You see a man walking down the street in that hat...

...you know he's not afraid of anything!

Been visiting my brother this past week and basically not playing. Since my brother is in the Air Force and is going to be deployed over Christmas, we decided to do Christmas at Thanksgiving.

And my sister-in-law, who's into knitting, made the best Christmas present ever. I got them the Firefly DVD's last Christmas and she definitely one-up'd me this year.

Apparently the cross-section of Firefly fans and knitting fanatics is fairly sizable and have produced a good number of these hats spread out across the 'verse.

Still not out

It's kind of sick. I'm still not up to the point that I was at after only 3 sessions on the 5th of the month.

Friday night was as soft as ever, but I just couldn't make any hands. I was overflushed for $150, forced off AK in a 4bet pot for $110, and had QQ vs AA in a weird blind vs. blind where an EP player limped, the SB limped, I raised, the EP player called, and the SB came over the top. I stacked off because the line was so fucking weird and because he only had $90, and sure enough he shows the AA.

Actually it's amazing I didn't lose more than I did. Players were butchering their hands left and right. One hand I raised QhKh from EP and the button called. Flop came 4TQ with the 4 of hearts. I bet, button called. Turn is the Jh, as it turns out the worse possible card in the deck for me. I now have TP2K, a strong straight draw, and the 2nd nut flush draw. I bet, prepared to come over the top of a raise in a strong semi as I can nicely rep AK and get random 2pairs to fold (and have good equity when they call). Instead the button calls again. The river is another T, for a board of 4TQJT with no flushes. I check, just praying to get to a cheap showdown but not sure what on earth I can beat (basically nothing; maybe villain shows up with JKs here from time to time). Villain checks, and to my shock shows an absolutely butchered AKo, having massacred every street except for preflop. How can he call the flop with only a gutshot (and overs, but dominated or reverse dominated so often it's not even funny), and then, more importantly, how can the motherfucker not raise the turn after such an unlikely hand got there? The failure to bet the river is also horrible (am I really checking a boat here?) but in this case didn't cost him as I'm not calling (with AA or KK though, I think it's a call, and means he missed ridiculous value against my range). Villain is a regular, too, but looking him up on tableratings* I see that he has played over 375k hands in the last several months and lost over $6k. I guess rakeback might cover that, but ouch. I see why he has so little success, lol.

The other one was just fucking hilarious. It's folded to the SB, an absolute whale who runs about 32/9 and tableratings has as having lost $11k in his last 15k hands (granted some of that was much deeper, probably an ordinary rich fish that likes to gamble), who completes. I have AQo and raise to $6. He calls. I should also mention that he'd been chatting with a spectator who was at his table, and who was apparently in a tournament with him.

Flop comes 459. He checks I check. Turn is a Q, he bets $8 and I call. River is another queen and he bets $16. I raised to $44. Absolutely mandatory imo as I squeeze out just a ton of value against this donkey with worse queens. I'm contemplating whether or not I call a shove, and thinking I probably do, because while he's certainly capable of having a boat here with 44, 55, or even 99 (less likely), this is the sort of donkey that's value-owning himself with KQ, QJ, and QT so much more. A player can't lose that much that quickly without having very little regard for hand values.

But then he starts chatting with his spectator friend, saying "check out this call. I'm going to lose because he has 5's full." He calls and shows 44, which I knew as soon as he said what he did. I was totally about to stack off and if he'd raised when he should have, he would have erased a larger portion of his massive downswing.

Not much more going on. Still relatively breakeven for the past week or so.

FTOPS Main Event

On a whim yesterday, since I've been playing pretty well and getting good results in the past week, I decided to let myself buy in to the $500+35 FTOPS Main Event, which drew over 5000 entrants. A tournament with that many entrants has to be pretty soft, I figured.

It was, and I found my first table pretty easy, and unfortunately was transferred off of it in the first half hour. I still managed to chip up from my starting stack of 7500 up to about 9000 or so.

The second table was a bit tougher, and I lost some of my chips there. There was still a table donk, who will come into the picture again later, and I lost a pot to him as he made a small open raise from UTG and I called with TT. He bet half-pot on a 9 high board and I called, we checked a deuce turn, and he checked a deuce river to see me value-own myself for 2/5 pot. He had QQ (this wasn't a hand that established him as the table donk, he played it reasonably; other hands gave him that label). I missed two straight draws given good odds and was down to 5800 chips when the following hand occurred.

Blinds are 40/80. I raise to 200 from early MP with JJ and a good player on the button calls. The donkey is in the SB and 3bets to 680, both I and the button call.

Flop is 7TJ. Nice.

Even nicer, the donkey friggin' SHOVES, a 10k bet into a 2k pot. I only had ~4800 left in my stack, and I forget what the button's stack was. I instacall of course, and the button folds. The donkey shows about what I expected him to have AdKd.

The turn bricks off and the river is a fucking queen.

Donkaments are soulcrushing.

Even worse, a regular at the NL200 tables, mariojr, went super deep in the tournament, finishing 38th for $7675 in prize money. Ordinarily I'd feel good for one of my peers to have such a good result except mario is not a good player - he is a clear and unabashed rakeback pro whose play is so uninspiring that he actually had to endure some very serious accusations as to being a bot a while back.

This tournament score represents approximately 357,000 NL200 hands for him at his typical winrate (it would represent less than 60k for me).

You've gotta be fucking kidding me, mirror image

So my last post was my whining about an improbable cooler. This one will be my gloating over a hand I played yesterday that made up for it and then some.

I've got 9 NL200 tables open, and while I don't feel like my game is 100% on, I'm playing well enough and have amassed a couple of buyins in 1000 hands.

At the table in question was a player that was quickly establishing himself as a bit of a maniac. A few hands ago I had raised AQo in MP and he had called from the blinds. On a flop of KQx rainbow he had led out for pot, I called, and he donked a brick turn for $150 into a $45 pot. I laughed and folded, making a note. He had played four of the next five hands, winning all of them with similar bets.

In the hand in question, the maniac opened from MP for a minraise, a bad shortstack called, and the button, a player who for the 100 hands I had on him had seemed like a straightforward TAG, squeezed to $19 (pot-sized raise). I was in the small blind with AKo.

I elected to call the 3bet. If everyone involved in the pot had been normal that's a pretty standard fold, really - but I'm not anxious to fold AK in a pot that has a maniac still in it, and I'm pretty certain the button had recognized the maniac's instability and was therefore going to be squeezing pretty light. At the same time I don't want to come over the top and give the maniac an excuse to fold while merely pushing the button off of a few coinflips and owning myself against the top end of his range.

The maniac called behind, and the bad shortstack folded. The button had a $222 stack, and the maniac had him covered by $0.10. I had them both covered. The flop comes A84 with two diamonds.

I checked - had it been a live hand, I would have checked in the dark - and true to form, the maniac led out for $66, a full PSB. The button thought about it for a couple of seconds and then raised all-in.

I hadn't been expecting to have to make a decision here for all my chips, but it wasn't a hard one, really. The maniac could have ATC at this point, though I suspected he had some sort of ace. The button's push was worrisome, but if he has a really strong hand, meaning a set in this case, I suspect he'd be more inclined just to call the bet and let the maniac do his betting for him. I figured a very significant percentage of the time we'd be chopping, but that we almost always had the maniac destroyed. I called.

The maniac thinks for about 10 seconds and then shoves, for an additional $0.10. I called :)

The maniac showed AJo and the button showed pocket tens. The turn and river came running deuces and I scooped the $645 pot, stacking both players.

It still amazes me how bad the average NL200 player is. Both of my opponents in the hand obviously butchered it beyond recognition.

The maniac has an easy fold preflop, as, after being reraised and cold-called he's almost always dominated. The button's reraise pre with tens is obviously fine, but when the ace comes and the maniac leads out for pot and there's a tight player yet to act, you have to let it go. Instead he elects to turn his hand into a retardobluff that a) is never getting the maniac to fold a better hand, except maybe JJ-KK, and even that is very questionable, and b) is occasionally going to run into my big hand in the SB, as it did here.

That being said, the maniac's call with AJo is probably even worse, as he has to understand that top pair 3rd kicker is *never* going to be good here against two players that are all-in. That being said, it's totally expected from a maniac as a maniac is constitutionally incapable of folding top pair.

There's not too much to brag about in this hand from my end - only two decisions in the hand, one of which (the all-in call) was pretty easy. I like my smooth-call pre but jamming with a 4bet isn't bad here either. The check on the flop was part of that decision, though, as it had nothing to do with the flop.

I can only imagine what was going through the button's head when I called him. Ups.

That being said, it's going to show that the majority of the huge pots I win are pots where my opponent plays horribly. The other stack I took last night was a strange pot, too. A tight player raised UTG and a bad passive player called on my right. I squeezed from the button with KK, UTG folded, and the bad player called. The flop came Q high, very dry, and the bad player led out for full pot. I went well into my time bank, scratching my head, and eventually shoved as I can't imagine he'd lead out with AA or a set here. He instacalled with TT, no set. My hand held up and I took his full stack, still scratching my head.

If I can start coolering people at the rate at which I'm getting coolered, I'm going to make a ton of money at this game.

Anyway, close to $700 last night, putting me back into the black for the month and roughly halfway out of my 14BI downswing.

You've gotta be fucking kidding me

So I'm inching my way out of my freefall a buyin at a time, and yesterday I'm playing very well, really feel like I'm on, can't make a wrong move. Every cbet works. Every delayed cbet works. Every bluff gets them to fold, every value bet gets called. I've inched my way up to where I'm up 2 buyins on the day.

Then. At my only deep-stacked table I catch Jd Js UTG. Raise to $7, get a caller in MP1. The SB calls as well, and we see the flop 3-handed.

Flop is Jh 4c 7s. Nice. The BB checks, I go ahead and bet out $18, MP1 calls and the BB folds. I started the hand with $435 in my stack and MP1 has me covered. He seemed to be a standard TAG with a normal preflop 3bet percentage, and who almost always folded to cbets. A little nitty. I don't think he's calling on this dry flop without some sort of made hand, obviously I'm hoping 77 or 44.

Turn is the As. I felt it was a good card, because I felt like villain had some sort of made hand, and that there was a good chance that improved it. I was hoping that he was just messing around preflop with a hand like A7s, or that I'd caught a particularly lucky flop against AJs, and he was now hopelessly tied to his holding. Barring that, if he had nothing, that's the kind of card that can instigate some kind of random spewbluff, if he puts me on like KK-QQ and thinks that maybe he can take it away on the turn.

There's $59 in the pot now, and I go ahead and bet out $45. He takes his time and raises to $115. Nice! After calling I would have about $340 behind, and I felt the prudent thing would be to get it in now. I take my time and shove. He instacalls.

I actually had the thought "thank fucking goodness, I finally oversetted somebody, and not only that, it was for a double stack and then some!" I haven't oversetted anyone in what feels like ages. Certainly it's been a month at least. During my freefall, on the other hand, I was oversetted three times, one of which being a KK vs. AA, all for full stacks of course.

So I have that thought right up until I notice that - as I'm sure you guessed by now - the motherfucker turns over Ac Ah. Needless to say I missed my one outer and lost what is now my biggest ever pot.

How sick is that? A standard nitty TAG with normal preflop 3bet stats chooses this hand to smooth-call with aces, tying him far more strongly to the hand than if he's the normal preflop aggressor: the price for disguising his hand. He winds up facing a flopped set, the risk you take for a smooth-call, and makes a mandatory call of a cbet on a dry flop.

Then comes the dirty fucking 2-outer turn that I'm sure this guy didn't really think he needed - I'm guessing he plays the hand exactly the same if the turn is a deuce - makes a hyper-strong raise that is literally only getting action from lower sets, and walks his way into a complete 217bb gift.

That erased my profits back to nil, and I didn't stay on much longer: I actually won about $60 by the end of the day, but that's almost beside the point. This fucking game.

Seriously, Full Tilt? Enough with the goddamn doomswitch.

Sometimes this game sucks

After a promising opening few sessions to the month, quickly amassing more than $2k in profits, I have gone on my most impressive nosedive yet, an impressive 14BI in under 5k hands. At 1/2 that's $2800, a number that still seems a bit insane to me. I've been being a pretty big bankroll nit and luckily that represents less than 15% of what I've got online, but that shit still ain't fun. Last Friday was the doomsday for me, a -$1454 session in 2500 hands, just an unadulterated freefall where everything went wrong. I tilted a bit towards the end and gave up about a stack and a half that I didn't have to, but otherwise felt my play was pretty good. Saturday was just sick. Just under 1500 hands, lost just shy of $900, adjusted for all-in equity would have lost only $2.06. No bullshit. KK < TT AIPF for 130bb doesn't help that number. Neither does getting it in with bottom set vs. TPTK on a 2347 board (bink! off rolls the river 5). I was also oversetted twice, one of them coming in a hand that was also AA vs KK (he smooth-called my 3bet and we both flopped sets, ouch.)

I'm climbing my way out of it, but slowly and steadily. $400 yesterday, $300 today, a buyin here, a buyin there. After my $1500 down-day in February where I kinda lost my shit, the primary thing I forgot was that my goal was not to get my money "back" - it was just to make money. As a result of forgetting that, I lost all patience and made far too many moves, trying to win every pot. Result: I just kept losing.

Maybe I'm nitting it up a bit too much - I played 15/13 yesterday and 14/10 today - but for the moment, grinding out profits seems to be working. I'm back to about even for the month and there's still a lot of month left for me to salvage.

Ugh. Also, yay.

So, yesterday I had to go to the hospital for food poisoning. I had sushi Friday night and apparently got some bad shit, and while I've had food poisoning before and never had to go to the doctor for it, I had a constant pain in my stomach with no respite and felt an ER visit was in order. It was pretty unbearable. They took good care of me, hooked me up with an IV and some drugs for nausea, and I felt better almost immediately.

That night I felt much better and hopped on the tables. Apparently the drugs were not quite out of my system as I played somewhat atypically, running 17/13/2.5 over the session and doing very well.



Winning money without showdown? That's unpossible!

October

The 2nd half to October was a little rough, as I found it very difficult to get any momentum going. I didn't run well by any luck metric, finishing the month some $1100 down in all-in equity and having my KK vs AA outnumbering my AA vs KK about 4 to 1. Plus I was oversetted something like 4 times this month, and didn't overset anyone else even once all month.


Still, I managed to make it a breakeven stretch and finished the month +$4200ish, respectable enough. Considering my volume was over double last month's volume, I wasn't too happy with it.

The last 2300 or so hand in that graph - the big-ass "U" - was last night's shot at NL400, which I found surprisingly soft. That being said, in the first 500 hands at the level I managed to catch KK against AA twice, and QQ against an aggro player's KK, all for full $400 stacks. Ouch. Luckily over the next 1800 hands I fought my way back to almost even. I've never been happier to lose $83, considering at my low point I was down $1500.

Not sure whether or not I'm gonna stay at NL400 and extend my shot. It would be nice to get with the balla regs at that level, but my money still seems a little scared.