I Love Tournament Poker!

ahhhh, the highs and lows of poker.



so last weekend i put in a ton of hands of plo. (for me at least) I played a couple hundred hands Friday night and lost close to 3 buy-ins. in that session i lost about a 265bb pot where i was 75% favourite that would of made the session break even.

saturday was a massacre. i played early in the day and lost a couple more buy-ins. later that evening i put in a good long session and unfortunately lost some more. the whole weekend put together i think i played around 2200 hands and lost 11 buy-ins. ($1100) it definitly sucked but at no point was i ever playing steamed or tilty. i was level headed the whole time and never really payed attention to how much i was down although i knew it was fairly significant. i sent some hands off to my plo coach and there were some definite mistakes and although i didn't play perfect i don't think i played awful either. i can only think of two hands where i made big mistakes and most of the other mistakes was stuff like felting bottom set to a fairly passive player and what not. i ran a little bit below expectation over the course of those hands as well so the loss was a bit easier to take.

saturday nite i also played some mtt's. i started with the fifty fifty at 9:30pm and got knocked out of that fairly early on when i ran AJ into AK on a AxxA board and was pot stuck. the hand went like this:

ep raises and gets multiple callers to me on the button. i elect to call with AJs which i normally insta-muck to a raise but since i was suited, the pot was multi-way and i had the button i thought it was playable. flop comes Axx, it's checked to me so i fire out a little more than 1/2 pot, ep raiser calls as does one other player. the turn is another Ace and there are no draws out there. it checks to me once again and i bet, ep raiser c/r all-in and the other guy folds. i have to call off like 800 to win a ton so i call knowing im crushed. ep raiser was a good aggressive player and my initial read on his flop call is that he might have had a hand like JJ-KK that he didn't like the Ace but couldn't necessarily fold to a button that might stab at this flop a high % of the time without an Ace. i don't know, i think the third player in the hand screwed me up cuz i think i have to bet my trips in case he was check/calling a weak ace and is now ready to go broke with it. if the pot were to be heads-up with the ep raiser i think i most likely check the turn through for pot control.

after that i played the 10pm $26 and went semi deep for my first cash since returning to mtt's. i placed 169/1232 for $38 and snuck into the money w/ less than 5bb's and was probably in the bottom 5 of the tournament from 200 down.


i also played the $10 rebuy at 10:30pm and busted in that 87/440 but i don't remember how.

so Sunday i was really tempted to play but decided not to since i was tired from playing late the night before.



my next session came tuesday night but i didn't play a hand of plo. i felt a little burnt out on the game and thought maybe it would be best to take sometime away from it. after my very small cash on saturday and i really started craving the tournament action. so tuesday i decided to play nothing but mtt's and see how it went. i didn't get started till 7pm but i threw a few bucks on stars as well so i could play there as well.

here's a recap of what i played and how it went:

7pm $109 on stars - this tournament was going well and i was getting some playable hands and probably had an active image. i worked my way up to about 3600 picking up small pots when i got it all-in pre just before the break w/ QQ vs AKo and lost the flip leaving me with 116 chips. i busted shortly after that. although i like this tournament i don't think i'll put any more money on stars to play it. it's really the only tournament i could play on stars since most of the fields on stars are like 2000 people and they run until the weeee hours of the morning which is not ideal since i have to go to work the next day. also, the two tables i played at had like 5 known players at each which can't be all that great for my expectation.

7pm $75 on full tilt - lost some small pots and slowly got down to about 2200 from the original 3k (i think this is how i start this tournament every time) until i was on the receiving end of set over set and busted fairly early.

7:15pm $26 limit holdem on ftp - played poorly i think and eventually busted early in the 2nd hour.

$75 45 person sng on ftp - played 3 of these getting knocked out early twice and going deep in the third one finishing 2nd for $776. should have won it but oh well.



$22 180 person sng on stars - nothing really happened in this one and i eventually busted around 60th i think.



8pm $150 on ftp - went fairly deep in this one without any real crazy hands. pretty much hung around below average but not quite shortstacked for most of the tournament until i made a bone head move. 59 left with top 54 paying (520 runners) and this hand goes down:


http://www.cardrunners.com/members/display_hand.php?session=s%3A5%3A%2211495%22%3B&hand=s%3A6%3A%22381589%22%3B

it's bonehead cause im not deep enough to make the initial raiser fold pre-flop since he'll be getting close to 2-1 on a call.

7:30pm $20 rebuy 6-max nlh - picture is worth a thousand words.


so yeah i won. pretty cool, just over 3k for first. i usually don't like to play 6-max tournaments but decided since i can only play tournaments that will end at a reasonable hour that i should give this one a shot. i double rebought right off the bat and build up to about 4.5k, then lost a big pot w/ KK vs 97 on a J9x board all-in and had to single rebuy to get back to 3k. after that i cruised and had 10k after taking the add-on at the end of the first hour. (in for $82 total)

i played some big pots (don't quite remember) but somehow built up to a big stack of about 40k and then got into a big hand. i had been opening liberally and picked up TT in the Co and made a standard raise. the sb a very good (according to opr) player re-raised and i 4-bet since i thought he was re-raising light. he shoved and i had a tough decision. i can't find the hh but i believe i was getting 2.5-1 and although he's showing up with a big hand here often i thought he had a wider range than a normal shover there and ended up calling after timing all the way down. the other reason i called is that even if i lost i still would have had an above avg stack. to my surprise he had AQo and i held to be top 3 in chips. (running it in pokerstove even if he is only shoving JJ+ and AK i am only a 2-1 dog so im well within my odds to call.)

after that i was planning on raising everyhand since i was like 8x avg but of course being 2nd in chips full tilt moves the chip leader to my exact left. i stayed active but everytime i moved tables or got a big stack moved from my left another came in so i couldn't go too nuts.

i managed to get down to two tables and was still top 4 in chips and the chipleader at my table. i had two complete maniacs to my left that were doing everything in there power to go bust. they kept 3-betting my raises, raising my blind even though i was 3-bet shoving them wide and this is after i call there all-ins light and they get there. eventually i busted one of them and then with 7 left i busted the other one when he raise, the sb cold called and i shoved and he snap called me with AJo and i had AKo and held.

i had 295k when we got to the final table and was chip leader by about 100k so my plan was to tighten up since i had final 3 chips already but i was getting a lot of good starting hands for 6-max and ended up being the laggy player at the table. when we got to 4 handed i was actual the shortest stack w/ 145k. i hung tough and soon two others busted and we were heads up almost dead even with about 500k each @ 2.5k/5k/600a which plays pretty much like a cash game. i felt i had a good edge on him and eventually had ground him down to about a 700k/300k disadvantage when i picked up AA for the 2nd time heads-up (i had AA about 5 times in the rebuy period and never got action with them), villain raised, i re-popped fairly big cause i was pretty sure he was calling and i wanted to build a bigger pot. he called and the flop came down Jxx all diamonds and i held the Ace of diamonds. i open shoved the flop and he snap called me with J7o no diamonds and it held for the win.

this is getting long so i'll write some more in my next entry.

tg

tournament poker sucks

it's a love hate relationship.

i played the 7pm $75 again last night. i played pretty tight since im mostly concentrating on my plo cash tables.

here's the first significant hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1722584 - thats an ugly turn and river but his bet on the river made me feel more comfortable with calling. so i pick off his bluff and get some good chips early.

the second hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1722585 - same villain, betting light and probably muttering to himself that im a fkn calling station.

leads to the final hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1722587 - same villain again opens the button, i make a simple 3-bet from the bb and it's literally probably the 6th hand i've played in the first 90 mins. he snap shoved and i snap call.

so despite his best efforts, the poker gods would not allow to take all his chips. i guess looking at it a day later the third hand is probably a bad call but i had a feeling he was pissed with me for not folding the AJ hand and was playing poorly against me.

only got about 600 hands of plo in and broke pretty much even after being down a couple buy-ins to start. i think im misplaying sets on dangerous boards so it's something i'll have to go over.

tg

another 1k hands of plo and a few tournies

friday nite played a nice long session.

started around 7pm and played the $75 nl mtt and got bounced in the 3rd hand. i pick up KK in the bb and folds around to sb. sb raises 3x and i 3-bet him pot, he insta-shoves and i called figuring i was coolered by AA. he somehow shows up with TT, flop comes K67, turn 8, river 9. gg me and then he shit talks a bit. i told him he sucks, he tells me to check his stats, i look him up on opr, he has like 35k in profit over the last 120 days so i shut my mouth and accept the fact that i got "outplayed".

during the same time i played a $26 turbo satellite to the 6-max limit holdem ftops event. it had something like 70 runners with 7 seats paying. it got down to about 22 people and i had just below an avg stack with 4200 and blinds of 200/400. in the bb i got 52o and it folded to the sb who was sitting on about 2000. he just limped to my surprise and i checked. the flop came T43 and the sb checked. i bet my open ender and sb check/raised and i pretty much had to go with it so i 3-bet and sb 4-bet all-in. i assumed he had flopped a junky 2 pair or a half decent Ten but no, he had the almight K5o for no hand no draw but the best hand. i failed to improve and was crippled and went out 18th seatless.

i played the $26 8pm and was on a roller coaster for the first hour and it felt like a victory to have 2800 at the break even though we started out with 3k. early on in the 2nd hour i doubled up with KK vs AQo and was in good shape. i lost a few small pots and then a good sized one when i snap called a 11bb button push from a bad player with KJs in the bb. it's a definite muck but i'm a little rusty in these tourny spots and thought he was pushing a wide enough range to make it worth while. he was fairly weak with 77 and i lost the flip and a little less than 1/2 my stack. after that hand i got moved and played very bad. with about 12bb's i decided to make a blind steal w/ JTo from the hijak. the button called as did the sb who both had me well covered. the flop came down AKx w/ two spades and i had no spades. the sb checked and for some reason i decided to rep strength and bet out 1200 of my remaining 2k. the button immediately raised, sb folded and i pathetically folded getting a bazzillion to one on my last 800 chips. mistake 1 was blind stealing w/ 12bb's and mistake 2 was continuing a steal with no chips when getting called in two places. i shoved my 700ish stack w/ A9s utg after that and ran it into AQo and busted deservingly.

so during all this i was playing 4 tables of 100plo. i felt like i was playing well and was probably up quite a bunch before it came crumbling down and i lost a couple big pots playing deeper than the usual 100bb's. on one table i had two extremely loose passive players on my left that were absolutely killing me. they cold called every raise i made and never folded to a c-bet and i was often check/folding turns to them. i guess it's my fault cuz i didn't adapt in time and i probably should of started check/folding flops when i whiffed or maybe even just shut down the table altogether and find a better table.

so combined that with getting horribly outdrawn on in the 9:15pm $26 plo tourny i started to get a little irratated. (see tilted) so i made an executive decision to donk off my short stack in the plo tournament so i could shut down my cash tables before i started tilting. when i checked my pokertracker to see what i was up for the session in cash i was actually down $14 after being up close to 4 buy-ins or so. this pissed me off as well.

so i chilled out for an hour or so playing xbox and clearing my head. i came to realize that plo is just a massively swingy game and sometimes im going to be up and lose it back and sometimes i will be down a bunch and win it back. poker is just one long session that way and i don't need to worry about the wins and losses day to day or even month to month for that matter.

i logged probably another 300 hands of cash after my break and finished up $147 for the night in cash which felt good.

i haven't played since except for a little home game saturday night in which i finally one a game. we pretty much play a turbo sng with anywhere between 6-8 guys and most are chopped heads up according to chip equity. we usually only get 2 games in a night but we were all hyped up for the 3 games so i didn't get home till 4am. the first game was $20 buy-in and i busted w/ TT vs AKo. 2nd game was a $40 buy-in when i got short with high blinds i busted with KJs vs AJo. 3rd game was a $20 buy-in and i pwnd it outright for a cool $120. the final heads-up hand had me shove my opponent in with Q3o on a AQ8 rainbow board. he snap called me with 75soooooted and i managed to hold up. it's a good game. it's also the first game i've won outright in probably close to a year. :(

tg.

just had a thought

something i was just thinking. i've seen a couple posts on cardrunners about people spending there fpp's. i started getting extreme jealousy since i thought the fpp program was pretty sick when i decided that i could really just do the same thing with my fulltilt rakeback and save it up and let it sit in my rakeback account.

so i think i'm going to neglect cashing out my rakeback until i have a couple grand and then it will kind of be like a free roll when i want to cash it out and go to the wsop and play an event.

it also will act as an incentive to play more since the more i play the more rakeback i get.

two posts in a day! BOOONGGG

i suck so bad at posting

i've meant to write like 3 updates since the last one but keep forgetting. now i've forgotten most of it but here's a shot.

- had my first plo lesson last thursday and my second last nite. both went very well and im starting to feel very confident playing. im still making the odd horrid mistake but for the most part playing well. i've been up playing 100plo again and feel comfortable at this limit although i haven't had an opportunity to put a lot of hands in. pre-flop i've identified a few spots where i was playing too tight and my last nights session i played at 29/16 pretty much.

- i've played a couple tournies without cashing. i went semi deep the other night in the 7pm $75 but made a bone head play to cripple myself and then another bonehead play to dust off my remaining 4 bb's. i took a stab at qualifying for the $535 ftops horse event last nite but went out 8/8 in a $133 satellite.

- i had a lot on the go last weekend and never got to play so the number of hands i've been putting in is a little pathetic of late. if i want to get better and make actual money i have to start dedicating myself to putting in hands. i often only play when i really feel like playing and if im feeling a little bit lazy than a seem to use that as an excuse. from now on im going to set a goal for hands per month since on a week to week basis i might not have a set amount of time. my goal for now is 15k hands of cash plo a month + mtt's on the side. i won't really have a goal for mtt's since i will just play them sporadically when time permits. this month i've only managed 2k so far but im still gonna try and hit 15k somehow. my goal for december will probably be higher since i am off on vacation for a week around christmas and should be able to play a lot more.

- i've been craving live play lately and am also looking into possibly playing some smaller wsop circuit events if the times are right and my bankroll permits it. i'd probably need to hit some kind of score in a mtt or run well and move up in the cash games to be able to afford it. oh, and i've been looking into a vegas trip in more detail and have hope of going early in the new year.

- gonna play a wack tonight and might get a chance to play either a home game saturday nite or a possible casino visit for some 1/2 nl.

tg

a little bit of everything

played last night with mixed results.

once again i was back playing some mtt's.

i came 43/45 in a $75 45 person sng once again. action went limper in ep, i raise in mp w/ QQ and player behind me cold calls and the limper calls. flop comes 882 with two diamonds. limper checks i bet out about 2/3 the pot, cold caller min-raises, limper folds and i tanked for a bit before shoving. he showed JdTd and the rest is history.

i then reg'd for a $44 sng and came 17/45. down to about 27 i had about 12bb's and the aggy sb open shoved 6bb's into my bb and i called w/ K8o since he's shoving any two. he had 55 and i lost that race. i then went into short stack ninja mode and eventually ran my 4bb's up to 12 again. then i lost 1/2 my stack some how, doubled w/ 55 vs QQ (not a problem) and then ran 88 into AA. (a problem)

the 7pm $75 went well and i was pretty happy with my play. i ran it up early to about 5k and had about 6.5k at the first break. the 2nd hour was pretty sick as i had more than the avg stack and was still one of the shorties on the table. i got down in the 12-15bb's range a couple times and made some nice re-steals to chip back up. then with about 12k @ 250/500+a i opened the button to 1300 and was pretty sure the bb was gonna re-ship any two. the sb cold called the raise and sure enough the bb piled his 10k into the middle, i insta re-shoved and the sb folded. bb showed T2o but he flopped a Ten to knock me down to 2.2k. i short stack ninja'd again and doubled up w/ TT vs A9o that kept me alive for another orbit or so until i picked up 55 in the sb and min-raised shoved an ep raise. his AQ hit on the river and i finished 84/491.

during this time i reg'd for a $75 plo satellite into the $535 ftops event. it only got 9 entrants but since it was 6-max we played short handed to start. i pretty much folded my way to the final 6 after picking up one pot where i check/called the river with a straight flush and was up against a donk with the nut flush that was certainly going broke. down to 6 handed i won a big pot with top set against top and bottom pair. from there myself and one other guy had about 5k each with the other three players all left with around 1k. i pretty played tight and folded my garbage and before i knew it i was heads-up with one of the previous 1k stacks. we were about 50bb deep when i got it all-in w/ top and bottom on a A96 flush draw board and was shown top two w/ a club draw. so i just missed a seat there but made a whopping $11 for my efforts. i always seem to get 2nd in those sats and was really unsure about the flop play of the bustout hand.

the last tournament i played was the 8pm $26 and i bounced out of that 925/1210 when i raced off AKo vs JJ.

i tried to keep it around 4 tables all night so as i busted in a tournament i would open up a cash table. by the time i busted all my tournaments i was running two tables of 100plo 6 max and two tables of 100nl full ring.

in about 220 hands of plo i made about $109 after being stuck a buy-in early. couple hands in i got dealt AA24 double suited to the aces and got it all-in pre against AA46 single suited to an ace and lost when the board came 6xx6x. after that i won a massive pot after making a speculative call pre. ep (playing 1/2 a buy-in) limps, i limp behind w/ AQ44 single suited to the ace and the sb (big stack) raises pot, ep calls and i decided to call. flop comes 984 with two clubs. sb leads for pot, ep shoves, i shove over the top and sb makes the call. ep shows T7xx for a bare open ended straight draw and sb shows AQJT with three clubs for top wrap + nut flush draw. for the main pot i have about 44% equity and my hand held up to take it down. after that i beat up on a donk that kept buying in for 1/2 and getting stacked.

in nl holdem i only got about 115 hands in and lost $66. the only big hand occured when a player playing about a $65 stack raised in late position and i cold called with 9s8s in the cutoff and we took the flop heads-up. the flop came down a beauty Q88 rainbow and villain bet close to pot and i elected to just call. the turn was an offsuit K and villain once again fired close to pot and i put him in. he called pretty quickly w/ KQo and rolled a K on the river to drag the pot.

it was really fun to mix up my play between cash and tourny, holdem and omaha and it really kept my interest on the games the whole night where as i usually get disintersted from time to time when just playing one form of poker exclusively.

i hope to play a more balanced schedule like this in the future.

tg.

return to donkaments and found a coach

haven't played a whole lot in the last week and a half. i was busy most of the week last week so i decided to let my mind clear a bit and stay away.

i think since my last post i've dropped 2 buy-ins or so at 50plo. other than that it's been short little sessions where i broke close to even playing maybe 200 hands of 100plo, lost a capped pot in a 1/2 cap plo game ($80 cap) and busted in a few mtt's.

i kinda got a thirst for mtt's again after following the coverage of the wpt fallsview (which i failed to put a $1 towards qualifying for) so one night i played the $26 plo at 8:15 along with both the daily doubles on ftp. the play in the plo tournament was absolutely hilarious. i don't have the hh's to post but it was probably the worst play i've ever seen at any time in my life. i busted in that tournament 51st out of 211 when i ran double suited Kings into double suited Aces pre.

the daily doubles didn't last long, i got it all-in on a 8 high flop w/ KK vs QQ and villain rolled a Q on the turn and in the second one i don't even remember how i busted but it was 767/1193.

this past saturday i played the 1pm $75 6 max nlhe and it went fairly well. i feel very rusty playing nlhe but thought i came around a bit during this tournament. again the play was pretty poor and i chipped up to 5k from 3k just picking on one particulary bad player. i then raised to 150 utg w/ JJ, got cold called by mp who i know calls a lot of raises in position w/ suited connectors and what not, the button (another bad player) pushes for 800 total and i'm pretty comfortable calling him. then the bb wakes up out of nowhere and shoves for 3k so i fold and mp folds. button shows TT and bb shows.................55.

a little bit later i get JJ utg again at a different table. w/ a 6k stack i raise it up, mp makes a smallish re-raise of about 2.5x and the sb cold calls. mp has about 1.8k left after his raise and sb has about 4k. i had zero reads on either player but for some reason i was pretty sure i had mp beat. usually a smallish re-raise scares the hell out of me but i had one of those gut things that made me want to push to isolate. the only problem is that the sb could be trapping here. if he's good he probably has me beat but if he's bad he could have anything and would fold (or put it in bad) against a push. i ended up shoving when it got back to me and both players called. mp had ATo but the sb was trapping and had Aces. but luckily for me it was a donkament and i flopped an underfull to take down a big pot.

in looking back i think i should give both players more credit and just call pre-flop and see what developes.

i ended up going on a good run in that tourny but eventually busted 55th out of like 236. at the same time i also played a $75 45 person sng and lasted all of about 5 hands after i got it all-in pre w/ AKs against AA and KK. action went mp raise, i cold called in the cutoff, sb re-raised, mp shoved, i cold called all-in as did the sb. not sure i hate the call since i look weak calling the initial raise so mp might be shoving a decent range to isolate against the sb. sb definitly has a hand but it's not always going to be AA/KK. the only real worry i have with the hand is that i get it all-in sharing cards with one of the other players and have to outdraw the third players pair with less than 6 outs.

it was fun getting back into some touraments and i think i'll try to play a couple from time to time to break up the grind of cash games. tournaments provide that surge of adrenailine that you don't always get in cash games.

yet another ftops event is starting up this week and while i would like to play a few events im unsure if i'll get to. there is a $535 plo on saturday along with a few others that peak my interest but i'm going to be busy most of the day saturday and might not have a chance to satellite in and i don't see myslef dumping that big of a buy-in on a single tournament. so maybe some tournaments in the future but mostly cash games i think.

speaking of cash games i've found a plo coach. im going to have my first session this week and we'll see how it goes. im pretty excited about the experience in general as i feel that having a coach is the next step in getting better. books are good, videos are great but i don't think anything is better than having a better player sweat and teach you. i think it's how a lot of great players have learned from others and im hoping that the chemistry i have with this coach is a success.

i've set my short term goals (not really sure of the timeline) to be a winning player at 2/4 & 3/6 plo online. i think i can definitly acheive this and eventually i could work my way up to 5/10 but thats too far down the road to speculate about.

another thing i have to do next year is play at the wsop. i have to! no bullshit this year. i will go to the wsop and play at least one event plus side games but my goal is to play two events.

i'm also getting off my ass and scheduling a vegas trip for late January/early February as well.

things are happening.

tg

short update

have played a little less than 1k hands since i last posted and am down about 2.5 buy-ins over that time.

i pretty much dropped that in the first 100 hands or so and have played break even since. i talked about plugging some pre-flop leaks in my last post but now i'm playing pretty snug. actually im playing a bit nitty with a vpip in the 15% range. that's very very very tight for plo but it's probably still profitable in the lower stakes. the good thing is that my pfr% is still in the 8-9% range which means i'm staying aggressive.

only one or two bone head moves that cost me but overall im happy with my play. most losses were due to losing flips which is going to happen.

i'm going to play some more over the next two nites.

tg

life at the micro-stakes

so i've played a little over 2k hands back down at 25¢/50¢ with good results.


i've played better but still have had the odd brain fart where i stick it in horrible. luckily i've won a couple monster pots that have padded my stats. i'm still ironing out some of my pre-flop leaks and was over valuing hands like 9♥9♣7♦6♥ which are actually fairly weak holdings from up front.

Also, i've come to realize that drawing to the 2nd or 3rd nuts can get you in a lot of trouble. i've always known this when playing straight and flush draws but i always kind of figured that if i had a non-nut combo draw it was still plenty powerful. i couldn't be more wrong and in this hand i get it in with a mere 6% equity on the flop and manage to suckout.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1599148

here i make a the worst donkey call ever but somehow stuck it in. one of those times as soon as you click call you realize what you just did. posting mostly to embarass myself.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1619279

i've been trying to sneak in a few hands everyday at lunch since i want to get as many hands in as possible.

i'll play tonight and probably post more tomorrow.

tg

playing like shizzat

well i've continued to lose money at .50/1.00 to the point that i'm down over 18 buy-ins at like 6000 hands.

that's not good at all and i think it warrants a move back down to .25/.50 for the time being until i get my head screwed back on straight and start playing better.

i played about 1600 hands over the course of the weekend and lost $403. i was down more but won a bit back in the last couple hundred hands. i thought that i played decent but when i went through and did a thorough anaylysis of the hands in pokertracker i see that i'm playing like garbage. i kept a running total of $ that i lost due to poor play/tilt/lack of discipline. after reviewing all the key hands i basically gave away $503!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so if i played to my potential i would have been up a buy-in instead of down 4. and when i say potential i mean that i believe that i have a higher skill set than what i play at. for some reason my gametime decision making is lacking focus. always has and that's the issue i have to deal with. im also not saying my knowledge of pot limit omaha is vast or great but i think i have a better handle on it than most my opponents.

i played again last nite and ended up down $311 although i made about $250 dicking around at lunchtime playing 1/2 ha (1/2 pot limit holdem, 1/2 pot limit omaha). upon reviewing my play i once again gave away about $200 of the $311. it wasn't all bad though as i did lose the minimum on a couple of coolers.

i'll play again tonite and will most likely stick to .25/.50 and only 4 tables. i think anything more than 4 tables at once is severely lowering my level of play. i tend to add more tables to get more hands in since i don't play all that often but the quantity over quality scenario is certainly killing my EV.

tg.

not a good start

well here's my first 2600 hands at .50/1.00.



not good at all but i'm not worried either. i reviewed all the big losing hands so far and came to the conclusion that the loss is due to negative variance and bad play.

im not going to worry about bad beats or anything since that stuff will take care of itself but the bad play is unacceptable and really makes me dissapointed in myself. i can play better than i have and will have to in the future if i plan on having any success.

the play at this level is pretty surprising. it seems like every table has 3 or 4 uber maniacs that are just dying to give away money. i think part of my problem has been having a hard time adjusting to the aggressiveness. things like getting 3-bet constantly and having players make moves constantly post flop left me a little over whelmed. when i get over whelmed like that i tend to start making snap plays without thinking through and it's cost me.

i'm going to re-review the hands i've played so far to iron out what i'm doing wrong and go from there.

here's a couple of gems:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1569143 - this guy had my head absolutley spinning.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1569276 - the old 1 outer.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1569286 - bad play by me, i think i should be flat calling the flop raise and check/folding the turn un-improved.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1569295 - i was 90% sure i had this guy beat on the flop since he had been raising me on the flop with all kinds of bluffs but since i was down a bit and running bad i decided to wait for a safe turn before jamming. the turn isn't that safe and i jam it anyways. just bad play that needs to be fixed.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1569350 - and the biggest hand i actually won.

tg

movin on up

So i've played the last two nights getting about 700 hands in each night. this puts me pretty much at 10k hands for .25/.50 and since i'm winning and feel like i'm getting a good handle on the game i'm going to move up to .50/1.00.

here's the pokertracker details

and here's the graph

the graph starts off pretty rocky and i didn't get into the green until about the 5k hand mark but that's probably mostly due to learning the game. the graph is definitly more volatile than the old limit holdem graphs i used to do but it's also only 10k hands so it might straighten out a little bit over time.

the pokertracker stats pretty much round off to 21/12/1.9 which is probably pretty accurate to what i'm playing now. early on i think i was playing closer to 24 vpip and then tightened up to 17ish before slowly adding some hands to my range in late postion. i believe the last couple sessions i've been playing anywhere between 19-21 vpip. im also working on closing the gap a little bit between the vpip and pfr% but it will never be identical. i have started raising a little lighter in position against chronic limpers since i find that when playing plo position just dominates.

my vpip from position looks like this:

pretty standard i think although i'm losing more money in the sb than i should be but at the same time making more money in the bb than i should be. i'd like to get utg into the green as well.

i'll probably play quite a bit over the next few days and look forward to the next level.

tg

where are the swings?

for some reason my poker stamina is non existent. it seems like everytime i get an hour into a session im just beat and sit there watching the clock because i know i have to get more hands in. it probably has a lot to do with lack of sleep since my pup likes to get up around 6ish most mornings.

i'll play tonight and hopefully get 2 hours in. this past weekend i played about 1300 hands which isn't a lot. i was hoping to jam 3k in but fell well short. i also started 5 tabling at one point and did quite well with it although it's not ideal to do on my laptop. i want to move back down to my desktop where i can easily handle multi-tabling with no overlap and have a second screen to run quick sims after hands. the problem i have right now is that i've been taking a mass amount of notes on my laptop which are not transferable to my desktop unless i overwrite the year and a half of notes i've accumulated on that. i might be able to export them to another file and then manually put them in or something. pain in the ass.

so with 1300 hands played on the weekend it puts me at roughly 8600 hands played at .25/.50. as it stands now i think i will move up to .50/1.00 when i hit 10k although im a little weary. i think i have enough game to play that level and if i dump a bunch it won't affect my bankroll but i've yet to see the massive swings of variance that are to be had in pot limit omaha. i think i started off stuck 5 buy-ins but since then have steadily posted wins to the point where im up 6 buy-ins. i'll post all my pokertracker stuff including a pretty graph once i hit 10k. my last session of 1300 hands was a little rocky and i was probably down close to 4 buy-ins at certain points but managed to come out of it up a fraction of a buy-in.

this could be due to the fact that i play fairly tight but im unsure. 8600 hands is not a lot so i'll just keep concentrating on learning and improving and hopefully everything else falls into place.

hand time:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1537472 - i like my line here. i'm definitly committed against the short stack pfr but by just calling it gives me the opportunity to get away from it cheaply if acehogan was going for a c/r as well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1537465 - folds like this are becoming much more routine.

EDIT: pokerhand is down again so i'll leave the rest out for now.

tg

long session planned, short session played

had plans of putting in a good long session last nite.

it started well until i took a quick break and then went on uber life tilt. (couldn't find the remote, phone kept ringing...aaaaarrrrrrghhhhh) so i decided not to play anymore for the night since i wasn't in the right frame of mind and watched some poker after dark instead since negreanu was on.

i was hoping to get 800 hands in but only got 370. i finished up over 1.5 buy-ins which is good but it mostly all came from one hand. i was also having some internet issues which may have been the beginning to my life tilt episode since i was getting 3-bet and check raised liberally by this one aggressive player to my left. i finally pick up AAxx on the button to his sb, raise and ................................... watched those full tilt cards do the wave while i tried to reconnect.

a couple hands from last night. i tightened up a little last night since i've noticed that i have been giving a little too much credit to some poor holdings.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1529331 - 46% equity in a 3-way all-in pot pre has gotta be +EV. i love the chat during the hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1529338 - stab the flop to see if im good. they both play their hands like draws or two pairs so i fire again. on the river i just want to show it down.

i'm working harder at concentrating on every post flop decision. i often times drift into auto-pilot 15-20 mins into a session and start hitting bet/call/fold buttons as fast as i can. i don't have near the skill or the experience to play like that in a game like plo so i'm trying to slow everything down and am taking advantage of the time bank a lot more. this has been a fault of mine way back to my limit holdem days so it's a hard habit to break.

tg

snuck in some hands

wrote this a couple days ago but never got to posting it
*******************************************************

i managed to play 457 hands last nite. i felt a bit rushed at first but settled down and played decent after that.

one leak became very apparent last night as i twice paid off the nut flush w/ the 2nd nut flush. i was actually thinking about this before i sat down that i've got to be able to fold these hands. i guess im not fully used to being up against the nuts as often as it occurs in plo. i'll work on getting away from more hands like this but from a holdem perspective it's so hard to put a guy on a flopped nut flush when you're holding the King high flush.

i ended up just short of a buy-in again. i'll post some hands below. i've also been doing a lot of work with my pokertracker trying to configure it to better analyse my game. i'm working on setting up searchable hand categories like all AAxx hands or mid wrap hands. i'll post my pokertracker stats when i get to 10k hands. at that point i'll decide whether to stay at .25/.50 or to move up to .50/1.00.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1522697 - wrap vs set. pretty standard i think. 47.6% equity.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1522699 - i should probably just muck pre. i don't want to spike a 2 and even if i spike a T i'm not that happy.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1522720 - i play like trash. i just complete instead of raising since trashy KK is so hard to play post-flop out of position. i find when these loose passives limp the button they seem to get really stubborn about folding so i'd like a much stronger hand that will hit a lot of flops. decent flop so i stab and get called. on the turn i think i should either bet/fold or check/fold. i do neither and end up making a really poor pay off on the end.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1522735 - ok flop but not great. turn doesn't change much besides putting another flush draw out. i was quite catious because this player was not one to raise too much and i thought it was a very real possiblility that he had QTxx or a set that he was hoping to pair up with. on the river i only beat a bluff and against a more aggressive opponent i might call here looking to snap off a broken flush draw but i'm pretty sure this player has me crushed.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1522738 - should probably pass this even 4 handed pre-flop. hit a nice flop and get paid off for stacks w/ pretty close to air.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1522740 - pretty standard i think. im still 40% on the turn even though i miss. on the flop im 50.1% favorite! i managed to flip my chat on to see if he was berating my play and sure enough i was getting an absolute ear full.

tg

plo weekend

played quite a bit friday nite and saturday and recorded about 1900 hands in total. i think i played a little sloppy on saturday and kind of went against my rule of playing tired. i made close to 5 buy-ins at .25/.50 but lost 2 buy-ins in the span of 74 hands playing .50/1.00. the loss at .50/1.o0 was mostly due to 2 hands, once firing two barrels and giving up on the river and the second flipping pre w/ aces vs aces. the only reason i played .50/1.00 was because there were only 2 tables of .25/.50 going and i wanted to maximize my playing time.


i was hoping to stick strictly to .25/.50 till i got to 10k hands because im kinda anal when it comes to playing and sticking to certain limits. i don't like to spread limits during sessions as it lends itself to playing poor at the smaller limit since the gains and losses are less significant than the higher limit being played simultaneously. it's not necessarily a money thing, just more of a physcological thing.


anyways, here are the big/interesting hands from the weekend. some of the bigger pots i won i feel i played poorly and probably should have been folding instead of shoving/calling and some of the big pots i lost i thought i played well so screw being good at poker.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514739 - not sure if i should be folding to the 2nd raise pre or not. i don't think i can fold the flop since the lead out from that player could be anything.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514745 - none of my draws/made hand are all that strong but put together it's a decent spot to get the money in. i have 54% equity against his actual hand and if i give him something like top set i'm still 49%.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514755 - c/r the turn since i figured him for draw or a dry Queen that he would feel comfortable betting after i show weakness. unfortunately his dry Q is better than mine but i suck out. (22.5% on the turn to win)



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514757 - here im playing heads-up since the table broke down and i thought i had an edge on the guy. not sure what he's doing here on the turn. i thought this was standard but just looking at it now im not sure how much i like my turn bet. checking behind on the turn to induce a river bluff might be better.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514758 - fairly standard c-bet w/ a little potential, decent card on the turn and without getting raised i should probably check/call the river.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514759 - quads are hard to play.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514762 - pretty standard i think.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514768 - wow, i c/r the river a lot.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514793 - meh, i suck at 52/48's.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514797 - the flop isn't too bad for me so i decided to raise his weak lead. i exude some rookie hand reading skills and couldn't put a hand together that he would play like that. i thought he 3-bet a set all-in on the flop and i doubted he would lead call like that with a bare nut flush draw. im toast the whole way.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514801 - butchered this hand. i had been flopping a lot of sets and having the most horrendous turn card fall that i got frustrated and just threw my money at this pot. he basically gives me a cheap price to fill up and i shove on it. i think i can call the turn bet and fold if i don't improve.



http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514802 - i was pissed at myself when i raised this. my immediate thoughts after are to just call and fold the turn unimproved but when running the sim i actually have 48% equity against the nuts. if he would have had top set though my equity drops to like 38%.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514805 - i don't usually put villains on slow played flopped sets or straights when the flop has a flush draw and they don't raise. im not folding this hand on the turn though. i'm still 40% equity against 54xx here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514808 - standard for everyone to get it in here. i had no idea that i would actually be a favorite in this situation with 52% equity. it helps that they both have sets since it blocks some of there boat outs. against just top set we'd pretty much be a 50/50. on the turn i'm close to 81% after hitting my straight but the re-draw gets there.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514815 - we both get it in with the nuts and re-draws. my re-draw is stronger though giving me 60% equity in the hand. unfortunately his comes in and mine misses.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514817 - i hate life and money. i totally botched the river here. as soon as he check/called the turn i thought there was a good chance he had the nut flush yet i get greedy and try to extract more on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1514820 - meh, felt like he was slow playing a 3 or a boat. wrong read but good laydown none the less.

end post.

tg

shorter session

only about 250 hands. ended up just short of a buy-in.

here are the interesting hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1503640 - i don't usually raise like this from the blinds but did here just to change things up. i c-bet the flop w/ a weak top pair and get called. the turn doesn't complete any draws and i'm pretty sure i can get him to fold a wrap with another bet on the turn so i fire a 2nd barrel. on the river a 45xx hand gets there but i don't think he's calling on the turn w/ just a wrap. i doubt he has a set since he would of raised to protect it. i think he usually has a flush draw or weak two pair so i fire the 3rd barrel and take it down.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1503646 - a decide to limp behind a couple of limpers w/ trashy aces. i get a dream situation when it gets raised behind me and then the original limpers call so i re-pot and am shoving any flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1503659 - i raise it up utg w/ a semi-weak hand and get a big family pot with 5 calls. an ok flop with a pair and the nut flush draw. a get a single caller and improve to top two pair to go along with the draw. i make a weakish looking bet hoping to induce a shove but he just calls again. river fills me up and he unfortunately folds.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1503659 - take a flop heads-up in position. flop a vunerable top set and get check/called. the turn is the absolute worst card in the deck. i check behind hoping to fill up on the river or get to show it down for free. im not beating anything he bets on the river and am forced to fold.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1503770 - raise up a couple limpers in postion with a disguised hand and get two calls. i just give up on the flop since it hits so many hands and completely missed me. on the turn i spike a 6 to give me the 3rd nuts but the action in front is extremely scary. the table had been playing pretty passive and these two players limp quite a bit so KKxx and JJxx is definitly in their range. i can't see ice raising anything but a set here and i think for a while before finally folding. might have been a mistake but i'm pretty sure it's a money saving fold long term.

i hope to get a bunch of hands in this weekend so more to come.

tg

short plo session

fit in about 450 hands 4 tabling yesterday.

results were good finishing up just under 2 buy-ins. i just finshed reviewing most of the big hands so i'll post them here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1498267 - pre-flop i elect just to call since i don't have any suits to go with my aces. i've really tightened up out of position since hands like AAxx are so hard to play post flop out of position. flop is standard, bet the nuts and get called in two places. the turn completes a wheel draw but i'm not overly concerned about it and i feel i still have the best hand here the majority of the time. i check the river through since i didn't feel i was getting paid off by any worse hands. obv im wrong and i probably get another bet out of a passivley played middle set.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1498289 - take a free flop in the bb. i lead out on the flop to protect my hand from over pairs and possible wraps. i checked the turn originally thinking that i could very well be beat by a bigger 5 and checking might keep the pot smaller. reviewing it though i think i should probably just fire again and see what happens. he could have floated me with a big overpair or have low wrap that he's playing cautiously since the board is paired. if he raises me on the turn i can safely fold. the small bet on the turn really doesn't give me any more info so i call and decide to re-evaluate the river. i check the river and told myself i would call anything but a pot sized bet and sure enough he pots it. i time banked it for a while and finally decided to call. my original thought was to muck it but i couldn't get the thought of an overplayed big pair out of my head. also, i've under sold the strenght of my hand and he could be trying to push me off w/ a busted draw too. not sure about this hand though so i'll probably post it on a forum for other opinions.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1498317 - standard raise w/ decent aces in position. i'd like it a lot more if the aces were suited but a strong hand none the less. flop is fairly dry w/ a flush draw and i have two blockers. i fire out pot and get called in one spot. villain is a holdem player that will often call down w/ over pairs and what not. on the turn i pick up a straight draw but it also puts another flush draw on the board. i should be firing here again everytime since i believe i have the best hand a vast majority of the time. for some reason i puss out again on the turn and give him a free card. not sure why i did it but it's a bad play looking back. i might have been going for a check raise but can't remember. river is fairly meaningless as i doubt he cold called on the flop w/ two pair, a set or a dry 2. he could have had a 2 + a flush draw but im going to give him a chance to bluff at it for me. i called pretty quickly and he was weak the whole way.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1498328 - raisey daisy in position w/ a good hand. flop trips w/ top kicker and get it all-in. his 1/2 pot bet/shove made me think he had a 9 as well but i'm not folding just because he might already be full. as it worked out i have 66% equity against his hand. if he was full w/ 97xx or 77xx i still have 38% equity so im not in that bad of shape.

anyways, i've come across a really awsome plo blog that i'll link up shortly. the guy plays anywhere between 3/6 and 25/50 plo and writes up great analysis on hands he's played and why he played them like he does.

i've also been reading the book "the poker mindset" and it's a really great book. i'd suggest it as madatory reading material to any poker player.

tg

2k hands of plo

got about 2k hands in over the weekend 4 tabling on my laptop. im so used to having dual monitors that it's a real pain in the ass trying to review hands that i missed and what not with only the laptop screen. everytime i get in a big pot im trying to run the equity after the hand is over to try and get a feel for whether i was justified in sticking it in.

i got my pokertracker omaha working so i started going over my stats on saturday. i've been purposely playing uber tight because i think its best to learn a tight style first. that way you're not getting into too many marginal situations that you don't have the skill set to deal with. over the first 2k hands i played i had holdem like pt numbers so i worked on loosening up a little bit more in lp and on the button by adding in some good 3 card hands w/ a dangler.

i lost a buy-in over the 2k stretch of hands. in reviewing my hands in pokertracker and reading some posted hands online i think the one glaring weakness i have right now is overplaying weak combo draws.

if i flop a wrap or a weak flush draw w/ an open ender im sticking it in without thought and getting into some trouble. so i'll work to correct this and will adapt a little more of a fold button in these situations when i'm met with resistance.

here are the big hands of the weekend.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487765 - i really felt he was on a flush draw and decided that i was calling a shove on the river as long as it came clubless. this player seemed capable of shoving a broken draw on the end as well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487768 - i take a flop trying to crack aces and smash it. i have 63.5% equity on the flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487791 - villain in this hand was pretty bad and i've been pounding on him a bit so im going all the way w/ my aces.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487799 - hit another good flop and get it in as a 57% fav.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487821 - not sure about this hand. pokertracker tells me i have 46% equity which is good but im lucky not to be up against a flush draw that would kill a lot of my outs and bury my equity.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487825 - easy game.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487830 - loose call out of the blinds. i'm pretty sure im ahead on the flop but it's probably a check/fold on the turn since im not beating anything now.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1487960 - slight fav at 52.2% but such flipaments.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1490972 - and a good example of how i'm overplaying weak combo draws. yuk and puke all at the same time. 17% equity, gross! =(

im not frustrated at all and am really having a good time playing.

tg

haven't played at all

so in the last couple weeks i have barely played any poker.

a couple reasons for this:

1) my girlfriend has changed jobs and no longer works many evenings. this is when i use to play most or all of my tournaments.

2) i got my new puppy last week and he requires constant attention.

so i've basically come to kind of a cross roads. i might have one or two chances a month to play tournaments which doesn't cut it.

basically i no longer have large chunks of time to dedicate to tournament poker but i do have lots of small windows during the week when i can fit in 1 or 2 hour sessions.

soooooooooo, im going back to cash games.

but not nl holdem. i've decided to join all the rage and start playing pot limit omaha.

plo is a pretty fun game and it's going to be a very big challenge to become a winning player but i look forward to it.

i started messing around with it a couple weeks ago and started off pretty poorly. i started out playing like an absolute maniac at .50/1.00 6 max and lost several buy-ins by felting AAxx and KKxx hands.

it got me to thinking about my recent cash game failures and what the root cause is. i finally came to the conclusion that when i took my stab at nl 6 max games i was basically playing with ego and under the idea that i didn't have anything to learn which is ridiculous.

i didn't spend anytime reviewing pokertracker, posting hands or analysing play. i pretty much thought i was playing great and just tilting off massively when things were'nt going my way.

when i first started in poker playing limit holdem i got whacked just like everyone else. what i did to improve was study, read, post hands and moved down to the lowest limits and started from there.

so my plo journey starts at .25/.50 6 max. i'm going to play at least 10k hands before moving up or down. 10k is not a lot of hands but i have plenty of bankroll to handle these limits.

my current br is at about 13k after i took some more money off line to play some live sats to the wpt at fallsview casino near home here.

im not sure how many hands i've played so far because i haven't got my pokertracker omaha registered on my laptop yet. since i have the puppy and my desktop is downstairs i really have to play on my laptop upstairs to keep my eye on him and run him outside when nature calls.

i think im down somewhere around 2 or 3 buy-ins over 1500 hands on my laptop and im unsure of what the results look like on my desktop but i think the sample is pretty small. 2 of the buy-ins i've dropped are due to mis-reading the board so i have something to work on already.

i look forward to getting good at this game so from now on im going to be doing my best to record results and post hands here.

tg