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.

May

May turned out pretty well for me. Volume was pretty low because of the week of school and finals at the beginning of the month, as well as my week-long honeymoon to Hawaii at the end of the month (which was awesome).

I played a total of 13 tournaments, with a total buyin of $52.95. The good news is I obtained a 285.36% ROI over those tournaments. The bad news is that in order to do so I got another second place in a 4/180. For those keeping track, through 209 tournaments, I've gotten heads up a really strong 7 times. I've taken down just one of these though, so it's incredibly dissappointing. As a direct result of this fact, I have absolutely no confidence in my heads up game, but I'm having a hard time pinpointing my mistakes.

In the last episode of futility, I got heads up with a 2-1 chip lead. We were roughhly even through about 40 hands, and he kept open shoving or three-bet shoving about 15-20% of hands, and I just never had anything during those times. I took down a majority of the other pots (roughly 60-70% of total pots). Our first major pot was when he limped his button and I checked my option in the BB with T7s. I proceeded to flop a flush draw and open-ender, and triple barreled, whiffed, and he called down with j5o, for a flopped middle pair (4th pair on the river). I kept my cool even though I had just missed 21 outs twice, which is a positive change from my past. However, this gave him the advantage in chips. From there, the blinds starting going up and he kept shoving, now with a slightly higher percentage of hands. I never seemed to have a solid hand, but I finally raise/call A2s, only to be shown A7o. I flop a flush draw on a paird board, but we end up chopping. A few hands later, I raise/call A6s, he shows A7s, I flop a 6, he turns a 7, and we're done. He just never seemed to have anything when I did and always had me kicked when I was ready to show down. Whatever, I wasn't too upset with my play, though 1 for 7 is starting to really annoy me. I'll have to keep playing these, getting HU, and working on my game. I could also play some HU SNGs, but those never were very fun for me, so we'll see what I decide.

As far as cash games go, I ended up playing 519 hands of $10 NL 6-max, with $24.50 of profit, for a BB/100 of 23.6. Very strong, but not sustainable. I played really well, but also got pretty lucky.

So far in June I've played another 761 hands of the same cash games, and have only made $5.95, for a BB/100 of just 3.91. This is definately sustainable for me, but is on the low side of where I want to be for this limit. I think 8+ is readily achievable. I think I'm still playing much better than in the past, I've loosened up to be around 19/16, which is still pretty tight, but not as bad as I was (16/12). I still have a ways to go, but for this limit those stats aren't too bad, and they should be very profitable.

I'm also planning to start 6-tabling the cash soon, as I currently only 3 or 4 table. That should help my $/hr but might hurt my BB/100 slightly. We'll see how it works out, but I'd definately like to keep it above 7 (for the year I'm at 7.28 through 2.25k hands). I posted on facebook that I wanted to get 40k hands combined in tournaments and cash this summer, and I've fallen well behind the pace thanks to my vacation. I think if I start 6-tabling successfully this goal will not be too tough to attain, so I'm looking forward to putting in some time at the tables. I haven't felt this good about my game in general (other than heads up) essentially since I was ignorant of how bad I actually was.

As a parting note to show that the games are still good (and to gripe that I run bad), here is a hand from earlier this week.

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

saw flop | saw showdown

Button ($6.75)
Hero (SB) ($12.70)
BB ($5.25)
UTG ($5.80)
MP ($6.95)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K
1 fold, MP calls $0.10, 1 fold, Hero bets $0.50, 1 fold, MP raises to $0.90, Hero raises to $9.60, MP calls $6.05 (All-In)

Flop: ($14) A, 10, 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)


Turn: ($14) J (2 players, 1 all-in)


River: ($14) 7 (2 players, 1 all-in)


Total pot: $14 | Rake: $0.70


Results:

Hero had K, K (one pair, Kings).
MP had A, 2 (two pair, Aces and twos).
Outcome: MP won $13.30


For the record, that is a limp/min-3-bet/insta-call with A2s. I was so happy when I saw his hand. I used to get pissed off at this result, but this time I was just so happy that he just gave me equity preflop like that. Once this hand occured, and I thought about how I felt, I knew I had turned a corner in my poker career. I'm finally starting to distance myself emotionally from the results, which will no doubt be extremely crucial in my continued developement as a player.

Summatime

School is finally over for the semester. The time has come to start grinding poker. I have never been very dedicated to volume, but I think if I want this to start being a significant side income I need to put in a ton of hands over the summer.

As far as my progress on New Years Goals, I think it's safe to say I'm falling short at the moment.

Goal 1) 200 or more tournaments at a $5 or higher average buyin and with a 90% ROI or better.

Progress: 114 tournaments played, average buyin of $3.93, ROI of just 10.12%.

Good volume, thanks mostly to January, but a low average buyin and a low ROI. At least it is profit.


Goal 2) 40,000 hands of 6-max cash at 9BB/100.

Progress: This started out really well, I was up two buyins in under 250 hands. This was followed by a 3.5 buying drop, at which point I essentially stopped playing, due to both sucking and school. At the current rate of play, I'll need about 20 years to get to 40,000 hands. Here's to hoping it doesn't take quite that long.
Hands played: 959
Amount won: $2.15
BB/100: +1.12

That's all for now. I might be posting a bit more often now that I don't have the added joy of homework for three months. We'll see how it goes.

Things.

Took March off of poker to focus on school, the wedding, work, etc. I just jumped back into playing some tournaments and so far its not going too well. Played 16 so far in the last 10 days, cashed 2 or 3, down about 70%. Roughly $40. I do feel like I'm playing pretty well, which is good after such a break. I just need to play a few more hands, but I think my hand reading is on track, I'm staying focused, and not getting too emotionally involved (tilting).

Playing 4 more today so hopefully I get some positive results.

Updating

The school/work combo is kicking my ass. It allows no free time for anything, including poker. My February volume is less than a tenth of my January volume (I think, I haven't actually checked, but it feels that way). But the monetary results are better. Stupid variance.

Not much to talk about, didn't play many interesting hands, but lost after getting heads up again in a 4/180. That's now 1 for 6 in those after getting heads up. At first I just thought I was running bad heads up, but now I'm pretty sure I'm just not very good at heads up. So I need to work on my heads up game, probably either through HU SNGs or regular 1 table SNGs.

We'll see if I actually get around to that... I also just can't seem to put in volume in cash games. I feel like I want to when I'm doing random daily shit, but when I sit down at my computer I never seem to want to open up tables. So I put in only about 500 hands this month, and I'm now at ~850 for the year... Well below the ~7k I should have to be on pace for the yearly 40k goal.

January

I put in loads of tournament volume in January, but am now well behind on my cash hands goal. Here are the stats:

Tourneys - 67
Profit - ($18.78)
ROI - (7.4)

Cash Hands - 373
Profit - $3.55
BB/100 - 4.76

I am well above pace to reach 200 tourneys this year, but I fully expect to play much less as school is kicking in to gear. I've only played ~ 10 tourneys since Jan. 20th. I'm a little disappointed with the monetary results, but it is a small sample. I feel like I played pretty well most of the time, but there were five to ten tournaments where I felt I was reverting to old habits of not folding the worst hand because "I don't want to play if I have to scrape back from less than a starting stack." This is horrible thinking, but I can be prone to it if it's my last tournament up; I'm just ready to do something else, and after playing for 1/2 hour or more, it really sucks to drop a decent pot and have to rebuild. I need to work on this, since it severely impacts my overall equity in tournaments.

In cash, I'm well below my goal for number of hands. Further, I have a hard time putting in volume both when I'm playing well (don't want to jinx it) and when I'm on a downswing (I suck). I need to keep playing through both. I started the month up 2 buyins in ~70 hands and the next few sessions ran into some coolers.

So far in february I've dropped another two buyins on the following hands. Other than these two hands, I'm about even, which sucks, but I think I've been running under expectation in terms of hitting any flops whatsoever. So this should turn around. I'm a bit disappointed in myself for the two hands I'm about to post, but I really didn't see any other options. In the first, I don't know if I can fold to his C/R even though it really feels like 7x. I wanted to, because I couldn't think of any hands I beat that C/R this flop into three opponents. I guess I was just hoping for a random Kx. In the end though, I'm a spewy monkey.

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

saw flop | saw showdown

CO ($2.65)
Button ($5.35)
SB ($9.10)
BB ($9.25)
UTG ($14.05)
Hero (MP) ($10.45)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, K

UTG calls $0.10, Hero raises to $0.50, CO calls $0.50, Button calls $0.50, 2 folds, UTG calls $0.40

Flop: ($2.15) K, 7, 7 (4 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets $1.30, 2 folds, UTG raises to $4, Hero raises to $9.95 (All-In), UTG calls $5.95

Turn: ($22.05) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($22.05) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $22.05 | Rake: $1.05

Results:
UTG had 5, 7 (three of a kind, sevens).
Hero mucked A, K (two pair, Aces and Kings).
Outcome: UTG won $21


The second hand I think is probably standard for most people. I had a really bad feeling when he insta-min-4bet. I think flat calling and then folding that horrible flop is better. The flop was horrible because now everything in his PF range crushes me (I put his PF range aat QQ+ after the insta-min-4bet at $10NL).

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

saw flop | saw showdown

Hero (BB) ($10.75)
UTG ($1.45)
Button ($17.30)
SB ($16.30)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, K

2 folds, SB raises to $0.30, Hero raises to $1, SB raises to $1.70, Hero raises to $10.75 (All-In), SB calls $9.05

Flop: ($21.50) 6, Q, 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($21.50) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($21.50) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $21.50 | Rake: $1.05

Results:
SB had A, A (two pair, Aces and sixes).
Hero mucked K, K (two pair, Kings and sixes).
Outcome: SB won $20.45

Time to put in some volume. Hopefully at least 200 hands. Then write a lab report. Until next time.