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.