this week in review
12 February 2008
04 Feb - 10 Feb:
13 hands (50nl)
$43.00
661.54 bb/100 -- sustainable???
2,467 hands (100nl)
-$305.44
-12.38 bb/100
Overall a pretty awful week in terms of net won/loss, however I'm not too worried about the bottom line results. I think that there were a ton of sticky situations that I got myself into, and the deck just wasn't hitting me very hard at all. I had to fold a lot of big pair type hands on scary boards, made some bad plays, etc. but in the long run I think it served as a pretty good learning experience for me. I'll post a few hands that I had some second thoughts about at the bottom of this post, but most of the big ones for the week have already been displayed in previous posts. As evidenced by the breakdown of hands played, I also decided to step up to 100nl as my main game for now. My bankroll is sitting just over $3100 and I'm confident enough in my 50nl game as a rebuilding tool to say that I'll be at 100nl from now on barring any downswing that drops me below $2600. Good luck to me in my second shot at 100nl.
Something that I had set as a goal for this month was to participate in at least one sweat session per week... managed 2 this week (one where I railed malfaire at 200nl and one where malfaire and btimm watched me tank at 100nl). Also joined up with btimm (Brian), appleseed (John), and ladymuck (Ian) to create a poker review group which I think will be greatly beneficial to us all. Hopefully we follow in the steps of UF2B and end up hitting the midstakes tables in the next few months. First group sweat session was last night, with btimm playing some 50nl. Overall a good session with some tough spots and a massive cooler (that was played well IMO) which ended up preventing a +1.5BI run. I guess I'm up for the group sweat next week, so stay tuned.
Problem Hands:
Hand 1
Can I really get away from this hand? The flop looked pretty innocuous to me, with the only real threat being a hand like 9T or 67. While the villain is 40/10/1.9, and these hands are definitely part of his range, I'm not necessarily thinking that I need to raise up this hand on the flop. When the villain leads the turn as well, I'm starting to think that he has a pretty strong hand, maybe some crazy 2 pair, a lower set, or even AJ or KJ. I'm ahead of all of these hands (and he almost never has QQ here), but am completely dominated by 9T. However, I don't think I can narrow his range down to the made straight, so I think I have to call his push as played. What do you think?
Hand 2
Hands like this really confuse me and I have no idea what to do on a flop like this. I really think that I need to pop up this weak isolation by the CO (42/7/1.2), but his range is extremely narrow here and I am utterly baffled when he flats my 4.5x 4bet OOP. Should I be c-betting when he checks this A flop to me? What about the turn? I really don't like my line at all, but feel as though I need to be calling his ridiculously weak river bet since he's showing up with TT-QQ at least 15% of the time here (sidenote: calling a 4.5x 4bet OOP preflop with AQo is really, really bad... -endrant-). Thoughts?
Posted byM0NIKER at 10:44 AM
Hand 1: You have to stack off here. Only QQ and 910 have you beat and I do agree we can discredit QQ. If you stove this with even a fairly narrow range, I think you will see you must felt it. If he as 910, so be it, you stil have 10 outs on the river.
Hand 2: Many players will say that you have to lead this flop and I fully agree. If he has 1010-KK (I know KK is unlikely), he has to fold here. Make it a size that you can get away from the hand if pushed, because you aren't beating anything he pushes. An A high flop just smacks so much of your range that a bet has to be respected. This is not like the KK hand when Mark and I sweated you, where it was completely villain dependent IMO where I thought a cbet was profitable, this is a heads up 4-bet pot, I think you need to bet here. Well actually, fuck, what the Hell is he flatting you with here?? Tough spot. Is firing $30 off too weak? It allows to fold if pushes. It also is enough to where most 1010-KK still fold or at least will check it down. Maybe firing $30 or $35 is optimal here, I am not sure this is a very sticky spot, would be nice to get some good fedback on this hand.
Hope you are feeling 100% soon and can get some hands in. IM me if you wanna do a sweat Wednesday or Friday, busy pretty much the rest of the week.
The more I think about hand 2, the more I like a check. You are not folding out any hands that beat you and you are not getting value from anything you beat. There really serves no purpose in betting here and I think you played it well.
Hand 1: Def a cooler. You have to stack off here. He shows up with alot of hands you beat here.
Hand 2: I like how you played it. You basically lost the min. I agree with Brian's second post because by betting you are folding out 88-QQ and getting called by AK,AQ,AJ.
His stats look passive enough that I think it's safe to fold to a bigger bet on turn or river when you check the flop.
Since he betted so small on the river, I would call and try to catch a bluff/thin value bet.
6:30 pm EST seems to work better for Ian for our Monday group sweats? Is that okay with you?
In hand#1 I'd be tempted to raise the flop, because he leads into you indicating some sort of hand (I think this type of player is unlikely to fold a Jack & possibly an eight here). I think you have to call his shove.
Hand#2 - you could bet / fold the flop, but you played it well and lost the minimum.