Protected: Tune-up Full (Private)

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

A Tune Up

I was directed to a great post on the 2+2 Micro NL forums.  The idea of the post is to use the data in your Poker Tracker database to identify the leaks in your game.  I went ahead and did the exercise.  This time it took nearly 1 hour to go through.  I suspect that I will be able to do it significantly faster from now on.  I believe I identified several weaknesses in my game (many of which I’d prefer not to publish, partly because they are embarassing).  The other affect is that I learned a lot about how to use Poker Tracker in general.

Here are some of the highlights of what I found:

• I’m doing something right 3 betting.  I make 418.46 BB/100 hands when I do.
• I’m doing something very wrong with suited connectors.  I lose 30.65 BB/100 with them.  I suspect this is because I play them too much out of position and I call too often.  When I cold call with suited connectors (which I do infrequently, ~6% of the time) I lose 181.61 BB/100.  Moral of the story: don’t call with suited connectors.
• I must have good instincts about check-raising, it makes me 303.96 BB/100 when I do it on the flop and 601.14 on the turn even though I do it more than he suggests.

I highly suggest doing this exercise.  It reinforces a lot of what you’ve been told about what hands to play and position and aggression.

More fun in Indiana

I played last night in Indiana. $1/2 NLHE. I made some marginal calls and ended up stuck $100. Then I picked up Jh8h on the button and raised 2 limpers to $12. The BB and the limpers called. The flop comes Jd 8d 2h. I bet $30 and one guy calls. On the turn another diamond falls and he checks with a big sigh (like he hates that diamond). I bet out $35 and he makes a big deal about thinking about it and then calls. The river is a fourth diamond and he hems and haws a bunch and then checks. I’m no idiot so I check behind and he flips Ad 3d. I look over and give him a “nice Hollywood”. He drops me some smug look. I don’t like him.

So we call him Hollywood all night. There’s a good player on my right and he’s got it out for the guy to the left of Hollywood (who we’re calling Spud) and I’m gunning for Hollywood. Both Spud and Hollywood are in a lot of pots, so my friend and I are too. The whole table gets into a limpy pattern and we’re playing a ton of family pots.

UTG I get AA and limp (which is not a play I would normally make). There are 6 people in the hand and it never raises. The flop come Ac 2s 8s. I check. Spud bets $10, Hollywood makes it $20 (I fight the urge to do a little dance). I make it $40. Spud folds. Hollywood makes it another $100 with about $120 left behind and I shove. He thought for like 8 minutes…

and folded face up 2 8. I can’t believe he folded. I really thought he was committed. I guess I rushed it. But I got a little over half his stack. So that’s good.

My friend took the rest a little later and my satisfaction was complete. Spud got stacked twice too, but not by us.

Good times.

I end up down $30 and feeling like I mostly played very well. I would have ended up except my second to last hand at the table I got QQ in the BB and raised the limpers to $15 and got re-raised all in by a short stack to $27. He flipped ATo and spiked an ace on the flop. It would have been nice to finish up, but oh well. It was 3 in the morning and I had an hour drive still, so I had to quit.

Another non-bad beat, but hard to comprehend

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 8 Players

Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

MP2: $24.65 (98.6 bb)

MP3: $39.85 (159.4 bb)

CO: $44 (176 bb)

BTN: $6.95 (27.8 bb)

SB: $12.40 (49.6 bb)

BB: $26.35 (105.4 bb)

UTG+1: $18.10 (72.4 bb)

Hero (MP1): $20.90 (83.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is MP1 with Q 8

UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $1, 4 folds, SB calls $0.90, BB calls $0.75

Flop: ($3) Q T A (3 players)

SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($3) 8 (3 players)

SB bets $0.50, BB folds, Hero raises to $2, SB calls $1.50

River: ($7) 8 (2 players)

SB bets $9.40 and is all-in, Hero calls $9.40

Results: $25.80 pot ($1.25 rake)

SB showed A 8 (a full house, Eights full of Aces) and won $24.55 ($12.15 net)

Hero mucked Q 8 (a full house, Eights full of Queens) and lost (-$12.40 net)

3-Betting Light in Minnesota

So my job has been taking me all over the place.  One of the few good parts is getting into poker games all over the place.  Poker is great because it seems there’s a game everywhere and because it gets going late at night.  It is hard to sight-see starting at 9 PM and really see anything.  But, after a day of working and dinner with the customer or co-workers, you can simply slip over to the card room and get in a game.

This customer is in Minneapolis (they are a division of a big card retailer).  There are a few places near Minneapolis where they play.  Unfortunately, state law says they can’t play no limit.  So everywhere you go, they spread limit poker.  So I played $1/2 limit hold ‘em.  I’m awful at limit poker.  The great news is that mistakes cost a whole lot less than in the no limit game.  So, I just decided to have fun and go with it.  I decided to raise a lot and use position.

I played a lot of hands.  I was unpredictable and tricky and earned a reputation as a maniac, which was fun because normally my image is pretty tight.  Here are some true hand stories:

I raise in middle position with 46 off, the flop comes 37K.  I bet, I get raised and re-raised so I call.  The turn comes K and I bet, I get raised, a call and I call.  The river brings a 5 and I bet, I get raised, one fold and I re-raise and get called.  In fact, all of my biggest pots that I won were crazy junk like that.  On another hand I bet in early position with 8T suited, I get raised and I re-raise.  He calls and the flop comes 345 rainbow.  I bet and he raises and I call.  The turn comes 6 and I bet and he raises and I call.  The river comes 7 and I bet and he raises and I re-raise and he calls.  He was fuming.  I caught so many rivers that even I began to believe it couldn’t fail.

Limit poker is tough work.  I played all night and I ended up down $33.  For the record, this is the exact amount I was up this weekend when I played in Tunica.  Strange.  I had a blast.  I might play limit poker more often.

Tunica, Mississippi Poker

A friend is a huge Ole Miss fan, so he took a group of us and Friday night we drove from Chicago to Oxford, MS to see the football game and all that goes along with it.  First off, let me admit, I’m not a huge sports fan.  But, this was an amazingly fun experience.  The Rebels know how to tailgate.  We ate amazingly (stopping in Memphis for ribs at the Rendezvous which were incredible and in The Grove before and after the game).  The whole experience was great and the game itself was very fun (Ole Miss beat Auburn).  The guys I went with were hilarious and we had a great time.

On Saturday, after the game and some more time in the Grove we headed up to Tunica.  We called ahead and got on “the list” at the Horseshoe.  “Tunica” isn’t really Tunica.  The casinos are pretty far outside of the actual town of Tunica.  These are the most hilarious riverboat casinos I’ve seen.  They are gigantic structures built in the middle of nowhere that share little in common with a boat except that they are surrounded by water.  Just barely, though, like a small child dug with a plastic shovel all the way around.  It would take a whole lot of work to mobilize these boats…like a miracle and some reversal of the laws of Physics.

Either way, they had poker and that’s all I cared about.  I signed up for the $1/3 no limit game.  That’s no typo, they play $1 and $3.  I’m not sure why, it didn’t really change anything–the game played just the same as every live $1/2 game I’ve played (with one exception, the Mississippi straddle–which I hate).  When we got to the poker room we realized that “the list” wasn’t really much to worry about.  There were several openings throughout the room and people were coming and going all night.  It was no trouble to get in a game.

I sat down and played my standard game.  The table was very limpy and lots of people were playing every pot.  This is not good for my game, so I raised every pot I played and decided I would make sure that’s what people knew me for.  I raised every single pot I played, even if it had been raised before me.  I played a small-ish number of pots (for the online players like me around, I’d estimate I was playing 18/16).  In the first few hands I played up against a LAGgy player with KK and extracted $180 and was up significantly right away.  Within the next two hours the table dried up.  What do you do when you realize you are the worst player at the table?  You should leave, but what if you are only going to be in Tunica one night?  I don’t know.  I stayed and ended up slowly getting stuck $160.  I hadn’t played too badly, but had run into some unfortunate hands and had a couple of ill-timed bluffs called.  I made a few bad mistakes.  I played TPTK hard against the one player I knew was very good at the time (I know better).  I tried to bluff a decent player after I read perfectly that he was strong (I saw him counting my stack).

With $140 left in my stack in the BB I picked up QQ.  The player to my left had played almost no hands.  He was tight, tight, tight.  He was folding the small blind when there were 5 limpers in the pot and he only needed to put $2 for a shot at $15.  At 7.5-1 odds, some of the hands had to be worth a play.  (Again, for the internet player, I’d say he was playing 5/5/inf.)  So Mr. Tight opened for $15 (which was a bit above the standard opening bet).  He got 2 callers before me.  With QQ I foolishly decided to shove in for my remaining $140.  He called, as would any player holding AA and the other callers folded.  His aces held up.

I rebought for $200.  Strangely, I wasn’t tilting much.  In fact, I decided that I was having enough fun that losing another $200 wouldn’t be too bad.  I started talking to the other players.  After a little talking I realized that the lay of the table was:

Seat 1-3: Professional Poker Players

Seat 4: Off duty dealer from the neighbor casino

Seat 5: Fishy Amateur (me)

Seat 6: Super tight player (who wouldn’t offer any details about himself)

Seat 7: Regular, very competent amateur

Seat 8-9: Professional Poker Players

Seat 10: Off duty dealer from the Harrah’s

I found it a bit surprising that there were so many “professionals” playing $1/3 NL.  Apparently you can eek out a decent Mississippi living playing $1/3.  I tend to think that dealers are pretty competent players also.  The other amateurs at the table were trouble also.  The one, Mr. Tight, was so tight I wasn’t going to get much from him.  The other was, as I said, very competent and pretty tight.  “If you don’t know who the sucker at the table is…”

For the next hour or so, I played pretty decent aggressive poker.  I got some good luck too.  I battled my way back so that I had $520 in front of me (so net, I was +$20).  This was mostly due to me coming up against seat 10.  I had raised the last 4 pots.  Strangely, I had been dealt KQo in the last 2 and had it again.  In this case I had KQ again and I raised to $12.  I got 3 callers (which wasn’t unusual).  The flop came Q-high rainbow.  I made a standard continuation bet of $45 into the $60ish pot.  Seat 10 called.  The turn brought another queen and opened up a potential flush draw that I wasn’t too worried about.  Seat 10 had played pretty aggressive all night and had seen me do the same.  I was a bit afraid I was bumping up against a flopped set turned full house, but I decided that I was going to go out in style.  I bet out $90 into the $145 pot and he flat called.  The river brought a blank and now I was only losing to AQ or a full house.  I decided to shove my last $60-ish into the pot and see what happened.  Seat 10 called and flipped over QT and lost with a worse kicker.  That put me at about $520.

I can’t say I was happy to have that much on the table, but it was nicely intimidating for the professionals who now had to worry that every bet I made had that much behind it.

Fortunately as I was debating what to do about this tough table, it broke up.  I moved to a much easier table with $520 in front of me.  I played a few pots and moved up and down $30-40 a few times.  My friends noted that they were ready to leave.  I asked for 20 more minutes.  I decide to play to the next BB.  With 2 hands left to go and almost exactly $500 in my stack I raise to $12 with JhTh.  I get 2 callers.  The flop comes 2h3h8c.  I make a continuation bet of $25 into the $40-ish pot.  The wild player on the other side of the table raises me to $65.  The other player folds and I call.  The turn comes Td.  I check.  The other player bets $85 with $108 behind.  I talk to him a little.  It appears that if I shove, he’s going to call though I do consider it.  Instead I call and cross my fingers for a ten or heart.  I miss, the river is a blank.  I check and he shoves his last $108 in the pot.  I knew it was a terrible idea, but I called.  He showed 23o, he had flopped 2 pair.  I had lost over $300 with a pair of tens.  What an idiot!

Now I’m UTG.  I have 46o.  I’m steaming so I raise to $8.  I get 2 callers and then the player in the CO (a tight but scared looking amateur) raises to $16.  The button and SB fold, the BB (a competent calling station) calls.  I call and so does one other player.  The flop comes 58K two tone.  BB checks, I check, middle player checks and CO bets out $25.  BB thinks a little then calls.  I call and middle player folds.  The pot is now $135-ish.  The turn comes 2 and I’ve picked up a double gutshot.  BB checks, I check and the CO bets $40.  BB thinks longer again and calls, I call (remember, I’m still tilting a lot).  The pot is now $220-ish.  The river is kind and fills my straight.  BB checks.  I decide to go ahead and bet out to make it look like I’m bluffing the missed the flush draw, $75.  CO calls as does the BB.  I flip my hand and I got the nice little gasp from the table.  CO mucks and the BB shows 77 (for the river set).

Not sure the math is exact, but I end up with $533 which I rack up immediately.  I’m up $33 for the night.  My stupid play is both my downfall and my strength.  My table image in Mississippi is still mud.  Oh well.

Another 2+2 Book Review: Professional No Limit Hold ‘Em

I don’t have a ton to say about this book.  That should not be taken as a sign that the book is not good.  It is very good.  In fact, I’ve read a lot of books at this point (see the past book review posts).  This book has had the most new information in it of any of the books I’ve read.  Every other book I’ve read has had a ton of overlap.  Harrington on Cash Games was excellent.  This book has a whole new thought process to layer on top of everything else.

It is really a long essay on why you need to plan your hands for commitment.  It shows you how to do the math to make sure that you don’t have to make tough decision.  I can’t really do it justice.  This is mostly because I’m having a lot of trouble putting it all into practice.  I’ll get there.  I may have to read the whole book again.

I strongly recommend this book to you.  Especially if you’re tired of re-reading the same thing over and over.

2+2 Micro No-Limit Full Ring Heads Up Tournament

I’ve been reading and contributing to the 2+2 Micro NL Full Ring forum.  Someone decided to put together a tournament and so I decided to get into it.  We’re playing on the $5.75 deep HU no blind increases tables.  So the games can take a loooong time.  We’re playing best of three games single elimination.  If I can say so, I’m playing great.  I won the first round 2-0 against Autist18.  Then I played the second round against TheChad.  Our matches took a long time, about 1.5 hours on each table.  Part of the problem was that right around the sixth hand I had this hand:

Poker Stars, $5.75 Buy-in (5/10 blinds) NL Hold’em Tourney, 2 Players

Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

Hero (BB): 2,065 (206.5 bb)

SB: 1,935 (193.5 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with A A

SB raises to 30, Hero raises to 90, SB raises to 230, Hero raises to 500, SB raises to 1,935 and is all-in, Hero calls 1,435

Flop: (3,870) Q 9 4 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Turn: (3,870) 3 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

River: (3,870) 3 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results: 3,870 pot

Hero showed A A (two pairs, Aces and Threes) and lost (-1,935 net)

SB showed Q Q (a full house, Queens full of Threes) and won 3,870 (1,935 net)

So, I’m down to 130 chips to 3870 on the 6th hand of the tournament.  Give up?  No way.  I won that tournament.  And I won our second tournament too on the following hand:

Poker Stars, $5.75 Buy-in (5/10 blinds) NL Hold’em Tourney, 2 Players

Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

SB: 1,560 (156 bb)

Hero (BB): 2,440 (244 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with A T

SB raises to 30, Hero calls 20

Flop: (60) K 3 J (2 players)

Hero checks, SB bets 40, Hero calls 40

Turn: (140) Q (2 players)

Hero checks, SB checks

River: (140) 4 (2 players)

Hero bets 90, SB raises to 290, Hero raises to 500, SB raises to 1,490 and is all-in, Hero calls 990

Results: 3,120 pot

SB showed 9 T (a straight, Nine to King) and lost (-1,560 net)

Hero showed A T (a straight, Ten to Ace) and won 3,120 (1,560 net)

So far I’m 4-0 in the tourney and feeling pretty good.

Howard’s Tournament

Last year around this time, while I was still in my play money poker phase, a co-worker invited me to a poker party.  Brent had a friend from a past job, who lived across the street from Howard, who held a party once a year. According to Howard, it is a party first and a poker tournament second.  That’s true.  He makes sure a lot of people go home with money.  The buy in is just $55 and he provides food and liquor and all the chips and tables.  He has a raffle and last year he even had a masseuse (who gave free backrubs).  It’s a great night.

For a small world feel.  Howard married the sister of the girl I took to senior prom.  There were a bunch of people there from my high school and it was very fun.

Last year I busted out of the tournament around the middle of the field.  It was very uncomfortable.  I didn’t know what I was doing and I got killed.  I played at one of the loser’s tables and ended up chopping for first and went home with a little more money in my pocket than when I got there.  Bottom line: I played like someone who played play money poker a lot and didn’t really know what he was doing.

I was excited to go back.  It would be an interesting test of whether I’ve gotten any better.

On my first table, I was the captain.  By accident.  I resolved to play tight for the first part of the night.  Only my first hand was QQ.  My second was AQo, then KK, then AJs, then AQo, then 99, then AQo again.  People wanted to limp.  I kept raising it up.  I was raising close to 3X the BB plus 1BB for every limper.  If someone min-raised, I counted that as 2 limpers.  Then I’d vary it just a little.  It wasn’t making me very popular.  It was great to have the loose table image.  I raised a ton for the first 45 mintues and then folded almost everything I had for the next hour, but my image held strong.  They made it very clear that I still had my image.  I got great action for all my hands.  Apart from that, I came up with profiles for every player at the table and determined how to play against each of them.  I busted out two of them and by the third hour of the tournament I was in the top three of chips.  I held strong for a long time.

Unfortunately, I ended up at a table with Howard himself.  Howard knows how to play aggressive.  He was pushing the action hard.  Unfortunately I ended up making a few moves at bad times and ran into Howard.  He ended up with about half of my stack.  I did end up at the final table and cashed, but finished 6th or 7th.

Afterwards, I went to find out if any of the losers tables were playing.  There was one player sitting at one.  Howard reserves $60 from the buy-ins for three losers tables to have $20 prizes each.  There was $20 and 1 player at the table.  I asked if he wanted to play heads up and we agreed to play 1/2 with 20 chip stacks.  As we counted out the chips, 3 players joined us.  We all pitched in another $5 so the winner would take $45.  We had 3 players who were playing tight and trying to keep their stacks and then 2 of us knew that with just 10 big blinds it was pretty much shove or fold.  I decided to gamble a lot.  I was up to 50 chips and then back down to 4 chips then up and down and up and down.  Eventually I got heads up with a nitty girl.  I was still screwing around and playing for fun.  Then she said something like “I’m really good, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna’ beat you.”  She didn’t seem to be kidding, so I decided I needed to crush her.  I played a solid heads up game and pushed her around a lot.  I pushed all my chips in a lot.  I raised every pot.  If she called pre-flop and bet on the flop I folded.  She had no idea how to trap.  It was fun (and pretty easy).

In the end I ended up more than doubling my entry fee and having a great time.

But the real bottom line: I’m much much much better than just a year ago.  I was totally comfortable the whole time.  I knew what to do and when to do it.  I made good bluffs and good calls and good laydowns.  I love friendly games because people show you when you’ve made good laydowns.  I knew how to read people and I knew how to maximize my profits from people’s mistakes.  I did make a couple of bad moves, but you have to make some moves and they won’t always work.

I rolled into Deadwood and I Mosied Into Saloon No. 10…

I’m a little late posting this. It was actually last Tuesday night.  I was on business, meeting with the Air Force at Ellsworth AFB.  So I took the rental out 30 minutes to Deadwood.

Apparently, Deadwood is rebuilt after a fire some time back (a less lazy blogger would wikipedia it and find out the actual story).  These days Deadwood is a little tourist trap casino town.  They basically just have hotels and “casinos”.  For the most part, the casinos are just slot parlors.  A good number add blackjack or three card poker.  Then, a smaller subset (around 5) spread poker.

The chair where Wild Bill was shot (supposedly)

One of the places they play poker is in Saloon No. 10.  The saloon is a recreation of the saloon of the same name (as previously mentioned, which burnt down at some point).  The original was where Jack McCall gunned down Wild Bill Hickok.  It’s a cool place.  They have sawdust all over the floor and memorabilia everywhere, including the chair where supposedly Bill was gunned down.  The coolest part is that they play blackjack in the back with these big metal dollar tokens.  The sound is so cool with the tokens clanking against each other every time someone bets.

The poker?  Not as cool.  They only play spread limit (and SD law says the max single bet size is $100 so they can’t play no limit).  They had one table going and they couldn’t keep it full.  They were playing $2/6 spread limit.  People were playing with mid-sized stacks and there wasn’t much gamble on.  One out of town player came in and pushed the action a little.  It was mostly enjoyable.  People were mostly friendly.  The most exciting hand (for me) of all night came when I decided to bet $6 in middle position with 9T off.  The crazy player to my left (who played every hand and raised just about every hand) raised it to $12.  Then a player behind him re-raised to $18.  To my surprise, the tight played to my right also called.  I’d normally fold this hand to such action, but the pot was so big at this point.  So I call as do the other two players.  I had been playing very tight and had only shown down very good hands all night.

The flop comes 9 9 9.  I can’t imagine I’ll get any action.  But I suspect that someone else must have a big pair.  I’m representing some kind of pocket pair.  So I bet $6.  Crazy guy raises to $12.  Both other players call.  I decide to call.  I don’t want to tip anyone off to my hand yet.  The turn comes K.  I check, crazy bets $6.  Next player raises to $12 and nitty guy on my right calls.  I call.  The river comes A.  I bet $6, crazy calls, next player calls.  Nitty thinks for a bit and raises to $12.  I look over at him and pretend to think for a while then I raise to $18.  Crazy calls.  Middle player folds and nitty calls.  I show the 9 and nitty flips pocket aces.  Crazy mucks but says he had KJ and the middle player said he had a king as well.

Another picture of Wild Bill

I don’t really care for spread limit, because the pot was still only a little over $200.  No one even got it all in on that hand.  I have no idea if I played that hand well or not.  I never know whether I’m playing a hand right.  I know there’s a ton of fundamental limit strategy that I don’t know.

Bad news is that I lost pretty much all of that money later in the night.  I was second best on every showdown against the crazy LAGgy player to my left.  Especially with limit poker, I have no idea how to combat a LAGgy player.

Anyway, it was a nice night, but I’m not particularly excited to go back.