Mind Games

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by TheMarxBros3

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Quite the education.

I'm going try to play at least 2 $1.10s a week, but they take minimum 6 hours, so the $/hr is way low.

Cheers,
--VS

I disagree that the win rate is way low.
How much is an education worth?
Just a thought.

Oh and when you said you couldn't play anyway I thought you were just giving me a way out because I forgot when the tournament was and that caused me to not send the money in time.
Sometimes it sucks being a Canadian, the polite race of people.

No I wasn't just being polite I had to meet my brother at 15:00, and no other time would work.

Mind you, it seems somewhat arrogant to assume I would still be playing then
How un-Canadian is that ?!?

--VS

♦

5-Card Draw
I got torn to shreds tonight.
I did have my turn in the luckbox from time to time, but on the balance I was down 39 BB in just under 1000 hands. I was down almost 50 BB at one point

One particularly annoying chap NEVER folded his big blind to my button raise, always called, drew two and hit (or had) trips or hit two pair.

The crowd that likes to call from the blinds w/ flush and straight draw was out in force tonight as well. And hitting them. Only if I hit trips, though of course.

It wasn't just me.

This next hand is just one of those oddities -- you don't very often see the 2nd kicker come into play...

It is sometimes hard to know what is a colloquial Canadian expression, and what is common to the English speaking world.

When you run into a long string of losing with big hands, you become reluctant to fire the CBet. In Canada we would say you become "gun-shy". I've heard it called "buck fever" too. Both come from a phenomenon in hunters when then have game in their sights but they freeze instead of pulling the trigger.

So I think quite apart from getting out-drawn, some of my loss is due to leaving perfectly good money in other people's stacks. Had I CBet, they would have been perfectly willing to call with worse.

Another part of the loss is (yet again) calling post-draw when the sensible thing to do would be fold.

Oddly, the third component of my loss is CBetting OOP when a check/raise would make more sense. In my defense here, each time I figured that villain would 3Bet me.

Due to my fancy new database, I am no longer able to review hands like I used to.
It has a kick-ass hud, but it's reporting features are the shits.

In any case the plan of action is as follows:
♦  CBet when the odds are that I have a) a better hand than villain, and b) he has one that he is likely to call with -- for some players, that would be anything.
♦  Bluff-catch less. Think about it: You're going to hit two pair often enough -- use those as bluff-catchers. I'll also add a few combos of Aces / Kings too. Probably the "black" cards. Generally, they don't bluff much at FL $0.10/$0.20, so not a lot of need for it.
♦  Bluff more. CBets won't get called if I only ever show powerhouses. So I'll put some air in my tires.

Oh one other thing: A couple of times I made tremendously stupid plays simply because I did not check my kick-ass HUD. What's the use of the damn thing if you a) don't look at it, or b) ignore its warning.

Peace and contentment, and congrats to HollyMichelle on yet another nice MTT showing in SCOOP 11-M!

--VS

Although I had thought that I had solved the mystery of why my database access tools did not work on my new computer, I was wrong.

I got them working in Excel, but when I tried the exact same parameters in another tool, I met with the same error I had before.

On further digging, I discovered that Windows 7 has two complete sets of data access components -- 64 bit ones and 32-bit ones.

Armed with that knowledge, I now have my data access scripts working as well as Excel.

No poker today.

While troubleshooting the data access problem though, I had 3 tables of SCOOP-19-H open, and was watching the play there. As I write this, the game has been running 13 hours, and we're 3-handed on the FT. More than anything the characteristic that stands out the most, is the frequency of folds, and how very, very few hands actually make it to showdown.

Even when going to showdown, bets are small. This might have something to do with the fact that the difference between 3rd and 2nd is about 20K -- in other words, each hand is important.

Even with the small bets, I see few hero calls.

Quite the education.

Have a great weekend, everyone!
--VS

I finally opened HM2 on Merope <== new computer name.

HOLY CRAP.

On my old XP machine, I would click the HM2 icon, go make coffee and come back as it finished loading hands.

Now it is blink, blink, done.

Having the database on the SSD drive makes a HUGE difference.

So I've installed all the rooms I play NLHE on, and played a few hundred hands to make sure everything was working correctly.

It was.

So I'm all ready already.

Best of luck everyone!
--VS

SSD ftw! You just can't go back. Together with huge ram and another spare 1TB hard drive we can do poker and... Downloading night essential activities together!

Originally posted by cutegoldfish
SSD ftw! You just can't go back. Together with huge ram and another spare 1TB hard drive we can do poker and... Downloading night essential activities together!

I'm not sure what "huge" is for RAM these days.

My son has 16GB, but he does a lot of MMORPG stuff, which I don't. I have half that.
About 6 years ago, I a bought a 3TB NAS box for bulk storage for all family photos and videos, so that everyone in the house can access it easily. It was a clearance item, and cost less that the drives that were in it. Best computer money I ever spent.

And you're right about the never go back part. When I get to work now, my computers there seem old and clunky. Oh wait -- they are!

Peace,
--VS

I played another $1.10 NL 5-Card Draw tournament today.

I min-cashed.

It sounds like that would suck, but I was quite pleased. I was 47th with 48 paid. I had been within 5 places of the tournament shortest stack from about 72 left until the end.

I may have done better, but I called post-draw w/ trip jacks with around 60 left only to find trip kings. So it goes.

The tournament was quite difficult, since with such short stack at the table I was always between two players that covered me.

A few hands are interesting,
In this one, I raised, expecting a call, and perhaps a couple of others to come along.
Should I have shoved over the limper?
Calling his 3Bet shove was just desperation. Usually this is a pat hand.
So noted.

Cheers,
--VS

5-Card Draw
A couple of milestones reached over the last few days.

First, I FINALLY got a round 2 ticket in a 5-Card Draw NL tournament.
The astronomer's freerolls pay a ticket to a weekly round 2 tournament -- there are actually two -- one Saturday and one Sunday.

From the link above:
Seats can be won in free-to-play tourneys running every day in the lead up to each of the two Weekly Round 2 tournaments, available in a wide selection of different games. To qualify, finish in the final eight tables* in any of the daily freerolls, all of which are named after famous astronomers.

I started playing them as an inexpensive way to learn all of the "oddball" games.
I've now got a ticket in almost all of them. I don't think I've ticketed in Badugi, and I don't think that there is one for Courcheval.

Reading back over that, I realize I need to get out more...

So that is two NL 5-Card Draw "cashes" this week.

The other milestone is not due solely to 5-Card Draw.

I received a payment from a stake, and as a result, my BR broke $400 for the first time ever.

I've been watching the daily high-level SCOOP tournaments.
The thing that jumps out at me the most:

FOLD

Some casual observations:
♦  Open shoves and 3Bet shoves are rarely the nuts. They fit one of two categories: a) Last-ditch stands (Desperation) or b) out-and-out dares.
♦  In between shoves and folds, bets -- whether bluffs or value bets -- are all sized to entice calls, and frequently get calls (and from crap I wouldn't even believe playable).
♦  The flop sets up the turn where the main battle takes place. The river is just for clean-up. In some cases on the flop the combatants make faces at each other and flex their muscles a bit, and the turn sets up a river battle.

For games with more than 5 streets its the same, but just spread out more.

Best of luck,
--VS

*I thus learn why some tournaments get 72 tickets, and the ones I prefer get only 64 or even worse, 48

Well done getting to $400.

I've watched a couple of events as well, unfortunately in time to catch pleno1 getting outed last night. He looked like he was doing pretty well up to there.

5-Card Draw

From the ridiculous:

To the sublime

Have a good Friday everyone!
--VS

5-Card Draw

From the Weird source of Reads Department...

Converting hands till the cows come home
PokerStars Limit 5 Card Draw $0.10/$0.20 - 6 players

UTG: $3.41
UTG+1: $13.53
CO: $4.08
Button: $1,996.61
SB: $3.56
BB: $6.82 (Hero)

Dealing Hands: ($0.15) A♠ T♣ J♥ A♦ 3♦ (6 players)
3 folds, Button raises to $0.20, SB folds, Hero calls $0.10

Player is a total unknown.
From the BTN 88_Jxx beats all remaining hands 50% of the time.
50% of that hand and greater is QQ_Kxx, so I'm ahead of his range, so I'll call.
Yes, I could 3Bet, but I want info here, not just the money.

First Draw: ($0.45) (2 players)
Hero discards 3, Button discards 3,
A♠ A♦ || 6♣ Q♣ 5♦
Hero checks, Button bets $0.20,

Now, at this point, I look at his stack size and realize he has brought 10,000 big bets to a 20¢ game, so I figured either he was in here by accident, or was expecting to lose one heck of a pile.
so...Hero calls $0.20

Button showed 9♥ J♦ 8♠ K♥ K♠, a pair of Kings
Hero showed A♠ 6♣ Q♣ A♦ 5♦, a pair of Aces
Hero won $0.81
(Rake: $0.04)

Cheers,
--VS

I get worried I'm in the making of a poker video when someone buys in that large.

Originally posted by ZeroDegrees
I get worried I'm in the making of a poker video when someone buys in that large.

He left immediately after.
I checked the other 5-Card Draw games, and he was not at any of 'em.

I can see how flashing a big roll might get you some chicks at a casino, but online, well...

--VS

7 years ago, I created a tool in Excel that could be used to present data from a database.

It is quick and easy to use.
The one major pain with it is that once having used the tool to create the report, if I wanted to change the query, I had to destroy the report, and re-generate a new one.

To my chagrin, on Thursday at work, I discovered that it is quite possible to change the underlying query "on the fly". I shudder to think of the countless hours I wasted re-generating query tables.

<sigh>

So I took my new knowledge and used it to refine the tools I use to monitor my 5-Card Draw sessions.

To test the refinements I had to be playing, of course, so I played.

In order not to spew too much when my attention was thus divided, I played squeaky tight, and basically just sat back waiting for opportunities to pounce.

And, oh! the opportunities!

I ran the day at 5BB/100.

Nice.

There are two regulars at the lower 5-Card Draw tables from the Ukraine, and I had not seen them in some time, and I was somewhat worried for them. They were both reasonably good, and we had mutual respect -- OK I respected them, and it appeared to be mutual.

In any event one of them showed up today, so that was a relief.

Peace -- especially to all those in the Ukraine, the mid-East and anywhere else where it is harder to sleep at night than here.
--VS

It only took seven years, fair play to you VS. Tortoises and hares and all that. ♦

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I was indeed playing at a $0.10/$0.20 table tonight.

Your name begins with 'F' ?

The 'rec' in question is actually not too bad a player.
Not a lot of hands on him, and he is looser than he should be, but I don't take him lightly.

Yep, my screen-name starts with an F. I wasn't even in a position to tell if he was any good at the game as it my 3rd go at 5CD ever (no pokerhands etc for a hud)

I don't normally get into banter on the online tables so found it kind of interesting, He said some things that seemed quite weird to me one of which was: "Texas NL is for gambling fools 'lets bet big money on turn LOLface'"

Regarding your comment on Ukraine regs at the tables, I found myself wondering in recent times if the number of people from Ukraine on stars had drastically dropped or it was my imagination. Somewhat of a scary reminder of the real world while you are playing. I also found myself being a little worried for my faceless opposition at the tables.

Enjoyed reading your 5CD hands, keep up the good work

Originally posted by DaPhunk
Regarding your comment on Ukraine regs at the tables, I found myself wondering in recent times if the number of people from Ukraine on stars had drastically dropped or it was my imagination.

I still keep running into players from the Ukraine, so I don't think that there has been a drastic decline.

Originally posted by Harrier88

Originally posted by DaPhunk
Regarding your comment on Ukraine regs at the tables, I found myself wondering in recent times if the number of people from Ukraine on stars had drastically dropped or it was my imagination.

I still keep running into players from the Ukraine, so I don't think that there has been a drastic decline.

Yes, there are quite a few Ukrainians still playing. It is just that I had become familiar with these two, and basically respected each other's play. Definitely not fish.

Then both of them were gone for several weeks. I've seen them both within the last few days, though.

It's a strange world, and getting stranger, so no surprises when shit happens.

--VS

We're hosting a huge deck party tomorrow.
I have acres of preparation to do, and it is pissing rain out.

<sigh>

The rain is s'posed to let up this afternoon, and be OK tomorrow.
If not we'll have the party on the patio under the deck, and stare out across a lawn badly in need of mowing.

I had heard of these glasses somewhere, and thought I'd like to give 'em a try, but they seemed rather pricey for a test.

I found a knock-off at a local drugstore for about 1/3 of those prices, and I'm quite pleased with them.

The frames are sturdy, and the lenses are quite clear and distortion free. The tint isn't noticeable when you're wearing them -- but the increase in contrast is quite noticeable.

They replace a pair dollar-store reading glasses I had been using. Those had really floppy frames, and the lenses seemed to attract dirt. They also had distortions so bad that when I moved my head the screen rippled.

I've been wearing the new ones at work, and they do seem to help.

Nothing noteworthy poker-wise over the past few days.

--VS