Journey Through The Micros

Down 3 BIs with some coolers and some bad play. I ran pretty bad all session and got frustrated. Then came the bad play, like overplaying overpairs, and some coolers, like losing to a guy who flat my 3bet OOP with 74s and flopped a straight...

 

Two good sessions (with some variance) and I´m back on track.

Now I´m working on three things for the next sessions:

1- Open more from CO (currently 25% when unopened)

2- 3bet more IP (on the BT vs CO open)

3- Raise or c/r villains who cbet a lot

 

Played a really bad session today, losing 2 BIs at 25NL. And by bad I mean bad play. I played 3 tables w/o a HUD (I like to do that at least once a week to avoid getting HUD-dependent) and I misplayed two hands that I got stacked off.

The first hand might look a std cooler but I think I misread the villain.

 

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 784775
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $41.23
UTG: $24.50
MP: $26.84
CO: $38.54
BTN: $41.86
Hero (SB): $25.17

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with A K
2 folds, CO raises to $0.75, 1 fold, Hero raises to $2.50, 1 fold, CO raises to $5.75, Hero raises to $25.17 all in, CO calls $19.42

Flop: ($50.59) 7 5 J (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($50.59) 4 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($50.59) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $50.59
CO shows A A (a pair of Aces)
Hero shows A K (high card Ace)
CO wins $48.59
(Rake: $2.00)

I thought that his 4bet was small and that he'd 4bet bigger with aces/kings, so I kindda "talked myself" into thinking that I could be flipping vs JJ-QQ, which would not be bad due to the dead money in the pot. Analysing the hand latter with the HM I saw the guy was playing 8/8 with 0% 3bet in 82 hands.

 

The other hand was this:

 

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players - View hand 784778
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $18.72
SB: $26.47
BB: $27.07
Hero (CO): $27.70

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is CO with J A
Hero raises to $0.75, BTN calls $0.75, 2 folds

Flop: ($1.85) J 5 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $1, BTN raises to $3, Hero raises to $26.95 all in, BTN calls $14.97 all in

Turn: ($37.79) Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($37.79) J (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $37.79
BTN shows 7 7 (a full house, Sevens full of Jacks)
Hero shows J A (three of a kind, Jacks)
BTN wins $36.79
(Rake: $1.00)

This hand might not have been that bad, but I just hate being stacked with TPTK. This is the picture: It was four handed and I had raised three hands in a row (getting good cards). When villain called me IP I thought he could be doing this lighter than usual. He then raises my cbet and I thought he could be doing this with hands like KJ, QJ and maybe even JT to take a stand against me (who could have a "bully" image by then). I couldn't put him in JJ+ due to pf action and, on the flop, 2 pair is unlikely (he was not playing that loose). So the value range I put him to raise the flop is QJ (12 combos), KJ (12 combos), and sets (6 combos). FD is unlikely since I have the Ad. Adding that to the fact that he was 70BB deep and I had a BDFD I decided to ship it. Checking his stats latter he was a 38/18 loose-passive but I don't know if knowing that would've changed anything...

 

Updated graph (including that session):

 

 

2NL and 5NL:

 

10NL: 

 

25NL:

 

Overall graph:

 

I'm a 37 year old guy, married,  with two beautiful kids. I work as  a doctor (surgeon) and live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Started playing poker about a year ago, basically 2NL and pretty much all kinds of games, SNG's and MTT's, Finally I decided to play only cash games and dedicate myself to that. Read a lot of books, subscribed to 3 training sites and really studied the game.

Through all this time I played erratically at PS and FTP, basically 10NL, and didn't do well. Lost some money and had to redeposit some times. A few months ago I decided I'd only play at Stars and try to steadly move up through the limits (or down, if I have to).

At the present moment I'm playing 25NL with the SN JokerSlasher. If you check PTR you'll see I still suck at 10NL (lol), so how the hell am I playing 25NL? Well, I played some pretty bad 10NL but lately I felt I was not playing that bad and had some coolers and bad beats. I am totally aware that I have to solve that at 10NL, untill I'm a winner at that limit. But since I felt I've been playing good poker in the last weeks and since I'm way overrolled to 10NL (depositting) I decided to play some hands at 25NL to feel the game there and maybe get a little better playing some tougher opponents (no, I'm not moving up to where they "respect my raises", lol).  So, I'm only playing 2 tables (one of the bigger problems I think I had at 10NL was playing too many tables) and doing well. The plan is this: Slowly increase the numbers of tables up to 4 (max), as long I'm winning, then I'll keep playing 4 tables untill I'm 30 BIs to 50NL. I'll start taking shots at 50NL and start the process all over again. In the meantime, I'll throw some hands at 10NL just to get unstuck (it bothers me so much...)