One Week In

Finishing up my 7th day and I feel accomplished at the very least. My body is in pain, and my emotions have been toyed with by this cruel and beautiful game. Today was the first day I had to fight off the "shut it down instinct". 2 hours into the session I had a couple badbeats in a row, with a heart wrenching one or two in mtts and 75/45s. For those out of the know, the "shut it down instinct" is a feeling deep in your chest, where all you want to do is shut everything down. Go to the full tilt lobby, unregister as furiously and quickly as you can. That way you don't have any more tournaments start up and commit you to another possible two hours of poker.

Now in the past few months that's exactly what I would do. And it seemed almost every session I put in ended with the "shut it down instinct" far earlier then I had originally intended(possibly for the best as I was not even attempting to play my best). So today was the first day I faced that inner battle, and I am happy to say that my will power won over my won't power (god I hate myself for writing that, but its mildly clever so I'm leaving it in).

So besides making up an awful saying, how did I do today. Not so great on the scoreboard. I've cashed 3 times today, fortunately they were all firsts. Around the point I felt like stopping for the day I was genuinely concerned about my focus, as I was checking down hands unnecessarily when I could clearly fire at least one barrel. Though on a brighter note I've realized the adjustments I need to make in the 45's. I just need to wake up with big hands. Getting called down by bottom pair after firing three barrels, having a 19bb 3 bet getting snap called by KJ. So I've decided I'm going to start getting better hands more often. Figure its the smartest option.

Onto a hand-play. Value town today.

Full Tilt - $22,500 Guarantee (#204171025) - Blinds: 60/120 No Limit Hold'em (6 players)

SB Hero: $2720

BB: $11133

UTG: $9911

MP: $5435

CO: $11502

BTN: $12360

6 handed tournament, and I have an uncomfortable stack size.

Pre-flop: ($180) Hero is SB and dealt

3 folds, BTN raises to $270, Hero calls $210, BB folds

Many good players, I'm going to guess, would not like to flat many hands when out of position. I clearly am not one of those players. I am comfortable enough out of position that I can extract maximum value, as well as making enough plays to take down pots and play profitably from the blinds when I choose to play a hand from them.

Flop: ($660) (2 players)

Flop hits and its paired. I love the dynamics paired boards bring to a hand. No one ever believes that you hit the trips. So these pots become these interesting games of aggression seeing who can convince who that they have it. It also means there is a ton of value in playing these type of boards optimally.

I caught top pair and am against a massive stack. I'm fairly confident I'm ahead here but how do I conceal my hand while getting value. Checking is ok, but a check call flips your hand face up. A thinking player would realize at that point that you either have a 5, or more likely a 10. So I decide to donk lead into the pot. In his eyes I could literally have any two cards.

Hero bets $360, BTN calls $360



Turn: ($1380) (2 players)

Boom, boated up. But now it becomes a little more of a struggle. It means I'm splitting with any 10, but as that will happen no matter what I do in this hand I can completely eliminate it from my decision making. All I'm worried about is getting maximum value from a dry ace, or a pure bluff. I have around 2000 chips at this point, and the pot is a bit under 1000 chips. This information is so vital.

I have a few options at this point, but in my mind it comes down to two possible choices. I could check, and let the big stack fire. Then I could either raise all in, or flat call and hope I can get the rest of my stack in on the river. The very clear problem with that option is how strong of a play that is. As in, if I make that play any marginally intelligent player would instantly recognize I had to have either a 10 or a 5. A medium pocket pair would also be a small part of the range they could put me on.

Or I can lead out. This option has the benefit of still possibly being a bluff, or even an incredibly weak blocking bet. It also allows us to set up a scenario where we can easily get our entire stack into the middle. Bet sizing is incredibly important in this situation, as it needs to look like a legitimate bet but still leave you enough behind to leave the appearance that you can be bluffed off the hand. I will work on the math for this for a future blog, but very roughly I usually try to use a third of my stack in these spots as long as its logical for the pot size and leaves you with a stack that could conceivably considered usable.

Hero bets $600, BTN calls $600

River: ($2580) (2 players)

Irrelevant river card hits and time to let him hang himself.

Hero checks, BTN bets $10000, Hero calls $1490 (All-in), BTN returned $8510



Final Pot: $5560.00



Showdown:

BTN shows

Hero shows

Outcome: Hero wins $5560.00

Things worked out perfectly in this spot. It always won't go so well. You will pull this play and be incredibly frustrated when the big stack insta checks behind you and flips up a medium pair or an Ace that might have called a river bet. You have to have a reasonable confidence that the player you are against has a hand that they will bet, and that they are capable of betting in that spot.

Couple things to take away from this hand, stack size importance, and the bet, bet, check line to disguise strength.

Might be taking a weekend day for myself tomorrow. I am happy where I am right now, but I am worried about the possibility for a burnout. Every badbeat hurts a bit more then it did the day before right now. So I might take one day off of playing, then back to the grind.

Also after re-reading this post, I'm debating cutting the hand-plays out of these blogs. I know next to no one will read these(or at least thats my intention), and the people that do read it will be people I don't mind sharing my poker knowledge with (badbeatspoker crew). But I'm not sure how beneficial the exercises are for myself, which is the entire point of this blog, or how helpful they will be for most of the badbeats folks who already understand this stuff to some degree. The randoms that stumble upon this blog will be receiving free coaching from me. I disagree with coaching on principle, unless its someone I know very well, as it hurts the profitability of this game. Let alone free coaching.

Blog will be continuing regardless as I am excited to document how this year goes. But hand-plays might become more of a rarity, with only very interesting/bizaare hands talked about.