Godmode

Been a little while since I posted an update I guess, so now seems like a pretty good time for it :)

Been working lots, tax season being what it is; actually had a really light schedule this week though, only about 45 hours, so I've managed to put in quite a few hands.

If you look at my last post, I basically got crushed really really hard in February. Variance hit me hard, constantly plowing into the tops of ranges and getting cranked in preflop all-ins. From there, I got tilted and started plowing a bunch of money in with the bottom of my range. Overall, February was a -$2800 month, and since I had to take a G out of my bankroll to pay off some bills, I had to move down to 50NL. I also took a week off towards the end of February and self excluded from stars. Wahhh, wahhh, wahhh :P.

The upside; first 20K hands of March have been reasonably good to me, and my roll is high enough for me to get back on the saddle at 100nl. So far, over 90K hands I'm slightly over breakeven at 100nl after that downswing, so hopefully we can improve on that :D. I plan on doing some studying and getting my computer in the shop for the next few days, then getting back into 100nl zoom later this week. 

February, for those that like to see train-wrecks :D

I don't have a whole bunch more to add, gonna post a couple hands and call it a night :) 

I... don't understand why you would try to jam 150bb's over a 21bb 4bet. 

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2135373
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $250.17
SB: $21.00
BB: $48.75
UTG: $50.00
MP: $43.46
Hero (CO): $85.34

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with A A
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.25, BTN raises to $4.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $10.50, BTN raises to $250.17 all in, 

alexannnnder said, "lol"
alexannnnder said, "you're kidding right?"
alexannnnder: calls $74.84 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($164.83) returned to Lazeee
Lazeee said, ":)"

Hero calls $74.84 all in

Flop: ($171.43) 4 2 Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: ($171.43) J (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($171.43) J(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $171.43
BTN mucks K K
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
Hero wins $168.93
(Rake: $2.50)

2pair NO GOOD!

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2135376

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $118.21
SB: $48.75
BB: $50.00
Hero (UTG): $112.81
MP: $50.25
CO: $54.46

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is UTG with T A
Hero raises to $1.50, 1 fold, CO calls $1.50, 1 fold, SB calls $1.25, 1 fold

Flop: ($5.00) 5 8 7(3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($5.00) A(3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $3.50, CO calls $3.50, SB calls $3.50

River: ($15.50) T(3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $11.50, CO raises to $23, SB calls $23, Hero folds

Final Pot: $73.00
SB mucks T A
CO shows 7 7 (three of a kind, Sevens)
CO wins $70.50
(Rake: $2.50)

Always give em some rope, amirite? Well, sometimes I am. (Villains a lagdonk obvs).

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2135378

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $245.16
SB: $73.87
BB: $50.00
UTG: $125.51
Hero (MP): $103.71
CO: $30.12

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is MP with A A
1 fold, Hero raises to $1.25, 1 fold, BTN raises to $2.50, 2 folds, Hero raises to $7.25, BTN calls $4.75

Flop: ($15.25) Q Q 3(2 players)
Hero bets $10, BTN raises to $20, Hero calls $10

Turn: ($55.25) 2(2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $45, Hero calls $45

River: ($145.25) 3(2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $172.91 all in, Hero calls $31.46 all in

Final Pot: $208.17
BTN shows A 8 (two pair, Queens and Threes)
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Queens)
Hero wins $205.67
(Rake: $2.50)

This is one I'm really not sure of. I mean, I don't think I've ever really flopped a set of Q's and then thought "eh, there's no value in betting here" when the board wasn't a 4 flush or 4 straight... but this seems like it might be too close? Or am I nitting out? 

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2135381

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $51.50
SB: $103.08
BB: $25.00
Hero (UTG): $67.41
MP: $39.94
CO: $23.27

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is UTG with Q Q
Hero raises to $1.25, MP calls $1.25, 2 folds, SB calls $1, 1 fold

Flop: ($4.25) Q T A(3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $3.25, MP folds, SB calls $3.25

Turn: ($10.75) 9(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $7.50, SB calls $7.50

River: ($25.75) 4(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $16, SB calls $16

Final Pot: $57.75
SB shows K J (a straight, Ten to Ace)
Hero shows Q Q (three of a kind, Queens)
SB wins $55.25
(Rake: $2.50)

I also just want to say I'm absolutely stoked about the new programs going on around here at DC. Should be great content coming out in the next few months, and I'm looking forward to pretty much all of it. Keep it up guys!

Well, it's been a pretty crappy month of the pokers! :)

I've played around 23,000 hands, and have lost around around 29 buyins. 

I'm not gonna lie, alot of it has been running very bad. Not only in terms of all-in EV, but namely in terms of range v range. It seems as though when the money goes in, I have been consistently at the bottom of my range and my opponents have been consistently at the top of theirs.

However, I will also be the first to admit that I have not been playing particularly well. In short, I've been a bit of an aggro fish; my WWSF is simply too high, and my WSD is simply too low (55% and 46% respectively). I have been putting in too much money with the bottom of my range.

So, as a result of the losses and the $1K I had to borrow from my bankroll, I'll be moving back down to 50NL for awhile to regather my game. 

Regarding mental game; I've obviously been struggling somewhat with tilt, which is hard not to do when variance keeps pounding it's fist into your face. And yet, I'm actually pretty proud of how I've handled this. To put it in perspective, I'm overall happier w/ life right now than 2 months ago when I was crushing, and given that poker is a relatively large portion of my life right now that's pretty good. Work has been going well (went on my first audit), and I'm treating the poker as just a number that goes up and down, not anything that I need to really worry about. 

I'm running out of stuff to talk about right now... ask me questions!

I'm having a bit of a *meh* day. 

I had an absolutely ridiculous day of work yesterday; was supposed to be up at 430am to travel for an inventory count, slept in, got yelled at by the senior, drove 160km/h on icy-ish highway in the dark to get to the count before they started w/o me, and then worked from 7am - 9pm counting groceries because the client's inventory counters kept fucking up and we kept having to increase our sample size. Fun.

So today, I don't feel like doing sweet dick all. I'm hanging around the basement suite I'm living in, drinking beer, watching hockey, keeping the lights off and doing as little as possible. Especially since I have another inventory count to attend tomorrow :(. 

Since I'm doing absolutely nothing today though, and we're in between hockey games, today seems like a pretty good day to blog about the month, the DC50K, and what I've been working on. 

Downswings

The scale of the graph kind of downplays the downswing that occurred, but basically after my last post (where I felt I was struggling with tilt issues), my results took a pretty negative swing.

I had a 29BI ($2900) downswing over 13K hands. That... was not a lot of fun. 

But, I did get to learn a fair bit. 

Tiltless != emotionless

I want to just touch on this really quickly, because while I think it's something most people have figured out it's worth touching base on. 

People (past self included) like to have this image of the best players in the games being robots. They do not tilt because they do not react emotionally. To anything. They do not suffer from fear, or anger, or the desire for vengeance, because they have somehow convinced themselves to not feel these things in the first place. 

This is a really big fallacy. The best players (at least at the emotional aspect of the game) suffer the same limbic responses to running bad, to getting run over by a reg, to big river bets in big pots, as the rest of us. The difference is, they have developed tools to rationalize these events and to limit or negate their effects on the implementation of their strategy.

They are not tiltless because they are emotionless. They are tiltless because their emotions do not affect their game. There is a difference.

Accept that you will tilt

Neo: I haven't been sleeping very well lately.

Councillor Haman: That's a good sign.

Neo: Of what?

Haman: That you are, in fact, still human.

----------------------

Zachd2323 (someone who, from my limited knowledge, I'd estimate to be an > average MSNL regular) recently posted in the DC50K challenge that he was upset; he had dropped 4 BI's at 400NL, and at least 2 of those were related directly to tilt. (BTW, if you make 200bb worth of mistakes in EV, that's quite alot, given that even the most egregious mistakes are seldom worth more than 20bb's; I have no idea how he was measuring it). 

He said (I'll paraphrase here due to laziness) "I very seldom tilt, but it seems like no matter what I do there's at least one time a month where I just can't control it anymore and the accumulated tilt from multiple sessions just boils over" (ok that's pretty heavily paraphrased, but w/evs).

We all, as poker players, need to accept a few things.

1) We are human
2) Per #1, we will make mistakes. 
3) Per #1, and because human's have limbic systems, variance, or the nature of the game, or life, will result in us tilting.
4) Given that mistakes are more likely to occur when tilted, and per #3 and #2, we are going to make mistakes while tilted. Probably some big ones.

I am all for striving for perfection. I think that the search, and the never ending drive for, perfection is one of the most admirable traits of human determination. 

But expecting that we will ever achieve it, or even achieve anything close to it, is lunacy. I don't think I'll ever play a single session without tilt, or mistakes, let alone a whole month. 

Relinquishing control of your results

We all desire control. We feel safer, more secure, and more confident in situations where we know we can determine the outcome of a particular series of events. We strive for this ability in our lives, in our careers, and in the games we play. Control is power.

Unfortunately, poker does not allow this. Variance, by it's very definition, takes control out of our hands. And when we play poker, or any game with high variance, the variance means we are not in control of the outcome.

This is why people fear gambling, and poker. This is why your parents are scared. They fear poker because they know that the hero's fate is out of his/her hands. 

It takes a lot of work to build up a tolerance to this variance. I think a large part of it is playing as much as possible; I never feel the swings as much when I'm putting in heavy volume. I develop an emotional callous. 

But the biggest thing I think you can do is to completely, and utterly, relinquish control of your results. Every time you catch yourself saying "I lost X" or "I won X", remind yourself that you didn't do anything. You played, and it happened, and there is very little correlation between the quality of your play and the quality of your results.

When you admit to yourself that you're not responsible for your short term wins and losses, and that your long term winrate is built up of thousands of small edges repeating themselves constantly that don't show up significantly in the day to day swings, your focus will improve, your happiness with poker will improve, and your ability to nail down the things that make you profitable (or not) and improve upon them will result in a much more efficient style of studying and at-the-table decision making.

-----------------------------------------------

Usually in a blog, this is the point where we post some sick brag hands. 

Well, I don't have a sick brag hand. In keeping with the theme of the thread, my sick brag is this. In the middle of that $2.9K downswing, I had a -10BI session. Afterwards, I got up, and I made a sandwich, went to bed, and had a good nights sleep. At the end of the month, in my last session of the challenge, I had a +10BI session... and then I got up, made a snack, went to bed, and had a good nights sleep.

Last, but not least. 

If you think you are struggling with tilt, go read "the mental game of poker" by Jared Tendler

If you don't think you are struggling with tilt, admit to yourself that you are struggling with tilt, and then go read "the mental game of poker" by Jared Tendler

And I just got a file for a client who's last name is McDermott.

AWESOME :D

Been a little bit since I updated with something substantial, so figure it's probably about time for an update of this beasty.

First a couple of giraffes.

This is my month so far (and so far into the DC50K). We'll get back to this.

__________________________________________________________________

Had somebody make a comment on the forums that they knew I played higher than whatever hand I was commenting on and probably had never played lower, so I figured I'd show my graph since I started playing again after the summer (I think I busted a $100 deposit before this graph, don't remember). 

So a couple of things, first I think you can probably see that I ran like a crazy monkey on a mixture of mid-western methamphetamine and Columbian cocaine. I'm pretty sure I went exactly two weeks between starting to take shots at 50nl and starting to take shots at 100nl using a 25BI bankroll for the 100nl shots. 

The other thing you should note is that after getting back into poker, I was breakeven for the first like 60K hands. Now, I haven't taken a look at this by date or anything, but I can assure you that the sharp increase in my graph is correlated very, very strongly with my participation in the forums and asking lots, and lots, of questions. ASK PEOPLE STUFF. Ask shuttle, ask sthief, ask blah, ask Improva, ask threads, ask zach, ask direstraights, ask me,  ask any and all of us idiots who are currently making multiple 4-page posts about game-theory.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

On that note, I'd like to point out one other thing really quickly.

Improva: $200/hr              Blah234: $175           Sthief: $175          Shuttle: $150           Threads13: $80 

These people, quite literally, make a living off of either a) utilizing the knowledge they have or b) sharing it with people who pay them to do so.

This fact should leads me to two considerations:

- We should all be very, very, very grateful for their participation in the forums.

- We should look for them to give us hints, more than they give us answers, such that they enable us to perhaps save a little bit of time in learning things ourselves. 

This doesn't mean we shouldn't ask them questions, and if they give us straight up answers (as blah did for me today... yesterday? whatever) then cool, although we should always be willing to test those things ourselves. But don't get miffed if Improva makes an eight word post. He did that for free, and the answers you can gleam for it are probably worth something, so be grateful.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Alright, so back to teh pokers. 

First, I've literally just finished my (currently) last coaching session with threads13; I will straight up say I think his value per dollar spent is incredible, and that the guy is particularly skilled at thinking about multiple ways to adjust versus certain ranges. I haven't talked to anyone in detail that considers as fully the adjustments we should make for certain tendencies (on all streets). It's easy to say 'bet a stronger range when they call lots'. It is not as easy to make that connection between certain flop/turn tendencies and use it to widen or tighten ranges preflop, or on the river, or what have you. Cliffs: Positive review, good dude, good thinker. 

Second, I think right now my biggest challenges are this:

- I need to build a bankroll

- I am tilting / struggling somewhat with the mental game

Luckily, both things can be solved with... playing more hands!!!!

I'm a firm believer that in order to get better at focusing, at dealing with beats, variance etc. in short at dealing with playing poker, you need to play more poker. There's a lot of cliches about it, such as leatherass's 'winning is it's own skill' and what have you, but I'm a firm believer in trying to deal with poker tilt through poker. That doesn't mean not quitting well, or taking breaks, but it does mean not getting scared off of the games when you take a few beats, and consistently trying to monitor and provide conscious positive feedback into your mental state.

So, since I happen to have a couple of mini-ftops tickets for Sunday, that seems like a pretty good day for a lock down :).

So I will play 8 hours minimum, however I break that down (will depend on my runs in the ftops events), and will focus on constant mental game monitoring. I'm going to keep a notepad next to me to record every 90 minutes or so what I'm feeling, thinking, and rate my play on a qualitative basis.

The other things I need to do in order to help deal with tilt is a) better sleep, which has been an issue lately, and will be dealt with through better diet and switching coffee for tea (orange pekoe type stuff in the morning, herbal after noon), and also through b) which will be too focus on getting as much exercise and stretching in as I can.

Interesting... for like 5 days I've felt like I didn't have anything to blog about. Huh. Look at that. :) 

GL HF guys and gals

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

A few weeks ago I had my first losing $1K day.

Today I had my first winning $1K day.

:| 

Gotta stay motivated lol. 

Nice time to start the 50K hand challenge though! ;)

The one thing I'm definitely happy about is my red-line, although threads13 will attest to the fact that I run good when barreling too lol, peeps just like to fold.

Well, I'll definitely be very happy with my results for the month. I've been flying through the stakes much faster than I thought I would be, I seem to have settled in fairly happily at 100nl zoom for now feeling like I have a decent sized edge, making decent coin at poker for the first time in my life, yup, poker has been good to me.

Don't get me wrong, the last 10K hands or so have felt like me plowing my head into a wall repeatedly; I lost $1K for the first time in over a year on Friday (albeit in a much more normal fashion than last time; check out my very first blog post for that story).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In terms of how I feel about the year? I honestly feel like 2012 was... very meh. And what's more, I very very much do NOT want to feel that way in 12 months when I look back on 2013. So, I have some goals (and I've even set methods on achieving them).

Poker

Goal 1: 12 hours played per week, no excuses. 

This one... really shouldn't be that hard. I mean, it's not easy, that's for sure, it's very difficult for me to come home from a day of doing accounting and be like "hey, I know what I want to do, I want to solve MORE puzzles and do MORE math!". But 12 hours equates to one hour a day on weekdays and four on saturday & sunday. Like I said, it won't be easy, and will require better time management, but it's doable and the rewards are there; 50 hours of poker per month means 40K hands; if I can achieve that, I can probably reach 200nl sometime in the spring and also easily achieve goal #2....

Goal 2: Get supernova, pay for a trip with rakeback.

This is pretty obvious. At 100nl zoom, I should be getting around .3vpp per hand (conservative). 40K hands per month = 12,000 vpp's; so if I reach my volume goals each month, I can position myself well to bink supernova in the summer when I go back to 7 hour days at the office (we work 8 hour days for 5 months, 7 hours for the other 7 months). 

I have a stag party in Vegas to go to in June, and am probably going to screw off somewhere foreign after I finish module 2 of CASB, so I'm thinking rakeback looks like a good option to pay for some of that; hopefully I can not spent all of it and put at least 30% of it towards my roll. 

Goal 3: Continue to improve

This should be obvious, that my game cannot stagnate and I need to continue pushing to improve. The question is going to be how? 

I have some coaching sessions with threads13, so that's going to help, and obviously I'll continue to participate in the forums, but most of all I need to shell out the hundy for crEV and get to cracking some problems. I know I have leaks in my game, and there are spots (even fairly common spots) where I"m simply too uncertain of the best play for me to be confident I'm not leaking, and the only way to fix that is going to be to sit down and solve them. 

So in that vein, 2 hours per week will be absolutely dedicated to me sitting down with crEV and plugging some damned numbers.

Goal 4: Forget about the f*cking cashier

I am tilted right now. I am tilted because I just played a session where I was up two and a half buyins, and it ended down two buyins.

That information is utterly and completely useless. It's not informative. I didn't lose 4 1/2 buyins because I played poorly, I lost 4 1/2 buyins because I ran kind of bad. 

I cannot continue to play $100 buyin games with this kind of reactionary, emotional attachment to my bankroll. It's just absurd, and a really bad idea.

So, my solution? I am going to change all my reports in PT4 to exclude my currency / BB's / all-in EV / win-rates, and show only my stats, my hands played, my rake contributed, and other metrics that I can actually control. And then I'm only going to look at my bankroll every two weeks. Period. No results, no graphs, nothing but volume. 

Fitness

Dear fucking god. 

I'm skinny-fat again. Fuck.

I hate winter for this; I just hate the thought of leaving the house when it's -30C (more on this below) and I get very sedentary. It's not good for my work life, poker life, or my life life. It's all just shitty. 

I'm moving into a new place here, and it's fairly close to the multiplex, so my goal is this; 2 sessions per week of swimming or running, and at least 1 session per week of yoga. I'm probably going to download a few yoga vids onto my computer / ps3 and just do them in my new basement suite. 

Cause goddammit I hate being skinny-fat. Fuck. 

Work/life/poker decisions and balance

The last goal for 2013 is... I need to figure out what I actually want to do.

Currently, I'm an accounting 'student' (I've finished a bachelors degree, but am still working towards earning my designation). But when I look at the future work that is ahead of me, I am currently filled with just this sense of general apathy.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the value of the accounting profession (yes, it does exist and is very socially important), but... eh. I'm not convinced I want to do it for a living, at least not yet.

Of course, this is difficult for me to really be certain of, because the only time I've been working is during a northern Alberta winter, and as I've said, I hate winter. It honestly depresses me to no small degree, and clouds my view of almost everything. So it is entirely possible that I don't actually dislike the work I'm doing, it's just winter and I hate everything.

So I have some choices to make; do I want to continue to work as an accountant? And more specifically, can I actually do another winter here? I only have so many years left on this planet, and I really hate spending them on the northern quarter of this planet... is it worth looking into a move? If I do move, is it going to be to another accounting job, or am I going to fuck off somewhere foreign and play poker for a couple of years, traveling and seeing the world? 

Decisions, decisions... fuck decisions, here's some hands.

Or not, because the HC isn't working? I'll edit later maybe.

Ahhhhh... wohhhh.

There's a downswing waiting somewhere in the future with my name on it. 

But it ain't here yet.

Up over 10BI in a short shot at 100NL, and almost 40BI in 20k hands. I know this is a huge heater, and I know I can't rest on my laurels and play shitty. But the giraffe is so purrty. 

It's good to run good when you move up. FWIW this hand can be a fold, however BB is a fairly aggro supernova reg who can definitely be light in this spot and btn probably has a range of like 66+, AQ+, maybe AJ+. 

My only thought when I shipped in was "fuck I hope BB doesn't snap call". BB snap called. I actually typed in to chat box "that's not good". Good board is good.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2037353
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $101.80
Hero (SB): $287.45
BB: $215.26
UTG: $100.00
MP: $100.00
CO: $149.36

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with A K
3 folds, BTN raises to $2.14, Hero raises to $6.50, BB raises to $15, BTN raises to $101.80 all in, Hero raises to $287.45 all in, BB calls $200.26 all in

Flop: ($532.32) 6 J T(3 players - 3 are all in)

Turn: ($532.32) Q(3 players - 3 are all in)

River: ($532.32) Q(3 players - 3 are all in)

Final Pot: $532.32
BTN mucks Q A
Hero shows A K (a straight, Ten to Ace)
BB mucks K K
Hero wins $226.92
Hero wins $302.60
(Rake: $2.80)

Ahhh poker's a fun game :).

So I didn't really have much of a chance to grind since my last post until the last few days. My run good has continued, a couple of minor 3-8BI downswings at 50NL that were quickly recovered from, a bit more progress, etc. etc. etc.

I've hit 25BI for 100nl and just took a small 200 hand shot at the zoom games there just to see what was up. Not going to lie, going to have to take a little bit to get used to the swings, those are slightly bigger numbers than I'm used to :). Went good though, picked up a nice 4b pot with TT on AT9r Jo sb vs bb where villain called my turn ship with AQ. 

The one thing I'll say is that I was playing freaking awful for a little bit there. I think it has to do with my run good being so good, and the other stuff in my life (CASB, work, etc.) getting pretty hectic for a bit so I wasn't able to play as much, but I had some seriously dumb-fuck hands, with hands in my range that had no business being anywhere near it.

That having been said, the run-good hasn't stopped, and I feel like I have a pretty huge edge on the regs at my limit (which, lets face it, is the only thing that can make Zoom worth playing pretty much; fishes are few and far between).

Obviously, pretty happy with this. Life is good :).

So, after starting at 10nl in something like mid October, I'm poking my head up around to 100nl. Pretty cool.

I think my goal for the next year is going to be supernova by August. Should be pretty easily doable, only takes 275,000 hands 100nl which is like 320 hours over 8 months = 10 hours / week. 

Just for those that haven't done the math, if you can get 800 hands in per hour, if you hit supernova you are making around $16/hour just in rakeback at 100nl. Tack on even a 1bb/100 win-rate to that, and you're making more than I am out of college (although my profession sucks pretty hard for starting salaries ;)). Pretty reasonable hourly to just move to somewhere cheap / low-tax / *WARM* and live off of poker for a year if you want too. 

So here's a hand I fucking brutally misplayed. This is right when I was starting up again a couple of days ago, and man does it show.

I literally say to myself on the river "Ok; this is pretty simple. It's either a ship, or a x/f. X/c is probably the worst option". I go ahead and hit the check button, and immediately click call.

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2036079

DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $54.48
Hero (SB): $56.24
BB: $76.67
UTG: $70.07
MP: $199.56
CO: $51.94

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with A K
2 folds, CO raises to $1.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $4.50, 1 fold, CO calls $3

Flop: ($9.50) 2 Q T(2 players)
Hero bets $5.75, CO calls $5.75

Turn: ($21.00) A(2 players)
Hero bets $11, CO calls $11

River: ($43.00) 6(2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $30.69 all in, Hero calls $30.69

Final Pot: $104.38
Hero mucks A K
CO shows J K (a straight, Ten to Ace)
CO wins $101.88
(Rake: $2.50)

OK, it's official. When somebody 5bets small and has priced themselves in, it's always AA/KK. I'm not going to lie, I've actually started 4b/folding JJ to this action. It's just always the nuts from a bad player.

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2036081
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $84.39
Hero (SB): $59.36
BB: $50.50
UTG: $77.36
MP: $69.24
CO: $225.06

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with K A
2 folds, CO raises to $1.25, BTN raises to $4, Hero raises to $9.50, 2 folds, BTN raises to $21, Hero raises to $59.36 all in, BTN calls $38.36

Flop: ($120.47) 4 7 8(2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($120.47) 7(2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($120.47) T(2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $120.47
BTN shows A A (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
Hero shows K A (a pair of Sevens)
BTN wins $117.97
(Rake: $2.50)

It's kind of funny that just one month ago, I was playing 25nl, and this was a super snap fold. I never thought for even the slightest second that this was anything but a snap ship today.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2036083
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $100.00
SB: $100.00
Hero (BB): $193.32
UTG: $125.29
MP: $50.49
CO: $133.27

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with A K
2 folds, CO raises to $3, BTN raises to $10, SB raises to $21, Hero raises to $193.32 all in, 1 fold, BTN calls $90 all in, 1 fold

Flop: ($224.00) 8 5 3(2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: ($224.00) 8(2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($224.00) A(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $224.00
BTN shows K A (two pair, Aces and Eights)
Hero shows A K (two pair, Aces and Eights)
Hero wins $110.60
BTN wins $110.60
(Rake: $2.80)