This past Saturday, I went with Joe Hsu to Charles Town. We got there at around 2:40 and only had to wait ~20 minutes (a waiting list of 10 people), and the list blew up afterwords. Clearly, there's utility to be had from simply arriving half an hour earlier than I usually do. We requested separate tables, as usual, and the first table I joined was one of the softer tables ever in my brief poker career. Plus, it never hurts to run like the sun.
I buy-in for my customary first 200. Sadly, there were so many memorable hands throughout the night that I ended up forgetting many of them. In short, this first table was so extremely loose passive that I never once had to worry about being raised, and that's an unbelievable feeling. Because of the overwhelming table passivity, I began straddling every UTG hand (unfortunately, Charles Town doesn't do button straddles), knowing that the only time my straddle would ever be raised was by AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, and oftentimes still not raised by these hands. The first memorable hand actually occurs on another player's straddle.
-Hand #1-
Villain sits UTG and straddles to 7 with about 150 behind (side note: I've never understood the > minimum straddle. To me, the entire purpose of the straddle is to buy the option, and unless you're super stacked and simply trying to increase the pot size--which almost all of these players who straddle big aren't--it's a weekly dominated strategy). I haven't been at the table long enough to have a specific read on villain, but he is a relatively young (i.e. <30) and relatively buff Hispanic guy, and without individual reads, it's essential to stereotype (young+buff+Hispanic => a macho calling station that would much rather call off a value bet than fold to a bluff). There are 3-4 callers. It's important now to note that this field has been leaving so much dead money on the table, because the majority of the limps, even to straddles, are with marginal hands that fold immediately to a raise. I realize that while villain most likely will over-call post-flop bets, he still won't play the majority of his preflop hands (anything that's not T+T+ or a medium connector), and I'm 80% sure that all of the limpers are folding, so this is a very profitable stealing opportunity, especially with my tight table image atm (I'd barely played any hands for half an hour). I entirely intend to raise all hands in my small blind, but I obviously look anyways to try to exude strength when I do raise. I wake up with J5o. I raise to 21, thinking I'm investing 21 with about a 50% chance of winning 28-35 immediately, with the plan to only continue postflop if I hit. Villain calls 14 more and everyone else fold.
Pot is ~70 to a flop of Jxx rainbow. I now fully expect to continue in this hand to showdown (unless I'm raised on the flop). Villain now has ~130 behind and in hands where I'm trying to eventually extract an all-in, I try to bet about 1/3 of villain's stack (assuming 1/3 of his stack is a reasonable bet relative to the pot). I do just that and bet 40. Villain thinks and calls.
Turn is another blank. I now bet 55 knowing he can't flat call over half of his stack and predictably, he shoves. I insta-call.
River is a Q. I show my jacks and he mucks. It seems like he probably had a pocket lower than J but higher than middle pair on the flop. I think I played this hand perfectly, but of course, it never hurts to hit.
Now, the table is murmuring about how this kid can possibly be raising J5, and this is almost always a great table image to have. I fully expected to be seeing more action on my raises, so I narrowed my preflop raising range even further (i.e. suited connectors were now limps). Instead though (and I realized this after the table folded to my 3-bet raises with AA--my first in over 5 sessions-- and AK), they simply became afraid of me, and while this treatment isn't as great as the maniacal image that I'd expected, it still made their moves much more readable and predictable. Not soon after the J5 hand was probably the only hand I did not play perfectly before the dinner break.
-Hand #2-
Villain is in early position and is a middle-aged Asian guy. Usually, I'd expect middle-aged Asian players to be very tight (usually passive as well), but it became clear afterwords (and to some extent, even before this hand) that he was not as disciplined whatsoever. I believe he'd opened a hand with A8o in early position prior to the current hand (i.e. the novice strategy of any ace is a good hand), and I'd seen him call to showdown top pair with a middling kicker. This description of villain is what makes the following play especially questionable, but my move was most likely incorrect against any generic opponent.
Villain limps early position. There are a couple more limps and I wake up with KQ hearts in the cutoff. I raise to 13 and two players, including villain, call.
Flop is KT5 rainbow, with one heart. Checks around to me, I bet 26 into the pot of 39, only villain calls.
Turn is a blank heart. Villain pretty quickly bets into me 45. I'm entirely befuddled at this point, because this move is usually a strong signal of strength for optimally-behaving opponents. Note that one of my flaws that I've mentioned I need to work on is an ability to realize that bad players don't play optimally (seems simple but somehow evades me during the actual hands). I'd been working on this flaw and it seems to have improved, but this hand demonstrates that it hasn't been fixed entirely. At this point, I'm irrationally afraid that I'm way behind (i.e. set). Against good players, I should either be raising (if there aren't big implied stacks behind, to take control against marginal hands that have me currently beat, like AK or two pair) or calling (if the implied stacks are huge, in hopes of raising a river heart). Even against bad players, I should be calling confidently, because I'm more often than not still ahead on the turn (raising becomes suboptimal because they're likely to push AK/two pair, and they'll pay off the river with worse kings if I just call). I do call, but unfortunately, not confidently.
River is a blank. Villain checks, and because I'd put him on a big hand on the turn, I check. There are two mistakes with this move. 1) The river check is a HUGE sign of weakness (he can't expect me to bet into him for the most part, so he almost always isn't check-raising), and I oftentimes have trouble updating my information when I'm previously confident about a read (i.e. I'm a stubborn SOB). 2) As I mentioned earlier, I simply shouldn't have narrowed his range to primarily hands that beat me. In hindsight, the river check eliminates all sets and two pairs, so he either has a K or he has QJ. There's almost nothing else he can have. Because there's no way he's check-raising here (especially since he's not a thinking player), there's no harm in betting into QJ and having it fold (i.e. I'm not risking getting check-raise bluffed here). So the only difference between checking and betting the river is against villain's kings. AK will possibly bet the river (say at least 30% of the time), so that decreases the chances of AK further. What other hands could he have? He could have KQ (for a chop, against whom betting is a weakly dominant strategy), KJ, KT, or even possibly K9s. AK definitely calls a river bet, but the other kings almost always do as well. With the possibility that AK still bets the river, AK is a much smaller portion of his range, and I'm clearing missing out on EV by not betting. And of course, he does have KJ. There was somewhat similar hand I played against a different opponent where I'd gotten bet into when I'd flopped top pair (I believe this occurred on the flop though). However, this other hand was probably played correctly (i.e. checking behind the following street(s)) as I had a marginal kicker (I'd flopped jacks with JT and he ended up showing middle pair, so he'd probably have folded anything that I could beat).
I slowly build my chip stack to the overwhelming big stack (~600) with hands that I'm sure were interesting but that I can no longer recall. A lot of them involved flopping top pair though (I wasn't necessarily getting great preflop hands, but I was simply hitting almost every hand that I was playing and missing most of the ones I wasn't), demonstrating just how hot I was running . So does the following hand.
-Hand #3-
Middle-aged Asian guy from the previous hand is again the villain. By now, I definitely have realized that he's not a good player, which influences how I played this hand. I'm in the small blind and villain raises the straddle. There's 1-2 calls to me and I call with 7-8.
Flop comes 776. I check to villain to maximize EV if he does have a large pair. He bets, I call.
Turn is a blank (i.e. doesn't complete the straight draw). I check and he checks behind.
River is the case 7. It's obvious he either has a big pair or 2 over cards that missed and c-bet the flop. Given how bad he is though, he's almost guaranteed to call any river bet with an overpair (warning: I unfortunately don't realize this and I mistakenly bluff away in a subsequent hand). I overbet him allin (slightly more than the pot). He calls. I show him my quads and he leaves.
I eventually build my stack to 873 before Joe and I decide to take a dinner break. Joe mentions to me that Michael Phelps was there at the 1-2 tables, which is kinda cool. Apparently, he was waiting on the list just like any other player and didn't make a big deal about being super rich and famous. I kind of wish I'd gotten a chance to switch to his table just to, you know, meet the guy, but this was still the closest I've ever been to a famous person. Anyways, we come back from dinner an hour later, which allows me to buy in for any amount (instead of having to play with 873), so I start with my customary 200. My new table is eons better than my previous one; there are still a few bad players but there are enough good players with big stacks that you can't simply expect to roll over everyone. Joe's mentioned to me that he doesn't think people in general table switch enough, and while I tend to agree with that sentiment, it doesn't necessarily apply as strictly to me because it's as much about the learning experience at this point for me as it is about the literal EV. Long story short, I'm happy to be getting some actual poker experience in at this new table.
I start off the same way I'd left--hitting every flop. Unfortunately, hitting flops isn't always great. One hand, I flopped top pair second kicker (KT) OOP and my c-bet got raised. There was indeed a flush draw out there, but my read on my opponent was that he had an actual made hand (which in fact could have been simply JT) but it wasn't worth it for me to probably have to call 1-2 more streets OOP. On another hand, I flopped an ace with A7s in the small blind against the button raiser (after a straddle), and he ended up betting the flop and turn and I was forced to fold on the turn after the third card to a flush hit. These two hands left me down slightly less than 100 so I added on another 100. Almost immediately comes the next interesting hand (well, not so much interesting as noteworthy).
-Hand #4-
This table has featured 2-3 decent big stacks who've been straddling decently large (between 6 and 10) to increase preflop sizes and overall action. This hand occurs on one of their straddles. Villain is the other big stack and calls UTG, and 1-2 more calls to me in late position. I wake up with JJ. I raise to ~20 (assuming the straddle was 6). Villain and one of the blinds join me to the flop. Note that JJ is by far my favorite hand, because I've almost always hit my J set, and it's almost always paid me off (my net profit with JJ might be somewhere between 500 and 1000). The one time it's missed and cost me occurred when I had to call a flop bet with an overcard to my jacks and fold on the turn. It goes without saying that I'm hoping for an AJ9 like flop.
Dealer turns over the flop and the first card shown is a J. He spreads out the rest of the flop and it's JJ7. Yowzers! The blind checks and looks somewhat disinterested, but villain thinks a while about betting but checks. Usually, I'm not in favor of slow playing flopped boats/quads because it's unlikely that you'll get any action unless people think you're bluffing. Given that I was the preflop raiser, I should be expected to c-bet any/most flops, so checking it almost always limits the upside to getting only 1 bet called. However, in this case, villain spent a while thinking about betting into me that I actually thinks he has a had, so I check to appear that I want to pot control against him.
Turn is a blank (meaning lower than a 7). Blind checks and villain bets around 35 into the pot of 60. I call, blind folds.
River is unimportant. Villain checks, so it becomes relatively clear he's likely check-calling his medium pockets (that may or may not be higher than 77). I could easily have been repping AK/AQ that floated his turn, so I ponder what the ideal amount to bet is in this case. The pot is around 130 at this point, so I bet 55. I think the 55 bet looks like the "I'm trying to get your 22/33/44 to fold" bet, or in other words, low-risk but high-reward bluff. Sure AK still has showdown value, but it's become pretty clear that villain has pockets (and he should be aware that it's clear) and that enough of his range is 22-44 for me to "bluff" 55 to win 130. He calls and I show my second quads of the night. He says nice hand and mentioned that I bet the max amount that he could have called.
Shortly thereafter, I run into a hand against one of the short-stacked bad players at the table.
-Hand #5-
Again there's a straddle (this time of 10). There are a couple of calls to villain, who sits two seats to my right in middle position, and he raises to 40, with about 100 behind. I wake up with AKo (which at this action-filled table is a monster. I briefly consider reraising (essentially putting villain all-in at least) but decide against it. My reasoning is that given his play (very straight foward but involves grossly overvaluing his hands), if he has a big pocket and I flop my overcard, he still might pay me off, and if he checks a low flop, then he probably has AQ that will fold to my flop bet. However, if he bets into me on a low flop, I can be fairly certain he has an overpair and then I can get away. Anyways, I call and so does another short stack in the blinds (which leaves him with 30 behind).
Flop is K high. Both guys check to me and I bet 35, just enough to put the short stack all in, and very small compared to the pot size (less than 1/3 of the pot), but as I detailed earlier, I like to bet 1/3 the stack of the villain. Super short stack folds and villain calls.
Turn is a blank. He checks again and I put him all in for his last 65. He complains for a while that he has to call (which means I'm obviously good) and he does.
River is another blank and I show my TPTK. Villain flashes his hand to the guy next to him, who later tells us he had QQ. I ended up playing that hand perfectly given the opponent, but again, it always helps to hit.
This hand leaves me at slightly over 400, and up over 100 after the dinner break. Then come 2 hands that leave me slightly tilted.
-Hand #6-
There's again a straddle of 10. There's around 4 calls to me, and I wake up with KK. I usually don't like to raise much more than 3x the straddle/open, but given the number of calls so far, I make it 40, thinking that it's already on the large side. Cutoff cold calls, which starts the long string of 7 or so calls.
Flop is AQ8. Checks around to me and I of course have to give up on the hand. Cutoff shoves for 200+ into the pot of around 280. The super short stack in the previous hand calls for his last 15 or so, and everyone else folds to me. As I'm the last player to act, I flip over my kings and complain that "of course the ace hits." While JJ is probably my favorite hand, KK has got to be my least favorite. An Ace has hit the flop a disproportionate number of times when I've had KK, and even when it hasn't, I've got beaten by 1) a flush, and 2) a straight with 73o. Anyways, cutoff turns over AK (duh) and super short stack shows JT. Another player comments that it sucks for the JT that he now only has 5 outs as I've shown my KK.
Turn is a blank, and the river is the case king. What ended up being frustrating for me (and irrationally so) is not that I ended up losing with pocket kings, but that 1) I always lose with pocket kings, 2) 7 people called my 40 open (so even had the ace not hit, I might not be looking that great), and 3) I would have won a $600+ pot had the board come in reverse (K38). This hand doesn't really put a dent into my monetary state, but it does mess with my state of mind.
Shortly thereafter, I've rebuilt my stack to almost 400 again, when the next hand occurs.
-Hand #7-
I'm in the small blind and there's a live straddle of 5. Villain is UTG+1 and calls, and there are only 2-3 more calls to me. Villain is an old white guy (about 50 years old), so he definitely doesn't seem like the kind to limp-raise or even limp-call with big pockets. I wake up with 79o and decide to try a steal once again by raising to 18. Villain definitely is most likely going to call, but that's fine with me if I can isolate him and c-bet all tame flops since he most likely has 2 relatively high cards or suited connectors. If he has mid-pockets, that sucks but I'll still be able to reevaluate on the turn assuming he calls my flop c-bet. As predicted, only villain calls.
Flop comes 962 with 2 clubs. I have the 9 of clubs, which is somewhat noteworthy, because that eliminates 98/T9 of clubs from his range. I c-bet about 30 into the pot of 50. He calls, and I'm almost certain he has a flush draw (probably with 2 overs though).
Turn is a non-club K. I think a lot of players would advocate betting the turn, because he would have to have the K-high flush draw to have me beat, so I'm most likely still ahead and have around 70% equity (i.e. 9+3+3=15 outs for him). However, I like to think of the turn as a way to obtain information. I doubt he's folding his flush draw in position on the turn, so he's always going to call me turn bet. However, by checking, I gain information if he checks back, which would indicate he doesn't have the K-high flush draw, and also probably lowers the chances his range includes very high cards (meaning AQ clubs, AJ clubs, etc) because I obviously don't have a K so those hands still have overcards in addition to the flush draw, and might want to get my weak pockets (88 and lower) to fold now. Unfortunately, he bets around 40 which tells me absolutely nothing because just the flush draw often bets the turn after the pre-flop raiser and flop better checks the turn (i.e. I could have AQ without the flush draw and he can steal the pot right there).
River is another non-club K, which is probably the worst card in the deck for me (in hindsight of course) given that I check and he bets 75. Now, the only hand that beats me is the K-high flush draw. QQ might bet there because I clearly don't have AA so QQ might be value-betting my JJ/TT/9. JJ and lower can't value the river, because a decent enough portion of my range is QQ (QQ is more likely for me than TT). Besides, the overpair possibly raises me on the flop, so it's even less likely that villain has a pair tens and higher. So in short, villain has to have a missed flush draw, but it's just not clear if the missed flush draw includes one of the last 2 kings. I have too much of his range beat so I call, and he shows KJ clubs. I show my 9 and say nice hand and that I had to call.
This hand leaves me back down for the half-session after dinner at around 250. I rebuild my stack back to around 300 for the last hand before Joe and I agreed on leaving for the night.
-Hand #8-
Joe already knows the details of this hand, but for my other reader(s) out there, I want to make this hand summary a little more interesting, by not revealing too much information. I'm UTG+1 and there are two villains in this hand. One is an old man who's clearly a novice (and not necessarily the kind that just doesn't have optimal strategy, but that clearly has played poker less in his entire life than I have just this year) and he's sitting in middle position. The other villain is one of the aforementioned big stacks, who's now sitting directly to my right after I changed seats (just to be right after him) so he's UTG in this particular hand and he straddles 6. Both players have me covered at the start of the hand.
I have QT hearts. I limp, which is somewhat debatable but everyone's had to open up their ranges due to the sheer number of players that have been seeing the flop at this table. There's an early position raise to 16 by a donk. Old villain reraises to 40 and UTG villain postures for a while and calls. I was going to fold had UTG villain folded, but given their stack sizes, I call.
Flop is 652 with 2 hearts. UTG villain and I both check, and old villain bets 50 into the pot of ~140. UTG villain calls, and I call. What do you think both villains have at this point?
Turn is a non heart 3. UTG villain and I both check again, and old villain again bets 50. UTG villain calls, and so do I. Depending on your reads of both villains at this point, my call may or may not have been good.
River is a non-heart 6. UTG villain checks. What do you think both villains have now? I bluff shove for 160 more. (Highlight the following block of text for the result of the hand).
Old villain calls, while exclaiming that he has to. UTG villain now says that he knows he has me beat and that I'm simply making a move, but that the only thing old villain can have is KK or AA. So he folds, grudgingly. Old villain flips over KK. UTG villain says he folded JJ.
Now, I don't understand why it took UTG villain that long to fold. I thought it was painfully obvious from the flop that old villain had AA/KK. Unfortunately, I made 3 errors in judgment.
1) Probably the most egregious error is that I thought I could bluff a bad player off of his overpair. I realized at the time that I didn't have much of a story (given how I played, the only two possible hands I could have had that would have AA/KK beat is 44/54). Any flopped set/65 has to raise the flop with the flush draw there. I realized that. But my reasoning was that old villain was a bad player and he wouldn't understand the lack of a story. However, for the same reason he wouldn't realize the lack of a story, he also wouldn't be able to fold an overpair there. This is actually the second time I've tried to bluff a bad player off of an obvious overpair, and unfortunately I hadn't learned my lesson the first time. (To be fair, in that hand, I had 33 on a flop of 652 in position. Villain bet larger than the pot on the flop. I ask him why he's betting so big, which I think very reasonably repped A6. The turn missed, he bet, I called. The river was another 6. He checked and I bet about 120 into a pot of 250. He calls instantly and shows JJ. The mistake there was that a. a bad player is check calling there, and b. even if a bad player might fold, he's not doing it to "such a small bet." At least in that case, my story made sense so that if in fact the villain was a better player, it may have worked. In this case though, I don't think anyone can fold AA/KK.)
2) I mistakenly placed UTG villain on only the nut flush draw by the river. Sure, that was probably the most reasonable hand, because I would have folded QQ/JJ/TT/etc earlier (on the turn), especially with it obvious that old villain had AA/KK and me clearly chasing a flush draw. Unfortunately, not everyone behaves how I think they should optimally behave, even when they're good players. UTG villain definitely was at least a good player, but moreso because he was a thinking player that could reason what other players had (i.e. that I wasn't telling a believable story). However, that doesn't mean thinking players necessarily act as they probably should. I'd realized that UTG villain would know I didn't have much of a story but because I placed him on only a missed flush draw, he wouldn't be able to call, because I easily could have had a 4 along with my flush draw, or simply been playing a pocket pair incorrectly. He probably SHOULD have called me with Ace high anyways, but I don't think any player at this level would be able to. So if he indeed does also have the missed flush draw, then I think he folds regardless. Of course, my mistake was placing too much confidence on my read that he had the missed flush draw.
3) Based on my read from 2, why was I still in the hand after the turn? The flop call is fine, because UTG villain probably calls all overpairs there, but even the flop call should have me suspicious. By the turn, I'd already put UTG villain on the nut flush draw, so I should have been out. Now, the caveat is that my read of UTG villain SHOULD have included overpairs, so had I made that connection, the turn call is fine (calling 50 to win at least 370 with the chance at more, assuming old villain calls my river shove with the flush). So this mistake by itself isn't a mistake. But the reason I ended up bluffing the river involves thinking that UTG villain could only have the nut flush draw, so I should never be both calling the turn and bluffing the river. This was so painfully obvious but for some reason, I chose to ignore the angel sitting on my right shoulder telling me not to bluff. That damned sinister shoulder!
My parents and my closest friends have probably realized it by now, but I often end up being stubborn to a fault. It's likely a good thing in generic situations because I'm often right, and there's enough randomness involved in the world that evidence against my opinions isn't necessarily accurate. But there's definitely a fine line between tenacious and simply inflexible that I've yet to locate. It might not make sense, but I now realize that for one reason or another, I was determined to win this last hand from the start, and it ended up clouding my judgment. It also isn't the first time (or the second, or the third, or the...) that I've lost relatively big pots either from bluffing or from chasing without enough odds on the hand that I'd predetermined to be my final one of the night. Maybe there's a connection there, and that's something I'll definitely need to control in the future. I definitely should have been able to save that final 160.
-Summary-
Time at the tables: 5 hours
Poker: +$373
Gas and food: ~ -$20
Net: ~ +$355
-On record career to date-
Time at the tables: 8.75 hours
Poker: ~ -$27
Net: ~ -$65
Brags: It seems I've been able to translate my elite hi-card skills to poker flops (I've been known to win an estimated 60% of my hi-card games). Plus, I play almost perfectly when I do run hot (i.e. I extract max value for my big hands and don't leak any money away unnecessarily).
Beats: I tried to bluff a bad player off an overpair for the second time in my career (the prior mistake was not as egregious though).
Variance: For the second time at Charles Town, I ended up losing a significant amount after being up more than $600 after a couple of hours. Luckily, unlike last time, I didn't go from being +$700 to being -$400. Also, it seems not so coincidentally that this other session was also the one I tried to bluff a bad player off an overpair. Note to self: You're not invincible, even when it may seem like it.
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