Donkey_nuts' Poker Adventure

Had a really up and down few days on the tables. Was down 5 buy-ins on Thursday, won 3 buy-ins on Friday and dropped 4 buy-ins today (sat).

On Thursday I got my money in on the flop as a 55/45 favorite with a pair, top wrap and flush draw vs KKxxr (1 overpair no draw), hit my straight and got a torrent of abuse from my opponent. This was the same opponent who got all his money in on the turn when I had flopped the nut straight, had a redraw to a higher straight and fd. I bet he called, I bet he called all in with AAKx no fd and hit is gutshot on the river. This kind of irked me a bit so I got into a discussion (1st mistake) where I pointed out getting your money in as a 55% favorite was generally considered an OK play in PLO and that getting your money in as 93 dog was not ideal strategy. I also questioned wether or not he had played PLO before which brought an entertaining response.

So I decided to track him down on a few more tables as I thought I had an edge on him and that he would try and play back at me so I found him on one other table and got on the waiting list. However, it was a deep stack table, but I decide to sit anyway (2nd mistake) and figuring with the somewhat average play I had observed while on the waiting list I decide to buy in for $20 (3rd mistake). People 4 betting preflop with KKxx, calling off the rest of their stacks on turn and river with the nut straight after the flush made it on the turn and losing to, you guessed it, the nut flush. Anyway, I ran pretty bad, betting pot when I hit top set on the flop, 3 callers and on the turn both the flush and straights get there so have to fold when someone leads out for pot etc. Not bad beats just was not hitting my draws and having to fold a lot of hands when obvious draws made it. I was also finding it hard to get value for my made hands. and then I got AAQ8ss, the BTN I know from other tables is quite happy to 3 bet with a wide range of hands, including KKxx, and KT87ss as well as his premium hands.

BTN: $23.43
SB: $7.50
BB: $38.69
UTG: $89.61
Hero (CO): $22.15

Pre Flop: ($0.18) Hero is CO with A 8 Q A
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.38, BTN raises to $1.32, 1 fold, Hero raises to $4.14, BTN calls $2.82

Flop: ($8.46) 3 K 5(3 players)
Hero bets $8.46, BTN raises to $19.27 all in, Hero calls $9.53 all in

Turn: ($44.44) T(3 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($44.44) T(3 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $44.44
BTN shows 7 3 7 3 (a full house, Threes full of Tens)
Hero shows A 8 Q A (two pair, Aces and Tens)
BTN wins $43.44
(Rake: $1.00)

The BTN is not a bad player (dodgy preflop 3bets aside) so I know I am behind on the flop, best case pair and wrap worst case trips, in this case the snap shove means I am pretty certain I am up against a set, but I am getting slightly better than 3.5-1 if I call so I am pot committed in my eyes even if he shows me his hand. 

Sigh....

What I took away from this is why the hell I am playing deep stacked PLO when I don't really know how to adjust my game and when I do not want to expose myself to 2 buy ins worth of risk. Bad decision. Not a good day.

Friday was pretty good, got my money in as a favorite and won, lost when I was behind all in all pretty standard and finished up 2.5 buy ins and was happy.

Saturday was variance day. Sat down on a PLO10 table with 2 big stacks, $50 and $60, who had stats of VPIP 67, PFR 22 and VPIP 96, PFR 48 over 35 hands, and lost 2 races and got it all in on the flop when I was 83% favorite improved to 93% on the turn and then the gutshot hit. Nice $30 pot gone. Variance (can't get the converter to work but it was ugly). I was not to worried about this cos I figured I would get a chance to win my money back but 2 orbits later they both upped and left. Worse variance. Nevermind, with an early start tomorrow and 10hrs at work I figure to be down this week. 

• Hands Played:   1,682
  
• BB/100:          -15.01
• $/hr                 -1.98

Put simply Tuesday sucked big donkey balls. Two friends of mine failed their instructor flight tests on the same morning and I ended up down buy-ins at PLO10.

I feel for my friends as the instructor course in NZ is 10 weeks of 9am-10pm 6 days a week study (normally the courses are longer but the school wanted this one finished by christmas so they shortened it, but you have to put in the hours to learn the content) The flight test itself is a 1 briefing followed by 1.5hr flight followed by 4 hours of theory all without reference to notes. What also sucks is the tests cost NZ$1500 a pop and the flying they will have to do to keep at the level they need will cost them another NZ$2-3000. 

Ending up down 3 buy-ins did not improve my mood. I was getting plenty of good hands preflop but missing the board completely, when I did hit the board I got my stack in 3 times as a 66%, 77% (for a$35 pot) and 80+% favorite (according to pt3omaha) and lost them all, 2 to runner runner flush from a 3 tone flop and once someone hit a boat (no other draws) to down my flopped nut straight and nut flush draw. I got my stack in twice as as a %60 dog and lost both too. I picked up some small and medium pots here and there (some I deserved, some I didn't) to end up down $30. I felt I had an edge but could not get anything going. I also played some hands badly, putting in money where I should have known better and not betting to protect my hand/equity etc. So all in all Tuesday sucked!

Luckily for me Monday saw me run really well, got my money in good and held up most of the time and manage to win a 49/51 race 3 way for a nice pot, pity my opponents didnt have more money. I got it in with top set, nut flush draw and gut shot to the nuts (think i had a gut shot to 2nd nuts as well) vs a naked 2nd straight and bottom set and hit my flush on the river to a torrent of abuse from the 2nd straight. How can you play so badly, you were so far behind etc. 

Wed was ok. Finished up a buy-in, there were some crazy players around but it seemed I could not get into a pot with them and hit the flop. I also folded top set to a river donk (pot) bet only to be shown pocket 4s and no draws what so ever. It was either very impressive or completely crazy, he check called my pot bets on the flop and the turn (flop J86 two hearts, turn was  2c) then led the river for pot when the Th fell completing the straight and flush draws so there was no way I could call. Then showed AdKs4d4s.

So halfway through the week:

• Hands Played:   851
  
• BB/100:            8.33
• $/hr                 5.85
• Amount won:   14.17

I am a long way behind my goal of 2500 hands, have spent 8hr playing or studying so not doing badly there, haven't posted any hands and to top it off I am working nearly every day for the rest of the week so it is going to be hard to meet my goals this week.

Week 1 Summary
PLO10

• Hands played 1,750
• BB/100           29.95
• $/hr                 $7.50
• Amount won  $100.51

Has been a good week. I wasn't able to play as much as I wanted but am trying to develop good habits. I am reading a book but Leatherass called Treat Your Poker Like A Business. He advises splitting your time 80/20 between playing / studying. As I was not confident in my game I was spending more like 40/60 so have tried to make the effort to play more.

And so far it seems to be working. I have gone through phases were I just cant seem to hit anything. Like I would miss a barn door from 5 feet with a shotgun. However, it always seems to turn around and I have been running pretty damn good. Not so much sucking out from behind, more my opponents having a good hand when I have a better one.

I have also been finding good opponents. The average table has at least 2-3 opponents with a VPIP of approx 65 and a PFR of 15-30. So my tighter range is getting me into a lot of good situations. EXCEPT with one particular opponent.

He has been troubling me for the last few days, he plays approx 4 tables and has a VPIP of 91 (sample size of 724) and PFR of 24. Initially I classified him as an incredibly lucky fish because he just seems to keep on calling and keep on hitting. I have seen 3 ppl type pretty much the same thing word for word into chat boxes after becoming frustrated. The pattern is all the same. First stack they lose they type nh trying to be nice to the fish and keep him around. Then 3-4 stacks later the abuse starts but he seems to keep winning.

He has the uncommon knack of having a bigger hand than you everytime you stack off and seems to miss completely when you hit your big hands.

He is running at 32 bb/100 and I am beginning to think while his pf play sucks badly, his post flop skills are actually good for this level, far better than mine. I am currently down $21 vs him. I have won 3x as much from him as from any other player but have lost 4x as much too him. Playing tighter against him I just seem to be losing equity all the time folding against his aggression post flop, but when I call him down I seem to end up behind. He seems to re-raise my c-bets enough to balance the time he folds, and seems pretty astute at sensing weakness and reading board texture plus opponents ranges. I am a little worried about playing looser against him as I will be playing his style not mine and getting into marginal hands postflop. I often find myself a little lost in hands against him and have trouble working out hand ranges for him.

As he always seems to be playing at the same time as me I need to learn to adapt to this style of play. However, despite all these negatives, he certainly gets the action going at the tables he is on and seems to put people on tilt fairly often so I kind of like having him around 

Any advise against the preflop maniac, who plays post flop well. Appears to have a balanced c-betting range, and has the ability to get away from hands when he is behind? 

Apart from that life is all good. I am picking up extra shifts at work and am beginning to get into the holiday spirit. 

This week's poker goals are:

• To play 2500 hands or more.
• To post at least 10 hands on forums, these hands must be thought provoking and not just coolers or bad beat stories.
• To get my head around my nemesis grrr, or at least avoid losing money to him.
• To spend 20hrs plus either playing or studying poker.

I am trying not to be to cashier orientated as I am running good atm and that will have to change at some stage, so as long as I am improving a little every day I am not too concerned about the cashier as long as I am not bankroll threatened.

Hi, 

I have played poker on and off for a 4-5 years and a couple of years back I was playing  25nl and winning over a fairly small sample size, However, studying got kind of hectic and I had to shelve poker for a few months and when I came back to it I could not get back in the grove and did not have the motivation to work on my game to get it back to my previous standard, so I stopped playing for the best part of 2 years.

Now I am qualified as a flying instructor and am waiting to start instructing around feb next year I have some time on my hands to play poker and am motivated again to work on my game. 

So here are the goals of Donkey_nuts Poker Adventure;

1. To turn poker from a hobby to a second source of income within 6 months ($15+ per hour).
2. To win a live tournament at my local casino within a year (I live in Auckland and the casino is tiny as is it's poker room).
3. To win a seat to a live tournament in Aussie, Macau, Europe or the states by 2013.

To achieve this I have;

1. $300 bankroll.
2. 6 months subscription to deucescracked.
   
3. Pokertracker3
4. I am committing to putting at least 20hrs a week into playing and studying poker (sadly I have part time jobs that require my time too so 20-30hrs is the most I can realistically commit).

There are also some basic rules:

1. I will have a minimum of 30bb for the level I am playing (6 max) and 60bb for HU level I am playing.
   
2. I may take occasional shots at a higher level as long as I have >20bb for that level.
3. All other poker costs (e.g. coaching) are deducted from my bank roll.
4. I will not cash out until my bankroll reaches $2000. After that I will "pay" myself a yet to be decided % and use the rest to keep building 

The first step of Donkey_nuts' Poker Adventure starts today as I attempt to master PLO. I have heard that PLO is meant to be a little softer than NL and that players make more mistakes so it seems like a good place to start. I can only really focus on one game at a time so tournaments are going to have to wait for few months while I try and master PLO or Omaha Hi/lo.

I am off to the video vault to try pick up some basic PLO strategy. Also I would be keen to start/join a group of other SSPLO players if you want to discuss hands on MSN or via email. As you can tell I will be no expert but am keen to learn and will put in the effort.

Any advise on my rules or the direction Donkey_nuts' Poker Adventure should take will be appreciated.

Mike