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.