I've decided to make a blog to record my poker adventures, partly for the one or two people who like to hear how I do (or so they claim) and partly for me to keep track of my progress and hopefully improve in the future. There won't be as many interesting links and tangents on this blog as on my basketball blog, as I want to keep things as on topic as possible.
My poker "career" so far probably consists of about a $3000 profit, and the fact that I can't put an exact number is one more reason why this blog will be helpful. I've played only 1-2 NLHE up to this point and small donkaments at the MGM the week of my birthday in Las Vegas ($60+$20 buy-in's, with somewhere between 40-80 entries). I've generally performed better in these tournaments than I have in cash games, and not just from a results standpoint, as the structure tightens my game (I haven't figured out an ideal playing style when I try to loosen up my ranges) and I definitely have a better understanding of the opportunity cost of certain tournament situations than most players, especially those at the lower-buyin tournaments. In short, I'd estimate that roughly $800 of my profit has been from these tournaments, and I've only entered 4 of those and maybe spent about 10-12 hours total playing them.
There are a couple of things I think that I can improve, and hopefully, recognizing them is the first step. 1) I need to stop tilting. Surprisingly, I don't tilt necessarily from bad beats. I tilt more from boredom, so whenever I'm card-dead for an extended stretch, I'll start playing too many hands and end up overestimating the chances my bluffs will work. The good thing is that after experiencing this problem for about a month, I've definitely drastically reduced my boredom-tilt recently. 2) I need to play more aggressively. My ideal style is probably more TAG than LAG but regardless of my preflop range, I need to take control of the hand in order to make more accurate reads (it's much more difficult for me to place my opponents on hands when I'm passive). One thing specifically that I think would be useful is more preflop aggression (and specifically 3-betting), since there's so little 3-betting preflop in 1-2 anyways that I think I'll be able to disguise my hands much better. 3) I need to learn to adapt to the playing level and style of the other players at the table better. Specifically, one of my biggest leaks right now is that I over-optimize how I think other players play, i.e. villain betting a hand for value that I think should never be betting for value. This is actually somewhat problematic because the level of play at the casino around where I live at the moment (Hollywood Casino in Charles Town, WV) is horrendous, which often causes me to make what I realize in hindsight are negative EV plays.
Charles Town Session 1:
So today, I spent a shortened session at Charles Town. I got there at 3pm and had to wait for over 40 minutes. Note to self: get there 30 minutes earlier and the wait is probably cut in half. I bought in for 200 as I usually do at first, as I don't like to maximize the implied odds before I have a read on the other players at the table. Nothing significant happened until the first interesting hand of the day.
-Hand #1-
I'm dealt A6 of hearts in either the cutoff or the hijack. Dealer accidentally flips over another ace and it becomes the burn. Villain limps UTG or UTG+1and there are 2-3 more limps before me and I follow suit. Button makes it 10 and about 5-6 people see the flop.
A63 with 2 clubs. Villain bets ~25 into the pot of ~50, I make it 60 to go, and villain pushes for ~120 more. From what I'd seen of villain so far, he's not necessarily the greatest player, and this is true even from hindsight. He could easily have a set (6's or 3's), A3, 63 (from hindsight, this is even more true, as he would limp with all kinds of hands from any position), or even AK or AQ that is more confident about his hand with a dead Ace. He could even be 4-betting a flush draw, maybe ones with additional straight draw outs (although 4-betting a draw seems a little too advanced for him). Needing to call 120 to win about 300, I call. He has 66, and I miss my 1-outer. I'm still not sure whether the call is correct. AK and AQ are probably less likely than I'd originally thought, he almost definitely doesn't have the flush draw, so I'm deciding between A3/63 and the sets. With one Ace left out there, A3 might not have been likely enough for me to call off another $100, especially since there's no guarantee A3 doesn't just call instead of shove (and this is even more true for 63).
I'm stuck 200 almost right off the bat, and buyin for another 200. I've somehow built an image at the table of being very tight (which I like). I'm able to steal a total of $30-$40 in blinds and limps over the course of the next half hour, and then comes the next interesting hand.
-Hand #2-
Villain is a very bad player. He's generally greatly overvalued his preflop hands (i.e. A10 is a monster), but has shut down very quickly after the flop (either check-folding or cbet-folding). This is important because it probably makes my play much worse than it actually would otherwise be.
I'm dealt a suited 87 middle/late position. Villain raises to 10, one call to me, I call, and a blind calls.
Flop is K62 with 2 diamonds (I don't have diamonds). Villain cbets small, around 15 into a pot of 40. Player to my right folds, and the blind looks disinterested as well, and I don't think he's hit this flop, so I float, fully intending to steal the pot away if he checks the turn.
Turn is a non diamond 4. This card doesn't necessarily help me much, because from hindsight, I shouldn't really care about the value of my hand at this point. If he checks, I should bet. If he bets, I should fold. Instead, I call his turn bet of 25 (he has about 80 behind), convinced that there was still a chance he was double barreling (which again, is much less likely at a 1-2 table with a bunch of tight short stacks).
River is the diamond 5. He checks, and I shove. He thinks about it for a while, complains about how this is the one card he didn't want to see (although there were 9 "the one" cards) and calls. I sheepishly turnover my backdoor straight and he disgustingly leaves.
In hindsight, the flop call is probably bad given the opponent, because he's primarily shutdown when he's missed the flop. The turn call is even more egregious because I should know by now that he definitely has a hand, and at this point, I'm chasing my 4 outer. My play would be a much more defendable and potentially profitable move at higher stakes with better all-around play.
Now I'm at around $350 (down 50 on the day) and hover between 300 and 500 for about an hour. Then comes the next interesting hand.
-Hand #3-
I'm in the small blind. Villain is in UTG+2. He's got a huge stack at this point in front of him, and has generally been bullying the rest of the table. He's not the worst player out there, but he's definitely been overvaluing and overbetting his hands. His standard preflop raise has been 17, which is easily on the high end (my average preflop raise was probably second at the table, and I'd open anywhere between 12 and 16). Folds to him and he makes it 17. A new horrible player has sat in the seat of the player I'd busted and he's the worst type of fish (short stacked, passive, and grossly overvalues his hands--I of course lost to him earlier in a pot where I opened with J's preflop in position and he leads out all-in on a flop of AKx, and another hand where I flop TPTK OOP, he calls me for three streets and ends up turning 2 pair after flopping bottom pair), and he calls. I look at my hand and see AJ offsuit. I think briefly (albeit not too seriously) about 3-betting because villain's opening range is extremely wide, but I definitely don't want to play AJo OOP against the big stack that has me covered, so I just call.
Flop is KJx rainbow. I check, villain cbets around 30. Horrible player thinks a while about calling but folds, I call. At this point, the only 3 hands I'm afraid of are AA, AK, and KQ, and those hands consist of a very small portion of his potential range at this point.
Turn is an A. I check my two pair, he bets 50, and for some reason, I felt like he definitely hit this Ace (or in other words, that the turn made him feel much better about his hand). So now, I throw AA out the window, and any flopped set as well. He could have AK, but he'd play AQ the same way, and if he'd been getting frisky, any other Ace as well. So I call.
River is a blank. Now I'm thinking, villain has been overly aggressive throughout, and has taken any sign of weakness as a sign for him to bet. There could also be a chance he just still has complete air (say a pocket pair) and I don't necessarily want to take away a potential chance for him to bluff. If he has AK, I'm paying him off 1 bet regardless (either I bet, he calls, or I check-call). So the question is, if he has AQ, will he still bet the river if I check. I think that he does (because I'm repping a K), and there's enough of a chance that he might end up raising my bet with AK and I might have to call, and enough of a chance that he might continue with a third barrel bluff that I think checking weakly dominates betting so I check. He bets 80, and I call. He turns over A9 for a pair of aces.
Now, I'm up to around 550, but over the next hour, lose about 150 making a number of small but ill-timed misreads (leading to bad bluffs/calls), and I'm at around 400 going into the last hand before what I'd decided would be my dinner break at 7:30.
-Hand #4-
I have QJ of hearts in the hi-jack. Villain sits two seats to my right and has me covered. He's got the biggest stack at the table primarily by hitting against the fish at the table (he's never bluffed and his play is extremely predictable). The horrible player that also saw the flop in Hand #3 opens for 10. 2 calls in front of me including villain, I call, and about 2 more calls afterwards (late position or blinds). Flop is 983 rainbow. Horrible player cbets small, around 15 into a pot of 60. Two calls to me. I've got 8% to hit my gutshot on the turn (if I miss the turn, I'm probably folding to any significant bet), but there's also a good chance a Q or a J will give me showdown value (even though either card hits an open-ender but I have position to make that judgment then), so I call. A total of around 5 players see the turn.
Turn is a 10 of spades (putting 2 spades out there). Yahtzee! Horrible player continues with a bet of 50, villain asks horrible player how much he's got behind him (he has around 150 behind), and raises to 200. I posture for a while, not entirely acting, as I'm thinking about whether to push for around 200 more. I'm know that villain has 67 (as I mentioned, he's a very predictable player, so when he raises the turn, he has to have hit his open-ender), but given how he plays, I'm also fairly certain he has 67 of spades as I don't think he raises so big with just bottom straight. The reason I considering simply cold calling is that I think I'll be able to get away if a spade hits the river, but that he might not if the river misses. However, along those same lines, if a spade does hit, and he doesn't have the 67 of spades, I might end up folding the winning hand. Of course, there's a chance that he might just shut down even if I just call, and I might be missing out on another 200 by not pushing when he still has outs. It's this last reason that convinces me to shove. Horrible player thinks about it, talks about how sick this hand is, and says he'll let us fight this one out (I'm thinking he probably has an overpair at this point, and I have no idea whatsoever what he's thinking about). Villain calls.
River is the 9 of spades. The ugly, ugly 9 of spades. Villain hits one of his 9 outs and I lose the $900+ pot, the biggest pot I've ever played. Poker is a cruel cruel game.
While I usually don't bad-beat-tilt, I was afraid that I would in this case, moreso though because of the sheer magnitude of the pot I just lost than from the actual beat, so I decide to call it a night.
-Summary-
Time at the tables: 3.75 hours
Poker: -$400
Gas and food: ~ -$20
Net: -$420
Brags: I played position really well today, especially showing good preflop OOP discipline. Of course, this includes folding KQ in the small blind to a $15 open from UTG with a flop that comes KKT...
Beats: I need to learn to adjust my reads of other players to include sub-optimal behavior. I probably shouldn't have called the 4-bet push with A6, and I probably shouldn't have floated even 1 street with my backdoored straight.
Variance: My EV on the turn of my final hand was almost +$350 ($900*80% - $400). My actual swing was -$400. Or in other words, I just lost almost an entire WSOP event buy-in.
