CARDRUNNERS

Here we both know that we both know what he's holding, and I can presume that he thinks I think he'll never call this big check raise 'bluff', and so he does...

 $5/$10 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

 Haven't played online much, only 5000 hands winning about £3500. Quite a lot of that was at €2/€4 PLO. I've also played 4 or 5 days of live poker at the Empire, but as its only £1/£2 the expected winrate isn't really material (its 1/3 the stakes on 1/4 the tables at 1/3 the speed, so about 36 times smaller), I've considered it recreation and practising the live game with the intention of playing higher stakes later on.

Went to Brighton last weekend for the £500 festival event, and played fine but was elimanted when the average stack was under 20 blinds, so not really much play left. I went out on a hand that I thought might be close at the time, and I think that most live tournament players think it would be close or bad - with about 15k and blinds of 500/1000 with 75 ante I pushed all in from the small blind with K5o. The big blind thought for a while then made an excuse before calling and revealing he'd been slow-rolling ATs.

At the time I thought the shove was borderline but now I don't think it is. There's 2k in the pot, and with, probably, 30% equity when called, I'm risking 40% of my stack when I'm bluffing. That's risking 6000 to win 2000, so if the button passes more than 75% of the time it's profitable. There are only 29% of hands that are actually ahead of K5o, and if he calls with all of those my equity would actually be 33%. If more realistically he calls with something like 66+,A8s+,KJs+,A7o+,KQo, then he is only calling 13.7% of the time and I improve my stack by an average of 900. I think a lot of people at that table would actually call even less often than that.

 Graph attached below for March so far (in Euro).

I've gotten a bit bored of blogging at the moment, as shown by the lack of updates; for once its not due to losing. I need Cardrunners to release another good CTS video to regenerate my motivatation to be involved in the community.

I produced my own video a while back (here) and it got a decent reception, but I'm not sure whether to make more at the moment. Poker players have such high hourly rates compared to most real-world jobs that I'm not sure that median-level journalism-type work will ever pay competively, and so I think it only gets done when people want to do it for reasosn other than just getting paid. When I applied to make a video it was because I really liked the idea of working with a company that was predominately Taylor, Brian and Cole, and that maybe by being involved I could soak up some of that top-end poker achievement. Now it feels more like a large stable of moderate mid-level grinders and it takes the 'heart' out of it, and the fees certainly don't eclipse the irony of contributing as one of those.

I won a 7-night Vegas package on Ladbrokes earlier this month, and now they've added a VIP promotion and back-dated it to upgrade the flights and room and add limo-transfers, which sounds fantastic. I think while I'm in Vegas I'll check of there are any Cardrunners meet-ups and see if the community-feel in person re-motivates me.

I also decided to play the £500 festival event in Brightion this bank-holiday. Someone pointed out to me that all the local professionals are in a higher buy-in event in Ireland that day, so with a few prizes added to the pool by the sponsor it should be a good value event. I've also never been to Brighton before, hopefully it will be sunny and heading down a day early will turn it into a nice mini-break.

 I imagine that most readers probably guess that posting less often corresponds with bad results, and that's certainly what happened at the start of March. Seemed like an even worse run coming right after Feb, which was the worst month's results since I started playing full time.

I lost quite a lot over the first 4 days and then at the end of the afternoon on the Thursday had a moment of deciding to leave the tables and not return until I had decided to stop losing. I went to the gym to hit the running machine, sort of Forrest Gump-style, until I felt like I'd had a clear break in time periods from the downswing and I'd figured out if there was anything I'd been doing wrong.

What isn't very Forrest Gump-like is that it only took me about 20 minutes to take my mind off the game because I had to concentrate on breathing, and the run, sauna and shower did make me feel much better. I decided I'd been calling the river a little too lightly, and had been playing medium hands aggressively in position in spots where the regulars' lines showed that they were strong enough that I should have waited for better opportunities.

Both are clearly examples of forcing action to create wins, and I think its interesting to note that when you are running well they are both things that you get away with (when coincidentally, the opponents are at their weakest) and they make you feel like you are playing even better, and so you do them even more. I suspect that's why big upswings are often followed by something of a correction (more strongly than the fact that looking back over a variable graph will always cause observation of that pattern through the sample choices)

After I got back from the gym I filtered HM from that point onwards, to signify "you are always even right now" and avoid the temptation to chase the previous peak, and then I've played about 5k hands over the previous week. Something seems to have worked because since then I'm up 20 buy-ins (Its in Euro):


 
Obviously the month so far is nothing like as great as that graph looks, so I haven't really wanted to put it in context. (And haven't even checked it myself until right now as I'm writing), but here it is. Up about £2600, with about £1K rake-back expected at the end of the month. It could still all turn out great if the next 2 weeks are solid... 

This is a note for my own use as much as anything else, below is a copy of a post made by Negreanu in a response to Galfond, discussing Durrrr's poker strategies.

The summary is that tournament players tend to play badly, or at least on a lower level of thought, and that when cash players play in tournaments they can overestimate the plays and adjustments that their opponents are making, because their regular cash-game opponents play to a much higher level.

This is a mistake that I made in a £20 live tourney I played at the weekend. Within two two rounds I had 3-bet the guy to my right for a 3rd time and there were a few comments about 'internet playing style', I'd had AK and AA, but neither had gone to showdown. This time I had AK, and the button cold-called. I thought that given my opponents had reason to believe I had a very wide range they would cold-call widely and try to win the pot frequently when I missed the flop. This meant that on a 955 flop I thought my AK still had a load of equity against his range, and with 1600 in the pot and about 3.5k left to play (and I had another 1500 behind that) a check raise shove might even fold out the mid pairs that actually are ahead of me.

So I made the check-raise all-in and he called with AA. He actually called with a hint of hesitation and a mention that I might have a 5 that could have been considered a slow-roll in a cash game! I now think that I completely overestimated the likelihood that a tournament player was adjusting and making play here. Giving up with AK on all 955 flops with only 2x the pot behind, to a 3/5pot bet, would be disastrous against good cash game opponents, but is probably fine in tournaments, especially considering that this was a realy low buy-in. As DN explains here:

"I fully understand why both Patrik and Durr sometimes take more risks in tournaments. I get that they do have other places they can make money and their hourly rate is always a concern. That actually kind of proves my point a little bit. They make plays in tournaments that aren't always optimal, but they make them because, for example, being short stacked in a tournament is less lucrative than playing side games.
The biggest criticism I would have for Tom's tournament game is that I don't think he realizes sometimes how basic, and weak, most tournament players are. They are so much worse than the players he's used to playing. 

This might not make a whole lot of sense, but I'll try and put it into words the best that I can: when I play tournament poker against typical fields I use about 55% of the weapons that I could. The reason I choose to do that is because the low risk approach is good enough to consistently build my stack without taking any risks. That same type of approach against sophisticated players, either in a tournament or a cash game, is simply not good enough. If I face better players, especially later in tournaments I usually make the adjustments and add more "play" to my game.
I watch lots of great cash players play tournaments at 100%. They still might be playing great poker, but not necessarily playing tournament poker properly. A simple example would be something like: Patrik and Gus are at a table full of weak/bad players. Instead of just picking on them, Patrik will start to make plays against Gus, the only real threat to him at the table. David Oppenhiem- same exact thing. Instead of being more cautious against the tougher opponents and picking on the weak, he'll go right after the best players at the table- full steam ahead and mix it up. That's a mistake.
Those aren't exactly the types of things I've seen Durrr do, and frankly, I don't have a ton of hours against him in tournaments either, but I did see him make high risk plays that weren't necessary for him to build his stack. Durrr is well bankrolled when he plays cash games and can fade the inevitable swings. In a tournament, though, you are restricted.
I broke him in a WPT event at the Bellagio in a hand where I raised under the gun, Thorladen re-raised me in second position, and Durr called on the button. I then went all in (had him covered). He called with 10-10. There are two tournament mistakes in that hand. He should have just folded the 10-10 in the first place, and then when I went all-in he could have gotten away from it. (I had AA)"

 Still £4k down for Feb, but this pot helped.

The moral of the story here is to avoid situations in which your range is very narrow and you still have 8-9 times the pot left to bet from out of position. Here I'm sure that his range on the flop is entirely overpairs, and he did have QQ . He gets almost 4:1 pot odds on the turn, which must make folding any overpair tough, and folding an overpair with a spade almost unthinkable. Probably helps to have a bit of a history of stabbing 1/3p bluffs in big pots.

The ace on the river is disastrous a small amount of the time, because obviously he can have AA as easily as the other overpairs, but since it's the ace of the spades it ensures that KxKs calls as well as probably QxQs and JxJs, so its usually a great card.

Against some players I think its better to bet bigger on the turn, because they won't fold many overpairs and certainly won't fold one with a flush draw, but in this case I felt like he was playing a bit more carefully and might get away from JJ and QQ this deep since he hasn't got any history of seeing me bluff in this situation (or ever have been in it with hiim before, for that matter.), I thought a spade river, or at least a lot of fake fold equity on the turn, might be needed to get the lot in, so the turn bet is small enough to make sure he sees the river if it does turn out to complete his draw.

$3/$6 No Limit Holdem.
 3 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks: