Well, it's been a long time since I've been able to line up some decent sessions, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I've been playing the last few days, and I've won a little towards the project.

$200 Total Stats
Table hours: 2
Hands: 130
Net: +$106

I've actually had a hard time getting seats at the 200 tables on occassion. I think the weekends are NOT as good for $200 and $400 games because you get a lot of tight players sitting around waiting to fleece the drunks. There may be a sweet spot with regards to times that it loosens up, but before midnight on Saturday (ET), it was mostly a rock garden with a few donkeys thrown in. Of course, when my seat came up, often one or two of the donkeys that made the game good were the player I was replacing.

i'm able to keep myself busy with some play on the 100s and 400s (non-project), but i really want to get over the hump with this.

Nice... I finally get time to play and my computer bitches out on me. It'll take at least two weeks to repair.

I'm very pissed off right now.

I'm thinking that maybe I can get some "summer" work done now and then just play poker pretty much non-stop once I get my computer back.

AAARRRGGGGHHH!!!!!

Well, time to update this rag.

Good new and bad news....

The good news is that the project tables are going quite well:

$200 Total Stats
Table hours: 3.75
Hands: 217
Net: +$342


The bad news is that I'm finding it incredibly difficult actually to get hands in at the proper tables. It seems like all of the good $200 tables have lists a mile long, and when seats open up, it's after all the fish have busted out and get replaced by rocks. No thank you. Since I'm on break now, I can start playing earlier and get on the tables before the lists get long, but it has been tough getting a good seat at a good $200 table so far.

So... I've been playing "non-project" tables mostly at the 100s and 400s. That leads us to more bad news. Over about 700 hands in a recent two-day span, I got cold-decked. Every coinflip (crooked in my favor or close to 50/50) that I got in resulted in a chop or me losing (got scooped four times). I realize that these kinds of results aren't that bad -- especially over a small number of hands -- but I haven't experienced this kind of bad luck against the donkeys in a while (maybe I should play more ). Anyway, I was able to chip away at small- and medium-sized pots during this cooler, so I only ended up down $500 rather than down $1000. My last session was a good one, so most of the losses have been made up.

I'm also going to change the criteria for moving up. The 400s are rarely that juicy, while the 1000s often are, so I'm going to give myself the option to buy in to a $1000 table for $500 if a good $400 table is not available. I was going to do this and announce the results after they happened (positive or negative), but that might look shady. Anyway, I think this is both a smart (+EV) and practical move.

Differences in the levels:

$100s

This is just a donkfest. You do get some nutpeddlers, but they are easy to play against. People are largely willing to get all their money in with marginal holdings, or they are so weak-tight that you can mow over them. I'm convinced that 20 ptbb/100 is sustainable at the 100s if you are playing your A-game (at up to three tables for me).

$200s

These tables are quite a bit tighter than the 100s, but you still have your occassional donkey. The problem is that most of the players are aiming to fleece the donkey, so the donkeys aren't really where you look to make your money.

One problem with these players is that they are too weak-tight, so you can mow over them with pf raises, CBs, and well-timed bets. You can't overdo it, or they'll figure out you're stealing, but if you understand a little about game theory, you can do well at these tables.

Another problem with these players is that they try to trap too much. When they flatcall a CB or a raise, you know they've got the goods or a draw to the nuts. When they make their hand and/or check a made hand to you, you can just check behind and draw to your low and/or a better high (e.g., if you have top set on a flush board). This is a HUGE mistake these guys make -- they are so used to getting paid off by uberaggro LAGs or donkeys that they don't realize that good players can put the trappers on a hand and won't put money in the pot when behind.

One of the juiciest weaknesses of the players at the 200s is that they have no understanding of position. They'll build big pots and have NO idea where they stand. When their draw doesn't come in on the turn, they often find themselves playing for most or all of their stack with one card to come and they really have no idea where they're at -- whether they fold or call, they've lost. There's an art to building pots, and these guys haven't figured it out.

Lastly, I think a lot of these players are not good at playing big hands (e.g., boat over boat) or marginal hands (e.g., second nut low and second nut straight) -- they don't know when to push these hands and when to lay them down. I really think they just figuratively "roll the dice" when they get these hands and hope they get lucky (sometimes they do).


$400s

These tables are mostly like the $200s, but a little bit tighter (usually). People understand the concept of nut-peddling, and most of them are quite tight. They make the occassional bluff or steal, but this is not a regular part of their arsenal, and they certainly don't do it enough from a game theory perspective (i.e., it's correct just to fold to them when they get happy, because they have the goods often enough that it's not worth looking them up).

These tables become interesting when you get some people from the 1000s and 2000s slumming in them. Sometimes these are just players who have run bad, sometimes it's because there are no 1000 games running, and I image some of them are just goofing off, but these guys can REALLY loosen up a game. The tables often get juicy when these guys sit down -- the catch is that you have to sit down early since the tight players line up in a hurry to try to fleece these guys. The funny thing is that most of the tight players don't really know how to play against a good sLAG or LAG, and I often see the "loose" player leaving the table up mutiple buy-ins.

All Levels

Here are a couple of points that are common at all levels, but are more frequent the higher you go.

- Players know the nut low bluff, but they either overuse it and/or don't know when they're getting 3/4ed. There are ways to combat these people, and they don't know that they're the ones who are usually getting played.

- The concept of bluff-catching is usually poorly understood. These guys don't know when to do it (aaarrrgggghhh... I don't have the nuts, so I should fold!) and don't know how to play against it.

The next installment on this series will be a report from the $1000s.


[edited for spelling and layout]