Daily Poker Journal

[Radii]

I had mentioned awhile ago that I have become very frustrated/jaded/whatever with my career and felt the time was right to take a break. As part of that I'm playing a lot of poker to see how much I can improve my skillset and to see if it might be a path towards self employment that I'd enjoy following. Most in depth, thoughtful things I have to say are over at the blog I contribute to, http://92offsuit.com, but, I have wanted a little daily dumping ground too just to track my day to day goings on. Lots of people requested a dynasty and so that's what will happen here.

The intent of this is to post once a day. Exactly what will get posted I'm not sure yet. Initially I think I just want to post a daily summary of the day's poker activities, to more accurately track how much I'm playing/spending time reviewing hands/watching videos, etc. To add a little more content, and to encourage me to review my playing sessions, any day that I play i intend to post my biggest winning hand and biggest losing hand, and perhaps an additional hand if there was something interesting or something that stood out/gave me trouble. If the winning hand/losing hand end up just being "Hey AA won a big pot/hey look at that suckout" every day, I'll get a little more selective.

As I mentioned over on 92o, I'm doing some contract work for my former employer that kicked off recently so my play times/volume may be a bit erratic over the next couple weeks.

[Radii]

Jan 30

Hands played: 254 @ 50NL
Result: UP $75
MT Ratio: 1.87 (~185 hands/hr for 1.4 hrs)

I just played a short session 2 tabling 50NL. My primary game right now is to 4 or 5 table 25NL. I have a bankroll big enough for 50NL(and some would say 100NL) but a 50NL shot in the middle of January went very poorly. As mentioned on 92o, my current plan is to start every playing day by 2 tabling the level above my current level, to focus on more on my skill, and after an hour to start putting in the volume by 5 tabling my current level. I spent most of my day yesterday getting re-acclimated with the work environment for the consulting that I'm doing and just made a little time for poker.

Biggest win:

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (MP): $50.50
CO: $18.35
BTN: $50.00
SB: $27.40
BB: $80.85
UTG: $36.85

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with Qd Ac
1 fold, Hero raises to $2, 3 folds, BB calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.25) As Ad Th (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.50, BB calls $3.50

Turn: ($11.25) Ts (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $7, BB calls $7

River: ($25.25) 6h (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $15, BB calls $15

Final Pot: $55.25
Hero shows Qd Ac (a full house, Aces full of Tens)
BB mucks Td Jc
Hero wins $52.50
(Rake: $2.75)




Biggest Loss:

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $24.80
Hero (BTN): $54.45
SB: $46.25
BB: $34.50
UTG: $27.25
MP: $96.85

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with 5h Ad
2 folds, CO calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.25, 2 folds, CO calls $1.75

Flop: ($5.25) Qd 6d 7d (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $4, CO calls $4

Turn: ($13.25) 8s (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $48.20 all in, CO calls $18.55 all in

River: ($50.35) Js

Final Pot: $50.35
CO shows 5d 4c (a straight, Eight high)
Hero shows 5h Ad (Ace Queen high)
CO wins $47.85
(Rake: $2.50)



The first hand that i won, I should have shoved the river. At the time I was certain I was splitting and just threw out a half hearted "maybe he's retarded" bet. And maybe $15 was the most he would have called. But I should have tried to get more IMO.


The second hand, my opponent was playing 85% of his hands(he was running 85/8 or something like that) and I was raising a ton to isolate him. He would fold to continuation bets about 60% of the time and I took a lot of medium sized pots off him. Here, because of the opponent's stack, i'm pretty much committed if I want to bet anymore on the turn and I decided to shove with my draws. Its very possible that I should have taken the free card on the turn but I had seen him call down with any draw at all and thought it was actually not impossible to think that I was ahead(he would have check/called the same way with Kd xx or Jd xx, etc) but pushing the turn is probably spewing a bit regardless.

[Radii]

Jan 31

Hands: 180 @ 50NL
Result: UP $52.60

2 tabled for 1.08 hours. I spent a ton of time today doing my contract work and just took a break to get in an hour at the tables.


Biggest Win:

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $102.10
Hero (BTN): $77.45
SB: $166.45
BB: $21.55
UTG: $85.75
MP: $112.65

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with Js Kc
3 folds, Hero raises to $2, 1 fold, BB calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.25) 7c 6s Jd (2 players)
BB bets $3, Hero raises to $10, BB calls $7

Turn: ($24.25) 8c (2 players)
BB bets $9.55 all in, Hero calls $9.55

River: ($43.35) Ah

Final Pot: $43.35
Hero shows Js Kc (a pair of Jacks)
BB shows 4d 8s (a pair of Eights)
Hero wins $41.20
(Rake: $2.15)


total no brainer. Clear spot to raise PF. This guy was like 67/12 and would donk out on the flop with anything at all. I'm more than happy to get it all in with him with TPGK and an SPR around 5.



Biggest Loss:

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

SB: $50.90
BB: $50.00
UTG: $413.20
MP: $68.50
Hero (CO): $65.75
BTN: $12.50

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with 9h 9d
2 folds, Hero raises to $2, BTN calls $2, 2 folds

Flop: ($4.75) 5h Tc 4h (2 players)
Hero bets $3, BTN calls $3

Turn: ($10.75) 2c (2 players)
Hero bets $10.75, BTN calls $7.50 all in

River: ($25.75) Ac

Final Pot: $25.75
Hero shows 9h 9d (a pair of Nines)
BTN shows 3d Ad (a straight, Five high)
BTN wins $24.50
(Rake: $1.25)


Another no brainer. Very loose player, guy only has 2x the size of the pot left in his stack on the flop, if he has a ten or some other random thing that beats me, good for him.

[Radii]

2/1

Hands: 949 @ 50NL
Result: DOWN 115.60

I have a long history of being completely unable to win on Friday nights. i'm feeling really good about my play 2-tabling 50NL and have decided to stick with that for a little while instead of dropping back down to put up more volume at 25NL on autopilot. I'll improve more and am more likely to make 50NL stick this way.

Tonight was really just running bad against maniacs. Guy is going all in twice an orbit post flop and showing bluffs every time, I catch TPTK against him w/ AQ and get it on the turn to see the nut flush. AA/QQ get cracked vs guys playing 75/60 PF, etc. Only being down a bit over 2 buyins is probably a good sign for me, I do feel great about my play. I'm playing a little more of a solid TAG game instead of nitting it up(since I started 2 tabling I'm playing ~22/18 over like 1500 hands so far, where 4 tabling I was running 17/13 or so). I feel I'm slowly improving at handreading and making the right decisions in marginal situations postflop, which is good.

No contract work tomorrow so i'm looking forward to getting in a couple nice long sessions.

[Icy]

Nice, i don't know a lot about poker (a bit weird when i advertise poker websites) but i'll follow this hoping for great success from you.

[Radii]

BTW, bad timing here. I went on super-mega-monkey-tilt over some frustration about struggling to beat NL50(which I'm finding really embarrassing to post about because I work so much on my poker game and something just isn't clicking right to make the right leap even at these low limits), took a day off from the tables and intended to review/reflect/settle back down, came down with Bronchitis and only played a couple short sessions over the last 7-10 days or so.

Frustration over improvement is not unusual. Tilting is. I usually log off within 3 or 4 minutes of things going south. I am a huge bankroll nit and have been playing poker for a number of years now and really don't post/bitch about bad beats anymore. At this point I'm basically crushing 25NL over a growing sample of hands but every effort to advance has resulted in hot streak at 50NL for 3-5k hands followed by 5-8 buyin downswing and dropping back down again.

I'm ok w/ that as I can see that i'm improving. But for some reason in this one instance I let it tilt me pretty bad. i dropped 3 buyins pretty quickly in a session at 50NL, my 3rd losing session in a row resulting in a $~300 downswing even after those couple short winning nights i first posted, and it was time to go play some 25NL and get my bearings again. No big deal at all, but for a reason i don't quite understand I exhibited one of the classic(and worst) characteristics of tilt, moving UP a level to try to make back losses. I only dropped 1 buyin at 100NL before I took my break, but the actual act of moving up while losing says more than whether I won/lost and it was break time.

the couple sessions I played last week were back at 25NL and were standard winning sessions. I'm still on some meds for the bronchitis, am still not fully better but really hope to feel up to playing at least some tomorrow and over the weekend. I only wanted to take 1 or maybe 2 days away from the tables and have been itching to get back to playing but playing while you have a 101+ fever is not really going to lead to good decision making

[MIJB#19]

Radii, I'm wondering, why don't you stick with 25NL as your main game and merge in some 50NL play? I don't have any experience at playing at those levels, but from the sound of things, it sounds more like a mental block than anything else. Clearly you're confident and good enough to play well at the 25NL level. I'd almost say that you're too much focused on the whole 50NL failure, and too little on your ability to play well. Or, if 50NL continues to be such a mental block for you, maybe you should keep building your bankroll at 25NL until you feel like you have enough to move up to 100NL and skip the level in between?

[Radii]

I can understand how it sounds like that from my last post, but its not as bad as it sounds. I got my bearings at 25NL when I started playing 6-max NL and have basically crushed it from the start. I've only really taken two legitimate shots at moving up to 50NL, and i'm doing it in the fashion mentioned by a lot of people who talk about moving up through the levels on 2+2, pick a stop loss, play your normal game for the previous level and just start to adjust to the new amounts and the differences in play. Both times I ran hot at first, tried to make an adjustment or two and bombed out badly, quickly. I thought I was a lot more prepared the second time and was disappointed that i was going to need to move back down and regroup for another shot. But that's totally part of learning NL Cash games, and it's going to happen at every level. I just didn't handle it well that one day is all

I'm still not completely well and was only able to keep my concentration where I need it to be for an hour and a half or so. I'm seriously tired of being sick, this is going on 10 days now, but whatever.

All the days I've posted so far are like 1 1/2 hours haha. 5 hours/2k hands is kinda the norm here.

2/15

25NL
535 hands
MT Ratio: 4.23 for ~1.4 hours
Result: UP $38.25


My biggest wins tonight were all overpair hands that pretty much played themselves, so there's nothing to gain by posting those.


Biggest Loss

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $56.25
BTN: $4.05
SB: $21.20
Hero (BB): $46.75
UTG: $31.10

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with Qh Ah
3 folds, SB calls $0.15, Hero raises to $0.75, SB calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.50) 3h: 4c Ad (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1, SB raises to $3, Hero raises to $10.50, SB raises to $20.45 all in, Hero calls $9.95

Turn: ($42.40) Ts

River: ($42.40) 5s

Final Pot: $42.40
SB shows Ac 4h (two pair, Aces and Fours)
Hero shows Qh Ah (a pair of Aces)
SB wins $40.30
(Rake: $2.10)


Villain was a total unknown. Stacking off with top pair is bad vs an unknown as a general rule. In a blind vs blind situation I threw that out the window and just said FU, lets dance! I think the right play here is to call the flop check-raise and see what he does on the turn, probably call a turn bet but if he goes to the river w/ another bet I'm just not good and I can fold and lose a lot less.



Somewhat interesting hand:

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BB: $34.55
UTG: $21.50
Hero (MP): $26.05
CO: $25.45
BTN: $42.30
SB: $28.75

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with Qd Ad
1 fold, Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, BTN calls $1, 2 folds

Flop: ($2.35) Jh 9h Qs (2 players)
Hero bets $1.50, BTN calls $1.50

Turn: ($5.35) Ks (2 players)
Hero bets $4, BTN calls $4

River: ($13.35) 2s (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $10, Hero folds



The reason I say this hand is interesting to me is that the villain in this hand had only been at the table for 15 hands. He'd played all 15. The only time I'd seen him get all the way to showdown though he cold called a raise with 85s and got all in on a 955 flop against an overpair. He'd won like 6 hands by betting before the river, and folded on the flop and turn a few times but no other showdown hands. By the time he calls flop and turn bets I really have no idea if I'm ahead or not(I don't know if he's going to call along w/ bottom pairs, etc), but on that board there are so many ways for me to be behind that i just gave it up. Maybe I let a busted heart draw bluff me. Unsure! Unfortunately the guy flopped another boat and stacked another person to go from $25 to $90 in ~25 hands, playing every single one of them, and left.

[Radii]

2/17
25NL
1986 hands
Result: DOWN $21.85

Now we're talking, finally a solid length session with a good number of hands. On weekdays when I'm doing consulting work for my old employer, I don't expect to often log 2000 hands, probably closer to 1000, but on the weekends, 2k hands is a solid number that I should reach or exceed if I'm feeling well and playing well.

And I played pretty well yesterday despite the loss. According to PokerEV(awesome free software) I got all in 17 times, and ran $93 below expectation in those all in pots. So I ran pretty bad yesterday, were that breakeven I'm looking at being up 3 buyins instead of down 1.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Radii

PokerEV(awesome free software)

Unfortunately it does not appear to work with PT3's database

At least I can't get it to.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by MattJones4Heisman

Unfortunately it does not appear to work with PT3's database

At least I can't get it to.

doh! That's one of the reasons I'm waiting until PT3 is fully out and there are good solid release reviews of both PT3 and Holdem Manager before I do anything.

[Radii]

2/19

25NL
2184 hands
UP $145.25


I ran pretty hot tonight, actually getting up $130 in my first 1000 hands and basically breaking even in my last 1000 hands. Its nice to see positive numbers and I'll take 6 buyins any day for sure.

[jbergey22]

I'm glad I came accross this. Very interesting Radi. I have no doubt you will do quite well with your money management skills and dedication to improve. I am just curious, do you track flops seen% and rivers seen%. I used to play quite a bit back when it was was easier to play online. Normally a bad sign that things are going bad is seeing to many flops and rivers.

[Radii]

I don't aim for a specific flops seen %(VP$P in pokertracker lingo), espicially at 6-max. My stats at 25NL are a somewhat nitty 18 VP$P/14 PFR, but it varies heavily from table to table. If the players to my left are too tight, or the players to my right are loose/passive I'll often end up playing 30/23 b/c I am stealing so much more or isolating the bad players before me so much more. I end up limping more when there are short stacks(which probably isn't a great thing and I need to improve my play vs shorties).

I'm working a ton on my post flop play so any stats I have on post flop play over the last few months probably don't say too much right now.

I of course use a HUD and use my opponents stats to help me make decisions and reads all the time.

[Radii]

2/20

25NL
1518 Hands
UP $29.95


Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BTN: $25.75
Hero (SB): $35.10
BB: $25.00
UTG: $48.70
CO: $30.15

Pre Flop: Hero is SB with Qc Kc
2 folds, BTN raises to $0.85, Hero calls $0.75, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($2.55) 4h 2d Kh (3 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $1.80, BTN folds, Hero raises to $6, BB calls $4.20

Turn: ($14.55) 2s (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $18.15 all in, Hero calls $18.15

River: ($50.85) 5s

Final Pot: $50.85
Hero shows Qc Kc (two pair, Kings and Twos)
BB shows 4d 4s (a full house, Fours full of Twos)
BB wins $48.35
(Rake: $2.50)


A little self reminder: "I really think he has a flush draw" is no reason to ignore all evidence to the contrary. Also, 3-bet preflop, WTF.


And a good hand: Some people just loooove to bluff the river

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

UTG: $11.60
Hero (MP): $28.85
CO: $26.20
BTN: $23.50
SB: $27.45
BB: $52.50

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with Js Jc
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.90, CO calls $0.90, 3 folds

Flop: ($2.15) Kc Jh 7c (2 players)
Hero bets $1.60, CO calls $1.60

Turn: ($5.35) 2h (2 players)
Hero bets $4.50, CO calls $4.50

River: ($14.35) 8c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $8.25, Hero calls $8.25

Final Pot: $30.85
Hero shows Js Jc (three of a kind, Jacks)
CO shows Ac Qd (Ace King high)
Hero wins $29.35
(Rake: $1.50)

[MIJB#19]

Quick question: that last hand, you didn't raise his bet on the river or come out betting. I suppose you do that under the assumption only a made flush or something like 10-9, pocket Kings or A-K will call you? Or did you really hope to induce a bluff?

[Radii]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Quick question: that last hand, you didn't raise his bet on the river or come out betting. I suppose you do that under the assumption only a made flush or something like 10-9, pocket Kings or A-K will call you? Or did you really hope to induce a bluff?

In the last hand there's a chance that KJ(top two pair) might call me, but the vast majority of the hands that I beat are folding on the river. I think its highly unlikely that another set would have slowplayed til the end on a drawy board so I pretty much discount the possibility that he had pocket 7s or 2s, those would have likely raised the turn. There's also a small chance that if my opponent is aggressive and tricky he'll decide to bluff-raise the river, and if I bet out on the river, I really should be folding to a raise b/c its almost always going to be a flush.

If I check the river, those unlikely sets, two pair hands and possibly TPTK(AK) might try to represent the flush and bet out. Of course a flush bets out also but if I check I think he tries to steal the pot on the river often enough to call. Espicially given his bet size. Betting $8 into $14 he's almost giving me 3:1 odds on a call and only has to be bluffing about 25-30% of the time for me to call correctly.

I really didn't expect to see total air, and didn't expect this opponent to be calling two bets with an iniside straight draw + 1 overcard, which was kinda nice.

[MIJB#19]

Ah yes, that line of thinking makes sense, as in, sounds understandable.

[Radii]

2/21

25 NL
1721 hands
UP $76.75


I'm extremely pleased with today's session for a lot more reasons than just the good result. After watching a couple of Ed Miller's videos on Stoxpoker.com, I think some of the basic concepts that have been eluding me "clicked" ... we'll see over the next few days/weeks, and I'll post a blog entry on it, but I think something clicked as far as playing position that I just have not been able to get right yet.


Biggest pot won on the day:

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

SB: $6.00
BB: $25.70
Hero (UTG): $35.90
MP: $148.50
CO: $24.65
BTN: $107.85

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with Ad Qd
Hero raises to $1, MP calls $1, 4 folds

Flop: ($2.35) 2d Ks Qs (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $1.25, Hero calls $1.25

Turn: ($4.85) 5h (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $3, Hero calls $3

River: ($10.85) Ah (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $9, Hero raises to $30.60, MP calls $21.60

Final Pot: $72.05
Hero shows Ad Qd (two pair, Aces and Queens)
MP mucks Td As
Hero wins $69.05
(Rake: $3.00)


Definitely not my normal line with AQ here. Basically the villain in this hand was... hm, how to be polite and respect my opponents... the villain in this hand was an donater of epic propotions. The max buyin at these tables is $25. When I sat down this guy had $195. He dropped from $195 down to $50 in about 45 hands. He played about 90% of his hands, and would bet literally every time he was checked to. I guarantee you that he would have made that $9 bet on the river regardless of whether he hit a pair or not. So I basically decided when I hit middle pair the way to get the most value out of him was to check/call all 3 streets. When I hit two pair on the river I decided to go for a checkraise all in, and you can see the results above. This guy is buddy listed and I will be looking for him when I sit down for awhile.


Biggest Loss:

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BB: $24.30
UTG: $32.10
Hero (MP): $31.90
CO: $6.75
BTN: $24.80
SB: $16.60

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with Jd Js
1 fold, Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, BTN raises to $3.35, 2 folds, Hero calls $2.35

Flop: ($7.05) 5:spade: Kh Ks (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $5, Hero raises to $22.10, BTN calls $16.45 all in

Turn: ($49.95) 2d

River: ($49.95) Th

Final Pot: $49.95
Hero shows Jd Js (two pair, Kings and Jacks)
BTN shows Kd As (three of a kind, Kings)
BTN wins $47.50
(Rake: $2.45)


Whoops. I seriously should have considered folding jacks out of position to his raise preflop. This guy was extraordinarily tight. When the flop came I decided that he was nitty enough to fold QQ and very possibly AA to a CR all in and decided to make a move. I guess we'll never know if my read was right or not, since he had AK :P Probably a bit of FPS, but I thought I had a read and decided to go with it.

[Radii]

Super long blog post expanding on some of what I posted here last night:

http://www.92offsuit.com/?p=766

[Radii]

Right, never get too up or too down(emotionally) in poker. The regression back to the middle is swift.

2/22

25NL
1402 hands
Result: DOWN $113.00

I stacked off for a full $25 5 times. Once was an all in confrontation preflop where AKs lost a race to JJ. The other four times I had an overpair to the board. All four times I was behind when I got all in. In three of them I could have lost a lot less, easily. I don't think there was a way for me to win today, but I sure as hell shouldn't have lost as much as I did. Ah well, tomorrow is another day.

[Radii]

Medieval II: Total War > me this weekend. I meant to catch up on some contract work Saturday and then get in a solid 2k hands at the tables today. Uh yeah, neither happened.

[flair1234]

Originally Posted by Radii

Biggest Loss:

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $24.80
Hero (BTN): $54.45
SB: $46.25
BB: $34.50
UTG: $27.25
MP: $96.85

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with 5h Ad
2 folds, CO calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.25, 2 folds, CO calls $1.75

Flop: ($5.25) Qd 6d 7d (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $4, CO calls $4

Turn: ($13.25) 8s (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $48.20 all in, CO calls $18.55 all in

River: ($50.35) Js

Final Pot: $50.35
CO shows 5d 4c (a straight, Eight high)
Hero shows 5h Ad (Ace Queen high)
CO wins $47.85
(Rake: $2.50)



.

A few things, I am not really wild about this hand on any street, although I follow your logic on most streets; so I am not trying to be overly critical but just throw out a few of my ideas.

Pre-flop:

I don't like isolation raises in NL as much as I do in Limit. In Limit I would for the most part agree with this play against a loose passive player. But in NL doing this I like to have a hand better than a low off suit Ace. Especially making the size raise that you did.

Even with bad players you are giving them the oppurtunity to bail out on their iffy hands, chances are you are going to be folding out a worse hand a pretty good chunk of the time. The times you get called on this play will most likely be by a better hand. Having position offsets some of this, but not as much as some people think.

Flop:

I like to be fairly judicious with my continuation bets usually reserving them for ragged flops with a high card that is Q+. I am familiar with the school of thought that you should fire almost everytime, but have never been a fan (I find myself firing around 60% of the time). To me this is a good candidate to check through. The way you are going to hog on this hand, is for him to make a weaker flush than you and not be able to get away from it, so a "free card" is not really a tradgedy here and you kind of welcome it. Since he is a passive player, he probably is not going to put you to a decision on the turn (in the event of a non-diamond).

Also if you are trying to take it down right here, I think you can bet less. If he did not connect he is folding most times to any bet. I think a 1/2 pot bet would accomplish the same thing... you would be getting the same bang for less buck.

Turn:

As played I don't like the push. Kind of for the same reason as the flop. Granted the pot is bigger now (because of the largish continuation bet), he is pretty near if not past the commitment threshold for many hands he would have called the flop bet with.

The push may have some limited value as a value bet, if he is willing to chase with a lone K or J of diamonds (assuming he is not paired), because then A-high may be good. But there are not a ton of better hands he is going to be folding here, that he would not have already dumped on the flop. And again, I think the best hope for this hand is that you catch him with a lower flush, so you kind of want him to make his hand.

If you had checked through the flop, then I would have thrown out a small bet again 1/2 pot type to try to pick it up in case he was looking to get out. But also would not mind another check. Although in that situation I would bet the turn, to keep him from bluffing a river miss and giving myself the oppurtunity to still win with an A-high (if he happened to be chasing a lower flush).

To review, I don't think the hand as played was necessarily bad. I just think that the way NL hands go, it offers you a chance to play a hand differently than standard tight-aggressive wisdom may dictate. And with a board that coordinated, if he is calling that flop bet he either is looking for the flush or has already made the hand he is looking to make. Either way you should be welcoming free cards in this situation.

I would have liked the hand better with $1.50 raise PF, a smaller C-bet on the flop, and a turn check.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by flair1234

Pre-flop:

I don't like isolation raises in NL as much as I do in Limit. In Limit I would for the most part agree with this play against a loose passive player. But in NL doing this I like to have a hand better than a low off suit Ace. Especially making the size raise that you did.

Even with bad players you are giving them the oppurtunity to bail out on their iffy hands, chances are you are going to be folding out a worse hand a pretty good chunk of the time. The times you get called on this play will most likely be by a better hand. Having position offsets some of this, but not as much as some people think.

Interesting. Everything I've read, all the videos I've watched from low stakes players to high stakes pros all says pretty much the exact opposite of most of this. Isolation raises w/ position in NL are a huge part of picking up lots of small pots and a huge part of your edge vs bad players. The key is to play better postflop than I do, which of course I'm working on, but the preflop play I'm pretty much fine with. Why don't you like the raise size? Again everything I've ever read about NL talks about either pot size raises, or 4xBB + 1BB per limper(which would have been $2.50 here). A raise to $1.50 after a limper is just sweetening the pot and very very likely to make it 3-way. BB gets 2.75:1 to see a flop, the limper 3.75:1 if the BB calls, or again the 2.75:1 odds if the BB doesn't.


On the flop and turn, especially b/c of opponent's shorter stack, I should have taken a free card at some point. My c-bet % is somewhere between 70-80% usually though of course its player dependant. c-bets of 66-75% of the pot are kinda the standard right now, I think 50% gets called way too often these days in these lower games that it takes a bigger bet even though it has to get a fold more often to be profitable.

he is pretty near if not past the commitment threshold for many hands he would have called the flop bet with.

Absolutely agree with this, and against shorter stacks I'm starting to better adjust my play, though the half stack is still causing me some trouble, the players that buy in for 20-40BB I think I'm adjusting to pretty well. The 50-60BB types like this maybe not so much yet.

[Radii]

2/25

25NL
1792 hands
UP $25.40

All my big pots were no brainers, the big wins were all sets or top pair/overpair vs a short stack that was easy as pie. I lost a stack twice, in a 3 hand period, against hte same opponent. Guy was a maniac who caught AA vs my KK and AA again vs my JJ. By maniac I mean 55/45 over 100+ hands, 3 bet like a madman, dying to give money away except for those two hands

[flair1234]

Originally Posted by Radii

Interesting. Everything I've read, all the videos I've watched from low stakes players to high stakes pros all says pretty much the exact opposite of most of this. Isolation raises w/ position in NL are a huge part of picking up lots of small pots and a huge part of your edge vs bad players.

I am not saying not to do it. But I do not believe you should be doing it as frequently as you would in limit.

Also with a hand like A5o, you want to plan ahead a bit. You do not want to play a big pot with this hand because, you usually will not be the one on the winning end. The most likely hand you will make will be a pair of Aces with a weak kicker. It is a small pot hand.

So on your isolation raise you want to consider how to keep the pot small, while also limiting the action to you and the passive limper.

Think of your average BB player. He knows (as do you) that the weak limper will most likely call. So by raising to $2.50 instead of $1.50 you are probably not substantially decreasing his range of calling hands. He will still call with any PP, most suited connectors, any suited ace, suited face cards, a few suited one-gap connectors, and most off-suit connectors. About the only hands your extra dollar will fold would be hands like A6-A9o (which he is less likely to hold since you have an Ace), and some 1 to 2 gap connector type hands (like T8o and maybe something like T7s).

In the meantime by throwing in the extra dollar, now you are looking at a roughly $5 pot on the flop, whereas by raising less you are looking at a $3 pot. Your A5o is going to play much better in the small pot than the large one.

The flop pot size also effects your continuation bet. In your case you fired $4 on the flop, which created a large pot on the turn, which made your turn push easily callable, by most hands that were calling the flop.

I am familar with the raising formulas, but I believe there are tons of oppurtunities to deviate from those guidelines. As far as raising to $1.50 being a pot sweetener, that is not necessarily an awful thing if you also occasionally make this same play with a hand like 33.

Like I said this is just my 2 cents. So to sum up, with a hand like A5o I want a small pot. The BB is going to play a simaliar range of hands regardless of whether he has to put in $1 or $2, and with guaranteed 3 way action he is probably right to do so. Post flop will play easier for this hand with a small pot.

Continuation bet sizing is another issue all together, we all have our preferences and the things we look for.

Anyway, nice journal, it is a good read.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by flair1234

Also with a hand like A5o, you want to plan ahead a bit. You do not want to play a big pot with this hand because, you usually will not be the one on the winning end. The most likely hand you will make will be a pair of Aces with a weak kicker. It is a small pot hand.

Yeah, definitely true, and something I think(hope) I'm getting better at especially after sucking in the Ed Miller videos on some of the basics and shoring up my fundamentals a bit. In that hand specifically I got out of control w/ an iffy draw, the stuff you mentioned that I challenged wasn't really specifically about that hand but on general bet sizing and that kind of thing, perhaps personal preference or learning from different places/having different experiences.

Of course, I also try to post some hands that I know I completely butchered, to try to find my own mistakes and learn how to improve, comments definitely help with that.

[Radii]

2/26

25NL
937 hands
Result: DOWN $29.10

Very, very frustrating session. I had 4 hands where I lost a full stack. Two coolers(KK vs AA, and QQ vs AA vs a guy i'd never fold QQ as an overpair to), and two hands where I was an 80/20 favorite when the money went in and lost.


I'll just post one hand I found pretty funny tonight, where my opponent fell over himself handing me all his chips as fast as possible.

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

MP: $27.30
CO: $19.05
BTN: $24.95
Hero (SB): $34.90
BB: $25.00
UTG: $52.85

Pre Flop: Hero is SB with Ah Qh
1 fold, MP raises to $0.85, CO calls $0.85, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.75, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.80) 8h Kh 4h (3 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $26.45 all in, CO folds, Hero calls $26.45

Turn: ($55.70) 6s

River: ($55.70) Td

Final Pot: $55.70
MP shows Ac As (a pair of Aces)
Hero shows Ah Qh (a flush, Ace high)
Hero wins $52.95
(Rake: $2.75)


I usually just lead out there b/c so many people like to raise lead bets when they're the preflop raiser, but this opponent c-bet 100% of the times when they raised and I was hoping to trap the CO in between us, but I don't think there's anything i could have done to get more money into the pot faster than this w/ the nuts

[Radii]

I can has minbet?

I decided to play some limit 6-max tonight for old time's sake. I played primarily limit before the UIEGA and the changes that seem to bring more of the fish to NL. I find myself getting too frustrated over poor decisions lately, too frustrated over the loss of 1 buyin at NL, and just quitting too soon. I want to be playing poker, I don't really want to take a break, but I'm feeling some big frustration with NL, so, time to play another game for a bit for something fresh.

2/28
LIMIT 1-2 6-max
679 hands
UP $109.00

played well, ran hot. From what i'm reading a good win rate at limit 6-max is 1 BB-3BB/100 hands. My small sample tonight was at a nice 8 BB/100.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is SB with Ks Qh
UTG checks, CO raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, UTG calls, CO calls

Flop: (10 SB) 6d Kh 6s (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG raises, CO calls, Hero 3-bets, UTG folds, CO caps!, Hero calls

Turn: (10 BB) 2d (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (10 BB) Js (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls

Final Pot: 12 BB
Hero shows Ks Qh (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
CO mucks Jh As
Hero wins 11.5 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


Don't remembre my read on this guy, I was planning on check/calling it down after he capped me on the flop, and of course bet out when he checked behind and took his free card.


Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with 8c Tc
UTG calls, CO raises, 2 folds, Hero calls, UTG calls

Flop: (6.5 SB) 5c 9c 3s (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets, Hero raises, UTG calls, CO calls

Turn: (6.25 BB) Td (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG calls, CO raises, Hero calls, UTG calls

River: (12.25 BB) Kd (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets, Hero calls, UTG folds

Final Pot: 14.25 BB
CO shows As Th (a pair of Tens)
Hero mucks 8c Tc
CO wins 13.75 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


I remember regretting the flop check-raise as soon as I made it, figuring I should have called to drag UTG along,but I don't really know if that's right or not. Dunno if I could have folded the river either, CO was telling me pretty adamantly that he had a good hand but pot had gotten to a pretty decent size and I did have top pair on the turn.

[Radii]

2/29

Limit 1-2 6-max
1436 hands
Result: DOWN $88.75

holy crap haha. My biggest winners are all flushes and boats. My biggest losers (literally 8 of my 9 biggest losing hands tonight) consist of 5 KK's getting run down by AA, sets, or rivered 2 pair, and QQ losing 3 times in big pots to random stuff. The other was a flopped straight losing to a rivered boat. That's limit, and for some reason in NL it would frustrate me very quickly and I'd put in 300 hands on the day and say "fuck this" and quit. In limit, almost no effect. I only quit b/c I hit a little stop loss I'm setting while I watch limit videos and bone up on basics again. I was actually up $35 in my first 900 hands or so, all the big losses came in the last 500. At one table I was down $80 in 120 hands.

I will post one of the big wins where I questioned my river decision:


Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with Qc Qd
2 folds, CO calls, Hero raises, SB calls, BB 3-bets, CO calls, Hero caps!, SB calls, BB calls, CO calls

Flop: (16 SB) 2c 3c 5s (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, CO checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB calls, CO calls all in

Turn: (10 BB) Qs (4 players - 1 is all in)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB calls

River: (13 BB) Kc (4 players - 1 is all in)
SB checks, BB bets, Hero ???


The BB in this hand wasn't a bad player, I'm not quite sure how wide his raising range was out of the blind, but I am playing a little too tight (like 19/15 instead of ~26/18 what seems to be recommended everywhere, I think mostly from still being in the NL habit of not defending my blind much). Anyway I have the queen of clubs so BB can't have AQ, KQ, QJ of clubs, and the king of clubs was the flush card that hit, meaning he can't have AK, KJ, KT of clubs. Also in a big multiway pot if the BB had a flush draw I really would have expected him to check-raise the flop with what would have certainly been 2 overcards. I was a bit worried that if I raised and the SB had a flush it could come back to me capped and I'm probably not good enough to fold a set there. But anyway, I called here and before the results were shown i felt like I should have raised, just didn't reason it out enough before my instant reaction of "fine, 2 ppl calling me down, flush card hits and one leads out, I just call" hit. Anyway, after whining about bad beat central in my results tonight, I figured a hand that at least has a potentially moderately interesting component to it was required.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Radii

my instant reaction of "fine, 2 ppl calling me down, flush card hits and one leads out, I just call"

That's what I would have done as well, I'm pretty sure, without a specific read that the BB is a tricky player.

[Radii]

Thanks Quik, appreciate the comments!

3/1
Limit 1/2 6-max
1752 hands
UP $213.25

BOOM. I've been waiting for a day like this for quite awhile, where I played well and ran well and got paid off all day. I was at a couple extremely volatile tables for part of my play tonight. One table I had two players that were 90/10 next to each other(2 and 3 to my left, I could never get closer to them but eh, it worked out). They both had pretty high aggression factors and were prone to occasional bouts of insanity, leading to a few hands like this:

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with Qc Qs
Hero raises, 1 fold, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, SB caps!, 1 fold, Hero calls, CO calls, BTN calls

Flop: (17 SB) 5s 6d 8c (4 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls

Turn: (12.5 BB) Tc (4 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, CO calls, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, CO calls

River: (20.5 BB) Ad (4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, CO bets, BTN raises, SB folds, Hero calls, CO calls

Final Pot: 26.5 BB
BTN shows 6c Ac (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
Hero mucks Qs Qh
CO mucks 9c 8h
BTN wins 26 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


I actually have no idea why I slowed down on the turn, though clearly with the flush draw the ace wasn't going anywhere. I dunno what i would have done if the river had come back capped to me for 2 more bets. But for the first two I wasn't about to fold(the previous hand before this one these two had capped every street on an AKxxx board with 88 and 66, AK scooped a MASSIVE pot)


And, that's the biggest loss on the evening. I had two other losses almost as big, one where I flopped top pair with AQ(queen high flop) and paid off KK quite nicely, and another pretty crazy hand where I ended up third best with a broadway straight with AK, folding at the end but not before capping the turn 3-way, opponents holding a flush and 2 pair that rivered a boat.


Biggest win of the night:

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with Kd Kh
Hero raises, MP 3-bets, CO calls, 3 folds, Hero caps!, MP calls, CO calls

Flop: (13.5 SB) 7d 2s Tc (3 players)
Hero bets, MP calls, CO calls

Turn: (8.25 BB) 6s (3 players)
Hero bets, MP raises, CO calls, Hero 3-bets, MP caps!, CO calls, Hero calls

River: (20.25 BB) Qh (3 players)
Hero checks, MP bets, CO folds, Hero calls

Final Pot: 22.25 BB
Hero shows Kd Kh (a pair of Kings)
MP shows Js As (Ace Queen high)
Hero wins 21.75 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


CO in this hand was one of the 90/10 crazies. MP had solid stats, had shown down good/reasonable hands in big pots(I was at 2 tables with him and had a couple notes on him), so the turn cap was more than enough for me to give him credit and slow down. His cap is really suspect here though after seeing what he had. Even if he assumed all 15 outs were good, he doesn't have quite enough equity 3-handed I don't believe. Maybe with the implied odds of a couple extra river bets... but he should have realized I was seeing a showdown and probably discounted at minimum his jack outs some, if not his ace ones.



I'm improving in blind defense, but have a ways to go. My "Fold BB to Steal" % tonight was 65%. I still need to defend a bit more often(numbers I've seen indicate that 55% is about as high as you want that stat on average, though of course its player dependent). But I felt like I played as well tonight as i know how to this point, not double barrelling like a madman in all spots(which could have saved me a number of bets if I picked spots better in last night's losing session after a review of a number of hands), taking good notes on my opponets, trying to act on my reads(instead of saying "I should raise here because my opponent habitually bluffs the turn and fires the river, I really feel my hand is best and will get called a *lot*" and then calling...), and picking good spots to showdown with ace high vs the right opponents, instead of blindly doing it every time I had AJ+ etc.

[Radii]

3/2

1/2 limit 6-max
1703 hands
Result: DOWN $75.75

Not quite ready for two big days in a row. Today was a massive roller coaster. I fell down about $30 in my first 300 hands, got back close to even, fell down $80, got up to $25 ahead, was actually up $10 and then lost $85 in my last 100 hands to finish like this. Most of it came in 3 hands, I found sets 2 hands in a row w/ TPTK or better at one table, and found another set w/ top two at another right after that. It happens, one of those "why didn't I quit 10 minutes ago" moments, but I was still playing well so there should be none of that.


My biggest winner(by FAR) was a hand that I probably shouldn't have even played and flopped the nuts with.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with 8s 6s
1 fold, Hero raises, 1 fold, SB 3-bets, BB caps!, Hero calls, SB calls

Flop: (12 SB) 7c 9c 5s (3 players)
SB bets, BB raises, Hero calls, SB calls

Turn: (9 BB) Ad (3 players)
SB checks, BB bets, Hero raises, SB 3-bets, BB caps!, Hero calls, SB calls

River: (21 BB) 6d (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB calls

Final Pot: 24 BB
SB mucks As 9s
BB mucks Ac Ah
Hero shows 8s 6s (a straight, Nine high)
Hero wins 23.5 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


I'm still adjusting to the fact that suited connectors aren't necessarily the best stealing hands in limit, but whatever. I called the flop hoping SB/BB would go nuts, fearing 3-betting over both of them might kill the action a bit. This pot was $48, actually the second biggest I saw all day in my 1700+ hands(I wasn't involved in the biggest, which was a fun AA vs JJ vs 99 hand where JJ and 99 both flopped sets.)


The biggest losing pot might go in the "could have found a fold" bin for saving a bet or two.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with Kd Kc
Hero raises, MP 3-bets, CO calls, 3 folds, Hero caps!, MP calls, CO calls

Flop: (13.5 SB) 4c 6h 6d (3 players)
Hero bets, MP calls, CO calls

Turn: (8.25 BB) Js (3 players)
Hero bets, MP raises, CO folds, Hero 3-bets, MP caps!, Hero calls

River: (16.25 BB) 5d (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 18.25 BB
Hero mucks Kd Kc
MP shows 8c 6c (three of a kind, Sixes)
MP wins 17.75 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


villain in this hand was 44/21/1.6 over ~75 hands. I don't remember any specific history or if I have notes on him and I'm not really sure if 3-betting the turn is spew, or if not 3-betting the turn is weak.


I did find 2 or 3 players that I eventually had to take a note on that read: "THIS PLAYER IS SUPER DUPER PASSIVE STOP CALLING HIM DOWN LIGHT FOR GODS SAKES" ... definitely gave away a number of bets against a couple guys with total AF's of 0.5 or lower who never, ever bet or raised and showed down less than top pair.

The good thing(if you want to call it that) is that I made ~$25 in rakeback today. At 25NL rakeback is negligible, good to have for sure, but whatever. In the last two days I finished off the last $40 of my signup bonus at full tilt(which is kinda sad that its gone now) and even after that have picked up $44 in rakeback.


And one last thing. I mentioned on my blog that my only real goal this month is to simply get the hours in at the table. In January I was settling in and spent a week in Atlantic City and only played ~60 hours. In February I had bronchitis for 10 days, and only played ~60 hours. So the goal this month... log 100 hours at the tables and get the hands in. So i'm gonna start tracking hours played in these daily updates.

Hours today: 3.98
Hours this month: 8.80

[Radii]

3/3

1/2 limit 6-max
1006 hands
UP $29.00
2.42 hours (11.22 hours in March so far)

A perfectly fine 1.44 BB/100 day. Got paid off on some big hands, and bet a lot of loose passive's top pairs for them. I posted two top pair hands on 2+2 , a hand w/ KJ in a 3-bet pot where there was lots of aggression, and a hand w/ K5 out of the blinds where I flopped top pair/no kicker in a 4 way limped pot:

Hand 1

Hand 2

if you're interested.

Lets see, my biggest loss on the night was a very boring top pair loses to flush draw on the flop hand where I bet 3 streets and paid off a river raise. 2nd biggest loss maybe a little more interesting:

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with Kc 9h
UTG calls, MP calls, 1 fold, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero checks

Flop: (5 SB) Kh 4s 6h (5 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, UTG raises, MP folds, BTN folds, SB folds, Hero calls

Turn: (4.5 BB) Ks (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG 3-bets, Hero calls

River: (10.5 BB) Th (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 12.5 BB
Hero mucks Kc 9h
UTG shows Ah Kd (three of a kind, Kings)
UTG wins 12 BB
(Rake: $1.00)

Another top pair hand out of the blinds where I really am not sure how I played it but I certainly got owned in the end


Biggest win is another hand like last night's where I raise and its capped before it gets back to me preflop and I call and flop the nuts. Flopping the nuts vs top set is always nice too.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with 8d Ad
1 fold, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, SB caps!, 1 fold, Hero calls, BTN calls

Flop: (13 SB) 5d Kd 7d (3 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, BTN calls, SB 3-bets, Hero caps!, BTN folds, SB calls

Turn: (11.5 BB) 9c (2 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, SB calls

River: (15.5 BB) 3s (2 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, SB calls

Final Pot: 19.5 BB
SB mucks Ks Kh
Hero shows 8d Ad (a flush, Ace high)
Hero wins 19 BB
(Rake: $1.00)

[Radii]

3/4

1-2 limit 6-max
594 hands
Result: DOWN $53.25
1.92 hours tonight (13.13 on the month)

Played bad and ran very bad.


Biggest win:

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with Kc Ad
UTG raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, SB caps!, 1 fold, UTG calls, Hero calls

Flop: (13 SB) 2d 7d As (3 players)
SB bets, UTG calls, Hero raises, SB calls, UTG calls

Turn: (9.5 BB) 7c (3 players)
SB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets, SB raises, UTG folds, Hero 3-bets, SB calls

River: (15.5 BB) 5h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, SB calls

Final Pot: 17.5 BB
SB mucks Ah Qs
Hero shows Kc Ad (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
Hero wins 17 BB
(Rake: $1.00)



Biggest Loss:

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with Kd As
1 fold, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, 2 folds, CO calls

Flop: (7.5 SB) 9s Jh Kc (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets, CO raises, Hero calls

Turn: (5.75 BB) 9h (2 players)
CO bets, Hero raises, CO 3-bets, Hero calls

River: (11.75 BB) 4d (2 players)
CO bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 13.75 BB
CO shows 9c Jc (a full house, Nines full of Jacks)
Hero mucks Kd As
CO wins 13.25 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


waited til the turn to raise, didn't work well but against this guy a decent idea I think.


I saw more showdowns tonight than usual(WTSD 43%, which I think is good at higher limits but at lower limits probalby making too many crying calls), and only winning at showdown 40%. Over 500 hands whatever neither are significant but I'm gonna review some hands to see if i was paying off some people light.

I also struggled in some 3-bet pots PF against other aggressive players and felt like I was getting outplayed some.

Need to win more than 1 night in a row I'm up to about 7500 hands of 1/2 and winning 0.75 BB/100(Rakeback so far seems to be ~0.75 BB/100 as well). Its very early yet and I'm happy to be winning after having not played limit in so long. even though these games are a lot tougher than they used to be 1/2 is still on the low end and i'm hoping to be able to beat it for 2-3 BB/100 once I settle in.

[Radii]

3/5

1/2 limit 6-max
1595 hands
UP $51.25
4.25 hours (17.38 hrs this month so far)

Continuing the trend of winning one day, losing the next.

My biggest 3 losses are all with AA so there's not really too much to report there. Um, the winners all seem like big hands holding up vs reasonable second best hands, and the occasional big hand vs WTF calldown. I'm super tired tonight though, maybe I'll see something interesting when I review them again tomorrow

I guess one thing to note is that I crossed the $100 mark for rakeback for the month already. i've played 6,650 hands. If I played 100 hours at my current MT ratio(about 3.8 tables) I would log 38,000 hands and be looking at ~$600 in rakeback. I don't fully expect to log that many hands though as I do plan to play a few hours here and there playing less tables to work on some specific things. If nothing else, I signed up for a hand review session on the shorthanded small stakes limit forum at 2+2 and will be 1-tabling for a couple hours to get those hands in. But 30,000 hands and $500 rakeback is looking very reasonable.

[Radii]

An accidental early bedtime meant that I didn't play any Thursday(I was groggy after dinner and decided to take a 'power nap' before starting poker play for the evening, and woke up this morning....)


3/7

293 hands 2/4 limit 6-max (+$93.00)
438 hands 1/2 limit 6-max (-$35.25)
UP $57.75
2.42 hours (19.80 hours this month)

When I first sat down all the 1/2 tables were full and a few of the 2/4 tables had some ridiculous stats. I found a 75/60 LAG at one table, and a couple atrocious donators at a couple other tables. I hit lots of pairs, and won pretty easily. After a couple specific fish left I decided to go back to my normal game, where I lost $35 over ~450 hands. I just seem to pay people off way too often at 1/2... except over a short session tonight I only went to showdown 29% of my hands. Eek. I was overlimping a lot more tonight though with speculative hands at a couple tables with 4 60/5 types. Probably not good. Just get good top pair hands, raise them, and valuetown.


Not the biggest pot I won, but close. I probably should have raised this flop. I usually do:

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with Qs Qc
1 fold, MP raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN calls, 2 folds, MP calls

Flop: (10.5 SB) 5c Ac Jc (3 players)
MP bets, Hero calls, BTN calls

Turn: (6.75 BB) 7c (3 players)
MP checks, Hero bets, BTN calls, MP calls

River: (9.75 BB) 4c (3 players)
MP checks, Hero bets, BTN calls, MP calls

Final Pot: 12.75 BB
MP mucks 5s 5h
Hero shows Qs Qc (a flush, Ace high)
BTN mucks 9c Ts
Hero wins 12.25 BB
(Rake: $2.00)


Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is SB with Ad Js
UTG calls, 2 folds, BTN calls, Hero raises, 1 fold, UTG calls, BTN calls

Flop: (7 SB) 4c 6d Ah (3 players)
Hero bets, UTG raises, BTN folds, Hero 3-bets, UTG calls

Turn: (6.5 BB) 7c (2 players)
Hero bets, UTG raises, Hero calls

River: (10.5 BB) 9d (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 12.5 BB
Hero mucks Ad Js
UTG shows As 7s (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
UTG wins 12 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


This wasn't my biggest loss, but the others were complete coolers, KK < QQ, top two < bottom set, etc. This one I picked b/c I was very pleased w/ my read here. UTG was 55/20 or so. He absolutely knew where his raise button was preflop. So when he limps preflop and raises on the flop he might have a monster, but I thought a ton of weaker aces were in his range as well, wasn't worried about AQ/AK since he raised a good bit preflop, and decided to 3-bet him. I was happy to see that my read on him was good and that he did have what I felt was the biggest part of his range, worse aces than me. Of course, I wasn't happy that he hit his 3 outer on the turn, but eh. And looking back at the hand, calling my 3-bet on the flop and raising the turn looks like a super-strong line and I *possibly* could have folded to the turn raise or river bet, but as i've said, I pay off too much, so I'm certainly doing it here.

[Radii]

3/8

1/2 6-max limit
1396 hands
DOWN $106.75


Swings are fun in limit. I was up $60 after 500 hands. So I dropped 80 bets in my next 900 hands. Probably $25 at the end due to tilt, which sucks and annoys me. Last hand I played, I decided to open limp 22(tilt,see), of course we go to the flop 5 ways, I flop a set, bet the entire way on a board w/ only one weird straight possible and no flushes, and lose to QQ that limped PF, check/called the flop and turn w/ an overpair, and rivered a set. Pretty sure that was the poker gods way of telling me don't open limp you moron.


My 6 biggest losses were all 'best til the river' or KK vs AA or QQ vs KK, so nothing special there. The one I'll post is one of the hands I've been alluding to where I feel like I pay off too light sometimes.


Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with Jh 9d
2 folds, Hero raises, SB 3-bets, BB calls, Hero calls

Flop: (9 SB) 5s Jd 7h (3 players)
SB bets, BB calls, Hero raises, SB calls, BB calls

Turn: (7.5 BB) Qd (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB raises, BB folds, Hero calls

River: (11.5 BB) 3c (2 players)
SB bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 13.5 BB
Hero mucks Jh 9d
SB shows Qc Ad (a pair of Queens)
SB wins 13 BB
(Rake: $1.00)

This is one of those hands. Many times if you flop top pair, an overcard comes on the turn and you get raised, you call down. Against many opponents and in many situations that's the right move. I don't think that was at all the right move here, and I don't think its close, yet I find myself doing so with reasonable frequency.

I think hands similar to this one, top pair hands when my opponent has done enough to represent that he has top pair firmly beaten(and there are enough passive players at this level who can tell you that even in non 3-bet pots), or second pair/good kicker type hands against passive players who wait til the river to raise, where I call off 1-2 bets (depending on whether they raise the turn or the river) are the spots where I could most easily and most quickly save a number of bets per session.

Anyway, the biggest winner on the day:

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with Th Jh
1 fold, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, Hero calls

Flop: (7.5 SB) 9h 8h 9h (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, Hero caps!, BTN calls

Turn: (7.75 BB) 7s (2 players)
Hero bets, BTN raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN caps!, Hero calls

River: (15.75 BB) 3c (2 players)
Hero bets, BTN calls

Final Pot: 17.75 BB
Hero shows Th Jh (a straight, Jack high)
BTN mucks Qh 9d
Hero wins 17.25 BB
(Rake: $1.00)


This opponent was pretty passive preflop, and I thought played pretty straight forward postflop. I almost completely discounted 9's from his range he was raising so little, even in a button vs blind confrontation. I would have just called if he had raised the river. I think where I messed up in my read was that I had been stealing a ton so he just decided to play back at me finally. Based on his numbers and what I'd seen from his blind play so far I would have put his 3-betting range even vs a button raise on something really tight like 99+, AK, AQ, and maybe KQ or AJs or something like that(which I have massive equity against on this flop)