It's Just Business

This month it's bad news and bad news. Poker went meh, as you'll see. In addition, however, I have been layed off from the internship I've held for two years. I won't go into too many details, as I'd like to keep potential options open at the company for future employment. But I will say this, it was not based on my performance, or lack thereof, "it's just business." Maybe things will have turned around by the time I graduate.

As for poker:

Tournaments:

# Played : 48
Avg Buyin : $4.88
Total Cashes : $151.37
ROI : -35.45%

Down about $80 in tournaments this month, nothing significant to say, other than it felt like I was playing pretty well. Standard tourney downswing, nothing to get excited over.


Cash Games:

Hands Played : 2,332
Profit/(Loss) : ($12.75)
PTBB/100 : (2.73)

This is the more concerning result, if over 2,332 hands you can get concerned about results. I was up over $30, had a 6.5 BI downswing, then recovered about $20 to get where I finished. Hard to say if I was playing very well. There were a couple standard cooler spots, but I think if I were on top of my game, fully focused and playing as well as I could have been, I may cut the downswing in half. On the flip side, I think I'm starting to get a bit better at making thin river calls:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (5 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop saw showdown

SB ($22.65)
BB ($10)
Hero (UTG) ($12.40)
MP ($6.40)
Button ($13)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, K
Hero bets $0.30, 1 fold, Button calls $0.30, 1 fold, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.95) 2, 9, 10 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.80, Button calls $0.80, 1 fold

Turn: ($2.55) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.50, Button raises to $4.30, Hero calls $2.80

River: ($11.15) 10 (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets $7.60 (All-In), Hero calls $7 (All-In)

Total pot: $25.15 Rake: $1.20

Results:
Button had Q, 9 (two pair, tens and nines).
Hero had K, K (two pair, Kings and tens).
Outcome: Hero won $23.95

Villain was running 46/0/2.2 over 40 hands to this point. The overall read I had developed in this time was that he was hyper-trappy/passive with big hands. Example is that he checked down 99 OOP on a 94667 board, after the turn put a 3 flush on the board. He didn't try to get one street of straight value. In other hands he was playing pretty aggressively postflop, considering he had never opened pre.

At the time of the call I was very unsure about the hand, and contemplated posting it on 2+2. I think now that this is a pretty good call down based on my read and the following reasoning:

First, his flop call means little. His turn raise, on the other hand, tells me he is repping the flush or maybe a straight with a flush draw (QJo , but certainly not 67o). Unless he has a weak flush that calls the flop bet, a raise here does not fit what I've seen of his playing style with made hands. Further, no straight and flush draw gets there on this specific turn other than QJs and 67s. He may be raising the 67s, but again, based on what I've seen of his playing style he's flatting here with the Q high flush.

Two thoughts enter my head on seeing this raise: 1) I've not yet seen him raise with the nuts before the river. 2) There are few other hands that make sense for him to have, outside of QJ, and maybe 67s.

River pairs the top pair on the board, making the board even scarier. He shoves his remaining stack in after I check. First thought in my head: God playing OOP sucks. Then I start thinking; he's not doing this with bare trip tens, my call on the turn would have scared him too much with three hearts out, and he has significant equity in the pot without turning his hand into a bluff. He could be doing this with any made flush, and any full house, but his turn play would still be suspect based on my reads of him at the time. At this point, my hand is a bluff catcher, since I beat none of his value shoving range. But getting a little over 2.5:1, I only need to be good about 29% of the time for this to show a profit (call 7 to win ~18 before rake). In this spot, based on my read from previous hands, I estimate his bluffing frequency to be near 40%, if not higher. So I called, and was right this time.

In the past, I'd fold this hand on the turn or river. I'm not sure if that means I'm getting better as a player, or if it means I'm rationalizing a bad call that turned out correctly this time. In any case, there were other questionable hands this month, but I think this was the most interesting.

Until next time.