my bad, ignore/

solid results and update man, keep it going!

Don't know if youre adjusting well vs spaz. The AJ for example is a snap 3bet against this guy, as are a lot of hands.

Nice results man. Love to see it!

GL my dude, Australian here also from Perth, lurked pretty much your whole thread, thought id post now that you're crushing! Keep it up, hope to see you at the tables one day!

Hand 1 KK, reads really important here eg is he drinking. I think its close but I would probably fold here against a randomer raising OOP vs a large cbet. He's basically going to have a combo draw like AcXc or gutshot flush draw here a bunch, which you flip with or 2p/set. Its possible hes slowplaying QQ or something pre, or overplaying JJ but do think I would make a pretty snug fold. Good spot to pull out an equity/fold equity calculator.

Hand 2 again reads importants but lol pot odds I would call and see what hes up to OTT. You have blockers to JJ and there arent that many 2p combos. I think this is a spot where hes going to play really homestly on the turn if we call.

Hand 3 Call

Hand 3 don't like the sizing, make it like 100 or enough to jam the river for 1psb. Calling fine as well; think if he checks were going to take it down on the ricer if we make a helthy bet

Glgl

Hand 3




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Great work man, solid week!

<3

Yeeeah, it did cross my mind. I don't think I have much fold equity here though on this table being OOP. IP I'd def 3b/iso but I'm just going to miss flop so often and be floated 100% here. Kinda just want to make a hand then value bet like crazy vs this guy. But you're right 3b is prob better.

Ty dude, thanks for subbing.

Yeah man agree the KK is a spot you're desperately scouring for a read because it's so close. Agree with 100% of what you said.


Much appreciated!

i have a feeling this is gonna turn into something big very soon enough

Means a lot to know you have that feeling! Ty <3

Great stuff bro!! You gonna move to melbourne or wait out for london?

Not sure tbh mate. Still a long way off til I could afford Melbourne. I think when I hit $30k I'll go for a weekend to Melbourne and see if it's feasible.

Getting 3 stacks of high society and making a run huh?

We'll I figure 30k should be enough to make the transition to Melbourne. But I need to make sure it's more profitable than the games up here before I up and move my life, friends, family etc down there.

We need more blood for the homegame, gogogo!

Will gladly bleed at your homegame. :')

Daily Update - Fri 01/09

Hours played: 8.5
Profit: $10

Was so pretty to cash out $10 profit and not tip it to the host, but gotta keep that green streak alive!

Today at midday (it's now 3am so in 9 hours), I have a drunken 2/3 game. Mandatory drinking. Hilarious drinking games and whatnot will be associated. So I'm going to get like no sleep and no gym to be up in time for that one. Will take myself out for brekky since I have to deal with the emotional getting up before midday lol.

Will play there til maybe midnight, go home and sleep before I have to be at parents place for lunch on Sunday. Will be super sleep deprived and degeny over next few days. But happy to do that ever once in a while.

Proper update when I get the chance.

Definitely have some cool hands to look at from tonight's session. Lost one cooler AK into KK on a AK9 board this ***** just flats me pre and calls down multiway was pre sick. Couple of weird hands too to discuss. Lots and lots of folding. Somehow finished up. :")

Flush Mining

So how are we playing our AXs hands? I feel this is one of the last parts of the preflop puzzle for me. I noticed last night I did something potentially very bad. EP opens $25, CO calls, hero calls in SB with A9s.

We know these hands play super good multiway and their appeal largely comes in the form of flush over flushing someone in a big pot. Or making some spooky two pair and vbetting vs a stubborn top pair. But just how much ought we to pay to flush mine preflop? And is position important?

I think what I did wrong here is ignore the position bit. When we have position, we have more options at our disposal when it comes to the aspect of visibility, meaning we can raise flop to see a cheap river. Or we can check behind on the turn multiway. But if we're SB, our hand looks extremely face up and unless we flip a 13-16 outer, our flop check raise mightn't be very profitable.

So in future, I don't want to say I'll look to avoid playing these hands OOP, but if I am going to do so, I want to make sure I'm getting a very good price. In position, happy to pay a little more to cold call with these hands.

If anyone has any tips on playing low-mid suited aces, I'd love to hear from you.

Ooookay, fairly large update incoming, so let's jump right into it. First, we'll start with a few hands from Friday night.

Hand 1

MP (fish) limps, Hero limps 99 from CO, BTN isos to $25. BTN hasn't been getting out of line. Call, call.

Flop $75: 886r
Check, check, BTN cbets $40, call, hero calls.
Turn $155: Kss
Check, check, PFR jams for $125, call, hero ???

Notes: FWIW, I think it's a fairly trivial fold given how the BTN had been playing... Results-wise though, it's super frustrating... MP had 46o and BTN had Q3s and turns out we were waaay ahead. Did not ever expect to see that from BTN who hadn't gotten out of line once since playing with him.

Hand 2

Hero opens AJo in CO to $15, SB and BB call.

Flop $45: AQ3cc
Check, one muck, hero cbets $30, call.
Turn $105: 9o
Check, hero bets $70, call.
River $245: 3o
Villain donk bets $230, hero ???

Notes: I've never tanked so long in a cash game spot than I did here. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I should call. I figure sets and two pairs will raise flop, A9 will raise turn, and villain has no 3x come river. I also actually only had $180ish behind and as soon as I realised this, I snapcalled but probably took a good 3-5 minutes on this one. Villain had K5cc and we scooped.

Hand 3

Hero makes a loose open MP w J9ss to $20, CO fish calls, BB calls.
Flop $60: T82r (w/ backdoor spade draw)
Hero cbets $40, call call.
Turn $140: 3o
Mistaking the pot for $180, hero cbets $125 (either way it's not a terrible size imo), CO jams for a total of $305, fold, hero ???

Notes: So OTT here it's $180 for us to call and when we do, we win a $140+$305+305 = $750 pot. So we need 24% equity on the turn here to make a breakeven call before rake. We expect villain to have something like AT here about 100% of the time so I expect my straight outs as well as jack to be live. Vs exactly AT we have 25% equity. If we remove rake from the equation, we need 24.4% to profit here. So technically I think this becomes an okay call but it's so close that it really doesn't matter either way. So I'm happy with a fold or a call. I asked the player if I call whether she'd let me run it three times and she agreed, so I called. Turns out she had T7o which is actually a much worse hand for her to hold since it blocks one of my straight outs, diminishing my equity to just 22.7%. Think the hand is fine.

=============================================

Daily Update - Sat 02 Sept

Hours Played: 19.6
Profit: -$1,700

Smashed Saturday! So Friday night I finished up at about 3am, went home and passed out for a bit before getting up at about 11am to arrived on Saturday at the game at 12pm. The idea of the day was to play for 24 hours while drinking the entire time. Degen at heart, this was an awesome idea to me and it was a very fun day. My only issue was lasting the 24 hours - I had a Fathers Day lunch at midday Sunday, so would have to leave a little early to make it there in time.

There was also a bonus - "Last Man Standing" received a $200 pair of Beats by Dre headphones (which I'm wearing as I type this up!). This was given to whoever played the longest of the Saturday midday starters. I actually wasn't the last man standing either - it was two of us remaining for a long time, both really wanting the headphones, me mainly because I ****ed my previous pair a couple weeks ago. Anyway, it's about 9am Sunday morning and I end up calling it quits at the 19.7 hour mark. I needed to go do a bit of shopping and get to lunch, otherwise would have stayed the full 24 hours. So I surrender any hope of winning the headphones to the other player who was the actual last man standing. I said to him, "The headphones are yours, you earnt them" and the host asked whether he wanted them to which he replied, "I do want them... but I'll let you take them" - that was very kind of him. Although I was very kind earlier in the session by punting off around $1k to this guy. :')

I also drank the most by a looooong shot. I was half expecting everyone to be rolling on the floor absolutely blind drunk, but in actuality, it was really just me and one or two other players drinking. :') The barman tallied all my drinks up and told me at the end of the night that I'd drunk 48 drinks. Not bad. I didn't actually feel drunk at any point. 48 drinks over the span of 20 hours isn't a lot and it certainly didn't affect my gameplay at all. I knew I'd be drinking a lot coming into this game, but I said from the beginning I'd not let it affect how I played and I think I did play fairly well overall.

Let's take a look at some hands!

Hand 1

Hero isos over a few limps to $30 with KK, 5 callers.

Flop $180: KJ8r
Hero cbets $95, one caller in SB.
Turn $370: Qo
Hero jams about 1PSB left. Villain (guy who lasted longest), snapcalled with ATo - Yes, he peeled flop with 4 others to act after him with a pure gutshot - I brick the river and he scoops a $1k pot.

I have got to say that was one of the more frustrating hands I've ever played. More so because when you get KK and iso and get 5 callers, it's actually so ridiculously difficult to win the pot. So flopping top set is a literal dream come true. -_-

Hand 2

Hero isos $25 IP with AJdh, two callers OOP.
Flop $75: 88Jss
BB leads $15, hero raises to $40, call.
Turn $155: Ao
Check, hero bets $80, villain raises to $200, hero ???

Notes: Villain at this point has $150 behind. Suuuuper icky spot. I figure on the flop he probably rarely leads 8x - and if he does, why this size? This guy generally leads and cbets fairly small in general and has no idea re sizing but I still think my hand is best on the flop. Turn I think it's definitely very possible he raises with a hand like AXss - but really, this is being optimistic and us just hoping he doesn't have 8x. I also thought maybe he does this with AJ as well. I thought it would be a pretty huge disaster if we folded turn getting a million to one on a call, considering we should have the best hand sometimes vs draws, some AXss, and some chops w AJ. We also have like 6 outs vs 8x which isn't the worst thing ever. I didn't want to just call and have to fold for $150 more on any club rivers, so I shipped it in. Yup, 87o, we brick and end up losing a $765 pot. Pretty big mistake I think this hand was.
Worst hand I played all session. I'm pretty sure, in hindsight, we should just be folding turn right? Think flop play is fine - maybe raise a little bigger.

Hand 3

Hero opens TTds to $20 from MP, CO calls, SB raises to $50, call, call.
Flop $150: 883dd
SB checks, hero gets confused as to where the button is, and checked thinking the PFR was in position - should have bet here and would have if I knew SB was actually SB and not BTN (the btn was in between the two spots), so anyway, I check, then CO bets $75, fold, hero jams for $235 total.


Notes: Think it's a fairly standard shove after I check the flop. This CO has been known to stack off faiiiirly light in these spots and I know he'll call with 99. Turns out this time he had JJ and we brick so lose another pot here. Think my line is fairly standard though after I accidentally check flop - half expect JJ to 3bet pre and certainly QQ+ does.

Hand 4

Hero limps 77 UTG, few more limpers, about 5 to flop.
Flop $30: 783dd
Hero checks, intending to xr, flop checks through.
Turn $30: Jddss
Hero leads $25, call, MP raises to $75, I call, guy to my left sticks it in for $250, MP snapcalls for $180, hero ???

Notes: MP is super tight and always bets really large whenever he has it. Someone actually exclaimed "Well Jerry has 9T..." as soon as he jammed and then apologised because the pot was still multiway. But I have still to worry about the guy to my left. I'm fairly certain MP has a straight, he probably just calls with his combo draws. But there's still the guy to my left to act who could definitely just have a nut flush draw or somthing - I definitely have him beat. So I have to figure out my equity here vs a straight and flush draw. Eventually, I decide I have 10 outs if I'm dead to the straight and when I call, I win a $150 sidepot vs the guy to my left so it can't be terrible even if I'm dead. Vs A5ss and 9To, we have 23.81% equity here. We have to call $175 to win $30 + $180 + $250 + $250 = $710, so we need 24% equity to make a breakeven call before rake - this also assumes we don't win any side pot. I can't be ****ed calculating what exactly we need to win with side pot etc but I'm fairly sure this becomes an "okay" call when, even if we lose to 9To, we can ship a $150 side pot. Well as it turns out, MP did have 9Ts for the straight, and the guy to my left actually had 33 for bottom set. 33 is a bad hand for him to have obviously because it removes 3 of our outs vs the straight. But it's good in that we lock up the side pot almost always. Unfortunately, with him having 33, our equity vs the straight drops to 16.6% which is a bit of a disaster. If we start the hand with $285 in our stack, guy to my left covers, and MP starts with $215, can we just remove the $70 difference we win in the sidepot from the MP raise size? I.e. Make it a $110 effective shove, meaning we need to call $40 to win $30 + $110 + $110 = $250 ??? So the times we lose this hand, we make a net profit of -$135 and when we win, our net profit is +$430? If this maths is correct, then we only need 16% equity to breakeven before rake and 16.6% to breakeven after rake in this game. I think that's how you calculate it when you neutralise the side pot factor. But not sure. As I said earlier, we have exactly 16.6% equity vs a range of 9T and 33 so I think that makes it a perfectly fine call? We run it three times and lose all 3.

Hand 5

One limp, hero isos to $21 w/ AQ (lol chips), call.

Flop $45: QT3ss
Hero cbets $25, villain raises to $75, hero calls.
Turn $195: 7sscc
Hero check calls $150 bet
River $495: Jsss
Check, check, villain shows KsKc and scoops.

Notes: This is also a mistake hand. I should just fold the turn. Kinda hard 4-5 handed since he should still be betting some draws and whatnot but the meta is still that we expect most people to just call flop with their draws. We also block A which is really bad because it narrows his flop raise range to strength. I don't know that we can immediately fold flop, and although nothing changes on the turn, I think we should just give it up there. Obv come river I never expect to see KK, but it just goes to show he probably never has any bluffs here and we're a station. Granted, it was about 19 hours into the session by this stage and I'd lost a lot. But should still have folded.

============================================

So some tough spots Saturday for sure. A couple mistakes I guess where I should have just folded turn, but fairly happy that I made the right calls in spots where it basically just comes down to calculating our equity. The J9ss hand, easy enough for me to work out that I have 22% equity on the fly, but much much harder to work out what equity I need to call - like you can't just whip out a calculator and do the division on the fly. I know I need to call $180 to win a $750 pot but does anyone know of any easy ways to get the 25% equity requirement figure just from looking at these two numbers?

=============================

Anyway, so we suffer our biggest loss of the thread. Not ideal but some pretty unlucky hands too. Lost a couple flips. That KK v AT hand was just stupid. A lot of missing flops, folding to raises, and some AK v AA ****, and ofc a couple mistakes too. But overall nothing too bad. And the good news is we got 20 hours in there so that is good volume-wise! It's currently Monday and I'm enjoying my day off. Had plans to hang with crazy asian neighbour girlie tonight but she just messaged me saying she's busy with uni **** so I imagine I'll just do a spot of reading, maybe look to write an article on my blog (harveymeale.com) or something as well. Maybe just Netflix grind. But either way, I'm taking it easy. Got a good gym session in just before as well which is nice AND found a dope cafe for breakfasts.

As for the rest of the week, I've got seats for Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun taken care of for homegames, so tomorrow and Wednesday I might head up the casino. Or maybe just Wednesday and take tomorrow off again since I got so much volume in on Saturday.

=======================

5/10 Game

There's a 5/10 NLH game getting up regularly on Thursdays now. It's the only 5/10 game in Brisbane and the next biggest game is the 5/5 at the casino. The beautiful thing about this 5/T is that it plays more like a 5/10/20/40 with the spastic straddles and whatnot. The lineups are always juicy and there's a lot of money to be made there. I talked with someone re staking me for the game and I said I'd like to fire maybe 3x $1k bullets sometime (it's 500-2k buyin) and he agreed to spot 50% of my action. So I would have taken a shot this week but since losing $1.7k on Sat, I figure it's probably best to give it a miss for the time being - don't really need to up the variance at this juncture. Once I get my hourly back up to the $20-$30 mark, I'll look to take a shot in this game and hopefully play it each week if I don't get insta-crushed.

That's all for now folks!

Nice update. Am working off my phone so hard to go into the hands much but keep up the good work. Nice discipline keeping out of the 5/T, not sure I could have passed it up!


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H1: fold turn
H2: call river
H3: I'd bet smaller on turn and shove river but if I bet smaller and get check raised big I'll probably fold

I'm playing my OMC card here

...are you sure? Some of those hands seem uncharacteristically butchered.

Just found your philosophy blog. Interesting, and then some.

...and on a pragmatic note (coz even the philisophers amongst us OMC err to the realist within) you might wanna bear in mind when posting stuff (hint photo) that you are an open book on the interweb. That's not me giving advice (so not my place)...that's just me sayin don't stuff up yer journey on somebody else's judgement.

If you want that embellished I'll pm you.

Could you check out my last two hands ta.

why not raise 99 pre?

Here's 2.27 minutes of sheer philosophical brilliance, which connects with some of your thought trains...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgsfVJMWL0E

Cheers brother. Yeah it's cool that we're getting a regular 5/T up, will definitely play in it hopefully sooner rather than later!

Yep, yep, yep. Agreed on all fronts. Would have bet smaller on turn in H3 as well except either I miscalculated pot or failed to recall no. players in hand otf.

I'm pretty sure! I don't think any of the hands are totally butchered, maybe only the AJ v 87 hand. But I'll admit there were some really tough spots in the last two sessions!

Yeah, it's something I've neglected for a while. Lately I've not made enough time for reading and writing and so it's rarely updated, but something I definitely definitely want to start doing more of.

Are you referring to the article thumbnails? I run the risk there. If not, shoot us a PM?

Absolutely!

Generally, TT is my cut off for small/mid pairs in terms of isolating preflop. The reason being, in live we have very little fold equity when isoing. So if we iso 99 over a couple limps, we will frequently be called by a couple players. It becomes quite difficult to play on a number of boards and so I generally opt to overlimp and set mine with it, even though it seems like a waste of equity.

If I'm CO/BTN and there's one other limper on a table where I think I have some fold equity, I'll probably iso with it, but more often than not, I'll look to take a more passive line with this hand. It's right on the edge though.

Love it. Love any and all stuff like this. :')