10/03/2017 Session Review

Ended up putting in an extended £1/£2 session last (Thursday) night.

Cliffs:

-Did about £600/plumz
-Really focused on ramping up aggression in certain spots.
-Donated money in said spots. Pretty much every light 3bet went poorly, lot of double barrells failed on flops/runouts where even against stations I just expect a lot of folds
-Never really flopped anything particularly worthwhile (generally the aim in £1/£2 games).
-With that said, definitely a bit of spew mixed in there as I will detail...
-Played with 2 guys who sat for £400 who had literally never played a hand of poker in their life (lol).
-In all honesty I find £1/£2 such a frustrating stake these days. The action is unbearably slow relative to £1/£3 and £2/£5, and ultimately its the biggest spots who cause a lot of the hold-up.

-I still believe that a fairly splashy (within reason) preflop style is absolutely key to milking £1/£2; I think you can get away with limping a ton of rather "speculative" holdings in LP due to:

a) The blinds very rarely attacking the limps
b) People playing so poorly post-flop
c) The extremely wide ranges of the average £1/£2 donk/tourist make fat value bets for 3 streets from hands that would otherwise be clearly far too thin to bet.

With that being said, I think a lot of these edges can over-time really undermine your confidence and lead towards default overly-passive play - not good if you ever want to move up some day!

Hand 1

Vs drunk american tourist, and rando nitty bloke.

Folds, CO opens £7 I call SB QTo BB calls
Flop K96r xx £10, I raise £30, BB cold calls BTN calls.
Turn 6 xxx
River 8 xxx CO wins with KTo.

Hand 2

Vs semi-maniac who I have a bit of history with whos always harping on about me playing AA.

-Really bad raise preflop esp with my image, not much to say there really!
-I decide to raise the flop because I think recreational players like this guy almost always pathologically slowplay 3x here.
-This isnt always the case however especially for passive players, who will frequently donk out for a small sizing (I dont think this guy qualifies).
-Yes I think the straddle will have a decent bunch of 3x here, but honestly just didnt feel like he'd play it this way.
-I dont know if Ive been watching too much Alec Torelli, but really felt the manner, speed and sizing of his bet just wasnt consistent with any strength.
-The hand itself isnt exactly a combo draw, but I felt that any A, K, Heart, T all give us a bunch of decent turn cards to either barrel or maybe delay cbet river if it gets checked to us again.
-Anyway I lost the hand....

£650 effective, I raise 97hh UTG+1, 3 calllers, Villains (Straddle) calls

Flop 833r Pot £60, Straddle donks £40, I raise £100 Straddle callls.
Turn 2s Pot £260 Straddle donks £100 I fold.

Hand 3

Pretty standard hand. I bet smaller on the flop because he has so little behind (£120) and feel the moneys going in a lot some way or another on the turn or river.

2 limps, I raise ATo £15 in CO, 1 limper calls.

Flop Th9dTc Pot £35, I bet £15, he calls.
Turn 8s Pot £65 I bet £30 he jams and I call and lose to QJ.

Hand 4

Call stations gonna call I guess...my general strategy in these situations (with air/decent draw) is to bet the flop for small and blast the turn threatening another big bet on the river.

2 limps, I raise QTo OTB to £15, orig limper calls HU.

Flop KJ4r Pot £35 x I bet £15 he calls
Turn 5 bdh Pot £65 I bet £55 he calls with £60 odd behind
River 29 Pot £175 xx I lose to JTo

Hand 5

Vs assumed reg-thing (nice guy) and guy who had never played a hand of poker before in his life (he'd lit call down to the river with Q high, not knowing the hand rankings).

Few limps inc Newbie, I overlimp KJo HJ. SB reg raises £12 we all call (unsurprisingly).

Flop J72ccd Pot £48 SB Bets £26 we all call.
Turn 5c Pot £148 SB bets £75 newbie calls, I tank fold.
River 5d SB bets £225, after about an hour of confusion Newbie almost mucks then announces call with K8cc and loses to 75s (love isolating lower suited gappers vs blokes who cant even fold a napkin post)

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Enough wall of text I think for one day, gl anyone playing this weekend!




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Appreciate the analysis on the 1:2 ecosystem. Was fun chatting yesterday and hopefully we get to play and chat soon.

Cheers buddy! Nice playing and meeting up with you soon, wp yesterday ul about the A4 hand again : /

I have started limping behind in LP a bit more recently. I still feel a bit like a donk when I do it, but yes, in some games this is the way to go. However, the London 1/2 games seem to be much nittier than in other parts of the world and I often find that I don't get paid on the river.

And now on to the analysis:

Hand 1:
Is the aggressor the drunken tourist or the nitty rando? Assuming that it is the drunken tourist, I think you played it well. If the BB doesn't flat there, I imagine you were going to barrel the turn? Against the London 1/2 population, the raise and turn barrel could get them to fold KT. If he is American, it depends. But still a good play.

Hand 2:
I can't blame you for raising the flop donk. It is my default play against a rec player who donks. However: In this spot, it doesn't seem great because:
a) the amount of the donk bet is fairly big, not huge, but still big enough
b) you have got 3 players behind and one of them might have a hand (88, 99-JJ, 34s)
c) the SPR of the pot is pretty small. I don't know what the stack sizes are, but they can't be big enough to make this a really good play. You have to assume that your raise gets called and then you would have to get stacks in on the turn and you probably won't even have any equity there.

You need this raise on the flop to work just over 50% (allowing for the rake) and I think it can get through maybe 30%.

But as you said, the real mistake was preflop. Your hand from EP is questionable anyway and in a straddled pot with smaller SPR, this is an insta-muck.

Hand 3: Played well. There's no way you can get away with those effective stacks.

Hand 4:With deeper stacks, this is a potential spot for a triple barrel bluff, but if he is a station, then probably not. But I think you get him of any J, any pocket pair below the J and some weak kings - only if the last bet is a real threat (ideally an overbet). But you have to know your villain to do that. I would have played flop and river very similarly.

Hand 5: Why didn't you iso preflop? This is the ideal scenario: You have a much better hand than his limping range and you can be the aggressor in case one of the blinds call. The way you played it, you allowed SB to take the initiative and then he got lucky.
But great fold on the turn! If SB is good enough to recognise what sort of player newbie is, then he has to have a hand on the turn. On the flop he can cbet with 2nd pair because but on the turn, he should never barrel with a draw or 2nd pair. To me this seems obvious now, but I think I might have called the turn for that good price in the heat of the moment.

Hand 1: (K96r 6 8 Board)

The CO aggressor was actually the nitty rando.

I'm implying from your post that the raise is good versus the drunken tourist, and not so great vs the nitty rando. While I think its ok versus the drunken tourist who could be cbetting 65o say, I think its much better versus the nitty rando for the following reasons:

1. I really think on a rainbow board a guy like this is going to give me a lot of credit.
2. I absolutely think we're going to get a bunch of folds on the turn if we make a large bet 80% of the pot applying leverage if he takes one off - especially if he calls quickly on the flop.

Hand 2: Raise 97s, raise 833r vs donk

Agreed the raise preflop is just straight up awful - I think I must have been tilted or something at the time - no excuse!

Flop, I had something else to say for the reason why I did it (along the lines of portraying extreme strength especially in a straddled pot, especially when even loose players will tighten up signficantly) but I just agree with your reasons basically. Good analysis!

Yeah to be honest not sure why I even included this, I guess I just wanted to put in a hand where I actually got unlucky and didn't play badly on to compensate for the rest haha.

Hand 4: KJ4 J x, isolate, barrel flop and turn

If the stacks were deeper I probably would have given up on the river. The reason behind the sizing of my bet sizing on the turn is literally just to get everything except a decent king to fold (not that this actually happened ; ).

What I should have really done is scale up my bet sizing on the flop, and jam the turn - in general this is something I'm really bad at working out as:

a) I hate asking people to move their arm/show how much they have.
b) I'm pretty bad at this calculation, even for someone who uses maths every day in their job...

Isolating works as well, but I decided to overlimp for the following reasons:

1. The table had been extremely active, and I was just unlikely to get it heads-up versus never-played-a-hand guy.

2. The game was pretty limpy so I'm very likely to realise my equity (I didn't realise how wide the SB was raising).

3. KJ just doesnt play that well in a really bloated pot, likely 4-way pot when I'll likely be out-of-position. Ideally I'm looking to flop a pair with a good kicker and get some nice streets of value. Its a spot where neither folding or raising is pretty attractive to me, and limping along in a loose, splashy game full of bad players to be the superior line.

4. Even if we have the best hand, we still just have K high at the end of the day. In general I don't do a whole lot of pure-air cbetting in £1/£2 games especially out-of-position.

FWIW if I had KJs I would have probably isolated this.

On the turn yes I think it is quite close given the amazing price, especially with the spot calling as well, but I really feel that his range betting into 3 other players on the turn is going to be pretty strong here, or at least almost certainly have a hand that beats KJ (but not necessarily a flush or better than one pair).

I actually think because the spot (literally) had no idea what he was doing, I actually really like raising the turn here to isolate the spot who could in all honesty have nearly any two cards at this point and to squeeze out the SB and get it HU with the guy who I had been fairly chatty with (for someone who barely spoke english tbf).

With respect to him cbetting 2nd pair I have literally no idea what he was doing when the spots gonna take one off with almost any two cards but there you go

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Really enjoyed reading these, stop playing 1c/2c and move up : P

+1. Was good seeing you Thursday again, you played pretty well, hopefully you can run good, have a few super sessions and build up a solid roll! (Don't limp A4s UTG again tho

Yeah I barely have enough time to make a coffee in the morning, so its pretty handy for me in that way. I usually don't eat breakfast either so the fact that its easier for me to make a meal is definitely A+ in that respect.

I kind of struggled on how to reply to this, but I think this article summarises the effects really well:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...g-performance/

"[modafinil with respect to chess] made the subjects play slower, suggesting that rather than enhancing decision-making, drugs improved player's ability to spend more time on a decision and perform more thorough calculations.

I would say that modafinil is basically everything the articles say about it. Without a doubt, its massively improved:

1. My focus, in getting a 'flow' when doing a task with less procrastination.
2. Feeling less tired.
3. General feeling of wanting to be more productive.
4. Better organisation, getting things done etc.

Its not really addictive (I never take it on weekends) and havent experienced any negative side effects although they're not unheard of.

The bad things: there is some tolerance, as far as I'm aware there have been no very long-term studies, I guess I feel slightly more irritated when working.

Theres lots and lots of articles out there from major magazines/websites so if you're interested definitely have a google or ask me a question if you want a specific one answered. With respect to Poker, I don't think there is much appreciable difference, but for the life outside of poker its definitely a significant boost.

Yeah +1 to food actually seeming exciting - also by evening I'm pretty ravenous as well.

And yes it definitely had a pretty profound influence on my taste buds; think two shakes a day is the way I'm going to go as well.

I'm usually pretty disciplined when I do take it, but there may have been some similar days at least...

(Fwiw I played this similar game when I was your age (probably like 10 years ago! http://www.mofunzone.com/games/metal_slug_flash.html)

Nope, that's not what I meant. I actually prefer raising the nitty rando here too. The only caveat is - and that is what happened in this hand - you have a stationy player in the hand, who just cold calls your raise because he doesn't understand what you are repping. Online this is almost never a concern, but live it can happen. Nonetheless, I think the reraise is profitable. But once both call, you have to tone down aggression and hope to be able to realise your slim equity, so well played.

It is very interesting what you say about a guy like this giving you a lot of credit for a reraise on a rainbow board. I am constantly torn apart between exactly this view and thinking that they don't give me a lot of credit because why would I raise a monster if the board is not too scary. I personally tend not to give raisers too much credit (and usually I am wrong in live games). This is actually one of the most interesting spots in live poker and I think the better a player is, the less credit we should give them and vice versa.

Thanks also for your explanations on the other hands. I now understand better why you overlimped in hand 4. I actually thought you could get this one heads up. So it might be worth considering making it something like £25. Then you should get it heads up.

I also find your thought that they won't give you too much credit interesting as well!

I think the boards 'wet' enough and looks like you can have some 2-pair that it is believable.

However on boards like 732r or 622r I agree I would generally think its F.O.S. and not raise. I think it is somehow still profitable to raise these boards though. By going by that logic I should be raising all my sets etc, but the other half of my mind is saying we should slow-play because the CO is going to have air sooo much and need him to catch up e.g. hit a K, Q etc.


Making it larger pre also makes sense yep; although there is the risk of someone waking up behind with a decent hand.

If I was on the BTN I would go on the larger side for sure rather than overlimp.

In post #582, I got misquoted as a modalfinil user at university. (I think you meant to quote Robin). Who should I sue for libel and defamation?

Just be happy to be associated with such a great post.

Haha, think I messed up the number when trying to split a reply up. I would be Rob ; !)

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Mid-Month Goals

Overall, been a pretty good month so far on and off the felt.

-"No Drinking while playing" going well havent succumbed yet!

-Although adjustments/tweaks havent
always gone great, I'm glad I'm thinking outside the box and constantly testing my own assumptions and anaysing the places where I always/never get folds or calls.

-Apart from a few notable spots, I think I've generally been playing pretty well although theres always work to do.

-Decided to hang my hat on the reg degen Fri-Sat Morning grinds if I'm playing in LSQ. The games are better for sure (although I think the Friday = Best thing is actually a bit overrated), but the whole experience just knocks me out all weekend. Plus the slowness of it all just puts me, a grumpy nearly 30yo man, on massive tilt.

-After a rare disappearance from the Country looking to travel around a bit more, looking to pay for the Cash Game Festival Gibraltar plane flights with the money I'm undoubtedly saving on booze. From what I've seen the games look ok-decent, and probably not worth the flight alone, but surely worth it for the experience.

-Training material-wise, I'm looking to focus on data-mining recorded LLSNL cash game recordings. Ideally I'm looking to practice interpreting live tells, understand the types of hands fish have with certain lines, how they play certain hands, what they 3bet with etc.

Goals

1. Log 20 hours/week of Live Poker (not Friday nights)

2. Watch 4hours/week pre-recorded cash games

3. Dont play Friday sessions

4. Finish at least 1 CPD report so I can get out of damn guildford.

gl!

Always thought Guildford would be a good place for a decent sized Poker room. Played at Farnborough a couple times and that's always been decent value.

Agreed, think would attract a decent crowd.

Put in a session last night, with a mix of £1/£2 and £2/£5. Tuesday nights in London are always a bit meh, but the games were at least an ok in my book. Definitely not a great session (-£500), but I think I played ok. Really just peeled a lot of 3bets, bricked/bottom range flops blah blah

The £2/£5 was actually a pretty tough line-up if I'm honest with only 1 pretty big spot - the majority of these guys are pretty barrel happy, and are guys who've clearly worked on their game a ton.

With that in mind, I still want to play bigger games, and understand the lines that not only fish take, but also better regs take so I can employ them in my own games.

Few hands:

Hand 1

£1/£2 £400 Effectice 3 limps, I make it £15 BTN with KdKc, 4 callers (lol live poker) inc CO who also calls

Flop 965hhd Pot £77 xxxx I bet £50, CO check-raises £150 hero?

Hand 2

£1/£2 £400 Effective

Few limps, Random talkative spud who'd reloaded twice raises £8 ( I thought he was all in), I 3bet BTN £25 with KQs he calls

Flop K65r Pot £55 He leads £40 I call
Turn 8 Pot £135 He jams £125 hero?

Hand 3

vs spot who probably open limps/raises 75%/25%. Calls 3bets somewhat wide. Slowplays two pair a lot in position on very wet boards. I probably have a good image against him.

£2/£5 £800 Effective, HJ opens £15, I 3bet A7ss to £50, he calls.

Flop KT5hss Pot £105 x I bet £50 he calls
Turn Jc Pot £205 He leads £90, hero?

gl!



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Barring relevant reads - don't fold. I guess shove is slightly better than call because there are lots of action killing turn cards and they probably haven't got any low equity bluffs that fold to a shove. Also I would make it bigger preflop but that's not too important.


Don't fold.

Reads are obviously super important but in hand 1 I'm folding against the majority of the live population and feeling fine about it.

H1 and H2 are probably folds. H3 just call his line looks super strong doubt we have any FE.

Move down to where no one respects your raises.

Hand1:

I have had this situation twice recently. Once against a reg, once against an unknown Israeli guy, who claimed he was a losing player (I don't doubt that). I shoved both times. First one was nut flush draw (and I lost in the end). Second time was against a set.
I did an in-depth analysis of those two spots and found out that both folding and shoving have quite similar equity. So you can't be too wrong either way. I think against regs it is a shove and against recreational players, it is probably rather a fold.

In your example, you can be up against a straight, a set, 2 pair, overplayed top pair or a flush draw. As CO, he got a good price to call your raise, so he could even have 56o, 78o. That's a lot of combos, which would make me think that folding is probably better. In the heat of the moment, I might well shove though.

Hand2:
I am not folding getting 2:1. Yes I will have the 2nd best hand a lot of the times, but not more than 65%.

Hand 3:
Call. You probably don't have much fold equity. He indeed looks very strong there. So pay the £90 and hope you improve. If you hit your flush, you should have some implied odds. The A might not be good, but you can reevaluate. If you miss and he bets the river, snap-fold. If you miss and he checks, you can consider bluffing, but probably not.

Hand 1: my raise size here will be in the £15 (min)-£22 (max) range here 90% of the time. If the flop ends up being 5-way the raise size is likely incorrect.

You have to use your judgement here (found out fairly recently) the term for this judgment is called predictive analysis and in this context means acting based on how you expect the population to react based on your experience in live cash games. For example you should have a good idea of how many players will be on the flop before you even open raise a hand including how the raise size effects the number of callers and the % chance you will face a 3bet and how you will react to that 3bet. This is before you even look at your hand!

As practice try guessing how many players will be on the flop when someone UTG opens for £6 and see if you are correct and also try to predict the frequency of a 3bet and which players will likely take that action too.

Saying all of this however you may have simply been unlucky as the next person to call might simply have had a hand they are seeing a flop with anyway encouraging other players to join the action and it wouldn't have mattered much what raise size you choose as the outcome would be the same.

KK on the flop is pretty dead in the water here and as played is an easy fold. You don't need to bet so big on the flop to get all-in on the river if you choose to so I would likely bet £30 to get value and bet again on most turns that aren't ridiculous or £70 and then jam the turn and this would depend on what I expect to happen vs these opponents. If you think the guy is check-raising here with worse made hands like A9 and 1010 you have to play this hand on your judgement past the flop but at the end of the day it's a crappy spot with an overpair in a 5way pot.


Hand 2: Hand is messed up by thinking opponent is all-in but accidents happen! Unless I'm missing something this opponent is about £200 effective stacks not £400? So as played I am folding close to 0% when we see this flop and feeling fantastic about it. When you know you are never going to fold use your judgement as best way to get the money in vs this opponent.

Hand 3: unsure of what position you are in and this is important information. I'm rarely 3betting this hand- it's too good to 3bet bluff with and too bad to value bet. I think the only situation I would play this hand as a 3bet would be if the players left to act will squeeze a significant amount of the time if I flat and they will hardly ever overcall. If I'm not going to call this hand due to those reasons I will make it a 3bet if I expect the opener to react by folding and rarely 4betting.

I never ever raise the turn here as a semi-bluff unless I'm certain the opponent will lay down a tonne of hands which is pretty much never happening, easy call although unfortunate that our hand will be face-up when we hit as the board is ridiculous but still not a reason to raise.

I TELL YOU THESE THINGS BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOU GUYS







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*taking notes on how to exploit jc*

That's a very expensive hobby mate



Good thing we only play each other once a decade


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Off to get very hammered this weekend with some old colleagues...few more boredom pisses at work and then gg working week!

Will write up bunch of responses to the hands later on.

Any live players (basically everyone who's ever read this thread), I highly recommend getting a subscription to this site http://www.cardplayer.com/authors/273-ed-miller and reading every single article by Ed Miller.



Its an absolute steal at $4/month - I just got the $15 yearly one for the same price as a Maccy D's anyway just to support the site. Ed Miller's an absolute live poker beast; his books/pdf's were my first real stepping stone to improving as a player and he hasn't slowed up over a year.

I was going to recommend a few articles, but honestly I'd just go through the entire back catalogue (even the older stuff).

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

Played basically zero live last week - time to get back on the grind! Considered going yesterday but decided to sack it off Re: what happened in London yesterday.
Had a really fun night (and horrificly expensive) night out on Monday with a bunch of Live Regs. Ended up going to Onino (?) steakhouse, food was great and definitely worth it but at these prices wouldnt want to make a habit of it...



Goal-wise...

1. Log 20 hours/week of Live Poker (not Friday nights)

Nope

2. Watch 4hours/week pre-recorded cash games

Yep, logged easily 4 hours of this stuff this week. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UNHsUoMewE8

3. Dont play Friday sessions

Yep

4. Finish at least 1 CPD report so I can get out of damn guildford.

Sorta

Off to Fabric this Saturday which should be a laugh - all in all a rather expensive month, so hoping to generally flop top set and get paid this evening.

glgl


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