Busting Day 1 Again

Felt like I played this one well, but bad luck this time.

Table draw
Seat 1: Joe Bartholdi (WPT winner)

Seat 2: Older nit, bad at bet sizing

Seat 3: FTP satellite winner

Seat 4: Barry Greenstein

Seat 5: Me

Seat 6: James Cambell a.k.a. P0kerPr0 (http://officialpokerrankings.com/fulltiltpoker/P0KERPR0/poker/results/FFCE15CE7FF74482AC211837E235748F.html?t=2)

Seat 7: Older nit

Seat 8: Semi decent but tightish player

Seat 9: Middle aged thinking but baddish player

20k

25/50

Barry opens to 150 on the button, and I toss in a 500 with Ah Ks from the SB. Dealer points out it's a call, so the BB folds. The flop is 7h 6d 2h. I lead for 250, planning to use my perceived strength on later streets. He calls. The turn is the 6h. I bet 600 and he folds.

Seat 1 limps, Seat 3 raises to 200, I call in CO with 2c 5c and 3 other calls. Flop is 9s 8c 3c. The PFR bets 500, I call, Btn calls, and the limper calls. The turn is a 4c. UTG limper leads for 2500. I think for a bit then call. River is a Td. He bets 3500. I tank for a bit and decide to call. He has Ac 7c.

It's close and might be a fold. I thought he had a flush but wasn't certain. There wasn't too much else he could have. I was planning to fold to 5k or more. Later on break he told me I thought you would fold to 5k, so I bet only 3500.

12k

50/100

I open JJ to 300, BTN in seat 8 3bets to 1025. The BB cold calls. I call and flop is Js 8s 5h. I c/r the btn's 1675 bet to 4k and he folds.

30k

100/200

Barry opens utg to 550. I call with AKd right behind. The flop is Td 4s 5c. He bets 700, and I float. The turn is a Jc. He bets 1300, and I float again. The river is a 3c. He bets 3k. I think this is kinda fishy, and I debate shoving, but I eventually fold. I think he bets AA-QQ smaller, so I think this has to be a backdoor flush or a set to be legit.

Seat 7 opens UTG+1 to 700. Barry calls in the SB and I call in the BB with T8s. The flop is Q95r. Everyone checks. I bet 1200 on the 4c turn, and they both call. The river 2h bricks the backdoor flush draw and I bet 2800 and they both fold.

Seat 9 opens to 500. FTP satellite guy calls in the CO, and I 3bet the SB to 1875 with AA. Seat 9 calls and the flop is TT4r. I bet 2100, and he minraises to 2100? lol, so I call. Turn is Kh, I check raise all in over his 4k bet and he folds to my 8k more.

20k

25/100/200

I open 97o to 550 from CO and the BB calls. He check/calls my 300 on the A96r flop. On the turn Qc, we both check. The river he checks and I bet 600. Now he check/raises to 2200. I tank call, and he has A8o. I think I leveled myself. It's hard for me to fold the river because I never have a hand stronger than KK, and doubtful even that. So I called, because it's relatively a good spot to try to bluff me.

The HJ opens to 525 and I call with 97d and the BB calls. The flop is Jd 8h 4s. The BB leads for 875. The HJ calls and I call. The turn is a 6 giving me open ended. The BB checks and I call the HJ 3100 bet. The BB folds, which was unfortunate, because I was hoping he came along. The river bricks and the I fold to the HJs bet. He later told me he had KK which means I probably get his whole stack on a river brick.

20k
25/150/300

I open KK to 750, and Seat 3 calls in the BB. The flop is Jc 4c 3s. He check/calls my 1200 bet. The turn is a 5s. He checks and I bet 2700. He moves in for 10k more after some thought. I tank for a bit and decide I have to call. He shows me 45d for turned two pair, and I brick the river. I'm down to under 3k.

Three hands later I'm in the SB with QQ. Barry G opens the button to 800. I shove for 2400 and he calls with Q3o. I'm a 94% favorite, but when the flop comes down Ac6c4s, I know I'm drawing dead. After all his equity increased to 8%. He catches running 25 and makes a straight to bust me.

Thought I played well. Mostly played my standard game the rest of the time, never really got a whole lot going.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce

First Day of the NAPT... and the Only One.

A lot of standardish hands but I lost my notes for some more complex ones.

50/100

I open QQ to 300 in EPish, and I get 3bet to 800 by the guy to my left. I flat call. Flop is Kc Jh Tc. I check and fold to his 1800 bet. The pot is only 1750, and I felt his range was pretty strong. I'm not sure what else I can do, calling seems bad because I can't take any heat, and my draw is pretty obvious so I don't have much implied odds. A queen could be no good. I decide my best bet is too simply fold.

75/150

I open J6d in MP when two players to my left are telegraphing folds. Both the blinds call me and hey the flop is J66 with two spades. I bet 725 when checked to, and the SB calls me. The turn is the Ah, and the SB c/c my 875 bet. River is another J, and I think for a bit then bet 1250. He calls and mucks. I made my bet small on the turn because I thought I could get him to hero call with a hand like 88 hoping that I'm bluffing the ace. I also think if I bet too big he might fold a Jack.

50/200/400

I literally played one hand the entire level. I opened A6s, and the lag player to my left called. The flop was QT4r with a spade, I cbet he calls. I c/f the 9 on turn as that's a really bad card for to continue on given how much of his range improves in some way or another. I can really only make him fold AT, 77 or less, as most combinations of hands that have a T make a straight draw, all straight draws improve to either a pair or a straight, and most queens will have a straight

draw. AQ won't but also won't fold to another bet anyways. Seems bad to keep betting.

75/300/600

I am still card dead. Only played 3 hands. I open KQ to 1600, and fold to a 3bet.

I open A9o in HJ, get called by BB, and the flop is AJ8 with two spades. He c/cs my 2250 bet, and the turn is a Ks. We both check. River is a T and he bets 4400. I don't really see how I can call here, almost everything in his flop calling range is ahead of me now.

Then the LAG opens in EP to 1600. The SB calls, and I call with 89d. The flop is Ks 7d 8h. We both check to LAG who bets around 2100, the SB calls and I call. The turn is the Ts, and the LAG bets approx 3700, we both call again. The river is a 4c, and we check to LAG who thinks then bets about 7k. The SB calls, then I ship the river for 20k more. The LAG tank calls with AA, and the SB folds two pair.

I thought my line looked a lot like 56 or a slowplayed J9. But in retrospect I realize, that I probably don't check J9 on the river because the risk that he checks behind. So I'm really only repping like one hand, and even then I might just lead the river with it. I feel somewhat stupid for trying this, but at the time I thought it looked really strong.

I also played a satellite to the high roller event but busted. I'm up around 8k in cash games now.

I'm feeling too lazy to blog much more, but LAPC coming up next.

Back in Sin City

I flew out to Vegas on Wednesday for the NAPT. I came a little early to hang with Mike because he was only going to be here till Saturday. It was my fastest trip with through TSA ever, I managed to get through all the hassle in under 3 minutes. Pretty impressive to me. I guess they are getting more efficient.

I'm staying at the Venetian because they decided to comp me for 4 free nights for no reason whatsoever. I played a little blackjack with them before, and I guess that was enough for them. I decided to give them some action in exchange, and apparently it was a bad idea. I'm pretty sure I'm counting cards correctly, but I'm down about 3.3k with an average bet of around 150. I suppose thats not really that much given that standard deviation of an average bet of 50 would be around $1,400. Variance is pretty insane in a game where you only have a 1-2% edge at best. Oh well the real plan was to get my run bad out before the NAPT started.

I've done really well in poker though. I won about 1k at Venetian in a 1/2 pot limit omaha mix game. It was half high low and half high only. Then I went to Bellagio and won about 5.5k at 10/20 there. I coolered someone with a set of aces against a set of fives on the A95r flop for about 2.1k. It almost makes up for my blackjack run bad.

Mike decided to go for Diamond card status with Harrah's. After running some numbers he found he can go Diamond in a single day at video poker. His expected loss is only a few hundred, something that can easily be recouped by the perks of being a Diamond card holder. He had to borrow $700 from me to do it, but he managed to pull it off with a loss of around 2k. That's probably worthwhile to him, although if I had diamond card status, I honestly don't know what I'd do with it.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the NAPT. It's a $5k buyin sponsored by Pokerstars and has a televised final table. Updates will be on twitter at http://twitter.com/SuddenlyBryce

Wish me luck. I could use it.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce

Some Interesting Recent Hands

Warning - Strategic Content below

February started off badly for me with three straight losing days in a row. Today I managed to book a win an turn it around. Here are some interesting hands of late.

From 2/4 online

Villian is fishy over small sample.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players

MP1: $630.20
MP2: $300.00
Hero (CO): $400.00
BTN: $314.60
SB: $977.50
BB: $144.90
UTG: $400.00
UTG+1: $400.00
UTG+2: $414.70

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is CO with Th 9h
5 folds, Hero raises to $12, BTN calls $12, 2 folds

Flop: ($30.00) 8c 8d 5h (2 players)
Hero bets $20, BTN calls $20

Turn: ($70.00) Jh (2 players)
Hero bets $48, BTN calls $48

River: ($166.00) Jc (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $100, Hero raises to $320 all in (He only has $134 left)

What kinds of hands do you think the BTN has here? I was thinking he has some busted straight draws, some counterfeited pocket pairs, maybe an 8 that he decided to slowplay the whole way. I don't think it's likely he has a Jack but he's fishy, so I thought he might float with overcards. In retrospect, I think shoving is bad because if I have him beat, he'll fold, and there aren't many hands I lose to that he'll fold to a shove.

I can break down his hand range into this

Busted straight draws - 97, 96, 76, 74, 46 with 97 and 67 being most likely.

Counterfeited pairs - 22, 33, 44, 66, 77, 5x and I beat 95 or smaller kicker, chop with T5, and lose to Q5 or better

Full House - 8x and Jx, and 55. None of these are folding if I raise.

Pocket pairs - 99 through AA. I don't know if he would flat call the whole way with these hands, but if he would and he still bets the river I doubt he's folding.

No pair - Ace high might fold, but probably wouldn't bet, king high and queen high definitely are folding for a raise.

So basically I can only get Queen high or king high to fold with a raise, and that's not worth risking an additional $134 to try to get a fold from those. It seems check calling with ten high is the best option if I decide not to fold. Seems backwards, but the game is weird sometimes.

As it turns out, he had KK and I lose.

Hand 2.
Villian is mostly unknown.

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter

BTN: $394.00
SB: $300.00
Hero (BB): $522.60
UTG: $400.00
UTG+1: $400.00
UTG+2: $119.60
MP1: $406.00
MP2: $450.00
CO: $400.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with Qd Jh
6 folds, BTN raises to $12, 1 fold, Hero calls $8

Flop: ($25.00) Td Ad 2c (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $24, Hero raises to $68, BTN calls $44 e

Turn: ($161.00) Ah (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($161.00) Tc (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $72, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $72

In my opinion, it's rare that some bets full pot on boards like this. People realize that most of the time when they bet this board after a button raise, they will be bluffing and bet smaller for to save money. And then they also bet smaller with an ace to disguise their hand. A ten wouldn't bet so big, because it's hard to get value from worse. So I think he has a draw, maybe a gutshot, maybe a flush draw. It might be better to call here, but I would be more inclined to do that if I had King high for a stronger no pair. Either way, if I didn't have the gutshot draw I would just fold.

After check/raising and getting called, I decided I would continue betting on certain turn cards, but the Ace is a bad card to continue on. If I'm wrong and he has an Ace he will never fold. If he has a Ten, he may decide now I have a flush draw since the odds of me having an ace went down. So I check, and decide to make a decision based on his betsizing. When he checks behind, I figure my original read is correct and he does in fact have a draw. The river double pairs the board and I check planning on him to either bluff his draw, or check down and lose. He bets $72 into a sizable pot. This is a pretty small bet and I read it as a cheap bluff attempt. It could be a ten, but it seems likely a ten would bet the turn to protect from the obvious draws that could check raise the flop and then check the turn. I call and he has Kd 4d. Opps, good read, but he still beat me!

Wild hand from the Hustler

The 5-10 game was kinda dead until these three guys sat down. I'm pretty sure they came together, and they were all weak players compared to the average in that game.

The entire table limps in!, and then the BB raises to 100 more, the first two limpers fold, and then everyone calls before the small blind shoves for 75 more. Everyone calls that as well. I have 7d 4d. 185 x 7 is 1295, so less the rake we have almost $1,300 in the pot before even seeing a flop!

The flop is Jd 4c 6h
The PFR bets 200, one guy calls, I call getting 8.5:1 odds, (but praying for raise behind, although I think someone needs at least two pair to raise here) and one other player calls.

The turn is the Qd, and the pot is now $2,100. The PFR bets $400, the other guy calls again, and I call. The fourth player folds.

Pot is now $3,300 when the river is the 5d, the PFR disgustingly checks (not sure what he's afraid of, good check I guess), the other guy shoves for $1,500, I call and PFR folds.

My flush wins the pot against the J5o, and the all in player's unknown hand to scoop a 6.3k pot.

I give lessons on how to run hot, only $500/hr.

I'll see you across the felt.

Bryce

January Monthly Results

January

Cash Games

Live $18,131.00
Online ($2,122.30)
Tournaments

Live $27,421.50
Online ($3,224.48)

Poker $40,205.73

Staking ($931.28)

Other Gambling $2,875.00

Month's Expenses ($3,393.02)

Net on month $38,756.43

On the 31st, I played a ton of tournaments online and ended up dropping almost $2k. Then I went to the hustler and didn't quite win it all back, so I feel slightly short of winning $40k this month. Still this is the best month of my life after my WSOP final table last year. I'm excited because this puts me well on my way to my $300k goal for this year. I'm hoping I can get one big tournament score a month, I plan to play enough poker to make it happen.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce