First proper shot at $50NL

 

Well, I took the plunge today and had a go at $50NL and finished up just over a single buy-in, so I’ m pretty pleased all in all.

I played on 2 tables and played pretty nitty to try and minimize the variance until my bankroll gets a bit bigger. I found the overall play quite similar to $25NL but it’s definitely more aggressive – There were very few limped pots and a lot more 3-betting going on both pre and post flop. I was particularly pleased with how I played one hand – I had TPGK on a monotone flop (all hearts) I didn’t have any hearts and the villain was betting hard on all streets, but I sensed he was weak and called him all the way for a decent-sized pot.

Here are some HH’s:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1645866

This is the kind of added aggression I was talking about. A dry flop like this is ideal for c-betting. I know that and maybe villain knows I know that, hence his reraise ? If so, then it was a good play. I decided to avoid the confrontation and wait for a better spot. But next time, watch out villain !

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1645888

Pretty standard – Obv I’m not folding here to shorty once I’ve raised.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1645896

I can’t believe villain cold-called a raise and reraise with A5s ! I was debating over c-betting this, but I think I gave villain too much credit for a hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1645901

This is the hand I mentioned above. I just didn’t believe villain had the goods here. His bets were just a little too weak IMO.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1645911

It’s good to see villains on $50NL chasing their flush draws without the correct odds !

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1645929

My first pair of Aces holds up all-in preflop !

Session stats:

Number of hands: 311

Net profit/loss: +$62.35

Winrate: +20.05 ptBB/100

Bankroll: $875

Should I stay or should I go ?

Well I just finished another small session and my bankroll is now over the $800 mark, which means I have 16 buy-ins at $50NL if I wanted to take a shot.Here are my overall stats so far at $25NL and PL (only a few hands at PL):

Number of hands: 7625

Net profit / loss: +$409.10

Winrate: +10.73 ptBB/100

and here is the graph:

I can’t decide to take or shot or not. It would really piss me off to lose a couple of buy-ins and be knocked back down to $700 @ 25NL…..

Here was the major hand from the last session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1642575

Great flop for me obv and perfect card on the turn to ensure I stacked villain.

Session stats:

Number of hands: 179

Net profit / loss: +$22.15

Winrate: +24.74 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $812

Quick session

I hope this doesn’t sound cocky or arrogant, but I’m really starting to feel really confident with my game at FR $25NL. I’m avoiding marginal, tricky situations and getting good value from my hands when I think/know when I am ahead. I am now playing 3 tables and am still able to get reasonable reads on the other players. I try to at least identify the worst players on each table to be able to isolate them when I’m ahead of their range. Anyway, I still have a lot of learn, so back down to earth

A few hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1641431

Awful flop. I’m either way ahead or way behind here so no point betting flop – it’s only getting called if he has an Ace. On the turn and river, I think I lost the minimum here, so I can’t complain.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1641441

I’m only beating a bluff on this flop. The villain was pretty passive and he’s not 3-betting this pf with 88 or less IMO. I called pf for set value.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1641452

Villain here was one of the players I had identified as bad, so I decided to take him to value town on the turn and river. I can’t believe the hand he called with !

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1641463

Here villain was another bad player, lol. He was very aggressive usually pf so I knew he didn’t have a strong Ace. I think he was trying to get a cheap showdown here by checking / calling the turn and river so I was pretty sure he only had a weaker Ace.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1641474

I have no idea what villain had here. A Jack maybe ? or KT and he was chasing the Ace ? If he was on a draw, it was an awful call on the turn to my pot-sized bet.

Session stats:

Number of hands: 210

Net profit/loss: +$18.10

Winrate: +17.24 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $790

Very funny poker videos

Check this guy’s videos out, they are so funny. If you like them, give this guy a link, he’ll appreciate it!   Nice work Joe  

Episode 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUdmvgbeyi4
Episode 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJkYc0nPMy4
Episode 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyx7djE-VwY

NEW EPISODE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-sWivOtnrk

Weekend poker is great !

I don’t usually get much time to play during the weekend – I have better things to do like spend time with my gf and actually going outside lol !  But when I do play a session, it’s nearly always a fun and profitable experience. This weekend was no exception – I only played ~700 hands and won almost 2 buy-ins  bringing my bankroll to $772, an amount where I can seriously start considering taking a shot at $50NL

I think I’ll wait until I hit $800, and then single table the new limit on a fishy table. I will drop back down to $NL25 if my bankroll dips to $700

Anyway, I’m not there yet, here are a few hands from this weekend:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638814

Yuck, I hate everything about this hand. First of all, I hate having KQ out of position – I never know what to do it. I’m leaning towards fold or raise it, and I think limping with it is a leak at full-ring. I like my call on the flop. I was keeping worse hands in and keeping the pot small for my TPGK, and anway my hand couldn’t take a reraise. Villain’s check-raise should have told me my single pair is no good. I mean he’s not doing that with KT or worse after my call on the flop. Very bad play by me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638845

I knew I was behind here to at least on overpair, but I got the maths wrong when working out my pot odds and equity, lol. Bad call.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638858

This is why you shouldn’t cold call a raise from the blinds with a hand like QJo. If you hit, your hand is so easily dominated and you’re only ever getting called by a better hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638872

No idea what villain had here, but his c-bet on the flop just looked fishy to me. I spent a lot of time thinking about this before taking action on the flop. His stats were very LAG and his-bet just looked like he didn’t want any action. I was either going to fold or raise this. Calling would have been the worst option. I think villain would play AQ or AK like this and I didn’t want to give him a cheap turn card.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1638911

This hand was a dream come true – A multiway raised pot where I flop a set on a high card board. I was definitely betting out here as I was certain everyone got a piece of it. With hindsight I don’t like my check on the turn, because I missed value, but I think the check made everyone think my bet on the river was just a steal attempt. Note the way everyone called my value bet on the river!

Session stats

Number of hands: 762

Net profit/loss: +$46

Winrate: +12.18 ptBB/100

Bankroll: $772

Another session

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1628352

I was trying to represent AJ in this hand with my call on the flop and psb on the turn. Alas, this doesn’t work vs a donkey lag calling station who falls in love with his hand. Note to self – don’t try and bluff a calling station lol

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1628397

Ok, this hand put me on serious tilt during and immediately after for obvious reasons.  But now I have calmed down, I will try and analyze the hand objectively street by street:

First of all, villain was an absolute fish and had already sucked out several times. He was a total calling station preflop and his stats were: 46/2/0.41 in other words loose passive.

Preflop: I am dealt AKo in UTG. An excellent hand and one I am obviously raising with. Sometimes I will raise to 5xBB when in ep to charge players behind me a bit extra for having on position on me throughout the hand. With a calling station behind me, there is an added argument for doing this, but my play is still correct and villain is clearly making a mistake by calling with T6 sooted.

Flop: Monotone flop (yuck) but I have the Ace of diamonds and also TPTK. A strong hand and well worth a bet. When villain came back over the top, instead of pausing and thinking about it, I just insta-shoved all-in, thinking my pot equity was > 50 % with my TPTK and nut flush draw. Well, I was wrong surprisingly. Villain is very passive so I should have realised that he is only doing this with a made hand, ie 2 diamonds in his hand. If we accept that assumption, the equity is as follows:

equity win tie pots won pots tied

Hand 0:    30.185%    30.19%    00.00%    10758    0.00 { AdKh }

Hand 1:    69.815%    69.81%    00.00%    24882    0.00 { Any diamond combination}

So my odds of actually getting a diamond on the turn or river are 7-3 against or over 2-1. Villain is obviously playing for stacks, so if we assume villain is all-in on the flop, my pot odds to call would be: 25/21.75 = 1.15

In other words my push on the flop was -ve.

Even though the villain didn’t go all-in on the flop, I was not getting the pot odds to call his raise and see the turn:

I was getting just 2-1 pot odds (14.50/7) to call his raise, and I needed 4.22-1 to make it profitable.

The only reasonable play in this situation would have been for me to flat call the raise on the flop and see a turn. If another diamond came on the turn, villain was never getting away from the hand and I would have got the extra $12.50 from his stack giving me implied pot odds of 27/7.25 ie a bit less than 4-1. If the turn was a blank, villain would have obviously pushed and I would have folded, saving me $12.50

My biggest mistake here was overestimating my equity on the flop.

Awful play by villain obv, but it forced me into actually working out the maths.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1628623 

Villain had been raising 40% of all hands preflop so it was time for a strong 3-bet. I had nut flush draw and 2 overcards on the flop and so plenty of equity. Villain got what he deserved!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1628643

This was pretty standard preflop and flop (where I just read his bet as a c-bet) I was lucky on the turn, but I got maximum value from the hand with my huge overbet on the river which is something I’m experimenting with atm.

Session stats:

Number of hands: 502

Net profit/loss: +$24

Winrate: +10.12 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $726

Blog roll call!

 

Yeah, that’s right, a roll call !

I’ve been writing this blog for about 3 months now. The main goal was to force myself to analyze my game and I felt that by sharing my progress (or lack of it) and therefore being accountable to the interweb would help me improve my game.  I was by no means looking for any recognition or attention, just simply it was a good way for me to concentrate on my game.

I feel that I am currently achieving that aim – When I started this blog, I was playing at $10NL with a $280 bankroll, and was (just about) a winning player, but with some leaks in my game. I am now at $25NL with a $700 bankroll and am beating the game with an above average winrate (albeit a small sample so far) So far so good.

This roll call is to encourage lurkers to say holla, crtitique my play, give me some encouragement, tell me I’m an idiot, anything !!  I’m serious about getting good at poker and moving up the stakes to at least $200NL and I’d really appreciate some feedback, analysis, HH discussion, motivation, call it what you want, from like-minded people or players who are already where I’m trying to get to !   I play full-ring and so full-ring players (are there any others ?!) are especially welcome

GL at the tables !

Patience pays off

Just played a quick session before going to bed.

Pretty uneventful, but on one of my tables, I was sat in between 2 really loose aggressive maniacs who kept going at each other. The villain to my left (with position on the other one) seemed to be coming off better and he was really starting to bully the table and no-one was really making a stand. I decided to do what I usually do in situations like this.

Wait for a premium hand.

Well after about 30 minutes, I get dealt dealt KK in the blinds. Villain is in UTG and raises to 0.75 and gets 3 callers. Perfect. I raise to $3.50 and he comes back over the top with a minraise to $6.25. O RLY ?! There’s only one hand in the deck better than mine preflop, and I can’t give villain credit for it, so I decide to push. Villain calls and flips AKs and I win a huge pot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1624765

Session stats:

Number of hands: 230

Net profit / loss: +$27

Winrate: +23.4 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $702

Frustrating session

Just finished a long (by my standards) session and finished break-even

I normally only 2-table, but decided to try 3 tables so as to play more hands. Well, meh, I don’t feel completely comfortable yet 3-tabling – I can keep up with the action but I’m not sure where I’m supposed to be focusing my attention and I’m definitely missing reads / opportunities for making moves. This really frustrates because this is only full-ring and I know of loads of people who at least play 4 tables (my goal)

In the session, I just played, early on, my TPTK kept running into sets and overpairs, and I wasn’t hitting flops, and all my c-bets were getting called / raised ! Oh well this happens and at least I was mentally prepared for it. I also got a huge bad beat by a fish which tilted me for a bit, but I can’t complain cos I sucked out a few times too in the session !

A few hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1623910

Ouch! I could have got away from middle pair here if the second ten hadn’t come on the turn. No way I was getting away from that.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1623917

I had been playing pretty TAG and was getting sick of everyone limping on my button. Bad timing. Villain’s minbet on flop put me on tilt here !!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1623932

OMG !! I insta-called villains all-in on the turn – he’d been going all-in a lot in situations like this, and no way he had the goods. I was righ, but of course he hits his 4-outer on the river !! Funny.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1623939

Standard AA > AK

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1623947

Ok, stop laughing ! T7s is the nuts, didn’t you know that ?! Sorry villain, but if you’d have raised pf, I would have folded…. mumble mumble…… lol

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1623968

66 has been good to me recently. WTF is going on with everyone min-raising and min-betting though ?! I saw this a load today, much more than usual ?! Anyone else seeing this ? I don’t mind villains doing it preflop – it prices me in to see a flop, but I can never figure it out post-flop……

Session stats:

Number of hands: 815

Net profit / loss: $0

Winrate: 0 pt BB / 100

Bankroll: $675

Took a shot at $50NL

I took a quick shot at $50NL just to test the water. – I am currently running at 10 ptBB/100 at $25NL and wanted to see what $50NL was like.

Well, I played a few hands, and won about $5 and stopped there. The players weren’t any better, but were harder to play against IYSWIM and I didn’t feel 100% comfortable with the larger bets, raises and pots, so I guess I’m not quite ready.  I have therefore decided to stay at $25NL until my bankroll reaches $800

Bankroll: $675