I had a great day of poker last night.

I watched a few Cardrunners videos, and came home motivated and determined to Crush. First thing I did, was open up all the 200NL table I could, and I located all the TAG regulars. I then made a note and color coded them with how many tables they play. I located and tagged all the players that Multi-table at least 4 tables. I did this, because these are the people I would like to try and avoid playing big pots against.

I then went through my datamined stats, and I tried to determine what some of these players PF re-raising ranges were. Even though I try and avoid these good TAGs, I know that I will still be involved in pots with them. And more than likely, since we are both TAGs, it will be PF Re-raised hands. If I can get a leg up on narrowing down there ranges, that will only improve my chances against them.

So later that night I played, and I played well. I finally hit my first set in the last couple days, and it was me winning set over set JJ vs 66.



People were folding to my continuation bets when I had nothing, and calling when I had something, which was nice.

I also stayed pretty aggressive. Here are a few hands. let me know what you think of these.

Villain in this hand was running at 66/0


Villain in this hand was running at 48/18/1.0


This guy was super crazy agro, running at 70/24/4. After his turn check, I knew he had crap.


75/5 donk who was limp/calling everything. Not sure on my play here. What you think?


Initial bettor was running at 23/18. Re-raiser was also agro running at 22/19. What do you think of my play with AK here?


I only lost two significant pots, both of which were suckouts. I lost $100 on one when half stack donk called all my raises and hit his 2 outer on the river. I had KQ vs his KT on a QT84T rainbow board.

The only other decent sized loss was me losing $40 on a hand with AT vs KJ on a AJxJx board. I checked behind on the turn when the 2nd jack fell and called his small half pot bet on the river.

Other than that, the next biggest loss for a hand for me was only $12.

Here is the graph of my full-time the last few days at 200NL:



I feel really good, and I think I am playing the best poker of my life right now.

So last week, I made the decision to start playing more at 200NL. It hasn't been going that good. Here are my stats since I started this little experiment.




And the monthly graph.



I've been running into a lot of big hands. People flopping flushes on me with K5s when I flop a straight. KK vs AA about 5 times. Blind vs blind against an agro donk TT vs AA. Oops. AA vs QQ is a loser in a re-raised pot on a K82 flop (Yes, he called my flop bet and hit his Queen on the turn). And I think I have maybe 5 sets in these last 3800 hands. Yuck. I'll have to look, but it can't be far off from that.

blah

god damn I'm running bad. I lost 2.5 buy-ins at 200NL this morning.

Though, in the hands I lost, I'm not too disappointed with the way I played them. I'm just not hitting for shit

First one, There is a 60/30 donk with about $100 or so. He raises PF to $7. I repop it form the blinds with AKo to $26 (I've been making my 3-bets a little bit bigger than pot size when I'm in position. He calls

$54 in pot. He has $75 left. Flop is T62 rainbow. I lead out a $40 cont bet, basically committing myself to the pot. He pushes all his money in, and I call the extra $35. He has 55 and I don't spike an Ace or King.

About 2 orbits later, the same donk leads out $7 again (This time he has a full stack). Button calls, SB calls, and I am in the BB with AKs again. I squeeze and raise to around $42 or so. He pushes, and I call. he has JJ, and I again, don't hit a A or K.

Then on a different table, I open raise from the CO with to $7. The 50/10 donk in the SB min-3-bets to $12. I obvisouly call.

There is $26 in the pot. Flop is giving me an OESD + Flush draw. He leads out for $48

Yes, that is right, pot has $26 in it and he leads for $48.

I'm 56% against his most likely holding, AA (donk min-3-bets PF is always AA). Even if he has KK (Which takes away two of my outs), it is a coinflip.

So I push, and he of course insta calls with AA, and I don't hit any of my billion outs.

There go 2.5 buy-ins in 20 minutes.

Not sure what I am going to do about my 200NL experiment. I'm now down 3 buy-ins since I've started playing at that level for the majority of my hands (About 75% at 200NL, and 25% at 100NL)

I think a lot of that is not hitting anything. In my last 4100 hands, I have been dealt pairs 233 times (Right on average). 157 have seen flops. I have 11 sets.

I'm thinking of moving back down to 100NL. I think I'm good enough to beat 200NL, and there are still donks out there. but maybe I should ride out this downswing at a lower level. Get some confidence back.

What does BTP think? Any comments on the above hands? Anyone else out there play Full Tilt 100NL and 200NL 6 max and have any notes/comments about my game? Screen name OMGitsPokerFool at FT.

Cheers!

Tournaments suck
Cash games are good

I played tournies on Sunday night and didn't cash in any. I made it fairly deep in the Stars $10 rebuy, but busted out pushing my PESD too hard and ran into 2nd pair no kicker . I almost made it to the money in the 26k, and about halfway throught the 50-50 Full Tilt tournie. Bustout hand there was kinda dumb. I re-pop with KK. and the PF raiser calls. Flop is QJx. He checks, and I have about pot left in my stack so I push. He calls with AJ and rivers an Ace. gg me.

I'm up about 3.5 buy-ins the last couple days in the cash games though. I flopped a couple sets this morning and ran pretty hot I think.

Here are a couple hands

***********************************

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $1/$2 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

Hero (SB): $195.00
BB: $124.60
UTG: $200.00
MP: $77.00
CO: $157.45
BTN: $726.60

Preflop: Hero is dealt (6 Players)
UTG raises to $7.00, MP calls $7.00, 2 folds, Hero raises to $33.00, BB folds, UTG calls $26.00, MP folds

Flop: ($75) (2 Players)
Hero bets $50.00, UTG calls $50.00

Turn: ($175) (2 Players)
Hero bets all-in for $112.00, UTG calls $112.00

River: ($399) (2 Players - 1 All-In)

Pot Size: $399.00 ($3 Rake)

UTG had (two pair, Jacks and Tens) and LOST (-$195.00)
Hero had (a flush, Ace high) and WON (+$201.00)

**********************************

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $1/$2 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $176.60
Hero (BB): $200.00
UTG: $290.65
MP: $93.90
CO: $96.70
BTN: $195.05

Preflop: Hero is dealt (6 Players)
3 folds, BTN raises to $4.00, SB calls $3.00, Hero raises to $18.00, BTN calls $14.00, SB calls $14.00

Flop: ($54) (3 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $36.00, BTN calls $36.00, SB folds

Turn: ($126) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($126) (2 Players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Pot Size: $126.00 ($3 Rake)

BTN had (a pair of Jacks) and WON (+$69.00)
Hero had ([Kd Ad] Ace King high) and LOST (-$54.00)

***************************************

And then the biggest hand of the morning. This guy was running pretty standard in terms of stats. He was like 22/12 or something like that. I was involved in a hand with him a few orbits prior to this one where I 3-bet him with AK. Flop was all low cards rainbow. He check/calls my Cont bet. Turn is a King. It goes check/check. River is a blank, and he bets half pot and I call. He had AK also. So he flat called PF with AK, and then called the cont bet with it too.

On to this hand: I sometimes 3-bet my nines here, but because of the hand described above, I decided to call. Because I knew that if I 3-bet, and he called, he would call with air and I wouldn't really know where I was.

I flop my set and raise his lead out. He Immediately went all-in, and I snapped call. Maybe he was on tilt or something?

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $1/$2 Blinds - 6 Players - (http://www.legopoker.com/hh)

SB: $254.55
BB: $223.40
UTG: $340.45
MP: $259.75
Hero (CO): $322.00
BTN: $137.25

Preflop: Hero is dealt (6 Players)
UTG folds, MP raises to $7.00, Hero calls $7.00, 2 folds, BB calls $5.00

Flop: ($22) (3 Players)
BB checks, MP bets $22.00, Hero raises to $75.00, BB folds, MP raises all-in to $252.75, Hero calls $177.75

Turn: ($527.50) (2 Players - 1 All-In)

River: ($527.50) (2 Players - 1 All-In)

Pot Size: $527.50 ($3 Rake)

MP had (a pair of Queens) and LOST (-$259.75)
Hero had (three of a kind, Nines) and WON (+$264.75)

There has been a bunch of discussion on the boards with winrates over the longterm, especially at the US sites. So I thought I'd post a PT screenshot of my time playing at Full Tilt, which I have played escusively the last 4 months.

Note that this is in Big Blinds per 100, not PTBB/100

July Results: Meh

I say MEh because I think I definitely could have done better. Even though it is one of my best month of playing poker, I think I ran pretty cold. I was dealt AA only 43 times all month (13,782/221 = 63). That is a huge difference. Next lowest pocket pair was JJ, and got dealt that 53 times. Highest was 22 at 75 times. yipee.

557 pocket pairs saw a flop, and I flopped sets 68 times. That is right at average.

KK vs AA all-in PF 4 times, and obviously lost all 4. Yuck.

I hope to run better in August.


NOTE: results posted as BB/100, not ptbb/100

I only played tournaments one night in July, and lost $162

So I won $1670 from playing poker, and my June Rakeback total was $313 for a grand total of $1983. I forgot to look to see how many hours that was. I'll check when I get home.

On a positive note, August has started off good. I only played for 20 or so minutes, and only got in about 100 hands, but I was dealt AA three times already. Go Go August!

Here is the July Graph:




Here are links to the 100NL graph, and the 200NL graph. Notice the long Break even stretch at 100NL. Ugg.




I played 43 hours in July. $1670 + about $400 or so in rakeback is about $48 an hour. More than I make at work

Cheers

Played quite a bit of poker this weekend, but ended down a half a buy-in or so.

I decided to experiment with different playing styles this weekend. Slightly LAG, Nitty set-miner, and my regular TAG. Here is the graph:



My LAG results included a couple crappy calls by me, and a couple massive suck-ous from some mega donks. Oh well. -36 BB/100

I sat at 7 tables while I was playing as a Nit. I played just pocket pairs, AK/AQ, and the occasional other hand from late position. I only won one big hand. I raise AKs UTG, and get called by three people. Flop was 873 with two of my suit. Blinds check, and I check, and the donk behind me pots it. I push, and he call with TT, and I hit one of my 15 outs. Other than that, I just lost a lot of small pots. My won when saw flop % was 31%!! Yickes! Plus I only flopped two sets and got AA only once. 0 BB/100

And then I went back to my regular TAG game and won most of my losses back. 37 BB/100

Hmmm, I wonder which style I will continue to use?

From about 9:30 PM EST - 21:00 PM EST, I was on fire. I won another couple buy-ins at 200NL, and was in the top 10 in chips in the FT 50/50 tournie.

Then the clock struck midnight and everything went to hell. I went completely and utterly card dead.

I lost the 2 buy-ins at 200NL to some pretty brutal hands. I really need to work on my aggression in these games. I can think of two hands right off the bat where I should have bet but I didn't, and it cost me dearly. Especially against these 50% VP$IP donks I go up against. I fail to realize the best way to play against these guys is to bet hard when you have a hand, and don't try to bluff them.

Also, it doesn't help when you get dealt aces only once in 1000 hands.

I ended up busting in 65th place in the 50/50. After midnight struck, I went completely card dead. In my last 75 hands, I got dealt AT twice, and my only pocket pairs were 77 and 66 (my bustout hand).

I always enjoy playing tournies, but they are a time waster for me. Even though I did pretty good in the 50/50, and outlasted 95% of the field in this one tournie, I still lost $40 playing MTTs for the night. 1100 people, and 65th place gets you a whopping $60 profit.

For the month, I've played over 4000 hands already and I'm up 2 buy-ins at 200NL, and down 1 buy-in at 100NL.