Still alive!

I am still alive, in case anyone is wondering… !

I haven’t posted in a while because basically I have been (and still am) on a business trip back in England and so have very little time for poker. I have played a few hands one evening on my laptop, but not very many hands because I don’t have my PT database or HUD installed on this computer and so I can’t really multi-table it. Actually, playing just 1 or 2 tables with no PT stats is quite a good exercise for honing your hand-reading skills as it really forces you to pay attention to what your opponents are doing – I really recommend you trying this every now and again.

Live poker

While I’m here, I’d really like to play a live game somewhere because in France, live games in casinos are still quite high stakes and too expensive and pretty crappy service to boot.

There is £10 freezeout tonight in a local Rileys snooker club. I went down there at lunchtime to check it out but it looks a bit crap. Clearly, they are just offering poker as a sideline to their main business and it shows – They have a load of crappy mobile tables which I think they’re just gonna put in the noisy bar area, right next to all the pool tables and I doubt for a £10 buy-in that it will be a proper croupier, but just self dealt maybe or a barman dealing. Hmm..

My other choice is a £75 ($150) freezeout tournament at Luton Casino.

http://www.gcasino.co.uk/luton/pokerschedule.php 

This is quite expensive I know, but Luton casino is supposed to be excellent for poker, a really classy place and good service and croupiers. It’s not as if I’m going to be doing this every week, and I think that at those stakes, I would be really concentrated! I think this is the one I am going to go for – I’ll call them up later, and get some more info from them.

Bankroll: $1145

Longish session

Just finished a longish session (by my standards) and finished up just over a buy-in. I was 4-tabling tonight to try and get used to it. Meh, it’s not easy and I don’t like not having time to really pay attention to the table dynamics, but I do see the advantage in playing more hands per hour.

Here are a few hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1679017

Yuck ! This is the first time in ages I have stacked off with TPTK. Even with checking behind on the turn for pot control, with 2 villains, the pot was already huge and if I called the flop I had to call the river and then make a crying call to the raise at the end. Ouch

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1679028

Villain had been raising way too much and so I was pretty sure I was ahead of his range. Problem is that he was also a calling station and A8o is still a marginal hand. Oh well, I think as played, I lost the minimum.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1679046

I so should have raised this river for value! Damn!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1679055

AA > QJs. Made a thin value bet on the river, hoping to get called by a pair of Kings or Queens.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1679066

Aces again. No idea what villain had here, but probably a flush draw. Maybe a check call on the river could have induced a bluff and got more value.

Session stats:

Number of hands: 753

Net profit/loss: +$55

Winrate: +7.36 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $1130

Grinding

Played another short session today.

Here are some hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1675137

This was a tricky spot because on the turn, the preflop raiser was still to act behind me, and I was worried he was going to check-raise which is why I only called. If this had been heads up I would have bet out on the flop and certainly raised the turn. Thoughts ?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1675149

I don’t like spots like this, where I flop a potentially strong hand out of position from the blinds. Since my hand was strong, but vulnerable, I wanted to keep the pot small. I always say to myself “don’t go broke in an unraised pot. I think I played the hand ok, but my raise was too weak on the turn.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1675176

When I called villain’s raise on the turn, I realised I wasn’t quite getting the pot odds to draw to my flush, but I thought I was getting the implied odds, with villain being pot committed. In fact I was wrong, villain only had $3.50 left behind which only gave me implied odds of just less than 4-1, which is less than the 4.22-1 needed to make this a +EV call. The result was good, but I made the wrong play.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1675326

This was a tough decision to make. I knew it was a close call/fold decision based on the pot equity and odds being layed. In the heat of the moment, I figured I was getting close to 2-1 to call, which meant I needed at least 33% equity. The way the hand had been played, I figured AK/AQ was a large part of villain’s range. I reckoned if he had AA, he would have just called my reraise. If villain had had a fullstack, I would have folded here.

I have just analyzed this hand in pokerstove, and if I give villain range of JJ+, AKs,AKo, then it is practically a coinflip and I have 47% equity.If I give villain a tighter range of QQ+, AKs,AKo, then I have 40% equity.

So it turns out the call was correct.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1674985

Pretty standard AA > QQ. I was pleased with my bet-sizing on each street here to get all of villain’s stack in the middle.

Session stats:

Number of hands: 177

Net profit/loss: +$68

Winrate: +38.67

Bankroll: $1074

$1k

After another successful session at $50NL, I have manage to take my bankroll over the $1k mark ! I realise this is peanuts to most high flyers out there, but this is a big milestone for me ! It has been a grind, and needed a lot of patience and discipline not to get greedy and try to take shots at stakes above my bankroll. When I started my blog end of July, my bankroll was at $280 and I was playing at $10NL. Now, I’m playing at $50NL, and feel quite confident at my game.

Tonight’s session, I was 4-tabling and this is something I want to try and improve while still at $50NL. I am not bothered about 16-tabling like some of the other grinders out there. I like my poker to be enjoyable, but I would like to be 100% comfortable 4-tabling any level I choose. I have a decent monitor for doing this – A Samsung 204B 20″ with 1600×1200 resolution, so I can play 4 tables tiled with no overlap, but I still don’t feel completely confident doing it. This is something I intend on working hard at over the next few weeks before I move up again.

Tonights session started off pretty badly with me getting sucked out on a few times. I managed to keep my cool though and win it all back.

I then went on to play back at an overly aggressive player preflop. I 3-bet him, he came over the top and I called. I flopped TPTK and I decided to check, knowing that if I gave him enough rope, he’d hang himself. He didn’t disappoint and he bet out for $20 and I insta check-raised all-in. He tanked for a few seconds before folding. This won me a biggish pot.

Here are a few of the hands in detail:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1671871

I hate monotone flops ! Yuck and nice call preflop by villain with QTs lol !

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1671879

Another suckout here by villain. It happens, I’m not so bothered about the bad beat, but what I don’t understand is why would you call preflop with 97s in a heads up pot, when you have a shortstack ?! It makes no sense at all……

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1671898

Not sure what villain could have had here. My guess is AJ, AK or maybe a medium pocket pair like TT, or a flush draw. I also think he just didn’t believe I was particularly strong, and could perhaps shake me off the pot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1671918

Pretty standard here really. Even if villain had rearaised all-in preflop, I had decided I was going to call, since he was a shortstack.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1671933

Looking back at some of these hands, I can’t believe how bad some of the players are at $50NL. I mean here, his pf call is awful, but then how he possibly think his single (flopped) pair, crap kicker is any good here ?!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1671949

This is the hand I was talking about earlier. Villain here was very very aggressive preflop, raising about 15% of his hands, and much more than that when it folded around to him in late position, so I was confident my A9s was crushing his range. His 4-bet didn’t worry me in the slightest and I had already decided I was going to check-raise all-in on any flop. He was getting 4-1 to call my all-in on the flop, so if he folded, he really must have had nothing at all and my read was right !

Session stats:

Number of hands: 133

Net profit/loss: +$60

Winrate: +44.81 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $1006

Choosing my spots

Well, my shot at $50NL is still going well after a third winning session.

My tight strategy seems to be working and I am making full use of my tight image to bluff/pick off pots in key spots. My hand-reading skills are really improving too. In this session I flopped TPTK and I folded to a bet and call. – The flop was pretty dry and both villains were pretty solid players. Turns out I was right – Villain 1 had pocket Kings and the villain 2 (who called) had flopped a set.

Here are a few hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668190

Standard positional raise from the button. Once villain called my c-bet, I realised I was obviously beat.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668200

TPTK vs a calling station, donk-betting into me. Hmm, I just wanted a cheap showdown here. I think I lost the minimum.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668223

This is the big laydown with AQo and TPTK on the flop. I could have gone broke here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668244

I love suited connectors in position, particularly with a board like this one. I can understand villain betting out on the river, but I can’t believe he called my raise on the turn and value bet on the river. WTF does he think he’s beating ?!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668261

Villain here had been raising all sort of marginal hands OOP, so I just decided to call preflop and disguise my hand a bit. It was obvious he didn’t have a 7, so he was definitely crushed here. In hindsight, I am sure he would have called an all-in bet on the river as people can never fold a full-house.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1668276

Wow! TPGK can also be the nuts at $50NL ! It is so read-dependant. On the turn, I put him on a draw and the pot was getting big, so just decided to felt it

Session stats:

Number of hands: 455

Net profit/loss: +$54

Winrate: +11.85 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $946

Small session @ $50NL

Had a second winning session at $50NL today. I’m continuing to play quite a nittyish game until I feel 100% comfortable at this new level.

Here are a few hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1651925

Well this hand wasn’t very nitty play at all in fact. I was sure villain had nothing here and I was getting great implied odds on the turn for my straight. But while I’m still new a this level, these are the kind of high variance situations I should be avoiding tbh. Spew.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1651938

std KK > AK all-in pf vs a shortstack.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1651947

Again, not very nitty at all in fact (I just can’t help myself sometimes lol!) This was vs same villain as hand 1 above and I’d been watching him like a hawk and realised he was winning a lot of his pots by being overly aggressive and not showing his hand. So here I decided to float him on the turn and follow through on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1651954

Set > overpair – Obviously I was calling his raise on the river, but decided not to reraise all-in as I don’t think a worse hand is calling.

Session stats:

Number of hands: 148

Net profit/loss: +$17

Winrate: +11.99 ptBB / 100

Bankroll: $892