Diary of a Poker Journeyman - April 16th, 2008
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04:09 am
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Scared money is dead money
Okay, slight delay here between the end of this session and the blog post about it, but I jotted down a few notes when things were still fresh, so I'll do what I can. For the executive summary, I can say that this session basically paralleled the last one and it was another big loss. Not as big, but still big. This week's been bad for the old bankroll. But, as I have a bankroll at all, I'm not too bummed about it.
Much like last time, I don't think I was ever up this session. However, because the results of this session and the last one are so similar, I'm going to get more mileage out of contrasting them rather than seeing how they were alike. In this session, unlike the last, I actually got hands that held up, which was a nice change of pace. On the downside, I got zero (successful) bluffing done, but more on that later. I made a very concerted effort to tighten the hell up pre-flop this session. What's interesting to me is that keeping that in the front of my mind pointed something out to me: I was running cold. Like, super-cold. I was getting so few decent starters it was scary. Granted, my range for starters was extremely narrow this session, but even with that, my hole cards were just garbage hand after garbage hand. So it's nice in that my decisions were kept on the easy side, but it makes for a damn boring night. (At one point, I actually was clocking it, since I had so little going on. In my first five hours, I took down two pots. Yikes.)
Plus, just to up the coldness factor, I could not connect with a flop for shit. I decided that's probably where most of my losses come from. Unnecessary pre-flop looseness is one thing, but warranted pre-flop looseness with missed flops is something else. The former can be corrected with better play, while the latter just involves riding out a bad streak. So that accounted for a lot of bleed-off. Probably the second-biggest sinkhole from this session was my handling of mediocre holdings post-flop which I had to spend money on to figure out I was beat. It's basically probe bets and shit like that, and I'm not sad about it in the sense that I think it's anything that needs correcting. It's just...noteworthy as a way I can lose money besides losing at showdown.
( And the rest... )
What would you do?
The last hand I'll put up for review, I'll leave as an open question and I'll come back to it next time. The setup is 1/2 NLHE. The table is all loose pre-flop, considered unbluffable post-flop, and about half composed of monstrously giant stacks. You've got about $250.
You're in the big blind. The guy to your left, UTG, opens for a standard-ish raise of $12. A whole bunch of people cold-call, as is the norm at this table. There are five people in when it comes around to you in the BB. You're closing the action, so you elect to call after squeezing 9s7s and getting better than 6 to 1 on your money.
The flop comes 976 with two hearts and a club. You've flopped top two, but on a sick, coordinated board. The pre-flop raiser is pretty tight; he's only raised with (and shown down) strong holdings, and you're sure he'll bet the flop, so you decide to check, going for the check-raise. You check, and, as expected, UTG, the pre-flop raiser, bets.
Unexpectedly, he goes all-in. You failed to notice that he was short-stacked, and only had about $60 behind after he raised pre-flop. So he jams for his $60 into a pot of about $70. You're mentally expecting a lot of folds and cursing his lack of money when something else unexpected happens. It folds around to a guy in middle position who goes all-in for approximately eight million dollars. (That is, he has you covered. By a lot.) Predictably, everyone else folds, even the other guys behind this guy who also have eight-million dollar stacks. Action is to you. You go in the tank.
Flop: 976 with two hearts and a club.
UTG holding: Almost certainly a big pocket pair.
Monster stack holding: ???
You holding: 97 of spades for top two.
Decision: Call for the rest of your stack (about $240) to win $370 (assuming you beat the all-in UTG, else you're getting even money on the side pot)?
What would you do?
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05:24 am
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Something a little different
I have just learned, via the Internet, that somehow, somewhere, a starting hand of 75 offsuit is known as the "Filipino Big Slick."
I have absolutely no idea why.
I got to surfing through some other hole card nicknames. My favorite I came across this time around is "the Dick Cheney" (or just "the Cheney") for A2: A bullet and a duck. :) Runner-ups: "the Canadian Hammer" for either 73 or 62...depends on exchange rate.
Anyway. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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