We played a ton of poker this weekend. All night Friday, pretty late Saturday, all night Sunday. When I say all night I mean leaving the casino after the sun comes up. On Monday we actually left the Aria at around 6 AM, went to Denny's, and got to bed by about 8 AM. Just like the good old days.
I had a lot of fun. Did I play well? I don't know. I definitely played super loose, and bluffed a lot. Some successful, some not as much. I'm learning so I figure it's OK.
The game at Aria on Saturday was really good for a while. People were just AWFUL. In one hand, I raised with A-J suited. Flop came J-J-4. I had trip jacks one other time and this other guy at the table had been joking with me about how jacks were my card. So one guy bets out 10 and I just call, and I said "I'm going to slowplay my jack". Haha. Turn, 3 I think. He bets out 25, I raise to 60, he calls. River, blank (maybe a 2?). He checks, I bet 100 (basically his whole stack). He calls. He had 4-3. Bottom pair no kicker. SO sick. He's all asking his friend "Would you have called?" Just no clue. It was great.
Friday at Wynn was total insanity. I had such huge swings. I sat down and was instantly up $430. It was sick. I raised with 4-3s. Flop something like K-5-2, with 5-2 of my suit. Checks to me, I bet 15. Get check-raised to 45, call. Turn, SICK. 6 of diamonds. Guy bets 150. I go all-in for something like 200+ more. He calls, drawing dead.
Then I had some bad hands. I raised with K-Q to about 8, get a ton of callers. Flop was nice, K-J-10. So I flop the straight draw and top pair. Pretty good flop I thought. Guy leads out for 20, another guy calls. I raise to 75. Now this next guy goes all-in for 145 more. Folds to me. I had seen him go all-in a few other times in the last couple orbits, so I figure whatever, I'm going to call him. He had A-Q. Sick. So I lost a huge pot there and probably should have just folded.
Later I get K-K. This girl had been going CRAZY, raising a ton, she was up like $1100 or so. Just CRUSHING. Like every hand she was putting giant reraises in, just killing everyone. So I get K-K and I think I just called a raise preflop. Flop comes K-9-x with 2 clubs. She bets 40. I raise to 100. She calls. Turn, 10 of clubs. She bets out 150. I was thinking about it and just couldn't fold. I had another 230 behind. So I call. River, blank. She puts me all-in, I fold. On that one I probably should have folded the turn, but I couldn't make myself do it. At least I folded the river. Pretty sure it was the right move.
I bought a new book this weekend. First poker book since I started playing again. Dynamic Full Ring Poker. I bought it as an e-book that I can read on Kindle, which is pretty fancy stuff. I'm pretty excited to read a poker book written recently. The reviews are decent too. I guess this one is still a couple years old, but it's better than the 10 year old books I have from before. I figure any new books probably take into account the wisdom of older books, so this should be pretty good.
I'm really excited to play again. I had a ton of fun this weekend playing. Just going crazy, bluffing a lot, playing a ton of pots, crushing people, getting crushed, it was awesome. Loving poker right now. :-)
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Freeroll for $30
Last night we played $1/$3 at Aria. I ended up breaking dead even. It was somewhat fun, somewhat annoying. One thing did make my night though. Just the crazy things you see in poker sometimes.
I sit down and I'm instantly down $100. Basically doing my standard raise with anything, bet the flop when I miss, 2 barrel the turn, have to fold. No big deal.
I'm sitting next to this guy, kinda big black dude with a backwards hat and sunglasses. He's being a little annoying. Like there is a guy and a girl sitting next to him and he's all like "get her number already!". That type of thing.
So he says to me, I want to bust her so bad (that girl). If I do it, I'll give you $30. I'm like, sweet! I'm down. Haha. Of course, this sounds just like some idiot thing to say that nobody would ever follow up on, so whatever. I ended up leaving that table pretty soon after to go hang out at my wife's table. He said if he does it he'll look for me and give me the $30. Whatever. :-)
At the next table I didn't have that many interesting hands. I'm definitely raising too many hands. It's a combination of bad hands, and hands out of position (sometimes both). I will certainly raise J-9s under the gun sometimes right now. Actually I had a hand yesterday where I raised under the gun with 3-2s. Flop came 4-5-9 with 1 of my suit, so I was able to bet and take it down. Not that I wouldn't have bet out anyway. :P
I'm also c-betting like 100% of flops, which isn't that great either.
In one hand yesterday, I raised to 8 with pocket 8s. (Or maybe I called this tight old guy's raise, I can't remember.) Either way, it got reraised out of the blind to 26. The old guy called and I called.
Typically I try not to look directly at the flop until it's my turn to act. It's dual purpose - I get a fun sweat out of it and also I don't give off as many tells. I can see some things though - colors, whether cards are pictures or not, and the general range of numbers (lot of spots = 8,9,10, etc). So I see the flop out of the corner of my eye and I see some cards that might have hit me, but I'm not sure. The preflop reraiser checks. Old guy reaches for chips and puts out $75. Big bet. Moment of truth, I look at the board.... 8! Hell yeah.
At this point I have about 200 left. If I shove I figure I'm getting called 100% of the time. However, who knows what's going on with the other guy. I figure I want to get him in too, so I just call the $75. In retrospect maybe that was stupid because calling $75 looks really strong too, especially when I don't have that much more behind. The preflop reraiser ended up folding.
Turn card sucked. It brought the 3rd diamond, so now a flush was on board. The old guy checks, I shove for $125 or so. He folds. I knew he didn't have a flush draw, it was basically impossible for him to have that on the flop. But that was the only kind of card that could kill my action. At least he didn't turn a bigger set, right? :-)
That got me within $50 of being even. I had a blind vs blind hand that won me some decent money too. :-) I never chop and I love when I win a hand where I didn't chop. So it comes to just the blinds and the small blind limps, didn't even ask if I want to chop. Perfect for me, I love that. I look down, A-Q. I raise 10 more, to $13. He calls.
Flop comes J-10-x. He bets out 10. I figure that I have a lot of cards I can hit to improve, and I'm putting him on a weak pair of some kind. I raised to $29. He called. OK.
Turn, blank. He checks. I thought about betting, but from looking at the guy I couldn't tell if he was someone that might fold or not. So I just checked behind and tried to hit my hand. River, I miss again. Damn it. He checks. I thought about betting here, but for the same reason as before, I just didn't get a good feeling he was going to want to fold something here. Although now that I think about it, it's probably fear that makes me say that. I could probably bet like $30 or $35 here to make it look like a value bet with Q-J or whatever, hopefully getting him to fold. However, I just checked. He showed Q-9, for the busted straight draw. SO sick, if the king hit I'm basically getting all of his money. Damn! Either way though, still a good pot for me.
Here is the typical hand that I'm playing lately, kind of my new bread and butter play. For better or worse. :-) I'm in late-ish position, maybe 2 off the button. Like 1 limper, and I raise with 8-4 suited to 8. The 8-4 suited is actually MY hand. I'm trying to keep this blog somewhat anonymous but we call it the ***** (my last name). I get a couple callers and go to the flop. The flop is K-8-5 with 1 of my suit. Checks to me, I bet like $13. One caller. Turn, 6. So I pick up a gutshot. Checks to me, I bet $30 or so. Guy folds. Yay. :-)
I'm loving betting flops where I have some kind of backdoor outs. Backdoor straight, flush, I don't care. Any pair + backdoor outs is just huge. 2 barreling is so much easier when you pick up additional outs.
So I'm sitting there down about $50, and that guy from earlier comes over. He's like "I was looking all over for you!" and he splashes 6 $5 chips on to my stack. I'm like "You did it?" I get up and fist bump him and high five him. He points at the girl, who is now sitting behind someone (not playing) at a different table. He tells me about the hand. He got all-in preflop against that girl. He had A-Q, she had A-A. LOL. And he rivered a straight. Awesome! I was dumbfounded, I couldn't believe the guy actually followed through and gave me the $30! He said he was looking all over for me at a bunch of tables and finally found me. I had a ton of fun telling the table about it and it really made my night.
I have to give that guy some props. I did NOT think he would actually go through with it and ship me $30 if he busted that girl, especially once I left the table! But he totally did. Sir, I salute your integrity. You are the man. And that is a great poker story that I won't soon forget.
Moments like that I put into the category of "the magic of poker". In poker, you meet a ton of people you would never meet in real life. Just people from all different walks of life, a ton of foreign people, weird old guys, a random collection of people. A lot of the time, those people are total dicks. But sometimes you do have these awesome moments that make playing poker worthwhile.
I sit down and I'm instantly down $100. Basically doing my standard raise with anything, bet the flop when I miss, 2 barrel the turn, have to fold. No big deal.
I'm sitting next to this guy, kinda big black dude with a backwards hat and sunglasses. He's being a little annoying. Like there is a guy and a girl sitting next to him and he's all like "get her number already!". That type of thing.
So he says to me, I want to bust her so bad (that girl). If I do it, I'll give you $30. I'm like, sweet! I'm down. Haha. Of course, this sounds just like some idiot thing to say that nobody would ever follow up on, so whatever. I ended up leaving that table pretty soon after to go hang out at my wife's table. He said if he does it he'll look for me and give me the $30. Whatever. :-)
At the next table I didn't have that many interesting hands. I'm definitely raising too many hands. It's a combination of bad hands, and hands out of position (sometimes both). I will certainly raise J-9s under the gun sometimes right now. Actually I had a hand yesterday where I raised under the gun with 3-2s. Flop came 4-5-9 with 1 of my suit, so I was able to bet and take it down. Not that I wouldn't have bet out anyway. :P
I'm also c-betting like 100% of flops, which isn't that great either.
In one hand yesterday, I raised to 8 with pocket 8s. (Or maybe I called this tight old guy's raise, I can't remember.) Either way, it got reraised out of the blind to 26. The old guy called and I called.
Typically I try not to look directly at the flop until it's my turn to act. It's dual purpose - I get a fun sweat out of it and also I don't give off as many tells. I can see some things though - colors, whether cards are pictures or not, and the general range of numbers (lot of spots = 8,9,10, etc). So I see the flop out of the corner of my eye and I see some cards that might have hit me, but I'm not sure. The preflop reraiser checks. Old guy reaches for chips and puts out $75. Big bet. Moment of truth, I look at the board.... 8! Hell yeah.
At this point I have about 200 left. If I shove I figure I'm getting called 100% of the time. However, who knows what's going on with the other guy. I figure I want to get him in too, so I just call the $75. In retrospect maybe that was stupid because calling $75 looks really strong too, especially when I don't have that much more behind. The preflop reraiser ended up folding.
Turn card sucked. It brought the 3rd diamond, so now a flush was on board. The old guy checks, I shove for $125 or so. He folds. I knew he didn't have a flush draw, it was basically impossible for him to have that on the flop. But that was the only kind of card that could kill my action. At least he didn't turn a bigger set, right? :-)
That got me within $50 of being even. I had a blind vs blind hand that won me some decent money too. :-) I never chop and I love when I win a hand where I didn't chop. So it comes to just the blinds and the small blind limps, didn't even ask if I want to chop. Perfect for me, I love that. I look down, A-Q. I raise 10 more, to $13. He calls.
Flop comes J-10-x. He bets out 10. I figure that I have a lot of cards I can hit to improve, and I'm putting him on a weak pair of some kind. I raised to $29. He called. OK.
Turn, blank. He checks. I thought about betting, but from looking at the guy I couldn't tell if he was someone that might fold or not. So I just checked behind and tried to hit my hand. River, I miss again. Damn it. He checks. I thought about betting here, but for the same reason as before, I just didn't get a good feeling he was going to want to fold something here. Although now that I think about it, it's probably fear that makes me say that. I could probably bet like $30 or $35 here to make it look like a value bet with Q-J or whatever, hopefully getting him to fold. However, I just checked. He showed Q-9, for the busted straight draw. SO sick, if the king hit I'm basically getting all of his money. Damn! Either way though, still a good pot for me.
Here is the typical hand that I'm playing lately, kind of my new bread and butter play. For better or worse. :-) I'm in late-ish position, maybe 2 off the button. Like 1 limper, and I raise with 8-4 suited to 8. The 8-4 suited is actually MY hand. I'm trying to keep this blog somewhat anonymous but we call it the ***** (my last name). I get a couple callers and go to the flop. The flop is K-8-5 with 1 of my suit. Checks to me, I bet like $13. One caller. Turn, 6. So I pick up a gutshot. Checks to me, I bet $30 or so. Guy folds. Yay. :-)
I'm loving betting flops where I have some kind of backdoor outs. Backdoor straight, flush, I don't care. Any pair + backdoor outs is just huge. 2 barreling is so much easier when you pick up additional outs.
So I'm sitting there down about $50, and that guy from earlier comes over. He's like "I was looking all over for you!" and he splashes 6 $5 chips on to my stack. I'm like "You did it?" I get up and fist bump him and high five him. He points at the girl, who is now sitting behind someone (not playing) at a different table. He tells me about the hand. He got all-in preflop against that girl. He had A-Q, she had A-A. LOL. And he rivered a straight. Awesome! I was dumbfounded, I couldn't believe the guy actually followed through and gave me the $30! He said he was looking all over for me at a bunch of tables and finally found me. I had a ton of fun telling the table about it and it really made my night.
I have to give that guy some props. I did NOT think he would actually go through with it and ship me $30 if he busted that girl, especially once I left the table! But he totally did. Sir, I salute your integrity. You are the man. And that is a great poker story that I won't soon forget.
Moments like that I put into the category of "the magic of poker". In poker, you meet a ton of people you would never meet in real life. Just people from all different walks of life, a ton of foreign people, weird old guys, a random collection of people. A lot of the time, those people are total dicks. But sometimes you do have these awesome moments that make playing poker worthwhile.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Welcome to the Rock
Last night we went up to Red Rock and played. I pretty much got destroyed. I was down about $550 at one point.
In one hand I had K-K. I raised to 7 (my standard raise). I had been raising a TON up until then... probably 5 of the last 9 hands or something ridiculous like that. So I thought my image was really good to get paid on this one. Guy on the button reraised me to 27.
I thought about reraising, but just called. I thought that reraising might define my hand too well, and calling gives me a really wide range so it will be hard for him to know I had KK. In retrospect I probably should have reraised anyway. I'm out of position, and raising a ton of hands up to that point makes it more likely that he would call my reraise. And if he doesn't, that just keeps my image up that I'm a super aggressive player, which I like.
Anyway, I just called. Flop came J-9-4 or something. I checked, he bet something like 20, I called. Turn was a 7. I checked, he bet 35.
At this point, I thought that if I wanted to get the value out of these kings, I need to get some more money in the pot. So I decided to raise. I made it 110. He instantly went all-in. It was 150 more to me. I didn't see how I could fold, and called. He had J-J and I lost a giant pot.
Looking back at the hand, I played it pretty bad. The preflop call I think was fine, but if I do that I have to play the hand differently post-flop. I think call-call-call would have been the best line (assuming I didn't reraise preflop). Because really on the flop I'm basically hoping that he flopped a jack with A-J or whatever. So he bets, I call. Turn, blank (essentially). He bets, I can call. The on the river, pretty much same thing... I can check/call both for value (against A-J) or as a bluff catcher.
On the turn when I raised, there really wasn't anything I could hope to beat that could call me besides two hands exactly : A-J and Q-Q. With A-J, I think he would have to make a pretty bad call to call that raise. With Q-Q, fine. He might call or go all-in there. But that's literally the only hand that I can beat. Or tie K-K. He could easily have had A-A, J-J, 9-9.
Also any time someone shows strength like that (reraise pre - always a huge tell of strength, then bet flop and turn) that is really scary and I should respect that more.
That had me stuck 300. I had one unlucky hand against the same guy when I bet the flop and turn with J-J on a 9 high board, river came a 9, and he had 9-8 (I didn't lose anything on the river). Overall I kept losing losing losing, and was down $550.
Then I got in a pretty sweet hand with 5-5. :-) Raised with it preflop, got a couple callers. Flop came J-3-4. Checked to me, I bet, one caller. Turn, 5. Checked to me, I bet 20, check-raised to 70. YES. At that point I really felt like the other person flopped a set of 3s or 4s. She was a tight older lady. I don't think she would have called with 6-7 or A-2. And I didn't feel J-J either. There WAS a flush draw on board so I could have been worried about those with the flush suit, but I didn't really think of it. :P So she check raised me, I called. River was a 9 (brought the flush). She bet 100. I raised her all-in (for 100 more). I showed my set and she didn't show, so I'm pretty sure it was 3-3 or 4-4. Pretty sick turn card. That got me back to being only down $200. :-)
So I ended the night down $200. Not bad at all considering how lousy I had done and how much I was down all night. Plus I had a lot of fun. Looking forward to my next session!
In one hand I had K-K. I raised to 7 (my standard raise). I had been raising a TON up until then... probably 5 of the last 9 hands or something ridiculous like that. So I thought my image was really good to get paid on this one. Guy on the button reraised me to 27.
I thought about reraising, but just called. I thought that reraising might define my hand too well, and calling gives me a really wide range so it will be hard for him to know I had KK. In retrospect I probably should have reraised anyway. I'm out of position, and raising a ton of hands up to that point makes it more likely that he would call my reraise. And if he doesn't, that just keeps my image up that I'm a super aggressive player, which I like.
Anyway, I just called. Flop came J-9-4 or something. I checked, he bet something like 20, I called. Turn was a 7. I checked, he bet 35.
At this point, I thought that if I wanted to get the value out of these kings, I need to get some more money in the pot. So I decided to raise. I made it 110. He instantly went all-in. It was 150 more to me. I didn't see how I could fold, and called. He had J-J and I lost a giant pot.
Looking back at the hand, I played it pretty bad. The preflop call I think was fine, but if I do that I have to play the hand differently post-flop. I think call-call-call would have been the best line (assuming I didn't reraise preflop). Because really on the flop I'm basically hoping that he flopped a jack with A-J or whatever. So he bets, I call. Turn, blank (essentially). He bets, I can call. The on the river, pretty much same thing... I can check/call both for value (against A-J) or as a bluff catcher.
On the turn when I raised, there really wasn't anything I could hope to beat that could call me besides two hands exactly : A-J and Q-Q. With A-J, I think he would have to make a pretty bad call to call that raise. With Q-Q, fine. He might call or go all-in there. But that's literally the only hand that I can beat. Or tie K-K. He could easily have had A-A, J-J, 9-9.
Also any time someone shows strength like that (reraise pre - always a huge tell of strength, then bet flop and turn) that is really scary and I should respect that more.
That had me stuck 300. I had one unlucky hand against the same guy when I bet the flop and turn with J-J on a 9 high board, river came a 9, and he had 9-8 (I didn't lose anything on the river). Overall I kept losing losing losing, and was down $550.
Then I got in a pretty sweet hand with 5-5. :-) Raised with it preflop, got a couple callers. Flop came J-3-4. Checked to me, I bet, one caller. Turn, 5. Checked to me, I bet 20, check-raised to 70. YES. At that point I really felt like the other person flopped a set of 3s or 4s. She was a tight older lady. I don't think she would have called with 6-7 or A-2. And I didn't feel J-J either. There WAS a flush draw on board so I could have been worried about those with the flush suit, but I didn't really think of it. :P So she check raised me, I called. River was a 9 (brought the flush). She bet 100. I raised her all-in (for 100 more). I showed my set and she didn't show, so I'm pretty sure it was 3-3 or 4-4. Pretty sick turn card. That got me back to being only down $200. :-)
So I ended the night down $200. Not bad at all considering how lousy I had done and how much I was down all night. Plus I had a lot of fun. Looking forward to my next session!
Monday, May 21, 2012
Long poker weekend
We played SO much poker this weekend. It's going to be hard to write about it all because I am short on time. The breakdown hours-wise though is that we played 6 hours on Friday night, 11.5 hours on Saturday (wow!) and 3 hours on Sunday. Sick, over 20 hours this weekend! Since my last blog post I'm up another $878. (We also played Thursday night, 4 hours.)
Had some big ups and downs. Here were some of my more memorable hands.
AK in the blind. Bunch of people either call a small raise or a straddle, I can't remember which. I raised to 45. Decided I just wanted to take down the pot. Got 4 callers. So the pot got out of control fast. Flop was all low cards. I fire out 80. 2 callers. Damn. Turn, jack. Puts 3 spades on board. I check, guy goes all-in for 150. The other lady in the pot folds. Now I tank for a bit just thinking about the odds. I had the king high flush draw. I figure even with that, using the rule of 2, I have a 18% shot to win. So approximately 4 to 1 odds. The pot is about 200+240+150, and I have to call 150. So almost $600 in the pot. So I'm getting about 4 to 1 just on my flush draw. And I figure my ace or king might be good. So maybe I have some more outs there. I called, he had pocket 10s (just a pair) and I missed. But I was very happy with my call.
Playing against that same guy later. I get A-A and raise to 8. I had been raising a lot so it's sweet when you get these big hands. Get 2 callers. Flop A-K-x. They both check to me, I bet 10, he calls. Turn, K. He checks, I bet 20, he raises to 60. I call. River, blank. He bets out 100. I go all-in for $350 total. Big ass bet. He tanks for a while, calls. I say "ship it" when he calls and flip up the A-A. Said he had K-Q (just the king). lol. Ship it. MONSTER pot.
Sit down at a new table. Get dealt 5-5. I forget if I raised or called a small raise. I think I called a small raise. Flop 3-5-X, all lower than 10, all same suit. I call a bet. Turn, 10. Girl bets 40. I raise to 100. She goes into this speech about how she doesn't know how I play, would I be bluffing here, etc etc, and she goes all-in for 150 more. lol. Now I'm like, I don't know how YOU play either, I guess I don't know what to do but I'm going to call. So I call. She has A-10 with the 10 of hearts (3 hearts on board). River, heart. :P
Crazy table at night with a bunch of complete morons. I have A-A again and raise to 8 probably. Some guy reraises me to 26. Another guy cold calls. I reraise to 115. Probably way too much, but whatever. The original raiser folds (said he had K-K). The cold-caller calls my reraise. Flop Q high. I bet 100, he calls. Turn, whatever. I bet the rest of his chips (about 60), he calls. River, nothing. He had K-Qs. WTF???? Donation.
Funniest series of hands was on Sunday. I was getting CRUSHED on Sunday. Just everything I did was wrong, every bet I put in got raised, it was a nightmare. I started thinking about it though and realized that it was just one of those days where everyone else has the nuts 100% of the time against you. It's not like they were sensing weakness and pouncing on me. They just had it every time. Very important to realize that, so you can continue to play normal and not freak out. But I was getting killed.
I was losing, losing, losing, think I just lost a pot, then next hand I get K-Q on the button. I raise to 12. Get 3 callers. Flop Q-J-8 with 3 diamonds. I have the king of diamonds. Old guy bets out 20. I just call. Turn, 9. Old guy bets out 25. I call. River, brick. Old guy bets out 35 or so. I call. He has A-Qs, no diamond.
Very next hand I have 8-4 suited. Guy under the gun raises to 8. Couple callers, so I call. Now the blind starts stacking chips and puts out a big reraise, like 40 more. I INSTANTLY (like, nobody else has even acted yet) take my chip off my cards and walk away. I'm just on such tilt at this point that I am like I have to get the fuck off of this table immediately. Definitely rude to do that while there is action pending, but whatever. I had to get out of there because I was about to go crazy.
So I go to the bathroom, clear my head a bit during the walk, and walk back to the table. Sit back down and the guy next to me instantly starts getting on my case about it. Apparently when I left he made a HUGE deal about it too, like this is unbelievable, blah blah blah. GRANTED - it was pretty rude that I left and you should never do that.
So I tell him, "Sorry, medical emergency". He says, "I bet". It was so hilarious because once you pull the medical emergency card, what is someone else going to say? No? Haha. It was great. Guy across the table was laughing with me about it. I'm not proud of leaving in the middle of a hand, definitely not a good thing. But there were a ton of people in so my action didn't make a big difference, and like I said it was a tilt emergency so I just had to leave immediately or I was going to explode.
Pretty good weekend, especially considering the couple big hands I lost where I was a favorite or had a good shot at winning. Definitely was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to next time, which might be tonight.
Had some big ups and downs. Here were some of my more memorable hands.
AK in the blind. Bunch of people either call a small raise or a straddle, I can't remember which. I raised to 45. Decided I just wanted to take down the pot. Got 4 callers. So the pot got out of control fast. Flop was all low cards. I fire out 80. 2 callers. Damn. Turn, jack. Puts 3 spades on board. I check, guy goes all-in for 150. The other lady in the pot folds. Now I tank for a bit just thinking about the odds. I had the king high flush draw. I figure even with that, using the rule of 2, I have a 18% shot to win. So approximately 4 to 1 odds. The pot is about 200+240+150, and I have to call 150. So almost $600 in the pot. So I'm getting about 4 to 1 just on my flush draw. And I figure my ace or king might be good. So maybe I have some more outs there. I called, he had pocket 10s (just a pair) and I missed. But I was very happy with my call.
Playing against that same guy later. I get A-A and raise to 8. I had been raising a lot so it's sweet when you get these big hands. Get 2 callers. Flop A-K-x. They both check to me, I bet 10, he calls. Turn, K. He checks, I bet 20, he raises to 60. I call. River, blank. He bets out 100. I go all-in for $350 total. Big ass bet. He tanks for a while, calls. I say "ship it" when he calls and flip up the A-A. Said he had K-Q (just the king). lol. Ship it. MONSTER pot.
Sit down at a new table. Get dealt 5-5. I forget if I raised or called a small raise. I think I called a small raise. Flop 3-5-X, all lower than 10, all same suit. I call a bet. Turn, 10. Girl bets 40. I raise to 100. She goes into this speech about how she doesn't know how I play, would I be bluffing here, etc etc, and she goes all-in for 150 more. lol. Now I'm like, I don't know how YOU play either, I guess I don't know what to do but I'm going to call. So I call. She has A-10 with the 10 of hearts (3 hearts on board). River, heart. :P
Crazy table at night with a bunch of complete morons. I have A-A again and raise to 8 probably. Some guy reraises me to 26. Another guy cold calls. I reraise to 115. Probably way too much, but whatever. The original raiser folds (said he had K-K). The cold-caller calls my reraise. Flop Q high. I bet 100, he calls. Turn, whatever. I bet the rest of his chips (about 60), he calls. River, nothing. He had K-Qs. WTF???? Donation.
Funniest series of hands was on Sunday. I was getting CRUSHED on Sunday. Just everything I did was wrong, every bet I put in got raised, it was a nightmare. I started thinking about it though and realized that it was just one of those days where everyone else has the nuts 100% of the time against you. It's not like they were sensing weakness and pouncing on me. They just had it every time. Very important to realize that, so you can continue to play normal and not freak out. But I was getting killed.
I was losing, losing, losing, think I just lost a pot, then next hand I get K-Q on the button. I raise to 12. Get 3 callers. Flop Q-J-8 with 3 diamonds. I have the king of diamonds. Old guy bets out 20. I just call. Turn, 9. Old guy bets out 25. I call. River, brick. Old guy bets out 35 or so. I call. He has A-Qs, no diamond.
Very next hand I have 8-4 suited. Guy under the gun raises to 8. Couple callers, so I call. Now the blind starts stacking chips and puts out a big reraise, like 40 more. I INSTANTLY (like, nobody else has even acted yet) take my chip off my cards and walk away. I'm just on such tilt at this point that I am like I have to get the fuck off of this table immediately. Definitely rude to do that while there is action pending, but whatever. I had to get out of there because I was about to go crazy.
So I go to the bathroom, clear my head a bit during the walk, and walk back to the table. Sit back down and the guy next to me instantly starts getting on my case about it. Apparently when I left he made a HUGE deal about it too, like this is unbelievable, blah blah blah. GRANTED - it was pretty rude that I left and you should never do that.
So I tell him, "Sorry, medical emergency". He says, "I bet". It was so hilarious because once you pull the medical emergency card, what is someone else going to say? No? Haha. It was great. Guy across the table was laughing with me about it. I'm not proud of leaving in the middle of a hand, definitely not a good thing. But there were a ton of people in so my action didn't make a big difference, and like I said it was a tilt emergency so I just had to leave immediately or I was going to explode.
Pretty good weekend, especially considering the couple big hands I lost where I was a favorite or had a good shot at winning. Definitely was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to next time, which might be tonight.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
HUGE night at Wynn
Yeah, it was that kind of night.
Absolute, total domination from the second I sat down. So many sick hands. Everything came together perfectly. I was hitting, and I was getting paid huge. Just so many hands.
A few short examples:
I'm in with A-4s. Flop comes 2-5-J or whatever. I bet out 10, get 1 caller. Turn 3. Bust the guy.
In with 7-7, flop K-7-4. Against probably the other best guy at the table. He bets 20, I call. Turn 2, he bets 40, I call. River, Q. He bets 85. I raise to 225, he calls. He had K-Q.
Raise under the gun with 4-3 of spades. Get 1 caller. Flop 4-4-3. Check, check. Turn K. I bet 5. He raises to 15. I reraise to 45 or 55. He reraises all-in (for maybe 120 or whatever), I call, win.
In with 2-2 (maybe in the blind). Flop comes K-4-2. I check, guy bets 10. I had seen this guy make some freaking BAD plays earlier in the night. Like really bad. I just call. Turn, Q or something else, don't remember. I check. He bets 30. I raise to 75. He reraises to 200. The only reason I wasn't SUPER worried about 4-4 is that he INSTANTLY bet out 10 on the flop. It seems to me that if someone flopped a set they would want to think about it at least for a few seconds before betting, to figure out what to do with such a huge hand. Plus after he had been playing so bad in some other hands I knew I couldn't think about folding. So I went all-in. He had another 200 or maybe a bit more. He just laughs and calls. I don't know what he had, he mucked after I showed my 2-2. So that was another $900 or so pot.
I basically broke the table because we were 6 handed and I busted the last 2 guys (with the 4-3 and 2-2). After that, we just left.
My wife is pretty concerned with how I'm playing right now, haha. I don't blame her at all. I have gone through this EXACT cycle several times. Play really, really tight. Get some wins, but they are small. Maybe even have some bigger hits here and there, but then also get a big loss when I get my money in good once or twice, and I get frustrated. Then I just stay even over several sessions. Then I start to think, "I need to play more aggressive, that's what all the good players are doing, etc". Then I start playing more aggressive, and I get a big win or two up front. But then I start losing BIG, and I get really frustrated, and I give up.
Of course right now I'm in what would typically be the win big stage, right before the keep playing super loose/aggressive, lose big stage. So I understand her concerns. I FEEL like I'm playing better than ever before, and I'm definitely taking my time and thinking about my decisions. I've made some bad decisions lately, no doubt. And some bad moves. But overall I do feel like I'm playing well. We'll see. I'm just trying to play as good as I can.
It makes sense to me that maybe, finally, I have simply tried to play loose/aggressive so many times that I've learned enough lessons and grown enough as a poker player that I'm able to do it with some success now. Of course, that is what any moron would think after playing really bad and running really good too. I'm open to the possibility that I'm actually playing bad, and I'm keeping a close eye on it. But I'm really really trying hard to play well.
I was originally planning on stepping up to 2/5 NL once my bankroll hit $3k. And it just did go over that. But now I think I'll hang back at 1/2-1/3 for a while, at least until I hit $5k. Maybe a bit higher. I know that I'm playing a higher variance style right now. I need to learn how to play it a bit better, and when I move up to 2/5 I'll want to be able to keep playing this way. So I might want to build up to about $7k or something, and then take a shot with a $1000 buyin or whatever. Not sure yet. I definitely want to keep playing this new aggressive style if I can. It's incredibly fun and for now anyway, incredibly profitable.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Quick recap - MGM, Wynn
I don't have much time to type, have to get to bed. But I played another 9 hours of poker on Saturday/Sunday. First at MGM, then tonight at my old stomping grounds, Wynn.
On both nights I really didn't play that great. I had some ups and downs, and I got lucky. I got really lucky a couple of times and only ended up winning $80 overall, so that isn't so great. For example, one hand I raised with KK. Flop 669. Checked to me, I bet, couple callers. Turn 5. Checked to me, I bet 55, guy raises to 110. I should have folded, but it was a min-raise and I didn't want to let go of it yet. So I call. River, king. Sick. He bets 100, I go all-in for my 150, he calls, he had the straight. So that was a really bad call on the turn. Then tonight I got lucky in a much smaller pot, and my action was much more reasonable. I called a raise from someone with QQ. Flop comes 5-6-9 and the blind goes all-in for a bet larger than the pot, like 75. Folds to me, I call. She has 9-5, river is a 6.
I got a little unlucky on one hand, but it wasn't a big deal at all really. I got a guy all-in on a 9-6-5 flop. He had 9-7 and I had pocket jacks. Jack on the turn, but an 8 on the river. He had like 9 outs on the flop though so I wasn't super far ahead.
I've been playing so much looser and crazier than I have in the past that it's becoming hard for me to even pick hands to write about. I'm more thinking about overall themes of how I played rather than individual hands. Here are some things I'm noticing.
First, I'm playing too many hands out of position. I'm basically raising with any playable hand from any position. I've looked down at 9-7 in early position and raised, probably several times. This is obviously too loose. It sounds a lot worse when you type it than when I'm doing it, because writing it down and seeing it here on the screen makes me know it is freaking terrible. :-) And of course, I'm getting myself into trouble after the flop too. Which leads me to my second point.
Second, I'm c-betting too much. I don't know how much I should be c-betting, but I don't think it's 100% of the time. I mean I probably can c-bet 100% of the time if I at least have a backdoor flush draw or a gutshot or maybe even a backdoor straight draw, like if I raise with A-Q and flop a 10. But I'm literally c-betting every single flop with any two cards, and it's not a very good strategy. OK, maybe not EVERY flop, but a whole lot of flops.
Third, I'm firing a second barrel at the wrong people and in the wrong situations. Bluffing the turn is a new thing for me. I started reading about it and listening to podcasts about it, and it does make sense. There are a lot of flops where people are going to peel a lot of the time, and on those flops you can c-bet a lot of the time if the right card comes. Also if I bet the flop and pick up a draw on the turn, it seems OK to keep betting on the turn sometimes too. Looks pretty strong... raise pre, bet the flop, bet the turn. But I'm definitely doing it too much and against the wrong people. I'm having a hard time giving up on pots and it's costing me some money. I should be more apt to fire that second bullet when I'm in position too.
There are some good things coming out of the way I'm playing. One, I've been running good, lol. That feels good. Doesn't really help my game at all, but still, worth mentioning. Two, I've been having more fun. It's way more fun to play more hands, so this style of poker is much more enjoyable to play. Three, I'm getting more experience in new kinds of spots that I never would have had before. I'm feeling more comfortable in weird spots. Four, I'm learning to trust my instincts a little more. That has bit me in the ass a bit, but overall I think it's probably a good thing if I continue to learn and start to act on my instincts. Sure, I'm going to get it wrong a decent amount of the time, especially at first. But if I keep learning and improving it's going to make me a lot better of a player later on.
It sounds like we are going to play some more poker tomorrow, probably at Mandalay Bay. I hope they have a $300 max buy-in. With a $200 max my style really sucks more I think. Either way I'm going to try to tighten up more, so maybe it will do me some good to buy in for a bit less.
One fun hand today : I have 9-8 of spades and raise to 8 from the cutoff (1/3 game at Wynn). The guy on the button calls me and another guy calls me. I know the button has a bone to pick with me and he has a lot of money I want to get. In fact, I told him "I want those chips" earlier and I don't think he liked that. :-)
Flop comes 5-6-7 with 2 hearts. SICK flop! I bet out 10 bucks. He raises to 30. Folds to me. I'm thinking slowplay. I really wanted to just call and check it to him on the turn. But I thought, if he has something like a smaller straight or a set, I definitely want to raise now. Also the flush draw complicates things. Actually it's funny, I was just thinking "if it was a rainbow flop I would be more likely to just call here". However, it probably makes even MORE sense to raise a rainbow flop, because he has to have something there. I guess he could have a straight draw, maybe 6-7, but definitely he could have a set and it's almost even more likely to get a call or get it all in on that flop if it's rainbow.
Either way, the dealer pulled in the 10s and I put 75 out. So I made it 85 total on the flop. He called. I figured he would. Here we go. Turn, 3. At the time I was just blind because I had the nuts and didn't really think about this card much, but it was a pretty bad card for me (unless the guy had a A-4 flush draw or something). Definitely a scare card, probably would kill my action a bit. So on the turn we are both pretty deep, and I want to get a big bet in there. So I bet $175. He thinks forever and eventually folds A-J of hearts face up. Overall I'm pretty glad I bet that on the turn, I did not want to lose a monster pot on the river if a heart came. It's too bad the turn wasn't a jack or an ace though or the money surely would have gone in. And I'll take those odds.
Gotta go. Have to get some sleep.
On both nights I really didn't play that great. I had some ups and downs, and I got lucky. I got really lucky a couple of times and only ended up winning $80 overall, so that isn't so great. For example, one hand I raised with KK. Flop 669. Checked to me, I bet, couple callers. Turn 5. Checked to me, I bet 55, guy raises to 110. I should have folded, but it was a min-raise and I didn't want to let go of it yet. So I call. River, king. Sick. He bets 100, I go all-in for my 150, he calls, he had the straight. So that was a really bad call on the turn. Then tonight I got lucky in a much smaller pot, and my action was much more reasonable. I called a raise from someone with QQ. Flop comes 5-6-9 and the blind goes all-in for a bet larger than the pot, like 75. Folds to me, I call. She has 9-5, river is a 6.
I got a little unlucky on one hand, but it wasn't a big deal at all really. I got a guy all-in on a 9-6-5 flop. He had 9-7 and I had pocket jacks. Jack on the turn, but an 8 on the river. He had like 9 outs on the flop though so I wasn't super far ahead.
I've been playing so much looser and crazier than I have in the past that it's becoming hard for me to even pick hands to write about. I'm more thinking about overall themes of how I played rather than individual hands. Here are some things I'm noticing.
First, I'm playing too many hands out of position. I'm basically raising with any playable hand from any position. I've looked down at 9-7 in early position and raised, probably several times. This is obviously too loose. It sounds a lot worse when you type it than when I'm doing it, because writing it down and seeing it here on the screen makes me know it is freaking terrible. :-) And of course, I'm getting myself into trouble after the flop too. Which leads me to my second point.
Second, I'm c-betting too much. I don't know how much I should be c-betting, but I don't think it's 100% of the time. I mean I probably can c-bet 100% of the time if I at least have a backdoor flush draw or a gutshot or maybe even a backdoor straight draw, like if I raise with A-Q and flop a 10. But I'm literally c-betting every single flop with any two cards, and it's not a very good strategy. OK, maybe not EVERY flop, but a whole lot of flops.
Third, I'm firing a second barrel at the wrong people and in the wrong situations. Bluffing the turn is a new thing for me. I started reading about it and listening to podcasts about it, and it does make sense. There are a lot of flops where people are going to peel a lot of the time, and on those flops you can c-bet a lot of the time if the right card comes. Also if I bet the flop and pick up a draw on the turn, it seems OK to keep betting on the turn sometimes too. Looks pretty strong... raise pre, bet the flop, bet the turn. But I'm definitely doing it too much and against the wrong people. I'm having a hard time giving up on pots and it's costing me some money. I should be more apt to fire that second bullet when I'm in position too.
There are some good things coming out of the way I'm playing. One, I've been running good, lol. That feels good. Doesn't really help my game at all, but still, worth mentioning. Two, I've been having more fun. It's way more fun to play more hands, so this style of poker is much more enjoyable to play. Three, I'm getting more experience in new kinds of spots that I never would have had before. I'm feeling more comfortable in weird spots. Four, I'm learning to trust my instincts a little more. That has bit me in the ass a bit, but overall I think it's probably a good thing if I continue to learn and start to act on my instincts. Sure, I'm going to get it wrong a decent amount of the time, especially at first. But if I keep learning and improving it's going to make me a lot better of a player later on.
It sounds like we are going to play some more poker tomorrow, probably at Mandalay Bay. I hope they have a $300 max buy-in. With a $200 max my style really sucks more I think. Either way I'm going to try to tighten up more, so maybe it will do me some good to buy in for a bit less.
One fun hand today : I have 9-8 of spades and raise to 8 from the cutoff (1/3 game at Wynn). The guy on the button calls me and another guy calls me. I know the button has a bone to pick with me and he has a lot of money I want to get. In fact, I told him "I want those chips" earlier and I don't think he liked that. :-)
Flop comes 5-6-7 with 2 hearts. SICK flop! I bet out 10 bucks. He raises to 30. Folds to me. I'm thinking slowplay. I really wanted to just call and check it to him on the turn. But I thought, if he has something like a smaller straight or a set, I definitely want to raise now. Also the flush draw complicates things. Actually it's funny, I was just thinking "if it was a rainbow flop I would be more likely to just call here". However, it probably makes even MORE sense to raise a rainbow flop, because he has to have something there. I guess he could have a straight draw, maybe 6-7, but definitely he could have a set and it's almost even more likely to get a call or get it all in on that flop if it's rainbow.
Either way, the dealer pulled in the 10s and I put 75 out. So I made it 85 total on the flop. He called. I figured he would. Here we go. Turn, 3. At the time I was just blind because I had the nuts and didn't really think about this card much, but it was a pretty bad card for me (unless the guy had a A-4 flush draw or something). Definitely a scare card, probably would kill my action a bit. So on the turn we are both pretty deep, and I want to get a big bet in there. So I bet $175. He thinks forever and eventually folds A-J of hearts face up. Overall I'm pretty glad I bet that on the turn, I did not want to lose a monster pot on the river if a heart came. It's too bad the turn wasn't a jack or an ace though or the money surely would have gone in. And I'll take those odds.
Gotta go. Have to get some sleep.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
I don't know how to put it
Not really sure how to title this one. I had pretty much a perfect night of poker today. It was great all around. I want this blog to stay really poker-centric, but I can say that I really had a great time just hanging out with people at the poker table today. My friends from work were there and we had a great time hanging out and joking around. I just 100% had a blast. It could not have been more enjoyable of a night of poker.
One thing that really makes poker enjoyable is.... winning. And win I did. I fucking destroyed. Absolutely crushed. And I did it myyyyyyyyyyyy waaaaayyyyyyy......
I got to the MGM Grand right after work, at around 6 or 6:30. I decided to go to MGM because my friends said they might show up too. So I figured, what the hell. I've also done really well at MGM in the past, and they do tend to have pretty good games. I have had some of my biggest nights ever at the MGM.
I sat down at my first table and didn't start off all that well. I got bluffed right away by some douchey looking guy... I didn't chop, and raised my small blind to 6 with QT. He called. Flop didn't bring anything, I bet like 6, he called. Turn gave me a gutshot (A-K-?-?), I bet 12, he raised to 36, I folded, he showed Q-4. Fine. Didn't really bother me that much but I was hoping to get him back at some point. Just some young kid with a decent amount of money in front of him (like $400, max buy was $300), iPad, headphones, etc.
I sort of just sat around and didn't get much going on. Hovered around $240, down from $300. Eventually I played a hand with J-T, not sure if it was suited or not, but I think I raised on the button. I'm thinking about how to tell this hand and honestly I can't really remember how it went down. The ending though is on the river I make a straight with my J-T. I had flopped top pair (maybe with a gutshot?) and hit the gutshot on the river. So it checks to me, I bet 25, the young kid check-raises to like 75, I call, he basically had nothing. After that hand I was up $50.
Next table was pretty insane. I sat down and was directly to the left of the button. Dealer asks me if I want to wait. I say, "the smart thing would be to wait, but I'm in!" and I threw down my $3 to buy the button. I don't really remember what happened in that hand, I think I might have won though. VERY next hand I'm on the button with 9-9.
A guy in early-ish position raises to 12. I call. Flop is A-A-5. He checks, I check. Turn, 9. Boooooooooo *breathe* oooooooooom. He bets out 20.
At this point, I have a freaking monster. I figured this guy probably had one of a few things. One, he has an ace. Two, he has a pocker pair or something and decides to bet. If it's the latter, I'm not getting much either way. So I decided to raise. I made it $50 total. Super small raise, really easy to call. He ends up calling.
River is another low card, like a 6 or something. Now the guy bets out $30 again. That was fantastic, because I felt I could pretty much 100% put him on an ace at that point. I only had to fear some of the weak aces, and I felt like he probably wasn't going to raise preflop with A-5 or A-whatever. Could be wrong but it just seemed much more likely that I had the best hand. So I made it $200 total.
Pretty big bet. Not that I thought it all through at the time, but there was 24 + 100 + 30 in the pot when I raised. So 154, plus my 30 call is 184, and I raised it 170 more. Almost exactly a pot-sized raise. He hemmed and hawed forever and eventually ended up calling. I think he showed either A-Q or A-K. That put me way up.
A pot I'm a little more proud of came with J-8? J-9? I can't remember the exact hand. I believe I called a raise preflop in position when a bunch of others were in the pot. On the flop, I flopped a gutshot with at least 1 overcard. A guy bet out something and I decided to call. I actually thought it through and decided the pot odds were reasonable. Turn was a 6, giving me an open ended straight draw. I had to call a decent bet on the turn, like 30 or maybe a little more. But I added up the bets again and decided it was worth it. The river was an ace. He checked to me.
I thought about it for a while. I definitely thought the ace didn't help him and scared him a bit. However, I thought, this is a 1/2 game. This guy could pretty easily call with an overpair (ignoring the ace) if I bluff. And I already have put a decent amount into this pot, I didn't really want to bluff off a big stack here. I kept thinking about it and thought that I'd make a bet that really felt like a reasonable value bet size. I bet out $75. I'm also trying to think that I have the hand I'm trying to represent, so hopefully my body language supports my story. Anyway, he folded. I thought it made sense somewhat because I could have had the flush draw and hit my ace.
The rest of the night was fun. I played a ton of hands, played crazy, won some pots, and kept chipping up. Ended up winning $600. That is a huge win for me. My biggest win to date since I started playing again. And it brings me WAY back, after some pretty big losses I've had lately. So I'm just really psyched about it.
So tired. It's 3:15 AM. Need to sleep, then more poker tomorrow!
One thing that really makes poker enjoyable is.... winning. And win I did. I fucking destroyed. Absolutely crushed. And I did it myyyyyyyyyyyy waaaaayyyyyyy......
I got to the MGM Grand right after work, at around 6 or 6:30. I decided to go to MGM because my friends said they might show up too. So I figured, what the hell. I've also done really well at MGM in the past, and they do tend to have pretty good games. I have had some of my biggest nights ever at the MGM.
I sat down at my first table and didn't start off all that well. I got bluffed right away by some douchey looking guy... I didn't chop, and raised my small blind to 6 with QT. He called. Flop didn't bring anything, I bet like 6, he called. Turn gave me a gutshot (A-K-?-?), I bet 12, he raised to 36, I folded, he showed Q-4. Fine. Didn't really bother me that much but I was hoping to get him back at some point. Just some young kid with a decent amount of money in front of him (like $400, max buy was $300), iPad, headphones, etc.
I sort of just sat around and didn't get much going on. Hovered around $240, down from $300. Eventually I played a hand with J-T, not sure if it was suited or not, but I think I raised on the button. I'm thinking about how to tell this hand and honestly I can't really remember how it went down. The ending though is on the river I make a straight with my J-T. I had flopped top pair (maybe with a gutshot?) and hit the gutshot on the river. So it checks to me, I bet 25, the young kid check-raises to like 75, I call, he basically had nothing. After that hand I was up $50.
Next table was pretty insane. I sat down and was directly to the left of the button. Dealer asks me if I want to wait. I say, "the smart thing would be to wait, but I'm in!" and I threw down my $3 to buy the button. I don't really remember what happened in that hand, I think I might have won though. VERY next hand I'm on the button with 9-9.
A guy in early-ish position raises to 12. I call. Flop is A-A-5. He checks, I check. Turn, 9. Boooooooooo *breathe* oooooooooom. He bets out 20.
At this point, I have a freaking monster. I figured this guy probably had one of a few things. One, he has an ace. Two, he has a pocker pair or something and decides to bet. If it's the latter, I'm not getting much either way. So I decided to raise. I made it $50 total. Super small raise, really easy to call. He ends up calling.
River is another low card, like a 6 or something. Now the guy bets out $30 again. That was fantastic, because I felt I could pretty much 100% put him on an ace at that point. I only had to fear some of the weak aces, and I felt like he probably wasn't going to raise preflop with A-5 or A-whatever. Could be wrong but it just seemed much more likely that I had the best hand. So I made it $200 total.
Pretty big bet. Not that I thought it all through at the time, but there was 24 + 100 + 30 in the pot when I raised. So 154, plus my 30 call is 184, and I raised it 170 more. Almost exactly a pot-sized raise. He hemmed and hawed forever and eventually ended up calling. I think he showed either A-Q or A-K. That put me way up.
A pot I'm a little more proud of came with J-8? J-9? I can't remember the exact hand. I believe I called a raise preflop in position when a bunch of others were in the pot. On the flop, I flopped a gutshot with at least 1 overcard. A guy bet out something and I decided to call. I actually thought it through and decided the pot odds were reasonable. Turn was a 6, giving me an open ended straight draw. I had to call a decent bet on the turn, like 30 or maybe a little more. But I added up the bets again and decided it was worth it. The river was an ace. He checked to me.
I thought about it for a while. I definitely thought the ace didn't help him and scared him a bit. However, I thought, this is a 1/2 game. This guy could pretty easily call with an overpair (ignoring the ace) if I bluff. And I already have put a decent amount into this pot, I didn't really want to bluff off a big stack here. I kept thinking about it and thought that I'd make a bet that really felt like a reasonable value bet size. I bet out $75. I'm also trying to think that I have the hand I'm trying to represent, so hopefully my body language supports my story. Anyway, he folded. I thought it made sense somewhat because I could have had the flush draw and hit my ace.
The rest of the night was fun. I played a ton of hands, played crazy, won some pots, and kept chipping up. Ended up winning $600. That is a huge win for me. My biggest win to date since I started playing again. And it brings me WAY back, after some pretty big losses I've had lately. So I'm just really psyched about it.
So tired. It's 3:15 AM. Need to sleep, then more poker tomorrow!
Friday, May 11, 2012
A revelation
Yesterday I went to the Riviera. The game was by far the best game I have seen since I started playing again recently. Completely moronic play. I ended up losing $265.
Today I went to the Venetian. Played for about 5 hours. Lost $42.
Combined with the massive $422 loss last Friday at Red Rock, I'm down $729 in the last 14 hours of play over 3 sessions. That's very demoralizing. After Friday I felt awful. After last night I felt terrible too.
I started out today down $200 as well. I just had some hands that didn't work out... TT, JJ, just didn't work out. So I end up raising and c-betting and having to fold. I also ran QQ into KK (only lost 40 because the other guy did not play it well, imo).
So I'm down $200 and feeling bad about it. I talked to my wife on the phone and she was super supportive and nice about it, and told me that I'd come back. She always says that, but I do tend to beat myself up after I start losing. Usually the first hand or two is fine, but as they start piling up I really start getting a bad, negative attitude.
I have always wanted to play more aggressive. That's what I've been doing lately, and it's been working OK, but I've had some downswings. I'm no expert and I'm sure that I'm making mistakes. I have considered going back to the super nitty style that I have played in the past. It's boring but I do end up generally winning money, albeit really slowly.
I'm playing aggressive, but I am trying to play well. I'm reading books. I'm listening to podcasts. I'm thinking my decisions through. Sometimes the reasoning is flawed, but I am trying.
So then a calm feeling came over me as I came to a realization. I want to play this way. I haven't had success with it in the past, but I believe I can do it. It's how the great players play, and I can be a great player. I have a dedicated poker bankroll right now, so I don't have to worry about losing the money. And worst case, if I do lose the money, that's fine. I feel fine with that and if that worst case scenario happens, I'll simply stop playing poker for a while. Probably a long while. Maybe I'll wait until my next birthday and start another bankroll at that point.
But for now - I'm playing the way I want to play. I need to play smarter, and definitely tighten up in certain spots. But when I sense weakness, fuck it. I'm going to throw that big bet out there. I'm not going to cry when it doesn't work. I'm going to put out thin value bets. I'm going to double barrel, and even throw out an occassional triple barrel sometimes. I'm going to call when I don't have the best odds if I have a plan to raise someone off of a hand later, and I'm going to follow through with those plans.
I'm going to be the best poker player I can be, even if it breaks me. If my remaining $1500 doesn't give me enough room to prove successful at 1/2 NL, so be it. But until that money is gone, I'm going to try like hell and play my ass off.
I had some pretty sick hands lately. I don't have much time to write about them right now, but here is the most painful one. :-)
Yesterday at Riviera. I have AA in early position. There is a straddle to 6, and I limp. Button raises to 20. 2 callers. I reraise to 80. The button calls all in for about 60, and the small blind calls (whoa). He had another $150 behind. Flop comes Q-9-7. He checks, I bet 100, he goes all-in, I call. He had 8-7. River, 7. So I lose a $550 pot there. The button had A-K so he was drawing dead basically.
I had some other bluffs go wrong lately, so I think I need to re-evaluate my big bluffs. I think small bluffs are probably a good idea, and maybe bigger bluffs are not unless I have a good reason to think they will work. For example, take a look at this hand. I did not play it well on any street really.
I have 8-8. I limp, guy in the blind raises to 25, another guy calls, I call. I probably should have just folded, but we all had big stacks so that's how I rationalized it. Really though a fold would have been better, that was just too much to call. Flop is 2-3-7 I think. All cards under my 8s. The raiser bets 30, other guy calls. Now this is a really small bet, I didn't know what to do, so I just called. Turn was a jack. Raiser bets 30 again, the other guy calls. At this point I'm really confused and I just feel like those are weak ass bets. And the other guy calling I feel is super super weak. So I raise to 125. Unfortunately the raiser called, the river was a queen, and he went all-in (and I folded). He had Q-Q and rivered top set.
So many bad things about that one. The 30s looked weak, but the 25 preflop was super strong. And this guy was an older guy. So I think this was a case of the guy not really understanding bet sizing. On the flop I can see calling (or even raising) but on the turn when the guy fires out again into 2 people, that just isn't a bluff I don't think. And he's probably not doing it with 10s, or some smaller pair, or AK. He just has something and it's time to fold. Another problem is that if I did read him as weak and I wanted to raise, 125 was WAY too small. Before my raise, the pot had 75+90+60 in it - $225. So then I put in $125, bringing the pot up to $350. And he only has to call $95. So he's getting 3.5 to 1 odds there. Granted, I'm sure he's not thinking of the odds, and obviously I wasn't either, but that is too tempting. If I really wanted to raise, I guess I should have made it $250 or something. But the better play would have been to just fold. Actually, fold preflop.
I'm out. But I'm not giving up. I'm playing tomorrow and damn it, I'm going to play my heart out.
Today I went to the Venetian. Played for about 5 hours. Lost $42.
Combined with the massive $422 loss last Friday at Red Rock, I'm down $729 in the last 14 hours of play over 3 sessions. That's very demoralizing. After Friday I felt awful. After last night I felt terrible too.
I started out today down $200 as well. I just had some hands that didn't work out... TT, JJ, just didn't work out. So I end up raising and c-betting and having to fold. I also ran QQ into KK (only lost 40 because the other guy did not play it well, imo).
So I'm down $200 and feeling bad about it. I talked to my wife on the phone and she was super supportive and nice about it, and told me that I'd come back. She always says that, but I do tend to beat myself up after I start losing. Usually the first hand or two is fine, but as they start piling up I really start getting a bad, negative attitude.
I have always wanted to play more aggressive. That's what I've been doing lately, and it's been working OK, but I've had some downswings. I'm no expert and I'm sure that I'm making mistakes. I have considered going back to the super nitty style that I have played in the past. It's boring but I do end up generally winning money, albeit really slowly.
I'm playing aggressive, but I am trying to play well. I'm reading books. I'm listening to podcasts. I'm thinking my decisions through. Sometimes the reasoning is flawed, but I am trying.
So then a calm feeling came over me as I came to a realization. I want to play this way. I haven't had success with it in the past, but I believe I can do it. It's how the great players play, and I can be a great player. I have a dedicated poker bankroll right now, so I don't have to worry about losing the money. And worst case, if I do lose the money, that's fine. I feel fine with that and if that worst case scenario happens, I'll simply stop playing poker for a while. Probably a long while. Maybe I'll wait until my next birthday and start another bankroll at that point.
But for now - I'm playing the way I want to play. I need to play smarter, and definitely tighten up in certain spots. But when I sense weakness, fuck it. I'm going to throw that big bet out there. I'm not going to cry when it doesn't work. I'm going to put out thin value bets. I'm going to double barrel, and even throw out an occassional triple barrel sometimes. I'm going to call when I don't have the best odds if I have a plan to raise someone off of a hand later, and I'm going to follow through with those plans.
I'm going to be the best poker player I can be, even if it breaks me. If my remaining $1500 doesn't give me enough room to prove successful at 1/2 NL, so be it. But until that money is gone, I'm going to try like hell and play my ass off.
I had some pretty sick hands lately. I don't have much time to write about them right now, but here is the most painful one. :-)
Yesterday at Riviera. I have AA in early position. There is a straddle to 6, and I limp. Button raises to 20. 2 callers. I reraise to 80. The button calls all in for about 60, and the small blind calls (whoa). He had another $150 behind. Flop comes Q-9-7. He checks, I bet 100, he goes all-in, I call. He had 8-7. River, 7. So I lose a $550 pot there. The button had A-K so he was drawing dead basically.
I had some other bluffs go wrong lately, so I think I need to re-evaluate my big bluffs. I think small bluffs are probably a good idea, and maybe bigger bluffs are not unless I have a good reason to think they will work. For example, take a look at this hand. I did not play it well on any street really.
I have 8-8. I limp, guy in the blind raises to 25, another guy calls, I call. I probably should have just folded, but we all had big stacks so that's how I rationalized it. Really though a fold would have been better, that was just too much to call. Flop is 2-3-7 I think. All cards under my 8s. The raiser bets 30, other guy calls. Now this is a really small bet, I didn't know what to do, so I just called. Turn was a jack. Raiser bets 30 again, the other guy calls. At this point I'm really confused and I just feel like those are weak ass bets. And the other guy calling I feel is super super weak. So I raise to 125. Unfortunately the raiser called, the river was a queen, and he went all-in (and I folded). He had Q-Q and rivered top set.
So many bad things about that one. The 30s looked weak, but the 25 preflop was super strong. And this guy was an older guy. So I think this was a case of the guy not really understanding bet sizing. On the flop I can see calling (or even raising) but on the turn when the guy fires out again into 2 people, that just isn't a bluff I don't think. And he's probably not doing it with 10s, or some smaller pair, or AK. He just has something and it's time to fold. Another problem is that if I did read him as weak and I wanted to raise, 125 was WAY too small. Before my raise, the pot had 75+90+60 in it - $225. So then I put in $125, bringing the pot up to $350. And he only has to call $95. So he's getting 3.5 to 1 odds there. Granted, I'm sure he's not thinking of the odds, and obviously I wasn't either, but that is too tempting. If I really wanted to raise, I guess I should have made it $250 or something. But the better play would have been to just fold. Actually, fold preflop.
I'm out. But I'm not giving up. I'm playing tomorrow and damn it, I'm going to play my heart out.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Terrible night
Played on Friday night at Red Rock. The game was fine, but I had some bad luck and also made some bad decisions, causing my biggest loss so far. Over $400.
On the bad luck front, I had this hand. Call a raise with 4-4 out of the blind. Heads up. Flop 10-8-4. I check, guy bets 10, I call. Turn, 5 or something (blank). I check, he bets 10 again, I raise to 40, he calls. River, jack. I bet 100, he snap calls. I yell "ship it" (literally, lol) and turn up my set of 4s. He turns over a set of jacks. Sigh.
Couple bad decisions though which are frustrating. I call a raise with 8-9 of diamonds. On the flop there are like 5 people. Flop is J-J-9 with 2 clubs and 1 diamond. Checks to me, I bet something like 25. 1 caller. Turn is the 10 of diamonds, giving me an open ended straight flush draw. Checks to me, I bet 60. He calls. River, 8. I miss, he checks, I bet 130. He calls with the Q-10.
On this one I think I could have pretty easily checked the turn, although I don't hate my bet. I do hate the river bet. I didn't really think it through. I got to the river and just thought, I can't win, I need to bet if I want to win this hand. But I didn't think through what the guy could have. If he had a jack (which I doubted) he would call and win. If he had a draw, he either got there (with Q-10) or missed with a flush draw and I was about to win with my pair of 9s. Just a really, really bad bet on the river. All because I literally didn't think at all, I just bet. If you asked me what I thought the guy could have, I honestly don't think I thought much about it. I just bet the turn, missed the river, knew I had to bet to win it (which wasn't even necessarily true) and I fired a bet out there. Really stupid.
Then just a classic stupid decision. I limp with J-T offsuit. Flop comes J-T-5 with 2 hearts. I check. Guy bets 5. Next guy raises to 25. Folds back to me, I reraise to 60. The $5 guy folds, and the other guy goes all-in instantly for $130 more.
What can he have? It's some old guy. I guess in general someone could have 2 pair, a set, an overpair, or a draw here. I think you can rule out a draw because it's an old guy. Also an overpair, if he got check-raised like that he would be scared and wouldn't instantly reraise all in. For 2 pair, it was unlikely he had J-5 or T-5, plus he probably would also still be scared. So I basically had to figure he could only have a set. I guess I was tired and couldn't make myself fold my top 2 even though it was obviously beat. I called, he had a set of 10s, I lose.
Just a really bad decision. Maybe I did it because I was tired, I don't know. Just really depressing that I called there.
Overall I felt awful after this session. I made some really bad mistakes. On the bright side, I still have an $1800 bankroll so I'm not in danger of losing everything yet. Really my only priority is to make sure I have enough money to keep playing. And for right now, I'm fine there.
I'm still depressed over that one. Trying not to take it too hard, but that did suck.
My wife is out of town this week starting Wednesday, so the poker will be fast and furious. I plan on playing an insane amount. Might even play some other games, like the Omaha high-only limit at Boulder Station, or possibly even some limit hold 'em. Hopefully will be a fun and profitable week.
On the bad luck front, I had this hand. Call a raise with 4-4 out of the blind. Heads up. Flop 10-8-4. I check, guy bets 10, I call. Turn, 5 or something (blank). I check, he bets 10 again, I raise to 40, he calls. River, jack. I bet 100, he snap calls. I yell "ship it" (literally, lol) and turn up my set of 4s. He turns over a set of jacks. Sigh.
Couple bad decisions though which are frustrating. I call a raise with 8-9 of diamonds. On the flop there are like 5 people. Flop is J-J-9 with 2 clubs and 1 diamond. Checks to me, I bet something like 25. 1 caller. Turn is the 10 of diamonds, giving me an open ended straight flush draw. Checks to me, I bet 60. He calls. River, 8. I miss, he checks, I bet 130. He calls with the Q-10.
On this one I think I could have pretty easily checked the turn, although I don't hate my bet. I do hate the river bet. I didn't really think it through. I got to the river and just thought, I can't win, I need to bet if I want to win this hand. But I didn't think through what the guy could have. If he had a jack (which I doubted) he would call and win. If he had a draw, he either got there (with Q-10) or missed with a flush draw and I was about to win with my pair of 9s. Just a really, really bad bet on the river. All because I literally didn't think at all, I just bet. If you asked me what I thought the guy could have, I honestly don't think I thought much about it. I just bet the turn, missed the river, knew I had to bet to win it (which wasn't even necessarily true) and I fired a bet out there. Really stupid.
Then just a classic stupid decision. I limp with J-T offsuit. Flop comes J-T-5 with 2 hearts. I check. Guy bets 5. Next guy raises to 25. Folds back to me, I reraise to 60. The $5 guy folds, and the other guy goes all-in instantly for $130 more.
What can he have? It's some old guy. I guess in general someone could have 2 pair, a set, an overpair, or a draw here. I think you can rule out a draw because it's an old guy. Also an overpair, if he got check-raised like that he would be scared and wouldn't instantly reraise all in. For 2 pair, it was unlikely he had J-5 or T-5, plus he probably would also still be scared. So I basically had to figure he could only have a set. I guess I was tired and couldn't make myself fold my top 2 even though it was obviously beat. I called, he had a set of 10s, I lose.
Just a really bad decision. Maybe I did it because I was tired, I don't know. Just really depressing that I called there.
Overall I felt awful after this session. I made some really bad mistakes. On the bright side, I still have an $1800 bankroll so I'm not in danger of losing everything yet. Really my only priority is to make sure I have enough money to keep playing. And for right now, I'm fine there.
I'm still depressed over that one. Trying not to take it too hard, but that did suck.
My wife is out of town this week starting Wednesday, so the poker will be fast and furious. I plan on playing an insane amount. Might even play some other games, like the Omaha high-only limit at Boulder Station, or possibly even some limit hold 'em. Hopefully will be a fun and profitable week.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Fun Thursday night at Red Rock
Last night we went up to Red Rock, and I honestly had a blast. I'm loving poker right now. I don't think I'm necessarily playing great all the time, but I'm having a lot of fun doing it and I'm trying to play well. I'm not just playing SUPER tight either. Probably too loose, but it makes for some fun sessions. :-)
Check out this hand. Now please note, I should NEVER play this hand, ever. I have NO idea what I was thinking. I was in late position (or as my wife said, middle position... she might be right) and I had A-5 offsuit. I limp after some other people limp.
WHY???? Obviously this is terrible. I can't even imagine what I was thinking at that time. But I limped, and the flop came good : A-7-5. I bet out 7, and got 1 caller. The turn was a 10. I bet out 17, and the guy raised me to 35.
This is pretty much exactly why you don't want to play A-5. I don't know where I am in the hand. I could fold, and I definitely considered it. In the past I think I'd fold here a lot. The guy could have A-7, A-10, a set, etc. But then I thought that it seemed pretty weak to fold here. I also thought, I don't want to just call and then check-call the river. I was listening earlier in the day to this "Deuce Plays" podcast and the host (Bart Hanson) was talking about the 4 biggest live no-limit leaks that people have. In the podcast he mentioned that people don't bet/fold enough, and they check/call way too much.
Actually it's funny, now that I'm thinking about this, another line I could have taken would be to just call the turn and bet out on the river. It still fulfills my desire to bet/fold instead of check/calling, but I didn't think of it at the time. That would have kept the pot smaller as I wanted. I did not take that line though.
Instead, I decided to reraise to 80. I felt that this was the right play at the time, although now I think calling + bet/folding would have been far superior. I figured that he would probably fold if I had him beat, and raise if he had me crushed with a set or whatever. He just called, which confused me.
The river came out a blank. I just checked it. He bet 35 and I called. He had 10-5 (two smaller pair). So I ended up winning a really big pot with A-5o. It was interesting writing about it just now, because I wouldn't have even considered calling on the turn and bet/folding the river until now. From a results perspective it worked out better the way it went down, but it would have made more sense to just call and bet 50 or whatever on the river, maybe 60, and fold to a raise.
Bet/folding really is powerful. It's pretty cool because it forces your opponent to bet at least 2x what you bet to blow you off of a hand. So in this situation, if I had just called the turn and checked the river, he could have bet $100. That would have put me in a really rough spot. But if I bet $60 on the river, it has so many advantages. He might fold. He might call with weaker. If he DOES want to bluff me off of the hand, two things are worse for him. One, I already showed strength on the river, so bluffing is harder. Two, he actually has to put more money in ($120) to do it. So betting 60 is actually way safer than checking and planning to call $100, because you only don't get a showdown when he raises you, and you set the price for that raise higher than what he might want to do. Wow. I never really thought about how it saves you money like that. The forcing your opponent to bet 2x to bluff you is really interesting and I never thought about it before. This is probably boring to read but I'm really having an epiphany here.
The characters at the table were insane yesterday. This one old guy with about $100 played a hand where he raised preflop (with AA, of course). He gets all in on the flop against some kid across the table on a K high flop. At the end of the hand, the other kid turns up his KQ (one pair). The old guy is like "Are you going to tell me what he has?" and the dealer says "Kings" or whatever, so the old guy turns his hand up. Total slowroll btw, but whatever. Then the old man just starts bitching that the dealer didn't tell him what the hand was. "I hope I didn't put you out" or whatever. The dealer just said no, its my job, etc... Then the old man keeps going off, "Unbelievable! Fuck this guy!" and didn't tip him at all... what a moron.
Best hand of the day yesterday by far was this one. Oh, another A-5 hand I think! Haha. I limped with A5 (suited this time at least). About 5 people on the flop, and the flop was J-7-2. 2 of my suit. I decided to bet out 7. I got one caller, and he was in position. The turn was an offsuit 9. I decided that I'd try to take it away and double-barrel this one, so I bet out 15. He called again. OK, I still have the flush draw.
River comes a card lower than jack, another blank. I missed. I decided I wasn't just going to let this guy have the pot. I thought about how much to bet, and I thought $25 looked credible, like I was trying to get a call. In retrospect there was probably 10 (preflop) + 14 (flop) + 30 (turn) = 54 in there, so a little less than half pot. Definitely a good size bet for my purposes. The guy starts thinking about it. He turns a jack face up and starts staring me down! Talking, do you have this beat, etc. I must have looked super nervous, I know I felt nervous. I figured if this guy had a jack he would call me 100% of the time. He ends up folding. Then I show my A-5, no pair, no hope. :-) Totally fun.
Another lucky hand I had was with K-Js. I was in the blind and saw a flop 4 handed. The flop came A-A-x. Checked around. The turn was a 10. I bet out 2 bucks (lol). Got 2 callers. The river was a queen, giving me the straight. I bet out 15 bucks, a pretty big bet - pot sized. Then a guy raised me 20 more! I didn't really consider reraising at the time, but maybe I should have. I just called, he had some ace-rag hand, and I won a pretty nice pot.
Overall, a good night. I ended up winning 83 bucks and I had a lot of fun doing it. Can't wait till the next session. :-)
Check out this hand. Now please note, I should NEVER play this hand, ever. I have NO idea what I was thinking. I was in late position (or as my wife said, middle position... she might be right) and I had A-5 offsuit. I limp after some other people limp.
WHY???? Obviously this is terrible. I can't even imagine what I was thinking at that time. But I limped, and the flop came good : A-7-5. I bet out 7, and got 1 caller. The turn was a 10. I bet out 17, and the guy raised me to 35.
This is pretty much exactly why you don't want to play A-5. I don't know where I am in the hand. I could fold, and I definitely considered it. In the past I think I'd fold here a lot. The guy could have A-7, A-10, a set, etc. But then I thought that it seemed pretty weak to fold here. I also thought, I don't want to just call and then check-call the river. I was listening earlier in the day to this "Deuce Plays" podcast and the host (Bart Hanson) was talking about the 4 biggest live no-limit leaks that people have. In the podcast he mentioned that people don't bet/fold enough, and they check/call way too much.
Actually it's funny, now that I'm thinking about this, another line I could have taken would be to just call the turn and bet out on the river. It still fulfills my desire to bet/fold instead of check/calling, but I didn't think of it at the time. That would have kept the pot smaller as I wanted. I did not take that line though.
Instead, I decided to reraise to 80. I felt that this was the right play at the time, although now I think calling + bet/folding would have been far superior. I figured that he would probably fold if I had him beat, and raise if he had me crushed with a set or whatever. He just called, which confused me.
The river came out a blank. I just checked it. He bet 35 and I called. He had 10-5 (two smaller pair). So I ended up winning a really big pot with A-5o. It was interesting writing about it just now, because I wouldn't have even considered calling on the turn and bet/folding the river until now. From a results perspective it worked out better the way it went down, but it would have made more sense to just call and bet 50 or whatever on the river, maybe 60, and fold to a raise.
Bet/folding really is powerful. It's pretty cool because it forces your opponent to bet at least 2x what you bet to blow you off of a hand. So in this situation, if I had just called the turn and checked the river, he could have bet $100. That would have put me in a really rough spot. But if I bet $60 on the river, it has so many advantages. He might fold. He might call with weaker. If he DOES want to bluff me off of the hand, two things are worse for him. One, I already showed strength on the river, so bluffing is harder. Two, he actually has to put more money in ($120) to do it. So betting 60 is actually way safer than checking and planning to call $100, because you only don't get a showdown when he raises you, and you set the price for that raise higher than what he might want to do. Wow. I never really thought about how it saves you money like that. The forcing your opponent to bet 2x to bluff you is really interesting and I never thought about it before. This is probably boring to read but I'm really having an epiphany here.
The characters at the table were insane yesterday. This one old guy with about $100 played a hand where he raised preflop (with AA, of course). He gets all in on the flop against some kid across the table on a K high flop. At the end of the hand, the other kid turns up his KQ (one pair). The old guy is like "Are you going to tell me what he has?" and the dealer says "Kings" or whatever, so the old guy turns his hand up. Total slowroll btw, but whatever. Then the old man just starts bitching that the dealer didn't tell him what the hand was. "I hope I didn't put you out" or whatever. The dealer just said no, its my job, etc... Then the old man keeps going off, "Unbelievable! Fuck this guy!" and didn't tip him at all... what a moron.
Best hand of the day yesterday by far was this one. Oh, another A-5 hand I think! Haha. I limped with A5 (suited this time at least). About 5 people on the flop, and the flop was J-7-2. 2 of my suit. I decided to bet out 7. I got one caller, and he was in position. The turn was an offsuit 9. I decided that I'd try to take it away and double-barrel this one, so I bet out 15. He called again. OK, I still have the flush draw.
River comes a card lower than jack, another blank. I missed. I decided I wasn't just going to let this guy have the pot. I thought about how much to bet, and I thought $25 looked credible, like I was trying to get a call. In retrospect there was probably 10 (preflop) + 14 (flop) + 30 (turn) = 54 in there, so a little less than half pot. Definitely a good size bet for my purposes. The guy starts thinking about it. He turns a jack face up and starts staring me down! Talking, do you have this beat, etc. I must have looked super nervous, I know I felt nervous. I figured if this guy had a jack he would call me 100% of the time. He ends up folding. Then I show my A-5, no pair, no hope. :-) Totally fun.
Another lucky hand I had was with K-Js. I was in the blind and saw a flop 4 handed. The flop came A-A-x. Checked around. The turn was a 10. I bet out 2 bucks (lol). Got 2 callers. The river was a queen, giving me the straight. I bet out 15 bucks, a pretty big bet - pot sized. Then a guy raised me 20 more! I didn't really consider reraising at the time, but maybe I should have. I just called, he had some ace-rag hand, and I won a pretty nice pot.
Overall, a good night. I ended up winning 83 bucks and I had a lot of fun doing it. Can't wait till the next session. :-)
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Finally an awesome night
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| Kenna James at Red Rock 1/2 NL |
We got up to Red Rock at 8:30 PM. Started out at 4/8 limit while waiting, and moved into a 1/2 NL game shortly after.
Saturday Red Rock $1/$2 NL
Actually, before I get into last night's session, let me talk briefly about a session on Saturday. I would have classified this as a time where game conditions should be perfect. We got up to Red Rock on Saturday at 10 PM. The game was so incredibly boring. No action. It was just garbage.
I had some rough hands. On one hand I had A-6 (think I was in the blind). Flop came A-10-6, I bet out. Basically bet the flop, turn, and river and got called all the way down. Other guy flopped a set of 6s and never raised me. That pissed me off, even though he probably saved me money. Just an annoying situation.
Later on that night, I had A-A and got into a big pot. I raised to 7 under the gun. The next guy to act made it 14. One guy called the 14 and it came back to me. I raised to 40. Both called. This was turning into a monster pot. Flop came K-J-x, all spades. I did not have a spade (had to look back at my cards to confirm, which probably wasn't good). Also, the flop wasn't exactly good either. I could easily see someone preflop having J-J or maybe even K-K. At the same time, I wasn't about to give up on the pot. I bet out 75. Next guy goes all-in for like 300, I fold. Overall I played it the right way, but it was still frustrating.
I was in a bad mood. I was already playing loose, and after losing a couple decent pots, I was getting frustrated. The table was SUPER tight which was annoying me, so I started playing more aggressive. But really, I wasn't playing good. I was just playing loose and stupid. Luckily for me I didn't lose a ton of money during that period I don't think, but I probably lost an additional $50 at least that I could have saved by playing smarter. I ended up losing $184.
Tuesday Red Rock $1/$2 NL
So last night started out a little slow, but I did play some interesting hands. The first big hand was when I was dealt Q-Q in the big blind.
This guy was sitting out for hours, and he had about $1000 in front of him. He sat back down and about 3 hands in he raised to 10 from early position. One guy called, and I called with Q-Q out of the blind. The flop came 9-9-3. I checked. The raiser bet 15 and the other guy folded. At this point I figured I probably had the best hand, or at least I didn't have any reason to think otherwise yet. I raised to 40, figuring I have the best hand and this should end it now. He called.
The turn came a 3, putting 2 hearts on board. At this point, I didn't really know what to do. The guy could have 10-10 or J-J and might think he has the best hand. I didn't put him on a 9 yet because he raised from early position. I wanted to play a smaller pot with this, so I just checked the turn. My plan was to just check the turn and probably bet the river. So I check, he thinks for a bit, and bets 80.
I figure, I looked weak by checking, so I set myself up for this bet. I didn't really think I could fold after that, so I just called. Whether that was smart or not, who knows. The river was an offsuit 2. I checked again. He thought for a long time and bet 150.
At this point I basically thought - I didn't have a good enough reason to fold on the turn. The river bet definitely makes me worried and I'm concerned that he might turn over A-A or something. However, the board hasn't given me a good enough opportunity to fold either. Eventually I couldn't figure out a good enough reason to fold, so I called. I put in the chips and he just said "you're good". Sweet. He said he picked up a flush draw on the turn. So that was a really big pot.
Later, picked up an instant win with K-Q. I look down at K-Qo in late position and decided to raise (used my watch second hand to randomize this). I made it 7, got 2 callers. Flop was as good as it gets : K-Q-K. BOOOOOOOOOM. Sick. They both check. I thought about it and checked. I figured that I hit the board so hard, it would be difficult for anyone to hit anything there.
The turn was a 10 I think. They both check again. I bet out 15 and got 1 caller. The river came a blank and the guy bet out 25. I raised to 65 I think. He went all-in for a little more, I called. He had A-K, so I won a really big pot there.
Last sick hand I had was with A-A. I was in really early position and limped. 3 people saw the flop - me, my wife also in early position (to my left), and one of the blinds. The flop was Q-9-5. I think it checked to my wife and she bet 6. We both called.
Turn was an ace. Boom. I turned the nuts. Now, the girl in the blind bets out 25. Sweet! I raised to 60, she called.
River was a 9. Awesome. Now she bets out 100!!!!!!
She had about 300 behind and after my big wins so far I had her covered. Really big stacks in this game. I decided to just shove. I felt that she had a REALLY strong hand. I just though that there was no way she was going to fold after I showed strength on the turn and she showed a ton of strength on the river.
Unfortunately, she eventually folded. I lost a huge opportunity there. I reflected on that hand and I think it would have been better to think for a bit longer maybe, and also maybe just raise another $175 on top instead of going all-in. I feel like my shove looked really confident. I could have made it look a little more questionable, and I think the $175 amount would have been a lot easier to call while not losing a ton of value. Overall though shoving wasn't terrible either, just didn't work out this time.
I ended up winning $542 in the game. My biggest win yet, since I started playing again. I was super pumped. I've been having a really slow time lately, so it felt good to get a really big win.
Kenna James sat down in the game for a while, which was cool. I'm not a huge fan or anything, and honestly I don't remember how he's connected to the poker world, but it was definitely a more exciting person to have at the table than your usual 50 year old regular. You don't see many celebrities at Red Rock so that was fun.
Now my bankroll is sitting at a little over $2200. Once I hit $3k I'm going to take a shot at 2/5 NL... can't wait! I'm excited for my next session.
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