so march was a good month and although i only got about 13k hands i felt i made great strides in my game. i ran pretty good i think and luckily suffered most of my bad luck while playing hu at 50nl.
i had a hard time putting in good long sessions after coming back from vegas so i took a couple extra days off from playing and just did some thinking about hands and also started to run some of my bigger hands through ev calculations to see if i was getting it in good. i find the practice has helped me a great deal and it's something i will be incorporating into my study habits on a full time basis. it's sometimes surprising how little/large your equity is in some spots when matching your hand up to a specific villains range.
so my first session of the month came last night and i played 4 tables of 100nl along with the $75 7pm mtt. i lasted into the third hour of the tournament before busting like a fool and double barreling like an idiot when i probably had zero fold equity.
i put in about 1k hands of 100nl though and had my best cash day ever racking up 7 buy-ins! this actually puts me over the threshold of 8k which was my target for moving up to 1/2nl. (40 buy-ins) i actually feel ready for 1/2 so i'll give it a shot in my next session. i'm sure the larger pots/wins/losses will be larger than what im used to but in my old days of limit holdem cash it usually doesn't take long before it becomes the new norm.
i've started a bunch of datamining of the 1/2 games so that the transition will be smoother. i've been running good so hopefully i don't get wacked when i go up but that's out of my control. i think i'll probably drop back down to 100nl if by bankroll drops back to 7k.
here are some of the big hands from my last session:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381604 - villain in this hand is a maniac and i've got notes on him from a mtt i played with him that he is rather reckless and poor. i've already stacked him once where he c/r me all-in on the turn with overs and a flush draw. i usually don't like calling here set mining but this guy was stacking off with a large range and our stacks are deep enough i think to make it profitable.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381730 - villain is a huge passive fish that gets aggressive on the turn and river. i didn't spot that T8 got there on the river since i was set on going for 3 streets with this guy. anyways, i'm not folding top set here to a fish since he is just as likely to have some kind of junky two pair. i was pretty surprised to see what he rolled over.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381761 - interesting hand. not a good flop for me since AK is now beating me and it's a big portion of both of villains range. when the flop gets checked thru im positive the original pre-flop raiser doesn't have a King. he's a cardrunners member and knows what he's doing and i think AK bets there a large portion of the time. turn is a brick and im pretty sure i have the best hand but check again since the 3-bet cold caller could still have a King that he was attempting to c/r with. once he checks again im pretty certain im good. i expect cr member to bet a lot of hands when checked to twice so i call and surprisingly the cold caller calls. KK could be out but i really doubted it. river i check again and its kinda disturbing when cold caller shoves his last remaining stack but i can't put him on a King here and with the odds im getting i call.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381783 - here i bet 2x pot on the river to try and get him to call and to my surprise he jams with garbage. weeeeeeeeeeee
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2381802 - i just got to the table but i've seen this guy open limp trashy aces so i label him as bad. after i bet the turn (for value) he's only got a few bucks left so i put him in. i'd usually check this behind on the river if we were deeper but since he only called down with little money left i read him as having a failry mediocre hand. woops!
next blog post will feature my venture into 1/2!
tg
