Monthly $100K Today

Well I had a good run at the Monthly $100K Gold+ Freeroll today - 6600 entrants. I hovered between 20th and 70th for a good portion of the tourney - I believe the highest I got was 12th. I've read up on what I consider to be some pretty solid MTT strat and I think that helped a lot. Card dead-ness really used to affect me in MTTs and that's why I avoided them, but I think I've got this down now.

I busted out with about 250 left. I had doubled up and won a bunch of domination situations vs short and medium stacks and was sitting with a stack about 2.5x the average - which let me really start to open up and steal more pots against medium stacks and snap off short stacks who I thought were desperate. I was really hoping for a table change due to the LAG sitting 3 seats to my left who covered me slightly and was making life miserable. I'd only been able to take blinds when he was UTG . He was running 44/33 and playing really aggro postflop and getting a lot of folds. The rest of the table was quite nitty except for the dude that is running 10/10 and has a few less chips than me but is open shoving any Ax for some reason with 50BB late in the tourney.

So I raise up KcQc in MP and expect to pick up blinds. I haven't tangled with the LAG yet, the problem has just been that he won't let me get into any pots despite me having position a lot as I'm really not comfortable playing postflop with him with much.

LAG calls on the button. Flop: 2c 7c 6d. Wonderful flop imo. SPR is 4 and I bet 2/3 pot which basically committs me, and I'm fine with this considering I have overcards and a FD. LAG calls. Turn is a harmless looking 9s. I shove since I'm committed and would really like a fold, plus I have a ton of outs and I've seen him float with J high no draw. Villain snap calls with Ts9s and river blanks. I'm out and thinking I should have just gone ahead and overbet-shoved flop with that much equity, but I'm probably just being results oriented.

Maybe I'll start playing some small MTTs or 6max. I think I just need something different to try to get motivated again. If I could do it again, I don't know if pushing so hard for Supernova in December was worth it for a full month of burnout that was January. I still don't really feel like playing - not even to get my $1500 bonus cleared.

25NL Video: Takin Redline Maney

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=08FTITSQ

Hey, I finally got this video finished. I have a massive toothache and found it a little difficult to concentrate while doing the commentary so if there's anything I missed that looks non-standard or if I'm spewing nonsense just go ahead and point it out.

I run pretty decent for the first 1/2 or so and then spew some of it back so that's fun. This is actually quite a bit more LAGgy than even I usually play as it's only 6 tables and I get a little spewy with less than 12.

I paused the video at some points to go into more detail on my thought process. I did take some notes while playing so that the commentary stays as close as possible to my original live thought process.

Oh and my SN is obviously censored because I'm paranoid that you guys will pwn me if you know who I am . Here's a quick overview of my HUD so I don't have to jumble it up in the commentary. Preflop stats on top, postflop stats on bottom. VPIP/PFR are the only 2 that change color according to ranges - green = fish, orange/yellow = TAGish, red/purple = TAGish/nit:
Stats and graph for this video are in the last post.

25NL video on the way!

I made a 6 table 25NL video today and just need to dub my comments on to it. I should have it up by the end of the weekend. It was really fun and I pretty much win red line money and breakeven/lose blue line money. My stats are really wacked out due to so few tables and I got a little spewy in some hands. But I think there are some really good spots to think about using aggression.

Here's a preview:

Monkey Time!

I got my Stars Monkey yesterday! A lot of people think the Stars monkeys are cursed because they start running bad as soon as they show up at the door. Mine is not cursed - I put in a good session last night and ran well - I'm assuming because I missed the delivery guy at my door and had to pick him up at the post office myself the next day.





















Ive been finding 50NL pretty easy lately after playing so much 100NL. It seems a lot easier to spot the fish and to exploit people at 50NL than before I jumped over it to play 100NL. I guess it helps if Im playing a lot more pots, too.

Ill just keep this short as my keyboard it tilting me.* I hope to get in a bunch of hands and think about my game a bunch this week since Ill be on night shift at work.

*My keyboard is messed up again and typing in Spanish. Please excuse the bad punctuation =)

uFR - Welcome to Nitdom!

I don't know what the hell is going on in uFR right now. Ultra-weak-tight fit-or-fold has become fashionable apparently.

-Top set vs an uberdonk that donk bets the turn with possible turned nuts when we still hold the 2nd nuts? Fold.

-Top 2 pair - aces up - vs an unknown on a 2 tone board when we get c/r on the flop? Fold.

-Overpair with an SPR of 4 in a 3bet pot? Try for Pot Control? Bet/Fold if we get c/r. Really?

The list goes on.

I mean, COME ON PEOPLE! Get your shit together! Seriously. Just fold everything but KK+ PF, and fold KK if you get 3bet.

In all seriousness, this whole b/f fad has gone a bit too far with people spouting "Baluga Baluga Baluga!" every chance they get. And yet they call themselves TAGs. Sadly, the days of Baluga and the like posting pure gold and refuting this nonsense in uFR are over. There's still a few people that post some really solid stuff but they are few and far between.

And unfortunately, it appears uFR did not take anything away from the "Fold." trolling some ssFR posters were doing a while back. That was the biggest gift anyone could have given uFR and no one really realized it.

The reason why so many people can not handle the move up to ssFR from uFR is that they are still stuck in the weak-tight uFR rut of Baluga-ing away all of their obvious 1 pair hands.

Good players are aggressive. They know how uFR thinks. They know that for 90% of your made hands you are thinking Baluga. And you think that you are better than fit-or-fold? Why? Because you are b/f every time instead of c/f like it's a plan? But really it's just another version of fit-or-fold - at least the way it's being applied. And good players will Baluga you to death.

Sure, weak-tight beats uFR games because uFR is littered with fish jumping into the boat. Moving up, you have to actively look for those fish and you might have to start figuring out how to **GASP** exploit some regs to keep the winrate up.

Here's a simple example:

100BB effective
uFR is 14/11/2.5 "TAG" dealt 66-AA/AQ+/KQ in MP1
CO is 16/12/2.5 realTAG dealt xx

Preflop (1.5BB):
Folded to uFR, uFR raises to 4BB, folds to CO, CO calls 4BB, 3 folds

Flop (9.5BB): KdTs3s
uFR bets 7BB, CO calls 7BB

Turn (23.5BB): 5c
uFR bets 17BB, CO shoves 89BB, uFR folds everything but TT/KK and sometimes AA and AK (if he's feeling spewy) here 100% of the time.

That's uFR's plan - the standard b/f because CO obviously has better than TPTK if CO raises here but uFR wants to get value from draws and hates when his TPTK is being floated - and the hand plays out identically if it's BB instead of CO CRAI on the turn.

Funny thing is that CO can do this profitably with his entire range because uFR is snapping it off with 25% of his PFR range at best and CO has a whopping 75%+ fold equity on the turn regardless of what cards he has here, and sometimes he will show up with a set. uFR, you think you are planning your hand, but when the big bets come out you revert back to 1st level thinking, "Well, that's a big bet... He could have... Hmmm... Big Bet... Well, ok, What do I have?"

As you move up, this is going to be the case more and more. Baluga is an excellent theorem and applies to straightforward players very well. Once you get into ssFR you still apply it to straightforward players. The problem, uFR, is that you are applying it to everyone, even in uFR games. Baluga said it best himself: "when playing against a goood TAG, particularly a 2p2er, most especially me, raising the turn with a draw is a powerful (but risky) play."

And you are going to find a lot of people willing to do this as you move up. You need to stop being weak-tight and figure out a counter-strategy instead of continuing along mindlessly following your weak-tight strategy and forever being stuck in uFR because you can't beat ssFR aggression. This is why there are so many 50NL nitty-weak-tight regs out there.

Don't get me wrong, uFR got me to where I am at right now and is a good foundation to build on and I'm greatful for that. But you have got to break out of that rut once you start to understand just what exactly is going on in this game. And they're not playing back at you contrary to how this post sounds - but you have to remember that semi-bluffing draws and pushing thin edges is not considered "playing back." I'm still working on it myself...

Starting to learn NLHE :p

So I started the NLHE Intermediate Course on Stox today. I had really put off watching videos there because of the way they were organized - or lack thereof - and almost all of them are 6max.

So now they come along after being asked the millionth time "you have 600 videos, where do I start?" and put videos into an organized, comprehensive outline with a Begginner's Course and an Intermediate Course. Thank you! I need structure. And now I'm watching those 6max videos and with the expanded outline I know what concepts I am actively looking for to take out of the videos and disregarding the fact that they are 6max based. Just like school! (I am a nerd and enjoyed school btw). It's something to work towards with a begginning and end. And I hope they keep adding more courses, maybe on specific concepts would be nice.

I've been lazy about putting in the hours playing so far this month - only 4 hours @ 5ptBB/100 @ 50NL right now, meh. But I'm really happy with my play and really excited about using Ed Miller's strategeries on how to beat not-so-good TAGs after some very exciting preliminary results, ie. Takin Redline Maney.

Oh and I ordered my PS Monkey like everyone is supposed to. They've got a promo going on and I am winning the 100k FPPs apparently. I just have to come up with a good photo op for my Monkey which I haven't thought of yet. I'm assuming he will also have an interesting TR when he gets here in 6-8 weeks.

Back to relaxing

I'm back to 18 tabling 50NL. I haven't played much in the past couple of days because I didn't feel like it much at all. I played in the $50k and $20k VIP tourneys today and they tilted me a lot. Finished just in the money in the $20k, meh... I also put in some 6max but I don't have the patience for it - which is kind of oxymoronic since I play full ring - but I can only manage 6-8 tables and I get bored... maybe impatient is a better word... and start pushing hands hard even though I'm comfortably grinding out 10+ptBB/100 at 25NL. idk why that is.

I fired up 50NL FR later this evening and it was filled with fish. I made a ton of thin river valuebets and my reads were nearly 100% accurate over 1k hands that I put in - which is a pretty big confidence booster. I finished up 5 buyins over those 1k hands and called it a day.

I'm thinking I'm going to grind out 50k to 100k hands of 50NL before heading back up to 100NL. I have a lot more to learn and practice before going up to that level again. I have learned and re-learned so much basic theory and it's just a matter of applying it properly regardless of what level you're playing at. I think about the theory behind this game way too much lol.

Right now I'm mostly working on taking actions to manipulate different parts of my opponents' ranges. ie. they'll do this with an overpair if I do this, and they'll do that with a bluff if I check to them - all in the same hand - and try to find the best line given what they'll do with different hands. It's still all pretty complicated to me and I think 50NL is a good place to work on that.