9-handed
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 207 hands and saw flop:
- 14 out of 23 times while in big blind (60%)
- 12 out of 26 times while in small blind (46%)
- 26 out of 158 times in other positions (16%)
- a total of 52 out of 207 (25%)
Pots won at showdown - 3 of 7 (42%)
Pots won without showdown - 9
I need to get PokerTracker up and post those stats. Poor session here. I didn't catch many hands and missed most flops with hands like AK/AQ/AJ after pre-flop raises. I also limped more than average, partly due to the number of weak holdings and number of limpers before me. I don't like overlimping, but I didn't want to build a big pot with these type hands. Perhaps a mistake. 2 Showdowns were due to many players checking all the way. I lost two big pots. One with AA to a short-stack that flopped a straight, the other to another short stack after he called a large pot sized bet with a flush draw, hit it on the turn, and made a pot bet all-in on the river. In hindsight I could probably have gotten away from KQ (top pair) here since he's not making that move with any hand I beat. He just played the flush very strangely and I knew he didn't have a set or two pair. I was mostly worried about AK at the time, but should have been able to sniff out the slow-played flush with more thought. I didn't make any big hands this session. No sets, no straights, flushes, or full houses and so I didn't win any big pots as well.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Most Profitable Poker Ever
Florida recently opened up from $2 bet max to $5 bet max as well as opening $1/2 No-Limit. At the local cardroom in Jasper, the place suddenly got extrememly busy. On my first trip back after the change, I had to wait an hour just for a seat! I haven't sat down at the 1/2 No Limit, but I've heard stories and I've seen stacks. Rednecks/Young Guns love the All-in and there are people busting out left and right. Monster chip stacks in front of people that are playing on a wing and a prayer. People are dropping 3-400 a trip and other people are cashing out a Grand in the plus only a few hours later. It's completely sic.
I plan to play as soon as possible and hopefully before all the people dropping off money figure out they might not be as good at this game as their home game leads them to beleive. The problem is that I need an extra large bankroll to play right in this game. NL is swingy as is, but when you're playing with a table full of people that overbet, overvalue, and love to bluff, you're going to experience extra large swings. The volatility should be through the roof and even if you play far better, you will sometimes hit a downswing full of suckouts that could cause you to lose several hundred.
Working my bankroll up to the amount I need to have will also give me time to work on things that will be effective in that game such as pot control.
Right now there are internet pros in Florida making a killing playing as low as 1/2. It's like releasing only a few sharks among thousands of fish. Utopia. If Florida completely opens up the limits, it will attract a new tourist - Pros.
Florida will EASILY be the most profitable place in the world to play poker. At least until the sharks swarm in.
I plan to play as soon as possible and hopefully before all the people dropping off money figure out they might not be as good at this game as their home game leads them to beleive. The problem is that I need an extra large bankroll to play right in this game. NL is swingy as is, but when you're playing with a table full of people that overbet, overvalue, and love to bluff, you're going to experience extra large swings. The volatility should be through the roof and even if you play far better, you will sometimes hit a downswing full of suckouts that could cause you to lose several hundred.
Working my bankroll up to the amount I need to have will also give me time to work on things that will be effective in that game such as pot control.
Right now there are internet pros in Florida making a killing playing as low as 1/2. It's like releasing only a few sharks among thousands of fish. Utopia. If Florida completely opens up the limits, it will attract a new tourist - Pros.
Florida will EASILY be the most profitable place in the world to play poker. At least until the sharks swarm in.
Wed 7/11 10-12p.m.
9-Handed
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 219 hands and saw flop:
- 17 out of 27 times while in big blind (62%)
- 11 out of 28 times while in small blind (39%)
- 29 out of 164 times in other positions (17%)
- a total of 57 out of 219 (26%)
Pots won at showdown - 11 of 12 (91%)
Pots won without showdown - 10
Folded hands like AJ and KJ to raises pre-flop. Folded A10, KJ etc from early position. Only played connectors from very late position, raising a couple times. Limped only occasionally, mostly either raising or folding. This was especially effective after several rounds at the table when my tight image was established and a small raise could get it 2 or 3 handed. Bluffed via continuation bets only 2 or 3 times. Mostly straightforward value betting or folding. Folded top two pair J8, on a J87 flop to a limper who re-raised my flop raise, then led a double-the-pot sized bet on K turn. No idea how he played. Not sure if folding was right or not, just a bit unsure how to proceed so I folded, not knowing where I was and he wanted to play a big pot. Wished I had paid more attention to how he played top pair/two pair/sets. Otherwise just stayed out of trouble with marginal hands and tried to play small pots with top pair.
During current Hold'em session you were dealt 219 hands and saw flop:
- 17 out of 27 times while in big blind (62%)
- 11 out of 28 times while in small blind (39%)
- 29 out of 164 times in other positions (17%)
- a total of 57 out of 219 (26%)
Pots won at showdown - 11 of 12 (91%)
Pots won without showdown - 10
Folded hands like AJ and KJ to raises pre-flop. Folded A10, KJ etc from early position. Only played connectors from very late position, raising a couple times. Limped only occasionally, mostly either raising or folding. This was especially effective after several rounds at the table when my tight image was established and a small raise could get it 2 or 3 handed. Bluffed via continuation bets only 2 or 3 times. Mostly straightforward value betting or folding. Folded top two pair J8, on a J87 flop to a limper who re-raised my flop raise, then led a double-the-pot sized bet on K turn. No idea how he played. Not sure if folding was right or not, just a bit unsure how to proceed so I folded, not knowing where I was and he wanted to play a big pot. Wished I had paid more attention to how he played top pair/two pair/sets. Otherwise just stayed out of trouble with marginal hands and tried to play small pots with top pair.
Sux
You know what sucks? Getting in all-in over and over late in sit-n-gos with something like AQ vs AJ and constantly losing. Seems like dominated hands are a huge favorite against me because I'm something like 1-5 vs them when 1st or 2nd is on the line. Occasionally, it's something simple like the J and that's no biggie. Too often I watch in horror as the turn puts 3 to a straight or flush out and the river brings the 4-flush or 4-straight which their live card fits neatly into. Over and over. GGrr. Why do I lose in such spectacular fashion. Can't I just go down to a pocket pair or overcards?
The runner-runner thing has just been killing me lately. After I see the turn card help their hand, I'm a huge dog to lose to the 3 outer on the river. I know this is bad logic and over the long run this is just an anomaly, but I'm experiencing that little blip right now a lot for such a small sample.
For instance, the other day in a limit game I made exactly two strong hands. The first of which I have QT in the BB. 4 other players limp. Flop is KJ9 rainbow. I flopped the nut straight. I lead out and it gets called by all 4 players. Here we go, with the way things are going recently, I'm almost expecting a Q or T to fall, but praying it doesn't. I'm thinking "No Q, no T, no Q no T." The Turn: A Ten obv. Fuck. The pot is pretty big at this point and I'm ok with at least splitting with someone. One guy bets, 1 caller, I raise, the original bettor calls, the caller in between us raises accidently (she thought she was calling but puts too much in the pot), and I cap it out. There's about 80 in the pot now. "Ok, anything but a Q, anything but a Q" River: Q. Now the exact fucking straight I flopped is sitting on the board and anyone with an Ace takes it down.
Odds of Q or T on turn: about 1 in 8 times.
Odds of the remaining card on the river: about 1 in 15
Odds of Runner-Runner after flop: 1-2%
Running bad and hating every minute of it.
GGrr.
The runner-runner thing has just been killing me lately. After I see the turn card help their hand, I'm a huge dog to lose to the 3 outer on the river. I know this is bad logic and over the long run this is just an anomaly, but I'm experiencing that little blip right now a lot for such a small sample.
For instance, the other day in a limit game I made exactly two strong hands. The first of which I have QT in the BB. 4 other players limp. Flop is KJ9 rainbow. I flopped the nut straight. I lead out and it gets called by all 4 players. Here we go, with the way things are going recently, I'm almost expecting a Q or T to fall, but praying it doesn't. I'm thinking "No Q, no T, no Q no T." The Turn: A Ten obv. Fuck. The pot is pretty big at this point and I'm ok with at least splitting with someone. One guy bets, 1 caller, I raise, the original bettor calls, the caller in between us raises accidently (she thought she was calling but puts too much in the pot), and I cap it out. There's about 80 in the pot now. "Ok, anything but a Q, anything but a Q" River: Q. Now the exact fucking straight I flopped is sitting on the board and anyone with an Ace takes it down.
Odds of Q or T on turn: about 1 in 8 times.
Odds of the remaining card on the river: about 1 in 15
Odds of Runner-Runner after flop: 1-2%
Running bad and hating every minute of it.
GGrr.
Friday, February 09, 2007
The Worst Bad Beat *I* Ever Put On a Guy
Bad beats happen all the time. It's just part of the game. Every player has given and received his fair share. But whenever you're the one who takes the really bad beat, it feels like it etches a piece of itself under your skin. You may remember this line uttered by Mike McDermott during Rounders: In "Confessions of a Winning Poker Player," Jack King said, "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." The truth in that is remarkable.
I wanted to use this post to share a bad beat that actually hurt me a little when it happened, even though I was the beneficiary. That night I had been chatting with the guy next to me who was very friendly and had been to Vegas and several places down in Florida. I was pretty curious about how the games were and such and he was being pretty helpful. He was also a very solid player, one of the better players I've seen in there. Unfortunately, the guy just couldn't catch a break. He wasn't being dealt many playable hands and when he did catch a good flop, it seemed like he always got ran down. He flopped a set and lost to a backdoor flush; He held QQ and flopped an Ace and a King, folded to some bets, and the turn brought a third Queen; He flopped two pair and lost to a backdoor straight. He would show me some hands and I felt kind of bad because it seemed like whenever he folded, he'd have won and whenever he made a big hand and stayed, he always got drawn out on. He hadn't won a pot in a long, long time. I know how that feels. Even so, he was not upset about it, never once complained, and kept a pretty friendly demeaner, just showing me some of his beats and smiling as he mucked his hand, his stack slowly dwindling down.
Now the hand comes up...
I held AK next to the Button and raised before the flop. There were several callers including the guy sitting to my left who I mentioned above. The flop brings A99 rainbow. Someone raises from an early position and there are 3 calls before it's my turn. I decide to raise, partially for value, partially to see if the first raiser had a 9 so I would know where I stood. That guy, let's call him Jim, calls two bets cold which raises my suspicion because he's a tight player and calling two bets cold meant he must have had something good. To better the story, I'll go ahead and tell you what he had: a pocket pair of 8's. Well, the turn brings an 8, making Jim a boat, by far the best hand at the table and the best hand he's had all night. He's waited patiently for this hand all night. The pot is very big by this point, somewhere around $50 or 25BB's. I'm getting ready to raise since the 8 seemed innocent, but something strange happens. The dealer quickly burns a card, and flips the river, a 4 of clubs. He had completely skipped all of us! His mind must have been elsewhere. Jim says "Whoa, Whoa, you skipped everyone, nobody got a chance..." feeling like he had finally made the hand and wasn't even getting a chance to bet it. The decision is made to back up to the Turn, shuffle the 4 of clubs back in and allow things to start again. Satisfied, Jim bets his full house on the Turn. There are calls and I'm getting the odds to try to spike one of the remaining two Aces, so I call as well. At this point, I'm thinking "ACE ACE ACE ACE" because I figure that's my only real chance to win. I'd missed it the first time, but now there was a second chance. The dealer snaps the river card out; it's an Ace of Diamonds. There's a raise, and I re-raise.
With 2 bets to go, his hand turning from a monster to losing to any Ace, Jim just looks at me, and with a painful smile, throws his cards into the muck. He went broke shortly after that.
I wanted to use this post to share a bad beat that actually hurt me a little when it happened, even though I was the beneficiary. That night I had been chatting with the guy next to me who was very friendly and had been to Vegas and several places down in Florida. I was pretty curious about how the games were and such and he was being pretty helpful. He was also a very solid player, one of the better players I've seen in there. Unfortunately, the guy just couldn't catch a break. He wasn't being dealt many playable hands and when he did catch a good flop, it seemed like he always got ran down. He flopped a set and lost to a backdoor flush; He held QQ and flopped an Ace and a King, folded to some bets, and the turn brought a third Queen; He flopped two pair and lost to a backdoor straight. He would show me some hands and I felt kind of bad because it seemed like whenever he folded, he'd have won and whenever he made a big hand and stayed, he always got drawn out on. He hadn't won a pot in a long, long time. I know how that feels. Even so, he was not upset about it, never once complained, and kept a pretty friendly demeaner, just showing me some of his beats and smiling as he mucked his hand, his stack slowly dwindling down.
Now the hand comes up...
I held AK next to the Button and raised before the flop. There were several callers including the guy sitting to my left who I mentioned above. The flop brings A99 rainbow. Someone raises from an early position and there are 3 calls before it's my turn. I decide to raise, partially for value, partially to see if the first raiser had a 9 so I would know where I stood. That guy, let's call him Jim, calls two bets cold which raises my suspicion because he's a tight player and calling two bets cold meant he must have had something good. To better the story, I'll go ahead and tell you what he had: a pocket pair of 8's. Well, the turn brings an 8, making Jim a boat, by far the best hand at the table and the best hand he's had all night. He's waited patiently for this hand all night. The pot is very big by this point, somewhere around $50 or 25BB's. I'm getting ready to raise since the 8 seemed innocent, but something strange happens. The dealer quickly burns a card, and flips the river, a 4 of clubs. He had completely skipped all of us! His mind must have been elsewhere. Jim says "Whoa, Whoa, you skipped everyone, nobody got a chance..." feeling like he had finally made the hand and wasn't even getting a chance to bet it. The decision is made to back up to the Turn, shuffle the 4 of clubs back in and allow things to start again. Satisfied, Jim bets his full house on the Turn. There are calls and I'm getting the odds to try to spike one of the remaining two Aces, so I call as well. At this point, I'm thinking "ACE ACE ACE ACE" because I figure that's my only real chance to win. I'd missed it the first time, but now there was a second chance. The dealer snaps the river card out; it's an Ace of Diamonds. There's a raise, and I re-raise.
With 2 bets to go, his hand turning from a monster to losing to any Ace, Jim just looks at me, and with a painful smile, throws his cards into the muck. He went broke shortly after that.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Saturday and the Coaster
I played on Saturday for the first time ever at the card room and it was a rollercoaster to say the least. I got there about 4 in the afternoon and the house was full. Every table looked soft. I mean, at Hamilton's, you have about 3 classes of players. They are:
Retirees
Rednecks
Young guns
The retirees are passive. The rednecks vary. The young guns are aggressive. Everyone is very, very loose.
I was seated at a table who's youngest member was about 56 and everyone referred to him as the "kid". This table was very passive, not raising pre-flop ever. Even with KK, no raise pre-flop. For that first hour and a half, there were only 3 or 4 pre-flop raises and all came from me. I started limping in with lots of suited connectors and Kx and Ax suited cards from every position and managed to hit a couple big hands. By 5:30, I was up $95 (47.5BB). You know that sound rollercoasters make when you're climbing?
*click* *click* *click* *click* Throw your hands up and scream cause we're about to go over the edge.
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!"
The next two hours had me on a downswing as I was card dead and I just folded 90% of the time. The 10% I did get involved had me stuck with missed draws, marginal decisions, and river'd 2nd best hands. I fell back to about $40 up (20BB) and decided to move over to the straight $2 table to try to win big and leave.
Straight $2 is just limit hold'em but all the bets are $2 and don't double on the turn. It's 2/4 without the 4. I usually stay away to keep the integrity in my standard limit structure game, but the pots are larger at straight $2 so I gave it a shot. I had already thought about it in depth and decided it was a bad game because you can't protect your hand on the turn since the pot is so big by that point and the bet doesn't double. Most people that call a bet on the turn aren't adding dead money to the pot with almost any hand, even a lowly pair, so all the dead money would have to come from the pre-flop action and occasionally flop action. This mean I would need to only bet heavily on monster hands where all future calls would pretty much be dead money. That's where your profit comes from in small stakes Limit.
*click* *click* *click* *click*
Well, I moved steadily back up to $90. After that I got involved in a hand where I flopped a set, value betted it since I couldn't do anything to protect it, and lost the $50 (25BB) pot to a river'd gutshot straight. Oh well, it happends 1 out of 11.5 times.
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! OH shit, a Loop!"
The next big pot saw me with AJs, flop top pair, turn top two pair, and lose to a river'd gutshot.....again. This was about a $60 (30BB) pot and it stung a little. On the flop, a player before me raised. I took the opportunity to re-raise making it 2 to go hoping to get folds or dead money. Several people still called so I knew it was value bet at best time from there on out and when the J turned I was happy to do so. I raised the river, got re-raised, knew I was beat but unable to fold such a large pot for 1 bet and paid him off. After which he replied "Man, I pulled that one out of my ass" while it took the dealer three pushes to get all the chips over to him. I think he got up and did some cartwheels after that, I'm not sure, I was too busy trying to find a window to jump out of. Don't worry, it's only a 1-story building. I just wanted to make a statement.
*The coaster derails, lands on an old lady, there are no survivors.*
I ended the night up about $40 (20BBs) for 5 hours. Below what I'm used to, but happy I wasn't down after those two hands.
That's all for now. I've vented and my soul is at rest again. I'll try to post up some constructive stuff later on.
Retirees
Rednecks
Young guns
The retirees are passive. The rednecks vary. The young guns are aggressive. Everyone is very, very loose.
I was seated at a table who's youngest member was about 56 and everyone referred to him as the "kid". This table was very passive, not raising pre-flop ever. Even with KK, no raise pre-flop. For that first hour and a half, there were only 3 or 4 pre-flop raises and all came from me. I started limping in with lots of suited connectors and Kx and Ax suited cards from every position and managed to hit a couple big hands. By 5:30, I was up $95 (47.5BB). You know that sound rollercoasters make when you're climbing?
*click* *click* *click* *click* Throw your hands up and scream cause we're about to go over the edge.
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!"
The next two hours had me on a downswing as I was card dead and I just folded 90% of the time. The 10% I did get involved had me stuck with missed draws, marginal decisions, and river'd 2nd best hands. I fell back to about $40 up (20BB) and decided to move over to the straight $2 table to try to win big and leave.
Straight $2 is just limit hold'em but all the bets are $2 and don't double on the turn. It's 2/4 without the 4. I usually stay away to keep the integrity in my standard limit structure game, but the pots are larger at straight $2 so I gave it a shot. I had already thought about it in depth and decided it was a bad game because you can't protect your hand on the turn since the pot is so big by that point and the bet doesn't double. Most people that call a bet on the turn aren't adding dead money to the pot with almost any hand, even a lowly pair, so all the dead money would have to come from the pre-flop action and occasionally flop action. This mean I would need to only bet heavily on monster hands where all future calls would pretty much be dead money. That's where your profit comes from in small stakes Limit.
*click* *click* *click* *click*
Well, I moved steadily back up to $90. After that I got involved in a hand where I flopped a set, value betted it since I couldn't do anything to protect it, and lost the $50 (25BB) pot to a river'd gutshot straight. Oh well, it happends 1 out of 11.5 times.
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! OH shit, a Loop!"
The next big pot saw me with AJs, flop top pair, turn top two pair, and lose to a river'd gutshot.....again. This was about a $60 (30BB) pot and it stung a little. On the flop, a player before me raised. I took the opportunity to re-raise making it 2 to go hoping to get folds or dead money. Several people still called so I knew it was value bet at best time from there on out and when the J turned I was happy to do so. I raised the river, got re-raised, knew I was beat but unable to fold such a large pot for 1 bet and paid him off. After which he replied "Man, I pulled that one out of my ass" while it took the dealer three pushes to get all the chips over to him. I think he got up and did some cartwheels after that, I'm not sure, I was too busy trying to find a window to jump out of. Don't worry, it's only a 1-story building. I just wanted to make a statement.
*The coaster derails, lands on an old lady, there are no survivors.*
I ended the night up about $40 (20BBs) for 5 hours. Below what I'm used to, but happy I wasn't down after those two hands.
That's all for now. I've vented and my soul is at rest again. I'll try to post up some constructive stuff later on.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Quick Update
I thought I make a quick post since I haven't in a while. I'm doing so well live it's scary. This week I only played about 15 hours and am up about 110 BB's. I'll be going out to Vegas in June and maybe July so hopefully I'll have a comfortable bankroll to play the higher limits by then.
I'm convinced if Florida were to open up its gambling (instead of the $2 max law), it would be the most profitable place in the country (and therefore the world) to play poker. Florida would be a vacation meca: Beautiful beaches, great fishing, theme and amusement parks, great weather, and real casinos. Tons of tourists. Lots of rednecks. It's already full of retirees, many of which love to gamble in their spare time and don't mind losing...a lot. The last governor, Jeb Bush, is out of office and he was holding it back. With the new governor, there is a chance in a few years the state might open up. Trump, who owns the Taj, and Dan Harrington both bought a lot of land near Tampa recently so they might be thinking the same thing. The biggest hurdle is probably the fact that Florida is in the Bible Belt. We'll see what happens, but if it does opens up, it will be a poker utopia.
Anyways, if you haven't seen Poker After Dark then you should. It's a whole lot of table talk from the players and there are lots of interesting stories and even some strategy and tips to pick up. You can find the episodes on NBC.com. At least NBC is smart enough regarding YouTube that their stance is the whole "If you can't beat'em, join'em" thing. NBC puts almost all of their shows up on their site now. Thank you YouTube for so many things.
Also, The Circuit is a radio show at CardPlayer.com that does a lot of coverage during the big tournaments that you'll be watching on tv in the future. Every show has a guest Pro from the tournament like Matusow, Negreanu, Hellmuth and there is usually some nice tourney strategy that you can pick up. They're not exactly giving away their entire strategy, but sometimes they'll go over hands and how and why they played them a certain way. Good stuff.
There's really nothing else interesting to mention right now. Maybe I can make it 500 BB's by the end of month. I'm about 150 BB's shy, so I have some work to do.
I'm convinced if Florida were to open up its gambling (instead of the $2 max law), it would be the most profitable place in the country (and therefore the world) to play poker. Florida would be a vacation meca: Beautiful beaches, great fishing, theme and amusement parks, great weather, and real casinos. Tons of tourists. Lots of rednecks. It's already full of retirees, many of which love to gamble in their spare time and don't mind losing...a lot. The last governor, Jeb Bush, is out of office and he was holding it back. With the new governor, there is a chance in a few years the state might open up. Trump, who owns the Taj, and Dan Harrington both bought a lot of land near Tampa recently so they might be thinking the same thing. The biggest hurdle is probably the fact that Florida is in the Bible Belt. We'll see what happens, but if it does opens up, it will be a poker utopia.
Anyways, if you haven't seen Poker After Dark then you should. It's a whole lot of table talk from the players and there are lots of interesting stories and even some strategy and tips to pick up. You can find the episodes on NBC.com. At least NBC is smart enough regarding YouTube that their stance is the whole "If you can't beat'em, join'em" thing. NBC puts almost all of their shows up on their site now. Thank you YouTube for so many things.
Also, The Circuit is a radio show at CardPlayer.com that does a lot of coverage during the big tournaments that you'll be watching on tv in the future. Every show has a guest Pro from the tournament like Matusow, Negreanu, Hellmuth and there is usually some nice tourney strategy that you can pick up. They're not exactly giving away their entire strategy, but sometimes they'll go over hands and how and why they played them a certain way. Good stuff.
There's really nothing else interesting to mention right now. Maybe I can make it 500 BB's by the end of month. I'm about 150 BB's shy, so I have some work to do.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The Poker Gods Have Been Good To Me
Thursday night I started out really strong after winning about 20-25BB's or $40-50 in the first 15 minutes of sitting down. I was dealt pocket Aces and raised it up with several callers as usual. The flop came J3J (rainbow I think, either way the chance of a flush had no impact on this hand). This wasn't a great flop for my hand to say the least. I was in late position and a player from early position raises. Everyone calls all the way around to a new player two seats to my right. He re-raised. I didn't know how he played as I had just sat down and had never seen him before. For some reason, I got a semi-tight vibe from him, and I'm not sure how to explain that. That re-raise really bothered me because the 3rd jack puts me in bad shape so I tried to see if there were any other clues to just how strong his hand was. Typical players give off lots of big tells that you will eventually pick up on. One common one that I've noticed lately is when someone raises and then looks off elsewhere as if not interested in the hand, then they're usually holding a huge hand. On the flipside, if someone raises and stares around the table at the action going on, they usually have a good hand but it's easily cracked and they are concerned that someone might beat them. There are all kinds of little helpful things like that you can pick up.
So I looked over at this guy and he was looking directly at the flop and as I moved down to his chips I noticed something BIG. His hands were visibly shaking. I almost felt a little sorry for him in that moment because I know what that awkward, nervous feeling is like. Nope, he didn't have trips. He'd need a bigger hand than that to make his hands shake. He had a real monster. Full House or quads, no doubt about it. I put him on the full house since it was far more likely than quads which is hard to ever put somebody on. I had two outs, the remaining two Aces which requires about 14 and a half or so to call. The pot wasn't quite that big, but as I looked around the table I could tell there would be several callers and that would bring the pot odds to just about right (along with implied odds) to call. I just had to hope the first raiser didn't re-raise. It was a borderline decision due to the break even odds and not all that profitable even if it did work out. This is were a little bit of No Limit thought came in and I realized that if I catch my 2 outs I could win a BIG pot off of this guy and whoever else got trapped in between our hands. I called and then called another raise on the turn when the Ace didn't come. The pot was close to $40 (20BB's) at this point. The most beautiful Ace that I've ever seen fell on the river and I stole the pot away from him after he flopped a full house with his pocket 3's. "Nice hand" in a sincere tone was his only comment as he took the beat like a gentleman. I've got a lot of respect for that. Little did I know, I'd have my chance to do that same thing at the end of the night in an almost identical hand where, this time, I was the one that flopped a set with KK, turned a full house, and lost to a lone Ace on the river against pocket Aces, the two-out rivered full house in a massive pot.
Those are real heart breakers.
So I looked over at this guy and he was looking directly at the flop and as I moved down to his chips I noticed something BIG. His hands were visibly shaking. I almost felt a little sorry for him in that moment because I know what that awkward, nervous feeling is like. Nope, he didn't have trips. He'd need a bigger hand than that to make his hands shake. He had a real monster. Full House or quads, no doubt about it. I put him on the full house since it was far more likely than quads which is hard to ever put somebody on. I had two outs, the remaining two Aces which requires about 14 and a half or so to call. The pot wasn't quite that big, but as I looked around the table I could tell there would be several callers and that would bring the pot odds to just about right (along with implied odds) to call. I just had to hope the first raiser didn't re-raise. It was a borderline decision due to the break even odds and not all that profitable even if it did work out. This is were a little bit of No Limit thought came in and I realized that if I catch my 2 outs I could win a BIG pot off of this guy and whoever else got trapped in between our hands. I called and then called another raise on the turn when the Ace didn't come. The pot was close to $40 (20BB's) at this point. The most beautiful Ace that I've ever seen fell on the river and I stole the pot away from him after he flopped a full house with his pocket 3's. "Nice hand" in a sincere tone was his only comment as he took the beat like a gentleman. I've got a lot of respect for that. Little did I know, I'd have my chance to do that same thing at the end of the night in an almost identical hand where, this time, I was the one that flopped a set with KK, turned a full house, and lost to a lone Ace on the river against pocket Aces, the two-out rivered full house in a massive pot.
Those are real heart breakers.
Monday, January 08, 2007
This Week's Grind
Man, poker is fun! That's all I got for today.
Ok, so that's not all. Well to begin, I've been doing really well on the home front. I've been playing a lot more and this week I'll probably be there playing live 3 days. Last Thursday I was up like 25BB's in under an hour, but that managed to dwindle down to about 12 by the end of the night. I'm not sure if it was just because I was missing draws, getting drawn out on, or just donking my chips off. On Friday, I'm certain I donked off more than I should. I was getting drawn out on alot, but could have saved an extra 5-10BB's by the end of the night by just playing better poker. You should never just write off losing a few extra bets you didn't have to. On that night, I was way down, like 20BB's, after the combination of losing some huge pots with big hands and donking the rest off. I finally won a good pot when I limped in with 66 and saw a flop off 644. There were a lot of young NL players at the table. They usually bust out of the tourneys and play limit afterwards. However, they aren't very good at NL either and tend to try to bluff alot in limit and make lots of loose calls. I decided to slowplay (something I rarely do here) and got a raiser to my right. I put him on a 4 pretty quick and that's what I was hoping someone held. I started to raise to push out players because I was so paranoid after having been drawn out in this manner all night, but buckled down and just called. There were 4 more callers. The turn brought a 2nd heart and I bet hoping the guy to my right would raise and I might trap the table for another bet. He did just that and the pot was now big enough that I could knock out players and re-raised. We ended up capping it with me and the two NL players remaining. The river brought a flush to anyone with 2 hearts. The other player left woke up and raised, representing the flush, and we ended up capping off 5th street. The pot was like 33BB's, $66 or so. My boat beat the Ace high flush and the trip fours to take a big pot and put me back to even. Nothing major happened for the next hour and a half and I left $4 down and mad at myself for donking off those extra bets that could have turned a losing session into a winning one.
On the net, I got really bored playing the .10/.20 tables and moved up to .25/.50 and have been very happy with that move. I've almost doubled my 50 buy-in in just a couple sessions. People tend to play tight enough that a raise pre-flop will knock out about half the table but loose enough that they will pay off big hands. Bluffing is also a tool again and can be used to great effect at times. I already want to move to .50/1 since I've had big winning sessions, but I'll wait here and pad my bankroll a little bit and make sure it wasn't just luck. Eventually, I'll reach a level that is above my skill in limit and I'll be happy to have that extra cushion until I get better. I hope to be at 5/10 by the end of the year.
I'm playing a bit of NL as well now. Playing limit online feels too much like a job. I just played in two NL sit-n-gos. In the first, I played my style and quickly doubled up to be a big chip leader. However, I naturally discover a way to screw that up. I had AQs and decided to raise on the button. I put in 75 and totally leave the 0 in the little bet box and bet 750. I'm called by a couple people. I flop the nut draw and am pretty much pot committed to continue, never getting there and losing about half of my stack. I told myself not to tilt and forget about it, but I think I did anyways cause I went out too soon.
I rebounded by entering another NL sit-n-go and got off to the same start, a quick double up. This time I made sure not to type in the wrong amount and knocked out about 3 more players until eventually knocking out 2nd place to take it. That was a little vindication for such a huge blunder.
There's a story about Phil Ivey involved in a similar situation. He was playing against Brian Townsend at 200/400 NL heads up. Townsend meant to type in something like $3,800 but ended up entering $38,000. Phil read it as a mis-click and moved all-in hoping to pick up the dead money. Townsend was pissed at his error but called with the rest of the stack. He flipped up A8 to Ivey's K9 and flopped 878 to take the $160,000 or so pot. Ivey promptly launched the monitor out of a nearby window.
At least that's what I would think he did.
I mentioned last week about posting a blog on how to improve your NL game drastically at these lowest of limits where you're playing a lot of people that watch poker on tv and think they know how to play or the overaggressive internet players. I haven't posted yet because I wanted to have the time to post a good blog, but I think you'll definitely want to catch it. I owe the ease of my recent NL success to it and all my strategy in these games falls under this one general realization. It won't help you against people that really can play well, but it just dominates the scrubs. It's great in tourneys and cash games and I hope to have it up as soon as I'm inspired to sit down for about an hour and type it up. Hopefully, this week.
That's all,
Dan
Ok, so that's not all. Well to begin, I've been doing really well on the home front. I've been playing a lot more and this week I'll probably be there playing live 3 days. Last Thursday I was up like 25BB's in under an hour, but that managed to dwindle down to about 12 by the end of the night. I'm not sure if it was just because I was missing draws, getting drawn out on, or just donking my chips off. On Friday, I'm certain I donked off more than I should. I was getting drawn out on alot, but could have saved an extra 5-10BB's by the end of the night by just playing better poker. You should never just write off losing a few extra bets you didn't have to. On that night, I was way down, like 20BB's, after the combination of losing some huge pots with big hands and donking the rest off. I finally won a good pot when I limped in with 66 and saw a flop off 644. There were a lot of young NL players at the table. They usually bust out of the tourneys and play limit afterwards. However, they aren't very good at NL either and tend to try to bluff alot in limit and make lots of loose calls. I decided to slowplay (something I rarely do here) and got a raiser to my right. I put him on a 4 pretty quick and that's what I was hoping someone held. I started to raise to push out players because I was so paranoid after having been drawn out in this manner all night, but buckled down and just called. There were 4 more callers. The turn brought a 2nd heart and I bet hoping the guy to my right would raise and I might trap the table for another bet. He did just that and the pot was now big enough that I could knock out players and re-raised. We ended up capping it with me and the two NL players remaining. The river brought a flush to anyone with 2 hearts. The other player left woke up and raised, representing the flush, and we ended up capping off 5th street. The pot was like 33BB's, $66 or so. My boat beat the Ace high flush and the trip fours to take a big pot and put me back to even. Nothing major happened for the next hour and a half and I left $4 down and mad at myself for donking off those extra bets that could have turned a losing session into a winning one.
On the net, I got really bored playing the .10/.20 tables and moved up to .25/.50 and have been very happy with that move. I've almost doubled my 50 buy-in in just a couple sessions. People tend to play tight enough that a raise pre-flop will knock out about half the table but loose enough that they will pay off big hands. Bluffing is also a tool again and can be used to great effect at times. I already want to move to .50/1 since I've had big winning sessions, but I'll wait here and pad my bankroll a little bit and make sure it wasn't just luck. Eventually, I'll reach a level that is above my skill in limit and I'll be happy to have that extra cushion until I get better. I hope to be at 5/10 by the end of the year.
I'm playing a bit of NL as well now. Playing limit online feels too much like a job. I just played in two NL sit-n-gos. In the first, I played my style and quickly doubled up to be a big chip leader. However, I naturally discover a way to screw that up. I had AQs and decided to raise on the button. I put in 75 and totally leave the 0 in the little bet box and bet 750. I'm called by a couple people. I flop the nut draw and am pretty much pot committed to continue, never getting there and losing about half of my stack. I told myself not to tilt and forget about it, but I think I did anyways cause I went out too soon.
I rebounded by entering another NL sit-n-go and got off to the same start, a quick double up. This time I made sure not to type in the wrong amount and knocked out about 3 more players until eventually knocking out 2nd place to take it. That was a little vindication for such a huge blunder.
There's a story about Phil Ivey involved in a similar situation. He was playing against Brian Townsend at 200/400 NL heads up. Townsend meant to type in something like $3,800 but ended up entering $38,000. Phil read it as a mis-click and moved all-in hoping to pick up the dead money. Townsend was pissed at his error but called with the rest of the stack. He flipped up A8 to Ivey's K9 and flopped 878 to take the $160,000 or so pot. Ivey promptly launched the monitor out of a nearby window.
At least that's what I would think he did.
I mentioned last week about posting a blog on how to improve your NL game drastically at these lowest of limits where you're playing a lot of people that watch poker on tv and think they know how to play or the overaggressive internet players. I haven't posted yet because I wanted to have the time to post a good blog, but I think you'll definitely want to catch it. I owe the ease of my recent NL success to it and all my strategy in these games falls under this one general realization. It won't help you against people that really can play well, but it just dominates the scrubs. It's great in tourneys and cash games and I hope to have it up as soon as I'm inspired to sit down for about an hour and type it up. Hopefully, this week.
That's all,
Dan
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Duplicate Poker
Duplicate Poker from e-PokerUSA is a new form of poker I came across that was a bit interesting. The basic idea is that each table in a tournament or ring game is dealt the exact same cards. For instance, if I have AA, each person sitting in my seat at the other tables also have AA.
The goal is to play the hand better than the others either by gaining the most chips or losing the least.
There is a point system that gives you points or deducts points from your score accordingly at the end of each hand and can range from no points gained/lost if you all came away with equal stacks to a huge gain or loss if you have substantially more or less chips than the other. Your score is carried from hand to hand but your chips are replenished each hand. For instance, in the hand above, I made a big laydown while the other 2 players with my hand ended up with all their chips in the middle and lost. Even though I folded, I was rewarded with a boost to my score for ending the hand with the most chips.
The whole idea is that if you play better than the other players, even if you're card dead or cold decked and it would normally be a losing session, you come out as the winner because you played the same hands better than they did. If you got a terrible run of cards in a normal game and lost $100 but played excellently, you'd still be considered a loser for that session. Duplicate Poker remedies this by showing, even though you lost, the other players lost even more due to their poor play and awards you as the winner through it's points system for good play.
I sat down today and checked out the software and played in a 50-man play money tourney to see how the whole thing works. First off, the software isn't where it needs to be. You can't maximize the screen just like Full Tilt and that's a nuissance. The layout is also fairly plain.
However, the worst thing about it is the time it takes to play a hand. Every table competing against each other has to wait for everyone to finish before the next street. That is, you close the action preflop and you wait....every table finishes and the flop comes....the action is closed and you wait...everyone finishes and the turn comes....etc etc. This is a quite annoying when everyone folds to 1 person but you still have to wait the 2 minutes or whatever for all tables to finish. It's not a flaw in the software, just a annoyance that is intrinsic to the game.
I played as I normally would in a tourney and managed to stay in the top ten most of the time. I questioned how it just much skill it rewarded at times when I would fold a hand like 83o against a raise, only to see two pair or trips come up that would have been made and actually lose points because one guy with 83o called the pre-flop raise and stayed in to win it. I assumed it would even out over time as it did. The thing that did bother me was that, even though we all share the same hands, we don't share the same opponents. What if one table is passive and a player with 78 suited gets to see the flop cheaply and make a flush sometimes, but another player with 78 at a different table has a hard time because everyone is raising and re-raising? The player that makes the flush would take a chunk of chips from the other, even though calling a huge raise was clearly wrong. This wouldn't be a good comparison in skill.
I think that it's a novel idea that is, perhaps, before its time. One day, someone may create a more polished game of poker that is purely skill, but we just aren't quite there yet. Even so, it's a nice take on the game we love and I'd suggest trying it out at least once. Just go to e-PokerUSA.
As far as the tournament, on the second to last hand I held AKo and made a very small raise of about 2 1/2x the big blind, something I often do with AK pre-flop when the blinds aren't high. The flop was very bad for me and I folded out quickly. My neighbors with the AK managed to get it all in preflop and lost in spectacular fashion. I gained a huge amount of points (victory chips) and went on to finish 3rd. The best part of the experience was they awarded real money in a play money tourney, albeit was only $1.25
The goal is to play the hand better than the others either by gaining the most chips or losing the least.
There is a point system that gives you points or deducts points from your score accordingly at the end of each hand and can range from no points gained/lost if you all came away with equal stacks to a huge gain or loss if you have substantially more or less chips than the other. Your score is carried from hand to hand but your chips are replenished each hand. For instance, in the hand above, I made a big laydown while the other 2 players with my hand ended up with all their chips in the middle and lost. Even though I folded, I was rewarded with a boost to my score for ending the hand with the most chips.The whole idea is that if you play better than the other players, even if you're card dead or cold decked and it would normally be a losing session, you come out as the winner because you played the same hands better than they did. If you got a terrible run of cards in a normal game and lost $100 but played excellently, you'd still be considered a loser for that session. Duplicate Poker remedies this by showing, even though you lost, the other players lost even more due to their poor play and awards you as the winner through it's points system for good play.
I sat down today and checked out the software and played in a 50-man play money tourney to see how the whole thing works. First off, the software isn't where it needs to be. You can't maximize the screen just like Full Tilt and that's a nuissance. The layout is also fairly plain.
However, the worst thing about it is the time it takes to play a hand. Every table competing against each other has to wait for everyone to finish before the next street. That is, you close the action preflop and you wait....every table finishes and the flop comes....the action is closed and you wait...everyone finishes and the turn comes....etc etc. This is a quite annoying when everyone folds to 1 person but you still have to wait the 2 minutes or whatever for all tables to finish. It's not a flaw in the software, just a annoyance that is intrinsic to the game.
I played as I normally would in a tourney and managed to stay in the top ten most of the time. I questioned how it just much skill it rewarded at times when I would fold a hand like 83o against a raise, only to see two pair or trips come up that would have been made and actually lose points because one guy with 83o called the pre-flop raise and stayed in to win it. I assumed it would even out over time as it did. The thing that did bother me was that, even though we all share the same hands, we don't share the same opponents. What if one table is passive and a player with 78 suited gets to see the flop cheaply and make a flush sometimes, but another player with 78 at a different table has a hard time because everyone is raising and re-raising? The player that makes the flush would take a chunk of chips from the other, even though calling a huge raise was clearly wrong. This wouldn't be a good comparison in skill.
I think that it's a novel idea that is, perhaps, before its time. One day, someone may create a more polished game of poker that is purely skill, but we just aren't quite there yet. Even so, it's a nice take on the game we love and I'd suggest trying it out at least once. Just go to e-PokerUSA.
As far as the tournament, on the second to last hand I held AKo and made a very small raise of about 2 1/2x the big blind, something I often do with AK pre-flop when the blinds aren't high. The flop was very bad for me and I folded out quickly. My neighbors with the AK managed to get it all in preflop and lost in spectacular fashion. I gained a huge amount of points (victory chips) and went on to finish 3rd. The best part of the experience was they awarded real money in a play money tourney, albeit was only $1.25
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Bad Beat Story of the Day
Sigh. So I was sitting pretty deep in a 45 man tourney in 2nd place with about 3x the average chip stack. I see the flop cheaply with 66. Flop brings 5A6 rainbow bringing a set for me. 1st position, a big stack, moves all in and I quickly call figuring him for overplaying the top pair or maybe having two pair. He shows A4o, top pair weak kicker. I'm way ahead. He needs runner runner to win and I'm like 19-1 to be a big chip leader. He hits the runner runner with a quick Ace on the turn and 4 on the river and I'm crippled and out a couple hands later.
He doesn't even call the next day.
That's poker.
He doesn't even call the next day.
That's poker.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Something to Listen To
I just recently came across Pandora. It's basically internet radio but you begin by typing in a band that you like. Pandora will stream songs to you from that band and others similar to it that you may not have ever heard before. I've been using it all the time while playing to hear some new stuff and escape the monotony of the same mainstream songs over and over. It's very enjoyable; check it out.
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