Poker Tournaments | The Bat Cave

Posts Tagged ‘Poker Tournaments’

Poker Goals – July 2015

August 6, 2015

July 2015 was one of the most turbulent and frustrating months of poker I’ve ever experienced. I started the month off hot, winning 8 of 9 sessions, including a solid showing in the Muckleshoot spread game on Super Sunday. All in all, after 5 days, I was up over 60 big bets at my normal limit.

I followed that happy start with back-to-back-to-back -$800 sessions over a three day period, which amounted to the largest downswing (in terms of money lost) I’ve experienced in at least five years – or since the days when alcohol used to wipe my entire bankroll out on a regular basis. Of course, now that I’m playing $8/$16 regularly instead of $4/$8 I’m not surprised to have bigger financial downswings, but having it happen so severely in three short days was a bit jarring.

It was a short lived disaster, however, as I quickly recovered by going on a massive heater that included nine straight winning days and profits in 12 of 13 total sessions. All in all, this stretch was good for a 260 big bet upswing and changed my game plan for the month. I initially planned to play the Muckleshoot deep stack tournament every Tuesday night, but since I was running at around $100 an hour in my normal game, I couldn’t really justify wasting my time in a tournament where my best result so far has been getting my money back. Even though running in the 4-5 BB/HR range is totally unrealistic, this wasn’t my first stretch like that this year, and running extremely well can affect your emotions and game just as much as running bad can. It’s easy to forget how hard poker can be when you go through a hot streak like this.

I was quickly brought back to reality over the last week or so of July. I played a mere 20 hours over 5 days, but I got clobbered again. I was losing hard and I was losing fast. My starting hands were running pretty good, but I was whiffing the flop almost every time I raised and when I did connect, I would win a small pot or lose a big one. My draws were pretty much never coming in and it really felt like an impossible task to show down a winner. Not only did I run at -$108/hour over this period, but I also lost more money in a single limit session than I have since I’ve started tracking all my results five years ago. Again, now that I’m an $8/$16 regular, this is to be expected. Not only are my downswings and single session losses going to be bigger financially, they are also likely to be bigger proportionately since the $8/$16 game I play in is significantly more volatile than the $4/$8 games I used to play. My worst result in a normal $4/$8 game was -66.25 big bets. That’s over thousands and thousands of hours – so probably as bad as it was ever going to get. In what is probably less than 1000 hours of $8/$16 lifetime, I’ve already far exceeded that bad result, by posting a -77 big bet session during this stretch of run bad.

All in all, it was a pretty bizarre month. I ended up with a pretty dinky profit for July which I guess is pretty nice considering I not only experienced my worst downswing of the past five years, but also my second worst downswing. On the other hand, it’s also pretty disappointing, since three weeks into July I was having an amazing month and felt like I was basically printing money. Oh well. It was a good exercise for my mental game and while I was incredibly disappointed with myself during that six rack loss – I felt physically ill and I was incapable of even pretending to be interested in what anyone was saying to me – the feelings didn’t linger and I felt normal by the time I got home usually and certainly by the next morning. So even though I felt some emotional collapse at the table, I could still see that my mental game has grown overall by my ability to move on quickly and put things behind me.

I decided to abandon the style of poker reviews I’ve been posting since the start of the year since it was a bit repetitive and a lot of the goals I set are shoo-ins to be met – for instance, playing most of my hours in $8/$16. Really, the only time I’m in a $4/$8 game these days is when I’m waiting for a seat in the bigger game or when I’m propping.

I did keep pretty studious notes during this past month, however, in order to post about hands that gave me trouble and to help identify how variance is affecting my results in the short term and to better help evaluate my own play. Here are the results of what I consider to be the key hand categories:

AA: 7-12 (58.33%)
KK: 13-17 (76.5%)
QQ: 6-9 (67.67%)
JJ: 7-10 (70%)
TT: 2-5 (40%)
99: 3-15 (20%)
88: 3-9 (33.33%)
77: 5-10 (50%)
66-22: 6-37 (16%)

AK: 6-29 (20.7%)
AQ: 13-33 (39.4%)
AKs-ATs: 8-31 (25.8%)
KQs-KTs: 11-23 (47.8%)
QJs-JTs: 10-20 (50%)
Sets: *14-21 (67.67%)
Flush Draws: **29-73 (39.73%)

*note: I made a set when I played a pocket pair about 16% of the time, which seems about average considering I’m including the times I made a set on the turn and river.
**note: I lost six times when I made a flush.

I ran well with my big pocket pairs and ran about average on making sets and flushes, but I lost a whopping 33% of the time I had a set and I lost over 20% of the time I had a flush. That seems unlucky. My AK results look less than ideal, but the rest of the hands look to have run pretty average overall. Variance seems to have had a modest affect on my results last month, it just seems worse because a lot of the losing hands happened in the last ten days of the month.

I missed the first Muckleshoot deep stack of August, but I likely will be playing them on Tuesdays going forward. I’m better off spending my time in cash games, but I plan on playing multiple events in the Muckleshoot Fall Classic next month so prepping for that series in the Muckleshoot deep stack makes a lot of sense.

Here’s to hoping August will be a smoother ride than July was!

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling for a living, limit hold em, poker, Poker Tournaments, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

2015 Poker Goals – March Wrap Up

April 3, 2015

Every month I’m going to reflect on the previous month of poker and see how well I’m doing at accomplishing my 2015 goals:

Log 1200 live hours

As I noted in my February Wrap Up, I have upped my goal from 750 hours to 1200 hours. Since I’m frequently playing when I’m working, I am still able to play nearly full-time hours despite having a day job. In March, I played an absurd 174 hours, my largest output since the first half of 2012 probably. That kind of pace is unlikely to continue, but I think I can average about 120 hours most months.

focus on how well I played, how well I controlled tilt, and how well I paid attention to game flow instead of how well I ran.
continuing taking notes throughout all my sessions and combing through them later.

One of these days, I will really start paying attention to the game when I’m playing. It is quite easily one of my biggest weaknesses. I kept accurate notes for most of my $8/$16 sessions, but I continue to struggle to pay attention when I’m not in hands.

I’m also learning how to go through my notes in a more efficient manner – skimming past hands that seem totally standard and focusing on the ones that gave me trouble. It should be noted that the statistics I’m about to post are for $8/$16 sessions only and don’t include notes from one of my more important sessions of the month – where I started off stuck $700 and stayed in the feeder game playing short-handed for several hours (and thus unable to take notes between hands). I ended up crushing the short-handed game and then went on an absurd run after the game broke and I finally made my way to the main game. At that point, with so many hands unrecorded – and it being the first of the month – I decided to continue not keeping notes for the session. So for a period where I went from stuck $700 to cashing out over $1300 sugar, I have no hands logged for an absurd amount of positive variance. I also played 65 hours of $4/$8 where I did not keep notes.

Here are the hands I have decided to track to keep variance in perspective:

AA – 4/8 (50%)
KK – 4/12 (33%)
QQ – 7/14 (50%)
JJ – 7/12 (58.3%)
TT – 4/8 (50%)
77-99 – 14/43 (32.5%)
22-66 – 8/28 (28.6%)
All Pairs – 52/125 (41.6%)
Sets – 16/18 (88.9%)
AK-AQ – 25/65 (38.5%)
AKs-ATs – 12/30 (40%)
KQs-KTs – 5/13 (38.5%)
QJs-JTs – 4/17 (23.5%)
Flush Draws – 19/40 (47.5%)

Thoughts: Running at over 40% for all my pairs seems like a pretty favorable result. Running at less than 50% for AA-QQ is definitely below average, however. It’s also worth noting that I made a set 18 of the 125 times I played a pair, or 14% of the time – which is almost exactly average. More importantly, I almost never lost with my sets and I nearly always got an abundance of action when I had one. I’m curious to see how the smaller suited Broadway hands do going forward. I completed nearly half of my flush draws which is a highly favorable result – although I lost some of those hands. Between the sets and flush draws – and running above average with my pairs overall – I would have to say variance was mostly on my side in March.

spend less than 20% of my total hours in 4/8 games

I played 66 of 150 cash game hours at the $4/$8 level – or 44%. However, subtracting 34 hours as a floor man, that total becomes 32 of 116 hours – or 27.6% – a reasonable result. For the year, I’ve played 191 of 403 total hours (47.4%) and 95 of 308 (31%) of my non-working hours at the $4/$8 level. Including my tournaments hours, it probably comes pretty close to my 20% target.

log 100 hours of spread limit

I played some small stakes NLHE when I was in Vegas this past month and my conclusion is that I’m still not very good at that format of poker. Obviously, at 11 hours of play logged for the entire year, this is an incredibly small sample size, but the results are consistent with an ongoing pattern of performing poorly in no limit cash games. In Vegas, I lost every session I played and it should have been worse – I jammed 100+ bigs preflop with 99 vs AA and rivered a straight. Over my past 163.5 hours of no limit/spread limit, I’ve won slightly less than 50% of my sessions and I’m running at almost -10 big blinds per hour. I have been unlucky in some hands, for sure, but the biggest problem I’ve identified is that I play overly aggressive and try to win every hand I play rather than being selectively aggressive and picking my spots more wisely overall. Starting this month, I want to log at least one 8-10 hour session of no limit and focus on correcting these mistakes.

continuing reading about mental game, develop mental game profiles, and improve my c-game

focus my learning — don’t study multiple variants at the same time or games I’m not playing frequently

I finally finished the series of questions in Jared Tendler’s The Mental Game Of Poker designed to pinpoint potential problems and give an outline of my current mental game. This can be referred to and adjusted as I improve or discover new concerns over time. Working on this had halted my reading for the most part, but I should be able dedicate time for that soon. With the Pendleton Spring Round Up and World Series Of Poker coming up, I’ll probably adjust my focus to studying Omaha 8 or better and tournament play over the next few months.

treat poker like a job with set hours and not like a hobby

With 445 hours in roughly 12 weeks, I have been playing full time hours despite the fact that I work 20-30 hours a week on top of that, so my poker playing is like a second job these days. My work off the tables has suffered a bit, but for the most part, I’m taking my poker time very seriously and putting in the hours unless I feel like I’m not playing near my A-game.

watch opponents closely in tournaments and develop exploitative styles for each of them instead of playing laggy for laggy’s sake

take my time in critical pots and really think things through before acting

set a new career high tournament score

I played 5 tournaments last month, but one of them was a freeroll and two others were very small, local tournament, so I’ll focus my attention on the bigger events I played.

I played the $150 daily tournament at the Venetian and I dominated my table for most of the day, feeling like I was really playing well. I got lucky in some spots to dodge a couple coolers, but I consistently increased my stack throughout the event without much resistance until I got in a blind vs blind situation late where I flopped trip aces and my opponent turned a gutshot straight. I ended up betting the turn, re-raising my opponent when he raised me, and ultimately calling off against his 5-bet jam. I had completed with A8 from the small blind so I figured my opponent was never giving me credit for an Ace – and I surely wasn’t giving him credit for one – and I had a decent amount of outs against any hand that was beating me. In retrospect, calling his initial raise makes a lot of sense because I’m not getting action on a 3-bet unless he’s committed to a bluffing line or I’m crushed. Instead, I lost a decent portion of my stack on the hand and my momentum disappeared soon after. I managed to make the final table, but ultimately busted out in 9th in a tournament that paid 8. I busted when I shoved my short stack from the button with the big blind away from the table. I don’t even remember my hand, but the small blind woke up with AJ and that was good enough to bust me. It was my second final table in a medium-sized tournament that didn’t even pay. Even though the end result was poor and I may have misplayed a big pot, I felt very good about my overall play and thought the style I chose for this event would be profitable in the long run.

I followed that deep run up by playing in the Muckleshoot Spring Classic $750 Main Event and finished 14th of 226 runners, ending a nearly year long drought of not cashing in a $150 or higher tournament. Once again, I played well and ran pretty good before getting cold late and losing a couple crucial pots. Midway through the tournament I was moved to an extremely tough and loaded table: multiple WSOP bracelet winner Rep Porter, Adam Coats – who got TV time on ESPN during the main event and made multiple deep cashes in the 2014 WSOP – and a couple of other local players I’m pretty sure play for a living. Not only did I outlast all four of these tough players but I held my own in a couple of difficult pots against Rep, including one where he put me in an extremely tough spot and I found the correct call. And then I busted him. It’s not that I beat a top pro in a couple of pots, it’s that I was able to make the correct decisions because I knew what he was thinking and how he perceived me and that is something to be happy about. Obviously, I was a bit disappointed to fall just short of some serious money ($45,000 for 1st!) and I had a very real chance of crossing off my goal of a new career high tournament score, but I feel like my tournament play is improving and things are trending in the right direction. I feel something big is about to happen. I believe.

double my current bankroll size

maintain a 1 BB/HR win rate at 8/16

start playing 20/40 regularly by end of year

I finally had a month where my bankroll saw serious growth. It’s probably been a year or longer since I’ve seen a 10% increase in a single month, but I did much better than that in March. Doubling the bankroll I started 2015 with should be a very attainable goal and honestly, I hope to do much, much better.

I had an amazing month of $8/$16, running at 3.48 BB/HR for the month overall, and an absurd 5.27 BB/HR in the $8/$16 at the Palace in Tacoma. It was a month where I set a new personal record for an $8/$16 win on the 1st of the month – and then I absolutely annihilated that new record just a couple weeks later when I had this session:

For the year, I am now running at:
1.68 BB/HR in $8/$16 LHE
1.04 BB/HR in $4/$8 LHE
1.3 BB/HR in all limit games

In April, I will be making a 4 or 5 day trip to Pendleton, Oregon for the Spring Round Up – a tournament series I haven’t attended since Fall 2012 and never with a sizable bankroll – and I am currently planning on playing the $225 O8 and $225 H.O.R.S.E. tournaments. I may play a few other events, but I’ll likely focus on cash games the rest of my stay. Also, anyone interested in buying up some of my WSOP action, I’m ready to start selling. You can e-mail me at maccent17@gmail.com or PM me on Facebook. I’m currently planning on playing the Casino Employee Event and the Colossal, but I will be there for at least a week and if things go really well, I would be interested in increasing my stay.

Here’s to more run good!

Posted in poker | Tagged big bets per hour, horse, limit hold em, muckleshoot, muckleshoot spring classic, omaha, poker, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, rodeo, spring round up, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

2015 Poker Goals – January 2015 Review

February 2, 2015

Every month I’m going to reflect on the previous month of poker and see how well I’m doing at accomplishing my 2015 goals – well, the ones that are applicable for now anyway.

–log 750 live hours

I played nearly 137 hours of live cash game poker last month – a stark increase over any output in recent memory and on pace to destroy my 750 hour goal for the year (current pace: 1644 hours).

–focus on how well I played, how well I controlled tilt, and how well I paid attention to game flow instead of how well I ran.
–continuing taking notes throughout all my sessions and combing through them later.

I did a really good job of this in January. I kept consistently accurate notes whenever I was planning to play an $8/$16 session. While I never tracked my play during $4/$8 sessions, I did track it if I was waiting to get in a bigger game later. Note-taking really helped me keep things in perspective – if I took a brutal beat, I’d just jot the hand down, and move on. Overall, I felt like I ran a bit poorly for the month of January — at the $8/$16 level anyway. There were a few moments when I started to get frustrated, but they were pretty brief and I felt like I did a good job of controlling my emotions overall. Also, being able to look through my notes later really helped me see how much variance affected my results and allowed me to spot potential mistakes and find holes in my game that needed plugging. Over ten years into my LHE career and I feel like I’m a much better LHE player in February 2015 than I was in December 2014 and I’m quite grateful to be able to find that much room to improve.

Just for fun, let’s take a look at some of the more obvious spots where variance affected my results in January:

-I won 57 of the 150 times I played a pocket pair (38%).
-I won 43 of the 90 times I had 99 or better (47.8%).
-I won 19 of the 42 times I had QQ or better (45.2%).
-I won 26 of the 72 times I played a suited broadway hand (36.1%)
-I won 35 of the 68 times I played AK or AQ (51.5%).
-I made a flush 13 of the 51 times I was drawing to one (25.5%).
-I made a straight 12 of the 32 times I was drawing to one (37.5%).

Notes: There were times I made a flush or straight and lost the pot anyway. I also folded plenty of pocket pairs preflop, AQ once or twice, and probably a few suited broadways. I also started tracking my flush and straight draws differently during the middle of the month, including backdoor flush draws and gut shots in the mix since it seemed unfair to count those hands when I hit them but not when I missed them.

I’m not exactly sure what a good percentage for some of these hands are, but I’m certain that losing half the time you have QQ or better is below average. I’m also quite certain that running at 25% on your flush draws is below average, particularly when you lose some of the ones you hit.

–spend less than 20% of my total hours in 4/8 games

I spent 50 of my 137 total live hours playing $4/$8 which accounts for 36.5% of my total hours. That seems like I missed on this goal, but 28 of those hours I was propping my game while I was flooring and another 6 hours were while I was waiting for a seat in the bigger game. Excluding those hours, I only played 13 of 103 hours in $4/$8 games (12.6%). Goal achieved.

–log 100 hours of spread limit

I played zero hours here, but I have plenty of time to achieve my goal. I want to have at least five figure bankroll before I start playing the Muckleshoot spread game regularly – even then, I think $10k probably too small to play that game on a regular basis, but taking some shots is probably fine.

–play a tournament series in a city I’ve never been to before

Didn’t happen this month, but I am developing plans to visit Canterbury Park Card Casino in Shakopee, Minnesota, possible as soon as late February. While this isn’t a tournament series and I actually have been to Minnesota previously, I suppose this would half cover this goal.

–continuing reading about mental game, develop mental game profiles, and improve my c-game
–focus my learning — don’t study multiple variants at the same time or games I’m not playing frequently

I was pretty consistent with these goals this past month. The only poker reading I did was on mental game and I did well at incorporating what I learned into my play, sticking to my plan, and using my notes to improve my play. Also, I only played LHE, so my focus was extremely narrow for the most part.

–treat poker like a job with set hours and not like a hobby

I did pretty great here. Whenever I planned to play, I went and played a full session and crushed my overall hours goal. Also, I was very focused and in the zone when I was playing a real session – something that is much harder to do when I’m merely propping a game.

–watch opponents closely in tournaments and develop exploitative styles for each of them instead of playing laggy for laggy’s sake
–take my time in critical pots and really think things through before acting
–set a new career high tournament score

Meh. I played three tournaments this past month: $180 monthly @ Little Creek, $220 monthly @ Muckleshoot, and $115 weekly @ Muckleshoot. I went 0 for 3.

I made a swift exit in the $220 event after (arguably) getting quite unlucky. During the first level, with blinds at 25/50, a middle player raised to 200 and three players called. I looked down at AA from the small blind and realized that I was in a great situation. This is such an obvious spot for a squeeze that I figured I could make a substantial raise and get some unwarranted action. I made it 1500 (30 bigs) to go and managed to get it heads up – a great result. Then, figuring that my opponent’s most likely hand was a pocket pair and that I looked like I was trying to steal preflop, I checked the 632 rainbow flop, hoping to jam all-in vs a bet. Instead, my opponent checked back. I bet about half pot on a board-pairing turn and he called. The river brought in a back door flush, but I felt pretty confident putting out a 40% pot bet. He called and showed me the KJ of hearts for the running flush. I dunno. I think my thought process is okay here. Obviously it’s a pretty bad result that starts with my flop check, but a free card hurts me so rarely that it can’t be that bad. On the other hand, since I think he has a pair and I think it looks like I could be bluffing, checking the flop seems like the wrong conclusion for my best possible line – clearly betting is better if I’m not expecting him to fold.

After losing about 70% of my starting stack on that hand, I opened QQ during level 2 with a 33 big blind stack, jammed over a 3-bet, and busted after I lost a race to AK.

I finished 8th of 65+ players in the $180 event… and 6 cashed. I was very happy with my overall play, but my bust out hand leaves me unsatisfied. I’m not convinced it was a standard spot and I feel like it’s a clear violation of the second goal I have posted above. This was the situation:

I’m sitting on a stack of roughly 20 bigs holding 75o in the big blind. We are at the 1500/3000/500 level and two late players limp in, the small blind completes, and I check. We go four-handed to 743 two flush flop. I decide to lead out a mere 5000 into a pot of 16,000 – which seems extremely small in retrospect. I get called in one spot. The turn card is an offsuit 2 and at this point, I decide to take a pot-control line and check. My opponent bets 20K into 26K and I go into the tank – but not for long enough! Ultimately, I decide that a) I think I had the best hand on the flop, b) I can’t call this bet and fold on the river when I miss my straight draw, c) this is a great spot to apply pressure on me after I show weakness, and d) if I’m not folding, I have to shove – which I do and he snap-calls with A5 and I’m out after the river bricks off. During my brief tank, what I didn’t consider was: a) is this extremely marginal spot worth betting my tournament life on? or b) if I fold here, I’ll have 18 big blinds, plenty of play, and an opportunity to find a much better spot. Obviously, this is one of those spots where it’s okay to take extra time to really think things through and evaluate everything at hand.

In addition, during the $115 event, when we were down to two tables, I picked a really bad spot to bluff the river after checking back on the turn that cost me a large portion of my stack… another spot where it was pretty obvious my opponent is never folding to a standard bet and I didn’t really stop to think it through enough. So while I felt like I played pretty well overall in these events, the spots where I felt like I choked are the exact situations that I’m wanting to improve in.

–double my current bankroll size
–maintain a 1 BB/HR win rate at 8/16
–start playing 20/40 regularly by end of year

Despite my whiff on tournaments and average/bad luck in $8/$16 games, I still managed a winning month. However, it didn’t do much in helping pad my bankroll – especially after using it to buy a really nice Valentine’s Day gift!

I ran at 0.99 BB/HR overall, 2.34 BB/HR @ $4/$8, and 0.22 BB/HR @ $8/$16.

Also, I’m not sure if $20/$40 should be my end game. Perhaps the $5-$500 spread game at Muckleshoot should be my goal.

Overall, I guess I’m happy with January, but I know things could be much better (or worse – to be fair…). Looking forward to February!

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, limit hold em, little creek casino, muckleshoot casino, poker, Poker Tournaments, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

I Suck At Tournament Poker

March 8, 2013

God, it sure feels like I do. I mean, my history in online tournaments pre-Black Friday and even playing live up through all of 2011 suggests otherwise, but my success (or lack thereof) since the start of 2012–particularly in big ($150+) events–has been…unsettling. I managed to post a profit in tournaments last year and went deep in multiple major events, but the overall result is lackluster and disappointing. So far in 2013, I’ve fizzled out of a couple events and have been cold decked out of a few others. All these experiences have lead me to the following conclusions:

a) I handle the short term luck factor in tournaments very poorly. This is a concept that creeps into my limit hold em cash games very seldom. Generally, when it comes to variance in cash games, I realize that over time, all the money I lose when I get unlucky eventually comes back, with interest, and often within the same session. I also grasp the fact that these frequent beats are a result of poor play and that errors from opponents is how I make money playing poker. Therefore, I never berate players and rarely tilt, spending as much time playing my A-game as possible. I have a much harder time applying these same concepts to tournament play. Perhaps it’s the absolute nature of tournament poker: once your chips are gone, you’re out. If you get unlucky or coolered in a massive pot, you are usually out or crippled, and the amount of chips you have directly correlates with how you can play. And when you bust out, you might have to wait a month to play in another good event. All of this tends to make me highly upset during a tournament and almost always afterwards. I mean, I don’t want to be bothered by anyone and my day of poker is usually mentally over with. For the third time in less than two months, I immediately left the casino instead of waiting for the dinner break to use my free meal voucher and socialize with the other players. I lose, I’m gone. No goodbyes. Rarely a “nice hand.” It’s not a good look.

b) I have no idea what style suits me best. Without a doubt, I’ve experienced my most success using a tight-aggressive (TAG) and frequently nitty style. The problem is, while this style gets me to the money most often, it also leaves me short stacked in the late stages of tournaments and relies far too heavily on what cards I’m being dealt (luck) and has much less to do with playing position correctly, exploiting my opponents’ tendencies, staying unpredictable, and playing poker after the flop (skill). However, my ventures into playing a loose-aggressive (LAG) style have led me to continual destruction (often self-inflicted). I have little doubt that a controlled LAG style is the best way to play tournaments, as it makes you highly unpredictable and sets you up to make the final table with a bundle of chips and the ability to make moves your short stacked opponents can’t afford to. Note that I said “controlled,” which seems to be where I go wrong. My use of the LAG style is frequently misguided and random, as I’ll show when I start talking about the $180 tournament I played at Little Creek on Friday night. Ultimately, the biggest problem here is that the TAG style is my comfort zone. It’s not how I want to play, but it’s the style I feel most comfortable using and my history of experimenting with the LAG style has been… questionable.

So last night, I’m playing in the $180 event of the Spring Classic at Little Creek Casino and within the first two levels I run JJ and TT into overpairs on favorable boards and lose a bunch of chips, but stay alive. Then I flop a full house with QQ in a raised pot and make 0 chips after the flop and then I flop another boat with 22 in a 3-way raised pot and manage a measly +700 in chips. I raise with 99 over one limper and both blinds also call. We see a flop of TT6 and only the big blind calls my bet of 500. At this point in the hand, I feel like I should tell another story.

Flashback to the Fall Classic $230 Main Event at Little Creek last year. I get into a massive leveling war with the big blind in the hand I’m talking about in the last paragraph. A few people limp into the pot for 200 or 300, something in that range, and I make it at least 1000 on the button (OTB) with a deep stack holding the monstrous T8o. The big blind repops me to, say, 2700 and everyone in between folds. My first instinct is to fold, well, because I just got caught with my pants down and T8o isn’t exactly AK… but then I start thinking… I already have this guy sized up as someone that pays attention and is capable of making plays and realize that he probably realizes that I’m raising light. So if I know that he knows this, how can I possibly let him get away with it. For the first time that I can remember, I pull off the preflop 4-bet bluff and make it 6500 to go. For some reason on this day, I have chosen to sit with my chair backwards so that my arms can rest on top of the chair and my face is basically buried in my arms. I am nervous, oh boy, am I nervous, but this is the same posture I’ve taken the entire tournament. Regardless, after sizing me up for quite some time, this guy pulls the trigger and ships it all in. I spend very little time posing for the cameras before tossing my hand into the muck and he turbo fastrolls 96o. Good play, sir. And the lesson learned here is that if I trust my read, I can’t let him have the last move (the 5-bet shove) because even if he “knows” I’m bluffing, he can’t call me, much like I couldn’t call him even though I was sure he was full of it.

Flashfoward to the 99 on the TT6 flop. After he calls my flop bet, I’ve already determined that a) I’m showing down and b) I’m going to keep the pot small. So I check back on the turn and call an 1100 bet on the river and he shows me JT. Nice.

I definitely have a fishy image at this point because I’ve had lots of big hands and I’ve shown NONE of them so far, so when it folds to me in the small blind and I raise to 450 with AQ the big blind makes it 1475 quickly and with a tone in his voice that says: “find someone else to pick on.” So… I shove it on his ass and he folds.

Then, I proceed to play AK so poorly that I’m not going to write about it out of fear that no one will ever back me again. I mean, seriously… Worst. Line. Ever.

So now I’ve been involved in a number of pots, have lost almost 67% of my stack, and I’ve tabled zero hands. My terrible image is still intact. Blinds are 50/100, one player limps, the button makes it 500, the worst player at the table in the small blind flats, and I look down at QQ. I’m sitting on 6200, which creates for a rather awkward situation. My inclination is to just shove it here, but that’s a huge re-raise and I want at least some action on my hand. I opt to 3-bet it to 2000, an amount that virtually commits me to the pot, and my plan is that, if called, I’m going to shove it all-in on any flop unless something dictates that I shouldn’t. This is a gambling line, but I want chips. I’ll take the risk. Everyone folds except for the kid in the small blind which is the perfect result. He checks to me on the KJx flop and I shove my remaining 42 big blinds into the pot and he calls pretty quickly with AT for… a gut shot. I’m holding two blockers and he somehow misses his 5-outer and I have a playable stack again.

Naturally, my playable stack lasts one orbit before this happens: Blinds are 100/200, the kid from last hand limps, I limp in with 99, one other player and the button limp in, the small blind completes, and the big blind raises to… 400! Yes, a min-raise. I’d love to hear the thought process on that one. The kid calls, and I briefly consider 3-betting because given the action so far, I almost certainly have the best hand and should be able to take it down right here. Alas, my confidence is shot and I decide to just call, as does everyone else. 6-way action for 2400 to see a flop of T98 with two diamonds. Not the best flop for a set, but the pot is big enough that I’m never folding here with my stack size. The big blind leads out for 700, lighting those chips on fire and kissing them goodbye because, well, because he just announced that he has absolutely nothing with such a weak beat on a super dangerous board. The bad player to my right makes it 1400. Perfect. I practically min-raise it to 3000, prepared to get it all in if anyone comes over the top of me, but everyone folds around to the kid, who only has 3100 total, which he proceeds to shove into the pot as he fastrolls TT for top set. FML. I actually have a chance to fold here for 100 more, but I’m getting 85 to 1 and it’s probably correct to draw to my 1-outer. I miss it and am back to short stacking it.

Final hand. Folds around to the button who has yet to not raise in this situation. He makes it 700 to go, the loose kid to my right calls, and I look down at A8. A few things to consider here that I didn’t take the time to think over at the table. The button has open-raised in this situation four times now. Once, I 3-bet with QQ and he got out of the way pretty quickly. Another time, I flat called with A2o and he checked the flop and turn when medium cards hit the board and folded when I bluffed the river after a 4-card straight showed up. Giving this information, calling preflop makes a lot more sense as this opponent took a pretty passive line with a hand he missed with and folded without resistance when I bluffed the river and he folded when I 3-bet the queens… so when I decide to raise it up to 2700, I’m only going to get action when he can… go all-in. Which he does. I deliberate for quite a while and study him. I’m not getting much information there, so I start looking at my pot odds and realize, with horror, that I’ve priced myself in with A8o for my tournament life. Awful planning on my part. Just terrible. I shake my head and put my chips in and he shows me QQ and the dealer wastes little time killing me off as he brings out the Queen high flop. GG.

Honestly, I’m so discouraged with my tournament play that I went to the cashier and had to go through the arduous and embarrassing process of refunding my tournament buy-in for the main event because well, I don’t want to waste my time and money (or my backers’ money) when I’m not feeling good about my game. I’ve had some terrible luck in the Oregon tournaments, but my play in the local ones has been pretty awful. I just need a break to collect my thoughts and think about what I need to fix.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, no limit, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, poker tournament strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

Poker Players: Help Me Play These Hands

September 16, 2012

This weekend I played some big poker events and had a number of hands that gave me headaches and made me wonder what the right play was. I’m curious how my peers think I should have handled each situation. Hopefully I get some good feedback on these hands and if I don’t get much, I’m going to start tagging you fools on Facebook. When I get a number of responses, I’ll update this page with the result of the hand, my analysis, and what I think is ultimately the right play. If you don’t understand the poker lingo or abbreviations, then you probably won’t be too interested in this post anyway.

Some Background: $300 buy-in tournament. My table draw is terrible. I have two tough players to my direct left and one of them has already amassed a monstrous chip lead at the table. I pegged two players I wanted to get my chips from but they both busted out before I won a single hand. I have one super LAG at the table that I haven’t decided if he’s a good player or not and everyone else is weak tight. I’ve had minimal playable hands and the only hand I’ve shown is QQ, which I made almost nothing with due to board texture. I probably have a weak tight image at this point.

Hand #1: Last hand before break. Blinds are 100-200 and I have 8375 (~42 BB, M of ~28) and open to 600 UTG with AK. Folds around to the very LAG player in SB. He ships for 12K+. What do I do?

Hand #2: Blinds are 300-600 with a 50 ante. I have like 12K (20 BB, M of 9) and open to 1600 with AK from MP. It folds around to SB, the good player with the monster stack, and he 3! to 6500 or so, leaving himself clearly priced in against a shove. He’s been playing a lot of hands, but this is the first time I’ve seen him 3! pre. What do I do?

Hand #3: I’ve switched tables. Blinds are 600-1200 with a 100 ante. I have just over 15K (12.5 BB, M of 5.5). UTG (the good player from the last hand described… still with a massive stack) limps in, UTG+2 (solid, straight-forward) makes it 3500 to go, old guy (playing kind of loose and weird) in MP makes it 8K to go–leaving about 1.5K behind–and I’m next to act with AK. What do I do?

Hand #4: Different tournament. $500 buy-in. I’ve been relatively active, playing good positional poker and taking down pots by attacking weakness. Of my 8 opponents at the table, I think 6 of them are definitely weak players I want to tangle with, one guy seems to be playing straight forward small ball poker, and another player looks pretty LAG and seems slightly dangerous, but I did see him make a move that made me question if he really knows what’s up or if he’s just a poser. My table draw is way better than it was in the last tournament and I feel like I’m the strongest player at the table. Level is 100-200, my stack is over 11K and two of the weak players limp in front of me. I limp in LP with KJ and we see a Q82 rainbow flop five ways. Everyone checks to me on the flop and it looks like a pretty good spot to bet since I’d expect a queen to lead out and there are only gutshot straight draws available. I expect a bet of 2/3 the pot to take it down a pretty good percentage of the time. The blinds both fold, but both the limpers call. With only weak draws possible, at least one of my opponents probably has a made hand and my decision to shut it down becomes even easier when another 8 hits the board on the turn. It checks around and I’m quite happy to see a King peel off on the river and plan to value bet if it checks to me or hope to pick off a weak bet on the river. The first player bets 750 and the next one raises to 1500. I don’t have much respect for either player and the one that’s raising has been playing a bit goofy. What do I do?

Hand #5: Level is 200-400-50, I have 13K, which is 32.5 bigs and an M of about 12. The small baller opens to 875, nearly a minimum raise and one that he has made 3 times in the last orbit. It folds to me with JJ in the big blind. What do I do?

Hand #6: Level is 200-400-50 still. My stack is down to about 8200 (20.5 bigs, M of about 8). It folds around to the small blind and he raises to 1200. Again, this is a weak player, but in similar situations in the past he has completed from the SB instead of raising. One other note, I have had a rough level and my image is not that great right now. I look down at 33 in the big blind, what do I do?

Posted in poker | Tagged how to play poker, live poker, live poker tournaments, muckleshoot casino, no limit hold em, playing for a living, poker hand analysis, Poker Tournaments | 2 Comments »

Selling Pieces For May Poker Tournaments

May 9, 2012

I’m looking to sell pieces of my action for some of the bigger buy-in upcoming tournaments. This is the schedule of events I’m looking to play. I’m willing to sell up to 50% of my action in these events:

5/12, Saturday: $110 No Limit Hold Em @ Freddie’s Club Of Fife
5/13, Sunday: $215 No Limit Hold Em @ Muckleshoot
5/17-5/20: $250 No Limit Hold Em Main Event @ Tulalip
5/20, Sunday: $250 No Limit Hold Em @ All-Star Lanes
5/21, Monday: $200 H.O.R.S.E. @ Tulalip

That’s a total buy-in amount of $1025 and I’m going to be charging a mark-up of 25% to cover expenses such as food, gas, and time invested.

For example: since 10% of $1025 is $102.50, with a mark-up of 25% that 10% would actually go for $128.

So these will be my selling rates for these 5 tournaments in May:

1% = $13
5% = $65
10% = $128
15% = $192
20% = $256

Since I’m not 100% positive I’ll be playing in all these events, I would refund the investment for any tournament I don’t actually play in. Particularly, if I make it to Day 2 of the Tulalip Main Event, I would not be able to play the All-Star Lanes event as they would be on the same day.

Most of you know what I’m capable of accomplishing, but just in case anyone needs more convincing, this is my resume over the past couple years:

In 2011, I cashed in 40 of 123 live tournaments for an in the money rate of 32.5% and a total profit of $1998.75. Not bad considering my average buy-in size was roughly $25. More importantly, I finished in the top 3 in 18.7% of all tournaments and chopped first or won it outright a whopping 12.5% of the time. That’s crushing the game.

In 2011, I played in 387 online tournaments and cashed in 65 of them for an in the money rate of 16.3% and a total profit of $1321.27. Those numbers are with an average buy-in of $6.89 and an average field size of 967 players! I final tabled those massive fields 6% of the time and took 1st outright in 2% of all tournaments.

So far, in 2012, I’ve played in 128 live tournaments and cashed in 29 of them for an in the money rate of 22% and a total profit of $1651.

HOLLAR @ YOUR BOY!

Posted in poker | Tagged all star lanes, clearwater, muckleshoot, oregon, pendleton, poker, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, tulalip | Leave a Comment »

Some Interesting Poker Hands.

January 6, 2012

Here are some interesting hands from some of the poker tournaments I’ve played this past week.

First hand is from the final table of an All-Star Lanes tournament. I have 16,000 in chips and blinds are 1500-3000. It folds to the hi-jack (two off the button) and he limps in, leaving 7500 behind. I’m in the cut off with QdTd. My hand should do fairly well against my opponent’s range, but playing my hand creates several problems. First off, limping in for 20% of my stack with a weak Q high hand is not a great play. Secondly, any of the three players left to act behind me could raise and based on their stack sizes, I might have to call. Raising might seem like a decent option, but I don’t like my hand enough against his range to play for stacks and let’s be real: this dude is calling me if I put him all-in. He might not like his hand enough to raise it himself, but it’s rare that I see these weak players limp in for 30% of their stack and then fold to a raise. Folding is the right play here and you’ll soon see why. I call. The button goes all-in for 10,500. Both blinds fold, but the first limper calls for the rest of his stack, which is exactly 10,500 total. The uneducated player might think this is an easy fold, but they’d be wrong. With both players all-in for 10,500, 4500 in dead blind money, and 3000 from my limp, there’s 28,000 in the pot and it’s 7500 more for me to call. I’m getting 3.8 to 1 pot odds which means they could both show me AQ and I’d still be right to call. Even though calling in this spot is clearly correct, the situation shows why limping in the first place is wrong. The last thing I want to do at this stage of the tournament is play a huge pot with a mediocre hand that HAS to win a showdown when losing will cripple me and destroy any preflop fold equity I had going for me. I managed to spike a T on the river and win a huge pot against AK and KJ, a pot that propelled me to a second place finish in the tournament, but clearly, I misplayed my hand here by limping in.

Tournament at All-Star Lanes tonight. Two tables left. Blinds are 800-1600. There’s some weird button movement going on and I think I’m under the gun with A9o at a 9-handed table and about 16K in chips, so I muck. The dealer hands me my cards back and says “don’t fold your hand, you’re the big blind.” Everyone at the table saw me muck though and it folds to a thinking and aggressive player in mid-late position. He min-raises to 3200, leaving himself with about 8000 behind. Everyone folds around to me. I know this player saw me muck my hand and I feel like he’s trying to take a cheap stab at the blinds. While it may not be the case, his min-raise makes me think he wants the option of folding if someone else happens to wake up with a hand. His stack size dictates that he should either be folding or going all-in. My conclusion: I have him crushed. I audibly laugh, knowing how ridiculous this is going to look, and announce “all-in.” The table goes into a state of shock. Even the dealer is laughing. My opponent is perplexed and doesn’t seem to know what to do. Just as limping in with the QT in my previous hand was a mistake, this is yet another example of not planning ahead gone wrong. I’m sure he was going to muck if anyone else at the table re-raised him, but he had no plan whatsoever for this scenario. I’m sure it wasn’t even a possibility to him. For whatever reason, this player seemed to come to the conclusion that I was making some sort of move on him. He’s wrong. As a good player, I don’t expect to have much fold equity here, which means that I expect my hand to win the majority of the time in a showdown. Which means I’m NEVER bluffing. With 15.2K in the pot and having to call another 8000, he’s getting 1.9 to 1 pot odds and should call me with just about any two cards. Mathematically, he’s probably priced in, and knowing that, I still shoved it on him. He did the right thing and called and his K2 outdrew my A9. Min-raising with his hand in the first place is a mistake though. With his stack size, he has to either go all-in or fold it. There are too many stack sizes that you’re going to have to call when you get re-raised that giving yourself the option of folding to a 3-bet is clearly wrong. The sickest thing about this hand is that if he had just open-shoved himself, I may have seriously considered folding. I’m not saying that’s what I would have done for sure, but folding would have at least crossed my mind as a real option.

Same tournament, heads up with a friend of mine. We’ve been battling it out for a short time and though he started with a clear stack size advantage, I have gained significant ground. With the blinds at a ridiculous 6000-12000, he open-raises to 28K from the SB on the button. I look down at Ah5h and it’s 14K more to me. After calling the raise, I’d have 23K left behind. Since I’ll have first action after the flop, the idea of a pulling a stop and go (calling now and going all-in on any flop) seems appealing, but this is not the type of player that is going to fold two overcards (or many hands at all) in that spot. The only hands he’ll fold are complete garbage that totally whiffed the flop and if he has a hand like that, I might as well get him to stack off with it before the flop. I go all-in and he instantly looks disgusted as he stacks off for a 100K, and tournament-deciding, pot with Q4 offsuit. He flops a 4 that holds up to win and takes down first place. Yet another hand where poor planning preflop puts someone in a tough spot, playing a huge pot with a weak hand. With Q4o and 6000 in on the button, putting in a raise that crosses the commitment threshold is a questionable play since Q4o is a below average hand. I’m not folding too many hands that beat Q4, so my opponent might as well be raising blind and he might as well be going all-in. He’s clearly not playing his hand for value and his raise is entirely reliant on me not having a strong enough hand to play. His cards are completely irrelevant at this point. However, a queen heads up is a decent hand and he has the option of calling 6000 and being able to play the rest of the pot in position. A clearly superior option to stacking off for his entire stack preflop with a weak hand.

The theme of this blog post seems to be: PLAN YOUR HANDS. If you make a play and get a response to that play that either you a) don’t like or b) don’t know how to handle, you have misplayed your hand.

Posted in poker | Tagged how to play poker, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

September 2011 Gambling Results

October 2, 2011

Poker is such a grind. I made a resolution this past New Year’s to make a profit gambling. I was sick of thinking of myself as a great player without having the consistent results to prove it. I’ve destroyed that goal. I’ve won every month in 2011 and thanks to a great session on the second to last day of the month, I can add September 2011 to that list. In consistently achieving my goal to make money gambling this year, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. I was hoping to be playing professionally by 2013, but I’m ready to make the transition NOW. Part of me wants to throw caution to the wind, quit my day job and really put myself to the test… but that’s the part of me that has kept me treading in mediocrity for the past five years. I simply can’t afford to take that risk. Even if half my bankroll wasn’t indebted to me, I wouldn’t be close to having enough money saved up to take the plunge. Even at a limit as low as $4-$8, I’d be crippled after any sizable downswing without another source of income. My game still has plenty of leaks, but I’m convinced I can beat any limit game Washington state has to offer, so it’s frustrating that the only thing holding me back seems to be how much money I have to play with. So close… yet so far away.

I’ve had someone question whether or not I’d really want to play for a living. Not because they question my talent, but because they say that poker isn’t as much fun when you HAVE to play… when it becomes your job. When you have to put in the hours to make your money. Please. I have a day job now and still managed to put in over 160 September hours in just cash games. That doesn’t included the time I spent in the 17 tournaments I played. Playing is not going to be a problem for me. In fact, I’m in danger of letting poker completely dominate my life. If you include those tournament hours, I probably played around 200 hours last month, which would be a lot even for a full-time professional… and I’m still employed. Over a 450 hour sample size, my win rate in my regular game ($4-$8 fixed limit) is barely worth my time, so spending that much time playing is probably not my best investment. I think I need to cut my hours way back or find a full-time backer so I can move up to $8-$16.

I still have a tendency to think too much in the short term. I think it’s my biggest weakness now. Losing a big pot still hurts way more than it should. A bad run of cards, missed draws, coolers, and lucky catches for my opponents can still put me on tilt. My mood mirrors how my session is going far too often. For someone that is striving to play for a living and has proven that he will win in the long run, these attitudes are unacceptable. My focus on short term results makes me more susceptible to tilting, not playing my A game, and ultimately, cuts into my win rate in the long term and affects my overall performance. I feel like I could be doing much better than my current results if I can somehow get past this problem. Even right now, I feel down in the dumps because I started October off with a -54 big bet session and I haven’t won with TT, JJ, QQ, KK, or AA in my last 12+ hours of play. Unlucky? Yes. Any reason to whine and slum around my house feeling defeated? No. That money will come back. Time to get over it already and plug that leak. Coping with bad stretches separates the above average players from the great players and I’m ready for a promotion.

Rather than break down my exact results like I have in past months, I’ll just say I turned a modest profit for September. Considering the amount of time I put in, my final results are pretty unsatisfying. On the flip side, being stuck with two days left in the month and managing to turn a decent profit feels pretty good. My results in fixed limit cash games were not good at all. I lost at every limit I played, running absolutely brutal for multiple long stretches and probably not playing my best poker as a result, losing even more money than I should have. Before closing the month with a big win, I had six straight losing sessions–a first for 2011. It seems like I can’t go an entire month without 1 or 2 big downswings, even in months I’m generally killing the game. I also cashed for a profit in just 3 of the 17 tournaments I played (17.6% vs. a 45% ITM rate YTD) and went a stretch 8 straight tournaments without cashing at all (also a 2011 record).

Where I did do well last month was in the $2-$40 spread game at E&J Reyes and in the pit. I don’t have a lot of experience in spread games and haven’t had much success in them in the past. I’ve never been able to decide if I want to play a game that’s similar to how I play limit or how I play no limit. This time around I decided to play a mixture of both: seeing a lot of flops cheaply and using position like I do in no limit and using tight fixed limit hand selection in all other spots. I ran much better than average in these two sessions (88 > AA, JJ > AA, rivered a flush against trips, etc.) and I’m not expecting to maintain a $90/hour win rate. In the pit, I killed on match plays and pretty much expected to win every time I played one. Also, in one of my extremely rare moments of playing a table game, I hit quad 9s on Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em for a pretty decent payout and, unlike the degenerates who usually play the pit games, I immediately cashed out after my score.

Even though September was a small success, my bankroll actually decreased. I made way less at my day job than I budgeted for and had to take more out of my bankroll to pay bills than I made back in profit. Hopefully October will bring more consistency, both at my real job and on the felt. I just read that Full Tilt Poker has been purchased and maybe that means I’m that much closer to getting my money from them. I also got in touch with the dude that owes me a lot of money and he agreed to make a payment on the 5th. And seriously, does anyone in Kitsap County deserve the $9000+ Red Royal Flush Jackpot @ Chips Casino more than me?

Posted in poker | Tagged fixed limit, gambling, no limit, poker, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

$300 NL Muckleshoot Poker Tournament

September 9, 2011

Okay, so I’m pretty embarrassed right now. It’s 11:45 A.M. and I’m sitting on my computer typing up this trip report for a deep stack poker tournament with 30 minute levels and starting stack sizes of 200 big blinds that started at 10:00 A.M. in a casino that is at least an hour’s drive away! Do the math there and you can see that I busted out of a tournament with an amazing structure within the first 20 minutes… something I thought was virtually impossible for a player of my caliber. I’d have to run AA into KK preflop and lose to a set, right? Apparently not… and here’s my story:

So the tournament starts with 3 players at my table missing and the cut off raising to 125 with blinds at 25-50. Before I can even look at my cards, the big blind–with the small blind and me still to act before him–has tossed out a call already. I look down at AcTc and 3-bet to 375. Seat 6 in the big blind instantly calls, not even considering for a second what it means that I saw him call out of turn and still decided to re-raise. The opener from the cut off folds pretty quickly and I take the pot down with a continuation bet after a pretty dry flop. Seat 6 already seems like a fishy noob to me.

I open to 150 from the hi-jack folded to me with ATo and the cut off and button (seat 6) both call. Not a great result… but a K72 board is about as dry as it gets, so I C-bet 375 and the lady in seat 5 raises to 1050 and seat 6 reraises to 2200. LOL. I fold and seat 5 folds KTo face up. Wow. Now I’m thinking both seat 5 and 6 are retards. A few hands later they get involved in another pot where seat 5 calls pretty substantial bets from seat 6 and folds to his all-in on the river.

Another hand occurs that I can’t remember exact details of, but I flopped a gut shot in position in a raised pot and declined the option of stealing on the flop when it checked to me. A little discouraged and gun shy from the previous couples hand, I limp in with KQo UTG+1 and get two limpers behind me and one of the blinds. Flop comes T42, two clubs. I check and it checks to black dude in Seat 7… He bets 150 into a 250 pot. He doesn’t seem like a tough player to me, and I have two overs and the Qc, so I decide to float him out of position and re-evaluate all my options on the turn regardless of what card falls. I spike the Ks and decide to let the donkey keep pushing, figuring I’m way ahead of him the vast majority of the time. He bets 400 and I merely call. The Ac spikes the river… Since the way I’ve played my hand actually looks like a mediocre club draw, I’m worried he’s checking behind on that river most of the time and I want to get a little more value out of my hand, so I decide to lead right into him for 600. He calls pretty quickly and shows me Ad5h. Groan.

UTG raises to 125 and one person calls in front of me. I have the button and 7h4h and can’t resist making the call in position on both players. The blinds both call, and we go 5 ways to a Q53, two club flop. It checks around to me… Even though betting here seems reasonable, I feel like 3 of my 4 opponents are loose and one of them is willing to get all his chips in, so I try to turn the nuts for free. The turn is Ts and it checks to me again. Now I can’t resist trying to take the pot down with so much weakness in front of me. I make a 60% pot-sized bet and black guy calls me. River is the 9s, which brings in a running spade draw, KJ, and some random 9x straight draws I think he might still pay off with… so I decide to check behind and he shows 9c7c, a hand I think he calls any reasonable bet with.

BUSTO HAND

So I’m sitting on around 8K and realizing that I’ve managed to lose 20% of my stack during the first level of the tournament. I’m a little perturbed by this result, but not wanting to switch gears too much just yet, I open to 150 with the 8h7h. Only seat 6 calls me in position. He’s the table chip leader and has seemed to me to be the most reckless player at the table. I’m eager to find a good spot with him. The board comes down QhTs5h. Since my image has been pretty bad so far, with some failed c-bets and semi-bluffs in my recent history and facing an opponent that I’ve seen willing to put a lot of chips in the middle, I decide to play my flush draw cautiously and check it to him… not wanting to get blown off my good draw by betting into him and allowing him to make some absurd raise. He checks behind me. 6h on the turn. Gin! I decide to lead out for 325 which I don’t think seems like a very strong bet after checking the flop, but with only 375 in the pot, that’s actually a pretty solid bet in retrospect. My opponent calls. The river is the Jd. I decide on a pot-sized bet of 1025. With a couple failed bluffs in my recent past and what I think has been a relatively weak line from me so far in this hand, I feel like this bet should reek like a bluff on my part. My opponent doesn’t take too long to announce he’s all-in. My first reaction is glee; he’s fallen for my trap! But then I realize I’m about to be all-in with an 8 high flush in the first level of a deep stack tournament. Not exactly ideal. Is it possible I’m beat here?? I take about a minute thinking it over and my answer is there’s no way in hell this opponent has me beat in this spot. If he had a big flush draw, why would he check behind on the flop when I gave him a chance to take it down by showing weakness in front of him. Then, he merely smooth calls me on the turn with a flush? I’m not buying it. Finally, aside from my river bet, I feel like I’ve played the hand rather meekly and that my river bet looks like a bluff. If he had a big flush, does he really think I’m paying off in this spot for my entire stack? Hardly! Plus, this is the third time in 20 minutes this same player has basically put his tournament life at risk. Even though I think an 8 high flush is pretty weak to be stacking off with at this stage of the tournament and I can fold and still have 130 big blinds, when I add up all the pieces of the puzzle (my bad image so far, his spewy image, my line this hand, his line this hand, etc.), folding in this spot seems ludicrous when it appears as though I’m increasing my stack drastically the vast majority of the time. To me, it really looks like he either rivered a straight or somehow thinks two pair is good. I make the call and he shows me Ah3h for the nut flush.

I’ve been trying to come up with ways I don’t get stacked in that spot with that action against that player and I just can’t come up with anything good. I was already a little frustrated with my play/luck so far and I can’t imagine how much more tilted I would be if I decided to fold my flush there and he doesn’t show me his hand. I’d have a hard time moving past it, thinking that I missed an obvious opportunity to double up. I wish I would have made the Hellmuthian lay down and could have managed to collect myself afterwards, but considering how he played the hand, I just don’t see any other option.

Posted in poker | Tagged no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, poker tournament strategy, Poker Tournaments, texas hold em | 1 Comment »

August 2011 Gambling Results

August 31, 2011

Ugh. What a gross month. I topped it off with another miserable live session. In the interest of keeping my 9 month winning streak alive, I’m deciding to take tonight off, barely in the black.

I’m feeling a little depressed lately and middling gambling results aren’t helping out my mood much. Not only did I barely show a profit this month, but I had a pretty disastrous month financially as well. I moved into a new place and, long story short, my bankroll is about $1600 short right now. I took over a lease for someone and trusted them to pay the rent and deposit for me and for whatever reason, he couldn’t pay it (even though I handed him cash) and now owes me around $1500 (and another person owes me $120 for Kanye West & Jay-Z tickets). Oh, and Full Tilt still owes me $1600. Also, I blew my August budget by about $400 (the cost of moving and having no furniture). A frustrating situation under any circumstance, but exponentially more so since my month of September is built around jumping up in stakes. I requested five days off (that I normally work) this upcoming month to play juicy $8-$16 games and I’m playing a $300 No Limit tournament at Muckleshoot on September 9th. Fortunately, I have a backer… which is nice if I lose money, but kind of sucks if I win. Either way, the backing situation makes it a lot safer to play higher limits when half my bankroll is not in my possession.

I don’t know how I feel about my play this past month. I beat up the $8-$16 game both times I played it and I finally held my own at the $3-$6 level, but I couldn’t beat $4-$8 to save my life… a game I’ve been CRUSHING for two months straight. Perhaps it’s just variance, but I think my biggest leak nowadays is dealing with Run Bad, and on multiple occasions I turned somewhat bad sessions into disastrous ones. Or maybe I’m just burned out. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I do NOT have fun playing poker when I’m losing. That’s not a good trait for someone that’s hoping to play this game for a living someday. It’s not always peaches and cream… and I know that… but still.

Perhaps I need to approach my every day game like I’m playing $8-$16 because when I was playing that higher limit, my starting requirements were much tighter and I really felt like I played mostly mistake free poker. God only knows I’m not above a $4-$8 game so there’s no reason to start playing like I am. I kind of feel like I’m falling into the same trap I’ve been stuck in before: I can play weaker hands because I’m better than these people. While the second part of that statement may be true, the first part isn’t. I think it’s time to hit the books again and get my mind right because there’s no reason I should be consistently losing at $4-$8, even for just a month.

To add to my depression, my day job has me at my wit’s end. It pays my bills, but I can’t say it’s even remotely what I want to be doing with my time. I have no interest in the food service industry, but my hourly income would be pretty hard to match elsewhere. I enjoy writing, but there’s not much money in that, especially when you barely have a foot in the door. Other than that, I have no idea what else I want to do. Except play poker… which is why this past month has been so discouraging. After two months where I brought in $4400 gambling, my bankroll was rising rapidly and I was more than a third of the way to the point where I feel I could quit my job. Now… I’m looking at this $3000 I have and realize my date with destiny is so much further away than I want it to be.

August Results (YTD in parentheses):

Overall Gambling: +$191 (+$4261.36)
Poker: +$295 (+$4418.36)
Live: +$355 (+$4543.30)
House Games: -$60 (+$298.70)
Pit: -$89 (-$55)
Sports Betting: -$10 (-$122)
Other Bets: -$5 (+$20)

$3-$6: +$41 (-$505)
$4-$8: -$903 (+$1321)
$8-$16: +$643 (+$643)
NL: $0 (+$503)

Live Tournaments: +$367 (+$1536)

Posted in poker | Tagged bremerton, chips casino, gambling, limit hold em, no limit hold em, poker, Poker Tournaments, professional poker | Leave a Comment »

The Bat Cave