A few hands

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1926264

Hmm, There are some things I like and dislike about how I played this hand. I like my call preflop with my suited connectors. There’s a raise from mp and a caller ahead of me. I am on the button with a hand that can flop well. I was pretty sure if I called that one of the blinds would come along too. The prelop raiser was quite taggy and I put him on 88+/AQ/AK.

On the flop, the villain made his c-bet and I was getting just less than 3-1 odds to call. His bet felt a bit weak, kind of half-heartedly protecting his hand, but not really. I felt that 2 high cards (AK/AQ) was more likely than a made hand. I was very tempted to raise this up and semi-bluff with my flush draw, but with a player still to act behind me, decided against it. My call is ok, if I think villain will put more money in the pot on later straights. When he checked to me on the turn, I knew I was now ahead, and felt that AK/AQ was the most likely, but if I bet out he’s just going to fold with the spade scaring him off. I then made a thin value bet on the river to try and get him to look me up.

It worked, but the extra $2 still didn’t justify the call on the flop. Over all, I called $2.50 on the flop and won $8.80 ($4.35 + $2.50 + $2) ie total pot odds of 3.52-1 whereas I would have needed 4.2-1 to make my flop call +EV. Doing the maths, I needed to win at least an extra $3.65 on the turn and river to make my flop call profitable in the long-run. Since villain just had 2 overcards, I doubt he would have called that much.

Is my maths right here ? Is a raise better on this flop ?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1926409

I nearly had a heart attack here when I got 3 callers preflop. I had to bet this flop but didn’t like betting into 3 loose villains OOP. Luckily 2 of them folded and the other one flat-called. I already had a read on him as a calling station and a flush chaser, so I had every intention of  double barrelling the turn. I think I got my bet sizing just right here. When he checked to me on the river, I decided to just check behind too. I’m not getting any more money out of a busted flush draw and I’m only getting called by a better hand there.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1926470

Villain’s stats: 60/3/0.45  (typical weekend loose passive)

I was pretty lost on this hand from the turn onwards. His flat call to my huuge raise on the flop along with the club on the turn made me think the fish had drawn out on me, and for such a passive player to make a bet like that on the river, begging for a call, I had to be beat. Even getting 7-1 odds to call, I hate paying off the fish. 89, AK, any 2 clubs all have me beat there. Yuck !
 

Study and grind

I got some study material from my coach last night about how to take notes on opponents and looking for certain weaknesses in their play and how best to exploit them. It was nothing too revolutionary but was very interesting and so thought I’d try and build it into my game in tonight’s session. 
I only fired up 2 tables so I could have the time to properly observe my opponents.
Lo and behold, after about an hours play, I used one of these reads on one particular player  and won a big pot. The read was simple – The player played Ax  (ie Ace with any kicker) from any position and played it like the nuts if an Ace came on the board.  Obviously the best way to exploit this is to bet your strong Aces (or better) on every street all the way to showdown without worrying too much about pot control. Well that’s what I did, and he did indeed stack off with his A7o vs my AQo 

Here’s the hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1922315
Some more hands from the session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1922225
Again, my play here was based on what I had noticed about the table dynamics. UTG was a donk and had just lost a big pot so I was definitely way ahead of his range. Genie had seen this too and obviously had some sort of a hand, but I think I was still ahead of him because, like me, he knew UTG was raising with any two cards.  I had to raise this to prevent anyone else behind me getting priced in so just decided to push preflop as the pot was already pretty big.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1922325

This hand just played itself obviously. The only tough decision was how much to make it on the river to get maximum value. I think I missed a bit of value here actually in hindsight. I should have thought about villain’s likely range a bit more first, and then bet about $15. Oh well, nice pot all the same.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1922371

Ok this is a small pot and nothing very exciting, but this is probably the hand I’m most pleased about of the session because I am playing the situation and not my cards. This is a play I am trying to introduce to my game. 3-betting light preflop.  Basically, the conditions were perfect for making this play:

-An aggressive villain to my right open raises in late position.
-I have a tightish image at the table.
-I have a hand that flops well if I get called and anyway, I’ll have position on villain on the flop and for the remainder of the hand.

GL at the tables
 

Some news….

First of all, Happy New Year everyone Thought I’d write an update of where I’m at with my poker.

Well I decided to take a break from the game in order to:

1) Completely get over the tilt, and

2) Think about my game and where I want to go

The week’s break has helped me stop tilting about my losses. The tilt has now gone and I accept that bankroll is lower than it was but I am feeling totally zen about it and have got it out of my head to stop chasing losses.

Thinking about my game, I realise in my last few sessions before the break, I was playing a bit scared and also was being too results-oriented (I was constantly checking my balance throughout a session) and subconsciously not raising in certain spots or calling a raise with pocket pairs (even with implied odds) so my roll wouldn’t decrease short-term lol.

I have to stop being results-oriented. Checking my balance during a session was a bad thing to be doing. I have to just play my usual disciplined, patient TAG game, make good decisions, and the results and bankroll will take care of themselves. So for the last week, I have started playing again, and things are going a bit better. I seem to have got my discipline and patience back (which were the keys to my early success IMHO) and my bankroll has AT LAST started going in the right direction again.

BUT I am going to stop posting my bankroll after every session on my blog. (win or lose) I will probably post it up along with my winrate once a week instead.  That way, I get to see my progress and I stay concentrated on the important stuff like did I play each hand correctly or not.

I have also been studying hard at my game recently and been doing lots of reading of poker forums and and I even dug out my copy of The Theory of Poker (the bible IMHO)

Some other news I am very excited about is that I have signed up for some 1 to 1 coaching with a professional player ! I had seen a couple of this guy’s training videos and really liked his analysis of the game and way of explaining things. When I found out he coached, I contacted him and set it up. I should have my first session with him either end of this week or early next week and so I am very excited about that. I’ll keep you posted

Here are a couple of hands from my last session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1912628

Previously, I have been playing these kind of spots (unraised multiway pots where I hit the flop OOP) way too passively, electing to check call, instead of betting out. Well I decided to bet out strongly on this flop with top 2. When villain raised all-in, I guess I could have found a fold here, BUT he had just lost a long succession of hands and was tilting in the chat window, PLUS the fact he was a shortstack, I figured I was likely ahead and had to call. Nice to see my hand hold up

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1912414

There’s an argument here for raising strongly this hand from the SB to try and take it down preflop. But I had no reads on the limper in position and so decided I’d rather keep the pot small and see a flop for cheap. Again I flop a decent hand OOP and made a stab at the pot on the flop. I was a bit worried when villain just called, and so checked/called for pot control on the turn. Likewise, on the river, I can’t see a weaker hand calling there, and there was a flush possibility too.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1912618

Very similar to the previous hand. AJo in the blinds in an unraised pot. Previously I would have just meekly called this I think, but am beginning to play these kind of situations a bit more assertively. My plan was to check behind the turn and call any reasonable bet on the river. Was very surprised what he was calling/ betting with here !

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1912606

Weird hand here. There was a bit of history between me and villain in previous hands and I had folded to a biggish bet. I had seen him previously call raises from the blinds with weakish hands (KJ etc) and so I was pretty sure he wasn’t very strong here. I think he had something like T9 or maybe even K9 or maybe even a PP like 77 or TT. The river was a perfect card to bluff with and I made sure I immediately bet it. This isn’t something I do often, but here I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to call.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1912600

When villain reraised my 3-bet here, I knew he had either KK or AA. Since I had AA, it was obv much more likely he had KK. I was about to push all-in but decided against it for the following reason. If I push all-in, villain will know for sure I have AA and, if he’s good, might be able to get away from this because he was pretty deep-stacked, by no means pot committed yet anyway. So I paused for a few seconds and called. When the Queen came on the flop, he pushed pretty much straight away, and based on the action preflop, I couldn’t put him on QQ, so I called. Nice to see my Aces hold up for a big pot. It’s been a while

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1912590

I think this is only the second time in my poker life that I have folded KK preflop. I now feel so dirty. Let me explain. Villain’s stats were totally NIT-TASTIC at 11/2/0.46 over 85 hands. If a player is only raising 2% of his hands, that is basically JJ/QQ/KK/AA 2% is his average from ALL positions. Nits play even nittier in EP and so a player like that limping in UTG +1 and then reraising a strong raise behind him is KK or AA everytime. I can only chop at best, so I just folded this. Thoughts ?

GL at the tables