Fancy a little Ace game?

PokerStars Hand #86038254453: Tournament #612902844, $92.60+$7.40 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2012/09/11 21:46:31 WET [2012/09/11 16:46:31 ET]
Table '612902844 1' 6-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Villain (3771 in chips)
Seat 4: Hero (1793 in chips)
Seat 5: Player 3 (3436 in chips)
Villain: posts small blind 50
Hero: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Td Qs]
Player 3: folds
Villain: raises 109 to 209
Hero: calls 109
*** FLOP *** [Tc 3h Ad]
Villain: bets 209
Hero: raises 241 to 450
Villain: raises 3112 to 3562 and is all-in
Hero: calls 1134 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (1978) returned to Villain
*** RIVER *** [Tc 3h Ad 3c] [4c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [Qc Jh] (a pair of Threes)
Hero: shows [Td Qs] (two pair, Tens and Threes)
Hero collected 3586 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3586 | Rake 0
Board [Tc 3h Ad 3c 4c]
Seat 1: Villain (small blind) showed [Qc Jh] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 4: Hero (big blind) showed [Td Qs] and won (3586) with two pair, Tens and Threes
Seat 5: Player 3 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

This hand is played on the bubble of a $100 reg speed 6 max game. The two players are regulars but both have their faults. The Villain in question is extremely aggressive/spewy and does not adjust when players use that aggression against him. On bubbles he seems to make it his sole objective to try and outplay (and failing that gamble with) the players involved regardless of your activity or image. To give you a barometer of his aggression his raise from the small blind % is very close to 90% but when it is 3 handed it is pretty much 100%. That means when you are to his left you can have a lot of fun by widening your calling and 3 betting range accordingly.

In this particular hand the other regular folds the button and our villain makes his obligatory raise to 209 which is essentially a min-raise. Given that he incorporates near enough 100% of his range when he raises in this situation I have 2 options when I look down at QTo. I can re-raise all in (which is likely profitable given that his calling range would have to be astronomically wide to make it break even or worse) or I can choose to flat call and see a flop with a) a hand that plays well and likely dominates his range and b) position for at least the flop. I have tremendous pot odds to go with those other 2 factors so I decide to flat call and stacks are deep enough to allow for maneuverability post flop should I find a suitable spot to make a move.

The flop comes A T 3 rainbow. The Villain goes ahead and continuation bets half pot (which he does 94% of the time). A tricky situation with 2nd pair? The reality of it is that it's not tricky at all. This player loves to try and outplay on bubbles as I mentioned before. He will never give me credit for an ace, as he'd expect me to re-raise preflop given both of our images, so when I raise it small to 450 (leaving ~1000 behind giving the illusion of fold equity) I expect him to continue with his entire range such is his nature whether he has me beat or not. I'd expect KK-K10 to flat call here in which case I shut down. As all aces (A2-AK), AA, TT and T3o accounts for 16% of his range it is hugely profitable to make a raise here with the intention of calling off his inevitable flop 3 bet. In fact, a 3 bet all in may be weaker still as he may choose to flat call his strongest hands (AA, TT, AK, AT) in the hope I'd continue what he perceives to be a bluff. Anyway, as predicted, our villain snap shoves all in and turns over QJo giving him a gutshot and an overcard to my pair of tens. I fade the 27% equity he has in the hand (rather more than I expected/hoped) and get to work on making use of my increased chip stack which has been kindly handed to me.

bigstealer

Not on this Board!

PokerStars Hand #83776863314: Tournament #591621017, $27.58+$2.42 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2012/07/24 13:49:19 WET [2012/07/24 8:49:19 ET]
Table '591621017 1' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Player 1 (960 in chips)
Seat 3: Villain (4276 in chips)
Seat 4: Hero (2169 in chips)
Seat 6: Player 4 (1595 in chips) is sitting out
Hero: posts small blind 25
Villain: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ad Qs]
Player 1: folds
Villain: raises 50 to 100
Hero: raises 200 to 300
Player 4: folds
Hero: calls 200
*** FLOP *** [Kd 2h Kc]
Hero: bets 260
Villain: calls 260
*** TURN *** [Kd 2h Kc] [7d]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets 360
Hero: calls 360
*** RIVER *** [Kd 2h Kc 7d] [8s]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets 1150
Hero: calls 1150
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [Ts Jh] (a pair of Kings)
Hero: shows [Ad Qs] (a pair of Kings - Ace kicker)
Hero collected 4190 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4190 | Rake 0
Board [Kd 2h Kc 7d 8s]
Seat 1: Player 1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Villain (button) showed [Ts Jh] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 4: Hero (small blind) showed [Ad Qs] and won (4190) with a pair of Kings
Seat 6: Player 4 (big blind) folded before Flop

The hand I will talk about is from a $30 6 max turbo Sit and Go played earlier today. The hand is played against a fellow regular player who isn't folding's number 1 fan and certainly has been known to throw a few bluffs into the mix. Although I don't know him, my feeling is that he tends to get emotionally involved in the game and will often try and outplay players who he feels are getting after him and I've witnessed him spewing his chip stack away as a result. This means that, whilst in most cases game flow can be overvalued (as many pros play lots of tables), it is definitely a consideration when playing a player of this nature.

So, I find myself in the small blind with an unsuited Ace Queen and with Player 1 folding his hand it is left to our Villain to act. He is an observant player and is likely to have noticed that Player 4 in the big blind is sitting out. *Free Equity* I hear you whisper. Subsequently, I can safely assume that his button raise is likely to include a wide range of hands. When he does min raise I feel I'm left with little choice but to 3 bet, both for information and for value. A quick peak at my HUD says that the villain folds 50% of the time that he's 3 bet and only 4 bets 8% of the time. I 3 bet here with the intention of folding vs this opponent's 4 bet as his range is simply too strong against my holdings. However, some of you may think its a bad decision to reraise when 42% of the time I'm going to be left out of position in a bloated pot. This is the case a lot of the time but my hand is too strong to simply flat call and check fold a low flop when my opponent is relatively loose. It is important to maximise value with a hand especially if it dominates his range like it will if he flat calls.

I 3 bet to 300 and true to form he doesn't release and we see a flop. I expect him to have a wide range of hands here as he enjoys using position and he himself probably thinks I would resteal wide having seen Player 4's absence from the game also. The flop comes down Kd 2h Kc. This is a great flop for my hand. It is unlikely to have helped him and may also encourage a player that likes to use position to steal pots to stick around a little longer with weaker holdings gaining yet more value for my Ace high. I bet a little under half the pot for protection and value. I will still get called by small, medium and possibly even slow played big pairs, three of a kind (which realistically will be KT, KJ and KQ) as well as a tonne of floats with the intention of bluffing me later in the hand.

The turn is the 7 of diamonds changing very little improving 77 to a full house. I check with the intention of calling one street realistically to see what he'll do on the river. He quickly bets well under half the pot which conceivably he could do with all his range (a big/medium/small pair trying to reach cheap showdown, a King and all his bluffs) but I feel he's more likely to check back the pairs in his range hoping to get to showdown...and so the polarizing of his range begins. Given that three of a kind and full houses form such a small part of his range I elect to call and see what the river brings.

The river is the 8 of spades which is a bit of a brick improving 88 to a full house. I check and he instantly bets around 2/3 pot which was almost all my stack. Given the magnitude of this hand (in terms of how dominant the winner of this pot would be for the remainder of the tournament), the strength of the hand he is trying to represent and the size of the pot, the speed of this large bet didn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I expected most small/medium pairs to check back instantly (as the function his turn bet in this case was to get to showdown cheaply) and for a AA/QQ/KK/KT/KJ/KQ/77/88 hand have a little more time working out a good bet size for value. I tend to be careful regarding time-tells as good players will use them against you but on this particular occasion it made a lot of sense to take it into consideration. With pot odds of 2.6:1 I needed to be right around 30% of the time. With the texture of the flop, bet sizing and bet speed, I expected his polarized range to be heavily weighted towards bluffs. Subsequently, I took very little time in making the call. I was relieved and pleased to see he had JTos.

bigstealer

Heads Up Madness?

PokerStars Hand #78488992786: Tournament #543713965, $92.60+$7.40 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2012/04/07 19:48:53 WET [2012/04/07 14:48:53 ET]
Table '543713965 1' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Hero (3371 in chips)
Seat 3: Villain (5629 in chips)
Villain: posts small blind 75
Hero: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to  Hero  [4s Kc]
Villain: calls 75
Hero: checks
*** FLOP *** [3h Ac Ah]
Hero: bets 150
Villain: raises 300 to 450
Hero: calls 300
*** TURN *** [3h Ac Ah] [9h]
Hero: checks
Villain: checks
*** RIVER *** [3h Ac Ah 9h] [9s]
Hero: bets 450
Villain: raises 4579 to 5029 and is all-in
Hero: calls 2321 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (2258) returned to Villain
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [5c 7c] (two pair, Aces and Nines)
Hero: shows [4s Kc] (two pair, Aces and Nines - King kicker)
Hero collected 6742 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6742 | Rake 0
Board [3h Ac Ah 9h 9s]
Seat 1: Hero  (big blind) showed [4s Kc] and won (6742) with two pair, Aces and Nines
Seat 3: Villain (button) (small blind) showed [5c 7c] and lost with two pair, Aces and Nines

This hand was played in the closing stages of a $100 6 max tournament versus a very aggressive regular who likes to mix it up both in and out of position usually balancing his bluffs and made hands very well. To say that we know each other's game well is an understatement but don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that this particular hand was a case of psychological warfare.

So, first up the villain limps in on the button which, whilst it could be a trap, is most likely a sign of a weaker hand that he is not willing to raise especially as it is early in the Heads Up situation. I have K4 off suit and, whilst well ahead of his range in this spot, choose to check as I do not want to bloat the pot preflop out of position with a hand that does not flop well.

The flop is A A 3 with a two hearts. It is a very good one for my King high as very few hands have been improved by the Ace paired board and the lowly 3. Subsequently, I bet half the pot both for value from flush draws (not to mention I can expect a lot of floats in his range) and for protection as my hand is very vulnerable and checking would give the villain the opportunity to check behind leaving me guessing on the turn. My bet is instantly raised by the villain and with his aggressive reputation in mind I call as I am so often ahead in this spot. The turn is a nasty card, the 9 of hearts, completing a flush so I check to the aggressor most likely with the intention of folding to a turn bet. The villain checks behind instantly signalling to me that he does not have a flush. However, he is tricky enough to play the flush passively (and stacks are shallow enough for it to be conceivable) so when the board double pairs on the river when the 9 of spades peels, I put out a small bet which has 3 functions. The 1st of which is to get value from any queen high or jack high bluff that he might have thought was no good on the flop but now that my pair of 3s (which I could easily have with the line I've taken) has been counterfeited by the second 9, it may well be the best hand. The 2nd function is to provide a blocker bet for the unlikely event of him having a flush in which case I'd expect a flat call as he really cannot expect much long term value from raising with a flush here and could get levelled into losing his stack if raised again. The 3rd of which is to induce a bluff from a counterfeited 3 that HE may have had or any random unconnected hand with which he may try to bluff with. After I bet the villain takes a couple of seconds before raising all in and with pot odds of 2 to 1 it's a fairly easy snap call (as I only need to be right 33% of the time to show profit and I'd expect him to be bluffing well over half the time here). The villain mucks his hand and after inspecting the hand replayer is found to have a poultry 75 of spades.

bigstealer

Maximizing Value Out of Position

PokerStars Hand #81911003875: Tournament #574130835, $27.58+$2.42 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2012/06/13 20:37:35 WET [2012/06/13 15:37:35 ET]
Table '574130835 1' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Player 1 (2336 in chips)
Seat 2: Player 2 (824 in chips)
Seat 3: Player 3 (1600 in chips)
Seat 4: Hero (1440 in chips)
Seat 5: Villain (1730 in chips)
Seat 6: Player 6 (1070 in chips)
Hero: posts small blind 15
Villain: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ad As]
Player 6: folds
Player 1: folds
Player 2: folds
Player 3: folds
Hero: raises 60 to 90
Villain: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [9s 5h 8c]
Hero: bets 100
Villain: raises 100 to 200
Hero: calls 100
*** TURN *** [9s 5h 8c] [3d]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets 120
Hero: calls 120
*** RIVER *** [9s 5h 8c 3d] [Th]
Hero: checks
Villain: bets 90
Hero: raises 390 to 480
Villain: calls 390
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero: shows [Ad As] (a pair of Aces)
Villain: mucks hand [9d Jc]
Hero collected 1780 from pot


This hand is played against a tricky regular opponent who likes to see a lot of flops both in and out of position. This particular time I'm in the worst possible place to be playing a player of this nature, the small blind which will lead to me playing all postflop streets out of position therefore meaning I will be acting first and therefore have less information to work with. To top this off he very rarely folds flops which, whilst it means getting value for strong made hands on flops, it makes for trickier decisions for more marginal hands or indeed maximizing value from the aforementioned strong hands as you are unable to define a players range with ease. So, in this particular occasion I took an unusual line with a strong hand in order to maximize value.

So, I'm in the small blind and the action is folded round to me and I have the absolute best hand possible and as this is a blind defending regular I make it the full 3 times the big blind confident that I will be called a large percentage of the time. The villain plays to the script and invests the extra 60 chips required to see the flop. The flop comes a rather wet board with a possible straight out there and a reasonable amount of 2 pairs are faesable too but there are also copius amounts of draws and 1 pair hands that I will be looking to extract value from(as well as a few floats from overcards etc) so I bet 100 into a pot of 180 and I immediately get raised. I'm not particularly surprised or concerned by this as I know he was unlikely to fold, especially on a board like this. But what does he have? It's easy to think he could have top pair but the number of 9s in his range vs the amount of times he could bluff or have me beat here is rather small. That combined with the fact that he's a regular and is good enough to throw away 1 pair to a shove all in here means I elect to call and let him continue his story as I know he's not one to turn down the chance to bluff despite the vulnerability of my hand. The turn is a beautiful 3 of diamonds completing the rainbow board so no flushes are possible. I continue my passive line and check call the Villains rather small bet of 120 chips. The river is the 10 of hearts which only improves a couple of hands that I was ahead of (9T with an outside shot of QJ as his flop raise doesn't make sense) that took this line. This could possibly be a spot to value bet but would chase away the bluffs from before (a series of gutshot straight draws and small pairs he'd turn into a bluff...this boy loves to bluff) so I check. The Villain bets a minute 90 chips into a pot of 910. This is clearly a value bet looking for value from an A8, 77, 66...but to name a few hands. So, the tricky reg has finally defined his range for me to either a weak 10 (possibly J10) or some sort of 9 that wasnt helped by the river. As my line is so passive this is a fantastic spot to polarise MY range by making an unorthodox play to maximize the value of my hand. I check-raise the river to 480 representing a very strong hand like QJ making a straight on the river, or a stone cold bluff. Giving him pot odds of almost 5 to 1 he instantly calls and shows 2nd pair with J9 off suit.

Against a more straight forward player, raising the flop to 600 would almost always be the best move. However, with a player who has a combination of low fold % and a high propensity to bluff, it is important to let them define their range for you especially with very strong hands so you can maximize your value.

bigstealer

April and May 2012

So, the end of May has come and summer has arrived. With my Pokerstars account being frozen in mid April and only getting reopened in the 2nd week of May, I've only been playing for just under 3 weeks on Stars. However, I broke even on iPoker with significant amounts of rakeback making my stint on there worthwhile. As I returned to Stars I decided to try out a new piece of software called Table of Interest allowing me to play more tables more efficiently my compartmentalising the tables to different parts of my screen for me. This has allowed me to play up to 18 tables at a time whilst retaining the ability to make good decisions without missing the intricate spots that typical mass tabling regs tend to get exploited in. Consequently, I have increased my volume and my daily VPPs have increased to almost double my previous daily rate which obviously boosts my rakeback on Pokerstars too. I have made a decision to play fewer MTTs but have still hit 3 final tables in the last 2 weeks despite only playing 1 or 2 a day. I have been running a bit better in general but not as well in the high stakes games ($200-$500 games) resulting in this last week being break even despite my 'In the Money' percentage increasing greatly. I do enjoy the flexibility that reducing the number of MTTs brings me. It also gives me a good idea about whether going for Supernova Elite in 2013 would be achievable/worth the commitment. Obviously the commitment to it would be significant (40+ hours a week as opposed to the 25-30 I'm used to) but whilst it has been fun lying in til whenever I want I think the time has come to work hard with an aim to save some money up for some long term stability (so wise....).

I'm thinking this blog will also become a port for interesting hands I've experienced much like md261 and Pezrez's blog but I'm yet to really decide on that.

I will update this again soon once I've decided upon putting certain hands here.

bigstealer

March and 1st half of April 2012

This post is a little late due to the hectic nature of the 1st week of April which includes my birthday.

Anyway, March was a successful month, I retained Supernova as well as got into the black for the year cancelling out my downswing completely. I hit 7 or 8 final tables and finally hit a big score when I came 3rd out of 4000 players in the Big 22 on April 9th/10th. Admittedly I was kinda running in God-mode getting lucky over and over but I feel after the shower of crap I've been in for the last 3 months that it was deserved. This is a massive lift and has left me feeling more positive about everything. I have felt I was due for a while but I still hope this is the start rather than the end as I have been playing excellently especially in my MTTs picking my spots well but ultimately not winning the crucial 50 50 situations.

But with good news comes the bad news that followed the day after my most successful day in my short poker career. On April 10th, my Pokerstars account got frozen by the site. This is due to an investigation into my account involving my trip to the US around and after Black Friday when the FBI seized Pokerstars, Fulltilt and the Cereus Network thus making online poker (for the most part) illegal for US based players. I've been very cooperative with Pokerstars and hope the matter is resolved soon but am being careful what I say about the matter until a decision has been made. Obviously, I hope a positive outcome can come of this as there is a significant amount of money on the account that could be confiscated if Pokerstars see fit.

In the meantime I've been playing on the myBet skin of iPoker under the screen name 'MaxRoflz'. Its amazing the difference in standard of players. Most regs on the site have little to no finesse moves, no concept of ICM and its rare to find a high stakes reg with an ROI of over -1%. Essentially, they are very exploitable (giving me very little need to table select and with me getting 50% rakeback, that is awesome). I find myself usually with stats of 33/30 by the end of each sit and go. Needless to say the MTTs aren't too tough as well although occasionally you find a bunch of good regs.

So, whilst I feel positive about my game, I hope I wont have to grind iPoker for much longer. It's nice to be over that swing I hope I dont have anything like it again, although inevitably when variance hits you negatively, you just have to keep your head and plough through.

bigstealer

February 2012

Well what a month it has been, and not in the good way...it is safe to say that February has tested me to the very limit several times as it just seemed to get worse and worse with the brutality of misfortune being utterly relentless. Pre-rakeback my downswing extended to almost $18,000 which is 3 times the size of my biggest downswing before then. However, with rakeback (around $7,000) the amount is reduced significantly to just over $10k. Most of the misfortune seems to have been more focused in MTTs although I managed to go on a 3,500 game losing streak in sit and gos too which according to Noah Stephen-Davidowitz, (who did extensive research on the % chance of success/loss playing sit and gos for a living and posted it in a blog-http://www.nsdpoker.com/2011/03/stt-pro/), there was less than a 0.5% chance of a player with my Return On Investment (ROI) going on a downward streak like that. That combined with my MTTs misfortune (which is more common due to the higher variance (Noah writes about MTT variance too -http://www.nsdpoker.com/2011/02/mtt_pros_2/ and my ROI for those of you who are interested is just under 50% despite sharkscope saying 112% which stemmed mainly from me doing well a few years back in micro tournaments)) made life pretty tough. 

To combat this I've tried to put as much volume in as I can usually making around 9,000VPPs a week which would come from around 5 weekdays of play. Subsequently it is now March 7th and I have 80k VPPs so I should make the 100k mark this month retaining Supernova a full 5 months before I did last year. This puts me firmly on pace for my new goal of 420k VPPs which would include six $4,000 FPP bonuses as well as the 4 milestone bonuses which provides a healthy year from rakeback alone (assuming I don't lose it all at the tables). Anyway, if I hadn't increased my volume I'd probably be boring you about run bad in my next blog post too.

So, that was pretty draining but over the last 3 days things have picked up a fair bit gaining my 1st significant top 3 finish this year and running better in the sit and gos. Subsequently I'm feeling a bit better about myself but also cautious because although I feel I'm due a big upswing ($50k would be nice :-D) I know it isn't my right to have one. Because of this swing I've had to postpone my goals for now and once I get back towards the black for the year I will return to playing live cash as well as looking into my trip to Dublin. One thing I will say is that when things got really tough for me, and I was at breaking point a few times, I did complain on occasion. I think it's natural but I guess it was a little ill disciplined. However, I didn't complain before I crossed the $11k mark so there's positives to be taken from that too. I hope I never have to go through anything like this again, I have re-evaluated which tournaments I should and do play and limit the amount of money I invest in MTTs per day just so I know what I can expect to lose from them etc in a future bad run.

I spoke to a Russian player who's screen name is Kedrila, who had a similar run to me, he said the key was to continue to play with confidence something that I used to struggle with on occasion in the past but lately not so much. He has made $30k pre-rakeback since then and is a good role model for me to follow not only because he's an excellent player but his behaviour at the table is impressive too.

I'm on 4 leaderboards for the year despite this swing which is encouraging so with hard work, plenty of volume and a little luck I hope to report on a successful March.

Take care and good luck

bigstealer