Some hands from my biggest winning session so far

I thought I would describe a couple of hands from my session last Monday.  Overall, the session went pretty well.  I got pretty good cards and played well overall.  In fact, I lost a $400 pot to a 2-outer on the river (bottom set vs. AA, all the money in on the turn, A on river, booo).  If I had won that pot, it would have been a $1400 session (if all the other hands played out the same that is...).

I did get lucky at one point on one of the deep tables with 45 of diamonds when I reraised a button raiser.  The flop came down 2-6-7 rainbow, I bet he called.  At this point, I thought his most likely hand was a medium pair of some sort that was an over pair to the board.  I was not sure I could get him to fold it.  On the turn, another 2 came out and it checked through.  This really shows the benefit of playing at deep tables, since most of the time on a 100BB table, my opponent would have had a pretty easy shove on the turn and I would not have gotten to see the river.  Thankfully, I did see the river, which was a pleasant 8.  I bet $80 into a $120 pot and my opponent paid me off with JJ.

One hand that I thought was played quite poorly by my opponent was the following, replayed from his perspective (i.e. I am the villain in this hand).

Hero raises to 3x the big blind in early position with AsKd at a 6-handed table.  The villain calls from the button, along with one player from the blinds.  The pot is 9.5bb.  The flop comes down KsQs8c.  Not too bad, but definitely not great.  There are a lot of possible draws on this board, plus if anyone has 88 or KQ, the hero's hand is in terrible shape.  BB checks, hero bets 5.5bb into the pot.  Villain raises to 18bb, the blind folds and the hero calls.  The turn is a 7s, completing the flush and giving the hero top pair and the nut flush draw.  He checks.  The villain bets 30bb into the ~46bb pot.  The hero check-raises all-in for another 50bb...

This hand was poorly played by the hero in several different ways.  Raising before the flop is obviously fine.  However, the hero's bet sizing on the flop is terrible.  If the villain or big blind have a good draw of some sort, this is not nearly big enough and the hero will be in a really awkward spot if any of several different cards come off on the turn.  Any spade, ace or 9 complete the obvious draws.  One of these cards will come off ~30% of the time on the next card.  Also this small bet size might induce bluff raises, which will put the hero in an awkward (although still profitable) spot.  A larger problem is if the hero choses to read any raise as a bluff, since he will never be able to fold in that circumstance.

When the hero gets raised on the flop, I think that calling is OK.  This is one of those awkward spots in NLHE where there are not really any great options since if you're behind, you're really behind and if you're ahead, you may be only marginally ahead and will be facing two more streets of betting when a large number of scare cards can come off and so making good decisions will be difficult.  At this point, I think that calling and waiting for a non-spade, non-straight card would be a reasonable approach to the hand.  However, the hero turns a card that seems like it might be good, but is in fact not: the 7s.  While this gives the hero an objectively stronger hand (he now has the nut flush draw to go with his top pair top kicker), it is in fact a terrible card.  He has gained some equity against sets and KQ, but is now drawing thin against flush draws that got there.  Also, he cannot expect hands that are ahead of him to fold.  Maaaaybe KQ folds here, but still unlikely.  

When the hero CRAI (check-raises all-in), he folds out the straight draw which was drawing really thin anyway and gets called by all better hands.  This is the exact opposite of what you want in either a value bet or a bluff since it does not fold out any better hands or get called by any worse hands.  Needless to say, the villain called with 88 and made quads on the river.  

Remember, Sir Meow says:  know why you make a bet.  Thinking "I have a good hand!" is not nearly good enough.  It is impossible to evaluate the "goodness" of your hand in a vacuum.  The strength of your hand always needs to be weighed against the strength of the hands your opponent could logically have in any given situation.

My biggest winning session so far!

I had a very successful $1/$2 session last night and logged my single largest win so far!  Up $1049.50!  More details to follow in a later post when I get the chance.

Another session

I played another $1/$2 session last night.  Cards did not fall my way and I was spewier pre-flop in a couple spots than was called for.  I also made one bad call down for about 60BB that could have been avoided.  I did fold a full house pretty early in the session and was shown to be right, which was cool.  Net for the session was down $430.  Booo.  I'll probably play again tonight, but more tables and less spewy.

Tried out $1/$2

I decided that I have been putting it off for long enough and dipped my toe into the $1/$2 pool tonight on a whim.  I played two tables for a few hours and ended up $276.90.  I would say that I played OK towards the end of the session, but made some questionable plays earlier in the session.  For the most part, I made bad calls where I really should be folding.  I would say that this cost me ~$300 tonight, so shame on me for being calling stationy.

Net result for January

Now that January is over, here are my results so far this year:

• 7 sessions (6 winning sessions)

• 15,171 hands

• Win rate of 8.05ptbb/100 hands

• +$2,446.30

Looking good to hit my goal of $20K so far.

I was disappointed that the hand that I posted on 2p2 didn't generate any decent discussion.  Oh well, I can't say I expected brilliance from the small stakes forum.

Sir Meow approves of the progress so far. Here he is hanging out with Adam at James' place:

An annoying hand

This hand annoyed me.  I think this is a good fold most of the time, since a good chunk of the time the villain has 67 exactly.  The main problem here is that I am not ahead of any of the villain's value flop 3-betting range, especially since he did not raise before the flop.  Still it sucks to fold bottom two.  Any comments guys?

Edit: posted the hand to 2+2:

Link

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($122.80)
Button ($34.65)
Hero (SB) ($436.30)
BB ($50)
UTG ($164.15)
MP ($149.10)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 4, 5

1 fold, MP calls $1, 1 fold, Button calls $1, Hero calls $0.50, BB checks

Flop: ($4) 4, 8, 5 (4 players)

Hero checks, BB checks, MP bets $4, Button calls $4, Hero raises to $18, 1 fold, MP raises to $32, 1 fold, Hero calls $14

Turn: ($72) Q (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $40, Hero folds

Total pot: $72 | Rake: $3

Bad ways to combat position

A very common situation in short-handed NLHE is playing from the blinds against an aggressive player opening from the button.  Something to keep in mind from the outset in these spots is that especially with deep stacks, the button has a BIG advantage.

  

Unless you have a very good read on your opponent (good enough to offset the positional disadvantage), you should often be just giving up your blinds, even if you have a hand that is ahead of the opening range of your opponent, especially hands that play poorly out of position.  A-2 offsuit is a good example of this.  A good opponent will be opening a very large portion of his range on the button.  Ace-high rates to be well ahead of this range and if there were only one round of betting, you would be crazy to fold it.  The problem is that ace-high hands (especially weak ace-high hands) are not very far ahead of any two cards and rarely make hands strong enough to profitably call down multiple streets of betting.

When put in this situation, many players at the stakes that I play start playing way too predictably.  They will call button opens with a pretty wide range of hands, only re-raising their very strong hands, and proceed to check-call down unless they make a really strong hand, in which case they will check-raise.  Often, they will play their draws passively and will try to bluff when they miss on the river.  Taking these sorts of lines is playing directly into the strength of being in position.  By that, I mean that the actions of the OOP player give up far too much information about the strength of their hand, which allows the player in position to make extremely well-informed decisions.  Because the player in position has so much more information, the player out of position is put into a guessing game.  "Is he betting because he knows that my range of hands here is weak or because he has a strong hand himself?"  "All the draws missed so he could be trying to bluff me off of middle-pair here with a missed draw, or he could be value-towning me with top pair...".

In addition, poor OOP players often go for ill-advised check-raises when they hit draws that they chased without proper odds.  Given that the amount of money that a pot-sized river bet can extract from the opponent is twice the amount that either player has put into the pot so far, missing river bets GREATLY reduces the profitability of OOP draws.  This same situation applies to good one pair hands like TPGK (top pair good kicker) or MPTK.  Furthermore, OOP players often bluff on the river when they miss, which allows the player in position to get a lot of value for their A-high/one pair hands.

These two hands illustrate these tendencies pretty clearly (even though I was raising from earlier position than the button)

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($43.60)
Button ($119.40)
SB ($386.70)
BB ($100)
Hero (UTG) ($205.25)
MP ($107.85)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, A

Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, CO calls $3, 1 fold, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($10) 8, 9, 8 (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $6, 1 fold, SB calls $6

Turn: ($22) 3 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($22) 9 (2 players)

SB bets $22, Hero calls $22

Total pot: $66 | Rake: $3

Results:

SB had J, 10 (two pair, nines and eights).
Hero had K, A (two pair, nines and eights).
Outcome: Hero won $63

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($212.25)
SB ($230.40)
BB ($120.20)
Hero (UTG) ($319.70)
MP ($200)


Preflop: Hero is UTG with 7, 5

Hero raises to $3, 2 folds, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($7) 5, 9, A (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $4, SB calls $4

Turn: ($15) 9 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($15) 3 (2 players)

SB bets $15, Hero calls $15

Total pot: $45 | Rake: $2.25

Results:

SB had 8, 3 (two pair, nines and threes).
Hero had 7, 5 (two pair, nines and fives).
Outcome: Hero won $42.75

Don't let yourself fall into playing this way.