Cash Game Adventure

After the win, I've been dabbling with cash games again. I've been taking my time and just slowly getting back into the grind. Most of my lapse in play has been registering for school and hunting for a new job. I need to find something that has career advancement opportunities and something that actually challenges me and I enjoy doing. A job that I don't dread going to everyday.

The cash game grind has been pretty good so far. I've been playing 100 NL, and have had some good success so far. I've played 7 sessions and won 5 of them. The first session I lost a little and was really just trying to figure out what the big difference between 50 NL and 100 NL were. To be honest, just a little bit tighter, but not substantially. Usually when you get action, it's from a hand. That and I've been getting 3 bet a lot more. But nothing I can't deal with. For the most part, you just grind your hands and get the money in.

I've labeled some really big fish and keep looking to table select. I respect vizer02's game, but I did see a couple of plays that were really weird. He 5 bet shoved a somewhat tight player preflop with 910o and was up against KK. He got lucky and took it down. But my stats on the guy had a very small 3 bet percentage. So his range is pretty small. But that's poker.

Quick Update

I've moved up to the 10NL game on Ultimate Bet. Ohhhh yeah. Not too bad for only starting with a couple bucks. I'm looking to trade the Ultimate Bet money for Pokerstars. I have a whole .16 cents on there right. Well, .06 now. I played a PL Omaha tourney and went out 70th when the villain flopped a 1 outer. Gotta love that.

I've been diving into Omaha a little more lately. At low limits it's just funny. Everybody thinks you have to play every hand. They live in the delusional world that "any hand can win". Yeah you might get a lucky flop or hit a wrap draw, but calling raises with danglers and rainbow hands is just -EV all the way around. So I pretty much play tight and wait for the spots to just hammer the money out of them.

Valentine's day is coming. I still don't know what to get the wife. What do you buy the woman that has everything she wants? So not sure what I'm gonna do just yet. Hopefully I'll figure it out. Life is good. Just need to put a little more volume in. I've played a total of 7 tourneys this year. LOL. I haven't even hit the cash tables that hard. Partly because of time constraints. Mostly because I just haven't felt the fire to grind. Some of it is mental. I have seen so many long shot draws get there against me it just makes me wanna scream and quit playing. But then I get paid off with the mortal nuts and life is good again. So just have to get the urge to play.

I've been reviewing my tourney win and have found some spots to work on. So next post will probably be about that. Good luck at the tables.

Finally!!!

I knew the hard work would pay off eventually. It all came together last night. I've been cashing in tournaments and making some good runs, to no avail. I would get deep in a tournament and run into the inevitable cold streak and bad beat. A couple of weeks ago I got deep in a tourney to go out 13th when my AA ran into JJ. Flop came XXJ, UGH! Ace hit the turn, YEAH! Jack hit the river. I wanted to throw up, and punch a hole in the wall. But I took my decent cash and moved on.

I cashed in a couple more tournaments and just couldn't get anything going. I never got any thing decent to play. I was proud of myself for playing disciplined and waiting for good spots to steal when I started getting short and for not shoving hands that could be easily dominated. So many times when stacks get short you see players shove with Ace rag hands. They get called by a better ace or mid pocket pair and you shake your head. So many other people will call those plays standard. Yeah you might win the blinds, but when you get called you're usually in trouble. So I look for hands that play much better when not dominated.

Think about it. If you shove 78 suited and somebody calls with A10, you're only a 60-40 dog. If you shove A5 and somebody calls you with the same A10 your a 75-25 dog. So in those situations I would rather have any pocket pair or connectors rather than the magical ace. So all in all, I played pretty well over the last month, minus LAGGING it up at Rush poker. Don't even get me started there. I've cashed in about 60% of the tournaments I've played in and 2010 is off to a good start.

The tournament I played in last night was a freeroll for me. I've won a bunch of $26 tournament tokens and decided to use one last night. At the beginning I was playing a very tight strategy. Erick Lindgren's video on playing cautious early worked well for me. I was waiting patiently for spots to extract chips without putting my whole stack in jeopardy. A couple of times I flopped good top pair hands, and good draws. Some panned out, some didn't. So after 4 levels I added about 1,000 chips. Not too bad, but mainly I was just trying to survive the donks and fish who 1.) can't laydown any kind of hand, and 2.) players that chase no matter what price. There's no use trying to get a calling station to fold without a hand, it's a recipe for disaster. They'll call you down with 4th pair on an AKQ board. So you value bet them to death and bluff, well NEVER.

So later on, I finally pick up a couple of hands and get a few chips. I'll post some of the hands in a later post. Then the inevitable cold streak happened. I went from about 60 BB's to 10 BB's from getting blinded down and having players 3 bet my opens when I had junk. I tried to steal, figuring my image was really tight and my raises would get respect. WRONG. They were either Agrotards or actually picked up hands and my timing was off. Either way I just moved on to the next hand and tried to stay focused and patient.

The first hand in my rise was when I was in the BB with KJ suited. Everybody folds to the SB who had over 110 BB's and I had about 10 BB's. He shoved, and I knew he was just stealing. Every time he had a strong or even decent hand he raised somewhere between 2 and 3.5 X's the BB. Now all of a sudden he's shoving? Sure I was short but it was the best hand I saw in about an hour. He had K6 off and my KJ held. I slowly went up and down between 15 and 20 BB's. I made a couple of steal attempts and got AA at the right time and doubled up again. From there it was game on. We slowly got down to the final 5 tables, then 4 and I stayed patient and kept finding good spots to steal.

We finally get down to the final 2 tables and I made a couple of mistakes. First, I kept watching the payout structure and the player chip counts. I should have kept my attention on the table and stop worrying about the stupid money. Most of it was because I kept getting deep without a major cash. I kept thinking to myself, if I can get to 6th I'll be even for the month. Bad way to approach poker. You have to keep yourself in the moment and make good decisions. You can't worry about the money. By the way, all of the losses that I was trying to recoup were from Rush poker. UGH!!

I took a couple people out, without being in major trouble of being eliminated and having a dominate hand. So that took us to the final table. There were a couple of good players, but the rest were complete shit. Shrubbery was a great player and I give him/her a great deal of respect. They played really well and seemed to be a very knowledgeable player. Like I said though, most of the other players were totally outclassed and it was almost like they had never played the game before. Here's a perfect example. I raise UTG in an 8 handed game with AK off. The player on the button 3 bet. I raised to 9275 with the blinds at 2000/4000, and he 3 bet to 46,000. His 3 bet percentage was 16%, that's not a typo. Pokerstove it, 16% is a ridiculous 3 bet percentage. Most people don't have an open raise of 16%. So I knew my hand range was smoking his. He had me outchipped by about 20,000. So with 322,000 behind I shoved and he snap called. When he snapped I thought, "it's a race". Flip the cards and he snapped with A8. Huh??? I flopped a king and he went broke the next hand.

So we get down to 5...then 4...now it's 4 in the morning. I was started to get a little tired and knew I needed to get to bed soon. So I proposed a deal, but nobody wanted to respond. I was sitting second in chips and figured they wanted to play it out. So game on. We got down to 3 handed and I kept ratcheting the aggression up. I was raising more IP and kept pressure on the shortstack and was just trying to grind out the chip leader. The shortstack finally snapped when he only had about 250,000 and I had about 1.1 mill. Blinds were 12,000/24,000. He was eliminated and we were finally heads up.

I decided to take a page out of Daniel Negreanu's book and just small balled him to death. We both had between 1.3 and 1.5 million in chips. So we were both pretty deep. I made some timely 3 bets when I knew he didn't have much and played OOP a little more timid. Well, not timid but was looking to bluff catch more OOP and value bet more IP. I never varied my raise on the button and relentlessly raised him. I decided to only min raise from the button and punish him OOP with a 3.5 X raise. It was pretty humorous. There were a ton of railbirds rooting on Shrubbery, and I guess I have no fans....and I didn't tell anyone I was heads up. He's a great player and everybody kept reading me as a gambler or loose fish, but what they don't understand about poker is that preflop and postflop aggression are completely different. You can raise any hand preflop, but once the flop comes down, hands are starting to become defined and if you know anything about probability and statistics you can make good decisions. So I was playing pretty aggressive preflop and was trying to keep pots small on the flop, and get some reads. I kept chipping him away and had his tournament on the line a couple of times. I eventually got him down to a 4-1 chip deficit and took him out.

A really great tournament and I was really proud of how I played. It felt great to win, it's been a while. It's been a couple of years since I won a big MTT, so hopefully this is a good sign of things to come. The bankroll is bigger than ever. So on to the next tourney and I'll recap in specifics this tourney soon. Hopefully I'll find some spots where I think I made some mistakes and some hands that I played well.

Good luck at the tables.

Quick Update

I haven't played for about a week now. Mostly because I have been busy with other things, and mostly because I'm just trying to keep my head straight. I've been playing pretty conservative in big pots, and been trying to just let hands go when I don't really have much equity involved. Sure I've made some nitty laydowns, but if you know small stakes, you know players are not willing to fold very often. So there's no sense trying to push them off of hands, because they will just call down light either way. Instead, you should be looking to value bet them to death. Again, because they will call down if they have a pair or draw. Pot odds and implied odds don't matter.

Here's a few hands from last nights session...

Hand #1



Pretty standard hand. It's only the third hand of the session and I get AK off in the BB. Early on I don't like playing too fast. I don't want to get a real loose image and get stuck early. When I get stuck early, I tend to play really spewy. So I decided to flat the raise OOP. Flop comes perfect for me and I really don't have a line on the two villains, so I decided to go for a check raise. With a SS'er in the hand, I know he'll commit with just about any pair. Sure enough, we get the money in and he is drawing really thin.

Hand #2



I butchered the hell out of this hand. First, against a SS, AQ at best is racing. I should have just folded to his weak 3 bet. But the LAG in me just wasn't having it. So I 4 bet him in and of course he has AK.

Hand #3



There's a theme growing, more hands against SS'ers. I get 102 SOOTED in the SB versus the BB. I decided to limp against the SS'er, because he is very capable of shoving with an ace or any pair, so best to play flops with them. I get a great flop for my hand and bet OOP. When he flat calls, I'm sure he has an ace and decide to play pot control from there. Most SS'ers play flops horribly. He should have raised the flop knowing that I'm probably not limping an ace and probably have middle pair or a draw. When he bets the turn I decided to call with just pot odds. I knew that he probably wouldn't shove the river, so a thin value bet would get called. Which is odd for me to understand. When you have $7 left and somebody bets $4 at you, you have to shove or fold. Why they call off their money and not commit the final $3 I will never understand. The only hands he can beat on the river are bluffs and single aces.

Hand #4



This hand perfectly illustrates small stakes weak players. Villain was playing 40/0, that's right 0 raising over 90 hands. So he sees a lot of flops, too many really, and never raises. So his limp in the SB is FUCKING wide. He could be limping any pair, or just about any connected or suited hand. So raising his limp IP is just fine. I hit GIN on the flop and make a standard CBET when checked to. Most weak players usually just check fold in these spots, so his call was kind of shocking. At this point, I put him on the case ACE, possibly an underpair. Since there weren't any reasonable draws I couldn't really put him on anything else. So when the turn comes 10, I decided to play a little slow. I didn't want to get check raised off the hand and figured he would only call with a better ace, I could have gone for two streets of value. However, at the same time, my check makes my flop bet look like a missed flop and just standard CBET. QUADS on the river is delicious. Mainly because it's hard to put someone on the case ACE and will call a thin value bet. So his check call is pretty standard for him. I'm surprised he didn't go for a check raise at any point in the hand.

Hand #5



I pretty much butchered this hand OOP. I make a standard raise UTG with AK off. Player flats IP, again pretty standard. When the flop comes Q high suited I rate to have the best hand, or at least the best draw. I make a standard CBET and get min raised. Most min raises from small stakes players is usually a made hand or set. So I decided to play like a pussy and just check it down unimproved. When he checked the turn IP, I knew he was weak, but just couldn't find the nerve to value bet at any point. So it was pretty funny to see what kind of hand he min raised the flop with.

Hand #6



So many times you hear bad beat stories, well here is a beat I gave out. I got lucky to win the pot, but the way the hand played out was just weird. First I raised 75s in late because my image was tight, and the players behind me were weak passive players. Second, the villain flat calling a raise with Q9s is pretty bad IMO. When the flop comes down my hand goes from speculative to a monster. Flush draw, straight draw, and a pair. I make a standard CBET with two players in the pot and both call, interesting. The turn comes blank for me, and now the player OOP leads out, so I decided to flat call. However, the BUTTON decides to raise at this point. I had to think about the hand because nothing was making sense at this point. How did the 9 help out the button? I know he didn't call with 108 or 85 on the flop, the only hand that made sense was A9 or a flopped set trying to protect his hand now. I made a mistake by just calling, I should have jammed the turn, especially because of his stack size. Then I got lucky and hit my dream card. On a side note, the villain was bitching about how I hit a one outer. But look at the hand again. If he had two pair I could have won with any 4 or 7, and the 4 of hearts gives me the nuts. Since he only had 1 pair, I could win with 4-4's, 3-7's or 3-5's. So 1 outer, I don't think so. I'm still 20% in the hand on the river. The other funny side note is that he had the Queen high flush, but what if I had the ACE high flush. It's conceivable that I raised with A7, or AK in that spot. Then with either a pair and a flush draw or two overs and the nut flush draw played it the same way. So for him to go off about 1 outing him and the such, it just shows how small stakes players don't really grasp the odds and theory of poker.

So last night was a lot of fun and I ended up about 1/2 a buyin. I paid off some hands I shouldn't have and found myself in auto CBET mode again. So I made some really silly CBET's and got raised off of marginal pairs and draws. So at the lower stakes I need to back off and realize that most players are not going to make moves. MOST aren't, there will still be wild idiots, but for the most part, small stakes players won't give action in marginal situations. They just nut peddle and wait for situations. That's why min raises ring the alarm to me. I have been min raised by made flushes and sets so many times that I can generalize that play. So the few players that min raise weak hands are few and far between.

New Month, New Gameplan

So May has begun. I haven't played a session yet, but I'm getting a gameplan together. So here are my goals for the month:

1.) Play 25K hands this month.
2.) Write a blog post at least twice a week.
3.) Keep strict bankroll requirements and play within them.
4.) Play with a stop loss of 3 BI's.
5.) Regain my Ironman status.
6.) Finish reading Zen of poker and Owning the Dragon.
7.) Watch the cash game series videos on PokerVT.

So those are the goals for this month. I lost my Ironman status this month. Mainly because I have been running bad and my mind was shot. I just couldn't get myself to sit and play. I was playing afraid to lose, and not to get in to some good spots. I was not willing to risk losing more buyins, since I have been losing just about every session the last couple of months. So I am going to try and get back to the grind and get the bankroll back to where it should be.

I need to focus more on playing position and my post flop play. Most of the sessions that I lost were because of some sick coolers and beats. If I win even 50% of the hands that I was a massive favorite, the month would have been profitable. However, losing big pots killed my month and my bankroll. So I need to focus on hand selection, being aggressive in position, playing better post flop, and playing small ball in marginal situations. So that is the plan for the month, now let's see if I can make it happen.

In terms of my bankroll, I'll be playing 100 NL to start the month. If my bankroll gets down to 20 BI's, I'll be dropping down to 50 NL, that would give me 40 BI's which is more than enough, and hopefully I can grind my way back up. So we'll see how the month goes.