Swings

I’d been playing really well, more than tripled up at a table, and doubled up at 2 other tables, and got stacked at another, so I was up about $20 for the night. There had been a guy playing 68/10/2.66 over 145 hands at the table I had tripled up at. He had a larger stack than me. I had considered getting up from the table with my large win and rebuying for $5, but I decided to press on, because I figured sooner or later we’d have a confrontation, and with his maniac play, I’d collect a fat paycheck. Well, we had the confrontation. I didn’t have time to grab the hand, but I had QQ, he had AA, we both hit our flush on the river, and I got stacked. I should have let the hand go, but I was sure he had garbage based on watching his play and his PT stats at nearly 150 hands. Shame on me for not letting a $10 pot go when he went all in for more than the pot.

I ended up getting stacked at my other tables as well, and ended up really down for the night. If I bluffed, I got called. If I reraised with a good hand, I was behind a monster. I really didn’t take any bad beats for the night, so I’m bummed. I was pressing good but not great hands against loose players with sneaky better hands. I need to practice what I preach and get up, save some profit, and sit back down with my smaller amount. I’ve been doing what Mike Caro calls ‘playing your bankroll like it’s a tournament’ – you keep doubling up until you go busto and end up down. In Limit, there’s no reason to get up, you can’t get stacked. In NL, you can go for that monster win, or you can take a little off the table and grind your way up.

UB – 148.70
PS – same (80ish)

I’m A Bad Boy, Again…

I was bad tonight – I couldn’t find any .05/.10 tables, so I went to a juicy .10/.25 table and bought in for $8, about 5% of my UB roll. I was there for a round when this hand happened:

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold’em, $.25 BB (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

BB ($24.40)
UTG ($22.88)
UTG+1 ($19.40)
MP1 ($16.49)
Hero ($7.81)
MP3 ($13)
CO ($4.22)
Button ($24.65)
SB ($4.75)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Ks, Kc.
UTG calls $0.25, UTG+1 calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero raises to $1.35, 5 folds, UTG calls $1.10, UTG+1 folds.

Flop: ($3.30) 5s, 4c, Kd (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.5, UTG raises to $6.5, Hero raises to $8.

Turn: ($17.80) Qs (2 players)

River: ($17.80) Ad (2 players)

Final Pot: $17.80

Results below:
UTG has Ac Qh (two pair, aces and queens).
Hero has Ks Kc (three of a kind, kings).
Outcome: Hero wins $17.80.

I knew this guy was pretty aggressive, and probably had a decent hand to play UTG, because he’s fairly tight. I’ve seen him at .05/.10 before, so I was pretty familiar with his style. I figured I could make a weak looking bet on the flop as if it were a CBet, and he’d raise it, but if I checked it, he’d bet the turn, I’d call, and he’d check fold the river. Sure enough, he did raise my CBet, I just pushed the rest. I hoped he had AK and was stuck, but it didn’t matter, he called with AQ. I was really happy with this play, and I think it worked well because I knew my opponent.

I thought about staying at my .10/.25 table, but my better judgment told me to get up, so I did. Hit and run – some .05/.10 opened up so I went back down. I was up a bit more for the night, but nothing special.

Played in some Stars tourneys, no cards, got caught stealing after being blinded down – not worth mentioning really.

Side note – I sent some emails to support at UB and FT – I’m trying to get them to allow me to use a rakeback affiliate even though I already have accounts on both. It can’t hurt to ask. We’ll see what they say.

UB – 171.10
PS – 79.55 (Yay $250)

Update

Sorry for the short updates – I’ve been busy. Had a good night despite a couple of lost coinflips. I was going to post a couple of interesting hands, but just didn’t have time. I may this weekend.

UB – $157.42
PS – $80ish (no change)

Still Running Hot

I seem to be getting more than my fair share of big pocket pairs. I don’t think it will continue. They did get cracked a couple times tonight, but overall I had a good showing. Getting paid off on my bigger hands.

Finally got Poker Grapher working. Below are my .10 NL results so far. If it wasn’t for that stiff run I had last week, I’d be in the $200 range.

Once again lost in two 45 man PS tourneys – getting short, no opportunities, then pushing and running into a ridiculous hand with top pair. I’ll live.

UB – $163.80
PS – $73.69

Hmmmm….

Nutty… Had to get up again because I bought in for $5 and had $31 at the table. Two good hands got paid off and I bet all 3 streets both times. Funny thing is that a total rock paid me off for both. Struck out in 2 tourneys on PokerStars.

UB – $146.18
PS – $76.09

Not So Bad

Another milestone – I’ve cleared my UB bonus. I also made a large portion of my losses from the other night back. Details later.

UB 119.60
PS 79.49

Brutalized

Just got destroyed tonight. Kept running into hands – in fact, I went back and checked and ran into AA 3x and KK 2x. Played at some super aggro tables, and guys with numbers like 65/45/5 or 40/20/2.75 would catch their 2 outer against my overpair, and I’d misread it – they’d overraise and I’d take it for trying to push me out, I’d shove, and I’d feel the pain. I didn’t play very well. I caught starting hands that semi-committed me based on the overall aggressiveness of the table. I definitely overplayed a lot of hands like KK vs. AA preflop when I knew the guy was tight but thought he was pushing me off a hand, or AQ vs. AK when an A came on the flop and I’d checkshove thinking I was good. Most of the hands are not worth posting because the money got in preflop and flop so there is no analysis to be had. My pocket pairs were ruined tonight, whether I hit or missed. I could have minimized my losses, but I didn’t. Even with the bad plays, I managed to lay down a lot of top 10% hands preflop, but it just wasn’t enough. I guess it wasn’t my night.

I’m really disappointed. It’s not like I wasn’t tight, or concentrating – 16%-20% at a at all 4 tables. I think it may have been my all time worst night in 4 months.

UB – $90.68/$5.06
PS – same

Rough Night

Played a fairly long session of .05/.10 on UB. Got stacked several times with good hands – top 2 pair, sets, hands where I was pot committed with good cards. I made some great laydowns too. A lot of my good preflop hands just weren’t holding up. I made a couple of nice steals and nice checkdowns where I knew someone was slowplaying a great hand. I feel very satisfied with my play, so even though I lost a lot of money tonight, I’m cool with it Just one of those nights were you run into a wall of cards. I fought back with some strong play, but I’m still down about $8 for the night. That bonus sure helped.

Saw a pal at the .01/.02 tables tonight – chased him down after seeing him on UBuddy. 5 minutes of chat was the best part of the night.

UB $125.95/6.82
PS – $79.86

Ridiculous

Well, I’m about to give up on Full Tilt. All I do is make it to about 10-15 place in these 45 mans and I run into a hand or a suckout. I can’t catch a break. I’m down to my last $9.50. With only 7 tourney buyins left, I’m playing with scared money.

That’s not why this post is entitled ‘Ridiculous’ though…

It’s ridiculous that my UB bankroll is skyrocketing since I started playing .05/.10 with my shortstack experiment on Thursday. I haven’t even really played that many hands. I’m getting pretty lucky on my preflop shoves with AA and KK mostly – they’re holding up, and I had a major suckout with a preflop KK vs. AA and flopped a K. It appears that the big stacks think ‘oh, he doesn’t have much of a stack, I’ll call/shove’. I’ve seen some weird hands at showdown for calling a preflop or stop and go allin like J6s. All of a sudden I’m sitting there with a full stack and I can play my regular game. When my stack has gotten a little too big, I’ve gotten up from the table just to make sure I don’t lose some of my profit to something silly. If it were limit, I’d stay, but at NL, with my small bankroll, I want to take some of it off the table. A couple of times I’ve tripled up and had over 20% of my BR at the table – that’s just too much. Hopefully this continues. I realize I’m running hot, so I’m not banking on it, but I am enjoying it while it lasts.

I’ll probably post some new Pokertracker numbers tomorrow. I haven’t done that in ages.

UB $133.63/9.66 (Yes, I’m up over $53 since I started the SS Experiment on Wed or Thurs)
FT $9.50
PS $75.50

Shortstack Results

Started out bad right off the bat. Really didn’t see any hands on any of my 4 tables for about the first 30 hands. Then I caught AQ in the BB, went for a fairly big reraise, only caller is UTG, who is fairly tight. I figure he has a medium pair or AK. Needless to say, the flop had an A, we got it all in, and sure enough, AK. -4. A few hands later, a loose raiser raised, I raised all in with my $2.90 (was getting blinded), UTG calls with 66, no A, no Q. -4 more. Playing deep stacked, I’m probably not going to lose that bad with either hand, but I chose to go that route. Not good. Cards were awful for the most part. Played less than 10% at all my tables.

Well, the next two hands happened in about 5 minutes time on the same table, both against the same guy, and that was pretty much it for the night.

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold’em, $.10 BB (10 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

BB ($5.02)
UTG ($7.25)
UTG+1 ($4.87)
UTG+2 ($5.82)
MP1 ($2.20)
MP2 ($26.29)
MP3 ($10.55)
CO ($22.55)
Hero ($4.98)
SB ($8.09)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Qs, Qc.
2 folds, UTG+2 calls $0.10, MP1 calls $0.10, 1 fold, MP3 calls $0.10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.8, 2 folds, UTG+2 folds, MP1 folds, MP3 calls $0.70.

Flop: ($1.95) 7s, 9c, 6d (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets $1.95, MP3 calls $1.95.

Turn: ($5.85) Js (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero bets $2.23 (All-In), MP3 calls $2.23.

River: ($10.31) 7c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $10.31

Results below:
Hero has Qs Qc (two pair, queens and sevens).
MP3 has 8h 3h (one pair, sevens).
Outcome: Hero wins $10.31.

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold’em, $.10 BB (10 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

MP2 ($3.62)
MP3 ($7.10)
CO ($4.57)
Button ($5.85)
SB ($2)
BB ($29.70)
UTG ($8.90)
UTG+1 ($22.55)
Hero ($9.80)
MP1 ($7.45)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+2 with As, Ah.
UTG calls $0.10, UTG+1 calls $0.10, Hero raises to $0.55, 7 folds, UTG calls $0.45, UTG+1 folds.

Flop: ($1.35) 5d, Qs, 4c (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.35, UTG calls $1.35.

Turn: ($4.05) Ad (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks.

River: ($4.05) 4h (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $2.5, UTG bets $2.5, Hero calls $0.

Final Pot: $9.05

Results below:
UTG has 7c 4s (three of a kind, fours).
Hero has As Ah (full house, aces full of fours).
Outcome: Hero wins $9.05.

Put that guy in my UB Buddy list.

So, started out crappy, ended pretty well. Final results, I was up a little over 2 buyins for the night ~$9.

UB – $89.98/12.72
FT – $15.75
PS – $80.10