HUSNG Discussion

Since HUSNGs seem to be my main game at the moment I thought I would introduce some concepts for discussion. So as not to make this one massively long post I am going to try to split it into several posts.... however, I am busy this week and away this weekend in Edinburgh watching the rugby so don't hold your breath.... tho I do promise to do my best to post more often.

According to sharkscope I have played 287 HUSNGs to date any my graph looks like this:
According to Holdem Manager I am open raising 57% of buttons, 3 betting 9.9% from the BB and calling around 8% of the time in the BB, though I am pretty sure that these stats are inaccurate as Holdem Manager is a little lacking in tourney support and I can't seperate out the $10 HUSNGs from all the other tournaments I have played...... Not really sure what 'good' stats are so let me know what you think.

The first think I would like to discuss is open shoving/3-bet shoving the first hand of a HUSNG.
Paul (147_star) and I discussed this concept and tried to come up with a sensible range to open shove or 3-bet shove the first hand of a HUSNG on the basis that at these low limits the average player is very bad and is likely to freak out and call with a wide range usually consisting of any pair or A. I think that the range we came up with was 99+ and AJ+ (ATs?) and so far I have had a lot of success with this play. I would be interested to know what people think of this play and what your opening range should be.

Full Tilt Poker Game #8882578617: $10 + $0.50 Heads Up Sit & Go (67968481), Table 1 - 10/20 - No Limit Hold'em - 4:47:36 ET - 2008/11/09
Seat 1: GALZUUD (1,500)
Seat 2: Cafe Creme (1,500)
Cafe Creme posts the small blind of 10
GALZUUD posts the big blind of 20
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cafe Creme [Jc As]
Cafe Creme raises to 1,500, and is all in
GALZUUD has 15 seconds left to act
GALZUUD calls 1,480, and is all in
Cafe Creme shows [Jc As]
GALZUUD shows [Ah 9c]
*** FLOP *** [Jd Qd 7h]
*** TURN *** [Jd Qd 7h] [5c]
*** RIVER *** [Jd Qd 7h 5c] [5h]
Cafe Creme shows two pair, Jacks and Fives
GALZUUD shows a pair of Fives
Cafe Creme wins the pot (3,000) with two pair, Jacks and Fives
GALZUUD stands up
Cafe Creme stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,000 | Rake 0
Board: [Jd Qd 7h 5c 5h]
Seat 1: GALZUUD (big blind) showed [Ah 9c] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 2: Cafe Creme (small blind) showed [Jc As] and won (3,000) with two pair, Jacks and Fives

Full Tilt Poker Game #6543781496: $10 + $0.50 Heads Up Sit & Go (49743015), Table 1 - 10/20 - No Limit Hold'em - 9:21:12 ET - 2008/05/24
Seat 1: Cafe Creme (1,500)
Seat 2: phatBwoi (1,500)
phatBwoi posts the small blind of 10
Cafe Creme posts the big blind of 20
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cafe Creme [Ah Th]
phatBwoi raises to 60
Cafe Creme raises to 1,500, and is all in
phatBwoi calls 1,440, and is all in
Cafe Creme shows [Ah Th]
phatBwoi shows [5d Ad]
*** FLOP *** [Qs 8d Kc]
*** TURN *** [Qs 8d Kc] [4s]
*** RIVER *** [Qs 8d Kc 4s] [2c]
Cafe Creme shows Ace King high
phatBwoi shows Ace King high
Cafe Creme wins the pot (3,000) with Ace King high
phatBwoi is sitting out
phatBwoi stands up
Cafe Creme stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,000 | Rake 0
Board: [Qs 8d Kc 4s 2c]
Seat 1: Cafe Creme (big blind) showed [Ah Th] and won (3,000) with Ace King high
Seat 2: phatBwoi (small blind) showed [5d Ad] and lost with Ace King high

Full Tilt Poker Game #6247641712: $5 + $0.25 Heads Up Sit & Go (47553104), Table 1 - 10/20 - No Limit Hold'em - 14:05:02 ET - 2008/05/01
Seat 1: Cafe Creme (1,500)
Seat 2: labo2480 (1,500)
labo2480 posts the small blind of 10
Cafe Creme posts the big blind of 20
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cafe Creme [Tc Td]
labo2480 has 15 seconds left to act
labo2480 calls 10
Cafe Creme raises to 1,500, and is all in
labo2480 calls 1,480, and is all in
Cafe Creme shows [Tc Td]
labo2480 shows [9s Kc]
*** FLOP *** [Js 4c 2d]
*** TURN *** [Js 4c 2d] [9d]
*** RIVER *** [Js 4c 2d 9d] [5h]
Cafe Creme shows a pair of Tens
labo2480 shows a pair of Nines
Cafe Creme wins the pot (3,000) with a pair of Tens
labo2480 stands up
Cafe Creme stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,000 | Rake 0
Board: [Js 4c 2d 9d 5h]
Seat 1: Cafe Creme (big blind) showed [Tc Td] and won (3,000) with a pair of Tens
Seat 2: labo2480 (small blind) showed [9s Kc] and lost with a pair of Nines

Full Tilt Poker Game #8807235931: $5 + $0.25 Heads Up Sit & Go (67342490), Table 1 - 10/20 - No Limit Hold'em - 11:19:42 ET - 2008/11/04
Seat 1: Cafe Creme (1,500)
Seat 2: lewismark (1,500)
lewismark posts the small blind of 10
Cafe Creme posts the big blind of 20
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cafe Creme [9d 9c]
lewismark raises to 60
Cafe Creme raises to 1,500, and is all in
lewismark calls 1,440, and is all in
Cafe Creme shows [9d 9c]
lewismark shows [6h 6d]
*** FLOP *** [9s 7d 2c]
*** TURN *** [9s 7d 2c] [4d]
*** RIVER *** [9s 7d 2c 4d] [6s]
Cafe Creme shows three of a kind, Nines
lewismark shows three of a kind, Sixes
Cafe Creme wins the pot (3,000) with three of a kind, Nines
lewismark stands up
Cafe Creme stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,000 | Rake 0
Board: [9s 7d 2c 4d 6s]
Seat 1: Cafe Creme (big blind) showed [9d 9c] and won (3,000) with three of a kind, Nines
Seat 2: lewismark (small blind) showed [6h 6d] and lost with three of a kind, Sixes



Going to grab some dinner now but am preparing a slightly more interesting post on playing short stacked in the late stages of a HUSNG.... something which has caused a lot of head scratching on the Durham Uni Poker forums....

Watch this space

Pinch and a punch, first of the month

So.... Looks like its been a while since I last posted. This is almost entirely due to me being lazy but also partly due to me having lots of work to do. Am once again going to make an attempt to keep my blog up to date although I expect my posts will be of the shorter variety (do I hear cheers?).

Having struggled with the HUSNGs on PokerStars I moved back to playing them on Full Tilt with much more success, I think that the longer structure is much more suited to my style of play and I suck at playing short stacked (something which I am working to improve). My current stats for the $10 HUSNGs on full tilt are:

Played: 265
Avg $ per game: $1.6
ROI: 15%
Total $$: $418

I moved briefly up to the $20s when I was running well but quickly dropped $150 and so went back to grinding the $10s.

I have started playing 2 tables now and so am averaging 12 games per hour.... meaning that I should be able to significantly boost my volume..... hopefully will be able to put in the hours. Am planning to make it to about 400-500 games at the $10s before I move up to the $20s but might take a couple of shots before then.

Will try to add some more interesting stuff soon.... but its good to be back blogging.

Ty

Durham Durham

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, only got back to uni yesterday and so have not had much time to play yet, but am now getting back into the swing of things and there should be some more regular updates.

Firstly, big congrats to James for cashing in the WSOPE main event (2 years running)... looks like it was a pretty tough tourney so really well done!

While James has been celebrating his cash of about £20K or so..... I just lost $80 playing HUSNGs loosing 13 out of 16 games. So, going to take a walk now to cool off ;)

Chow

Morocco!!!!!

So... i'm off to Morocco tomorrow for 16 days, flying out to Marrakesh and spending a couple of weeks travelling around. Will try to update my blog with a couple of pics if I find some free wifi, but otherwise it might be quiet for a couple of weeks.....

Going to be grinding full time when I get back tho, so it should pick up again....

Gl to all

G

A note on Success, Failure, and the Downswing Mindset

I cam across this thread on two plus two http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=280899

I really made me realise that my poker mentality could be fundamentally flawed. I tend to think of my self as having a fairly sturdy poker mindset.... I am not playing for a living so I am not relying on running well in poker to support myself and I am being staked to play so I should have less emotional attachment to the money I am playing with. All this should mean that as long as I am content that I am playing +EV poker, the outcome of the game should not effect me... after all, so long as I am playing good poker, the immediate results should have zero impact on my mentality.... I am not looking to cash out every day.... I am not having to account for the daily swings out of my own pocket.... and I know that variance is a fundamental part of poker (albeit a rather horrible one). So, why is it that when I loose a HU match I am effected in a negative way?

There are 3 possible ways to loose a HU match:

1) I am outmatched and outplayed..... However, at the $10 HUSNGs on Full Tilt it is very rare to come accross even a winning player and so I think that it is unlikely that I am going to come accross many players who simply just dominate me. (I am not claiming to be a great poker player, just that my opponents tend to be worse than me)

2) I play badly and make -EV decisions..... We all make -EV decisions sometimes, (there is no such thing as the perfect poker player) and they are usually the result of not being in the correct mood to play poker. Maybe you are too tired, too tilted, too drunk.... playing in the wrong mood leads to making -EV decisions, which finally result in you loosing a match which you should have won.

3) Getting outdrawn.... It happens to the worst player in the world and it happens to the best player in the world, it is something that we cannot escape.


Reasons 1 and 2 are aspects of poker which can be avoided (in the case of HUSNGs you cannot leave a match once it has started..... but there is still an aspect of game selection at the higher levels), however reason 3 CANNOT be avoided.... we WILL get outdrawn again and again and again. We have NO choice. Since we have no say in the matter, this aspect of poker should not effect us in any way.

So... to improve my poker mentality... I am going to concentrate very hard on making correct decisions and ban myself from checking my sharkscope stats / cashier balance every 2 minutes.... Correctly calling a shove with 77 on a 355 board vs your opponents K8 and them hitting a K on the river (hand from today) should make you ecstatic that you made a great call, not bitter that your opponent always hits his cards.

I am going to finish with a quote from Irieguy from two plus two:

Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it.

So, am going to try to post much better content on my blog from now on, and improve my poker mentality and attitude towards running bad vs playing bad.

Gl to all

Pr1nnyraiding anyone?

So... have been reading through Krantz's blog and came across a couple of hilarious posts.... the first one was him and Ariel (AKA FoxwoodsFiend) doing flips for $20K PLO read it here.

The second one was a transcript between 'G' and 'R'... not sure if one of them is Krantz or not but it makes a great read:

(Taken from http://www.dangerlion.com/?p=249)


Exploit This:

G: Folding is exploitable here!

R: Of course it is.

G: Exactly!

R: Precisely! Well, unless he’s never bluffing.

G: Never bluffing… you’re right! We should fold. Since he’s never bluffing here.

R: Of course we should, he’s never bluffing.

G: Never!

R: Ever.

G: But how do we know that never is never ever unless we call? Folding is exploitable!

R: Exploit me, then.

Made me laugh :)

Tennis tilts worse than poker IMO

Firstly.... I still seem to be getting nutted by the deck.... still loosing flips and also had AA< JJ which didn't help, however, it appears that playing tennis can tilt me worse than playing poker (if my internet doesn't stop crashing as I write this it could top 1st place tho!!!! FK Orange!). I play recreational tennis on a regular (almost daily) basis at the moment, and I have to say.... loosing a tennis match because of bad play on my part seems to tilt me more than anything! I think that it is probably a good thing because I tend to take out any aggression on the tennis court rather than playing poker tilted and it is a good way to unwind (FFS... internet cutting out AGAIN!).

In other news, I have come across this chart . I am going to try to apply it to situations where I have less than a 10BB effective stack (I think using it for stacks greater than 10BB, although +EV is probably suboptimal) and basically, you match your cards to the chart, and if your effective stacks are less than the number indicated then you push/call, otherwise you fold. I think that at the moment I am pushing / calling too tight when the effective stacks are really small and so I am going to use this chart for a few weeks and see what gives. It should be noted that if your opponent is blatently VERY nitty or VERY manic, then you should adapt your pushing/calling range accordingly... but as long as you follow this chart your actions will always be neutral or +ve EV.

(P.S. The internet has cut out about 6 times while writing this post and is now officially the thing which tilts me the most!!!!!)

I have a really big pair of .......... beats!

I try not to flood my 'poker talk' with bad beats because, to be honest, no one wants to hear how you got knocked out of a tournament because you can't win a flip with AK vs TT.... its much more interesting to hear about why you made a squeeze play from the BB when the BTN called the MPs raise because you know that MP is a very weak player and that the BTNs range is very wide or why you decided to call a shove with A high because you had seen your opponent be very aggressive with flush draws and have a good read that he always bluffs the river when he misses......

Having said that.... some beats are worthy of a mention... and I think that to qualify for a mention, either the amount of money involved has to be massive (unlikely in my case) or the beat has to be of monumentous savagery.

So... I present to you, two beats of monumentous savagery:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3058659

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3063286

For those of you who like equity calculations.... here they are:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
990 games 0.094 secs 10,531 games/sec
Board: 4c 3s 4h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 95.101% 95.05% 00.05% 941 0.50 { QhQs }
Hand 1: 04.899% 04.85% 00.05% 48 0.50 { Qc9c }

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
990 games 0.281 secs 3,523 games/sec
Board: 7h 2c 6s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 98.485% 98.48% 00.00% 975 0.00 { AcAs }
Hand 1: 01.515% 01.52% 00.00% 15 0.00 { QcJh }

Swongs?

So... looks like HU variance has finally caught up with me.... over the past few days I have tried to put in the hours and have managed about 40 HUSNGs on pokerstars. Apart from a couple of retarded plays I think that I have been playing well, but the beats seem to just not stop..... I guess that it is in the nature of HUSNGs because you are very often getting it AI with overcards vs undercards and therefore you are often getting it AI as no more than a 60% favourite.... so obviously its not always going to swing your way... and lately it has not been doing so for me.

I am still debating wether to play on full tilt or pokerstars and so I think that for the moment I am just going to play on whichever site I feel like until I made a proper decision.

Anyways.... so you can all pity me:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3054812
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3054837

The rest are all 60/40s which swang the wrong way....

Going to spend a bit of time going through some of my sessions to iron out my leaks (aka gaping holes) and hopefully will be able to avoid the suckouts..... I am really starting to like HUSNGs and it seems like they can be very profitable.

Sorry for the rather low quality entry.... better update to come soon ;)

HUSNGs Cont

So... its been just over a week since my last post and what have I achieved? Well, not much as I have been away sunning myself on the French coast for 5 days. However, a 4 hour drive on my own each way allows one to think about poker and dig up a few theories (or maybe I have just had one too many beers tonight?).

Although I have been away for most of the past week, I have managed to play about 5 HUSNGs in the past 2 days (not a lot I know). Although I am finding the level of play very poor, I am also finding that I am much more prone to tilt when playing HUSNGs. It seems that if I loose more than 2 HUSNGs in a row I have to quit my session and get some air before playing again. I am not really sure why this is as I am winning/loosing much smaller sums of money than I was playing 50NL cash, but I think that because a HU match is so much more personal, it tends to tilt me more when I get outplayed/sucked out on. I think that part of the problem is that I am playing a very small volume of HUSNGs at the moment, and so winning/loosing 2 or 3 in a row really makes a difference, but when I get some more time on my hands (haha like thats going to happen in the next month) and I am playing 10/20 a day, then I think that I will be less prone to tilt.


Have mostly been playing the Full Tilt $10 HUSNGs with a good winrate, but also add in a few $6 Poker Stars Turbos when I am in the mood and it still amazes me how bad some of the players are...... however one hand came up today which I was really not sure about:

PokerStars Game #19504559000: Tournament #101256960, $6.00+$0.25 Hold'em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2008/08/10 - 08:30:05 (ET)
Table '101256960 1' 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Poppy021184 (1420 in chips)
Seat 2: hero (1580 in chips)
Poppy021184: posts small blind 10
hero: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Td 5d]
Poppy021184: calls 10
hero: checks
*** FLOP *** [7d 5s 2d]
hero: bets 60
Poppy021184: raises 80 to 140
hero: raises 460 to 600
Poppy021184: calls 460
*** TURN *** [7d 5s 2d] [Ks]
hero: bets 960 and is all-in
Poppy021184: calls 800 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (160) returned to hero

My notes on the player are:

Plays around 70% of hands, raises about 20%. His raises tend to be minraises.
If he limps btn he calls a raise from the BB.
He likes to call down light and will call with draws.

Meh..... I am not sure how else to play this hand... I guess I could have been more passive on the flop and turn but FD + pair is a really strong hand and ahead of a lot of his range.... what do you think?

Got to get some sleep... but expect an update soon... maybe even with some sharkscope stats.

HUSNGs

So.... over the past few months I have not had a lot of time to play poker..... and when I have had time to play I have been grinding the $10 HUSNGs on Full Tilt.

When I last posted I was going through a rather unpleasant downswing which left me about $400 down.... and since then I have been trying to rebuild at the HUSNGs.

I have (only) played 167 games, for a profit of $174 and an roi of 9%... obviously completely meaningless given the short sample and nothing compared to Paul's efforts as he seems to manage more SNGs in a day than I do in a month (credit to him... he is crushing the games and I am kinda hoping he might give me some tips....).

The reason I chose to play HUSNGs is because I find the game really interesting. There is a lot of scope to become creative and every opponent is really different so you have to adapt to each unique situation. The average player at these levels seems to be pretty poor and, although the variance is quite high, I think that the HUSNGs can be really profitable (again, see 147star's blog for proof!).

As far as I can see, if you can maintain a 10% ROI and average 10 games an hour, thats about 1BI per hour..... and even playing the $10HUSNGs, thats $10 an hour.... however, I only 1 table at the moment and so get through about 6-7 games per hour.

Time for me to get going.... but will be posting again soon

The Comeback

Ok..... I am very sorry that I have not been updating my blog recently... I have been quite busy and I guess a bit lazy. So, welcome to the 'comeback' of my blog, hopefully I will keep it going longer than before and there should be lots to talk about.

Will try to compile a summary of events since my last post and publish it sometime over the weekend, and then post at least twice weekly.

Its good to be back :)

Exams

Been a long time since my last post, and I am afraid that it will probably be a little while until my next one. The reason is that I have been revising for my exams which start tomorrow and last 2 weeks.

Will be back on the 23rd after which I will be playing a lot of poker (I need the money for the summer), so until then.... happy grinding.

96% equity is NOT enough

It seems my luck has not yet changed and I continue to be murdered by the deck. I have now passed the 10BI mark and so can label this as a genuine 'big' downswing.

Played about 800 hands last night for a net loss of 4BIs at 30NL, although I think that I played well. Am liking my new 'tigher' style as it avoids getting into tricky spots, and people seem to 3-bet me less.

The 'big beat' last night was getting it AI with a Q high flush draw on the turn vs a really badly played straight, and him rivering a straight flush. Luckily he was only shortstacked, but I think that this is still a pretty insane beat. Poker stove analysis shows him to have 4% equity on the turn. Here is the hand.

Also managed to get it AI with a straight vs a set on the turn for a full stack, but full tilt decided that I don't deserve to win.... so he riveres a boat. The reason I call the 3-bet preflop is because the player is very tight, and I think his 3-betting range is very strong, giving me good implied odds if I hit hard with KTs. Hand here

Twice I got 3 outered, first hand where I flopped the nut straight with a J high flush redraw (J9 on a 8QT board), an insanely strong hand. I managed to get it AI 3-ways, vs AQ and K9, and turned a J giving K9 a higher straight, and missing my flush outs. Second 3 outer was vs a shortstack who thought it wise to 3-bet me with A2o and then barrel away with A high, maybe he already knew what the river card would be? Hand here.

A few other coolers to go with the above.... called a minraise on a JTA54r board on the river in a small pot with A9 vs villains A4 and took my self to valuetown with A9 vs AT on a A35KQ board.

So all in all poker is not treating me well at the moment..... (sympathy please)

7BI down..... going to take it easy now

So April has not been treating me well so far.... I did ok for about 500 hands, and then in 2 days I dropped 7BI. Going through my hand histories, in the past 1700 hands I have had the following:

QQ < AA vs a 35/30 BB vs SB
AK < AA vs a LAG
KK < AA
55 < 99 on a 594 flop
TT < J9 on a 259 flop (river is a 9)
KQ < AQ on a 48Q flop (villain limp-called preflop and I stacked off for 60BBs)
TQ < 88 on a 8Q6 flop (lost about 60BBs on this one.... might have been tilting a bit)
and finally 55 this hand vs an aggro lag


So basically have not been running that well :-( but thats poker :-)

I have some important exams coming up in 4 weeks and lots of revision to do, so I have decided to move down to 25NL until after my exams are over because I don't want to go on life tilt and let it affect my revision. So for the rest of the month (and some of next month) I am going stick to playing 25NL and play a few low BI tourneys.... and basically just play poker for fun of it and to de-stress. Once exams are over I will move back up to 50NL and hopefully run good like Mr Rahl!

I know I said I would stick to 25NL.... but decided to play some of the 15c/30c deepstacked tables on full tilt last night, but only brought in for $30, so my relative stack was only 100BBs. The games were pretty good, and I think I played fairly solid poker, and managed to end up only slightly down after I lost with set under set again.


Having run into aces so many times in the last few days, I remembered a discussion I had a long time ago with some members on the uni poker society about shoving AK preflop and so I did a few calculations.

I think that a lot of people don't realise quite how much difference having an A and a K makes to the probability of your opponent holding AA or KK. For example, if I hold QQ in the BB, its folded to the SB who openshoves (unlikely but whatever), what is the probability that he has AA or KK: ((4/50)*(3/49))+((4/50)*(3/49)) = 1/102 So, every time you are HU with QQ, there is a 1 in 102 chance that you are up against AA or KK (based purely on probability). Now if we repeat the calculation, but we have AK: ((3/50)*(2/49))+(3/50)*(2/49)) = 1/204 So, if we hold AK, it makes the probability that our opponent has AA or KK half as likely, which I think is pretty significant.

Obviously other factors need to be taken into account such as stats, reads, number of opponents going AI etc.... and I am not saying that it is correct or not to shove AK preflop... but I just thought it was interesting that having the A and K 'blockers' makes it twice as unlikely for your opponent to have AA or KK.

Never fold a hand that can't flop the nuts!

Decided to play a bit of 10NL on stars last night with Matt and Isaac..... what a night!

My stars balance at the start of the night was only $2 (all those $4/180s have been killing me!) and so I decided to see how far I could run it up before I went bust. I think I lasted about 4 hands after which I ran AT into 99 and so I asked Isaac if we could do a transfer and so I sent him $50 and he sent me $50 on stars. I have been wanting to get a bit of money on stars so I can play the occasional good value tournament and also I had told Matt that I would play some 10NL with him as he has recently started playing 6max having been a SNG and FR player.

So with $50 in my account we opened up a new table, and Nathan (friend of Matt) also joined us. I had a feeling that this was going to be somewhat reminiscent of a certain late night cash game we played a few weeks ago..... and it sure was. It was clear from the start that neither Isaac or myself ever intended to fold a hand and 3-betting light/calling down with T high became the norm. After about an hour there were about 3 people on the waiting list for our table and given that Isaac was playing 35/30, I was playing 50/45, Nathan was at about 30/25, Matt was at a cool 20/15 and the other 2 players were complete nits.... I wonder who the fish were ;)

Anyway... now for some gems of the night.... I feel bad for Matt who ran really bad.... especially when he ran his AA into my flushdraw (sorry Matt), so I hope last night did not kill his confidence in his game.




Obv Isaac sucks out on me because he runs good..... post hand analysis shows me as a 70% favourite on the turn

PokerStars Game #16418464775: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 18:18:55 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 2: cashsnack ($2 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($9.60 in chips)
Seat 4: tazg15 ($10.50 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($9.90 in chips)
Isaac: posts small blind $0.05
cashsnack: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [Kc Kh]
Guy: raises $0.30 to $0.40
tazg15: folds
Isaac: calls $0.35
cashsnack: folds
*** FLOP *** [7c 5h Tc]
Isaac: checks
Guy: bets $0.60
Isaac: raises $1.20 to $1.80
Guy: calls $1.20
*** TURN *** [7c 5h Tc] [9c]
Isaac: bets $3.20
Guy: raises $4.20 to $7.40 and is all-in
Isaac: calls $4.20
*** RIVER *** [7c 5h Tc 9c] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Isaac: shows [8d 8c] (three of a kind, Eights)
Guy: mucks hand
Isaac collected $18.35 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $19.30 | Rake $0.95
Board [7c 5h Tc 9c 8s]
Seat 2: cashsnack (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Guy mucked [Kc Kh]
Seat 4: tazg15 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Isaac (small blind) showed [8d 8c] and won ($18.35) with three of a kind, Eights



Bluff raising a 4-straight board...

***** Hand History for Game 16418858379 *****
$10.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, April 01, 06:36:28 2008
Table Prospero V (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ( $10.35 )
Seat 2: soldatti ( $10.00 )
Seat 3: Guy ( $11.35 )
Seat 4: plus5 ( $9.70 )
Seat 5: hjtakeuchi ( $13.50 )
Seat 6: Isaac ( $19.15 )
hjtakeuchi posts the small blind [$0.05].
Isaac posts the big blind [$0.10].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Guy [ 7h 8d ]
Matt folds
soldatti folds
Guy raises [$0.30]
plus5 folds
hjtakeuchi folds
Isaac calls [$0.20]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8c, Qs, As ]
Isaac checks
Guy checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kd ]
Isaac checks
Guy checks
** Dealing River ** [ Jc ]
Isaac bets [$0.40]
Guy raises [$1.50]
Isaac folds
Guy wins $1.40 from main pot
Guy wins $1.10 from main pot


I get completely owned by AA

***** Hand History for Game 16419151135 *****
$10.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, April 01, 06:49:45 2008
Table Prospero V (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ( $11.15 )
Seat 2: soldatti ( $9.25 )
Seat 3: Guy ( $11.60 )
Seat 4: plus5 ( $10.00 )
Seat 5: hjtakeuchi ( $14.40 )
Seat 6: Isaac ( $18.15 )
hjtakeuchi posts the small blind [$0.05].
Isaac posts the big blind [$0.10].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Guy [ Qh Js ]
Matt folds
soldatti folds
Guy raises [$0.40]
plus5 calls [$0.40]
hjtakeuchi folds
Isaac folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qd, 4s, 2c ]
Guy bets [$0.50]
plus5 calls [$0.50]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7c ]
Guy checks
plus5 bets [$1.00]
Guy calls [$1.00]
** Dealing River ** [ 5d ]
Guy bets [$2.50]
plus5 calls [$2.50]
Guy shows [Qh Js ]
plus5 shows [As Ac ]
plus5 wins $8.55 from main pot


Definitely missed a valuebet on this river!

PokerStars Game #16419235351: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 18:53:43 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ($11 in chips)
Seat 2: soldatti ($9.85 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($10.70 in chips)
Seat 4: plus5 ($14 in chips)
Seat 5: hjtakeuchi ($13.85 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($18.15 in chips)
hjtakeuchi: posts small blind $0.05
Isaac: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [6d 6c]
Matt: folds
soldatti: folds
Guy: raises $0.10 to $0.20
plus5: folds
hjtakeuchi: folds
Isaac: calls $0.10
*** FLOP *** [8h 5s Js]
Isaac: checks
Guy: checks
*** TURN *** [8h 5s Js] [Ks]
Isaac: checks
Guy: checks
*** RIVER *** [8h 5s Js Ks] [7d]
Isaac: checks
Guy: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Isaac: shows [5d 9s] (a pair of Fives)
Guy: shows [6d 6c] (a pair of Sixes)
Guy collected $0.45 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $0.45 | Rake $0
Board [8h 5s Js Ks 7d]
Seat 1: Matt folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: soldatti folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Guy showed [6d 6c] and won ($0.45) with a pair of Sixes
Seat 4: plus5 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: hjtakeuchi (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: Isaac (big blind) showed [5d 9s] and lost with a pair of Fives



At this point Nathan entered the game and the 3-betting really started to get going

PokerStars Game #16419618514: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 19:11:30 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ($10.90 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($12.30 in chips)
Seat 5: Nathan ($5.40 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($16.25 in chips)
Matt: posts small blind $0.05
Guy: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [7h 2d]
Nathan: raises $0.20 to $0.30
Isaac: folds
Matt: folds
Guy: raises $0.70 to $1
Nathan: folds
Guy collected $0.65 from pot
Guy: shows [7h 2d] (high card Seven)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $0.65 | Rake $0
Seat 1: Matt (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Guy (big blind) collected ($0.65)
Seat 5: Nathan folded before Flop
Seat 6: Isaac (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)


PokerStars Game #16419970339: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 19:28:10 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ($10 in chips)
Seat 2: forseti23 ($5.85 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($13.50 in chips)
Seat 4: Duffman911 ($2.05 in chips)
Seat 5: Nathan ($6.45 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($18.30 in chips)
forseti23: posts small blind $0.05
Guy: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [2d 9h]
Duffman911: calls $0.10
Nathan: raises $0.20 to $0.30
Isaac: folds
Matt: folds
forseti23: folds
Guy: raises $0.80 to $1.10
Duffman911: folds
Nathan: folds
Guy collected $0.75 from pot
Guy: shows [2d 9h] (high card Nine)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $0.75 | Rake $0
Seat 1: Matt (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: forseti23 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Guy (big blind) collected ($0.75)
Seat 4: Duffman911 folded before Flop
Seat 5: Nathan folded before Flop
Seat 6: Isaac folded before Flop (didn't bet)


PokerStars Game #16420019712: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 19:30:32 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ($10.15 in chips)
Seat 2: forseti23 ($5.50 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($12.05 in chips)
Seat 4: Duffman911 ($4.20 in chips)
Seat 5: Nathan ($6.05 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($18 in chips)
Nathan: posts small blind $0.05
Isaac: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [Ah 5s]
Matt: folds
forseti23: folds
Guy: raises $0.20 to $0.30
Duffman911: folds
Nathan: raises $0.80 to $1.10
Isaac: folds
Guy: raises $1.90 to $3
Nathan: calls $1.90
*** FLOP *** [Qh 9c 7d]
Nathan: bets $3.05 and is all-in
Guy: folds
Nathan collected $5.80 from pot
Nathan: shows [2h 2c] (a pair of Deuces)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $6.10 | Rake $0.30
Board [Qh 9c 7d]
Seat 1: Matt folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: forseti23 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Guy folded on the Flop
Seat 4: Duffman911 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Nathan (small blind) collected ($5.80)
Seat 6: Isaac (big blind) folded before Flop


Me owning Isaac :)

***** Hand History for Game 16420143061 *****
$10.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, April 01, 07:36:20 2008
Table Prospero V (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ( $10.00 )
Seat 2: forseti23 ( $5.95 )
Seat 3: Guy ( $10.05 )
Seat 4: Duffman911 ( $3.90 )
Seat 5: Nathan ( $9.50 )
Seat 6: Isaac ( $18.05 )
Duffman911 posts the small blind [$0.05].
Nathan posts the big blind [$0.10].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Guy [ 2s 6s ]
Isaac raises [$0.30]
Matt folds
forseti23 folds
Guy calls [$0.30]
Duffman911 folds
Nathan calls [$0.20]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jc, 2c, 2h ]
Nathan checks
Isaac bets [$0.60]
Guy calls [$0.60]
Nathan folds
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jd ]
Isaac checks
Guy checks
** Dealing River ** [ 5s ]
Isaac checks
Guy bets [$1.00]
Isaac calls [$1.00]
Guy shows [2s 6s ]
Guy wins $3.95 from main pot
Isaac doesn't show [6h 6c ]


This is the unfortunate hand vs Matt where I put him on overcards and expect him to fold to my c/r.... unfortunately he has AA and I manage to hit my outs

PokerStars Game #16420308095: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 19:44:04 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ($10.50 in chips)
Seat 2: forseti23 ($6.60 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($11.20 in chips)
Seat 4: Kalikat003 ($5.90 in chips)
Seat 5: Nathan ($13.10 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($16.20 in chips)
forseti23: posts small blind $0.05
Guy: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [9h Qh]
Kalikat003: calls $0.10
Nathan: folds
Isaac: folds
Matt: raises $0.30 to $0.40
forseti23: folds
Guy: calls $0.30
Kalikat003: calls $0.30
*** FLOP *** [8c 5h 3h]
Guy: checks
Kalikat003: checks
Matt: bets $1
Guy: raises $3 to $4
Kalikat003: folds
Matt: raises $6.10 to $10.10 and is all-in
Guy: calls $6.10
*** TURN *** [8c 5h 3h] [8h]
*** RIVER *** [8c 5h 3h 8h] [Kh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Guy: shows [9h Qh] (a flush, King high)
Matt: mucks hand
Guy collected $20.40 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $21.45 | Rake $1.05
Board [8c 5h 3h 8h Kh]
Seat 1: Matt (button) mucked [Ad As]
Seat 2: forseti23 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Guy (big blind) showed [9h Qh] and won ($20.40) with a flush, King high
Seat 4: Kalikat003 folded on the Flop
Seat 5: Nathan folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Isaac folded before Flop (didn't bet)


There comes a time in poker where you become too lazy to use the slider and so are reduced to minbets.... and look at that river outdraw... and my 10c bet with the nut low!

***** Hand History for Game 16420737855 *****
$10.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, April 01, 08:04:28 2008
Table Prospero V (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ( $10.35 )
Seat 3: Guy ( $22.10 )
Seat 4: rayrns ( $9.90 )
Seat 5: Nathan ( $16.75 )
Seat 6: Isaac ( $15.85 )
Matt posts the small blind [$0.05].
Guy posts the big blind [$0.10].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Guy [ 2c 2s ]
rayrns folds
Nathan calls [$0.10]
Isaac calls [$0.10]
Matt calls [$0.05]
Guy raises [$0.10]
Nathan raises [$0.20]
Isaac folds
Matt folds
Guy raises [$0.20]
Nathan calls [$0.10]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3c, Th, 3h ]
Guy bets [$0.10]
Nathan raises [$0.20]
Guy raises [$0.20]
Nathan raises [$0.20]
Guy calls [$0.10]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4d ]
Guy bets [$0.10]
Nathan calls [$0.10]
** Dealing River ** [ 4c ]
Guy bets [$0.10]
Nathan calls [$0.10]
Guy shows [2c 2s ]
Nathan shows [Js Kh ]
Nathan wins $2.10 from main pot



Another gem where I manage a massive outdraw

PokerStars Game #16420781609: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 20:06:33 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ($10.25 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($21.95 in chips)
Seat 4: rayrns ($9.80 in chips)
Seat 5: Nathan ($17.05 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($15.75 in chips)
rayrns: posts small blind $0.05
Nathan: posts big blind $0.10
Matt98568: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [Jd Kh]
Isaac: raises $0.20 to $0.30
Matt: calls $0.30
Guy: calls $0.30
rayrns: folds
Nathan: calls $0.20
*** FLOP *** [As Jh 8c]
Nathan: bets $0.10
Isaac: calls $0.10
Matt: calls $0.10
Guy: raises $0.10 to $0.20
Nathan: raises $0.10 to $0.30
Isaac: calls $0.20
Matt: calls $0.20
Guy: calls $0.10
*** TURN *** [As Jh 8c] [8d]
Nathan: checks
Isaac: checks
Matt: checks
Guy: bets $0.10
Nathan: calls $0.10
Isaac: calls $0.10
Matt: calls $0.10
*** RIVER *** [As Jh 8c 8d] [Jc]
Nathan: checks
Isaac: checks
Matt: checks
Guy: bets $1.50
Nathan: folds
Isaac: calls $1.50
Matt: folds
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Guy: shows [Jd Kh] (a full house, Jacks full of Eights)
Isaac: mucks hand
Guy collected $5.60 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $5.85 | Rake $0.25
Board [As Jh 8c 8d Jc]
Seat 1: Matt folded on the River
Seat 3: Guy (button) showed [Jd Kh] and won ($5.60) with a full house, Jacks full of Eights
Seat 4: rayrns (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: Nathan (big blind) folded on the River
Seat 6: Isaac mucked [Qh Qc]


Nathan trying his tricks again

***** Hand History for Game 16421067316 *****
$10.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, April 01, 08:20:07 2008
Table Prospero V (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 2: ADUBS23 ( $6.00 )
Seat 3: Guy ( $27.10 )
Seat 4: rayrns ( $16.80 )
Seat 5: Nathan ( $7.25 )
Seat 6: Isaac ( $24.15 )
Nathan posts the small blind [$0.05].
Isaac posts the big blind [$0.10].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Guy [ Jh Ah ]
ADUBS23 folds
Guy raises [$0.30]
rayrns folds
Nathan calls [$0.25]
Isaac calls [$0.20]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9h, 2c, 3d ]
Nathan checks
Isaac checks
Guy bets [$0.40]
Nathan raises [$0.80]
Isaac folds
Guy calls [$0.40]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3s ]
Nathan bets [$1.40]
Guy calls [$1.40]
** Dealing River ** [ 8d ]
Nathan checks
Guy checks
Nathan shows [Qs Jd ]
Guy shows [Jh Ah ]
Guy wins $5.05 from main pot



Isaac makes an attempt to steal this pot (was calling a shove btw) :)

PokerStars Game #16421168045: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 20:24:52 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: ArlBsch ($19.15 in chips)
Seat 2: ADUBS23 ($5.55 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($18.75 in chips)
Seat 4: rayrns ($16.65 in chips)
Seat 5: Nathan ($5.70 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($32.75 in chips)
Isaac: posts small blind $0.05
ArlBsch: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [Th Kc]
ADUBS23: calls $0.10
Guy: raises $0.30 to $0.40
rayrns: folds
Nathan: folds
Isaac: folds
ArlBsch: folds
ADUBS23: calls $0.30
*** FLOP *** [6c 4d 6h]
ADUBS23: checks
Guy: bets $0.50
ADUBS23: calls $0.50
*** TURN *** [6c 4d 6h] [Qc]
ADUBS23: checks
Guy: bets $1.20
ADUBS23: calls $1.20
*** RIVER *** [6c 4d 6h Qc] [Qh]
ADUBS23: bets $1
Guy: calls $1
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ADUBS23: shows [7d 5d] (two pair, Queens and Sixes)
Guy: shows [Th Kc] (two pair, Queens and Sixes - King kicker)
Guy collected $6.05 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $6.35 | Rake $0.30
Board [6c 4d 6h Qc Qh]
Seat 1: ArlBsch (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: ADUBS23 showed [7d 5d] and lost with two pair, Queens and Sixes
Seat 3: Guy showed [Th Kc] and won ($6.05) with two pair, Queens and Sixes
Seat 4: rayrns folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Nathan (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Isaac (small blind) folded before Flop





And the grand finale.....

This is why you should never EVER fold preflop!!!!!

PokerStars Game #16420249983: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/04/01 - 19:41:21 (ET)
Table 'Prospero V' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Matt ($10 in chips)
Seat 2: forseti23 ($7 in chips)
Seat 3: Guy ($11.50 in chips)
Seat 5: Nathan ($9.55 in chips)
Seat 6: Isaac ($16.35 in chips)
Nathan: posts small blind $0.05
Isaac: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Guy [Qh Td]
Matt: raises $0.20 to $0.30
forseti23: calls $0.30
Guy: calls $0.30
Nathan: raises $1.20 to $1.50
Isaac: folds
Matt: calls $1.20
forseti23: folds
Guy: folds
*** FLOP *** [Qd Tc Qc]
Nathan: checks
Matt: bets $2
Nathan: calls $2
*** TURN *** [Qd Tc Qc] [4d]
Nathan: checks
Matt: checks
*** RIVER *** [Qd Tc Qc 4d] [Jh]
Nathan: checks
Matt: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Nathan: shows [Ks Kh] (two pair, Kings and Queens)
Matt: mucks hand
Nathan collected $7.35 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $7.70 | Rake $0.35
Board [Qd Tc Qc 4d Jh]
Seat 1: Matt mucked [8d 8h]
Seat 2: forseti23 folded before Flop
Seat 3: Guy (button) folded before Flop
Seat 5: Nathan (small blind) showed [Ks Kh] and won ($7.35) with two pair, Kings and Queens
Seat 6: Isaac (big blind) folded before Flop

March Review

I know its not quite the end of the month yet, but I do not intend to play any poker tomorrow and so thought it best to do my March Review now.... also haven't posted for a while as have been away over the weekend skiing in the alps :)

First off, Hannes' posted a question in my last blog entry asking why I play 4 tables if I play better poker when I am only playing 2. The reason is that although I play better poker when 2 tabling, my hourly winrate is still bigger when I 4 table. As long as my winrate is over half of what it is when I 2 table then I will make more money by 4 tabling. This is why I usually 4 table, but go down to 2 tables when I want to tweak my game.

I have played a total of 20074 hands in March for a profit of about $500. I don't know the exact amount because the rakeback calculator in Holdem Manager is not 100% accurate.... but $500 including rakeback should be pretty close to the actual value.

Although this is slightly more than my February winnings, I have played more hands. I feel that I have been playing better poker, but (as always) I still have a long way to go. In my defence, I ran really badly in the middle of the month, and then ran breakeven for most of the rest of it.... but that shouldn't be an excuse.

Through recent discussions on MSN with James, I think that I have identified 2 major leaks in my game:

The first one was my blind play when there were late position limpers. I was reminded of a comment I once made at one of the uni tournaments: "Any time you get more money in while you're ahead you're playing well", I would like to retract this comment as it is very over generalised and does not take into account many other factors, the most important being that playing hands out of position vs an aggressive opponent who knows how to use position to their advantage has a huge effect on the relative strength of your hand. With hands such as KTo I would often raise in the BB if the CO or BTN limped, but playing a hand as weak as KTo out of position vs even semi-aggressive opponents is very difficult and almost certainly -EV because of their positional advantage. Versus very loose passive opponents position is not as important because they do not know how to bluff or semibluff and so its much easier to know if you have the best hand, but vs good aggressive opponents, raising KTo out of position is bad because it is very rarely going to make a very strong hand, and it will not be difficult for an aggressive opponent to push you off the best hand using their positional advantage. The discussion concluded that position counts as a 2:1 advantage in the hand and so to play a hand out of position, you should add 33% to your opponents equity which I think is a pretty accurate estimation.

The second leak I discovered, was that I was making very little money on the button, much less than in the cutoff, I think this is due to coldcalling raises with hands such as QJs, ATs and AJo where I didn't want to 3-bet or fold. I think that this is a pretty blatant leak, and it has had a really significant effect on my winrate. This month I have made a whopping $728 in the CO but lost a total of $82 OTB, clearly a massive leak as I should be making even more from the BTN than from the CO. By using the filters in Holdem Manager, I discovered that I very rarely coldcalled from the CO but often did from the BTN, which is where most of my losses have come from. I need to learn to let go of hands such as QJs when there is an early position raise because my postflop edge is not enough to play these hands profitably when I am not the aggressor. I believe that I am also 3-betting a little too liberally from the BTN and am loosing money in 3-bet pots from the BTN too.

I have qualified for Ironman 'Silver' status on Full Tilt, not really a great achievement because the 'medals' are worth very little, but I guess every little counts.

As always, I have learned a lot about poker in the past month and I think that I have improved as a player. I am going to try to fix the two leaks identified this month and attempt to boost my winrate a bit, however I have an increasing amount of work to do for uni at the moment and so will not be able to play very much poker over the next two months, but I will still be keeping my blog updated with the small amount of poker I do play.

As much as I am embarrassed to show it, I can't really write a March review without posting my very unimpressive graph. The green line is winnings and the blue line is winnings + rakeback (though rakeback is not 100% accurate). As you can see from the graph, its one big horrible breakeven stretch, but I'm making money so I can't complain, and I have learned a lot about my game.



Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

I am going to Spain for a week on Thursday, so wont be able to blog for a week, but will be back around the 11th with some news.

Happy grinding :)

Tilt is -EV?

I am pretty burned out this month, played a lot of hands, especially towards the start of the month and I think that it has had quite a big impact on my game. I have been pretty much breakeven for the last 15K hands and I can't just say 'varience', there are some clear leaks in my game. I have been playing between 4 to 5 tables and am playing for longer and longer sessions. Often I find myself getting frustrated after about 2 hours because I am not up very much and then I start to loose concentration on the game and tilt. Tilt comes in a variety of flavours, and tiredness + frustration produces a very potent but subtle form.

I am well on track to qualify for 'Ironman silver' this month and so I am going to try to take the rest of the month easy. I am going to take a few days off playing this weekend and try to watch some more deuces cracked vids as well as posting on the 2+2 forum.

Last night I played in a $10+1 tourney on Full Tilt just to mix it up a bit and ended up coming 21st out of about 290 when I lost a race with AJ vs 66. I think I played well during the tournament and managed to do well despite being very card dead (66 was my highest PP and AQ my highest non paired hand in 3 hours) as well as running 55 and A3 into AA when I shoved the BTN vs the blinds, I lost both hands but luckily was up against smaller stacks. After the first hour my stack never got above 15BBs so I was shortstacked for almost the entire tourney but I managed to hold on and I was just unlucky not to win the 50/50 at the crucial time and therefore busted in 21st for a disappointing $16. I think that my biggest leak was playing too tight on the bubble, where I think I should be shoving any 2 when folded to me OTB, because I need to build a decent stack.... but I intend to play a few more small buyin tourneys this month so will see how it goes.

Decided to play a 1 hour session today 2 tabling so I could really concentrate on my game. I opened up a bunch of tables and picked the best 2. I have to say.... by playing 2 tables and really concentrating on every hand, I think I produced some of the best poker I have ever played. Maybe I was just running well, but I planned every hand and thought carefully about each decision and not once did I find myself in a tough spot with no idea what to do. I think that cutting down to just a couple of tables is really beneficial and I am going to try to do it once a week or so to try to improve my game.

Will try to post regularly over the next few weeks. Until then......

Plodding along

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, I have been very busy with work, and when I have not been working I have been playing.

March has been 'interesting' since my last post on the 6th. In the last 11 days I have played a whopping 11250 hands of poker, generated $453.97 of rake and all I have to show for it is a loss of $13.93. Add rakeback to that however and it looks more like $100 so I guess its not 'too' bad.

In my defence I have been running very very badly, I have been dealt AA 54 times for a loss of $92.03 with a measly 40% won at showdown and at one point I was down $280 just with AA.

Although I have been running bad, I think that my play is still improving, I am becoming more and more confident at 50NL and I think that I am almost at the point where I feel comfortable that I can beat the game, although I still have some major leaks which need to be fixed.

I am doing the iron man challenge on Full Tilt this month, will not be able to make iron, but am on track for silver and should be able to make gold. I don't think that the iron man promotion is very good value, but I would like to prove to myself that I have enough stamina to do it.

Have also purchased Holdem Manager to replace Poker Tracker 2, I debated for quite a while before getting it because I had tested out the beta and had trouble getting used to the interface, but I bit the bullet and forked out $55 for the 'small stakes' version which will import hands up to 50NL (there is a $25 addon to purchase the 'full' version which will import higher stakes). I have now managed to get used to the layout and HUD and I love it. It is still being developed and so there are some bugs and a few features missing but there are regular updates and 'Roy' seems to be pretty good at fixing all the issues.

Here is my graph for the month, the green line is my poker winnings and the blue line is poker winnings + RB (i.e. net winnings), its been a pretty breakeven month so far, but hopefully I will start running better soon. There is a pretty sick downswing in the middle where I dropped about 6BI at 50NL and then a long breakeven stretch where I decided to play 25NL for a bit. The final 5000 hands are 50NL again.



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And just thought I would share a screenshot from today where I tured quad kings, doesn't happen everyday. (Admire the table mod :))



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Term has now finished and am going home tomorrow, getting the train down to London and am going to see if I can grind out 3 hours of poker on the train if they have wireless... should be interesting.

March Update

So far in March, I have played 4011 hands of 50NL for a total of $128.85 (3.21ptBB/100). I started the month well, running up about $210 of profit, but then went on a rather sudden 4BI downswing, taking me back down to almost breakeven for the month. I was quite surprised at how much loosing 4BIs at 50NL effected me emotionally, not through tilt, but it made me doubt my game so much. It just seemed that every move I tried to make was the wrong one, and my opponents were constantly outplaying me by 3-betting me preflop when I had a weak hand, or check-raising the flop whenever I missed. This of course is standard variance, and I know it is, but even so, the simple procedure of loosing almost $200 in about 500 hands really got to me.

Once I had got over my stupidity and realised that $200 is only 4BIs, and that 4BIs swings were going to happen on a weekly basis, and that much bigger swings are guaranteed to happen at some point, it became much easier to deal with it. I resisted the temptation to play 25NL, but played a bit tighter than my normal game at 50NL so as to avoid tricky (high variance) situations, the result being that over the final 1000 hands, I made it back to my current total of just under $130.

I believe that poker players learn the most when going through downswings, and this most recent one has made me realise that since I have moved up to 50NL, I am much more emotionally attached to the money that I am playing with. 5-6BI swings happen regularly at 6max and to be able to deal with them I need to think of money in terms of buyins, not in terms of $$.

I have now finished watching the Unconventional Wisdom series at Deuces Cracked which has really changed how my thought process works when playing, some really great stuff in the videos and I would highly recommend it to anyone playing 50NL-200NL.

In other news, I have $200 stuck on Battlefield Poker which I cant access because of this whole microgaming scandal. Not sure exactly what is going on, but apparently the company that controls the funds has gone into liquidation and all the funds have been frozen at the moment. A lot of people have a lot more tied up in the affected sites than me, but would be nice to see my $200 again. (More info here)

Febuary Review

Febuary has been a very important month for me. Up to the 6th of Febuary ,I was playing 25NL on Full Tilt to get used to the software until I started playing 50NL. I found the players at 25NL to be mostly weaktight, often raising or 3-betting preflop, but playing very poorly postflop when they did not hit a hand. Having had a bit of a tough time at the end of January, I managed to adapt my game to the 25NL players, and over 6000 hands of 25NL over the month of February I ran at 9.2ptBB/100 hands, netting a total profit of $275.

On the 7th of February, the money for my stake arrived, and I entered the world of 50NL. It was very quickly clear that 50NL was a very different game, with the average player being fairly loose and very aggressive. I would regularly run into 60/30 type opponents against whom I had had little experience playing against. The end result of all this extra aggression was higher variance, since bluffing and semi-bluffing were used much more frequently at this level, I would often find my self putting my stack in whereas I would have probably folded at 25NL.

As would be expected, I struggled to do well at 50NL. Initially I ran very well and managed to suckout a few times with KK vs AA and quickly ran up a $250 profit. However, it was clear to me that my good results were due more to running well than to playing good poker and on reviewing my sessions I could see that I was spewing a lot of chips playing medium sized pots. I was giving up too easily and regularly getting pushed off the best hand and finally, I dropped $300 in 2.5K hands.

After 8000 hands of 50NL, I had only a $100 profit and so decided to spend the rest of the month playing 25NL. I signed up to deuces cracked and watched some 50NL as well as a lot of 200NL videos in the Unconventional Wisdom series, and I slowly managed to understand where my leaks were.

All in all, February has been a great month, even though I did not do very well at 50NL I have learned a huge amount and am confident that I will be able to beat the game. Pre February 7th my winnings were $156 + about $40 in bonuses and from the 7th until the end of February I netted another $220 + about $80 in bonuses and $100 in rakeback, taking my monthly total to about $600 of which $200 is going to my staker (50% of the $400 from the 7th to 29th).

Here is my graph and stats for the month

Live Poker

For a few weeks now, I have been arranging to go to Aspers casino in Newcastle with a few friends to play in their weekly Friday night £20 freezeout. 14 people turned up and at about 6.30pm we left for Newcastle, arriving at Aspers at about 7.15. We all registered and brought in for the tourney and had a few drinks before the start at (I think) 8pm.

The structure was ok I guess, there was a 4K starting stack, with 1K added if you were in your seat for the first hand of the tourney, making it a 5K stack with 30 minute levels, however, the blinds doubled each level and so after a couple of hours, it becomes a bit of a shove/fold game.

It quickly became clear that the standard of play at this tourney was very poor. About the third had in, a player 4 seats to my left called a raise preflop and then called 3 streets on a AK7T4 (or equivalent) board with Q high, only to win the hand vs 53o.

About 20 minutes in I get 77 in mid position and decide just to limp as I know I will get action if I hit a set and given the players at the table, would probably get 4-5 callers if I raised, who would call me down to the river with A high, not something I really want with 7s given all the overcards that are likely to hit... so I just limp, about 4 other limpers and the flop comes down 5 way, KJ5. I check, a player to my left bets and is called by 2 other players. I decide that 7s are surly not good here and muck. Turn is blank, the player to my left bets again and is called by 1 player and the river is another blank. The player to my left bets about 1/10th of the pot and is called. He shows A5 for A high and the other player mucks T9, folding 7s suddenly looks a bit weak....

About 20 mins later I get KJo in the BB, the player in MP who is a massive fish and has played in almost every hand so far (and managed to treble his stack) limps along with a couple of others and I raise it to about 4.5BBs in the BB. The fish in MP calls and everyone else folds. The flop comes Kxx with 2 diamonds. I bet out about 2/3 of the pot and he calls, turn is the J of diamonds, putting 3 to a flush on the board, I decide to bet a little under 2/3 of the pot putting about 2K of my 4K stack on the table and my opponent goes all in. I have seen him call down to the river with a lot of weak hands, but the few times he has shown aggression he has always had a strong hand so I was pretty sure he had the flush here. I eventually fold, he says 'good fold, I had you there' and shows me A4 of diamonds.

After about and hour and a half the blinds are 200/400 and my stack is 3.3K so I am looking for a spot to get it AI. I am in the BB, there are 4 limpers including the player who turned a flush vs my 2 pair and I look down at 98 of clubs. I check in the big blind and the flop comes down QT7 with 2 clubs. The pot is 1200 and I have about 2200 left, I am really hoping to get it AI as an open ended straight draw + flush draw is pretty much the nuts here. It was me to act first and I had 3 options: 1) Open shove 2) Go for a c/r 3) Bet out and hope to get raised. In retrospect I think option 1 is by far the best because, since I am probably only 50/50 here and the pot is already very large compared to my stack, I am quite happy to win the pot on the flop. Open shoving either wins me 1200 100% of the time, or, when I am called, 6000 50% of the time (assuming that if I am called I am 50/50 to win the pot). Since my tournament life was on the line, and openshoving gives me the most fold equity, I think it would have been the best line to take. However, instead I decided to bet 1000 into the 1200 pot (don't ask why). I get called by my flush friend and everyone else folds, the turn bricks and I am left with a 1200 stack and the pot is now 3500. I shove and he calls me with T8, I manage to miss all of my gazillion outs on the river and so bust out in about after about an hour and a half.

I find that 3 of my friends have also already busted out and so we go to the bar for a drink and I get a bite to eat. We chat about the usual for a while (bad beats) and I decide to put my name down for the £1/£2 pot limit cash table, even though I am nowhere near rolled for it. About 15 minutes later a new table is started and I buy in for the minimum £50. The table was self dealt and we started out 6 handed. All the players brought in for £150+ apart from one other studenty looking player who brought in for £50 as well.

First hand I am in the BB and get dealt QQ, the button and small blind limp and I raise the pot, they both fold and I decide to show. I think that showing hands in poker is generally a bad thing as you are giving away information, but playing with a 25BB stack I want to build myself a tight image, and raising the first hand isn't going to do wonders for my image unless I show a good hand.

After about 20 mins there are 9 players round the table, most of whom have a full £200 stack. The standard of play is appalling with 4-5 limpers in every pot and 2 fish to my right who habitually call down to the river with T high just for fun, I would seriously compare it to a 1p/2p game on pokerstars.

I get dealt A9s in MP after the 2 fish limp, I decide to raise pot before realising that it was probably a bad idea because there are 4 players to act behind me, I only have 25BBs, and the button was really aggro. So probably a bad raise, but it was too late. The button calls as well as the two fish to my left and the flop comes down a glorious 478 of diamonds giving me the A high flush. The two fish check and I decide to check to the button because I am about 90% sure he will bet. He obliges, the 2 fish call and I call with the intention of betting the turn. I don't think slowplaying is bad here at all because given my stack size, a half pot bet will put me AI on the turn. The turn is the 5 of diamonds putting 4 to a flush on the board. The first fish checks and the 2nd one bets about 1/5 of the pot. I shove for about 1/2 the pot and the button and first fish fold. My opponent asks me if I have the 6 of diamonds for the straight flush and then calls with the K of diamonds. Et voila, I scoop a pot of £138.

I continue to play tight, folding small pocket pairs in early position and not raising without a premium hand, even in late position. My stack stays at around £130 for about 40 minutes and I suddenly realise that I am playing with scared money. I was playing way above my bankroll with money that would affect me far too emotionally if I lost it and so I decided to finish the orbit and leave the table.

The next hand I get dealt AK of hearts on the button. The player under the gun makes a very small raise (just over a min raise) and is 3-bet by another player in early position. The two fish to my right cold call the 3-bet and I pot it to £45 on the button. The raiser and 3-better both fold and it takes the first fish a couple of seconds to call, the 2nd fish folds. The pot is now about £100 and I have just under £100 left. The flop comes down 367 of clubs and it is checked to me. I decide not to shove because I am probably not going to get called by worse and I think that I can fairly easily get to showdown because my opponent is so passive (he has regularly checked down top pair to the river). I check behind and the turn is the J of clubs, I curse the poker gods and check behind again. The river is a blank and again, it is checked to me, I check behind and my friendly fish turns over T9o with the T of clubs. I decide not to show my AK and instead call over the waitress for a cup of tea.... it was either that or shout abuse at the fish, but I think a cup of tea is more +EV.

I wait 2 more hands, fold them both and then leave with an £80 stack, I go to the cash desk to cash out and then find my friends at the bar.

4 or 5 of us it appeared were still in the tourney and it was down to the last 2 tables, but given the standard of poker I was not surprised. About half an hour later it was 1.30am and breakfeast was served in the restaurant, I opted for another cup of tea and we all exchanged bad beat tables round the breakfast table.

Another half an hour and there was only 1 of us (a Stockton lad who I don't know) left in the tournament as Matt had busted in 9th for about £100. We finished our breakfast and were presented with at £10 free bet for spending over £10 in the restaurant. We managed to run it up to £90 on the blackjack table before loosing it all and we decided that it was time to go home.

A bit after 2am we left Aspers, but it seemed that none of us had had enough poker and so we went to Aidens college in Durham to play some 5p/10p cash.

At about 3am we started the game in the canteen of Aidens college and I have to say that the following events are very blurred in my mind and so are probably not 100% accurate.

This is what I remember: The game was 6 handed, and 4-5 way flops were not uncommon. Even though all 5 of us were fairly good poker players, the standard of poker quickly deteriorated. A couple of hours in I get dealt 2 suited cards (can't remember what they were), its folded to me in the small blind and I raise, the big blind folds and James who straddled UTG calls me. The flop comes down paired (99 I think) with 2 diamonds and I c-bet. James calls my c-bet and the turn is a 3rd diamond giving me a low flush (7 high I think). I check to James because I think he bets a lot of the time here given the board texture, he also knows that I am a bit weak tight and so will give up on pots a bit too easily so it would make sense for him to bet here. He does and I c/r him all in, he thinks for a while and eventually calls me with (I think) Q9 for trips. A few murmurs about slowrolling are heard, and James who was dealer for this hand takes about 2 minutes to deal the river card, eventually dealing a Q giving him a full house (live poker is so rigged!).

The next 4 hours or so involved me playing some of the worst poker I have played in a long time, including such gems as 4-betting 73o preflop vs James and then betting 2/3 of my stack on a board of AKJT, James tanked for ages, almost folded, but instead decided to raise me with AT, of course I couldn't call and so had to fold. Other classics included Nick calling my raise blind and then check/minraising the flop without even looking at his cards, the punch line being that I folded! This annoyed me so much that a couple of hands later I decide to check blind in the BB after a couple of limpers, the flop comes down A35 and the button bets into me, I decide its time to look at my cards and look down at KK, the best hand I have been dealt all night. I am too tilted to fold the flop and so call and manage to get to showdown, only to be shown A7o by Sam. The best hand of the night however has to go to Nick who called the flop and turn with an open ended straight draw, hitting it on the river, only to find that he in fact only had 4 to a straight.

At about 8am Aidens students started appearing for breakfast and we managed to grab some cereal and toast before returning to the game, it also turned out to be 'Aidens Day' an annual festival and students started setting up 'ents' around the canteen and bar area, seemingly oblivious to 6 people playing poker in the corner.

At about 9am it happened, the hand that almost killed me. We were playing the 72 game which meant that if any player won a pot with 72 then they got 25p from each player at the table, however, for some reason in the 8 hours of poker so far, only 2 72s had been dealt. So anyway, I am in late position and look down at 72o, Nick limps and I raise, getting called by James and Nick. The flop comes 553 with 2 spades, it is checked to me and I bet just under the pot hoping to steal it there, I thought that betting into both James and Nick would look really strong here as they know that I know that they will call me down with K high (or something like that), but no, James calls my bet and Nick folds, the turn is another low card, maybe a 6 and we both check. The river is the 2 of spades putting 3 to a flush on the board and James bets about £6 into an £8 pot, I have £3.50 behind. I think for a few seconds before showing my hand and folding, surly I am NEVER good here. I ask James to show his hand and he eventually turns over AQ. I stand up and feel physically sick, I think I was actually shaking. Never have I felt so bad at poker, every bluff I had made was called, every call I made was bad, I had been bluffed out of god knows how many pots, and then this! I couldn't believe it, and it took me a good 10 minutes to get back to the table, still feeling physically ill.

With my last £3, I decide to shove AT of hearts from the BTN and get called by the usual suspects, Nick and James. The flop comes down J high, Nick calls James' bet, but folds KTo to his bet on the turn. The river comes a third spade and James shows KT of spades for the flush.

Somehow I have 85p left (not sure why) and so made it a bounty for anyone who bluffed James out of a pot, anything to make me feel better.

At 11.30am, we decided to finish the game, and went home. I ended up breakeven for the night, winning about £35 at aspers and loosing about £40 at the home game, but even though I played some of the worse poker known to man, it was such fun.

Anyway, now hopefully I have enough FPPs to but a wife :)

Ups and Downs

Having been up about $400 playing 50NL, in the past 2000 hands I have dropped almost $300 taking my monthly total at 50NL over 9000 hands down to only $100. Add bonuses and RB to that and my balance is currently at around $300. At least its in the green.

My 6BI drop at 50NL has made me realise that my game is far from as good as it should be. I have had a few bad beats and coolers over the past few thousand hands, but I think that the downswing is mainly due to being outplayed by other 50NL regulars in small to medium size pots. In brief, I give up way too easily in pots and so get bluffed off a lot of my medium strength hands.

So, I have decided that for the rest of the week, I am not going to play any more 50NL, but instead spend time watching deuces cracked videos and reviewing my game. I am going to try to find spots to double barrel, and generally attempt to win more hands without a showdown. So as not to blow my entire months winnings, I am going to play a minimal amount of 25NL for the rest of the week to try to iron our some of my leaks.

Update to follow...

UPL Trip Report

I probably should have written this a little while ago, but have been a bit lazy recently so here it is, my UPL 4 Nations Grand Final trip report:

Early Friday afternoon I met up with a guy called Nick who was going to give me a lift down to Nottingham. At about 4PM myself, Nick and 3 other eager poker players of whom I had only me one before set off on the two and a half hour drive down to Nottingham. The journey was very uneventful and poker was the main topic of conversation. In the early evening we finally arrived in Nottinham and managed to find our B&B which turned out to be a lovely little pub fairly near the centre of Nottingham. It was decided that it would be a bad idea to go to the poker room that evening and so instead we decided to play some cash in the hotel. Unfortunately, no one had brought any chips with them and so Mav was sent off to the local news agents to change a £20 note into 1p and 2p coins. We ended up playing 5p/10p cash for a couple of hours and ended with a £2 sit n go, resulting in a bedtime of around 4pm... probably not the best of ideas considering the day which awaited us.

On the Saturday morning, we were all up for breakfast at 9.30am and were out of the hotel by 10.30am. Nick had somehow managed to leave all his clothes at Uni and so we had to do a spot of shopping to buy a shirt for him as the Dusk Till Dawn club has a no t-shirt dress code. Having braved the early morning Saturday shoppers, we drove to the club, arriving at about midday. We waited for about half and hour to actually get into the poker room as every player had to register with the club, but it was worth the wait! The Dusk Till Dawn poker club claims to be the 'Premier poker room in Europe' and I have to say, it probably is.

We were issued with our 'Team shirts', England was in red, Ireland in orange, Scotland in blue and Wales in green, and proceeded to register for the tournament at the cash desk. There were then some team photos taken and the start of the tournament became immanent.

There were 153 starters in the tournament and I was seated in seat 8 of table 13, located near the front of the room. The other players at the table all seemed pretty nervous and I am sure that for almost all of them, this was their first big live event.

With a 4K starting stack and 24 minute blind levels starting at 25/50, there was plenty of time to play good solid poker, especially with the Dusk Till Dawn dealers who were very proficient at quickly shuffling up and dealing. It was immediately obvious that the standard of poker was very poor. In the very first hand the UTG player limpcalled and c/f the flop and it very quickly became clear which players could be exploited at the table. About 15 minutes in the first person was knocked out and received the humiliation of a cheering crowd as he made his way to the bar, but after that players were being knocked out left right and centre, especially it seemed at my table where a player was knocked out almost every single orbit. I was playing my usual very tight style and managing to steal a few blinds here and there, keeping my stack around the average size, and about and hour and a half in, I had about a 6K stack, however, the player to my left who was very loose aggressive had managed to accumulate a massive 18K stack and so I had to really tighten up my stealing range as I was pretty sure he was shoving a wide range on me if I raised the button.

As the antes started to kick in, the game started to change a lot, now that the blinds + antes were equivalent to about 1/5 of the average stack, it became very profitable to steal with a wide range and open shoves from late position were very common. About two and a half hours into the tournament I have only seen one flop where I raised AK over an UTG limper, he calls, and the flop comes AT7, I shove for about the size of the pot and after thinking for a couple of minutes he mucks. A couple of blind + ante steals had kept me with a just below average stack but I was running really card dead and only had around 10 big blinds left.

The first break was (I think) around 4.30pm and I met up with the others for a quick drink and to see how they were getting on. It seemed that only myself, Nick and John were left in the tournament as Mav and Sean had both busted with QT. We had quick bite to eat and then returned to the tables.

With so many players being knocked out at my table (3 in one hand at one point), there was a huge turnover of people and so it was difficult to get a good read on any of them. About half an hour after the break, there were about 80 players left and they were dropping fast. The antes + blinds were now about 1/2 the size of my modest 5K stack and I was looking for a point to get it AI. Up to now I had only shown 2 hands and they were both KK and so I was getting a lot of respect when I made an occasional raise. The player two seats to my right was also shortstacked and appeared to randomly shove at some point every orbit seemingly regardless of his cards, so I would have been quite happy to get it AI vs him with any A or PP, and even though he went on to win the tournament, I really don't rate him as a very good poker player. The player directly to my right was the same player who had left our table several hours before with an 18K stack to return with a 3K stack and some story about 'some idiot calling him down with bottom pair' so he was also fairly shortstacked but seemed to now be playing a very tight game.

With about 50 players left, Nick busts out and its just me and John left. About 15 minutes later I get A8 in the SB and its folded to the BTN who limps. I decide its time and shove my 5BBs into the pot and am called by the BTN with 99, the flop comes down.... blank..... A..... 9! Turn is another A, but I don't manage to spike any of my 4 outs on the river. Somehow I cover the BTN and am left with 1.5BBs and by some miracle get dealt AQo on the button. The CO (the player who had 99 the previous hand) open shoves and I call but end up trying to spike and A vs KK. So after 4 and a half hours I busted in 41st place.

I got another drink at the bar and cooled off for a while before getting on the waiting list for one of the 50p/£1 cash games going. About 10 minutes later I was called up to my table and ended up sitting opposite Nick. I bought in for £50 with the intention of not re-buying if I got stacked as I was playing a bit above my bankroll. Some of the players at the table were truly awful, with the player to my left randomly open shoving £25 preflop with hands such as T7o whenever he felt like it and a player 3 seats to my right who's standard line every hand would be to limpcall preflop, call down to the river and then check raise AI. I played very tight, and managed to grind out about £10 by flopping a J with JK and stealing a few blinds. The only interesting hand I played was against Nick, I was UTG+1, the UTG raised and I decide to flat call because he was a very tight player and I think his UTG range is probably ahead of me here. There are several callers including Nick and the flop comes AT5 giving me a set. The UTG player checks and I bet £20 into a £25 pot. Nick tanks for ages and finally folds AJ, and the UTG player mucks KK. An interesting spot and I have to give Nick a lot of credit for folding AJ to my single flop bet, he made a great laydown. I only played a couple more hands, and finally left the table with £46.

John ended up making the money and eventually busted in 18th (congrats to him for cashing) and we decided that it was a good time to make the trip back up to uni.

All in all, Notingham was amazing experience. The Dusk Till Dawn poker club is truly magnificent and the entire day was such fun. Looking back over my actions, I don't think there is a single hand I would have played differently and I am very happy to have made it that deep in the tournament.

Lost the biggest pot of my life

Its 2:15AM and I am pretty much in shock.

Poker has been going well lately, I have played about 8K hands this month (3.5K 25NL and 4.5K 50NL) and am up about $400 including RB and bonuses.

I ran very well tonight and in about 600 hands was up $250, and then I ended up in the biggest pot of my life!

Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $44.55
Hero (BB): $148.45
UTG: $4.95
MP: $147.40
CO: $55.70
BTN: $9.25

Pre-Flop: T T dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG calls $0.50, MP raises to $2.25, 3 folds, Hero calls $1.75, UTG folds

Flop: ($5.25) T 3 2 (2 Players)
Hero bets $3, MP raises to $10.50, Hero calls $7.50

Turn: ($26.25) Q (2 Players)
Hero bets $20, MP raises to $50, Hero raises to $135.70 and is All-In, MP calls $84.65 and is All-In

River: ($295.55) J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $295.55 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed T T (three of a kind, Tens) and LOST (-$147.40 NET)
MP showed Q Q (three of a kind, Queens) and WON $292.55 (+$145.15 NET)


I am in no way upset with the way I played the hand, MP is a solid player and I am pretty sure that he folds QQ/KK/AA to a re-raise on the flop and so calling flop and betting into him on the turn extracts the most value from AA/KK/QQ/AK/AQ/AT hands, so I put this down as a simple cooler. But DAMN, $292.55 is a LOT of cash.

Somehow, over the 900 hands I played today I managed to still finish up $50 so I can't complain, but I am in total shock. Despite all this I haven't (yet) gone on tilt and I hopefully wont. I am not going to play any poker tomorrow, and so will have some time to cool off.

Going to try to sleep now but somehow I don't think it will happen, loosing a pot like that is going to take a little while to get over, but hey, its only money!

I went to Nottingham last weekend to play in the University Poker League 4 Nations Final but haven't got round to writing a trip report yet, so hopefully will get that done in the next couple of days.

Damn! Poker is so rigged!

Hello 50NL

I have been running pretty well so far this week. Played 1.5K hands of 25NL on Tuesday and ended up $44 in the green. Wednesdays 25NL session brought some good luck with me getting it AI pf with KK vs AA and spiking a K on the flop for a $50 pot, as people always say in poker, the luck evens out in the end so I guess I had some luck on the way. Even so, I didn't find many good tables on Wednesday and so only finished $40 up making it $150 total for the month which is pretty good going for me.

Today my 50NL 'Stake' arrived and so I topped my FT account up to $500 with the intention of re-depositing if I go on a downswing. Apart from Monday when I played my 1 hand of 50NL by mistake, I have never sat at a 50NL table (not to mention 4) and so I was pretty nervous when I decided to start my first ever session of 50NL at about 6 this afternoon. I got very lucky again when I ran KK into AA and rivered a flush, and a couple of hands later got it AI with AA vs QQ PF for another $100 pot. I ran really well for the whole session but lost a lot of small pots by getting myself into tricky situations postflop, and after 400 hands I was up $72.

At about 11pm I started my 2nd 50NL session and soon ran KK into AA again, but this time the poker gods were not kind to me and $50 disappeared with the click of a mouse. I did not spew as much as my first session and I made sure only to play at good tables with at least 2+ fish, resulting in a solid grind finally finishing the session down only $34.

So the day ends with a $38 profit at 50NL as well as $20 in bonuses and a bit of RB... which comes to just over $50. I think my postflop game still needs a lot of work, but with good table selection and some confidence in my play, I think I will be able to eventually beat 50NL at Full Tilt.

Here is my biggest online pot to date:
Full Tilt Poker, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $54.05
BB: $93.60
UTG: $50
Hero (MP): $93.35
CO: $63.70
BTN: $45.55

Pre-Flop: A A dealt to Hero (MP)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $1.75, CO folds, BTN calls $1.75, SB raises to $5.50, BB folds, Hero raises to $17, BTN folds, SB raises to $49, Hero raises to $81, SB calls $5.05 and is All-In
Flop: ($110.35) 3 3 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Turn: ($110.35) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
River: ($110.35) T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)
Results: $110.35 Pot ($3 Rake)
SB showed Q Q (two pair, Queens and Threes) and LOST (-$54.05 NET)

Hero showed A A (two pair, Aces and Threes) and WON $107.35 (+$53.30 NET)

Am off to play in the UPL (University Poker League) 4 Nations Grand Final this weekend so online poker will have to wait until next week, but at least 50NL is off to a good start.

Next post will be a trip report from the UPL Grand Final, probably on Sunday.

Until then.... happy grinding.

January in Review and Good Start to February

Sorry for my short post yesterday, it was pretty late at night/early in the morning and I was not really in the right mental state, hopefully this will be a more comprehensive post.

I played a total of 10,738 hands in January: 5,766 of 10NL, 4,872 of 25NL and for some reason I managed to play 100 hands of 25PL. I think 11K hands is not bad for a month where I didn't play a huge amount and I am pretty sure that it will be one of my lowest volume months. I played 10NL at the start of the month and netted a modest $35 + about $40 in rakeback for a total of about $75, not bad but I think a 10NL winrate should be a bit higher than this.

For the second half of the month I played exclusively 25NL and ended $76 down (3BI). Given that this was my first serious shot at 25NL, I don't think it was a disaster... I ran pretty bad at times and tilted a bit, but I think that my game has improved a huge amount in the 5K hands of 25NL and being down 3BI in such a small sample is almost meaningless. On the up side, I earned $40 in bonuses and about $20 in RB at 25NL therefore only putting me about $15 down, turning a loosing month into a slightly profitable one.

Playing at Full Tilt has been especially beneficial to my game due to the general tightness of the games. It seems that at 25NL it is difficult to find tables with more than 2 fish and so I often find myself playing pots against regs, something which I didn't have to do at 10NL. Most of the regs at 25NL are pretty bad, but since they are a new specimen that I have not previously encountered, learning to beat them is a challenging and high variance experience. I have started 3-betting more from late position with a wider range, protecting my blinds from habitual stealers and not c-betting flops which are either very unlikely to have hit me or very likely to have hit my opponent. These new adjustments have taken a while to get used to, but I can't say I have had any major trouble at 25NL so far and I am confident that my anticipated leap to 50NL will go smoothly.

As far as criticizing my play in January goes, I think that I still find it difficult to play weak hands out of position against aggressive opponents and I am still playing my draws too passively on the flop. I have gone from playing 18/16 at 10NL to 21/19 at 25NL, which may not seem like a huge difference but bear in mind that 18% to 21% is a about a 15% increase which is not insignificant and I think that this comes about from isolating with weaker hands than I did at 10NL due to the reduced number of fish at 25NL.

Febuary has started well, I have played 707 hands of 25NL and 1 hand of 50NL when I accidentally opened up a 50NL table and didn't realise until I had posted the big blind. Luckily I was dealt JT and flopped TP and so currently have a $1 profit at 50NL over 1 hand which means I am running at 100ptBB/100 hands (sustainable?). At 25NL I have made 4BI in 2 sessions and it looks like I am finally running well again. I hope to play between 15K and 20K hands this month and it looks like I will be moving up to 50NL very soon so things are going to get interesting.

Until next time...