Riding The Wave Of Variance.

It's been a while since the last update. Poker-wise the year has been pretty mediocre. I'm still in the black but had my roughest stretch of 10K hands so far which resulted in a 30 BI downswing. I'm just starting to claw out of it now, though (at least I think I am; we shall see in a few weeks). 

The downswing resulted in a lot of weak-tight play and there are still some residual effects in my game right now. I'm not being nearly as aggressive as I should be but I think I'm still making very good decisions and reading the players and tables well. There are just a few spots here and there where I'm either not pulling the trigger on the third barrel or clicking fold instead of call in some likely profitable bluff-catching instances. 

If there's one good thing that is coming out of this it's that I've really stepped up my studying and review habits. Over the last few weeks I've been reviewing every hand where I saw a turn (some days I'll do every flop if I'm feeling up for it). Generally I'll find between 10-20 spots where I'm unsure. I then start to analyze those selected hands until I become pretty confident in what the correct play is. I got inspired by an entry in Schweig's blog where he stresses the importance of constantly reviewing your own game (http://www.deucescracked.com/blogs/schweig/63191-March-2011-Review). I had become complacent with occasionally getting confused or unsure if I made the optimal play. By watching some videos, checking big hands and browsing the forums I thought I was doing 'my part'.  I'd usually tag the big hands to check equities afterwards but the smaller hands would quickly be forgotten. It's the smaller hands that provide so many more interesting things to consider and also contain the leaks that you make on a daily basis, over and over again. Any time I become even the least bit confused now, I make sure to review why I was confused there so that it doesn't happen again, no matter how small the pot is or how insignificant the spot may seem. I'm already starting to see some benefits at the table as my understanding of the game is actually growing each day now.

I'll close it off with my sob-story graph to boost my run-good. I'm the most non-superstitious person I know, so consider this a sort of Pascal's Wager for poker; it certainly won't hurt to try!

This hand came up today. Villain schooled me and I have to tip my hat to him. Only played a few orbits together and he seemed like a very active and solid LAG. My image up until this point has probably been standard TAGish.   

Poker Stars $50.00 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 5 players - View hand 1137271
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $77.95
BB: $125.80
UTG: $125.00
Hero (CO): $75.00
BTN: $178.20

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

Flop: ($4.75) Q 2 5(2 players)
Hero bets $4.00, BTN calls $4

Turn: ($12.75) 5(2 players)
Hero bets $8.00, BTN calls $8

River: ($28.75) 3(2 players)
Hero bets $15.00, BTN raises to $46.50, Hero folds

Final Pot: $58.75
BTN shows 5 8 7 A
(Rake: $2.50)

I went from depressed to impressed within a few seconds after seeing his hand. I then started trying to think about what tipped him off, because up until that point I had been fairly quiet and we hadn't tangled at all. While at first glance it looks like FPS spew, I think there's more to it, or at least I've convinced myself there's more to it. 

Flop and turn are pretty standard. I bet fairly quickly on the turn. Perhaps this signaled weakness because I think I'd take a bit longer if I had a boat or trips, determining the best size to keep any draws in. This is not something I usually worry about though, as the average villain at PLO50 will likely not be picking up timing tells like this. On the river I was really unsure of sizing and whether or not a bet against a competent player is even profitable, considering how we have the 2nd and 4th nut flush blocked. I decided to bet around half pot and intended on folding to a raise. From his perspective I think my hand looks like exactly what it is. My fairly quick turn barrel on the 5:club: combined with a half-pot value bet on a paired river looks like a big flush betting cautiously on a paired board. If I really did have a boat I should probably be betting bigger to get more value from flushes. 

While this situation will probably never come up again for a long time, it served as a wake up call for me to work on having a more balanced game. As you move up in stakes balance becomes more and more important and it's never too early to start incorporating it. I will continue to play fairly exploitable against clueless, fishy players where balance isn't really an issue. Against thinking players, though, I will try to be more aware of what information I may be giving away. I've got to admit this hand completely threw me off guard as this is certainly not standard leveling warfare for PLO50. Turning trips into a bluff on a 3-flush river is just super sick and not something I ever expected at these stakes.   

Like other sado-masochists I have flocked to PLO. The last eight months since learning the game have been quite a trip, and I hope to document the rest of the journey here.

In my dark past life I played LHE, both 6-max and HU. Since LHE is such a post-flop game, I feel I’ve adjusted fairly quickly - at least quicker than I expected. I started in the micros and now playing PLO 50 with the odd shot at juicy 100 games. I usually start the day with a 1-2 hour review period of browsing forum posts and checking hands from the previous day. This gets my head into the analytical part of the game right away and gives me the confidence to hop on whatever table is available. Living in Eastern Europe means that my mornings are the quietest times on the sites, so proper game selection isn’t much of an option.

With memberships to both DC and Bluefire, I have pretty good resources for learning the game. I’ve had some coaching that has helped hugely; one excellent session with n0whereman early on and a bunch more recently with Orestto. Orestto has really elevated my game and made me think about PLO on a much higher level than I was before. I’d recommend him to any other small stakes players looking for an affordable and accessible coach who will not only help plug leaks but challenge you.

We all love graphs so I’ll close my inaugural post with a thinly veiled brag: my lifetime PLO graph. I’m already bracing for the inevitable soul-crushing downswing that posting this will trigger. 

Finally, for those curious, my name 'Teahupoo' is referencing arguably the heaviest wave in the surfing world, a famous reef break in Tahiti. At the top of my before-I-die list (or my how-I-die list) is to surf it. It's a massive hydraulic wall of water with a razor sharp reef just a few feet beneath the surface. Here it is in all it's glory, in one of the most famous surfing pictures ever. Laird Hamilton is in the photo, a big-wave surfing pioneer.