Hand #1
I think villain's range after he calls on the turn is largely 88-JJ so I overbet-ship the river trying to Zeebo-stack him. Not sure if this is better than potting it, betting 2/3 pot, or even check/shipping.
Hand #2
Not sure whether to bet river - I don't know how much of his turn bet/calling range will check/fold on this brickish river. Maybe I shouldn't even be running this bluff in the first place.
Hand #3
Not sure how much of villain's range on the river is Ax and how much is 9x and 4x. I have him as 45/23 over 22 hands. I don't think he can ever fold A2-AJ but he can have so many 9x and 4x. I stoved this and I'm just about flipping against {Ax, 97o+, 96s+, 44, 54o, 54s, 64s}.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Couple of Hands From Today
Hand #1
Really don't know about my line here. I think I get a lot of folds from Ax on the turn, but I don't know if anything that calls on the turn is going to fold to my bet on the river.
Hand #2
I've been experimenting with checking some strong hands on the flop in multi-way pots when out of position as pre-flop raiser. I think I feel more comfortable balancing my checking range with some strength than I would feel trying to balance my betting range by cbetting some missed overcards or underpairs into two people, but I'm really not sure. Anyway, regardless of the merits of that, I'm really unsure about my river call. I have villain as 8/4 over 102 hands. I don't think he ever bets TT, QJ, AJ, or QQ on the river. AK is a possibility but this villain sometimes 3bets pre with AK, does not always bet the flop with AK, and will probably sometimes check behind on the river with AK, so AK needs to be discounted at least somewhat from his range. He might have some 55-88 that he turned into a bluff, but I don't think this villain does that very often, and even if he does, I think he gives up on the river fairly often. And he can play all of his sets and sometimes KJ like this. It really comes down to how often he can have AK and how often he's bluffing, but he has to have a lot of AK and bluffs for the call to be okay. Even if we give him 12.5% of his AK (2 out of 16 combos) and 16.7% of his 55-88 (4 out of 24 combos), we still only have 23% equity against a range composed of those, sets, and KJs, so it's a fold getting 3:1.
Really don't know about my line here. I think I get a lot of folds from Ax on the turn, but I don't know if anything that calls on the turn is going to fold to my bet on the river.
Hand #2
I've been experimenting with checking some strong hands on the flop in multi-way pots when out of position as pre-flop raiser. I think I feel more comfortable balancing my checking range with some strength than I would feel trying to balance my betting range by cbetting some missed overcards or underpairs into two people, but I'm really not sure. Anyway, regardless of the merits of that, I'm really unsure about my river call. I have villain as 8/4 over 102 hands. I don't think he ever bets TT, QJ, AJ, or QQ on the river. AK is a possibility but this villain sometimes 3bets pre with AK, does not always bet the flop with AK, and will probably sometimes check behind on the river with AK, so AK needs to be discounted at least somewhat from his range. He might have some 55-88 that he turned into a bluff, but I don't think this villain does that very often, and even if he does, I think he gives up on the river fairly often. And he can play all of his sets and sometimes KJ like this. It really comes down to how often he can have AK and how often he's bluffing, but he has to have a lot of AK and bluffs for the call to be okay. Even if we give him 12.5% of his AK (2 out of 16 combos) and 16.7% of his 55-88 (4 out of 24 combos), we still only have 23% equity against a range composed of those, sets, and KJs, so it's a fold getting 3:1.
What I Was Doing All That Time
As you can see, I basically stopped posted in May and I'm just now starting to post regularly again. This is because I essentially stopped playing poker. In June, I started my summer job at a law firm and was working full-time. My plan had been to grind pretty hard every night but I found myself feeling pretty tired after work every day, and honestly, I just wasn't really feeling it because I had just been struggling so hard to break even after my dramatic rise and fall early in the year. So I ended up basically never playing during the week, and on weekends, I would typically just one-table or two-table NL100. Things continued like this after my job ended and after I went back to Chicago for school and carried on this way until November. I ran fantastically good EV-wise during this period, though I averaged roughly 2500 hands per month during that stretch:
The flat stretch in the beginning was me trying to win at NL10, which proved a lot harder than I expected. The flat stretch at the end was me trying to learn PLO by playing PLO2 on Stars, which also proved a lot harder than I expected. I played these games because I was pursuing a poker goal of trying to make my PTRs on both Stars and FTP green for every stake I've ever played. This is still something I want to do eventually, but I put it on the backburner in November because of Rush Week.
As anyone who knows me can confirm, I'm a huge bonuswhore and couldn't pass up an opportunity like Rush Week, even though I still had residual feelings of resentment and hatred for Rush due to its role in my catastrophic downfall in the early part of this year. But I was able to put those feelings aside and grind out a $50 Rush Week bonus on two tables of full-ring NL50, and I actually did pretty well in the games.
Then came December and the Iron Man Year-End Bonus chase, during which I've played a mix of full-ring NL50 Rush and regular 6-max NL100. I've been so thoroughly demolished at NL100 that I've cut it out entirely. I have no idea whether I can actually beat NL100 and my struggles with it really epitomize the biggest problem I have in poker, which is not being able to tell whether I'm running bad or playing bad. There have been lots of coolerish spots that might not actually be coolers because villain might not be shipping with anything except exactly the nuts, but I don't know enough about villain or his tendencies to know for sure. I've been losing stack after stack in spots like these and it's left me feeling pretty lost.
So I think I'm just going to grind NL50 FR Rush for a while and see how that goes. I went on a nice little tear over about 15,000 hands of it where I was winning at 5.6 BB/100 with an amazingly smooth graph, but over the past 6,000 hands, I've been losing at -6.9 BB/100 with an equally smooth graph, so we'll see how it goes from here.
The flat stretch in the beginning was me trying to win at NL10, which proved a lot harder than I expected. The flat stretch at the end was me trying to learn PLO by playing PLO2 on Stars, which also proved a lot harder than I expected. I played these games because I was pursuing a poker goal of trying to make my PTRs on both Stars and FTP green for every stake I've ever played. This is still something I want to do eventually, but I put it on the backburner in November because of Rush Week.
As anyone who knows me can confirm, I'm a huge bonuswhore and couldn't pass up an opportunity like Rush Week, even though I still had residual feelings of resentment and hatred for Rush due to its role in my catastrophic downfall in the early part of this year. But I was able to put those feelings aside and grind out a $50 Rush Week bonus on two tables of full-ring NL50, and I actually did pretty well in the games.
Then came December and the Iron Man Year-End Bonus chase, during which I've played a mix of full-ring NL50 Rush and regular 6-max NL100. I've been so thoroughly demolished at NL100 that I've cut it out entirely. I have no idea whether I can actually beat NL100 and my struggles with it really epitomize the biggest problem I have in poker, which is not being able to tell whether I'm running bad or playing bad. There have been lots of coolerish spots that might not actually be coolers because villain might not be shipping with anything except exactly the nuts, but I don't know enough about villain or his tendencies to know for sure. I've been losing stack after stack in spots like these and it's left me feeling pretty lost.
So I think I'm just going to grind NL50 FR Rush for a while and see how that goes. I went on a nice little tear over about 15,000 hands of it where I was winning at 5.6 BB/100 with an amazingly smooth graph, but over the past 6,000 hands, I've been losing at -6.9 BB/100 with an equally smooth graph, so we'll see how it goes from here.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Worst Christmas Ever
I played 4,179 hands of NL50 full-ring rush on Christmas Day and lost $256.80. My all-in EV for the day was even worse, at -$360.68, which reflects winning a bunch of flips and KK > AA'ing some guy. Some highlights:
Hand #1
I slightly overbet the pot on the river for value against AK and AQ and I snapped it off when he shipped. Even if the call is okay, which I doubt, I think the snap is terrible. Looking back, I don't really know what happened. I guess this was a weird and horribly costly manifestation of tilt.
Hand #2
Not really sure how to play AKo against a cold 4bet from an 11/9 when sitting 150bb deep.
Hand #3
This is just really bad by me. I think this is a pretty clear fold when he checkraises the flop but I talked myself into calling because I have a backdoor flush draw and Q outs against AT and I had him as 27/27 over like 10 hands or something so I felt like he could be bluffing. Even if that isn't all nonsense, I think calling on the river is still awful because his semi-bluffing clubs got there and AT probably isn't shipping.
Hand #4
Villain is 55/36 over 11 hands so I don't know how I feel about ever folding, but it seems bad to pay him off.
I had been doing pretty well at NL50 full-ring rush until yesterday and I felt like I was finally starting to figure some of this shit out, but the past two days have made me feel pretty much totally clueless. I played another 1,012 hands today and lost another $137.55. Hands:
Hand #1
I have villain as 75/42 over 13 hands so I'm playing top pair for value. I'm very uncertain about my river bet, since JT and clubs got there. I still want to get value out of QJ, KJ, and whatever random garbage this kind of player can have, but I don't know whether a bet is profitable.
Hand #2
Similar spot. I'm betting the river for value against 88-TT and I think I might even get called by 66. A9 was not even a consideration in my mind and the fact that he had it makes me think that this spot is actually too thin to bet.
Hand #1
I slightly overbet the pot on the river for value against AK and AQ and I snapped it off when he shipped. Even if the call is okay, which I doubt, I think the snap is terrible. Looking back, I don't really know what happened. I guess this was a weird and horribly costly manifestation of tilt.
Hand #2
Not really sure how to play AKo against a cold 4bet from an 11/9 when sitting 150bb deep.
Hand #3
This is just really bad by me. I think this is a pretty clear fold when he checkraises the flop but I talked myself into calling because I have a backdoor flush draw and Q outs against AT and I had him as 27/27 over like 10 hands or something so I felt like he could be bluffing. Even if that isn't all nonsense, I think calling on the river is still awful because his semi-bluffing clubs got there and AT probably isn't shipping.
Hand #4
Villain is 55/36 over 11 hands so I don't know how I feel about ever folding, but it seems bad to pay him off.
I had been doing pretty well at NL50 full-ring rush until yesterday and I felt like I was finally starting to figure some of this shit out, but the past two days have made me feel pretty much totally clueless. I played another 1,012 hands today and lost another $137.55. Hands:
Hand #1
I have villain as 75/42 over 13 hands so I'm playing top pair for value. I'm very uncertain about my river bet, since JT and clubs got there. I still want to get value out of QJ, KJ, and whatever random garbage this kind of player can have, but I don't know whether a bet is profitable.
Hand #2
Similar spot. I'm betting the river for value against 88-TT and I think I might even get called by 66. A9 was not even a consideration in my mind and the fact that he had it makes me think that this spot is actually too thin to bet.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
EV Update
According to HEM, my lifetime online poker winnings are $612.14 but my all-in EV-adjusted lifetime winnings are -$493.34. So I'm running a little over $1,100 better than I should be. If anyone has ever looked at their own graph and wondered where all that EV goes...me. It all goes to me.
This is over 233,906 hands.
This is over 233,906 hands.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
December
I've been putting in reasonable volume again over the past couple of weeks and have run really good to break even. Standard.
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