The Bat Cave

So my plan was to note some hands during my live PLO sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, but for whatever reason, the game didn’t go on Thursday night. I know The Crypt Keeper will be in Vietnam for a few weeks, but none of the newer regs showed up on Wednesday and they weren’t on the list for Thursday either. I checked on Bravo all day and I didn’t see the list grow past two (myself included) until after the designated 6 PM start time, so I took my name off and stayed home to play online instead.

Here’s the starting lineup from Wednesday’s game: Twinkie, Part-Time, nitty baseball guy that will leave if he gets up $500, two 8/16 Regs that don’t play this game, Lee Markholt, another nitty non-reg, and Hit&Run

I keep referring to this PLO regular as the nitty baseball guy that likes to hit and run and that’s a mouthful. He plays the PLO every week so I need to give him some kind of name. I’ll just call him The Collector from now on since that seems to be his main hobby.

Edit: Someone suggested the nickname Charlie Hustle after I posted this. It’s perfect. It fits both the baseball theme and the hit and run theme. Credit to Kyle Barkus for the great suggestion.

After spending a lot of time studying PLO and really improving my game over the past week, I was excited to play live again and try out some of my new tricks, but it ended up being a pretty disappointing session. I was very card dead for most of the night and didn’t have much opportunity to take advantage of my newfound knowledge and then once the game got short-handed – where all my study has been focused (for 6-max games) – the game broke pretty quickly.

Here are the key hands from my live session on Wednesday:

I limp along on the button in a multi-way pot with KK62 single suited to a king. This is a pretty shitty hand to raise in a game where none of the limpers are folding preflop because this hand is going to flop very poorly. I’m basically looking to make a set and that’s about it. So the K74 with two clubs flop was pretty nice. A bad player leads out for $30 and I make it $105 to go. That gets us heads up. The turn card is a 7, filling me up, and he check-calls $110. The river is a ten and he check-calls $155 and shows a set of fours after I table the winner. I expect this player to blast off with sets, so I was pretty surprised to see his holding, but I didn’t think he could be very strong here and that’s why I didn’t go for max value.

There are a series of limpers in front of me and I make it $20 with AA86 rainbow and they all call. The flop is AQ9 with two hearts and by this time The Man is in the game and he donks the flop for $65, I make it $250 to go and… everyone folds… including The Man as he flashes 99. Ugh. Not much I can do here but play my hand face up. This board is way too wet to get cute on in a multi-way pot. I suppose I could gamble by calling and see what happens. Maybe someone else will raise? That would be sexy. However, there are going to be some turn cards that will be really difficult to navigate. Maybe there is some merit to calling in this spot. Something to think about.

Sandman has made a surprising appearance in Palace by this point and this is the one of the first hands he gets dealt in. I wasn’t involved so some of the details are missing here, but most of the key elements are accurate. For instance, I know for a fact that Lee Markholt raised one limper to $20, Sandman 3-bets on the button to $70, The Man and Charlie Hustle call it cold from both blinds and Lee also calls.

I completely missed the flop action on this hand but I was tuned back in when The Man and Sandman managed to eventually get 200bb each in the middle by the turn. The board was AQxx and The Man had AQxx plus the nut spade draw and Sandman had KJ83 double suited (what) which was a king high spade draw and a gutshot. As far as I know he had three outs: the non-spade tens. They ran it once and Sandman somehow drilled the ten and won a $2500 pot on what sure looked to me like a massive punt attempt. Sandman said something about having 6 outs, but that doesn’t really make any sense. Maybe there was an 8 or a 3 on the board that gave him two more outs. Regardless, it was a pretty shocking hand and an unbelievable result.

I felt bad for The Man. He was around 90% to win a $1000 gift from Sandman and… nope. So gross. Even more shocking was how tight Sandman played after this pot. KJ83 double suited is a really ambitious 3-bet here and the postflop play was pretty wild also. After seeing that, I was expecting to see him playing a wild and aggressive game all night, but he locked it down. I don’t really get what was going on here.

Sandman makes it $15, two players call, and I squeeze to $70 with AQJ6 double suited. This hand is notably better than the one Sandman 3-bet in the previous hand as I have two big suits and I block 4-bet ranges by holding an ace. Lee Markholt calls it cold (annoying), Sandman folds, and one of the weaker players calls.

The flop is 443 with two clubs, giving me a queen high flush draw. I’m not too sure about this spot. I’d like to know what the solvers suggest here. Generally speaking, if you flop a flush draw in a 3-bet pot starting with 100bb you are committed to the pot. However, I’m not sure if that applies if the board is paired. I would imagine when the board is 443 it is less of a concern, but I’m not sure. I can’t remember exactly how much I started the hand with but my stack-to-pot ratio was at least 3 to 1 and I know this because I decided to bet $130, Lee folded, the weak player check-raised me, and I decided to go with my draw, getting him all in for $613 total. We ran it once and he had a triple suited (meaning three of one suit) Q984 (so gross) and I was drawing dead when the queen on the turn filled him up.

This is definitely a hand I want to look into further because I’m not 100% on my 3-bet pre or my flop action. I could have played it perfect or it could be a total punt. TBD…

Two players limp and I make it $20 with a single suited KQT8, Lee calls from a blind, and both limpers call. The flop is TT8 and I do something atypical and decide to check back. The turn is another medium or small card (meaning I still have the nuts) and Lee leads out for $30, a random makes it $125 and there’s no sense hiding information any longer (if I call Lee is still going to be done with the hand here), so I make it $325, the other player calls and then stacks off for ~$150 on a river card that still has me nutted.

I raise a limper to $20 with AAK4 single suited to the king and we go multi-way to the A76 two heart flop. I flopped top set and the nut flush draw. It is quite sexy. Since I have the deck pretty crippled here, I decide to size smaller and bet $20 into $80, picking up two callers. The turn is a black king and now I go full pot and one bad player calls. The river is a 9 and for some reason I decide to bet $200 instead of the max and he pays off pretty quickly while grumbling that I always have him beat. This time he shows a set of sixes. This dude is a massive punter and this is now twice he’s shown a lot of restraint against me with a set.

By this point, the game has fizzled out quickly and we are down to 4-handed for this last pot. The guy paying me off with sets opens to $15, I 3-bet from the small blind to $40 with AQT3 single suited to the ace and he calls. I lead $60 on the J94 rainbow flop with one of my suit on the board and he calls.

The turn is the 8 of clubs, giving me the nut straight with the nut flush redraw. I felt my opponent was going to bet a lot of the time if I checked, so I went with that line and he fired $160. I max-raised to $460 and he called.

The river paired the board with a 9 and I decided to go for a check-call here, but he checked behind, making me think I won the hand, but he also had QT in his hand. In fact, he had AQT9 (no clubs). I think this is a pretty easy river bet for him. It should be fairly obvious that I have the nut straight here, so firing a $300 bet on the river is basically a freeroll for him, especially since he actually has the board-pairing card in his hand. This was the third time I had the nuts in a massive pot against the same hand and the second time I was freerolling for the whole pot and bricked.

I wrapped the session at +$465 and I was pretty pleased with that result considering I spent most of the session down around $500-$800 and I was still stuck when most of the loose money was gone.

As a bonus, I will include some of the sicker hands I played at $100 PLO 6-max online this week:

This is such a sick hand. I open 3.5x from cutoff with AKJ5 rainbow and the big blind defends. The flop is QT6 rainbow, which gives me a Broadway wrap. With a stack-to-pot ratio of over 40 to 1 (we are both 300+bb deep to start the hand), I go ahead and bet full pot and he check-raises me to 22.5bb. We are way too deep to play for stacks here, so I just call. The turn is a 5, putting two spades on board, and he bets 73% of the pot and I call. The river is a red ten, giving me the nut straight, and somehow I get him to put 252 big blinds in on the river with a hand that isn’t AK. Wow. That’s a mind-boggling punt on the river. This was the biggest pot I won online this week.

I thought I might be punting on this hand and maybe I was, but let’s see. MP opens to 3.5x, button calls, and I have AK54 triple suited to the ace in the big blind. Solvers say this hand type (unpaired, single suited, disconnected A-high 2-card broadway, suited ace) is calling 24% of the time and folding 76% of the time in this exact spot and since I’m triple suited and have two small cards, I’m clearly in the folding bucket. So that answers my first question: this is a punt. I’m not even supposed to be in the hand, so whatever happens afterward is just compounding my original mistake. But wait! It gets better! The flop is Q54 with two diamonds. I have bottom two pair and the naked king of diamonds in my hand. It checks to the PFR and he bets full pot. The other guy folds and… I decide to see the turn. Yikes. The turn is the ace of diamonds, so now I have three pair and the nut flush blocker. I bet out full pot and then something insane happens: he min-raises me. My turn bet was $33 and I have $52 behind and I am utterly flabbergasted. With the king of diamonds in my hand it really doesn’t make much sense that I’m getting raised here. If he had a flush and decided to go with it, you’d think he’d just pot it. Well, I have three pair and I’m confused, so I decide to go with it and jam the rest in. He calls… with… AT63 no diamonds. Unfortunately, the river is a 6 and he makes a bigger two pair and wins this 200+bb pot.

Well, now I know that guy is a total maniac and by the time this next hand comes up (not that much later) he has turned a 435bb stack into an 83bb stack. I open the button with KJ98 double suited and he 3-bets the big blind to 11bb and I call. The flop is AA3 with two spades, giving me a jack high flush draw. He leads out for full pot. As I mentioned earlier, you generally have to go with it when you flop a flush draw in a 3-bet pot and start with 100bb, but it becomes a serious question when the board is paired… and when the board is paired with two aces, it’s probably suicidal. However, this dude is a proven lunatic, so I pot it and he stacks off for 72bb on the AA3 two spade flop with… a single suited 8775 and no spades in his hand. I have nothing on an AA3 board and I am a 55% favorite. It’s insane that he’s 3-betting that hand preflop. It’s insane that he’s potting the flop. It’s insane that he’s getting 76 big blinds in on that flop. It’s absurd that I have no fold equity on the flop and actually have to win a show down. Fortunately, the turn is a jack and that holds up to scoop the pot. What a maniac.

Last night we went to Palace and I played 8/16 all night. Most of the 15/30 regs (Joker, Radio Mike, Flea, Mighty Mouse) were MIA, so the bigger game never got off the ground and I’m beginning to accept the fact that 15/30 at Palace is no longer something I can rely on… even on Friday nights. Somehow I managed to turn a brutal -$600 start into a +$1040 finish – a ridiculous +$1600 swing at the 8/16 level.

Including last Sunday, that puts me at a very strong +$3776 for the week in live games. I’m still a few thousand dollars short of my previous peak, but I’m definitely trending in the direction of finally busting out of this slump.

Today I will be biting the bullet and returning to Fortune for some 20/40 action. For the year, I sit at -$6870 over 46 hours there and I think it would be cool to try and focus on getting that number back in the green before the year ends. I definitely haven’t been making playing at Fortune a priority this year, but with the 15/30 game at Palace all but dead, I need to start pushing myself to drive to Renton. It’s hard to justify spending my Friday nights playing 8/16, no matter how good the game is.

I will be in 20/40 action by 4 PM today, but I won’t be blogging. With my goal of turning my results at Fortune green for 2018, I want to give it my all and that means focusing on every hand, rather than typing on my phone when I’m not involved.