weekly update #13
08 April 2008
31 Mar - 6 Apr:
3,080 hands (100nl)
-$151.05
-5.8 ptbb/100
930 hands (50nl)
-$425.65
-45.77 ptbb/100
Oh man that stings just looking at it. Obviously not the results I was looking for to start off April, but I think that there was a lot of great learning over those 4000 hands. I started off the month pretty poorly at 100nl, which wasn't a big deal. Hit up a ton of LeggoPoker vids (all of craig's low limit stuff) and tried to soak up all of the selective aggression information. After some PT review and reflection I decided that my game was pretty straightforward and I needed to make some alterations in order to prevent falling into tagfish mentality. And so started the 50nl "let's get into tough spots with marginal hands and learn how to play" adventure.
I'd like to give myself an "A" for effort, because I went all out crazy trying to get into marginal spots. I think I did a pretty good job of that, running 29/25/4.5 over the 900 or so hands I put in. However, I get a nice, big "FAIL" for my overall results. While I effectively got into these marginal spots, you can't really say that I managed them even close to profitably. Of the overall 8 buyins I lost during the process, I'd say that about 3 of them were due to coolers (KK vs AA, QQ vs AA, JJ vs QQ), a couple due to combo draws not hitting, and the rest was just bad play on my part. Growing pains were to be expected, so I'm not too concerned. In general though, I was really pleased with the process, as I started to get the hang of when to float certain villains and take the pot away on the turn, who and when I could 3bet lite preflop, what boards I could profitably (and not so profitably) double barrel, etc. We'll call it a $250 lesson and move on knowing that I've gained a ton of knowledge that should help my overall play.
Some interesting hands that popped up through the week that are worth discussing:
Hand 1:
Villain is 22/11/0.9 over 220 hands and we've tangled a bit in some smaller pots. I'm playing pretty loose at this point in the session, opening a lot of hands late position with very little resistance from the table. Being as though we're both 200bb+ deep I think a call of his 3bet here is pretty mandatory. He's likely not 3betting with his mid pocket pairs here, so he almost certainly has JJ+, AQ+ and if I can flop big I might be able to build up a fairly significant pot (implied odds ftw). Check behind on the flop leads me to believe he's got a decent hand that has showdown value, basically just looking for some pot control. Turn is gold for me as it likely doesn't improve my perceived range and he's obligated to make a call with literally anything in his range outside of AQ. Here's where I think I mess up the hand... I bet $14 into $24 and end up missing a significant amount of value in the hand because of it. What hand can he possibly have that is calling $14 but not calling $20? Nothing. So if I bet out to $20 here and get a call then I have a $64 pot on the river that I can fire $55 or so at and likely get a call from AK still. As played, though, I still like the river bet size in relation to the pot in order to maximize my value. Overall, I likely missed out on at least $20 more from him simply by betting too small on the flop. Baby steps... baby steps...
Hand 2:
Villain is 19/8/1.3 over 170 hands. More missed value on this hand, I think. A flat behind from a villain with these stats likely means a mid to low pocket pair (22-TT), or some sort of suited broadway cards. Pretty standard cbet on the flop here, although I'm not 100% pleased with the size. I've been trying to change up my bet size between 1/2pot and 3/4pot, but don't think this is necessarily the spot for the former. Anyway, on the turn I need to be firing out more than $14 into $24 (coincidence? more likely a trend...). Standard Zeebo theorem applies, and I just made second nuts. Same goes for the river, as the J likely doesn't improve my hand here. Probably another Andrew Jackson left on the table here.... frown face.
Hand 3:
Villain is 31/22/2.4 over 150 hands. Pretty standard isolation here, and obviously jumping up and down in my seat when the flop hits. However, what line is best to take in these situations. I know that the original raiser is crazy aggressive on the flop (9.5 flop AF), so I elected to let him stab at it. I didn't want to c/r him off of a hand like KQ, QQ, JJ, or some other randomness. Felt like he might take another stab at it on the turn, and I'd still almost always get him to stack off with AQ and maybe AJ, but does c/c flop + check turn actually "look too strong"? Anyway, figured a river bet of like $15 would look like a blocker bet with mid pocket pair, but maybe I should have just let him attempt to bluff the river. I know it's all theoretical at this point, but what line do y'all think would get the best value here?
Hand 4:
UTG+1 Villain is 56/21/1.7 over 170 hands; CO and SB are unknown but I'm not giving the CO any credit with his stack size as it is. 69s isn't a hand I'll typically play, but given the multiway nature of the pot I figured it was good enough to see a flop. Leading the flop here is pretty standard, I think. Turn completes the flush draw, so betting out here might not be the greatest idea, but I still think it's fine. If I get raised up here it's an easy pitch, but I dont exactly know what a flatcall suggests... he minraised preflop UTG+1, flatted a flop bet, and now flats a turn bet. It didn't really add up to me, and I figured he might have something like AJc or something of that nature, so I went for some value on the river. Was this a mistake? I don't really think I can call a raise here, but I just can't quite figure out what he could possibly have here.
** I've got 2 more hands that I want to post, but I'm only going to put up partial streets in order to get feedback on lines. Hopefully I'll have time to get those up soon.
Posted byM0NIKER at 11:33 AM
hand 1: bomb the turn for pot, bet near pot on river. as played, good river bet.
hand 2: flop isn't bad, i'd imagine you're only beat by 88-99 in this spot. I'd bet a bit bigger as he's not folding 22-66. When the turn comes i'd DEFINITELY size bigger. zeebo theorem, son. $20 works. On the river I'd bet closer to pot too.
hand 3: I'd squeeze a bit more here, as you're OOP to both of these clowns. good check here and nice flat. hmmmm. on the turn you might be able to lead small $20 or so, even though it's rather transparent, you could get value from diamond and flush draws as well as get raised by other strong aces and called by weak aces. If you're going to check this turn, I don't see the point of betting river like this. fire $60 and hope he can't fold a weak ace
hand 4: flop, definitely pot this all day. OOP with an exploitable hand and a billion draws to come. turn i'd be bet folding, sized a bit larger, and likely bet folding river as well (don't like checking / calling river as he checks back a lot of missed draw).