ugh.

So how many times can you get it in as a favorite and get your balls slapped.... let me count the ways...

I'm about 2 BI down in EV. I made up for it in non-showdown aggression, which was really good practice. I 3bet and 4bet the hell outa folks and it mostly worked out. Gotta try to keep that up, definitely some $$ to be made.

10 bucks of my bonus cleared, so my night was essentially a wash. Tired and cranky. Good night.

How would you play this?

Finally taking some small stabs at 25NL. things are still going pretty well here at casa BLAARGH. I find there are a lot fewer really weak spots at 25NL... 10NL is full of crazies. I'm trying to tighten up my game a bit to compensate, but below maybe too tight? Whaadaya think?

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 374714

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



SB: $26.22

Hero (BB): $25.75

UTG: $11.02

MP: $5.00

CO: $5.83

BTN: $19.33

This is pretty early on in the session, MP has been pretty tight so far. I've been able to steal his blinds on every round. This is the first time I've seen him raise. I've been somewhat active and my numbers are high because I've gotten a few playable hands.

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with Q K

I get QKcc in the BB. So the question is... do I:

A) Balls 'o Steal: Shove for his shorty $5. 

B) Wimpasaurus: Call and see what happens on the flop

C) Why are you even playing this game???: Fold

A, I think he folds everything but TT+, maybe JJ+

B, I can probably put him in on any favorable flop, and get away from anything that looks stupid with minimal damage.

C. Well, he did seem pretty tight, but come on... I'm sooooooted! But he does have my range pretty much crushed the times he's not raising baby pairs, Unless he has an unlikely JQ or KJ

Which of these options is most +EV over time? If I shove and win, I get .25. If I shove and he calls, sometimes I'm racing with baby/mid pairs, lots of times I'm crushed by AQ, AK, AA, KK. Even though I have a Q and a K, those are still viable hands. Obviously a better read on him would be preferable... and maybe just folding is the most +EV because he folds his blinds so much....

For the most part I prefer aggression. I didn't include a rr to 2.50, as that would probably have the same effect as shoving and put him in control of the hand, plus it would commit me to the hand anyway if he shoves...

Pokerstove KQcc vs top 10% - actually seems pretty good....

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

 167,805,792  games     0.297 secs   565,002,666  games/sec

Board: 

Dead:  

equity win tie      pots won pots tied

Hand 0: 41.229%   36.70% 04.53%      61582773  7602597.50   { KcQc }

Hand 1: 58.771%   54.24% 04.53%      91017824  7602597.50   { 88+, ATs+, KJs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }

1 fold, MP raises to $0.75, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.50



Flop: ($1.60) 4 3 T (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $1, Hero folds



Final Pot: $1.60

MP wins $1.52

(Rake: $0.08)


Yeah, I'm a big pussy. Fuck you. So what do you do?

SECTsing the Cherry*

So.... as of last night, things are still going well at 10NL. Above is the graph of my progress since October 12th, when I started 6max. According to HEM, I'm a frigging lucksack. Which is only partially true. I DEFINITELY had a few good suckouts early on. The rest it seems, is pretty much just running well. My big hands are holding up. I'm getting in what I believe are good spots with fish.

Which leads me to this graph:

I read this post by Gugel (anskypoker.com) about a program called SECT. It computes your equity by street, rather than by when you got it all in. Read his explanation, he does it much better than I could. I think the above graph shows a more accurate picture of my play. Yes, I'm still running well overall, but I've been getting in with good equity to begin with, which is what I'm most concerned about. Don't get me wrong, I can still spew with the best of 'em, but I'm really trying to fix whatever leaks I can find.

So on that note.... I'm thinking I might start posting some hands and graphs as I go along. There are already too many of these kinds of blogs out there, but I think I want to do this more for myself to check my progress... and if anyone else is into it, great... if not... fuck you, you're an idiot. If nothing else, it will be a good forum for Waffles to make even more fun of what an absolute fish I am.

*with deepest apologies to Jeanette Winterson for soiling her title

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Sorry for the super long delay in posts (not that anyone reads this drivel anyway). It's not that I haven't been playing, I have been. A lot. A real lot.

Summer Bankroll Challenge decimated my bankroll. I managed to go from a high of around $800 to a low of about $400. Truthfully it had nothing to do with the challenge itself, it was a combination of running really bad and trying to learn to play cash games. I was playing 25NL FR at the time and playing a really high variance LAG style and not playing it all that well...

I moved down to 10NL, lost a bit more, but studied quite a bit. Switched over to 6 max which, for whatever reason seems to be the right move. I also happen to be running super hot. I think I'm at about 10bb/100 over 10k hands right now. I'll save my views on how I'm running for a later post, as I don't think HEM tracks EV in a reliable way.

So last night, I blew past my goal of getting back to $800 thanks to a fish that just could not find the fold button. I got him all in 3 times on the river while he was chasing runner runner gutters. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he just has $$ to burn. Maybe he just doesn't care about the 50 bucks. All I know is he was paying me off big time. I cashed out about $3 short of my goal after the fish left and decided to fire up a $5.50 18 man sng. 2nd place and I'm somewhere around $820.

My goal now is to move back to 25NL and see how that goes. I still have some serious leaks to fix, but I feel a whole lot more comfortable in a whole lot more situations. Maybe I'll keep this blog updated more often... we'll see.

By my own rules, I'm allowed back in the Mookie. If I drop below $800, I can't join. So.... hopefully see you all on wednesday....

And congratulations to Waffles aka "Super Turbos" for getting sucked out in 4th place last night...

Proper Bubble Play

2 months 2 million

These guys look a bit stiff in front of the camera (and why wouldn't they - I mean c'mon, when you get down to it they're a bunch of button mashing nerds - I don't mean that in a mean way either...), but it looks like the producers figured out ways to liven the whole thing up. Tilt room - lol.

Video Game - E3 2009 - 2M2MM

He makes more sense than most weathermen...

Mookie massacre

Played the worst game of poker in my life yesterday.... well, I'm sure I've played worse playchip games when I started, but at least then I had an excuse. Was finally home in time for the Mookie last night and looking forward to it. That always seems to be my first mistake... every time I just randomly log into a game I do well. When I spend all day looking forward to a game I play like an idiot. 

Very early on it folds to me in the SB, I make a standard steal raise, get flatted, don't pay attention to any of the warning signs, cbet the A high flop instead of shutting down. A third club hits the turn (I have hearts) and I intend on check-raise bluffing (see what an idiot I am?), but he checks behind. I definitely know he has no clubs and fire a near pot size bet on the river and of course get called by AJ for top pair on the flop. Just like that, half my stack is gone on an idiotic bluff. He thought about that river bet for a while, not sure if he was contemplating folding or raising. Either way, I couldn't have butchered that hand any worse than I did, and there was no reason at all for me to be making a move like that so early with crap cards and no real read on my opponent. 

From there I maintained my 1500 chips for a while, making steals where I could, but pretty much card dead. I finally get below 1k with I think 200 blinds and shove JTo from EP and I'm out to ATo. 

I'm pretty sure this was my worst showing in a Mookie ever. Need to think before I act. Been bombing out on the bubble of my last few 18 mans I've played as well - pretty much the same stupid shit. Time to get my act together and concentrate.

Played a few $2-$5 HU sngs afterwards, then decided to try a couple $10's just to see what the competition was like. WTF. Is it a standard thing in the $10's for idiots to monkey shove every f*cking hand? I played 3 different guys and they were exactly the same... it looked to me like they just wanted to coin flip for ten bucks. I ended up down $10 for the night and called it quits.

The good thing was.... no tilt. I was a bit disappointed in the way I played the Mook, but quickly shrugged it off + played reasonably well in the HU games. Even the $10 monkeys didn't get to me. Guess that's something...

Face the Ace

Mildly entertaining. Weird choice of a host, as Schirripa doesn't seem to know all that much about poker and seems kind of uncomfortable. I'm sure that goes away after a while as everyone settles into the show, but I doubt he'll get the chance for a season 2.

What bugged me the most was when Schirripa asks the pros "should he continue on?" it was painfully obvious that the pros were told to try to keep the contestants playing. Obviously the studio wants them to keep playing, as win or lose it adds more drama and more screen time to get to know the contestant better if he's personable. The chances of some random guy finishing off 3 pros in a row, even with the quick blinds has got to be pretty small. You could tell Ivy just wanted to say his lines and get the heck out of dodge. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, as I don't know Lederer personally, but he looked like he had a struggle with trying to lie without lying by laying out the odds of the dude actually being able to pull it off vs the pot odds of winning.

The first dude got incredibly lucky and I think he knew that he was in waaaaay over his head. He made the right decision to get out while he could. No idea if the basement dude will pull it off, but even with the quick blind structure, I give him maybe 40%. He's pretty much playing his cards, and the pros are trying to bluff the unbluffable, but once they figure out that raise means strong check means weak, they'll have a field day.

The whole thing looks to me like deal or no deal, and plays pretty much the same. 

All in all, I give it a rating of "whatevah".

Tiltlessness

*Also posted in SBC

Been playing a few of the $3+.30 90 deep turbo KO sngs lately. I can't even believe how bad the play is on these things. There is absolutely NO poker going on... everyone is so in love with the KOs that they will shove at the slightest provocation.

Donkey heaven. I'm in my element. I am King Donkey. I'm the donkey the other donkeys look to for advice. Buy high, sell low. That's not herpes, don't bother seeing a doctor. You do look kind of fat in those pants, darling.

I can take these things. Easy strategy. Don't go for the KO just for the sake of the stupid 50¢, play tight, get them to gift you their chips, go for the win.

The problem with bad play is it's infectious. After 2 hours of mouth breathers shoving with the worst possible hands and winning, you start to think that it's a good idea. That's my excuse anyway. Really, I pretty much just suck. Hard. Awful play. What the hell was I thinking play. Who the f hit my all in button, I'm gonna kill him. And I wish I could say it only happened once.

I'm 3rd in chips with 32k (leader has 36k). We're on the bubble. 10 left, 9 pay. I can sit back and wait for the shorties to bust, then take out the rest on the FT. No problem. It folds to me in the SB, I raise to 7500 with Q8o. I would very much like the BB to go away so I can take his 2700. The douche flats. WTF. He has 14k behind. You know where this idiocy is going... I'm out of position with weakass cards against a station that flats 1/3 of his stack in the BB and isn't folding his very obvious Ax.... I flop my 8 on 68Ar.

Luckily my finely honed poker sense allows me to shove all of my chips in virtually assuring I will bubble this thing.

I'm now down to 10k. Shortie is down to 2k, less than 1BB. I can fold to the $$, but that's not how I roll. I'm a steamroller. I can roll over bullets, baby! I roll off the barstool into my own pool of sick. I roll bums for fun and profit.

I have J9o on the button. Pure gold! You suckers are in for it now!

Let me take a moment to talk about tilt. I read the Tommy Angelo book. I don't tilt.

So when I put my fist through the dog, that wasn't tilt. When I pummeled the dog through my wife that wasn't tilt. When I put them both in a blender, that wasn't tilt it was breakfast, shame to waste a good energy drink. When steam came pouring out of my ears making a whistling sound, that wasn't tilt (just good comedy). When I tickled the Guinea pig... ummm... what was I talking about?

Oh yeah. Tilt. I don't do it. Got it?

It took every ounce of will to not throw my laptop across the room. I mean, come on. I cost myself at least $2 in profit in that spot. I can keep these things in perspective. It takes at least a $3 loss to smash a $4000 computer.

I ripped apart my ipod headphones instead.

*Martha Stewart moment:

Ipod headphones make a lovely noose or garrote that will fit over just about any Guinea pig neck. Try it at your child's next birthday party and really surprise her!

I immediately logged into a $5 sng. It's always a good idea to get right back on that horse after learning a valuable lesson.

That's when the internet connection went down.