50nl 6max regs wars (lol)

I haven't posted in a while. This month has felt pretty rough so far even though it shouldn't. I went on one of the biggest heaters of my life in the first 3 days winning something like 30 buyins spread across 50nl, 100nl and 200nl. I can actually say that most of this was due to good play. I was the most on top of my game that I've ever been and it felt like face up poker even at 200nl. Then I proceeded to dump half of it back. Poker feels so easy when you're playing well and then you wonder what happened to that mindset when it disappears for a while.


I'm also having an odd reoccurance at 50nl 6max. I keep running in to the same 2 regs who play every 50BB min table there is. They both play insanely long sessions during peak hours and it's pretty tough to avoid them. Luckily one is extremely exploitable despite going to showdown an oddly high % of the time and winning at showdown a rediculous % of the time over a large sample.

The other reg is where most of my problem at that level is lately. We are both very good at putting each other in tough spots using position so part of the solution is to make sure I have good seat location relative to him. If I don't, I rarely profit on that table since he totally wrecks the flow I'm trying to create. It's a lot tougher if he starts a session before I do since most seats opening up are on his right. I'm going to have to do an in depth analysis of his play if I want to keep winning at the same rates I have been there and hopefully figure out his ranges a little better. He's really well balanced vs regs.

10 days until Christmas holidays!

November is finally over

Haven't posted in a while. I seem to post a lot less when I'm not winning, which has been the case the past couple of weeks. I've been basically breakeven after a very swingy second half of November.

I think it's a combination of bad sleeping habits and trying out new stuff, then trying to find my way back to fundamentals when something doesn't work out. That can lead to some frustration and trying to force things. I've also taken a couple of failed shots at 200nl FR and 100nl 6max in the past week so that has a lot to do with it as well.

Part 2 of my 25nl series is out now and Part 3 is on the way. If only I could keep running as hot as I do in my videos... lol... maybe I should just start recording all my sessions and talking through my thought process out loud.

25nl Crushing the Quarter Part 1 Released!

The first installment of my series, Crushing the Quarter, on Best Free Poker Coaching has just been released. I hope you guys enjoy it. There's lots of room on the video page or in the forum over there if you have a questions or comments about anything in the video.

I ran pretty horrible this week. I'm going to say that it's probably mostly due to bad play even though I feel kind of under expectation, but my sleep schedule has been absolutely terrible and I don't think my thought processes this week were anywhere close to optimal wrt assessing my play or really anything at all. I'm sure the slightly under average run got to me and ended up with more than a bit of tilt.

I decided to put one more terrible night into it but I changed it up drastically. I moved up. I cut tables - lots of tables. 100nl 6max 4 tabling and taking extensive notes seems kind of gross when I think about it but is amazingly fun when I'm actually doing it. I'm writing this down so that I can refer back to it when I get the urge to mass table when I should be trying to improve.

I played a 45 minute session 4 tabling just trying to book a win. As a rule I don't agree with using stop-wins, but when you're downswinging over several days or weeks, I think getting that winning session in despite it really meaning nothing in terms of anything other than mental stability and confidence is important. My goal was 1 buyin. I ended up wiping out my losses for the week.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 377387
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $113.90
MP: $122.20
CO: $103.00
Hero (BTN): $115.45
SB: $174.35
BB: $217.45

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with A A
UTG raises to $3, 2 folds, Hero calls $3, SB raises to $16, 1 fold, UTG raises to $38, Hero raises to $115.45 all in, SB raises to $174.35 all in, UTG calls $75.90 all in

Flop: ($345.80) 6 5 3 (3 players - 3 are all in)

Turn: ($345.80) 9 (3 players - 3 are all in)

River: ($345.80) 5 (3 players - 3 are all in)

Final Pot: $345.80
UTG shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Fives)
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Fives)
SB shows K K (two pair, Kings and Fives)
Hero wins $3.10
Hero wins $339.70
(Rake: $3.00)

*This play was reads based. SB and BB were both squeeze happy regs running rather loose-ish.

It's all thanks to a cold deck of course but I'll take it. +1 more buyin when I get QQ in vs 44 BvB and hold.


 ** Side note: either I'm typing too fast or my keyboard isn't working properly but some of my esses are not always showing up. My grammar really isn't that terribad that I forget to pluralize where necessary =)

Omaha is kind of fun

Took a break from NLHE today and spent the day playing PLO50. Was quite a bit of fun and I'm understanding the equity side of things more and more. Seems to be a ton of 60/40 all-in situations which is why the variance is so high - set + FD vs wrap + FD type of stuff - and my standard deviation is 2x my NLHE standard deviation despite a winrate that's 5x larger.

Ended up winning a ton of flips today, probably 80% of them if I had to guesstimate. I have to say that the PLO fish population is worse than NLHE fish population. It's becoming rare to find a 60/5 type player in holdem at any level, but in PLO you get 4 cards so it's pretty standard to have 2 or 3 players running something like that trying to fullhouse mine and they're still willing to get it in with AAxx no draw postflop as if they're playing holdem. Super profitable. I'm not really sure at what point I should try moving up from PLO50 but I'm thinking the skill level for PLO100 might be somewhere around the level of 25nl-50nl. Maybe next weekend.

Put my stats on the graph. I have no idea if these are standard TAG or fishy or what but they're pretty close to my stats over my entire 12k hand sample. Super heater today.

Also, congrats to knn and tom on the Sunday Mil scores!

Feeling pretty good right now

Thought I'd do a quick update. Played a few amazing sessions today and playing my A+++ game. Getting a lot of max value in some thin spots (ty Joop) and playing way more effectively aggressive than I normally do.

I skipped a few days worth of playing already this month because I just didn't feel like playing. But the past few days, and especially today, I feel like I've had some aha moments wrt manipulating people's ranges and stuff recently and am now super motivated again. Playing face-up poker is just so much fun.

Obligatory brag graph:

I obviously enjoy photoshopping and was a little bored so.... yeah.

Continuing to put some big scores together more frequently. Hopefully I can keep this up. I'm also extremely excited about playing some tournaments in December as part of a potential uFR team. Someone has to hit it big.

Other than that, the first video of my series "25nl: Crushing the Quarter" is due out on Friday the 13th on Best Free Poker Coaching

First 3 25nl videos almost complete

Well I've almost got the first few videos for my 25nl series on Best Free Poker Coaching finished and hope to have them up soon. I think I'd call it more of an intermediate level series. From my own experience this is about where most winning 25nl and even 50nl regs are at. They typically have a really good understanding of fundamentals which puts them ahead of the average losing/breakeven player but sometimes have a bit of a disconnect between applying some concepts correctly and meshing their overall strategy.


So I'm going to try to demonstrate how a lot of those standard concepts work together to help the 25nl reg get to that next level in their game with this series.

The first video is going to be about the 3 types of advantages we have in poker and how to use them to make decisions about whether to play a hand or not along with player categorization and tendencies and what kind of adjustments we can make according to that information.

The second video will build on that and look more at hand selection and ranges versus different types of players. Based on this we can look at playing different types of hands against different types of players and having a plan for those hands that meshes our preflop actions together with our postflop plan.

The third video is still a little up in the air as to what I want to look at. Right now I'm thinking of going more in depth with our postflop plan in terms of equity and aggression. I imagine this will look at finding more spots to maximize value and steal pots using our equity. Probably more focus on hands like suited connectors and suited broadways that give us those equity shares where we can remain aggressive rather than the more binary hit or miss hands.
So look for those to come out soon on Best Free Poker Coaching. By the way, I need a name for the series, so if you have any ideas for that or other concepts you'd like to see, let me know!

200nl shot, fail

I'm obviously not ready for 200nl yet psychologically. I played pretty decent today and I think I can compete there, but I finished the session down "only" 1.5 BI after starting up 1.5 BI and I feel kind of sick about it. Thankfully that's all I was down after running 2nd flush into nut flush 3 hands in a row on the same table against the same 30/15.

Kept running into sets after that even though I pot controlled it pretty well and got away with not paying them much but then got a little frustrated about flush under flush and overpair vs set situations happening constantly and spewed my JJ overpair vs a BB (12/11 with 25% c/r) c/r on a low board. Decided it was time to quit after that when I was telling myself just fold to the c/r just fold, it doesn't matter just fold, but no i 4bet/call the flop, sigh.

Will try again next month.

Run Good Part Deux: MOAR!

Put in my 2nd best day ever yesterday. This wouldn't have happened due to my insta-MTT-tilt syndrome when I reg'd for the Supernova freeroll but then I decided to get it in with AQs on the 3rd hand so that I don't have to sit there all day. TT and AK hold and I'm out and I avoid the whole tilt scenario I get into after playing 4 hours to bust 50 from the bubble and decided to fire up 100nl instead of donkaments.

I unfortunately ran into the 1k hand breakeven stretch after the first 1300 heater. Lately I've been plateauing like this and deciding to quit. I don't check my graph while I play, but you can sense after a while that you're not getting anywhere besides accumulating FPPs. So I took a break and really didn't get back to the table and wish I would have. My reads were insanely good yesterday and the largest pot I lost was $22 at 100nl 6max. This makes for a wow-session considering I only managed to win full stacks 2x and ended up with 5 buyins - the other $100 was 50nl. For once I was the one pushing people off of 50BB pots and not creating dead money I intended to fold.

Favorite hand of the day. BTN is 21/19 and stealing 45% with a decent fold to 3bet % so I go for the 3bet and semi-bluff. Turn is amazing   =)

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 338502
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $100.00
BTN: $103.00
SB: $250.25
Hero (BB): $107.60
UTG: $152.35

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with K J
2 folds, BTN raises to $3, 1 fold, Hero raises to $10, BTN calls $7

Flop: ($20.50) 7 9 Q (2 players)
Hero bets $12, BTN calls $12

Turn: ($44.50) T (2 players)
Hero bets $23, BTN raises to $81 all in, Hero calls $58

River: ($206.50) 9 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $206.50
BTN shows A Q (two pair, Queens and Nines)
Hero shows K J (a straight, Nine to King)
Hero wins $204.50
(Rake: $2.00)

100nl 6m: Finally some run good!

I've been running really substandard in my 100nl 6max shots so far, plus I think I've been a little spewy in the 3bet/4bet/5bet wars and I'm trying to cut that out and it seemed to help a lot today lol. Not so surprisingly a little patience goes a long way against people that don't like to fold much and like to play back a little more.

I mean, "they're not playing back at you" yeah. But in terms of what they are willing to play back at you with becomes wider since they game is probably 3x more aggressive than 50nl 6max imo. It's not really playing back at you when they have a draw and choose to semi-bluff rather than c/c. That's just standard better play.

Some highlights from today:

Terrible looking "shortstack" table I know, but these aren't shortstacks, they're just 40/10's that ran out of money. My auto-post blind is turned off. Setmine FTW.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 333978
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $20.50
SB: $171.40
BB: $153.65
Hero (UTG): $101.60
MP: $22.75
CO: $20.00

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG with 6 6
Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, CO calls $3, BTN raises to $8.50, SB calls $8, 1 fold, Hero calls $5.50, CO raises to $20 all in, BTN raises to $20.50 all in, SB calls $12, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($82.50) 5 6 3 (4 players - 2 are all in)
SB bets $8, Hero raises to $81.10 all in, SB calls $73.10

Turn: ($244.70) 3 (4 players - 3 are all in)

River: ($244.70) 7 (4 players - 3 are all in)

Final Pot: $244.70
BTN shows K A (a pair of Threes)
SB shows 8 8 (two pair, Eights and Threes)
Hero shows 6 6 (a full house, Sixes full of Threes)
CO shows J T (a pair of Threes)
Hero wins $162.20
Hero wins $1.50
Hero wins $78.00
(Rake: $3.00)

This hand was pretty standard but gives you and idea of "not playing back" hand ranges that I tend to see a lot with a slightly higher than average 3bet/4bet %. He's playing completely correctly in stacking off according to my range imo lol except it should be pre.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 333982
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $242.50
BB: $104.00
UTG: $98.50
MP: $26.95
Hero (CO): $117.35
BTN: $104.85

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with Q Q
2 folds, Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, SB raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $30, SB calls $20

Flop: ($61.00) 6 7 Q (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $35.50, SB calls $35.50

Turn: ($132.00) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $51.85 all in, SB calls $51.85

River: ($235.70) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $235.70
SB shows J J (two pair, Jacks and Sevens)
Hero shows Q Q (a full house, Queens full of Sevens)
Hero wins $232.70
(Rake: $3.00)