I know, it’s been a while since I put down any thoughts here… I didn’t play much during March, and then had a couple of very harsh losing sessions in April that disheartened me so much that I actually switched from no-limit to limit for a while.
Anyway, I feel that I found my feet again and am ready to jot down some recent hands and some of the things that I learned the hard way a month or 2 ago.
Recent hands played:
1) I’d been at the table for about 20 minutes and had only played 1 hand (AKo that I had to fold to a bet after a crap flop came), and I looked down at AdKd in the BB. There’s 7 limpers so I pop it to $12 to clear some of the dead-wood – only 3 of them fold, hmmm. Flop is 7c, 6d, 7h giving me nothing but some overs and a back door flush draw. The SB checks and I move in for my last $17. Everyone folds to the SB who mutters about “even if I hit my king, you’ve got aces and I’m screwed”, and folds. Yay for me.
2) I’d moved to seat 7 after hand 1 (my favorite spot after seat 2) and I was short-stacked again. I limp UTG with 2c2h and seat 9 raises to $7 – 2 callers later and it’s back to me. I ponder for a half-second and move in for my last $22 ($17 more). 9 moves all-in for ~$100 more and it’s folded back to me. I yell for chips, the table laughs, and we flip our cards over – 9 has AdQc and it’s a coin flip. Flop is K73 all clubs – crap. Turn is another 3 and now I’ve got even more cards to dodge (A, Q, club, K, & 7). River is the Js and I breathe a big sigh.
3) Not too long after hand 2, I picked up deuces again – and limp along with 3 others. Flop is 2d, 5d, 8h and we all check call seat 2’s $6 bet. Turn is the 3d and I hate poker. We all check. River is the 9c and I bet out $8, seat 1 calls, and seat 2 raises $20 to $28. Crap. Like a donkey I call and he shows the Ad8d for the nut flush. Poop – what a donkey I am sometimes.
4) From middle-position, I limped with AcTs along with 4 others – flop was 5h, 9c, Tc and seat 6 bets $8. I raise to $22 (why $22? It was ~1/2 of seat 6’s remaining stack), and it’s folded to 6 who calls – hmmm. Turn is the 4c and I’ve got lots of outs if he doesn’t have the flush, and some outs if he does… He checks and I move him in for his last $15 – which he calls. He shows 9d5c and I have 15 or 16 outs – river is the Ah and I get to taste the sweet nectar of ‘suck-out’.
5) I’d been playing for 3 hours and folded at least 95% percent of the junk tossed my way for the last hour and a half. I had ~$85 and was wondering if I should just leave since I was getting nowhere… UTG I looked down at a relative monster 5d5s and limp with it – no raises and 5 of us to the flop, which is an amazing 5h, 3h, 5c for flopped quads! OK, how to get the most $$ into the pot… It’s checked around to the button who bets $8. I call and seat 2 calls. Turn is the Ah (putting a possible straight flush out there), and we all check to the button again – who bets $10, and we call. River is the Tc and I decide that I can’t get the buttons stack if I bet, so I we both check to him again – and he bets $11. OK. I know from the past 3 hours that he’s pretty ego-driven, so I think there’s a decent chance he’ll call my all-in with a good flush, but he’s not so crazy that he’ll re-raise me if I just raise him for ~1/2 his stack… I move all-in and 2 bails out. Seat 4 ponders for a moment, and then forcefully says, “I call” and flips over 7h9h for a mediocre flush. I show the 5’s and more-than-double-up to ~$190. Woo hoo!
6) From another visit to the Chu, I was in seat 6 and picked up KhQh from UTG and raised it to $6, and got 3 callers including the blinds. Flop was Td, 8d, 3c for a whole lot of nuttin’ but a couple of overs. Seat 4 (a very tight young player) led out with $5 and I called (I’ll tell you why in a second). Everyone else folded. Turn was 2s and we both checked. River was the 9c and he again bet out $5. I looked over at his stack, saw that it was ~$15 and very confidently said, “All-in”. After I put my $$ in front of me, I realized that I didn’t have the QhJh that I thought, but I only had king-high. Uh-oh. He pondered for a bit, counted out his chips, looked back at me, and then finally folded. Wow – what a lucky donkey I am…
Lessons that I paid good money for (and learned the hard way) over the past 2 months:
1) Pay attention and learn (quickly) the tenacity of your opponents – I generally don’t give my opponents the correct odds to chase their hands (a bet of half the pot will generally give a person the wrong odds to chase their straight or flush draw), but some people will stick to their hand like glue. Nothing aggravates me more than putting my guy on a draw, betting 1/2 of the pot on the flop – call, betting 2/3rds of the pot on the turn – call, and seeing a third diamond hit on the river and having them move all-in on me. If I’m up against 1 of these players, I will now tend more to check the flop and bail out if a straight, flush, or over-card hits the turn and I get bet into – NOTE – only if it’s an unraised pot, if there’s a lot of $$ in the pot after the flop, I’ll push hard. Anyway, if a safe card hits the turn, that’s when I’ll come out firing – most of these tenacious morons will not call for the chance at seeing just 1 more card.
2) In relation to #1 – if there is another person in the pot, account for the fact that if they call your ½-pot bet, the drawing opponent may now be getting the right pot-odds to chase – so bet (or wait) accordingly.
3) Loud players who spend a lot of energy bitching or moaning, or blame the dealer for their failed hands, seem to fall into this category of tenacious drawing-hand players (there are others too). I don’t know if these are long-time limit players who’ve never really adjusted to no-limit or what... But they can’t seem to resist the lure of playing any 2 suited or connected cards. So beware of them (in line with the above 2 lessons) when the board is flushing or straightening.
4) Such players can be moved off their hand when a scare card comes on the turn or river (if you’re willing to push a bluff that far with them). They assume that you’re chasing and made your hand (just the way they like to play), so a bet has a decent chance of getting them off a hand like top pair (for a perfect example of this – see Hand #1 description on my 9/1/07 posting).
5) I still need to play good defense and not donk off chips because I want to see if he really has the hand he claims to…
6) During my stint that I switched to limit, I got much more proficient at it. I’ve always thought that limit kind of sucked, but I have experimented with changing up my starting hand requirements and am playing more drawing hands with limit than I used to. This seems to have helped – and I’ve shown a modest profit from my last 7 or 8 limit sessions.
Poker drawer took a big hit in April (~$800 down – youch!), but I’ve bounced back recently and it’s now at $2,270.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)