Wow, it's been a while

Poker's been rough the past couple of months, pretty much ever since my tourney win I've been struggling to break even. I've changed over to non-deep tables for the time being because the deep tables were more and more becoming littered with regs, which is even worse than the shortstacks I have to deal with at the 100bb max tables.

Anyway, it's been working so far, and last night I hit a fun hand that gave me most of my profit:

I'm ~200bb deep in MP and pick up pocket jacks. A tight, 13/9 player that I don't have any other real read on opens from UTG+1 and I flat call, so as to not eliminate all but the top end of his range. A new player (0/0 over 3 hands, 100bb deep) calls 2 seats to my left and the big blind calls as well. We see the flop 4-handed.

Flop is 8TJ rainbow, giving me top set on an otherwise scary coordinated board. BB checks, original raiser pots it for nearly $15, I make a mandatory raise up to $49.

Usually when there's a cbet and a raise in a multiway pot, the other players can't possibly wait to get rid of their hands, but the late position player goes into the tank, really using up his timebank. Eventually he shoves for his 100bb!

BB folds and it gets back to the opener, and he shoves over the top for his remaining nearly 200bb!

I have to double-check that I did, in fact, flop top set.

Now, I think it pretty much impossible that the original raiser flopped a straight, and is instead likely spazzing with AA or has an underset. I thought the late position guy probably had 79 or even 9Qs, for sure, but it's still an obvious call since I'm basically freerolling here so long as the opener didn't flop a very unlikely set.

So I instacall.

Opener turns over AA, and the guy who overshoved my raise turns over AQo!

Um, thanks for the 300bb I guess! My top set holds against the double gutshot and overpair, and I remark that you almost never see postflop play that bad even at the deep tables. I think I'll force myself to deal with the shorties for a time.

Besides, I play better shortstacked poker than the vast majority of them do anyway.

I are teh champion!

Finally played in the last match of the SSNLFR HU tournament at 2+2. Somehow I managed to bumble my way to the finals (the semis were over in just over 60 hands) and was matched up against a very strong player by the name of AlexB182s. He played a very different style than anyone else I'd been matched up with, running 54/47/6.4 for the match but playing largely a small-ball style, not 3betting a gratuitous amount, not cbetting much (I think he ran 55% for the match), and generally playing a very smart, very controlling game where he constantly put me to gross decisions (though mostly in small-to-medium size pots).

We hit a gross hand early. He raised the button and I defended with 3h 3c. Flop comes 8A3 rainbow, just about perfect. This was early in the match and I hadn't really set up anything, but he had already shown he wasn't robotic in his cbetting so I decided to donk out, betting 50 into 60.

He calls. Turn is the 8d, boating me up. I continue, betting 120 into 160, and he calls again. Now I'm putting him on a hand around AT, maybe as low as A2ish, or something 99-KK.

River is the Js, which seems like a brick. I bet 290 into 400 and he snap raises to 775.

Oh, holy crap. I mean, I have a boat, but that river raise is so goddamn strong. I tank, trying to figure out what he could have if he's telling the truth, and I focus right to JJ, a slow-played AA, possibly a slow-played A8, 8J, and maybe AJ. Of those I only beat AJ, and it's very possible he can let that go. He could also be bluffing, of course, or making a huge mistake with a hand like AK, so I can't bring myself to fold, but I had dismissed shoving early. I called, and he showed 8J for the better boat. Sick. I was 98% on the flop.

At the other table, a smallish pot developed that set up a very interesting dynamic.

He raises his button to 30, I defend with 5h 7h. Flop comes Kh Ks Qh. I check he checks. Turn is the Th, giving me a flush. I bet 40 into 60, he calls. River bricks (2c), I bet 120 into 140, he calls. He shows As Kd for flopped trips, my flush takes down a 380 pot

That pot caught my eye because he didn't bet the flop, where most people would, which was actually a very nice spot to do it. Then a groan-inducing flush card comes for him, which he respects, and quickly snaps off two bets with trips top kicker. Very nicely played on his part imo, even though I won a medium-sized pot.

A bit later, on that same table.

I raise JJ from the button, he defends. Flop is Ac Ks 7h. He checks I check. Turn is 9c, he bets 35 into 60 (he favored that sort of small bet), I called. River is 2c. He bets 55 into 130, I call. He shows Js Kh. Analysis: he pwned me hard. Very nice thin value.

Then a bizarre hand happened.

Same table. I raise my btn with 6s 9s, he defends. Flop is Ts Kh 4h. He checks, I bet 40 into 60, and he raises to 115. His flop CR rate was something like 60% at this point so I decided to make a stand, got fancy and called. Turn was 7d, a brick, and he bet out 165 into 290. I raised to 430, he thought for a few seconds and called. River is the Qd. He checks, and I pussy out and check behind with 9 high. He shows Jh 8h for Jack high, with the missed flush draw. FUUUUUCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!! I could have bet 100 into that pot and blown him off of that hand. But it felt like he just had something like KQ and was giving me enough rope to hang myself. I had a decent enough idea, and then lost my nerve. Awful.

Luckily at that same table I caught back up. He had a 2500/1500 lead at both tables going into this hand and I evened one of the tables out. Basically I raised K5s, flop came K53, and I got 3 streets of value against KT. Pretty standard hand, put us back to even on that table.

I felt good about the next one.

I raise my button with 5s 9s (feeling a bit frisky, he'd been folding a lot preflop). He defends, flop comes 8s 7d Jd, giving me an almost-impossible-to-read double gutshot. He checks, I bet 20 into 60 (hoping to throw him off his usual CR pattern). He raises to 44, barely more than a minraise, and I call (metagame psychology I presume). Turn is Ks, giving me spades in addition to my FD. He bets 125 into 148, I tank and call. River pairs the J, and he bets 175 into 398. His hand felt a lot more like diamonds or like A8, 99, TT, or a complete airball than anything, which led to me raising to 480. He snap folded. I felt like I had a hand like JQ repped quite nicely and could have easily pushed him off a weak K, if he had something like K9 of diamonds.

At the other table, the one where I ran 33388 into 888JJ, we got all in preflop with my QQ against his JJ and I held, doubling up to 1434, making that a more competitive match. 50 hands later we saw our next flop (not really, but there was a LOT of preflop sparring going on in very small pots).

He raised his button and I defended with As 8d. Flop came Td 4d 5c. I check, he checks back. Turn is 7c. I check, he bets 35 into 60. I call. River is the 2s, I check, he bets 85 into 130, and I called him with Ace high. Once again he pwned me for great thin value with Kh 7h. Wow. I felt like he'd picked up clubs on the turn and that I had a lot of equity.

Still, in a HU match it can be nice to establish that you're willing to call down a couple streets with Ace high on the right board, and I felt pretty good about that hand.

At the table where I was ahead, he raised his button and I defended with Th Qs. The flop came 3h 4c Qd, giving me top pair with an OK kicker. I check/called 35, the turn came the Kh. I check/called 85 as I felt like he would recognize that as a superb barreling card. River came As and I check/called 125, as it was once again a superb barreling card and he offered me very attractive odds. He showed Jd 8h for the pure bluff start to finish, and I raked in a nice pot.

We chatted about that pot in AIM for a bit, and I was able to play a nice little metagame head game by pointing out that I knew that he knew that those were good barreling cards, at which point he confessed that he wouldn't know if those were good barreling cards in the future.

In the next 75 or so hands the preflop dynamics seemed to adjust significantly. He started 3betting more, and it felt like he was injecting a little amperage into his game overall. This led to the following hand.

He's down to 1400 chips (starting stack 2000). I raise 7d 8d from the button and he 3bets to 105. With a nice spec hand I can always flop something, but my primary plan is to find a likely flop to take down a big pot without a showdown. I call.

Flop comes 6c Th Jc. This strikes me as a somewhat marginal flop, as most of his range hit something, but I do have a gutshot and I don't think he's going to be in a mood to commit the majority of his stack on an unimproved turn with his AK-AQ strength hands that have gutshots+overpairs on the turn. My plan was to float steal, and indeed he cbet out 125 into 210. In that spot I actually have decent implied odds to chase my gutshot by itself, but mostly I was looking to take the pot away. I call.

The turn changes my plan by spanking me with the 9d. He tanks for 10s or so and checks, I bet 280, and he shoves. I instacall and he shows QQ, a hand he was never letting go of, and against which I got insanely lucky. River misses his 7 out sweat by giving me an ace, and I win match 1.

We start up a third table and continue dual-tabling our match.

On the other table, the one where I was still behind, I defended w/A9o and check/called turn and river bets on a JA768 board, taking a decent pot from QQ, and establishing that I was balancing my check/call range from OOP with weak bluffcatchers and hands that were taking advantage of his propensity for taking thin value.

He raised the button on our new table and I defended w/Ad Jh. I checked, he bet 35 on a K32r board. I called. Turn is a J, I check he checks. River pairs the 3, I try my own hand at thin value betting 60 into 130 and promptly get spanked when he raises to 199, repping a pretty thin range of strong kings, random 3's, and bluffs. I tank and fold.

Weird hand. At our new table again, he raises his button and I defend with Kc Jh. Flop comes 4c 5h 8c, we check check. Turn is the Tc, giving me the backdoor 2nd nut FD, I bet 40 he calls. River bricks with the Qh, I check, he bets 45 into 140, and I decide to make a random river CR, making it 260. He folds, and we laugh about how neither one of us had crap, and that he really should have 3bet bluffed me.

We hit a very long stretch of hands - about 100 or so - where nothing happens, and our biggest pot is 65 chips. 1st place in the tournament is $1500 and 2nd is $900, so we're both willing to be patient.

At our new table, where I've crawled back into the lead with several small pots, I raise my button with 77 and he 3bets to 105. I call. Flop comes 4c 5d Qd and he CBets out 125. I call. River bricks, the 2c, he bets 275 into 460 and I call again. River is the 5c, he checks, I check, he shows 8d Kd for the missed diamonds. I take down a nice big 1000 chip pot (I put him on exactly what he had, missed diamonds).

Finally, at the new table again, I'd ground him down to 1360 in chips, and raised my button with QKo. He 3bet, I called, and the flop came 36K with diamonds. He bet 115 and I called, the turn came the Jd. He checked, I bet 280, and he CR'd me all-in, which made me want to puke, but had TP2K with nearly 2:1 outs against an aggressive opponent that could have just picked up a ton of draws, so I called. He had Ad Ts for 32% equity, a ton of outs, and the river bricked off the Jh for my win.

So, that's $1500, and a substantial amount of pride for having bested a field of 32 very strong regulars in a format intended to maximize the skill factor moreso than almost any other tournament you'll find (with no blind increases, playing 200bb deep against a good player HU is EXHAUSTING).

Although I joke about my Jamie-Gold-esque heater on the forums, I'm proud of how I played and feel that I was a substantial favorite in most of my matches (probably 3/5 I felt very good about). This one I felt was just about even, and perhaps even weighted against me skill-wise. It's impossible to navigate this field without some luck bouncing your way, and I was very fortunate, but also very happy with my game. HU NL is a sick game, very tough, where adjustments are everything and the psychology factor is massive. GG to all that were involved.

I think I'll go buy a new computer.

Some NL100

I had a good start to the month, but some of the EV karma I've been cashing in on so far this year (in February I was pretty significantly above my AIE) has been catching up to me, and I plummeted down to almost even for the month. Because I needed to withdraw $2500 to cover upcoming moving expenses, leaving my bankroll well below where I'd like it, I decided to step down and play some NL100.

It was like whiffleball, and I had a nice 3BI win for +$100/hr. Running hot I guess, but some of the more fun hands:

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EP player limps, I iso to 4.5bb with Ad Qh, folds to him, he calls. Villain is a 24/10 who thinks postflop but overvalues hands, calls down light, and generally has FPS. Probably read a couple of poker books, but definitely not a great player at all. Were 200bb deep.

Flop comes Qs 9h Qd. Villain checks, I fire out 8bb, he calls. Turn: Kc. He checks and I make my biggest mistake of the night by betting 16bb. He c/r's to 42bb and I call. River he insta-bets 85bb and I turbo muck. He asked me what I called him with, says he'll tell if I do. I say no need to tell, you had TJ, he says no, I said 99 then, he goes wow how'd you guess.

The turn card sucked in that hand since pretty much every hand except QJ/QT that I'm beating just caught up. Should have checked behind to induce and then called river, instead I get trapped for a raise that I feel I have to call because I can stack him very often when I boat up. A lot of players would say to fold to the turn CR, but that's still a hand where most players lose a lot more.

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UTG+1 pot raise from a decent-enough-seeming 17/13, I call on his left with 8d 8s. A 45/21 donkey to my left calls and we see the flop 3-handed. Raiser is 108bb deep, I am 240bb, donkey has us both covered.

Flop comes Th 6s 5h, raiser checks and I bet 9.5bb into 12. Donkey calls, opener folds. Turn: 6c. I bet 19.5bb into 31, donkey calls. River 7s, I check, donkey checks and shows Ah 8h. So many people miss that turn value bet. I was calling anything he put in on the river.

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Nit opens for 3.5bb in EP, button calls, I call from the SB with Ts Th. Button is someone who picked up the "be aggressive" advice from someone somewhere and is a garden variety overaggro monkey. Flop comes 6h 7s Qh. I check, opener checks, btn bets 8bb. I call, the opener folds. Turn bricks, the 6c, I check, monkey bets 22bb, I minraise to 44bb, he turbomucks.

Nonstandard line but not without advantages. I don't think this guy has a hand; his betting reflex seems pronounced and he seems to be of the "keep betting until they fold" mentality. I certainly don't think he has a PP JJ+, he could have a set, a draw, or air. The raise was for value, gaining the max out of draws while making the air easier to play against than playing the check/guessing game on the river. A river bet is going to be another 50bb minimum and am I really calling and letting him own me with whatever QJ bs he's overvaluing? Better to end the hand here imo, rep the 77 or 56 or even the AQo while still getting money in as a favorite against hearts and 89.

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UTG raiser from a guy who's 31/13 over 40ish hands. We're 115bb deep. I call on the button with 8c 8h. BB calls also. Flop comes 2s 8h Kc. I don't know about you but that's just about the most beautiful set of 8's I've ever seen in my life. It's impossible to get a dryer board.

Villain insta-pots 11bb and I call (BB folds). Turn: 4d. Villain pumps 24bb more in. I call. River Ks, villain pops his last 77bb into 81, I call, villain shows A9o for the pure start-to-finish bluff. Oops.

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Unimaginative 12/9 nit opens from MP and the FPS dude from hand #1 calls. I call from the CO with 5h 7h. Button also calls, 4-way to a Qd 6d 3c flop.

Opener bets 10bb into 15.5 and FPS man floats. He floated like it was his job; over 500 hands (exactly) on him his fold-to-cbet rate is only 36%. Ideal spot here IMO even though I've just got a gutshot. I raise to $40 and everyone turbomucks.

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54/4 whale open-limps in MP, I iso from the btn to 4.5 with 3s 3d. He calls. Flop 6h Kh 5h, he checks, I bet 8bb just to end the hand if he has absolutely nothing, because even this guy will fold on this board with air. He calls. Turn is 4d, giving me an up-and-down I don't particularly care about, he checks, I bet 18bb into 26.5, he calls. River Jc, he checks, I bet 35bb into 62.5 and he turbo-mucked.

The play a lot of people miss there is the turn bet. Because villain could have ATC it's tempting just to see the hand to showdown with a weak-ass pair that has some value. That's not wrong, but I think it's better to build the pot, because most of the time the villain will have some weak-ass one-heart hand and is constitutionally incapable of folding anything they perceive as a draw for a "reasonable" bet. The downside is that it commits us to turning our hand into a bluff on the river to get rid of all the bullshit 5xXh, 6xXh, and mid-pp's-with-a-heart hands that have us beat but that he's unlikely to call that last street with. The turn bet makes the hand.

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AJo in UTG+1, but because of new players in LP seats we're 7-handed. I open to 3.5, 53/27 whale calls, everyone else gets out of the way. We're 94bb deep. Flop is J55 rainbow, I bet 6.5bb into 8.5, he calls. Turn: 4h. I bet 15 into 21.5, he calls. River 2s, I bet 40 into 51.5 (he has 66bb left), he hems and haws before finally making his "hero fold" stating that he has pocket 7's. Heh.

Super standard hand and any experienced player reading this will wonder why the hell I included it, but I see so many people butchering their hands in these spots that it's worth a mention. People have advice drilled into their heads so much saying "don't go broke with top pair, it's not a premium hand!" that they forget that there are plenty of spots where they should absolutely be going broke with TPTK, particularly when oop against an idiot calling station on a super dry board. Such maxims are totally worthless imo. You put someone on a hand based on your read and their behavior in the hand, and you act appropriately given what you think their reaction to your actions will be. Here my hand is almost always going to be good, I knew it, and so I went for three streets of value. EZ game.

200bb pots

I'm running amazingly badly in $800 pots so far this month. I've only had two; one was discussed in my last entry (lost to a 4-outer on the river with a set of 4's), and one from yesterday afternoon, where a maniac shows up at the table and within 15 hands I've seen him all-in preflop four times. The two times he was called he showed up with KQo both times.

So I pick up pocket queens in MP and raise. He 3bets from the SB, I 4bet to $85, he shoves, I instacall. He has As Ts and wouldn't you know it, there's an ace in the door. I fail to improve and the monkey ratholes with his profit. Thanks Martingale.

Thankfully, in part due to an overset for 100bb (omg that makes 2 in a row without an underset somewhere in between!) I still managed to churn out a $275 profit for the day.

The good news is that the same dude showed up at another one of my tables a little later and I was able to extract at least some partial revenge, particularly when I overbet $125 into $69 with 8d 9d on a 6h 5d 8h Kd 7d board (he called with Kh Qh) and on a hand where I 3bet an EP opener with QQ and he min-4bet out of the SB. I elected just to call this time and he insta-potted $84 on a 3s Tc 8c board. I called, the turn was the 9h, and he check-folded to my $131 bet (into $252).

I also managed to win in round 2 of the SSFR HU tourney, defeating Jason in an epic 2-1 come-from-behind that was peppered with suckouts from start to finish. Jason was either playing like a genius, was catching incredible cards, or had impeccable timing, or any combination available choosing from 2-3 of the above, because he was playing like an aggromonkey from hell but every last time I looked him up he had some kind of monster. Thankfully I sucked out on him for almost all of his chips with a straight draw + one over vs. his JJ overpair and eventually finished him off. One more win and I'm in the money baybee!

Emotional victory?

So I was cruising around at even last night when, at a deep table, I raise from EP with 44 and am 3bet small by a tight MP player. Relative stacks are 200bb and this guy's seemed very active, so I call. Flop comes 45J. I lead out for something like $42, he snapcalls. Turn is a Q, which I didn't like, but I lead out for $100 or so and snapcall when he insta-shoves. He shows AKs and the river spikes his ten. He said later that he put me on AJ and was just trying to push me off of it. Terrible play.

At the same time I catch 22 on a 237 flop as the preflop aggressor and bet into a guy from oop on the flop and turn, before the river makes the board 23457 with a possible flush. I desperately try to block for $88 or so and fold to an insta minraise.

With some other natural variance I'm down $800 very early.

Over the next 3 hours, I manage to build my way up, step by step, to the point where I'm only losing $160. Finally exhausted there, I call a halt to the night and felt good about it.

I think most people, even many experienced poker players, have no idea how much money gets passed back and forth in non-skill pots.

LOL Donkament

Played round one of my match in the 2p2 SSFR HU tournament the other day; it was interesting to play HU for a $100 buyin shootout, a format I don't get a lot of. Very much a bragging rights type thing, but the money would be cool, too.

My first opponent was Robert Fripp, a very aggressive player from South America who threatened to run me over from the get go. The first meaningful hand, he'd been 3betting up a storm, I raised to 30, he 3bet to 100, I called with Ah3h, which was a monster against his range. Flop came Q24dd, I check-called 150, turn 7s, I check-called 360, river Tc I check-folded 1190 all-in into 1220. In retrospect it was a clear call as he was bluffing without a doubt, but my balls weren't quite in place yet. This dropped me down to an early large chip deficit.

I made some of it back when I raised KK OTB, he called, flop came 59Jr. He check-called 40 on the flop, turn was an ace, he checks I bet 110, he raises to 300. I tanked a bit to make it look like I was contemplating a fold, when in reality I'm never folding here (as he'd made it clear he was 3betting any ace pre). My only real option was between calling and 3betting and I chose to call. He gave up on a river 9 and I checked behind against his polarized range. He had 7h 5h and I dragged a nice-sized pot.

The very next hand I defended w/QhTh and took a pot down with a CR on a 26Khh flop.

I took another 100 when I 4bet TT pre with the intent of getting it in, then another 190 when I defended w/A7o and check-called 2 streets on an AQQ2 board before he finally gave up on a river T, showing 9Ts.

Later, with my stack at 1335 (starting stack: 2000) I defended w/QTo and the flop came 89J rainbow, lol. I check-called the flop, turn was an ugly 7, check-check, river king, I bet 120, he raised to 300, I shoved and he tanked and folded, saying he folded K8. This took us back to almost even.

Another interesting hand, I defended 5h7h, flop came 2h5s8c, I check-called the now-standard cbet of 40. Turn Jh, I c/r'd a bet of 100 up to 310 and he folded.

Then came the hand where the match really changed. I defended w/TcJc, flop came Jh7h7c. I check-called 40, turn 9c. I check-called 100, river 8d giving me the straight. I led out 310 into 340 and my opponent raised to 980. WTF!! I tanked for a bit and asked him if he'd boated up, which was obv what he was repping, and against a straightforward player this is such an obvious fold, but this guy had been such a monkey that folding wasn't really an option. I called and he showed Qd 4d for the stone river bluff, LOL. This gave me an almost 2:1 chip lead.

That turned the first match in my favor and I never ceded the lead. Later I defended w/A8o and check-called 40 on a 339r flop. Turn 8, I c/c'd 110, river 7, I c/c'd 240, he showed Qd 5d.

Thr first match ended w/me raising AQo, he defended. Flop 3d5dQc, I bet 40, he cr'd to 120, I called. Turn 4h, he checks, I bet 200, he CRAI's to 680, I instacall, he shows 2h 3h for bottom pair+OESD, river bricks.

His stats for the match were something like 61/54/15.8 - yes, an AF of 15.8 - and didn't appreciably change. My defense was easy - play about 55/45/0.9! I just slow-played everything and he only really started to adjust after it was already too late.

The second match was over very quickly, something like 32 hands. We donked back and forth a small bit. Finally a huge hand hit when I had JhKh, opened to 30, he defended. Flop came 2h4h8c for overs+2nfd. He checks, I bet 40, he cr'd to 120 as he always did (his c/r percentage was over 70% for the match). I 3bet to 420, he 4bet to 1040, I shoved for 920 more, he folds!!!!! Yes ladies and gentlemen that is a postflop 4bet-fold.

The sick thing about that hand is that I knew I had FE. He had been 3betting me so much that I figured he was going to try to stay a level ahead and on a board like this, relatively innocuous, he knew I might try to come over the top with air, and pre-planned a 4bet in advance. His 4bet was way too fast. Obviously my overs+FD are the nuts, but against a player like him it's ordinarily more profitable to wait until it hits, unless you get them to 4bet-fold.

Final hand was sexy too, I had 22 and defended, flop 23Q, noice! I check-called 40 despite a FD being on the board, turn is a 2!!! I check, he bets 100, I call. River is a 9, I check, he bets 270, I CRAI 625 more, he puke/calls off his last chips with Q5o. Not horrible on his part actually, and he knew I was defending him so light that he had to keep v-betting TPNK, and he has to be conscious of my potentially coming over the top w/missed clubs or w/e. Poor guy goes to all this trouble to set up a maniac image, finally gets to vbet thin, and runs into quads. Not his day.

Next match I'm up against a very good 2p2 regular who I've played against quite a bit at 1/2 on FT, so we'll see how it goes ... suffice to say that I expect the match to be less about exploitation and more about unexploitability.

Back in stride?

April was rough, essentially a breakeven month where I endured a $1500 downswing. It was a mixture of bad-ish play and running bad, I think. Lots of coolers one way, no coolers the other, but I think I took the LAGgish tendencies I've been developing over the past couple of months and took them a little too far, playing more like a maniac. I learned to start chilling on my cbets a bit, as nobody observant was giving me any respect, and I wasn't hitting the hands to make that profitable; meanwhile I was bleeding a lot of money in small pots.

Thus month I've calmed down and have been running about 19/14, which is about in my comfort zone. I had to deal with a ~-$800 session about a week ago, but have followed that up with four straight winning sessions, including a $1030 day today, the first $1k day I've had in a while (I put together two in March, none in April). Notably, I was up over $500 in non-showdown pots today, which is extremely weird for me.

New biggest pot ever...

...by a lot.

So I'm sitting at an NL400 deep table. I've started mixing in some NL400 to my game on the juicier nights, because the volume of fish that play that high certainly justifies the increased risk and because my BR is in a good spot. NL400 is still pretty much a hornet's nest compared to the relative softness of NL200 (NL100 to NL400 is by far the biggest 2-step jump in poker) but on a Friday night all the fish seem to want to play a bit higher than normal, and I'd be a fool not to follow them.

I'd done well at the table and in the first rotation increased my $800 buy-in to over $1k, and saw it swing between there and $1200 for most of the night. Until this hand.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Mammola (UTG+1): $957.00
Zockermicha (MP1): $176.00
dewshy (MP2): $269.15
mikeymike1384 (CO): $1059.25
The_Tuz (BTN): $997.00
Hero (SB): $1023.85
T80085 (BB): $735.30
Mrsfields99 (UTG): $639.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is SB with 8c 8s
4 folds, mikeymike1384 raises to $14, 1 fold, Hero calls $12, 1 fold

Flop: ($32.00) Qc 8h Ah (2 players)
Hero checks, mikeymike1384 bets $30, Hero raises to $82, mikeymike1384 raises to $1045.25 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $927.85 all in

Turn: ($2051.70) Ks (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($2051.70) 8d (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $2051.70
mikeymike1384 shows 2s As (two pair, Aces and Eights)
Hero shows 8c 8s (four of a kind, Eights)
Hero wins $2048.70
(Rake: $3.00)

The funny thing was, this particular villain didn't strike me as one of the megafish until here. His stats were on the loosey-aggro side, and I had a feeling that he was maybe getting bored and was about to pop, but coming over the top like this? That's unpossible!

I'd played a hand not long ago where I'd c/r'd his cbet with a draw and he dumped the hand instantly, to which I had a chuckle and said to myself "wow, he really doesn't want to play around with our stacks." Maybe he had the same thought, decided that made him seem like a pussy, and felt the need to validate his manhood. Or maybe on a Friday night he had friends/his girlfriend watching him, and wanted to show off his big balls in putting $1k into the middle.

Or maybe it was a misclick. LOL.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to call. I didn't, like, use up my whole timebank or anything, and it was 0% slowroll, I just took a second to process the move and knock my brain out of the mode the bet put it into, which was something along the lines of "holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit". When I'm calling off a cool thousand, and there's two hands that beat me, I need to work myself through the full extent of the logic that says there's no way he has one of those two hands.

I gotta say, though: having over $2k at a NL200 table? Pretty pimp.

I started off well last night but the wheels came off not long into the session, dropping $1k (from +$500 to -$500) with alarming alacrity. This hand made me unstuck :) Won about $600 last night all told, a good $400 below my EV.

Fascinating hand

I posted this one at 2+2 and feel the need to post it here. Played a crazy hand at a deep-stacked NL200 table.

Villain is a good regular player, a pro, who I have at about 14/11 and who is capable of impressive aggression at times, although his overall AF isn't that ridiculous.

Effective stacks are $400.

I raise from MP2 with Ad Kd, making it $7 to go, and villain cold-calls me from the button. Everyone else folds.

Flop comes Qc 9c 5s.

That's a good enough board for a cbet, so I fire out $13 into the $17 pot, pretty standard. Villain raises me to $46.

Ordinarily that would be the end of the hand, except that I had a read that this villain was feeling exceptionally frisky today, based on some of his play. He's going to be capable of raising any draws, of course, but also I felt, pretty much any pocket pair and quite a few weak queens to "figure out where he's at".

So I reraise him up to $105. Probably pretty spewy in hindsight but with the 200bb stacks to play with, I felt like I had a lot of wiggle room as far as how hard I could push. The bluff felt justified because any drawing hand would have to feel the pressure of the implied turn bet to go along with it.

Villain calls. Well, crap, that didn't work.

Turn is the 2s, putting the 2nd flush draw out there. I check. Villain checks back.

Well isn't that interesting. I began to wrack my brain for the range of hands that villain would be checking behind on the turn, and it was very narrow - pretty much limited to draws and MAYBE the occasional weak Queen, on a hand like QKs, that just flat out didn't believe me on the flop and was now praying for a cheap showdown.

The turn paired the 9 on the board, the 9s. It felt pretty safe, even though it put the backdoor flush out there it felt like he would have bet Ts Js, which is the only spade flush hand I could have seen him having.

Now I've got a bit of a predicament. My turn check belied my weakness, but so did his; there's NO WAY he's checking back that turn with a strong made hand like a set. Too many draws - he knows that TJs is in my own opening range from MP2 and knows that I'm not the sort of FPS player that would go for a suicidal turn C/R. At the same time, I know the same of him. Each of us knows that each other's range is pretty weak, and yet, there's $227 in the pot up for grabs.

I considered a $105 or so bet, working it as a blocking bluff, which should generally be enough to push him off TJs. Yes I know I'm ahead of TJs, but the purpose is still to push him off of it because I'm in a bit of a pickle: I can't call a shove. I'm not that good; I'd adjust my read and second-guess the information from his turn-check if he came over the top of me. At the same time this player is perfectly capable of coming over the top of a weakish river bet with air, given the weakness I've shown myself. Maybe a master could bet/call, but if I bet, I'm folding to a raise.

So instead I chose to shove, an overbet of $288 into the $227 pot. I like this play best, I'm convinced, because:

- It's no worse against drawing hands that villain has decided not to put another cent into the pot with - it wins me what is in the pot without having to show down my flop bluff

- It has the benefit of pushing him off of almost any single pair hand; this particular player doesn't really have the balls to call off 140bb with a hand like TP2K or a pair below TP. His read on me isn't going to be THAT strong despite the flop bet

- It absolutely prevents him from bluffing me off the hand himself.

It felt like a 90% valuebet 10% bluff, maybe getting him off a weakish queen but certainly getting him off of 100% of what he could realistically be holding.

In this case it worked. Villain folded, and later confirmed on 2+2 that the best hand did in fact win. Which means he either had TJ and/or clubs.

Interesting hand din a very nice day yesterday: ~$1150+. My monthly graph looks a lot better now, not that it was bad before.

The past few months

I'll admit it, I was worried. Even with my $12k score in the beginning of December making it my best month ever in terms of pure money won, the month was overall very frustrating and almost had me thinking about what I was going to do if and when the money started running out. My bankroll after the score was up around $30k - by far its highest point ever, and after withdrawing $4k to handle some expenses, I felt like I was in great shape overall.

Then the wheels came off. Here's my graph of December, up to and including the first few days of January.



For what it's worth, in all-in EV I was down about $1600 in this time frame, but that's beside the point as my play was simply not good. I took a long break and dove back in, and since January 5 my graph has looked as follows:



I've been running hot in this timeframe, to the point where it more than made up for my all-in EV drought in December, but my play has been pretty damn good as well. You can't beat NL200 for 4.4BB/100 over a nontrivial sample without playing well, and while I hold no illusions that that's my true winrate, I'm very confident at the moment. I've gradually adopted a LAGgier style. My stats ever since January 5 have been 16/12 at Full Ring; in December I was playing 15/10. In November I was 14/10. October, 14/9. September, I was 13/8.

No single transition is earthshattering in and of itself, but bouncing from 13/8 up to 16/12 over the course of a few months is very significant.

Not surprisingly, the composition of my graph looks much different than it once did. I don't feel like uploading all of the pics, suffice to say that so far this month I'm within ~$100 of breakeven in my non-showdown pots, something I've never been able to do much of before.

My aggression factor is still not very high, hovering around 2. The top players at NL200 on Full Tilt (and presumably elsewhere) - players like Kush789, BerlinsBest, and ChkRazed - all have AF's pushing 5.0, meaning they're generally more confident in their reads and know when to push or fold. I'm calling too much, and missing too much thin value. Still, I'm pretty good at snapping off bluffs - better than some others, maybe - so I'm not overly unhappy with my stats.

I need to get more volume in - I've known that for a long time - but I'm never comfortable on autopilot after more than a couple of hours per day, and I'm prone to taking breaks. This month's break - over a week - was justifiable, at least, as I got very ill and was in no condition to play. Stupid flu.

But, it's off to the tables now, to catch some of the Friday evening Eurodonks. Friday nights are great too, so maybe another session later tonight.

Haven't been blogging.

Just haven't had the motivation. I meant to write a retrospective re. my first calendar year as a pro, but just didn't get to that point. I'm not one that likes to expend too much energy whining about big downswings, and I'm still working on crawling my way out of a crazy one.

Starting just prior to my $12k score in the tournament at the start of December, I've (until recently) experienced pretty much an uninhibited freefall, losing just shy of $6k in around 26k hands. For those paying attention, that's not good. I don't think I was playing that horribly in the stretch - maybe not my A-game, but certainly not that bad - and for whatever it's worth was down more than $2k in all-in equity during that swong. More than that, stuff that doesn't show up in all-in equity, like coolers, beats that hit on the river before the money gets in (and sometimes even more frustratingly, when it doesn't - like when I have AQo on a QJ9 flop, my cbet gets called, the turn bricks, I check-call a substantial bet, and a J hits the river - it goes check-check and I lose to AJo - that actually happened not long ago).

Thanks to my tournament score I still had a great overall December, my best month yet in terms of total cash won, but dropped almost $2700 at the cash tables which took a bit of the edge off my win.

I resolved to transition to 6max this month and have been playing that since the start of January. It's a different game, more aggressive preflop, but with (imo) a bigger donkey ratio and most of the regs are hugely exploitable. More than that they seem more exploitable with my favored strategy, which is just to sit tight and make thin calldowns, which doesn't work as efficiently against the nits at FR.

Still, the month started poorly, with a nearly $2k extension to my downswing before going well in the past few days. My last 7 sessions have been winning ones, and I've gone up about $1600 in them. Back in the black for the month, I feel good about my game again. I've been focusing on shorter, but more frequent sessions, and on quality over quantity, only playing when I'm feeling like it. The result has been only 6k or so hands this month, but I feel like it's paying off as my game has been very sharp.