Keeping Warm in Winter

[TheSnapper]

AA hand,

would need a really good read / reason to fold here, there are lots of bluffs and weaker made hands in his flop raising range. He bets strongly at the

turn

when lots of his range should slow down (assuming he is semi decent), I would suspect him to have nuts or air now and there are a lot more combos of air thus it is less likely he has 57,A5 also though dependent on your cbet frequency, its a good spot to bluff raise your flop bet on a flop that should be perceived as missing your range.

Shoving the flop would be bad in as much as you don"t want to discourage his bluffs from firing the turn.

77 and 66 hands,

Much prefer to keep these in my raising range, actually I don"t think its good to open limp ever. Would be curious as to what hands are in your open limp range and would suspect it to be very small and thus very transparent. For example in the 66 hand, on a flop of   , as your ranges currently stand............

when you limp preflop you are very likely to have set or oesd.

when you raise preflop, you can never have a set.

Maybe the oppo in the AA hand had this figured?

[HOLDorFOLD]

Working over Christmas was a REALLY good idea, it seems everybody else has to go back to work today and I am still of for the rest of the week. I see Des has given a clue that the first event of season 6 may possibly be the last weekend of Feb.

Going to play online today of course, hopefully get a good few hands in but not at home so playing on my laptop without my main setup so volume might be a little lower. Will start off with cash games but likely to switch to the MTT"s later today to start on the aim of 30.

FYP

Liking your early stats btw Steve.  Hopefully some form of charts will follow.  I really love charts!

[AAroddersAA]

Some good point to answer above. Yet another great post by Brendan, his anaysis is excellent, what happened to Noble btw, is he still missing in Canada? Loving Michelles chart much better than anything I could have come up with, mine would have been boring stuff about poker, although her"s is a bit optimistic imo. And of course DES POSTED IN MY THREAD. I feel so, well nearly important *lol*. Will address Brendans points in a post of their own as they deserve it. A review of this morning:-

Not a good start to the session today, although I don"t think I did too much wrong. At the start of the session I was just running below par in general. C-bets were not working for example. Then one by one these hands came up.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3940063

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3940064

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3940067

Could not have done anything about any of those hands. They are just those type of hands that are going to happen from time to time which are basically coolers. I like the way I played in them all.

This one might be a bit tougher.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3940073

His hand does look a lot like a flush draw and I think OTR he either has some kind of ace or a flush. He would be more likely to raise the flop or bet the turn with an ace though. I actually still think it is fine, it is posted on Blonde Poker though so I will find out if I am wrong soon enough.

I also had a hand which I can"t convert but it"s another one I am unsure of but it can be found here. Please feel free to comment either on the PHA thread or in here http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=56312.0

I also had a few plays that were pretty much fine go wrong and I ended up down by about $70. At this stage I thought that maybe I should come off, I thought I was still confident of playing well though and that there was no reason to change any of the tables I was playing. Then I get a slice of good luck when this happens.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3940078

I really did not think he was that strong on the flop and thought he had an ace, decided not to raise (which would have been slightly better actually as he probably calls if he does have the ace and if he doesn"t I don"t get much more out of him anyway). I didn"t think he had the flush on the turn but though he might have a single club so did not want to give him a cheap draw or lose value if he did not have a club. The river is the perfect card for me as I now beat everything and shoving here is a great play. A lot of people at this level will call with hands like AQ or AJ. I was lucky in this hand but it"s swings and roundabouts.

I then stack KK with 66 after making a set on the flop - totally standard hand where I call his preflop raise from the blinds and lead into him and get it allin on the turn.

Then things start to work and I am back to being less than a buyin down. I then make a mistake on a hand where I win when I misread the board and call on the river when I should have shoved but that only costs me about $6 as that was all my opponent had left but this hand still brings me close to being level. The hand below brings me into a small profit for the session. I do miss a bet OTR in this hand as well maybe?

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3940081

I am very happy with my play in that session as I was running bad to start with but continued to play well and make good plays. I do think this is what i need to be doing more often but talking myself through it on here helps with it. It would have been very easy to give it up when I was running bad but I did not do that and I did not let it effect my play.

The stats for today so far are:-

Hands = 1028
VP$IP = 9.73%
PRF = 8.07%
3-Bet = 4.09%
Profit = $4.13
bb/100 = 0.8

Volume remains good and I have now played a total of 5281 hands this year so looking good to do 15K this month. I need to do 10K per month to hit the target of course but this month is when I have some spare time off work so looking to get a good start. Now have 315 VPP"s this month so going along well enough on that as well.

May play some more cash later or may play some more MTT games.

[TheSnapper]

I also had a hand which I can"t convert but it"s another one I am unsure of but it can be found here. Please feel free to comment either on the PHA thread or in here http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=56312.0

The stats for today so far are:-

Hands = 1028
VP$IP = 9.73%
PRF = 8.07%
3-Bet = 4.09%
Profit = $4.13
bb/100 = 0.8

Assuming you were beat in the above hand where you check called the river for $4.30, folding that hand in that spot saves 17 bb"s, doubles your profit and doubles your win rate. Which leads to a thought provoking Noble"esque type question,

Of the $4.13 profit, what percentage is directly attributable to spots where you lost less than you should have?

[AAroddersAA]

You mean lost the minimum right? I find this a difficult one to answer.

I would say the hand where I make the straight against the flush I lost the minimum, or did I just lose value by not raising the river as long term it is profitable to do so? Not sure so, did I really lose the minimum or was just calling bad?

Didn"t really get any other spots like that one today, although the AA hand we were discussing yesterday I do believe I lose less than I am meant to long term in that spot. I am in the middle of responding to you previous post regarding as it takes some doing.

[AAroddersAA]

Responding to Brendan :-)

"Would need a really good read / reason to fold here, there are lots of bluffs and weaker made hands in his raising range"

It"s possible that he has an overpair here and is raising the flop with the overpair. The fact that all indications were that he was a capable player also supports your view. However at the most basic level the way he has played the hand says I am beaten. I would say it is more correct to say that there SHOULD be lots of bluffs in his range. I honestly don"t think many players are capable of exploiting this spot. Not many players do this often. To be honest I am not even convinced bluffing here is actually good, although it does look like a good spot to do so, well in all honesty it"s a great spot.

From his point of view, even if he is able to put me on a hand like AA, and been able to figure out I can"t have a set, he can"t know that I am going to fold it, a lot of people would call anyway. He could be making a play thinking I have something like AK. AK sometimes plays like I have and gives up when it misses the turn. We are giving the player a lot of credit here though, more than I believe we should give most $25nl players unless we have something that tells us they are able to do this. I am not saying most of them are bad but we are talking quite high level here for most $25nl players. You would not go into this level of thinking in a live 50p/£1 game these games are not of a standard that is THAT much higher than those games. It is also FR which makes a bluff less likely. The best approach to take here is that most spots are what they look like, treat them as such. By doing otherwise we are inventing a dynamic which is probably not there.

"Shoving the flop would be bad in as much as you don"t want to discourage his bluffs from firing the turn"

I think this is 100% correct in this spot, if you are sticking it in anyway then may as well give him the chance to put more in. Calling also gives you the chance to reassess on the turn which I think is important.

On 66 and 77

"Much prefer to keep these in my raising range, actually I don"t think its good to open limp ever. Would be curious as to what hands are in your open limp range and would suspect it to be very small and thus very transparent"

It"s is very transparent. Again it does depend on the other players being observant but it is easier to do that the above, much easier. In later position small pairs should be rasied like they would be in 6-max games. You can limp call small pairs in early position profitably if you are just set mining. It might be easier to just fold them though but at the moment I am finding the EP limp in to be OK. Again, at the end of the day, it will make you money in these games - especially in FR. You are (as usual) right that player"s SHOULD be able to tell when I make a set. It"s esay enough I check fold when I miss the set and come out betting and raising when I hit, it usually works fine though and big pairs still pay me off. Again it"s what players actually do that matters not what they should do.

BUT.. Looking at this, you are right, it is getting towards being to easy to exploit. small and mid pairs are the only hands I would do this with. I don"t play SC 100BB deep as they don"t play well and I am always raising big pairs and big aces. If I limp from EP I can only have some kind of small pair and if I call a raise and still want to play after the flop I can only have a set. It works fine and I do wonder how easy it is to spot this at the table. Saying that, one reason I did not like doing it was that I found that I was raising 4xbb and then a big pair would repop to between 10-12BB and 100BB deep I am not really abot to call that profitably. I have recently altered my opening raise to 3xBB so this might make it easier to call as reraises are generally smaller. Next month I will move them to the raising range, it will be interesting to compare the result"s.

Overall I would say that limp calling with small pairs in fine in these games but why not try the alternative as it may be better.

Where do you get these hourly figures from, it"s a very interesting point if the numbers are reliable. But you might also consider that Stars charge about 8% more rake per 100 hands.

Meant to also answer this. The stats did not come from anywhere reliable just by adding up the average on Genting compared to Stars at the time of the post. I would expect them to be pretty accurate though might try it later though (one table on each for an hour). I had no idea about the 8% difference though which is pretty massive tbh.

[TheSnapper]

You mean lost the minimum right? I find this a difficult one to answer.

I would say the hand where I make the straight against the flush I lost the minimum, or did I just lose value by not raising the river as long term it is profitable to do so? Not sure so, did I really lose the minimum or was just calling bad?

Didn"t really get any other spots like that one today, although the AA hand we were discussing yesterday I do believe I lose less than I am meant to long term in that spot. I am in the middle of responding to you previous post regarding as it takes some doing.

Take as an example the K9s hand when the board runs out....



Let"s assume we hold a better hand and we illicit a call from our opponent of our decent sized river value bet. We would be correctly and suitably elated at having owned our opponent.

Let"s now assume villain holds a better hand and we correctly fold to his river value bet. We should also recognise this correct fold as having equally owned our opponent and on the bottom line, the $4.30 saved will have the same value as the $4.30 gained in the previous example but we tend not to value the two scenarios equally.

[AAroddersAA]

Decided to have a small session this evening on the cash tables to help the hand count. Wanted to play about 500 hands as this should not take too long. It was going quite well, then I made probably my worst mistake I have made for a while. This is so bad because I know it is wrong and I have gone through hand histories several time to prove to myself that this exact spot is -EV.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3941599

Yuck that"s awful play :-( The guy who 4 bet had only been at the table for two orbits and had three bet twice so I convinced myself it was a good spot, it never ever is. One poor play turns what could have been a decent day into a basically break even day !!!!

Session was fairly standard apart from that won a couple of small pots. I think this might be an example of what Brendan was talking about earlier when he said about folding in the right spot, I would not normally post this as there is not much to discuss about it but as it has been mentioned.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3941604

I wonder if I can save more money by just check calling the turn in this kind of spot? I can"t give it up on the turn for sure. What Brendan was pointing out above was that money saved is as good as money won. This spot sort of demonstrates that quite nicely and is something all cash players should be aware of. I will try and include more of these types of hands when I review sessions.

This might also be an example, but could also just be too nitty, the reason for this one is that the 3-better has not 3 bet in any of over 250 hands I have on him, a quick check in PT (after the hand) showed that he had flat called with AK before and also 77. I therefore made a very tight fold here that I think stands a good chance of being right.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3941608

I think both of these plus, the AA hand from yesterday and maybe the hand where I make the straight against the flush are examples of saving money where I could lose more. It"s sometimes hard to say of these examples are good examples of this or just hands where I have failed to maximise long term value though although the QQ vs AA one above is a good one.

Something I find more difficult is doing the oppposite and maxing the value in marginal spots. I sometimes think I miss bets when I should be extracting more value. Maybe like this one from earlier, although tbh this one is probably fine. Not much is likely to call OTR that I beat.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3940081

Evening session went like this:-

Hands = 598
Profit = $2.50 (due to the poor play with AK)

Overall Month To Date

Hands = 5879
VP$IP = 11.26%
PFR = 7.93%
3-Bet = 3.53%
BB/100 = 7.43
Total Profit = $96.07
VPP = 360

I think I have spent enough time on the nlhe tables for now and I am ahead of the required hand rate. So tomorrow and maybe Friday will be spent on the MTT sit n go"s. I should have no issue hitting the 15K hands this month so can afford to leave the cash tables for a couple of days. I also need to do one some PLO sessions. I can"t multi table as well at PLO therefore the volume target is quite low.

[Bigfella42]

Great reading and some interesting hands there - the QQ fold in hand 2 is one that most players at those stakes could not make IMO.

Apologies if this is covered earlier in this blog but what poker software do you use, what stats do you focus on from that software, and how important is it to your online game? Do you keep other notes on players or is the tracker all you need? I"m interested as I don"t use any software myself, as my online volume is quite low, but am looking to up that this year so may need to prepare properly.

Final question. At what stage would you move up stakes?

[AAroddersAA]

Great reading and some interesting hands there - the QQ fold in hand 2 is one that most players at those stakes could not make IMO.

Apologies if this is covered earlier in this blog but what poker software do you use, what stats do you focus on from that software, and how important is it to your online game? Do you keep other notes on players or is the tracker all you need? I"m interested as I don"t use any software myself, as my online volume is quite low, but am looking to up that this year so may need to prepare properly.

Final question. At what stage would you move up stakes?

No intention to move up stakes atm. It would come down to feeling much more confident in my game than I do over a long period of time, I have never been able to consistently beat $50nl on Pokerstars although I have not really given it much of a go as I have always been more profitable at $25. Could be a mindset thing.

I use Poker Tracker as I always have although generally Hold "em Manager is considered better

My HUD is set as:-

VP$IP / PFR / 3-bet / fold to 3-bet
Flop c-bet / fold to flop c-bet
Turn c-bet / fold to turn c-bet

I likt to keep notes of any bet sizing tells, if a player will limp/fold pre and what min bets and donk bets mean, my player note are quite simple.

The HUD will win you and save you some bets and win you some pots by helping you to double barrell it also help you put a player on a range of hands. A player who has a VP$IP of between 12% and 15% is probably just playing prem hands and pairs for example. So if you get one of these who folds to lots of c-bets you know you can c-bet any flop and expect to make a profit.

One of the players from Blonde sort of taught me to use them but I am nowhere near as good as some people over there. I could function quite well without a HUD, you should not need one to make a profit but they do help quite a bit.

[AAroddersAA]

Played two of the little 180 manners last night. Did not cash in either so I am currently down $22.50 at those, don"t think I have done too wrong in them but I have not yet run well enough in one to get really deep.

Tried to play some PLO today. That did not go too well though. It has been a while since I played and I think that showed be begin with. I don"t really understand why this would be the case, but I did feel off form. I made some questionable 3-bets pre and probably called off to light in some spots, thinking of one main hand here.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3945927

Then I went too passive for a while, not raising enough. Also ran more than 4.5 buyin"s below EV, which is easy enough to do in PLO. Also kept running into the top of opponents range. Making good bets and have them go wrong.

These kind of spots kept coming up where nobody really does anything wrong but I lose the pot.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3945871
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3945873
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3945874

This hand shows why you should NEVER make loose calls OOP in this game. The flop play is fine but I should not have been in the hand really.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3945875

Probably the worst mistake of the session I would say is this one, I have no idea why I don"t raise / get it in on the flop. If I play this hand right and win it I break even for the session (actually end up with small profit).

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3945728

Still $45 below EV is always going to be tough to turn around so not going to worry about a losing day when that happens. I know where I went wrong in most spots and again if I maintain this level of play over the year I will win.

Hands = 830
VP$IP = 23.37%
PFR = 14%
3-Bet = 5%
Todays loss = $23.66
VPP month to date = 463

[AAroddersAA]

I was watching sky poker today for the first time for ages. Is it me or are the "experts" terrible except for Tikay? Luke Schwartz was on earlier today though and he was really good. I suppose they have to be careful what they say though. They can"t really come out with "that was a terrible play, what a donkey".

Having taken a break after earlier session I was going to play some sitngo MTT"s but I decided to play some more PLO as I am now fresh again, I find a deep stacked table that is actually running so go an that. There is one very agressive player on there and I get into a few pots against him. There is one hand where I have the nut str8 on the turn, hw has two pair, and we somehow get it allin (for a pot of about $60) he rivers the str8 for the split, oh well I guess he could have made a house. I then raise with AAKJ with one part suited and flop a flush draw and bet, he calls, I bet the turn, he calls I miss the flush and check the river and he bets full pot, I sigh and fold. Then I make a set of tens against him and he calls my raise on the flop, he check calls my turn bet and the river completes flush draws and str8 draws and he fires full pot. I fold. I win one back when he tries to bluff me off top two pair when the board remains safe.

Then this happens. It"s a really interesting hand which shows how much fun really deep stacked PLO can be and why PLO 100BB deep, whilst a good game, is not the same as there are so many things going on in this hand that would not happen 100bb deep as it would all be in on the flop.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3947440

I was a bit lucky in this hand but I knew what I was doing. I have position (playing this hand out of position would be wrong due to the reverse implied odds it creates) and I can get away from this if I need to. The flop is near perfect. I lose to 44 but I can"t be scared of that I expect him to bet the flop which he does. I expect him to call my raise wide, he does call. He could have a number of overpairs here as he does not like folding very much and has been mixing it up with me quite a bit. He could have a 2 in his range here for sure. I doubt he has 44 as he would want to get it in.

Then he checks the turn which is an ace. I bet out $5 (this is too small btw in this spot) he just calls. I am a little confused as he should now not be calling with an overpair to the flop now the ace is there. A2 should try and get it in really, he could be slow playing AA but I think he tries to get that in as well. I now think he must have a 2 of some kind.

Then he fires big OTR which is a 9. I am not folding, but am a bit worried he might have a better FH given he has now led out big after two check/calls, this line can be quite strong and if he had a marginal hand (like a 2 on it"s own) he should be check calling really. I know he can be bluffing here though so I have to at least call. I honestly did not consider the straight. I probably should have shoved, he is not going to fold a 2 for another $8 and I really don"t think AA or A2 are that likely given how it played out.

I played on to complete the 1000 hands of PLO I said I would play, didn"t intend to do it in a day so if I get time I will play some more. I am happy enough with the volume I have got in this week. I am winning at Cash in both NLHE and PLo at the moment. I am not winning at the MTT"s but these have a lot of luck involved so you have to expect some dray runs in those.

Overall PLO today

Hands = 1002
VP$IP = 24%
PFR = 13%
3-Bet = 3.56%
Todays Profit = $15.22
BB/100 = 7.59

VPP"s this month = 498

In the end I only ran $35 below EV so was $10 above EV in that little session tonight.

#swingsandroundabouts

[AAroddersAA]

Decided to play some hands to get my holdem hands up to 6000 for the month. Lost about $10 over not much happened, I made a questionable call on the turn one hand but other than that is was OK.

I am trying to do some work on my MTT"s today. I am not as confident in my MTT game as I am in playing cash. Although I generally do fine I know I make fundamental ICM mistakes and my shoving and calling ranges are probably off by a bit.

I intended to play 3 of the $4.50 ones but accidentally registered for one of the $2.20 turbo"s during which I ended up shoving AT with 11BB from the SB into the BB AQ so that was pretty standard.

In the $4.50"s I was playing here are some intersting hands.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949242

I honestly am not sure what I am meant to do here, it"s a shove or fold spot. I certainly shove from late position but what I should do from here I can"t honestly say I am 100% sure.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949315

Here is another one, the limper is playing 19/0 over 36 hands (so has limped in 6 times). Am I supposed to shove here from the BB as it will add 20% to my stack?

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949319

Another very similar hand, limper is playing 40/13. I guess a shove has to be profitable against his range right?

Exit hands are of course important, of the two that I played today one was just KK into AA which is totally standard and can"t be avioded. Pretty sure the other one is fine as well.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949321

MTT results so far this year

Total played = 8
Total buy in"s = $34
Total cashes = $0
ROI = -100%

More to come later

[AAroddersAA]

Then I took a break and came back to play another two, they take ages *lol*

Went out of the first one like this:-

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949690

Flame away if there is anything wrong with this. I know I am not meant too go broke in an unraised pot :-) but this seemed a very simple bet on the flop once the ace falls I can"t automatically think they have it can I? Should I check call?

The last one went well though and I finished second for $147.60. Here are some of the hands

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949691

Skill game - well I was going to raise BvB there and I can"t really raise/fold with my stack

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949693 - About an orbit later I think
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949695 - Not sure but I think this is OK
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949696 - I like the semi bluff here he can"t call unless he has the Jack and I have outs
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949697 - This guy had three bet above average so hand is standard
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949700 - On final table - is a check/call better? I think I like winning it there tbh

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949701

This hand is quite cool as Pokerjeng had started to reshove and had done so quite a bit so I was expecting it and gussed that if the BB had half a hand he might try the "resteal

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3949702 - this is the final hand of the tournament

So I finish second, it is worth saying I got very lucky apart from what I have shown you above I was having to shove light quite a bit but you can only pick your spots right and hope the cards are on your side. This week they seem to be with me.

Please feel free to comment on any of this and tell me if I could have done anything better. There are plenty of better tournament players than me reading this I expect so the advice will be gratefully recieved.

MTT games
--------------

Total played = 10
Total buy in"s = $43
Total cashes = $147.60
Total Profit = $104.60

[samson]

Hi Rodders
Looking at the 77 hand, that was something i was folding oop, but watched mondatoo just before xmas when he was smashing up the $35 180s and he was shoving these sorts of hands in these positions.

Don"t know if its the same at our levels though

might be worth getting Ray or James on blonde to take a look at the hands