Figured I'd post an update after my 2nd biggest live session ever. In for 1k last night and cashed out for 11.6k. Ran extremely well, but still some bad spots. A pair of memorable hands with the same villain. My image at the table is loose preflop for one raise or limping, tight, and probably too tight when facing aggression. I have played with everyone at the table except this villain multiple times before. He previously got it in with me and hit when he was holding a 3 card wrap vs my top set on the flop. Claims he only runs it once unless it's a "big pot." Villain came with, and is friends with, the clear best player in the room and probably in the local scene, who is an extremely good hand reader, and wildly aggressive. His friend is the only player I consider clearly better than me in this game, and is also at the table. I assumed villain played similarly, and I observed him being very aggressive without getting to showdown. Onto the first hand;
Hero is dealt 5c5sAsKc on the button and is button straddling, as is half the table. MP calls straddle, villain in cutoff calls straddle, hero raises to 40. Blinds fold, MP calls, Villain calls. Flop comes 4x5h8h. Checks to Hero, who bets 105, call, call. Turn 10x. Checks to hero, we bet 175. MP folds, villain calls. River 10h, completing flush on paired board. Checks to me, I bet 200, villain raises 300 more. I'm sick, and it looks like such a value raise. I puke call after tanking for a minute, he immediately says I'm good, I flip my hand, he mucks. I actually liked his bet sizing here, which may be a leak of mine. It looked so strong that I was incredibly close to folding, which is probably bad on my part.
Second hand with villain. Hero is dealt AsAc3s7x in cutoff. Button has straddled. Quite a few callers, MP, who is an extremely weak player raises to 40. Villain calls, I reraise to 125, best player at the table who is utg+2 calls weak MP raises all in to 340ish, villain calls, I flat, strong player calls. Flop is gin for me, 2x4s5s. I flop 2nd nuts in a 4bet pot. Strong player checks, villain goes allin for 1kish more, I re-pot since strong player is probably sitting on 3k, and he folds. Villain asks to run twice since it was a big pot, the other all in player wants once, so we go once. turn blank, river 2s. I immediately table my hand, villain tables and says boat, completly missing the fact that his boat made me a straight flush. He proceeds to throw his cards and wont shut up about how I rivered him. I refrain from telling him I was ahead on literally every street.
I beat up on villain in quite a few other hands, and even hands I correctly folded got there on the river. It was a really good session, and I wouldn't say I ran like god, since I had 2 or 3 suckouts for 4 figure pots where I was ahead, but I ran better than I have in over a year.
Anyway, I'm not much for story telling, but wanted to keep this blog for accountability. Had been in the middle of a fairly rocky month, so this turned everything around. I need to work on my bet sizing quite a bit. I also need to work on knowing probabilities more, and applying those to pot odds and implied odds.