FU FTP

I just got creamed by the FTP RNG.

First up: I got check/raised all-in on the flop:



Next up:
flop: Bet pot / call. Turn: bet pot / call. River: 1/2 pot, ALL IN....reluctant call:

I can almost understand the turn call: at least then he had a gutshot, but the flop?


LAST: preflop, UTG raises I RR, UTG calls. UTG check/raises all in on the flop.


I swear 1/2 the yahoos out there think a preflop raise must only mean AK, so no A and no K on the flop = golden.

I have run AMAZINGLY HORRIBLE online over the last month. My roll has been severely depleted. SEVERELY. Like the lowest it's been since my first deposit.

And don't read this post wrong: I love love LOVE all these plays by my opponents. Just the magnitude of the suckouts was kinda gross.

Oh, this was over 3 tables, over about an hour. And only the highlights. :)

Live 6 max this weekend

Sunday should be interesting: one of the guys on the Microsoft poker discussion list is putting together a regular deep stack 6-max home game: $0.25/$0.50 blinds with a $100-$200 buy in.

And I honestly have no idea what to expect. I know the guy organizing it plays higher than that: he's a Tulalip $3/5 regular. And I don't know if that means he's better than $1/2 players, or that he just has the money to risk more. I mean - I never felt out matched at the $3/5 games: I don't believe there's a ton of skill difference from the average $1/2 player to the average $3/5 player.

I'm not used to short-handed play, and am not sure what types of adjustments I'll need to make. I'm honestly anticipating come out of there lighter: I'm really hoping the caliber of play is going to be higher than I usually play. I need to learn more about this game, and if I play better players I'm bound to both learn, and lose - for a time at least.

The main difference won't be the stakes, though, but the stacks: I'm not used to playing against maybe one other deep stack. I don't know how much to adjust my play because of that.

I may do some strategy reading online the next couple of days, hoping to find something that'll help me out somewhat.

Live play: Tulalip $1/$2

Over the past 1.5 months I logged 7 live sessions, with 2 wins and 5 losses for a grand total of -$257. Not great. Not horrible, but not great.

I had been playing very well, I thought. But I took last weekend off, and the week away from the tables gave me time to reflect, and found what I thought were some leaks. Well, the two major ones were: 1) playing too many hands, and 2) bluffing players who were incapable of folding top pair no kicker. Simple stuff. Basic discipline.

Tonight, I logged two wins: 1 for $676, and one for $28 (at a local casino playing $2-40 spread).

Tulalip $1/$2.

Got sat not ten minutes after arriving, which is awesome. When I got to the table, I had to ask again if it was 1/2 or 3/5: two players had over $500 in front of them. One woman had $500 in green $25 chips alone! You don't see this too often in a game with a max buy-in of $100.

Table seemed pretty gambly, which meant that the best course of action was to tighten up and pick my spots; avoid marginal hands OOP, and value bet my strong hands on every street. Standard poker.

Pot of the night:

UTG with 44, make it $6 to go and 3 of us go to the flop:

FLOP: 934 rainbow

I don't like to slow play here: I lead out $10; folds to the button who raises to $30. I'm guessing an over pair, and knowing what I know from him in the past, he'll call most anything I put out there if he's got an over pair. I raise to $80, and he re-raises to $180.

This re-raise really got me. I took my time and thought about this. I started the hand with about $320. I start to consider whether I've got the underset: whether he really has 99. I begin to wonder how deep our stacks need to be to consider folding a set here.

Once I decide to call (spread-limit, so betting is capped after the 3rd raise), I take a little time to count out the chips and figure out how to get him to call for the rest of my chips: if he's got 99 then oh well, I reload.

I say "I call, and I'm all in blind on the turn." He INSTAcalls.

TURN:
[934] 6

RIVER:
[9346] 9

Villain: shows 88 for two pair, 8's and 9's
HERO: shows 44 for a full house, 4's full of 9's.

I've played this guy like 3 times over the past couple months, and won large pots from him each time. He says that here he put me solidly on AK, and figured I was trying to push him off his hand. It's amazing that he didn't consider the fact that I could have simply had 99/TT/JJ/QQ/KK either!

Thing is: in this guy's eyes, I'm the guy that raised on the button with 64o and almost cracked his KK when I flopped 2 pair (over a month ago). In his eyes, I'm the guy who will call or raise with seemingly any two cards, and an UTG "standard" 3x's raise means AK or some odd 10-7 or 9-6 etc.

Somehow, to him, I'm the guy who tries to buy pots with big bets. He apparently hadn't noticed how locked-down I was playing this session. Of course, this was also helped by the fact that earlier in the session I re-raise-shoved on the flop with nothing but a draw, was called, and got there. Thing is, in that situation I read the hands perfectly and was a mathematical favorite to win. He saw me push with a draw; I saw me value-betting. He probably considers me reckless.

I'm happy to have this reputation! :)

SO out of shape

Played the Riverchaser's tournament tonight. Oh BOY am I out of shape tournament-wise. I forgot simple things like stealing. And restealing.

I made it as far as I did, honestly, due to one supremely lucky hand.

I got home a lot later than I had anticipated, and was still cooking dinner when we started; I missed about 5 minutes or so. 48th hand I was logged in for, I have JJ in MP. One limper before me, I pot-raise, button (who's been playing over 60% of the hands) calls, and the limper calls. Flop is T33. Limper checks, I bet 3/4 pot, button min-raises, limper pushes. I know I'm behind, and decide "wtf" because, quite honestly, I was tired and hungry and if I'm done I eat in peace and start on my paper. I called. Button called.

Limper: AA
Button:Q3 (trip 3's)
Me: in 3rd place.

There's always the turn, though:


I love a good suckout after a hard day's work. That vaulted me to 1st in chips (I had been 3rd or 4th from the bottom before this hand).

Not much excitement. I have one hand that I apparantly confused my opponent: I raised from MP, got called by CO. Flop is JJ2 rainbow; I check-call a 1/2 pot bet. Turn is a 9, and I lead out with 1/2 pot. CO takes their time, types "?" and ends up folding. I'm curious what they had.

I blinded out for a while without getting a heckuva lot of playable anything, and as I mentioned at the start - stealing has left my vocabulary a bit. I need to warm myself back up to tournament play, as I felt totally paralyzed.


And the Screw of the Night™ in the cash game: I flop trip 6's and get it all in by the river:


Awesome.

Thanks to riggstad for the shoutout on BDR; and I won the 2nd Riverchaser's TOC, millerd33 won the first. Oh, he doesn't have a blog yet....nvm...

Interesting stats:

Poker Tracker stats for just over 21,000 hands, of all combinations of starting hands I've played:

- I've won more with 54o than all other hands except 7
- I've won more with JTs than AKs
- I've won more with 75o than AQs
- I've won more with 7's, 8's, and 3's (each, not combined) than 10's


...perhaps this is either just fluke stats, or an indication that I'm overplaying big unpaired cards?

I think maybe I'm not that good

I lost a bunch online this weekend. A couple years back I had made a pledge to never play on Sundays - for whatever reason, I took more horrible beats on Sundays than any other days. I played super-early Sunday morning (5am) and did great, but between 4 & 8pm over a couple sessions I dropped about 5 buy ins.

Unfortunately, only 2 of those were gross beats; the other 3 I pretty much paid off way too many winners. I shoulda stopped playing way before I did. Discipline is lacking; I see myself playing poorly and think I can change it and get better. I haven't been able to much lately. Tilt, I think this is referred to as. :)

Roll isn't near as healthy as I'd like, so I'm in rebuild mode. Not in danger of busting, but if I run like that too much I will be. For a little while I won't be ashamed of small hit and runs. I'm also focusing on fundamentals: will likely drop the 2nd table, and play more conservatively.

This hand was a dream, though - AA in the BB, 2 limpers called my raise. Then... ah, hell, see for yourself:


Flop gets checked around. Turn, "Lost with AK" shoves. Guess he wanted to chase out flush draws (too late!). I think of coming over the top, but I'm hoping button has a flush so I just call, as does the button. I shove the river, and get called. Awesome.

That was a $25 pot. I took the $17 profit (I bought in for $8), and left. I'm roll building, and until I can move back up to dime/quarter, I'm going by the Ferguson Challenge rule that if the money in front of me is 10% or more of my roll, I have to leave when the blinds come around. And, unfortunately, $25 is more than 10% of my roll, so I folded a few crap hands and left when the bb came back.

Heater

UTG+1 standard raise to $0.35. I re-raise to $1 with QQ. SB calls. Original raiser re-pops to $4.

I don't like my position here. I hate to lay down QQ, but I take my time, and fold. We've both got very deep stacks for this game, and if a flop without an A or a K comes, it's going to look safe and I'll get stacked if he's got AA or KK. If he doesn't, then so be it and I lost a buck: there will be better opportunities to get my money in.

I guess that can be an easy fold, but it didn't feel like one. I wonder what I would have done if we each started with $8: would I shove here, or fold?

Definitely glad I folded though:



Was on a bit of a heater tonight, as I left this table with $29, left my 2nd table with $8.55, and later on sat down at a table and had this happen on my 2nd hand:



I re-raised preflop, he called/called my flop bet and I got it all in on the turn.

Left that table at $24.

Tulalip in 12 hours!