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.

New Dream Begins

My flaw in reasoning in the prop bet was thinking I needed a an outside influence to get me motivated to play poker. If I, myself, am not motivated to do something, it isn't getting done. With or without 3k on the line. Now I've realized this. All of life is a prop bet, and the entire world is betting against you succeeding. If I'm going to accomplish all the amazing thing's I'd like to in my life, then I damn well better get to working.

Back to the grind today, playing well is all that matters.

The Dream Is Over

As I get KO'ed from the mulligan, I realize finally I am not going to make the goal of 40k this time. My screen emptys quickly as I'm writing this, I get knocked out of the myriad of sitngos and my screen looks sadder and sadder. I played ok today, truly, and as any day if I had a couple breaks go my way, I could be up a whole lot of full tilt bucks. As it stands now I'm down 2k but really can't complain. I put a lot of money on the table today and it was worth it to take the shot and to put in a grueling day which most online beasts would call standard.

I certainly did not play optimally all day, as I don't think I've ever been in the poker shape to play optimally on a day like today. Onto the good. I stayed focus all day, I kept at max games all day and I pushed it. I'm basically a champ, a poorer, aching champ.

I'm gonna skip on a specific handplay today as I'm fairly weary. I'll touch on my inner debate I'm going to be working through in the coming days. People are starting to catch on to my aggression. I'm a bit of a monkey late game, shoving incredibly wide. The first few days of it the masses of the full tilt 45 man scene didn't pick up on it. As the bad regulars realize what I'm doing I will start to be abused and called down lighter and lighter, so how do I combat that?

Well tighten up my shoving range is the easy response, but then I miss opportunity's to chip up and come into final tables without a big stack which is awful. So it's going to be an incredibly fine balancing act in the upcoming week as I try to adjust and readjust to the game changing on me. The other factor that comes into this issue is my stupid frigging jersey avatar. Every play I make at a table every donk, fish, and shark notices because I won a tournament. *Sigh*

I could blame that, accept a lower ROI and move on with my life. Or I could approach this like a poker player, how can I best turn this to my advantage. No idea at this point in time, but I know the avatar gives me certain edges, and I have the amazing opportunity to try and go find those edges. Time to adjust.

Final Shot: A Prop Bet Gone Awry

Here I sit, staring at the screen. Pipe dreaming today, as today is the final sunday of my poorly thought out prop bet. The idea was for me to make 40k between September 15th and December 15th. Up to a week ago, I managed to lose 9.5k. Kinda the opposite of what was intended. So here I am after my week back grinding, closing in on break even for the contest (just that good) with one final day of big prizepool tournaments. It will take an amazing amount of rungood/playgood for there to be a sweat on this bet. First legitimate prize pool tourney is starting now though, look out full tilt.

Sometimes Poker is Fun...

First tough day, and its definitely my own fault. Variance played its funny little roll as it often does in this foolish game, but I was not in the appropriate mind frame. I had the wrong music, I allowed myself to be distracted and I bought a new flavor snack (ketchup crispy minis are the worst). I even had the genius idea of working on learning spanish for an upcoming trip while playing poker. Unsurpisingly it did not work out all that well. It did help with the whole learning spanish, but god did my screen empty so fast, as my focus was turned off of poker. Combine those factors with running not so great and you have a recipe for a bad day of poker.

On the poker side of it, I am happy with a couple things today. I took a couple shots in 75/45s and 52/90s and I played really well. I would be moving far more of my action up to the higher limits if I handled them properly mentally. I just care too deeply about the results to give them more of my screen. I need to be able to brush off a cash bubble in them like it was nothing which I just cant do right now. I had a couple deep runs in these new fangled rush/turbo/on demand tournaments which seem to me like a gold mine, so soft but so decision intensive. Will be interesting to see if they make sense to leave in my grid of tables.

Really looking forward to seeing how I bounce back from this tomorrow.

Hand play time, as I said I didn't play all that well today so I don't have any of note from my session. Thank god I played well enough other days to have more then one interesting hand saved up.

Full Tilt - $24+2 $24 + $2 Sit & Go (#203926795) - Blinds: 60/120 No Limit Hold'em (9 players)


SB: $1685

BB Hero: $2930

UTG: $4000

MP: $895

MP+1: $1780

MP+2: $1165

LP: $3170

CO: $5030

BTN: $1160



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

UTG calls $120, 6 folds, SB calls $60, Hero checks

Start of the hand, I have 30bb which is a beautiful spot to be in a 45. You always want more of course, that is the point of the game. But as it stands now, I'm fairly comfortable. KQ suited is a decent hand, but I don't choose to raise as there is an UTG limper which is always fishy. I decide to take a flop and if I miss I can check fold with no harm done.

Flop: ($360) (3 players)

This flop is spectacular for my hand, it has given me the second nut flush draw with a gut shot straight draw as well. My hand is not made in anyway but I can now play it incredibly aggressively as I have so many outs in case my opponent does have a pair.

SB checks, Hero bets $240, UTG raises to $600, SB folds, Hero calls $360

I just talked about how I could play that flop aggressively and then I make the incredibly pansy move of flat calling his raise of my initial bet. That is easily the exact opposite of playing it aggressively. I had a good reason I swear. Yes I have an amazing draw and in some situations would be clamoring to put all of my chips in the middle. His reraise was just so wonky. It didn't seem like a raise I could make fold to a reraise with the stacks how they were. Also as soon as he made it alarm bells went off in my mind and I immediately was worried about him having the flush draw with an ace of diamond which would embarrassingly destroy my hand. But it was incredibly cheap and there was a couple other hands that he could possibly have that I would be in great shape against so I flatted.

Turn: ($1560) (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn brings the second Ace. Sadly not the ace of diamond which would have made me feel very confident about my hand. I decide that its not time to go to crazy, especially with my stack size in relationship to the pot (which is such an important factor in these spots). If I bet any half decent sized amount I'm committed to calling all in, so I resign myself to check folding. Fingers crossed for him to check back which he does ever so nicely.

River: ($1560) (2 players)

Boom, yahtzee. I did it, high fives all around. Drinks on me tonight everyone. Hit my flush and my hand is looking very pretty now. But still all of my prior thoughts still stand, I'm still worried about the possibility of an ace of diamond flush.

Hero checks, UTG bets $480, Hero calls $480

Check calling here is so important. Coming back to stack sizing, I could never bet out here because I would have to call any raise the villain made. If I bet I would be committing myself to stacking off against any better made hands and clearly raising would leave me far too vulnerable with my "strong" but very beatable hand.

Final Pot: $2520.00

Showdown:

UTG shows

Outcome: UTG wins $2520.00

Single tear runs down my face, but because of the pot control I exercised in this spot I walk away with around 20 bb and still with a stellar shot of winning this tourney.

This hand illustrates pot control, which is a crucial element of what it takes to be successful in the 45 man tournaments, less so in Mtt's. In 45's its so important to make sure you have a usable stack throughout. If you can keep your stack around 20 bb's (or preferably higher) from mid game on, you will be in a comfortable spot and be able to maneuver that stack very well. Some of the best 45 man players do this so well, and make sure the pot is only ever as big as they want it to be.

The reason I would probably go all in on the flop in an MTT is that a 20bb stack is in no way enough to make any of the moves you want to make early through to mid-late game. You should be happy to take these close +ev spot for your stack to get to the point it needs to be for you to win these large tournaments. There will be times when you want to be careful and pot control weird pots in MTT's, but it is no wheres near as important as in a 45 man.

Anyways final game is just winding down now. I'm going to be down anywheres from 500-1k today depending on how I do in this one. ONE TIME!!

Start of Day 5

Start of day 5, my schedule has been altered somewhat. I came 2nd in the 25k deepstack yesterday for roughly 5k. Now I am fully rolled for the 75's, but I'm not going to switch massive volume to them yet. I will mix in one or two to fill the screen but I still need the reps in the 45's to know them inside and out again. Loading up a session now, hand play post coming at the end of this session.

4 Days In

Finishing my 4th day of grinding, and finally putting this blog together. So far getting back to grinding everything has gone better then expected. I've been playing well and getting the games in. Basically now I'm the stage of debating how long I stick with 26 dollar games. It's nice to have a game with smaller swings, and that is so easily beatable. But at some point I am going to need to move up as I am just not earning enough to achieve the goals I have for myself.

The logical step is to move back up to the shark infested waters of the 75$ 45 mans. How long do I wait? I figure after I make another 3k my BR will be back in order and I will have had enough reps put into the 45's that I'll be comfortable and confident in those games. Stop loss hasn't been set yet, but I won't hesitate to drop back down to only 26's.

Now onto the hand play of the day. I've had a couple sexy hands where I was a monkey and 4 bet out of control but those aren't all that interesting, just a game of chicken seeing who can out level who.

Full Tilt - $24+2 $24 + $2 Sit & Go (#203926833) - Blinds: 40/80 No Limit Hold'em (8 players)

Full Tilt Hand Converter Tool from CardsChat.com



SB Hero: $2705

BB: $2730

UTG: $1105

MP: $1155

MP+1: $2370

MP+2: $1640

CO: $775

BTN: $1525



Pre-flop: ($120) Hero is SB and dealt

6 folds, Hero raises to $200, BB calls $160

So right off the bat, I have 33. Decent hand, not a hand that you want to play a big hand with, unless you flop a set, but a hand I will raise often from many positions, and certainly from the small blind. I raise to 3x as is my standard from the small blind, in comparison to my mini 2.2x from any other position. The reason being the BB already has chips invested in the middle and is getting a stellar price to see a flop in position which is a massive advantage so pricing them out is key.

Flop: ($480) (2 players)

Now this flop sucks. In most situations I would c-bet the flop to try and take it down. But this flop is pure misery, so many hands connect with it soft or hard so I sigh to myself and do the one thing I hate to do.

Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($480) (2 players)

Hmm now I'm intrigued after he checks back to me. The turn also makes the board way more interesting. Possible completed flush out there and a 4 card straight on the board, basically at this point I can rep a lot of things. Very possible that I checked a queen on the flop or some other wonky hand that is now a whole lot stronger. I don't care about my cards at all now, I can fire and should make any hand that isn't a straight or a made flush very uncomfortable and setup river play if he happens to call.

Hero bets $240, BB calls $240

River: ($960) (2 players)

And he calls, not that out of the ordinary. It's just one of those boards that so many hands could at least like a little. The river changes everything. My hand now has value weeeee. But having absolutely the worst possible flush does not exactly make you high five your monitor with joy. I'm in a weird spot where if I bet I would essentially be turning my weak value hand into a bluff. Also the way my opponent flat called the turn, it is very possible he has a higher spade with some sort of pair, essentially making his hand unbluffable so I decide to check and hope he checks behind.

Hero checks, BB bets $960, Hero calls $960

Bam he bets pot and I take less then a second to snap call him. Now how could I possibly call him down so fast? I have the worst possible flush, any other spade dominates my hand hard. In my mind though, there was no chance he would make a bet that sized the way the action had gone if he had a truly strong hand, or even a hand that has any strength. The true premium queen of spades would try desperately to extract some value out of me, as would a 10 or a 9. Any flushes lower then that would never think they could get that much value out of me the way I had played my hand. I had represented a queen, and now he was doing his best big boy job of bullying that out of the pot. At least thats how I saw it.

So I call, He flips A9 neither of them spades, I collect the pot and he calls me an idiot. Sometimes poker is fun.