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.