operation 200K (completed, for now)

All the cool kids are blogging here so I will too. For various reasons I'm going to have to transfer to another school in 2009-10, so I'm going to get my Masters degree this winter at California and transfer to a different PhD program next fall.

Starting today with a bankroll of 80K, my goal is to have a 200K bankroll by this time next year. If I pull that off, I'm going to blow most of it on a condo wherever I move to, and stop renting like a chump. During the week, when I'm not busy with school, I'm going to play cash games from 1-2 to 3-6, mostly heads-up, but I'll sit down at full tables if I see a really good game. On the weekend I'm going to play tournaments.

Played 1500 hands of 1-2 HU this afternoon and made $700. Only one interesting hand to post, I think I should have overbet shoved the river instead of bet-folding, but as played I just don't think my pot odds are good enough to call.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (2 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($705.25)
Button ($383)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, A
Button raises to $6, Hero raises to $20, Button calls $14

Flop: ($40) 8, K, 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $26, Button calls $26

Turn: ($92) A (2 players)
Hero bets $60, Button calls $60

River: ($212) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $120, Button raises to $277 (All-In), Hero folds

Total pot: $452 | Rake: $0.50

Results in white below:
Button didn't show
Outcome: Button won $451.50

Originally Posted by mcatdog

I'm going to blow most of it on a condo wherever I move to, and stop renting like a chump.

big pimpin', i like that

GL

niiiice I'll be reading this I'm sure.

btw I probably go a little bigger on the turn to make it look like I'm trying to make him fold (I know how sneaky of me!!!), something like $76. Shove river would be fine imo.

Where are you thinking of going?

subscribed and gl

Good luck man, ill def be reading this too!!!

I lost 1K today playing 1-2 HU. Most of it was on standard coolers but here's a hand that I want to blog about.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $2.00 BB (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($201.50)
Hero (Button) ($217.50)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, J
Hero raises to $6, SB raises to $22, Hero raises to $50, SB calls $28

Flop: ($100) K, 8, 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $40, SB raises to $151.50 (All-In), Hero calls $111.50

Turn: ($403) 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($403) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $403 | Rake: $0.50

Results in white below:
Hero mucked A, J (high card, Ace).
SB had 9, 8 (one pair, eights).
Outcome: SB won $402.50

This opponent was a complete maniac. He 3-bet me so many times that I decided to just play 77+ AJo+ ATs like the nuts against him preflop, and mix in a lot of 4-bet bluffs. I don't get involved in too many 4-bets that make it to the flop, but when you 4-bet someone as often as I had to do against this player, then you might have to learn what to do in 4-bet pots.

Usually my strategy in 4-bet pots is to make a tiny c-bet that basically forces my opponent to decide whether he wants to stack off or not. This is a tough strategy to deal with when you have a marginal hand, because it's almost impossible to make money calling OOP and leaving less than pot behind. Not to mention, I have tons of nut hands in my range and you have few if any.

In this spot my range is extremely well-balanced, but the results of this hand made me think about how as poker players sometimes we overrate balance. If I have air on this flop I want to take it down as cheaply as I can, and if I have the nuts I want to bet small to induce him to play back at me with a really crappy hand like the one he had. With the nut flush draw, it's not a disaster to get all-in but the best result would be to get my opponent to fold a pair. I made the play that balances my range instead of the play that was the best in this particular situation vs. an opponent whom I'd never played a 4-bet pot against. I should have just made a big pot-committing c-bet that made it clear that he had no fold equity. Even though my opponent's flop play is a massive mistake against my range, this wasn't the right spot to take advantage of his error.

Nice post. I think that balance is overrated in general. It should almost never be the reason you make a specific play, except in the rare cases when you think two plays have equal EV. Balance is too often a crutch we use to avoid evaluating our decisions deeply enough. "I raised that amount b/c it's my standard, I didn't minraise b/c I would never do that with a bluff, I flatted with AA to keep my range wide and balanced" etc. The truth is that there is a best play in almost every situation and only in rare ones when you're playing against someone who you expect to play lots of hands with in the future AND you know is a good, observant, thinking player should you worry about balance. Granted, this is more often the case playing HU than 6max or FR, but hopefully you're game selecting well enough to avoid the second condition.

gl mike!

Originally Posted by mcatdog

I'm going to get my Masters degree this winter at California and transfer to a different PhD program next fall.

Where in Cali are you and what are you getting a PhD in?

Originally Posted by mcatdog

If I pull that off, I'm going to blow most of it on a condo wherever I move to, and stop renting like a chump.

People who rented over the past 4-5 years made out like bandits in most markets and it's vastly under-rated IMO. The housing market is on the start of a huge crash right now (at least in SoCal where a lot of terrible loans have yet to implode.) Really do your research before you buy and don't ever take anything a real estate agent says at face value. There is a lot of value in timing the market a little given how much of your net worth is tied up in your house.

If you have very little possessions, look into renting for sale properties at an extreme discount. You can live in some really baller places dirt cheap.

Originally Posted by zook

Nice post. I think that balance is overrated in general.

When I first heard dsaxton say this it was a pretty big ah ha! moment for me.

Gl and carpe diem

Gl.. this is a blog i will be very interested in (From a player with less than 1/10 of your bank )

Regards

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by zook

Nice post. I think that balance is overrated in general.

When I first heard dsaxton say this it was a pretty big ah ha! moment for me.

I agree with this 100%. Unless you are playing against a reg who you have like 2k hands on.. forget about balance (Unless you are setting a trap against a lagtard)

I use this theory a lot, but figured it was a case where its hugely overrated at micros but much more important at higher levels.

GL with the opp!

So I got an IM from Danny this morning telling me about an incredibly soft 200-400 2-7 game going on. Two people were drawing to hands like 5678 and making awful bluffs on the end. I sat down with a 4K stop loss, and ended up playing for a little over an hour and made 11.4K!

Fnord - I'm getting a math degree from Berkeley. I'm not sure where I'm going to move, I have a few options but haven't decided on anything yet.

Thanks for the advice on housing. I might look into your suggestion about renting for sale properties. I was thinking that a year from now could be a great time to buy a house because the market could be bottoming out.

If you want to run good then start a blog. I came in second in the 109 rebuy tonight for 18K. Overall I've made 32K so far in September.

I think I played really well at the final table. The key hand was when I was 2nd in chips, I flatted the chipleader's button raise in the BB with aces and check-raised a 862 flop and he made a massive overshove with K8o. That gave me 2/3 of the chips in play, and unfortunately I couldn't close the deal heads-up.

Flatting raises with AA in tournaments is something I do a lot vs. players who are kind of stubbornly aggressive and don't play well postflop. This type of guy wouldn't stack off too light if I had 3-bet him preflop, but when I check-raise a low flop he's just going to assume I'm bluffing and stack off with any pair. Against a really good player I don't think they're going to fall for this as often so I'd just 3-bet the AA and hope they were unlucky enough to get coolered.

I was doing really well in the 22 rebuy too, but I punted my stack with 12 people left when I 4-bet all-in vs. a very aggressive player with 44, and ran into JJ. I had just 4-bet him all-in an orbit before that and he folded. Even though my 4-bet would be a good play under most circumstances, he probably wouldn't have been bluffing me after I had just won a big pot off him, I'm kind of annoyed with myself for just playing my cards and not paying enough attention to game flow. Can't play every hand perfectly I guess.

I played a ridiculous heads-up match last night. I was playing 3 tables of 1-2 heads up vs different opponents, and one of them asked if I wanted to add more tables. He was really spewy aggressive 3-betting like every hand and never folding to 4-bets, so I said sure. I quit my other games and we 4-tabled for 4 hours.

After I started winning he really went ballistic in the chat and said that I had ruined him, and he didn't reload when I busted him on two of the tables. I'm pretty sure I took his whole bankroll.



Some of the biggest winning hands of the session:
#1 biggest pot ever in number of BBs http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184711
#2 valuetown http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184933
#3 LOL http://www.pokerhand.org/?3184936
#4 I know what you have so I'll induce a bluff http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185608
#5 He turns a lot of hands into a bluff here http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185613
#6 running good http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185605
#7 more running good http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185610

And some of the biggest losing hands:
#1 I played this hand just about as bad as possible http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185621
#2 planned to call a non-spade, too bad he hit his J http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185622
#3 I think I should just fold flop http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185625
#4 running bad http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185628
#5 more running bad http://www.pokerhand.org/?3185626

Originally Posted by mcatdog

So I got an IM from Danny this morning telling me about an incredibly soft 200-400 2-7 game going on. Two people were drawing to hands like 5678 and making awful bluffs on the end. I sat down with a 4K stop loss, and ended up playing for a little over an hour and made 11.4K!

sick

Originally Posted by mcatdog

I came in second in the 109 rebuy tonight for 18K.

sicker

Originally Posted by mcatdog

After I started winning he really went ballistic in the chat and said that I had ruined him, and he didn't reload when I busted him on two of the tables. I'm pretty sure I took his whole bankroll.

I know this guy!

You are impressive.

I like this blog.

bump

Just passed the 40K mark for the month this afternoon. I don't even think I've gotten that much better in the last couple months, I think I was just running really bad in July and August and September has been the opposite.

Interesting hand from today: http://www.pokerhand.org/?3226861

It's amazing how much credit good players will give you if have a nitty image and you overbet jam the river. Villain in this hand is a very good player for 1/2, one of the only people at this limit that I've quit. He claimed to fold QJ. I'm not sure if I believe him or not, but that's the top of his range and if he bet-folds it he's just begging to be exploited.

You sir are sick! Move up you bankroll nit!

lol

I'm pretty sure creative is a 5/10 reg isn't he?

Daaaaamn, nice month.

Originally Posted by meeloche

You sir are sick! Move up you bankroll nit!

I'm not a bankroll nit, just a game selection nit. I happily take shots at soft games, but if I tried to move up to 5-10, I'd either have to become a bumhunter, or else I'd go busto playing against people who are better than me. Bumhunters suck so for now I'll just stay at 1-2 and 2-4 where I have an edge over most of the regs.

I'm pretty sure creative is a 5/10 reg isn't he?

I looked him up on 2p2 after I quit him, apparently he used to be a 5/10 reg, got a job at Lehman Bros. and quit poker, but he just lost his job when they went bankrupt so now he's back. He seemed like a cool guy.

I bet he did fold QJ. Your raise on the flop looks like you hit bottom set. Your check on the turn looks like the attempted slow play of hitting that boat. And then the river let him catch whatever draw he was looking for. Only difference is, I bet if you actually hit the boat, you wouldn't have raised all-in.

I'm glad i could help

I had time to play donkaments tonight for the first day in awhile, and I came in 2nd in the nightly 100 HORSE for 1.2K but still managed to lose 1.6K. Tournaments are expensive.

The 1K Super Tuesday had a nice little overlay so I decided to take a shot tonight. It's a really tough tournament. Even in the 100 rebuy there's a lot of dead mney, but in the Super Tuesday there just isn't. The best you can hope for is to have a few below average regulars at your table. I think I'll wait a little while before I play that again, bankroll requirements are higher when your edge is small.

I need to start playing more cash again methinks...

I had a pretty good Sunday, 3 final tables for +8K, but I'm still pissed at myself for blowing a chiplead in the 80 Grand. I had about 40% of the chips in play with 4 people left and went out in 4th, mostly because of a marginal play where I stacked off with top pair no kicker vs. a really bad player. I think I should have controlled the pot better. With a payout structure of 6K/9K/12K/16K it makes no sense for me to risk my stack in marginal situations.

It's amazing that I made any money at all, since I was disconnected for the first half hour of the Warmup thanks to Comcrap, and missed another half hour later on when I was deep in everything because my computer crashed and took half an hour to load up. I guess I easily lost a couple thousands dollars in equity from blinding off. Tried to load up my crappy old laptop in the meantime, but it's old and crappy and didn't work.

This week I'm going to try and buy a new desktop, and a cheap laptop that actually works. Shouldn't be too expensive because all I need is the tower, my monitors and video cards are still working fine.

Nice blog and nice run. The idea of the small flop bet in the 4 bet pot heads up is interesting and probably induces a lot of shoves. I need to play around with that as I am sometimes lost what do in these spots oop.

Would you have done the same lead without the As and then folded to a shove?

I went to Reno this weekend to play in their fall tournament series, and got killed because I'm apparently the LuckySLevin of live poker, I've just lost consistently every time I've played live. I played in the $400 6-max, 2 satellites to the 1K main event, and then the main event itself, not cashing in any of them although I think I played OK, and then I dropped a buyin playing terribly at 5-10 NL. I think I learned a few things about the generic live player.

-They love to take stabs at checked down pots with air. If you raise preflop and check back the flop, there's a 90% chance they'll bet the turn or the river if they have air. If the player is Asian, that chance goes up to 100%. Checking back marginal hands on the flop is therefore a massively profitable play, way more so than it is online where people see through it and bet the turn vs. you with a balanced range that's tough to play against. Here I'm not talking about the old nits who only bet when they have the nuts, I'm talking about younger guys who think they're the shit. You can pretty much call their "monkey checked to, monkey bet" with any pair or sometimes even king high, because they're just playing such a weak range of hands that your king high is good really often.

-They very rarely bluff people who have shown any strength at any point in the hand. If you bet the turn, check a river scare card and they bet, they aren't bluffing. If you check-call the flop and check the turn and they bet again, they aren't bluffing. Basically they're all thinking on Level 1.

-Turning made hands into a bluff on the river is very profitable because most people are incapable of making light calls for a lot of money.

-Preflop reraises simultaneously get no respect and a huge amount of respect. They will call with any two cards they raised with, but they'll still put you on a big pair and will fold to pressure postflop if they can't beat your presumed big pair.

I got off to a bad start for the month, losing in Reno and dropping a few thousand at PCA satellites. I got HU for a PCA seat tonight in one of the 30 rebuys, but ran 66 into QQ and lost. I'm now 0/3 heads-up for seats to 10k live events.

Then I came in 2nd in the FTP Wednesday 100 rebuy for 23K, so I'm back on track now.

C'mon, doesn't anyone want to comment on the live poker post I wrote a week ago? I guess the blog forum isn't the best place to go if you want some critique; maybe I'll re-post it in the live poker forum.

I've been neglecting to play any cash games lately just because I've been running so hot at tournaments. Counting the PCA seat that I finally won, I'm up around 50K in the last month or so at tournaments, and I know it's stupid to avoid cash games because of this, but I can't help it, especially since I think tournaments are more fun anyway. When I stop running stupidly hot, I'll probably start playing some HU again.

How did you lose so much at the cash table if they were so bad/predictable? Lol @ luckyslevin of live, just make sure you use BRM!!

I wanted to ask you about the PCA sats you played so heres a good spot. You've always made a point that winning a seat via a sat is the same as buying (the seat is the same value/etc). Why did you choose to go with satteliting? Do you just feel you have enough edge in the sats to make it +EV or something?

I lost most of the money by bet-3-bet shoving A7 hearts on a T74 flop with two hearts, and the guy tanked FOREVER before calling with black JJ, so I wasn't upset about that, I was 50-50 and probably had OK fold equity. I was more upset about the small pots that I played terribly. I just didn't have the right reads on how these guys play the turn and river in small pots. Now that I have a better idea, hopefully I won't make the same mistakes next time.

Even so, you're wrong if you think it's impossible to lose one buyin at a cash table, even vs. really predictable opponents.

As for the PCA thing, you pretty much summed it up already. I think my edge in the satellites is pretty huge. The 100 rebuys have a huge overlay, and the 30 rebuys have a new structure that almost no one is adjusting to correctly IMO.

The problem is that Stars makes you play the first seat that you win. So yes, like you said playing for my first seat was -EV because I'm obviously not rolled for a 10K live event, but I think I can recover that EV by playing more PCA satellites for the cash now that I've already won my seat. And I get to go on a sweet vacation in the process.

Oh, I dont think its impossible to lose a buyin v's predictable opponents, I've done that online enough times . You just made it sound like free money, and well...you wanted someone to comment and it was the best I could think of .

Ahh, I thought you were just shooting for the seat only. Didnt realize you planned to keep playing for the $s after you got one. Good point on vacation. Even if the event is -EV, the trip plus experience is pretty sweet by itself.

I had the same revelation about live poker when I was playing in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. It took me a little while before I realized it and adjusted correctly.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

-They love to take stabs at checked down pots with air. If you raise preflop and check back the flop, there's a 90% chance they'll bet the turn or the river if they have air. If the player is Asian, that chance goes up to 100%.

I think this is a mid/high stakes live thing. In smaller games they're still pretty passive. In bigger games they are still loose/terrible. They just just get more stabby, have a sense of attacking weakness and will donk or check/raise dry flops on a bluff. Also, I've learned to recognise the Asian nit sub-species that you will find mixing in with the Asian GAMB00L and Asian LAggs in California.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

-They very rarely bluff people who have shown any strength at any point in the hand. If you bet the turn, check a river scare card and they bet, they aren't bluffing. If you check-call the flop and check the turn and they bet again, they aren't bluffing. Basically they're all thinking on Level 1.

I think it's more of a money thing. People tend to avoid putting a lot of money into a bluff. Particularly when you're over a buy-in deep.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

-Turning made hands into a bluff on the river is very profitable because most people are incapable of making light calls for a lot of money.

This is a tough one. Maybe it's because I almost never get to the river with money behind. Usually by that point hands are pretty well defined and they'll put the rest in. Unless they're trying to play well and think I play well, then they'll make laydowns against me, but at that point we're playing each other....

Originally Posted by mcatdog

-Preflop reraises simultaneously get no respect and a huge amount of respect. They will call with any two cards they raised with, but they'll still put you on a big pair and will fold to pressure postflop if they can't beat your presumed big pair.

Since you look a little nitty and probably are one of the 1-3 tightest guys at the table, this will happen. If you have a run of cards or otherwise change up your image you will get more action. Also, they're even tighter post-flop when you 3-bet them! Just have to blow 'em off a couple hands, take the free money, then you will widen up their felt range.

Things are going pretty well, bankroll is up over 160K now, even higher if you count the equity in my PCA seat (which I'm going to sell action for). It'll take a big hit when I pay my taxes, but still, If I can keep this up for a few more months I might think about taking a year off of school. At least, it looks like a lock that I'm going to reach the goal I set for myself.

I'm pretty much only playing tournaments right now. Sometimes people ask me why I don't play cash games more, and there are a couple of reasons. First of all, I just like tournaments more, and it's easier to play when you're having fun. My hourly rate at cash games may be a little higher, but if I can play a lot longer at a slightly lower hourly, then it's worth it. Second, I think the future of online tournaments looks a lot better than the future of cash games. It's getting tougher and tougher to find good cash tables, but I see tournament players make horrible mistakes all the time.

One thing I'm struggling with right now is, how much credit should I give someone when they flat a raise for a huge percentage of their stack (say, more than 8%). It's become pretty standard to flat big pairs in this scenario, because most people still mindlessly c-bet 100% of flops as the preflop raiser, so you're guaranteed to play a big pot with your aces if you just flat. Against a lot of players I tend to shut down without a big hand when they make such a suspicious flat. However, some people, even "good" regulars who have won a lot of money, will set mine with 44 in this spot. It's horrendous, but it makes it tough to know when to fire that flop and when to give up.

Came in 25th in the Million today for 3K and had a bunch of near misses in other stuff too. I guess I should be happy to have a solid winning day but GAHHHHHHHH.

I haven't been posting enough hands in here so here's one from very early in the $650 PCA super-satellite. I don't make this big of a bluff very often at all, in fact I think it's only the 2nd time in my life that I've bluffed all-in on the river for more than 200 BB. But it seemed like such a good spot with every draw getting there. Villain is a tournament reg with a supernova logo, but the only note I have on him is that he made a horrible all-in resteal vs. me once. Anyway I got called in less than half a second by two pair. I guess this is why I don't make the play very often.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $615+$35 Tournament, 10/20 Blinds (7 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB (t7480)
UTG (t4120)
MP1 (t5785)
MP2 (t4620)
CO (t5400)
Hero (Button) (t4970)
SB (t2625)

Hero's M: 165.67

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, K
4 folds, Hero raises to t60, 1 fold, BB raises to t220, Hero calls t160

Flop: (t450) J, 5, Q (2 players)
BB bets t250, Hero calls t250

Turn: (t950) 4 (2 players)
BB bets t555, Hero calls t555

River: (t2060) A (2 players)
BB bets t625, Hero raises to t3945 (All-In), BB calls t3320

Total pot: t9950

Results in white below:
Hero had K, K (one pair, Kings).
BB had Q, A (two pair, Aces and Queens).
Outcome: BB won t9950

Originally Posted by mcatdog

reg with a supernova logo

Anyone with a supernova logo showing has poor judgement.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by mcatdog

reg with a supernova logo

Anyone with a supernova logo showing has poor judgement.

This is certainly the case, but I don't know if that necessarily means I shouldn't try to bluff him. By default I might consider someone with a supernova logo a weak ABC player and be more likely to get out of line vs. them. Meh, I suck.

Thursday night was just one of those nights when I kept getting monsters and coolering people. I won about 32K in MTTs, and finally won a couple of HU matches after seemingly losing the last half a dozen times I got HU.

I think I learned something too. Here's a hand from the final table bubble of the 100 rebuy that I went on to win.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $100+$9 Tournament, 1500/3000 Blinds 300 Ante (5 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t216101)
SB (t34080)
Hero (BB) (t70918)
UTG (t60446)
MP (t170714)

Hero's M: 11.82

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, 10
1 fold, MP raises to t8370, Button raises to t24740, 1 fold, Hero raises to t70618 (All-In), 1 fold, Button calls t45878

Flop: (t152606) K, 9, 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t152606) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t152606) K (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t152606

Results:
Button had 8, 9 (two pair, Kings and nines).
Hero had 10, 10 (two pair, Kings and tens).
Outcome: Hero won t152606

I learned from this hand if an aggressive big stack 3-bets another big stack, and you're a short stack in the blinds, you can 4-bet shove super light. I kind of knew that already, but I didn't realize just how light you can do it.

The button was mig.com, one of the best MTT players there is. He raises and 3-bets super light. He very rarely makes mistakes. I was surprised by his snap call. At the time I was thinking my range would be something like 88+ AQo+ AJs and his call with 98o sucks vs. that range, which leads me to believe he was giving me credit for a wider range and that I should have had a wider range. I have to be shoving stuff like 66 before his call is good, and I would have snap-folded that, but I'll have to do some math this weekend and figure out a better shoving range for spots like this one.

I final tabled a Sunday tournament today , and got 6th for 10K. My BR is just over 200K now. But pretty soon I'll have to withdraw a bunch to pay taxes on all my tournament scores from the past few months. So this operation isn't actually complete quite yet.

I'm also sending out my transfer applications tomorrow, and in a few days I'll wrap up my poker playing for the year, and go visit my mom and dad, and then some college friends.

I just read this for the first time.
it = 5spadies

Congrats on ya op

Here's a cool hand from this morning's $300 6-max event.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em Tournament, 250/500 Blinds 50 Ante (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO (t21431)
Button (t15725)
Hero (SB) (t26437)
BB (t17662)
UTG (t10605)
MP (t22499)

Hero's M: 25.18

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, Q
2 folds, CO raises to t1500, 1 fold, Hero raises to t4000, 1 fold, CO calls t2500

Flop: (t8800) 9, 2, 8 (2 players)
Hero bets t3000, CO calls t3000

Turn: (t14800) Q (2 players)
Hero bets t19387 (All-In), CO calls t14381 (All-In)

River: (t43562) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t43562

Results:
Hero had A, Q (three of a kind, Queens).
CO had J, Q (three of a kind, Queens).
Outcome: Hero won t43562

This hand is a good example of adjusting your bet sizing according to stack sizes. IMO, I chose the perfect bet sizes preflop and on the flop that let me get maximum value from a weak player, which value I might have missed if I'd just been playing on autopilot.

Preflop - one difference between 100 BB deep cash games and shorter stacked tournaments is that in tournaments, your 3-bets don't need to be as large. This is a mistake that I see a lot from weaker players and cash players without much tournament experience. In this hand, we were only 40 BB deep. 3-betting the CO's 3 BB raise to 8 BB was enough that he's making a mistake to call with speculative hands. However, my 3-bet was small enough that a weak player might do so anyway, which is what I want. If I 3-bet to 11 BB like I would in a cash game, even weak players are going to realize they're in a shove-or-fold situation, and mostly fold all worse hands (except for MAYBE AJ). I got value out of my AQ by keeping my opponent in the pot with hands that I beat, instead of turning into a bluff with a betsize where he'd only continue with AK, AQ, and medium or big pairs.

Flop - There's about 17 BB in the pot and 32 BB behind. If I made a "standard" continuation bet of 10 BB, again, I'm forcing my opponent to shove or fold, and he has great odds to move in with any pair or any draw. With the bet I chose, again, there's room for him to just call with the weaker hands in his range. Also, I'm getting a better price on my c-bet if he actually hit this flop hard. Finally, I leave a pot-sized bet on the turn, and I can profitably go all-in on any heart, A, K, or Q to apply maximum pressure on my opponent's weak range.

LOL DONKAMENTS

I'm just about done playing poker for 2008. Tomorrow I'll play the Sunday tournaments, and the day after, I'll leave on vacation for the rest of the year. At the beginning of the year I barely had 10K to my name. This year, poker allowed me to go on vacations in Costa Rica, Argentina and Uruguay, Las Vegas, and a couple of weekends in Reno and Lake Tahoe, and I'll be spending a week in the Bahamas in January. It's been an exciting year, and I only hope next year picks up where this one left off.

I had some success at the mid-stakes full ring cash games during May and June, but I would say the turning point for me was near the end of August. I took a shot at 2-4 6-max and got absolutely destroyed. In 3 days, I lost about 25 buy-ins, some due to running bad, most due to poor play. It had always been my goal to get to the point where I was consistently beating mid-stakes games, but I obviously wasn't ready yet. I knew I could still beat tournaments though, so I scurried back with my tail between my legs. I thought I'd spent a few weeks playing them and then take another shot at cash games.

The first thing I did was spend a couple of days doing tons of math on push-fold spots, resteal spots, and 4-bet spots, because I felt like my short stack game still wasn't super solid. Maybe that work paid off, maybe that shot at cash games improved my game in ways I didn't realize, or maybe I just started running better. Whatever the reason, I had three 20K scores in those next few weeks and I never felt the need to give those pesky cash games a second thought. Other than donking around with FTR people, I haven't sat down at a ring game table since September. In the last four months of 2008, I've had three +40K months where my previous best month was +15K. I still feel like I'm getting better every time I play a session, and I'm having way more fun playing poker than I ever did before. On the downside, November was by far my worst month ever at -20K, but you can't win 'em all. Quitting cash games has been the best poker decision I've ever made.

On the forums, people always preach that you can be more successful at cash games than at tournaments. For me this advice was dead wrong. The skills that I have are more useful in tournaments than they are in cash games, and I also just like tournaments more which lets me put in more hours than I ever could at cash games. Any post that “proves” you can make more money per hour at cash than tournaments is totally irrelevant for me. Now, I love FTR and 2p2, and they've been an invaluable help to me as a player, but you can't just take everything you read on the forums at face value. No matter who says it. It's usually oversimplified and ignores numerous factors. It's up to you to evaluate everything you read and apply it to your own situation.

Finally, goals for 2009:

-Earn enough money to buy a house in the fall, with enough left over to still have a bankroll for the tournaments that I'm playing right now.

-After PCA, travel to at least two more poker tournaments in foreign countries, and spend a week or two exploring instead of just hanging around the resort and getting inebriated. I probably won't always have this much freedom to travel around the world, so I want to take advantage of it while I can.

Haven't been following the updates, but congrats on "making it"

Originally Posted by mcatdog

Now, I love FTR and 2p2, and they've been an invaluable help to me as a player, but you can't just take everything you read on the forums at face value. No matter who says it. It's usually oversimplified and ignores numerous factors. It's up to you to evaluate everything you read and apply it to your own situation.

100% Surprisingly a lot of people don't get this.

Good luck, Mcat, I hope 2009 is even better for you than '08 was. I especially like your point about not listening to whoever says whatever that "proves" this game is the one you should play. I like poker for different reasons that you or anyone else. It's good to realize that I should play in games that I enjoy, not conforming to what others think. A good thought for the new year, thanks. Best wishes.

awesome, great job meatdog!

Great to see this was a success, hope you're having a nice break from poker and good luck next year!