Italian Vegas

Been reading through a shitload of blogs since adding them over the last few days, still got a lot of the links to read through. Here are my favs so far…

Assassinato – Real good “life” blog from a high stakes online MTT player. Shows the ups and downs of playing online MTT poker as a profession.
Brian Townsend – This is a given.
Pay It Forward – New cardrunners students being tutored by Taylor/Brian over SkyPE. Regular hand, progress updates, interesting to see them improve.
Ryan Daut – Taylor Caby’s protoge, won the PCA. Sick MSPaint skillz.
Tillerman – Ex pro-online gamer from Glasgow, now full time high stakes cash game online player. Some fantastic in-depth hand analysis, sick PT graphs and crackin banter.

Hand 2 – KK no gut
1000/2000, I’ve got 11k after paying the BB. 15k is the average. Folded to the LAG BTN who makes it 8.5k with more behind. SB folds, I look down at KK and put him all-in. He calls with QJo, ~25k pot… flop JJx. Turn brought me a flush draw, 10 outs total, missed the river. Goodnight! This seemed pretty brutal but the hand played out real standard preflop and this time the I lost the 85/15. Can’t really complain too much after the bug A6>AK suckout by myself, but was gutted nonetheless. MTTs are brutal.

So what did I do wrong in the hand? Preflop is fine, but on the flop I had 3 options, check and take a free card, bet an amount I can fold to a shove from (2.5k ish), or move in. I’m not sure I have enough hands beat to move in here, and it’d leave me without much left, I don’t think the risk/reward is there. I think betting 2.5k here would just be leaking off chips and wouldn’t leave me enough behind to fire again on the turn. I should check here for sure, take a free card, and maybe find an opportunity to bluff on the turn/river. My fault was not wanting to release control of the hand to him by checking and letting him shove any flop, but with a weak hand and not much fold equity here I should just have checked. I’ve posted the hand on ITH here to get some feedback.

Played the freeze at the circus again last night. Made mistakes in a few hands, but chipped up a little and was about average stacked after the break. With the blinds increasing and my m getting low I open-shoved A6s from MP, get looked up by a LP player with AK, flop the 6 and double through. Then come the interesting hands…

Hand 1 – Short stacked flop play
Blinds are 400/800, I have 11k and have been moved to a new table a few hands ago. Folded to me on the BTN with KQs, SB has 8k and BB has 17k. I raise to 2200, SB calls, BB folds. 5200 in the pot, flop comes 469 rainbow, he checks. He’s got 5.8k behind here and he has me just covered, I’m not certain I have the best hand here, but I figure I take the pot down most times if I bet. I’m not sure about this now though, as if he called from the SB he likely has a hand that currently beats me. I doubt he’ll fold any PP, but should fold any ace. I bet 3800, he shoves for 2k more, I have to call. He shows ATo, wtf. Checkraising with A-high NH retard.

Turn: 4s ($24)
The turn locks me up a monster. The only hand I’m worried about here is 88, so I’m going to the felt now for sure.
Hero bets $16, UTG raises to $64, Hero shoves for $25 more, UTG calls $25 more.

River: 8s ($202)
NAWWW! Ship it to the 5-outer superstar

Flop: 4h 8d 4c ($10)
Sweet flop for QQ, standard c-bet for me…
Hero bets $7, UTG calls $7.

Pre:
UTG limps, folded to me in SB with QQ, I make it $4.50, BB folds, UTG calls $3.50.
standard.

PAHud
Anyway, enough CR pimping. I set up Poker Ace Hud on the laptop at the weekend, and customised the layouts to work with the 6 and 10 seater mini-views on iPoker. (I’ll post a screen grab of this next time I play) Then I set up the stats overlays to match Brian Townsends setup which seems really smart. Roadtested this on Sunday night and it worked real nice. My favourite part has to be that it takes minimal time to set up at the start of a session, you just launch PAHud and PT and you’re good. None of the messing about like with GT+. It’s perfect for my needs which are 3-4 tabling with the comfort of the laptop, now I don’t think I have much of a need for my desktop machine.

The session itself went really well and I could feel that I was running over tables. Maybe I was playing a little too aggressive but I was taking down so many pots pre-flop and on the flop by showing a lot of aggression. I was running up steadily on each of the tables I was playing on then bust a couple of short stacks for a $70 pot with QQ vs Ax vs Ax. Then came the fun…

Villain shows K8 for the lower full house

Cardrunners
Signed up to CardRunners.com about a week back and have to say it’s fantastic. Studied 2-3 of Brian Townsends videos so far and I can’t describe how valuable they are. They’re just absolute gold. I’d say Brian’s first 2 videos are worth the signup fee alone. Been on a big poker buzz for the last few days as it’s just fantastic to find something that I can clearly see is going to have a HUGE positive impact on my virtual online games. Not felt like this since I read Dan Harrington’s books.

$100NL
So I had my first cash virtual online games session tonight after doing a lot of study over the past few days, and with the new huds set up. I quickly settled in to the stats overlays on PAHud and really feel that they’re allowing me to make much more informed decisions. Still taking a good amount of notes too, but instead of these being “LAG” “TAG”, etc I can concentrate on specific ways opponents play hands. Like “led with a flopped set”, “over-values tpwk”, etc.

Actually for some reason I found this hand pretty funny. I guess I think it’s pretty funny that I played so well all session and played my absolute A virtual online games to take such a comedy beat like this! Not to worry, I played it well. Couple of hands after this I got rivered in a $75 pot on another table, and finished the session logging 400 hands, net -$73.

Staying Positive
Big plusses for this session were that I concentrated less on information that doesn’t really matter. I didn’t look at my PT stats while I was playing, didn’t look at cards that I mucked to see if I’d have hit, I didn’t have any distractions I just really concentrated on my online game. I would have liked to book a win, but I understand the poker is a tough mistress and it’s extremely important to be positive because I crushed the virtual games I was playing. I could feel that I was running over tables and in complete control. I’m also really happy that I logged off a couple of mins after taking the 2 beats as I could feel I wasn’t playing my A online game any more. I think that takes a lot of self control. Way happy with that session overall.

I guess I could shove the turn, I’ve got 3.2k left and there’s 4.3k in the pot, but I figure at this point I’m not getting away from my hand. I’ve seen him make a move on a flush draw previously in the night and I know he’s a good player so he should really shove at this with a wide range if I check it to him. I strongly put him on 66-JJ here anyway, so I’d rather pull in a few more hands that I have beat if he happens to have a spade with them. Maybe I should shove the turn here, I’m not too sure. I don’t think I could have got away from this, preflop was standard, flop was standard, and by the turn I was committed. Can anyone else suggest me a better line? (bazclef@hotmail.com)

Despite it being scorching hot, today was poker day! There were 2 £30 freezeouts on at Circus and I decided to play in both.

Cash Game
Helped run a cash free online game after this which was great fun. The atmosphere and people at the OP tourneys are always fantastic, and I really like the new casino too. Free food and drink, Scotland/England virtual online gamess on the plasmas, and rakefree poker is pretty awesome. Played cash for 4/5 hours, again this was a really fun virtual game. Standard £20 max buy-in with 25p/50p blinds, so it’s 40BB $100NL. But by the end of the fre online game we’re playing 6 handed with £400 on the table. Some great pots inc AA vs KK vs AKs preflop with AKs rivering a flush. RIGGED. A couple of £150 pots too, yum. Unfortunately I pretty much spent my time folding. The table was pretty aggressive and I never really got a decent sized stack so I wasn’t able to play many hands for implied odds value. Maybe I need to gamble it up more in the early stage of these cash free online games to try to build a deeper stack. I’m not sure, anyway, I continued picking spots and ended up £10 down, which I thought was pretty good considering never really making any hands.

Bustout Hand 2
Played the £33 freezeout in the evening too, this had 81 runners for a 1st prize of just under £1000. I’ve been playing awesome poker at one of the tougher tables early on in this and have chipped to 5.5k (from 4). 3rd level, blinds are 100/200… Loose/passive MP1 limps, I make it 800 with AQo, CO thinks then asks me how much I have, then cold calls, everyone folds. So it’s me and CO to the flop, he’s got position and he’s got me covered. So far he’s seemed TAG and a strong player. Flop comes Ah6s7s, I lead for 1500 into the 2100 pot. He takes his time, then calls. Turn is the Ts. I think for a while, then check. He shoves, I call. He flips 66 for a flopped set, standard.

First a bit of info on the villain… he’s played a pretty average game online so far, he hasn’t been particularly loose/tight… he just seems to be playing his cards in the early virtual online games. Also, I know he’s an experienced player. He has me covered, I have to call 5100 into a 9400 pot, so I’m getting just short of 2/1. I think for a while, then make the call. He flips 8c 9c. Turn completes his flush and I’m gone.

The first, starting in the afternoon, was hosted by Neil of OfficePoker. Great slow blind structure with 30min blinds all the way, got 41 runners. I bust out in the 3rd level with the following hand:

Bustout Hand 1
Blinds are 100/200, I’ve got about 7500. I pick up KK in ~MP2. UTG and UTG+1 limp, folded to me. For some reason I wasn’t paying the correct attention and thought I was open-raising, so I made it 600. BB calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls. Eugh, don’t flop an ace plsthx. 4 players to the flop and I’ve got position, 2500 in the pot. Flop comes 2c Tc Jh, checked to me, I make it 1800, BB folds, UTG folds, UTG+1 moves in. Stop and think time…

My preflop mistake really hurt me on this hand giving a lot of weak hands the chance to call, instead of narrowing down ranges and isolating with my KK I’d likely be playing a multiway pot against wide ranges of hands. Was there any way I could have played the flop differently? No. The only hands that have me beat are AA/JJ/TT/22/JT. AA/JJ/TT are all unlikely as he’s a good player and wouldn’t have played them so passively, 22 and JT are really the only hands that realistically have me beat, even if he has JT my KK is only a 30/70. There are a number of other hands he could have too. AJ/KJ/JQs/FD/SD are all possible so adding them into his range makes this a much easier call that I’d have expected. By narrowing down his range by removing AA/JJ/TT I’m actually ahead against his range here. Easy call. In the end my kings were 45/55 against his 9c8c.

So down £73 today, but overall really happy with my play, and had a great day of poker. I think when I can say that after spending all day losing then I know I’m in the right mindset!