CARDRUNNERS

Dear Blog,

Yesterday I decided to stab at PL200. I was happy with my results but was definitely concerned with my overall play as I did make a mistake that I figure is a definite leak that I can afford to fix now before it becomes a major leak. This leak is drawing at a large wrap when there is a flush draw on the board and you don't hold those suits. The problem is you're hand can be duplicated and your villain can freeroll you. Here's an example from yesterday's session that I will definitely be mucking from now on.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2326153

In the hand, I flop a 13 card nut broadway wrap and my villain flops the weak end of this draw BUT he also has a flush draw. I have 40% equity and has 47% equity with a 13% chance of a tie. If the board did not come with the flush draw, or he did not hold the flush cards in his hand, I would have 60% equity, my villain would only have a 14% chance of winning and we would tie 26% of the time. The moral of this story is it's a much better investment to put your money in as a favorite than a dog.

After a much suckout like a Jenna Jameson scene, I get involved with this hand and it's my largest pot to date as I held the nut straight, a flush draw, and middle set. My villain had a bigger straight draw and a bigger flush draw but giving the action, I think he should either flat or fold as I could be holding a duplicate or better straight draw or flush draw.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2326189

Enough PLO talk for now, I'm out to the tables. See you on the virtual felt.

-Locks

Tonights session was a rollercoaster. I started off down almost 2 buyins before turing it around and ending the night up 1 buy in. There were a few key hands that I wanted to post that took me through the session in that manner.

Winning Hands -

Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295855 

Ended up way better of on the turn in this hand than I thought I was and the river came through.  Either way I like the way I played this.  If anyone else has any objections or feels I should have slowed up anywhere please feel free to make comments as I'm blogging to learn. This statement goes for all hands.

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295881

I again play this hand very agressively.  The turn mints me even though i was already ahead in the hand and my opponent overvalues his hand largely in order for a big pay off.

Hand 3: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295889

Over Pair plus a flush draw vs Over Pair plus flush draw and mine just happened to be bigger.

Hand 4: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295900

Hit top pair and outrun a flush draw.

Losing Hands -

Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295870

Felt I was behind to a straight here if anyone feels this was a bad fold please comment.

Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295905

Felt I was betting into a flush draw until the push on the turn and then I think I'm def behind.

Hand 3: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295913

Flopped Trips Vs Straight. Ugh!

Hand 4: http://www.pokerhand.org/?2295919

Kinda got stuck here Overpair vs Overpair.

Right now I'm in L.A. playing poker at the Commerce casino with some friends! I got here on Wednesday and I'm staying for two weeks or so. I've met up with 2+2ers stnkypete, Dan Bright, Slider, billyjex, and MagicNinja and have had a lot of fun partying and playing poker. The casino is really nice and has the biggest poker room in the world. The high limit action is ridiculously good and I'm doing pretty well so far this month.



Last night Martin (MagicNinja) and I wanted to play some heads up 2-7 Triple Draw so we went to the casino floorman and asked if he would get a dealer and spread a $100/$200 game for us. Martin is world-class at this game whereas I don't have much experience (I've played the $300/$600 game at UB once or twice), but the game is a lot of fun and pretty high variance, so I have a decent shot at coming out ahead against him and if others sit I should be +EV in the game. We each bought in for $5k and played heads up for about 15 minutes before others trickled in the game and it ran five handed most of the time. I had a great time, learned a lot about the game, and finished up $3,000 (a pretty meaningless 15 bets in this game) after winning one massive ~$3,500 pot. I also played some Triple Draw on UltimateBet last night ($80/$160 stakes) and finished up $2,028 there.

Triple Draw is a really fun, difficult game that allows for a lot more creativity than a game like limit hold'em. It's popular in the live high stakes mixed games so I will probably try to practice it a bit. Knowing your opponents is key and developing correct/reading others' bluffing frequencies is pretty tough.

I had one interesting hand that I screwed up in a few spots in the Triple Draw game last night. I'm dealt 872AK in the small blind and it's folded to me. I open and the big blind 3-bets, he is a tight player. I call and draw 87652. Easy checkraise but I'm an idiot and bet. He raises, I 3-bet, he 4-bets. UGH! I call and ditch my 8. HE DRAWS ONE DAMNNNITT!!! I draw to a 97652. I bet, he calls. He draws one, the river checks through and my ninety-seven is good. Aside from the miserable play after the first draw, I misplayed the turn. I should definitely checkraise. If he just calls then I will stay pat and if he 3-bets me I'll drop the nine to try to improve.

The first day I was here I played some $100/$200 limit hold'em as well and won $1,500 or so. I haven't checked out the no-limit hold'em games here but I hear that they are fairly soft.

Online I have been doing well. The night before coming to L.A. I played a few thousand hands and won $11,000 or so. My new laptop arrived from Dell and I just started using it since I got to L.A. I've been playing the no-limit games on Full Tilt and PokerStars and have gotten off to a good start. Here are all the hands I've played on my laptop (since I've been in L.A., Nov 1):



Including my Triple Draw and live play I'm up a respectable amount and it's only the 4th. I'm going to try to grind out the hands and put together a big month.

Dan, Slider, billyjex, Martin, and I are going to go to the bars so I'm signing off now, good luck at the tables.

I just finished playing a bunch more PLO today and ran really hot. It's always nice to start of a new challenge (see previous blog entry) with back to back +10 buyin days. Some PokerTracker shots


pt


graph

Catching a little heater is always great, and although the $ swings aren't nearly as big as I'm used to in NLHE (I think my swingiest days in NL have been +$310k and -$200k or so), winning in a new game definitely gives a different sense of satisfaction.

My last entry was a good trial run but I think for PLO, inputting the hands in pokerhand.org works better because they are pretty easy to read and pokerhand has quick links that tell you each hand's equity on by street (very important in analyzing PLO hands of course).

Today I played mostly heads up and had a sick match against GDUPFTUP on Full Tilt. He's not a bad player or anything, but I just seemed to win every flip, cooler him once or twice, and won a lot this session. Also I have trouble getting anyone to play me on MUCKEMSAYUHH so you'll notice I'm using a different screen name.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346041
this hand I cooler him, I probably don't play it any different in his shoes. the match was playing so aggressively too that he probably suspects oversets are goin to reraise him preflop most of the time. always nice to play a massive pot with your opponent nearly dead.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346048
the recap of this match is not goin to be pretty, as this is the only hand where he stacked me. pretty standard, I flop top two in a reraised pot where he has the nut flush draw and a gutter. I'm a 54% favorite when the money goes in.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346050
this hand definitely shows how badly people can overvalue two pair in PLO. he flops top two in a reraised pot, but with basically no redraw his hand is not that strong at all. my massive draw is 58% to win, and putting in 200BB at 42% is not good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346055
this hand I get the money in pretty bad (32%) and suck out. my play here probably isn't great just because if he has a higher straight draw I'm in bad shape, but it's obviously pretty tough to put someone on top two 9-5.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346057
i think I had him tilting a bit here, he bet/3bets the flop with just the nut flush draw. but as usual in PLO he's not far behind.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346059
i suck out on him once more, althought I've got quite a few outs on the turn. with the way the match was going, i think he just bet/calls it off with any good top pair like AKQJ, so i thought it was unlikely he had AK. AAxx is unlikely since two of the aces are accounted for so on the turn the hand i'm most worried about is A6xx which he turned up with, but I think my play here is fine/standard.

Hmm those are actually all the hands where we traded stacks, but it definitely felt like more.



Another player I played a bunch of heads up with was IRISH58. He's way too loose (VPIP of 82 heads up), and a weak player in general.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346069
this one was kind of interesting. i've been checkraising a lot of flops against him so I decided to do it when I flop three pair. the turn card isn't really a bad one for me but the river isn't great as he probably had either a flush draw or a straight draw on the flop and most straight draws got there. but, this player has trouble folding a T high flush draw at any point and by the river the pot is so big I'm not sure if I can fold (he's shoving $1,086 into an already $2,880 pot).

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346078
here I try to bluff him because I've caught him minraising the flop with absolutely nothing three times already but it doesn't work and he takes a stack off of me

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346079
against most guys getting deep stacks in on this flop isn't going to be great but IRISH is so bad that it's definitely the best play against him. i really have no idea what he had this hand, as he genuinely did seem to time down on the river before folding.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346082
it seems like anything over 60% equity is a pretty strong edge in PLO so i think i got it in pretty good here (61%) with top set vs his flush draw after reraising him light and catching a good flop



I remember when I started playing 5/10 and 10/20 NLHE on PartyPoker there were some really tough guys that played nonstop -- loloTRICKEDu, BLdSWtTRs, gamble4you, samoleous come to mind. These guys just kept putting me in tough spots and so when I looked to improve my game the first thing I did was write down all the spots they put me in that confused me or pissed me off, and then incorporated them into my game. Over the past few days there has been on player on PokerStars, kipa58, that has been playing the PLO games nonstop and at first gave me some trouble. He's really loose and extremely aggressive on the flop -- combine that with catching some hands and it's not going to be fun to play against him. So I studied a bunch of the hands he played and definitely learned a little from him. I concluded that he's just way too loose overall though, filtered for 5-6 players his VPIP is a whopping 47. Also in reraised pots he can get pretty out of line and if he has a piece of the board and thinks there is any way he can get you to fold, he's mashing the pot button. After going through some of his hands last night though I got a pretty good read on him and I beat him up good today at the tables. Here are some of the hands we played.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346110
here I repop him with AKQJss and flop the nut flush draw and four overs. i don't think i can really bet/call an unpaired flush draw and he is so aggressive on the flop that i decide to check it. he full pots it but i think there is a good chance i get paid off by either overflushing him or having him bluff his chips off when the flush hits so i call and see a turn. i turn top pair. against some guys who may check behind a wrap here i may just bet/call but this guy is constantly trying to push me out in reraised pots so i decided to check/jam expecting to have the best hand a fair amount of the time, and when i don't i've got a bunch of equity. turns out my jacks were good and the river bricks off for the win.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346122
here he gets a little stubborn with top pair and a gutshot and i get it in very good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346124
ugh this one is bad and a weird hand. a shortstack gets allin preflop and i flop a weak bottom two pair with a gutshot and put the rest in. he has top two and i'm in bad shape. i've definitely seen kipa do this with QKJTish hands but even then i'm not that great. should just muck this one probably.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346128
here we are in a blind battle and he minrepops me pre. i flop a pair and two backdoor draws. against this guy my plan was to peel and then check/jam any turn that gives me a backdoor draw or two pairs me. he bets so often when checked to that i think he's going to fold to my turn checkraise often enough. we played a hand the other day where i reraised him pre with 7542ds, he called OOP and then checkraised full pot to like $1220 on a K63r board. i shoved the rest in and he folded for $800 more, so he's definitely capable of putting a lot of big blinds in as bluffs in reraised pots. in this hand i turn queens up and jam it on him. the river is pretty terrible but i hold against his straight draw.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346131
here i just exploit his aggression a bit

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346133
he gets me on this one, where i flop top pair and the nut flush draw against his set. he waited for a safe turn to stick it in which threw me off a bit, i really thought he had a straight draw or maybe an overpair and flush draw.



And maybe another random hand or two...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346137
here is a good spot for a double checkraise. normally in PLO with a made hand it's not a great idea because giving a free card is too risky when your opponent is bound to have quite a bit of equity. but 1) 444 is the nuts here since he's going to raise QQxy and KKxy preflop 2) this turn is going to improve his hand often (whether top 2 or pair and a big straight draw) enough to bet or he floated some garbage gutshot and is going to try to bluff but i'll lose him if i lead. he jams the rest in after tanking and my 90%er holds

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346141
guy SNAPfolds for $300 on the river in a close to $5000 pot, guess he peeled the turn with a naked straight draw for full pot? he proceeded to play EVERY hand for the next ten minutes and busted pretty quick

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1346142
umm, you raise? .... put himself on AK. 98% equity for me



Those were most of the big ones I think, it's late and I'm going to get some sleep.

gl
Cole

im on blog tilt right now just had a huge entry lost so i really dont feel like retyping everything ill make it quick. I finally have money on UB again and their 5/10 has always been pretty weak imo. My goal is to make $20k and then mix in some 10/25. I'll also be playing some PLo here and there asusual. Played a little last night and was +2501 here are the big ones from last night.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1968520

i only beat a busted diamond draw. pretty bad call

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1968493

here i think his range includes AA, draw/combo draw, and even a bluff because i have been very aggressive so i call and am a slight fav

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1968416

going all the way with this one from the start. small bet the turn to try and suck him into a c/r or just let him get the money in for me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1968574

i 4bet pre for value here b/c he knows i would 4b light as well. now that i look back at the hand i feel like im behind is range on that flop and putting him all in doesnt make any sense because im only called by hands that beat me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1968607

i actually had a really hard time putting the money in here until i remembered his flop action. I think here it was more of a feel thing but he called almost instantly on the flop and i think QT would think for at little longer on how to get the most money. On the turn i put him on a smaller 2 pair or complete air and get it in good.

pretty good start to my UB goal.

San Remo is pretty nice, the scenery and landscape on the drive here from Nice was amazing. The food has been pretty decent so far, and although we got one of the hotel rooms that overlooks the parking lot, the view is still not too bad.

I ended up playing day 1b, and my table draw seemed really soft. One guy at my table smelt awful, but fortunately, he busted pretty early. The first few hours were pretty uneventful, I cardracked a fairbit to have just under 15k going into 100/200, none of the pots I played were particularly interesting.

Now at 100/200, UTG limps 4.6k deep throwing out 150, UTG+2 limps, HJ limps, and I have AJ on the button, nromally I'm suspicious of 20BB limpers from earlish position, but since he thought he had 30BB, I opted to raise to 1100. It folded around to UTG who shoved after not much thought. Its  3500 to me with 6400 in the pot, so like 1.8 -1. He was greek, and seemed like the type of guy who might want to make a move on the agressive internet kid. Also, I think guys limp big pairs with the intention of shoving a hell of a lot less with 30BB than 20BB, so I thought its more likely he had some sort of middle pair and I'd be flipping. I called, he had AK and held, so I was down to like 10k.

Next orbit, the same player limps, I call in the SB with 54hh, Juha Helppi checks the BB

Flop: QT4hhd, I bet 400 at 600, Juha raises to 1550, effective stacks are 9750.

From my experience, any time anyone raises big in a live tournament, they seem to want a fold, so I think he has 2 pair or better quite rarely. I think in this spot, he tends to have like a KQ/QJ type hand a fair bit, or a draw of his own.

I have heard hes supposed to be good, so I assumed hes almost never raise folding a draw here, so I tried to make a scaryish raise rather than shove in hopes of folding out top pair. I raised to 5050 leaving myself 4700 back, he called.
 I have no idea what to think of this, I think its not awful with top pair or something if he thinks I have a draw virtually always. I think with any big combo draw, he has enough equity he shouldnt want me check folding heart turns, so that didnt make a ton of sense.

Turn: A

I wasnt overjoyed with this card, since I thought he could have the nut flush draw reasonably often, but at the same time, if he doesnt have the nut flush draw, he is likely to fold some Qx hand now because he assumes I got there. So I shove my last 4700, and he tank calls with K8hh and gets there.

I'm not a huge fan of his line, because on heart turns he only gets paid off if I have like a set or a better flush. Its ridic exploitable, but I think check folding lots of heart turns is fine by me since hes never bluffing once a heart falls.

I doubt anyone reads this blog yet, but if you do, wash your hands. I'm not the most hygenic person in the world, but its disgusting how many people don't wash their hands at these tournaments and then go shake hands with people, play with their chips etc. I always assumed it was just random degens at poker tournaments who were too excited to get back to the table that don't wash there hands, but today a friend of mine who I respect didn't wash his hands while on break, and thats gross.

Anyways, I'm gonna go get some dinner