Yeah, I know, one can only say these things when things are going all right, but believe me, my April was not stellar. But because I moved waaaay down in stakes and had a comfortable bankroll, I didn’t worry about the bad beats, I wasn’t nervous, I even enjoyed the berating, lol. I was listening to the most recent 2+2 pokercast #70 (linky) and there Poker Bob was talking about having a bankroll for your comfort. Hey, you know you can win at this game, the bankroll is like a little angel telling you it’s gonna be all right.

And then, all of the sudden, the upswing happens… I’ve had a lot of luck the last few days. Because I don’t like listening to people telling their bad beats, let me tell you a hand I played really stupidly yesterday, so that if you ever caught me whining, then you can point to that hand.

6max 1/2 LHE, (reads: SB impatient, bluffer; BB: fishy, waits till turn with 2pr, sets)

Hero is CO with T8hh, 2 folds, Hero raises, BTN folds, SB folds, BB calls

Flop (2 players, 4.5 SB): 256r (no heart)

BB bets, Hero raises, BB calls

(So I was multitabling and didn’t even see the donk, so I just cbet in my mind, when the BB called, I was like
“oh s***”)

Turn (2 players 4.25 BB): 3something

BB checks, Hero bets, BB calls

A straight would raise, right, easy, b/f line to keep up with what now is a stupid bluff, but the only way to represent the hand

River (2 players, 6.25 BB): 8something

BB checks, Hero bets, BB calls

Gotta value bet TP and again fold to a raise.

BB has A6, Hero wins with a pair of 8s.

Expecting to hear a tirade of insults… nothing came. Boy, I am having good luck!

A few more notes:

- cashed out 2 days ago, have ~1100$ on PS now

- Some guy sat me out at 2/4 HUHU after folding his SB. We had a 5 minute chat afterwards. Always an ego boost, but strange…

- Playing 1/2 on PS to BR buildup, to see if I can make it eventually to 10/20 again

- Dreaming about Event #14 at WSOP, anybody else?

This past weekend, I played twelve hours to cash for a whopping $150 profit in the Venetian PLO event, but it was worth it because I managed to figure a few things out.

1.  If the tournament is structured like a typical hold’em tourney or stacks aren’t deep enough (you should get substantially more starting chips in a PLO tournament than in a hold’em event) then you pretty much have to win your first pot to have a decent chance at going deep.

2. If you’ve got chips, calling raises from tight players is very profitable.  Any time during the early and middle stages of a tournament when you’ve got good position and you think someone is raising with a big pair, call them with a very wide range of hands, because they will inevitably overplay their hand.  You can knock them out with as little as two pair or float them on the flop and steal after they fire a second bullet on the turn.  People over play aces much more often in tournaments than they do in cash games.

If someone else has already called the raise, you should narrow your calling range substantially unless you have low cards, like 7654.  If there are one or more callers and you have a hand like this, go ahead and play the hand because you know a lot of the high cards are out already and are therefore less likely to flop.

3.  It’s okay to bet big wraps with position, but better to play them slow out of position.  I unfortunately built a couple of really big pots by leading out with 12-16 card draws from early position, only to have them not come in.  You can, and often should, weather this in a cash game, but in a tournament, where chip retention is just as important as stack building, it can be disastrous.

4.  Changing your style of play based on your table is even more important  than it is in hold’em tournaments.  The guys at my first table liked to see cheap flops, so I potted preflop any time there were three limpers ahead of me, and I won several hands without ever being contested.  Later, I had a much more aggressive table, so I waited for good hands and limp-reraised preflop (Rolf Slotboom style) more often instead. People seem to be less suspicious of late position raises in PLO tourneys than they are in hold’em events, so depending on your table, you might be able to take advantage of this as well.

I know none of this is earth shattering, but hopefully it will inspire someone out there who does know a thing or two about PLO tourneys to do some writing on the subject.

I almost never play MTTs. Now that I think about it, I had never played an MTT until the PokerRoad freeroll this Saturday. I cashed for $.30 and it was the most fun $.30 I have ever won. If I had won my bustout hand I would have been top 10 in chips with 47 players remaining (started with almost 600). UTG limped for 600, UTG+1, raised to 2400. I had about 9000 left on the button and shoved with AQo. UTG folded, UTG+1 timebanked before calling with KQ. He turned a king and my tourney was done. MTTs are way more fun than cash games. The reason I have never played MTTs is because I think cash games are more profitable, particularly at the micro stakes level. Having played one, I realize how much more fun they actually are. Maybe more MTTs are in my future.

Now to the SNG conundrum. I never play them, but I was killing time on Sunday so I anted up for a one-table SNG. All was going well and we were down to four players. I was second in chips with the chip leader to my immediate left (he had about half the chips in play). He had been very aggressive, calling every preflop raise out of position and proceeding to bet out at every flop. My bustout hand occurred with the blinds at 50-100. The shortstack had 870 and seemed content to just wait for a hand or for another player to make a mistake for him to squeeze into the money. I was more than happy to oblige with a mistake of my own.

I was on the button with AJo and raised to 300. The chip leader called and we went heads up to the flop, which came K32 rainbow. Villain bet out 400, like he was doing every single time he was in a pot out of position. I didn’t give him credit for much of a hand, so I shipped in my last 3400, figuring I would be committed to the pot if I made a standard raise. He eventually called with KT (the one time I play back he wakes up with a hand). I don’t think I played the hand all that bad. I had to fight back eventually. But was it a good idea to make the play at this point, on the money bubble with a shortstack in imminent danger? Over the long term, it is probably better to just get into the money, but I don’t play a ton of SNGs and I wanted to take it down. I figured this play would give me the best chance to accumulate chips and eventually win. What is the general SNG strategy in a situation such as this? Should I have just waited for the shortstack to get all the money in and try to make a play after he either doubled up or got eliminated? Help on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

The leak I speak of deals with betting on the end when I miss a draw. Apparently, it’s pretty transparent when I miss a draw and am betting at the pot because it’s the only way I can win it. I do a pretty decent job of mixing up how I play my draws, sometimes playing them slow and straight forward while other times playing them extremely fast. This allows me to represent draws when I have monsters and get paid off when I normally would not have. However, I don’t do a good enough job of mixing up my play if my draws don’t connect. Recently, I have routinely been getting called down on the river pretty light when I bet a busted draw. It’s almost as if my opponents know when I’ve missed my draw (insert super-user joke here).

I think my problem is I am never willing to give up on a hand. Sometimes, the right play is to not bluff the river. I have to be aware of when my opponent puts me on a draw. If he tries to price me out at some point, he probably has a made hand. If I continue with the hand but the draws don’t come home and I bet a dry river, he’s probably calling me with any decent hand. I don’t know if any of that made sense but it’s pretty much how I have been analyzing these situations. It’s really an issue of what I have been representing the entire time, what my opponent puts me on, and whether or not I can get away with betting a missed draw when I need to be to win the pot.

The sick thing is I am pretty good about being on the opposite end of these situations. I can put a guy on a draw and if he bets on the end when he doesn’t connect, I can make the “hero” call with one pair or maybe a weak two pair. I have that part down. Now I need to work on not being the guy who gets hero called. How do I avoid making these bets so transparent? When is it correct to give up on a hand? When can I play a huge hand like a missed draw and get paid off light? So many questions! Hopefully it will clear itself up as time goes by.

By the way, spring break is fantastic. Not because I am on a beach or partying or anything like that. It’s because I don’t have to worry about classes. We are transitioning to Spring quarter at the U of O. Hence, no homework. I have been able to play a ton of hands. It was only in the last couple of days that I came to this revelation about betting missed draws on the river and how much I suck at it. So, thanks spring break! Thanks for helping me identify a serious issue with my game!