Whiskey Chaser

i stayed out of a definite -EV situation by skipping the tables on friday night.  tonight i got home from work and got in about an hour.  -3 BI, which i’m beginning to think is a weekend trend for me.  saturday nights are horrible it seems. 

the tables are almost all closed down by the time i get home, and the ones i do find seats at have at least 2 players who just want to win big or go home.  but, by the time i figure out who they are, i’ve already folded to a big turn bet, and someone else busts them out.

there were 2 50NL tables alive, so i sat in at some 25NL.

my 2 biggest hands:

i squeezed because Villan 1 is playing 90/70, and Villan 2 knows that.  Villan 1 is also a calling station.

second biggest hand of the night

i don’t even know what the hell i did. 

the third one was QQ<AA vs someone with 35bb and the habit of betting big.  i hate tossing off full stacks QQ v AA, but against someone under 40bb, it doesn’t bother me.

nothing went particularly well.  i’ll see what tomorrow brings, but for now, i think a pillow will make me happy.

i probably won’t be getting any hands in tonight.  or at least i hope i don’t.  the guys are coming over to jam, and i have full intentions on drinking some ice cold beer.  that means if i play, it should be on Tilt at the $2 SnG’s, lol.

actually, i should either play PS3, or watch a movie.

OK - i have one hand, but a lot of questions because things could have landed in a lot of ways. 

My Line:

ok, from my seat, i think i did fine.  the thoughts on being 3bet out of the blinds is that with JJ, i don’t want to fold.  we’re deeper.  between me and the raiser we’re like 135bb.  

now obviously squeezing oob could be AA or KK, but my reads on this guy include at least [AK/AQs/JJ+], so i thought i could call and play a hand in position.  i wasn’t afraid of the overcaller suddenly waking up behind me preFlop.

alternate flop - if the flop comes T high, i think i’m calling a cBet, folding to a double barrel.   good/bad?  i think that in my seat, Aces repop preflop because there’s a third player in the hand, and so do Kings.  the best hand i can have on an all undercard flop is QQ here.  i’d figure AK would fire out once, and give up on the turn.  does that sound reasonable?

if he begins the flop betting round with a check, i would probably bet/fold to shove.  thoughts on that line?

as landed - i think it was jut a matter of finding a way to get it in.

From the Villan’s Chair:

this is the part that may/may not be interesting.  is it ok to stack off here with AA for 135bb?

i’m ok with the flop bet.  after that i guess he really hopes i’m in there with KQ/QQ/ missed pp. 

i don’t see a spot in the hand where he could reasonably lay it down.  but, does that make it ok to stack off for 155bb here? (he’d be getting 3:1 odds to call a river shove if he flats my weak bet on the turn).

i don’t know.  it’s mulling over in my mind because i think that if i stacked off there with AA i would think that somewhere in there i should have known better, but upon inspection i’m not sure why i feel that way.

i’ve gotten in about 1,200 hands since the last post. i ran 20ptbb/100 to the good, so that’s good.

here’s my biggest loss:

now that i’ve already spoiled the ending, i’ll tell you what i think i learned.  when the river pairs the board on what was originally top pair, check/call the river if i’m relying on the board for my trips.  obviously he caught a two-outer, but i exaggerated things on the ass end by leading out and then not folding to a raise, imo.

tonight ran like a charm.  i won a couple of buy-ins over 164 hands and my biggest loss was 2.2bb.  that, is a charmed session.

i’m enjoying this “who are these people and how can i take their money” approach.  and obviously the time i spend digging up stats on them and applying them to situations helps kill the timing tells i used to give off constantly. 

i did run into 2 players who i thought were better than me, and basically gave them some chips.  that’s a bother.

i want to bang out a couple of more (a dozen?) solid  sessions at this level, and then re-evaluate.  so here’s to hoping that only takes a couple of weeks.  school’s starting, football is coming up soon, and time is going to be more valuable during the fall than it has been during the summer.

heh, that’s funny.  for school i mean for my kids, not me.  hehe.

although at some point you’d figure someone like this can sit back and say “i’m plenty fast”.

sorry for the recent blog downtime guys.  i didn’t notice because i’d been busy working, and when i did see that the site was down, it took 12 hours to get it back up. 

i must say that i’m not at all impressed with my host for this site (ANhosting), although i suppose they do their best.  still, the downtime on this site is alarming. 

Cards - haven’t played any since the last post.  i did do some reading of the blogs, but i didn’t have time and a mindframe combined for playing.  might get some hands in tomorrow night.

Home - the wife and kids have been away visiting her parents, and while that’s usually a ton of free time for me, i’ve been putting out fires of one sort or the other all week.  tonight should just be a standard night of barkeeping, followed by some normalcy next week.  but, i suppose i shouldn’t count on it.

the bright side in all of this?  i’ve been too busy to overeat or overdrink, so i’ve shed a couple of pounds and moved down a belt size, hehe.  now the goal is to stay under 190 for the rest of the summer.  and if i get a chance to play hockey sunday, that should really help.  a set of games is usually good for 1 1/2 to 3 pounds, and that would put me smack in the middle of the 180’s.

it happens.  it happens to me a lot.  so much so that i’m surprized i haven’t learned to knock it off yet.  but, i’m coming closer.

i take a bad beat, or worse yet, an acceptable beat.  i’ve taken several in the past two days.  AI on the flop with AA v KQ where he lands the K.  river comes another K.   goodbye stack #1. 

i get it in pre against a shortStacker my KK v AJ - Ace on the flop.  standard, no? goodbye 1/2 stack.

then a hand like this, where i probably don’t play it optimally.  if anyone clicks the link, the flop button bet thinking was “if i bet here, i might take it down.  if i get a call, i have some strong draws.” 

the c/r was giving me less odds than i needed to call, but there’s a turn and a river to go.  i pick up outs on the turn, and even against a set i still have flush outs and a gutshot, plus possible overcad outs.  if an overcard hits me, the plan is to check behind on the river, tbh.

whatever, i never get there. could it be played better?  probably.  but do you see the creep setting in?  i feel like i went from “i’m ahead” situations that landed heads instead of tails to situations where i’m not really ahead.  i’m actually a little behind, and not letting go. 

toss in a hand like this one.  i mean, it’s not the worst thing that could happen.  but, it’s not so good either. and i can feel the grease under my feet and that slippery slope starts to take me.

it’ll generally end in what i don’t recognize in time as being a full blown tilt-fest resulting in brilliant plays like this.

so, all in all, 1,000 hands and -4.5BI, and it’s a combination of variance, and clouded judgement.  and it’s a tiny swing, i know that.  i just need to take my pattern of

• 1 bad beat
• 2 losses in 7:3 or 2:1 pots
• 1 stupid stack-off

and change it.  it’s just that last part, it’s unhealthy.

now this iteration hasn’t hurt my psyche near as much as others have, and if tomorrow i run KK into AA, or A2o that hits on the river, i’ll be ok with that.  but somewhere before i hit item #3 i have to either gain another measure of self control, or quit. 

i’d prefer developing the ability to control my mind in the face of the obviously inevitable swings of win some/lose some to  quitting, but in the short term, either will do.  just as long as it keeps me from putting the checkmark in the ”stupid stack off” box.

habit alert - i just realized this, i tend to play cards, review my session, think about my big/question hands, set them up in a replayer, blog about them, hit “save”, go to bed, sleep on them, and wake up having answered my own question so i never hit “publish”.

probably 35% of what i write never gets printed, including last night’s “what should i bet on the turn” hand.  the rub being i’m not sure if i’ve attracted a flush draw to come along (less likely since i have the Ace of the suit), or a weaker Ace that i want two streets of value from.

i also highly question my flop play on this hand.  i think if i just call, he’ll have no clue where he is, and i can get more action on later streets.  i was scared of a diamond killing everything so i pushed the hand a bit.

i think something clicked in my brain on sunday morning poker-wise.  i couldn’t wait to get to the tables saturday night, and i tilted, tossing off 2 buy-ins by the end of the session.  so sunday i wake up bummed, hit the coffee, and sit down to grind back my losses. 

i payed so much better attention and i was able to see opportunities that i usually couldn’t - double barrel spots, delay cBet spots, c/r bluff spots.  and i know that that reads like “i got tricky”, but i wasn’t holding the hopes of using a c/r bluff looking for a chance to fire it, i sat there at the table and thought, “now that’s purely positional” - followed by “screw you, here’s my stab back”.

i started raising with speculative hands (SC’s) when i thought i’d be in a postion to take it down with aggression, and not as a habit.

i don’t know, i was doing the Gaffond thing of trying to sit there and figure out how i was going to take money off of each of my opponents.  heh, and if the answer was “get a better full house” then i was going to leave.

oh, i did start opening from the button for a little less as this is something that rasputin mentioned.  and come to think of it, i think Willie’s being doing this all along, and i saw verneer doing it on his latest series of vids as well.  he didn’t mention it, he just did it.

and, also a nod to rasputin, and vili, i’ve stopped the ‘insta-decision’ habit.  generally, my cBet success rate climbs dramatically when it looks like i’m betting for a reason, rather than out of habit.  i think the button pushing is contagious, so when i insta cBet they just click call back at me.

ok, i’m off to make a day of it

i just needed a title.  the hand was a no brainer.  it also ran into JTs from the aggro shortStack, and AQo from the guy who was trying to claim the shortStack’s shove.  of course, i disagreed and shoved my stack, and that’s the big hand of the night.

the summer gardening catalog showed up yesterday.  i’d never been into gardening enough to care about a summer/fall planting, but, i do think it would be neat to have garlic and asparagus growing.  and have a strawberry bed ready for use next summer, which means planting now. 

it also strikes me that we now have no raspberries or blackberries on the new property, and no fruit trees.  homemade apple pie when it’s made from apples that grow on your own tree is a wonderful thing.  it’s stuff like that that makes the fall such an excellent season. 

i might take a few days away from the tables to get some work sorted, and datamine in the meanwhile.

alright, i jumped into some $50NL games last night at the old place, and ended up in this hand.

basically, it’s limped to the sb who raises. i’m in the bb with KK so i raise him. he calls. his pop could have been a range of probably [AJ+, TT+]. his call of my bet makes me think it’s one of the pairs hoping to land a set, or perhaps AK?

Flop - A96r. yuck. that hits the Ax hands. villan fires out pot. that, i’m not sure i’m willing to buy. either it’s AJ/AT, or an unreasonable bet. i’m thinking if it’s a set or AK he can go slower, or go for a c/r.

but, calling sets up a $45 pot with $26 left behind. i’d be married to it. so, either i’m going with it, or not. i call.

Turn - he checks into me. at this point i’m thinking i can bet and take it down. but, it’s also likely that if i’m ahead, i’m scaring out any hands i beat and getting looked up by those i don’t, except maybe AT/AJ. so i check, which gives him another chance to bluff at the river.

if he checks the river, i’m thinking i can probably get in a value bet. but it’s at that stage that if i did bet the river, he could c/r me all in and i’m going with it, so i’m not sure what the concept is for that. if i’m planning on calling, i should just shove? or by not shoving, i’m inducing the shove on his part? there’d be no fold equity if he did shove over a weak bet on the river, so why do it without a showdown hand?

River - he leads into me for $25. the river completed a straight if he had TT. it also completed a flush, but i don’t think there’s much he’s raising/calling with pre that he isn’t already beating me with because he holds the Ad.

this is a hand where i wasn’t terribly sure of myself. i think in general, i’m seeing AJ at times if he checks that river. i stoved things at different points in the hand, and at the very end against [AK,AA,QQ-TT] it’s dead even.

there’s not a point in time where i’m folding the KK in position preflop. i suppose there will be plenty of times when i’m playing in a flop with an Ace.

if he just leads for 2/3 and follows for 2/3 i feel like i’m probably folding. that flop bet was just out of line.

today, is a good day.  my big plan for the day was to cook out on the grill, and i did that tonight with my parents and ciocia bonnie/wujek bob over.  it wasn’t the sterotypical relaxed weekend outing, mostly because some of us work the weekends and others are jamming as much “to do” spirit into sunday as possible.  still, it was a nice after-work break.

i watched the bucket list with the young lad.  i enjoyed it.  jack nicholson and morgan freeman in the same movie.  that’s an idea i like. 

i got in two sessions of cards.  the first was a -1BI affair where i lost chunks to full house over full house, and the other was flush over flush, although i need to check over the second one.

Finally - i ran into a dose of what i expected all of 10NL was going to be like.

i’ve got to do a recap of July, and a better list of expectations for the playing i’m going to be doing in the immediate future, but, i’m having too much fun watching the Phils/Cards, and plan on getting the first 7 minutes of 2112 by Rush transcribed before i drink too much beer. 

hope everyone else had an even better weekend.

P.S. - just checked out Vili’s blog.  maybe you’re the shot in the arm that i need brother.  i can easily give up this self indulgent silliness i’m currently engaged in to be a guinea pig.  hail me down at SSNL.