Solid agreement on the 2nd KK hand. Def a spot to make a really good fold and to say a silent "thank you" to the fellow for letting us play perfectly when he could have just checked and let us auto-jam the turn for value.
I have some pretty bizarre news. I've turned on the god-mode switch and have been running insanely well in this private game I joined. I've made almost 9 BI's in about 1,300 hands (approximately equivalent to 50-60 hours of live play). What does this mean? Well, for those of you who doing the math, yep, this means my BR is sitting pretty healthfully (for now).
I'm not going to post any more numbers right now, since I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with the divisions of my bankrolls (what I will consider an online vs. live bankroll), and also how I'll be thinking about my win-rates (it's an online game full of live players - does this make it a live game??).
But basically, I recouped the weekend's losses all at once in two solid sessions yesterday, and tonight I made a little over 4 BI's, so I've got wiggle room once again. Will be posting some hands, and probably some thoughts on this new game and how it will factor into the "big picture" for me.
Pre is loose obviously but the fish posted a dead blind and probably won't defend super wide. Flop is near ideal. Thoughts on turn action? River is like gin but do you think he's calling Qx?
$1/$2 Home Game No Limit Holdem pokerstars
7 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com
Hand 8:
This one too. Vs. this guy, turn seems like a really solid spot to make a fold and feel good about him announcing his hand and letting us play perfectly.
UTG calls 1 BB, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 5 BB, CO raises to 13.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, UTG calls 12.5 BB, fold, Hero raises to 395.5 BB and is all-in, CO calls 70 BB and is all-in, fold
H1, assume you have reads that he loses his mind post? because someone that passive pre is going to turn up with 74/K7/44/77/K4 a bunch here when they raise flop. if they are capable of having bluffs we are pretty close to top of our range and its pretty hard to be out flopped.
H2
98ss why are we limping pre UTG? as played i hate the flop donk, I'm not super pumped about gii here since they are unlikely to raises fd but we have too much equity to fold ugh.
H3 don't see heaps of need for the donk lead again, but if i do i make it a bit smaller like 17bb, as played never folding.
H4 TT 3bet bigger on flop, bet turn bigger.
H5 if he raises bare Ax then if fine and i might even jam turn, but if not I'm making an exploitative fold.
H6, yuck, but still jamming on that turn, could see reasons to c/c or c/f v some people tho.
H7
KJ id be opting to cbet flop, and probably turn, fold river as played.
H8 KQ i really want to fold turn, soooooo many flush combos in a limping range, its suited A/small pp heavy pre flop, and given no flop lead i think 55 is really unlikely with fd out there. that leaves a bunch of Axss out there, most of which play this way.
Keep in mind that this game essentially plays like a live game, with the caveat that there is way more bluffing and bluff-catching post. Pretty much everyone has air in their range in a lot of weird spots.
So the leading with deece hands on wet boards is kind of my default on live tables and so far it's been translating pretty well here. Not saying I'm 100% sure I'm taking the best lines though. I assume on hand 6 you mean that your plan is to cbet if it checks to us? Since get led into. Agree that riv looks like a fold. Thanks for input, duggs
Preflop is def a bit weird, but I completed because of the dynamics of the table. I felt I had a decent handle on what was happening postflop, and didn't feel bloating the pot OOP was necessarily advantageous here. Might still be a raise though.
Flop bet seems standard, board is wet enough that I like betting just over pot, though arguably bigger would be acceptable too. Then when I face the raise I don't see much point in 3betting and I think it over-reps our hand. It's possible we get value from draws, but I don't want to give him a reason to make a correct fold with anything really. Turn is the part I'm least sure about, as I think when he pots it on the wet board we can be pretty confident he has mostly decent Kx, and it might be a good spot for a x/. As played, river is kinda meh - a lead might be better because he can go into bluff-catch mode with most of his range, whereas he will check back tons of hands we beat. Thoughts??
Posting this one more just as a form of self-punishment, since I need to be better than this. This was a spot where if my hand wasn't on the mouse I probably could have taken a moment and just folded, but because my hand was faster than my brain telling me to fold.... I clicked call.
I literally had the thought, "Lol, he has KQ," as I was moving the mouse toward the call button. It COULD be a call if he had sized differently, like made it super small, but I think this is a slam-dunk fold otr ainec.
Not gonna make a big update now, but there are a few important things happening that I should mention before I forget and they become less relevant.
First and foremost, I'm not currently in Cleveland, as I'm on spring break (woo!), and in NYC doing work on my senior thesis project (oh...). SO. This means no live pokers, but I've been getting in a few hands here and there online when I can, and the games are still looking good. Though I'm probably on a pretty big heater atm.
I managed to get one last live session in before heading to NYC, and it was a pretty crazy game toward the end. I got in around 8pm and didn't leave until around 6 or 7am. At my peak I was +$1k, but I left with $600 profit. I had about $220 worth of spew, but other than that one hand, I played pretty damn well the whole night, which I'm proud of. It was definitely frustrating when there were $500 pots shipping around like they were nothing, and I was card dead for the last 3 hours of my session. But what can you do - spewing it off isn't going to help, and keeping it tight there where other players wouldn't be able to is part of what will increase my win-rate anyway.
Online games continue to go well, as my total profits from them are just over 9 BI's, in about 30 hours of play. Obviously it's unlikely that I'll keep making a BI every 3 hours or so, but right now I'm living the dream. I'm continuing to keep my BR's "separate," in that I am keeping track of which profits come from which source, but it's nice to think about them as one BR together since that equates to being much more rolled for the games ofc.
Speaking of being rolled, I should mention that the casino recently upped the maximum buyin for the 1/2 game to $300 (up from the former $200 max). So now the buyin range will be $50-$300, which I think will really help create better SPR situations for competent villains, and of course, the deeper we are, the bigger our edge since we can force our opponents to make bigger mistakes. I do have some small misgivings, simply because I'm now only 67% as rolled as I was before, but given that my BR is on the up-and-up for the time being, I'm not too concerned. My confidence is strong, but not extreme, and I'm ready to hit the grind with the max buyin on and my A game in play.
BR stuffs
Live BR: $2,111
Online BR: $1,845
Total BR: $3,956
My BR peaked at the highest it's ever been yesterday, at $4,066, but a $110 losing session online over about 300 hands tonight set me back a hair. Still, it feels amazing to have what I consider to be a healthy roll for 1/2 for the first time. I'm excited to be in the game, and especially psyched to look at leaks in my game, to maximize my wins and my earning potential.
I probably won't post many hands over the next few days since when I get back to Cleveland my gf will be visiting me until this weekend, but maybe I'll post a spot or two from online. I also have a few spots I wrote down from my last live session, so I'll try to post a couple of those when I get back from break.
Excellent post - glad to hear about BR going up and last live session working out well. How do you deal with hours of being card dead when the money is flying around - do you wear headphones? Inspiring - that is about where I'm trying to get my roll to for 1/2 also. Enjoy your non-poker work and activities
Excellent post - glad to hear about BR going up and last live session working out well. How do you deal with hours of being card dead when the money is flying around - do you wear headphones? Inspiring - that is about where I'm trying to get my roll to for 1/2 also. Enjoy your non-poker work and activities
Thanks guys. Will try to get to some hands itt later today, and get into your thread, duggs
As for dealing with being card dead, it doesn't normally affect me TOO much, so long as I can continue to be occupied, either through watching table, chatting with the people around me, or listening to music. I've even watched TV before, though I don't recommend this, since it forces me to pay so little attention to the table, and I think it's easier to give stuff away when you're finally interested in a hand.
But when the money is flying around, it's much tougher for me. I was 400bb deep with multiple droolers at my table and couldn't get ****-all going. Typically in these situations I'll loosen up in position with speculative hands (since people are putting money in with such weak ranges, regardless of board texture), but the problem with that session was that I wasn't even getting speculative hands. There was a 2-3 hour period where all I had was a few AJo, and then the rest was like 72o and 93o type hands - complete garbage and not worth playing when people never fold, since we'll have to make hands to win. That particular table was quite friendly, and when this is the case I try to avoid wearing headphones, and I engage more with my table mates. I feel that portraying the "stone-cold killer" look with no expression, headphones in, etc can be detrimental to the gamboooling atmosphere.
Kinda excited for the new max buy in, though it does make my roll a bit smaller in terms of BI's. As you said, it should create some better SPR spots and should force poor players into more/bigger mistakes postflop.
I also hope it discourages people from buying in for $50. I wish they would have made it a $100-$300 game. Baby steps, I guess...
BTW, how do you feel about the Bad Beat Jackpot there? Idk what happened to it, considering it was up to over $200k last year and hasn't even been close to half that amount since then. IMO, if they aren't going to start adding more money to it, they should just get rid of it and put the money into other promos or something. Getting tired of dropping an extra buck from pots so some drooler can limp/call 32s and bink the losing end of a straight flush for a few thousand dollars.
A few things on bad beat...
- It's a bad promotion generally speaking: You're not a favorite to hit it in your lifetime, yet the amount you pay to it in an extra $1 rake is enormous
- The fact that it got huge before and it's tiny now has a lot to do with them feeding it before, but also there's tons of variance in how long it takes to hit, too. It's been hitting a ton lately, when before it went like 4 months+ with no one hitting it.
- Again, I don't care about its size, since I'm not even remotely likely to ever hit it, but doesn't the fact that it's small imply that they ARE putting the money into other things too?
BIGGER BUYIN, BIGGER ACTION. FOR THE BEST GAMES, GO TO THE CLEVELAND HORSESHOE.
I know there is variance in how long it takes to hit. But even if they feed $500/day into it, after 6 months that's still less than half of what it was at one point last year. Seems strange. Maybe they started it higher before?
Didn't they do freerolls at one point too? That'd be sick.
EDIT: Yes they are putting money into other promos. But since the BBJ is like a lottery ticket, I'd rather it be huge or nonexistent. Taking $1 out of every pot for a chance to win non-life-changing money is weak, especially since the chances of hitting it are outrageous anyway.
Much better to do hourly promos for the regs. For example, grind 20 hrs gets you a raffle drawing + for every 2 hrs after that you get another entry. It keeps recs going a bit more since 20 hr's isn't completely unobtainable yet gives the hardcore regs a bigger chance to hit.
As for dealing with being card dead, it doesn't normally affect me TOO much, so long as I can continue to be occupied, either through watching table, chatting with the people around me, or listening to music. I've even watched TV before, though I don't recommend this, since it forces me to pay so little attention to the table, and I think it's easier to give stuff away when you're finally interested in a hand.
But when the money is flying around, it's much tougher for me. I was 400bb deep with multiple droolers at my table and couldn't get ****-all going. Typically in these situations I'll loosen up in position with speculative hands (since people are putting money in with such weak ranges, regardless of board texture), but the problem with that session was that I wasn't even getting speculative hands. ...That particular table was quite friendly, and when this is the case I try to avoid wearing headphones, and I engage more with my table mates. I feel that portraying the "stone-cold killer" look with no expression, headphones in, etc can be detrimental to the gamboooling atmosphere.
