The Bat Cave

The coolest thing about tracking your poker results with a phone app is the ability to filter all sorts of information. For instance, my data goes back to August of 2014 and I can tell you that I’ve lost more money playing $8/$16 Omaha 8/Better @ The Orleans in Las Vegas than I have in any other specific game during that time span. Or that I’ve lost more money at Muckleshoot than any other location… by far.

The reason I bring this up is because it felt like I’ve been running way above average in the $20/$40 LHE game at Fortune lately. So I did a little filtering and discovered that my hunch wasn’t wrong.

While it hasn’t felt like I’ve been absolutely murdering the game per say, it has felt like I haven’t had to face much negative variance in a long time. I regularly post wins of 5+ racks in the Palace $8/$16 game, but those 5+ rack wins have been much harder to come by at the $20/$40 level and I only have one such win in this 15-session sample size I’m about to mention. Still, I’m on a run so good I thought it might be unprecedented in my statistical history (it’s not – but I’ll get to that later).

This is what it looks like:

-Since May 1st, I’ve played 15 sessions of $20/$40 at Fortune and I’ve only lost twice.
-My worst loss is -$199 during that span.
-It’s not like I’m hit and running: I average 7.5 hours/session during this stretch.
-I’ve won nine sessions in a row.
-My best win is +$2907 and that’s my only win of 4+ racks during this stretch.
-The overall damage is +317 Big Bets at 2.84 BB/HR.

This is not normal. Since I’ve been tracking on this app, I’ve played 824 sessions of LHE in casinos and I’ve won in 54% of them. Over those 824 sessions, I’ve won at a 1.12 Big Bet/hour rate overall across all limits, so I’m a solid winner, but I still lose almost half the time I sit down to play LHE poker. There’s a lot of losing that goes on in poker and heaters like this are pretty rare, so you really have to enjoy them when they do happen.

Out of curiosity I filtered those 824 sessions down to sessions of 6+ hours to see if it makes a difference. It does. My winning percentage jumps up to 61% over 431 sessions.

As I discovered, this is not the best heater I’ve been on in a specific game at a specific casino. Unsurprisingly, I’ve had better runs in the $8/$16 LHE game at Palace in Lakewood.

I have multiple impressive streaks at Palace but this is by far my best one:

-From June 23rd to August 10th of last year I had 14 straight winning $8/$16 sessions at the Palace.

-My best win was +$2377 which happened to be on my birthday and still ranks as my best $8/$16 win of all-time.

-Overall, I won 493 big bets for a win rate of 5.5 BB/HR during this crazy stretch.

What a sick run! But the timing of it makes it even crazier. I had just got back from a massive run at the 2016 WSOP and in early August I was on a road trip and played a $30/$60 with a $50/$100 kill at Ameristar in Colorado where I had my best cash game session ever: +$4245.

All in all, quite a life-changing nine weeks.

But the thing about streaks is that they all end eventually. I don’t expect to win every time I play $20/$40 and I keep expecting to book that inevitable brutal loss. It will happen. So will a bad downswing.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I jinxed this run good just by mentioning it!

Now on to some fun hands from this past week.

How Not To Play Kings

Hand #1

$20/40, I open from a later position with AJo and the button three bets me. The flop comes down AJx and I check-call the flop, check-raise the turn, and get paid off on the river by… KK. I feel like there may have been an opportunity to save a bet in there somewhere… I dunno.

Hand #2

$20/$40, same opponent, next day. They open UTG, an exceptionally loose player calls from MP, and I defend AJ from the BB. I check and overcall on A75 with two hearts flop. Same action on blank turn. River is the 9h, completing the flush draw and the 86 straight draw and I check and overcall again. And UTG tables… KK! Lol. My hand is good. I feel like maybe a bet could be saved somewhere but I dunno.

Hand #3

$20/$40, someone I’m unfamiliar with opens from MP as I 3-bet AQ, they flat, and then check-raise me on J73 with two diamonds. I call with my two overcards and backdoor nut flush draw. The turn is a pretty Q and now they check? Easy bet. River blank and I bet the obvious best hand and they call with… KK! This hand plays out the same way if they bet the turn and river but in that scenario I don’t think I have the nuts!

How I Play Kings… Sometimes

$20/$40, a very wide and aggressive – and reckless – player opens from EP, everyone else folds, and I defend KK from the BB. I like to have some strong hands in my defending range and I think it helps me collect extra big bets later in the hand.

The flop is 873 and I check-raise. Even though I’d ultimately like to check-raise the turn, I mix in some flop check-raising a portion of the time as I will occasionally be able to get three bets in on the flop and still check-raise the turn. My opponent just calls though.

The turn is a T and now they raise my bet. I think it’s still far too likely that my hand is good here – especially since it’s disguised, so I three bet and they snap-cap it. Gulp.

River pairs the board and I check-call while wishfully saying, “I hope you have Queens!” And they table… QQ. Yay! Now that’s a 4-betting the turn hand if I’ve ever seen one!

It’s Hard To Play A Full House Bad

But watch me do it!

$20/$40, another player I’m unfamiliar with opens from MP and I 3-bet 77 on the button. The small blind, a tight and solid player, calls which indicates a pretty strong holding and the original raiser now caps it.

The flop is J87 rainbow and the small blind leads out, the preflop capper calls, I raise, SB three bets, and I cap.

Turn is a J and the SB leads out again. The other player calls and I raise it. They both call.

I think this is some pretty optimistic thinking on my part. I have history with the small blind in O8, but not in LHE. I know she is a nitty player. I’m honestly not sure if she would call three bets with suited Broadway hands, so one has to wonder how many Jacks she has in her range. Even if she does call those hands, I highly doubt she goes crazy with them on this flop against an obviously nutted holding.

So what can she have? T9 suited? I really doubt it. It really feels like she has to have 88 here and this is running through my head as early as the flop action.

So what the hell am I doing on the turn?

But wait, it gets worse!

The river is a Queen and as that card hits the board I am watching the other player in the hand and he has a reaction to it.

But how can I check back a full house? Especially when it seems like only both of my opponents could very well have me beat now.

I bet, the small blind calls, and now the other player springs to life with a raise.

WOW, I SUCK.

I can basically throw my hand in a garbage can now – it’s that worthless. But I call. So does the small blind, now looking at me like “how big of an idiot are you?”

But my live read was a bad one. He reacted to the Q for some reason but he doesn’t have QQ. He has JJ. Quads. And she has 88.

A mega-cooler for sure, but goodness it’s hard to play a hand as bad as I played this one.

This Time I Have The Damn Nuts

$20/$40, I try to isolate a super loose player by raising 66 from the hi-jack but both the cutoff and the button come along for the ride.

Flop is TT9 with two clubs. Terrible board for me to c-bet since so many hands are calling even if they don’t have pairs yet. Everybody checks though.

The turn is a K and I have given up. Everybody checks though.

River is a J. Everybody checks and my hand is good.

TT9KJ. Take it 66.

This is a $20/$40 game. I think the fact that my hand was good is amusing enough but three different players at this level actually let me show it down… is, well, hilarious to me.

I spent Thursday playing $8/$16 at Palace after catching a matinee of Jigsaw (review coming soon) and I don’t have a whole bunch to say about that session, but I did coax my friend Daniel into playing some LHE with me, which is notable because he’s a NLHE player and has been pretty open about his distaste for limit hold em poker. I even made a joke, tagging him on Facebook, saying that watching him play LHE was like seeing someone stuck in a Jigsaw trap.

Daniel basically stayed out of my way as I smashed flops most of the night, but we did play one very interesting – and oh so close to horribly devastating – pot together. In this hand, Daniel was a preflop raiser, there may have been another raise, there were lots of players, and I happily joined all that action with the JT of clubs from the small blind.

I got a very good flop of JT3 rainbow. Daniel lead out, a player or two called, I check-raised, Daniel called, now the latest position back-raises, I cap because this kind of play frequently checks back the turn, and we wind up getting all the bets in at least four ways.

Now here’s where things get interesting. The turn is a King, which is definitely one of my least favorite cards. Daniel could possibly have KK – although he got passive on the flop after leading initially – and he can certainly have AQ, and that hand makes a lot of sense given his line. Also, any of the flop callers can have Q9 or KJ or KT, plus AK and KQ aren’t far behind now. With all of this in mind, I think checking is my best play. So obviously I bet. Daniel immediately punishes me with a raise and now everyone else folds. His hand is so blatantly obviously AQ that I can hardly wait to fold my hand face up on the river if I miss to show how smart I am.

I call and the river does brick and before Daniel does anything, I turn my cards over. And then he turns QQ over in tempo and I can hardly believe the massive mistake I was so eager to make. I mean I’m still sick sitting here typing about it over three days later.

This is one of those massive errors that seems to revisit me every once in a while and you see so many “smart” players make over the years. They narrow someone down to one hand and then they act on that read and completely disregard the pot size. I’ve done it multiple times and I almost never do it now, but goodness was I ever ready to do it here. Thank you Daniel, for checking and saving me a lot of pain and heartache.

Now let’s talk about Daniel’s line. The thing I forgot is that Daniel basically never plays LHE, so narrowing his range down so thinly just can’t be wise – he might make plays that don’t make any sense to me. In NLHE, raising the turn here can make a lot of sense because he has QQ and is severely blocking the nut hand (AQ) and can easily represent it, with little fear that anyone else can have it. The problem in LHE is that, even though the blocker effect is still in play, you simply can’t apply the necessary pressure. All I have to do is call two big bets and I get to showdown in this massive pot. Plus, he’s underestimating the stickiness of the other Palace players – they just don’t fold.

I think if we were heads up, his turn raise makes more sense, because he can have straights and I really can’t, so I likely will never three bet and he can just showdown on the river when he misses and bet when he improves. The problem here is that we are still multiway on the turn and any of our other opponents can easily have hands like Q9, KJ, KT, KQ, etc. that are never folding.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think either of us played this turn well and I can’t believe how close I was to losing this whole pot out of sheer stupidity.

Another crazy pot happened later in the night when we had a round of button straddles going and I had K7 of hearts on the button and had to put in four bets before the flop.

I got a reasonable K96 with two spades flop and really liked my hand when everybody checked to me. The small blind (preflop 3-bettor) check-raised me, two others (including the preflop 4-bettor) cold called and I just called.

The turn was a pretty nice looking 7 and they all checked to me again. If I hadn’t improved, I might’ve checked here, but turning two pair made me a lot more confident about my hand. But then the small blind check-raised again, the next player called, and now the preflop 4-bettor wakes up with a check-three bet on the turn?!!? What?

I don’t often go into the tank in LHE but I was flabbergasted. My hand’s too strong to fold and I’m plenty confused, so I’m wasting time thinking, but sometimes I like to make sense of things before I proceed. The action seems pretty scary. I shouldn’t have the best hand.

But let’s think about that three bet. This player four bet before the flop. Then, second to last to act on the flop, he checked and cold called two bets after it was bet and raised back to him. Now, on the turn, it’s checked to him again and he risks giving another free card by checking to me. Okay, so he is putting in a cold three bet here – which is normally super strong – but I think it’s safe to assume this player does not have us beat.

The small blind could have us beat and the other player looks like he’s drawing but he could also be hanging on for dear life with a better two pair. But really, it actually looks like multiple players are going crazy with hands that are worse than mine.

So I call. Everyone else does too.

The river is the Jack of spades, completing the front door flush and improving QT and KJ as well. Everybody checks to me again. I’m pretty happy to show down at this point and somehow my hand is still good.

I wasn’t planning to write about this session so I didn’t keep any notes, but I do recall one other fun hand where I opened with AA and got raised on the turn on a Q74J board and then check-called the river when the J paired and they had… A5 offsuit. Gotta love that creativity!

All in all, a pretty sexy Thursday night session to the tune of +$1025.

I went to Fortune the next day for some $20/$40 and even though I didn’t write notes for this session either, I feel it’s important for me to mention how great the game was because the last two times I’ve posted about the Fortune $20/$40 it has been pretty negative. The game this Friday was amazing. One of the best I’ve ever played in. There were two fun, loose players at my starting table and then when I migrated to follow them later I found myself on the left of two guys that were playing every hand no matter what the action was to them. One of them played rather reasonably after the flop, but the other guy was recklessly aggressive, betting and raising when he had any piece of the board, no matter how little it was.

Here’s a typical example: they both limp in, I raise with JJ, the flop is A65 and the crazy guy bets, I call; the turn is a 7, he bets and I call; river is a blank, he bets and I call; he shows 73 offsuit.

I got off to a rough start and found myself in the game for $3500 pretty early in the day, but fortunately I was eventually able to take advantage of the favorable situation and had enough hands hold up (and I lost a bunch of sick ones all day!) that I was able to make a complete come all the way back and even booked a solid win of $1409. It really did feel like I was running bad most of the day, but the game was so good that when I did win the occasional pot, it was almost always massive. I also won $63 in NLHE waiting for my seat for a total win of $1472 for the day.

Pretty fortunate start to November so far!

Actually most of my interesting hands happened while I was playing in the $1/$3 No Limit game at Fortune while waiting for a $20/$40 seat. I almost never play $8/$16 at Fortune and I guess my theory is that I’d rather warm up in games I don’t get much playing time in, like NLHE or Limit Omaha.

The Accidental Min-Raise

My first fun hand happens early in the session. The $1/$3 game has a max buy in of $300, so I always sit down with four $25 chips, $180 in $5 chips, and $20 in $1 chips – plus $500 in my pocket to add on and reload as I dip below the table max.

The player to my direct right makes it $16 to go and I have 77 next to act. This is an annoyingly large open-raise but we are deep enough (barely!) that I can call and try to set mine or simply play a good hand in position. So I call… or I think I do. I mentioned my buy in method because instead of calling with three $5 red chips and a blue one, I accidentally throw in a green $25 chip and three blue $1 chips. Whoops. I am now committed to a minimum raise to $29 because I put in multiple chips and over half the raise size.

I reacted pretty genuinely to my mistake, but the no limit players have basically no history with me so I wouldn’t blame any of them for thinking I could be running an angle here (i.e. pretending like I accidentally raised when I have a hand like AA). However, if I were the original raiser I would give serious consideration to four-betting my entire range here and expecting to get a lot of folds. He just calls though, which I thought was kind of surprising.

The flop comes out 944 with two diamonds and he leads out $35 and I almost have to stifle a laugh. Oh, now you want to be aggressive? I think it’s safe to assume my hand is always good here and I’ve debated with a friend about the merits of raising on the flop in this spot because there are a number of turn cards that we won’t love and I’d like to deny equity to those hands. On the other hand, we are in a tough spot if he goes for the hammer with a flush draw and we don’t really mind him betting the worst hand either. So I call.

The turn is a 5 of spades, opening up a backdoor flush draw, and he bets $52 rather quickly and nonchalantly. Another easy call for me, but I make it look like I’m thinking about it.

The river bricks out and he checks and it’s hard to imagine what hands I would get value from by betting, so I check back and he shows AK of spades. I said earlier that I would consider four betting his entire range in his spot preflop, but trying to get all the money in with AK suited is a slam dunk! A honest mistake from me and a really weird line from my opponent here.

Another Profitable Mistake

By this time, I’ve come to realize that the villain in the previous hand is very aggressive preflop, probably opening or raising over 30% of his hands. That makes his flat call with the AK suited even stranger. Well, in this hand, he decides to open-limp on the button. I’ve seen him do some limping, which is atypical for him, but the button open-limp is a new one.

I call with J2 of diamonds from the small blind and the big blind checks his option. The flop is A92 with two spades and one diamond. There is basically no money in the pot and my hand is pretty piddly but I think a $5 bet should take the pot down very often here, so I toss a red chip out. The big blind folds and the button almost immediately makes it $17. I have basically zero respect for this raise, so I call and I’m probably going to try and win the pot unless a spade comes.

The turn is the 3 of diamonds, which gives me a flush draw in addition to my pair. I check it and he bets $25. I still think he is weak here and now I have a lot of equity so I check-raise to $70 and he thinks for quite some time before eventually folding AQ face up! I actually said “wow” in genuine shock because that was not a hand I was trying to get him to fold because I didn’t think it was possible he could be that strong.

I have to wonder why an overly aggressive player would choose to open-limp with AQ on the button. Isn’t it to set a trap? Well, I fell right into it and then he decided to just be like “naw, you have this one.” I guess he had no idea what I thought of his image.

I Get Stacked By A Shocking Hand

I open to $10 from early position with AJ of clubs and only the big blind defends. The flop comes 732 with two clubs and he checks it over to me. I think this is a good flop to consider checking with in order to balance my checking back range, but a) I’m a part-time player in this game, b) I don’t think this opponent is really thinking about ranges, and c) I want to build a pot against weak players. So I bet $10 and he check-raises me to $25. He started the hand with about $215 and you really have to wonder what kind of hands he would check-raise on this flop. The only hands I’m in bad shape against are the sets and he doesn’t appear strong at all to me. I decide that I am willing to play for all the money if he wants to, so I stick in a commitment raise to $85, which is roughly 40% of the remaining stacks. The only appropriate response to my raise is all in or fold, so obviously this guy calls. *face palm*

The turn is a brick, like an 8 or something, and he stuffs his remaining $121 in the pot and I snap call, annoyed. I’ll be even more irritated in a second, but first I want to look at the math here. I committed myself to getting all the chips in on the flop, but he thwarted that plan by just calling and letting a turn roll off with money behind. So after his all in and subtracting for the rake ($6), there is now $306 in the pot and it costs me $121 to call. I’m getting a little over 2.5 to 1 to call, so I need to win about 28.5% of the time to make calling profitable. I think it’s safe to assume all my flush outs are clean, but I’m going to make a flush less than 20% of the time on the river. If one of my overcards is live I’m still a little short, but if they are both live, I have an easy call. Plus there is some remote chance that I have the best hand. He could be doing this with a naked flush draw himself, or even a combo draw like 54 of clubs. With my perceived outs alone, it’s a pretty close call, but when you add in the chances of having the best hand, I just have to go with it.

Well, I do call. The river is a 2 and he shows…

AK offsuit.

Ouch.

Okay, so I didn’t exactly get stacked, but I doubled him up with most of my stack and I really have no idea how he got all the chips in after the flop but… maybe I should’ve balanced that checking range!

Image For The Max

This hand happens shortly after that last one and I try to isolate one limper by making it $10 to go on the button with 54 of spades. Both blinds and the limper call, which is not very ideal considering I have 5 high and I think my credibility is low at the moment.

What is ideal is a T55 flop. Everybody checks to me and I bet $15 and one of the blinds snap calls, practically salivating from the mouth at the thought of picking off my upcoming barrels.

The turn is a 2 and I bet $35 into $64 and again he calls quickly.

The river is a Q and he checks again. There is now $134 in the pot, I have $234 behind and he has me covered. I’m thinking long and hard about my bet size because I was going to size large on the river but I’m a little concerned that the Q might kill my action a little because it creates a lot of chops and brings an overcard to the obvious pair of tens my opponent has. However, while I’m thinking this over, he says “Oh come on, you know you can only bet if you have a 5” and I really felt like that was my cue to go for it all. I shove and he SNAP CALLS! Gotta love it. Bet almost 2x pot on the river and he gives it zero thought. Wow!

I finished my 82 minute $1/$3 session up $183 despite being down a full buy in at one point. I’ll take it!

$20/$40 Snooze Fest

Goodness the $20/$40 games at Fortune have been bad the last two times I’ve played. I have now logged 15.75 hours over my last two $20/$40 sessions and I would say I’ve been in a good game for less than two of those hours. Both times I’ve played I didn’t find my way to a good game until the very end of my session when I was practically ready to go.

On the plus side, I love to terrorize nits. If nobody wants to play hands, then I’m just going to play them all and they’re either going to let me win $30-$50 every hand or they’re going to have to get out of their comfort zones. Usually tables will get tired of this and I can back off as they start playing looser and fail to adjust to my change of pace.

But I have been in some seriously nitty lineups. Like, to the point where I was comfortably raising hands like K8 suited and QT offsuit from under the gun. In the later positions, I was frequently raising and betting until they made me look at my hands.

I admittedly ran very good when they did play back at me. I raised dark on the button and got called by the small blind and three bet by the big blind then flopped trip threes with A3 offsuit. I raised dark from the cutoff and the button three bet me and I flopped quads with K2 suited. I opened with 55 and both blinds raised me and I flopped a set of 5s! Pretty lucky… and it really makes the table feel handcuffed when you are steamrolling them and then flopping huge when they do fight back.

I ended up leaving that horrible game up about $800, which is no small accomplishment when no one is putting money in the pot.

Naturally, I started to run like crap when I got in a good game. The first hand I played, I turned the nuts with JT suited in a massive pot and lost to a rivered flush, a solid $700 swing in the wrong direction. I also got really card dead and then whiffed the flop whenever I did find a hand to play.

All in all, I finished up a disappointing $241 in the $20/$40 game and booked a $424 win for the day.