I am happy to say that something has finally clicked here on my end and I am starting to play better, probably better than I ever have before. I have turned into “that player.” You know the one, it’s the player that you really don’t want at your table. I have been playing a semi-LAG style now and I think I have finally gotten the hang of it. My VPIP has climbed up to about 30% and my PFR has been about 25% (6max NL cash.) I have become much more aggressive after the flop, raising my AF from 1.8 to about 3.5 or so. I am playing a style that is hard to counter. I am raising enough that you know I can’t have it every time, but not enough to know if this is the time to come after me or not.

How has this change come about? Well, I have really decided to work hard on my game. I have been reading a lot of posts over at the 2+2 forums, seeing how other people play their hands and just getting other people thoughts. This has helped me with the “standard line” type of play quite a bit. I was also contacted on the stox poker forums by Paul, another member who was looking for a study buddy. We now IM each other a couple times a week to talk about hands we have played and poker theory in general. It is a little difficult catching each other because he live in Australia and there is a 14 hour time difference so it seems like every time we chat one of us is eating breakfast and the other is getting ready for bed. It did feel pretty cool to get my first authentic “gday” though.

I have also been studying more videos over at Stoxpoker.com, really paying attention to how the instructors were playing. The thing I tried to work on most is reading hands. If I can put my opponent on a hand I can make a better guess about how hard it will be to make them fold. The videos have also helped me sell my bluffs better and identify boards where I should just give up. I am getting a much better read on my opponents and why I am getting called. This has really helped me on the river. I have been able to steal a lot of pots with hands like eight-high when I can put my opponent on something like a busted straight draw that might have me out high-carded. I am also getting better at bluffing scare cards on the river and sizing my bets to get my opponent to believe me. In general I have just been doing better at picking up on my opponents and what they are most likely to do.

The third thing that has helped me is Cash Plays with Bart Hanson. It is a podcast over on Pokerroad.com that is all about cash games (Short-Stacked Shamus’s review can be found here.) The thing that I have really gotten from this show is mixing up my play against opponents. I have been able to get reads on my opponents thoughts about my play and use it against them. Here is a good example of what I mean-

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

BB: $4.75 (19 bb)
Hero (CO): $25 (100 bb)
BTN: $18.90 (75.6 bb)
SB: $23.40 (93.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is CO with 6d 3d
Hero raises to $0.75, BTN folds, SB calls $0.65, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($2.25) 7h 7d 5h (3 players)
SB bets $1.50, BB folds, Hero calls $1.50

Turn: ($5.25) Qd (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $4, SB calls $4

River: ($13.25) 9c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Results: $13.25 pot ($0.65 rake)
SB showed Kc 5d (two pairs, Sevens and Fives) and won $12.60 ($6.35 net)
Hero mucked 6d 3d (a pair of Sevens) and lost (-$6.25 net)

OK, here I was just kinda lost so I shut down on the river. I don’t know if he was going to call me down with the 5′s or not if I fired the third barrel but I decided not to push it. Anyway, that hand led up to this one-
——————–
HAND #2
——————–

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

CO: $18.45 (73.8 bb)
BTN: $16.75 (67 bb)
SB: $26.15 (104.6 bb)
Hero (BB): $25 (100 bb)
UTG: $17.05 (68.2 bb)
MP: $24.65 (98.6 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with Jh As
UTG folds, MP calls $0.25, CO folds, BTN calls $0.25, SB folds, Hero raises to $1.50, MP calls $1.25, BTN calls $1.25

Flop: ($4.60) Ah 4h 8d (3 players)
Hero bets $2.25, MP calls $2.25, BTN folds

Turn: ($9.10) 9s (2 players)
Hero checks, MP checks

River: ($9.10) 9c (2 players)
Hero bets $7.50, MP calls $7.50

Results: $24.10 pot ($1.15 rake)
Hero showed Jh As (two pairs, Aces and Nines) and won $22.95 ($11.70 net)
MP mucked Js 8s (two pairs, Nines and Eights) and lost (-$11.25 net)

I was trying to go for a check-raise on the turn but he didn’t bet for me. I decided to make a good size value bet on the river and he snap-called me with a pair of eights. I knew he thought I was full of crap and I used that to take him to valuetown. Overall I am just much more aware of the flow of the table and I am playing much better. I am hoping this swing is really over and I have learned my lesson. Only time will tell.

Since that time she has been the center of several poker dramas and has been linked to several well known poker pros including Gus Hansen, Mark Newhouse, Dustin Woolf, “Captain” Tom Franklin, and even David Sklansky to name a few.  Some of the threads on 2+2 have reached over 100 pages.

I was just over on 2+2 checking out the N.V.G. forum when I came across this thread.  Apparently she committed suicide this past Sunday.  It’s just sad to see that she didn’t get the help she needed while she was alive.  I think she was bi-polar but I am not sure.  Whatever it was got the best of her.  The more you think about it, the sadder it gets.

This week I was helping another player get started playing Omaha hi/lo split. He wanted to know what kind of starting hands you can play. I gave him the normal “stick with A2 and A3 and maybe some 23 hands” advice to keep him out of trouble while he learns. I also warned him how tricky high only hands can be to play. I used this hand as an example-

Let’s say you have ♣ar♦♠ K♦ K♥ Q♦ J♣ /♣ar♦♠ on t♥e button in a pot-limit Oma♥a ♥i/lo game. It get♠ limpe♦ aroun♦ to you ♠o you ♣all. Even if you flop a King ♥ere you may not want to put a lot of money in t♥e pot. If t♥e flop ♣ome♠ ♣ar♦♠ K♠ 4♠ 5♥ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ ♠omebo♦y bet♠ pot in front of you, you ♣oul♦ be in big trouble. If you re-pot it wit♥ your top ♠et to “♣♥arge t♥e ♦raw♠” your opponent ♣oul♦ move all-in on you an♦ you woul♦ ♥ave to ♣all. Now ♥e turn♠ over ♣ar♦♠ A♠ 2♦ 3♠ 6♥ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ even t♥oug♥ you ♥ave t♥e be♠t ♥an♦, you are way be♥in♦. He ♥a♠ t♥e 16 ♣ar♦ wrap ♦raw plu♠ t♥e ♣ar♦♠ Q♠ J♠ T♠ 9♠ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ t♥e ♣ar♦♠ 8♠ /♣ar♦♠ for the flush which gives him 21 outs twice to beat your high AND if he hits one of the 17 cards that also give him a low your full house redraw will only be good for a chop.

Of course his response was “What’s a wrap?” Well, a wrap is one of the coolest parts of playing Omaha. In Hold’em you have gutshot straight draws, double gutshot straight draws, and open ended straight draws, and you will either have four outs or eight outs to make your straight. With the two extra hole cards you get in Omaha the straight draws can get huge and are often referred to as “wraps.”

In the example hand the villain holds A236 on a K45 flop. He has 16 cards he can catch that will complete his straight. Specifically he has three Aces, three Deuces, three Treys, three Sixes, and four Sevens here to make his straight. Once you add in the flush possibilities the “drawing hand” actually has a slight equity edge (about 53% to 47%) over the set of Kings for the high half of the pot. This is what you will see a lot in PLO when the money goes in on the flop, a monster draw vs a made hand. Once you add in the fact that the low will come in about 75% of the time as well you can see just how bad the Kings got their money in on this one.

All wraps are not created equal. Even though some wraps have more cards that can complete them, sometimes you are better off with less cards to draw to. I know it sounds counterintuitive to say you would want less outs, but you have to look at the situation and remember this is Omaha. Let’s look at a specific Omaha Hi only hand. Player one has ♣ar♦♠ 4♣ 5♥ 8♠ 9♦ /♣ar♦♠ on a flop of ♣ar♦♠ 6♠ 7♥ K♦ /♣ar♦♠ . T♥i♠ i♠ t♥e “Maine to Spain” wrap ♦raw. T♥ere are 20 ♣ar♦♠ t♥at will ♣omplete player one’♠ ♠traig♥t ♦raw. He ♥a♠ four ea♣♥ of t♥e Trey♠ an♦ Ten♠, an♦ t♥ree ea♣♥ of t♥e Four♠, Five♠, Eig♥t♠, an♦ Nine♠ ♠o t♥at i♠ 20 out♠, rig♥t? Well, it ♦epen♦♠. T♥i♠ i♠ Oma♥a, an♦ t♥e ♠e♣on♦ be♠t ♥an♦ ♣an lo♠e a lot of money. Let’♠ ♠ay player two ♥a♠ ♣ar♦♠ 8♦ 9♦ T♠ A♠ /♣ar♦♠ which would give him a 13 card straight draw and a couple of back door flush draws. So would you rather have 20 outs or 13?

Player two is in a dominating position here. Even though he has less “outs”, all of them are to the nuts. Player one can only win this pot outright with a Trey or a Four, which is only seven cards. He will tie player two with a Five or a Ten, and he will make a straight and lose if he hits an Eight or Nine. Player two will also win with a Jack or running diamonds or spades. If you run this hand through a card calculator, player one with his 20 card wrap will only win about 20% of the time and he will tie about 23% of the time. Player two will win the entire pot almost 56% of the time here, even though he has less outs. You have to remember that Omaha is a game of the nuts, and the more draws you have to them, the better. In this case 13 is indeed greater than 20.

PLO is a fasintating game and a nice change of pace from Hold’em, but you really have to pay attention to what you are doing. It can be tough to keep up with everything going on and all the possible hands you could be up against. Wraps are one of the things new players often miss and it can really get expensive to learn while you are playing. If you would like to get a head start I would recomend Jeff Hwang’s book- Pot-Limit Omaha Poker. He really does a good job of explaining wraps and what hands to look for when you are considering playing a big pot and which hands might look good but are better off in the muck.

Well, that is it for now. Good luck at the tables, and don’t forget the Chipotle

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the table. Over the last couple of years it has become harder and harder for me to block out enough time to play a tournament. It seemed like if I wanted to play a tournament I had two choices, ignore my wife and son for four to six hours on a Saturday or Sunday, or wait for them to go to bed and stay up all night if I managed to go deep and feel like crap the next day from sleep deprivation. In that time I also bought a wireless card for my laptop so I could connect to the Internet using the cellular phone network while I am out here on the road. It is pretty cool, but there are a few minor problems with it. It can be brutally slow at times, it also has a tendency to disconnect if the signal gets weak. Anyone who has ever been disconnected during a tourney knows how bad this can be, especially late when the blinds get high and the chip leader has an M of about 8. I also decided I wanted to become the best player I could be, and everything I had read and heard said it was much easier for a good cash game player to become a good tournament player than the other way around. It was time for a change.

All of these things just seemed to push me until I ended up at the cash tables. I have now played thousands and thousands of cash hands now and I am so glad I made the change. The time flexibility was really what I needed. I can play whenever I find the time, and if my family needs me for something they only have to wait for the big blind to come back around to me. I can pick up and go while I am out here on the road which lets me play a lot more. Disconnections aren’t as big of a deal now so the most I can lose is whatever I have in the pot when I cut out. It has really let me play a lot more poker than before and I think I am a much better player than I would have been if I had stuck with tournaments.

I now also have to agree with the quote that I started this post with, tournament poker isn’t real poker…It looks a lot like it but its not the same thing. I still play the occasional tourney every now and then, but it seems like after an hour or so I am questioning why I even decided to play. After playing deep-stacked cash games for so long now tournament poker just seems very limited to me. It almost feels like when you get a trial version of a software program. Want to print your document? You gotta pay for the full version. Want to play a turn and a river? You gotta play a cash game. It just seems like everything is push push push. There just isn’t room to be creative. I like to make plays, leverage my position and float people’s continuation bets and take pots away on the turn when they give up. I want to be able to represent a hand that I don’t have and be able to fold when it doesn’t work. And above all else, I want to be able to take that two-outer in stride and click the little dealer box and buy back in for 100 blinds. You just can’t do that in a tourney.

I’ll give you one hand to illustrate my frustration. Last week I was playing the AIPS tourney and it was right around time for the first break. The blinds are 50-100 and I have a 3000 chip stack, so I am doing OK. A player with 2500 chips raises to 300 from middle position and I am in the hijack seat with pocket Queens. I make a re-raise to 900 and it folds back around to the original raiser who just calls. I really wasn’t expecting that, I figured it was push or fold but whatever he wants to do is fine with me. The flop is a nine-high rainbow and my opponent checks to me. The pot is almost 2000 chips which is bigger more than either of us have left in our stacks so I move all-in. My opponent folds and I pick up a nice pot.

So what is the problem? I had no choice but to push. Any bet I made would have committed my opponent here so I applied maximum pressure. If this were a cash game and we were 100 blinds deep I could have done a lot of things. I could bet half pot here and try to get some value. I could check behind to induce a worse hand to bet into me on the turn. If I bet and he check-raises me I can get away from the hand. After all of these we get to play the turn and the river too, which makes it infinitely more interesting. Too often in a tournament the turn and river (and even the flop) are not really played, they are simply there to see who gets lucky and who goes home.

In the end, I think it all boils down to this- tournament poker has less decisions to make than cash poker, and with all the resources available to players they are getting better at making them correctly. When everyone is playing well, the skill is somewhat negated and the luck factor goes up. The more streets that are actually played, the more skill is required and the chance that someone will make a mistake also goes up.

Maybe I should try the rebuy tournaments if I am going to play. The stacks are much deeper early on and the game actually plays more like real poker than a regular tournament, at least after the rebuy period is over. The bad beats still suck though because you can’t reach into your pocket for more chips. I don’t know, sometimes I wonder why I want to play this game that looks like poker when I know it isn’t really poker after all.

I have been able to beat $25 NL for about 8-10 PTBB’s/100 which is really good. I started wondering about how much value I was giving up by not making the move to $50 NL. The problem has been I don’t play the same way at the higher stakes. I start slinking back into my weak-tight shell and start folding way too much. I was afraid of losing the money. Then I got to thinking, I just lost a bundle on a game I am not even sure I am any good at, why should I be scared in a game I know I can play just because the stakes are doubled? Forget it, put me in the game.

I did a little table selection and found one that I liked and I bought in for the full $50. The average pot size was about $2 and the “players seeing flop” was about 20%. I know it doesn’t sound like a good table, but I really like these. Players for the most part are tight and passive and they don’t put you in many tough spots. I started off playing tight until I got a feel for the table and my got some numbers on the players in my HUD. Then I slowly opened up my game until I was playing close to my normal style. My VPIP has been around 20% which is a little low for me, but my PFR has been around 15% and my aggression factor has been around 6 to 8 depending on the street which is way high for me. I picked up so many pots by c-betting it was scary. I flat out ran them over. Maybe I can handle this after all.

So far I have played about eight hours at $50 NL and I am running just under 10 PTBB’s/100, even after stacking off with Aces against a super-nit who obviously had a set. I knew it deep down but I pushed anyway. I feel a lot more comfortable than before and I have finally got off the “micro” tag on Stars and moved all the way up to ”
low” stakes. Every little bit helps. I know this is a really small sample size, but I hope to keep it up like I did at $25 NL. Either way I have accomplished one of my goals I set for myself for this year. Now I only have 97 left to go ]]> http://www.pokersift.com/online-poker/moving-up/feed/ 0 http://www.pokersift.com/general-poker-articles/i-tilted/ http://www.pokersift.com/general-poker-articles/i-tilted/#comments Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:15:50 +0000 longclaw http://www.pokersift.com/poker-articles/i-tilted/ Hey all, It has been a little bit since my last post. I have been working my way back from the worst poker week in my life. In about three or four days of play I lost about 200 big bets ($400), which is almost 30% of my online roll. It started off with a bad run of luck which I then chose to compound with bad play. I think I won four of fourteen hands with Aces and Kings, and people were constantly calling my flop bets with overcards and spiking a six-outer on the turn or river. It seemed like I could not win a pot.

There was honestly nothing I could do. I was bound to lose money. The problem was that I lost control of my emotions and started playing like crap on top of it. I should have changed my screen name to impliedodds because that was what everyone was getting from me. I was doing very dumb stuff like calling down with second pair after getting check-raised on a four-liner straight board. I was past Caro’s threshold of misery or whatever he calls it, and I was calling just to see what beat me. I should have just quit, but instead I opened more tables trying to make up my losses which only compounded my troubles. I did everything that you are not supposed to do and I knew that I was doing it. Pure tilt, and I think I lost twice as much as I should have after it was all said and done.

Now I am not sure what to do. My confidence in my limit game is pretty low. It is not just the losses either, I can see the weak-tight rearing it’s ugly head again. I am not playing to win, I am playing to not lose. I am trying to work on it though. I have dropped down from $1-$2 to $.50-$1 for right now, and I have started playing some more NL and PLO. I think I am going to play some turbo SnG’s to get back my aggressiveness that I have lost.

I have managed to win about $100 back so far this week, but it has been a slow grind compared to how fast it went. I hope I can learn from all this and that is the reason for me writing all this. to help me figure out how it all happened and to hopefully keep myself from doing it again. I also hope this can help you when you start to feel the steam rising from the bad beats and cold decks. Remember the old saying- Don’t go throwing good money after bad.

Most of my regular play has been at the $1-$2 short handed limit tables at Pokerstars for about the last month or so but I have dabbled a little bit with some heads up play as well. Most times I will sit down at an empty table and wait for someone to show up and we get to play one on one for a little bit before another player shows up. When it gets to three handed it doesn’t take very long for the table to fill up and I have to leave and start the process all over again. I noticed last night that UB has a .05-.10 heads up limit hold’em table which looked perfect for my needs. The low stakes would keep me from burning through too much of my tiny roll while getting in some heads up hands and I wouldn’t have to worry about switching tables because nobody else could sit in.

I sat down at the empty table with $5 and waited for an opponent to show up, which took about five minutes or so. He got up about a dollar or so in about 20 hands and then he left the table. Hmmmm….. I didn’t think I would have to deal with a hit-and-run player at this level but I guess I was mistaken. I topped back up to $5 and waited for my next opponent. It took about five more minutes for someone to show, but when the first hand was dealt I knew right away that I was in for a completely different match. My first clue was that my opponent had chose to buy in for $10,000. Yes, he bought in for 100,000 big bets at a limit table. The second clue was the fact that he insta-raised my complete from the small blind, and insta-bet the flop. I found out pretty quickly that was the only action my opponent was taking. He bet every street, every hand, every chance he got. If I raised, he would re-raise until the betting was capped every time no matter what hand he had. It was the strangest thing I had seen at the tables in a long time.

I was not sure what he was doing but I decided to take advantage of it. I quickly adjusted my game to match this insane level of aggression I was facing. I started thinking about how good my hand was against a random hand because that was exactly what I was facing. It was pretty easy to start calling down with anything I though might have a chance of being good, which depending on the board drifted all the way down to about ten-high. Once I hit a pair there was no question, I was going to showdown.

My curiosity got the best of me so I typed in the chatbox “are you a bot?” He quickly responded with a “yes” and then said, “getting a little low, need to top up” and then he added another $3000 to his stack. This was just getting stranger every minute. I typed “what exactly are you doing?” He told me “winning monies” OK, so he isn’t a bot, but it still didn’t explain what the heck he was doing. We chatted back and forth some more but nothing changed about his play, every hand was still autobet/autoraise.

As the match went on, I tried to exploit my opponent to the best of my ability. My biggest decisions where what hands to fold preflop and what hands to push with. I started folding my weaker hands from the small blind and playing every hand from the big blind. Even though I had the button in the small blind, position was of no value in this game. It was simply a matter of odds. It cost two small bets to see the flop, so from the big blind I was getting 3 to 1 on my money every time. When I was in the small blind, I was getting just over even money so I had to really tighten up my hand range. When I did have a good hand I had to decide how much money I wanted to go in the pot on each street. I decided to jam with any decent top pair hand or better and reevaluate after each new street.

It worked out pretty well. I won about $8 off him in just over 80 hands which is a tremendous win rate. I am still trying to figure out what he was doing. Was he trying to clear a bonus? Surely there are better ways than to give away money. I don’t know if it has something to do with the new RAI$E promotion UB is doing or not. Maybe he was trying to throw off anybody data-mining him. I almost think he might have been a prop player trying to get in his daily hand requirements as quickly as possible. I don’t know. It just doesn’t make much sense. I was just happy to be there to take advantage of his generosity. He was giving away money, and I am a sucker for free stuff.

Playing more limit was an easy choice considering the training site I belong to has Nick Grudzien and Bryce Paradis, two of the best limit hold’em players in the world, making the videos. I have watched hours and hours of their play and it has been a tremendous learning experience. I have adopted a TAG style for limit now, my preflop raise has gone from about 5% to about 20% and my VPIP has gone from about 40% down to about 30% or so. I am also much more comfortable playing out of the blinds now which really helps considering they make up over a third of my total hands played. In limit you must defend your blinds much more than in no limit and this is even more important shorthanded. I have learned to use my opponents tendencies to put them on a range of hands. I can then take that range and use pokerstove to figure out how much equity my hand has against that range. It is so nice to know why to make a play rather than just looking at a chart saying play these hands from this position.

I have learned a lot, but I also have a lot to learn. One of the things stressed in the videos is to be aggressive. I have done a very good job of this, maybe too good. I have noticed a trend lately. It seems that I get up early in a session with brute force, raising preflop and then firing away whether I hit or not and getting a lot of folds. This works for a while but the longer I am there it seems the less pots I pick up unimproved. It seems that after a while I will raise from the button with a hand like ♣ar♦♠ A♠ J♠ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ get ♣alle♦ by t♥e big blin♦. T♥e flop ♣ome♠ ♣ar♦♠ q♥ 6♣ 4♠ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ t♥e big blin♦ ♣♥e♣k♠, I bet an♦ ♥e ♣all♠. T♥e turn i♠ t♥e ♣ar♦♠ t♠ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ we get t♥e ♠ame ♣♥e♣k-bet-♣all a♣tion. T♥e river i♠ ♠omet♥ing like ♣ar♦♠ 3♣ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ I fire t♥e t♥ir♦ bullet an♦ get ♣alle♦ ♦own by ♣ar♦♠ K♥ 6♥ /♣ar♦♠.

When it gets to this point I am kind of lost. I think I need to try to mix up my play and find a sweet spot where I don’t get called down as lightly. When I enter a hand my foot is on the pedal and I rarely slow down. This works for a bit but players get tired of it and start fighting back. I am going to really try to figure out what my opponents are calling me with on the flop. In the hand above there were no obvious draws so I have to think the big blind caught some kind of weak made hand or maybe he was hanging around with an overcard. I didn’t, I simply tried to represent a Queen and it didn’t work because I am always firing.

I need to find some balance in my play. Betting too often isn’t as bad a mistake as checking too often, but it is still exploitable. I still think that I should be c-betting the flop heads up almost every time I am the preflop raiser. What I need to work on is figuring out what hands my opponent could be calling with. I also need to keep my table image in mind while I am playing. I play so aggressive that even when I make a big hand like a set it doesn’t get shown down very often and even though I know I had a hand my opponents have no idea. They get curious, and curious opponents call you down. It only takes you getting caught three-barreling one time to ruin your image.

So what do I learn from all this? I need to work on my turn play for one. I am going to concentrate on narrowing my opponents possible hands down more given the information available. I am going to try to figure out which of my opponents are determined to call me down and take free cards on the turn when I am drawing and value bet them to death with my made hands. I am also going to keep an eye on how many hands I am winning without a showdown, and the higher that number gets the less semi-bluffing I am going to do. I am playing much better on the cheap streets, now I need to get to work on the expensive ones.

What does all this have to do with poker? Well, I only got in about 1100 hands for the entire month. I was pretty disappointed when I looked at my Pokertracker stats and saw how little I had played. Thankfully I ran hot (16.52PTBB/100) in the time I had and I was able to pad my bankroll a bit. I also watched a lot of videos from the training site I belong to. They offered me six months free if I would watch ten videos and write a summary of them for their redesigned video page. I took them up on it and ended up with eight videos of 6-max limit hold’em and a couple of NL videos. It got a little hard to describe the videos without repeating myself over and over but I made it through and I think I actually learned something about limit (formerly my weakest game) in the process.

February has started out much better as far as playing. I found a bonus offer waiting for me at Full Tilt when I checked my email yesterday so I guess I will be playing there for at least the next ten days. I normally don’t play much at Full Tilt because I don’t get rakeback there, but if they are going to give me free money I will take them up on it. The best way to clear a bonus at the stakes I play just happens to be limit poker, the pots are bigger on average than the no limit games which lets me clear bonus faster. I have already played about 550 hands since last night. I have found I can average about 100 hands per hour per table there. If my wife lets me use the 20″ monitor I think I can get in another 800-1000 hands tonight which would be awesome. I am datamining the tables right now so I will be good to go tonight.

Heres to grinding

I also noticed a more subtle change in my game. I seemed to be manipulating the pot size to a point where I could get my opponents to do what I wanted. There was one hand that really opened my eyes. I flopped bottom two pair in a four way limped pot out of the big blind on a ♣ar♦♠ q♦ 2♠ 3♣ /♣ar♦♠ boar♦. I le♦ out for a 3/4 pot ♠ize bet an♦ player w♥o limpe♦ in preflop min-rai♠e♦. It fol♦e♦ ba♣k aroun♦ to me an♦ I ma♦e a pot ♠ize 3-bet an♦ my opponent ♣alle♦. T♥e turn wa♠ t♥e ♣ar♦♠ 7♦ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ I le♦ for about 2/3 pot an♦ my opponent flat ♣alle♦ again. T♥e river wa♠ t♥e ♣ar♦♠ k♦ /♣ar♦♠ an♦ I bet 2/3 pot again, w♥i♣♥ wa♠ enoug♥ to put my opponent all-in an♦ ♥e ♣alle♦ an♦ ♠♥owe♦ ♣ar♦♠ q♠ t♦ /♣ar♦♠. I figured he had a weak Queen with his line on the flop and I was happy to see my read was correct.

When I looked back later I saw how I broke up my bets (especially the 3-bet on the flop instead of slowplaying) to build the pot over the course of the hand to make it easy for my opponent to call of his whole stack here. I guess I am kind of weird but a lot of times I make plays that are correct without knowing exactly why I am doing them. It is almost like my subconscious mind takes the lead and I have to catch up with it later. Anyway, back to the story. When I looked back at the hand I recognized the play from the books that I have read and from the videos I have watched from the training site I belong to, but this was the first time I really put it all together. I think my fellow blogger Murf72 was right on the money in this excellent post, Learning poker with matchsticks, when he wrote

“We can read poker books, discuss hands, watch videos, etc. but we don’t learn poker this way, what we learn here are the theories and ideas that form a base”

It is nice when you put in the hours of reading books and watching videos trying to learn your craft, followed up by more hours of actual play trying to apply these theorys and then it just sorta clicks and you go “That’s what everyone has been talking about!” Once you get it it seems so simple. Hopefully there will be many more of these moments where the poker light switch gets turned on this year. Thanks go out to Ed Miller and Kyle Hendon for helping to open my eyes on this one as well.