About an hour ago

I figured you can't just slow down because the flush might have come in. I like betting, I don't like the size. (or his calls to get there .....).

PokerStars - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

UTG: $3.85
MP: $8.78
CO: $5.35
BTN: $7.93
SB: $5.00
Hero (BB): $5.05

SB posts SB $0.02, Hero posts BB $0.05

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero has T T

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to $0.10, fold, Hero raises to $0.35, BTN calls $0.25

Flop: ($0.72, 2 players) T 7 3
Hero bets $0.55, BTN calls $0.55

Turn: ($1.82, 2 players) K
Hero bets $1.35, BTN calls $1.35

River: ($4.52, 2 players) J
Hero bets $2.16, BTN raises to $4.32, Hero calls $0.64 and is all-in

BTN shows 4 A (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 34%, Flop 26%, Turn 16%)
Hero shows T T (Three of a Kind, Tens) (Pre 66%, Flop 74%, Turn 84%)
BTN wins $9.70

lol what are the chances? Exactly the same spot. His play is utter filth, amazing how many times fish make mistakes on every street and get rewarded for it.

I like your sizing on the flop, on the turn i'd go a bit bigger as he's called the flop so he has something that will probably call a larger bet on the turn. The river is just disgusting, all your options suck. I really don't like either shoving or c/calling, but c/folding seems so weak. Just put it down as a cooler

Get them!

Cheers! I'll try

What exactly are you putting him on?

Just skimmed through, gonna read through your hands more in depth tommorow(good job on the detail). Thank you for the good wishes and first comment on my thread. GL on the e-felt!!!(im jealous being in the U.S.)

thanks man! Hope u enjoy the thread, just ignore the occasional ** filled tilt induced rant!

never make the switch to PLO

lol yeah. Doing that would be taking 20 years off my life and basically lighting my roll on fire

I love PLO, but the swings are enough to make a grown man cry. Trying to get some friends to play a few lives sessions of it. PLO is also made for TV with all the action and swings, so I think it is going to take off big style for TV soon.

Sorry to go off topic, but can anyone give me thoughts on HEM vs PT3/4? Having difficulty finding a thread which gives a good simple comparison. Is it as much about individual preference as anything? Sorry to hijack your blog Pokergooner....people can always PM me rather than post here.

Thanks.

I've only ever used HEM so i'm unable to say im afraid. Maybe pm some of the bloggers on here who post graphs that have come from pt

Played a couple of fairly uneventful 5nl sessions.

Hands: 774
P/L: + $ 5.52

Current bankroll: $ 97.12 + T$ 44

Trusting my instincts.

I don’t know the exact numbers (having rage-purged my HEM of all hands on several occasions after a particularly bad instance of monkey tilt) but I reckon I must have played somewhere in the region of 2-3 million hands online in the 3 or so years since I started playing online. So I feel like I’ve played enough that there are times now when my instincts tell me something that I should listen to.

There have been a few hands lately when I’ve had a set or a fullhouse, and I’ve pretty much had the nuts apart from one or two possible hand combinations that would beat me. On each of these occasions, due to the particular betting patterns / villain’s timing or whatever, my instincts have said ‘fold, you’re dead’. On each occasion I ignored my instincts, on the basis that I had the virtual nuts and I couldn’t fold because I beat 19/20 of the possible hands villain could have in that spot. So I called, they turned over exactly the hand I feared, and I lost a stack.

I posted several of these hands on the forums, and the general consensus was ‘you can’t even consider folding there, folding would be dreadful, snap shove/snap call’. So in that sense the hands can obviously just be put down as coolers (which they clearly were – FH over FH, straight flush over Ahigh flush etc). But I was still annoyed because I considered folding, and I thought I could have got away from them. The trouble always is, if you fold the 2nd nut full house, villain will never show you the nut full house, so you’ll never know if you made an amazing fold or got a serious case of MUBS.

Here’s a hand from this morning where to all intents and purposes I had a hand that should have gone bet/bet/shove. I guarantee that if I post this on the forums I will get slaughtered for checking the turn with the intention of check/folding (even before the subsequent action which confirmed I should fold the turn). But once I’d bet the flop, a voice in my head started screaming at me ‘you’re dead, get the hell out of this one’, so on this occasion I listened. And as luck would have it, I got to see both villains’ hands, and got confirmation that at least on this occasion I was correct. (It’s also yet another example of villains somehow always managing to hit their ****ing kicker when I have them dominated).

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

CO ($3.65)
Button ($5.07)
SB ($1.09)
BB ($5.76) – VPIP: 26, PFR: 15, 3B: 0, AF: 1.2, Hands: 39
Hero (UTG) ($5.55)
MP ($5.78) – VPIP: 44, PFR: 28, 3B: 13, AF: 1.5, Hands: 18

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, A
Hero bets $0.15, MP calls $0.15, CO calls $0.15, 2 folds, BB calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.62) 5, A, 4 (4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.45, MP calls $0.45, 1 fold, BB calls $0.45

Turn: ($1.97) Q (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, MP bets $1.70, BB raises $5.16 (All-In), Hero folds, MP calls $3.46

River: ($12.29) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $12.29

BB – AQ
MP – AJ

This also leads me onto the subject of combinatrics. Again, I’m sure my opinions on this will get slaughtered by people who know far more about poker and are infinitely better players than I will ever be. So this is just my (probably crap) 2c. In my opinion, though, at least at the micros the subject of combinatrics is over-rated.

It’s all very well to say, ‘there are 2 combinations of hands that beat me and 24 combinations that I beat, therefore I call.’ But if villain is squarely repping that 2 combination hand, and he’s a predictable villain who wouldn’t play any other hand that way, then imo it’s a fold. It doesn’t matter if he’s repping thin – at the micros, if a predicable villain is saying he has one specific hand, he’s probably got it. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought, ‘you can’t possibly have that one hand, I have the 2nd nuts, I call,’ only to be shown that one hand as my stack moves over towards villain.

I understand that in some situations combinatrics is important. E.g if we have 1010 on a J98 flop, we can say it’s far less likely he also has an oesd because we have two of the four possible 10s, so we can then make our decision as to how play the flop with the knowledge villain is more likely to have other hands than an oesd. However, imo once villain’s tendencies / betting patterns / timing tells indicate villain has a certain hand or range of hands, put more emphasis on that information, and give much less weight to the combinatrics factor.

Feel free to disagree entirely and tell me I’m talking crap, because I probably am.

On an entirely different note, here’s another hand from this morning.

Villain is – VPIP: 44, PFR: 28, 3B: 13, AF: 1.5, Hands: 18

I’m fine with the call of the 3bet given we have position, it’s a tiny 3bet from villain and we have a hand that can flop big.

My question is, do you raise the flop? I did, but thinking about it afterwards I’m wondering if it was a mistake. Thing he, it pretty much narrows his continuing range down to a strong Ax, a flush draw (less likely) or AA/JJ/AJ, and we’re not actually doing that well against that range. Even this kind of fish might find a fold with KK/QQ here. On the other hand, there are a lot of turn cards we won’t like, so maybe we should try to get the money in now or get him to spaz bluff or shove AK. Would you raise the flop, or call and hope he barrels a blank turn before raising?

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

BB ($3.75)
UTG ($5)
MP ($1.19)
CO ($5.69)
Hero (Button) ($5)
SB ($6.33)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, 6
3 folds, Hero bets $0.15, SB raises $0.23, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.55) 6, J, A (2 players)
SB bets $0.30, [color=#CC3333]Hero raises $1[/color

Exactly what happened to me last night, the only two possible hands I could lose to were pocket 2's or pocket 5's, against my full house kings full of two's. I have to say that I did not even think two of call his shove, but he turned over pocket 5's. Almost went tilt, but lost that 1 BI and another 1/2 BI going a bit monkey tilt to end session down 1.5BI. Awful cards all night, should have stuck to watching Chelsea's comeback or in the words of Iain Dowie their "bouncebackbility"

Yeah sometimes it's impossible to avoid, it's just a cooler, sometimes u just get a feeling from the guy's timing or whatever and wonder ... still incredibly hard to fold such strong hands though.

I had the interesting experience (being an Arsenal fan) of wanting Chelski to win last night, having had a cheeky bet on them to qualify. They didn't let me down. Drog's blatant cheating was not pleasant to watch however.

Who do u support?

Drobga was an absolute disgrace to football last night....the whole faking an elbow in the face and then lying on the floor peeping out to see if his oscar nomination was coming. Blatant cheating and I hope he gets hauled up for it. It's shame as I was almost starting to warm to him after the African Nations, but he showed his true colours.

Me? Pompey. It has been a tough couple of years. The way we are shipping out players, I am hoping that if I turn up with my boots on Saturday I might even get a game!

Played another lunch time session and down about 1.5 BI. Same story again, full house vs fullhouse. Mine was made on the flop the other sucker got the better one on the river. Was all in on the turn. Down from £41.00 to £34.00. Went monkey tilt and blew off another 0.50 trying to bluff on the river when what appeared to be a scare card came down....turned out to be exactly what he was after

Losing my love of poker after two losing sessions.