I haven't been playing as much over the last week or so. I did get out last night though and it seemed like the perfect situation. Venetian $1/$2, late Saturday night. I arrived at the poker room at 11:30 PM or so and immediately got into a game.
I've been reading the 2+2 forums a lot, and I've also been reading Harrington on Cash Games. I'm trying to improve my game for sure. However, I think it got me into some trouble this weekend on various occasions and if I just stuck to my normal game I probably would have been better off.
In one hand I had AK in the big blind. It got raised to 8 bucks by a guy in his late 20s/early 30s. He bought in for 300 and was whittled down to just over $100. There was another limper too. I thought about calling, but decided to just reraise it to $22. The limper called $22, and the original raiser thought for a bit and went all-in. It was $101 more to me to call.
Cutting to the ending, I called and lost. He had KK, I did not spike an ace. However, here is how I arrived at that decision. Probably a lot of really bad decisions and just a flawed thought process that I need to work better on in the future.
First of all, I thought the limper/cold-caller was folding. He did fold, but it was insane to just assume that he was going to fold. When the raiser went all-in, the limper was like "That's not what I wanted to see" or something like that, and I felt like it was genuine. However, I didn't know him at all and that could have just as easily been some kind of a ploy. Obviously it wouldn't affect the raiser's action (he's all in). It only would make me think that he is not calling. If he had AA or something I would have assumed he would reraise, but since there was already a raise and a reraise, just calling there would also be reasonable. So really I was putting myself in danger there bigtime by calling the $101 with him sitting behind me with more chips than that. If he happened to have AA and he pushed all in I would have either had to fold (GROSS... just put in $123 and didn't even see a flop) or call, which would have been terrible as well but at that point I might have just been a combination of on tilt and feeling like I'm priced in. So this could have gone much worse.
There seemed to me like there was a lot of dead money in there, which is eventually what I based my decision on. There was 22*3 = 66 bucks in there that in my mind I was considering to be dead money (not a good assumption, but let's ignore that for now). Let's say it was dead money. What did I assume he was shoving with?
In my mind, I was thinking about the 2+2 forums and how everyone is just always calling everything, "villian could have blah blah blah in their range", and so on. I feel like if I posted this online they would all say I had to call. I might be wrong though. I really should post it and see what they say.
At the time, I thought that the raiser might feel kinda short stacked at this point since the pot was getting big. 3 people were in for $22 already. So he might just say fuck it and go all-in with a lot of different things. Even as I'm writing this it sounds retarded. I thought (at the time) that he might do this with TT+, AK+. But really at a 1/2 game, how often are people shoving in preflop with TT for $100 after a raise and a reraise? I'd say not very often.
But let's say he would do that. I also thought that if he was shoving with TT+, AK+, I would have equity in the pot to call because of the dead money. I ran this on PokerStove just now and against AK+,TT+, I only have 37% equity. That means that out of the $260 or so pot, I would only be getting on average $96 back, so I was still losing $5 on the call. And that is if my assumptions were accurate, which they really are not now that I'm thinking about it.
Plus I didn't even mention that he did the shoulder shrug move before going all in. It wasn't super obvious, wasn't super subtle, it was just there. I saw it, chose not to factor it into my decision for whatever reason. Another huge mistake.
Overall I'm just not happy with that hand at all. Total mistake. I'll really try to avoid that in the future and go with what I know. When someone shows extreme strength like that I think erring on the side of caution is best.
Anyway, enough about that hand. I also got myself into trouble by raising a couple of times with AJo, and ATs once. In the past I'd just fold those hands, or maybe limp if I was in the right position. I got into my head that I was playing too tight though so I started playing more of these. Not a good idea. I raised with those kind of hands 3 times, lost all 3. Not that the results matter, but overall I just don't think it's that great of an idea.
One of the AJ hands was somewhat interesting. I raised to 10 in middle position. Then a billion people called. A couple people behind me called, and 7 people saw the flop. Huge pot now. Flop came 6-6-9. Not sure if the board was suited. It checked to me and I bet 45. I figured that this board was pretty dry and I'd try to pick it up. The two people behind me both called, lol. Ugh. Now the pot was just getting gigantic. Turn was a king and I debated bluffing huge at it, but I decided to just give up. Especially since one of the people was pretty short stacked so I didn't think I could get her off of the hand. I checked, one of the people went all-in, the other called, they both had 98s. I think the raise preflop was bad (at least for me right now), the c-bet was fine I think though.
One hand that didn't really work out was when I had Q4s in the big blind. A bunch of people limped and I checked. There were like 7 people on the flop and the flop was Q-J-7 with 2 of my suit. Good flop. The small blind bets out 20. I think about it... I wanted to get it heads up if possible. I figure I have to be in pretty good shape one way or the other. I have a good hand (top pair) and if that's no good, the flush draw has to be good. So I raise to 50 and he calls, everyone else folds. The turn is a jack. He checks, I check. I figure he could have a jack, and I'm not too scared of any rivers because I have the flush draw too, so let's just keep the pot small. River is a 4 giving me 3 pair. :P He bets out 30. I didn't feel like it was a bluff at all, but later I thought he could have pretty easily been betting with the nut flush draw or something if he missed. And my hand is garbage... I can't beat a jack, and I can't beat any queens either. I can only hope to tie. So I just folded. The pot was pretty big to fold and I think it would be easy to justify calling there and hoping he has the flush draw. But I really didn't feel like he was bluffing at all. And honestly I didn't consider the flush draw possibility which was a mistake on my part.
Later in the night I picked up QQ and raised to 10. Got 1 caller, and a guy in late position made it 40. I thought about it and just folded. I figured I didn't want to have to play this postflop. I could reraise, but his reraise already suggests extreme strength. And if I just call, what am I hoping for? If the flop comes with an A or K I'm pretty much going to fold. And if it comes 10 high, what then? Do I just go with it? I didn't like those options and just folded.
Of course the flop made me SICK... queen high with 2 hearts. Feels awful to see that flop. So the two other guys get all in. 100% results oriented, but it worked out to be quite a fold because I avoided a huge cooler. There were 2 hearts on the flop and the guy had AK of hearts. I'm sure I would have checked, he would have bet, I would have raised probably, and we would have gotten all in. And then he would have hit his flush, twice. It came heart-heart and I would have lost a monster pot. So I got lucky there.
The only interesting winning hand I had was also probably played pretty badly. I had A-Q in the small blind. A guy in mid/late position raised to 8. I called. I'm honestly not sure I even like that call. Probably should just raise or fold. Anyway, I called and the big blind made it 17 total. Both of the other guys in the pot called, and I called.
Flop came Q-Q-x. BINGO! Sick flop, and I'm in a reraised pot. Perfect spot. I check. The raiser bet 15, both of the other guys folded, and I just called. Turn was a 10 or something. I check, he bets 30. I raise to 100, he folds.
I thought about this one and I think maybe I should have just called and checked the river, but I don't know. I was hoping he had something like AA or KK, but his betting was pretty weak. I guess alternatively I could have check-raised less, like 75 instead of 100. Might have been easier to call. I could have lead out but I did think that check-raising was probably better. I was really hoping to get paid on that one and didn't get much out of it.
Overall I ended up losing $113. I was unhappy with it and I'm beating myself up about the AK hand still. I hate putting a ton of money in with the worst hand when I think about it later and decide it wasn't a good idea.
Not sure when I'll play next, but my birthday is coming up and that means bankroll + $1000. :-) That means right now it would be sitting at a grand total of $1787. Not bad for 1/2 NL, and hopefully I can start running that up into more and more.
I'm considering just not even reading 2+2 for a while. On the forums I do feel like people justify really bad plays, especially preflop or on the flop. Maybe I should only think about what people are saying on the turn and river. There is a lot of gamble going on preflop and on the flop in those threads. It gets the ideas in my head and then I think I should be playing that way, and I mess things up compared to what I would have done if I just trusted myself. So I think I'm going to tighten back up, maybe open a few more pots in VERY late position, but overall just play super tight.
Good night!
No comments:
Post a Comment