Trust me, I was NOT joking when I said I've considered taking the sign . . .

I had a brutal, brutal morning. I got stacked twice at 300NL at the Bellagio. Fawk!

I drove to Mandalay Bay to change my scenery, took a long walk around the casino and the Luxor in order to change up my mood. Now waiting for the 10am Mandalay Bay tournament to start. A Refresher makes everything better . . .

Someone commented that I should provide more details on my hands so I'm going to try to do that. I got stacked twice this morning.

HAND ONE
I was in the BB with mild pre flop action, 98s. I flopped OESD on an otherwise dry board, 10-7-4 rainbow. Two small stacks (about $100 each) go all in as well as the large stack at the table. By my count that gave me 2.5-1 on 8 outs. So I shove, miss, and lost to a flopped two pair. 10-4 was being played preflop and that's what I lost to

HAND TWO
I had pocket 9s on the button. I raise and the BB comes along. I flop a set and I proceed to fire three bullets. He hits a 4 outer on the river with a J for the gunshot straight. The player otherwise had nothing, I had him the whole way and he just called me down.

Sorry about the rough morning.

One key to being successful is judging things not by the amount you won/loss but whether you played well. Getting stacked a couple times can be horrible if you made a bad play or it can be "great" if you had the best of it against the villain's range and just took a bad beat. When you play really well most of your losses should be bad beats.

That said, your hand histories need more detail. What was your stack size and the size of the big stack in the first hand? How did the betting go preflop? What were the villain's images?

I ask because one factor to consider in your 2.5:1 odds is redraws to better hands. If a villain had a set then they have a 20% chance of making a FH even if your straight completes. That changes your chance of winning from as high as 36% to 27%. That's needing just 1.7:1 best case vs 2.7:1 worst case.

That said, my reaction from the info given is that your call was ok if you can tolerate the fact you will lose your stack 2 out of 3 times. If you have to leave a good game for tilt reasons if you lose then you have to consider that too.

In the second hand, you betting your set 3 streets is very different if the board is 972rJA or 789sss6cKs. Position is also a factor. Chances are that your play was ok, but hard to say.

Again, I think being busted or not is much less important than whether your played well.

How much was the big stack in for?

He was deep, had everyone at the table covered - maybe $800 or so? Something in the 800-1000 range for sure.

He was the primary reason I made the call. His stack plus the two smaller stacks plus the pot gave me right around 2.5/3-1 to make the call. I realize that I'm being ignorant of the other players to some degree, I'm focusing almost exclusively on the pot-odds. 8 outs needs 2-1 if I remember correctly, so I felt like the odds were there.

Thank you, I appreciate your insight. It is true that I'm ignoring the potential outs that also help my opponents - Natamus helped clue me into that fact today and I should be more cognizant of it.

I am tolerant of the losses to a large degree. I have a dedicated bankroll for this and losing it wouldn't affect my lifestyle in any way. It's just not as fun when they happen back-to-back like this

I had a positive swing earlier in the week, so it stings to give it back and then some. But in the big picture, my bankroll is still solid - nothing to worry about there; I'm down less than 10% of my BR. I'll be posting a graph here in just a little bit.

As for the steaming and the walk at the casino - I need to walk more anyways. So the lap around MB and Luxor was just as much about getting my heart rate up as it was about just stepping away from poker for a bit. I actually enjoyed doing that today and will do it more in the future. It's easy to be distracted walking around a casino - next thing you know you've gotten 20-30 minutes of walking in and that's good.

This is my latest result set


I've upped my hours since the last time I posted this. I'm trying really hard to get accustomed to longer sessions.

And here's a graph of my results as a net change to bankroll


I'm ok with this graph. In the finance world you're always looking for "higher-highs and lower-lows". I am getting that thus far. As long as I can structure myself up to have that next higher-high and minimize the downward side, then I'll remain optimistic that I can reach consistent profitability.

how big was your stack, actually if you think about it pushing with just the two stacks is a high variance coin flip, the third hundred would make it +ev but still high variance call and everything over 100 is -ev. so if I'm in for 2 bucks there folding may be a better option.

Hand one is close but with the info given I too would make the call. You're drawing to the large end of the straight which makes a big difference. If you hit it on the turn you have the nuts and if the turn card is a miss you could still hit the nuts on the river. Not too many blockers to worry about if you have other players on pairs, two pair, sets etc... which is likely what you would have them on.

You were just getting the right odds especially if you consider the implied odds of having the big stack in play.

Thats very close to what my line of thinking was in the moment. I mean the board was 10-7-4 (!!!) - even against a set I'm still OESD to the nuts. So that's why the call made sense to me - I truly believe the pot odds were there to warrant the call.

Blockers

Come to think of it, I do want to emphasize that last point because people seem to want to help on hand #1 and that's good. A huge part of my reasoning was the 10-7-4 board, dry as can be - who the fawk flops two pair on that? I knew the OESD would be to the nuts, nothing else really made sense on it.

.... and the implied odds with the big stack still in the mix. You hit that turn and he has a set or two pair you could possibly stack him off.
His calling gives you both types of odds. Without him you are not getting pot or implied odds and it is an easy fold.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the weird two pair which actually happens all the time. You could easily have had one of the shorties on a set there so the two pair winning hand is rather nebulous.

We talked this out on the side and agreed that there was no shame in your game in hand 1, there are layers of factors that could lead you to a different play but the math agrees with the call there's a ton of value in that pot vs the rest of your stack

OK, thanks. That must be a term that I'm missing in my description, I've never heard that one before.

yes you have 1/3 odds of winning so $100 against two others is even money, the third stack makes it +ev for the $100 but you are -ev 2 to 1 for every additional dollar over $100 you put in so assuming you limped in which SHOULD be the case you should fold if your stack is $150 or above ps I do this to make money not flip coins and definitely not $100 bills

you're forgetting the existing pot.

existing pot should be in the $8-$24 range or you have another problem. The question you should be asking is at what stack size is this an even money call and how close to that do you want to go to make the call. In my mind, I want to play because it's +ev not for a coin flip. I don't make $100 coin flips for $8 and remember somebody else could have 98 then it's -ev all the way.

flop is likely standard (im not sure what your stack and the deeper Vs were exactly) with that extra $, the problem is calling raise w/ 89s oop from bb (and i love the hand) is very hard to play +EV over an infinite sample size unless your playing significantly deeper than usual 1-2. your going to end up in a lot of high variance situations, and more often than not your just not going to flop anything you can continue with which leaves you few moves oop...its obviously better than dominated hands here but its more of a hand i would want to !3 from later position

Yeah, but a set has more outs than you do, and if a set hits his draw, it's the nuts. You have no redraw, and yet if you hit your draw on the turn he still has a redraw.

Straight outs > Set outs

8 > 7

RR you are mostly right of course but the set has 10 outs after the turn.

Jim, I agree with others that your play on hand 1 was +EV btw. Hand 2 is the hand where more info is especially needed. We don't know if villain sucked out with the top of his range (78 on 952K6) or if you were lucky he had the one hand that needed to suck out (QJ on 987sss6T).

Right. Set goes from 7 to 10.