One of the reasons I thought of folding was that I didn't want to hear him talk himself up for the rest of the night. Seriously annoying.

He only makes any money because people pay him off when he hits and he's also not afraid to bet really big when bluffing. The problem for him is that he doesn't actually know why what he does works so he's kind of indiscriminate. If you're reasoning your way through a hand you can handle him pretty easily. In this instance, I just didn't.

BR pron


Trying to sneak in a short session after work and foiled by the wait list. If I don't et in soon I'm gonna go home and watch DC videos. I recently purchased a subscription and am really liking it. To this point my training has been exclusively books and 2+2. After a while the books start saying the same things and the forum advice gets stale. The videos keep me occupied. Watching a series on PLO that I think is really going to help me get off the ground quickly in those games. Ill likely start grinding PLO micros as well. I saw a RxR game the other nigh at the casino that was playing pretty big. I also saw a huge limit game. I might start looking into that as well.

Kind of a rambly post. Sorry.

I was reading through DGI's thread yesterday and picked up on something we both tend to do occasionally. We attribute a little too much credit to our semi thinking v's and end up blowing up a stack because we think they're capable of folding. I'm trying to cut down on extravagant plays. Well see how disciplined I can be to tonight. I tend to follow up big winners with bad sessions because I get too big for my britches. Best thing is to keep doing what got you there.

Awesome BR porn.

In response to your post awaze back. My biggest leak is calling too much, especially river. Just a classic fish leak, holding over still into my awesome poker skills now abounding.

Example: 5/T H in the straddle 20. 7 handed. Game has two whales, three good pros, a kid who looks classic internet wizard, but not sure if he's any good, and me, whale - killer whale hopefully. So here's my bad hand. Also, I can't be sure of the action pre. Was working on writing previous hands down after this hand, and wasn't planning on using it at the time. Anyway...

H AQo straddle. (2000, V covers)

V (pro) in LG raise to 60.
Pro2 on BTN calls.
Blinds fold
H calls. Can see args for raising, but I was thinking about V as UTG +1 so thought his range was tight. Plan to play TPTK fit or fold oop.

Flop (190) A77 ds
H still oop, but now looks like I can call down. V will bet for me.
H checks
V bets 125.
Pro2 folds
H calls. Since I checked, I shouldn't have an ace in his eyes. He will cbet all his pairs, all his aces. Question is how low do his aces go (so how many does H beat). Prolly down to AJo and ATs. Maybe more AXs? Maybe ATo?


Turn (440) K two suits
Continue the same plan.
H checks.
V bets 200
H tank calls (thought about folding, cuz my image is whale, not folding, so V should not be bluffing me.)

River (840) Qo
Puke. H checks.
V fiddles and thinks for 20 secs (long time).
V bets 350.

H puke, tank, calls. Stupid call, right? V's hand is soooooo obvious.

Vs a solid player, you're chopping at best right.


I have lately had a few moments where I knew I should do something (usually fold) and end up doing something else. Gotta work on that.

I played kind of haywire the other night once I finally sat down. I wasn't really taking it all that seriously. I wanted to try a couple of things I'd been thinking about and the table was decent for trying things. Not a lot of spew crazies on it. A couple worked out. A couple didn't. I made kind of a funny math error vs. Angrist and had to fold after setting myself up to call a shove. haha. oops. I almost called anyway to avoid looking stupid, but then decided looking stupid for a hand was worth $85 to me. Live and learn.

I'm looking forward to getting back down town to play the bigger games. I think I'm getting a better handle on those. Not sure when that will happen though. For now it's video watching and posting. Fun.

In response to the pokerodox hand... If your image is whale, do you ever have 67, 78, or 79 in your straddle defend range? His river sizing looks thin value / blocker-ish... I wonder if there is a merit to turning our hand into a bluff and raising to like $1100? If he's a good reg he might actually find a fold, but then again I do suppose if you had a 7 you would raise the turn. I wouldn't have the guts to do it, but just thought.

Yeah that is a great example of a hand where you just know you are beat but can't fold. My winrate would be soo much higher if I folded even half the time in spots like this.

I probably have 7's in my straddle defend range. 78s, 79s, 76s. V probably has those same 7s in his range. He's in the LJ, not really like UTG+1 if we were 9 handed (we're 7 handed). I don't like raising either though. I don't think better is folding. We'd be targeting exactly AK to get it to fold.

At the time I fish-reasoned myself into thinking V could bet three streets with AT, AJ. But now I think that's just not happening.

You're right that H bets a 7 ott, or c/r.

V had

That was a weird table the other night. Those guys are sometimes good for a lot of action, and other times not so much. I should never have even bothered sitting down and just gone home instead. That new room has been so hit-or-miss I'm not sure if it's even worth my time to play there.


The hand was a little interesting. I know you've got a wider 3-bet range than many tight live players, without being the crazy stupid wide that some of the spewtards have. I also know that you're capable of folding hands in the right spot, and of bluffing in the right spot. I found it kind of amusing hearing "Action" and the old guy to your right trying to put me on a hand there. (They were totally wrong.) I suspect they would have all been a bit surprised at *both* of our hands there.

Without a reveal since we play together enough:

ya, I knew you were laughing inside. I was too. He was 100% certain you did not have KK+. I'm thinking, "Why the hell not? That's what I would have done with it."

Anyway, from what I've heard that game is either insane or dead. Probably worth checking out but not staying if dead. I almost went home before I got in. Probably should have. As i said, I wasn't really taking the game too seriously. Haven't done that in a while. It'll be interesting to see how it goes there. It's definitely stronger than it was a month or two ago. Hopefully, I'll be paying more and more 2/5 and less and less charity.

So for the 4 of us who read and post in this thing:

Let's see if we can compile one hand a piece before the next round of posts where we knew we should make a certain play (probably a river fold), were about to do something different that we know we shouldn't, and then stopped, remembered "0 to infinity" and made the correct decision. Could be fun to start making this thread useful for something.

Awesome idea! I won't be able to play much this weekend but hopefully tonight I'll get into a spot worth posting.

Sounds good. Will have to google 0 to infinity though.

Scroll up to the title of the thread dude haha.

So my spot is actually in a freeroll tournament that I played today. A weird, long-haired old guy was sitting to my left and I think he's a day game player because I've never played with him before. He was very active, raising pretty frequently preflop, playing a lot of hands. Every time I tried to steal from CO or BTN, he would defend with a call and never folded to a cbet (called twice and raised twice, once with an all-in shove).

When V's to my left start acting up against me, it really throws me off my game. I feel like "they can't have it every time" and adjust poorly by calling down super light. Last week there was a guy like this, and I 3bet/called a shove on the flop 100bb deep with JJ on Q-high board. V had KQ. Mega spew.

Well today, versus this weird old guy, I raised to t1200 with A8o when it folded to me in SB. Blinds were 200/400, I had t10,000 and he had t8500 or so. He shoved from the BB, and I pretty much instacalled. He had JJ and held.

Unfortunately in this spot, I did not make the correct decision. I didn't even have time to think "0 to infinity" because I was so irritated of this guy playing back at me that my emotions got the best of me and screwed up my chance at what should have been an easy $500+ chop.

I have another freeroll at the other casino tomorrow, and I'm confident this type of situation will arise again. It's a huge leak I have in cash games as well. I will stop, take a breath, and think "0 to infinity" before making my decision.

Remember, that most people aren't playing back at you. Even if you imagine they are.

Also remember 0 to infinity doesn't mean play weak and fold. It simply means, "stop. Think. Make a good decision."

Good luck!

I've played a couple times since the last good post. I had a couple of small losing sessions mostly because one guy who I've had a generally rock solid read on has made wildly out of character moves in pots with me that were brilliantly timed if not overall folly. He's amde an adjustment to me and I'm pretty sure I know what it is now so I should be able to exploit him again in a slightly different way. It's actually OK because I think it will actually be more profitable.

Anyway, tonight I played a near perfect session. I made one bad play but it was very small. It could have been my "0 to infinity" moment but I couldn't resist due to the small pot. Oh well, next time. Other than that, I don't think I made one mistake. THe result was a 450bb winner.

I almost went to the casino to play 2.5 tonight, but it would have been 10P at the earliest before I sat down and on a Monday night, the games probably would not have been that good. Instead, I went to a 1/2 home game and was delighted to see 4 very big fish all sitting on over 300bb. I had to wait a while, but when I finally did sit down, the game did not disappoint.

Leaks:

1. Taking breaks- I've been doing better at this, but still could use some work.
2. Playing too loose after a while- I've had a session or two where this was a minor backslide, but tonight was pretty good. I did open up a bit later, but that was because the table was allowing it and I had a crushing image. I was just running them over.
3. Calling off with overpairs- Did not come up tonight, but I've been doing really well lately.
4. Calling river bets- The one mistake I made tonight was this leak. It was for a small $ amount, but it shouldn't matter. I knew I shouldn't call. I did make one other river call, but it was against a maniac who I checked to in order to induce and he obliged by betting 1/5 pot and it was a pretty easy call with 2nd pair. He actually asked me how I could make that call, but it really wasn't a tough spot at all given the player.
5. autopilot- I don't think I autopiloted at all tonight and that was great. Related to that, I started getting tired, and got up to leave pretty quickly which I am most proud of. I've gotten into the habit of staying a little bit too long lately.


That last really should be another leak unto itself. I've found lately that I am not honest with myself when I'm not playing very well. The trouble is that I know I can probably still beat the game, but it's not nearly a certainty and I really should just leave and save my win rate. We'll see how things go in the future. I might not be able to play as much with the holiday season coming plus all of January is morning shifts for me at work which sucks the poker right out of me. It's OK though. I have some 2+2 and DC work that i need to get done. I'm looking forward to finishing the year strong. I will probably end up just short of 5 figures in profit for the year, but my hourly is over $30/hr which is pretty fantastic since 95% of my volume has been at $1/2. We'll see how things turn out.

Fat value hand of the night

Whale UTG makes it $10. UTG+1 spazz calls. SB decent but not good player calls. Hero raises to $55 in BB with TT whale calls. Spazz calls. Btn folds.
Eff stacks $464.

Flop: 973 ($175)
Hero bets $125. Whale folds. Spazz calls.

Turn: 973Q ($425)
Hero checks. Spazz bets $150. Hero shoves $284. Spazz calls.

River: x

I show. He mucks, and I'm on my way.

This villain has a long history of monster spew, so I allowed him to spew on the turn, and it turned out pretty much exactly how I wanted it to. He's never checking any draw or pair. He just never will. This is a case where you let a player's natural tendency work against him. I do my best to set this player up to let him do what he wants to do where most of the time it will lead to massive profits for me. Many players will put their opponents in situations where in order to make a mistake, they will have to go against their natural tendencies. In this case, the players baseline is making giant bluffs and raising light over bets. I gave him the opportunity to do that in a spot where I was would be good most of the time. A bad idea would be to put yourself in positions where you can't call when facing heat. Taking stabs at pots against this guy is suicide. You just have to get a hand preflop/flop and make your decision to go with it excepting the worst run outs. It's about making a read, making a plan and putting it into action. That's good poker.

Love that TT hand. I would have barreled through the Q with all the draws out there and check/call river if everything misses.. But i like your line for fat value vs an aggrotard

Congrats on a great session... Wish it was 100pct perfect play and you folded that river! Meh, small pot

I did both of these in one hand, otherwise a very good night.

"3. Calling off with overpairs...
4. Calling river bets..."

Pissed about this one:

H has QQ MP in 5/T game, raises to 40.
Two callers
V in BB solid reg who can spew when tilted, lost massive pot for stack 0.5 hour ago. Prolly not still tilted, but you never know, raises to 150.
H considers fold, call and RR. Just not sure if V does this with AJ, AQ, KQ. This is at least JJ+, AK. Not sure about TT.
H calls, keep V's range wider (V's calling a 4bet range (max 4 bets in this game) would be AA, KK, prolly QQ and AK, folds everything else).

Flop 400ish 467 ds
V bets 125. Very small bet. V is pot size aware and not the type for whom this is a big bet.
H call.

Turn 650, 3, two suits
V bets 250
Now V has an overpair. Would not double barrel two overs, and doesn't have any low cards in his range at all. Question is whether we beat enough of the overpairs.
H calls. I think this was a good call. I think V plays JJ the same way. Against 6 combos of AA, KK, JJ each, we need at least 2:1 pot odds, which we are getting.

River 1150, 4r
V bets 500 (max bet in this game)
H tank calls. Thought still ahead of JJ and getting the odds. The reason this is a fold is that V prolly checks JJ, because he can put H on overpairs also. V is never bluffing H here.
V showed KK.

H is done calling rivers with weak hands.

Goal is to post a good river fold next time.

I think your analysis is right on assuming reads on V are correct. I would have played exactly the same minus the river call (unless I made that mistake too).

I had a really high variance session just now. Really short and really swingy. I had this drunk dude directly to my left who was just shoving chips into the pot randomly. There were a couple other bad players at the table too. I got all in 5 times. I won a nice pot and a small pot. I got sucked out on twice for medium pots, and in the biggest pot of the night got coolered. AsAc on T73sss board. I bet small, drunk shoves, weird irritating player behind me flats, and I obviously shove and get called. Turns out irritating guy had spite called preflop with K9ss because the hand previous I had 4 bet shoved on is AQo and he didn't have the stones to call even though he knew I was bluffing (I had AKo ). Of course my draw did not come in.

I lost $100 tonight. It was kind of irritating because I was +EV all night long. That's the way it goes. I'm happy to report that none of my leaks really occurred in the short time I was playing. I made one bad preflop raise which led to a bad preflop fold. Other than that I played just fine and the variance did not affect me at all. It's nice not to feel a bad beat at all.

I had one of those theoretical spots that never happens- actually happen tonight:

Last hand of the night. Completely rolled to play. 4 handed. I am UTG. UTG+1 goes all in for $94 before the cards are dealt. The other two players are playing pretty straight forward. Action is to me first for $2. If I call or fold the raise is binding. If I raise he can take it back (but he's never going to do that). I look down at A6o. What do you do????


I had no "zero to infinity" opportunities tonight. Everything was 100% boring and standard.

awesome BR porn pic and thread. GL!

Easy limp with A6o. Great relative position. If anyone else calls the shove then fold, otherwise fist pump snap call vs ATC. I do this with spewy straddlers all the time, and did something like this today with A7dd.

Ran great tonight and up $1000 at 2/5. Made a terrible turn/river call with an overpair though. Will post tomorrow.

It's pretty marginal but it's still worth a few bucks of EV once you take out rake + tip + $2 sacrificed money when you limp/fold. I'd probably go for it. If you were presented that opportunity 1000 times, that could be the bankroll difference between moving up and not moving up.

But I would for sure just limp and fold to a 3rd party calling his jam since he's next to act.

A6o is 57% vs ATC for +~$11 in EV here (incl blinds, rake, $1 tip). I'll take that any day.

--

Will try to keep it short since I've been posting a lot in here lately. Unfortunately did not actually think "zero to infinity" in my head like I wanted to, but I did make a few folds recently in small/med pots that I usually may not have. I may have been bluffed off a hand a couple times but I guess that's okay... You never really know if you were bluffed (if V doesn't show), and I think that's part of what makes it frustrating / hard to fold the river.

But it's the large pots where I continue to screw up. Yesterday I called off with overpair / couldn't fold river / thought too much into metagame (again). V is really bad aggro Asian man and I just owned him in a $325 pot where I had top two and bet/bet/bet and he folded the river. I picked up KK immediately after and we played heads up again. I won't get into the details of the hand, but he raised me on the turn on a wet board where I could have easily been beat. I leveled myself into putting him on a FD+overs and called it off on turn and river for a $800 pot. Biggest mistake of an otherwise great session.

I like all the feedback. Makes my thread feel more busy haha.

When I'm playing really well, I am able to remember that those spots are a little ahead/ way behind spots. The deciding factor is usually how spewy the opponent is and what stacks are looking like. Last night I flopped an overpair on a 234dd board and got raised by a bad but not spewy player. The raise was really small so I called it and when a blank hit the turn and he bombed it I just folded. He showed A5. It was a pretty easy fold because he's not the type of player to just go crazy with draws on multiple streets. He might raise a draw and then check the turn, but he's not blasting through the turn. On the turn, I folded knowing that I was making a decision for all the chips and not just the $80. I probably could have folded the flop raise knowing I was getting bluffed occasionally. THe times he's already there+the times he gets there outweigh the tmies he's got worse and doesn't improve.

Seriously, I invite anyone to post in here. I love having people of all skill levels to converse with about my favorite hobby.

I think it's an easy limp/call heads up with A6o, probably fold if anyone else calls since I don't want to play a bloated pot OOP with a trash hand.

Haven't had much in the way of interesting decisions lately, or even interesting sessions. I need to put in more hours at the home games instead of some of the charity spots. My table draws have been super standard to beat big with tightish ABC + well timed stabs/semi-bluffs.

Although I did murder the Sunday Omaha game. When I've played PLO in Vegas or even at Firekeepers it's painfully obvious that I've got a LOT to learn, but apparently I've picked up enough to beat the locals. Studying PLO is going on my list of things to do in the new year.


Really like the fold on the 234dd board. Not planning ahead is a huge leak that I see many Villains exhibit. Being able to get away early is a great skill to have.



With Christmas coming up shortly I'll be out of town (yea sunny FL!) and away from the tables a couple of weeks. There's a room 30 mins away that I'll go check out, but probably not often. So it's time for some off-table work.

I've got a copy of Zach Elwood's "Verbal Poker Tells" (his other tell book was great) sitting on my desk that looks pretty good. I was also planning on getting "Mental Game 2" and potentially re-reading Hwang's "Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play" (first time I read it I didn't have enough PLO experience to really get much out of it).

Anyone have suggestions for good books to read that aren't too "samey"?
I've gone through a lot of different ones already, including all of the Ed Miller stuff, a couple on math and game theory, and a couple on mental stuff. I'd post a lit but it's FAR too long to do from memory.

I was also given a copy of the Elwood books. Haven't dug into much yet but looking forward to it. I'm going through a couple of DC series right now. I am horrible at PLO. That what I've learned. Gotten smoked te few times I've fired it up on bovada. Gotta learn to be patient with that game.

Gonna go home gaming tonight. Friday ill be able to put in a good session at the casino.