ZOMG ahhhhhsht is a nit and super duper exploitable

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com



saw flop

BB ($200.30)
UTG ($102.65)ahhhhhhh (UTG+1) ($140.50)
MP1 ($104.60)
MP2 ($108.40)
CO ($100)
Button ($123.30)
SB ($102)
Preflop: 
ahhhhhhh is UTG+1 with A, 101 fold, ahhhhhhh bets $3, MP1 calls $3, 5 folds
Flop: ($7.50) A, 5, A (2 players)
ahhhhhhh checks, MP1 bets $6, ahhhhhhh calls $6
Turn: ($19.50) 4 (2 players)
ahhhhhhh checks, MP1 bets $17, ahhhhhhh calls $17
River: ($53.50) 8 (2 players)
ahhhhhhh checks, MP1 bets $78.60 (All-In)
Total pot: $53.50

This entry is just going to be pure strat (per request one of my amazing readers). This hand took place during a 12 tabling session as normal, and i had been running my normal semi tight 14vpip aggressive 11pfr. I dont always open A 10 from ep, but i just kinda felt like it for some reason. Maybe i hadnt played a hand in awhile, or whatever the reason, i open my standard 3x and shit! This is a reg, i dont run a hud but i recognize him as tight aggressive, probably a winner (i looked after the hand and my read was right)....so right off the bat i gotta hit the shit outta this flop, two pair, trips, pair/draw, something beautiful. 


HU to the flop is nice and BOOM, right? I mean i flopped trips. Now i have to think, what is a tight aggressive regs range to call an utg +1 open. Obv almost all pp's are in there, i think AJo+, A9s+, some broadway combos maybe, a few sc's maybe. Broadway combos and sc's are pretty light tbh and i dont think in ep a tight winning reg is calling another tight winning reg quite that wide often, but they are in there. So now i have to think how do i get the most money out of that range (not to mention control the pot for when im behind the hands that have me beat in his range) For this reason i check, its not that im scared of his range or even remotely think im behind at this point. I just think that im going to get him to fire all his pp's and bluffs here *note that there are not many reasonable draws on that flop* and he obliges by betting. At this point there is no value in raising, if he has bluffs/pp's he folds, if he repops or calls im oop and in a pretty shitty spot vs his range that would repop or call. So i just call


The turn is a brick, i mean zomg 23 and 55 got there. Ok if 55 got there i set myself up and oopsy daisy. But 23 from an ep open/call is just very unlikely. So still his range is about the same. At this point i think he will fire 2 bullets fairly frequently with hands i beat, as well as hands that beat me obv. So the check here is for value and pot control again. *notice how shitty it is to play hands oop, which is precisely why opening dominated hands from ep sux* When he fires again here it smells of value, just the bet sizing is valueish to me. Granite he could be vbetting A9, but probably not firing a 3rd time with it. So i just call again. Weak poker ftw obv, but in this case i think im maximizing value and controlling the pot for when im behind. If he had checked back im value betting the river all day, everyday, and twice on sundays. In this case i probably value bet 11 or 12 on the river to get some really big time crying calls. 


The river is def a brick, and since he fired again on the turn i have two reasonable options. 1) I can blocker/vbet this spot or 2) i can ck and call most bets. I think rarely somebody is going to throw out a 1/2 - 2/3 bet here with bluffs and A9, but thats really all i beat, i just think it gets bet enough to make the call. Though at that point a call is really a crying call by me. I dont like blocker betting because it makes me over think at these stakes tbh. When Ive played bigger games i will often blocker bet to induce a shove, but at 100nl i think its a good mix of people who know to shove blocker bets, but not quite enough to blocker bet induce bluffs. So id rather just ck/call.......until he over ships the river. It took some thinking but really i beat almost nothing. If there was a flush draw on the flop i could see calling here, because missed draws will often over ship/3barrel, but rarely will people, especially regs just 3barrel shove with air which is what hed have to have to be bluff shoving since no real draws were there to chase. Id go as far to say that AJ and 50/50 AQ dont shove here. 


Its a sick spot, but i think long term, given the read i had on this villian, its a way +ev fold. It sux but sometimes u gotta lay it down and if u got bluffed boohoo next hand.


Gl at the tables


Mr. Sht

When the tables get u down....

this picture has absolutely nothing to do with the blog entry

Just google LOLCAT for motivation.....Ok thats as close as i could come to making this picture relate to the topic. On a side not im at school typing this up on IE so if the spelling is worse than usual.....oopsy daisy!

This weekend was meh for me. It started out ok with me plus a few buy ins, but the next day was pure torture. It was def not my day. I followed my rules and quit the first session after 3buy ins and 45 minutes, then did some bs came back fresh and ready to get those buy ins back.....another 45 minutes, another -3 buy ins. YIKES!!! However, it was the weekend, the games were good, and i just didnt really feel very tilted. I took a small break and came back for round 3....sadly it was more of the same and at EOD i was down close to 10 buy ins.

These things happen, graphs are never straight up and mine is no exception. Tbh im probably falling back into my calling to light on the river habit, but it just gets to a point where i refuse to believe that they have it yet again. I played today and was very happy with my play. On sunday i played to try and put in some volume since 10 buy ins is a bit to overcome and won about 6, then i second session jinxed my ass and dropped one. Meh well though. Today was nice and i got another 2.5 back, so were on the road to recovery but its just very very frustrating when every new session it feels like ur playing from behind.

Another thing affecting my mindset is i get the oppurtunity to "stake" well buy parts of a stake on 2 players who i am very confident are +ev spots. One is on fire right now in mtts and sngs and i bought about 25% of him in a nice wcoop schedule combined with a 2k sng sample to reduce variance. Another is the top 30cap player on the internet and he sold me about 25% of him on his 60cap shot. So i have about 1500 or so out in stakes and that makes my br look smaller. Combine that with my 10buy in downer, and overspending irl and its time to buckle down.

April is coming to an end and my volume is surprisingly high. I feel like im slacking but im right on pace for about 60k hands, i mean i may fall a bit short but i feel like ive been slacking. So far im at about 1.65BB/100, which is a bit below where i aim for. Ideally id like to be at about 2.5-3.0BB/100, i havent run below ev but i think im running bad situationally, coolers and such and then my calling off leak.

I have just completed one class already (were doing presentations and i was first to go, so now i just have to show up), another class was a independent study, so its done too, and then i have biology test today and i think one more before the semester is out but overall not to much work to do. So hopefully i will be able to dediacte a lot of time to poker in may, until my move. If i could make supernova by wsop trip time that would be nice. Nothing like a lil 4k bonus and 1k bonus to gain some confidence.

Well gl at the tables

The curse....

Being a cubs fan the last 28 years I'm pretty familiar with a curse. And knowing about a poker related one, i feel i must inform u....my loyal readers.....the few who are destined to win at this wonderful game of poker due to ur dedication and my guidance.

Well my friends this curse may not make u curl up in the fetal position and ask "why god? Why me? Why did u make me love a team that is destined to lose FOREVER!!!" (not that ive ever done that.....)

This curse will however, cost u a lot of money. This is the second session curse. If you had a winning session, generally of 2 buy ins or more during ur first session of hands, ur are a 99.999% favorite to lose at the next session.

Despite me knowing this i still frequently refuse to believe it and try for that 2nd session. Sure sometimes i get lucky and fade the poker gods and book a 2nd winning session on the day. But more often than not......the curse wins out.

Today im in an interesting and rare position. Ill start at last night around 1am. I couldnt sleep so i played for a couple hours and lost 4buy ins or so. Now i dont know if this counts as my first session of the day or not. I generally assume no, and say the day starts when i wake up. So i woke up this morning and played for a couple hours. I didnt plan on playing a long session so i thought the expected outcome was moderate as far as wins/losses. Wouldnt u know it though in less than an hour i had made 3.5 buy ins. So after showering and getting some lunch(?) I decided to tempt fate and run the 2nd session. I did this for a few reasons 1) i wasnt sure if last night counted, 2) if i lost i had enough time to break and run a 3rd session.....well look there, i won another 3buy ins.

Now its 9pm on a friday (i have no life so going out is not an option) and  im not sure if i should go for rd 3. I just bought 1/2 my buddy in a bigger game than he normally plays, so i may go sweat that a bit.

Gl at the tables

Mr. Sht

Motivated motivated, hell yeah im motivated

Or i was this weekend anyways. As i said here in another post, i bought a pimp laptop, but for some reason it doesnt pick up the internet at my house. So instead of figuring that out im staying lazy and using my old one until i move in another month or so. This combined with some other bs made me not motivated to play. Then i donated 2k to the live community, 400 for adult entertainment, a few more hundred that i didnt like having, and i came to the realization that i needed to get motivated.

So i had bought and installed HEM for my new laptop but gave in and put it on this old one too, hoping that would motivate me. Boy did it! Right off the bat i saw that i wasn't running as bad as i thought, but that my lower win rate was due to a major hole i had been falling back into. This leak is something that seems to work live, but just gets exploited to shit in the online arena. A friend of mine pointed it out, and i took a night to request most of my HH's from ftp and import them into HEM and sure enough, this number had dropped off and so had my win-rate. A weekend of focusing on plugging this leak and the results are already shining thru. 

I'm still not using a hud for a couple reasons. 1) this computer is dated and it goes slow enough when 12 tabling and browsing the internet. 2) i dont want to mess with my game until i have a good sample of hands in from stars and putting a hud up may mess me up. 

Overall, being accountable has really re-motivated me to put in some volume. And finding that leak as quick as i did has already paid dividends on the HEM investment. I honestly cant believe its taken me this long to start using a tracking software, and i will proly think the same thing when i start using the hud. 

For the serious poker player, it is essential to embrace something like this and recognize that we all have areas in our game we need to work on, and not to be scared or ashamed to recognize these areas. The numbers dont lie, and accountability will lead to victory at the tables

also just cuz its been to long......enjoy 

Stay focused

Poker is hard. If its not variance, bad beats, and coolers, its getting too comfortable and losing that "hunger" I have had a good if not great last 5 months of poker. So when its getting to that point when i can take that next step what do i do? Buy a new laptop that wasnt 100% necassary, go play 550 buy in mtt, play 1 table of 2/5 live a few days when i could of been grinding out 12 of 200nl, just stupid/unfocused bs. I need to get that eye of the tiger back, i need to go rocky 3 style and go back to the hood. Stay hungry, put in volume, refocus on the gym, and i guess maybe even crack a book or two, instead of this month of alcohol abuse ive been doing.

The man himself 

So here we go. Its time to refocus and put in the volume i know im capable of. Its time to embrace the coolers and beats and even put some on my opponents. Ive been 12 tabling 200nl when i have played and have had mixed results. One day was a pretty boring plus 150bb day, and the other was a rollercoaster of     -300bb to up 100bb to up only 25bb. Still a winner but it is nice to play thru a bit of a downswing and not feel to affected when moving up to a new level. Im not sure if ill stick to 200nl or mave back down. My bank account is getting depleted due to my laziness so im not going to be as tolerable of a downswing, so ill just play it by ear. 

Gl at the tables and lets stay focused 

Pros and cons of live poker vs online

As i mentioned earlier i used to play almost exclusively live. I have quite a sample in both the live and online poker venues and i would say im more qualified to speak on them both than most people are. Live games are a good time if ur not a regular. I found that when i was a reg in live games, other (mostly losing) regs would try to attach themselves to me and tell me bad beat stories and woe is me bs. This made me start wearing headphones and refusing to talk with people in the games. Whichhhhhhhh about instantly led to me being miserable. It is quite amazing how we overlook the benefits of social interaction in a work setting. But that is #1 what i hate about live games, is the regs. #2 thing its sooooooooooo slow. After playing 12 tables at 70hands/hr, u try going to 1 table of 30 hands / hr. This leads to me playing looser which doesnt translate well for me live. These two major factors are just horrible, but the games are softer.........meh f this ill finish this tomorrow, i get the feeling this blog post is the suck so far though

Good week so far....

Who's ready for the weekend!!!!

All in all ive had a good week at and away from the virtual tables. I finally got HEM but its on my new laptop, which for some reason isnt working at my house but works everywhere else. Im not to worried about it and am saving my hh's till i move in a month.

Ive been playing exclusively 100nl, mostly cuz i want to stay strict with my br for awhile. I was thinking when i hit 15k br, but i may just wait till i hit supernova and use my 4k bonus as a 20bi shot at 200nl. Who knows though, as im sure u can tell if uve read this blog, i change my mind like every 30 seconds.

I will be making a concentrated effort to put in some serious volume for the rest of this semester and then zombie like volume (excluding the week of 16-22 of june for the wsop) from june - august.

I feel a cold coming on so ive been taking some nyquil and playing in between naps. 5K hands yesterday for -125.....i cant complain, i didnt run well or horrible just a few key spots didnt fall in my favor. Today im off to a better start up 4.5 buy ins, in about 3k hands. Ill proly put in another session b4 bed, but wanted to update this.

Gl to yall