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.