Thursday, December 20, 2007

Progress Post #3 Tight is right! And how to fight back vs loose aggresive players.

I won this time. It's a good feeling. In my previous post, I decided I would try playing Tight Aggresive (TAG) and see how I did. For the most part I stuck to my guidelines. I ran good as well. I'll try it again next session.


Hands Played - 560
Bonus Cleared - $2.35
Net Winnings - $127.46
Quality of Play - Good, although I didn't quite stick to the rules I set.

I have to admit. I ran really good. I flopped 4 sets, got AA 6 times and I started the session with a killer hand seen below. In 560 hands, thats pretty lucky. I won about 5 buyins in 560 hands which is a winrate of 91bb/100 hands. That's an ungodly winrate and is definitely not sustainable.

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold'em, $.25 BB (5 handed)
Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Button ($25.09)
SB ($9.02)
Hero ($25)
UTG ($34.48)
MP ($50.40)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Qc, Qh.
2 folds, Button raises to $0.85, 1 fold, Hero raises to $2.65, Button raises to $7.85, Hero calls $5.20.

Flop: ($15.80) 6s, Qs, 7h (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $17, Hero raises to $17.15 (All-In), Button calls $0.15.

Turn: ($50.10) Jd (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($50.10) 2d (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $50.10
Button has Ad Ah (one pair, aces).
Hero has Qc Qh (three of a kind, queens).

Outcome: Hero wins $50.10.

Without a good read, I'm pretty much willing to stack off for 100bb or less with QQ on any flop with 3 undercards after I reraise with it. While I realize I will run into AA and KK alot, I also feel that folding QQ can be very exploitable. QQ is one of the top 3 or 4 hands (depending on where you rank AKs) in the game. I tend to rank it about as strongly as AKs, and will rarely fold either preflop, and will get it AI preflop quite frequently. Folding hands that strong can be taken advantage by relentless reraising you. Eventually you learn that playing hands like QQ and AKs against reraises can be player dependant.

For this session, I focused primarily on tightening my starting hand range. It worked out well, although there weren't many hands that I would've played otherwise. I kept my postflop aggresion for the most part, and gave other people's reraises more respect. I did lose a medium sized pot by getting aggresive with 54h on an Ace high flop, when the preflop raiser checked to me. He checked/called the flop and check/raised the turn. I tried to big my spots carefully and I think it paid off well for me. I don't think I could've won much more than I did.

Only one interesting hand this time.
Tell me what you think I have?

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold'em, $.25 BB (6 handed)
Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

CO ($25.75)
Button ($29.83)
SB ($22.71)
BB ($31.28)
Hero ($27.73)
MP ($11.06)

Preflop:
Hero raises to $0.85, 2 folds, Button calls $0.85, 2 folds.

Flop: ($2.05) 4h, 5s, 5c (2 players)
Hero bets $2, Button raises to $4, Hero raises to $10

Most people put me on an overpair here. There is also a chance I have A5s, 44, or even a more outside change like 45s, or 56s. In fact, my play here is so strong, that at low limits most people can't imagine me having anything else.

Which is why I 3bet the flop with A8o. Ironically, although I had him on absolute air, he called me anyways with AJ and caught a Jack on the turn. We checked both the turn and river. I have no idea what he was thinking, maybe he thought I had less than Ace high. Interesting hand none the less. I watched a CardRunners video once, and the guy mentioned that quick minraises are often a player making a move at the pot. I found this true for the most part, so I decided a reraise would let me regain control of the hand and prevent him from bluffing me with a worse hand. I raised $8 on top which was nearly exactly the size of the pot. With 1:1 odds, I need this bluff to work about 50% of the time to be immediately profitable. These kind of plays are nessicary at higher limits to protect your continuation bets from getting constantly picked off. There are many other plays to make it harder to fight back against your continuation bets, blind steals and other plays. I'll go over others eventually.

As a side note, I'm currently working on a very short poker book. It's meant to be entirely humor with 0% strategy. I think it will be fun for people to read, and if I get good enough reviews from people who I know, I may offer it as a e-book to give back to the poker community in a unique manner.

I won't be playing much if at all tomorrow, so this will probably be the last post until the weekend.

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