CARDRUNNERS

What's Your Edge

Brian Townsend : Poker Blog

July 01, 2009

June was a real rollercoaster of a month for me. I started off the month running red hot winning 450k in the first two weeks. I then dropped 600k in 4 days losing at every limit but the largely playing 500/1000 PLO. I was lucky to finish the month with a 150k heater putting me at even for the month. I have to admit there was some frustration this month, but anytime you lose 600k in four days and end up on the month I don't think you can complain.

As I said in one of my previous posts things could have gone very differently for me in the 500/1000 game. I could easily have won 1M-1.5M this month. Ya it sucks to have a break even month but I wouldn't do anything differently. It was a risk I was willing to take. I was even willing to lose about 1M playing 500/1000 but after dropping 600k I had a change of heart.

Learning mixed games as been going pretty well for me. I think I am at the point where I can start playing the 8-game mix rotation on stars. I have been working with my 2-7 coach a bit and feel competent in that. I need to do another session or two with him. I played about 4k hands of O8 this month mostly at 3/6 and 30/60. I did very well in that winning at 8.44 bb/100.

Now my winrate is obviously not 8.44 bb/100 and I have been running hot, but its promising that I am on the correct track. I am learning O8 very differently than I have ever learned other games. Learning limit holdem and PLO took me a very long time. I think this was mainly because I learned them from my experiences and through trial and error. I obviously did some math and some conceptual work but not enough. I think the 3.7k hands of O8 I have played have been about 100 times more effective than the first limit hands I played because of my not being results oriented and thinking about hands in a larger sense.

One of my largest leaks while playing limit was not defending my big blind enough. Limit and big bet poker games are very different in this manner because the threat of future bets is much much less in limit games. Because of this you can defend you blind with 35% equity vs an opponents opening range. Sometimes even less if your opponent is weak or opening from the small blind where you have position. Now compare this to a big bet poker game I would generally not defend with less than 50% equity against my opponents range. As well at this other factors play much bigger rolls like playability. I would defend my big blind with QJs all day long in NLH and fold A8o, while both of these would be trivially easy defenses in a limit game.

There are often times where you have to fold a hand with an equity edge against someone in a big bet game. If you had AA72r or KK72r in a PLO game and a good player opens from any position I think you would be very hardpressed to play these hands profitablly from the big blind even if you have a preflop equity advantage.

When I was learning limit I played like a NLH player. I wouldn't defend my blind to a middle position raise with A8o because I had experiences from NLH that told me this was unprofitable. I didn't really think about it to much at first because I thought it was a trivial fold. My poker game in general has grown alot since that time and I did learn PLO more quickly and completely than limit holdem. Alot of this was due to my struggles at limit holdem. I think I can now take what I learned from learning the other games and apply it to my mixed games.

I have some goals for July that I would really like to accomplish:

1) Play 10k hands of limit O8, no higher than 50/100
2) Play 5k hands of Stud or Stud 8
3) Watch of make a video from on of the mixed games everyday.
4) have a winning month at 25/50 PLO

Lets see if I accomplish these goals.

Entry Tags:

Jul 1, 09 20:25:38

good luck to u bra

F3nix35

Jul 1, 09 21:12:22

Sick. Now just pull some strings to get FTP to get an 8-game Mix going too.

Hokulea

Jul 2, 09 00:07:05

'Sick. Now just pull some strings to get FTP to get an 8-game Mix going too'

Very well said, or 7game if they can't do 2-7TD.

MUSTAFABET

Jul 2, 09 01:22:19

damn man what happened to starting at 2/4....i was looking forward to actually getting to possibly play some hands against you....maybe play some 2/4 or 3/6 sessions a couple times and blog about it beforehand?

TheTyman9

Jul 2, 09 01:45:01

Good luck Brian, you're a great coach and an amazing poker player. It's inspiring to hear what you've accomplished in this game!

I also appreciate your honesty, and that you're willing to share with us your challenging times as well. It reminds us all that even the very best players are not exempt from dealing with some of the ups and downs that poker players experience. Keep the blogs coming!

gofast44

Jul 2, 09 22:36:00

AA72 I wouldn't ever fold against any player preflop in the situation you described. KK72r example proves your point better. With aces there are just too many boards where you can check/call down to catch bluffs or possibly valuebet against smaller overpairs. You do also flop an ace 1 out of 8,5 times and when you do your hand is reasonably disguised.

The only time I fold AA72r (or any bad aces) preflop is when the stacks are very deep, action is heavy in a multiway pot and I think it's very likely someone else has Aces as well. This situation comes up sometimes in live games with an unlimited buyin.

Fontus

Jul 3, 09 17:24:52

cool fontus, but i think brian townsend knows a little bit about PLO, and I think id have to trust what he, a winning player at the nosebleeds, has to say, but its good to know if I ever play you

pocrespo

Jul 5, 09 01:22:02

very nice post, see you tomorrow at the CR party

SixPeppers

Jul 7, 09 04:16:23

NIce ONe

This is good

rakesh_sharma