can someone cliffnotes this? it looks like it might be an amazing thread

i like the PG-14 rated penthouse forum stories

Might be another one after tonight. She leaves early Thursday morning so tonight is our last night together for awhile.

After that only poker I'm afraid. Haha

Waiting for the game to start at my local card room. $1-$3 tonight. Ill update as I go if anything noteworthy happens.

That sucks man, here in LA there are games literally 24/7. Buy in structures suck though.

where do you play?

PolProf,

I know what you mean about dating a masseuse, the way they always wanna fix you and make sure your posture is good. I must warn you.....if you stop dating, you're gonna miss those free massages like crazy my friend.

Good luck on your journey!

Just finished a session

Game was $1-$3. I bought in for $200 to get a feel for the game before committing anymore money. We were short handed for the first 30 minutes or so.

No big hands of note. I had worked my stack up about $345 when the following occurred.

Ten handed.

5 limpers. Pot is $19.
Hero: CO. My image is tight aggressive. I had folded a small pocket pair earlier in the night to a pf raiser who only had about $105. A set flopped which became quads.
My hand : QhQd

I raise it to $23 straight
BTN folds
SB folds
BB (360) calls. BB is a middle aged Asian man. He plays very loose prob a VPIP of about 50. He's a calling station when He hits any part of the flop or has any draw. He also is capable of running a stone cold bluff if he thinks you are weak.

UTG (160) calls. UTG is semi loose passive. He floated a guy early on oop with AQ on a ten high flop and checked his queen on the turn and river. He had bought in for $400 and had been slowly losing it.

Pot is $72

Flop is J 7 3. Two spades. Check. Check.

I bet $43. BB raises to $150. UTG goes allin for $137 after saying. "Whatever "

My play?

I'm putting UTG on maybe a jack or a flush draw

The BB? This could be a jack, two pair, a flush draw, etc

Do we fold, shove or call here ?

I'll wait for a few responses before posting the rest of the story and hand.

Is it possible your Cbet was looked upon as weakness?

I am either shoving or folding here, never calling.

Yes that is possible. I mean after my raise preflop, my SPR is like 4.5 to 1. According to PNLH with Ed Miller and the gang that's about right for this type of hand.

What do I make of the check raise from that villain type?

I would ask the Asian guy if he hit a set and watch for his reaction. If he did and you call the hand a common tell is for the person to smile or have a quick reaction to the question. If you are way off and they are bluffing they will stay still, or take few seconds to answers. Another thing to check for is where is he looking. If it looks like they hit the set, fold. If not it’s all going in. This seems like the type of hand where getting a tell may help the decision.

The above is all in hind sight where I can sit back and say what I would want to have done. :-)

Back to real life. In a loose game like that there are still a lot of worse hands that will call. The only issue with calling or shoving is you want to have a big hand with big pots. All you have is an over pair and no real draws. I would likely let it go and see what they have. Its not an easy call and I would be pissed at myself when they turn over QJo.

Been following this thread and rooting for you to get to LV. Good Luck!

If your reads are good, then this would be an odd way for BB to play a set or strong 2 pr. His raise is designed to get one or both of you to fold out, clearly he sees utg as weak from the initial check and probably just feels he can blow you off pot here if you missed. If you just call here (no, never), then he is shoving turn no matter what. UTG is screaming flush draw with his check/shove call. BB can't do anything about that now, and wouldn't have reason to raise strong J, better to just milk you if he had set or top two, maybe raise with bottom two (but is he really calling pf with 7 3?). I think I shove here and hope my reads are right, and survive the flush draw.

I ended up shoving. Villain called and the board bricked out. He turned over AA. I guess in his mind he was "trapping" me with a big pocket pair. I don't like his play because preflop the pot was already bloated with all the limpers. I think this is always a 3 bet from aces in this situation. I went from a potential nearly $600 win to a $200 loss but I think given every factor I played it alright.

I ended up leaving. I was a bit tired so I didn't think continuing to play was the best course of action. So I basically ran down $200. I realize I need more experience playing with more than 100 bbs. I will work on that in the next few sessions. So here are my stats

BR: $3800
Win/loss: $2802
Sessions: 37
Winning session: 81.1%
Hourly: $18.24
Hours: 154

I'll be heading back to my local room this weekend although prob not tonight. Thanks for the input on the hand everyone.

Just read this whole thread.

Just wanted to say GL with everything OP.

Thank you very much

Spent free time the last two days reading this thread. It was a bit of an up and down ride. I don't really have anything else to contribute other than thank you for your contributions.

Ride has not begun yet, imo.

Why, so you can fold your queens? LoL

Never folding queens to that guy.

I was just commenting on his play. Nothing to do with mine really.

Tonight begins the weekend madness. My local card room is usually a bit more crowded on fri and sat nights. I suppose this is to be expected. I'll be playing all three nights this weekend and hopefully improving my game each time I play.

My therapist is out of the country and almost to her destination in SE Asia. I was looking at her flight from LA to Taipei....over 13 hours! I hate flying and cannot imagine being trapped in a plane for that long. I get antsy after about 3 hours. Still she is great at meditation and probably is having no problems whatsoever which brings me to....

The mental game of poker.

I have neglected this part of my game for a long time. I am not sure what my issues are but I know I have them. I kept thinking about the hand from the other night and it kept me awake. So I downloaded Jared Tendler's book The Mental Game of Poker. I plan to devote just as much time to it as I would any strategy book. I think for me, the mental game is probably about 70-75% of my problem so hopefully this book will pay dividends. If anyone has read this book and has any insight or suggestions they want to share feel free!

Ill try to update tonight after my session. If not then def tomorrow.

Just got back from my session. It was short just under two hours as I didn't feel on top of my game at all.

Not really too many interesting hands although one slightly unnerving experience to some degree. This guy who is in a wheel chair rolled up two seats to my left. He couldn't really speak and he was drooling on himself at the table. Not exactly sure what his disabilities are but they did not keep him from playing poker. Of course as I am on the button he will be in the big blind so I will be stealing blinds from a guy in a wheelchair. Awesome!

Anyway we were seven handed. Guy in the HJ makes it $8. CO folds. I look down at two black aces. I make it $33. I had the HJ covered. SB folds and its on the guy in the wheel chair. He has like $70 to start the hand. He calls the $33 flat and so does the HJ. $100 pot

Flop is Q 6 6. BB checks HJ has like $110 left and he checks. I just shove.

Wheelchair guy calls!! HJ folds

A on the turn. River is blank. Wheelie turns over 8-6 offsuit. He had out flopped me and I boated on the turn. He decides to go home after he tells his handler he wants to leave. I say to him "hey nice hand man you outflopped me"
What the hell was I supp to say? I don't even think the guy could speak and here I am trying to talk to him. Ugh! Just all around surreal.

Anyway no real big hands. Table didn't have much money on it really. I ran up $100 in just under two hours and called it a night. My Aces full of sixes won the high hand jackpot of $25 so go me!

BR: $3900
Hours: 156
P/l: + 2934
Hourly: $19.08
Sessions: 38

I'll be back down there tomorrow night for the midnight raffle. You get tickets for hours played. I think it's $200. This room rakes up to $10 plus $1 on every $20+ pot for the high hand. After it reaches $25 they pay out the high hand and start over. I don't think it's particularly easy to beat this game given the rake and bonus structure but my choices here are limited.

If his image was such that you couldn't fold pre then he should have raised. That being said, flatting with aces pre is higher variance but not necessarily horrible. I don't do it often, but on occasion the situation presents itself. I wouldn't recommend that rec fish flat with aces though.

The real reason why you 3 bet aces there is all the PF limpers. At this game a raise like I made could have gotten 2-3 more callers. I know people argue this point all the time but I don't think playing aces against 4 people post flop is ever going to be as easy as it would be against 1 person esp given that he was OOP.

Too right. When you raise aces preflop, you're value betting. When you limp with aces, and the hand is limped around, you might as well have pocket deuces. You cannot be surprised to see a set, trips, or two pair in a limped pot.

Tonight's session

3 hours
+ 54

Not a lot to talk about from this session. No really big pots that I played nor interesting situations. I've been reading Small Stakes No Limit Holdem and I really tried to play more hands in position and focus on my post flop play.

I was very card dead with no pair above sixes and no Ace above AJ. In any case ill be playing again tomorrow night and then taking Monday off as there is not game scheduled m

Forgot to post updated stats.

BR: $3954
Hours: 159
P/L: $2994
Hourly: $18.83