Thanks, nah I dont play zoom either. Played some hands at Full Tilt before it died off and cos there is no table selection there HEM seems to think they are zoom hands so thats why I had to filter in the "50NL Fast" hands into the graphs.

Some Goals/Targets for June

Last 75k hands at 50NL have gone well enough for me to start playing 100NL again I think. Not overly confident I am gonna win at 100NL so right now I think I will continue to play 50 and mix in some 100NL.

DFS Soccer is back in action on Sat for the Copa America and then the next week The Euros are starting. A goal for this month will be to find better balance between DFS & Poker so I can do both.

Also on June 20th DraftKings have invited me on their VIP list to a live contest at the Emirates for the Euros so I will be attending that. More info here if anyone interested: http://telegraphevents.co.uk/fantasy-football-live/

Poker wise I need to be still focusing on the previous leaks highlighted and it might be an idea to try and improve my game from the position of the Big Blind.

[] Begin playing 100NL again, establish positive winrate
[] Balance Poker & DFS workloads
[] Work on previous leaks
[] Improve BB game

Lets do it

Found this hand a bit strange.

vs Reg

His Turn Raise in a 3bet pot is 5% and nothing to suggest he is bluffing. Given the strength shown by Hero he must acknowledge there is a decent chance Hero will jam river with KK and AA.

Villain perhaps boats up on the flop with 55 or floats 88 and boats up on the Turn. Maybe he flatted pre with AQ but reckon he folds AQo often and maybe flats AQs.

Either way he pretty much has a lock on the board with any of those hands so why raise a red flag with a Turn raise here? If he doesnt want to risk the Hero checking behind on the river he can just lead out on the river and get his money in and I reckon that gets called more often than his Turn XR.

Maybe he tries to level me into thinking "hmm he is probably bluff repping a Q I call" while he is holding a boat.

It didnt make sense to me but I would expect to see Trips and Boats here a lot more often than bluffs from this Villain.

Why are you double barreling here?

Villain opened from UTG+2 I think and flatted a 3bet. So he must be relatively strong and his range could contain a lot of big pocket pairs, KK, JJ, TT, 99, 88, AK

When there is no A or K on the board he may be more optimistic to call me down, especially against half pot bets. I want to get max value when he has especially KK - which I think he will flat with sometimes here rather than 4bet. And his JJ or TT that he wants to bluff catch with or his AK that he wants to peel another card with.

Barreling the Turn makes it easier to get stacks in on the river if he chooses to look me up with a bluff catcher.

Balance - I could/would also play my missed AKo or other bluffs like this, in which case I would be repping AA - which makes it important to play AA the same way when I do have it.

You could argue to check the Turn for pot control, but I think the 2nd barrel is fine. Also barreling the Turn here gives me a clearer idea of Villains hand strength when he has hit a boat and cant control his excitement and needs to jam the Turn.

If I check the Turn and he jams river with a boat I may start to think villain has interpreted my Turn check as weakness and he is now trying to steal the pot on the river and the decision with AA is a lot more tricky.

Imo the hand plays more straight forward by checking flop. The issue is if your Flop and turn bets work and you shove river, given the board texture you're likely to be looked up by more Qx/AQ than bluff catchers. I think as played it's an easy fold ott. Can't see him turning anything into a bluff rly and there's plenty of Qx in his range too

Yeah I suppose with it being the Q that pairs the board it takes QQ out of villains range which is one of the main hands we could triple barrel and get value from.

Plus the Q can be in Villains range here. If it was a 2 that paired the board then triple barreling would be a whole lot easier.

Sensible approach is prob to plan for 2 streets of value here. Think I a maybe slightly tilted in 3bet pots right now as every time I give up the role of aggressor I am get a lot aggression coming right back at me.

I think every time I move up stakes I get paranoid that I am getting out played in 3 bet pots or villains are bluffing me out the pot. In reality its prob just an insecurity of playing at a higher stake. I am winning plenty of 3bet pots that I dont remember and then I am thinking about the ones I lose for 2 days.

On to the next one

Solution is to 3bet bluff less, esp less IP, no shame in cold calling hands OOP to reduce variance associated with 3bpots and to ensure you retain range dominance.

It's the same with 6max

LOL you aré completily psico leveled. But THE mAin problem you already mentioned, you DONT have three streets of value there (meaning 3 barrels targeting full stack), btw you can improve your sizings

In my brief stint at 6max it felt like every pot was a 3bet pot. People were 3betting from the blinds for fun which led to defending a wider range. Every hand felt like a game of chicken. Every flop it was like: I know he has nothing, I have nothing, he knows I have nothing. How many streets should I float this time?

Then decided fcuk it Im going back to Full Ring for less drama.

What dont you like about the sizings? Half pot bets in 3 bet pots seems fairly standard to me and allows us to get it in on the river if we so choose.

Yeah it takes a bit of getting used to. It seems like so many of the regs I play have a 10 - 11% 3bet and triple barrel at a high frequency and don't fold to cbets much either. Any cold call is also an invite for a squeeze.

It keeps you on your toes

I've pretty much stopped flatting 22-55 for this reason. It's even the case at 5nl where people just 3bet (as Dev put it) "for fun". It's quite strange, but I think makes being nittier with preflop selection that much more profitable, being able to defend more of your range and what not.

Was playing on a crazy hundo table last night with a 92 VPIP maniac. Want to have a look over a couple of hands with a clear mind.

Hero Opens, 92 VPIP Maniac Flats on the Button, Reg squeezes




I overbet the River for value to try and get the Maniac to call down with Kx or a flush or whatever tbh. He previously lost a stack to me with an underpair and called a huge bet on the Riv

When the reg raises me and jams all in I really cant call. I did tank for a bit as something didnt seem to make sense when I considered him having 77 or 88 for the bigger boat.

Then it hit me, he has Quad Kings.

He squeezed small pre to 9bb to keep the pot alive and to keep the maniac in the pot to get value from KK.

When he bets 1/3 pot on the flop I think he is baiting me or the maniac to raise him and then he can jam.

When 3rd card to flush comes on Turn he doesnt like it and slows down. River brings him quads and he again makes a small probe bet to almost goad one of us into raising him.

Hero raises and Reg jams his quads. 77 and 88 would have been great hands to set mine with pre so there is no chance he squeezed 77 or 88, I think his range is simply KK when he jams.


----------------------------------------------
Next hand:

Reg opens the Maniac from above min raises, Button flats and Hero raises to 23bb with QQ.

I had seen the Maniac previously open and call a 3bet of 20bb. I wanted to get the other Regs out the pot, not allow them to set mine and squeeze to an amount to keep the Maniac alive in the pot. (Looking at how the hand turned out maybe a 23bb raise here wasent big enough?? )

Only problem is almost everyone was deep stacked at this table cos of the Maniac spewing stacks. So when Maniac calls, the Button comes along for the ride with implied odds to set mine.

Ive played a million hands against this reg this month and he usually plays quite straightforward. Flop raise in 3 bet pot was like 5% so when he raises I think he has it, and when he jams the Turn it backs this up.




Left the table feeling pretty tilted just cos of the crazyness of the action with the 92 VPIP maniac and then having to make some big folds but ultimately I think the folds were correct, maybe bet sizing could have been improved in a few spots.

--------------------------------------

Thought that England Wales match was game of the Tourney so far. Done pretty well on the Euro and Copa America slates so far on Draft Kings. Ive had to do some lineups whilst grinding which isnt exactly GTO but what can you do.

The Draft Kings Live Football Event which was supposed to be Monday has now been postponed! Ive already paid for a flight to London though so still gonna go down for a couple days with my bro.

Ive been doing DFS and Poker from morning til bed this month so a couple days break will do me some good anyway. Will come back fresh and finish the month and check results.

Decent day at the office (watching the Euros on the couch)

Another good day on DK

Euros 3 Game Slate:


Euros 2 Game Slate:


Copa America Slate:


Official Song of Copa América 2016:

Things defo did not go well @ 100NL again. Ran BE for the most part then I hit a huge downswing and dropped a good few BIs. Been going over my ranges the last couple days and looking for things to improve.

When I get time I will maybe have a closer look at my 100NL stats and try to figure where things are going so badly wrong. In the meantime I think I should stick to 50NL for a while. I am bit puzzled how I have gone from 5bb/100 at 50NL to -5bb/100 at 100NL. While I feel I run badly at 100NL I get the impression that a big difference at 100NL is the amount of Regs using seating scripts.

I dont know about getting a seating script but I could probably try and aim to have better table selection skills. Also since Stars brought in the KOTH rules for the lobby I havent really done any table starting or trying to get fish HU so I might start trying to do that again with a view to being able to get better seats on Recs when I try 100NL again.

I guess the goal for the month is to have a solid month at 50NL again and work on some of my ranges and look into where the $ is being lost at 100NL.

First ever game of Heads Up Zoom!

I am casually up 2 stacks after about 150 hands then this monster comes along.

vs whom I assume is a Reg and he seemed like the top bo$$ of the pool I was playing against.








Pretty bold raise on the River considering the A is defo in my range there. He probably had me tagged as a full blown whale and went for some value

lol nh. I miss us playing lots of HU together (and you're innate ability to tilt me through the roof)

Haha didnt realise we were heads up buddies/enemies

Not sure who you are on Stars but I can probably narrow it down to a few people. Heads up battles on full ring deep stack tables, those were the days.

In order to preserve my fishy image in the HU Zoom game I felt it was only right that I hit and run that guy I took 3 stacks off with the straight flush. Might go back on tonight and tell him in the chat that I lost his money playing roulette

I might put more time into playing HU. I never bothered before cos it seemed you needed a seating script to get action but just realised that it is all zoom games now. So you might find me tilting people in there more often

How's the rake at HU zoom?

Oh yeah rake! that is probably why I havent been playing HU Zoom on Stars.

Cant find any actual details about what it is.

Yday I played 181 hands @ 50NL and paid $16.70 (33.4 bbs) rake

33.4 / 181 hands = 18.45 bb/100 in rake !!!!

My rake is prob a bit higher due to playing that huge pot. Elsewhere on 2+2 I seen people saying the rake works out at:

"Re: POKERSTARS (AMAYA) DOUBLES HEADS UP RAKE
currently paying 16bb/100 at 50NL 100bb tables

Anybody consider this beatable with that rake?"

I am thinking that if I can make a straight flush every night with 300bb relative stacks that the games might be beatable..

oh well back to the full ring grind.

The last post I was saying how I didnt think the Stars HU rake was beatable anymore after the changes. The same day I got an email from Upswing Poker asking to:

"Hit 'reply' and let me know your biggest challenges and hurdles to becoming a better heads up player"

So I sent Doug an email and asked him a couple of questions about Stars and HU tables. WCGRider basically confirmed what we were thinking:




Elsewhere I have been looking over my whole FR game to see where I can make any improvements. The biggest leak is still my BB game so I am starting there with a whole new strategy. The SB isnt as bad but I am making some changes there too.

Also at 100NL it seems as though my opens face a 3bet more often and there are also more short stackers who like to 3bet for fun. Thus opening to 3x in them games gets the aggressive 3bettors salivating at the mouth to steal your 3x. I think moving upwards in stakes it will be more optimal to open smaller, especially in late positions like the BTN and CO. At 50NL I think I can open to 3x fine and I am more used to that, however in order to conquer 100NL I am thinking that I should do my pre-season training now and get some practise at 2.5x-ing the CO and BTN at 50NL so it doesnt feel weird at 100NL and tilt the sh#t out of me.

vs Reg

181 hands way too small sample.
you can ask Pandalife what's the rake at 50z