I shot the sheriff

Happy late xmas to you all. I realized during xmas the tables seem like the weekend all the time. I couldn't exploit it as much as I wanted. I played a lot but made some mistakes, anyway, I won more than 4 k in 4 days which saved my month. It could have been better if I weren't 6 tabling. I'm not fast enough, I want to spend more time thinking about the hands I'm playing and if I'm playing two hands in the same time I can make huge mistakes especially if I am involved in a hand in 3 tables simultanously. Yesterday I was playing 5-10 and in one table I was going all in with my flush draw and on the other table I 4 bet bluff a guy without even noticing that I've already 4 bet the same guy 2 hands ago and I had to fold 300 € when he went all in.

I decided to stop playing 6 tables unless a rakerace is going on and that's the case for January. I want to finish the rake race first or second and if on top of that I can win in the tables it will be a nice month.

I gave two badbeats in the last 4 days which is way above my average and I won't say for a while that I can't hit two outers. I experienced that it's a possibility for everyone.

Take care.

a hero call attempt

Hey there all, I had a few busy days so I couldn't play as much as I want. I won around 1500 € lately but I played only one interesting hand. I am going to post that hand down and comment on it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3621734

This hand occurred only a few hands after he sat down at my table. But in the previous hands I saw a very action seeking regular inside of him. He reraised a few hands and played his hands in a very aggressive but still reasonable way. In this specific hand when he raised me on flop I knew that he didn't have an A unless an AT because he would flat call any A here to be able to get more bets in later streets with good kickers and to control the pot with bad kickers and I don't think A4 is in his cold calling range from CO. so his range seems like a range of 20% in which AT and 44 constitute the %5 of it (0,5 % for 44 and 0,5 % for AT as I am holding a T in my hand). I think he is going to play any flush draw he is holding this way so the spades constitute the 10% of his entire range) I suppose he would make this play one third of the time with the rest of his range (85%). Therefore when I face the raise on flop his airs constitute the 85% /3 of it which is around 28% and the rest is divided between his flush draws and made hands (72%). We can deduct that only 24% of his raise range here belongs to a made hand. I think it's totally fine to make this call on the flop.

When he bets the turn I think he is going to continue his bluffs half ot the time and he is going to bet again with his flush draw half of the time and he is going to get a free the other half of the time. Therefore when he bets again on the turn 28 % + 48 % of his range became 14 % + 24 % of new betting range and the rest of the betting range belongs to made hands which is 62 %.

Finally on the river I don't think he would check down any hand he bet the turn including his made hands, draws and airs. My plan was to fold the river if a flush card hits (even T or Q of spades, because they don't change anything against his possible range) Therefore now he is bluffing 1/3 of the time and value bettin 2/3 of the time which is good for calling a pot sized bet.

In overall, this may seem a very high variance call and I don't tend to do calls like this even if I believe they are slightly + EV. But if it's a -EV play it has the tilting effect when you win the hand. I made him pay my later hands so it has been a contribution for the metagame.

Take care all, I'm waiting comments about this hand.

weather report.

this has been a very tough day my sweet blog. I made a swing of 2400 € than I closed the session with -200. I played 1700 hands and the number of badbeats I had seemed to me a little bit high. Let me show you some hands from today.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?3601520

classic leinad hand. You can't make him fold a pair. I was going to shove the turn whatever the turn brings hoping he didn't have a pair (his 3bet range is usually AJ+ and TT+). But he had a pair and my str8 didn't hold.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?3601543
Here I played the hand like a moron. I blame myself, I am 100% responsible of this loss.
My flop check raise may be a good decision but it's really really weak in size. I give him the oppurtunity to call and get some implied odds later. On top of that my half size bet on the turn is totally bullshit. What am I doing there? trying to get value from AJ? or a marginal call from AQ? I don't know I just don't want him to fold and get raped in the river. Because on the turn I'm telling him "if you call this half size bet and if you hit, I will give you a nice all-in cause I have a huge hand that I don't want to make you fold on turn". I shouldn't make this mistake again. Focus on bet sizing!


http://www.pokerhand.org/?3621705
Here comes the sweet old 2 outer of the day. Why can't I find them sometimes, I remember two years ago a hand I played against nittish. He cold called a 3bet of mine to the first raiser in the hand and hit the flop of TT2 with 22, I had QQ and we went all in the flop and I hit the Q. 200 bb deep, those were the days.. I can't hit them anymore.


http://www.pokerhand.org/?3601593
This is a hand that shows me I have to improve my hand reading skills. I put my regular opponents to reasonable hands. But if it's a case of a regular donk (he is playing 6 tables and had 26/22 stats) they always have unreasonable hands. When I hit the top set here on the turn I put him on a range of TT+ and AK. Against this range if I bet the flop I can make AK fold immediately and maybe I can't get enough value from TT or JJ because if I bet the flop he calls and if I bet the turn he may fold. I represent a real huge hand when I bet the flop because his range seems strong. I decided to check the flop, he may try to steal to pot with AK in turn or he can check raise all in an overpair if he still has an overpair on turn. But hey, he had 55!! the worst possible hand to cold call a reraise 100 bb deep. If you suspect that your opponent is joking around you should smash the monkey. My slowplay can work against a solid player only.

There are some other badbeats and toughbeats but they don't seem really interesting so I won't bother posting them. I wish to play more hands against leinad and kivan. They should suffer the wrath of variance! THE VARIANCE WILL HURT THEM REAL BAD!!

Tomorrow I will be with my girlfriend so I won't play. I hope to play on Friday night. Untill next time, ciao ciao!

first entry

Hello there fellow grinders and wannabes! I decided to start this blog to keep the record of my winnings and losses but also to be aware of how mood changes affect my earnings.

I realized being organized brings great success in poker as in every career path. The more you become organized and mechanical in some parts of your job , the more you find time to think about the essential parts of your occupation which needs more skill. If you spend your time and energy to think about the obvious stuff you suffer from neglecting the criticals.

This month has been a horrible month for me as I started with a loss around 5k yet I don't know the exact losses because I don't use a proper tracking of it. From now on I'll be more aware of where I stand.

Needless to say it was a month full of bad beats and tough beats. If you face the kings or aces whenever you reraise with queens and jacks and if you face a set whenever you 3 bet with your aces and kings (although you've cut the odds already) you can't win... And if on top of this you loose every coinflip and pre flop all ins you go against some ultra donks it becomes your nightmare month. Ah I forget about telling the 2 outers and 3 outers on flops and turns, nothing to do about them, we gotta learn to live with them.

I am still very proud of my game and know that soon I'll start playing NL 2000 regularly, all I need is to become more organized and more carefull about not missing the value bets. The sea is still full of fishes.

One last thing I have to add that I gotta improve my pshysical endurance. In times of consecutive losses I become physically weak, I suffer insomnia my head starts to spin and I want to throw out after having huge badbeats 3 nights consecutively. Although I don't get on tilt and start making bullshit plays I can't play my A game in that condition. I'm starting to take courses on horse riding this week. Maybe this will help me get away from my losses.

Have a great time and good luck!