FeARFaCTs Poker Blog

I finally figured out most of what I was doing wrong and have been playing a very solid game. I've never been able to play 12 boards with much success yet lately I've been 20 boarding at a rate of 10bb/100 over the last 11,000 hands. Playing so many boards at once is forcing me to play more solid hands and less garbage. I used to call raises a lot with suited connectors, hoping to break them. In reality, these plays at this lower limit just made me a losing player. I've been playing 9% of my hands and raising about 5%. I'd like to play 10 or 11%, but as long as I'm winning I won't complain.

This is one of the mistakes I made early on in my session. I really wasn't sure what type of hand just over shoves the turn, and since this player was wild I decided to call off. In retrospect this wasn't the greatest spot to call but I've also seen players make this play with weak holdings. I didn't know a lot about this player but he had been playing wild at the time.

Looks like a cooler but maybe it's not. I know this player has a huge range preflop, but I also feel like he doesn't just stack off with nothing. He could have had a set or goofy two pair here, or maybe he was just shoving a draw. It's interesting to think about, even though I did have a monster on the turn. After making the call I figured I could have folded if I was only putting him on a set or better, which is what I felt he had. Either way I still was drawing to the nut flush and had boat opportunities as well.

This is my only other major mistake of the session, and I really had the opportunity to be let off easy here. The way the whole hand was played turned out strange on the river. I did a goofy minraise to try and extract more value, and then he came back over me again with a min raise. I really did not know what hands he could possibly have here and thought about it for a while. This would have been a good spot to just call because I dont think many, if any hands I beat min raise me here and then call a re-raise I would make. Turns out he slow played QQ preflop, and hit a monster on the turn. I think my play was ok right up until I made the 4th bet on the river, I should have just called his 3 bet and left it at that.

This took place a few hands after the first one I posted and made for some great revenge. Again, this was a wild player, yet I didn't think he had the flush on me on the turn. I hit my gin card and fired out again, figuring I'd stack off any decent hand he would be holding. If he had a flush here he would have won a big pot, but the way it played it, I felt it was more likely for him to be holding a hand that hit the flop and not a draw.

The first of hopefully many interesting hands to be played at this limit. I've been making great value on limping and re-raising AA/KK, or just raising hard from the blinds. Most of the time I don't get credit for my holding and take down a huge pot. This hand turned out to be interesting with the Ace hitting the flop and me being out of position. This player was very wild and I opted to check and evaluate his action. He was very aggressive so him checking behind me didn't seem likely if he held an Ace. The turn didn't change much and I checked again to evaluate his action. Again, his check seemed really strange with how aggressive he was and I didn't feel like he was slow playing an Ace by any means. If he were to be holding an Ace here he would most likely have AQ or AJ, and I feel like he'd want to protect his hand and bet it on one of these streets. The river was a blank and I value bet 20 in hopes of having something like TT-QQ call me here. He basically instantly shoved and I didn't think too long before I gave him a call. I figured if he showed me A6 or something here he could have my stack, but most likely he was shoving with a lower pocket pair.

Another wild player, we had no history going into this hand, but the way he played it really seemed like he was making a play at the pot. He insta bet all three streets which really represents a play at the pot rather than a premium holding from this weaker player. I called almost immediately on the river and was happy to see Ace high.

Another thing i've been doing which has been working great is raising hard from the blinds with stronger holdings. A lot of times players limp weak and then feel it necessary to defend their weak holding against my raise. I was outflopped here obvoiusly, but made a standard continuation bet and was only called. Had I been raised I would have been done with the hand. Hitting my card on the turn I figured I was good, but this player was very aggressive so I decided to check and let him bet the street for me. I felt like if he had a Jack or lower pair he would fold if I led the turn, but would bet if I checked. The river was a blank but again I wanted to give him a spot to bluff off on the river, so I checked again and he fired out hard with $40.

I finally had a decent day. I played two sessions of about 3,000 hands each. The first one was on 16 boards and I finished up a buyin, the second was on 20 boards and i finished up another 3.5 buyins. Although my win rate wasn't amazing, at least I'm getting back on track. I will continue to play 20 boards for a while at 100nl and see how well I do.

Obviously not the best spot to get my money in. I suppose I could have folded preflop to avoid this spot, but how often does this actually happen anyways? I do view this hand as a mistake, but at least I wasn't completely off the wall here.

This was really the only huge mistake I made all night, which cost me about a buyin. Again with AK here. I feel like I overvalued the hand in these last two spots, even though I've been really paying attention to how I play this hand lately. Again, I could have folded preflop to avoid the spot, but the player who 3 bet was also somewhat of a maniac and I was getting frustrated with his raises. This hand took place early on in the session so perhaps I wasn't in the proper mindset yet, but I just felt like pushing becuase I thought there was a chance he had air.

Not sure exactly how I feel about this one. This hand was at a PL table where the play is much weaker than regular boards. I commonly find players calling off full stacks with nothing. I really didn't put him on much of a hand throughout the hand, which may have been tough to do since he had nothing on the flop anyways. His river bet seemed like a weakish blocking bet. I could have called but I really felt I had him beat and was putting him on Tx. I figure this player still calls off with top pair here and decided to shove as opposed to calling.

This hand was obviously bad luck on my part, but I showed it to display what line I was thinking in the previous hand. It was a similar spot, and the player bet out smallish as a semi bluff/blocking bet to try and force me to either fold or call, as opposed to betting more. I realized what he was doing in this spot and put him in when I was ahead, just ended up a loser.

Another hiccup in my session. I don't view this play as terrible though. I wasn't sure what exactly to put this player on, but I definitly wasn't putting him on a big flush. He ended up having the K high flush which suprised me since I thought he'd be much lower. Even though he was this strong, he still timebanked his decision, I don't know if he was considering raising but I doubt it. I feel like if he was just a bit lower in his strength here he would have tossed it.

This player was incredibly weak, I played the hand ok in my opinion. I was really putting him on something like TT here and value bet my AJ down. To my suprise he ended up having 55 and taking the pot down.

Very interesting hand. Rarely do I get bluffed off a big hand such as this, although in this spot I just instantly folded my spot when he shoved. I really had no information on this guy and more than 9 times out of 10 I'm crushed in this spot. As I try to peice the hand together from his point of view, I guess the hand he put me on was something like KK, although at the time I felt like he could have seen me having AK as well, which lead me to believe he had a flush or boat here. I think it was a really interesting hand and I'd like to hear what others think about it. The toughest part in my decision is not knowing anything about this player. In the future this spot would be much different knowing that he has the capability to shove air.

I almost thought he was going to flip over quads here he called so fast. It seeemed like I was getting no respect all night with my bets, and it payed off in hands such as this where I stack TPTK with a set.

This is another very interesting hand from my session, and possibly very misplayed on my part. It was hard to peice this together as it was happening since I was playing so many boards, but this player called a huge re-reriase on my part when I had been playing faily tight. Over the last few sessions, everytime this has happened I seem to run into AA. Keeping this in mind, I proceeded to play the hand very cautiously. The flop wasn't great and I was out of position 3way, but these players also had wide ranges of hands here and I felt like I still needed to protect my hand. If either were to raise allin I would have probably folded, but I also felt like they could have been holding very marginal hands as well. When the first player called my bet I wasn't liking my hand too much. It really looked like he had AA or QQ in this spot. I checked the turn and decided to evaluate his action. The turn card paired the lower card, so it helped both of his holdings of AA or QQ in this situation, and he had no need to bet the turn to protect his hand. Keeping this in mind, I decided to check again on the river and evaluate his action. To my suprise he acutally flopped an open ended draw, and I had given him a free card no the turn. I'd really like to know how others would play this hand out because it really seems like I made a huge mistake here checking on the turn. But then again, with how the hand appeared to be playing out, I really felt like I was up against AA or QQ.

This was a limped pot and ended up being blind vs. blind. What really confused me is that the seemingly weak player in the small blind overbet the flop so much in a limped pot. It really led me to think he had a weak two pair or maybe TPTK that he was trying to protect by betting everyone else out of the pot. With this in mind i reraise my hand and was faced by another smallish reraise by him. His reraise really made it seem like he thought he had the best hand, but keeping in mind how he played the flop and how weak of a player he was, I really thought he had a weaker two pair here and not a set and just decided to put him in.

This hand coincidently occured right after my hand where I was bluffed off my AK by QQ in that huge reraise shove. I'm not sure if this affected my decision or not, but his play really seemed fishy here. To my benefit, I was pretty sure he didn't have an ace here since I did not put him on AK and he couldn't have been drawing to an ace high flush since the ace of clubs was on the board. I also had the next two highest flush cards, so if he was drawing to a flush it would have had to been lower cards which did not pair with any of the higher cards. I didn't feel like this player would shove a goofy two pair here, and I wasn't putting him on a set. I decided there was a good chance he was shoving his last bit of chips at me with a weak holding and called him off.

Althought I posted mostly losing hands in this winning session, most of my wins were trivial and not worth posting. I had a few AA vs KK and QQ where I made good money, or other spots where I had a monster and just check raised and bet hard on the river. I'm going to only try to post the more interesting hands in the future, and to me most of my mistakes are interesting to me, which usually result in a loss of the hand.

Well I have a pretty killer cold so thats cool. I've been playing a bunch lately just haven't made an update yet. Today I played 15 boards at once and ended up a buyin over 3,000 hands. I was up more but kept running into slow played aces. In other news, I added some php functionality to my blog. It automatically displays the most current date now on the main page, and I have the archives links working as well. I haven't automated those yet but i'll take care of that next. Anyways on to poker, this update covers 6,000 hands and a profit of .5 buyins (ouch).

I've been getting into a lot of these tricky spots lately and I keep getting the losing end of it. I made a squeeze type of re-raise here and was cold called by a deeper stack. My thinking is that maybe they are AK in this spot and I shouldn't give him a free card, but this has happened at least three times lately and I'm up against KK or AA every time. I think I'm just check folding from now on but that seems weak.

This happened just earlier today. Same type of situation just no flop. I don't know if this is the incorrect play here or what. Obviously I have the shove beat so I call here all day, but on the other hand I'm in an awful position to the full stack who called behind me. I guess it depends how well I know the player to make this shove. I'm only invested a few dollars in this spot so I suppose it's not awful to fold, but again folding seems weak.

I think I got too tricky here calling this shove. I had been playing aggressive and raising a lot, so I was thinking he'd play back at me with a wider range. However even vs. a draw in this spot I'm not much of a favorite, I could have bet less on the flop and folded to a shove.

I played this like a goof and a half. Regardless if I put in the extra raise preflop or if I played it the way I did, I was going broke.

Typical play I make once I start getting tired. I shove because I so badly want to win even though my hand is relatively week in this spot. At least I was smart enough to get off right after this hand.

Another hand I got too tricky with. Again I probably go broke even if I put in another raise preflop, but this one I could have possibly avoided. I stuck my money in on a terrible board.

This was just a weak river call. He called my third raise so quickly on the flop that I had to put him on a draw. The turn and river hit every possible hand he could be holding. His river bet was so small though that he really didn't profit from hit his implied odds which is part of the reason why I called. On the other hand, I only beat a pure bluff so why even bother?

I do like the way I played this one. We had a previous hand where I took a stab on the turn and then check folded the river to a shove. I tried to play this hand the same exact way and it paid off. I wasn't expecting his river call but luckily he 2 paired up on the turn.

At first I though I played this hand well, but later I am starting to think I just got lucky. If he does this with bottom 2 pair then obviously he would do this with anything stronger. I think bottom 2 is the only hand in his range that I acutally beat in this spot.

I had no real exciting wins in this session. 100nl is a pretty standard boring abc type of limit anyways, so I probably won't have any great hands until I start moving up again. My goals now are to progress to playing 24 tables at once. Today I played 15 and chatting on aim with no problems. I'm sure I can play 24 as long as I can get my game down more solid.

I'm not neglecting from playing, just been really busy finishing some final projects for my web design class and working on a few business websites. Everything will be finished tonight and I should be able to put in some major sessions tomorrow. You can see the progress of my new sites here:

Well I'm still not playing perfect but I've had some real sick setups it seems like over the last few days. I'm starting to break even more and getting back into the groove of things but it's been a struggle.

I don't even know. Maybe I'm at fault for calling the shove but the player is a maniac and I feel like I'm against trash half the time in this spot.

This is probably the worst call ever.

Of course.

This was more interesting. This player had been down about three to four buyins in under 100 hands and was a total maniac. I was hoping to hit any pair and get it in on the flop basically. I have seen this player shove on bluffs in the few prior hands and not call with nothing as much, so I was debating how exactly to play the hand to make sure he got his money in. He never shoved on the flop but it got to the point where there was too much money in already to mess around any more. Luckily he called off wtih nothing anyways.

Here's me tilting and getting lucky.

My next few sessions should be strong, I'm starting to isolate raise more preflop and I'm double barreling less since players at this lower limit don't fold as much. On the flip side, i'm value betting a bit more lightly to extract more value off of calling stations.

I don't feel like I'm playing with the same drive that I used to, or I just suck, but I'm not making much progress. I've been up and down the last few days and am down a few buyins right now. I think I'm playing more solid but keep having some really bad hands where I give a lot back.

I didn't really want to go in on this but got talked into it I guess. I don't know how often top 2 is good vs this shove here.

Kind of a cooler but maybe I could have just called with position. This guy was overly aggressive and raising a ton so I gave him a wide range.

Not much to say about this.

Hands like these I don't know how to play optimally. He has a wide range here so I reraise but I usually get into trouble playing these hands oop. I don't know what the correct line is here vs a loose short stack, but I can't see how I'm possibly good when he shoves the dry board so I pitched it.

Another overly aggressive player. I think calling his raise is fine here since I see a lot of players do this with big pairs. His flop lead is so weak it leads me to believe he's AK so I opt for a reraise, but apparently he did have the big pair here and pushed me off my hand.