Remaining calm and friendly in the face of coolers/beats sounds like a good thing to aspire to, I have no problem remaining calm playing 10nl online but I'll probably be an emotional wreck the first time I play 1/2 live!
I feel your mtt frustration, seems to be happening to me a lot lately too.
Thanks for the kind words micro. Any thoughts on JT hand from anyone? (The river has an error - should say "2 players" obv.)
Haven't played any poker since Wednesday cause I was visiting my girlfriend this weekend, but I'm back at school now. The next couple weeks are going to be pretty busy work-wise, so I might not get much grind in. Then it's spring break. I'll be spending half of that in NYC working on my senior thesis, and the other half back in Cleveland, but my girlfriend is coming up to visit me. So it's doubtful I'll play ANY poker over the break unless I play in a private game in NYC.
I would have played it the same Scourge. The JT hand i mean.
edit:I enjoy reading the behind the scenes thought process, as i can totally relate to the line you take and why . keep it up man. good stuff really and great contributions to the forum.
Well, I was pretty diligent and got a lot of job App stuff out of the way earlier this week, so I'm actually headed to the shoe now for a long and (hopefully) profitable session. Will try to do a full update when I return. Then I'm running a home game tomorrow with baby buyins (will probably be $10 for 100 bb, but try to encourage some deep play). Have a choir concert on Monday so we have rehearsal Sunday afternoon, which kind of sucks, but oh well.
Well, here it is. The post I didn't want to have to write. The update I didn't want to have to give. But the moment is here, and I'm not going to let my disappointment and feelings of inadequacy stop me from posting and trying to learn from this.
I'm just gonna come out and say it: I lost more than 40% of my bankroll in the last two days. I joined a private online game that I'm not going to go into any details about, but suffice it to say that I played about 200 hands of $1/$2 online yesterday, and lost nearly 3 BI's. The play is basically like a live game, so I kind of tried to think about it like an 8-hour session so I wouldn't feel as bad, but there it was: -$540.
There were certainly some hands I massacred, or where I just wasn't sure what to do and took an aggro line. I was also way too loose preflop. This was partly a byproduct of the dynamics, since everyone else was so loose and relatively passive. But it was also partly some laziness and lack of discipline on my part. In this hand, I thought I was gonna get him to fold out basically any 6x. And he might have... if he had had 6x:
$1/$2 Home Game No Limit Holdem pokerstars
7 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Turn: 9<font color='red'>♥</font> ($75, 2 players)
CO checks, scourrge bets $48, CO calls $48
River: 3<font color='black'>♠</font> ($171, 2 players)
CO checks, scourrge bets $108, CO goes all-in $98
Final Pot:$367
CO shows a pair of Tens
10<font color='black'>♠</font> 10<font color='red'>♥</font>
scourrge shows a pair of Fives
5<font color='black'>♣</font> 10<font color='black'>♣</font>
CO wins $350 (net +$177)
scourrge collects $10 (net -$173)
BB lost $7
MP lost $7
SB lost $7
In other hands, I just straight up confused myself entirely. In this next hand, my turn thought process was: "The board is wet, so he's going to bet every Ax in his range, and when I basically x/min-jam he's not going to get away." Clearly flawed, but there you go:
$1/$2 Home Game No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
7 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Final Pot:$296
BTN shows a flush, Ace high
Q:spade: 9:spade:
scourrge shows three of a kind, Sixes
6:club: 6:diamond:
BTN wins $283 (net +$144)
CO lost $6
SB lost $6
BB lost $6
scourrge lost $139
I guess technically it can never be THAT bad, since I have outs, but I think I actually took the nut worst line. I think x/c turn x/f non-paired river is best.
Then today I played live and dumped 2 BI's in just a few hours. It felt brutal, especially because I was up a BI within my first half hour at the table. I'm not going to go any hands right in this moment, because most of them were standard, or really good spots where I just ran into the tops of ranges, OR the mistake I made was pretty obvious. One thing I need to start drilling into my head is having my default be to fold when facing x/r's.
When all was said and done tonight, my roll was decreased to about 7 BI's for 1/2. I'm back to where I was when I first started playing live, and it's frankly not a good feeling. I'm terrified to even look up hypothetical risk-of-ruin calculations, especially since those assume a win-rate.
And yeah, as stupid as it may sound, things like these shake my confidence to an astounding degree. I'm technically a losing player in live games. 95% of the time when I sit down at a live table, I'm confident I'm the best player at the table. Often, it's not even close. But despite this, having terrible results over what feels like a long time is really starting to get to me.
But I need to take a step back. My hours right now are not very high. My sample is close to meaningless, so why get bothered by it? The truth is, if I had a bigger roll, I might not be bothered by it at all. After all, I've only lost about 5 BI's in the last few days. If I had a 30 BI roll, and was clearly a winning player, would I give a crap? Probably not. But I have to realize that even if I bust my roll, I'll be back. I might have to take a break from poker until I've got a disposable income. But I think part of the panic setting in is the realization that I could very easily bust my bankroll. And I really don't want to.
This post started to get a little heavy and depressing, but I'm getting something out of it. So I hope no one feels too bad for me or whatever. I'm trying really hard not to feel bad for myself. Or about myself. Or something.
Keep your head up, man. Take a break and clear your head if you need it. At 1/2, tighten up and believe everyone. Their actions are rarely deceiving.
As far as your bankroll, obviously it's not an optimal situation, but you still have 7 buy ins. I was down to 4 at one point. You can build it up. Don't even think about it during your next session. You're not going to lose it all during that session.
It took me a little bit longer than it usually does to bounce back from a bad loss last night, but I did eventually end up feeling okay about it. I'm obviously not EXCITED about my bankroll situation, but I'm excited to get back into the mix. Though I think I may try to focus on some study before I get back to the live scene again. I also think that last session was good, because I had a few lessons hammered home a bit more. Particularly as Sand is mentioning about people usually having what they are representing.
There were two spots in particular that were very tough for me. One spot, I iso'd with KK and got 3 callers. I cbet on a T84 two tone board and a short stack raised all in. I had this frustrating feeling that I was guaranteed to be beat (the player SEEMED to be on the tighter side so far, and hadn't done much betting postflop), but the board was so draw-heavy that I couldn't get myself to fold getting 4:1. He had top set and I lost.
The other spot, I raised AKo in a straddled pot and got 3 callers again. The flop was a favorable AQ5, two tone again. It checked to me, I bet about 60% pot, and someone check-raised all-in for $50 more (I was getting 2.6:1 this time). He was an unknown, and I begrudgingly made the call. The river brought a flush, but that was irrelevant, as he turned over AQ for flopped top two.
I also ran a few bluffs where I got people to tank with the absolute tops of their ranges, but in the end got called down. All in all I think they were good spots, and I may post them a little later, since I don't post a ton of my bluff lines here.
Just a quick shoutout to Sand for being awesome and listening to my rants as they occur in the moment when I feel the shittiest. I'm sure they're sometimes funny, but they're sometimes def just annoying, so thanks for putting up with me. I'm hurt but not beaten, knocked down but I'm getting back up. Unfortunately my schedule gets very crazy for the next couple weeks, but hopefully I'll get some poker study in at a minimum, and maybe some grind time too.
There were certainly some hands I massacred, or where I just wasn't sure what to do and took an aggro line. I was also way too loose preflop. This was partly a byproduct of the dynamics, since everyone else was so loose and relatively passive. But it was also partly some laziness and lack of discipline on my part.
I was so hoping this update wasn't going to be what it turned out to be .
It's hard for me to comment here without sounding like an a-hole, so please don't take it that way. BUT I can't help shaking my head in disbelief at hand 1, a suited 4 gapper after a raise & call you're discipline was looking so much better of late. IMHO you really need to take a good hard look at the emotions and ego you seem to be investing in your games. Your writings make me envious at times for how clear you can make the game read, wish I had half your talent in this regard. I sincerely hope you can put these last 2 sessions into perspective, learn from them and come out feeling better about what the future holds for you. I think you have it in you to both enjoy and profit form $200NL.
I was so hoping this update wasn't going to be what it turned out to be .
It's hard for me to comment here without sounding like an a-hole, so please don't take it that way. BUT I can't help shaking my head in disbelief at hand 1, a suited 4 gapper after a raise & call you're discipline was looking so much better of late. IMHO you really need to take a good hard look at the emotions and ego you seem to be investing in your games. Your writings make me envious at times for how clear you can make the game read, wish I had half your talent in this regard. I sincerely hope you can put these last 2 sessions into perspective, learn from them and come out feeling better about what the future holds for you. I think you have it in you to both enjoy and profit form $200NL.
You don't sound like an a-hole at all, Jilly, and sometimes I need that wake up call. The truth is I was tilting in the middle of that game, and it was subtle enough that I didn't jam all in pre with 72o, but I was still making very questionable plays pre, and I didn't have the awareness to step back and notice really.
But I do want to push back on something you said (or at least the wording of it): "Your discipline was looking so much better of late." This, to me (though I might just be getting defensive, so sorry if I'm misinterpreting), suggests that I've either not progressed, or taken a giant step backward, which just isn't accurate imo. Discipline is a skill, not an on-off switch that once flipped will never change. My discipline is miles ahead of where it was as little as a few months ago, but that doesn't mean I don't lapse sometimes. The fact that it really only lapses when I tilt is pretty solid in and of itself, imo. It's obviously not ideal, and I'd like to be at the point where my preflop game is so honed that I literally NEVER make a mistake like that, even in tilt. But there's time for that. Some of the factors that came into play here were:
- Busting some of my online rolls recently
- The game playing like a loose, live 1/2 game
- Being online (can be tougher to reign it in when the action is so much faster and you can just "click buttons")
- Not having played (live or online) in over a week
Not using the above as an excuse so much as an explanation.
As for the emotions I'm investing in my games, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by investing. First off, it's not like I'm sitting down with a financial advisor and deciding that I want losing at poker to hurt. This is never something I've wanted, and even though this obviously isn't how you meant it, to me it sounds like another on-off switch. But second, mental game is probably the single biggest thing I've worked on in poker, both in terms of the effort I've put in, and my appreciation for its enormity. So I guess basically: I know exactly what you're saying, and I'm working and have been working on it for quite some time now.
As for ego, I'm actually not 100% sure how you mean this. If you mean how much self-esteem I attach to it I think you're right. Actually I know you're right. I suffer from all of the following, in varying degrees, in no particular order:
- Entitlement tilt
- Hate losing tilt
- Mistake tilt
- Injustice tilt
- Running bad tilt
So, yeah, ego is definitely in there somewhere I guess. I clearly care a lot about winning and playing well. You strike me as someone who doesn't really struggle much with the mental game, and I think it's often tough for someone like you and me to have a conversation about these things. I tilt, you rationalize. I understand the rationalization perfectly - from a rational standpoint. But tilt isn't rational, and the reasons I tilt aren't something I can easily control. As someone once said, "if it was easy, everyone would do it."
I fear this reply came across far more defensively than I meant it to, but I think it's a good record for how I reacted to your thoughts - so I'll keep it as it is. But I do want to leave with this: Thank you for taking the time and energy to write thoughtfully about what are ultimately my problems. You're under no obligation to do so, and I really appreciate your insight
I think what he meant by ego is sitting down at a table and realizing your edge a little too strongly, if that makes sense? Like it's fine to sit down and realize we are better than the rest, but we have to keep it under control and still play solid ya know? When I play live, even if I feel an edge over the table, I try not to "feel it" and just play my A game.
All in all, it happens. 5Ts was pretty bad, even on tilt, but it does happen. Get yer study on, relax, and bounce back in an even higher form! Gl Matt!
Yeah, I mean I don't mean "better than" like "I will win and I don't even have to try."
On my way back from the casino last night I was actually thinking on very similar lines. Basically, it's not about "being better" per se, but about PLAYING better than your opponents, every time you sit down at the table.
I'm headed to my first meal of the day, and then a session. I kind of got lax on my sessional foci, so I'm gonna start making that a mandatory part of going to the casino in the first place. Today's foci, in order of importance:
1. Stay tight preflop: I'm on a VERY tight bankroll right now, and staying tight preflop will curb variance to some degree. On top of this, making this my focus will mean I'll be in fewer marginal spots postflop, will usually know where I'm at and how to play my hand, and I'll be less likely to tilt at any point because of it.
2. THINK IN RANGES: So many times I get into trouble because I stop thinking through ranges and take a default line that isn't appropriate if I'd just taken a step back and thought about ranges.
3. Make every action in the context of villain tendencies, the board texture, and my image: This speaks for itself, but tying together 2 and 3 is what takes me from my B- game to my A+ game.
If I can take all of these into consideration, I'm way more likely to play well and crush. Thank you all for your support - you guys are amazing and always blow me away with the effort of your replies. I appreciate it more than you can possibly know. So thank you again.
I think you would play better as a backed player IMO. You're just do good,smart, and thoughtfull for this. I think the pressure of playing with someone else's money would help you.
Hey maybe i could be that guy, who knows....
Tbh I think there is a ton of pressure from playing with a small bankroll. I tried to get backed a while ago but that fell through and was honestly pretty frustrating. I didn't think to try again, though frankly I would be interested. If you're serious, send me a PM and we can talk.
It's not the pressure of being backed so much as the security I think. I'm at the point where having a few bad sessions in a row is going to threaten my bankroll. So it would make sense. But at the same time, it would really hinder my ability to ever move up. Even with a solid win rate (which there is no proof I even have) it would take a while to move up. But meh.
In case you haven't guessed from my tone, I had a losing session. -2 buyins. But unlike the last two sessions, I played damn close to my A+ game. I'll update with hands when I'm not on my phone on the way back, but it was incredibly frustrating being on one of the craziest tables I've ever been on, and having to fold 95% of my hands preflop, half of my hands that make it to the flop, and then either getting coolered, bad beat, or no action with my value hands.
I know this probably comes across as whiney, but that's not really how I mean it. The last three or four times that I've been in extreme juicy games, I've done quite badly. So it's getting tiresome to have my supposedly huge EV days consistently come up short.
You already know all of this, but it can't hurt to reiterate anyway.
You are truly running bad/in a downswing. This past month I was running bad for 100+ hours and experienced:
- Being card dead for what seemed like an eternity
- Getting tons of good starting hands but whiffing every flop entirely
- Smashing flops and never getting paid off
- Connecting strongly with boards but having to fold
- Sessions where I'd make a profit right off the rip and end up leaving a loser anyway
It's important to remember the downside of live poker: much lower volume over a greater period of time. The fact that you don't play more than once or twice per week on average is really going to make extended downswings seem brutal. I play 5-6 days every week and I was still in a downswing for almost an entire month. Your status as an online player might also amplify things a bit mentally since you are used to seeing more hands over a short period of time.
If you want, we can go over some more hands when you have time. Maybe write down every hand for a half hour or an hour straight during a live session so we can examine some more standard spots. I'm not sure I can offer you anything you don't already know, but it can't hurt to get a fresh perspective on certain spots.
I'd also like to leave you with a little more advice. I'm not sure if you've read The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler. I recently started reading it and he presented a concept that has helped me put things into perspective: the inchworm model. No poker player will ever play his A game at all times and will never avoid playing his C game at least occasionally, so it is important to improve both. Whenever you feel that you are playing your C game, either tactically or mentally, do not compare it with your A game. Think about how it measures up to the last time you were playing your worst.
As always, keep your head up, Scourrge. Things will change eventually, and you'll look back and realize how helpful to you it actually was.
All the best with turning it around Scourrge. I have no doubt you will as a great player/thinker of the game. Agree with the others here re taking at least some space to look at what is happening, relaxing about it, study some - it is the mental game side of things more so than the technical side.
In terms of A-game, feeling or realizing our edge etc, fwiw one of the things I try and remind myself is: regardless of how much I improve, to remain humble, considered, confident, cautious and aggressive as a rule. The contradictory ideas therein actually compliment each other in my mind given that, once obv essentials are in place, the actual game fluctuates so much hand to hand, session to session.
Also keep in mind that I'm going to classify > 95% of the player pool as "bad." I'm not claiming to be an amazing player (yet), but I still find that in terms of decisions I see made at the table, both preflop and postflop, I'm almost always the best player at the table, sometimes with a "ainec."
May just be the way these sound to me in MY head. Might you be sitting down at a table and make a judgement about where you rank and then expect your stack size to reflect?
1. Stay tight preflop: I'm on a VERY tight bankroll right now, and staying tight preflop will curb variance to some degree. On top of this, making this my focus will mean I'll be in fewer marginal spots postflop, will usually know where I'm at and how to play my hand, and I'll be less likely to tilt at any point because of it.
2. THINK IN RANGES: So many times I get into trouble because I stop thinking through ranges and take a default line that isn't appropriate if I'd just taken a step back and thought about ranges.
3. Make every action in the context of villain tendencies, the board texture, and my image: This speaks for itself, but tying together 2 and 3 is what takes me from my B- game to my A+ game.
I really really really like the way this sounds in my head. The only thing I could add is 4) Results don't matter, I will lose to 1,2,3,6 outters. Forget that and remember how the hand was played.
@stately: Thanks for your perspective. I agree that staying humble can be a challenge, particularly when encountering players who we categorize as "bad" based on how we perceive their poker skills. I think the thing that most consistently keeps me humble is variance, but not necessarily in a positive way, since usually it keeps me humble in the sense of hurting my confidence and bankroll, sometimes to the point of having to worry about busting. While humility is something I can strive for, it's definitely tough when there are so few live players whose games I respect.
@Jilly: I think I certainly wrote that second part hastily, though I still believe it to be true (though in a particular way). I think that in terms of understanding of strategy and theory, this is definitely true. But this of course doesn't matter if my execution (which is affected heavily by mental game) isn't at a certain level.
Also, I think you completely mistook my meaning in the first thing you quoted. What I meant by that was that players don't have some skill-rating = X or Y, where there is always a guarantee that the player with rating X will beat the player with rating Y, if X > Y. There's no such thing (as being "better" or "worse"). What it's about it playing better than your current opponents - making the most +EV decisions - each time you sit at the table. Not a ranking system against others, but rather a self-oriented goal of playing the best I can.
Your statement about ranking myself and then expecting the outcome to reflect that (every time, rather than over the long-run) is eye-opening - not so much for its novelty, but for its frankness and clear analogy. So thank you.
I think one of the most powerful things about having some sessional focus is that it brings my attention away from my results, and toward the object at hand - making the best decisions possible. And not only does it bring my attention to making the right decisions, but it also reminds me of some of the ways in which I can go about doing so.
I've been writing an update post on-and-off throughout the day, but wanted to post a reply here first. That post should be incoming with a few hands soon, and then I'll hopefully be getting to another online-related update soon after.
Edit: And your suggestion for a 4th focus is of course something I have thought a lot about, but have never considered making as a specific sessional focus - so thanks for that!
Posting a hand in your thread since my thread is w/e lol. I have this situation come up enough that I really want your breakdown of what's going on here. You seem to range everyone pretty well.
I think I can sigh-peel here with SB donk but obv UTG's flat is just lol.
Oh and final note to add. On a scale of 1 to 10 for softness, if Bovada is an 8, then Party NJ is a 10 fwiw. Hence limp-calls and mw pots nonstop and pot-sized donk bets
I think you had a pretty good read on the situation. With the donk and the flat, we're probably looking at:
- Ax and Ax (somewhat unlikely, since that would be the case A on the flop)
- Ax and FD (seems probable)
- FD and some other draw (straight draw, FD, or both maybe)
We also block some of the suited, semi-connected-ish types of hands that would make FD's here. And even against like Ax9c and 87ss we only have like 55% equity, so it's not even like we're crushing in what is probably the best possible spot for us. I expect to see a ton of better Ax and specifically two-pair Ax in SB's pot-donking range. And while UTG can certainly flat with dominated Ax here, he also has some draws and better hands in his range which means he has equity vs. us.
When I start putting in what I consider to be more reasonable ranges, I don't think it looks good for us. I think if SB is a complete idiot and thinks any Ax is a good donk here, we probably have something like 36% equity. If he donks a more reasonable range like A5, A8+ and twopairs and sets then we're basically ****ed with under 30% equity, and a realistic chance of having to fold on a ton of different turn cards, or call and not be sure where we're at. Good fold imo.
Edit1: Oh and fwiw, iso bigger if they're gonna let you.
Edit2: And also, I think it's pretty generous to give SB A5 and like A8 and A9 here, so it's kind of whatever probability you want to assign to him actually being horrific enough to play it like that pre and post. I think realistically we have around 15-18% equity here.
Well my line of thinking was SB had Ax a ton with the way he chose to play it. AT-AQ and since they are both quite passive pre, he wouldn't 3bet them much if ever.
UTG was a fish so it's hard to say. Any strong Ax here should be raising vs draws but he wouldn't fold Ax in this spot. But he pretty much plays everything the same here since he is super passive till the river every time lol.
Just an annoying spot where realistically we should pick up some value, even mw, on board textures like this with medium Ax and yet a donk bet totally throws you off.
Great perspective as always, Sand. It's a goal of mine to start recording more of my hands so I have more of them to post and I don't have to rely on memory as much. I do have a few hands from the last session that I want to post. I think I played damn close to flawlessly this last session, aside from the very last hand, which I'm a bit annoyed with myself about. But as you suggested, I am thinking about how much more broke any of those other players would have been in my spot. I guarantee it would have been much more than 2 BI's.
This session was another one where I won a few pots early, and then it all went downhill from there. This hand was literally my first one played at the table. I waited a hand instead of buying the button (seriously, who pays $3 to see 8 hands when you can see 6 hands for free??), so I was in the CO.
Preflop:
An unknown ($150) opens to $15 from MP, and there are 2 callers (both with about $200) to me. I actually consider folding here, since my sessional goal is preflop awareness, but I decided since there weren't really any short stacks at the table, it was a good spot to flat from the CO. The BTN and the SB flatted behind me, sending us to the flop 5-ways.
Flop: ($70) (5 players)
Interesting flop. It's two tone so I'm not looking to go crazy, but I do have an open-ended straight draw and a backdoor flush draw, so I expect to have to make some marginal call vs. fold decisions. Luckily for me, it checks to the preflop raiser, who bets $15. It's called to me, I obviously call, getting a sick 6.7:1, and we go 5-way to the turn.
Turn: ($145) (5 players)
Not the best card in the deck for me on first inspection, since theoretically it could mean I'm drawing dead. But realistically I think there are no sets in anyone's range on the flop, so probably no boats on the turn, since I think both sets and 2 pairs raise the flop or bet bigger. Checks to the preflop raiser, who checks. The next guy to act bets $10, and everyone calls. We go 5-way to the river.
River: ($195) (5 players)
My money card. It checks around to me, and while I knew the pot was large, I miscalculated it slightly, thinking it was closer to $150 than $200. I also felt like the strongest hand in the field was probably 2 pair (with the 2nd pair on the board), so I decided to bet relatively small with $55. It folds to the SB, who snap-sigh-calls, and everyone else folds. I show my hand, and he mucks, grumbling about having a Q and me getting there or something. Not sure how he thought 1-pair was ever good vs. that bet, though he probably had KQ+ tbf.
Overall I felt this hand was pretty standard, but I was happy with how I played it nonetheless. In this next hand, I didn't have much info on the villain at all, except that he was relatively tight, and therefore hadn't been involved in much action postflop:
Preflop: :td4:
One limper to me, and I make it $15 in MP, since my $12 raises hadn't been getting as many folds as I'd wanted. The slightly larger size didn't deter anyone though, and we went 4-way to the flop, with me 3rd to act.
Flop: ($60) (5 players)
Pretty good flop with a strong likelihood for action, given the wetness. The SB checks, but to my surprise, and slight alarm, the BB leads for pot, a $60 bet. I'm next to act, and am struggling to think of any hand I am ahead of. The bet sizing is indicative of reasonable strength, and looks like a "protection" type bet on a wet board. I rarely if ever see players lead this size with draws or one pair hands, so I'm skeptical of using that as an excuse. Plus I'm about $300 deep with this player, so what're my options here anyway? Raise? Flat? Every option looks terrible, and I still don't think he plays anything worse this way. I grudgingly fold.
Frankly, this hand actually seems pretty standard to me. I certainly don't like folding top pair on the flop in a single-raised pot facing a single bet (not a x/r or something), but it just seemed so cut-and-dried, and like a great spot to make an exploitative fold.
Villain showed T5s for flopped two pair.
This next hand was a more interesting spot. The main villain had been making a lot of bets postflop, and hadn't been getting called much. The times when she was getting called, she usually had it, but it seemed like she was betting in spots where she sensed weakness.
Preflop:
I open UTG+1 to $12, and get 2 callers, one in position and the main villain in the BB. We go 3 way to the flop.
Flop: ($35) (3 players)
Obviously a pretty good flop for me. Villain checks to me, I bet $20, and only the villain calls. HU to the turn.
Turn: ($75) (2 players)
Not a great card, not a terrible one. T9 gets there, but if she has gutshots in her range then the rest of her gutshots just made 2nd pair. She checks, and I bet $40 for value, and she calls.
River: ($155) (5 players)
Villain leads for $50. Normally this looks like a fairly nutted line and my first impression was to sigh-fold, but I can't assign any value hands to the line at all. Because of the nature of the board, most two pair hands and straights raise the flop or turn. Plus I'm not sure, but I don't think she holds on with just bottom pair for two streets, so I discount most 7x. I tank for a while, trying to make sure I didn't miss something obvious in my thought process, and I call.
Curious what you guys think on that one because tbh it was one of the spots I was least sure about when it was actually happening. The night went on, and I was primarily card dead, and when I wasn't card dead I was bricking flops, and when I wasn't bricking flops I wasn't getting any action. Whatever. Not really that big of a deal. But it was certainly mildly frustrating when I'd say, open J9s in the HJ, get 2 callers, flop a straight on QT8, and get zero action at all.
And in a few hands, I had to fold pretty decent holdings. This hand is against the same villain as in the AT hand where I folded top pair facing his pot-sized donk bet on the flop (see spoiler for his hand, since it plays into my thought process here).
Preflop:
Weeeeeeee, I finally have a nice hand preflop (I know, I know, results oriented and not disciplined - working on it)!! It's a straddled pot, but it somehow folds around to the BTN, who is the main villain, and the villain from the AT hand. Villain thinks a few moments, and raises to $17, and I elect just to flat in the BB, not seeing much value in 3betting. The straddler calls as well, and we go 3-way to the flop
Flop: ($50) (3 players)
This is pretty much an ideal flop for me, but I don't really like taking a passive line and having to essentially bluff-catch from the beginning, so I decide to lead for $30. The straddler tank-folds, and the button villain snap-raises to $100. I snap-muck.
He shows 55 for a flopped set.
Based on history in the current session vs. this villain, this looks pretty standard. Along with the AT hand, I had seen him raise an overpair to the board in a spot like this where someone led into him. I was putting him mostly on a tight preflop raising range, and when he raises the flop I think it's mostly QQ+. I didn't feel like putting my whole stack at risk was a great idea.
There were a few more hands similar to the one just above, where I would either raise or flat pre with a pretty good hand, make a top pair or overpair hand on the flop, and either have to check-fold, bet-fold, or fold to a bet. Finally, I picked up a hand where I was able to make some value:
Preflop:
Action is folded around to the god-mode villain in MP, who limps. There was an interesting dynamic at the table where people were making pretty large raises preflop, and the god-mode villain was calling with pretty much his whole limping range so I opted to raise pretty big, to $17. Everyone else folds, and the god-mode villain calls. We go HU to the flop:
Flop: ($35) (2 players)
God-mode villain checks to me, and I opt to check back. I think that his range is so wide here, and it's so hard for him to have anything (and the only bad turn card for me is an A), that I'd kind of like to let his rage "catch up," a little. I check it back.
Turn: ($35) (2 players)
Villain checks it to me again, and now I bet $25, knowing that it's pretty unlikely he has a T, and that my line looks pretty FOS. Villain quickly calls.
River: ($85) (2 players)
Villain checks to me, and I have a decision to make. I still doubt I'm behind that often, but I have to consider what will actually call me. I think he still has plenty of PP's in his range, so I suppose I still have to bet. But I don't want to bet massive and make him fold. I opt for a compromise of $55, and villain tanks for a little bit.
"I know you have an ace," he says to me, and I realize now that he thinks I'm trying to fold him off a chop.
It's unclear to me whether he says anything else, but he tables his hand: A2dd. In a previous hand, he had pushed his face-down cards forward a few inches, waited a few seconds, then started counting out calling chips, but the dealer had swept his cards into the muck in that time. The cards were not retrievable, and it had been a very clear muck.
This movement to me was ambiguous though, so I chose to not react, waiting to see what the dealer would do. The dealer hesitated, but began to reach forward for the cards...
"Woah, woah, woah, what are you doing?!" Exploded the god-mode villain. "I said call!!"
Wait, what?
I waited another moment. I hadn't heard him say call. Neither had the dealer. And I wasn't about to expose my hand before I knew what was going on.
"I said call," the villain insisted, and the dealer acquiesced, indicating it was a call.
I tabled my hand, and the villain started fidgeting uncomfortably, and mumbling to himself. I couldn't believe my good fortune. The pot shipped to me, and I was feeling pretty good about my thought process, and was especially happy the dealer wasn't as fast mucking the cards this time around.
I went card dead for a good while after this. A few regs had sat down, but the table was still anything but dead. The god-mode villain two seats to my right made for a profitable seat, given how fast-and-loose he was playing both pre- and post-flop. I'd lost a few medium-sized pots, and was sitting with roughly a $190 stack when I was dealt kings again.
Preflop:
God-mode villain was in the straddle, and given the table dynamics, I doubted there was much he was going to fold. I opened to $30 second to act, and it snap-folded around to the straddler, who fidgeted some before finally shrug-calling. It looked like a pretty marginal spot, so I was ready to bomb almost any flop.
Flop: ($60) (2 players)
A story-book flop for me, and villain quickly checked to me. I lead for $45, not wanting there to be any ambiguity in my turn bet-size decision. Villain tanks for a little bit, and just calls. This is good. He is playing pretty face up, so a x/r would have been a monster, but a tank-call looks like a marginal hand.
Turn: ($150) (2 players)
Villain thinks for approximately a half a second... and announces all in. I shake my head a few moments, thinking I must have gotten it wrong... I guess he has a Q and he thinks it's good. I call off the remaining $115 or so in my stack.
He has T6o for flopped 2nd pair and turned two pair, and and I can't bink two pair or a set on the river.
76s: What an awesome first hand/pot! Looks good. The only thing I'd argue would be preflop action. Such a large raise doesn't really give you great implied odds for your hand, and since you don't have any info at all on the players at the table, you could end up in some really tough/marginal spots later on in the hand.
A10o: Good fold.
AQs: Really, really weird line by villain. Nice read. I'm honestly not sure what I'd have done, but calling a river bet when you're getting 4:1 seems like the best option in this situation.
JJ: Good fold.
KK: I like your line a lot. I would have bet the flop, but I think your line is better and induced a pretty loose call on the river.
KK II: Hard to fold. But you said he's playing pretty face up, so his turn shove looks really strong and is probably never air.
Overall: I had a few chuckles throughout this post. If there is any piece of writing that sums up 1/2 no limit live play, it's this one. Between the $10 bets into a pot of $145, players accidentally/almost mucking, and people who are unable to let go of pure trash preflop because they straddled, it's just stunning how some folks play poker. What always puzzled me is that there are so many bad regs. You'd think somebody who loves poker enough to play nearly every day would spend at least a little time off the table improving his or her game.
