July Review

I've come up with a theory, I'm going to call it the "RedJoker Running Hot Measurement". It says that if you're winning money from blinds you are running hot, QED. So you can forget all your EV graphs, flop set percentages or any other stats, if you're winning money from the blinds you run good.

A few things to note compared to last month:

My 3bet% from every position has gone way up. The majority of that is caused by 3betting fish lightish in position (and sometimes OOP) both to isolate and get them to play more straight forward postflop. Most of the regs have wider opening ranges as well so 3betting IP (and sometimes OOP) becomes more profitable until they adjust.

My Button VPIP has gone up 3% and my SB VPIP has gone down 3%, that's a pretty good sign. Although my UTG VPIP went up slightly while my MP VPIP went down slightly, there's less hands here so it's more likely to be variance. It's probably not a huge problem anyway.

I'm still losing money in non showdown pots but it doesn't seem to be as heavy as last month, it's something I probably still need to work on.

Both my WtSD and W$SD have gone way up, probably just from running hot.

I got in 10,000 less hands which is a bad sign, I think getting in quality hands is more important then getting in a lot of hands. I'm not going to force myself to play more then I want to, just going to stick to playing when I feel like it.

My Flop CBet and Turn CBet have gone down by about 2.5%. My River CBet has gone up a lot but that's going to be a function of my flop and turn cbets, if I'm firing less on the flop and turn then I'm going to have stronger hands on average when I get to the river. I'm a little disappointed about my turn cbet%, I think I need to look out for more spots to double and triple barrel, I definitely feel that I don't triple barrel anywhere near enough. My increase in river cbet may mean that I'm value betting thiner which is a good sign.

My flop and turn AFs dropped while my river AF went up. I'm pleased about the direction of my river AF but not so much the turn. Same reasons as above. And in the case of the river it may mean that I'm finding more folds instead of paying off too much.

Time for some filters. I'll use the second HoldemManager article to go through my results.

Overview:



Steal attempt made:



Blind defended:



Heads up on Flop:

1744 hands, 239.39bb/100.

Heads up on Flop not the PFR:

594 hands, 77.01bb/100.

Multiway Flop:

1052 hands, 193.39bb/100.

Multiway Flop not PFR:

791 hands, 155.34bb/100.

Pocket Pairs:



Suited Connectors below KQs:



Suited Connectors below KQs, did coldcall = true:

47 hands, 1019.12bb/100.

Unsuited Connectors below KQo:



Unsuited Connectors below KQo, did coldcall = true:

24 hands, -28.79bb/100.

This seems to be mostly calling from the BB against a SB opener, I think I'll start adding these hands to my light 3betting range instead.

Week 9

Bankroll is up to $15,194

Monday morning I dropped a buy-in at $400nl but made 2 and a half buy-ins at $200nl. $400nl was a lot more aggro, which I expected, but it was also pretty mindless. One reg 3bet my CO open from the BTN with JJ and flat called my 4bet, that was a pretty good indication that some of the regs didn't really know what they were doing. There were still plenty of 50%+ VPIP fish but waiting lists were a bit longer. I think getting used to the new bet sizes and larger swings will be the main obstacle I'll face. It's nice playing a couple of $200nl tables at the same time, it definitely helps soften the swings.

In the evening I made a little under 2 and a half buy-ins at $400nl and broke even at $200nl. Lol, it feels funny refering to $75 as "a little". I felt I played o.k. in general. Hopefully I'll be more comfortable in a few days.

Tuesday I had to import two days worth of hand histories (200nl - 600nl) which ended up being 250,000 hands and HEM was only importing at ~15 hands/sec. That meant I didn't have a chance to play when I woke up so I brought Lauren into town instead and by the time I got home and had something to eat I only had an hour and a half before going playing soccer. I think I'm going to leave the hand histories to import overnight from now on.

I lost half a buy-in at $400nl Wednesday morning, there wasn't a whole lot of action and I don't think I ever had more then 3 tables going at once. Waiting lists at 200nl and 400nl are pretty long now and since I'm pretty picky about seat selection (I only sit in one of the three seats to the left of the fish) it makes getting onto tables fairly hard.

Second session went better and I managed to get 6 tables of $400nl running, that's the most I'll play at one time although I prefer playing 4 tables most of the time. I won a little over a buy-in and a half. I cashed out $900 as well. Went to play more soccer, fitness has definitely dropped but still got the touch .

Thursday I was moving back home so no time for poker but I did get a chance to watch the two videos from the new LeggoPoker pros, they were both excellent. I also get a new leather chair, it's an early birthday present from Jennifer.



Friday I lost a little under a buy-in at $400nl and the same at $200nl. I had updated to the latest version of SpadeEye and it stopped scanning jackpot and speed tables. With the jackpot up to around $700K that meant there was about 9 normal tables and a tonne of jackpot tables. Took me a while to find out I just needed to change the filters. After all that I didn't feel like playing so I took a break.

When I came back I decided to update to the latest version of HoldemManager, my virus protection kept telling me there was a virus in one of the files and not running HoldemManager for me. So I wasted my entire evening trying to get that working without success. I went to play a poker tournament in the Bank for a change of pace. Ended up coming 3rd for €140 but then lost €350 at €1/€3. Pretty meh day all things considered.

Saturday I woke up fairly late and went back to trying to get HoldemManager working again. I excluded the RVG software folder from my virus protection and that did the trick. The new version is really impressive and there's so many new HUD stats it's insane. I spent a while 1 tabling and getting the HUD set up, went to 4 tables and played for a small while before stopping. Up 1 and a half buy-ins at $400nl.

I thought this hand was interesting.

Party Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: $1,379.10
Hero (BTN): $781.60
SB: $402
BB: $576.80

Pre-Flop: 2 4 dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $12, SB folds, BB calls $8

I open to 3xBB otb against two tightish players. The BB, who is playing 24/17/3.4 over 11K hands, calls. He has a 3bet% of 6.2%.

With my smaller open he can flat some more stuff profitably. Depending on what he likes to 3bet his calling range probably includes a lot of small to mid PPs, SCs, suited two gappers, suited broadways, strong off suit aces and broadways and maybe some suited aces as well.

Of course he'll 3bet some of those hands with different frequencies and depending on how many tables he's playing or what mood he's in he might fold some of those hands so his calling range isn't going to include all those hands 100% of the time.

Flop: ($26) 5 7 9 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

The board is rainbow but it's pretty connected. It hits 55 - 99 pretty hard as well as some of his SCs and suited two gappers. It's also a board where he can c/r bluff with things like QJs or KQo and have some overcard outs when called.

I decide to check back and give up on the hand, obviously I have no showdown value but I don't mind just giving up on a hand from time to time. It's important to show your opponents that you're not just auto cbetting 100% of the time.

Turn: ($26) 8 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

The 8 improves some hands, makes the board even scarier, etc. I check continuing to give up on the hand facing any aggression.

River: ($26) 9 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $16, BB folds

Again the 9 improves a lot of hands but he hasn't shown any interest up to this point. I make a sort of "post-oak" bluff which doesn't really represent a whole lot (maybe a pot controlled 9 or something) and if he's paying attention he might even call with A high or any pair.

However, it's extremely unlikely he has a huge hand at this stage, I'd expect a 6 or 9 to have bet at some point so he can have an 8, 7 or 5, which I fully expect him to call with, but he can also have things like Q high or K high and he can also fold A high or a small pair since my line could potentially be pot control and now thin value or even not so thin value.

Results: $26 Pot
Hero mucked 2 4 and WON $40.70 (+$28.70 NET)

I also decided to go through the new HoldemManager articles, they looked o.k. besides a couple of spelling errors. Some stuff I'd disagree with but I doubt this was targeted at me, I think it's fine for a beginner and should help them plug some big leaks but there were far too many absolutes used, too many axioms thrown around and too much looking at filters in isolation. There was also no explanation for why some of the advice was given, axioms like "always raise or fold" are really bad and, while they'll help plug some leaks for a weaker player, they can often stunt a players growth. What's worse is not explaining the theory behind these "rules".

In particular, the fuzz rule stuff was pretty poor imo, if I was to fold top pair every time my cbet was raised, playing 29/22, I'd probably get run over. Even if the call was slightly negative EV I should probably still be making it to discourage opponents from bluff raising my cbets in future and also to force them to fire multiple barrels against me to win the hand. If they have a high cost to bluff me then they'll be less inclined to do so in future and will also fire more barrels when I have strong hands I'm not folding. So for this reason calling a flop raise and folding the turn (which we're told is a HUGE leak) can be fine and even necessary unless we're going to start calling raises with air in order to float.

I'm probably being overly critical tbh; it's a very good idea and should add tonnes of new functions to HoldemManager as they create new filters. The articles will be extremely valuable for micro and some small stakes players as well.

Party Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: $400
MP: $832
CO: $400
BTN: $447
SB: $824.65
Hero (BB): $551.60

Pre-Flop: Q Q dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, MP raises to $20, CO folds, BTN calls $20, SB raises to $70, Hero raises to $551.60 and is All-In, 3 folds

Results: $180 Pot

This is somewhat standard but since we're 138BBs deep I think it's important to go through the mathematics involved.

MP is 24/19/2.9 over 5.1K hands.
BTN is 65/12/1.1 over 339 hands.
SB is 21/17/3.3 over 2.3K hands and has a squeeze % of 6.0% over this sample.

When everybody folds I win $114.

I'll assume that my opponents play perfectly so the SB will continue with QQ+/AK+ (the SB needs 42.13% to continue) and fold otherwise, MP will continue with only QQ+/AKs (MP needs 44.55% equity to continue) and I'll assume that the BTN never has a hand he can continue with.

So MP will continue with 1.3% of hands and I'll have 28.524% equity against that range. And SB will continue with 2.2% of hands and I have 39.917% equity against that range.

MP opens 21% of hands so he'll continue 1.3/21 = 6.19% of the time.
SB squeezes 6% of the time so will continue 2.2/6 = 36.67% of the time.
The other 57.14% of the time I win the pot.

6.19%[(28.524% x $645.6) + (71.476% x -$547.6)] + 36.67%[(40.207% x $595.6) + (59.793% x -$547.6)] + 57.14%($114)

6.19%[($184.15) + (-$391.4)] + 36.67%[($239.47) + (-$327.43)] + 57.14%($114)

6.19%(-$207.25) + 36.67%(-$87.96) + 57.14%($114)

-$12.83 - $32.25 + $65.14

= +$20.06

I've overlooked some double counting when they both have monsters but it's not hugely important. It's also worth noting that MP has to worry about the two players to act behind him so may decide to fold AKs or the other combo of QQ, particularly since I've shown so much strength. This gains me EV. The BTN might do something stupid with 88 or 99 etc. and give me huge amounts of EV. And sometimes the SB will fold AK since I've shown so much strength. Regardless this is still a +EV shove.

So we know that shoving is better then folding. I think calling is very awkward, we may keep in the BTN who's likely to put money in badly postflop if he hits but the risk of getting called by players who'll correctly read my range as extremely strong and are unlikely to put money in badly postflop makes calling less appealing.

There's also the option of 4betting to a smaller amount. However, in this situation I'll pretty much never be bluffing so I don't expect to induce bluffs and shoving is pretty much the same as 4betting small since I'll be committed to calling a shove if they do. The topic of 4bet sizing is an interesting one. Here's a recent thread on boards where Digiman was asking about some preflop spots and there were some unanswered questions about 4bet sizing.

The main reason for not making 4bets pot sized is not to induce light shoves, although that's a nice result, but to allow us to 4bet bluff without being committed. Say we open otb to 3.5xBB with 100BBs, the SB 3bets us to 12.5BBs, which is pot + 1BB and the standard size for an OOP 3bet. If we made a pot sized 3bet to 38.5BBs and the SB shoved we'd need:

(139.5BBs)(X) + (1-X)(-61.5BBs) = 0

X = 30.6%

30.6% equity to call the shove. Against a "standard" range of QQ+/AK all PPs and SCs have that much equity so if we 4bet bluff with 65s or 22 then we'd be committed to calling a shove. Obviously that sucks so we don't want to do that. Instead we'll make our 4bets to ~2.5x the 3bet and being sure to keep them less than 33% of the effective stack. Personally I try to keep them around 27BBs - 29BBs, this has pretty much the same fold equity of a shove but also allows me to 4bet bluff if I feel there's a good spot for it. Of course, if I have a hand I'm 4betting for value then I can just make a quick call if shoved on.

In the QQ hand digiman posted I'd probably 4bet to $111 and call a shove. This bet size shows that I'm far too cool to move my hand when typing in bets and it's extremely important that my opponents realize how cool I am.

Sunday I made just over 3 buy-ins at $400nl which also meant that I smashed through the 5 figure mark for the month, which I'm pretty pleased about. I felt I didn't start out great, made some questionable calls but felt that I got much more in the zone later on, made some well timed check raises and stuff. Feeling a lot more comfortable and, although multiplying by 4 is retardedly awkward, I've gotten a bit better with the bet sizing as well.

I got $131 for some promotion Party were running for the month. Played another session and lost half a buy-in at $400nl. So a good start to my shot at $400nl and I'm reasonably happy with my play in general.

I'm going to add some more blog links to my sidebar, usually I go around asking people to swap links but those RSS feeds are way too convenient so I'm going to put up ones I read regularly, anyway feel free to link me up, etc., etc.

Week 8

Bankroll is up to $13,214.

I cashed out another $500 Monday morning and dropped a buy-in. Didn't play a second session as me, Jennifer and Lauren decided to spend a few days in my parents house since they went to New York and Boston for a couple of weeks. I brought the laptop and monitor with me and, although their broadband is a LOT slower, hopefully I should still be able to get in some hands while I'm here.

Tuesday I didn't get started until mid afternoon and decided to put in one longer session instead of two. The games were pretty aggro with plenty of light 3betting, I don't mind it too much since I'm capable of adjusting to it reasonably well, but it really cuts into my ability to play pots with the donks since my opens are getting played back at more and the donks can't play as many pots. It was a pretty swingy session and after 800 odd hands I was up $40 and just couldn't be bothered to play any more.

Wednesday I got up pretty late, Digiman asked me to sweat him while he was playing HU so I did that for the afternoon. I was too tired to play an evening session but I watched a couple of videos.

I couldn't get to sleep until Thursday morning so that put me into a bad sleeping pattern and I woke up way too late to start playing. I did play a couple of tourneys in the evening though, finished down $50.

Friday I brought the family to Fota. We had a great time. Sorry about the picture quality, bought a cheap disposable camera there, but I fixed them up a small bit.

Picture with Mommy and her new white tiger.
Big cheesy grin.
Picture with Daddy.The peacock's hiding in the dark (or the camera's a piece of crap).
Look Ducks!!!
A helpful sign for the Dublin visitors.
More cheesy grins.
We finally get to go to the playground after looking at all the boring animals.Here's me and Jennifer minding Lauren at the playground.
Back to Nana's house!!!!

Saturday I made a little over 3 and a half buy-ins in the morning. Made another buy-in in the afternoon. I spent $50 getting a month worth of hand histories for Party Poker. There's a guy on 2+2 who's datamining all hands at 200nl+ and you can pay him $50 for access for the next month. He'll be doing iPoker and other sites soon and you can get a discount if you get multiple sites. Pretty handy for moving up or changing sites.

Sunday morning I made a little over 6 buy-ins. Made another buy-in in the evening.

I'll mix in some $400nl tables next week and see how things go.

Week 7

Bankroll is up to $11,635.

I didn't play at all on Monday. On Sunday Jennifer had gone to Bantry with Lauren and some of my family as there was some music festival on. I was recuperating most of Sunday and they didn't get back until late so I didn't get to go home until Monday. I'd got myself in a bad sleeping pattern over the weekend so fell asleep when I got home.

Tuesday morning I made over 2 and a half buy-ins. Had a very swingy second session including running KK into AA 183BBs deep. Finished up winning a little over 1 buy-in, so a good day overall.

Broke even Wednesday morning. I had a meeting in the evening so no second session.

Only put in a small session Thursday morning as I had to go grocery shopping, made a buy-in and a half. Didn't feel like playing an evening session so played some donkaments instead, dropped $140 but got to watch 2 videos and finish off the last 5 chapters of my book while I was playing, lol donkaments are so tedious.

I won a little over 8 and a half buy-ins Friday morning. I was running so hot it was ridiculous, just couldn't miss. I made just under 3 buy-ins in the evening. My first $2K+ day.

Here's a spot where a flop 3bet bluff didn't work. Villain is 19/15/1.7 over 158 hands.

Party Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $262.80
SB: $304
BB: $307.40
UTG: $264.65
MP: $567.46
Hero (CO): $467

Pre-Flop: T 8 dealt to Hero (CO)

2 folds, Hero raises to $6, 2 folds, BB calls $4

I open T8o in the CO, it might be a small bit marginal but the players left to act were all nitty so I think it's fine.

I make my open 3xBB instead of 4xBB. I'll do this when the players left to act are tight and/or likely to have wide 3betting ranges. This gives them less incentive to 3bet and leaves me more options if they do decide to 3bet. If they start widening their calling ranges then they'll have to play more marginal hands OOP which most of my opponents are unlikely to be comfortable with.

Flop: ($13) 5 9 5 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $9, BB raises to $28, Hero raises to $75, BB raises to $301.40 and is All-In, Hero folds

Paired board so pretty dry, with the flush draw I like to make it about 2/3 pot. I get check raised which, because of my smaller open, may include more suited connector type hands then usual. So something like 8c7c/8c6c/7c6c might be in his range as well as 75s/65s/54s. The bulk of his range is still made up of pocket pairs so 99 is definitely in there too and probably the main part of his value range.

However, this is a paired board in a 6max game CO vs. BB so the golden rule in these spots is "nobody ever has anything". More importantly we're slightly over 150BBs deep so his range for stacking off is going to be pretty small and I can put a huge amount of pressure on him by 3betting. Although, his low AF might indicate that he doesn't get tricky very often which makes this 3bet less good, but it certainly doesn't hurt my image :).

Unfortunately, he picked up a hand this time but I still think my play was o.k.

Results: $163 Pot

Saturday morning I lost a little under half a buy-in. Lost another three quarters of a buy-in in the evening but managed to clear my $100 reload bonus.

Sunday morning I made 2 and a half buy-ins. I got $56.38 of rakeback from GJP. I decided to sign up to DeucesCracked for 6 months as well, for $148 there's very little point not having it. Made another 4 buy-ins in the evening session.

Here's an interesting double barrel spot. Villain in this hand is 22/17/3.8 over 567 hands.

Party Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $227.80
SB: $542.90
BB: $200
UTG: $175
Hero (CO): $484.35

Pre-Flop: 9 Q dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG calls $2, Hero raises to $9, BTN folds, SB calls $8, 2 folds

Really standard isolate with Q9 soooooooted.

Flop: ($22) T T 3 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $12, SB calls $12

Very, very dry board. Great for cbetting and we can make a pretty small cbet and expect to show a profit. About 1/2 pot would be my standard here.

His call represents 44 - 99, maybe something like 43s that he made a loose call with preflop hoping for an overcall , and sometimes a slowplayed 33 or T.

Turn: ($46) 3 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $34, SB folds

This ordinarily isn't a great double barrel card because the board hasn't changed a lot and I'm not repping a very large range by betting. A 3 or overpair would often check back here for pot control.

However, we're against a competent player who, I'm pretty confident, knows this isn't a great double barrel card. He's put in a very tough spot with 44 - 99 and I expect him to be capable of making laydowns.

Results: $46 Pot
Hero mucked 9 Q and WON $78 (+$57 NET)

I got onto aejones about his group coaching program as well, details here for those that don't know what I'm on about. Basically, there's 10 audio files with skype conversations that answered some of the beta tester's questions on the material. They're sold at $500 per file and there's a private forum to ask questions in once you've bought them all. Obviously it's not cheap, in fact it's ridiculously expensive, but if you thought the hand analysis on this blog was good so far.....

With my bankroll where it is I guess I should make some plans for taking shots at $400nl. I'd like to move up with at least 30 buy-ins which is $12K but I've only played 21K hands at 200nl since moving up which isn't a lot. I'm going to give it another week at least. I guess I could cash out some money or something.

I saw this visitor locations thing on Mr.Plough's blog so I added one to mine as well, lol this blog is going to look so spammy soon with all the crap I'm adding.

Week 6

Bankroll is up to $7,338.

Put in a small session Monday morning, I felt I was playing a little overaggro and spewing a lot in general. Lost a little over a buy-in. Made 2 and a half buy-ins in the evening.

I made 2 buy-ins Tuesday morning. I joined that Xpert Eleven thing and spent the afternoon doing that so no second session.

I did get to play my 3rd round HU matches with Reg (cardshark202) though, we started out 3 tabling and I took down one of them pretty quickly. Reg had tried to run a bluff while I was holding KK and that crippled him. We two tabled for ages, it was a really good game. At one point I had a 3-1 chip lead on one table and a slight lead on the other. I made a bad stack off with 87s on the turn on 7632tt in a 3bet pot and ran into KK. So the momentum swung in Reg's favour and he built up chip advantages on both tables.

I got pretty short on one table, got caught 4bet bluffing and soon had to 4bet shove my 66 into AQo, Q on the turn made it one game each with Reg holding a slight chip lead on the last table. We played on for another while longer, in one big hand I called Reg's 3bet with AQs, raised his flop cbet on A93tt and he shoved with 86. That gave me a 3 - 1 chip lead and Reg had to leave in about ten minutes. We agreed to continue tomorrow if we weren't finished by then. Reg managed to claw his way back and we ended with Reg on 2,455 and me on 1,545.

Here's an interesting hand from that game.

Poker Stars, $21.25 + $1 NL Hold'em Tournament, 5/10 Blinds, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (SB): 1,680
BB: 2,320

Pre-Flop: (15) J 7 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero raises to 30, BB calls 20

J7o is pretty marginal but we're 168BBs deep and on the button so I think it's fine. A 100% BTN PFR would probably be close to optimal this deep but for metagame reasons I feel it's o.k. to fold some of the weaker stuff.

Flop: (60) T 3 4 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets 40, BB calls 40

The board's normal, not overly dry or overly wet, it's fairly good to cbet on and we have no showdown value so I go ahead and make a cbet.

Reg's calling range is probably something like any ace, any pair except for overpairs which would have been 3bet preflop and draws which he decided not to c/r.

Anything stronger I'd expect him to c/r.

Turn: (140) K (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

This is the "classic" double barrel card which is why double barreling here against a good player isn't great. I'd have to fire a third barrel to get him off anything and even then I'd probably struggle to take him off a pair or even ace high.

River: (140) 5 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets 100, BB folds

This is an interesting spot I think. The 5 isn't a great card because it hits a large amount of Reg's range here, it completes a lot of draws and gives something like 65 a pair or 54 two pair. However, once he checks I feel that it's extremely unlikely this hit him hard, it might have given him a pair but I'd expect any two pair or completed draw to lead for value.

My line looks like I pot controlled something on the turn and I'm now going for value with a T or weak K (although I'd very often bet a K on the turn for the same reasons that I felt double barreling wasn't great) or that I checked behind with a draw I didn't want to get c/red off which now hit.

It's also a very unusual line to take as a bluff. The typical bluff line would be to double barrel and then triple barrel sometimes so it's very difficult to give me credit for a bluff here. Going through some of the hands on Thursday Reg said that he folded QT in this hand.

Results: 140 Pot
Hero mucked J 7 and WON 140 (+70 NET)

Wednesday morning I made a little over 2 and a half buy-ins. In the evening I finished the HU match with Reg. It went on for over an hour and a half back and forth, each of us building up small leads and then swinging back the other way. Reg said on MSN that he just wanted the game to end and seemed to adopt a far more aggressive style. I dropped down to about 1200 in chips to his 2800. I opened KK and Reg 3bet, I put in a 4bet and called his shove with TT. T on the river wrapped it up :(.

Thursday I didn't put in a morning session but lost a little under 2 buy-ins in the afternoon. I started into a $100 reload bonus as well, I've got two weeks to clear it and it's not a lot of points so I shouldn't have any trouble getting it cleared in time.

Friday morning I dropped a small bit over 1 buy-in. In the evening I played a few tourneys, came 3rd/4th in a HU one for $304 leaving a profit of $177. I was down $512 from tourneys last month so it looks like I'm clawing my way back, another couple of months and I'll be able to give up these stupid cash games and focus on the tourneys .

Here was an interesting hand against a 43/12/4.3 over 102 hands.

Party Poker, $1/$2 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BTN: $177.80
SB: $212.55
Hero (BB): $200
UTG: $233.85
MP: $215.45
CO: $200

Pre-Flop: 5 8 dealt to Hero (BB)
4 folds, SB calls $1, Hero raises to $8, SB calls $6

Loose semi aggro donk limps in from the SB. I'd expect him to raise anything half decent so his range is a lot weaker then a fish who never raises. 85o is definitely a weak hand but I felt an offsuit two gapper was enough to raise and give me initiative going into the flop, I'd expect him to limp fold a decent amount as well so that's always nice.

Flop: ($16) 2 K 6 (2 Players)

SB checks, Hero bets $10, SB raises to $20, Hero raises to $65, SB folds

The board's very dry but I'm not sure how aware he is of that. Against a competent player I'd usually take a bet3bet line with air on this board fairly frequently since it's so hard to have anything on this board and I don't expect to get 4bet bluff shoved on at $200nl.

However, against a donk this isn't really a line I'd take too often since I expect him to call far too often. In this case though I had a note which said: "check min raised BvB with air". So I felt like this was an o.k. spot to make a play.

Results: $56 Pot

He folded and said he had KT. I'm not sure whether he did or not but it brings up an interesting point. I'd never expect a competent player to c/r there with KT because it's in a WA/WB spot and bluff catching or calling and getting value on the river if the turn checks through is by far the better play against a competent player who'll rarely fold better and rarely call with worse. If they did c/r with KT there it would have to be with the intention of inducing bluffs and getting it in.

However, if this guy was aware of his image (which he's probably not but bear with me) then check min raising with KT becomes a semi o.k. play. It's unlikely I'm going to fold any K to him and if I had decided to value bet QQ - 77/any 6 I may find it difficult to fold to a min c/r. It's also rare that I'd float or 3bet bluff against a fish. In reality he was probably using the "raise to see where I'm at" pseudo logic or even a "I have top pair, top pair is a good hand, I raise" logic.

Saturday morning I made a little under 3 and a half buy-ins. I had to go to a 21st in the evening which meant no evening session and no Sunday sessions either. I saw this hit counter on Digiman's blog so I decided to add one onto mine.

I'm pretty unhappy with how few hands I got in. It was raining all week which was fairly depressing and might have made me not feel like playing as much. Nah j/k, I'm just a lazy bastard.