AkishoreFCP's Poker Blog

A wise man once said that variance is a bitch. That man was right. This month has been going extremely roller-coastery, but eh, it ain't no big deal. More importantly, however, I want to make sure I never fall into the trap of blaming any bad results on variance alone -- I fully realize I have made plenty of bad plays this month. But that's poker, and in general, that's life; live and learn from mistakes.

So with that philosophy, I'm adopting a healthier course for this blog -- no more complaints of variance or bad beats or anything! Some stuff is simply out of my control (like two one-outers for $900 and $1200 pots -- both scoops -- in the same day), and sometimes when the money goes in, you can only let the results fall to the math (like being an 80-20 favorite to scoop and instead getting quartered, for a nice $1100 pot).

That said, I have been putting off this entry for a while because there have been so many sick hands I wanted to share, if only to vent, but I won't share them, because they're just bad beat stories, nothing more. For that, there is 2+2 BBV (and I think I will be making a nice BBV post about some of these hands pretty soon). So on to more important things!

One thing I'm not is a reckless action junkie or a degenerate gambler (I think). I don't play blackjack (except for my idiotic Party Poker Blackjack + Martingale phase back in the day that fortunately "only" cost me a few hundred [it was a lot to me then, but it had the potential to be so much more when I bumped up the bets to $100 or $200 a hand]), I have never touched the craps or roulette tables, I have never bought a lottery ticket, etc.

All those games are against the house and are clearly money losers (obviously except blackjack if you're card counting, but you get my point). But what about the other stuff, like sports betting, or prop betting? Well, I have never followed sports religiously so betting on that never interested me. And, after reading of Daniel Negreanu's many exploits into high stakes props in the big game, I did freely make many wagers with Tim and Yang and Chief on flops, on the color of door cards, and so on. But those have always been 0 EV, and more importantly, those were always for just one or two dollars (relatively meaningless compared to our poker wagers).

(Sorry this is such a boring post, but it'll get better!)

Thus, I think that in order for me to gamble, I either need to have an edge, or the variance has to be very tiny. So that's why I don't lay -EV odds to others just to get some action, and that's why I don't bet on everything from horse races to the weather.

So... I'm not sure if any of this changed this past week, or if it remained consistent. On Sunday evening, someone posted in BBV that HIV (a notorious degenerate 18-year-old kid) was getting deep in the Stars Sunday Million. In that thread, a poster joked that if someone would lay him 5-to-1 on $100, he would bet on HIV making the final table. Out of curiosity, I opened up the tourney lobby and saw that there were still 90 players on 10 tables! An average player has 8-to-1 odds against him making that final table, and clearly HIV, despite being decent, can't be THAT big of a favorite (his chip stack was also below average), I thought.

So (shit, it seems that 80% of my paragraphs start with "So"), I decided to take the bet and pop my general prop-betting cherry. I was now risking $500 to win $100, and I believe I had an edge.

But it gets better.

HIV doubled up and maintained a chip stack a little above average, and with about five tables left, another poster chimed in with something like "You guys way underestimate HIV's tiltability. If anyone wants to bet $100, I'll lay 10-to-1 that he doesn't final table." What?!? An average player is now 4-to-1 against final tabling, of course I will take bet in an instant! So I replied and we agreed, and now, I was in an awesome freeroll; if HIV busted, I would win $100 from poster #1 but lose $100 to poster #2, for a net of $0, but if HIV final tabled, I would lose $500 to poster #1 but win $1,000 from poster #2, for a net of +$500. LOL, I am an expert hedge bettor, sick!!!

But wait, it still gets better!

Other posters also realized how amazing that second offer was, so someone asked if poster #2 would take higher action, like $500 or $1,000 instead of $100, but poster #2 replied that he would go as high as $500, though only with 5-to-1 odds there. Hmm, do I give up my freeroll for what I think would be higher EV? Yes, definitely, so we agreed to change our bet from 10-to-1 at $100 to 5-to-1 at $500. So now, if HIV busted, my net would be -$400, and if he final tabled, my net would be +$2,000. So in all, I was risking $400 to win $2000, so I was getting odds of 5-to-1 on HIV final tabling, and at this point, there were just three tables left, so I liked my chances.

Of course, HIV did make an amazingly donkey push under the gun with 10 big blinds (at a full table) holding A-4 offsuit. The big blind (covering HIV) called with J-J, and I thought I was going to say goodbye to $400, but a beautiful ace spiked on the river, LOL. Fortunately, there were no more ridiculous hands, and HIV coasted to the final table. Sweet!

So I shipped my $500 on Stars to poster #1, but unfortunately, I have not yet been paid by poster #2. It seems that in all the action he took, he owes a grand total of almost $15,000. Yikes! I made a thread about it, but it seems there is still some hope, as the guy is a regular trusted bettor in the sports wagering forum.

But the prop action doesn't stop here. I had been discussing these bets with Yang over AIM, and when HIV final tabled, he was very jealous of my wins. So being the degenerate gambler and action junkie that he is, he was dying to get in some bets. Since it was unclear whether I would get my money from poster #2, he offered to let me hedge my action by betting that poster #2 WOULD pay up, so we bet $100 on that.

That wasn't enough for Yang; he needed to bet on more. It was about 3am on Sunday night / Monday morning, and Yang had a 15-page (minimum) term paper due Tuesday that he wanted to finish by midnight. He had 2 pages done, and so I offered to bet that he wouldn't finish the paper by midnight, in order to motivate him. At first, I wanted 2-to-1 odds because 13 pages in 21 hours is definitely doable, but he claimed he was tired, so we compromised at 1.75-to-1 on my $100. Come Tuesday midnight, he hadn't finished his paper, so he owed me $175. To be fair, the bet did motivate him and he has written almost all of it.

Alright, this is a long enough post as it is. I plan on discussing four big live NLHE bluffs I have made recently, in the next post. In the meantime, I highly suggest reading this excellent thread by Chief in BBV. Enjoy!

Aseem

Happy new year, all!

Hope you all had a fun and relaxing holiday. I personally played very little poker (just enough to maintain Gold VIP on Stars, I didn't feel like grinding out a bunch of hands to get Platinum). The break left me refreshed and ready to approach the game with a new sense of determination as the new year came.

So I made new PT databases and began grinding almost solely PLO8 ($400 to $1000), anything from heads-up/short-handed (my favorite at times) to multi-tabling as many full ring tables as are running. I also started exploring Full Tilt and I wassurprised at how much better it seems to be for PLO8 than Stars, in terms of game availability specifically. But maybe I just caught an usual time window.

I must say, however, that Full Tilt has a vicious doomswitch. Here is my lovely graph of my Full Tilt career so far (only $400 and $600 PLO8):



The most relevant hand, of course, is that hand 360ish. It was a fun hand:

--

$400 PLO8, Full Tilt, ring

UTG - $450
Hero - covers

Hero is CO with A A 7 4.

UTG limps, ..., MP limps, ..., Hero raises to $22, ..., blinds fold, UTG calls, MP folds.

($54, 2 plrs) J 8 3

UTG checks, Hero bets $54, UTG calls.

($162, 2 plrs) 6

UTG bets $162, Hero pushes, UTG calls $212 more all-in.

UTG shows A 8 6 2.

Omaha Hi/Low 8-or-better: 40 enumerated boards containing 8s 6s 3c Jd
cards         scoop     HIwin   HIlos   HItie     LOwin   LOlos   LOtie      EV
2c Ad 6d 8h      21        23      17       0        36       4       0   0.738
As 4s Ah 7h       2        17      23       0         4      36       0   0.263

($910, 2 plrs) 6

UTG wins $910.

--

On the other hand, I'm rocking over at Stars. Here is the graph of all my Stars hands since New Year's, mostly $400 and $600 PLO8 with a small amount of $1000 PLO8 mixed in, I believe:



I love how hands 990 - 1190 may as well not have happened, even though they contained the two biggest pots. Here they are:

--

$600 PLO8, Poker Stars, ring

Hero - $725
UTG - covers

Hero is BB with A A 6 2.

UTG limps, ..., MP limps, CO limps, ..., SB limps, Hero raises to $36, UTG calls, rest fold.

($87, 2 plrs) Q T 6

Hero bets $87, UTG calls.

($261, 2 plrs) 4

Hero bets $261, UTG calls.

($785, 2 plrs) 7

Hero pushes for $341, UTG calls.

UTG shows K K K J.

Hero wins $1466.

--

$600 PLO8, Poker Stars, ring

UTG - $630
Hero - covers

(UTG is davebreal, a sick good PLO8 tag who frequents Wintermute's and Ribbo's blogs.)

Hero is Button with A J 3 2.

UTG raises to $18, UTG+1 calls, ..., Hero calls, blinds fold.

($60, 3 plrs) Q 8 3

UTG bets $36, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls.

($168, 2 plrs) Q

UTG bets $168, Hero calls.

($504, 2 plrs) 9

UTG checks, Hero bets $200, UTG insta-calls.

UTG shows A Q T 2.

UTG wins $904.

--

That first hand was obviously a gift from the poker gods, and that player was obviously a superfish. The second hand, well... yikes. I know it seems like I donked it up hard but I had my reasons for each street. I think it was a combination of being a tad wrong spot to float/bluff and slightly bad luck that he had the queen (I think I can push him off most other hands on the river bet).

Anyway, the best part about all this variance is that when you put everything together, you get a really fun graph:



I think one of my New Year's resolutions needs to be to temper my naked aggression. I am finding that my biggest losses come by far from unnecessary multi-street bluffs or jumping into clearly high-risk/low-reward situations (situations where I'm either pushing a small edge when I'm ahead but losing to a decent edge when I'm behind). It's just really hard sometimes because your average opponent is so incredibly weak/tight that it's so easy to pick up so many small/mid-size pots through naked aggression. I'll have to experiment around and see if I can improve on this area.

Anyway, there's a lot of non-poker stuff I need to get done this month, too. I have to do some actual work (for, you know, a job =P), as well as schoolwork as well as some extra-curricular stuff. I also really want to get in a much healthier lifestyle or sleeping earlier and waking earlier, so naturally, poker will have to take the backseat sometimes (it'll be tough when the games are really juicy at night).

Hope you all are having a great start to the new year, and may we all take a lot of money from the fishes. =)

Aseem

Well, finals are done. Rough semester overall, but it's done -- on to break and time to put in a lot of hands before the end of the year. Hopefully I stay at Platinum on Stars.

So I have a flight back to home tonight, and I have yet to pack. I just took a shower, and with less than 4 hours to go before my flight leaves (and with travel time, I realistically have less than 2 hours to get out of my dorm), of course the best thing for me to do is to hop onto PokerStars, still in my towel. LOL.

I was just checking to see if there were any juicy games going, and then I noticed that in the new Stars upgrade, there's a sexy tournament filter. But there's no time to play a tournament (although I'm such a degenerate that I pondered hopping into a $50 NLHE MTT, and if I was in good shape by the time I had to leave, letting my friend take over for 50%), so as I was clicking through the tabs, I noticed 1 person sitting in a $50 HU PLO8 SNG. I had never done this before, so I hopped in to try.

Here are all the hands. The blinds started at $5-$10, and the stacks started at $1500. I have never played with Villain before. Also note that Stars HU SNGs follow the correct/standard protocol of the button being the small blind preflop.

--

Hands #1-#2

I fold J 9 6 4 in the small blind.
Villain folds his small blind.

--

Hand #3

I raise A 9 8 5 in the small blind to $30, Villain calls.

($60) 8 8 6

Villain checks, Hero bets $45, Villain calls.

($150) K

Villain checks, Hero bets $125, Villain folds.

On the flop, I am willing to put a lot of money in normally given my low draw. Yeah, A-5 isn't strong at all, but heads up just having a low draw (and not a shitty 7-4 or something) makes me a lot stronger. But I don't want to scare my opponent off if he is drawing near dead to me. On the very safe turn, I immediately regretted betting $125 instead of $100. I think $100 looks weaker to your average opponent, and I'm not being results oriented.

--

Hand #4

Villain limps, I check A K Q 5 in the big blind.

($20) A 6 3

Villain bets $20, I call.

($60) 2

Villain bets $30, I call.

($120) J

Villain bets $120, I call.

Final pot: $360

Villain shows 8 7 5 3; I three-quarter.

I could raise preflop, but given the deep stacks, I don't like it at all given that I'm out of position. On the flop, the call is marginal, but heads up I think tptk + backdoor nut flush draw + low draw is decent given the deep stacks. On the turn, the half pot bet is weak and I am pretty strong despite the scary board. On the river I am definitely calling as this didn't change much, and his 1/2 pot bet -> full pot bet on a brick usually means overcompensating for weakness. Just realize that a lot of this logic applies mostly because it's heads-up; this is a way different game than full ring.

--

Hands #5-#7

I fold Q 8 5 2 in the small blind.
Villain raises to $30, I fold J J 10 6 in the big blind.
I fold 10 9 6 6 in the small blind.

--

Hand #8

Villain limps, I check A 8 4 3 in the big blind.

($20) J T 7

I check, Villain bets $20, I fold.

Again, I think raising preflop isn't great given the stack sizes. Your mileage may vary.

--

Hands #9-#10

I fold K 9 7 7 in the small blind.
Villain raises to $30, I fold Q 8 7 3 in the big blind.

--

Hand #11

I ($1620) limp 7 5 3 2 in the small blind, Villain ($1380) raises to $30, I call.

($60) J J 9

Villain ($1350) bets $60, I ($1590) raise to $240, Villain ($1290) calls.

($540) 5

Villain ($1110) checks, I ($1350) bet $540, Villain folds.

Preflop is debatable, but I don't think raising specifically for a steal is correct; the stacks are huge, and the blinds are really irrelevant. Raising for deception and whatnot is fine, but I just preferred to keep the pot manageable and play mostly postflop. I know I sound like I'm contradicting myself since I didn't want to raise preflop out of position because I was out of position, and now I'm not because I'm in position. It's pretty close and I won't put up much of a fight. It can definitely be correct to raise here for value and to exploit my position, etc.

Postflop is of course the juice of the hand. His preflop raise usually means A2 or some suited ace combination. I decided to just exploit what I perceived to be my tight image. The paired board (always okay to bluff at these, in general) plus a flush draw made me more comfortable bluffing here. When he insta-called, I wasn't sure what to think, as there was no backdoor low draw. I figured maybe it was an overpair or a flush/straight draw, so I decided to fire again at the brick turn. In retrospect, I think the pot bet isn't great, because I am committing a whole lot on a bluff. I think betting $300, maybe $340 or so might be better, but I'm not sure -- sometimes betting pot has the highest fold equity.

--

Hand #12

Villain raises to $30, I fold Q 9 7 4 in the big blind.

--

Hand #13

I raise A J 6 2 to $30 in the small blind, Villain calls.

($60) Q J 10

Villain checks, I check.

($60) 8

Villain bets $60, I call.

($180) 9

Villain checks, I bet $120, Villain calls.

Final pot: $420

Villain shows K Q Q 7; I scoop.

I would have folded to a flop bet. There are some flops that I cbet at, but this is definitely not one of them. Why? I'm not *exactly* sure. I think it's because I have some weak draws and I'd prefer to get a free card, and the pot is small relative to the stacks, so I don't need to pick it up badly, and this board either hit him hard (with a flopped straight) or not at all (undercards, etc.), so a bet isn't for value at all. If a king or another jack or a heart comes on the turn, I can pick off a bluff safely or raise to pick up the pot then, etc. I will think more about exactly which flops I instinctively check and which ones I feel comfortable cbetting on.

--

Hand #14

Villain ($910) raises to $30, I ($2090) reraise A K T 2 to $90 in the big blind, Villain ($880) min-reraises to $150, I ($2000) reraise to $450, Villain ($860) calls. (LOLOL)

($900) Q T 7

I ($1640) bet $460, Villain ($460) calls all-in.

Villain shows K J 9 5. (LOLOL)

Hero - 58% equity, 54% scoop
Villain - 42% equity, 37% scoop

Final pot: $1820

Turn: J
River: J

Hero scoops and wins.

Preflop, I decided the stack discrepancy was big enough that I could take a gamble and try to play a big pot. Combining my monster hand (heads-up) with his becoming-more-visible donkish/lag play (e.g. limping 8-7-5-3 and potting it super weak, not having folded the button in a long time, etc.) with some possible fold equity given that my stack was more than double his, I decided to reraise. When he min-reraises, not only is that super weak, but I am completely fine putting my stack in preflop with this hand.

The flop is the only questionable part. This flop missed me decently enough, but the pot is so big. On the one hand, I do get value if he was raising low cards, especially low suited connectors or the like, because he may tilt-call with his super-weak backdoor draws, but on the other hand, I am not in great hsape against hands that hit that flop. And when the cards flipped over, it did look like he hit it pretty hard (a solid wrap), but apparently not hard enough according to twodimes.

--

Short SNG and barely any strategy to it, but I'll put up a more detailed session post soon (and it'll most likely be a cash game session). Anyway, I should really pack, LOL. Run good...

Aseem