The Jersey Worm (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bobby_the_worm) wrote,@ 2008-10-27 23:41:00 |
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Multi-session wrapup
So I've been kinda lax with my poker blogging of late. I've had a few sessions, but nothing really remarkable. For posterity's sake, I'll do some recaps here. For interest's sake, I think these can safely be skipped without you guys missing out on anything.
Friday night (8/17) - a.k.a. "The night of king-deuce" - This was one of those times where I very quickly got swept up in the spirit of joviality at the game, and I strayed quite far from my usual style. It turned out to be (for me) more of a night to kick back and blow off stream, rather than a night to maximize EV. This is no more garishly illustrated by that nights' propensity for me to play king-deuce like it was aces.
See...at some point over the course of the night, the table more or less came to a consensus that king-deuce was "the hand." It started with somebody playing it, hitting, and then winning. Then it happened again, so it started gaining notoriety. Then somebody raised with it and took it down pre-flop. Later still, somebody did a stop-and-go, slowplaying it on the flop, but then taking it down with a later bet. I remarked at some point that the betting aggression with king-deuce was escalating. "The next move," I announced, "is a check-raise all-in."
Yeah, well, you can imagine the kind of shit that'll get me into. :) Especially when I later did exactly that, a check-raise all-in on the turn holding the mighty king-deuce. And you know what? The move probably would have worked...if my opponent wasn't holding quads. Thankfully, he had a lesser stack than me, but still. Oh, well. Anyway, as it turned out, I tried the same move later on, only this time it was a pre-flop three-bet all-in out-of-position against a bigger stack. His holding? Pocket aces. Rebuy! So, yes, my belief in king-deuce was so strong that night that I raised all-in with it...into the nuts. Twice. Yikes. :) It was so bad, the dealer even admonished me. "You gotta stop playing that shit!" he says. Word.
The night held much other similar tomfoolery. By the end, though, I managed to climb my way back up to almost even, which I consider something of a miracle, considering how I was playing. Undoubtedly this was helped by the number of times a king-deuce bluff succeeded, but still. Happy to walk away with only a modest loss. :)
Tuesday morning (10/21) - This was a rare non-Tropicana experience for me, as I stopped by Bally's instead to wait for a friend to get off work so we could grab lunch. The session turned out actually to be several hours, but it was a sick-ass rush. I started off opening the table, so I picked off a pot here and there while people were still getting their bearings. Then I picked up queens and stacked a short-buy-in guy who couldn't lay down top pair. A bit later, I picked up aces (against a different short stack) and this time got cracked...I think by queens, actually, if I recall correctly. A very short while later, I got aces again. Now this one was completely bizarre at first, as it ended up being a three-way all-in pre-flop! This turned out to be less bizarre than it appeared at first, as the three hands in question were aces, kings, and queens. Wow. Aces held up, and I now no longer cared about them being cracked early on.
At any rate, things just continued going very smoothly for me for the rest of the day. Over the course of the session I picked up aces like four or five times, I think, and I believe the only time they didn't hold up was that first time. I hit sets, I hit draws...I just generally had a good run of cards, and I eventually took off booking a pretty nice profit for the day. Good times.
Wednesday night (10/22) - This session started off amazingly well, but took a giant nosedive about halfway through. And when I say started, I mean right off the bat. In my second hand at the table, I picked up pocket aces in the BB, and they actually held up on a paired, three-flush, four-straight board. A few hands later, I had AQ in LP and flopped top two and got paid off nicely. Not even an orbit in, and I was already on my way to a double-up. Then...about two hours of nothing. :) I switched seats to my favored 9-seat, and just to be cheeky, I open-raised with KcJc in EP. It goes five ways to the flop. So much for people giving a shit that I just folded for two hours. :) The flop comes a pretty nice-looking AcKhxc, so I get second pair, decent kicker, nut flush draw. $50 in the pot, and I lead out for $40. Some dude min-raises me. All others fold, back to me. So. $170 in the pot, $40 to call, and I've got several hundred behind. He has me covered by a generous amount. I'm basically sick of this shit, and I jam it all-in. This is kind of a new thing for me, which I'll explain more after the recaps. Anyway, he tanks for many, many minutes. Eventually he folds. He claims to have had AQ. At the time, I didn't really believe him, but as the night progresses he'd shown himself to play oddly pre-flop, so...I dunno. It coulda been. I didn't show.
Anyway, a couple tough losses followed. As the night wore on, I had aces cracked by AQ, all-in pre-flop, which was massively un-fun. I had QQ cracked by AK, which isn't so bad, but I wasted a bunch of money on it thinking I was protecting against a flush draw instead of betting into the flopped K. My bad. The worst hit I took was when I somehow got caught with 98, flopped a 9, and was calling down with what I was pretty sure was the best hand against an aggressive player who doesn't need a hand to be taking multiple shots at the pot. The river came an 8, giving me my second pair. All the money went in, and I lost to pocket eights: I was good the whole way, and he spiked a one-outter to give me my cooler. Ouch!
My night ended when I made what I thought was a hero call against another aggressive player. I had something like second or third pair, and I was tanking facing a river bet, when I suddenly felt he was weak and I could totally beat him. (I couldn't blow him off the hand with a raise, btw -- his bet had me close to all in.) Turns out...I was half right. :) He was weak, in the sense that he had the same pair I did, but his kicker beat mine by a pip! Damn! :) I walked away from this one booking a big loss. I'll reflect more on this session later on in the post.
Thursday evening (10/23) - This one was a really brief session as I waited for my mom to finish up what she was doing so we could go to dinner. I knew I was only going to be a little while, so I took it as free license to run roughshod over the whole table, which I did with unnecessarily joyful abandon. :) I didn't win a lot, but I won, and it was a good feeling to have done that without good cards. :)
Saturday evening (10/25) - This was almost identical to the last one, a short session while waiting on somebody else to finish up. I kinda did the same thing of running over people, but I actually lost a legitimate hand to a better kicker, so that took a little chunk out. A tiny win.
Thoughts - And I think that catches me up. The session that gave me the most to think about was Wednesday night, when I got off to a roaring start, hit a couple beats, and then spiraled down. I think in a lot of ways it mirrors this session, in the sense that things started out well enough, and when they weren't going well, I was still fine...until I hit a beat. It wasn't even a bad beat...it was just a beat. Well, okay, the aces against AQ was bad, but I don't think that's the one that set me off. I think it was the QQ vs. AK. Anyway...the point is that I'm certain I started playing much looser after the beat happened, in both cases. Also in both cases, that kind of play just led to ruin. That's definitely something I gotta work on more -- keeping that stuff under control.
Oh, and the all-in thing. For those who skipped the recap, here's the situation: I have KcJc, and because I (wrongly, it turns out) assume I have a tight image, I've opened for a raise pre-flop in EP. We've gone to the flop five-handed to see AcKhxc, so I've flopped second pair and the nut flush draw. Pot is $50, and I lead out $40. It folds to a guy who min-raises me (remember this is a flat call of an EP raise pre-flop). Everyone else folds. So it's $170 in the pot, and I'm facing action of $40. I've got several hundred behind, and Villain has me covered. I jammed.
This may seem overly aggressive, but I've been working on something lately where I'm trying to go all-in more. Overall, I do try to take a more math-centric view to my poker strategizing. But I've really come to respect the psychological difference of the all-in move. It's one thing to mathematically commit yourself to a hand. And it's quite another to actually push all your chips in the middle and say without any possibility of equivocation, "I'm going to see this through to the end." And the side-effects on both your own psyche and that of your opponents is big, too. You both become quite aware that you (the jammer) no longer have any decisions to be made; now all the heat is on the person facing the decision. Anything that makes opponents uncomfortable is a good thing. :)
In the past, I would mostly only go all-in late in the hand, generally on the river, and usually as a raise, not a bet. And I'd pretty much have to be certain about it, like I'd need the nuts, or close to it. In short, I'd thought of it more as a value bet...something I'd want to be called and would use to maximize my return. I'm trying to work it more into a bluffing/semi-bluffing strategy, though, just to balance things out a bit more and, hopefully, win a few more pots. :) But anyway...so there's that. Just another thing to chew over.
Bonus: As an extra bit of entertainment from Wednesday's session, we had a guy at the table fold a couple bills in half lengthwise into a "V" shape, put a chip on top of one end, and balance the whole contraption on his nose like a circus seal. It was pretty cool! You don't get that kind of stuff with online poker!
So I've been kinda lax with my poker blogging of late. I've had a few sessions, but nothing really remarkable. For posterity's sake, I'll do some recaps here. For interest's sake, I think these can safely be skipped without you guys missing out on anything.
Friday night (8/17) - a.k.a. "The night of king-deuce" - This was one of those times where I very quickly got swept up in the spirit of joviality at the game, and I strayed quite far from my usual style. It turned out to be (for me) more of a night to kick back and blow off stream, rather than a night to maximize EV. This is no more garishly illustrated by that nights' propensity for me to play king-deuce like it was aces.
See...at some point over the course of the night, the table more or less came to a consensus that king-deuce was "the hand." It started with somebody playing it, hitting, and then winning. Then it happened again, so it started gaining notoriety. Then somebody raised with it and took it down pre-flop. Later still, somebody did a stop-and-go, slowplaying it on the flop, but then taking it down with a later bet. I remarked at some point that the betting aggression with king-deuce was escalating. "The next move," I announced, "is a check-raise all-in."
Yeah, well, you can imagine the kind of shit that'll get me into. :) Especially when I later did exactly that, a check-raise all-in on the turn holding the mighty king-deuce. And you know what? The move probably would have worked...if my opponent wasn't holding quads. Thankfully, he had a lesser stack than me, but still. Oh, well. Anyway, as it turned out, I tried the same move later on, only this time it was a pre-flop three-bet all-in out-of-position against a bigger stack. His holding? Pocket aces. Rebuy! So, yes, my belief in king-deuce was so strong that night that I raised all-in with it...into the nuts. Twice. Yikes. :) It was so bad, the dealer even admonished me. "You gotta stop playing that shit!" he says. Word.
The night held much other similar tomfoolery. By the end, though, I managed to climb my way back up to almost even, which I consider something of a miracle, considering how I was playing. Undoubtedly this was helped by the number of times a king-deuce bluff succeeded, but still. Happy to walk away with only a modest loss. :)
Tuesday morning (10/21) - This was a rare non-Tropicana experience for me, as I stopped by Bally's instead to wait for a friend to get off work so we could grab lunch. The session turned out actually to be several hours, but it was a sick-ass rush. I started off opening the table, so I picked off a pot here and there while people were still getting their bearings. Then I picked up queens and stacked a short-buy-in guy who couldn't lay down top pair. A bit later, I picked up aces (against a different short stack) and this time got cracked...I think by queens, actually, if I recall correctly. A very short while later, I got aces again. Now this one was completely bizarre at first, as it ended up being a three-way all-in pre-flop! This turned out to be less bizarre than it appeared at first, as the three hands in question were aces, kings, and queens. Wow. Aces held up, and I now no longer cared about them being cracked early on.
At any rate, things just continued going very smoothly for me for the rest of the day. Over the course of the session I picked up aces like four or five times, I think, and I believe the only time they didn't hold up was that first time. I hit sets, I hit draws...I just generally had a good run of cards, and I eventually took off booking a pretty nice profit for the day. Good times.
Wednesday night (10/22) - This session started off amazingly well, but took a giant nosedive about halfway through. And when I say started, I mean right off the bat. In my second hand at the table, I picked up pocket aces in the BB, and they actually held up on a paired, three-flush, four-straight board. A few hands later, I had AQ in LP and flopped top two and got paid off nicely. Not even an orbit in, and I was already on my way to a double-up. Then...about two hours of nothing. :) I switched seats to my favored 9-seat, and just to be cheeky, I open-raised with KcJc in EP. It goes five ways to the flop. So much for people giving a shit that I just folded for two hours. :) The flop comes a pretty nice-looking AcKhxc, so I get second pair, decent kicker, nut flush draw. $50 in the pot, and I lead out for $40. Some dude min-raises me. All others fold, back to me. So. $170 in the pot, $40 to call, and I've got several hundred behind. He has me covered by a generous amount. I'm basically sick of this shit, and I jam it all-in. This is kind of a new thing for me, which I'll explain more after the recaps. Anyway, he tanks for many, many minutes. Eventually he folds. He claims to have had AQ. At the time, I didn't really believe him, but as the night progresses he'd shown himself to play oddly pre-flop, so...I dunno. It coulda been. I didn't show.
Anyway, a couple tough losses followed. As the night wore on, I had aces cracked by AQ, all-in pre-flop, which was massively un-fun. I had QQ cracked by AK, which isn't so bad, but I wasted a bunch of money on it thinking I was protecting against a flush draw instead of betting into the flopped K. My bad. The worst hit I took was when I somehow got caught with 98, flopped a 9, and was calling down with what I was pretty sure was the best hand against an aggressive player who doesn't need a hand to be taking multiple shots at the pot. The river came an 8, giving me my second pair. All the money went in, and I lost to pocket eights: I was good the whole way, and he spiked a one-outter to give me my cooler. Ouch!
My night ended when I made what I thought was a hero call against another aggressive player. I had something like second or third pair, and I was tanking facing a river bet, when I suddenly felt he was weak and I could totally beat him. (I couldn't blow him off the hand with a raise, btw -- his bet had me close to all in.) Turns out...I was half right. :) He was weak, in the sense that he had the same pair I did, but his kicker beat mine by a pip! Damn! :) I walked away from this one booking a big loss. I'll reflect more on this session later on in the post.
Thursday evening (10/23) - This one was a really brief session as I waited for my mom to finish up what she was doing so we could go to dinner. I knew I was only going to be a little while, so I took it as free license to run roughshod over the whole table, which I did with unnecessarily joyful abandon. :) I didn't win a lot, but I won, and it was a good feeling to have done that without good cards. :)
Saturday evening (10/25) - This was almost identical to the last one, a short session while waiting on somebody else to finish up. I kinda did the same thing of running over people, but I actually lost a legitimate hand to a better kicker, so that took a little chunk out. A tiny win.
Thoughts - And I think that catches me up. The session that gave me the most to think about was Wednesday night, when I got off to a roaring start, hit a couple beats, and then spiraled down. I think in a lot of ways it mirrors this session, in the sense that things started out well enough, and when they weren't going well, I was still fine...until I hit a beat. It wasn't even a bad beat...it was just a beat. Well, okay, the aces against AQ was bad, but I don't think that's the one that set me off. I think it was the QQ vs. AK. Anyway...the point is that I'm certain I started playing much looser after the beat happened, in both cases. Also in both cases, that kind of play just led to ruin. That's definitely something I gotta work on more -- keeping that stuff under control.
Oh, and the all-in thing. For those who skipped the recap, here's the situation: I have KcJc, and because I (wrongly, it turns out) assume I have a tight image, I've opened for a raise pre-flop in EP. We've gone to the flop five-handed to see AcKhxc, so I've flopped second pair and the nut flush draw. Pot is $50, and I lead out $40. It folds to a guy who min-raises me (remember this is a flat call of an EP raise pre-flop). Everyone else folds. So it's $170 in the pot, and I'm facing action of $40. I've got several hundred behind, and Villain has me covered. I jammed.
This may seem overly aggressive, but I've been working on something lately where I'm trying to go all-in more. Overall, I do try to take a more math-centric view to my poker strategizing. But I've really come to respect the psychological difference of the all-in move. It's one thing to mathematically commit yourself to a hand. And it's quite another to actually push all your chips in the middle and say without any possibility of equivocation, "I'm going to see this through to the end." And the side-effects on both your own psyche and that of your opponents is big, too. You both become quite aware that you (the jammer) no longer have any decisions to be made; now all the heat is on the person facing the decision. Anything that makes opponents uncomfortable is a good thing. :)
In the past, I would mostly only go all-in late in the hand, generally on the river, and usually as a raise, not a bet. And I'd pretty much have to be certain about it, like I'd need the nuts, or close to it. In short, I'd thought of it more as a value bet...something I'd want to be called and would use to maximize my return. I'm trying to work it more into a bluffing/semi-bluffing strategy, though, just to balance things out a bit more and, hopefully, win a few more pots. :) But anyway...so there's that. Just another thing to chew over.
Bonus: As an extra bit of entertainment from Wednesday's session, we had a guy at the table fold a couple bills in half lengthwise into a "V" shape, put a chip on top of one end, and balance the whole contraption on his nose like a circus seal. It was pretty cool! You don't get that kind of stuff with online poker!
