Whatttts up !

Just started a blog where I'll write about my results and strategy. I have been a live poker pro for a year and a half. Enjoy

mod edit: this forum is for posting a blog here, it is not for linking to blogs on other sites. If you want to post your blog entries here, feel free, but please no outside links.

January Results

183 hours, 25 sessions, 52% winnings.

Most swigny month ever. Never experienced anything like this before. I’m glad January is finally over. To be honest, I was anticipating this kind of swing so I’m not very surprised by the results. After running like god for 3 straight months, I knew things would go sour. For a conservative player, a bad swing can be something around 5 buyins or 500 bb. I experience it on a daily basis. A combination of two things can actually explain such swings :

1) Bad run

Do I really need to explain myself here ? My whole month can be summarized as losing big pots. And that is what usually make the difference between a break even month and a very good month. Typical bad run stuff… Not hitting my huge draws, made hands getting crushed by draws, my bluff vs vilain’s top range, etc .. Nothing abnormal here.

Bad run can’t be controlled, but your attitude during that period can. I’m very proud of the way I can take downswings now. Of course, after 180 hours of bad results, my threshold is getting smaller and I’m less tolerant to bad beats and coolers, but I emotionally recuperate very fast once the session is over and it doesn’t really influence my mood outside of the table. Which is totally new .. I’ll be taking 2 days break before starting February. Beach and party should help me attack next month with positive energy.

2) Very aggressive plays

The switch is on. Fat bankroll baby. The pressure of loosing money at Nl2000$ is not the same (it almost can’t be felt now) than it was 6 months ago. Which makes me fearless. I’m much more dangerous at the table than I was … Much more. I constantly attack weak ranges, bluff my whole stack, multiple barrel with total air all the time, etc. Im way more aggressive than I was because I’m not scared to lose money anymore. But aggressive plays come with higher variance. I have to deal with it.

I’m also experiencing some new concepts that “Hammerfist” and I put out. It’s very fun to try new things at the table but it has a cost : I’m making more mistakes than usually. Totally normal in the learning process. But yeah, it cost $$$.

Thresholds and pressure

This must be my favorite hand of the month. The guy I busted in that hand stacked “Hammerfist” twice in the session (both times with nut flush vs 2nd nut flush) so it felt good to bluff him big.

Table dynamic

I’m having a good session, playing with around 5000$. My image is good. This kid (2 seats on my right) is playing his first couple sessions at 5-10. From what he says, he grinded all the way from 1-2 to this game. What does that tell us? He is definitively in an uncomfortable zone, just like anyone who moves up in limit is usually (that include myself, each and every time I’ve moved up). He is not good at all, playing passively (limping a lot) with most of his weak-medium range. He also tends to give a couple tells when he is nervous. But he is on a heater, won big pots and is now playing on 6k stack. That is a lot of money for a 1-2-whatever-he-grinds-usually player. It means he is emotionally very attached to his winnings. We have position on him, and we are fearless , so we are waiting for the right opportunity to put a lot of pressure on all this beautiful money.

The set up

As we are playing, I’m planning on bluffing my whole stack on this guy so I can apply maximum pressure on everything that is not the nuts in his range. I’m thinking about overbetting any good scary river (connected board, flush board with Ace blocker, paired, etc..) in a pot of 2-3k. Like I said, with the addition of the fact that the guy is scared money, he is up a lot in his session and attached to his winnings, I feel like my folding equity is huge vs him. I think he can invest 1 to 1.5k in a pot and fold to a big bet / raise that would jeopardize a big part of his winnings.

The hand

BTN straddle (25$), vilain limps EP, I Raise to 100 with A5o MP, everyone folds, vilain calls.

Pot 240$

Flop 4-7-8, Rainbow.

Vilain checks.

Perfect situation for me. I have a little equity (gutshot + 1 over) in a pot that could be scary by the river. So I bet to start building an interesting pot.

I bet 200, vilain check-raise me to 450. Most people would quit here, thinking that vilain he is very strong. Here what’s interesting in this spot : the sizing of vilain’s raise. Let’s take a look at what he could potentially have.

Semi-Bluff : TJs. Players tend to raise big when semi-bluffing. Especially when OOP. I don’t include this type of hand in his range.
Weak pair: A8s type of hand that wants to know “where he’s at”. Typical bad player move. Only thing his, I think that could apply in a normal pot. Like a single raised pot, c-bet 50 in 75, vilain check-raise to 100-125 to know where he is at. But this is a straddle pot, and the c-bet is a pot size bet. I doubt vilain would check-raise to 450 with a weak pair here. He could have 9′s or 10′s too. But this type of hand should be very vulnerable by the river.
2 pairs : 7-8s is the only 2 pairs possible. Only 2 combos possible, but it does make some sort of sense. Its a very strong hand but its not the nuts, it fits the “small” check-raise.
Set : 9 combos possible. Players tend to feel like they have the nuts when they flop sets. When they have the nuts in their head, they usually don’t hold back, especially when they think you could hold an overpair. They make raise that are big enough to get your whole stack. My assumption is that he would definitively raise bigger with a set, but he could be scared of the straight too. It’s too early in the hand to tell..
Straight : 3 combos possible (I have 1 blocker). The nuts. I feel he would definitively raise much bigger with the nuts. I don’t include it in his range.
I like to float the check-raise here. With or without equity, I don’t really care. My gutshot is a bonus here. I could make it by the end of this hand, but I’m not counting on it. If it happens good, but I want to steal this pot. Not make the better hand. This hand is going in a direction I like. The pot is getting big and vilain have a good hand but it could be bluffable by the river. I float with the plan of re-evaluate the turn sizing bet of vilain. If he bets big on a blank, I will tend to give up. If he checks or bets small, I’m probably getting in “stack-off mode”, depending of the runnout.

Pot 1140$

Turn : Q

That card is a blank. Vilain thinks for a bit and bet 550. Boom. I’m 90% sure he does not have a set or a straight at this point. He would definitively bet bigger (700-800) with this type of holding. Now Im sure that he’s is strong but is starting to feel uncomfortable with the size of the pot. I’m narrowing his range to 2 pairs. 7-8s makes a lot of sense. The only problem on the turn is that I can’t really represent anything that beats him. I wouldn’t want to try to rep Q’s, because he probably would not believe me. I have one option : call and try to bluff any river that connects the board : 5,6(give me the straight),9,T,J. So that is what I do. I float again the turn.

Pot 2240$

River : Q

Wow, I did not think about that card. But it’s a good one for me. Vilain quickly bet 800. That is a weird bet because if he really have 2 pairs, he just got counterfeit. This bet kind of made me unsure of my read. When that happens, I like to replay the hand from beginning, to see if its makes sense or not. On this river, he can only represent a full house when he is betting (4′s,7′s,8′s). He limp-called my raise PF. That’s ok. Min check-raise my pot size c-bet on the flop. He could have flop a set, but his sizing makes it unlikely. The turn bets make it even more unlikely because it so small. And by the river. his 3rd small bet confirms the whole thing : he definitively did not flop a set. My bet at this point is that he’s is probably betting for no reason, like a lot of bad players do. They bet because they don’t know what to do. In addition, his breath very heavily and does not look confortable at all. Its time to pull the trigger.

Our sizing doesn’t have to be big. I was taking about overbetting at the beginning of the hand but a min raise will have the same results as a big raise: it makes 2 pairs fold. So after thinking for a good minute 1/2, I raised to 1800. Vilain looks at me, ask me what could I possibly have, and quickly folds showing 7-8 of heart. Boom !

I was happy about that play because my read was perfect. I had planned this hand, and it went my way. And I was able to take down a very big pot with absolutely nothing. Plus, I was able to take revenge for Hammerfist

I like this blog.
It is similar to mine, but better because you have an idea how to hand/villain/bet sizing read.
I also, after much contemplation/misery, am moving towards opening my stack more at worthy times, but it is a difficult transition from nittiness.

subbed. Sick hand w/ A5

Outplaying a bad reg in a very unbalanced spot

This is a hand I've played at 5-10 deepstack against a bad reg with who I have a lot of history. Vilain defended his blind vs my LP raise, and gave me a great leverage to bluff my whole stack on a stone cold bluff. Here is how it goes.

History

Vilain is a bad reg with many leaks, having difficulty to adjust and has a huge ego. Ive played a lot with him a got the upper hand in so many hands, calling him down very light and bluffing him out of big pots. It seems clear to me that I am a better player than he is, but instead of avoiding me, he constantly tries to outplay me back. Having the ability to recognize your edge vs players is a very important skill. Let your ego on the side, and be objective. If a player is more skilled than you or equally skilled, you should avoid as much as possible playing against him, especially in bad spots (No position advantage, no card advantage, no skill advantage= clearly EV-). Im glad vilain could not recognize that, because i litterally printed money vs him.

The hand

Everybody fold to me in Co, I raise to 30 with JhTh (BTN and SB are nits, BB = vilain). Now in this spot, when BTN is a nit, and there is a bad player in the blinds, i'll have an oppening range close to 50%, and vilain knows it and likes to 3bet my raise here. I will raise between 35 and 45 if the blinds are passive, and 30 if one of the blind is very aggressive. That is the case here. T9s plays extremely well vs a bad player IP, so I'm never folding to a 3bet (when playing deep) from aggressive player here. Raising smaller will allow me to call a 3bet and play my hand confortably in smaller pot. BTN and SB fold, BB call.

Vilain has around 2100 and we cover him.

Pot 65$

Kd - 6d – 2x

Vilain checks. This is the type of board I will cbet 100% , regardless of my hand. Its a great flop because its absolutly doesn't hit vilain's range.

Since vilain is 3bet happy (KQo+,KJs+), the best pair he can have here his KJo, in which case he will take a check-call line most of the time. He could have 2's and 6's too, but that's about it. Vilain is very aggressive with all of his draws (check-raise everytime his gutshots, openended and FD), so his check-raise will be very unbalanced toward bluffs and semi-bluffs rather than value. I don't need to cbet big since its hard for vilain to have connected with this and by doing so, I can induce a bluff. I bet 35 with the plan of never folding to a raise here. He just call.

Turn 135, Ad

This is an awesome card for us. It's a great bluffing card. Vilain check, and I bet 75$. I don't need to make a big bet here because I don't want him to fold the turn. If he calls, I can overbet big the river (2-3x pot) to put a lot of pressure on his weak calling range. He check-raise me to 225. This is great! Here is why :
Vilain never has the flush. Here is what he can have in this spot :

2 pairs : A2s & A5s = 5 combos
Set : 2's & 6's = 6 combos and very unlikely that he waits for this card to raise, and would raise 80% of the time with it on the flop.
Flush : QJs-Q7s
JTs-J7s
T9s-T7s
98s-96s
Out of these 15 combos, I would say he check-raise the flop 90% of the time (can't resist attacking the small cbet with with a equity hand) and would only call like 10% of the time = 2 combos
Bluffs : A lot. If vilain doesnt like to fold to me, he will float my cbet on this kind of board with air a lot of the time. Now once he float my cbet on the turn, he's is always going to take this turn card to bluff me. Otherwhise, he can't win the hand. I'd say he have 20 to 50 bluffing combos here since he floats a lot on the flop.*

Most players don't give credit to a call(bet-call the raise) on the turn here. That is a leak in assuming that aggressive players will automaticly 3bet the turn if they have the flush. Vilain should feel good to bet his 2 pairs on river + continue bluffing the river.

Resume? He has 3-4 combos that will call me down vs anywhere from 25 to 50 combos that will bet/fold river. How do we maximize? We can raise the turn here and takedown the hand right now or we can wait on the river and capitalize on even more dead aggressive money from vilain. He has about 1800$ left so he has enough money left for us to make a big raise.

My perceived range? If he doesn't have the flush, can I rep it by the river? Of course. I bet flop, bet turn/ call raise, and bet big / raise river. He definitively will have to put me on a flush if I either overbet river / raise river.
By the way, we are way more happy if he bets the river than if he checks. If he checks, the pot is 585$ and it will be hard to make him fold 2pairs. Overbetting can put pressure on him but it polarizes our range and he can find a call. If he bet, it gives us the leverage to raise ship and looks way stronger than to overbet.
I call.

River 585, 8x

Vilain bets 485, we ship for around 1300 more, vilain tanks and fold A8. We show the stone cold bluff and vilain his on super tilt. Boom. We pounced on almost 800$ of dead aggressive money with absolutly nothing and we just put vilain on tilt for the rest of the session. We are happy

Now it is important on the river to control our stress level. I've been in many situations like that since I've started playing poker and they are still very unconfortable. This is stressing to bluff away 200bb, and its absolutly important not to show that we are stressed. Avoid giving any tells is crucial in that kind of situation because very skilled live 5-10 players can find a call, if they have a tell on you. Avoid playing with chips, don't talk / answer questions, look at the center of the table, and control your breathing. Don't shove to fast, take your time like you would usually do in a value situation.This is what I call execution of the bluff. If its well done , this type of play should work many times on the long run.

I hope you enjoyed reading this hand and don't hesitate to comment

Twitter : @jonathan_spew

subbed.

thanks. good stuff