Archive for February, 2010

I’m playing the 5k Venetian Deep Stakes/ NAPT tournament today, headed down right now to get started, there will be updates on Twitter, you can view them here.

This one of his first 4-bets, but this guy was very aggressive with his 3-bets pre-flop, and I had an inkling he was light. My hand isn’t a bad one to jam pre-flop, but I decided just to call and check-shove if I caught any piece. A gutshot, an overcard, and a backdoor flush draw looked good enough, and I’m not sure if the results speak well for my plan or not:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (2 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($7037.50)
Hero (BB) ($6200)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 4, A
SB bets $100, Hero raises to $400, SB raises to $950, Hero calls $550

Flop: ($1900) Q, 2, 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $950, Hero raises to $5250 (All-In), SB calls $4300

Turn: ($12400) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($12400) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $12400 | Rake: $1

Results:
SB had Q, 4 (three of a kind, Queens).
Hero had 4, A (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: SB won $12399

I won some medium pots and this one to get back to about even against him (he only started with 3K, so he was up on me even before the hand above):

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (2 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com  Read the complete post...

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1961)
Hero (UTG) ($2651.50)
UTG+1 ($2040)
MP1 ($2474)
MP2 ($3105)
MP3 ($1027.50)
CO ($2000)
Button ($1857)
SB ($2904)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J, A
Hero bets $80, 3 folds, MP3 calls $80, 3 folds, BB calls $60

Flop: ($250) 6, 6, 6 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $166, MP3 calls $166, BB calls $166

Turn: ($748) 8 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $444, 1 fold, BB calls $444

River: ($1636) Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Total pot: $1636 | Rake: $3

Results:
BB had 10, 10 (full house, sixes over tens).
Hero mucked J, A (three of a kind, sixes).
Outcome: BB won $1633

I tend to assume that, particularly when out of position with a hand that isn’t likely to improve, people make their river decisions on the turn. That is, if they check-call the turn, they’re usually going to check-call the river as well. Thus, I bluff a lot more turns than I do rivers.

Still, without a far more specific read, I don’t think I should be giving up 100% of rivers unimproved. And if I’m ever going to bluff the river in a spot like this, K’s and Q’s are obviously the best cards for it, as I can represent not just a big pair but also AQ/AK that rivered top pair.  Read the complete post...

Story of the FTOPS for me for as long as I’ve been playing it: I went deep but not quite deep enough. After nearly 7 hours, I took 37th and won less than 4 buy-ins. My bust-out hand was pretty standard, shoving 33 from the SB over a button raise from gboro, who woke up with QQ. At least I’m in the Pacific time zone right now, so I was only up until 1AM rather than 4AM. Oh and I managed to win a 3-way all-in with AA, which hasn’t been my experience of late when deep in FTP tournaments.

Got a bit of a drive ahead of us today to Death Valley, where we’ll be camping for the next few nights before returning to Vegas for the NAPT Venetian. I’ve got one blog post scheduled to post up tomorrow, and we’ll see how many more I get to, but please excuse me if things are quiet on here for a few days.

Villain’s flop bet, representing 75% of the pot and about 15% of the effective stacks, puts me in an awkward spot with my whole range (and is therefore a good one). Actually, I can play good draws pretty easily by making a pot-committing raise, but with say one marginal pair it’s a scary board to flat call but raising requires committing a lot of stack relative to the pot against a non-favorable range. Bluff-raising is similarly awkward, but it’s a big bet to float, particularly in a spot where Villain could turn a lot of draws and fire a pot-committing semi-bluff. Even here, with a monster, I’d kind of like to raise but am afraid that shows too much strength, as I can’t really raise and leave Villain room to 3-bet with any perception of fold equity.

On the plus side, I don’t think he’d play a big draw like this, as his bet size enables me to put him in a tough spot with a raise. Thus, I’m more comfortable flatting with a set here than I otherwise would be. I’m actually kind of hoping a club does come on the turn so that Villain will semi-bluff shove. I definitely think flatting is best here, as Villain can’t very well check-fold his overpairs on most turns, plus there’s room for him to turn a second best hand if he has overcards or to turn a draw he can semi-bluff. It might seem like there are a lot of free cards that could kill my hand, such that slowplaying is bad, but based on Villain’s sizing I’m actually not too worried about the draws.  Read the complete post...

I’d noticed but not paid much attention to the fact that Poker Stars is approaching its 40 billionth hand dealt and having a promotion where they award cash prizes to all players dealt into certain “milestone hands” along the way. Lo and behold, I happened to get dealt into one of those hands last night:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP1 ($952)
MP2 ($859)
CO ($1040)
Hero (Button) ($1100.25)
SB ($758.75)
BB ($1271)
UTG ($1314)
UTG+1 ($1030)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, 6
UTG bets $25, UTG+1 calls $25, MP1 calls $25, 2 folds, Hero calls $25, 2 folds

Flop: ($115) 10, 3, 8 (4 players)
UTG bets $65, UTG+1 calls $65, MP1 calls $65, Hero folds

Turn: ($310) 10 (3 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 checks, MP1 checks

River: ($310) 8 (3 players)
UTG bets $175, UTG+1 raises to $450, 2 folds

Total pot: $660 | Rake: $3

Results:
UTG+1 didn’t show
Outcome: UTG+1 won $657

I ended up winning a little shy of $700 from the promotion, which pays out $40 to each player for each VPP that player has earned in his last 40 hands at the table. If you win the hand, your award is doubled. In other words, you win more if you’ve been at the table longer and if you are in a higher VIP bracket. Good thing I made the push to hit Platinum last month, it probably ended up being worth almost $200 to me on this alone!  Read the complete post...

Many of  will have heard of this guy Leatherass, who plays just an absurd number of tables for an absurd number of hours every day. He plays pretty big stakes, mostly 5/10 and 10/20, and while he’s not one of the better regulars, he probably makes more than just about any of us because of his insane work ethic. This is the guy who offered on his blog a long explanation of the economics behind his decision to pee into a bottle while playing rather than leave the table to go to the bathroom. Not that I’m about to start doing the same, but I actually thought his reasoning made some sense.

Overall though the guy is pretty annoying on and off the tables. I’ve never met him, but stuff I’ve read from him on his blog and on 2+2 makes him seem pretty whiny, delusional, and self-absorbed. At the tables, he’s annoying because he’s one of the worst offenders when it comes to sitting out the second a fish leaves the table. I’m not the most diligent about starting games or playing against tough competition to keep a game going, but LA sits out and/or leaves the table whenever a fish sits out, even before the fish actually leaves the table. When a fish returns to a game with a bunch of people sitting out, even if he doesn’t realize that everyone is waiting for him to come back, he still may decide to leave just because he doesn’t want to play short-handed.  Read the complete post...

Edit: Yeah, I’m an idiot. It was late when I posted this, and I did in fact calculate my pre-flop equity rather than my flop equity. I’m actually a 2:1 dog here, which is more what I expected. Thanks to qanda201 for pointing it out in the comments. I thought it seemed too good to be true.

Full Tilt Pot-Limit Omaha Tournament, 500/1000 Blinds (9 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG+1 (t32863)
MP1 (t13444)
MP2 (t17933)
MP3 (t4420)
CO (t19270)
Button (t11849)
Hero (SB) (t20290)
BB (t16994)
UTG (t11219)

Hero’s M: 13.53

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K, 2, 3
1 fold, UTG+1 bets t2500, 1 fold, MP2 calls t2500, 3 folds, Hero calls t2000, BB calls t1500

Flop: (t10000) 5, 10, J (4 players)
Hero checks, BB bets t10000, 2 folds, Hero raises to t17790 (All-In), BB calls t4494 (All-In)

Turn: (t38988) 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t38988) 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t38988

Results:
Hero had K, K, 2, 3 (flush, Jack high).
BB had 5, 7, Q, 5 (full house, fives over eights).
Outcome: BB won t38988

Shows what I know about this game. I was embarassed to even post this because I felt like I played this bad and got my money in bad, but turns out I’m a pretty substantial favorite:  Read the complete post...