Someone here at 2+2 once told me in the strategy forums that I take very unorthodox lines. Hence the title of this thread. Ive decided to start a PGC thread to talk about my live poker odyssey. Im not sure if I will quickly get bored with this thread or not. It could die in flames in 2 weeks but hopefully it will be somewhat interesting and live on for a while. Most of my hand history threads in the strat forums draw quite a bit of interest (mostly negative) so who knows what will happen here.

Background

I played online poker for about 5 years. I started at micro stakes with no intention of doing anything other than killing some time. I had no idea how to play hold em and no idea that any real money could be made. I've read no poker books whatsoever and learned everything I know from trial and error. That probably explains my "unorthodox lines". Nobody told me to raise certain hands in certain positions. I just did what worked for me and stopped doing what didnt work for me until I had a style that adapted over time and is still adapting in real time.

In those 5 years I worked my way up from .05/.10 to being a $5/$10 regular online (before Black Friday). I never played more than 4 tables and never used a HUD. IMO, HUDs are one the worst crutches a player can use. Playing without a HUD greatly helped me develop what I believe is my greatest asset which is hand reading. I played approx 1,000,000 hands in those 5 years and won approx $250,000. That's shocking to me even now considering the first 1 1/2 years I never played above .50/$1. In those 5 years I never had a losing month.

I did everything online from SNGs, to full ring, 6 max, heads up, and shortstacking.

I got burned out with online poker some months before Black Friday and had already taken all my money offline when Black Friday hit. In fact, I didnt even hear about it until a few weeks later from a friend who was still playing online recreationally.

I am also an active trader of stocks and options (although Ive slowed down recently with all the live poker Ive been playing). My wife and I saved a huge percentage of our salaries for many years. Throughout the years I invested that money, along with the majority of my online poker winnings. I had some very lucky timing and dumped most of my online winnings into the market in 2009 at serious market lows. We are now completely retired and financially independent from "the man".

I dont say that as a brag. I only say it to point out the fact that although I consider myself a professional poker player now, I dont suffer thru the same stresses as most pros do. I dont have to worry about bankroll management or what I will do about paying bills if I hit a long downswing.

Current status

2 years ago we retired and moved to S.Florida where I'm now a regular in the $2/$5 games. I also play $5/$10 when the game looks good, although there are actually very few $5/$10 games in this area.

I play the majority in one specific room because I live close to it and everyone there knows me although they would never know I am MikeStarr. My real name is not Mike. Ive met several 2+2ers who were in from out of town, but only one 2+2er who plays where I play knows who I am.

My wife and I travel a lot and there is poker in so many locations now that I get to mix in some poker all around the country as we make our travels. Luckily the wife is very understanding and has no problem relaxing by the pool, going window shopping or hitting a spa while I play in between sight seeing excursions.

In the past 18 months, Ive played in 21 rooms in 8 states. In August we will be traveling thru the New England area and up into Canada and I hope to document my poker during that trip.

If you read any hands that I post here and think to yourself "WTF?", remember I warned you that I take unorthodox lines.

1) I just sat down a few mins ago and I limp AK UTG. I rarely raise anything UTG.
MP raises to $25 and gets 2 calls. I shove my $400 in and they all fold.

2) Button straddles,
BB calls.
UTG ($150) raises to $50
MP ($665) 3 bets to $100
I'm to MP's direct left and I cover the table. I have KK. His min reraise really looks like AA to me. Im not folding yet but Im not happy either. I looked over at UTGs stack and it looked like he had $140 but he had some yellow $2 chips in the back that I didnt see. The point is that I didnt think MP could 5 bet if UTG shoved. I called the $100.

Folds back to UTG who does shove and I found out he had $150. MP asks if he can raise and when told Yes, he 5 bets all in to $665. Sheesh!

I was actually more than just slightly less convinced he has AA when he reshoved. I asked if anyone had a coin. Someone threw me a penny and I said "Heads I call". I flipped tails. UGH! I really didnt want to fold. Ive flipped a coin a few times before and this is the first time Ive ever disregarded the coins advice. I called.

UTG had AQ. MP had the other KK.

Board ran out 23456.

3) 1 limper. I raise to $25 with 55 in the CO. BB and limper call.
Flop ($75) JhTh7s. Checked around
Turn ($75) 4c. Checked to me I bet $35.. BB calls HU
River ($135) 4s. Check/check. He has 54. Blah.

4) Same limper limps. I raise to $25 99. Same BB and same limper call.
Flop ($75) Qd3d3h. They check to me. I bet $45. BB calls. Hes a very strange player. Hes really just playing poker to kill time between horse races. Hes got to be the biggest horse bettor Ive ever seen. And hes damned good at it. Not so good at poker.
Turn ($165) Kh. He check/calls $45 again.
River ($255) 2c. Check/check. He had 88.

5) I open to $20 UTG Js9s. MP and BB call.
Flop ($60) 8d5c3s. BB checks. I bet $30. Only BB calls.
Turn ($120). Jc. BB leads $75. I call.
River ($270) Ks. He checks. I check back and beat his 75.

Got flush over flushed with 9s8s vs QsTs on a As5dJs4c3s board for $300. Still won $250 today in a little over 4 hours.

Im 3 for 3 winning sessions so far in May.

In for the ride Mike. For sure looking forward to the travelling and to hear how that goes!

Nice work on your financial situation by the way, pretty impressive. Making wise choices pays off huge in the long run, no doubt about it.

hi mike. i read a little of the back and forth about your unorthodox lines. interested to see what's going on in your thought process. will keep up with the thread. btw, i live in new england, so if you'd like to meet up during your august trip, let me know.

1) interesting that you don't have a raising range UTG.. what is your limping range? do you parse it into limp/calls, limp/folds, limp/shoves? how so? why?

2) do you ever do the basic math at the table? something like.. "utg is in for 150, im in for 100, the blinds and straddles make up another 15, MP shoves for 665.. that's 930.. costs me 565 to call.. need about 35-40% to call.. unless he definitely only has AA, its a call.. "?

5) interesting opening J9s UTG but limping AK UTG in hand 1).

1) I realize I kind of contradicted myself by limping AK UTG and raising J9s UTG. The AK was at the very beginning of the session so I stuck to my standard of not raising many hands UTG. I realize this is a non standard thing to limp premiums UTG, but I play fairly LAGgy preflop in position so I tend to get called a lot by people who dont realize my raising range is totally different in different positions. I hate raising a premium hand in EP and getting 4-6 calls. That tends to lead towards losing a medium to big pot.

When I raised the J9s, the table had become fairly tight so I threw a raise in there with a disguised hand. If I did get called 4-5 times, Id would rather have J9s than AK.

I do raise premiums UTG at tightish tables and because Im seen limping in super EP a fair amount I think I can get away with limping some hands there that lots of people might find bad to limp in EP with.

That reminds me of another hand from today.

I limped 6h5h UTG when the table was pretty passive preflop. It went 6 to the flop of AhTh4h.
BB bets $15. I called and MP called.
Turn ($75) 9c. BB bets $50. As I was thinking about raising, I saw MP pick up 2 greens so I called and he called also.
River ($225) 6d. BB bet $100. I called and MP folded. BB had Ac3h.

Lots of people hate this type of passive line, but I find it works well a lot of the time In the past I would've raised this flop 100% of the time.

2) Honestly I live and die by live reads much more than math. This particular guy I had never played with before other than the 2 hrs or so I had been with him today so I really wasnt sure what he had but it was pretty clearly AA/QQ/AK IMO. (didnt even consider the other KK). I did do the math you mentioned while tanking. With a range of AA/QQ/AK this is an easy call, but you also have to try to calculate how often he would do that with QQ as opposed to AA. Thinking about it after the fact with no stress its a pretty easy call.

What part of NE are you in?

Just curious, why would you rather have a weaker hand when oop multiway than a stronger hand?

GL, will follow along!

Because if you get called 4-6 times and you are OOP, you arent going to win the pot very often. Its going to be even tougher with a hand that mostly makes one pair. Id rather have a hand that makes more big hands and that nobody will see coming when I hit with it.

Basically its the same reason you might call a raise with J9s after 4 other people call but you shouldnt be calling in that same spot with AK.

AK makes better 1 pair hands, better 2p hands, better trips, higher straights, higher flushes, bigger FH than J9s. I think it's better to play a tighter range in early position because we need strong hands to make up for being OOP. The only benefit I can see to having J9s is that its easier to get away from postflop.

But hey I guess that's why you titled the thread the way you did

There's no wrong way to play poker.

See what I mean? Right now you're saying "WTF?" ")

Youre right about AK making higher 2 pairs ect, but J9s makes disguised straights, trips and 2 pairs and I think there's a lot of value in that. Its easier to get paid off big when the board is AJ936 with J9 than it is on a AK936 board when you have AK and raised UTG. And its def easier to get away with J9s than AK.

live in vermont. play in CT and NH

I've been playing some live lately. Can see where mike is coming from. Raising (even 5 or 6x) in ep and getting calls in 4 spots is so awkward, even with aa or kk. You're going to have 1 pair so often. Could see a lot of merit to being able to limp squeeze at the tables where every hand gets 4 players to the flop regardless of pfr size.

I also think your passive lines sometimes with nutted hands (as the example with the flopped flush), also make perfect sense- and i think so many people lose lot of value by autoraising the flop without taking alot of important considerations into account.

Infact i realize i could have said alot about this topic, as gameflow, population reads and exploitative lines to get the max is some of my fav topics regarding livepoker. The main reason though is to exploit the population tendencies of (albeits slowly) learning how to not stackoff light in multiway limped pots. This development of the game means that your villains will fold alot more than before with second best hands,maybe even overfold in these situations. So in order to maximize our valuehands we need to mix it up and with a higher frequenzy take lines that widens our own percieved range, so we manage to get our villains to keep putting money into the pot on several streets.

I log a buttload of hours with the same pretty small playerpool- and ive been taken these kind of more passive call lines or check-call lines with nutted hands for a long time, especially against opponents that have learned to not commit lightly or not stackoff without a very strong holding.Dont get me wrong: they are still losing players with huge leaks most of the time, but they have learned certain parts of the game wich we need to adjust to in order to maximize our winrate. These kind of players often lose their money slowly over many medium sized pots, instead of losing them fast in big stackoff pots. And i (despite a rockish image amongst many players) gets paid off incredibly often. Infact so often that many players just cant believe how i do it. And one of the secrets is that i simply dont turn my hand/range faceup all the time with the most obvious lines in the world. Those lines may worked out every single time back in 2007 after the Moneymakerboom when nearly everyone was freaking clueless on all levels of their game, but its another era now- and you often need to tweak your approach to the game to get maximum value out of your hands.

Well, my few cents for now.

I agree 100%. However, I almost never take this passive call down line unless Im almost certain Im ahead.

My best poker friend arrives in Vegas today for a 3 week trip. Im jealous! Hes got $12K allotted for tourney entry fees and will also be playing cash games. Im hearing tales of sick cash games going on out there right now. Unfortunately I have too much going on to get away right now.

My son graduated HS on Sat and we have relatives in town. We've moving next month and have to do all kinds of crap to get ready...ect.

Hand 1) Think this is ok, I would def do this if I were short stacking (say 250-300) but think $400 eff I'd rather just raise it. Think it also massively depends on how raise happy the table is.

Hand 2) Lol at the PFR size. Erm, weird spot. Probably just go with it?

Hand 3) I think this is too thin for 0.5psb but thats my opinion as he's going to have a bunch of Tx etc, think if smaller I'm more on board with the bet though.

Hand 4) Think turn bets really good nh

Hand 5) Like betting smaller on the flop say 20-25 but whatever. If the turn hadn't paired our J I love an overbet here, otherwise think its wp. River I'd definitely go for for value I think (I find it suicidal to bluff brick FD run outs, so think we can definitely get called by worse by betting).

Subbed, gl!

Last year I went to Tampa and played a little at the Tampa Hard Rock. Action was good but the chairs absolutely killed my back. I only played for about 2 hours and had to leave. I had back spasms for 2 days. I have a bad back and had a back surgery about 2 years ago so maybe they are fine for most people but for me they suck.

About 6 months ago I went to the Hollywood Hard Rock in S. Florida and noticed they had different chairs. I asked if they were new and the dealer says "Well they are new to us. Tampa got a whole new poker room and we got their chairs". Doh!!! I havent been back to HR since....until today.

I needed to run some errands in Hollywood today so I hit the Hard Rock in the morning. I hate the place. I despise it. They moved the poker room to a better temp location while a brand new one is being built and its a little better now but I still hate it. I pretty much hate everything about it other than the fact they they play 9 handed.

I played 35 mins of 1/2 while waiting for a 2/5 seat and won $150. Then I played 2/5 for 3 1/2 hrs and never tipped a dealer. That's a clue how my day went. Not too mention I was uncomfortable for 3 1/2 hours in those ****ing chairs.

I left and went to my main room and played only 2 noteworthy hands.

1) I have Qd9d in the BB and it gets limped 6 ways.

Flop ($30) Qh9c3s. I check. UTG whale bets $40 and it folds to me. He overbet the pot in a limped pot? That doesnt happen much here. Sometimes if someone has something like KQ and there's a FD on board they do it. Anyway, I call. Ive destroyed this guy in the past and hes made it known a few times that I always get lucky vs him

Turn ($110) 4s. I check. He bets $65. I check raise to $200. He calls pretty quickly.

River ($510) 7s. I shove $225. He tank calls with KK. I got lucky again....

2) I open to $20 KcQs in EP. 3 callers.
Flop ($80) QcTc4h. BB checks. I check to see what happens. Most people wouldnt check here especially with a FD on the flop. I check a lot of flops OOP and it doesnt mean I missed. Lady in MP bets $20. LP folds and now the BB check raises to $85.

BB is a young pretty solid tricky player. Normally I would fold this and move on and its the reason I check flops in EP. To see what develops making me last to act a lot of times. MPs bet is so small and it really seemed to me that BB sensed the same thing and was making a move here with a draw. I decided I was making a stand and not folding. I reraised to $200. MP lady insta folded. BB tanked and finally shoved $485ish. I beat him into the pot. He said "Your set of Qs is good for now". The board bricked out and I beat his KJ. Im sure he thinks I'm a fish for getting all in with just TP there.

Anyone like to comment on this hand?

Hero opens to $20 KsKc and gets called in MP and by the button. No reads whatsoever. I have $500 and they cover.

Flop ($65) Ah3h3d. It checks around.
Turn ($65) 7s. It checks to the button who bets $50. I call and we're HU
River ($165) 9c. I can have an ace here but lets assume that he will never believe that since most people never would.

I think I'm ahead here at least 50%+. A lot of times I would bet like $50 basically as a blocker. Nobody is raising that bet without an ace or better. There's good and bad to that though. If he was going to bet $85 with something like TT or 87s, he will either fold and I lose out on the $85 or if he calls I make $35 less. The good side is that if he bets $125 I might fold and be folding the winner which is a much bigger mistake/loss.

This time I checked and he bet $160 which is exactly what I avoid by betting $50 myself.. Thoughts in general? Call or fold now?

The problem is that youre really capping your own range when you check both flop and turn,even many bad fishy players realize that you very often arent strong after taking this line.

That being said, majority of the times your just simply beat here by a decent ace like AJ or AQ, and they arent exploiting your weak line.

I like either stabbing the turn myself after flop checks through (set my own price and uncap my range little bit by firing the turn myself and not checking twice), or as played fold if i face a big bet on the river. Sizing on the riverbet is how we get valuable information about villains likely range here.

Ok, but if he realy has an ace, or better, why is he pounding that much on the river when he knows I dont have an ace and most likely cant call?

Posting for the sub Mike. I have disagreed with your thought processes in several threads and will do so again ITT if you don't mind a bit of back and forth.

Also disagreeing with your lines should not equal trolling...just my .02

I will let you know if/when I am trolling

Because you (and many other players) sometimes will use this logic and level yourself into calling with KK,second pair or whatever on this board? The classic "cant believe my QQ/KK got sucked out on once more" call or "i cant believe i am so unlucky call".

Unless you have in depth reads that this villain is bluffing at a high frequenzy on the river, we just have to fold in my opinion. If not were gonna run into any Ax or better so often and become a callingstation- wich is why fish is losing money at low stakes.

if you think villain makes this large overbet as a bluff, then i like your line.

readless i might bet small otr to get a crying call by a wider range.

subbed

(btw the chairs at the THR are much nicer, as is the new room)

Constructive back and forth is most welcome. Rudeness just for the sake of being a jackass, not so much. (I dont mean to say you've ever done that)

I will most likely be back in Tampa towards the end of July when the Rangers visit the Rays. (Im from Dallas). Im sure Ill check out the new THR.

Yeah, Im totally readless in this hand. Ive used the smallish river blocking / value bet with a lot of success in the past but havent used it much lately.