Posts Tagged ‘Session Review’

Q: You were talking about a hand you played on Day 1 of the recent BCPC . You didn’t specifically say the blinds and stack sizes, but I can estimate them from your write-up and my guess is that the blinds were 100/200 (no ante?) with effective stacks about 11,500 (with you having him covered at about 15k). It was a limped pot and you had A9o in the small blind and the villain was in the cutoff. Flop was Jc 9c 4h and the villain led for 450 into a pot of 1,000. You raised to 1,650, he re-raised to 6,100 and you shoved. Your logic was that “you were very sure he was on a draw” because “nothing else made sense”.

My questions are:

1. Why couldn’t villain have had J9s (3 combos), or 44, 99, or even JJ (between 3 and 9 combos)? While monster draws are clearly a big part of his range, if you include these other possibilities where you are drawing very slim or dead, I think it may become a fold.  Read the complete post...

If you’ve been enjoying my BCPC trip reports, be sure to check out my write-up from the WSOP Europe, now appearing in 2+2 Magazine:

Loose-aggressive play has become so common among the best players that many of them tend to assume that anyone who doesn’t open 50% of hands from the CO can’t be all that good. No American in the tournament is going to be bad, since we all had to travel quite a ways to play, but I think that playing the way I did gave the impression that I was merely competent and perhaps uncomfortable in deep-stacked spots. That’s a fine image to have as long as you know how to exploit it by stealing in spots they don’t expect.

As always, please let me know what you think!

I once final tabled a small-field, small buy-in PLO8 tournament at the PCA, but otherwise the final two tables was the closest I’d ever made it to a live final table. It was exciting to keep seeing (some of) the same people day after day, and to feel the envy of those who did not make it through.

Norm was the first to go. I heard him walking behind my seat on the way to the payout station, muttering about “Ace-Queen against Ace-King”, and that was the last I saw of him. We actually lost three more players in the first half hour, one of whom I eliminated with A4s > KQo.

There were more players than I realized still in the tournament with whom I had no experience. To my left was “Scott”, a hometown hero from Chilliwack with an Irish accent and an inexplicably large cheering section, all of whom were wearing matching “It Could Happen” jackets and shouting loudly whenever he won a pot. Scott eliminated one of the other early departures and was pretty obnoxious about it, getting nervous and calling for cards even as an overwhelming favorite and then celebrating vigorously when his hand held up.  Read the complete post...

A nice fall day in Kits

Such a great day! Where to begin? My day actually started around 9:30. Emily was sick and needed some things from the grocery store, so I biked over to the Whole Foods (I told you we’re in the yuppy district!) before leaving for the casino. It was a beautiful morning. The sun is slow to rise this time of year in Vancouver, so the day still had an early morning freshness to it. The sky was clear but the ground wet from the previous day’s rain, so everything sparkled. Our place is on top of a hill, so I could see down past the red and gold trees to downtown and to the mountains beyond.

The lovely ride and crisp air put me in a good mood, and after dropping off the groceries, I walked off smiling to the bus stop. It’s so nice being able to play a live poker tournament but still sleep in your own home and just take public transportation to and from work like any other commuter. I could see the bus approaching from a block away and so sprinted for it, very nearly falling on my face in the process. I really thought it was a sure thing that I was going down face-first, don’t know how I managed to keep my feet. I made it, though, and as I boarded the bus I thought, “Hope that’s the only time I run bad all day.”  Read the complete post...

I was happy with my table, and the day got off to a great start. I was one of the two biggest stacks, the other one of whom was a young Asian kid in yellow hoodie and designer sunglasses who looked like he could be good. He handled his chips well and raised in a lot of the right spots, but after watching him tank and agonize before calling a 3-bet shove with QTs getting better than 2:1, I decided he couldn’t be that great. He subsequently lost half of his stack with KK to AK, berated the other guy for 4-betting AK, and then tilted off the rest of his chips, so I didn’t have to worry about him.

I did more than my part to bust out the short stacks, waking up with AQ in my big blind when someone shoved KQ and then with QQ when an even shorter stack 3-bet shoved TT. I shot up from 50K to 90K and took the liberty of opening a few more pots. At 300/600/50, I opened to 1300 with T8s and the BB defended. He quickly bet out at an A94 flop, but I called him with nothing but my backdoor draw and he check-folded the turn. The next orbit I raised him again with QTs. He quickly shoved 6600, and I did some quick math to determine that it was close but I had enough chips to establish a “don’t shove on me” image. I called and was pleasantly surprised to see his Q3s, which did not get there.  Read the complete post...

Emily and I arrived in Vancouver less than two days before my departure for Europe. I’ve been back for a little over a week now, so I’m just starting to get settled in. It seems like a very cool city: mild climate (for Canada- still chilly, but the notorious rain hasn’t actually been too bad in my limited time here), good public transportation and bike-friendly, wide variety of bars and restaurants, great coffee, and just all around vibrant and lively. I can see why it’s one of the most expensive places to live in North America.

We’re renting a suite in a beautiful house in Kittsilano, which seems to be the yuppy district. Our landlords are a gay couple, one a wiry, frenetic, chain-smoking Frenchman and his partner a much more easy-going Czech. It seems like the Frenchman did most of the decorating, because the house and yard, though very well laid out, are cluttered with kitschy knick-knacks.

The main event of the British Columbia Poker Championship is a $2700 tournament drawing roughly 500 participants, so while it’s not something I would have considered traveling to play, it was well worth half an hour on a bus and a train to get there. It’s a real who’s who of Canadian poker (with the notable absence of Daniel Negreanu), though this year a number of American refugees are vying for the title as well. I am one of these carpetbaggers.  Read the complete post...

This is from the PokerStars $150 6-max Sunday tournament. People are often surprised by calls that I make out of the big blind when I’m getting very good odds. I don’t know how helpful it is when I say things like, “The more you feel that you have a skill edge, the more you can get away with calling,” because everyone thinks he has a skill edge and besides that’s a hard thing to quantify. This is an extreme example, but the point is that you’ve got to be capable of getting pretty creative in terms of stealing pots from out of position. I’m not saying to attack every pot- far from it- but you can’t just call hoping to showdown your fair share of winning hands cheaply.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 162 Tournament, 60/120 Blinds 15 Ante (6 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t10373)
UTG (t9236)
MP (t5939)
CO (t6108)
Button (t8074)
SB (t4615)

Hero’s M: 38.42

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6♦, 3♦
3 folds, Button bets t280, 1 fold, Hero calls t160

Flop: (t710) 5♠, 5♥, 10♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: (t710) 4♣ (2 players)
Hero bets t472, Button calls t472

River: (t1654) A♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t550, Hero raises to t2444, 1 fold

Total pot: t2754  Read the complete post...

I didn’t expect Villain to much Kx in his flatting range. Then again, I wouldn’t have expected him to flat the hand he showed up with, either, so maybe that’s a bad read. In any event, I felt I was in very good shape versus his betting range but a call would freeze him up and probably after that he only puts money in the pot when I’m beat or a great bluffing card comes. So I decided to raise and call a shove:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $4.00 BB (4 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($555)
Button ($184.30)
Hero (SB) ($498.40)
BB ($415)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, J
1 fold, Button bets $10, Hero raises to $28, 1 fold, Button calls $18

Flop: ($60) 3, K, Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $20, Hero raises to $48, Button raises to $156.30 (All-In), Hero calls $108.30

Turn: ($372.60) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($372.60) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $372.60 | Rake: $2

Results:
Button had J, A (high card, Ace).
Hero had Q, J (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: Hero won $370.60