My regular home-game. Buy in is 200, blinds are 1/2. There are some new players and it's a full ring game at the start, which develops into a 6-handed as people bust out.

My image is super-tight aggressive. Most of the players are LAG's, there are two good players in the game other than me, one TAG who's solid, one LP who's tricky. Other players of note is "Doyle", who's a super-LAG that's read one chapter of SS2 and came away with the wisdom "Go all-in if you have a draw", he likes to push and bluff and can do some good plays and some awful ones. There's also Mr Glue Sniffer who seems half retarded, he's hard to read to say the least.

Most pots are raised preflop, and most pots are multiway because of the many loose players.



99 in MP. UTG (LP) raises to 6xBB, there's one caller, then me, then another caller. Flop comes Qxx, UTG checks, MP bets, I fold. (UTG had TT, MP wins with QJ)

87s in LP, EP raises to 6xBB, two people call infront, I call, a blind calls. Flop misses me completely and I fold asap.

AA utg. I limp hoping that the Glue Sniffer will raise it (he raises a lot preflop), of course everyone limps. Flop comes KJT with two clubs (I don't have a club). SB bets 10 (pot is 12), BB calls, I call, Glue Sniffer goes all-in. Everyone folds, including me (he shows Q9 for flopped straight).

AJo in LP. Everyone folds to me, I raise to 6xBB, get one caller, flop comes rags, I bet pot and take it down.

AK in MP. UTG who is the other TAG raises 6xBB or so, EP calls, I flat call. Flop comes T high, utg checks, EP checks, I bet pot and take it down. LP says "JJ?" I say "Yes". Well, it was a good read from him since I'll probably have JJ more often than AK there.

AJo in MP. Everyone folds, I raise 6xBB, the tricky LP in BB calls. Flop is rags, he checks, I bet pot, he thinks forever and finally folds. He had a gutshot or something and was thinking whether he could have gotten me to fold, I figured him for something like that... probably would have folded to a big raise though.

T9s in LP. Everyone folds to me, I raise to 6xBB, "Doyle" who's on my immediate left and the button re-raises me 25 more. Everyone else folds. I count my chips, I have about 250 and figure he has about the same. I call. Flop comes J97 with one in my suit. Doyle goes all-in as soon as the third flop card hits. I correct him, pointing out that I am first to act, then I go all-in with my mid-pair, gut-shot and backdoor flush draw. I read his all-in as a bluff but I really don't want to check/call an all-in with such a weak holding. When he actually calls me I figure I misread and that I am behind to an over-pair, but he turns over KQs in the same suit as me. My hand holds up and I almost double up (turns out he has slightly less chips than I).

J8o in SB. Haven't had a playable hand in a while and decide to limp in with K8, flop misses completely and I fold. Other than a non.nut straight I don't know what I was hoping for when I decided to play this junk out of position.

75o in BB. Tricky player mini-raises in MP (I think this means medium/small pair or connectors), I decide to make a loose call. Flop misses completely, I check fold.

T9s in LP. Everyone folds to me so I raise it to 6xBB, tricky player in BB calls. Flop gives me top pair. Tricky player bets out 20 in the 25 pot, which he will do with nothing on a raggy flop to see if I have AK (both he and I know this). I flat call. Turn is a K and he checks, I bet 30, he reluctantly calls. River is a blank, he checks and I make a tiny valuebet of 10 which he calls with 77.

KTs utg. I decide to limp. Everyone assumes I have AA and limp behind. Flop comes T high, I bet small and take it down.


The whole night I didn't have a better hand than a pair after the flop. I didn't get very many good starting hands, one AA (which I folded), one AK... I think I had JJ once but I can't recall that hand so I left it out (it was three days ago). Still I left the game +320, which I am very happy about. I think I played excellent. I won 100% of my showdowns, valuebet my very marginal hand correctly, bluffed successfully with the help of my image and made one big play that really messed up the heads of my opponents (they couldn't believe I had T9s and went all-in like that).

The mistakes or marginal plays I made that I can think of are:
Limping with AA utg.
Calling the flop bet with AA.
Calling in SB with J8 (what do I expect to hit?)
Calling the mini-raise with 75o in BB

I need to come to your home games

Usually raises are anything from 2xBB to 15xBB, but two of the usual preflop-bombers weren't playing this time so it was a bit more reasonable. Even though the most common raise was 6xBB my selection is a bit biased since I won't play against 10+BB raises without QQ+. Against 6xBB I'll play more speculative hands.

AA - I actually considered folding the AA immediatly on the flop. I figured that against that many callers, on that flop, my AA are at best a slim favorite but most likely behind either two-pair or a straight. A bit weak/tight maybe but you get a much better feeling for those things live than on the net. Also, I didn't want to lose more money on an already misplayed hand.

TAG - The other TAG will check his monsters and will *usually* bet out with his missed AK. However, he considers me to be the best player of the group and doesn't want to play against me without values. Also, he knows that most of the time when I call a raise I will be looking for a set/over-pair on the flop. I think he played the hand well actually.

T9s - I know the T9s push WAS very aggressive to say the least. Thing is, my read said he was bluffing and he had been bullying the table. It was time to make a stand I thought. I suppose he could (should) have had an over-pair, and when he called me I thought he did, but I have to go with my read there. Consider me check/folding and him showing the bluff, that would have ment -EV for because of future tilt as well as letting him run over me.

T9s revisited - Normally I agree with you, but in this scenario I am pretty sure that this particular player won't bet again on the turn unless he can beat top-pair. I felt that I had a pretty good control of the hand and didn't want to increase to volatility(sp?).

J8o and 75o - You're right. I'm usually more disciplined. I figured I could call a *mini* raise with 75o though for the straight chance as well as the raiser *never* expecting me to call with that. I don't know... the pot odds are enticing.


Looking back at all the hands I can only see myself making maybe 20-30 more, by folding AA immediatly on the flop, valuebetting T9s a *tad* harder and folding the junk hands preflop. I'm usually pretty self critical, but this time I don't think I made any big mistakes and I feel I really managed to extricate close to the maximum amount of money possible, post flop. I'm wondering if I should loosen up for next time.

I really appreciate the feedback. I feel like I still have loads to improve with my live game.

Stone... don't get me wrong... I like the way you played the majority of the hands, and don't really see anything wrong w/ most of your hands, except for the push (which can be read-dependant... I just said that I probably wouldn't have done it...) and the 2 offsuit crap plays (which you already know was a patience thing...)...

With your TAG image, do you consider bluffing a little more...? Also, I have a real problem getting people to play w/ me at some of my games... So, I'll throw out a bluff now and again, and will show if I lose or win... For whatever reason, most of these guys play a "my balls are bigger than yours" game, and if you show em you bluffed em... that's at LEAST a couple guaranteed calls w/ crappy hands...

Actually I usually have no problems getting action on my good hands, people just refuse to believe it. I do bluff when the opportunity is right or when I have raised the pot preflop and miss, but I don't go out of my way to do it. If someone raises preflop and I call with SC's, I'm not going to try to bluff him out of the pot without hitting something.

A few games ago I called in LP with complete junk, K9o. Flop came T high, EP who is a loose player bet rather smallish, I raised it to 25 and he called. Turn is a rag, he checked. I felt I could push him off his hand (which I suspected was TP with a weak kicker or possibly 99) with a real bet so I bet 50 and he folded. I showed him my hand and said something along the lines of "I never get any action when I have the immortal nuts of K high!" taunting him. Why? Because he *used* to call me down with Top Pair all the way to the river, but I had noticed that he had started laying down his hands much more frequently against me. Now he's back to calling and chasing, giving me much more value

It's enough to show these people one bluff in 20 playes to make them chase you the other 19.