Mrs Recess has a cousin (we'll call him Lil' Recess in town. Well, he's been staying with the in-laws all week but it's Friday night and we are having a family dinner get together tomorrow evening. So, it was decided that until then, we will take care of the cousin. He's 9 years old, and was the ring bearer in our wedding. Very good kid, great manners, etc. So, for the next 24 hrs, I'll be playing dad... sort of... dad with no other responsibilities. :)
We did the swap tonight when we went out to dinner with my mother-in-law. He's very fond of both of us so that makes it very easy (and obviously, the main reason why he's staying over at our house for the night). Lil' Recess and I shot some hoops in the driveway (my 30th birthday gift was a basketball hoop in my driveway... I'm a teenager at heart) and afterwards, we hit up Brusters for some ice cream. I'm not too crazy about ice cream so I didn't get any while Lil' went with the double scooper... I don't know why I am not all about ice cream. It always makes me thirsty afterwards and so I don't like that. Same reason I don't like lemonade. What drink makes you more thirsty after consumption???
It's a little past 10pm and so he's in bed, chillin with a book or something... meanwhile, I'm finally blogging and yet, it's got nothing to do with poker. Does that mean I'm not playing tonight? HA! Come on now. Let's not get too crazy. But I won't be staying up too late either cuz he was talking about maybe shooting some more hoops in the morning (and my guess is that his idea of morning is a little different from my idea of the "morning" which is like 11am...).
I've been meaning to post some of my recent cash game experiences but I want to get my thoughts together and get my hand histories organized so it's gonna take a while. And unfortunately, this is the month after the quarter end so we are pretty busy at work - yeah I know... with all the comments I'm leaving on other blogs, you'd think that's all I do... So, hopefully, I can put something together this weekend.
Before we went to bed, we showed him how to work the tv so he can keep himself entertained if and when he wakes up before we do. The first thing I whispered to Mrs Recess was if we needed to set the filter or parental control or whatever. She didn't think we needed to so we didn't... but she was surprised that I brought that up considering it didn't even cross her mind. We showed him which one was nickolodeon so hopefully that'll keep him entertained. We don't have HBO or Cinemax or whatever so should be ok... I think... Hell, he's also got a Nintendo DS so he can keep himself busy that way... either way though, I'm gonna be up a lot earlier than I'm used to on the weekends tomorrow... and I actually look forward to it.
24 hr dad baby!!! :)
Oh, and one quick note. I qualified for the iron man freeroll which unfortunately is happening tomorrow afternoon. So, I asked my friend to play in it. So, if you find "me" playing tomorrow afternoon and you see me donking around, it's not me. :) Which also means, if you rail me and I don't respond, it's not because I think I'm too cool now. What's in it for my friend to play the freeroll? Half the winnings (of the 210 players, top 90 pays... he better cash).
Friday, July 13, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Going against the norm...
I've been jumping around the blogosphere, leaving ridiculously long comments which should just be my posts but I figured it's time to give my own blog some love. So, here I am, half delirious from the lack of sleep, thanks to Hoy's deep run in the 50-50. I mean how can I call myself a blogger without railing one of the blogger superstars???? So what if that meant I was up till 3:30am...
Anyways, today's topic has to do with doing the opposite. I mentioned to some people that poker is like the NFL... NFL, also dubbed the "copy cat league" is where one year, some football genius would come up with a great defensive scheme that works and takes the team deep into the playoffs. Next thing you know? The following season, every other team implements the scheme. Well, I felt like the poker world was very similar. Here's a quote from Astin's recent post:
Anyone else notice how general play in the poker world syncs up? To quote Eric Idle (as he introduced Not The Messiah and talking about Americans): "It's like millions of people are all marching in the same direction singing 'I Did it My Way.'" Seriously. When I started, everyone was playing Harrington-style, so I didn't. Now it's a world where a c-bet isn't taken seriously, so tournaments are played to the turn. I don't know how many times I've had the 3rd or 4th nuts, bet every street, an then seen my opponent turn over K-high on the river. Nobody believes anyone anymore. Good. There are a ton of other common patterns out there if you look for them. This is why people like Chad do well in these medium buy-in events, because he's mixing it up and nobody expects his cards. Well, that and he has some skills. Yet another reason to like the Blogger games - there's a bit of variety in all that donkish play.
Very true. Even now, I think the continuation bets are overused. I mean everyone's doing it. It's like the Mookie. Speaking of which, here's a little pimpage. Come out tonight for the Mookie!
Anyways... so the c-bets are overused. And I think people don't necessarily think about what they are c-betting with. For example, quite often, I'll see players raise with 99, get called. Flop comes A-K-T. And they fire out a c-bet. It almost doesn't make sense. And so, now, a lot of the players are also figuring out that c-bets don't mean anything. And so they'll call with anything.
Another popular move is the steal from late position. I mean let's say you're in a tournament. Fairly early stages. You're on the button. Action is folded to you. I mean you HAVE to raise right??? That's what it seems like. Everyone's doing it! Except now that everyone's overdone it, the blinds don't take the late position raise seriously at all. So they start restealing. I think the restealing/reraising has become very popular and soon, that will be the norm (if it isn't already).
Having said all this, what does this mean? You've all heard it before. You have to mix up your play. I've heard that before and I really struggled initially to find out what that meant. It's like "you gotta open up your game." WTF does that mean!? I love poker players. We give ambiguous advice. Without any particular examples. I mean none of us really wants to give up trade secrets but it's just funny how that is. I think some of it also stems from the fact that once you figure out what a certain strategy means, then it's second nature to you so the explanation becomes very brief. One thing I noticed in cash games for me that keeps me profitable is that I do indeed mix up my play. And I have opened up my game a lot more. What does that mean?
I wish I actually had some hand histories with me right now but I don't. So you can always go back and see some of the hand analysis stuff I've posted but few examples of going against the norm... and most of these examples are more regarding cash play than tournament play, though some of them coincide.
1) I've generally tightened up my raise requirements from late position. From the button, my raise requirements are a lot tighter than they used to be. Hell, almost as tight as EP. But this depends... of course... So, what does it depend on? When I first sit at the table, I try not to (sometimes, it's hard for me) go crazy with the raising. I want to establish a certain image and for me, that is to establish a tight image. Also, if the blinds are aggressive or solid players, I play a lot tighter from the button and the cut off. Well, at least I won't be raising with hands I don't want to be reraised.
2) Now that we have 1) in mind... I'm gonna throw a wrench. I'll reraise or call a raise with A LOT more hands from the late position. Honestly, I would much rather reraise from late position with 9-10 than be the initial raiser from the button with KJ. These are obviously preferences and the styles that you are comfortable with. There's no magic formula to winning or making money and you just have to play the style you are comfortable with. So reraising part might be pretty easy. The next thing is the calling with a lot more. I stopped doing it if there's only one raiser but for example, if there's a raise and a call, you can call with a very wide range of hands. Connectors (suited or unsuited), one gappers, suited 2 gappers... I can't do better than that (so good for those of you that could with K9 sooted but I can't do it). Of course, you can try reraising for a squeeze... but then, I'd have to call you Fuel.
3) Squeeze play - I think this is another one that's starting to pop up more often than before. It's not rampant but it's happening. More often. And of course, you can definitely do this in the above example. So now, the key is to be able to identify who is capable of the squeeze. I think this is way more common in 6max cash games than full ring, especially at an aggressive table. And I have thoughts on ways playing against the squeeze. And it comes back to position. Let's say you raise from the button in a 6max game. SB calls. Then BB comes over the top and reraises. And you know that BB is a fairly aggressive raiser. If you fold here, you're gonna get run over, unless it was a pure steal. Since you have position, one thing you can do is call. You can play him after the flop. Another possibility is to play back. And this one, I advocate if you have pretty decent cards but you'll be out of position post flop. For example, if you had like AK and you raise from MP, to be called by CO and reraised by the button. Again, your read is VERY important here. But if your read is that it smells like a squeeze, repop him. Now, unless the guy has AA or KK, he's gonna feel awfully uncomfortable. Because if you're coming over the top like that, you must have a good hand. This is also very dangerous which is why it's so important to do it based on the read you have and not just blindly click the raise button.
Notice how some of these examples, I didn't even mention what you might hold when you are raising or reraising? That's because it doesn't matter. The only thing that I believe is worth mentioning is that I don't want to get in to a raising war or get cute with some of the plays above with hands where you could be dominated. What are those? AJ, KQ, KJ are the quick ones that come to mind. I'll include QJ in case someone was thinking that. Those aren't the hands that I want to get cute with. But hands like connectors below 10 (T9, 8-9, etc) and even one gappers (4-6, 5-7, 7-9) will play well because if you're totally beat, it's easy to get away from. It's very well disguised, and if you hit the hand hard, you could potentially make A LOT of money.
If you made it this far... congratulations, thank you, and you need to find yourself a hobby. :) But keep in mind that above isn't something that you always do. It's just something you want to keep in mind and keep in your back pocket of arsenals to fire out once in a while. I think that would make you "mix up your play" and "open up your game" at the same time. But make sure you have a good feel for the table before you do that. Now consider yourself warned. Good luck at the tables and see you tonight!
Anyways, today's topic has to do with doing the opposite. I mentioned to some people that poker is like the NFL... NFL, also dubbed the "copy cat league" is where one year, some football genius would come up with a great defensive scheme that works and takes the team deep into the playoffs. Next thing you know? The following season, every other team implements the scheme. Well, I felt like the poker world was very similar. Here's a quote from Astin's recent post:
Anyone else notice how general play in the poker world syncs up? To quote Eric Idle (as he introduced Not The Messiah and talking about Americans): "It's like millions of people are all marching in the same direction singing 'I Did it My Way.'" Seriously. When I started, everyone was playing Harrington-style, so I didn't. Now it's a world where a c-bet isn't taken seriously, so tournaments are played to the turn. I don't know how many times I've had the 3rd or 4th nuts, bet every street, an then seen my opponent turn over K-high on the river. Nobody believes anyone anymore. Good. There are a ton of other common patterns out there if you look for them. This is why people like Chad do well in these medium buy-in events, because he's mixing it up and nobody expects his cards. Well, that and he has some skills. Yet another reason to like the Blogger games - there's a bit of variety in all that donkish play.
Very true. Even now, I think the continuation bets are overused. I mean everyone's doing it. It's like the Mookie. Speaking of which, here's a little pimpage. Come out tonight for the Mookie!
Anyways... so the c-bets are overused. And I think people don't necessarily think about what they are c-betting with. For example, quite often, I'll see players raise with 99, get called. Flop comes A-K-T. And they fire out a c-bet. It almost doesn't make sense. And so, now, a lot of the players are also figuring out that c-bets don't mean anything. And so they'll call with anything.
Another popular move is the steal from late position. I mean let's say you're in a tournament. Fairly early stages. You're on the button. Action is folded to you. I mean you HAVE to raise right??? That's what it seems like. Everyone's doing it! Except now that everyone's overdone it, the blinds don't take the late position raise seriously at all. So they start restealing. I think the restealing/reraising has become very popular and soon, that will be the norm (if it isn't already).
Having said all this, what does this mean? You've all heard it before. You have to mix up your play. I've heard that before and I really struggled initially to find out what that meant. It's like "you gotta open up your game." WTF does that mean!? I love poker players. We give ambiguous advice. Without any particular examples. I mean none of us really wants to give up trade secrets but it's just funny how that is. I think some of it also stems from the fact that once you figure out what a certain strategy means, then it's second nature to you so the explanation becomes very brief. One thing I noticed in cash games for me that keeps me profitable is that I do indeed mix up my play. And I have opened up my game a lot more. What does that mean?
I wish I actually had some hand histories with me right now but I don't. So you can always go back and see some of the hand analysis stuff I've posted but few examples of going against the norm... and most of these examples are more regarding cash play than tournament play, though some of them coincide.
1) I've generally tightened up my raise requirements from late position. From the button, my raise requirements are a lot tighter than they used to be. Hell, almost as tight as EP. But this depends... of course... So, what does it depend on? When I first sit at the table, I try not to (sometimes, it's hard for me) go crazy with the raising. I want to establish a certain image and for me, that is to establish a tight image. Also, if the blinds are aggressive or solid players, I play a lot tighter from the button and the cut off. Well, at least I won't be raising with hands I don't want to be reraised.
2) Now that we have 1) in mind... I'm gonna throw a wrench. I'll reraise or call a raise with A LOT more hands from the late position. Honestly, I would much rather reraise from late position with 9-10 than be the initial raiser from the button with KJ. These are obviously preferences and the styles that you are comfortable with. There's no magic formula to winning or making money and you just have to play the style you are comfortable with. So reraising part might be pretty easy. The next thing is the calling with a lot more. I stopped doing it if there's only one raiser but for example, if there's a raise and a call, you can call with a very wide range of hands. Connectors (suited or unsuited), one gappers, suited 2 gappers... I can't do better than that (so good for those of you that could with K9 sooted but I can't do it). Of course, you can try reraising for a squeeze... but then, I'd have to call you Fuel.
3) Squeeze play - I think this is another one that's starting to pop up more often than before. It's not rampant but it's happening. More often. And of course, you can definitely do this in the above example. So now, the key is to be able to identify who is capable of the squeeze. I think this is way more common in 6max cash games than full ring, especially at an aggressive table. And I have thoughts on ways playing against the squeeze. And it comes back to position. Let's say you raise from the button in a 6max game. SB calls. Then BB comes over the top and reraises. And you know that BB is a fairly aggressive raiser. If you fold here, you're gonna get run over, unless it was a pure steal. Since you have position, one thing you can do is call. You can play him after the flop. Another possibility is to play back. And this one, I advocate if you have pretty decent cards but you'll be out of position post flop. For example, if you had like AK and you raise from MP, to be called by CO and reraised by the button. Again, your read is VERY important here. But if your read is that it smells like a squeeze, repop him. Now, unless the guy has AA or KK, he's gonna feel awfully uncomfortable. Because if you're coming over the top like that, you must have a good hand. This is also very dangerous which is why it's so important to do it based on the read you have and not just blindly click the raise button.
Notice how some of these examples, I didn't even mention what you might hold when you are raising or reraising? That's because it doesn't matter. The only thing that I believe is worth mentioning is that I don't want to get in to a raising war or get cute with some of the plays above with hands where you could be dominated. What are those? AJ, KQ, KJ are the quick ones that come to mind. I'll include QJ in case someone was thinking that. Those aren't the hands that I want to get cute with. But hands like connectors below 10 (T9, 8-9, etc) and even one gappers (4-6, 5-7, 7-9) will play well because if you're totally beat, it's easy to get away from. It's very well disguised, and if you hit the hand hard, you could potentially make A LOT of money.
If you made it this far... congratulations, thank you, and you need to find yourself a hobby. :) But keep in mind that above isn't something that you always do. It's just something you want to keep in mind and keep in your back pocket of arsenals to fire out once in a while. I think that would make you "mix up your play" and "open up your game" at the same time. But make sure you have a good feel for the table before you do that. Now consider yourself warned. Good luck at the tables and see you tonight!
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Another late night... at the MATH!
Well, I was gonna go play basketball tomorrow morning (Tuesday morning) before work but as I sit here and type this blog at 1:30am, I realize that's not gonna happen. Instead, I'm gonna struggle through work with multiple trips to the coffee machine... and it's almost worth it...
Yes, I came in 2nd place in the MATH. After winning the Mookie a few weeks ago, I really really wanted to take down the MATH. I felt like if I took down both of those blogger tourneys, I would gain some more respect. Huh? What, play poker for money? I already told you tournaments are -EV for me. :) Anyways, I wanted to join the ranks of what I assume is quite a good number of bloggers who have taken down both of those tourneys. Well... so close.
After this hand, I honestly thought I had it.
FullTiltPoker Game #2902738828: Mondays at the Hoy (21375318), Table 1 - 600/1200 Ante 150 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:55:13 ET - 2007/07/10
Seat 4: RecessRampage (47,679)
Seat 5: PokerBrian322 (66,321)
RecessRampage antes 150
PokerBrian322 antes 150
RecessRampage posts the small blind of 600
PokerBrian322 posts the big blind of 1,200
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [9s 9d] <--- IG was money tonight!
RecessRampage raises to 3,900
PokerBrian322 raises to 12,000
RecessRampage raises to 47,529, and is all in
PokerBrian322 calls 35,529
RecessRampage shows [9s 9d]
PokerBrian322 shows [7h Ah]
*** FLOP *** [3h 4s Kh]
*** TURN *** [3h 4s Kh] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [3h 4s Kh 8c] [Qs]
RecessRampage shows a pair of Nines
PokerBrian322 shows Ace King high
RecessRampage wins the pot (95,358) with a pair of Nines
PokerBrian322: nh
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 95,358 | Rake 0
Board: [3h 4s Kh 8c Qs]
Seat 4: RecessRampage (small blind) showed [9s 9d] and won (95,358) with a pair of Nines
Seat 5: PokerBrian322 (big blind) showed [7h Ah] and lost with Ace King high
With this hand, I took a commanding chip lead. Then few hands later, another preflop all in where I had A6 and pokerbrian322 had Q3 sooted, I thought maybe that was it... until the Q hit on the river and doubled him up. No problem. I still have the chip lead. And I find AQ sooted. Pokerbrian322 raises so I shove, overbetting the pot. He calls... with K3 (I think he has a thing for 3's). :) Flop comes 2-3-3. Next thing I know, he's got the chip lead. And my last hand? I have 9-10 sooted. He raises, I call and the flop comes A-8-2 with two spades. No spades for me. Check, check and the turn comes a J, giving me an OESD. So I shove. He thinks for a second and calls with a Q high flush draw. Blank on the river and his queen high is good. And I get this message...
I will say though... considering that I'm a tournament donk, I was pretty happy with my performance. One thing about me is that I think I soak in a lot of stuff that other people tell me... very quickly. So, when other bloggers mentioned stealing and restealing, I took it to heart. Especially the restealing part. And I was active from early on. I had position on the K.O.D. himself and I was able to use my weak tight image to steal some pots from him early on. Which is why I love the deep stack. In a regular tournament, a reraise basically becomes a shove. In a deep stack, reraise doesn't necessarily commit you. Big difference.
So, I was able to actively chip up until a big hand came up that put me in the top 3 in chips.
FullTiltPoker Game #2901723188: Mondays at the Hoy (21375318), Table 4 - 60/120 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:14:56 ET - 2007/07/09
Seat 1: PokerBrian322 (8,216)
Seat 2: rpinner (14,139)
Seat 3: Rake Feeder (1,010)
Seat 4: cracknaces (11,155)
Seat 5: lightning36 (5,456)
Seat 7: Mattazuma (1,954)
Seat 8: RecessRampage (5,863)
Seat 9: a104l9 (2,162)
a104l9 posts the small blind of 60
PokerBrian322 posts the big blind of 120
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Qs Js]
rpinner folds
Rake Feeder folds
cracknaces raises to 240
lightning36 folds
Mattazuma folds
RecessRampage calls 240
a104l9 folds
PokerBrian322 calls 120
*** FLOP *** [Ks 4s Th]
PokerBrian322 checks
cracknaces checks
RecessRampage checks
*** TURN *** [Ks 4s Th] [7s]
PokerBrian322 bets 480
cracknaces calls 480
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to 1,600
PokerBrian322 folds
cracknaces has 15 seconds left to act
cracknaces raises to 10,915, and is all in
RecessRampage calls 4,023, and is all in
cracknaces shows [Tc Qd]
RecessRampage shows [Qs Js]
Uncalled bet of 5,292 returned to cracknaces
*** RIVER *** [Ks 4s Th 7s] [3h]
cracknaces shows a pair of Tens
RecessRampage shows a flush, King high
RecessRampage wins the pot (12,506) with a flush, King high
I'm guessing that Chad thought I was putting on a squeeze play and that if I had a flush draw, I was likely to bet on the flop. Either case, he was drawing dead and I was able to double up which was huge.
From there, I never looked back. And I actively started restealing. Even Schaubs called me out on one of them via girly chat. Hey, it was 8-10 sooted. I love that hand (though apparently, it's dubbed the mookie... I hate it when these things are taken). I continued to attack the short stacks and caught cards when I needed them. I would see the flop, reraise if I caught any piece of the board and was actually surprising myself with a) how aggressive I was and b) how well it worked... It definitely helps though if you catch the cards when you need it. And so a combination of good cards, good timing, and good karma by the FullTilt "Random" Number Generator allowed me to come to the final table very healthy. I had 5x the second highest stack.
The fact that I couldn't close this out probably says something about my end game. But still, I was pretty proud of the way I played the final table as well. I continued to be aggressive on the final table, trying to use my stack to attack the other stacks. I had my ups and downs but fortunately, with a stack like that, I was never threatened as the money bubble came and went and again, it helps to get good cards. I guess you could say that I was Astinized last night.
Well, once it got down to 3 handed play, it was apparent that LJ was getting tired of my raising and I knew that sooner or later, we were gonna tangle in a big pot. And then this came up.
FullTiltPoker Game #2902679165: Mondays at the Hoy (21375318), Table 1 - 500/1000 Ante 125 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:48:46 ET - 2007/07/10
Seat 4: RecessRampage (53,179)
Seat 5: PokerBrian322 (28,176)
Seat 8: pvanharibo (32,645)
RecessRampage antes 125
PokerBrian322 antes 125
pvanharibo antes 125
RecessRampage posts the small blind of 500
PokerBrian322 posts the big blind of 1,000
PokerBrian322: lol
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ts 9d]
pvanharibo raises to 3,000 <--- from the button, steal right?
RecessRampage raises to 9,000 <--- 9-10 is a monster to resteal with, right?
PokerBrian322 folds
pvanharibo calls 6,000 <--- I've been raising a lot so she's gotta call.
*** FLOP *** [6d 6c 3d]
RecessRampage checks
pvanharibo bets 9,000
RecessRampage raises to 44,054, and is all in
pvanharibo folds
Uncalled bet of 35,054 returned to RecessRampage
RecessRampage mucks
RecessRampage wins the pot (37,375)
That was big because she was second in chips and for a little while there, it seemed like we were just passing chips amongst the three of us. I wanted to make sure that I stayed aggressive and that I was in control so I took a chance. Plus, I figured, if she calls and I lose the pot, I wasn't out yet. I felt like I set it up perfectly in the sense of I played it like I had a big pair the whole way. Sure, my reraise looked like a resteal but after the check raise on the flop, she had to think I actually had a hand this time. Again, this helped me gain a significant chip lead and eventually, Lana would be sent to the rail by the evil pokerbrian322.
And as they say... the rest is history... Congrats again to pokerbrian322 (who's not even a blogger, dammit!).
Thanks to everyone who railed me and left comments and gave me tourney pointers. Schaubs and Sia (aka Pouring Reign), thanks for the rail. Hoy, Chad, and Anguila, your comments on my posts and the posts that you have on your blogs have definitely opened up my eyes and soon, I'll take Hoy's advice and watch Chad play to learn more. As usual, thanks to BuddyDank for the kick ass radio show and for Sean to join in at the final table for the added entertainment value.
Wow, that sounded like a victory speech... and I didn't even win. And now, it's 2:30am... even a night owl like myself is getting tired...
Yes, I came in 2nd place in the MATH. After winning the Mookie a few weeks ago, I really really wanted to take down the MATH. I felt like if I took down both of those blogger tourneys, I would gain some more respect. Huh? What, play poker for money? I already told you tournaments are -EV for me. :) Anyways, I wanted to join the ranks of what I assume is quite a good number of bloggers who have taken down both of those tourneys. Well... so close.
After this hand, I honestly thought I had it.
FullTiltPoker Game #2902738828: Mondays at the Hoy (21375318), Table 1 - 600/1200 Ante 150 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:55:13 ET - 2007/07/10
Seat 4: RecessRampage (47,679)
Seat 5: PokerBrian322 (66,321)
RecessRampage antes 150
PokerBrian322 antes 150
RecessRampage posts the small blind of 600
PokerBrian322 posts the big blind of 1,200
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [9s 9d] <--- IG was money tonight!
RecessRampage raises to 3,900
PokerBrian322 raises to 12,000
RecessRampage raises to 47,529, and is all in
PokerBrian322 calls 35,529
RecessRampage shows [9s 9d]
PokerBrian322 shows [7h Ah]
*** FLOP *** [3h 4s Kh]
*** TURN *** [3h 4s Kh] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [3h 4s Kh 8c] [Qs]
RecessRampage shows a pair of Nines
PokerBrian322 shows Ace King high
RecessRampage wins the pot (95,358) with a pair of Nines
PokerBrian322: nh
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 95,358 | Rake 0
Board: [3h 4s Kh 8c Qs]
Seat 4: RecessRampage (small blind) showed [9s 9d] and won (95,358) with a pair of Nines
Seat 5: PokerBrian322 (big blind) showed [7h Ah] and lost with Ace King high
With this hand, I took a commanding chip lead. Then few hands later, another preflop all in where I had A6 and pokerbrian322 had Q3 sooted, I thought maybe that was it... until the Q hit on the river and doubled him up. No problem. I still have the chip lead. And I find AQ sooted. Pokerbrian322 raises so I shove, overbetting the pot. He calls... with K3 (I think he has a thing for 3's). :) Flop comes 2-3-3. Next thing I know, he's got the chip lead. And my last hand? I have 9-10 sooted. He raises, I call and the flop comes A-8-2 with two spades. No spades for me. Check, check and the turn comes a J, giving me an OESD. So I shove. He thinks for a second and calls with a Q high flush draw. Blank on the river and his queen high is good. And I get this message...
I will say though... considering that I'm a tournament donk, I was pretty happy with my performance. One thing about me is that I think I soak in a lot of stuff that other people tell me... very quickly. So, when other bloggers mentioned stealing and restealing, I took it to heart. Especially the restealing part. And I was active from early on. I had position on the K.O.D. himself and I was able to use my weak tight image to steal some pots from him early on. Which is why I love the deep stack. In a regular tournament, a reraise basically becomes a shove. In a deep stack, reraise doesn't necessarily commit you. Big difference.
So, I was able to actively chip up until a big hand came up that put me in the top 3 in chips.
FullTiltPoker Game #2901723188: Mondays at the Hoy (21375318), Table 4 - 60/120 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:14:56 ET - 2007/07/09
Seat 1: PokerBrian322 (8,216)
Seat 2: rpinner (14,139)
Seat 3: Rake Feeder (1,010)
Seat 4: cracknaces (11,155)
Seat 5: lightning36 (5,456)
Seat 7: Mattazuma (1,954)
Seat 8: RecessRampage (5,863)
Seat 9: a104l9 (2,162)
a104l9 posts the small blind of 60
PokerBrian322 posts the big blind of 120
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Qs Js]
rpinner folds
Rake Feeder folds
cracknaces raises to 240
lightning36 folds
Mattazuma folds
RecessRampage calls 240
a104l9 folds
PokerBrian322 calls 120
*** FLOP *** [Ks 4s Th]
PokerBrian322 checks
cracknaces checks
RecessRampage checks
*** TURN *** [Ks 4s Th] [7s]
PokerBrian322 bets 480
cracknaces calls 480
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to 1,600
PokerBrian322 folds
cracknaces has 15 seconds left to act
cracknaces raises to 10,915, and is all in
RecessRampage calls 4,023, and is all in
cracknaces shows [Tc Qd]
RecessRampage shows [Qs Js]
Uncalled bet of 5,292 returned to cracknaces
*** RIVER *** [Ks 4s Th 7s] [3h]
cracknaces shows a pair of Tens
RecessRampage shows a flush, King high
RecessRampage wins the pot (12,506) with a flush, King high
I'm guessing that Chad thought I was putting on a squeeze play and that if I had a flush draw, I was likely to bet on the flop. Either case, he was drawing dead and I was able to double up which was huge.
From there, I never looked back. And I actively started restealing. Even Schaubs called me out on one of them via girly chat. Hey, it was 8-10 sooted. I love that hand (though apparently, it's dubbed the mookie... I hate it when these things are taken). I continued to attack the short stacks and caught cards when I needed them. I would see the flop, reraise if I caught any piece of the board and was actually surprising myself with a) how aggressive I was and b) how well it worked... It definitely helps though if you catch the cards when you need it. And so a combination of good cards, good timing, and good karma by the FullTilt "Random" Number Generator allowed me to come to the final table very healthy. I had 5x the second highest stack.
The fact that I couldn't close this out probably says something about my end game. But still, I was pretty proud of the way I played the final table as well. I continued to be aggressive on the final table, trying to use my stack to attack the other stacks. I had my ups and downs but fortunately, with a stack like that, I was never threatened as the money bubble came and went and again, it helps to get good cards. I guess you could say that I was Astinized last night.
Well, once it got down to 3 handed play, it was apparent that LJ was getting tired of my raising and I knew that sooner or later, we were gonna tangle in a big pot. And then this came up.
FullTiltPoker Game #2902679165: Mondays at the Hoy (21375318), Table 1 - 500/1000 Ante 125 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:48:46 ET - 2007/07/10
Seat 4: RecessRampage (53,179)
Seat 5: PokerBrian322 (28,176)
Seat 8: pvanharibo (32,645)
RecessRampage antes 125
PokerBrian322 antes 125
pvanharibo antes 125
RecessRampage posts the small blind of 500
PokerBrian322 posts the big blind of 1,000
PokerBrian322: lol
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ts 9d]
pvanharibo raises to 3,000 <--- from the button, steal right?
RecessRampage raises to 9,000 <--- 9-10 is a monster to resteal with, right?
PokerBrian322 folds
pvanharibo calls 6,000 <--- I've been raising a lot so she's gotta call.
*** FLOP *** [6d 6c 3d]
RecessRampage checks
pvanharibo bets 9,000
RecessRampage raises to 44,054, and is all in
pvanharibo folds
Uncalled bet of 35,054 returned to RecessRampage
RecessRampage mucks
RecessRampage wins the pot (37,375)
That was big because she was second in chips and for a little while there, it seemed like we were just passing chips amongst the three of us. I wanted to make sure that I stayed aggressive and that I was in control so I took a chance. Plus, I figured, if she calls and I lose the pot, I wasn't out yet. I felt like I set it up perfectly in the sense of I played it like I had a big pair the whole way. Sure, my reraise looked like a resteal but after the check raise on the flop, she had to think I actually had a hand this time. Again, this helped me gain a significant chip lead and eventually, Lana would be sent to the rail by the evil pokerbrian322.
And as they say... the rest is history... Congrats again to pokerbrian322 (who's not even a blogger, dammit!).
Thanks to everyone who railed me and left comments and gave me tourney pointers. Schaubs and Sia (aka Pouring Reign), thanks for the rail. Hoy, Chad, and Anguila, your comments on my posts and the posts that you have on your blogs have definitely opened up my eyes and soon, I'll take Hoy's advice and watch Chad play to learn more. As usual, thanks to BuddyDank for the kick ass radio show and for Sean to join in at the final table for the added entertainment value.
Wow, that sounded like a victory speech... and I didn't even win. And now, it's 2:30am... even a night owl like myself is getting tired...
Monday, July 9, 2007
Special Report!
I was just writing up a post on some cash game hands but I have to interrupt that post because this just in!
Tournaments suck.
I qualified for Full Tilt's Fifty Fifty through the $14+1 satellite and so I was feeling good. I had about 5 minutes before the tournament started so I went to clean out the cat litter. By the time I was back (and washed my hands), the tournament started and I folded 5-6o from the button. No big deal. Few hands later, I find KK. There's a raise from EP, I reraise, button calls, SB who just doubled up calls, and the original raiser jams. I figured, if he has AA, so be it. With these things, so many clowns are willing to go all in with AK, AQ, I figured, more often than not, I'm ahead (considering the guy who doubled up flopped a flush but the guy with AQ couldn't let go of the nut flush draw). So I call. The other two folds and this is what I see.
Keep in mind, money went all in preflop.
Some of you might be thinking, well, at least you only lost $15. If this were a cash game, at your stakes, you coulda lost $400 or more. True. And believe me, that would suck... but you could buy back in. I think it's the finality of the tournament that I don't like. Every time I get knocked out, it hurts. Like it physically hurts. I get stacked for $400? Yeah, it hurts, but I could make it back (granted, when they do a hit and run, it hurts... just like a tournament). But the tournament? If you're stacked, it's over. Finito. No more. It's like death... ok, not quite like death but you know what I mean.
Also, just as a thought, anyone think I shoulda folded there? In a tournament, I don't think I can fold KK. In a cash game, I think I woulda folded there, to tell you the truth. Because in a cash game, the only time I would see something like that would be if the guy had aces... or he's crazy. But in a tournament, I'm only gonna get dealt a certain number of hands. I feel like I should try to double up with those hands so I don't think folding KK is an option preflop. I'm not saying I'll never fold (never say never) but just wondering.
Hopefully, this means good karma for tonight's MATH...
Tournaments suck.
I qualified for Full Tilt's Fifty Fifty through the $14+1 satellite and so I was feeling good. I had about 5 minutes before the tournament started so I went to clean out the cat litter. By the time I was back (and washed my hands), the tournament started and I folded 5-6o from the button. No big deal. Few hands later, I find KK. There's a raise from EP, I reraise, button calls, SB who just doubled up calls, and the original raiser jams. I figured, if he has AA, so be it. With these things, so many clowns are willing to go all in with AK, AQ, I figured, more often than not, I'm ahead (considering the guy who doubled up flopped a flush but the guy with AQ couldn't let go of the nut flush draw). So I call. The other two folds and this is what I see.
Keep in mind, money went all in preflop.
Some of you might be thinking, well, at least you only lost $15. If this were a cash game, at your stakes, you coulda lost $400 or more. True. And believe me, that would suck... but you could buy back in. I think it's the finality of the tournament that I don't like. Every time I get knocked out, it hurts. Like it physically hurts. I get stacked for $400? Yeah, it hurts, but I could make it back (granted, when they do a hit and run, it hurts... just like a tournament). But the tournament? If you're stacked, it's over. Finito. No more. It's like death... ok, not quite like death but you know what I mean.
Also, just as a thought, anyone think I shoulda folded there? In a tournament, I don't think I can fold KK. In a cash game, I think I woulda folded there, to tell you the truth. Because in a cash game, the only time I would see something like that would be if the guy had aces... or he's crazy. But in a tournament, I'm only gonna get dealt a certain number of hands. I feel like I should try to double up with those hands so I don't think folding KK is an option preflop. I'm not saying I'll never fold (never say never) but just wondering.
Hopefully, this means good karma for tonight's MATH...
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Tournaments suck...
After going deep in this insane tournament, I have even more respect for those of you that frequently go deep in these things... and to keep coming back for more. Based on the post by Chad and the comment left by Anguila, I decided to try a low buy-in tourney. Considering Mrs Recess was napping, I figured it was a perfect time to sign up for a tournament. So I did. I used one of my $26 tokens to play in the $24+2 buy-in 17.5k guarantee on FullTilt. And I did fairly well. I really didn't get good cards except AK a few times but I stole and I tried restealing a lot more than I usually do. And it worked... pretty amazingly. I'm still struggling with the timing of resteals and I'm probably not doing it enough. But it was enough to keep me in contention and I easily survived the money break. However, being card dead late cost me and eventually, I busted out... 66th place out of 1,057...
Over 3 hrs of work, and what do I get for it? A measly $53... Nothing like a $27 profit over 3 hrs... The final table was where all the money was... I need to get there somehow. I have to admit though... I was pretty happy with how I did considering I wasn't getting much to work with. AK twice, no AA, KK or QQ. Got JJ once. In the end, I shoved 77 into the BB's AA. I know this though... the better tournament players certainly know how to steal and resteal even without cards. I need to get there...
Over 3 hrs of work, and what do I get for it? A measly $53... Nothing like a $27 profit over 3 hrs... The final table was where all the money was... I need to get there somehow. I have to admit though... I was pretty happy with how I did considering I wasn't getting much to work with. AK twice, no AA, KK or QQ. Got JJ once. In the end, I shoved 77 into the BB's AA. I know this though... the better tournament players certainly know how to steal and resteal even without cards. I need to get there...
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Tournament report
Before I start, a quick public service announcement here. Mrs Recess, who had relatively short hair has been growing her hair out because she wants to donate to Locks of Love.
Me personally, I like her with her hair longer. Very hot, IMO. But, one day, her hair will be cut short again, even though she assures me that she'll grow her hair out a little longer so that even after she cuts her hair, it will still be relatively long. I hope so. :) For those of you that don't know, Locks of Love is an organization that collects hair to make wigs for cancer patients. I visited their website and a lot of kids are the ones donating hair because they want to help other kids who have cancer. Amazing how they can clone pigs these days and yet can't figure out how to cure cancer that's been around for as long as I've been alive.
Alright, on to some poker stuff. Today, I decided to focus my efforts on tournaments. Played 3 SNG's and 3 MTT's. Believe me, for me, that's a lot. On the SNG front... Played the $11+1 6 max SNG, $11+1 Turbo SNG, and $8+.70 18 player token SNG.
In the $11+1 Turbo, I was doing fairly well, chipping up nicely when this hand went down... For all you tournament players, I don't know how you put up with this garbage day in and day out...
FullTiltPoker Game #2877318737: $11 + $1 Sit & Go (Turbo) (21953760), Table 1 - 80/160 - No Limit Hold'em - 13:53:31 ET - 2007/07/07
Seat 2: bazily2k (1,630)
Seat 3: RecessRampage (2,480)
Seat 4: Jackson1974 (900)
Seat 5: DJ SPURS (2,015)
Seat 6: whatdafukman (2,500)
Seat 8: ACESDRAWN (3,025)
Seat 9: poussardr1 (950)
DJ SPURS posts the small blind of 80
whatdafukman posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ks Qh]
ACESDRAWN calls 160
poussardr1 folds
bazily2k folds
RecessRampage raises to 480
Jackson1974 folds
DJ SPURS raises to 800
whatdafukman folds
ACESDRAWN folds
RecessRampage calls 320
*** FLOP *** [5h 9s Qs]
DJ SPURS has 15 seconds left to act
DJ SPURS bets 1,215, and is all in
RecessRampage calls 1,215
DJ SPURS shows [2h Kh]
RecessRampage shows [Ks Qh]
*** TURN *** [5h 9s Qs] [6h]
*** RIVER *** [5h 9s Qs 6h] [4h]
DJ SPURS shows a flush, King high
RecessRampage shows a pair of Queens
DJ SPURS wins the pot (4,350) with a flush, King high
First off, DJ SPURS have been very active. So I'm sure he was going for the resteal. I don't care about that. But the runner runner flush rubbed me the wrong way. That crippled me and I was out shortly thereafter.
I donked out of the 6max but I won the token in the $8+.7 SNG so after 3 SNG's, net ($6.70).
I played in the Daily Double A and B and after my flopped nut flush got cracked by a boat that got there on the river (money all in on the turn), I was crippled but not out. I fought hard, started making a slow comeback to about 600 chips (I was down to 180 but fortunately, blinds were low) and I shoved with AK. Got called by A9. 9 on the flop sends me home. All this got me pissed and so I tilted my money away in the other one.
Fortunately, I regrouped and decided to play the token frenzy. I wasn't getting anything early on and so I decided to follow the advice of the other bloggers and started shoving with a wide range from many different positions. That kept me afloat until I caught some hands and chipped up nicely. Got to play with Smokkee on the same table for a while. He saw me get lucky a few times. Hey, lucky is key. Especially in these turbo donkaments. In the end, this is what it looked like.
So, net from MTTs is +$38. Total of +$31.30 from tourneys. Oh yeah, dabbled in some cash games for like an hour. Results? +$190. Why do I play tourneys again??? :)
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend! And good luck to Lucko, Fuel55, Cmitch (not sure if he's playing or not), and Sprstoner in the WSOP. I'm sorry if I missed any other bloggers that are playing in the Main Event (I'm assuming Chad is not playing). Make us proud!
Me personally, I like her with her hair longer. Very hot, IMO. But, one day, her hair will be cut short again, even though she assures me that she'll grow her hair out a little longer so that even after she cuts her hair, it will still be relatively long. I hope so. :) For those of you that don't know, Locks of Love is an organization that collects hair to make wigs for cancer patients. I visited their website and a lot of kids are the ones donating hair because they want to help other kids who have cancer. Amazing how they can clone pigs these days and yet can't figure out how to cure cancer that's been around for as long as I've been alive.
Alright, on to some poker stuff. Today, I decided to focus my efforts on tournaments. Played 3 SNG's and 3 MTT's. Believe me, for me, that's a lot. On the SNG front... Played the $11+1 6 max SNG, $11+1 Turbo SNG, and $8+.70 18 player token SNG.
In the $11+1 Turbo, I was doing fairly well, chipping up nicely when this hand went down... For all you tournament players, I don't know how you put up with this garbage day in and day out...
FullTiltPoker Game #2877318737: $11 + $1 Sit & Go (Turbo) (21953760), Table 1 - 80/160 - No Limit Hold'em - 13:53:31 ET - 2007/07/07
Seat 2: bazily2k (1,630)
Seat 3: RecessRampage (2,480)
Seat 4: Jackson1974 (900)
Seat 5: DJ SPURS (2,015)
Seat 6: whatdafukman (2,500)
Seat 8: ACESDRAWN (3,025)
Seat 9: poussardr1 (950)
DJ SPURS posts the small blind of 80
whatdafukman posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ks Qh]
ACESDRAWN calls 160
poussardr1 folds
bazily2k folds
RecessRampage raises to 480
Jackson1974 folds
DJ SPURS raises to 800
whatdafukman folds
ACESDRAWN folds
RecessRampage calls 320
*** FLOP *** [5h 9s Qs]
DJ SPURS has 15 seconds left to act
DJ SPURS bets 1,215, and is all in
RecessRampage calls 1,215
DJ SPURS shows [2h Kh]
RecessRampage shows [Ks Qh]
*** TURN *** [5h 9s Qs] [6h]
*** RIVER *** [5h 9s Qs 6h] [4h]
DJ SPURS shows a flush, King high
RecessRampage shows a pair of Queens
DJ SPURS wins the pot (4,350) with a flush, King high
First off, DJ SPURS have been very active. So I'm sure he was going for the resteal. I don't care about that. But the runner runner flush rubbed me the wrong way. That crippled me and I was out shortly thereafter.
I donked out of the 6max but I won the token in the $8+.7 SNG so after 3 SNG's, net ($6.70).
I played in the Daily Double A and B and after my flopped nut flush got cracked by a boat that got there on the river (money all in on the turn), I was crippled but not out. I fought hard, started making a slow comeback to about 600 chips (I was down to 180 but fortunately, blinds were low) and I shoved with AK. Got called by A9. 9 on the flop sends me home. All this got me pissed and so I tilted my money away in the other one.
Fortunately, I regrouped and decided to play the token frenzy. I wasn't getting anything early on and so I decided to follow the advice of the other bloggers and started shoving with a wide range from many different positions. That kept me afloat until I caught some hands and chipped up nicely. Got to play with Smokkee on the same table for a while. He saw me get lucky a few times. Hey, lucky is key. Especially in these turbo donkaments. In the end, this is what it looked like.
So, net from MTTs is +$38. Total of +$31.30 from tourneys. Oh yeah, dabbled in some cash games for like an hour. Results? +$190. Why do I play tourneys again??? :)
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend! And good luck to Lucko, Fuel55, Cmitch (not sure if he's playing or not), and Sprstoner in the WSOP. I'm sorry if I missed any other bloggers that are playing in the Main Event (I'm assuming Chad is not playing). Make us proud!
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Half year review
As we enter the second half of the year, I figured this would be a good time to do a quick review of how I've done in the 1st half of 2007. Based on PT, my cash game stats look as follows. For some reason, I couldn't just filter it to be for 2007 so it includes all of 2006 and it's on all sites and not just FullTilt.
Not bad huh? Well, in order to give you the full picture, I would have to post my embarassing tournament results as well. And this is what that looks like.
Pretty ugly, if you ask me. The BBT, as fun as it was, is clearly -EV for me even though I ended up in 6th place on the leaderboard. Goes to show the points aren't indicative of how good a tournament player you are. This isn't meant to be a knock on the point structure. But it is clear that it masks the importance of the late to end game strategies which I know is clearly my weakest area.
In looking at the above two graphs, one might wonder why I still play tourneys. And quite frankly, I really don't. I tend to play in some of the bigger ones once in a while but since I know that it's -EV for me, I generally stick to cash games where I am clearly turning a profit. But then again, once in a while, I think to myself that it would be cool to have a nice score in a tournament so I take a shot... and generally, I fail.
Well, as I move into the second half of the year, I want to continue to let my bankroll grow by playing the cash games but I also would like to see an improvement on my tournament results. In both instances, there are major holes in my games that need to be addressed.
My goals for the cash games would be to move up to higher levels and see if I can compete and how I do there. I dabbled in some 5/10NL and I was actually surprised with the level of competition... or the lack there of. I was expecting a totally different ball game and yet... some tables played like 1-2NL. Also, I was worried that having a big amount of money on the line would affect my play because I might be nervous about my bankroll... instead, I noticed that I almost didn't care about the money... because it felt more like a tournament with a $1,000 starting stack rather than $1,000 of my own money. I sometimes hestitate to call a $22 raise preflop on a 2-4NL table and yet, a $35 raise on the 5-10NL felt like nothing. Very strange... Well, in case you are wondering how I did, I didn't do so well. I was profitable, don't get me wrong. But I only made approximately $200 over the course of 200 hands (approx 3 hours) and the win was mainly because I doubled up almost my entire buy in when I had AA and the other guy who had me covered had KK. (It was the biggest pot ever but I didn't post because I felt lame). But, one thing I know is that I think I can play at that level. I just need to build my bankroll a bit more.
Well, as I reviewed my hand histories, I noticed that the biggest leak in my game is that I am overly active in pots at times. For example, I would start tight, loosen up in right situations, and build up a stack. So, if we're playing 2-4NL, I'd start with $400 and get up to $600. But then I loosen up even more. Even more to the point where it becomes detrimental. Another hour or so later, I might leave the table down some or maybe not up as much as I should have been.
One thing I do is that I take stabs at pots when I have no business making them. I was reading the FullTilt Poker Guide this weekend at the beach and I read something that was very interesting. I don't have the book on me right now so I am going by memory but it was something along the lines of betting at a pot when it's likely that no hand better than yours will fold. Here's an example (again from my head, I think the book gave a similar but slightly better one): You hold 99 and it's folded to you on the cutoff where you raise. BB is the only one who calls. Flop comes A-K-T. He checks. This is a perfect example of a situation where the book advises you not to bet. Why? Because the only hands that would fold are probably hands that are worse than yours. What do I do? I bet. I get checkraised. I fold. Awful, awful poker. The book takes this a step further and advocates that with 99, you want to check but betting is more acceptable if you had a hand like 7-8, even with that board. Why? Because now, your bet can make a hand that is better than yours fold. So in other words, if you had 99, the only "better hand" that might fold to your bet is a hand like 9-10. Maaaaaybe, J-10 but it's quite possible that they will call the flop to see another card. But if you had a hand like 7-8 and you bet, any pair below 10's would have to fold, thus making them fold a better hand than yours. When I read that, I thought it was very interesting. I've heard of something like that before (or read it somewhere) but reading it again in the book just kinda brought that back.
And quite frankly, I think that's my biggest leak. I'm not saying that's my only leak. But in many instances, I could defend most of the other "bad moves" I make and since I don't always do it, it's just part of the variation of my play. But, firing out aggressively into a dangerous board is not the smartest thing to do unless you have a good read on your opponent and you know exactly what you are doing.
Another one that I'm starting to notice is the timing of controlling the pot size vs protecting my hand against draws. In other words, you don't want to build the pot too much in marginal situations where you're not exactly sure where you stand. However, you don't want to not protect your hand either in case you are ahead and your opponent is drawing. Having a better read on the opponent is key in these instances and I notice that if I have more than 2 tables up and running, I miss these intricacies. It doesn't kill my roll since I can make a fairly tough laydown but still, I'm missing out on potential profits here as well.
One more thing to keep in mind is to have a plan. Unlike a tournament where most of the hands seem to end preflop or on the flop, in a cash game, it's fairly common that you see the turn and the river. So, when the flop comes, before I act, I need to have a plan. If I decide to bet, do I want my opponent to call? What if he raises? If he calls, what do I do on the turn? What if it completes a flush draw? What if it's a blank? What if it pairs the board? Or, if you have position, and your opponent bets at you, what's your move? Do you call? Do you raise or fold? If you decide to float, what do you do on the turn if he fires another bullet? Is he the type of opponent that will fire two bullets with air? These are all questions that I have to ask myself. All too often, I notice myself making a play at a pot or attempting to make a play without thinking a step ahead. For example, I float my opponent's flop bet with two overcards. Turn is another blank. Another bet is fired. I fold. That's just a bad play. Did I think about what my plan was? Did I hope that by me calling, he'll slow down? He might but again, it's one thing to do it with a plan and another to do it without thinking about it. Poker is all about telling a story. Each street brings a new chapter and so you have to make sure that the story you are putting together is consistent on all streets.
On the tournament side, I think my plan is fairly simple. I mean how can it be complicated considering I can't even win? I need to hit the books and really understand the concepts of the mid to end game strategies. Early on, when the blinds are small compared to the starting stacks, I do well and I find myself generally above the average stack. However, as the tourney progresses, I tend to panic and overplay hands I shouldn't. So, here's a quick and dirty list of what I want to do on the tourney side:
1. Remember that small pairs are garbage late in the game. BEST CASE SCENARIO (when all in preflop) is that you're in a race. So with pairs 88 and below, be very cautious on how to play them.
2. Learn to resteal. I read about restealing all the time. Now I just need to do it.
3. Learn to steal but don't overdo it. And don't just steal from the button or the cutoff. I think this is important. Even though there are more people to act, early position raise also indicates a stronger hand so I need to incorporate that into my play.
4. Pot odds isn't necessarily king in a tournament. I think sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. When you know you are beat, even if you are getting decent odds, it might not be worth callin based on your stack size and your situation of the tournament. Protecting chips is just as important as accumulating them.
I'll soon go back into posting more hand histories and situational analysis but I wanted to make sure that I at least summarized where I am at this point so I can revisit this later and see how I've improved as a player.
Not bad huh? Well, in order to give you the full picture, I would have to post my embarassing tournament results as well. And this is what that looks like.
Pretty ugly, if you ask me. The BBT, as fun as it was, is clearly -EV for me even though I ended up in 6th place on the leaderboard. Goes to show the points aren't indicative of how good a tournament player you are. This isn't meant to be a knock on the point structure. But it is clear that it masks the importance of the late to end game strategies which I know is clearly my weakest area.
In looking at the above two graphs, one might wonder why I still play tourneys. And quite frankly, I really don't. I tend to play in some of the bigger ones once in a while but since I know that it's -EV for me, I generally stick to cash games where I am clearly turning a profit. But then again, once in a while, I think to myself that it would be cool to have a nice score in a tournament so I take a shot... and generally, I fail.
Well, as I move into the second half of the year, I want to continue to let my bankroll grow by playing the cash games but I also would like to see an improvement on my tournament results. In both instances, there are major holes in my games that need to be addressed.
My goals for the cash games would be to move up to higher levels and see if I can compete and how I do there. I dabbled in some 5/10NL and I was actually surprised with the level of competition... or the lack there of. I was expecting a totally different ball game and yet... some tables played like 1-2NL. Also, I was worried that having a big amount of money on the line would affect my play because I might be nervous about my bankroll... instead, I noticed that I almost didn't care about the money... because it felt more like a tournament with a $1,000 starting stack rather than $1,000 of my own money. I sometimes hestitate to call a $22 raise preflop on a 2-4NL table and yet, a $35 raise on the 5-10NL felt like nothing. Very strange... Well, in case you are wondering how I did, I didn't do so well. I was profitable, don't get me wrong. But I only made approximately $200 over the course of 200 hands (approx 3 hours) and the win was mainly because I doubled up almost my entire buy in when I had AA and the other guy who had me covered had KK. (It was the biggest pot ever but I didn't post because I felt lame). But, one thing I know is that I think I can play at that level. I just need to build my bankroll a bit more.
Well, as I reviewed my hand histories, I noticed that the biggest leak in my game is that I am overly active in pots at times. For example, I would start tight, loosen up in right situations, and build up a stack. So, if we're playing 2-4NL, I'd start with $400 and get up to $600. But then I loosen up even more. Even more to the point where it becomes detrimental. Another hour or so later, I might leave the table down some or maybe not up as much as I should have been.
One thing I do is that I take stabs at pots when I have no business making them. I was reading the FullTilt Poker Guide this weekend at the beach and I read something that was very interesting. I don't have the book on me right now so I am going by memory but it was something along the lines of betting at a pot when it's likely that no hand better than yours will fold. Here's an example (again from my head, I think the book gave a similar but slightly better one): You hold 99 and it's folded to you on the cutoff where you raise. BB is the only one who calls. Flop comes A-K-T. He checks. This is a perfect example of a situation where the book advises you not to bet. Why? Because the only hands that would fold are probably hands that are worse than yours. What do I do? I bet. I get checkraised. I fold. Awful, awful poker. The book takes this a step further and advocates that with 99, you want to check but betting is more acceptable if you had a hand like 7-8, even with that board. Why? Because now, your bet can make a hand that is better than yours fold. So in other words, if you had 99, the only "better hand" that might fold to your bet is a hand like 9-10. Maaaaaybe, J-10 but it's quite possible that they will call the flop to see another card. But if you had a hand like 7-8 and you bet, any pair below 10's would have to fold, thus making them fold a better hand than yours. When I read that, I thought it was very interesting. I've heard of something like that before (or read it somewhere) but reading it again in the book just kinda brought that back.
And quite frankly, I think that's my biggest leak. I'm not saying that's my only leak. But in many instances, I could defend most of the other "bad moves" I make and since I don't always do it, it's just part of the variation of my play. But, firing out aggressively into a dangerous board is not the smartest thing to do unless you have a good read on your opponent and you know exactly what you are doing.
Another one that I'm starting to notice is the timing of controlling the pot size vs protecting my hand against draws. In other words, you don't want to build the pot too much in marginal situations where you're not exactly sure where you stand. However, you don't want to not protect your hand either in case you are ahead and your opponent is drawing. Having a better read on the opponent is key in these instances and I notice that if I have more than 2 tables up and running, I miss these intricacies. It doesn't kill my roll since I can make a fairly tough laydown but still, I'm missing out on potential profits here as well.
One more thing to keep in mind is to have a plan. Unlike a tournament where most of the hands seem to end preflop or on the flop, in a cash game, it's fairly common that you see the turn and the river. So, when the flop comes, before I act, I need to have a plan. If I decide to bet, do I want my opponent to call? What if he raises? If he calls, what do I do on the turn? What if it completes a flush draw? What if it's a blank? What if it pairs the board? Or, if you have position, and your opponent bets at you, what's your move? Do you call? Do you raise or fold? If you decide to float, what do you do on the turn if he fires another bullet? Is he the type of opponent that will fire two bullets with air? These are all questions that I have to ask myself. All too often, I notice myself making a play at a pot or attempting to make a play without thinking a step ahead. For example, I float my opponent's flop bet with two overcards. Turn is another blank. Another bet is fired. I fold. That's just a bad play. Did I think about what my plan was? Did I hope that by me calling, he'll slow down? He might but again, it's one thing to do it with a plan and another to do it without thinking about it. Poker is all about telling a story. Each street brings a new chapter and so you have to make sure that the story you are putting together is consistent on all streets.
On the tournament side, I think my plan is fairly simple. I mean how can it be complicated considering I can't even win? I need to hit the books and really understand the concepts of the mid to end game strategies. Early on, when the blinds are small compared to the starting stacks, I do well and I find myself generally above the average stack. However, as the tourney progresses, I tend to panic and overplay hands I shouldn't. So, here's a quick and dirty list of what I want to do on the tourney side:
1. Remember that small pairs are garbage late in the game. BEST CASE SCENARIO (when all in preflop) is that you're in a race. So with pairs 88 and below, be very cautious on how to play them.
2. Learn to resteal. I read about restealing all the time. Now I just need to do it.
3. Learn to steal but don't overdo it. And don't just steal from the button or the cutoff. I think this is important. Even though there are more people to act, early position raise also indicates a stronger hand so I need to incorporate that into my play.
4. Pot odds isn't necessarily king in a tournament. I think sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. When you know you are beat, even if you are getting decent odds, it might not be worth callin based on your stack size and your situation of the tournament. Protecting chips is just as important as accumulating them.
I'll soon go back into posting more hand histories and situational analysis but I wanted to make sure that I at least summarized where I am at this point so I can revisit this later and see how I've improved as a player.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
My short vacation and a disappointing finish to the BBT
On Sunday, Mrs Recess and I headed down to Corolla, NC where my in-laws were renting a beach house for the week. Because of my work schedule, we couldn't stay all week, which is why we are now safely back in Richmond. Well, as most of you know, heading into the final BBT tournament (Don's Big Game), I was in 6th or 7th place on the BBT leaderboard with Top 5 winning cash/prizes. I also saw who was behind me and there were several solid players behind me so I knew that instead of worrying about how others do, I just needed to take this down and then the rest would take care of itself. I also have to admit that I was relatively confident heading into this tournament. Having just taken down the Mookie and this being my favorite format as a deep stack tourney, I thought I had a chance to do real well. My only concern was whether I was actually going to be able to play. The house we were at did not have an internet connection so as we were driving down, I was making note of the nearby hotels that maybe I could go and "borrow" their wireless that night.
Well, it was already a lucky start to my night. I booted up my laptop and found a wireless network in the neighborhood that I can latch on to. It wasn't the most reliable but I figured if it did cut out in the middle of the tourney, there's a hotel 10 minutes down the road that I can go and try to get connected so I felt comfortable.
As the tourney kicked off, it seemed that the players were fairly tight. I had Astin to my right, BuddyDank, a few seats to my left, and Mike_Maloney across the table from me. At that point, I was no threat to BuddyDank who by making the points in this tourney secured his second place finish to the BBT Machine that is Bayne_s. However, Astin and Mike_Maloney were both right behind me on the BBT leaderboard so I would be lying if I said that I didn't pay attention to that. I played fairly tight but with a deep stack tourney, the beginning of the tourney plays similarly to a cash game which I am very comfortable in. It helps to get good cards when I was able to send Astin to the rail when I flopped a straight against his bottom set and no improvement for him ended his solid run in the BBT series. I was on a roll when later, I flopped top set with my QQ, got it all in on the flop against Bone_Daddy84's KQ and so I have 3 times my starting stack. I could describe the hand but he does a much better job so visit his recap of this hand here.
I have to admit, I was starting to think this could be my night when Mike_Maloney pulled off what I would consider the most impressive, trickiest move I've ever seen in poker... oh, excuse me, while I mop up all the sarcasm that dripped off that sentence. :)
FullTiltPoker Game #2826271870: Blogger Big Game (19471102), Table 5 - 30/60 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:10:44 ET - 2007/07/01
Seat 1: Mike_Maloney (1,380) <--- VILLAIN
Seat 3: IslandBum1 (2,644)
Seat 5: RecessRampage (8,657)
Seat 6: leftylu (4,470)
Seat 7: maf212 (4,144)
Seat 8: BuddyDank (2,665)
Seat 9: mtnrider81 (3,040)
RecessRampage posts the small blind of 30
leftylu posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ks Kc]
maf212 folds
BuddyDank folds
mtnrider81 folds
Mike_Maloney calls 60 <--- limp huh? weak hand?
IslandBum1 folds
RecessRampage raises to 300 <--- HERO raises like a MAN
leftylu folds
Mike_Maloney: jerk <--- directed to yours truly, how dare he???
Mike_Maloney has 15 seconds left to act
Mike_Maloney has requested TIME <--- oooh, digging deep into his play book!
Mike_Maloney: let's gambooooool <--- oh yeah, LET'S! I got kings, biatch! Mike_Maloney raises to 1,380, and is all in
RecessRampage calls 1,080
Mike_Maloney shows [Ac Ah] <--- what a jerk...
RecessRampage shows [Ks Kc]
RecessRampage: dammit <--- well said
*** FLOP *** [Tc 8c 2h]
*** TURN *** [Tc 8c 2h] [4c]
*** RIVER *** [Tc 8c 2h 4c] [7c]
Mike_Maloney shows a flush, Ace high
RecessRampage: jerk <--- so true...
RecessRampage shows a flush, King high
Jerk, I mean Mike_Maloney wins the pot (2,820) with a flush, Ace high
Mike_Maloney: lol
I hope you all go visit his site here and leave him nasty comments! :) (of course, I jest... I promised him that I'd post this hand so here it is, bro!)
But that was really a bump in the road because he was relatively short stacked. I still had a very healthy stack... and then my test as a tournament player came up. I went card dead. I started off hot but my cards took a turn for the worse and so I was slowly bleeding chips off but still above average and doing fairly well. The only two remaining that were involved in terms of the BBT race were Hoy and Jeciimd. So, I needed to outlast these two in order to climb up the BBT leaderboard further. Well, I'm clearly no Hoy when it comes to tourneys and I didn't know how to make something out of nothing. When my cards went dead, I really didn't know what to do. And then this hand came up which I think was kind of a make or break situation in this tournament...
FullTiltPoker Game #2827036091: Blogger Big Game (19471102), Table 5 - 150/300 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:26:54 ET - 2007/07/01
Seat 1: hoyazo (3,125)
Seat 2: DDionysus (6,538)
Seat 3: IslandBum1 (5,188)
Seat 4: Julius_Goat (7,357)
Seat 5: RecessRampage (8,012)
Seat 6: TripJax (5,940)
Seat 7: DonkeyPuncher74 (3,785)
Seat 8: DaBag (12,885)
Seat 9: NewinNov (6,621)
hoyazo antes 25
DDionysus antes 25
IslandBum1 antes 25
Julius_Goat antes 25
RecessRampage antes 25
TripJax antes 25
DonkeyPuncher74 antes 25
DaBag antes 25
NewinNov antes 25
DonkeyPuncher74 posts the small blind of 150
DaBag posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Jd Ac]
NewinNov folds
hoyazo folds
DDionysus folds
IslandBum1 folds
Julius_Goat folds
RecessRampage raises to 1,275
TripJax folds
DonkeyPuncher74 raises to 3,760, and is all in
DaBag folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage has requested TIME
hoyazo: nh dp.
RecessRampage folds
Uncalled bet of 2,485 returned to DonkeyPuncher74
DonkeyPuncher74 mucks
DonkeyPuncher74 wins the pot (3,075)
The blinds are now 200/400 with an ante of 50
I know it wasn't that much more for me to call. I was really torn. But I hadn't been stealing from late position in a while so I felt that DonkeyPuncher74 had no reason to think that I was on a pure steal. Plus, if I called and my guess that he had a better hand was right, (I felt that the BEST CASE scenario was that I was on the wrong side of a coin flip) I would become relatively shortstacked. So, I decided to pick a better spot. In hindsight, I still don't know if I should have called or not. Any thoughts here would be appreciated.
Less than 20 hands later, it's amazing how good KJo looks when you go through a streak of 85o, 52o, etc. So, I jam and get called by Hoy who has AK and that's when it was over for me. Such a disappointing end to what could have been a nice little fun in the BBT series.
Personally, I loved the BBT and so to all those involved in making this happen, thank you so much. I just wish I actually paid attention and knew the prize structure (I literally did not know about the top 5 thing until like the last week of this BBT). I know there were discussions about changing the points thing. I think ROI is probably a good measure because if it's just a total $ won, it would skew the tournaments in terms of the big ones being weighted more heavily. But there would obviously have to be like minimum events played or something because you don't want someone to go on a rush early, win a few and then sit out for the rest of the season and pretty much have the top spot locked up. I don't know. Either way, I look forward to Season 2.
After that though, there was no more poker for the next few days. We hung out at the beach where Mrs Recess became Mrs Lobster... she apparently missed her entire upper legs so she's red as lobster and in a lot of pain. Aside from that though, we had a good time with the family, hanging out, enjoying each other's company, good cooking, doughnuts in the morning, ice cream in the evening... One morning, I woke up very early and so I decided to go for a walk on the beach to enjoy some alone time... Though I missed playing poker, it was nice to enjoy some peaceful time. And I leave you with this picture that I took from my camera phone. Nothing like a sunrise over the ocean... So beautiful...
Well, it was already a lucky start to my night. I booted up my laptop and found a wireless network in the neighborhood that I can latch on to. It wasn't the most reliable but I figured if it did cut out in the middle of the tourney, there's a hotel 10 minutes down the road that I can go and try to get connected so I felt comfortable.
As the tourney kicked off, it seemed that the players were fairly tight. I had Astin to my right, BuddyDank, a few seats to my left, and Mike_Maloney across the table from me. At that point, I was no threat to BuddyDank who by making the points in this tourney secured his second place finish to the BBT Machine that is Bayne_s. However, Astin and Mike_Maloney were both right behind me on the BBT leaderboard so I would be lying if I said that I didn't pay attention to that. I played fairly tight but with a deep stack tourney, the beginning of the tourney plays similarly to a cash game which I am very comfortable in. It helps to get good cards when I was able to send Astin to the rail when I flopped a straight against his bottom set and no improvement for him ended his solid run in the BBT series. I was on a roll when later, I flopped top set with my QQ, got it all in on the flop against Bone_Daddy84's KQ and so I have 3 times my starting stack. I could describe the hand but he does a much better job so visit his recap of this hand here.
I have to admit, I was starting to think this could be my night when Mike_Maloney pulled off what I would consider the most impressive, trickiest move I've ever seen in poker... oh, excuse me, while I mop up all the sarcasm that dripped off that sentence. :)
FullTiltPoker Game #2826271870: Blogger Big Game (19471102), Table 5 - 30/60 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:10:44 ET - 2007/07/01
Seat 1: Mike_Maloney (1,380) <--- VILLAIN
Seat 3: IslandBum1 (2,644)
Seat 5: RecessRampage (8,657)
Seat 6: leftylu (4,470)
Seat 7: maf212 (4,144)
Seat 8: BuddyDank (2,665)
Seat 9: mtnrider81 (3,040)
RecessRampage posts the small blind of 30
leftylu posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ks Kc]
maf212 folds
BuddyDank folds
mtnrider81 folds
Mike_Maloney calls 60 <--- limp huh? weak hand?
IslandBum1 folds
RecessRampage raises to 300 <--- HERO raises like a MAN
leftylu folds
Mike_Maloney: jerk <--- directed to yours truly, how dare he???
Mike_Maloney has 15 seconds left to act
Mike_Maloney has requested TIME <--- oooh, digging deep into his play book!
Mike_Maloney: let's gambooooool <--- oh yeah, LET'S! I got kings, biatch! Mike_Maloney raises to 1,380, and is all in
RecessRampage calls 1,080
Mike_Maloney shows [Ac Ah] <--- what a jerk...
RecessRampage shows [Ks Kc]
RecessRampage: dammit <--- well said
*** FLOP *** [Tc 8c 2h]
*** TURN *** [Tc 8c 2h] [4c]
*** RIVER *** [Tc 8c 2h 4c] [7c]
Mike_Maloney shows a flush, Ace high
RecessRampage: jerk <--- so true...
RecessRampage shows a flush, King high
Jerk, I mean Mike_Maloney wins the pot (2,820) with a flush, Ace high
Mike_Maloney: lol
I hope you all go visit his site here and leave him nasty comments! :) (of course, I jest... I promised him that I'd post this hand so here it is, bro!)
But that was really a bump in the road because he was relatively short stacked. I still had a very healthy stack... and then my test as a tournament player came up. I went card dead. I started off hot but my cards took a turn for the worse and so I was slowly bleeding chips off but still above average and doing fairly well. The only two remaining that were involved in terms of the BBT race were Hoy and Jeciimd. So, I needed to outlast these two in order to climb up the BBT leaderboard further. Well, I'm clearly no Hoy when it comes to tourneys and I didn't know how to make something out of nothing. When my cards went dead, I really didn't know what to do. And then this hand came up which I think was kind of a make or break situation in this tournament...
FullTiltPoker Game #2827036091: Blogger Big Game (19471102), Table 5 - 150/300 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:26:54 ET - 2007/07/01
Seat 1: hoyazo (3,125)
Seat 2: DDionysus (6,538)
Seat 3: IslandBum1 (5,188)
Seat 4: Julius_Goat (7,357)
Seat 5: RecessRampage (8,012)
Seat 6: TripJax (5,940)
Seat 7: DonkeyPuncher74 (3,785)
Seat 8: DaBag (12,885)
Seat 9: NewinNov (6,621)
hoyazo antes 25
DDionysus antes 25
IslandBum1 antes 25
Julius_Goat antes 25
RecessRampage antes 25
TripJax antes 25
DonkeyPuncher74 antes 25
DaBag antes 25
NewinNov antes 25
DonkeyPuncher74 posts the small blind of 150
DaBag posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Jd Ac]
NewinNov folds
hoyazo folds
DDionysus folds
IslandBum1 folds
Julius_Goat folds
RecessRampage raises to 1,275
TripJax folds
DonkeyPuncher74 raises to 3,760, and is all in
DaBag folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage has requested TIME
hoyazo: nh dp.
RecessRampage folds
Uncalled bet of 2,485 returned to DonkeyPuncher74
DonkeyPuncher74 mucks
DonkeyPuncher74 wins the pot (3,075)
The blinds are now 200/400 with an ante of 50
I know it wasn't that much more for me to call. I was really torn. But I hadn't been stealing from late position in a while so I felt that DonkeyPuncher74 had no reason to think that I was on a pure steal. Plus, if I called and my guess that he had a better hand was right, (I felt that the BEST CASE scenario was that I was on the wrong side of a coin flip) I would become relatively shortstacked. So, I decided to pick a better spot. In hindsight, I still don't know if I should have called or not. Any thoughts here would be appreciated.
Less than 20 hands later, it's amazing how good KJo looks when you go through a streak of 85o, 52o, etc. So, I jam and get called by Hoy who has AK and that's when it was over for me. Such a disappointing end to what could have been a nice little fun in the BBT series.
Personally, I loved the BBT and so to all those involved in making this happen, thank you so much. I just wish I actually paid attention and knew the prize structure (I literally did not know about the top 5 thing until like the last week of this BBT). I know there were discussions about changing the points thing. I think ROI is probably a good measure because if it's just a total $ won, it would skew the tournaments in terms of the big ones being weighted more heavily. But there would obviously have to be like minimum events played or something because you don't want someone to go on a rush early, win a few and then sit out for the rest of the season and pretty much have the top spot locked up. I don't know. Either way, I look forward to Season 2.
After that though, there was no more poker for the next few days. We hung out at the beach where Mrs Recess became Mrs Lobster... she apparently missed her entire upper legs so she's red as lobster and in a lot of pain. Aside from that though, we had a good time with the family, hanging out, enjoying each other's company, good cooking, doughnuts in the morning, ice cream in the evening... One morning, I woke up very early and so I decided to go for a walk on the beach to enjoy some alone time... Though I missed playing poker, it was nice to enjoy some peaceful time. And I leave you with this picture that I took from my camera phone. Nothing like a sunrise over the ocean... So beautiful...
Friday, June 29, 2007
I take a lot of vacation because...
I get a lot of vacation. So says Jim Rome. He'll be taking 2 weeks off. And that sucks for an avid listener like myself. Oh well. Can't say that I don't understand since I'm one of those guys that uses up their vacation every year. Good for you if you are one of those guys that work real hard, can't find time for a vacation, etc. But that's not me. I value my personal time and I value my time away from work. So, every year, I get 4 weeks of vacation and I use it up. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. No exceptions.
Generally, I like to save them for a big trip. I usually use up 10 of my 20 days for a trip to Japan to see my family. And then I might use another 5 for like a week long trip to Vegas. And then another 5 days, I'll just use it here and there. Well, this year, Mrs Recess and I will be joining my parents to make a trip out to France in August. That should be a fun time since I've never visited Europe. Of all the European countries, France is probably the one that I'm least interested in but my Dad who is now retired and found a new hobby "biking" has qualified for like a 800 mile race (or something crazy like that) in France so we decided to make it a family affair. And though I'm least interested, I am excited to see all the monuments and do the touristy stuff while I'm there. Plus, as long as they have internet connection, I can still play poker. :)
FYI - I don't mean any disrespect to France and when I come back I might be in love with that place. I just never found any particular reason to wanna go. Ignorance is bliss, they say.
Anyways, I digress, like I always do in my posts. Sorry if you read this far expecting any sort of poker news because there really isn't any here today. Anyways, next Monday and Tuesday, I'm taking off because my in-laws are renting a beach house down in Corolla, NC so we will be hanging out there. There is only one problem... and this is a MAJOR PROBLEM... We are leaving on Sunday... No internet connection at the house... you know what that means... I might not be able to play in Don's Big Game...
In all honesty though, I need to find a place with internet connection down there. I'm too close in the BBT standings to not play in this thing... I still don't even know who gets what (like is the winner, ie Bayne, the only person that's gonna get something or does the top 3 get something or top 5?). I'm surprisingly oblivious to what's going on in this whole BBT race. But I know it's a race and that's enough for me to want to finish as high up as possible. With or without prizes.
One thing is for sure though. I will not be playing any poker on Monday or Tuesday. I guess that's a good thing. I'll be lounging on the beach, chillin with the family, eating good food... damn... I AM A DEGENERATE. None of these sound quite as fun as having a laptop in front of me and trying to relieve the donkeys of their undeserving money. Well, at least it'll give me some time to catch up on some of the readings. I want to reread the Harrington Series, finish my FullTilt Tournament Guide, and I might even pick up the book about Stu Ungar since I have been wanting to read it and just have no reason why I haven't done that yet...
So anyways, I'll hopefully get to play in the Big Game. But if not, good luck to everyone who does. And for all you nonbloggers who read my blog, join in on what is likely to be the biggest blogger tournament (in terms of prize pool) this year (or maybe in the history??)!
Generally, I like to save them for a big trip. I usually use up 10 of my 20 days for a trip to Japan to see my family. And then I might use another 5 for like a week long trip to Vegas. And then another 5 days, I'll just use it here and there. Well, this year, Mrs Recess and I will be joining my parents to make a trip out to France in August. That should be a fun time since I've never visited Europe. Of all the European countries, France is probably the one that I'm least interested in but my Dad who is now retired and found a new hobby "biking" has qualified for like a 800 mile race (or something crazy like that) in France so we decided to make it a family affair. And though I'm least interested, I am excited to see all the monuments and do the touristy stuff while I'm there. Plus, as long as they have internet connection, I can still play poker. :)
FYI - I don't mean any disrespect to France and when I come back I might be in love with that place. I just never found any particular reason to wanna go. Ignorance is bliss, they say.
Anyways, I digress, like I always do in my posts. Sorry if you read this far expecting any sort of poker news because there really isn't any here today. Anyways, next Monday and Tuesday, I'm taking off because my in-laws are renting a beach house down in Corolla, NC so we will be hanging out there. There is only one problem... and this is a MAJOR PROBLEM... We are leaving on Sunday... No internet connection at the house... you know what that means... I might not be able to play in Don's Big Game...
In all honesty though, I need to find a place with internet connection down there. I'm too close in the BBT standings to not play in this thing... I still don't even know who gets what (like is the winner, ie Bayne, the only person that's gonna get something or does the top 3 get something or top 5?). I'm surprisingly oblivious to what's going on in this whole BBT race. But I know it's a race and that's enough for me to want to finish as high up as possible. With or without prizes.
One thing is for sure though. I will not be playing any poker on Monday or Tuesday. I guess that's a good thing. I'll be lounging on the beach, chillin with the family, eating good food... damn... I AM A DEGENERATE. None of these sound quite as fun as having a laptop in front of me and trying to relieve the donkeys of their undeserving money. Well, at least it'll give me some time to catch up on some of the readings. I want to reread the Harrington Series, finish my FullTilt Tournament Guide, and I might even pick up the book about Stu Ungar since I have been wanting to read it and just have no reason why I haven't done that yet...
So anyways, I'll hopefully get to play in the Big Game. But if not, good luck to everyone who does. And for all you nonbloggers who read my blog, join in on what is likely to be the biggest blogger tournament (in terms of prize pool) this year (or maybe in the history??)!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Poppin the BBT cherry!!!
Finally... With a lot of pleading, begging, and soul selling with the poker gods, I took down the Mookie!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!! For most, this won't be all that exciting. But I've never taken down a multi table tournament and I knew that my BBT experience will not be complete without at least taking down one tournament (regardless of the top 10 standings on the leaderboard) so this was especially satisfying. Admittedly though, I had to do A LOT of sucking out. Before I go into the details, thank you for all those that supported me and railing me. Now, somewhere in the midst of what could potentially be the longest heads up match in the BBT history (38 minutes according to the live blog), Wes and I decided to chop the cash. But we both wanted the points so we decided to play it out for the points. I actually figured that by chopping the cash, the heads up match won't last too long... well, either we were both getting really shitty cards or we both suck at heads up... well, actually, I can tell you now that I suck at heads up. I just don't have any experience in it. I am always playing a full ring or 6 max cash tables. Heads up never happens. So, I pretty much had no clue what I was doing and I'm sure it showed. Nonetheless, big props to Wes for taking two bad beats in a row with class. Sorry it had to end that way.
Generally, I would focus my hand recaps and analysis to cash games because that is what I primarily play but even though I actually had a very good night on the cash tables, the poker gods decided to show me that the MTT's can be fun too so I'm just gonna run through those tonight.
I got my two friends (Inigomontoya76 and Pouringreign) to come out for the Mookie and as usual, I was listening to the great BuddyDank Radio show hosted by BuddyDonk, er I mean BuddyDank and InstantTragedy. Buddy, of course I kid - that's for all the trash talk over the radio. :)
Well, meanwhile, I was successfully chipping up in the Fifty Fifty on FullTilt. 30 minutes into the Mookie, we were on the 1st break of the Fifty Fifty and I was doing fairly well.
I had built up a pretty big stack but unfortunately, I didn't put them to good use. It didn't help that an even bigger stack was sitting to my left. So, instead, I decided to try to conserve my chips in the middle stages as suggested on this great post on MTT by the K.O.D. himself. I was doing fine, occasionally stealing but not doing anything crazy until this hand came up...
I was in MP and so I raised it up to T$700 (blinds at T$100/$200). Button calls and we go into the flop heads up. Flop comes K-K-2. So, I thought about checking but that seems fishy so I bet out T$1000. The button smooth calls my bet and so now I'm wondering if he has a pocket pair. I check the turn which was a blank for deception. I bet T$1000 on the river to induce a call and then a funny thing happened. The button raised to T$2850. Something didn't seem right so I call. This is what I see.
I'm still shocked that I didn't go busto on that hand. Well, thank goodness because I was able to climb back up by playing the short stack fairly well and so I was one big hand away from having a big stack to potentially do some damage in this tournament. And right on cue, I get dealt pocket aces. So, as I start to wonder how to play this, this is the action I see...
FullTiltPoker Game #2790628538: The Fifty-Fifty (21080837), Table 19 - 200/400 Ante 50 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:18:30 ET - 2007/06/28
Seat 1: gunthy2 (7,067)
Seat 2: RecessRampage (10,085)
Seat 3: mostbluntedd (32,985)
Seat 4: cmitch (6,685)
Seat 5: sammy1260 (9,251)
Seat 6: Flush_Edges (5,377)
Seat 7: UGGs (26,501)
Seat 8: cheese625 (8,572)
Seat 9: MattSuspect (8,510)
gunthy2 antes 50
RecessRampage antes 50
mostbluntedd antes 50
cmitch antes 50
sammy1260 antes 50
Flush_Edges antes 50
UGGs antes 50
cheese625 antes 50
MattSuspect antes 50
cmitch posts the small blind of 200
sammy1260 posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad Ac]
Flush_Edges has 15 seconds left to act
Flush_Edges folds
UGGs folds
cheese625 raises to 8,522, and is all in
MattSuspect folds
gunthy2 calls 7,017, and is all in
WOW. The only problem is, I sensed a bad beat coming. I really did. And alas, I push all my chips in but when it's all said and done, this is what happened...
Once again, I'm crippled. At this point, the bloggers are staying strong in this tournament as I notice Hoy, Astin, and Cmitch are still in the tourney. As a matter of fact, after the above hand, I'm shortstacked again but I find a way to double through Cmitch when I jam my AQ sooooooted into his JJ and I win the race. That made my stack healthy enough to survive the cash bubble but eventually, I find myself shoving KJo and get called by pocket tens. I don't win the race this time and unfortunately, I see this message.
Well, the good news was, at that point, the Mookie was winding down and I was still in the hunt. I'm not even gonna list out all the suckouts I needed on the final table in order for me to survive and to eventually win. For those of you that had to witness the heads up match, I'm sorry. I actually took down the pot with the "Hammer" 3 times even though I only showed it once. Shoulda showed more just to keep everyone moderately entertained since I'm sure the last 30 minutes of our heads up match, all everyone wanted was for it to end...
I also thought I was gonna do a better job of recapping the hands but it's 2:42am right now and I have to get up in about 5 hrs... so, sorry for the abrupt ending, once again, thanks to all that railed me and supported me, either through the chat boxes or through girly chats. And I wish I coulda joined the blogger cash games but I had to focus on the tourneys tonight. Good night now!!!!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Cash games 101
Yesterday, a friend of mine described a situation where he considered it a bad beat and that without that hand, he woulda made more money. I'm sure what he did not expect was the critique that I immediately gave regarding the hand. And there were three of us on the email chain and I was actually shocked that they didn't see what I saw. So, I thought I would share that with you all for those that are looking to improve your cash game play. The situation is as follows:
"I played 187 during lunch, net of $22. Would of had more if for not some clown calling my $2 raise (had AK, .25/.50 table) preflop. Flop come 2-10-K. He bets like 1.50, I raise to 4. He calls. Turn is a Q. He checks, I bet (crazy?) $6, smooth calls. wft?? River is another Q. I check, bets like $6 into the pot. I call, he's got XX off. Loved it." <--- loved it was very sarcastic cuz it was a bad beat
I didn't edit this except for the villain's hand just so you could all get the actual feeling. I'm sure there are plenty of you that could totally relate to that. I mean I've heard it and I've seen it from so many people so many times. However, when I saw this email, there was no compassion. Instead, I immediately broke this hand down because it was actually a pretty poorly played hand in my opinion. Maybe some of you will agree with me, maybe some of you won't. But think about what I am saying here.
Based on his description of "he bets, I raise" the villain here limped from EP and my friend there raised to $2, 4xBB preflop.
Flop comes K-10-2. Fairly favorable flop for my friend with TPTK. However, the villain comes out firing into this pot. He bets $1.50 into a pot containing $4.50. My friend, assuming he's ahead, bumps it up to $4. Sounds good right? Well, not so fast.
Personally, I don't like that raise at all. Villain limp calls so he could have a marginal hand like QJ. K-10-2 is a safe looking board but can turn into a dangerous board in a hurry so if I were him, I'd want to take this hand down here with what I assume to be ahead. Even better would be if the villain has K-x. You're only behind to K-10 or K-2 if the villain has a king so you want to build the pot there. So, I think if he's gonna raise, he needs to put in a defining raise instead of raising it to $4 where now the villain just has to call $2.50 into a pot containing $10. 4:1 odds? Pretty unlikely to fold with those kinda odds if the hand is good enough to at least put in a probe bet. Plus a bump to $4 really isn't defining your hand. I think he shoulda raised it to like $8. Again, let him know you have a strong king and end it there.
Turn is a Q. Now the board is K-10-2-Q. If I were him, I hate that queen. Villain checks and my friend bets out. In the email, you see him ask "crazy?" My response? Yes. Q was a very sh*tty card in so many ways. If the guy had KQ, you just got beat. Now it's quite possible that the player here has a hand like QJ and just caught a pair. In which case my friend is still ahead. However, this is a spot where I would actually slow down. When I asked him why he bet out, he said he wanted to take the hand down there. The only problem now is that there's not too much value in betting here. Of course, if the guy has a hand like QJ, you might risk giving him another free card. But now, I want to control the pot. Here's the reason why. Since you initially failed to define your hand on the flop, you don't really know what the guy has. Sure he could have had a worse king in which case you are ahead (assuming he doesn't have KQ). If he had a hand like QJ, he only caught a pair and still has to draw out on you. Either way, you just don't really know where you stand. So, betting $6 really has no value here. If you can take it down with a $6 bet into a $12 pot, he didn't have anything. In other words, in that case, you want him to stick around. So, if the bet is intended to take the pot down, you had to bet more. Otherwise, checking is a good option because you control the pot size AND might induce him to bet on the river with a worse hand.
Now, let's stop here. For those of you that wondered "wait, you said you wanted to take the pot down on the flop but not on the turn. what changed?" That's a good question. But quite a few things. K-10-2 is a raggy board. Pretty safe with your TPTK. So, you want to define your hand there and if the villain is going to stick around with some sort of a hand, you want to make sure he pays for it. So, if the villain has some sort of a goofy hand, a good raise would take it down. But now that a Q has hit, the board is starting to get a little tricky. Considering you don't have too many outs at this point if you're behind, you want to be careful. Again, I stress on the part where I said if half a pot bet is good enough to take it down, then that means that the villain had a hand where you want him to stick around and possibly bluff at you on the river.
River comes another Q. Nightmare at this point. Villain bets $6 into a $22 pot and so my friend has to call. What did the villain end up having? J-9 for a guth shot straight draw into the turn. Sure, it was a crappy hand but a hand that wouldn't have been there if the flop raise was more defined. A hand that my friend could have saved some money if he checked the turn and kept the pot small.
When I mentioned this on the email, they were shocked that I suggested not betting the turn. One of the reasoning was "if the guy had a hand like A-10, he would fold there." Yeah true... but if he had a hand like A-10 on the turn, you WANT HIM in the hand. You don't want him to go away. He's drawing to 3 outs. Sure, 7% of the time, you might let him catch you but 93% of the time, you're gonna make more money by checking the turn because with the Q river, he definitely won't put you on the Q and you disguised your TPTK by checking the turn. He might figure he's 10 is good and bet out. If he checks, you can value bet and get some chips out of him there.
Also, another contradictory statement made by my friend was that this was a no fold'em table. Familiar? Of course. We've all been there right? Well, if it's so "no fold'em" then make them pay for their draws. Put a stronger raise on the flop. Define your hand and make them define theirs. Putting in a weak bet does nothing but sweeten the pot. Once you define your hand and he calls, then you can assume he's got something too. Then, control the pot size. Unless you have a monster, don't go crazy and don't think you're gonna take it down, even if you've seen a guy who calls the flop and then folds on the turn. Especially with such a dangerous turn card. You have to see the texture of the flop and the turn and what the opponent could hold. Then you have to decide whether you want him in the hand or out of the hand. The only holding you might want to protect yourself from a draw after the turn card is if the villain has QJ because now he's open ended and has a pair (though J won't be an out since it'll give my friend a straight).
Varying the speed with which you play even in the same hand is very important. You can be aggressive on one street, slow down on the next, only to speed it back up is perfectly fine and it will keep your opponents off balance. All in all, is this hand so poorly played? Aside from the flop, probably not. But remember, in a cash game, it's maximizing your winnings and minimizing your losses. And to do that, you want to be in control of manipulating the pot size. Learning to think that way has improved my cash game results.
"I played 187 during lunch, net of $22. Would of had more if for not some clown calling my $2 raise (had AK, .25/.50 table) preflop. Flop come 2-10-K. He bets like 1.50, I raise to 4. He calls. Turn is a Q. He checks, I bet (crazy?) $6, smooth calls. wft?? River is another Q. I check, bets like $6 into the pot. I call, he's got XX off. Loved it." <--- loved it was very sarcastic cuz it was a bad beat
I didn't edit this except for the villain's hand just so you could all get the actual feeling. I'm sure there are plenty of you that could totally relate to that. I mean I've heard it and I've seen it from so many people so many times. However, when I saw this email, there was no compassion. Instead, I immediately broke this hand down because it was actually a pretty poorly played hand in my opinion. Maybe some of you will agree with me, maybe some of you won't. But think about what I am saying here.
Based on his description of "he bets, I raise" the villain here limped from EP and my friend there raised to $2, 4xBB preflop.
Flop comes K-10-2. Fairly favorable flop for my friend with TPTK. However, the villain comes out firing into this pot. He bets $1.50 into a pot containing $4.50. My friend, assuming he's ahead, bumps it up to $4. Sounds good right? Well, not so fast.
Personally, I don't like that raise at all. Villain limp calls so he could have a marginal hand like QJ. K-10-2 is a safe looking board but can turn into a dangerous board in a hurry so if I were him, I'd want to take this hand down here with what I assume to be ahead. Even better would be if the villain has K-x. You're only behind to K-10 or K-2 if the villain has a king so you want to build the pot there. So, I think if he's gonna raise, he needs to put in a defining raise instead of raising it to $4 where now the villain just has to call $2.50 into a pot containing $10. 4:1 odds? Pretty unlikely to fold with those kinda odds if the hand is good enough to at least put in a probe bet. Plus a bump to $4 really isn't defining your hand. I think he shoulda raised it to like $8. Again, let him know you have a strong king and end it there.
Turn is a Q. Now the board is K-10-2-Q. If I were him, I hate that queen. Villain checks and my friend bets out. In the email, you see him ask "crazy?" My response? Yes. Q was a very sh*tty card in so many ways. If the guy had KQ, you just got beat. Now it's quite possible that the player here has a hand like QJ and just caught a pair. In which case my friend is still ahead. However, this is a spot where I would actually slow down. When I asked him why he bet out, he said he wanted to take the hand down there. The only problem now is that there's not too much value in betting here. Of course, if the guy has a hand like QJ, you might risk giving him another free card. But now, I want to control the pot. Here's the reason why. Since you initially failed to define your hand on the flop, you don't really know what the guy has. Sure he could have had a worse king in which case you are ahead (assuming he doesn't have KQ). If he had a hand like QJ, he only caught a pair and still has to draw out on you. Either way, you just don't really know where you stand. So, betting $6 really has no value here. If you can take it down with a $6 bet into a $12 pot, he didn't have anything. In other words, in that case, you want him to stick around. So, if the bet is intended to take the pot down, you had to bet more. Otherwise, checking is a good option because you control the pot size AND might induce him to bet on the river with a worse hand.
Now, let's stop here. For those of you that wondered "wait, you said you wanted to take the pot down on the flop but not on the turn. what changed?" That's a good question. But quite a few things. K-10-2 is a raggy board. Pretty safe with your TPTK. So, you want to define your hand there and if the villain is going to stick around with some sort of a hand, you want to make sure he pays for it. So, if the villain has some sort of a goofy hand, a good raise would take it down. But now that a Q has hit, the board is starting to get a little tricky. Considering you don't have too many outs at this point if you're behind, you want to be careful. Again, I stress on the part where I said if half a pot bet is good enough to take it down, then that means that the villain had a hand where you want him to stick around and possibly bluff at you on the river.
River comes another Q. Nightmare at this point. Villain bets $6 into a $22 pot and so my friend has to call. What did the villain end up having? J-9 for a guth shot straight draw into the turn. Sure, it was a crappy hand but a hand that wouldn't have been there if the flop raise was more defined. A hand that my friend could have saved some money if he checked the turn and kept the pot small.
When I mentioned this on the email, they were shocked that I suggested not betting the turn. One of the reasoning was "if the guy had a hand like A-10, he would fold there." Yeah true... but if he had a hand like A-10 on the turn, you WANT HIM in the hand. You don't want him to go away. He's drawing to 3 outs. Sure, 7% of the time, you might let him catch you but 93% of the time, you're gonna make more money by checking the turn because with the Q river, he definitely won't put you on the Q and you disguised your TPTK by checking the turn. He might figure he's 10 is good and bet out. If he checks, you can value bet and get some chips out of him there.
Also, another contradictory statement made by my friend was that this was a no fold'em table. Familiar? Of course. We've all been there right? Well, if it's so "no fold'em" then make them pay for their draws. Put a stronger raise on the flop. Define your hand and make them define theirs. Putting in a weak bet does nothing but sweeten the pot. Once you define your hand and he calls, then you can assume he's got something too. Then, control the pot size. Unless you have a monster, don't go crazy and don't think you're gonna take it down, even if you've seen a guy who calls the flop and then folds on the turn. Especially with such a dangerous turn card. You have to see the texture of the flop and the turn and what the opponent could hold. Then you have to decide whether you want him in the hand or out of the hand. The only holding you might want to protect yourself from a draw after the turn card is if the villain has QJ because now he's open ended and has a pair (though J won't be an out since it'll give my friend a straight).
Varying the speed with which you play even in the same hand is very important. You can be aggressive on one street, slow down on the next, only to speed it back up is perfectly fine and it will keep your opponents off balance. All in all, is this hand so poorly played? Aside from the flop, probably not. But remember, in a cash game, it's maximizing your winnings and minimizing your losses. And to do that, you want to be in control of manipulating the pot size. Learning to think that way has improved my cash game results.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Cash game analysis
Notice how I rarely bring up the tournaments I've been playing in such as the MATH or the Fifty Fifty? Yeah, cuz I suck in those. Tournaments are for donkeys anyways... :) Ok, so I'm bitter. But whatever.
This post will be relatively long as I go over 4 different hands in the cash games from last night but for those of you that regularly visit my blog (thank you), I would assume you're getting used to the drawn out, wordy posts... so, without further ado, here it goes. The sections will be broken out as follows:
Hand #1 - Making a stand against an active player
Hand #2 - Even donkeys think playing Ax out of position is a bad play
Hand #3 - AA is just one pair after all
Hand #4 - Overbet for value/playing against a known big pair is soooooo easy
Hand #1 - Making a stand against an active player
Full Tilt Poker Game #2771974967: Table Karina Jett - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:08:44 ET - 2007/06/26
The game was 6 handed with 3 empty seats - the villain here has been fairly active, aggressively raising and following through with a pot sized bet on the flop. And both the villain and I had similar stacks close to the buy-in.
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [6c Ac]
Villain raises to $14 <--- from UTG +1
RecessRampage calls $14 from the button
BB calls $10
After so many preflop raises, I felt that someone needed to apply the brakes to this guy. And for a little bit, he was successful because this was a full ring table that happened to only have 6 people in it. Some of the players (myself included since I was multitabling and didn't notice it was down to 6 handed) were playing like it was a 9 handed table (ie stronger starting hand requirement). Well, once I noticed that and started paying attention to what this guy was doing, I knew that he was raising with a very wide range so Ax suited from the button was good enough for me to call the preflop raise.
*** FLOP *** [2d 4c 5s]
BB checks
Villain bets $44
RecessRampage calls $44
BB folds
Villain lives up to his aggro nature and puts out a pot sized bet. He bet the pot amount EVERY SINGLE TIME. Floating here was a no brainer, especially with this flop that I didn't think helped him much. I could be wrong here but I'm drawing to a gut shot straight and a runner runner flush draw.
*** TURN *** [2d 4c 5s] [8h]
Villain has 15 seconds left to act
Villain bets $90
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $210
Villain folds
Uncalled bet of $120 returned to RecessRampage
RecessRampage mucks
RecessRampage wins the pot ($309)
I'm impressed that the villain had enough balls to fire out another bullet. But I felt that his "15 seconds to act" was not an act and instead a hesitation of betting. He fires out $90 into a pot that contains $132. Plus, I floated his flop bet with the intent of taking it down on the turn (as long as it was a safe card) so I stuck with my read and decided to pop him back, putting him to a decision. Plus, the turn card was kind and now I have a double gutted straight draw. If he indeed had a hand and came over the top, I'm pot committed and I'd have to call but I'd have 8 outs (most likely). Well, he folded right on cue.
Hand #2 - Even donkeys think playing Ax out of position is a bad play
This hand came up when I decided to join a table where my friend "JT" was playing. The stakes are generally not my playing range but actually, I made a very donkish play that I think illustrates why playing a hand like AJ (which a lot of people think is a good hand) out of position is a bad idea. I won't edit this one, since I'm the donkey here.
FullTiltPoker Game #2771492136: Table Mesa Peak - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:22:14 ET - 2007/06/25
Seat 1: InigoMontoya76 ($14.85)
Seat 2: Mingmin12 ($9.70)
Seat 3: theenergy ($9.20)
Seat 4: schadenfroid ($26)
Seat 5: RecessRampage ($23.90)
Seat 6: Emperor_Lex ($16.50)
Seat 7: SuAp ($25.85)
Seat 8: JokertheGiraffe ($23.55)
Seat 9: Saint66 ($31.50)
theenergy posts the small blind of $0.10
schadenfroid posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad Jd]
RecessRampage calls $0.25
Emperor_Lex folds
InigoMontoya76: d@mn recess, you got 8 eyes like spider. how many tables can you play?
SuAp folds
JokertheGiraffe raises to $1
Saint66 folds
RecessRampage: 4
InigoMontoya76 folds
Mingmin12 folds
theenergy folds
RecessRampage: it's killing me though
schadenfroid folds
RecessRampage: that's why I'm leaving
RecessRampage calls $0.75
*** FLOP *** [Ac 2h 7s]
RecessRampage checks
JokertheGiraffe bets $2
RecessRampage calls $2
*** TURN *** [Ac 2h 7s] [9s]
RecessRampage checks
JokertheGiraffe bets $20.55, and is all in
RecessRampage: crap
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage: oh well, here's a donation
RecessRampage calls $20.55
JokertheGiraffe shows [Ah Kd]
RecessRampage shows [Ad Jd]
My last statement said it best... nice overbet for value sir... I think I heard a bunch of donkeys laughing in the background. And for those of you that thought "you gotta fold that", let me ask you this. If you're gonna fold to a lot of pressure when you hit your top pair 3rd kicker, what the hell are you doing playing it in the first place?
Hand #3 - AA is just one pair after all
This is starting to become a ritual that I like - bloggers cash table.
FullTiltPoker Game #2771730507: Table Plunging Falls - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:44:53 ET - 2007/06/25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad As]
toJongbraNdon folds
Narena calls $2
pvanharibo folds
Fuel55 folds
cracknaces calls $2
hoyazo folds
MiamiDon folds
RecessRampage raises to $10
bayne_s folds
Narena calls $8
cracknaces has 15 seconds left to act
cracknaces calls $8
I don't know if the Chad's delay was because he thought about making a weird resteal squeeze play but it would've been nice if he did... And I did what I continue to rant that I hate doing... raising from the small blind, indicating that I have some sort of a hand... I don't mind doing that when I don't have a hand but I hate indicating I have a hand, when I do have a hand... Donkey lives here...
*** FLOP *** [3d Jd 4s]
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage bets $20
Narena calls $20
cracknaces has 15 seconds left to act
cracknaces folds
As this hand was unfolding, I was on the girly chat with Sia (Pouringreign) and I told him "watch this. I'm in trouble." The guy in EP who limped then called my raise preflop obviously has something when he called my bet on the flop. I don't know anything about this guy (or even if he/she is a blogger) but I knew I was gonna put the brakes on the moment he called.
*** TURN *** [3d Jd 4s] [Kc]
RecessRampage checks
Narena bets $26
RecessRampage calls $26
I'm trying my best now to keep the pot to a minimum. The $26 "call me" bet into a $70 pot is fishy as is...
*** RIVER *** [3d Jd 4s Kc] [6s]
RecessRampage checks
Narena has 15 seconds left to act
Narena has requested TIME
Narena bets $68
RecessRampage calls $68
If I were a true player, I'd make the laydown here. All signs pointed to a set. One day, I'll be able to make this fold. Classic "wait till the time ticks down because I'll let him think my hand may not be good" bet... always a monster in this instance. I know this and yet I call...
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Narena shows [4h 4c] three of a kind, Fours <--- of course, what else???
RecessRampage mucks
Narena wins the pot ($257) with three of a kind, Fours
Considering that I didn't fold, I think I kept my losing to a minimum. But again, folding on the river was probably the right play. Oh well. In a few minutes, the poker gods will reward me...
Hand #4 - Overbet for value/playing against a known big pair is soooooo easy
FullTiltPoker Game #2772044944: Table Plunging Falls - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:15:40 ET - 2007/06/26
toJongbraNdon posts the small blind of $1
Narena posts the big blind of $2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad 3d]
pvanharibo calls $2
Fuel55 calls $2
raisinchips folds
hoyazo folds
MiamiDon calls $2
RecessRampage calls $2 from the CO (bloggers are bunch of limping fools!)
bayne_s folds <--- Bayne, what did you fold!?
toJongbraNdon raises to $15 <--- there's a man with balls... and a good hand... :)
Narena folds
pvanharibo folds
Fuel55 calls $13 <--- thank you!
MiamiDon folds
RecessRampage calls $13
Admittedly here, when the villain raised to $15, if Fuel didn't call, I couldn't call. I'm actually surprised Don didn't call but maybe he had a hand like KQ or QJ where it could be easily dominated against a raise (in this situation, you'd rather have lower suited connectors, IMO)... but that's just me.
*** FLOP *** [3s 8h 3c] <--- to steal Fuel's phrase... GIN!
toJongbraNdon has 15 seconds left to act
toJongbraNdon bets $45 <--- when he did this, I told Sia "watch this, he's going busto"
Fuel55 folds
RecessRampage raises to $212.60, and is all in <--- overbet for value!
toJongbraNdon INSTACALLS $167.60
RecessRampage shows [Ad 3d]
toJongbraNdon shows [Qs Qh]
*** TURN *** [3s 8h 3c] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [3s 8h 3c 8c] [4h]
RecessRampage shows a full house, Threes full of Eights
toJongbraNdon shows two pair, Queens and Eights
RecessRampage wins the pot ($473.20) with a full house, Threes full of Eights
I obviously got lucky but the villain could not have made it any more obvious about what he had. To his credit, he didn't stick around to call me names and all that stuff but I'm sure he was pounding his fist into the keyboard and looking in disbelief when I flipped over A3... hey, I woulda been happy with a 2-4-5 flop too. Now why shove on the flop? Well, it probably wouldn't have mattered but I didn't want a card to come on the turn that would slow him down. From the sequence, I knew he had a high pocket pair. If I called and let's say an ace hits the turn, it could kill the action unless he trips up. So, instead, I overbet and he instacalls. He should at least given some thought to what I had... I mean seriously. The only time I would shove there against a guy who showed that kinda strength pre and post flop, would be if I had a 3, 88, or AA.
This post will be relatively long as I go over 4 different hands in the cash games from last night but for those of you that regularly visit my blog (thank you), I would assume you're getting used to the drawn out, wordy posts... so, without further ado, here it goes. The sections will be broken out as follows:
Hand #1 - Making a stand against an active player
Hand #2 - Even donkeys think playing Ax out of position is a bad play
Hand #3 - AA is just one pair after all
Hand #4 - Overbet for value/playing against a known big pair is soooooo easy
Hand #1 - Making a stand against an active player
Full Tilt Poker Game #2771974967: Table Karina Jett - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:08:44 ET - 2007/06/26
The game was 6 handed with 3 empty seats - the villain here has been fairly active, aggressively raising and following through with a pot sized bet on the flop. And both the villain and I had similar stacks close to the buy-in.
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [6c Ac]
Villain raises to $14 <--- from UTG +1
RecessRampage calls $14 from the button
BB calls $10
After so many preflop raises, I felt that someone needed to apply the brakes to this guy. And for a little bit, he was successful because this was a full ring table that happened to only have 6 people in it. Some of the players (myself included since I was multitabling and didn't notice it was down to 6 handed) were playing like it was a 9 handed table (ie stronger starting hand requirement). Well, once I noticed that and started paying attention to what this guy was doing, I knew that he was raising with a very wide range so Ax suited from the button was good enough for me to call the preflop raise.
*** FLOP *** [2d 4c 5s]
BB checks
Villain bets $44
RecessRampage calls $44
BB folds
Villain lives up to his aggro nature and puts out a pot sized bet. He bet the pot amount EVERY SINGLE TIME. Floating here was a no brainer, especially with this flop that I didn't think helped him much. I could be wrong here but I'm drawing to a gut shot straight and a runner runner flush draw.
*** TURN *** [2d 4c 5s] [8h]
Villain has 15 seconds left to act
Villain bets $90
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $210
Villain folds
Uncalled bet of $120 returned to RecessRampage
RecessRampage mucks
RecessRampage wins the pot ($309)
I'm impressed that the villain had enough balls to fire out another bullet. But I felt that his "15 seconds to act" was not an act and instead a hesitation of betting. He fires out $90 into a pot that contains $132. Plus, I floated his flop bet with the intent of taking it down on the turn (as long as it was a safe card) so I stuck with my read and decided to pop him back, putting him to a decision. Plus, the turn card was kind and now I have a double gutted straight draw. If he indeed had a hand and came over the top, I'm pot committed and I'd have to call but I'd have 8 outs (most likely). Well, he folded right on cue.
Hand #2 - Even donkeys think playing Ax out of position is a bad play
This hand came up when I decided to join a table where my friend "JT" was playing. The stakes are generally not my playing range but actually, I made a very donkish play that I think illustrates why playing a hand like AJ (which a lot of people think is a good hand) out of position is a bad idea. I won't edit this one, since I'm the donkey here.
FullTiltPoker Game #2771492136: Table Mesa Peak - $0.10/$0.25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:22:14 ET - 2007/06/25
Seat 1: InigoMontoya76 ($14.85)
Seat 2: Mingmin12 ($9.70)
Seat 3: theenergy ($9.20)
Seat 4: schadenfroid ($26)
Seat 5: RecessRampage ($23.90)
Seat 6: Emperor_Lex ($16.50)
Seat 7: SuAp ($25.85)
Seat 8: JokertheGiraffe ($23.55)
Seat 9: Saint66 ($31.50)
theenergy posts the small blind of $0.10
schadenfroid posts the big blind of $0.25
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad Jd]
RecessRampage calls $0.25
Emperor_Lex folds
InigoMontoya76: d@mn recess, you got 8 eyes like spider. how many tables can you play?
SuAp folds
JokertheGiraffe raises to $1
Saint66 folds
RecessRampage: 4
InigoMontoya76 folds
Mingmin12 folds
theenergy folds
RecessRampage: it's killing me though
schadenfroid folds
RecessRampage: that's why I'm leaving
RecessRampage calls $0.75
*** FLOP *** [Ac 2h 7s]
RecessRampage checks
JokertheGiraffe bets $2
RecessRampage calls $2
*** TURN *** [Ac 2h 7s] [9s]
RecessRampage checks
JokertheGiraffe bets $20.55, and is all in
RecessRampage: crap
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage: oh well, here's a donation
RecessRampage calls $20.55
JokertheGiraffe shows [Ah Kd]
RecessRampage shows [Ad Jd]
My last statement said it best... nice overbet for value sir... I think I heard a bunch of donkeys laughing in the background. And for those of you that thought "you gotta fold that", let me ask you this. If you're gonna fold to a lot of pressure when you hit your top pair 3rd kicker, what the hell are you doing playing it in the first place?
Hand #3 - AA is just one pair after all
This is starting to become a ritual that I like - bloggers cash table.
FullTiltPoker Game #2771730507: Table Plunging Falls - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:44:53 ET - 2007/06/25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad As]
toJongbraNdon folds
Narena calls $2
pvanharibo folds
Fuel55 folds
cracknaces calls $2
hoyazo folds
MiamiDon folds
RecessRampage raises to $10
bayne_s folds
Narena calls $8
cracknaces has 15 seconds left to act
cracknaces calls $8
I don't know if the Chad's delay was because he thought about making a weird resteal squeeze play but it would've been nice if he did... And I did what I continue to rant that I hate doing... raising from the small blind, indicating that I have some sort of a hand... I don't mind doing that when I don't have a hand but I hate indicating I have a hand, when I do have a hand... Donkey lives here...
*** FLOP *** [3d Jd 4s]
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage bets $20
Narena calls $20
cracknaces has 15 seconds left to act
cracknaces folds
As this hand was unfolding, I was on the girly chat with Sia (Pouringreign) and I told him "watch this. I'm in trouble." The guy in EP who limped then called my raise preflop obviously has something when he called my bet on the flop. I don't know anything about this guy (or even if he/she is a blogger) but I knew I was gonna put the brakes on the moment he called.
*** TURN *** [3d Jd 4s] [Kc]
RecessRampage checks
Narena bets $26
RecessRampage calls $26
I'm trying my best now to keep the pot to a minimum. The $26 "call me" bet into a $70 pot is fishy as is...
*** RIVER *** [3d Jd 4s Kc] [6s]
RecessRampage checks
Narena has 15 seconds left to act
Narena has requested TIME
Narena bets $68
RecessRampage calls $68
If I were a true player, I'd make the laydown here. All signs pointed to a set. One day, I'll be able to make this fold. Classic "wait till the time ticks down because I'll let him think my hand may not be good" bet... always a monster in this instance. I know this and yet I call...
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Narena shows [4h 4c] three of a kind, Fours <--- of course, what else???
RecessRampage mucks
Narena wins the pot ($257) with three of a kind, Fours
Considering that I didn't fold, I think I kept my losing to a minimum. But again, folding on the river was probably the right play. Oh well. In a few minutes, the poker gods will reward me...
Hand #4 - Overbet for value/playing against a known big pair is soooooo easy
FullTiltPoker Game #2772044944: Table Plunging Falls - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:15:40 ET - 2007/06/26
toJongbraNdon posts the small blind of $1
Narena posts the big blind of $2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ad 3d]
pvanharibo calls $2
Fuel55 calls $2
raisinchips folds
hoyazo folds
MiamiDon calls $2
RecessRampage calls $2 from the CO (bloggers are bunch of limping fools!)
bayne_s folds <--- Bayne, what did you fold!?
toJongbraNdon raises to $15 <--- there's a man with balls... and a good hand... :)
Narena folds
pvanharibo folds
Fuel55 calls $13 <--- thank you!
MiamiDon folds
RecessRampage calls $13
Admittedly here, when the villain raised to $15, if Fuel didn't call, I couldn't call. I'm actually surprised Don didn't call but maybe he had a hand like KQ or QJ where it could be easily dominated against a raise (in this situation, you'd rather have lower suited connectors, IMO)... but that's just me.
*** FLOP *** [3s 8h 3c] <--- to steal Fuel's phrase... GIN!
toJongbraNdon has 15 seconds left to act
toJongbraNdon bets $45 <--- when he did this, I told Sia "watch this, he's going busto"
Fuel55 folds
RecessRampage raises to $212.60, and is all in <--- overbet for value!
toJongbraNdon INSTACALLS $167.60
RecessRampage shows [Ad 3d]
toJongbraNdon shows [Qs Qh]
*** TURN *** [3s 8h 3c] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [3s 8h 3c 8c] [4h]
RecessRampage shows a full house, Threes full of Eights
toJongbraNdon shows two pair, Queens and Eights
RecessRampage wins the pot ($473.20) with a full house, Threes full of Eights
I obviously got lucky but the villain could not have made it any more obvious about what he had. To his credit, he didn't stick around to call me names and all that stuff but I'm sure he was pounding his fist into the keyboard and looking in disbelief when I flipped over A3... hey, I woulda been happy with a 2-4-5 flop too. Now why shove on the flop? Well, it probably wouldn't have mattered but I didn't want a card to come on the turn that would slow him down. From the sequence, I knew he had a high pocket pair. If I called and let's say an ace hits the turn, it could kill the action unless he trips up. So, instead, I overbet and he instacalls. He should at least given some thought to what I had... I mean seriously. The only time I would shove there against a guy who showed that kinda strength pre and post flop, would be if I had a 3, 88, or AA.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
My biggest pot ever!
Dabbled in a little 3-6NL 6max game this weekend... results were mixed but this hand came up...
Full Tilt Poker Game #2758351259: Table Chopin (6 max) - $3/$6 - No Limit Hold'em - 16:44:51 ET - 2007/06/24
Seat 1: shortwizard ($550.95)
Seat 2: jimmy337 ($684.70)
Seat 3: RecessRampage ($867.60)
Seat 4: Canonlil ($546.65)
Seat 5: BikStik8585 ($802.40)
Seat 6: JustCuts ($621)
jimmy337 posts the small blind of $3
RecessRampage posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Kc Kd]
Canonlil folds
BikStik8585 raises to $21
JustCuts folds
shortwizard calls $21
jimmy337 folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $75 <--- I still hate doing this... so obvious...
BikStik8585 has 15 seconds left to act
BikStik8585 calls $54
shortwizard calls $54
*** FLOP *** [2c 3d 5h]
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage bets $150
BikStik8585 has 15 seconds left to act
BikStik8585 raises to $727.40, and is all in
shortwizard folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage calls $577.40
BikStik8585 shows [4s 5s]
RecessRampage shows [Kc Kd]
*** TURN *** [2c 3d 5h] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [2c 3d 5h 8c] [Th]
BikStik8585 shows a pair of Fives
RecessRampage shows a pair of Kings
RecessRampage wins the pot ($1,679.80) with a pair of Kings
The interesting thing is that the situation is eerily similar to one of the hands described in this post. I guess I continue to be amazed with the raise from such EP with a suited connector as low as that (in the other post, it was 2-3). Kind of a donkish call but one that I felt I almost had no choice... still, a nice pot!
Full Tilt Poker Game #2758351259: Table Chopin (6 max) - $3/$6 - No Limit Hold'em - 16:44:51 ET - 2007/06/24
Seat 1: shortwizard ($550.95)
Seat 2: jimmy337 ($684.70)
Seat 3: RecessRampage ($867.60)
Seat 4: Canonlil ($546.65)
Seat 5: BikStik8585 ($802.40)
Seat 6: JustCuts ($621)
jimmy337 posts the small blind of $3
RecessRampage posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Kc Kd]
Canonlil folds
BikStik8585 raises to $21
JustCuts folds
shortwizard calls $21
jimmy337 folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $75 <--- I still hate doing this... so obvious...
BikStik8585 has 15 seconds left to act
BikStik8585 calls $54
shortwizard calls $54
*** FLOP *** [2c 3d 5h]
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage bets $150
BikStik8585 has 15 seconds left to act
BikStik8585 raises to $727.40, and is all in
shortwizard folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage calls $577.40
BikStik8585 shows [4s 5s]
RecessRampage shows [Kc Kd]
*** TURN *** [2c 3d 5h] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [2c 3d 5h 8c] [Th]
BikStik8585 shows a pair of Fives
RecessRampage shows a pair of Kings
RecessRampage wins the pot ($1,679.80) with a pair of Kings
The interesting thing is that the situation is eerily similar to one of the hands described in this post. I guess I continue to be amazed with the raise from such EP with a suited connector as low as that (in the other post, it was 2-3). Kind of a donkish call but one that I felt I almost had no choice... still, a nice pot!
Big pot = Big hand
Couple of interesting cash hands to post here. As a general rule of thumb (which is dangerous to have), I try to follow the "Big pot = big hand" rule... in other words, if there's a big pot brewing, I want to have a big hand to stay in (or potentially a big hand) or it would be a total bluff. It won't be with some sort of mediocre, tough decision hand... So, let me throw out two examples of AA here, followed by a big pot with a suited connector.
FullTiltPoker Game #2749689770: Table Vintners (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:08:44 ET - 2007/06/23
I started with a full buyin of $400 and ran it up to about $530 when this hand came up against a villain who had me covered...
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ac Ad]
UTG folds
Villain raises to $14 from UTG+1
2 folds
SB raises to $24
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage has requested TIME
RecessRampage raises to $75
Villain calls $61
SB calls $51
Fairly standard reraise at a 6max table here for couple of reasons. I don't necessarily always reraise with AA. On the same token, one of them obviously likes their hand considering there's a raise from UTG+1 AND a reraise from SB OOP. So, with the current best hand, I wanted to build the pot, hence the reraise. Ideally, I wanted to narrow the field but that didn't happen.
*** FLOP *** [Kd Jh Qh]
SB checks
RecessRampage checks
Villain bets $100
SB folds
RecessRampage calls $100
All things considered, I hated this flop. There's a lot of hands there that could be beating my hand right now. However, the $100 bet is a pretty small bet considering the pot at this point is $225. I'm just glad one of them folded though.
*** TURN *** [Kd Jh Qh] [5d]
RecessRampage checks
Villain checks
I'm more than willing to check this hand down considering that I already did all the pot building early and since I don't like the texture of the flop AND I'm OOP.
*** RIVER *** [Kd Jh Qh 5d] [6c]
RecessRampage checks
Villain checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain shows [Ah Ks] a pair of Kings
RecessRampage shows [Ac Ad] a pair of Aces
RecessRampage wins the pot ($422) with a pair of Aces
So it turns out that the Villain hated the flop as well since there aren't too many hands that he could beat, considering all the action preflop.
FullTiltPoker Game #2750210534: Table Vintners (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:12:49 ET - 2007/06/23
2 other players involved here both have me covered as I have approx $390 at the table. They are both decent players who are aggressive but I haven't seen anything from either players to think that they are out of line.
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ac As]
UTG raises to $14
UTG+1 folds
MP folds
Villain calls $14 from button
SB folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $62 <--- from the BB
UTG calls $48
Villain calls $48
Once again, I tried narrowing the field but they both appear to like what they have. Well, the flop comes and this is where it gets interesting...
*** FLOP *** [7d 3c 5s]
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage bets $110
UTG calls $110
Villain has 15 seconds left to act
Villain raises to $398.60, and is all in
Now what would you do here? You have approx $220 left behind you. Based on what just happened, could it be that there are three overpairs? One thing we know for sure (IMO) is that all three of us have a pocket pair. Not just based on the preflop sequence but the fact that the board came all low, I bet out after my reraise and there's a smooth call right after me from UTG. So, either UTG has JJ-KK or he flopped a set with a hand like 77 and is just smooth calling to entice another caller here. So, the presence of UTG made it uncomfortable for me even though I have to admit, I didn't think I was behind UTG. On the other hand, what would the villain have that justifies this move. Only thing I could think of was a set. Based on the entire sequence, it makes perfect sense. As such... this is what happened...
RecessRampage folds
UTG has 15 seconds left to act
UTG has requested TIME
UTG folds
Uncalled bet of $288.60 returned to Villain
Villain wins the pot ($515)
So clearly, UTG had a pretty big pair because he also let his additional time run down before he finally decided to fold. So, he and I probably shared the same read there regarding the villain's play. I would still love to hear other people's thoughts. Only thing I wonder is if I was pretty much priced in. $515 pot, $220 for me to call. Again, I still like my fold, even after reviewing this hand later. Still hurts to fold AA though...
FullTiltPoker Game #2750158930: Table Marietta (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:06:24 ET - 2007/06/23
I'm up to $500 at this table and the villain involved is a fairly active player who had about $540.
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Tc 9c]
Villain raises to $14 from MP
RecessRampage raises to $48 from the button
Villain calls $34
This is just a variation that I occasionally throw out. I don't do it with every suited connector in position or anything. But every once in a while, I like to mix in a few reraises with nonpremier hand and so that's what happened here. I don't mind the call since I have position and based on his call, my guess is that he's got a PP or AK type of hand.
*** FLOP *** [6s Jh 3s]
Villain checks
RecessRampage bets $75
Villain calls $75
Just following through on the sequence. I obviously didn't like his call too much but on the same token, now, I know that he's got a pocket pair. The question is, can he let it go or not.
*** TURN *** [6s Jh 3s] [8d]
Villain checks
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage checks
The turn card made things interesting for me. First of all, it gave me the nut straight draw. So, I debated about following through on the bluff and firing out another bullet which now would be a semi-bluff thanks to the turn card. I would say 8 of 10 times, I'd fire out another bullet here. At this point, I'm pretty sure about what the villain has. He's got a pocket pair that could be something like 77-TT. Could be lower but that would be pretty shocking. He calls my bet on the flop with a pocket pair because I could be doing the same move with AK at which point I might slow down on the turn. So, if I bet here, I'll probably get a fold unless he hit a set because he can't like his midpair after a reraise preflop and a bet on the flop and the turn. However, because I felt that my hand was so well concealed, I decided to get a little fancy here and check. If I hit my straight, I was going to overbet, trying to represent a bluff with AK, at which point, this guy would surely call since his thought would be, "why did he slow down on the turn if he had a made hand?" I could potentially lose this pot because of this play but that was a risk I was willing to take (which is probably why I tend to have big variances at times).
*** RIVER *** [6s Jh 3s 8d] [7d] <--- BOOM!
Villain has 15 seconds left to act
Villain bets $165 <--- lol, even better!
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $376.95, and is all in
Villain calls $211.95
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RecessRampage shows [Tc 9c] a straight, Jack high
Villain mucks
RecessRampage wins the pot ($1,002.90) with a straight, Jack high
To say that I got extremely lucky here is an understatement. Turns out the villain had 77 for a rivered set which was why he bet out. The only thing I had to think about was how much to bet but since he bet out such a big amount, I figured he must like the hand he made/had and so I decided to push, representing a desperate attempt to take it down with my overpair (or what the villain surely thought I had). I just got lucky that a) I caught my straight but more importantly that b) the villain caught a hand at the end. More often than not, I would have followed up with another bet on the turn there so I also got lucky that on one of the few times I didn't, it worked out in my favor. However, keep in mind that at this point, I felt that in the villain's eyes, I either had a higher pocket pair or AK. So, instead of just the 8 outs I had (or maybe 6 if you're afraid of the flush), I had the phantom +6 outs (any ace, any king) since if either one of those cards come on the river, I'm betting there as well and most likely taking it down.
FullTiltPoker Game #2749689770: Table Vintners (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:08:44 ET - 2007/06/23
I started with a full buyin of $400 and ran it up to about $530 when this hand came up against a villain who had me covered...
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ac Ad]
UTG folds
Villain raises to $14 from UTG+1
2 folds
SB raises to $24
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage has requested TIME
RecessRampage raises to $75
Villain calls $61
SB calls $51
Fairly standard reraise at a 6max table here for couple of reasons. I don't necessarily always reraise with AA. On the same token, one of them obviously likes their hand considering there's a raise from UTG+1 AND a reraise from SB OOP. So, with the current best hand, I wanted to build the pot, hence the reraise. Ideally, I wanted to narrow the field but that didn't happen.
*** FLOP *** [Kd Jh Qh]
SB checks
RecessRampage checks
Villain bets $100
SB folds
RecessRampage calls $100
All things considered, I hated this flop. There's a lot of hands there that could be beating my hand right now. However, the $100 bet is a pretty small bet considering the pot at this point is $225. I'm just glad one of them folded though.
*** TURN *** [Kd Jh Qh] [5d]
RecessRampage checks
Villain checks
I'm more than willing to check this hand down considering that I already did all the pot building early and since I don't like the texture of the flop AND I'm OOP.
*** RIVER *** [Kd Jh Qh 5d] [6c]
RecessRampage checks
Villain checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain shows [Ah Ks] a pair of Kings
RecessRampage shows [Ac Ad] a pair of Aces
RecessRampage wins the pot ($422) with a pair of Aces
So it turns out that the Villain hated the flop as well since there aren't too many hands that he could beat, considering all the action preflop.
FullTiltPoker Game #2750210534: Table Vintners (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:12:49 ET - 2007/06/23
2 other players involved here both have me covered as I have approx $390 at the table. They are both decent players who are aggressive but I haven't seen anything from either players to think that they are out of line.
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Ac As]
UTG raises to $14
UTG+1 folds
MP folds
Villain calls $14 from button
SB folds
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $62 <--- from the BB
UTG calls $48
Villain calls $48
Once again, I tried narrowing the field but they both appear to like what they have. Well, the flop comes and this is where it gets interesting...
*** FLOP *** [7d 3c 5s]
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage bets $110
UTG calls $110
Villain has 15 seconds left to act
Villain raises to $398.60, and is all in
Now what would you do here? You have approx $220 left behind you. Based on what just happened, could it be that there are three overpairs? One thing we know for sure (IMO) is that all three of us have a pocket pair. Not just based on the preflop sequence but the fact that the board came all low, I bet out after my reraise and there's a smooth call right after me from UTG. So, either UTG has JJ-KK or he flopped a set with a hand like 77 and is just smooth calling to entice another caller here. So, the presence of UTG made it uncomfortable for me even though I have to admit, I didn't think I was behind UTG. On the other hand, what would the villain have that justifies this move. Only thing I could think of was a set. Based on the entire sequence, it makes perfect sense. As such... this is what happened...
RecessRampage folds
UTG has 15 seconds left to act
UTG has requested TIME
UTG folds
Uncalled bet of $288.60 returned to Villain
Villain wins the pot ($515)
So clearly, UTG had a pretty big pair because he also let his additional time run down before he finally decided to fold. So, he and I probably shared the same read there regarding the villain's play. I would still love to hear other people's thoughts. Only thing I wonder is if I was pretty much priced in. $515 pot, $220 for me to call. Again, I still like my fold, even after reviewing this hand later. Still hurts to fold AA though...
FullTiltPoker Game #2750158930: Table Marietta (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:06:24 ET - 2007/06/23
I'm up to $500 at this table and the villain involved is a fairly active player who had about $540.
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RecessRampage [Tc 9c]
Villain raises to $14 from MP
RecessRampage raises to $48 from the button
Villain calls $34
This is just a variation that I occasionally throw out. I don't do it with every suited connector in position or anything. But every once in a while, I like to mix in a few reraises with nonpremier hand and so that's what happened here. I don't mind the call since I have position and based on his call, my guess is that he's got a PP or AK type of hand.
*** FLOP *** [6s Jh 3s]
Villain checks
RecessRampage bets $75
Villain calls $75
Just following through on the sequence. I obviously didn't like his call too much but on the same token, now, I know that he's got a pocket pair. The question is, can he let it go or not.
*** TURN *** [6s Jh 3s] [8d]
Villain checks
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage checks
The turn card made things interesting for me. First of all, it gave me the nut straight draw. So, I debated about following through on the bluff and firing out another bullet which now would be a semi-bluff thanks to the turn card. I would say 8 of 10 times, I'd fire out another bullet here. At this point, I'm pretty sure about what the villain has. He's got a pocket pair that could be something like 77-TT. Could be lower but that would be pretty shocking. He calls my bet on the flop with a pocket pair because I could be doing the same move with AK at which point I might slow down on the turn. So, if I bet here, I'll probably get a fold unless he hit a set because he can't like his midpair after a reraise preflop and a bet on the flop and the turn. However, because I felt that my hand was so well concealed, I decided to get a little fancy here and check. If I hit my straight, I was going to overbet, trying to represent a bluff with AK, at which point, this guy would surely call since his thought would be, "why did he slow down on the turn if he had a made hand?" I could potentially lose this pot because of this play but that was a risk I was willing to take (which is probably why I tend to have big variances at times).
*** RIVER *** [6s Jh 3s 8d] [7d] <--- BOOM!
Villain has 15 seconds left to act
Villain bets $165 <--- lol, even better!
RecessRampage has 15 seconds left to act
RecessRampage raises to $376.95, and is all in
Villain calls $211.95
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RecessRampage shows [Tc 9c] a straight, Jack high
Villain mucks
RecessRampage wins the pot ($1,002.90) with a straight, Jack high
To say that I got extremely lucky here is an understatement. Turns out the villain had 77 for a rivered set which was why he bet out. The only thing I had to think about was how much to bet but since he bet out such a big amount, I figured he must like the hand he made/had and so I decided to push, representing a desperate attempt to take it down with my overpair (or what the villain surely thought I had). I just got lucky that a) I caught my straight but more importantly that b) the villain caught a hand at the end. More often than not, I would have followed up with another bet on the turn there so I also got lucky that on one of the few times I didn't, it worked out in my favor. However, keep in mind that at this point, I felt that in the villain's eyes, I either had a higher pocket pair or AK. So, instead of just the 8 outs I had (or maybe 6 if you're afraid of the flush), I had the phantom +6 outs (any ace, any king) since if either one of those cards come on the river, I'm betting there as well and most likely taking it down.
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