 2-pair. Generally, these hands, even though they are top 2-pair, have to be considered weaker hands, simply because, by the river, they fall behind a better 2-pair much more easily than hitting top 2 with K-Q on a K-Q-6 flop, or A-J on an A-J-5 board.

And now, after all of this blabbering, I plan to try to collect some hands as evidence. Unfortunately, almost all of my PLO play to date has come on Bodog, where it is a royal pain to collect hand history (some sort of "hand grabber" tool is required). Therefore, I plan on playing some more PLO on FTP, and at some point soon I will hopefully have some evidence that the ideas presented here are sensible and effective. Or evidence that I'm a spewy donk! Either way, it should be interesting, so stay tuned.