A reflection

Last night I played a longer session with bad results. I was committed and beaten in several "what can you do pots", made a very savvy check behind against what I correctly saw to be a suited connector on a combo draw, made a classic "call-to-commit" with aces on a dry board to have the guy hit the hidden part of his five-outer, and lost maybe 2.5 buy-ins due to loose and passive play in large pots. Sigh.

Nonetheless I recognized some problems that I will work on next session.

1. I am not tight enough to 3bettors OOP preflop. You can only outplay yourself there.
2. I did not play fit-or-fold right against a bad LAG. I should have been setting him up with check raises with good hands, not pushing teeny edges.
3. My river sense is gone. I spewed there and failed to protect a few hands with position raises and semibluffs. You can only make up for that with river calls infrequently.
4. Nano-tilt. One bad decision can often encourage the next. I need to recognize it and batten down.
   

Adjustment.

1. Practice 4 table play for some time tomorrow.
2. Adjust to tighter UTG/MP opening ranges. Open raising like 12/16/28/50 from the non-blind 6-max spots.
3. Watch some videos on these subjects.
   

The longish story on flopping top pair with a good kicker.

Recently I saw a posted hand exemplifying the poster's difficulty with responding to check-raises with top pair, good kicker hands like KQ. I instantly saw the connection with an old hand of mine from the "lost databases".

The last real AHA! moment I had as a player was against a straightforward, weakish TAG at $1NL. I raised with QQ in the CO and he called in the SB. The flop came something like Th6d4h. He checked, I led out for the pot, and he minraised. Without much thought, I flat-called. The turn brought a 7s and the villain bet again.

At this moment, I looked at the bet and saw I was committed to showdown if I called. I looked at the villain's stats, saw that he almost always folded to continuation bets, almost never defended his blind, and played for pot control on the turn most of the time.

Instantly- like a bolt of lightning- this came to me: I should have folded on the flop. There was just no reason to continue in this hand. Moreover, the turn bet made it 100% certain the villain either hit his set or had a pair bigger than mine. But the only worse hand he had on the flop was JJ and I would have to call at least two bets to see a showdown against that range- I'm not sure he wouldn't check-call AA on many turns.

As trivial as it might seem, this was a watershed moment for me- and I am a worse poker player now than I was then. I could suddenly interpret an opponents actions well enough to fold an overpair to the board on the flop even when it was fairly benign.

Of course, TPGK on a semi-coordinated board is another thing entirely. But, like the decision above, the entire hand comes down to your opponents hand range once he calls your raise preflop and his postflop style.

And indeed, the texture of my decision making with those hands transformed after my AHA! moment. Suddenly, many more lines were available to me. For example, if a villain is very tight preflop and very aggressive with his made hands and draws on the flop but fit or fold otherwise, it's tough to get value from him without a monster on a semi-wet board. This might be a spot to take a card and try to induce action. There's not a lot of turn cards that move you off of TPSK, after all.

... I could do this for a ton of styles and hand ranges, but it really comes down to this: the better a player is, the harder it is to play TPGK against him, even in position. The reality is that you have to have more data to play it well and even then, it's a volatile spot.

With no read, it's just marginal. That's not to say it's not worth thinking about, but I think it is something that a good player must accept.T he nature of no limit can sometimes make TPGK tough to play in NLH, even when you have position. the more exact your read and the more experience you have in that spot, the better it works out for you. But it's still only picking up a few bucks here and there.

The sleepy lion returns.

I went spend crazy this weekend, buying a nice new office chair with lumbar support, a new monitor, and a backup hard drive.

I have also played a heap few more sit n gos. They have sat and gone a little worse than I would like. I am using SNGWizard to check my performace- I have made some loose shoves (always a problem for me) and have been gun-shy shoving from the small blind and button with a short stack- but I have also caught some really tough breaks on the bubble and in three handed play.

Basically, when the tournament is down to 3 or 4 people, the value of NOT losing is much higher than the value of winning, so responding to conditions and player tendencies is very positive EV. If you're doing it correctly, you pick up a ton of chips and when you get it all in you are doing it with a positive expectation overall. But, the cards have not been falling that way. Today was a big improvement, but I am still short more than a few buy-ins this week. That's life.

On the bright side, I made a deep run into a shootout tournament this morning. Shootouts are fun- you need to win the table to advance to a new table until there is just one remaining. The $5 buy in field was incredibly weak. I just killed these clowns. I ran well and made it to the penultimate round of tables, but ran into a wave of tough breaks. Nonetheless it was a nice cash.

25 NL is going very, very well. Having watched videos and posted on hands has improved my understanding of this game immensely. I am eager to see the results in my old stomping grounds, 100 NL.

In the PC, the mighty PC...

... the problem persists further.

My PC is busted. After two reformats with "all the fixins", there were still substantial errors on my hard drive. This is sucky. Although, after the second reformat my sound drivers were installed incorrectly, so all the sounds acquired a Floydian reverb quality. Playing FreeCell was like listening to an interactive "Dark Side of the Moon".

I sent it in for repairs to some guys who have a shop at the creepy end of the U District. They seemed to be bullshit-free so, I like my chances of getting it fixed. They said Friday at the lastest. Yay.

Still, I have played more than a little. And I have been KILLING IT. I have made up for my Full Tilt Downswings by ripping up pokerstars. I've been playing a few things:

• $25 and $50 NL. I have been grinding it well there. Who knows if I am playing differently or just running well. Right now, I'm just glad for the change.
• $15+$1 Turbos on Stars. These games are a cakewalk compared to turbos on FTP for a couple reasons: one extra level of blinds, antes instead of a blind up, and a more even distribution between poor players and multitabling grinders. I can beat the entire group of them, but with many more poor players around there's more money lying on the table. Thanks both to my edge in play and a huge amount of good luck, I am running up and down these games 30% ROI over the month... 15% higher than my expected result on FTP at the same stakes. I am in the money in 9 table games 42% of the time and finishing first more than half of those.
• Baby stakes pot limit Omaha. I don't understand why people like a game that plays the same as big bet poker but gives professionals an even bigger edge. I am nowhere near to "grokking" play in this game but it is fun. A few observations:

1. The change in hand value from preflop to flop is enormous. But, that is a relative thing. If two hands of the same type, their relative value seems to stay the same or increase in difference most of the time. A wet flop favors the wettest hand that hits it pretty hugely.
2. Nobody gets the outs in this game at the microstakes. Not nut outs are not outs, they are minus outs for your opponents. Which is about the same for bluffing, but way different for calling.
3. Showdown value changes radically. Hands can basically become worthless in one card.
4. Position is superhuge. Because of the radical change in hand values, position is an even bigger premium than in big bet hold 'em.

• Badugi. This game is ridiculous. It's structure like hold 'em, but with no board cards. The goal is to make the "worst" four card hand. Hand rankings are always in combination (like razz), except that suits matter. All hands with four different suits beat all hands with three and so on. Aces are low, so the best hands are four suit A234, A235, A245, A345, 2345, A236, and so on. Given the number of draws, the complexity of hands, and its format, it is basically lesson in hand reading, pricing opponents in, and pot odds.
  
• HORSE. I am pretty good at playing weak tight and fishy opponents in all these games. I will be good enough to get winner in the "for a living stakes" pretty soon.
  

I have been watching a ton of poker videos. I was home sick the past two days, so I just got through a ton. The "intermediate poker course" on stox has been fantastic. They have basically isolated and dissected the two most difficult concepts in playing deep stack big bet poker and hammered them out. The first is recognizing where villains leave value on the table to allow you to bluff and draw. The second is finding good value bets. A good example of how well this informs your game can be found here.

I also watched a few cardrunners freebies and this one by OMGClayAiken, poker supergenius. Although his site has the least content of any of them. 1/2 of them are by Galfond himself. I love the way he plays and thinks, so I am consdering joining up.

I'm feeling better- well enough to plan and meditate, at least. So hopefully once I get my hard drive fixed, I can resume my game and get back to work.

Session.

Today I played for a little while: two hours of tournaments and cash games. I did pretty well for myself.

Here are my big cash game hands from the day. I should also make the point that the autoreplayer ALWAYS has positions wrong at this point. I am definitely not the guy labeled HERO on most hands.

I did alright in the single table SNGs, and then I won a two table tourney.

All in all it was a nice night for me. I made some goals and I started towards them. Off we go.

Pre-strategy. An end of month summary.

As far as first months go, January of 2009 did not go great or even well. I lost money overall trying to adapt my rusty, unsteady my NLH game to the modern $25NL 6max. At $10NL, limit, and in tournaments, I was a winner, but not enough to compensate for my craptacular results in $25NL.

To put it in perspective, the amount I am down is roughly a bad night at $3/$6 limit hold em, or a live tournament buy in:$100. The Kirktholemew J. Thompson of April 2008 cackles at the thought of lamenting a loss of that small size. Nonetheless, it sucks and it's kind of quaint that money the size of a medium pot is now a good or bad month.

I will go into details about zee plan for the next month and overall evalutation by the end of the weekend.

BLARGH to the hand range haters.

After a nice session last night- I logged nice wins in NLH, limit, and some tourneys. I shut down the computer feeling pretty good about my play. I posted a couple hands from the past few days on the forums and got decent feedback.

This morning, I woke up and started playing 10 NL to practice 8 tabling (my problem is not feeling lost or overly busy now, just not quiiiite fast enough, so practice makes perfect) and a more fundamentally disciplined no limit hold 'em style without detriment to my somewhat light bankroll.

A few observances.

1) I have been running horribly with my overpairs when they get their action from loose players- these are the guys overpairs are made to bet into!

2) I myself am very, very loose in early postions. I need to get back to my original ranges. I have no need to balance or raise in early positions. KTs, QJo. All in- THE MUCK! I need to practice this, perhaps with shorter tables. Time to build and practice a core strategy.

3) I need to talk to the shippo more. I play better with his advice.


QQ in the small blind, short stack (35 BB in the BB). THinking, steal capable button raises, I reraise (automatically) (12 BB, probably), big blind shoves. Button overshoves. Given that BB can be reisolated, I 3-bet light and button knows both..... does this become the snapcall that I made it?

Pot is 82 with 17 to call. Side pot is 60 with 60 to call.

Villains show the two better pairs. BB I put on 99+, AJs, AQ+. Button I put on AK+, JJ+. reasonable?

Derek Heater.

Two hours of play today ran positively swimmingly at both.

First hour of $25 NL Griding. 60 bucks I barely deserve (even after blowing a stack- badly, terribly- against a loose and fast player).

One hour of 12 tables SNG action: 50 bucks. I even mouthed off back at a guy. Anybody who shoots their mouth off on SNGs had better be aware of Sharkscope. Basically, I know whether or not you lose money playing poker. So, umm, yeah don't tease me.

I only played about 1k hands of live play to day- some of the swingiest of my life. In part this was because today marked the first sweat session shippopotamus and I did together. Talking, thinking and playing poker with him is fantastically fun. Tomorrow morning, I will post the sickest beat I've ever seen, as well as some stuff about my play. To boot, I think my game was a little off. I want to go over some decisions in my tournament play a little more carefully.

I watched a couple vids today by Pokey and Code7654321. The basic no limit stuff is a good place for me to start right now-- I have been away from it too long. I also read and posted a ton of hands. Including one I am terribly embarassed by (I overplay AJ- a hand called "parking lot" because of its weakness against narrow raising ranges- against a fishes three bet. yuk). I also listened to a short treatise by "The Bryce" on good poker. Surely "the" belongs in front of no other first name as much as his.

The best part of my "fantasy poker"- I thought the advice I was receiving from other players was bad and Matt Matros -a "famous" pro- said I played it right. Shippopotamus said that when he read it, he imagined Matros' book jacket photo winking and saying "You played it perfectly!"

Ship it.