We Stand As The Giants Make Way

I haven’t posted an update in a couple of days, and I found the time and space to do it now. I started my semester. I have three courses this year, two in history and one in philosophy. So far it seems like an easy game, at least when I can wrap my head around the philosophy stuff.

As far as poker goes, I have some updates since last time. I also have a couple of hands to talk about whenever I get that far. So, the day I posted my last update about Betfred Support, I was talking to Betfred Support because I couldn’t register for an MTT. I know some people have had this issue with MiniMaxMod, so for those who are playing on iPoker, here’s the solution: Reinstall your poker client! Easy game.

The MTT that I couldn’t register for was the Monthly Million on iPoker, which was a $500 buy-in. That is the biggest MTT I’ve played in up to that point, and it’s not even close. Previously, my biggest MTT was probably a $30 buy-in or something like that. There’s a pretty big difference between $30 and $500 imo. I cashed, and busted on a misplayed hand. I got it in with 99 vs. AK in a BTN vs. BB situation right after the bubble bursted for about 30 BBs. Pretty standard, but I should’ve shoved preflop rather than 3-bet/called, so that sucked.

I’ve had a sick run in the cash games. I’m starting to realize that my style is pretty high variance. It’s fun and also pretty sickening to my stomach at times, when I lose. I’m going for thin value, which certainly is going to be good for my winrate over the long run, but it takes a lot of balls to go through these swings. I’m glad that I’m staked, to put it that way! (:

This month alone I’ve played a total of 10 200bb+ pots, and I’ve been on the winning end of 8 of them. I’ve 1 outered and 3 outered people postflop, which is pretty sick. The biggest pot I played was for a $1600 pot at 1/2 with the second nut flush vs. a huge drooler in a 3bet pot. I ran into the nut flush, so that sucked. I also sucked out on a 2+2’er who posted the HH in the MSNL iPoker thread, which caused a lot of lol. I guess I’ll go through the hand from my perspective, and analyze it. I think I misplayed the hand, and I’ve been thinking through it for a couple of days now. I actually got really lucky in more ways than one. I’ll post my analysis at the end of this post.

I’ve made $3,6k the last 2,5k hands I’ve played, so that’s pretty good. Tomorrow is friday and I’m looking forward to the weekend, because I’ll be taking shots at 2/4, which obviously is awesome. I’m hoping I continue my good run because if this weekend goes well and I make a nice chunk of change, I’ll be able to settle at MSNL pretty quickly! If not, the MSNL iPoker regs can brace themselves for a total of $3k being dropped in their laps this weekend! :D

On to the pot vs. the 2+2er which I mentioned earlier. As said, he’s a 2+2er. I only know him from 1/2, and he seems like a tighter player. He’s starting up a couple of games from time to time, so he’s not completely incompetent or some kind of a bumhunter. However, he seems to play a lower variance style judging by his stats. He’s not big on 3-betting, and he doesn’t defend very light against 3-bets. I suspect him not to be super comfortable playing 300 bbs deep, because he doesn’t play me HU when I try to start those games, so that works in my favor. I have a couple of notes on him, which say he tends to be multitabling quite a bit. He seems to cbet a ton, but he’s not firing a ton of barrels mindlessly. His major concern seems to be his own hand, and not so much the opponent he is playing, and he might be overly concerned about pot control although that could just be him being tricky.

My image is pretty laggy in general, and I do a lot of aggressive shit. My biggest strength (and weakness) is that I am very aggressive and I’m not really afraid of putting a lot of money in the pot if I think there’s enough fold equity to justify a slight +EV play. I can’t remember me doing anything crazy previous to this, but I did just stack a tagfish with AQ on AAxQx for 300bbs.

As the cards came out, it was a pretty standard hand, but the way I played it was pretty poorly.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
3 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by http://weaktight.com/

Stacks:
BTN $600
Hero (SB) $1,355.08
BB $700.90

Pre-Flop: ($3, 3 players) Hero is SB 8s 8h
BTN folds, Hero raises to $6, BB raises to $20, Hero calls $14

Flop: 5s Qh 8d ($40, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $30, Hero raises to $110, BB calls $80

Turn: 8c ($260, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $170, Hero calls $170

River: As ($600, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $400.90, Hero calls $400.90

Final Pot: $1,401.80
BB shows
Qd Qs

Hero wins $1,399.80 (net +$698.90)

BB lost $700.90

I make it $6 preflop, because I think he’ll be making a mistake in folding too much against me. He doesn’t seem to be getting into a ton of high variance situations, so I think he’ll be folding too many hands which he probably should be 3-betting or calling given stack sizes. Basically, I think he’ll fold hands like Q9o although he should be should be playing those types of hands most of the time. I could probably get away with making it $8 though.

Once he 3-bets, I’m pretty sure he’s polarized. He either has a air-type hand like K4s and the likes or a pretty big hand, probably AQ+ and JJ or something like that. I don’t think he has TT too often, because I am capable of putting in a 4-bet, and it would kind of suck to play a 4-bet pot against me because he’ll be put to a big test on a lot of flops as he might think I might barrel with any type of 5 outer or more, and that I’m also capable of going big for thin value. Also, not to repeat myself, but he seems like he’s slightly risk averse.

Calling preflop is the obvious play imo, because I think he’s pretty value heavy and I have a decent read on his game which means. I’m pretty comfortable playing postflop even though we’re deep. His bluff-to-value ratio is probably something like 1-to-2 or even more valueheavy than that, so I don’t think I can do anything else but call his 3-bet preflop. Against this player, I could probably set mine profitably given stack sizes and the reads I have provided. Because of my image, I’m more likely to get paid off when I put money into the pot and that’s pretty sweet. I think these are the perfect cards at the perfect time. I would probably fold stuff like T8s and whatever, and I’m probably folding a little bit too much to his 3-bet. The hands I’m continuing preflop are probably like AK, all pairs and a small collection of suited connectors (when I don’t feel like folding them). He probably thinks I’ll be calling slightly looser than that, although I don’t know. Phew, that’s a ton of stuff about preflop.

So, my flop checkraise is the obvious play here. I’ll be checkraising some gutshots here most of the time if I want to continue on this board, and I have to balance out my bluff checkraises by checkraising sets. I’m probably checkraising AA and KK on this board too, along with AQ sometimes (although less often). I’m probably going to be checkraising the flop with 8x a non-zero % of the time too, because it kind of sucks to call barrels on a lot of cards with an 8x type hand I might have in this spot. Also, I’ll be checkraising 5x pretty much always. Another thing to consider is that with my image, checkraising for value is by far the superior play in this spot, although an argument could be made for check/calling the flop and check/raising turns or rivers depending on how the board runs out.

Once he calls my checkraise, I’m pretty sure he has a pair of jacks or better. He could be floating some hands that he semi-bluffed preflop (like JTs, T9s etc), but that’s less likely than him having an actual value hand. This read leads us to my biggest mistake in the hand: the turn play…

I decided to check the turn, which was pretty much a result of my initial reaction, which was something like “OMFG NUTS AGAIN! CHECK, HE HE HE! LET’S TARP!”. Obviously, this is a suboptimal line for my range. I can’t be bluffing anymore, which is why I am checkraising the flop! I want to have bluffs in my range! It pretty much limits my range to contain hands of various strength between AQ and 88. I no longer have JT or T9 in my range if we get to the river and there was money going in on the turn. So obviously I should bet here again to keep my perceived range pretty much the same as it is on the flop. As it is, I probably wouldn’t bluff this card, but he might view me as blindly aggressive and not realize that. Also, his range is generally pretty strong so it wouldn’t matter too much. I’m still going to get at least one street from AQ and better, and the turn is probably the best street to get said value. I would obviously follow up on the river with a jam.

As played, the river kind of plays itself and I think he thinks he’s valuetowning 8x most of the time.

HAHAHAHA, VICTORY!