Haven't blogged for a while and to be honest I haven't played much either. Still, this story from my last live game prompted me to blog.

Bad beat stories usually involve getting sucked out, but surely folding can't do that much damage? Also, most bad beat stories don't involve leaving the casino up 500 big blinds...

I played in the Victoria casino's £1-2 NLHE game the other day, and it was particularly soft. Not much really happened, but this was a profitable and low-variance game and I was soon up to £460 from my £300 buy-in. Then a couple of guys who were on the list for the £2-5 game sat down whilst they waited for a seat in their usual game and the whole dynamic changed. They both bought in for £400, and the first guy posts and then, after there were 3 limps, raises it to £25. Next hand he open raises EP to £22. Next hand he raises to £25. Then it's his big blind and (for some reason, maybe they hadn't noticed the previous 3 hands?!?) 4 people tried to limp. Of course he popped it to £30 and took it down.

I was sitting directly to this guy's left, so had ideal position. This was now an even more profitable game, but the variance was much higher. This was the sort of game where middle pair could make you 200bbs, or you could get stacked by the most improbable straight. As it happened I had already decided I was going to leave soon (I was on my way back from work in London and had to get a train home) and was only really hanging around trying to get into a good situation with Mr. Aggressive, when this hand came up. I was on the button with AJ. Quiet lady limps in MP, hi-jack calls and Mr. Aggressive raises to £12. I elect to call and we're 4 to the flop, which is 4H 6H JD. Check, check, Mr. Aggo bets £22 and I decided to call, with the intention of raising his inevitable action on the turn. Quiet lady calls and hi-jack folds.

Turn is 8D which is ideal - it's just the sort of card Mr. Aggro will think he can bet however...Mrs. Quiet now leads for £50 and has £75 left behind. Mr. Aggro folds and I'm left with a decision. My plan was to raise Mr. Aggro, but now why is Mrs. Quiet betting? If she had a hand, wouldn't she wait for Mr. Aggro to bet and then raise, maybe even with a call from me? But then again, she had limp/folded earlier so didn't seem to have paid too much attention. I looked down and my stack was £425. In this situation I'm going to shove (to charge draws) or fold. If I shove and am wrong I'm back to level, whereas if I fold I can leave with a nice profit. If I knew I was going to be staying for another few hours I'd call nearly always, but the thought of just booking a profit and leaving happy swayed me into folding. Mrs. Quiet proudly flips over A9o. I have to say, she probably read the situation quite well and fair enough - nice move. So I wait until my big blind and leave with my £125 profit.

Now for the kicker (and the point of this otherwise quite dull story!). The last few times I've left the Vic in profit I have stopped by the roulette table and put £100 on 23 red. On the face of it a large bet, but actually the EV is only -£2.70 or just over a big blind. And £3,600 sounds good to me! However when I got to the roulette table I thought "I'm £125 up, if I just put £25 down then I'll still have a nice £100 profit." Of course, if I'd shoved and Mrs. Quiet folds I'd have been nearly £300 in profit and would have done my usual £100 bet.

23 red came up.

Now don't get me wrong, £900 is a nice hit at the roulette table. Still, if only I hadn't folded...

Bit quiet on the poker front, so I've been making cheese instead!

Here's my first Stilton:

So having dropped 11 buy-ins at the low point (after ~3k hands) I'm now break even ;-)



Really, there's not much to it other than hitting sets and getting paid off with big pairs.

One nice variant to stave off the boredom is to play the "I'm a donk, no really I am" line thus:

Full Tilt, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 9 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details


MP2: $21.51 (215.1 bb)
MP3: $11.55 (115.5 bb)
CO: $13.04 (130.4 bb)
BTN: $13.95 (139.5 bb)
SB: $24.81 (248.1 bb)
BB: $2.50 (25 bb)
UTG+1: $12.44 (124.4 bb)
Hero (UTG+2): $14.06 (140.6 bb)
MP1: $4 (40 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+2 with 7 7
UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $0.30, MP1 folds, MP2 calls $0.30, MP3 calls $0.30, 4 folds

Flop: ($1.05) Q 7 8 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.40, MP2 calls $0.40, MP3 calls $0.40

Turn: ($2.25) 2 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.40, MP2 folds, MP3 raises to $1, Hero raises to $13.36 and is all-in, MP3 calls $9.85

River: ($26.46) 9 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results: $26.46 pot ($1.59 rake)
Final Board: Q 7 8 2 9
MP2 mucked and lost (-$0.70 net)
MP3 showed Q J and lost (-$11.55 net)
Hero showed 7 7 and won $24.87 ($10.81 net)

The reason I know this line works is I fall for it when it's the other way round. E.g. I open UTG and get min 3-bet from middle position - they've got AA or KK a lot and are fishing for the original raiser to come over the top. So now I just call and check-fold if I miss (I'm assuming no-one who reads this is going to be playing 10NL Rush much! If you are, you can have my 50c).

Finally it occurred to me that Rush poker is a great example of variance. Normally if you 4 table say, then you're in four pretty different games - different line ups, table dynamics, table images etc. So any variation in your results between the table is hard to pin down - maybe it's the other players, how you are adjusting (or not) to them, the cards or something else. Now with Rush you're playing 4 copies of exactly the same game - same opponents, same table dynamics, same image (i.e. mostly none or derived from a HUD). So the only thing to explain something like this:



is the inherent variance in the game. Which just goes to show how big a factor variance is going to be.

Today was better despite running KK, QQ and AK into aces.



This hand near the end certainly helped...

Full Tilt, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 9 Players
Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details


MP3: $9.68 (96.8 bb)
CO: $12.38 (123.8 bb)
BTN: $7.88 (78.8 bb)
SB: $11.86 (118.6 bb)
Hero (BB): $13.95 (139.5 bb)
UTG+1: $35.58 (355.8 bb)
UTG+2: $10.28 (102.8 bb)
MP1: $10.60 (106 bb)
MP2: $6.50 (65 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8 A
4 folds, MP3 calls $0.10, CO folds, BTN calls $0.10, SB folds, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.35) 8 8 8 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets $0.35, BTN calls $0.35, Hero raises to $0.70, MP3 calls $0.35, BTN calls $0.35

Turn: ($2.45) K (3 players)
Hero bets $2, MP3 calls $2, BTN calls $2

River: ($8.45) 4 (3 players)
Hero bets $11.15 and is all-in, MP3 calls $6.88 and is all-in, BTN calls $5.08 and is all-in

Results: $31.56 pot ($1.81 rake)
Final Board: 8 8 8 K 4
MP3 mucked 5 5 and lost (-$9.68 net)
BTN mucked K K and lost (-$7.88 net)
Hero showed 8 A and won $29.75 ($15.80 net)

Quick update...I watched Verneer's Mt Micro 2011 video and decided to give it a go.

Hmmm.



The moral of the story...run better! Hey Pawel, can you cover that next time around?

A PLO story...

100 PLO: 531 hands, $ won -$715; EV adjusted -$22

= Tilt so move up in stakes

200 PLO: 22 hands, $ won -$325; EV adjusted -$41

= Tilt so move up in stakes

400 PLO: 243 hands, $ won $559; EV adjusted -$461

= Winner's tilt, so move up in stakes

1000 PLO: 55 hands; $ won $27; EV adjusted -$561

= Loose bottle to play at these stakes where I'm obv. a huge fish!

Yes, yes, sample size makes this statistically insignificant but try telling yourself that when the nth 60:40 goes the villain's way.

...for my opponents mwa-ha-ha-haaaaa!

Well, I would be able to show you my graph but it looks like the new CR site doesn't host images any more so I need to sort out imageshack or something before the return of piccies to this blog.

Bascially I ran like God

0.5/1NL 3710 hands, +$746.85, 20.13 bb/100
0.25/0.5NL 540 hands, +$149.90, 55.52 bb/100

Haven't blogged for ages. Aside from not-too successful shot short-stacking $5/$10 PLO not much to report.

Here's an interesting hand - the villain was playing 66/33 but only over 18 hands, otherwise he's an unknown to me.

The question is, what's your calling range on the river?

No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (9 handed) - Hold'em Manager Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

UTG+1 ($240.60)
Hero (MP1) ($100)
MP2 ($109.35)
MP3 ($105.50)
CO ($104.25)
Button ($102)
SB ($115.15)
BB ($101.15)
UTG ($100)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with XX
2 folds, Hero bets $3, 1 fold, MP3 calls $3, CO calls $3, 3 folds

Flop: ($10.50) 4, 5, 6(3 players)
Hero checks, MP3 checks, CO bets $8, Hero calls $8, 1 fold

Turn: ($26.50) K(2 players)
Hero bets $16, CO calls $16

River: ($58.50) 3(2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $77.25 (All-In), Hero ???

Check out cpar1's latest video where he does a leakfinder on my HU play!

http://www.cardrunners.com/members/show_video.php?id=2037

And yes, I did cringe at a few spots but then again that's the point of leakfinding.

I played the £100 freezeout at the International Club (doesn't that just sound like some sort of "gentleman's club"?) last night. 57 runners got going at 7pm and the format was 8,000 chips for £100+£10 and an "optional" extra 2,000 chips for £5 which went to the dealers. Apparently this is common in Vegas and seems to be catching on over here. Generally my view is dealers work hard for low basic wages so I don't mind tipping them to top it up.

I had a £50 last-longer bet with Howard and Jim, who was using this as a warm-up event before our trip to Vegas in June. It was only his third live event, and since Howard is as likely to come first as bust out first I liked my chances! I didn't really get many hands for the first few levels and got up to 18k by the break, with Jim on around 14k and Howard at nearer 20k. Hands of note on my table was some quality "table talk" to induce a call from someone holding a straight-flush, and fair play he managed to get a call from 2nd pair on a pretty scary board. The play in general reminded me of something Vital Myth said in one of his videos on live play that people were "looking for a story", with many examples of people check-shoving the river and then showing a bluff.

After the break Howard was unfortunately the first out, opening 55 and getting shoved on by the most active player at the table with AJ. He said he had planned to bet/call so, apart from the villain showing up with 44 this was about as good as it gets, until he hit an overcard. I meanwhile was down to around 15bb but then got a nice run of cards enabling me to shove over the more active openers without too much concern and more than doubled up without ever getting to a showdown, and then doubling up with 99 vs. AQ to be on around average chips. Jim was next to go when his AQ couldn't beat 77 all-in pre-flop despite flopping an ace. That meant I had won the last-longer so was pretty much freerolling with 22 players left. It all bogged down a bit as we approached the final table, until I got a nice run in with QQ vs 77, TT vs AJ and AK vs 66 all holding and knocking out some short stacks. When we drew seats for the final table I had 60k in chips and was lying 4th, although most people were pretty tightly bunched with the chip leader only having 80k and the short stack still on 31k.

The final table was 10 handed with 9 getting paid (why not just have a 9 handed final table?) and it wasn't too long until we had our first casualty when the short stack's QQ couldn't stand up to 55 which made quads (the third quads of the tournament - you don't get that on-line....). The payouts were very shallow from 9th - 4th so I wasn't too concerned about clawing my way up the ladder - much rather get a chance at a win! My demise probably took that a bit too far...

Blinds were 3,000/1,500/300 and I was on the big blind when a middle position player with roughly the same stack as me opened for just over a min-raise. I had KsJs so I can't really fold, and raising gives him near perfect stack size to re-shove (which he had done to me once before), and open-shoving seems a bit gross for 20bb. Anyway, to nullify his positional advantage I called and checked-dark, a move not open to on-line play but which can be useful live. The flop came Kd8s3c and he checked behind. I thought the 6s turn was a great card for me giving me top pair and a flush draw, but he insta-shoved over my bet of 10k. Hmmmmm.

Pot is now around 71k and it's 34k for me to call. Honestly I think I'm behind here a lot, but I have outs and he could be making a move with the nut flush draw or some other combo, so I called to be shown K6. I have 34% equity but there was no spade, Jack or 8 and I was out in a slightly disappointing 9th for £210.

By now it was gone 1am but Howard was having a good run in the cash so we agreed we'd leave at 3am and I sat in a pretty fishy 1-1 NLHE game. I think it's fair to say the fishyness increased significantly when I sat down and I managed to donk off £250 quite quickly! By the time 3am came around I was back to "only" £110 down in the cash game, so I left booking a modest £85 win.

Actually, by the time you account for food and drinks I was only £60 up, but I'm not counting that in my poker P&L so that's another $135 to add to my Vegas trip bankroll!