On A Break

I'm still on my self-imposed poker break. Oh, I'm still playing poker, but just dropped down in stakes significantly.

The 25c/50c NL game didn't go that well. I had a post typed up about how I was planning to play aggressively, raising and re-raising with the increased stack sizes, but it didn't work out that way. For one thing, the rest of the table was pretty aggressive and with 9-10 players, playing tight is more necessary. For another, I once again got in a hole pretty early and that sucked away my resolve to play aggressively.

Did I mention that I think I built up some long term tilt this last month?

The pinnacle was when I had pocket aces and re-raised to $14 pre-flop. The flop came all low cards and my opponent lead into me for $30 on an all low card flop and I had $60 left. I put him on a lower overpair that I or possibly top pair, so I instantly pushed, forcing him into the tank. While he was thinking and debating, I silently flipped over my cards.

I figured he was getting close to the right odds to call and wanted to just pick up the pot. He pretty much instantly folded jacks and I won the pot. The table went crazy.

A few minutes later I did the analysis and realized I gave up about $15 of equity. That's a hell of a lot of equity. But, I was on my last buy-in and if I had lost, I'd have to stop playing. I won't lie though; much of it was tilt induced too. If I was up on the night, I would never have done that.


I have started to play a little more online though and I'm actually winning a little (think $10). I think UB is bad for me; I've been playing more on Stars lately. Too bad PokerTracker 2 doesn't work for Stars anymore. Oh well.

Oh, and don't forget; the very rare Stars reload bonus ends tonight! Use bonus code 2X and your checking account!


Oh yeah, forgot something else. I was playing heads-up last night and experimented with a new strategy. On EVERY button, either fold or raise 2.5x. Those small raises are really effective, because I effectively give up no information on my hand but put my opponent to a bit of a decision, risk very little if they come over the top, and take control of the hand. I would hate to play against that strategy.

As a counter-strategy, I guess you have to raise more liberally... But, honestly, I've never really had to counter the strategy much.

Probably Time for a Break

Well, I lost $200 on Saturday night, putting my bankroll at a little under $1900. I think it's time to take a break from the $1/2 game for a little bit, since I'm not enjoying the game much any more and I'm definitely not winning much at it.

Although, surprisingly, I'm still ahead about $160 for a $4/hr win-rate. For this year at least (let's not talk about last year).

I'm considering taking a larger break from poker. I still enjoy it, but not the bigger buy-in games right now (Garden City's 6/12, the $1/2 NLHE game). If I don't enjoy it, I'm not winning anything to speak of, and it's sucking up a bunch of time, why play? Maybe a break is what I need to get my desire back.

Plus, there's this pesky thing of needing to graduate in the next year that would probably benefit from more time.

Don't get me wrong though, I'd still play home games and the occasional tournament here and there. Just not two-three nights a week like I currently am.

We'll see, in a week I might feel totally differently.


But back to Saturday's game. Here are some notes I took about some of the bigger winning and losing hands:

Wins:

• AQs +80 Q85 x x vs AJo big bet -- maybe should have made smaller one or check-raised?
• JTo +15 J83 J (lost him on the turn, maybe should have checked or bet smaller?)
• AA +110 vs KK 9 8 6 flop, I bet, he pushed, I called (he didn't seem happy when I bet)
  
• 63s +50 933 K K raise flop, check turn, bet river

Losses:

• Kd6d -90 9d 8 5d Td 7d (got money in on turn, check-raise $5 to $25, he pushes for $60 more, I called) Maybe could have gotten away from it, but had second nuts and needed to be ahead about 33% of the time. I call this one a cold deck.
  
• QQ -15 I'm in the big blind, he raises big after just raising, three others call, and I think it likely he has a monster. An all small flop, he starts to bet before I check, so I stop him, think it through, and check. He bets $100 into 5 people, one caller, I muck (his large bet was a decent tell from him). He had AA, but I would have rivered a Q for winner. If only I played worse. Monster pot at over $300.
• 55 -30 I raised pf to $10 in late position, got two callers, CB $20 on KQ7 board, he pushes, I muck. He shows 77 for the set. I told him he only needed a queen to beat me there. Could have bet a little smaller on the CB, but generally good.
• AK -35 Directly after hand above and I only had $35 left. Got it in pre-flop but lost vs JJ.
  
• 98o -75 on button, flop is Ks 9s 8s 3x turn. Player bet $10 on the flop, I called with two others. Turn is blank, checks to me, I bet $25. Guy pushes for $40ish more, and I call. I think of this as my main mistake on the night. I tend to disregard flopped flushes too much and I played a big pot with a susceptible hand.
• Omaha H/L. -2 I had K8xx on a A88 board in SB. Checks to button, he bets, and I muck. I didn't like that I could be drawing dead there. Turns out three others called him, he slowed down on the turn K, and I would have scooped. I think I need to take a card off there getting 3:1 or better.
• Omaha H/L. -72 The next hand. I have AcKc8xXx. $20 pot, $10 bets. Flop comes 2c3cQc. Someone bets, I raise, three total callers. Turn is a 4c and raiser on flop bets, one caller, a raise, I three-bet, bettor caps, and we all call. I'm praying that the river doesn't pair the board, and it doesn't. Original bettor goes all-in for $6, guy to his left completes, and I suddenly realize a straight flush is possible. I just call, and this new guy 3/4s the other bare nut low with a straight flush. Oops. I could have saved a bet or two on the turn.
  

I have to wonder, given the above, how I lost the extra $100. Definitely, my luck wasn't that good: I never flopped a set, straight, or flush and won. I also barely bluffed so I didn't pick up any pots. It is also worth looking into the lines I take because I'm still getting too much money into the pot in bad spots (two pair vs flush) and I'm probably not getting max value a lot of the time.

The other wrinkle is that I lost my first buy-in a little after midnight. I rebought, even though I know I probably shouldn't, but I didn't feel like I was playing badly. And I don't think I was, but 20-minutes later I turned the second nut flush vs the nut flush and...


On top of it all, I'm hosting a 25c/50c deep-stack $100 NLHE game at my house Wednesday night.

I won't talk about strategy too much here now since I know at least one player reads my blog, but I will say I'll be using a different strategy than the $1/2 game (as I should). If I lose my two buy-ins at the Wednesday game, I'll definitely be taking a break for a while before I do any major damage to my bankroll.

The Movie Ticket Escape Hatch

I guess I forgot to write about hands from last Sunday's session. Well I'll summarize it here:

• I found some creative ways to lose with big hands (notably losing with 55 vs JJ on a K65 6 6 board). Yeah, that one tilted me a bit.
• I ran into some trouble value-betting the river out of position when I should have been check-calling (i.e. if I get raised I should have folded). Read: getting to fancy... For example: I have Kd7d in the SB, flop comes Kc9c6c, I check (should have lead at the pot and folded to resistance), checks around. On the turn, I checked again, BB bets, I call. River is another K, and I lead out, get raised by the BB, and I call and lose. It was a path that lost me the max with minimal knowledge of my opponents hand.
  

Ok, that's out of the way.

With some time, I'm realizing that I'm making my major decisions about my opponent's range early in the hand and taken paths that tend to disguise the hand. Like the AA hand at the last game, if I had bet the turn, not even necessarily a big bet, that would have forced my opponent to raise me on the turn or raise me on the river. Check-calling doesn't tell me if I'm ahead or behind, making the river decision for a TON of chips harder.

I need to play less fancily in unknown situations and bet if I'm willing to call a bet.

One strength of my game is that I'm able to fold big hands if I'm given sufficient information to get away from the hand; so I need to start playing hands in a way to give me that opportunity.


So, tonight, I'm playing $1/2 NLHE. These are my goals:

1. Play more hands in position with more raises, less out of position.
2. Don't be afraid to bet out of position if I'm able to fold to a raise. Or, alternatively, don't play my big but non-nut hands in a passive way that makes me call a lot of bets with little information. Along with that though...
   
3. Don't overvalue top pair! Think through my reads, and make the fold if I need to.
   
4. Use the movie ticket escape hatch. More on that in a second.

Another realization I came to was that I've never failed to lose my third buy-in. Ok, maybe once, but I don't have an accurate record of it. Usually, once I've lost $200+, I just haven't won anything back. So, my max buy-in is $200 (maybe $250 if I need a partial reload to avoid short stack play). If I lose two buy-ins quickly, I'll just go to a movie. $10 for a movie ticket is a lot cheaper than another $100 buy-in. And I'll enjoy the movie more :)

I bought a poker table...

... but I lost $283 at $6/$12 yesterday.

My reasoning is that if I spend $160 on a poker table and then play home games more often, I'll lose less overall!

Just kidding. But I am planning a homegame for Wednesday.

I'll post a little on yesterday in a day or two.

Sweet, sweet 6/12...

I won $208 in a couple of hours of $6/12 last night, after losing $10 in 3/6.

Live low limit hold'em is deliciously loose and passive!

I'm playing again this afternoon since I have a tutoring session in the area. If I win a decent amount, I may go for that poker table after all, assuming they haven't all been sold yet.


Yesterday I played pretty well, although I know I made a few mistakes (only one of which I can remember right now, and I'll list the hand below). It was one of those good days where I had a number of decent hands pre-flop and they held up (mostly) but I didn't hit many draws. If I had hit a few of my long-shot draws... then I would have had a monster day!

At one point, the guy next to me asked me "Just how many times have you gotten trips?". I said four, off the top of my head, but after we counted them up, it had a set or trips at least six times (and only lost once with those).


The one hand that I know I played sub-optimally but learned a lot by pondering it:

5h3h in late position and I limp behind a bunch of other players. Limping 53s in position is probably marginally +EV. A guy to my left raises so we get six total players to the flop for two bets. The flop comes AK2 rainbow (there may have been one heart too) and a woman in MP leads out. I call, getting 12:1 or better, but original raiser raises, woman calls, and I call after another guy (10:1 on a gutshot is borderline odds, but reasonable given implied odds). Turn is a 5, putting two of not my suit on board. Checks to raiser, he bets, one call, and on me getting 12:1 again. I call. At this point, I have raiser on AA, KK, or AK. He's been pretty tight. The other player likely has a flush draw, but I'm not positive. I called, reasoning I may have extra outs beyond the gutshot. The river is an offsuit 5, checks to me, and I bet.

Let me stop the action here for some analysis. IMO, I could have folded at any point in the hand without giving up much (if any) EV. The turn was likely a bad call. PokerStove gives me 9% or more equity on the turn (worst case, giving the other player a flush draw), so I guess it was borderline, but not necessarily bad.

The real mistake was leading on the river. If I give him a range of AA, KK, or AK, then I'm going to be ahead of him on the river 60% of the time (according to pokerstove). BTW, that 60% is completely based on hand combinations. But, the key thing is, if he has any of those hands, he'll be betting 100% of the time. There's no need to lead out for fear he'd check a blank river. So the best option is to check.

In the hand, I bet, he raised, and I called. I'm not sure if I can fold there given the size of the pot, although I can't seem him raising anything I can beat unless he has a total mind-glitch. If I can't fold to a raise, I'm not sure I can bet. If I can fold to a raise (in this spot, I think I can do it -- I need to be about 94% sure he's got a full house, which is a safe bet given his range and my show of strength), then betting is fine. But if I'm going to bet for value, I might as well check-raise for value and fold to a three-bet!

So, I should be check-calling or check-raising on that (seemingly) blank river. Leading out was a mistake.

I think this might be a small leak in my game -- leading out when I hit/improve without thinking through ranges fully.