I spent a lot of time studying the games of my regular opponents after the games and since then I didn't even have a losing session for two weeks, which is way too out of the ordinary. This is not the best months I've had so far but the most stable one.
I think when you are sitting in a table full of regulars it is not enough to play a solid game. Because all of the regulars have more or less solid games as well. Finding good bluff spots, making thin value bets and making hero calls against thin value betters are essential if you want to be the hunter and not the hunted.
Here are some hands to discuss for today:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3756532
this is played with a standard regular at 5-10
Altough I usually check my 2nd pair type of hands from position, I do make a cbet for mixing it up. When I get called here on the flop his range is any K, any T, any flush draw, QJ, 89 and he would raise me hands with better value.
The turn is an A without a flush draw but completing a straight draw. Now I decide to make a turn cbet as my hand is not beating his range anymore with the intension of a semi- bluff with my pair and gutshot. (if he has a T or a flush draw here I assume that he would fold them as well). The turn is a 7 bringing the flush and the perfect oppurtunity to make a 3-barrel bluff against his K. I am almost pretty sure that he hasn't QJ a flush draw (except maybe an A high flush draw that I think he would lead with it as the board is very scary to make a value bet with a worse hand.) The only hand I'm afraid here is a AT that he was afraid of AK or a QJ on turn and decides to check call with it. But I don't think he would play that weak his AT.
So it's a perfect example of turning a hand into a bluff.
here is antoher hand I played with the same player. I'm making somewhat of a hero call on the river.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3756633
I'm putting him on a very wide range of hands when he calls my flop bet. I check the turn with the intension of calling but he checks behind on a double flush draw board which made me eliminate almost every Q except maybe a Q9. When the river brings a T and he bets. I'm afraid of a Q9 but for the most of the time I'm expecting a flush draw or a A high type of hand. Actually 43 surprised me for a guy with a tight image.
Good luck all!
23 Ocak 2009 Cuma
14 Ocak 2009 Çarşamba
why does it always rain on me?
I played a short session today, I gave away lots of small pots to hands like q7, K3, 47 and so on... I only went all-in two times and both in the only nl 1000 euro table I was playing:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3714282
The mole calls 680 euro where the pot is only 150 € with 9 outs.
the following hand is with domcee I just want to see that he is folding in one reraised pot, so I go all in whenever I reraise him but he never folded yet.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3714296
maybe one day he will loose a coinflip as well
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3714282
The mole calls 680 euro where the pot is only 150 € with 9 outs.
the following hand is with domcee I just want to see that he is folding in one reraised pot, so I go all in whenever I reraise him but he never folded yet.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3714296
maybe one day he will loose a coinflip as well
13 Ocak 2009 Salı
after thoughts
I found one tool which helps to better understand the swings in the game. It actually calculates the "risk of ruin" which means the risk of losing all your bankroll for your given winrate, standard deviation and bankroll.
Here is the link:
http://www.poker-tools-online.com/riskofruin.html
You can write your winrate and standard deviation in terms of per 100 hands instead of per hour, make sure the units match, that's all.
Let's have a look at my risk of ruin knowing that my winrate is 9 bb/100 standard deviation 95 bb/100 and bankroll 45000 (as I started playing NL1000 this month, I'm putting down my winrate for 2008 in all levels which may be a little optimistic)
My risk of ruin calculates
which is very close to zero so I can confidently play with this bankroll if I can keep my winrate on this level. The interesting part is that the possilibility of losing 10000 is 13% with these stats. (which will mean I don't have enough bankroll to keep playing on this limit).
A few days ago really ugly situations occured and I ended up losing 6k (the biggest share went into the pockets of imakitrain who I find way too over-aggro and I can exploit in the long run). I didn't go on a huge tilt after losing that amount but I thought that I was the unluckiest guy on earth. Even if we assume that I was able to keep my winrate against imakitrain and other regulars of the day when we look at this calculator we see that the possibility of this event was 30%.
I want to stress out a few points about these calculations, first of all the standard deviation calculated by the poker tracker is accused to be biased because 100 hands in no limit hold'em don't have a normal distribution and it should have been done by 1000 hands. There is a strange dispute going on this stuff at
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15/poker-theory/depth-analysis-variance-poker-23281/#post378062
I forgot about all this statistical methods I saw in the university but I will look at this more carefully one day I suppose. Untill then I see nothing wrong about using poker tracker's SD.
After the day I lost 6k during 3 days I recovered almost all of it. I will post here 2 hands I played today (I don't want to turn this blog into a whinning area but I can't help posting these 2)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3711996
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3712006
two "two-outers" in one day is a lot but I'm proud I ended the session +1k.
Wait for me NL 2000 I'm coming!
Good luck my fellow grinders!
PS: let's not be blind against Israel's cruelty. Force your governments to do something about it if you can. All we want is peace.
Here is the link:
http://www.poker-tools-online.com/riskofruin.html
You can write your winrate and standard deviation in terms of per 100 hands instead of per hour, make sure the units match, that's all.
Let's have a look at my risk of ruin knowing that my winrate is 9 bb/100 standard deviation 95 bb/100 and bankroll 45000 (as I started playing NL1000 this month, I'm putting down my winrate for 2008 in all levels which may be a little optimistic)
My risk of ruin calculates
| 0.012653% |
which is very close to zero so I can confidently play with this bankroll if I can keep my winrate on this level. The interesting part is that the possilibility of losing 10000 is 13% with these stats. (which will mean I don't have enough bankroll to keep playing on this limit).
A few days ago really ugly situations occured and I ended up losing 6k (the biggest share went into the pockets of imakitrain who I find way too over-aggro and I can exploit in the long run). I didn't go on a huge tilt after losing that amount but I thought that I was the unluckiest guy on earth. Even if we assume that I was able to keep my winrate against imakitrain and other regulars of the day when we look at this calculator we see that the possibility of this event was 30%.
I want to stress out a few points about these calculations, first of all the standard deviation calculated by the poker tracker is accused to be biased because 100 hands in no limit hold'em don't have a normal distribution and it should have been done by 1000 hands. There is a strange dispute going on this stuff at
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15/poker-theory/depth-analysis-variance-poker-23281/#post378062
I forgot about all this statistical methods I saw in the university but I will look at this more carefully one day I suppose. Untill then I see nothing wrong about using poker tracker's SD.
After the day I lost 6k during 3 days I recovered almost all of it. I will post here 2 hands I played today (I don't want to turn this blog into a whinning area but I can't help posting these 2)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3711996
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3712006
two "two-outers" in one day is a lot but I'm proud I ended the session +1k.
Wait for me NL 2000 I'm coming!
Good luck my fellow grinders!
PS: let's not be blind against Israel's cruelty. Force your governments to do something about it if you can. All we want is peace.
3 Ocak 2009 Cumartesi
Bull's Eye !
In my first entry I said that I was to going to use this blog for tacking purposes but I think I found something better to keep track of wins/losses and expenses. A basic money manager where I update my accounts after every session is a great tool. I am going to note there the transfers between accounts and my expenses as well. So 2009 will be a much more organized year for me.
I started to play 5-10 with more than 40 buy-ins now. I am confident of my play and I seriously think I can win more than 2-4 on this level. In my session today I was losing around 4k after losing 3 coinflips, 1 badbeat and some tough beats. There was a guy on my table playing with 88 vpip, suddenly I noticed that the same guy was sitting on 10-20 with 2,5 buy-ins with another donk I know who had 3,5 buy-ins in front of him. So after 6 months I decided to take a shot on 10-20. Unfortunately when I sat on table the second donk was already gone. But I played this 2 lucky hands in 10 minutes and saved the day :)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3666505
he was playing 88/35 and never folded to a 3bet before.
Here comes the lucky hand
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3666509
Don't blame me guys, I was surprised he had QQ there, I was expecting K4 actually and I was going to fold the turn. But I must say, I felt goooood! :)
I started to play 5-10 with more than 40 buy-ins now. I am confident of my play and I seriously think I can win more than 2-4 on this level. In my session today I was losing around 4k after losing 3 coinflips, 1 badbeat and some tough beats. There was a guy on my table playing with 88 vpip, suddenly I noticed that the same guy was sitting on 10-20 with 2,5 buy-ins with another donk I know who had 3,5 buy-ins in front of him. So after 6 months I decided to take a shot on 10-20. Unfortunately when I sat on table the second donk was already gone. But I played this 2 lucky hands in 10 minutes and saved the day :)
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3666505
he was playing 88/35 and never folded to a 3bet before.
Here comes the lucky hand
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3666509
Don't blame me guys, I was surprised he had QQ there, I was expecting K4 actually and I was going to fold the turn. But I must say, I felt goooood! :)
25 Aralık 2008 Perşembe
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.
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.
22 Aralık 2008 Pazartesi
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.
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.
17 Aralık 2008 Çarşamba
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!
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!
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