Mind Games

I had my first losing session since Feb 27.

I saw some really terrific hands, too.
The problem, of course, is that they were held by opponents.

My trips were getting flattened.
3 times by boats, at least once by quads.

They're showing their fear though. They're too chicken to come at me with straights and flushes. Oh no, they had to bring out the BIG guns to defeat me!

Even with all that, I was still down only 8 BB over 350 hands.
Just at the very end I managed to catch a couple of good hands.
And lost. If I had quit at 345, I was down < 2 BB

I've played a few sessions of Hold'em over the past week too, and doing OK.
I'm trying to play NLHE the same way I approach 5-Card Draw.
And that means:
♦  Quality hands
♦  Bluff when it makes sense
♦  Observe player tendencies, and act (react) accordingly

I had one lolhand where I blew off a stack.
I had Ax on the button, and 3Bet the cuttoff.
I bet Flop & Turn, and got calls both times on a really wet board.
The flush hit on the river and I shoved and he called.

OH CRAP, I'm repping what he holds AGAIN!
No, he had TT that he could have reasonably been expected to fold on the K-high flop, the Q on the turn or the flush hitting on the river.

I got it back an a bunch more though, when I really DID have the flush, and villain had the straight and we were 150 bb deep.

Did I mention that this was NL 2?
No?

It seems odd playing NL 2 trying to worry about a stack, when it is only 4 big bets at 5-Card Draw.

Peace,
--VS

I saw some really terrific hands, too.
The problem, of course, is that they were held by opponents.

♦

I had one lolhand where I blew off a stack.
I had Ax on the button, and 3Bet the cuttoff.
I bet Flop & Turn, and got calls both times on a really wet board.
The flush hit on the river and I shoved and he called.

OH CRAP, I'm repping what he holds AGAIN!
No, he had TT that he could have reasonably been expected to fold on the K-high flop, the Q on the turn or the flush hitting on the river.

Make a note of the players name as you will get back 10x what he got from you in the long run.
The man is a calling station. Calling stations cannot lay anything down. Those that can't fold will always go broke as long as you treat them like an immovable object.

Mental Game Update
I had mentioned that I felt nervous playing the FL $1/$2 5-Card Draw.
With good reason.
The level of play here is quite good.
Limping is rare, and when it happens, it more often than not indicates strength.
In the BB, it is either folded to you, or you face a raise.

So today, I decided to play a full 500-hand session (two tables) to see how things went. After a few orbits, it became comfortable to toss toonies around like they were quarters.

The tables broke up at around 350 hands, and me in the green by 5BB

I do need to iron out some difficulties with bluffing. I have widened my bluffing range in the SB, but I'm only open-raising A-high FDs, folding them in the face of earlier aggression, and calling if I have pot odds to do so.

As a consequence, I maintain a v tight image, and I often get folds from UTG and MP raises of my AA KK hands respectively --- which is nice.
What is even nicer, is that rather than 3Bet, most often I get calls, rather than 3Bets due to the tight image (I assume). This adds to my winrate, and thus my comfort zone.

Poker

This hand was a hoot.
I have a straight-flush draw, and raised UTG -- first orbit in fact.
I'll even raise these over prior action.

I hit a flush, villain draws two and hits a v decent 2 pair.
When done, he flashes a fish smiley, and chats, "fkn donk".

Since I'm Canadian, and therefore too polite for my own good, I did not point out that if he had the common sense to draw 3, he could have lost with a much better hand -- or perhaps even have won. ♠_tongue:

hehe just found your blog lol

Since I'm Canadian, and therefore too polite for my own good, I did not point out that if he had the common sense to draw 3, he could have lost with a much better hand -- or perhaps even have won.

I to am Canadian. What part are you in? I live 1 hour west of Toronto.

I don't play as much draw poker as I did when I first started playing. Back then in the late 70's we used to play Jacks or better to open $5 antes pot limit. If it didn't get opened the first deal everyone had to re-ante and then we delt out another round. The pots would get massive at times. A friend of mine won, no word of a lie a new Trans-AM one night playing. He got dealt 3-10s and called a bunch of raises and re-raises, pot sized of course. Drew 2 cards, hit the 4th 10, scooped a massive pot, got up after the hand, said I will see you boys later, came back 3 hours later with a brand new 1978 gold Trans-AM and said "There you go boys, see what your money has bought me. There is no chance in hell you can get your money back now.". Sorry I digress.

I was going to say his raise after the flop was a little optimistic in my opinion IMO as you can only play if you can beat his hand and it opens him up to a re-raise.

Memories----Your 5 card draw game brought back a good one.

Thanks.

I *think* that a common tactic vs an SB raise is to draw 1 then 3Bet after-draw.

That way, if I'm bluffing, have unimproved medium-crappy 2pr, they can get the pot w/o actually having to show down their hand.

I need to improve my bluff-catching as well as my bluffing, I think.

Good to see your up in your last game, nice blog, look forward to reading more of it!

I *think* that a common tactic vs an SB raise is to draw 1 then 3Bet after-draw.

That way, if I'm bluffing, have unimproved medium-crappy 2pr, they can get the pot w/o actually having to show down their hand.

Well I would never have raised there with his hand. The bad outweighs the good IMO.
1-You could be drawing to a flush or trips and disguise them by taking one.
2-It opens up a 3-bet and his hand can only beat a bluff if you can re-raise.

But like I said I don't play 5 card draw these days and maybe the game has changed or at least the betting.

Good Luck. You seem to have quite a handle on this game.

5-Card Draw

A very tough session today -- still at $1/$2.
I found myself injecting logic. It is the first time I have needed to do so for quite a while.

What is REALLY cool, though is that it came automatically. I recognized the emotional pull in my gut, and responded in chat with "Wow! v nice!".

To myself I said, "These things happen, and you're playing with OPM precisely because you've been on the winning side".

The hand:

I did come back later in the session, but the table broke up while I was still set 6BB It is hard to imagine, but the swing in today's session was bigger than my bankroll in November.

The Session

NLHE
After the 5-Card Draw session, I recognized that I was too drained to play NL10, so I played 2 tables of NL 4.

Besides blind stealing, which is my bread-and-butter at these limits, I have been watching for spots where I could take pots I didn't deserve.

Sometimes it goes all wrong, and I either bluff villain off hand I would have won anyway, or worse, they call and have something stupid and I lose.

But I think I did this one OK:
IPoker, $0.02/$0.04 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
SB: $5 (125 bb)
Hero (BB): $5.25 (131.3 bb)
UTG: $5.86 (146.5 bb)
MP: $3.08 (77 bb)
CO: $8.09 (202.3 bb)
BTN: $4.50 (112.5 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K:s 5:s
2 folds, CO calls $0.04, 2 folds, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.10) 3:d A:h J:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks
I expected a bet. A-rag MUST bet here

Turn: ($0.10) A:s (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.08, Hero calls $0.08

River: ($0.26) 9:d (2 players)
Hero bets $0.26, CO folds
At this point, I am fairly certain he has no A, and if he does, nice job sucking me in. I think that at best he has some lo pair 8s or less -- but not 3s of c

I've been following TheMarxBros3's Omaha blog for quite a while now, and with PokerStars Omaha event happening, I may try my hand at that.

Variance == Scary, but since I'm playing entirely with OPM now, why not?

Peace,
--VS

5-Card Draw
Not much action today, I had one table of $1/$2 for a while, then had to drop to $0.50/$1, and finally ended up at $0.25/$0.50 again.

Gained back some ground lost over the last few days.

Oh Ma Ha ha ha
I watched all of Pokerstars intro videos, and took their quiz to qualify for something (can't remember what) -- and failed by 1 lousy question.

I made an appointment with the prof to complain about my marks, but apparently he only ups grades in exchange for oh, never mind.

So I played about 30 hands of PLO 2 H/L SH for giggles, and I actually played with purpose -- I mean, I actually evaluated my pre-flop strength, and played post flop based on my perception of what draws were available etc.

Which leads us to my first ever posted Omaha hand ( I think)
Short version:
I flop a straight, with a redraw to a mediocre flush.
I 3Bet the flop, putting villain all-in since I think it is likely has FD, 2pr or even set.
He calls. Wooohhooo

The prof called, and I can take the quiz again tomorrow night.

I ended my first "real" Omaha session up 1.5 BI
Easy game.

Milestone
I missed it, but all 5-Card Draw hands passed 65535 on Tuesday.
I can now no longer load all my hands into Excel unfiltered.

<sigh> time marches on...

The prof called, and I can take the quiz again tomorrow night.

Take those quizes with a grain of salt, unless you get perfect of course, as they are biased to their way of thinking.

I ended my first "real" Omaha session up 1.5 BI
Easy game.

Another convert?
Way to go my friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Omaha
Flunked the quiz again. I've no idea what I'm doing wrong.

Played another v short session. Ended up winning 1/2 BI

I'm playing PLO H/L 2.
I won a couple of hands with wheels, which is fun.

5-Card Draw
Another very swingy session -- down 25 BB to up 10, finishing down 4.
Since the BB is $2, It feels like I'm playing for stacks, not bets.

I *think* I'm getting bluffed off a lot of pots, and about half my calls catch them bluffing, so I'm guessing 1/2 my folds I'm folding the winning hand.

So it goes.

I don't think I have snowing down to a fine art yet.

I raised from MP w/ AKQJ9 intending to snow if called, but got 3Bet.
Well, I'm in it now, so the only thing to do is play it like I really had it.

The snow held, but I'm really not sure if I played it correctly.

I think having a tight image helps here.

Another thing I find I can do fairly freely is 3Bet air from BB and CBet.
I try to do it about 1 in 3 times, and not with total air, either -- usually straight or flush draw.

what quiz is that?

http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/articles/Omaha-Quiz?isAutoStart#

if you pass this quiz you get $3 to play Omaha -- I think

I keep missing by one question.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/articles/Omaha-Quiz?isAutoStart#

if you pass this quiz you get $3 to play Omaha -- I think

I keep missing by one question.

Which Question...Do you want me to help you crush?

Milestone. ♠_biggrin:
WTG Vorpal. I am the 6,000 view of your blog. ♦

Originally posted by roopopper

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/articles/Omaha-Quiz?isAutoStart#

if you pass this quiz you get $3 to play Omaha -- I think

I keep missing by one question.

Which Question...Do you want me to help you crush?

The questions are different each time.
You are allowed to get 2 wrong, and each time I get 3.

They have questions where they show a hand, and a flop, and ask you how many outs to the nutz.

I'm pretty sure those are the ones I'm getting wrong.
For example, if you have 1 out to a SF, 11 outs to the either the nut flush or a boat, and 8 outs to the nut straight, and the answers are 1, 8, 11 and something else that isn't 20, which do you pick?

I picked 1 that time.

Milestone
I had played about 160 hands of $1/$2 5-Card Draw when I noticed that I was within 200 pts of making SilverStar.

At $1/$2, that is about 800 hands, so I decided to go for it.

Then the tables broke up. At $0.25/$0.50, 160pts is about 3000 hands, and I didn't think I could do that before 21:00 tomorrow night.

Then I noticed that all the $1/$2 players were playing $2/$4.
(maybe they're all trying for SilverStar tool ♦)

So 100 hands later I'm SilverStar, and with a nice little profit thrown in for good measure.

Happy Easter, everyone!

So 100 hands later I'm SilverStar, and with a nice little profit thrown in for good measure

NL 4
OK, I'm back playing NLHE regularly -- at least 1 short session (200h ~1hr) per day, at least 5 days per week.

I have a FDB to clear -- no way I'll clear the whole thing.
The total bonus would require 25000 pts, which are earned at 25pts / $ raked
At NL4, I earn 25 pts per 100 hands more-or-less, so I'm looking at 100K hands by Jun 26. At my likely rate of 1K hands per week, I'm gonna need two years, not 90 days.

I have been playing purposefully to take pots away from their rightful owners.

So the new playing style goes like this:
♦  Tighten up blind defence. I was losing a lot to 4Bets I couldn't call.
♦  Tighten up stealing from SB
♦  Raise first in any two from the button, and min-raise per pleno1 coaching.
♦  3Bet CBets in the following circumstances:
     ♣  My hand has showdown value, and flop has likely missed or near-missed villain's open-raising range
     ♣  My hand has at least 8 outs to the nutz
     ♣  Villain is clearly "just cbetting because you're 'sposed to"
♦  Watch for spots to take pot away on the river

I paid for this a few times, losing to sets and so on.
Overall, though it has been quite profitable.
Perhaps not so much higher limits, but at NL 4 it is good.

I may have to defend a bit wider though, because after a few orbits of folding, my 3Bets got folds.

The raise any 2 from BTN didn't last long, but it was fun while it lasted. It is very dependant on who sits on my left. If blinds want to flat, we can play post-flop, I don't mind.

The most fun, though came from raising CBets.
If they call, a pot-sized bet on the turn usually did the trick, and if not, I lose a stack. Nice hand sir.
Note: I found that this worked better once I had > 150 BB in my stack.

Here is an example of one that went the way I prefer:

All the best for April -- go get 'em!
--VS