Mind Games

Well done my friend.
I have won $1--4x I think and I have played all but 2 of them.

The first time these challenge tournaments came out I won $1 3 times.
This is the first win since.

I'll take it

My total includes both challenges.

I played some NLHE today -- not zoom either.
To be honest, I got bored playing 1 table. It was hard to stay out of pots.
There were two players at the table that were going at it hammer and tongs. They seemed out for each other's blood.

The villains in this hand are those two.
Both had committed some outrageous bluffs.

Judging from my stack in this hand I had already been the beneficiary of one such hand.

I don't think I played the hand particularly well.
I think I missed value by not raising the flop, and by not betting the turn, but OTOH, I don't want to overplay it either.

Full Tilt - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: $2.50 (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
BB: $1.00 (VPIP: 37.50, PFR: 20.83, 3Bet Preflop: 18.18, Hands: 24)
UTG: $1.41 (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 10.53, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)
MP: $1.53 (VPIP: 23.68, PFR: 7.89, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 38)
CO: $2.04 (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 30.00, 3Bet Preflop: 28.57, Hands: 24)
Hero (BTN): $5.94

SB posts SB $0.01, BB posts BB $0.02

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.03) Hero has T♠ T♥

UTG raises to $0.04, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.04, fold, BB calls $0.02

Flop: ($0.13, 3 players) 5♥ 7♥ 5♦
BB checks, UTG bets $0.07, Hero calls $0.07, fold

Turn: ($0.27, 2 players) 3♣
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($0.27, 2 players) 7♦
UTG bets $0.13, Hero calls $0.13

Cheers,
VS

I took a break from poker over the last couple of days.
But I have the PokerStars no-deposit no-return bonus to clear, so I thought I'd play some NLHE

I had no trackers set up for PokerStars, so I decided to play some NL2 to kick the tires.

I won several small pots, giving way to aggression -- esp to the villain in this hand who was up about 1.25 BI mostly on the strength of aggression. If he showed down a hand I can't remember it.

Mostly this line, too:
Call flop, Lead turn -- in this case he has position, so he raises turn.

So I decided to unleash my inner aggro-monkey...

In retrospect, I think check/call is the proper river play vs a normal player, but playing it this way takes the river shove out of his arsenal (I think)

This next hand vs same player came quite a bit earlier, but it is what lead me to believe most of aggression was air.

Peace,
VS

Don't you want him to bluff shove the river?

If you think he's monkeying around, check and call the (please shove, please shove, go on you know you want to) shove I think.

I need to get more aggression into my game in the blinds, just not defending/3betting light nearly often enough.

'...play some NL2 to kick the tyres.' Only you would say that.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Don't you want him to bluff shove the river?

Only if he has worse, and he could easily have better that can fold -- small 2 pair for example.
He can also hold worse hands that could call: -- AJ for example.

With my holding, facing a shove, I'm likely to fold.
When two people have mediocre hands, each of whom must fold to aggression, doesn't it make sense to exercise my "right of first bluff"

If I check the river and he bets say 1/2 pot, would a check/raise be a valid play?

Originally posted by gadget51
'...play some NL2 to kick the tyres.' Only you would say that.
Well, it is a common Canuckism for "try things out", so hardly unique to me.

Cheers,
VS

The end of an era
Seventeen years ago, I started work at the Kennedy Heights Printing Plant in which the Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers were both printed.
At the time I started, the plant was not yet operational.

It was at the time the only plant in the world that routinely printed a 160 page broadsheet in one pass. We could print them at 30,000 copies an hour. At that speed the newsprint was travelling at approximately 30 km/h under 10 N tension.

It was an amazing time, and thrilling to be part of such a technological marvel. A few other presses tried the 160 page trick, but gave up. We did it.

All that changed in 2008. Due to the bank collapse in the US, revenues and circulation both began to fall of significantly, and the owners went into bankruptcy.

We were purchased in 2009, and now, not quite a full 6 years later the plant will be closed. The last edition will come off the press Friday Jan 30 2015.

At that time my job will end, and for the first time in 30 years I'll be unemployed.

Scary. Officially, I'll be retiring. I have a decent severance package, but even so I'll almost certainly have to sell my house. I'll have 8 months to a year to get it all wrapped up.

So a new era begins...
Peace,
VS

Oh dear. I hope you manage to work something out.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Oh dear. I hope you manage to work something out.
"Something" covers a wide territory.
I'll spend a week or so relaxing, a few weeks prepping the house for sale, and the rest of the time looking for a replacement job.

I'll also be pursuing the idea of self-employment.

Nothing will come close to my current job, though. It isn't just the best job I ever had, I'm pretty sure it is (or was) the best job ever.

Even at my age (how I hate saying that) I should be reasonably employable. I have nearly 30 years experience with computer systems in industrial environments.

The absolute bottom is to have to move to the country where housing is far cheaper. If it comes to that, I'll be back where I was in the early '80s, only with a greater net worth.

Cheers,
VS

I hope everything will be OK in the end. Look at this as a new challenge, you could work it out for sure. Sometimes we just need something completely new in our life.

I think that rather soon I could be in the same situation, besides selling house/apartments. I would hate the idea about selling the house we lived for so long time, I am very sorry.

And in our country being at the same age it would be close to impossible to find a new job.

That's to bad my friend. Being unemployed is never fun.
I worked at Uniroyal tire in Kitchener from 1979 until they were bought and the factory closed in 1992 by Michelin Tire. All Michelin wanted were the contracts for their own factories. Best job I ever had and the best paying one as well. I still don't make as much today as I did at Uniroyal 23 years ago so I know exactly where you are coming from.
Something will pan out for you. Just give it a little time and take a little break. Rethink things and go over your situation before selling your house. You may not have to. No rash decisions. Let your new found freedom sink in for awhile first.
It is always darkest before the dawn.
Best of luck.

Had a long chat with the bank today.
I feel much better now.
Even with my pension as low as it is I might not have to sell the house. I still will be better off looking for a job, though.

Cheers,
VS

I'm in on night shift relieving for the Production Manager -- Produce Mangler (or Munger) -- in local slang.

I was just putzing about at 15:00 or so this afternoon when I get a call:
"I was just setting up the runs for the weekend when the server crashed -- I just thought you'd like to know".

Oh crap. With one week to go before shutdown, the last thing I want to do is rebuild a server just for the 12 remaining runs.
So I switched from my Produce Munger hat to my IT Duty Dude hat, and headed in to the plant.

The client is showing "Error writing FAT table on volume WORK".
Pretty serious.
User interface is totally dead, so powered it off.

Danged if the blessed thing doesn't just work on power up.
Just like it was teasing me...
<sigh>

No I'm at work 3 hours early, with nothing to do so...

Not the first time I've done that, but first time I was ever bored enough to take a screen shot.

Oh, and I have picked up another two $1 prizes and another $5 in the PokerStars January Challenge flipaments.

Life is grand, aint it?
VS

Glad to read things are more positive after speaking with the bank

Good things should come to good people. Fingers crossed for you Vorpal!

5-Card Draw
Now here is a simple question:
Is it profitable to raise KKXyy UTG in 5-Card Draw if X (highest kicker) is NOT an A?

Such an easy question...

My current database does not keep hand values.
Oh -- no problem, I'll just load all my hands into the old database. You know, the one that slows to a crawl after 100K hands.

I have only 3244 5-Card Draw hand history files, so I put them all in a single folder, and hit import.
Several hours later, I've imported 1642 hands, and the import function threw up all over my desk.

So now I'm importing them one month's worth at a time.
I'm up to 2012 February.

I have a rough query that pulls in the data, though.

If you're curious to the results, it doesn't look good.

of 9 times I held KK w/o an A UTG, I lost 4 of the 5 I raised.
Mind you, I folded that same holding 4 times, I might have won 'em all.

I'll let you know the final result when all the hands are in...
VS

5-Card Draw
Well, an eventful day.
Card-dead for the first hundred hands or so, then

I also won yet another January Challenge -- just for a buck, but it's the thought that counts.

I've been gun-shy about NLHE for a while, and have hardly played any at all.
This is clearly a mental problem -- and since the theme of this whole blog is overcoming mental difficulties I decided to play some today. I did OK, but largely due to some rather loose calls and tight folds on the part of the opponents.

So, a decent loss at 5-Card Draw, a decent win at NL 2, a flipament $ and a $10 VIP reward, I punched my PokerStars bankroll to its highest ever.

Onward and upward...
VS

Nicely done my friend.
Do you know the odds of being dealt a Royal in 5 cards?
With you beating those odds I'm surprised you haven't won one of the January Challenges.
I'm glad you won another $ yesterday, you beat me again.