Thx for comments!

Yea I lost most of it in NLHE all in with AA all in on flop vs. a combo draw, AK vs AA preflop, rivered the nut flush while villain rivered a full house, etc.

The last hand the river call was just bad. But yea, he had no idea he was value betting at all. During some table talk while I was tanking I told him I didn't have a flush (and now that I remember the hand right he actually had the nut straight on a no pair on board), and he acted like he lost after I called.

Another good reason not to play when stuck, is it was just going through my mind "ehh might as well throw that last $900 in" even though that is A LOT TO SPEW OFF.

Also met riverboatking. Don't think he knows who I am on 2+2 though.

In other news I had an awesome weekend, spent it all with my new girlfriend. Met a few weeks ago at a picnic/volleyball/ultimate frisbee meetup event, been dating her since.

I think we've all been there.

In my opinion, this is what separates the pretty good players from the very good players. We need to stop thinking about individual sessions (ie. "I'm stuck today"), and start thinking about the meta-session (ie. "I'm on a downswing, and I'm not playing my best").

Being "stuck" is a meaningless concept. It's how donkeys think about poker. They either think, "hey, the 6 seat sure is hot today; I'm up $200!" OR "damn, I've had the worst dealers today; I'm stuck $200!"

But a winner (such as yourself) simply has an hourly average. You may not know your exact hourly, but you know you're going to average more than $10/hr, and less than $200/hr. Any short term results that are above your hourly are simply a function of running good (or finding a great table), and vice-versa.

I know you know all of this OP, but I think sometimes it's useful to just take a step back and remind ourselves of how we should be thinking in-game. Part of your game-plan should be your overall mindset-- play in good spirits, with a positive, winning attitude. If you're not feeling like a winner, leave.

Again, I feel your pain, as I've punted off huge amounts due to short-term thinking. Keep your head up!

glad i finally found this. been watching OP on LATB for the past month or two.

gl

Two session update. Played 5/10 5-handed LATB yesterday, 5-5-10 PLO today. Total up $1470 in 9 hours.

Made my first 4-bet bluff with 9754ds in PLO and villain snap-folded. He 3-bet to a non-pot size which is basically never a hand /shrug. Also took an interesting double-float + bluff river when checked to with absolutely no equity (QT97) line against a player who 3-bet preflop me on 643A4r. Villain commented "it's basically impossible for you to have a bluff here" while snapfolding. I expect him to cbet very often and bet the Ace on the turn...

Oh also had an interesting hand vs Marvin (the best reg by far I regularly play with along with limon) where he check/potted to $2000 with about $2000 behind on a Qd6s3d board vs. me when I had AsAcKs5c after I 3-bet him preflop. Had clock called on me for the 2nd time ever (1st time was in CLE by an *******) by another reg who's generally pretty friendly so I didn't mind, ended up folding. Marvin claims to have had top set and nut flush draw with AdKdQQ. Heh. The reason I had to think about it is I think Marvin is VERY rarely raise/folding preflop vs. me since I 3-bet wide enough, and also that he expects me to fold AAxx here 100% of the time when he check/raises... and he's a tough aggressive reg. So hmm, /shrug.

Thanks for the comments!

Also Bart Hanson said some nice things about me on the 2-26-13 LATB episode. tyty. I've played with him a few times, fun guy. Haven't listened to his premium content yet but it's gotta be worth it.

LA total: $32961, 267 hours.

Grats man, really good sessions.

I just recently discovered Bart Hanson's podcasts and I have really been enjoying them. Is the episode where he comments on your play rewatchable? If so, could you provide a link? I've never seen LATB before.

EDIT: Nvm, found it. Watching now!

Interesting hand on LATB between me and JCW- the person in LA that I have the most NLHE history with... by far. He's a professional, very tough to play against (tricky, balanced, can take unconventional lines).

4 handed, I raise UTG with K6, JCW flats BTN, blinds fold. JCW starts the hand with $1000.

Flop 653, pot $75
I bet $40, JCW raises to $120, I make it $300, he quickly calls.

Turn K, pot $675
Check/check.

River 7, pot $675
Check/check, JCW mucks 97.

The commentators said the turn check was pretty bad, and in retrospect I absolutely 100% agree with them in this spot. Just not that many hands in JCW's range for flatting my 3-bet on the flop here...

However my reasoning is founded in a topic I've talked about a lot with the villain in this hand! There are a lot of professionals who grind 5/10 and lower limits that literally do not ever have a turn check/continue range in certain spots- for example, if a completely random decent* player at 5/10 or lower check/raises the flop then checks the turn, they're folding literally 90%+ of the time.

*I had to throw decent in there because some guys love shoveling money in and never folding ever. Looking back on writing this post, we're blessed as poker players that there's so many of these guys that I have to actually explicitly exclude them, lol.

Watch out for it. This is probably one of the more valuable tips I can offer to players who are already beating the game... and although it's rare enough that it won't skyrocket your winrate, it's easy to follow and more importantly it's ALMOST ALWAYS RIGHT. If you pay attention you'll find some more specific spots where 90%+ of regs can *only* have a bluff, or can *only* have a value hand.

Which... going back to this hand... if you're in JCW's spot, me having no check/continue range makes it a free bet + win the pot for him every single time. I basically checked here so that I do in fact have a check/continue range in this spot... remember I have more history with JCW than anyone else in LA, and plan on playing with him in the future. However JCW knows I know this etc. so again, I agree with the commentary that on this particular board (due to a combination of how rare a 3-bet on the flop is called, JCW's range, and board texture), that I need to bet turn.

I briefly want to mention the possibility of just having no check range on the turn in this spot. This is bad. It's strictly better to just massively overbet shove the flop if this is the case and villain knows it. And to clarify, I'm talking about balancing vs. regs, I advocate NEVER balancing (heavily weighting your hands towards value) vs. unknowns.

Fold pre

If the 7 doesn't come on the river does he check? I find it hard to think that he bet calls the flop and just shuts down on other streets. If the river is a face card do you expect him to bet? And would you call? I assume thats why you checked the turn.

Didn't watch the whole show, but the 33 vs 76s hand against Ernest was pretty awesome. Definitely a heroic check/call, check/shove line there. Congrats on making a great read against Ernest.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

That particular river card is a fold if he bets, I am not sure what I do on like a Q or a 7. Would have to re-evaluate based on his bet-sizing and my piss-poor live-tell spider-senses.

On a blank like a Q I'm definitely calling any reasonably sized river bet, and yes I expect JCW to bluff sometimes (obviously why I checked, haha) although he is definitely capable of checking back 9-high on the river depending on the run-out.

Why did u 3b flop?

^ this wasn't explicitly mentioned, but it's one of the "specific spots" in the bolded portion of that post It's pretty damn easy for me to play perfectly against almost every 5/10 grinder ever here. Needless to say, that's really bad for them.

However, despite having a monstrous leak in this particular 3-bet spot, it's so rare that most grinders don't notice/care enough to fix it. Importantly, it's not only rare because of the spot itself, but they'll also rarely be against a villain at these stakes who will exploit it. It's like if your windshield wipers made a mildly annoying scraping noise despite them being otherwise completely functional, compared to if your high beams were 100% broken. The latter is less of an issue since you never use them anyway, which is kind of like this spot in poker. However just like your high beams might 1 day help you avoid an accident, if you increase your EV in this spot by a modest 10% merely once a week in a $1000 pot on average, that's $5000 a year. NOW do we care?

As for K6 in particular, it's a great hand to put in my light/merged 3-bet range here as JCW could call with 64, 76, 54, 43, 44, Ahxh, Khxh as opposed to 3-betting a more air-ish hand like QJo here which would have a lot less equity against his continuing range. Obviously I'm far behind either way when he shows up with a nutted hand.

(Again, I don't advocate even any tiny bit of balance vs. unknowns)

In what scenario are you going to 3bet that flop (or a flop in general) and then need to protect your turn checking range? I think it is probably incorrect thinking on your part here. When you 3bet that flop, the number of combos in your range should be very small which means you probably should not even have a turn checking range

And that part of your post I dont see how it applies here because K6 should not be in your flop range in the first place given the positions

I played w OP in limons PLO game and on LATB- good holdem player, unbelievable PLO luckbox (this was early January), 3bet monkey in NL (3 betting for no reason), very nice guy-unbelievable heater the 4 days I was at bike

GL

Who were you on LATB?

Are you complimenting Op?

Quick reply from girlfriend's place.

Kleinstein000: having no turn check range is strictly worse than just shipping flop. Regarding position, its 4 handed. I have more things to say about this, maybe later when I'm home.

gus1112: haha tilt is my biggest leak but i definitely never click buttons. Haven't ever 3-bet or done anything for that matter for no reason in poker.

Thx for comments!

My bad, I didnt see that it was 4 handed. I just saw UTG and went from there (it should have said CO ). Most of what I said does not carry nearly as much weight now that I see it is 4 handed. I will say though, that I think K6o is still pretty light to be opening UTG/CO even 4 handed, although you could construct your range differently (what % of hands are you opening from this spot?)...

I will say though that my point I was getting at before is that it is a mistake to try to balance one street when completely imbalanced on the rest (not saying you are in this spot).

Would love to hear more of your thoughts as well.

OK I'm home.

Regarding "my range should be very narrow when I 3-bet that flop", it's true that it's narrow but how "narrow" it really is, is relative. In my post directly above yours I noted how most 5/10 grinders will literally have 90%+ nutted hands here. This makes them really easy to play against, and JCW would definitely exploit that for sure (and in fact, he tried to, calling with a draw without proper odds- unless he knew his pair outs were good- since I have a bigger hand here more often than GTO would suggest, even if less often than other players. He mentioned he was surprised my hand was that weak). In fact not only can I say that most players have nutted hands, I can say they have basically SETS ONLY and proceed cautiously if I make a flush when the board pairs for example, since 74 or 42 is never in their preflop range.

I'm not advocating playing 74 or 42 often, just like somewhere between 1-5% of the time you get dealt that hand. Otherwise if you're a 100% ABC guy (big difference from 90% ABC!!) I raise, you flat, flop is A22r, you let me play my AK like it's the stone cold nuts since you have so many AQ/AJ/AT and literally zero 2x or AA hands, and 1 combo of quads and up to 1 combo of A2s which I might even block. Whereas against JCW I have to be cautious (obviously my hand is still premium but no longer willing to snap get 200bb+ in). As anyone who's ever flopped a K high flush compared to an A high flush 200bb+ deep knows, being able to play your hand knowing it's the stone cold nuts is HUGE.

Regarding preflop K6o is pretty standard to open (or fold, either one) from CO, but live dynamics are HUGE here. I actually was opening a wider range from CO than from BTN in this particular 4-handed game, for two main reasons. I don't really want to say what 1st is right now (maybe later), but the 2nd is that there was a spot in the BB when I was CO.

I feel like I've discussed this hand to death Basically to summarize, don't take lines against other regs where you can *only* have a value hand, or *never ever ever* have the nuts (it's OK to take a line where you can rarely have the nuts if you don't take the line very often.) I may write more about the latter in the future as there's one really specific spot that comes up VERY frequently that I feel the vast majority of 5/10 players are mind-blowingly imbalanced in and I exploit the hell out of them in it. Enough content in this post for now though.

Always appreciate your commentary kleinstein000.

I'll get back to that teaser from last post sometime in the future, not today though. For now, session update:

Up $1303 in 6 hours. Immediately lost my first $1000 buy-in (yes, I think it's finally more profitable for me to buy-in for 200bb+ in PLO now!!!) on a 4-way AIPF with KK43ds vs. limon's AQ73ss and two other shortstackers that were only $300 deep that mucked.

I think I played the lowest VPIP I've ever played, like ever? Was at a fairly tough table and just didn't get anything worth playing. However you only need a couple big ones to book a healthy win...

Hand 1: Villain in this hand is limon. I've played/talked quite a bit with him, one of the coolest guys I've met in LA. We're $1100 deep, stakes are 5-5.

V raises to $15 preflop from MP, 3 callers including myself in SB with 7543.

Flop A62, pot $60
Checked around. I plan to c/r a bet from anyone except limon which is a c/c. Not sure if it's a leak, but I feel like AAxx is a significant enough part of anyone's PFR range (unless they're a total maniac) that c/r'ing here gives your hand away as a big draw and not 66xx for example since I would be scared of AAxx if I held middle set?

Turn 3, pot $60
Couple checks, V bets $45, I raise to $170, V calls everyone else folds.

River A, pot $400
I check, V bets $280, I call and he mucks. His flop cbet frequency with Axxx or a set here is extremely close to 100%, and he won't raise preflop with 33xx unless it's like KK33. Not a good bluff spot for him IMO...

Hand 2: Villain in this hand is an aggressive pro that normally plays much bigger at Commerce. This is his first time I've seen him playing at the Bike. This hand occurs less than an orbit after hand 1.

I can't exactly remember preflop action, but I think we've put the $10 mandatory straddle in play and it's a 5-way limped pot. I'm in SB with A522.

Flop Q43, pot $50
Two checks, V checks, two more checks. I plan to c/r any bet here.

Turn 8, pot $50
Checked to V who bets $50, folded to me, I make it $200, V makes it $650. I call. Wow, can't remember the last time I got 3-bet on the turn in PLO!

River 5, pot $1350
I tank check, V bets $1000, I snapcall. I wanted to see his hand really badly but he's been nice to me so I just insta-flipped mine over and he mucks. Really curious if he was value-betting QQxx, bluffing a missed combo draw, or what...

LA total: $34264, 273 hours.

Abe stacked off 200bb with aq73? Interesting.

Wow - I think you butchered the turn in hand 2 and got lucky... but I will also say I am by no means an expert.

(and why I think so... the check raising when OOP and drawing to just 10 nut outs (7 of which are obvious) just plays right into the other guys hands. In position I don't hate the raise, but I feel you are setting him up for perfect river play... to which the results ended up different, but anyways)

I talked with 2 other professionals that I respect a lot, one of them is convinced he had QQxx and was value-betting since my hand looks exactly like 88xx. Other one thinks he had no SDV on the river at all. So yea I don't know what he had.

And I'm not sure how you're calculating my outs but I have 12 straight outs which I expect to often be good (as you can see I didn't need the nuts to snapcall), and 7 non-overlapping flush outs for 19 total outs. Basically getting direct odds to call even if the turn bet puts me all in, but I really, really like my hand going into the river since my decision to continue or not is super, super easy compared to if I had QQxx.

@Brown Keeper: Abe does that all the time and it's fine because other people are stacking off with worse. I don't think it's good enough vs. my range but he doesn't know that.

Played like 8 hours today, down $140 total. Won about $2000 at 5/10 NLHE, lost $500 on LATB, and $1500 at PLO.

I think everything was pretty standard... hand vs. an older asian guy who I hear is a tough player but I've never seen before.

Young asian makes it $40, villain flats, I make it $170 from BB with AK, raiser folds, villain flats. We're about $3200 deep.

Flop AJT, pot $390
V checks, I bet $215, V calls.

Turn 2, pot $820
V checks, I bet $500, V raises to $1300 total, I fold.

~~~

Pretty much all my profit is from a hand where I checked the BB, flopped 2 pair on J74hh, I bet $35, this old guy makes it $100 more and I know he's never folding, so I jam $1600 more and he calls.

LA total: $34124, 281 hours.