Looking forward to the Hardrock hand histories ; it remains a plan B (or C) for myself to play live over there for a few months, as the online games are presently pretty dry (but I will give it a couple of months).

Farewell to Houston

Moved out of my place two days ago and left Houston, a city where I never expected to spend almost a decade. I've enjoyed my time there and have seen the city change a lot: the economy is buzzing at the moment, and luxury apartment complexes are sprouting up like crazy. One of the best cities to move to imo.

Just made it to Florida today, where's I'll be visiting some family and a grad school friend. Should have some hands soon from our upcoming trip to the Hard Rock. I'll be on the road for at least a few months, following in the footsteps of Dubnjoy Planning to get some good volume in towards the middle of the month.

Played a short session in Biloxi last night and booked a small win. I played one hand in a nonstandard way:

Reads:

BB ($600): Middle-aged black guy who has perfected the art of making inappropriate comments to the waitresses and getting away with it. Talkative, active, seems unwilling to stack off light

Hero ($500): nit
Button ($275): loose-passive younger guy

Preflop: Button straddle, sb limps for 6, BB calls, terrible station calls, hero calls with 75, hero raises to 20 on the button. Everyone calls.

Flop A5T (100), c, c, c, hero checks intending to c/shove the button but he checks through

Turn Q (100), c, BB bets 40, fold, hero calls, fold, fold.

BB bets 40 in the dark

River (180) 7, hero calls.

Weird spot where I think I have to be conscious of my nitty image, and I'm destined to either miss value or minimize my losses.
Bob's Bankroll: 1.1K

Hi Bob, I've enjoyed your thread very much. Really liked your reviews on poker books. I'm probably going to travel to Florida in the winter and hopefully I'll see you around. Run good!

Thanks! Let me know when you'll be around.

Heading to the hard rock tonight.

had a solid trip to the Hard Rock last night and an even better trip to Florida for the last three days. Forgot how big the poker room is. I snapped a pic of a Meatloaf wall pic and got scolded for it. But I didn't get kicked out and now I have Meatloaf in my phone, so I win!



My table was filled with bad shortstacks. Normally would have table-changed but was sitting with two friends and wanted to play with them. Very few interesting spots. Here are two that confused me.

Hand One



Tight middle-aged man prone to spazzing ($200) raises a limp to 6, hero (covers all) calls with QJ from the sb. BB calls, the limper ($200), a loose-passive station, calls and we see a QKJ flop (24).

Hero checks, c, c, guy bets 15. Hero calls planning to lead safe turns. BB folds, station calls.

Turn (70$) A c, c, c.

River T, we chop. unsure of the best play on the flop/turn.

Hand two

300 effective.

Tight spazzy man from above limps, hero raises to 12 with QJo, man makes it 32.

Finished up about a hundred for the night.

Bob's Bankroll: 1.2K

Donkfest at Dover Downs

Exhausted but feeling good after a lot of driving the past few days. Visited Milledgeville and Athens to see friends. Here's a pic near Tifton, GA, where a friend of mine teaches.



Stopped in Raleigh after that and drove through Virginia to Delaware. Here's a pic taken from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge:



I went to Dover Downs tonight and managed to play for two hours, but couldn't bring myself to keep going. Driving has sapped most of my energy and, although I have a desire to play, I won't get a lot of hands in until next week in Chicago. I can already tell that exercise and a good sleep schedule will be key to putting in good volume and good results. My arm is healing well, and I've only just started running and light weights. Doing the best I can for now and will keep improving.

One semi-interesting hand where flop, turn, and river seem debatable to me.

Reads

UTG ($100) loose passive station
UTG +1 ($200) ditto
hero (covers) nit, haven't played a hand in two orbits

UTG and UTG +1 limps, hero limps along with ATo

pretty meh spot, raising is good for the usual reasons, but I may not have a card advantage--I had seen both players limp AK--and am overrepping my own hand b/c of my nittiness.

The sb and bb complete, we see a

T63 Flop ($10)

checks around to me, I bet 7, UTG and UTG +1 calls

Turn T ($37), UTG leads 15, fold, hero calls

river 9 ($67), UTG leads 40 with 40 behind, hero shoves, villain



Philly tomorrow.

Bob's Bankroll: 1.2K

Heading to Charles Town

Had a few great days in Boston. Pretty much the perfect fall weekend.



Heading to Harper's Ferry and Charles Town casino for some pokers, then off to Lexington and eventually Chicago for the WSOP Hammond. Ready to ramp up the poker studying/playing!

heheh...saw this in Duke's goals thread and had to post. Cliffs: woman mucks a BBJ hand to spite her nemesis

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker...ory?id=2316427

Nice article. Pretty old though (it is dated 2006), did you happen to come upon it while reading some old Bluff Magazine issues?

GL with the live poker grind, hope you crush it!!!

edit : got it. It is an old Bluff article just recently published on ESPN, right...

Hanging at Harper's Ferry

thanks Dubn! Had a crappy session last night. Two hands worth posting.

Hand One

Reads:

Hero ($250): recently sat down, folded for one orbit before getting involved, probably viewed on the tight side.

Straddle ($600): Uberlag Middle-aged black guy who had been straddling, raising with absolute garbage, and enterering raised pots very wide. Despite that he is a thinking player who was running over the table with well-timed aggression. He probably beats the 1/3 game. We had just played a pot where, after I flopped a straight with QJ, he check/called the AKT flop and A turn with JT before filling up on the river. So I know that he's active and will peel wide.

Preflop: folds to hero on the button who raises a 7$ straddle to 17 with AA, UTG minreraises to 22, hero 4bets to 60, villain snap calls.

Flop ($120): T93, villain check/calls 50.

Turn (220): J, villain check calls $140 and

interested to hear what people think of flop and turn sizing.

Hand Two

Reads:

UTG ($500): Lagdonk
UTG+1 (200): loose-passive donk
hero ($175) Tag

UTG raises to 12, UTG+1 calls, hero calls otb with 77.

Flop 345, UTG bets 25, UTG+1 calls, hero shoves.

Harper's Ferry Railroad



Bob's Bankroll: $800

Short Stint in Cincinnati



as bad as my previous session went at Charles Town, the trip to the Horseshoe Cincinnati was just as good.

Hand One

Reads

Hero ($250): active.

Button ($300): loose station, limping most pots

hero limps UTG with A7. I raise this hand most of the time, but most players are short, the table has been passive, and I want to create a situation where I can overflush someone, hence the limp. UTG+1 limps, Button raises to 7, four of us see a J46 flop.

Hero leads $15 into 30, only the button calls.

Turn 3 ($60) Hero leads 40, button calls.

River 8 ($140), Hero leads 100, button folds.

Hand Two

Hero overlimps 97hh, six of us see a T53 flop. the sb, a bad player ($200), leads 10. Anyone raising here? or is a flat best?

Hand Three

Reads

UTG: Tight older man ($400) who had flatted a raise with TT and checkraised when he turned a set. Has limped a few hands but hadn't raised until this hand

Hero ($400): active, but UTG just sat down and doesn't know this.

UTG raises to 7, CO calls, Hero calls OTB with 67, SB and BB call.

flop 459 ($35), UTG bets 20, hero calls.

Turn 6 ($75), UTG checks, hero bets 50, UTG calls

River 8 ($175), UTG checks, hero bets 100, UTG hems, haws, says, "I was probably beat the whole way," and calls.

The Horseshow in Cincy is a great room. New, smoke-free, good action, comfortable seats etc. Only downside is that max buyin is 200. I spent most of the weekend in Lexington, where I endured Big Blue fans (go Cuse!) and frolicked at the horse races.



Bob's Bankroll: 1.3K

Hand 2: Probably a very good hand to be semibluffing.
Depending upon how deep you have 9 of 47 unknowns make your hand on the next card.
12 other cards (non heart j,8,6,4) develop more nutted outs for you on the river.
6 other cards give you a pair which also have 2pair and trip river ev.

All of those 27 cards of 47 will either give you a chance to keep on bluffing or bluff-catch on turn.
Depending upon what attitude you want to take to non heart A,K...
Then I think 10,5, non heart 3s and 2s are bad cards to keep bluffing....non heart q's are middling.

Which would mean that your flop semi bluff/ turn action distribution would be:

Turns:
1) betting nutted hands with RIO on higher flushes = 19% 9/47
2) continue bluffing with extra outs of st8 (gut/oesd) = 25% 12/17
3) May check call / 2nd or 3rd pair on = 12% 6/47
4) Scare card bluff perhaps 12% depending upon no of opponents 6/47

5) check/fold give up ? depedning upon price/opp = 30% 14/47


Seems balanced
Your PF limping range has : prolly 6 combos of sets,
somewhere between 12-20 top pair combos,
6 ish 2nd pair combos,
9-12 oesd and gutshots without FDs +
10 ish nfd
10 ish fds

So the range of raises to calls prolly is
6+10+10 = 26 raises
40 ish = calls

So 40/60 raise to calls.

Given that it is into so many players - I think that obviously you should not raise too often. I think raising fd has to be part of your raising range though - and this hand makes perfect sense to be there with no showdown value and so many cards where you can continue betting without making a hand. Although there are almost no flushes worse that are going to be there if you hit.

I almost raised hand two. If I was out of position, I'd be more likely to raise.

As it happened, I flatted the flop bet and we saw the 9c turn. He bet again, I called, and he led a 5d river. Not pushing him off a hand at this point. I may have missed a chance to take this pot away earlier.

WSOP Circuit: Hammond

After a brief stop in Louisville, I'll be spending about a week in Chicago for the WSOP Circuit Event at the Shoe. I'll mainly be grinding cash and looking to meet players who are in town for the tourney. If any of you 2+2ers happen to be around, shoot me a PM.

Most of this trip has worked in poker around visiting family and friends. For the next week, though, poker takes the front seat:

Weekly Goals

---play 40 hours. This may seem low for all those seasoned grinders out there, but it's a lot for me. Don't think I've ever put in a 40 hour week before, so we'll see how it goes!

--read and comment on 5 hands per day in the LLSNL forum.

--one poker video/book chapter per day.

--check out the Windy City. Any must-see things to do in Chicago? Sadly I'm about fifteen years late for an MJ-led Bulls game

Horseshoe Southern Indiana

Before driving up to Chicago, I stopped in Louisville to check out the Horseshoe Southern Indiana. As I walked into the poker room, I spotted a guy in a gray sweatsuit and wraparound shades who looked familiar. He leaned back in his chair and called to me. "Bob, is that you? It's ****!" It was indeed. We chatted for a bit, talked about the old times when we were Lafayette hoopsters, and joked about the randomness of meeting in Louisville. It was hard to get a sense of what my friend had going on. He had played in Bosnia, his home country, before a leg injury sent him into retirement. Now he was living with his parents in Louisville and playing poker. He spoke vaguely about "legal problems" and fighting mental illness but didn't go into detail. "Can you stay over tonight?" he asked. "You'd be welcome at my place." I thanked him and suggested that we talk in a few hours after we had a chance to see how the games were going.

I sat down at the tables and texted my friend Pat, another Lafayette alum, about my chance meeting with our old friend. He sent back an odd text.

Wait, **** is out of jail?

I replied with a question mark.

My phone vibrated with another text--a newspaper headline from spring of 2013: Man accused of lodging knife in wife's neck. Needless to say, I decided against spending the night in Louisville!

Once I got over the shock of that news story, poker ended up going pretty well. I may have gotten owned by an asian reg.

Reads

CO ($400+) extremely active asian guy who regs the 1/2 and 2/5 game. I had seen him raise a flop cbet on AK3 and ship a blank turn with pocket fours. So I know he's capable of the spazzbluff. He was straddling, limping, and raising about 75% of hands.

Hero ($300): Nitty

CO limps, hero raises to 12 with A2, EP calls, CO calls

Flop Q56 ($40). Check, hero bets 20, fold, CO calls

Turn A ($80), CO leads 25, hero calls

River 9 ($130), CO heaves a weary sigh and methodically places $150 into the middle. Hero folds.

Fortunately the rest of the night improved. One guy managed to check/minraise the turn and call a shove with a bare flush draw when I had flopped a straight. He did not get there.

Off to Chicago!

Wow that is a surreal experience, I wouldn't get on his bad side.

Think how differently things might have played out before our era of instant communication . . .

Yes, crazy stuff. I felt that something was off when we went outside to talk and he kept his shades on the entire time, even though it was nighttime.

It seems that the guy has stabilized somewhat--he mentioned that he's on meds--but I have no clue how the legal proceedings wrapped up (or if they're still pending). And, of course, my impressions are from one 30 min conversation.

Horseshoe Hammond



The room is very similar in design to the Horseshoe Cincinnati (which is the newer room). The turnout has been good, although numbers are apparently down from last year. Still getting a handle on the games, which, at the 1-2 limit, have 1-2 semicompetent players per table, 4-5 mediocre/bad players, and 1-2 droolers.

Hand One (posted here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-draw-1484034/)

Reads

Villain: Young asian kid ($175), seems competent but we've only played a few orbits.
hero ($200) somewhat active, I've opened 4-5 hands in the first couple orbits but nothing crazy.

EP ($60) limps, Villain limps from MP, Hero raises AQ on the button to $15, sb calls, villain calls.

Flop 382 ($62) c, c, hero bets 25. EP and SB fold, Villain calls.

should I bet larger here? In general I size my bets expoitatively--smaller with air, bigger for value.

Turn 3 ($112)

Villain had raised most of the pots that he had entered, so his range is weaker here than usual. My feeling is that he has a middling pair, so the question is what action to take so that he'll fold the best hand.

If we bet, what's our sizing here? What's our plan for rivers? I considered checking, bet/folding small, and shoving for his remaining 150.

Hand Two

Reads

Played two hands vs. another asian kid who seemed competent. I later learned that, after dropping out of school, he had been playing pro for a year or so. After folding three orbits straight to start the session, I raised JT to seven into a very bad player's BB. Young kid flats on the button and the bb comes along.

Flop K24 one heart, I bet 15 kid calls. Turn K. I think that this is a decent spot to double barrel him off low pairs, plus I picked up equity, so I bet 25. He calls. River queen, check check and he wins with pocket threes. But wait, I'm a nit, you should have folded the turn!

Later, with a $250 stack, I raised QQ to 17 over 2 limpers who were easily the worst two players at the table. The second limper had been running incredibly hot. The same asian kid flats from the sb and both limpers call.

Flop 893 (68) c, c, c, I bet 50, planning to fold vs the asian guy and pile my stack in vs. the other two. Asian kid shoves, I fold getting just over 2:1. Very exploitable if I'm wrong, but I was very confident that this is a fold. I'm looking at 20-25% equity when I need about 30%.

Despite taking a small loss, yesterday's session went great. Part of this has to do with preparation. I've been going for a run in the morning, studying, and getting to the room in the early afternoon when I'm feeling well and motivated to play. But the main reason is that I really enjoy being at the table, meeting people, and taking in the atmosphere. Will be putting in a long session today. Hopefully it goes well.

More Hands From Hammond

Played nine hours yesterday--my longest session ever? Well, two sessions split by an hour dinner break. I felt fine at first, but my focus and confidence plummeted towards the end.

In general I feel like I've been nitting it up pretty hard, but no one believes me anyway. After playing very few hands, I raised A8 to 12 over a limp and got two callers: the button ($100), who had been stationy, and the limper.

Flop 989 ($36), I bet 20, only the button calls. Turn 3, I shove for his remaining $70 and he SNAP calls. "Do you have a pair?" he asks.

"Yep." I flip my hand and he dejectedly tables 77.

The day was all downhill from there. I got myself in crappy spots with AQoff not once, but twice. Here are the hands.

#1

Reads

UTG+1 ($300): young capable player who had been isolating wide (once with 46ss)

Button ($200): young Indian donk. In the guy's defense he dressed well.

Hero (covers): nit/TAG.

UTG limp, UTG+1 raises to 10, button calls, hero 3! to 40 with AQ, only UTG calls.

Flop K94($95)

Hero bets 55, Villain shoves, hero folds.

#2

Reads

MP ($175): recently sat down, hasn't been very involved

Hero ($200): nit

button ($150): loose/passive

UTG limp, Villain raises to $7, hero raises to $20 with AQ, both call.

Flop TT9 ($65), check, hero bets $35, MP calls, button folds.

Turn: J ($135). check, check

River T, MP shoves, hero folds.

I try to avoid these kinds of spots, but I felt that AQ was just too strong not to 3bet, especially in hand one.

Next, I got owned with QQ after I raised to $12 over a limp. The sb, a solid young player, flatted, and the limper flatted.

J45 ($40), I bets 20-25, sb calls, limper folds.

K:heart ($80), sb leads 25, hero calls.

I have trouble making sense of this lead, but I suspect AJ or KJ.

River (135), sb leads 85, I tank then prepare to fold, sb starts talking. "I know you have aces," he says. "I have you beat." Hero folds.

Not much went right until, on a QT76, I check/shoved the turn with a gutshot and nfd, got called, and binked the river. It was a limped pot and the villain made a small flop raise, so I thought that he might fold weak Qx hands. Of course not!

That hand was towards the end of the night, when I was tired and feeling pretty crappy, having been card dead and losing every pot that I played. But I instantly felt better after I won the pot, even though my plan didn't work out. Emotion > reason. The only other win of the night was that one of the hottest Indian girls I've ever seen sat directly to my right, plus she was cool; and then, a hot albeit trashy redhead sat directly to my left, and she was friendly/flirty too. In a room filled with 95% grimy men, what are the odds of that?

ps, the redhead busted the Indian girl.

Hand 1, I don't mind the sizing but unlike yourself, I like to bet 50-60% pot with both my value hands and bluffs, as I don't feel we need to bet more to get folds with our bluffing range on dry boards, and we don't want to fold out possible floats or worst hands with our value hands (on a wet board, it is a different story...).

I would continue on the 3 turn for roughly 50% pot, maximizing our fold equity (we don't need to bet more, since we put villain on a cap range) and leaving us with a sizable river shove. If he calls, I would shove any , of course, and any broadway card, give up on the rest.

Hand 2 : I don't like the double barrel here, as we are not repping too much. I think we might rep a big pair that is scared of the second K if we check turn and fire river. Betting turn polarizes our range and might make villain call light (which he did).

Hand 3 : I am snap calling with QQ on 89 as with the stack sizes being so short, villain will shove FD and OE here, me thinks (if you had 1010 or JJ, then you are blocking his nut OE draw, so it might be a fold, but not with QQ... same logic with AA which blocks a ton of his draws).

good point, I wouldn't be surprised if villain had a similar thought process that allowed him to call me down.

agreed villain might shove draws, but he won't have many in this spot imo, as he flatted a $17 raise from the SB. I don't think he's bad enough to do this with JToff or weak ax hands. He can have 4 combos of JTsooted, 3-4 combos of Axdd, maybe 67s. I'm still only getting around 20% equity and we need like 27%.

Not many combos beat us neither. 9 combos of sets, 3 combos of 98s and lets say that he sometimes flats with KK or AA from the SB, so say 4 more combos ; 16 combos that beat us vs 8-9 that we beat. We have 13.6% vs a range that crushes us, and 62.1% vs 8 drawing combos (I put in some strong A, with K, Q and J kicker), for an overall equity of 32.3% (if we hold the Q, it only factors in for about 2%).

are you using stove? just re-inputted numbers and the highest I'm getting is 25%, and that's with an liberal estimate of drawing hands that he can shove. i have trouble believing that he flats with JTs, 67dd, 89ss oop and shoves over us with (in his eyes) no fold equity.

regardless, it's a close spot.

took Saturday off to visit Chicago proper. Man, what an amazing weekend it's been. Perfect weather. Had a great time walking around.




Also ran into some chess wizards and met up with friends for games.





The pokering has gone well for the most part. I'm doing my best to stay patient and pick good spots. I've been at some nitty tables and some really good ones. Just left a table where a guy called a flop and turn bet with t8, chasing his openender, then called the river after he missed. He chopped with T2

still impressed with the Horseshoe staff and the room. The main event is getting deep...down to about 60 or so now. I'm heading back for an evening session--my last one and the Shoe--and then West!