Video

Part 1a is finally uploaded

http://sharebee.com/74933546

3 more parts to come.

Interesting Session & Video on its way

I played for a couple of hours today and I recorded it with the intention of commentating live but after a while a couple of friends came over and wanted to watch. Inevitably the amount of poker talk went down and the amount of football related banter went up for a bit until they decided to watch tv until I was done -so I will probably end up commentating over it again. Either way it was a pretty interesting session with both good and bad moves which should make for an interesting video anyway. I'll hopefully have it up tomorrow so check back!

Small session

I played a couple of tables after lunch today for just over an hour - one HU and one 6 max. Things went pretty well and I ended up with just under a couple of buyins profit, one thing I was particularly pleased about (aside from running well) was that I quit at a good time and I didn't let my ego dictate my length of stay at the tables. Since I haven't posted any hands here for a while I'm going to go over these in a little more detail - or atleast I'll try to. :)

HU Table
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855167
This hand is fairly standard from both players POV. Sometimes I would fold the A9o from the BB early on in the match since it can often get you into trouble OOP without a decent read. As played my opponent didn't really have a choice on either street. If I hadn't hit the gutshot on the turn I would have just checked it down because I try not to do anything other than standard in the first few hands until I get an idea about my opponent. This is one thing I'm trying to work on a bit in my HU game - just taking things slowly to start with and establishing a "decent" image and then making moves. I find this easier to play than starting out like a maniac because then you have to hit cards to do anything since you get no respect if your opponent is even paying the slightest bit of attention.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855186
Another pretty standard hand. Although by now I believe that my opponent isn't very aggressive and isn't likely to be bluffing that often I still think calling the river is a good play. Firstly because he could easily be value betting worse, secondly it is possible that he is bluffing (although unlikely) and thirdly for information. The last point is pretty crucial because it is really useful to find out what sort of range this guy is calling the flop then leading out on the river with. For instance if you find out that your opponent is value betting very thinly then you can start to raise his river bets, if he shows up with a set then you can see that he slow plays, in this instance I got some pretty useful information about this guy's checkraising range since he didn't c/r his draw and this enabled me to reraise bluff one of his subsequent checkraises.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855199
I made a small mistake here by calling the river, given the information I have on my opponent I think I have to fold despite the awesome pot odds I am getting.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855201
This is a pretty reasonable 3bet given that there are very few legitimate hands he can checkraise with there. The only real hands my opponent can have are AA/JJ/AJ/22 and possibly AK. Previous to this hand I saw my opponent flat call QQ PF so both AA and JJ are possible but of course this set of hands is tiny compared to his preflop calling range so the most likely hand is a bluff or a lower ace which can't stand a 3bet anyway.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855210
Betting the river here is a little dodgey but I don't mind it against this specific opponent because he could easily have any sort of straight or flush draw which obviously can't handle a river bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855214
This hand is pretty interesting I think. If my opponent had shoved the flop or the river I would have folded as well if any of the draws had hit and he had bet (since he very rarely, if ever, bluffs). However once he checks the river I have an easy value bet because it is obvious that my opponent doesn't have a made hand but I can still get value from many pair+draw type hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855218 Pretty standard really.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855220
Also standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855226
This one too. Although this hand and every subdequent hand in a reraised pot ended up with my 3betting, my opponent calling every 3bet and then shoving over my cbets (on reasonable boards to cbet). This wasn't very fun because I kept missing the flop and had to fold every time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855230
One of said hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855233
And another. The reraise with 58s PF is a little silly against this guy given that he has been pwning me in reraised pots however this was after a period of him winning quite a few small pots plus I thought there was almost no chance of him bluffing me because he would expect me to call with almost anything post flop. I'm not sure what to think here aside from he either pwnd me or the just kept hitting.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1855241
He had been beating me down a bit but had generally shut down on the turn after c/ring the flop so I chose to float and take the pot away on the turn or river. Obviously 2 checkraises means a monster hand.

After this hand I played for a tiny bit more and stopped. The flow of the match had gone in his favour and I was feeling a little tired so I just quit even though I still felt I had an edge over him. HU is very much like swimming, if the momentum is against you then its pretty hard to reach your goal and you can easily get swept away - its much better to get out of the water and come back when the current is in your favour.

Thats all for now, good luck at the tables guys.

$10k reached, PT sucks.

I'm too tired to do a proper blog entry so here is the gist of things: 7 tabled betfair 200nl on my laptop and won a couple of buyins after an hour. However PT isn't picking up my hands properly for some gay unknown reason so apparently I'm break even at betfair even though my account says I'm definately up. At the moment I have about $10,100 in my poker accounts which is pretty nice. The big question is do I try and clear a $200 bonus at crypto which runs out at the end of December? Its currently 75% done and needs roughly 240MPPs. I'm guessing that I will try to clear it because 7 tabling on a laptop screen using their horrible software makes my eyes bleed so I could use a change.
Will do my best to post hands next time... really! Good luck at the tables guys.

Wireless and Saturday Night Fever

The router I ordered for my parents house on Thursday suprisingly arrived today. So I was able to finally get wireless internet and have the freedom of the house instead of using a network cable to leech the internet from my parents computer - playing in my own room without the distraction of someone else using the computer next to me is pretty nice. Currently I'm watching MOTD while lying on my bed with the laptop - just awesome.

The other major thing which happened today that I signed up to betfair. Boomer and ssta recommended it to me and I am soooooo pleased that they did. The software is absolutely horrible but the players are probably worse. The new site treated me well and I ended up around $600 so my BR is back at $9500 and hopefully we can break the $10k mark before Christmas. :)

I'll post some hands next time since I can't now because my laptop is about to die from lack of battery power and I'm too lazy to get the power cable. Good luck at the tables guys.

The key to winning poker is absolute concentration

Unfortunately I struggle with this at the moment. Whenever I go into autopilot I seem to take the one way street to spewville, that is unless I'm playing enough tables to prevent myself from having time to think about spewing - which can't be done on this laptop. I played 4 tables - 2 HU and 2 6max and ended the session down $470 after again performing badly in the 6max games. In the HU games I started quite badly against one regular at 200nl and was down 2 buyins at one point but I wont a key flip and was able to bring things back to roughly up 1 buyin. However against another guy I started well then lost concentration for a bit while focusing on the other game and eventually spewed away all my profits on the table and ended the session with a 1 buyin loss. I lost roughly 2 buyins overall in 6max due to general overaggressiveness and a lack of positional awareness. I think I really need to work on being selectively aggressive as opposed to the ricky-hatton-bull-in-a-china-shop approach.

Overally I pleased with the way my HU game is improving although I still have a lot of work to do to sort out my concentration and avoid distractions like MSN etc. My 6 max game is pretty terrible right now though and its fairly shocking that I can't beat 200nl... yet! As for the "challenge" part of things, my current BR is roughly $8700, obviously I'm not very happy about this but as long as I keep improving then I know the money will take care of itself.

HU Good... 6 Max Bad

I left London this afternoon along with my sister who had come down to visit me for a couple of days so for the next couple of weeks I can only play up to 4 tables on my laptop. This is both a good and a bad thing for me I think. The good is that I can concentrate more on each table and really try to work on my game at a fundamental level, the bad is that I won't have the option to just autopilot 8 tables and try to play solid poker. I think it is a lot easier to tilt and/or get out of line when you are just playing a few tables and since that is one of my biggest problems at the moment I will have to be careful.

Anyway I played 4 tables for about an hour; 1 HU and 3 6max and then I just played abc tag on 1 table for another 20mins since I had position on a guy with 70% vpip. Unfortuntely I got completely crushed in the 6max games but I felt I played really well HU. Somehow I'm actually down around $95 though which is very annoying considering I was up around $300-$400 before I got owned on the "soft" table for the last 20 mins. Anyway here are some hands...

HU Match
My opponent was very aggressive PF and 3bet from the blinds a lot but had obvious leaks post flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830601
A loose call, he had 3bet me twice in the first 6 hands of the match so I wanted to make a stand and obviously called with the intention of making moves on a lot of flops.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830607
I didn't really give him much credit for a hand here unless it was QJ or KT, I had won the last 5 pots in a row from either raising his blind or him folding his button so I thought he felt like it was a good time to C/R. Plus I had a gutshot and a backdoor FD. :D

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830615
2nd time I called his 3bet, I think I am slightly ahead of his very wide 3betting range plus QT plays quite well in position and I don't want to risk getting blown off my hand by 4betting. I hit a pair and would have played for stacks.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830634 Pretty standard all around really.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830638
Gotta love the turn card. The guy said that he folded AQ but I kinda doubt it.

HH didn't go into pokerhand...
Seat 1: scelus ($509.40 in chips)
Seat 2: VonTibia2 ($313.98 in chips)
scelus: posts small blind $1
VonTibia2: posts big blind $2
dealt to scelus [Td Ah]
scelus: raises to $6
VonTibia2: raises to $22
scelus: raises to $66
VonTibia2: folds

First 4bet "bluff" of the night. ATo is ahead of his range but I dont really want to call because it plays pretty shity PF as it has no draws and the pair can often be dominated. Plus I had only been calling 3bets up until now so mixing things up and 4betting a bit light now is a good idea.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830660
Another 4bet bluff a few hands later. This guy played horribly post flop so I could get away with it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830669
Hand caught in the cookie jar. But valuable information was gained ie LOLWTF 85s.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830677
Obviously then I tightened up until I had a good hand to 4bet with.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830681
Didn't make a move here because I felt my opponent was getting a little tilted plus K high could easily be good.

Another one PH.org didnt't like...
Seat 1: scelus ($664.40 in chips)
Seat 2: VonTibia2 ($216.20 in chips)
scelus: posts small blind $1
VonTibia2: posts big blind $2
dealt to scelus [Qh 7h]
scelus: raises to $6
VonTibia2: raises to $22
scelus: raises to $66
VonTibia2: folds

After giving up on the last reraised pot when I called and then subsequently folding to his next two 3bets I felt that it was a good time for another 4bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830701
A few hands later... Note this guy was letting me get away with this so there was no reason to stop. A strong player would have adapted by tightening up his 3betting range and opening up his 5betting range but this guy was pretty awful.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830710
When he finally adapts... I have a monster. Pretty harsh but pretty funny.

6max games
I did pretty crappy here. My losses are due to playing a little too loose I think - probably a side effect of playing lagtarded in my HU game, but I also played some hands well and just got unlucky.

Big loss hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830726
This guy was a solid slightly loose aggressive player who had been 3betting me a fair bit from the button so PF and flop play are fine imo. The turn is tough because it is the absolute perfect card to semi bluff, however after calling a checkraise on such an unco-ordinated board my opponent atleast has a pair. So if he has a range of random 8's, 99-AA and the odd Q then the push very much depends on if he folds JJ-99 and his 8's. Since this is the first big hand we have played so he is more likely to give me credit and I think this play is just +EV.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830761
Hand against loose passive guy with 70%vpip, pretty standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830764
TPTK against half stack. Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830769
I think all the play is fine until the river, the ace is a horrible card to bluff because he is much less likely to fold a Q or J.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830772
Standard, against some players I would call or bluff the river but not this guy.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830773
Obviously this is a bad flop to cbet but it was the first time I had 3bet this guy and my hand has no showdown value so I think I have to bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830780
Standard against a guy with 70%vpip.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830785
The call is just about justified I think against a loose short stack who just lost a decent sized pot.

Big win hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830790
Std.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1830793
Std again.

Thats all I have the time for I'm afraid. After looking back on the big losing hands I don't think I really made any really bad mistakes but perhaps just too many small & medium ones. In some places I was a bit unlucky but that was probably made up for in my HU game. Still it feels terrible to be down after playing so well HU and winning 4 buyins. Ach well, I'll do better next time.

Down by the elevator and up by the stairs

After the carnage of my last session I just wanted to put in a solid showing and go back to basics. Thankfully that's what happened. I only played 3 tables for about an hour; 1 HU and 2 6max and I just concentrated on playing good solid poker and not doing anything too fancy (read spewy!). I ended the session up about $470 which is exactly what I was looking for and hopefully I can build on this next time.

Hand time!

HU Table
My encounter was pretty boring really; I was up against a tight passive opponent so 90% of the hands was just me winning lots of small pots then occasionally him winning a medium one when he called my cbet with top pair. The match finally ended with the following hand...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818094
This hand is obviously a bit of a cooler but I think I played it pretty well by checking the turn against this opponent who could easily have been leading the flop with J9 or 22 and hoping to c/r the turn. K high v A high flush sucks though.

Next I played against a completely different player who was much more LAG and actually played quite well aside from a few leaks.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818131
This was the 3rd so I didn't want to raise the flop and be open to a 3bet without knowing anything about this player so calling is best I think. The turn is a pretty standard call given how weakly I played flop. However a bet on the river would have made an interesting decision and would depend on betsizing I think since the guy could easily have been value betting a worse jack but there is also a good chance I would have been beat. I think I would have called a half pot bet because I could easily be ahead plus also because information about someones flop donking and 3barrelling ranges are very valuable. On thinking about it though I think that I should have made a half pot bet on the river to get max value but checking isn't a terrible mistake.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818165
Pretty standard I guess, you've gotta love C/R the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818172
Standard up to the river I think, if the board didn't double pair I would have had a crappy spot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818174
I had to fight back my urge to 4bet shove here. I really think had air but I was determined to be a good boy. Next time...

6 Max Table 1
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818185
I think I should have bet just a little more on the flop here to make it so I had under $100 on the river so my guy couldn't fold his ace.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818201
Man I love 200nl, I forgot that these people existed.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818206
The river is pretty interesting IMO. I think that you can make arguments for turning my hand into a bluff and looking for a showdown. Given the way the flop was played and the subsequent tiny bet on the turn and check on the river I think we can say that its unlikely that my opponent will have a flush unless its a poorly played AxTc etc. Without our history I think the river is a pretty easy pot sized bluff but because he folded to my shove when I had a flush I'm inclined to think he might want to look me up more than usual. Overall I still think it should be a bet but seeing a showdown with AK here certainly isn't a huge mistake.

Table 2
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818241
One the joys of playing 200nl is that you can make river bets like these without fearing a C/R allin.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1818252
This guy 3bets fairly light so calling with the intention of making moves occasionally is ok I think.

So thats it, a pretty good sesson overall but obviously I still have plenty of areas of improvement. :)

Relearning old lessons

I'm going to try to get back into poker again over Christmas and get my skills back to a level where I can comfortably beat 400 or 500nl. Unfortunately it seems I am a long way off in some departments. After not playing consitently for a while I think it is quite normal to have lost a bit of sharpness in some areas but at the moment I seem to have one huge problem: my mental discipline. A major part of my previous success was that I wouldn't play when I wasn't properly focused and I would be quick to realise when I wasn't thinking straight and take a break - it seems that I have to work hard on this again.

I played a bit after getting completely crushed in the ptips tourney by constant 3betting and then in a reraised pot my semi bluff shove on a paired flop was called by A high - gg me. So I went back to the cash games and played some 200nl HU and 6max for a bit, things went horribly and I tilted pretty badly and lost 1.6k.... at 200nl.... thats 8 buyins. I have a mountain to climb.

So as embarassing as it is, here are the major hands.

First HU Game
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814487
A bit of a loose 3bet but I wanted to establish an image early on in the match so I think you can justify PF. Post flot I think is pretty standard; a good spot to 2 barrel and even 3 barrel with a gutshot given that the guy doesnt appear to have a strong hand and he should give me credit early on.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814497
This hand was pretty horrible. PF and flop is pretty standard early on but the river play is absolutely sickening. Only when I look back on it now do I see how utterly terrible it is. 1stly, dont lead out, check and hope for a free showdown or c/c if you believe the guy is bluffing (this would be a decent spot to bluff for him). Secondly, given that I donked and he raised I should just throw the hand away at this point and move up, this move is unfounded at this point in time. However even if I insist on reraising I should make it much less, say $150 because it should do the same job - get bluffs, Qs and Ks to fold without risking as much. However clearly the best move is checking the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814509
Pretty funny hand, obviously I have a (deservedly) horrific image at this point. I think betting the river in this spot would be pretty borderline and I think I probably got max value here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814523
I did think of checking the flop here but I think that there are many worse hands he will call with given my image plus I have a gutshot so betting is good. I think his C/R on the flop is either QJ,KT, T9, a flush draw (inc QcXc) or complete air since I expect a reraise PF with a big A and I dont expect him to C/R a small ace here (instead I think he would c/c 3 streets). Given that I have 2 kings KT is very unlikely so I'm obviously ahead against his c/r range but 3betting would be horrible so calling is best. When he then checks on the turn it makes me think that he does have a draw since you would expect QJ to bet again. So at this point I can either bet and hope to get a call or check and hope to induce some bluffs on the river. Against this opponent who doesnt seem to bluff that much I like the bet because he seems to want to call me down light as opposed to push me off air. Now the double checkraise is a very scary move and here is a tough spot. Even though the majority of the evidence suggests that my opponent is holding a draw I just can't see him making a dual C/R with a draw like this very often unless he picked up a monster draw on the turn e.g. T9h or 6Xc. So given the new info of the C/R I think I have to narrow down his hand range considerably to monster hand, monster draw or insane bluff. Of which A monster hand is more likely and even against a monster draw I wont be a big favourite so I think I should have folded.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814610
We are entering Tilt Town, its only resident: me. PF is horrible, flop isnt too bad but timing is also poor given previous hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814617
Pretty standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814627
Just plain horrible. PF is ok and I think flop should be a raise rather than a float but a float is ok every so often. The turn is a bad card for me though (both because he could have hit it and because I can't bet to effectively represent a pp) so I should have just given up. As played river is just horrrrrrrrrible.

So this was a horrible match, far too much tilt and also some basic errors.

6max table
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814639
This hand was pretty standard I think for a 3 handed game, I've played this guy before and I know he is a very loose and aggressive player so I think the call of his shove is just +EV. His range is almost entirely FD's, pairs and air. Given that I have 7 outs against most pairs and I'm ahead of FD's and air with 2-1 odds then its a decent call i think.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814665
Pretty standard. I would have done the same if I was him so no complaints here.

2nd HU Match
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814674
Pretty standard I think.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814687
Hand was played fine until the river, should have been a fold but I got curious. :(

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814677
Tough decision but given the information I got from last hand I think I should have folded. At the time I was struggling to find a hand I could beat because I expected him to bet an ace on the turn or river so a strong 2pair seemed unlikely and I didn't think he would shove a weak two pair like 95. So that leaves a slow played set or 87, and as hard as it is to say I think I should have folded a set HU.

2nd 6max game
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1814699
Only played one meaningful hand at this table. PF is interesting because even if he has AA I think I'm getting good odds to see a flop but the pot size it creates and the resulting stack sizes makes it bad to play post flop - I made a slightly -EV move here and I should have folded the flop but I was on tilt at this point so it didnt happen.

Thats all I have time for right now since its 2am. Overall I am pretty appalled at what the hands I've just gone over. It makes me sad to see the sort of poker I am playing now and I am determined to turn things around. The new age of discipline begins....

Poker and Interviews

Yesturday was the last day of term so today I found myself in the unfamiliar situation of having nothing pressing to do - awesome! So I took the time to start my new 10k to 50k "challenge" and things went reasonably well and I ended up $370 for a 45min session. Firstly, to those of you who are thinking "10->50 is just boring, why not be a real man and aim for 100?" I would love to aim for 100 but I just wont have the time and its stupid to embark on something which you know you won't finish. So my current BR is at $10,500 since I started with a little over 10k but its great to get off to a winning start. Suprisingly I also enjoyed 8 tabling 200nl for a bit, I can't concentrate for as long as I can when I'm 4 tabling but I enjoyed just making lots of quick little decisions and not overthinking things. I played just over 600 hands and ran at 25/22/4.5 which is exactly the type of style I'm aiming for when multitabling. The big thing which I am working on at the moment is 4bet and 5bet bluffing since everyone seems to 3bet light these days. Its very suprising how significantly the style of play has changed from the summer and it leaves me with a lot of thinking and catching up to do.

The big thing in my life at the moment is interviewing for jobs. Last year I was far too slow to apply as well as being pretty clueless and having a terrible CV so I didn't get any interviews (well one which I couldn't make lol). This was actually quite good in a way because I applied to some pretty random positions which I probably wouldn't have enjoyed if I was successful. Now thanks to the LSE, I know exactly what I want to do - trading, what recruiters are looking for, and how to sell my skills effectively. Anyway poker has been a big focus in all the interviews I've had so far and its quite amazing how the skillsets required for trading and poker are very similar. Its great to be able to put something down on your CV which will really set you apart from other candidates (although sometimes its regarded as a negative thing). Also it will undoubtedly be brought up in any interview and you can easily prepare for the sort of questions that will get asked. I actually enjoy investment banking interviews because you have to think fast and be on your toes - very much like poker!

Anyway thats enough for now, next time I'll try to include some actual strategy talk. Tonight I'm going to try to play the PokerTips POY Main Event amongst other things so I'll post again later. Good luck at the tables guys.

A New Challenge

I'm going to start a new challenge, currently I have a $10k bankroll and I'm looking to get it to $50k. I'm not going to set myself a time limit because poker is at the bottom of my priorities right now so I won't be able to stick to a schedule or anything. Needless to say though, I'm going to try to play as much as I can whenever I get the chance so hopefully this won't take years. I'm going to start off playing $200nl and then move up to $400nl & $500nl when I hit $12k and $15k respectively. Basically whenever I have 30 buyins for the level above I will move up, although this will be my minimum requirement and I may decide to wait a bit longer before changing limits for whatever reason. Additionally, whenever I hit 20 buyins for my current level I will move down limits. I think this is a good number because it allows for a natural downswing if I had just moved up but it also provides a nice cushion for when I move down - this is quite important from a mental point of view because the last thing you want in a downswing is the pressure of a fragile bankroll.

More to follow...

My Month

I had a pretty crappy month.

For some reason I have just under 1k hands that poker tracker didn't import and I'm actually "only" down $6k. I know that I have run bad this month and I haven't played that many hands really so part of it is variance. But also I found a player who initially beat me HU on crypto and he took me for about $6k before I figured out his game and got some money back before he ran stupidly hot against me and I decided to stop playing him - I certainly plan on playing him in the future though when I am more confident. The self examination attached to downswings revealed that I was tilting a little due to the beats and I lost some confidence (which is so important to my game) so I went into lockdown mode i.e. played boring TAG for the last 4k hands to get some winning sessions under my belt and get some confidence back. I'm not really worried since I know that I the majority of my loss is due to variance and hopefully next month will go a lot better for me.

Grinding

Things haven't gone that well over the last few days regarding luck but I think I've made some good decisions both on and off the tables. Firstly I have halved my BR by withdrawing $42k and putting it into a savings account ready to pay my masters fees and temporary accomodation for the next few weeks while I try to find some people to share a house with. This was because I started to realise that I really couldn't afford to lose that money and no matter how small the risk of it happening was, it was just stupid not to keep it secure i.e. free from getting tilted off at $5knl HU or something similar. The remaining money I can just about afford to lose but I must admit I feel that I have suddenly become sensitive to the figures involved, probably because the money is now directly related to something very tangible as opposed to just being a random figure used to "keep the score".

Anyways... having halved my BR I was left with ~$45k to play with which was plenty for $1knl, unfortunately for me I then had a nasty downswing which involved both tilt and bad cards which I have blogged about before I think. Anyway basically what happened was I went down to about $35k but then had a $9k day and a couple more decent days to get back to $49k about 10 days or so ago. Since that time I dropped to $32k partly due to me playing a huge fish at $2knl HU and losing 4 buyins of which 3 were suckouts and one was a flip: AK(me) vs 99. Since then I have just had a terrible run of cards and unavoidable situations ie I reraise HU with AKs and hit TP+FD on the flop and end up getting allin against a set. AK seems to be a horrible hand for me at the moment, I seem to lose every pot I play with it but twice this week AK has beaten my AA allin preflop. I must admit its good to vent occasionally but I prefer to do it in relative privacy since peoples reactions tend to be predictably harsh if someone has done well then had a bad streak.

Right now I am at just under $37k with around $900 in rakeback to come in at the end of the month. Obviously I won't be playing any more $2knl for a long time because I just dont like the variance and my BR is too low anyway. Recently I have tightened up quite a bit and I have started to play some $500nl again as well as the $1knl, this is because I want to regain some confidence but also because I have a bigger edge in those games there is less variance and at the moment I just want to get back to more than $40k and stop the bleeding. My game is very confidence based and relies a lot on concentration which is just so hard to do when you get sucked out on every time. So basically I don't feel confident to pull the trigger sometimes which is taking the edge off my game, I am not that good at "ABC" poker and a lot of what I do is based on me predicting how people adjusting to my style and using that against them, but of course when I'm not being crazy that doesn't work. So at the moment I'm just grinding things out playing a bit of HU and 6max and trying to get some confidence back. Normally the money wouldn't bother me at all but halving your BR then having a 17 buyin downswing can be pretty shit, once I have built up a bit of a "buffer" then I know things will be fine again but for now I just need to ride the storm.

Finally I've decided to play the WCOOP HU event on stars since its only a $320 buyin and atleast it will be some good fun. Thats all for now, I'll keep things posted.

Its been a while

I haven't blogged for some time so here is a quick summary of what has happened recently: ARGGGGG. Yea basically I've been running horrible and this month is not looking good, after having my 2 most profitable months ever in June and July I think august will be my worst month ever in terms of missed EV and close to my worse month ever in terms of $ lost depending on how the final few days go. Things really haven't been going well but in all honesty its just a standard downswing in that I have had some horrible luck; multiple 2 outers, overpairs getting owned etc etc, but also I've tilted a bit and I have made some mistakes. I haven't had a downswing like this for months and months but in some ways it is a good thing because it has made me re-evaluate my game and hopefully I will come out of this as a stronger player, both technically and mentally.

I just finished an hour session HU and played really well, obviously had a suckout which involved runner runner gutshot but I was happy with how I played which is very refreshing given that I haven't played "great" for somet time. I was going to post the hands but its almost time for the weekend drunks to come out and I want a break away from the PC before coming back to play again so no hands this time. I plan on updating this blog reguarly over the next 2 weeks so hopefully there will be some decent content for you guys in the future.

Back from Summer School

I got back from London yesturday and I must admit that I am quite happy to get away for a bit, the course was very intense but also quite boring plus we had a terrible lecturer. But anyway enough of that, I recently had a pretty big downswing playing hu and 6max while I was at summer school which included losing 11 buyins straight HU and then another few in 6max. The result was that I took a few days off and I played my first session today for around 5 days, I still had some pretty sick beats but I actually ended up 4 buyins despite losing 5 to a guy HU who I out played but he kept sucking out on me (as he did before!), hopefully he will keep coming back to play me so I get a chance for luck to even out a bit. I certainly made some bad decisions and tilted slightly but I also played quite well and I was good to get a winning session under my belt.

Hand time: I played 6 tables today, 4 6max and 2 HU against the same guy.

First HU table:

Standard.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362782

An early sign that he gives my 3bets no respect.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362790

For some reason every time I had KK an A flopped today.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362799

First big hand of the match, this is a pretty standard situation IMO. I didnt get 3bet so a higher pair is unlikely and we basically have a 6/J or nothing situation.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362807

Really standard.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362817

I think that I should have two barrelled here, not just because of what he had but I do have a gutshot and hopefully one or even 2 overs plus its likely that he could be floating me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362821

Standard but I suckout here!!! But 52s wtf?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362830

This hand happened 1 hand after the previous one, I guess it makes up for my suckout.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362839

This river card confuses things a bit, I only have a PSB left and I don't know if I can bet for value. I think checking then calling a shove is spew so I can either shove, make a small bet then fold to a shove, or check/fold. I took the later option and I think its ok.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362849

I was quite pleased with this fold, I think he hits the backdoor flush, the 5 or the 9 a lot here.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362868

SPEW TIME! I like the move since he had been 3betting me a lot and I think he could easily be double barrelling but also I feel he has to fold his medium pairs and mostly when he calls I have atleast 1 if not 2 overs. Its a pity that he had the 2nd nuts. Drawing dead rocks.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362876


Second HU table:

Standard against short stacks.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362892

This river call is slightly questionable but given the previous hand and the fact he could be doing it with worse two pairs or a retarded AK I dont mind it.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362899
This guy had pushed allin before and he didn't seem very solid in general, the fact he hadn't left when he won the previous hand told me he would probably stick around even if I lost so I think A9s is a solid hand to gamble with even though its at the bottom of my calling range there.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362901

----Guy at other table sits down----

Move doesn't work, in retrospect I don't know if I like the turn bet since he could easily have the 7.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362917

Pretty standard but his shove stuck out in my mind a bit because it didnt make much sense, perhaps I should have called here.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362921

Value town.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362929

Suck town.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362932

Cooler town.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362942

This hand is one of those hands where you either look like a genius or an idiot. I was the idiot this time. On the turn I can see him betting some legitimate hands but also bluffs - hence my call, but on the river I don't think he bets a Queen and he might not even bet weak aces since the 8 means that he is can't get much value. So it was a nuts or nothing hand again and I ran into the nuts.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362946

I made a pretty big mistake here, the hand is fine until the river but my opponent just isn't capable of such an elaborate bluff. I think this is a prime example of tilt. I need to work on that.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362957

This was the icing on the cake really. The flop float is pretty strange and the 77 hand comes back to mind so I made what turned out to be a good call but again he hit his card.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362968

I quit playing HU after that hand and just kept to 6max, which I was owning. :)
Those HH don't really show exactly how badly I was running but basically I wasn't hitting any flops when I called or 3bet and obviously I had some coolers and some suckouts. I'm a bit too tired to go through the 6max hands so I'm afraid you only get to see the HU stuff.

On a final happy note I played at some of the same tables are TillerMan! Those of you who have a gaming background will know of him but he is basically a gaming god turned poker god. He is a professional who hade made over a million £ from poker so it was cool to play with him, we didn't tangle though.

I love HU

I've spent the past week with very little internet access and a very large workload but today after getting up early and pulling a very heavy suitcase along with a bag full of textbooks and course notes plus a laptop for a good 40minutes (I was sweating like a pig at the end of it) I have got my reward: A decent room and internet access!

Summer school at the LSE (london school of economics) started horribly, I havent done any academic work for the last 2 months anyway so to start after a long break with "advanced econometrics" isn't a good idea. After the first lecture I felt like I had a brain tumour but I was also very scared that I wouldn't make the grade needed to do the MSc in Finance and Economics and the LSE. But things have gradually improved and I now realise that we go into A LOT more technical detail than I need to pass the exam, which is good because I suck at econometrics anyway. The midterm exam is on wednesday I think and I plan on revising a lot tomorrow since I have absolutely nothing today. On a side note though I actually enjoy being busy during the day and really feeling stretched, its something that I havent done for a while and for some reason it makes me feel tired but happy. :)

I played my first bit of poker for a week today and it was great. When I went on holiday with my parents a couple of weeks ago I didn't miss poker at all but suprisingly I missed it a lot this week - perhaps because I wasn't with people I know. I'm on my sisters laptop at the moment so I cant really access the HH very easily aside from opening them one by one which isnt very appealing when they are hundreds of them so I'm going to just give a little account from memory.

My first opponent was someone whose name I recognised but only vaguely, we started playing a 5/10 game which soon turned into two 5/10 tables (he wanted to play a 10/20 one but since I have some financial uncertainty right now I don't think that I want to have large swings right now although I am certainly bankrolled for it if I want to play). The first key hand was a bit of spew by me which I think was down to the fact that I couldnt wait to play and I had a bit of an itchy trigger finger, I ended up spewing a buyin to him after a few hands where he raised and cbet, I checkraised the flop on a paired board then led the turn and shoved the river, he apparently floated the flop C/R with Q9 and caught TP on the turn. Now my image was really crappy but it enabled me to sit back, tighten up and exploit it. The next key hand was where I raised QJs and caught a SFD on the flop, cbet and hit my flush on the turn, he led, I raised and he 3bet, I called and then shoved the river to be called by middle pair turned 2pair on the river.

Next hand I floped TP in a raised pot and C/R the flop and led the turn, my opponent shoved with A high and obviously I called. We are pretty deep at this point and I 3bet PF with 89o and flop TP on a draw heavy board, I lead out and my opponent shoves, obviously I call and he shows 2 unders but manages to hit his 2pair draw for a 400BB pot. A few hands later my opponent quickly open raises to $235 when his standard raise had been $35, since he did it so fast it was obviously a mislick so I shoved with my 88, he called with k7 and flopped a K. A few hands later we got it in PF with my AK vs his 88 and he won the race and finally a few more hands later my set lost to a FD allin on the flop. /end whine. The good news is that I was only down roughly 2 Buyins which was a real accomplishment given how badly I ran, I really felt in control of the match and aside from the early spew I thought I played well. The funny thing is that I subsequently found out that this guy actually plays the £20000nl game (yes thats twenty thousand pounds) occasionally as well as games as low as 2knl and obviously 1knl. Sweet.

Its a bit late now and I don't really want to go into the next match in detail but basically I owned someone for around 4k which meant that I am up around 1.5k for the day. :D

A New Video

Basically I said that I would try to make a video before I go away on sunday so here it is. There is a mix of $500, £500 and $1000 including both HU and 6 max, however I basically concentrated on the HU match once it became obvious that it was potentially quite profitable so the 6max play is basically ABC and it does contain some mistakes (one absolutely massive one) however I point out these mistakes in the commentary so hopefully things should be ok.

I recorded a session (initially with the intention of commentating live) then I watched the video while recording again and commentating. It is a 3 part series and here is the first part which is 40mins I think.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vie93s - Part 1
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h4qxmk - Part 2
http://www.sendspace.com/file/y33ewl - Part 3 (final part)

I'm going to London on Sunday and I don't know what sort of internet access I will have to I probably won't be able to post for a bit, so until next time... good luck and have fun at the tables.

Update

I realise that this "poker blog" hasn't had much topical content recently but I'm been really busy with moving house, graduation and trying to organise some sort of accomodation in London for the summer school (since the LSE overbooked their halls, bastards) but I'll try to get some hands discussion in here over the next week before I leave. Generally poker has been going really well in terms of results plus I feel that I've hit another run of improvement. This makes me pretty happy because there is nothing worse than playing and feeling that you have nothing to learn but even if you want to learn that you wouldn't know where to look. Currently I feel that I am playing well and my game has improved but I'm still also aware that I'm not playing perfectly and there is lots more to learn.

I'm pretty tired right now and I don't really want to activate my brain by going over hands before I want to sleep so I'm afraid this is another low content post. :P

Anyway good luck at the tables guys.

PS: someone asked me to make a video for Ptips and if things continue to go well then I might do that next week.

Quick Update

Just a short post before I go to the train station. I enjoyed the holiday with my family in Wales although I got a little bored at some times it was nice and relaxing - just what I needed plus in some ways a little break from poker was nice. I got a first for my degree so that means I have met the conditions of my offer for a masters at the LSE as long as I attend and do well in a little summer school course which starts in 2 weeks. I still haven't heard back from them about my accomodation which is slightly unnerving but hopefully things will be sorted out before I leave. Just going back to York for a few days to have my graduation and sort out the house I am living in then I'm back home. I've played a bit of poker in the last two days and really enjoyed it, I played a massive HU game against one person who was +4 buyins against me at one point but I managed to turn things around and ended up +2 buyins before he left, sweet!

Results tomorrow

I'm shitting it. I find out my degree class tomorrow at 4:30 and then I'll get the breakdown of marks next week. I honestly have no idea what I'm going to get which sucks since I hate the uncertainty over my immediate future. I'm going to join my family on holiday in Wales on Saturday so I can have a little get away and be with my family for my 21st.

balls

I've just finished a horrible session, pretty much nothing went my way. Overpairs lost to FDs, sets lost to straight draws, my dual straight flush draws miss and I end up tilting. I lost $4k overall today, $1k of that is tilt or mistakes but the rest of it is just the deck's fault. I would post the hands but I've just spent a bit of time looking over them and I'm quite pissed off so I don't think I would be giving an objective opinion at the moment. Balls.

Still at home

With all the flooding that has happened recently I am stranded in Burton-on-Trent since no trains are going north from Derby due to "servere weather conditions", plus the roads are flooded and those that arent have huge queues due to the trains being down so there is basically no way I can get back unless my parents fancy driving for around 10 hours (there and back) which I assume they don't. To be honest its always nice spending time at home but I think that I will be forced to miss the grad ball plus a proposed trip to a casino for some live poker so in that sense I'm dissappointed. The upside is that I've got to see some of my mates who have just got back from unis elsewhere which is always sweet, also I played a little bit last night and had a pretty sweet session. I started off two tabling and then waited for better tables to become available until I was 4 tabling (on one monitor which is widescreen so I actually get overlap :( ), either way its amazing what table selection can a bit of focus can do to your winrate. Even though only playing 4 tables isn't great for my $/hr it was good fun and I ended up 3k due to running well but also not making any big mistakes (plus I won a 6 person $5 sng that I played with colin for and additional $19.50!).

I'm just going to relax and take it easy for now, I'll try to get back to York tomorrow so I can make the grad ball but unforunately it looks unlikely.

Blogging > Poker

At the moment I'm at home dog-sitting for my parents this weekend and I'm bored and I don't want to play poker at the moment because I just don't feel motivated. I haven't played that much poker recently and to be honest I haven't felt like playing at all but sometimes I get too bored and have to resort to poker if everyone else is busy doing things. The strange thing is that I haven't actually played a lot over the past weeks anyway so I don't feel that I should be getting bored of it or be needing a break. Also with the fact that I am actually in the position to make some decent money makes me feel that I should be playing. A few days ago I played at Mo's home game and I really enjoyed it, it was pretty action packed and it was good to play with people who enjoy playing but take it slightly seriously at the same time. Some of us are planning on going to a casino in Leeds in the next few days so hopefully it will be a laugh.

Finally two things of note: I'm on my new pc at the moment which is pretty awesome although the keyboard is a bit condensed so I keep mistyping. Also I get my degree results on Friday so the usual "arg can't stand the waiting" applies.

Things going well again

I played for about 45mins today playing 6 tables and although the session was short I think I played ok and didn't spew too much. I seem to be playing more 6max than HU recently because its just hard to get a HU game these days, having said that I got to play an unknown today who I completely spanked, I only won a buyin off him but I pretty much just ground it out of him and I felt completely in control of the match. Hand time...

HU match
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1182669
Early in the match, I had won almost all the PF pots to start with and this was the first time he had 3bet me PF so I assumed that he was waiting for a strong hand to do it with - hence the 4bet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1182677
This move is a little risky but I really don't think he has a strong hand here (he should raise the flop if he has) and he didn't seem the type to make hero calls. Although I had been bossing him I had only shown down solid hands and I had purposely not made really thin value bets in order to show down some solid hands so that I could exploit a solid image.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1182688
Perfect semi bluffing opportunity, I don't like calling again on the turn because he probably has a jack and won't pay me off much on the river if I hit so the semi bluff is the best move here IMO.

6 max hands
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1182695
A funny hand to start the day.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1182703
This hand I misplayed a bit. The background is that I've been 3betting quite a bit in position but I haven't shown down a hand or been played back at yet so I'm assuming that people might want to start to mess with me. I am pretty damn sure that the cold caller doesn't have a complete monster unless its AA because I have played with him quite a lot and I've never seen him slow play like this. So on the flop I have position, the pot is £160 and my opponent has an additional £270 behind, if I bet then I am commited to calling a shove but hopefully I have many outs. I think a check is best here since I am behind against his range and I have very little fold equity, perhaps he has AK and I can get him off his hand but its unlikely that he has it. Pushing the flop like I did isn't a bad move (I would have had to call if he open shoved) but seeing a turn (hopefully a spade) and re-evaluating is best.

Wow a poker update?

I know I've been a bit lazy about posting over the last couple of weeks but thats because I haven't played that much for various reaons, most recently my housemates brother came up for a few days so quite a lot of drinking was done. I never ever play when I've been drinking so nothing really happened aside from the occasional small session around lunchtime. Anyway I've got in a couple of hours worth of play today so its time to go over some hands, I'm just going to post the big ones because I want to play a tournament in 15mins - just for a change.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1180487
Pretty standard really. My opponent is a solid player who plays $500-$2000 and is certainly capable of making the odd move, aside from that I hit TPTK in a reraised pot so its pretty easy to get my stack in here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1180491
I lost a buyin to this guy HU who was a complete calling station but the cards helped him out hitting backdoor flushes 3 times lol. This is a bit of a thin value bet but against this guy I like it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1180497
Pretty normal I guess. My opponent had been a bit frisky and I had also been frisky in isolating him so I'm happy to get half a stack in here, full stacked I might fold.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1180499
Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1180500
This hand is kinda interesting. The person to my right is a complete donkey, VPIP of 70% and calls any raise etc, the guy who raised my raise is a solid TAG. PF is standard once the donk comes along (otherwise I fold) and on the flop I think its worth taking a stab at this one since I probably have both of them beat - looks like TAG has AK/AQ and donk has anything but unlikely to have a pair, obviously once I'm called by the TAG its game over.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1180505
Pretty standard, sure it sucks that the guy could have a straight but if thats the case I have outs and he could also have lots of other hands.

Thats all I have time for I'm afraid since the tournament starts in 3mins, I've only posted my losing hands because thats what I prioritize looking at but I've had a decent day so far, $2k up.

I'm not dead, I'm just lazy

I haven't updated this in the last few days for a few reasons, mainly because I haven't been playing that much and when I do play it tends to be for 15mins before my PC owns me. I've basically been breaking even but I'm more happy with my play than I was before, I think/hope I'm not making as many/any big mistakes any more but I feel that I've lost my cutting edge a bit. The style I play tends to involve a balancing act between mass aggression and spew, but by decreasing the spew I have also cut back on making as many moves which kinda makes it boring to play.

I plan on trying to play a bit today because I can't stand just doing nothing and "wasting" time just playing video games, going into town shopping and going out all the time. I hate sailing through the days with no purpose or nothing to aim for, waiting for results sucks.

I'm a pussy

I haven't blogged over the last few days because I've had a couple of days off from poker after having a bit of a downswing playing $1000nl and £500nl where I lost 8k over the course of a couple of days. The slightly alarming thing was that it appeared that I was losing it consistently, sure I had the standard set over set and missing flips but it got to the stage where I was playing scared, and I knew I was playing a little scared and less confidently than normal and without realising it I over compensated and just spewed. At the time I didn't realise it but since I've taken a min break and looked back at some of my hands I can honestly say I was spewing. So I played a single table of $600nl today just to get back into things and I hope to play a fair bit tomorrow.

I must admit that this experience is basically confirming the fact that I wouldn't like to be a "poker pro". Although I'm not playing for a living, I'm playing to try to fund (fees, accomodation, living costs, BR for social poker etc) my masters next year (if I get my first - fingers crossed) and losing $8k aka £4k in a couple of days can be pretty stressful. Luckily my BR was pretty padded after having a hot run previously (it peaked at $51k) so I'm not really going to feel the loss in the sense that I won't be forced to drop limits or anything but I am certainly affected by losing money that could significantly affect my future. I think that is one reason why I wasn't playing well - because I let the money mean something. Anyway hopefully things go well tomorrow and I get to blog about a good session.

Until tomorrow, good luck and have fun at the tables.

Another shity session

Its pretty funny how big a part confidence can play in your game and determine your success. At the moment I can't say that I have much, and I'm sure its affecting my play but also it sucks when I don't hit a set every other hand. I know that I've been on a bit of a heater recently so its no suprise that I'm having a few bad sessions but I think that having quite a few winning sessions in a row has affected my vulnerability to tilt. I'm not talking horrific spew all over the place but just things like folding to 3bets too much or calling too much and just generally going into autopilot and doing things too quickly so I'm not thinking enough.

I played HU against one of the guys who I used to beat at $500nl (and consequently he refused to play me for a while) who has now moved up to $1000 and £500 and he pretty much owned me. I know I wasn't playing my A game but it was atleast my B game and I was pretty annoyed at how it went, at one stage I was down $4k to him but I managed to get it back to a $1500 loss before my pc gave me the blue screen of death. My pc is really starting to annoy me now since it has done that 5 times in the last 3 days. I'm not sure if I'm going to try to get it fixed or just buy a new one since its 3yrs old anyway, I'll have a look at some prices and decide.

I would post some hands but I've just spent a good 30mins going over some of them and I don't feel like doing it again.

Anyways Good Luck to England tonight!

Finally...

Sorry for the delay guys I just seemed to have problem after problem, firstly the video decided to stop after 40mins when I first produced it so I had to split it up and then sendspace kept kicking me off when I was trying to upload. Anyway better late than never! As I said before I think I could have done a better job of explaining things but hopefully there are still a few things that are helpful to you guys. Let me know what you think.

Part 1
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4p6bxy
Part 2
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kvjbbq

Any comments or criticisms are always welcome.

A tilty session

I just played a pretty crappy session, initially things started OK but I think I got a little out of line and made two pretty horrific bluffs which were just stupid, then of course I lose a flip or two and things get silly. Down 1.5k for this session.

Hands in order of occurance.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1143998
Pretty standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144002
Very early in the HU match. I think that this hand in isolation is slightly -EV since my opponent appeared to be quite tight from first impressions but as long as I tighten up afterwards and be aware of my image then I think it can be +EV.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144014
A fairly disciplined fold on the river against this player.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144017
Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144021
Standard, I suckout in style.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144026
I put him pretty squarely on AJ by the river and I hoped that he would fold since I had raised UTG but its not a bad call, I think my image was a little too crappy for it to work.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144034
On the flop I called with a gutshot, a backdoor FD and an over in position in case this guy shut down on the turn but in all fairness I think folding is best. The turn is a pretty obvious shove given his weak bet since medium stacks tend to be very straight forward.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144044
Tilt in progress. Although that said it isn't a bad push because the flop is very likely to have missed him plus it can look like a set/two pair overbetting to rep a draw.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144047
I think checking this flop is a mistake and obviously once he calls the turn he has an ace so shoving is stupid, again I appear to be on tilt.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144053
Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144056
Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1144059
Here I was pretty sure he didnt have a T because he would have shoved and I knew he wouldnt bet the turn with a made hand so I was calling all the way.

The obvious annoying thing here is that I was clearly not playing that well and was tilted at some time so I'm going to hope to change that.

The video didn't create properly so I'll try it again tomorrow and hopefully it will be uploaded by the evening.

Video Time!

After playing poorly yesturday I decided that it was the perfect time to make a video since it could really help me to focus on what I'm thinking which will hopefully help to consolidate my fundamentals (Also Angus reminded me recently that I had promised to make one and I haven't yet). The video is in the process of being created now and hopefully it will be up in the evening. It contains a $5oo table, 2 $600 and one £500 - equivalent of $1000, I think its pretty good but I don't think I explained things as well as I could have but hopefully there is still decent content. If this one proves popular I'll try to make another one but probably just a 2 table one which will enable me to fully extrapolate my thoughts.

Normally I would go through my hands now but as they are in the video I'm going to wait until after I've posted it and most of you have watched it and then write down my thoughts about the tricky hands and elaborate on any comments which I made at the time.

Watch this spot!

A bad day.

Today just didn't go well, I didn't play well from the offset and then I started to tilt after some crappy hands. I ended the day down 1.5k after losing 3k in my second session which is a little shity but I guess I deserve it after yesturday. After playing badly and losing I didn't want to play and more so I only played 2 hours today which is a good thing given the way I was playing.

Hands by table and order in which they were played.

Table 1
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141492
This hand is gay, the turn bet here is so see through and obviously once I call the turn I am calling a none heart river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141501
I hate it when unknowns cold call because you always have to give them the benefit of the doubt and they always come up showing crap.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141510
Possibly not a good idea to try to represent AK against 2 people.

Table 2
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141520
I think I ballsed up this hand pretty badly. Once the guy cold calls me I'm slightly scared but I'm not folding top two on such a draw heavy board. I think the best play is to shove the turn.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141516
Pretty normal I guess.

Table 3
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141570
Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141571
I actually feared Q9 after the C/R on the river but I forgot that this is party.

Table 4: HU
I actually got schooled here which hasn't happened for a long time but I guess its good to have a challenge every so often. The thing which dissapoints me a lot though is that looking though the hands in PT tells me that this guy was just being super straight forward really when I thought he was being a bit tricky. His lines against me were check call top pair for 3 streets, check raise 2pair+, check call draws, make some bluff raises. I'm looking forward to playing him again because after doing my homework I am confident that I can spank him/her.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141529
Huge mistake here not folding the river, there really isnt any other draw he could have and only a flush makes sense. In my defence this was very early in the match but in some ways that should make in even more of a fold.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141533
He wins the raising war.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141538
Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141539
Standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141543
At this stage I think I am tilted since I shouldn't be reraising 24s.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141545
This hand sucks ass because he either has 77 or a bluff given his turn and river play combined since he doesnt have a jack as he check calls top pair, on the turn alone 67 looks possible too but obviously not given the river play.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1141548
Total spew and tilt. On the flop I think I orginally planned to try to hit my gutshot or give up and then I suddenly got fancy play syndrome, I actually misclicked the river since I meant to shove but it ended up saving me money since the bluff would have been retarded. I stopped playing after this.

A good day.

I got in the 3 hours as I wanted and played almost 1000 hands, normally 4 or 5 tabling and as the image below shows, I ran disgustingly hot.



I'll try to run through some interesting hands as opposed to just ones where I stack someone or vice versa but I don't really know how effective I am at trawling through 1k hands. Warning: cards may be very hot.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1138937
This hand is obviously a cooler but the way I played it is inviting to be bluffed if he doesnt have a big club which is so important in HU in my opinion, you want to try to maximize your equity against your opponents range and since people rarely have anything that sometimes means playing a hand in a way to maximize value from bluffs not made hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1138960
So in thise case I think the best option is to try and get it in on the turn and hope the other guy has a 5 which allows me to freeroll my flushdraw to scoop the pot. Obviously his line looks pretty strong anyway but even if he is bluffing its unlikely that he will bet the river after I call a turn C/R so just jamming it is best IMO.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1138974
Now this hand is interesting. PF is standard - 89o in the BB = raise if only SB calls, my opponent definitely isn't very solid and is pretty much a calling station (in that case you can argue for a check PF but I chose to raise this time since I hadn't been that active recently). So the flop doesnt help me but I make a standard cbet which is called and then I turn second pair. In my opinion there are two ways to play this hand, one is to check the turn in order to induce a bluff on the river by the FD or hope to check it down against a weak ace or small pair. The other way is to bet the turn to get max value from draws but put no more money in the pot at all since you have over represented your hand to some extent. Against a calling station type opponent who is unlikely to bluff and is more likely to have a random FD here I think betting again is the best option.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139012
This hand is pretty standard but I question what my opponent has here to call the flop yet fold to the river. I think the river is the interesting part here because it is possible that I could be drawing dead, possible hands are things like AQ/AK, KK, QQ (unlikely though given the PF action but not everyone reraises them all the time), 77 is pretty likely PF although you would expect a raise on the flop so that makes it less likely, then there are random hands like KQ, KJs, JJ or JTs etc. I think that betting the river is just good enough because hands like AK will always pay you off and sometimes AQ, if I check the river and my opp shoves then I have a tough decision because my hand is so underrepped and he could be bluffing while at the same time its hard to put him on a hand that I beat since JT "should" check behind since the pair of Ts now beats hands like 99 or AJ. So basically if I was (not saying I would) going to call the river then I should definitely bet it in order to get value from hands which would otherwise check behind. On balance I think betting is better than checking but also its worth thinking that betting means that I don't have to show that I'm squeezing with KTo if my opponent folds, which helps to maintain a solid image (obviously this isnt a massive factor but certainly worth consideration).

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139050
The interesting part in this hand is the turn/river. Against this opponent who again is pretty weak I think checking the turn is good for 2 reaons 1) it doesnt look like I have AK so he will hopefully pay me off on the river with something like 99 which he may fold on the turn, 2) if he was floating me with Ax on the flop (which seems relatively common for some reason at party) then it helps to keep the pot small and makes my decision easier on the river. When the second ace hits the river it offers a great spot to make a big value bet looking like a blatent bluff which should get paid off by a lot of hands, also if I am raised on the river I have an easy fold.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139064
This is probably the toughest hand of the night and I think I misplayed it fairly badly. I get limp reraised by a weak player who seems to have been aggressive in recent hands and could well be on tilt and then we hit a dodgey flop. I think for sure that the river call is plain wrong but the flop and turn are so hard to fold given that I probably have 13 outs. I really dont like raising the flop though because I'm just building a large pot OOP with a very marginal hand which could be drawing dead, raising the turn may be an option since it makes my decision easier on the river but I doubt that this player is folding that much so it seems like spew without much fold equity. So yea, basically I'm stumped and I'll see what some other people say about the hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139131
This isnt particularly interesting but its quite funny, a few days ago another 4 would have hit the turn but not today. :D

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139139
This hand is pretty good, I think that playing so much HU makes me more inclined to make more A high calls which may or may not be a good thing. For the record I was planning on calling a none diamond river because things just didn't stack up with respect to what I knew about the player - but obviously the ace made it a lot easier.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139146
Inducing the squeeze, this guy had been squeezing a lot (quite rightly too) whenever the maniacal/tilted guy raised and I flat called so I decided to set a trap for him and I was willing to felt AQ in this spot too because I thought it was quite likely that he realised that I had seen him squeeze too much and was therefore trying to resteal.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139153
I was planning on trying to take away the pot on the turn but obviously I hit a pair so I was ahead of any A high hands so there was no point in betting.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139155
Pretty standard I guess, my opponent is a solid 2p2er I think and his play was very consistent with a hand like 88/99 and I think I got the max value here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139161
I played a bit of 3 handed today which is something which I rarely get the chance to do but I must admit that I really like and I'm actually quite proud of this hand. On the turn I think its really likely that he has something like KJ and is ahead of me but he can't stand a raise so I turn my hand into a bluff on a fairly decent turn card given my intention. Its worth noting that this is early in the session so my image is still good, he thought for ages then typed something like "I can't believe I'm folding this". :D

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1140232
Pretty standard HU hand, note this is from the former 3handed game so the BB is the button, therefore it is all about reraising PF since you have position bost Post and Pre flop. This was the perfect spot for a 2 barrel because I think that he just has a jack or low ace given that he didn't raise me on the flop (which he certainly would have done with a draw or a big hand because of our history and my image which has now been established).

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139187
DID SOMEONE SAY HERO CALL?!?!?!?!
I really didnt believe his line here, if he has a big diamond but not the nuts then he checks the turn to induce a bluff and exercise pot control, if he has a small diamond then he just looks to check the hand down since it has showdown value. So basically he either has the Qd or a bluff and its pretty obvious which is more likely given my image and previous history.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1139198
This hand is nothing special but its very funny. The key here is the bet size on the turn to ensure that I have exactly a PSB left on the river to shove while not making it stupidly obvious that I have a monster by just potting the turn.

That will do for now, obviously I'm really happy with how today went but I expect that variance will catch up with me tomorrow.

Good luck at the tables guys.

The poker gods heard my call: Running stupidly hot

It seems that the poker gods have intervened to help me decide what to do.

Today I am running as hot as I ever have, pps make sets, draws actually complete, opponents pay off with garbage. It is truely brilliant yet disturbing at the same time. Anyway what I think is that I'm going to aim for 3-4 hours a day of poker, so tonight for instance I'm aiming for 3 hours because the England - Brazil match is on and I plan on drinking so I'm not going to be able to play as much. However during the weekend I hope to get in 4 hours on both days since it is the most profitable time of the week (aside from 2am on a friday but I dont want to play then :P). So far today I've got in two hours as well as finding time to go into town with my sister so I'm pretty happy, if I can get another hour in from 6-7 then things will be brilliant.

I plan on posting the hands from today after the match, lets hope I continue to be fed money. :D

Current and predicted failure

This afternoon I was thinking if I should either play poker or just play Wii and darts with my housemates, I chose the latter but half way through the first game of bowling I quickly realised that I had completely ballsed up my "challenge". At the restart of this blog I was aiming to spend a month trying to play on average 4 hours a day of poker for 5 days a week, it sounds really easy in theory but basically aside from the first day or 2 I just havent been doing it. The main reasons are 1) that I hit a mini downswing which knocked my motivation a bit, 2) the tables at midday are a lot tougher than the evening, 3) I'm too lazy. I must admit that in some ways I'm pretty dissappointed in myself for not sticking to something that I couldn't wait to get stuck into during my exams. At this stage I'm not sure whether to just forget about it and continue to relax and enjoy myself or to make a renewed effort to play some structured poker but perhaps try something a little more achievable. I'll decide soon.

Good session

I just finished playing Colin HU - he beat me again but it was basically a crap shoot at the end since the blinds got so high, the turning point in the match was when I 3bet shove the flop with a gutshot and he called with top pair, I think he had a 4 or 5-1 chip lead on me but the blinds were at a nice level so I was able to shove my way back into contention and then I won a 30/70 in his favour to get a small chiplead and basically from there we let the crap shoot commence. While I was playing colin I also had some 600nl tables open and I ended up getting some nice hands and having another good session.

Anywayzzz back to the hands from last session.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134049
Pretty standard really but it shows the advantages of a loose image.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134051
Again pretty standard, we are 4 handed so my call isn't that loose, I think that I probably should have minraised his cbet here since there arent any draws on (that he is likely to have) so I dont have to be worried about being shoved off the best hand that much.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134066
This hand is pretty messed up and obv a shity spot. I haven't been at the table that long and this hand has happened almost instantly after the last one (hence my reload hasnt come through). I think in hindsight I prefer bet/folding the turn since opponent seemed like a fairly weak player, if he had called then I still think c/c a small/medium bet on the river is good against this type of player.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134106
How not to play KK as a short stack.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134108
I probably should have bet more on the turn but I wasn't that scared of any cards and I wanted to keep this guy around since he was a complete 100% good old fashioned donkey - the type I haven't seen in ages. On the river he had like 4-1 odds so I really don't know what he had - I'm guessing a FD.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134120
Very standard, if I dont hit an openended straight flush draw on the turn I probably check behind, I think you can argue for just calling the checkminraise but shoving is also good too imo.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134126
Zzzz Boring.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134129
As I said, donkey.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134131
A good spot to flat call on the turn since I obviously have no fold equity and he has a monster since hes a weak player.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134137
Its been a while since I gave a beat like this although I did have 7 outs, again both the guys in the BB and SB were retards so I limped on the button with 65o hoping to hit a good flop and I did.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134145
Erm, I really don't understand this.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134147
Or this.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134151
Pretty standard hand really but I'm undecided whether betting the turn or check/calling is best, ideally we both check the turn then I can bet any river and fold to a raise but checking and then being forced to call isnt really that great (obv check raising is spew without a read). On the other hand betting almost turns my hand into a bluff and I'm sort of screwed on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134174
Standard really.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134184At the end of my first session this guy sat down who was the same guy I had the mamoth HU match with over the weekend. I seemed to have the edge early on though since I purposely tightened up a bit since I had been playing very aggressively towards the end of our last match. Clearly hitting TPTK in a RR pot against someone who thinks I am crazy and who doesn't have a full stack = get stack in fast. I think that calling the turn then shoving the river is best because it might look like I'm trying to bluff (obv I would bet a FD on the flop the majority of the time so if he thinks about my river shove then he can't think I have the flush that often) and therefore get value from hands like 99 while at the same time making sure he can't check any lower aces.

Thats the end of the first session today, its getting late and I can't be bothered to do the second session - you would be suprised how long it takes to actually write all this stuff.

Quick summary of the match with Colin...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134217
I think checkminraising definitely has its place HU and I sometimes like to add it in for confusion, unforunately Colin generally knows how to deal with it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134223
This hand I played badly. I don't mind turning my hand into a bluff on the turn but I need to follow it up with a river bet if that is my intention, alternatively just checking the turn and check/calling the river is also a viable option. Obviously Colin played the hand fine.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134229
Minraise time again.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134232
Pretty standard HU play.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134237
This is my attempt at representing the jack by donking the flop to induce the raise but against Colin who knows that I won't have the jack that often here it isn't as good. :( Against an unknown the play works well because they "should" fold a7 there but Colin clearly made the right call against me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1134244
Suckout FTW? It appears that my former ties with Lee Jones still hold sway.

From then on it was basically a cointoss which Colin won - probably deservedly given that I sucked out before.

Gl at the tables everyone.

An actual poker update

I had a long weekend at my parents' and I must admit that it was nice to just do nothing for a few days as well as trying to 3 table on their pc since it helped me to remember how fun poker could be - it seems that poker players have a short memory regarding the validity of poker as a means to derive enjoyment and to some extent relaxation when they are running badly. On Monday night I actually ended up playing a 3 hour heads up match against a pretty solid player and even though this was one of the longest and hardest matches I've played in a while I really enjoyed it, my feelings about it may be slightly biased because I ended up 3 buyins against him but I can honestly say that it was fun and really characterized what poker is to me: firstly a means of enjoyment and mental stimulation and secondly a way to make money. Personally whenever I seem to focus too much on the money aspect I dont enjoy it as much but I also find myself playing worse which can lead to a vicious cycle.

Anyway this is meant to be a hand related update so I'm going to get through some hands now and then I will probably have to post again in a little while since I have a HU match with colin in 15mins. I played for about 1 hour 15mins at crypto and party at 500nl and 600nl mainly playing 5 tables.

Btw it seems that pokerhand.org is back up.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1133795
This hand I was planning on checking the turnand then value betting the river since my opp seemed a bit weak-tight who might fold an ace on the river if I bet 3 streets so I thought I could make more money by checking the turn then potting the river - a line that looks much more like a bluff plus gets more value anyway because I can't really bet pot on the turn here because it looks too strong. He bet anyway so obviously I have to call, raising is an option because he looks/is pot committed but it seems a bit spewy against this player, I think I need to shove the river though because he probably checks behind all his 1 pair hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1133803I'm quite proud of this hand to be honest and I derived real enjoyment in making my river bet - how sad am I? PF and flop are pretty standard, its 4 handed and an aggressive player raises my BB from the button so I 3bet and make the obligitory cbet, on the turn I have to check because I can't represent the T or the flush that well and even if I had either of them I would have to check anyway because thats how I would play them if I hit them (the majority of the time anyway). On the river I thought that it was pretty likely that he had middle pair type hand like 88 or 98 that had showdown value but couldn't stand much action because if he had a strong hand he would raise the draw heavy flop and if he was floating me then the turn gave him the ideal chance to steal the pot - which he didnt take. Now bear in mind this is relatively early on in the session so my image is still pretty decent (ie not overly aggressive) so I make a fake blocking bet bluff to represent an overpair looking for value. The beauty of this bet is that a) it looks so unlikely to be a bluff because I'm offering such good odds on such a dangerous board that a strong player must fold quite a few hands.

Its HU time now so I'll finish the rest of the hands later.

A Quick HU Guide: Some general HU thoughts

A lot of HU play is about image and momentum and less about the cards that each player holds.


For example if you have just won two decent pots in the last 6 hands while showing down a good hand each time then it is time to put the pressure on your opponent because

1. they will be more inclined to give you credit for a hand so they wont play back with air
2. they will have less confidence in their own hands so you can make them fold e.g. middle pair with a 2 barrel which wouldn't have worked before
3. they will often have less confidence in general so they rarely try to make moves ie they wont give you credit for a hand but still try to push you off it.

All these factors point to being more aggressive in the near future to exploit this; for instance opening more hands on the button, reraising more in the BB, double barrelling more etc. Your opponent will either tighten up immensely and allow you to run them over until they find the nuts to make a stand (the more likely scenario) or he/she will start to give you no credit and play back at you - in which case we can adapt by tightening up in the big pots (ie no 3 barrelling or messing around with middle pair) but still being aggressive in the small ones to maintain that crazy image to ensure you get paid off when you hit a hand.

Alternatively it may be the case that your opponent is being looser and more aggressive than you are. In this case you are more able to represent big hands and bluff him due to your relatively tight image, if you are oop then throw in the occasional big hand line bluff like c/c flop then c/r turn, this will mean that your aggressive opponent will have to fold a lot of his hands and you win a nice pot - clearly you shouldn't over do this move and once you have done it twice in a match you should generally have a big hand the third time since your opponent may start to get suspicious.

You can also lure your aggressive opponent into trying to push you off hands which you aren't going to fold. For example if you call oop with KdTc and the flop comes Ks7s4h then here is a great spot to slow play and just check call for two streets then decide whether to check call the river or bet for value. In this situation your aggressive opponent will often think you have a draw or a weak pair and will try to 2 barrel you reguarly and even 3 barrel sometimes because they just cant believe that you wouldnt try to raise at some stage in the hand with a K or better.

More to follow...

PS: I'm sorry that these random thoughts are poorly organised but hopefully you guys can get something from them.

A quick guide to HU cash

I've just had another crappy session and I'm on semi tilt - owned someone HU only for him to suckout for stacks and remove any profit then I got hit and run by a short stack whos a5 beat my tt, then I got backdoor flush over flushed and finally spewed a stack at £500 on a horrible bluff, well only about £250 was spew but still annoying (ie the initial bluff was good but it soon became clear he wasnt folding). I'm discliplined enough not to play but I've got a burning desire to so I'm going to write about it instead. Sorry for the whine, I actually find it annoying when people whine about beats and to be honest I don't really care about my beats - its more the fact that I made a stupid mistake because of them.

Anyway lets talk HU. Let me start by saying that like any form of poker there is no perfect strategy, it is all about establishing a "normal" line then deviating from that in certain ways in order to maximize your expectation against opponents who adapt to your "normal" style.

Preflop

First off starting hands, like 6max or full ring your starting hands should depend on your position, your opponent and your image but a rough default range might look something like this...

Button raising range - no limping!: any suited cards, any K any A, most Q's, any connectors or one gappers, any hand with two medium cards or two big cards ie 69 or J7, any pair etc. In some ways it might be easier to state which hands to fold, generally I fold hands like q2o, j4o, 83o, 72o, 32o ie ones that have nothing other than pair potential and even when we hit those pairs we are either very very vulnerable to be outkicked or the pair is very low and basically only better than A high, hands like 45o are much better than j2o due to straight potential.
Note: The one time when limping is viable is against short stacks who are very volatile. E.g. someone who has $100 with $2/$5 blinds, raising to $15 (3x is standard hu raise) puts you in a very tough spot if they push.

BB range: Generally it is good to be relatively tight in the bb to keep things simple while trying to ensure you dont get ran over by someone. Obviously a big part of successful HU strategy is to not be too predictable, so when I say calling or reraising ranges I mean them as a rough guide and you should merge the two ranges at the ends ie call mostly but reraise sometimes with the strong end of the calling range ie 88 or T9s and similarly the opposite for reraising hands ie reraise mostly with KJ but sometimes call.

• Calling: suited aces and kings, a7o+, K7o+ Q8+ j8+, hands like 87o or 96s, all pairs, all suited connectors etc.
• Reraising: ATo+, A8s+, KJ+, 99+, some suited connectors or 1 gappers

Finally a rough BTN 3bet calling range would be basically the same as the reraising range from the BB but you can losen up a bit if you want since you have position but I tend to keep the "Big card part" ie Ax the same but play more suited connector type hands.

Flop

Its pretty hard to write a short summary for post flop play HU because literally every line is available to you so I'm not even going to try. Instead I'll try to talk about the very basics and add in a couple of deviations to consider. The key to good post flop play HU is to play standard and add in lots of little deviations along the way to confuse your opponents and make them play incorrectly against you.

In position: In HU the majority of the time no-one has anything but the key isn't always just blind aggression but who can represent the hands best. Generally cbet the majority of flops particularly A-Jxx ones or 26T etc which are unlikely to hit your opponents, flops like JhTs7h should be bet rarely for obvious reasons. Basically use your knowledge of normal cbetting and adapt to hu.

When you hit a pair you nearly always want to bet it because a pair is a good hand in HU and obviously you are cbetting a lot so you need to balance that out a bit. Similar to the btn raising range it might be easier to state times when you might want to check a good hand. Times might be when you raise K5 and flop comes K96, by checking here with a strong hand (TP is a monster) you achieve a few things a) you make it so that your opponent knows you are capable of checking a hand so they won't autobet the turn every time you dont cbet, b) it is a good place to slowplay because only an ace can really hurt you, c) you can sometimes get more value from a 9 because you can bet both remaining streets and they will certainly call.

One other technique to consider is very occasionally checking good hands on draw heavy boards, this is because no-one can ever give you credit for a hand on future streets and so opponents often try to bluff you or completely overvalue their hand if they have one. Clearly you should only do this rarely but an important thing to remember is that most of the time people dont have a hand HU and that includes draws, so even if one of them hits you can still have some confidence that you hand is good as your opponents are likely to be bluffing the draw.

Out of Position: Again the "opponent dependent disclaimer" is very valid here. Checkraise aggressive opponents a lot - with both air, draws and good hands, they will react to this in two ways either they slow down and allow you to control the match by leading the turn and taking pots with hands which have no showdown value and they let you check down your hands like 33 or A high which have showdown value but mostly can't stand any heat (note A high is often good HU and things like K high call downs are "normal?"), alternatively they start reraising your C/Rs so the normal "tighten up and wait for a hand e.g. top pair" applies, very occasionally people start calling the C/Rs in which case they often either fold a lot to a turn bet. Hands like middle pair or bottom pair are best played from behind the majority of the time i.e check/call one or two streets as standard - again I stress that its important not to be predictable so if you have J9d on a As9s4d board it is probably best to check call say 80% but C/R the other 20% for example. I generally don't lead that much in OOP because its often better to C/R as you likely get a cbet as well as the current pot, however I like lead bluffing on draw heavy boards since opponents are scared to raise due to a possible shove putting them in a crap spot and on very dry boards that are unlikely to hit my opponents and as such sometimes they don't cbet them as often.


Essentially... Top pair+ is a strong hand ie bet for value on three streets, in a reraised pot you shouldn't fold top pair (otherwise why are you playing that hand in the first place) and occasionally middle pair too, in just raised pots getting your stack in with 2pair+ is good but again opponent specific. Making lots of small and medium well timed bluffs is important along with the rare 3 barrel after you know a little about your opponent.

Thats all I have time for at the moment, I will add more in the future.

Good luck at the tables.