In hand 3, the only straight combos that credibly make sense are 68, and 8T. If you had 8T then you missed your straight. If you had 68, it's unlikely that you would want to bet out with the low end of the straight so villain felt that you had more bluffs than value hands in that spot.

H3 villain probably thinks that you are capable of turning many low 2p hands into bluffs. I am a noob at PLO but it's really easy to overbluff in these spots in NL, especially when both people start with a very wide range. Potting might be better with his range so condensed.

How does the variance in PLO feel? I remember reading someone's PLO PG&C at 100nl and he had regular 20+/- buy in swings.

I'm not sure yet wrt to variance. I mean you do go allin a ton for very close to 50% equity so there's that.

I'm really only trying to play plo tables where I'm significantly +EV so that should help to mitigate a lot of the swings.

I've o ly played like 8k hands since trying the game but it's tons of fun and appears to be worth my time. So I'll keep going until the evidence changes

ffs man, your plo hands are making me wanna learn. Literally the nut worst idea for me in my downswing

Haha well its definitely lit my grind fire again. If you don't want to see your friends for a few weeks and you want to piss off your SO then learning plo is a great idea

Had a terribly frustrating day of poker. Had geolocation issues all day logging me off all the sites for 30 seconds approximately every hour. I get this problem time to time and it usually goes away by itself in a few days but it's totally tilting and infuriating. Most of the time this wasn't an issue in terms of game play but I lost a bunch of hand histories while it was happening (particularly one huge losing pot to a fish at NL500) so I don't have an accurate graph for today and this month's graph will be incomplete.

Results wise today would have been strong, but I got owned by a fun player at NL500 for like 2.5 stacks.

First hand the guy called in the sqz, donked, bet turn, shoved river on QQ579 with Q9. He had a 43 vpip and 70% WWSF over the 100ish hands we had played (I know small sample) and was fighting for every pot so I decided I wasn't folding my AA (decision made on the turn to call down). Sigh.

Second hand we got it in 150 deep KK<AA. He made a small 3b vrs utg (a reg who was deep with us) and I woke up with KK in the sb. I cold4b to 18 blinds and he snap shoveled in ~150ish. Originally, I didn't want to get it in pf, but I REALLY didn't want to cold call oop with KK and let the reg along as well. It probably would have been "correct" to cold4bet fold since the fish will 3b/call a ton of things but his 5b range could be really narrow (AA)... Decided I didn't have the heart to cold 4bet fold KK to this guy so I called. Pretty much knew he most likely had it but had to gambol with my kings. And of course just Ace and Ace. Sigh


Anyways, I played approx 7k hands in 8 hrs today netting around $400. Pretty disappointing given how good the games were. Still, better than losing. I'm still running like utter garbage in NL, especially the higher I go in stakes. Tilted quite hard mid-session making ~2 bad calls (on disgusting runouts) to fun players costing me some $$$.

I e-mailed support and I'm going to try to recover the missing HHs but until then I'll just post some PLO hands.


Hand 1) vrs fish Hu
Guy loved to get all the chips in. Hard to have this much equity in PLO. Yum



Hand 2) Similar




Hand 3) Vrs same guy
Wondering if I should flat flop. Wait for brick turn and take an equity spike before pushing all the chips in. This guy seemed so insane though he could easily just gii 2pr or something. But calling flop also strengthens a flop calling range for the future (but probably doesn't matter against him)




Hand 4) V hard spot MW
The 3bettor was an unknown reg. Not sure how wide he's 3betting here. Folding pre out of the question of course. Flop is meh, has top pair + 2nd nfd... can't be that bad in a reraised pot right? The jammer is an extremely loose/passive fish. But can't fold after potting...




Hand 5) Le Sigh
x/shover is a fish. Seen him stack off with all sorts of weak relative strength hands. Obviously loved my hand til he flipped his over.




Hand 6) Gamboling it up with a nit fish (who definitely has AA) and a whale
Flop was nice then brick brick le sigh




Hand 7) HU V unknown fishy stack
This standard? - He showed up with top set I was sad




Hand 8) NL Standard hand for me this week
Vrs very loose/agro fish




Hand 9) Question for da readers
PLO Wizards. What should I do here. Villain is a mammoth whale. Opens a ton, 4 and 5 bets a lot. Postflop somewhat on the more passive side. Folds to cbets quite a bit. Doesn't really raise them. (fold ip 65%, raise 15%, call rest). Is my hand a little too raggedy to 4b here? I mean I had doubles00ted aces how bad can it be? Should I cbet here with the intention of folding to a jam? Stack sizes are so awkward.

I wanted to c/c any reasonable bet on turn. But when he pots it what can I really do here... Figured him from 89 and didn't want to draw to only the flush

I think in hindsight I should c-bet 60% pot and sigh/fold to a jam. If he calls the c-bet I should jam all complete brick turns. The Jd is an interesting turn but I would honestly probably have to cf... as gross as that is. If his range for jamming turn contains a lot of 2pr I guess c/c on the Jd would be okay.





HEM says I'm running quite a bit above EV this month. While I may be flipping well, I'm still definitely running like crapola in NL. The fun players are making a mockery of me all they need is to flop ~10-20% equity and I'm drawing dead. So many spots where the flush draw bricks, I bluff catch and they somehow river 2pr.

Hope to play another session tomorrow evening. Got all sorts of fun activities planned during the day. I desperately need to de-tilt before I play again. Quite lucky to actually finish in the green today given that I showed up with my C game.

By no means a PLO expert, but I'll help how I can.

3. Think about "equity spike" vs putting in a raise that commits >50% of your stack while being vulnerable to the same cards you are trying to dodge by waiting for the equity spike.
It would be a different story if you could get a bit more of your stack in.

4. Your hand isnt that nutty 5way and you have bad relative position. You hit a decent flop and could easily have been in worse shape(NFD usually has your bad here) and you have to fold a lot when SB mashes pot with the field behind you on a lot of decent bt not great flops like this one(I think).

8. Just want to say I hope you are folding 98 in this spot to most fish minraise on the turn.

How many tables of PLO do you play? I feel as though it takes me a while just to look at a hand history and work out what's going on.

I'm usually 9 tabling total with 1-5 of them plo.

I confess playing both formats as the same time is probably bad overall but I try to play in games where I don't have to make many difficult decisions

For example I'm playing in plo games where the only bluff required is a cbet in HU pots. Any other bluff is lighting it on fire. And you're otherwise just nutmining

What did villain have in hand 7?

Top set

Fellow NJ player here...I just wanted to note that I'm enjoying your thread and the analysis that comes along with your posts.

Very cool. Do we play in the same games? Or do you play lower/higher?







Just finished a pretty terrible Sunday session of poker.

Running quite special in NL at the moment (not the good kind). I ran so hot in April and the first ~9 days of May has been the complete opposite. I keep running into the nuts with the 2nd or 3rd nuts from players who have much much wider ranges in those spots.. Then every run-out is about the worst possible. It's brutal. Not much to do but grind through and complain here.

PLO is going okay. I made 1 really terrible stack off today (which I'll post). But every time I make a mistake in a certain spot I'm learning. I feel much more confident in PLO than even a week ago and I'm sure I'll only get stronger. It seems like the best strategy in these loose-fishy PLO games is to play really tight PF and limp some stuff. And to bet/fold frequently and fold everything.


5.8 B Game & Some run awful



Hand 1) Soulcrushing river vrs 2 whales
PF decided to flat IP since UTG only opens 10%. Could definitely squeeze to isolate whales but meh. Dream turn, sigh river




Hand 2) Regfish with AWFUL flop/turn play MW/deep
With the SB open jamming turn figured I needed help. Shocking result TBH. SB is an SNE who plays PLO almost every day. But he's quite bad (as demonstrated here). Dream stack off here with topset and gutshot. If only I managed to have the nfd too it would have been a really sick hand.




Hand 3) Extremely interesting turn freeroll
Not much to say, fun spot. Obviously having the flush freeroll >>> the FH freeroll. But with the added dead money it's fine.




Hand 4) Brutal to fish
Obviously nutbad river but not folding set to high vpip high wwsf fun player




Hand 5) Very standard big $$$ spot vrs fun player
At the point how I'm running I cringe going for (fat) thin value here. Obviously all very standard, very happy to hold here. Haven't been fading anything lately




Hand 6) Monster PLO mistake by me
Villain was incredibly loose PF (doesn't matter) But pretty passive post. I'm not sure why I clicked call tbh. I was pretty sure he had a set (and not a draw) but I was hoping to gii against some sort of draw... But passive fish don't raise draws of course. Very weak by me. I think it's because I put in like 20 blinds on the turn and then got raised and didn't want to fold top 2. But in these games it's excellent to go for value (barreling top 2 here) and you just HAVE to fold when raised (probably everything but top set here and maybe some like 2nd set+good draw or top 2+good draw). Lesson learned.

I haven't been 3betting much OOP in these games without doubles00ted aces or doubles00ted kings with ace. But I think I ought to start 3betting some of these really strong AKXX single suited rundowns. They play much stronger in HU pots. I think with the 9 dangler the pf call was fine here.




Hand 7) A well played PLO hand by me
I've played NL with villain before. He's basically a loose spewy regfish. I really wasn't sure what to do on flop tbh. Most of the time these big UTG 4bets are just AAXX. But of course I hate getting this in with AAQX. I don't think jamming flop here with bottom 2 accomplishes much (and I never get called by anything in rough shape). Sucks to call a 4bet and make 2 pairs and concede the pot, but there's no choice




Unfortunately, WSOP support was useless wrt to getting the HH from the other day. If I do some mental math it looks like I'm only slightly winning this month over ~35k hands played. Bummer. Just gotta keep grinding through the bad. Breaking even while losing with sets and KK AIPF is a good result.

In hand 4, I'm finding the same thing keeps happening to me. It's seems like it's always aces when they raise from under the gun and I hit middle set on an ace high board.

Quit early tonight just too tilted/furious to continue. I think quitting when things are not going your way and you're not mentally sound is totally fine. Just only wish I had played more last month while god-mod was on my side.

Games also seem a bit quiet so far this month. The lobbies are definitely a bit more barren compared to the colder months. I think it's just the warm weather and the fact that the recs probably have better things to do that load up NJ poker. I'm glad I've added PLO to the mix. A good 1-3 tables of PLO really helps when the better NL games are hard to come by.


Things will turn eventually back in my favor. I'm no stranger to break-even stretches (have had multiple 100ks in my career) and prolonged run-bad. Just hope this ends sooner rather than later.




Hand 1) Inducing vrs Unknown, decent reg opener
By no means a snap call here, but not folding 2pairs to unknown fishy looking guy




Hand 2) Interesting PLO spot
Guy who raises/stacks flop is a tight regfish. Looking at my stack off range on this texture, I think his top2+gutshot is not doing so hot. Obviously against my gutter/nfd type stuff it's slightly ahead. But I'm going to have a lot of top set, middle-set + top set blocker, wrap+nfd, fd+set type stuff. That's part of why PLO variance is so insane. Even when I think he makes a "mistake" stacking off here he has 60% equity.

His alternative of having to peel the flop potentially multiway with top 2 here isn't attractive either. He should probably be 3-betting this pre near the button. But I have to confess I'm still working out a good 3betting strategy in PLO.




Hand 3) Fish makes quads to my slow played AA (again)
How come they always seem to have quads-Js here and NEVER show up with case AJ. It's pretty sick




Hand 4) Bluff catching vrs pf tight postflop agro fish
Want to see wiffed diamonds + I blocker JT. But nahhhh not in May!




Hand 5) Standard May turn card vrs whale




Hand 6) Heart-breaker vrs tilting whale
I generally don't advise sticking 200bb in the middle with 2 pair. But I had to here... as you can see




Hand 7) PLO Heartbreaker vrs 2 fish
Wasn't thrilled peeling flop here. Think fishy me may have jammed a week or 2 ago but it's a huge mistake with the spade draw on board. But getting like 6:1 with a wrap, pear, and bdfd, and 2 insane fish I figured calling was good. DREAM turn. Soulcrushed on the river.

CO opener was a total agrowhale playing/raising a lot of pots. I think I'm supposed to be 3-betting a ton here if I think I can get the pot HU with the whale. The problem is you don't want to 3b marginal things if the blinds are also whales and are going to overcall. That's sort of what happens here. It's by no means terrible since I have the button, but it gets expensive fast.


Converter not working on this site: SB had AAXXss (and took the pot). CO had AJ58 and stuck it in with 3 outs.




Hand 8) Interesting PLO turn
Villain was a fairly passive fish. Obviously hate the turn now losing to 2 straights. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to jam turn for thin value here think it's terribly hard for him to call with 2 pair. Thought fish would fast-play set. He turns all sorts of wonky straights+fd type hands (which I'm going to have to reluctantly check/call off my stack against). If starting to wonder if these PLO spots where if they jam you're willing to call it off it's better to just jam yourself (if you expect to never induce a bluff). I'm thinking it's better to jam yourself and deny free cards.

I also have a zillion outs if behind. I suppose I also have 2 king blockers and it's insanely hard for him to call with 89 (but fish no fold str8). Mehhhh

RESULT: he had TT8J for 2nd set. I was shocked he slowplayed.




Hand 9) Disgusting vrs whale
Guy doesn't fold to cbets. I could potentially cbet A hi here for thin value but decided to c/c. When I turn the fd, I just want to protect my equity if he's going to bet/fold crap. He tanked with his hand before electing to call. Standard in May that I don't have an overpair in these spots and I turn the fd/brick river as opposed to the turn bringing J, Q, K, A in which case I can make the best hand or potential get put on AK and generate a fold (but probably not against this whale). So tilting to go from always having it to never having it




Hand 10) Interesing PLO spot vrs nitreg
Pretty obvious the guy has AAXX. I can't jam the flop and generate folds, but I can float/float and go for the river bluff (had the Qh blocker). Butttttttt I was put in this same spot the other day and I failed to fold my AA otr and I love folding. So I thought it's probably a bad idea to try to float 0 equity and try to bluff a guy off top set. And of course in floating the board can pear and it's GG. I think in the future, in these 4bet pots when i Know villain has AAXX and if I DO flop a flush I should just go float/float and play "perfectly" if the board pairs. I can then built the dynamic where I show them the flush a few times in these spots and then maybe I can get away with float/float bluffing some heart blocker hands... Decided to not try it until I build up the image first.




Hand 11) Another SUPER interesting PLO 4bet pot
Villain was an unknown reg looking thing. Think the board is such on the flop I can't/shouldn't rip my naked obvious AAxx here. Very surprised I didn't face a donkshove tbh (but it's a trivial fold). I guess he might think I'm 4betting some rundowns and maybe flop straighst here sometimes? Idk

The turn was an interesting decision point. I can easily rep AAJx here and he can't call with any 2pair/shouldn't have any sets. The problem is donkregs are gonna look at their JXXX and lolcall cuz has straight even though so much AAJX is in a 4betting range.

River is interesting too. It really looks like he's trying to showdown whatever he has and I know I'm beat. I just couldn't pull the trigger on the bluff here with no heart blocker.

In position when my range is much stronger on the board, I'm wondering if it's criminal not bluffing the turn here. I just would have been so pissed getting snapped off by 2 pair from some unknown regfish. I guess if I find myself in a similar spot soon I'll give it a whirl.





In spite of the run-bad I still enjoyed the 5-7 hours of poker I put in today. Likely do the same tomorrow. While it's aggravating to play these monster slightly losing sessions, I still appreciate my time spent playing this silly card game.

Month overall is looking quite regfishy for me (not much of a winrate to speak of). Sucks to suck. Definitely "due" a monster upswong. Feel it coming in the very near future

Shouldn't you be folding to a PSB from a field bettor here? This flop is terrible, he's showing so much strength MW, and even if he has some semi-bluffs like pair+fd/sd, it's literally a flip against JJ? What was your plan if the turn was not a J?

Not against these guys. You have to adjust based on player type. Criminal to fold.

It's true I don't like many turn cards.

The great break-even fest of May 2016 continues. Little insult to injury @ the end of the session (as you see the EV lines cross). Just lost my last 3 allins with > 70% equity to close out another "fun" day of poker. That said, I'll take a small win over losing any day.

5.10 zzzzz more break-even zzz


I thought I played much much better in NL today than I have been. A lot less auto-pilot and a lot more fighting for small pots.


Hand 1) PLO Heartbreaker vrs fish
Hard to get this much equity. Sucks to lose




Hand 2) PLO can be really dumb
I guess this is a good example of why single suited is good and why double suited is awesome. Gonna really have to rethink if I want to call 4bets with offsuit rundowns (probably not).




Hand 3) PLO can be dumb 2.0




Hand 4) Delicious vrs fun player




Hand 5) Fish owning my face off in NL

Figured him for better flush draws (which I need to fold out) but also a lottt of 89. I know I never get to the river with FHs here (except for flopped sets) but I wasn't sure he knew that. Anyways he owned me. This hand too is an interesting example of run-out runbad. His drawing to a bare oesd on a paired FD board is so horrendous. But if he doesn't bink the turn I don't lose a 50bb pot. And more than likely I'll win a nice medium one when he c/fs brick turns.




Hand 6) Delicious runout vrs fun player at 400
Rare to run like this lately. Best runout possible of course



Hand 7) Calling down light vrs LAG
I often chicken out. Was sick of folding. Had top pair fd bricked. Some straight-draws bricked. He 3bets and barrels through a lot.




Hand 8) Getting owned by player master reg
Think his call is mehhhh. I guess he puts me on exactly 78 and QJ (which he blocks) and doens't think I value bet TX like this (he's wrong). I could just barrel turn but he was playing like such a monkey I thought he could check-shove all sorts of random things. I suppose he blocks a few flushes but still seemed optimistic to me. Good hand buddy





Hand 9) Absolutely ridiculous May runout vrs fun player
And of course this registers as "running @ EV". Which is why EV is not a comprehensive measure of your luck. This one really stung the guy was fairly passive preflop with only an 8% PFR. But you have to valuebet thinly against this fish. Had he minraised the turn, I probably find the fold (but maybe not...). Not bet/bet/shoving and trying to stack a fish is a big mistake.

Of course in my head I'm like, okay that's a dry flop and he puts me on AK... but I'm going to value-bet. Then the turn is pretty ****ing terrible (a Q or J I hate since it improves KJ, KQ, JJ, QQ which are all likely holdings). Then the river is pretty absolutely awful since it improves any KT he might be holding. But I figured I'd have heard from KJ, JJ on the turn (in the form of a raise). So I decide to jam river to target KQ, AK, and any other random stubborn stuff he can show up with. Of course when the turn and river are about as awful as possible (except maybe exactly a Q OTR) I expect to jam/lose sometimes. The hand he showed up with was pretty infuriating...




Hand 10) Weird PLO spot
Figured I only needed 20ish% equity to make calling this off right. Had only 6% so was a disaster. That being said the reg-thing (now marked fish) in the SB... his preflop play is just HORRIFIC here. I realize he flopped top set/nfd and looks like a genius. But from everything I read and see in PLO the nut-worst hands to defend in 3bet/4bet pots 1) contain an Ace, 2) contain a pair, 3) are played OOP. This guy managed to do all 3 of those things wrong.

I think in a more reasonable scenario though, the sb probably has stuff like 7XXX rundowns with sometimes a FD. The 4bettor has AAXX a ton but might cover spades. I probably should just fold flop because 20% equity might be best best best case scenario. (in fact playing with PPT 20% is the most equity I can come up with vrs a reasonable SB and assigning AAXXss to the giant 4b, so flop is definitely always a fold. I'll know for next time.)






All in all very happy with my play today given the conditions I'm enduring lately. Hoping to break-thru this wall soon.

I think I would've snap quit after hand 9, floating j10s bdfd on a dry king high board is optimistic to say the least... I understand your reasoning on the river jam but still think it's too thin since you block AK considerably.

As far as PLO, do you think the adjustment being a successful holdem player makes the transition a lot easier. It seems that even at 1/2 PLO a lot of people have no idea what they're doing.

Its very thin. But against a fish I'm going for stacks every time here. If he runs me down congrats but fish show up with all sorts of **** (as demonstrated).

It really does suck having nutbad runouts so constantly where I go from fat value on early streets to thin value at best on late streets (but having to just cf a ton).


I think being good at NL helps a small amount for PLO but not a lot. As I mentioned previously I played about 100k hands of micro plo so I at least have a small clue about what constitutes a good hand pf and what to generally stack off with. Think you definitely can't just jump in and expect to win.

I still find myself in tons of wtf do I do here spots

5.11 Another day another rage quit



I thought I played particularly well today. I missed 2 "thinnish" valuebets against a pretty decent regular, but a guy that would probably find the fold. I had 2 hands in my last 30 minutes, the first that set me off on monkey tilt and the second which ended my night I'll post those first then go thru and find some interesting hands.


Hand 1) Annoying regfish posts bb in mp and flops set to my overpair
So ****ing standard for May. As if he's getting remotely close IO with 60bb... ridiculous and of course I just have it to pay him off. Anyways my turn line is debatable, but it's more or less a "**** you if you posted oop and made a real hand". I could definitely have turned fds or some oesds too... so it's not like it's completely unbalanced




Hand 2) The hand that ended my night
The BTN was a whale playing like 60/40. I had 3bet him a bunch prior to this and actually flopped some hands for a change. Of course, he just x/folded all those times. The plan was to jam ANY turn that doesn't 4 straight including flush completing cards. And as if there were any question lately the turn is the WORST ****ing card in the deck. But he checks it back. So I'm thinking I have the best hand ~90% of the time after that and he mostly has a lot of AX stuff. Decide to go for it all on the river which is debatable. There might be more merit to c/c'ing to catch his wiffed fds (but I figured he might jam those on the turn thinking he has some FE with the 4 straight...) Anyways, insta-tilt insta-quit.




Hand 3) Bluff catching vrs top reg
Think he thinks I have JJ-KK (I do often) and wants to fold out those things (I probably do...)




Hand 4) Balancing a turn c/r check range vrs good reg
Think he thinks I have a set here a lottt when I check turn, so if he shovels river I think I have to fold a flush. Of course the nutbad river here pairing the board, because if I can fade another WORST card in the deck, he probably goes for thin value against all my sets (thinking I'm bad enough to just barrel all my flushes OTT). Still thankful to complete a flush...




Hand 5) Good PLO reg using the river scare card
I kinda was unsure whether he really would be (or should) db AAXX here without a 3. So To me he's repping like 3XAA or air kinda thing. But of course it's the nut river scare card for him, but he's trying to fold out a lot of FHs, so I'm no sure I love it. Anyways, I had 2 sets so I couldn't fold.




Hand 6) Le sigh
"standard"




Hand 7) Interesting HU PLO spot vrs reg as table breaks
I think neither of has KJ here very often when the turn goes X/X. In game I was a little confused what he bet/calls the flop with here that also x/back the turn. Thinking about it more 2pr+weakerfds a lot of the time makes most sense to me. Meaning... I think with hindsight he fills up a lot on the river. Trying to get ppl to fold FHs when FDs brick is a no-no. That being said, I definitely have more top set (AA) and second set (QQ) in my range after it goes bet/raise check/check. I think he thinks my hand looks like only set or some FDs turned into a bluff. The issue is, they have to be FDs that I'm not continuing to barrel on the turn (eg no jack blocker kind of thing). I'm not sure I'm in love with his bluff catch on the flop or the river. He just has really bad rio in pretty much every run out. And even here when he gets one of the better runouts he can hope for it's an absolutely brutal spot. I don't know a ton about HU PLO of course but naked bottom set seems like an absolute dog to a massive c/r.

I also think in the future, I shouldn't x/r nfd + strong showdown value stuff (as I had here). I should x/r more NFD+draw, NFD+gutter, NFD+naked second pair type hands NFD blocker etc. Balance definitely requires some played nfds and nut flushes.

Interesting stuff and "nice call"




Hand 8) Discipline vrs str8 forward loose passive
Think the guy literally only 4bets AAXX. Even though I have the Ace blocker I think I'm totally ****ed on the flop. I decided to flat pre anyways even dominated just b/c I had doubles00ted and couldn't stand to fold such a pretty hand. PPT says I have 40% equity against raggedy double suited aces and 30% in absolute worst case of AAJTds. I need 31% pf to breakeven to it's not a terrible peel IP.

I think post, checking the flop back was great discipline (even when it looks like I smash). I Think with further inspection I should just fold the turn. Think he has dominating clubs a lot when he checks the flop and he's just absolutely smashed with top set+nfd.




Hand 9) Standard May runout and action vrs whale
Checked his river donk, showed 80% 8/10. Despite a low WWSF I decided I couldn't fold with the nfd blocker given that river donk number and also spades bricking. I briefly considered jamming blocking both top set and nfd but decided he'd just be bet/call any flush if he had one (good discipline not bluffing). ****edy **** **** ****




Hand 10) Emptying the clip
Villain is a top reg who plays 1-2 thru 5-10. Think my value range is insanely narrow (looking) here when the river pairs the king something like exclusively KQ, AK, sets, and maybe some weird AA merges. Think he's capable to float the turn here with a bunch of stuff that has SDV. I'm actually not positive I can get him to fold say TXdd on the river (but maybe I'm such a nitttt). Anyways, he told me after he had J9dd which makes sense. I definitely block some of his folding range (nfds) but I didn't feel like giving this one up (too tilted). Thankfully I didn't get snapped by something like pocket 9s would have crushed my soul at this point




Breaking even is definitely preferable to losing. Starting to lose my sanity though wrt to the absolute terrible turn/river cards in the biggest $$$ making spots. While I've put in insane volume so far this month (50k hands already before the half-way point) I'm not pushing myself to play longer sessions or longer than I want to. I'm doing a great job of insta-quitting when tilt sets in so I've avoided (for now) a massive losing session *hopefully not jinxing self*. That being said, I'm also "scared" to play the higher stakes because I don't want to "run bad there" which is of course ridiculous. Game quality and number of games has definitely been down in May so not playing bigger is probably not terrible. Is what it is

Can you explain why you're not betting turn in Hand 4 when you actually hit your flush? You could get called by straights, sets, AsXx. I understand you want to mix it up in a reg-reg dynamic, but let's say if this was a live 1/3 or 2/5 game and you c/r flop, are you really checking turn when hitting the flush? P.S. I didn't understand your explanation.

Hey man awesome read!

Just curious as to how your volume is spread out between sites (what % is played on each site if you had to guess)? Also how are you determining this spread?

I'm in NJ too and about to step up to 100NL for first time. Any tips?

Very good questions. I suppose for someone knowledgeable in poker reading the HH is kind of ridiculous. I'm semi-bluffing and I bink the turn miracle card and I check, what the hell am I doing? (Important points bolded)




I'll address what I was thinking in the hand first then I'll talk about hypothetical adjustments I'd make in a LLSNL game.

The first important piece of info is position btn/blinds so ranges are wide-ish. The second is the board texture. 697ss is a flop that generally hits the big blind harder than the button and the button should not be c-betting this texture a whole lot. I think villain is more on the "over-agro not-folding" exploitative side of things but still a very good tough player. Anyways, this kind of texture back in the day used to be one to just check-raise bluff a ton (that's how people expressed a range advantage for the big blind). Nowadays that's still true against the population over-cbetting, but against the better more "GTO" (god I hate that word) type guys the adjustment is to check-raise a narrow balanced range and also c/c'ing a balanced range. Anyways, I expect this villain to be over-cbetting the flop, but then also over-floating the check-raise in an attempt to steal the pot later (against a weak looking nit like me).

This leads to the turn decision. If I barrel the turn, what sort of hands can he continue with? Well, flushes (which I'll probably stack/be stacked by if I slow down), sets, and maybe a very stubborn KK/AA with an added flush draw. What does my hand look like on a 4-straight 4-flush turn, exclusively flushes and maybe some blocker-bluffs but mostly FLUSHES. So if he thinks I'm a nit and I'm repping a flush in theory the only things he can/should continue with have excellent equity against a flush. Then, compound that with possibility that the board runs out badly (say the river pairs the board or a 4-flush) and I definitely can't comfortably jam a Q hi flush for value. Villain is the type to turn a lot of things into a bluff on a bad run-out to fold out my range and it's still not profitable to hero call a Q hi flush.

Let's now talk about what my hand looks like when I c/r the flop and then check the turn while keeping in mind that villain is an excellent hand-reader. On the flush completing 4-straight turn card my sets hate life. That being said, they all still have a tonnnnn of equity in the pot (25% really often) and with money behind folding a set on the turn to any sort of reasonable sizing would be criminal. That being said barreling the turn with a set would be turning it into a bluff (which isn't horrrrrrible but I don't like it) and generally I'll want to be c/c'ing the turn here with sets trying to draw out. I can't ONLY c/c the turn here with sets that wouldn't be "balanced" (hate this word too). So I need to c/c some really strong hands (like flushes) as well.

tldr I think villain is definitely capable and more likely to turn things into bluffs to try to get me to fold a set on a nasty run-out as opposed to stationing off worse when my range looks like set/flush/air. Had the river been a complete brick I think he takes sdv with the nut-straight he showed up with, but had he had something else with less sdv he might bluff jam the river.



Now I'll quickly talk about live adjustments. In live low stakes games I'm basically doing very little (maybe no) pure or blocker bluffing, so maybe my check-raising range is something like flopped straights, sets, a few semi-bluffs. I'd basically play really "face-up" after that.

On a turn brick I would: bet sets for value, bet straights for value, continue semibluffing spades
On a 4-straight turn I would: check flush-draws, check-sets, check-chop straights, barrel nut-straights
On a flush completing turn I would: bet sets (thin value), flushes for value, and check straights
On 4-straight/flush turn I would: bet flushes, check sets, check straights

Hope that all makes some sense, can clarify further if needed

Hey! Ty and welcome.

I would say for PLO 85% Stars, 15% rest
For NL I'd guess 5% Stars, 95% rest

This is the spread that comes out due to my game selection process. It's nothing fancy or groundbreaking but I don't want to talk about the specifics

Good luck with NL100. Remember you're still playing the same game. Make sure to find some soft tables to ease your transition. The NL100 regs are probably more agro than you're used to but remember that they're playing NL100 and not NL1000 for a reason . Let me know how it goes!