A Winning Day

Today's Results: $85 in 2.75 hours

Ran ok to start the day this time, had QQ once in my BB with a straddle by UTG, took down the pot preflop with a raise over 3 limpers.  Had AA an orbit later, but it folded to me in the SB.  Had QQ again about two orbits after that; open UTG to $10, get 3-bet by an older guy (everyone at the table was 40+ except me) who is on the button to $30.  I call with ~$105 behind, flop is KJTr and I check/fold to his pot-sized flop bet.  He seemed pretty aggro in general and had a massive stack the entire time I was at the table, but that was the only 3-bet he made all day, so I figured to be drawing slim.

Blind down to around $85, pick up black fives in MP.  Limps around and I limp behind, we see the flop 9-ways in a limped pot (lol, family pots).  Flop comes Tc9c5d, checks to me, I bet $10 (should have been 15 or 20 on a fairly coordinated flop 9 ways), get 3 callers.  Turn is 8h, not the best in the world for me as QJ just got there, but I lead for $35 anyway with around $40 behind and everyone folds and I win the pot.

Two orbits later I pick up black AA on the button.  3 limps to me, I open to $16, one caller who seems pretty fishy, though I hear from some other players that he typically plays $2-$5 NL and is one of the "bull-shitters" of that game.  Flop comes T93r, he checks, I bet $25, he calls.  Turn comes T putting up two clubs, he bets $100, enough to put me in, I insta-call.  He has JJ, river is Ah, and I'm finally up semi-substantially for the first time this summer.

Play for around another hour with nothing too significant happening and winning very few pots.

Summer Profit Total: ($149)
Current Bankroll: $351
Total Time Played: 9.25 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($16.11)

More Losing

Today's Results: ($59) in 3.25 hours

Ran pretty shit again to start the day.  Nothing happened for the first few orbits, just junk mostly.  About forty five minutes in, I pick up T7o in the BB and we see a limped pot 5 way.  Flop comes AT7 with two clubs, the small blind leads for 1/2 pot, I call, another guy calls, and the fourth guy raises and we all call.  4 way to the turn, which is the Qc, SB checks, I check, third guy leads this time for 1/5 pot, flop raiser folds, SB folds, and I call trying to spike a T, 7 or hoping to check down the river.  The river is the 3c, I check and the other guy checks behind and shows 89cc for the flush.

Hovered around that level for another 20 minutes or so, then get moved to another table.  Keep getting shit hands, folding for another 40 minutes before I pick up TT in the BB.  2 limps to the SB, he opens to $10 with ~80 behind, I cover.  I call, one limper calls, and we see a 542 rainbow flop.  SB leads $15, I call, limper folds.  Turn 4 completing the rainbow, SB thinks for a bit and then checks, I bet $25 and he calls.  Turn is a 7, he checks, and I shove the rest in, he thinks for a bit, sighs and calls, asking me if I have a four.  I say no and flip over my tens, he flips over jacks, and I'm now down to about $35.

The very next hand I pick up KK in the SB and slightly better than double up to $85.  For the next 20 minutes, I blind back down to $68 and pick up red kings again. I open to $10 from MP and get two IP callers.  Flop comes T87r, I lead $20 and both call.  Turn comes 8d, putting out 2 diamonds, I shove my last $38 and this time only get one caller.  I show my kings, and hold for the 3o river.  I'm all the way back up to $160.

Over the course of the next hour, I open TT, get 3 callers, and fold when led into on an A high two tone flop,  open AQo and check fold a KK8 two tone flop.  From there on not much interesting happened and I just hovered around $140 for a while.

Summer Profit Total: ($234)
Current Bankroll: $266
Total Time Played: 6.5 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($36)

Online Poker

I've gotten back into online poker a bit of late trying to regain some confidence after my live losses.  I recently got a 35% rakeback deal at Carbon Poker and so I've been playing a few hours here and there with some decent results.  It's a little to early to post any graphs because at the moment it's just a heater over about 1500 hands for the last 3 days, but if it keeps up and I move up in any significant way graphs will surely follow.

Rough, Quick Day

Today's Results: ($100) in 1 hour

Felt like I ran pretty terrible today, even though I got some premium holdings.  I played a total of four hands during the hour.  First hand at the table I'm dealt AQo in the CO and raise a limper, take it down pre.  Then I blind down to around $95, get AJo in the SB, one guy opens to $10, a loose-passive player calls on the button, and I call.  3-handed flop comes T76 two tone, and I c/f.  Blind down to around $80, pick up AA in the Cutoff, make it twelve over 4 limpers, everyone folds and I make $10.

Then blind back down to $83, pick up QQ on the button.  5 limpers to me, I pop it to $15, get 4 callers.  Flop comes 985 two tone, big blind leads for $15, the guy behind him raises to $40, two folds and I shove my last $68 (too short to consider folding an overpair with an stack-to-pot ratio of 1 after the preflop action.  Big blind re-shoves around $200, other guy calls instantly, and I'm essentially dead vs the Big blinds flop set of 9's and the other guys' flopped straight with a flush draw to boot 76s.

Gonna take next weekend off I think and try to get my head right.  I'm pretty sure I'm just running poorly, but it still messes with your confidence to lose 2 sessions out of 3, with the winning session not all that successful either.  Maybe I'll work on my game online some.

Summer Profit Total: ($175)
Current Bankroll: $325
Total Time Played: 3.25 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($53.85)

Take Two

Today's Results: +$25 in 2 hours

I started off well today, over-limping KQo the first hand I was dealt.  Flop rolls out QT7r and I lead $10 5-handed (3 checks in front).  One caller, who check/folds to my $25 turn barrel on a Kh, which put two hearts on the board.

Next orbit I find AQo and raise to $11 from UTG +2 8 handed.  One caller in the CO, same villain who called my KQ flop bet.  He folds to my $20 c-bet on KT7tt.

An orbit later I'm sitting on about $115 and pick up black AA in UTG and open to $11.  UTG+1, a competent but somewhat weaker female TAG flats, and the table hyper-LAG in UTG+2 squeezes to $31 (was probably playing close to 50/35).  Table folds around, and I could call, but we would go to the flop 3-way.  I probably should be ok with that and hope someone hits TP on the flop, but instead I elect to 4-bet, and the only option there is to ship.  Two folds later and I'm up to almost $160.

I reach my peak of about $180 about an hour into the session, and then I open once with AKo, flat a couple opens with AKo and 66 and miss all three flops and drop down to the $135 range.  Blind down a little further and decide to call it a day with a modest win so that I can prepare for the annular solar eclipse that will happen a few hours from now here in ABQ.

Hope next weekend treats me a bit better, but I do need to play a bit more aggressive during my sessions; this session was hampered significantly by the LAG two to my left.  I would have liked to take advantage of his style more, which a couple people who had position were able to do.

Summer Profit Total: ($75)
Current Bankroll: $425
Total Time Played: 2.25 hours
Hourly Win Rate: ($33.33)

First Day Back in the Game

I went down to the casino today.  Unfortunately, I didn't stay as long as I would have liked.  I ended up only playing for about fifteen minutes and losing my entire $100 buyin.  Nothing special happened, I had gone through the blinds once and raised/4-bet shoved AKo into QQ against the most active player at the table (he had played 7 hands in the 12 or so hands I had seen, and at least 3 raising or 3-betting).  Not much you can do about that.  I'm planning on heading down tomorrow as well, hopefully it goes better.

Summer Profit Total:  ($100)
Current Bankroll: $400
Total Time Played: 0.25 hrs
Hourly Win Rate: ($400)


My next buyin will be for $100.

My NM Summer Plan

I will be returning to New Mexico for the summer this year before returning to California to finish my Masters' degree in the fall.  In addition to working, hanging out with friends, and everything else I plan on doing, I am also planning on trying to get back into the live grind.  The rake in NM is lower than here in CA, and I think that suits my style a bit better, especially since I will be playing on a short bankroll.  Below is an outline of my plan to get back into the game.

Starting Bankroll:  $500.

This is a predetermined amount that has been agreed upon as an acceptable amount to be willing to lose.

I plan on using a 5 Buy-In rule, with the exception that my buy-in never be less than $100, and applying that rule only in $100 increments of my bankroll.  The breakdown is as follows:

BR <  $600  -  Buy-In for $100.
$600 < BR < $700 - Buy-In for $120.
$700 < BR < $800 - Buy-In for $140.
$800 < BR < $900 - Buy-In for $160.
$900 < BR < $1000 - Buy-In for $180.
And once my bankroll exceeds $1000, I will buy in for the maximum, $200 at $1/$2 NL.
I won't plan on moving up at all during the summer months, I just don't think I'll have the time to generate the bankroll required (I'd want >$5k to move to $1/$3).

I'm hoping to play at least 10 hours a week for the summer, but that might be ambitious.  I will post an update for every session I play.  I plan on having my first session in the middle of May, something like the 20th sounds about right.

If things go well, and I return to CA with a roll of >$1500 or so, I would like to try to use some of it to play once in a while at one of the rooms in San Jose.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

2nd Session at Bay 101

Played this afternoon for 3 hours and lost $40.  Played ok, never really had any good situations or very man bad situations.  Just a boring session with no major hands played.

The table overall was very tight for a live table.  I may have arrived too early in the morning (~10:30 am), but the table I was seated at had a bunch of nitty middle aged guys.  Weird that middle aged guys were as nitty as they were (typically these are the money guys since they tend to work 9-5 and are just in the game to gamble and get away, but apparently not the ones in my game).  In fact, the table was so tight overall that I don't think anyone at the table could have been a long term winner with that table lineup, meaning I think that the money would mostly just move back and forth and everyone would lose out to the rake.

Without rake, I think I could have beaten the lineup, but with the $5 per hand that sees a flop at the Bay, there's really no way to be a good lag unless you are deep stacked or playing in a 2-3-5 game.  So my game, even at tight tables like the above, is limited to playing tightly so as not to lose out to the rake as much.  With a percentage rake schedule allowed in most other states, I would loosen up considerably at a table like this and take advantage of people folding too much, but that is simply not a good option here, in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm planning on heading back over tomorrow around noon and hope for a better table.

Embarrasing River Call

I butchered this hand.

Preflop is obviously fine. I think flop is ok too, I can't raise and fold to a 3-bet, and when he just calls a raise I am probably not doing that great against his range. Folding is not an option, so calling is fine.

On the turn though, I need to bet 100% when he checks this blank. I don't want to give a free card to draws, and I want to get value from worse Ax and 9x hands. I knew this was a mistake as I was checking behind.

When he overbets river, he polarizes his range to flushes/air. He's not doing this with 2pr because my range includes FD's as well, imo he'd most likely make a standard size bet with anything that a flush beats. I doubt anyone at NL10 is overbet bluffing nearly often enough to make a call correct here, he would need to be bluffing upwards of 37% of the time, which is just incredibly unlikely, especially on this board. I need to fold here always, and I knew that while the hand was unfolding. I make bad bad calls way too often. It really needs to stop if I want to be any good at this game.

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 569152
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $9.45
BTN: $7.45
SB: $15.25
BB: $11.80
UTG: $14.70
Hero (MP): $10.15

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is MP with A Q
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.30, 2 folds, SB calls $0.25, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.70) 9 A 2 (2 players)
SB bets $0.40, Hero calls $0.40

Turn: ($1.50) 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($1.50) 8 (2 players)
SB bets $2, Hero calls $2

Final Pot: $5.50
SB shows 7 6 (a flush, Ace high)
Hero mucks A Q
SB wins $5.25
(Rake: $0.25)

February

February was a pretty bad month poker wise. Didn't play much, but played a larger than expected number of tournaments, with the following results:


And here are the cash results:


Basically the whole month I felt like I was running bad, and I got tilted way too easily and stopped playing. So the volume is absolutely terrible. Woops. March will be better.

As far as progress on my yearly goals:

Goal 1: Structure my daily routine
A) job-search 60 min per day
B) Play 16 table hours per day
or do tons of push ups/situps.

Result: LOL so far. None of the three have been accomplished. I'm way way way off track. Time to get some focus back. I'm averaging less than 4 table hours per day (in cash) and even less than that in tournaments. Unfortunately in HEM I don't really know how to find multi-tabling ratio, so I'm really just basing the table hours on the fact that I've played a total of 100 hours of poker so far this year.

Goal 2: 400k Hands of 6-max cash.

Result: About 45k behind pace right now as I've only played 19k and should be averaging ~33k per month to reach this goal. No real excuse, reason for my lack of hands is a direct result of being short on goal 1.

Goal 3: Play the SM >2x (or equiv.)

Result: Already played one, the 2.5M guaranteed special (which was 2 weeks before the 4 mil guaranteed special, blah). Played like scared money. Kinda disappointed that I didn't play like I know I can. Next time should be easier. Also planning on playing quite a large number of the low buyin SCOOP events that will be in early May, though these don't exactly count as equivalent tourneys.

Goal 4: Achieve and maintain Silverstar + status.

Result: Got it in Jan, but lost it back after Feb. I just didn't have any motivation in Feb due to my poor mental state. Already feel much more focused in March and am more than 10% of the way to silverstar again, so this should be back on track within a few weeks.

wtf January

Started out super hot in January, finished up meh.

Cash results:
12,041 NL 10 hands
866 NL 25 hands
$228.6 profit
8.63 BB/100

Pretty good, except I'd like more volume in February. I had only 3 days with more than 1k hands, and my new years resolution basically had me doing 1.6k daily. So I've completely failed in that regard. Time for some will power.

Tournament results:
32 played
$324 in buy-ins
$1039 in cashes
220% ROI

This is pretty awesome, though I would have like to do better in the Sunday Million Special Edition I played today. I was basically scared money and played a bit too nitty, though I didn't have very many playable hands. Next time I play this I expect it to be much different (but that probably won't be for a good 3-4 months).

Managed to make Silverstar this month, just barely. Got a nice little $10 bonus for doing so. Now I need to focus, play lots more hands and move up to $25NL so I can get tons of FPPs while crushing souls.

December

December was meh in terms of reaching goals. Ended up being pretty busy. Played around 2500 hands of NL10, and won at about 10.5BB/100. Good winrate but crappy volume, the story of my life. Oh well.

November

As I predicted, November got very busy with my senior design project. I was only able to play about 500 hands of cash. I also played about 25 tourneys, 20 turbo $3 SNGs, 4 11.7 DSO's to the sunday million, and 1 other random tourney. I did the tourney playing because I wanted to try and satellite into the $2.5M guaranteed Sunday Million that Stars put on to celebrate giving out $250M in that tourney through its life. They got 18k runners so it would have been really sick to play in, but I didn't win a seat. I pretty profitable in the SNGs though so it's all good I guess (about 115% ROI through the tourney's combined).

December is looking to be pretty busy again. I have some finals, need to finish laying the bricks in my yard, and am going to NH for Christmas. So I think I'll have around 15 days to play poker, if I can convince myself to actually sit down and do it. I need 12k cash hands to meet my goal for the year volume wise (40k), and I think I can do it. I'll need to focus, and not be lazy, but it's definately possible.

This is lol bad

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

MP ($25)
Hero (CO) ($25.25)
Button ($12.70)
SB ($24.15)
BB ($51.40)
UTG ($25)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K, K
UTG bets $1, 1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds, UTG calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.35) 2, 2, A (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($7.35) 5 (2 players)
UTG bets $3.80, Hero calls $3.80

River: ($14.95) J (2 players)
UTG bets $7.60, Hero calls $7.60

Total pot: $30.15 | Rake: $1.45

Results:
UTG had A, K (two pair, Aces and twos).
Hero mucked K, K (two pair, Kings and twos).
Outcome: UTG won $28.70

Meh, flop line is standard. Turn call is close, but for some reason I thought I had some implied odds. I obviously don't, because if a fourth heart comes out villain is shutting down unless he has Qh or a boat. There is some chance he's betting worse to fold out my fairly obvious TT+, so I don't completely hate the turn call even with small implied odds.

The river call, on the other hand, is lol bad. Villain is not betting again to try to get me off of TT+ like ever in this spot, I don't think. I somehow convinced myself he was bluffing, though that is clearly an unlikely possibility. I knew before I called that I shouldn't, and I did it anyway. That puts me at the same level as a standard donk. Good players make good decisions. I make good decisions usually, but I tilt too easily and make bad decisions when I have a hand that is extremely good preflop but is clearly not good post-flop.

A Tale of Two Limits

So August has come and gone, and for once I'm actually impressed with the progress my poker game has made. The results were poor overall, but I feel that my game has gotten significantly better throughout the month.

We'll start by looking at tournaments.

Number played: 56
Number of cashes: 9
Total Profit/(loss): (94.69)
ROI: (38.32)

Blah, run bad and I stopped caring at the middle of the month. Downswings in tournaments suck. I was playing very well in my opinion and just running bad at the wrong times.

So instead of playing tournaments in my newly acquired excess spare time, I started focusing more on cash games especially around mid-month. I had the highest volume month of my career in 6-max cash, which felt good. I actually moved up to NL25 for a fair bit, which is where the title of this post comes in. We'll start by looking at NL10 for the month.

Number of hands: 7,148
Profit/(loss): $163.15
BB/100: 11.41

I am very pleased with this result, and felt that my post flop game was doing very well this month. I still need work on my preflop game though, I'm just way too tight still. Opening up will make my long-term winrate better, and that is obviously a primary goal of mine.

With the positive out of the way, lets take a look at NL25.

Number of hands: 4,781
Profit/(loss): ($204.65)
BB/100: -8.56

Obviously my stint at NL25 didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I played just about the same as I do at NL10, but variance had it out for me, as the largest downswing I've ever encountered (8 BI) met me in my step up the limits. I've dissected many of the major hands pretty thoroughly, most with the help of 2p2, and the general concensus is that I've largely been running like shit. That said, I was displeased with some of my tilted play. I called down in a number of very poor spots. If I had played my A game throughout the downswing may have only been 6 BI. Oh well, it's over now, and it game me renewed vigor and focus.

The biggest area of concern in my game at the moment is my PF range. I have run 15-16/12-13 for as long as I can remember and that's simply way too nitty to be any good moving up. I will be making a concerted effort to get those numbers closer to 22/20 to 24/21. I have to work on post-flop as well, sure, but you don't get post-flop without having a sound pre-flop game, so it suits me to start there.

Also of note is that I made a pretty good run at getting silverstar status this month. I managed to collect over 900 of Pokerstars VIP Player Points where 1200 get's silverstar status (basically extra free stuff). I was collecting 2x FPP's all the time thanks to an online survey I filled out for Stars in July. So I was able to get a new book from the VIP store and still have nearly 2k FPPs for future use.

I'll be moving back to NL25 sometime in September. Since I lost ~200 dollars there, I'm planning on making that back in NL10 before trying again. So far I've knocked out about 70 in 2k hands since moving back down. I've been table selecting very well of late, it seems every table I'm on has at least one, usually two or more 40+/<5s. It's fantastic.

Goals for September:
20k hands of 6-max.
8+ BB/100 at NL10
6+ BB/100 at NL25
Reach Silverstar Status

Notably there are no tournament goals this month. I'm basically fed up with them. Sure I'll play them again, but hopefully not until I buy into them with FPPs. : )
The Sunday Million costs 13,500 fpps, and that very well may be my next tournament, unless I play a few to warm up for it.

A Bad River Call

I haven't been posting enough humiliating hands in this blog. That was one of the blog's original purposes, so I will rectify that now. In the following hand I make a pretty terrible river call.

Villain in this hand is at 3 of my tables, and is running 17/12 IIRC. Seems pretty solid. About 3 orbits prior to this hand he lost a buyin when his 44 lost to AQ on a A42A board. River 2. I've 3 bet him a few times, but this is the first time he's 3-bet me. On to the hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

UTG ($10.15)
Hero (MP) ($25.55)
CO ($14.45)
Button ($25.40)
SB ($12.25)
BB ($10)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, K
1 fold, Hero bets $0.30, 2 folds, SB raises to $1.30, 1 fold, Hero calls $1

Flop: ($2.70) A, 3, 8 (2 players)
SB bets $2, Hero calls $2

Turn: ($6.70) Q (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($6.70) 10 (2 players)
SB bets $5, Hero calls $5

Total pot: $16.70 | Rake: $0.80

Results:
SB had A, A (three of a kind, Aces).
Hero mucked A, K (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: SB won $15.90

The hand seems pretty standard until the river. Basically, since this is the first time I've seen him 3-bet through ~100 hands, I'm putting him on a pretty tight range. Something like TT+, AQs+, AKo sounds right. That is probably too loose for most at $10NL, but he seemed fairly decent, so I'll give some credit. Anyway, This is a WA/WB situation on the flop, significantly favoring the WA (1 combo of AA left, vs 3 of KK, 6 each of QQ-TT). So I'm comfortable just calling, since he's not putting in any more money unless he has the AA. He has at most 2 outs, and I might get another bet out of his pairs on the river. Turn and river are very bad cards for my hand, since it improves his range's equity against my hand. I was mentally prepared to call a bet of up to $3.5 on the river before the T came off.

IMO, he never makes this size of a bet with KK or JJ. So I'm essentially calling vs his river range of TT, QQ, AA, and maaaaybe AKs, AQs. I'm losing to all of these but the AK (and even with that hand I think he checks the river most of the time).

At the time, I had been making a number of hero calls at several tables that had all turned out right (for pretty siginificant financial gain), and so I guess I just wanted to keep it going. I thought about the call for nearly 30 seconds before making it, but clearly in retrospect its a terrible call given his range.

Otherwise the day turned out very well. I was able to run at +18 PTBB/100 over 540 hands. If I am able to fold this river, that turns into +23 PTBB/100. At least I know I won't be making the same mistake again soon.

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.

June WrapUp

June went fairly well. I ended up playing the most $10 NL 6-max cash I've played in any month so far this year. Here are the results of that:

3006 total hands
10.25 hours played, averaging 3 tables at a time, and 293 hands/hour.
$15.30 profit, or 2.54 PTBB/100.

Overall not terrible, but definately not as good as it could be. Ideally, total hands would be 10k+ and profit would be above 8 PTBB/100. That said, at that rate I wouldn't be playing $10 NL for much longer.

This month was eye-opening for me though, as it exposed a number of leaks I need to work on. This is very good news, as I've never actually identified individual leaks in my play before, I generally just got better by experience and reading 2p2. We'll see how much I improve now going forward.

Tournaments turned out significantly better:

35 tournaments played
$154.75 in total buyins
$309.88 in total cashes
$155.13 in profit, with an ROI of 100%

A 100% ROI is quite good, though given my skill level probably unsustainable. Career I've averaged around 90%, which means I'm probably running above expectation. However, I did play very well in tournaments this month for the most part, and I think that I can start increasing my average buyin soon.

That's all for now, looking forward to a July that includes more cash game profits and hopefully some more good tourney scores.

Bad Session

I really need to work on folding. I really suck at it right now and it's costing me a ton of money in the long run. In this session it really felt like I was running bad, but I was compounding it by paying people off where I shouldn't.


Exhibit A:

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

MP ($10.05)
Button ($11.35)
Hero (SB) ($10)
BB ($2)
UTG ($6.40)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, Q
2 folds, Button bets $0.30, Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, Button calls $0.70


Flop: ($2.10) 6, 9, 7 (2 players)

Hero bets $1.40, Button calls $1.40

Turn: ($4.90) 10 (2 players)

Hero bets $3.30, Button raises to $8.95 (All-In), Hero calls $4.30 (All-In)

River: ($20.10) 2 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $20.10 | Rake: $0.95
Results:
Button had 8, A (straight, ten high).
Hero had Q, Q (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: Button won $19.15


I think this needs to be a check fold on the turn. Yeah it feels weak, but one of the conceivable draws gets there. My thinking at the time was there is a decently low chance he calls a 3-bet with an 8 unless he has exactly 88, so I was betting to protect against the flush draw.

Maybe the bet is pretty close, but when he raised, I knew he had the 8. He should essentially never have a bluff here since it's pretty obvious I like my hand and have committed myself to the pot. But I couldn't refuse the 4:1 odds for some reason... I need to work on this, because there is no way I have 20% equity in the hand, which is needed in order to call here. Against any 8 or set, his most likely holdings given the action, I have less than 3% equity (combined). This needs to be a fold after his raise for sure, if not a check/fold.


Exhibit B:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($23.25)
SB ($9.50)
Hero (BB) ($10.10)
UTG ($9.35)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, Q
2 folds, SB calls $0.05, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.20) 4, 5, Q (2 players)
SB bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20

Turn: ($0.60) 9 (2 players)
SB bets $0.20, Hero raises to $0.90, SB calls $0.70

River: ($2.40) J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.20, SB raises to $2.40, Hero calls $1.20

Total pot: $7.20 | Rake: $0.35

Results:
SB had J, 4 (two pair, Jacks and fours).
Hero mucked K, Q (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: SB won $6.85

I'm not sure how I feel about the action before the river... I should probably raise pre to $.40. By probably I mean should, I was just gunshy by this point of the session. Anyway, on the flop, I flat his bet because I don't want to raise/get it in against a combo draw on the flop. I know that's not necessarily what he has, but I've recently been too worried about flop spots against or with combo draws, specifically that the draw maximizes their equity in the hand by getting all the money in on the flop. Know this, I've been trying to punish draws that miss on the turn by keeping the pot manageable on the flop and then betting 3/4+ pot on the turn.

However, in retrospect I don't think this strategy is warranted on this flop. First, he is probably going to just flat a combo draw to any raise. Even if he 3bets, he won't be getting enough in the pot for me to justify not raising this flop. Anyway, the draw misses and I raise turn when he shows some weakness by betting the same amount. He calls, and this makes me think that he is in fact on a draw. River is a blank, so I value bet after being checked to. Here is where I make my mistake, after he CR's, I know he has one pair beat. People at $10 NL DO NOT check raise river without beating top pair, ever. Maybe some of the best players do, but this was certainly not one of those players. I gave him a range of stuff that hit the river, mostly two-pair type hands, but perhaps KT, 99, 55, or 44 also get here in this fashion if he is quite bad. It is inexcusable that I pay off this river CR, even with the odds I'm getting. I don't think he's doing this with less than KQ more than 5% of the time (it's significantly closer to 0, and may in fact be zero, but I must account somewhat for spaz factor). I need him to be doing it closer to 18% of the time.

All in all, the session had me tilted less than 100 hands in, and I stopped after just 1/2 hour and 156 hands down $22.2. Solid. I was running pretty damn bad, (I won 5 total hands through this time), but by playing how I know I should I can shave that number in half. Good players not only need to maximize their wins, but minimize their losses. The latter is something I dreadfully need help with. Luckily, it's something I know how to fix.