Moving up in the points race!
I played in my “other” home game last night. The host set it up after my structure and it is a very enjoyable game. He is also doing a points race with a “tournament of champions” at the end. He is having 12 games and dropping your 3 lowest scores whereas I am doing 10 games and only dropping one score. His TOC will only be a 6 handed table whereas mine will be 9 handed. (I’m more interested in preserving the comradary of my game whereas he wants the competition.) Last night was the 5th game in this series and I came into it in 4th place, trailing the leader/host by 22.8 points. I ended up outlasting everyone who was ahead of me in points and finishing 3rd, which was good enough to move me into 2nd place in the points. I have never pushed all in so many times in one game in all of my life. I started off okay and was breaking even in chips, and then I lost a few hands and was down a bit only to surge and double up to take a safer chip position. I am a fairly tight player, but due to reads and a fluctuating stack, I was doing a lot of stealing last night and fighting tooth and nail to pick up some key points for the TOC and a little extra money along the way. Here is a breakdown of the key hands I played in as much of a chronological order as I can remember them:

1. K-5o in the SB, opening hand, won it with bottom pair of 5s in a multiway pot that was checked down.

2. 5-5 missed the flop and folded

3. 10-10, I flopped top set on a rainbow board and checked the flop and bet the turn when an Ace hit. I got called on the turn but folded to on the river due to the villain’s kicker concerns.

4. Q-4s, Still very early in the tournament, I limped on the button w/ this garbage hand and flopped bottom pair w/ a flush draw. I bet the flop and won w/ no resistance.

5. A-A, raised pf and won the hand on a continuation bet on the flop.

About this time the blinds started getting a little heftier and my stack had just broken even, so I tightened up and started playing TAG poker. We play with antes after the 4th level of blinds start and these really force the action, this caused my stack to dwindle and had me pushing all in a good bit more often than I would like.

6. I limped behind from the CO w/ Q-10o and flopped top pair of 10s on a 2 suited board. When I pushed all in, I got called by the LAG on my right who I tied into many times in the night. He was on the flush draw and obviously missed. He was the big stack shortly before his hand and with this hand I knocked him down into the red zone.

7. Having a bigger stack now I stole a blind w/ a 2.5x BB raise and tried it again with the very next hand, which was 4-4. The LAG on my right called me pf and donked into me on the flop. Based on how he glanced at the flop and immediately bet I put him on a decent hand. He messed up and showed me the bluff, it was a quick bet and I had him pegged. A few rounds later I had an opportunity to capitalize on this read, but didn’t stay with my gut when I flopped 2nd pair. I called him on the flop, but backed off when he fired again on the turn. He exhibited the same tell and once again showed me the bluff. I had him nailed at that point, but he didn’t bluff into me again for the rest of the night.

8. K-Qs I pushed all in when folded to in the SB and got called by the table chip leader to my left who had K-10o. She ended up making two pair, but her 2nd pair gave me my straight for the badly needed double up.

9. The LAG on my right makes another pfr but this time he bets rather slowly. This throws up some red flags but with my current stack size I don’t really have a choice. I have pocket Jacks and have to give the hand some serious thought. I pushed all in. All my mulling it over fortunately gave the guy the impression that I was very strong. I also told him that I read him as strong but that I had to go with this hand. He flashed A-10o and folds. This was at the bottom of the range that I put him on, but like I said, I didn’t have much choice and a misread at this point would be disastrous.

10. I once again start in with the 2.5x BB raise. We are 5 handed waiting to consolidate tables with the next knock out. The LAG to my right is short-stacked and once again exhibits a fast bet when he pushed All in over the top of me. Based on his style and his fast bet, I decided to call him down w/ my Kh-10h. He has about ½ my stack and turns over 6s-2s. My read was dead on! He completes a spade flush on the turn. BOO!!

11. The very next hand I looked down at Ah-Kh and put on my dejected, I’m on tilt face and pushed all in from the BB over 2 limpers. The LAG starts asking me questions about whether I’m on tilt or not, but eventually they both fold.

12. At this point, I’m still short and I started aggressively stealing blinds to stay afloat. I pushed w/ Q-9o, and 10-3s. The Q-9o was due to a read of the BB as he looked at his hand, which worked out flawlessly, but with the 10-3s I actually got called by the super short stack/host in the BB w/ A-2s. He catches an Ace on the flop to secure his double up. I pushed several more than this, but these are 2 key hands that I remember.

13. Once again, with J-J in the SB, I am put into another big decision for all of my chips. A LAG on the other end of the table limps in along with the button. The big-stacked BB on my left is talking to the host who was put out a few hands earlier and makes a comment that she likes her hand to him. She actually doesn’t lie too much at the poker table, so I look at this as an opportunity to win a big pot and take a big advantage at the table. I just complete the SB and as expected she raises the 1000 BB to 3000 total. Neither limper is dissuaded by this pot builder raise, and they both call. With 7600 more on top, I push the rest of my chips into the middle hoping to isolate the BB. She obliges and calls and the original 2 limpers just fold. She turns over A-Ko (which I put her on a big Ace) and we are off to the races. In our circle we call pocket Jacks “tournament killers.” More people seem to go out with Jacks than with any other hand in poker. The host makes a comment about my “tournament killers” never holding up and I point out the fact that they hold up approximately 55% of the time against AK. Sure enough they hold up and I am catapulted into the middle of the big stacks.

14. I guarded my stack for about 30 minutes as we got down to the final 5. I’m in a great position chip wise and mostly trying to stay out of major conflicts with the bigger stacks. With the blinds as 800-1600 and an ante of 200, a short-stacked LAG that is UTG pushes his entire stack out for 7600 total. The calling station directly across the table from me almost insta-calls for half his stack and the button between us folds. I look down at A-A in the SB and ask the calling station how much more he has left. He has about 8500 more after his call and I stack my chips up and put him all in as well. The BB folds and the calling station says that he is pot committed and calls off the rest of his chips. The LAG turns over 7-7 and the Calling Station turns over A-Jo and I am so far ahead that I have to pinch myself to make sure that I am seeing what I am seeing. If I win the hand I have half the chips on the table. If I don’t win the main pot, the side pot will put me right back to my 27k stack that I started the hand with. Unfortunately, the flop falls J-J-7. = ( I’m back down to 12k and have to start tying back up with people again.

15. Through some very good fortune, the LAG and the Calling Station tie into it on the bubble and I slide into 3rd place. I made the money and took 2nd place in our chip race. Though I was sick about the Aces hand, I am very happy with how my night turned up. I got caught stealing in a BVB situation when I pushed my 6-5o into the BB for the knock out. Not that they know the 10 to 1 rule, but I was well under this range. Hey, I was in the money and beat out everyone who was ahead of me in points, so who cares!

Hopefully, I can win the big tourney at the end, but until then I’ll try to keep you updated about the tournaments progress!

Last night was a great night for my bankroll. I made 17.79 BB/100 and played 312 hands while 3 tabling (In English, that’s $11.10.) That may not seem like much, but combined with the $5 bonus that Full Tilt released into my account, I had a net increase of 25.5% in my bankroll last night. For the night I ran 16/ 7/ 4 and won 54% of my showdowns. To me, that seems like the ideal numbers combination and is what I seek to achieve on a long-term basis.

The bankroll stands at $79.20, which is a pretty good increase from the $12 that Two Rags gave me two weeks ago.

I had two hands last night where I utilized the check-behind. The check-behind is when you have the initiative and are in position, you bet the flop when it is checked to you and check behind your opponent on the turn. The check-behind is used for two main reasons. First, you effectively control the size of the pot when your hand is not a big pot type of hand. Pot control is very important, and you never want to break the cardinal rule of not playing a big pot w/o a big hand. Lots of people go broke w/ top pair because they can’t control the size of the pot. Second, the check-behind is used to induce bluffs and calls on the river. When you show weakness on the turn, many LAGs will fire out on the river and many players with weaker kickers with their top pair or even 2nd pair will call you down on the river. Checking behind also avoids the check-raise on the turn that many players do with flopped trips or two pair, and some also attempt a check-raise bluff on the turn representing the same trips or two pair. When your opponent leads off into you on the river, you have to decide if they are genuinely strong or if they are playing off your feigned weakness on the turn.

Anyway, the 1st hand that I checked-behind on was w/ A-Ko when I flopped TPTK. It was a rainbow board and I didn’t feel that there were any draws out against me. I checked behind on the turn and bet out hard on the river and got called by A-10. Whether the villain would have called 3 streets is a mystery, but I knew that most will call 2 streets when they sniff weakness. The 2nd was w/ A-Jo from the button. After the table folded to me I bumped it from my superior position. I got smooth-called by what turned out to be K-K. The flop fell J-J-x. Most people bet small or just check this flop, I lead for a pot-sized bet, which should look like I missed and was trying to buy the pot. The kings bit and called the big bet. This time when I checked-behind I was looking to get a worse hand to pay me off. By betting hard on the flop and checking the turn the trap was set. The river was another innocuous card and I blasted another big bet into the villain after he checked. He sure enough called and I won a nice pot versus a superior starting hand.

In my opinion, smooth calling w/ KK from the SB is a really bad play. KK needs to be protected with a big reraise preflop. He elected to play a vulnerable hand out of position against a slippery player like myself, and he lost a big pot. If he would have repopped it for a large amount, I definitely cannot call that with my A-Jo.

The third hand I want to review from last night was when I had As-Js in the SB. A middle position player limped in and a late middle position player min raised and got called by the button. I am still adjusting my play of AQ and AJ in the blinds, but this is definitely a spot where I want to defend my blinds. I have a biggish suited ace in the blinds against a very small preflop raise. I’m not going to war when I flop TPGK in this spot, but if I flop a big draw to the nuts, I’m in a good spot to win a big pot. With AQ or AJ off-suit, I’m probably not going to defend as much, but to a minimum raise, I’m probably calling regardless of my hands suitedness. The flop is a favorable one bringing the Qs-6s-x. I decide to play this nut draw fast and elect to check-raise. The table checks around to the button who bets 3/4 of the pot. I raise his $0.60 bet to $2.10 and hope for an immediate fold. The table brings me hope of the immediate fold, and then the button calls and my hopes are dashed! The turn is a total blank and I tried to lead out for $3 but I mis-typed my bet and instead bet $0.30 into the $5+ pot. The button obliges and raises it to $2.40 for me and I have a decision to make. The pot stands around $7.70 and it only costs me $2.10 to see the river. I only need 4 to 1 to make this an easy call or the strong hope of $0.70 more on the river to make it a safe call. I figure if the villain has come this far with his hand, he’s definitely calling $0.70 more in this big pot. I call and the beautiful 9s floats out onto the river. I slide the bet bar to the far right and press the eject button to release my load. To my astonishment, the button calls my $5.75 all in bet. Score one for the home team!!!

For the night, 2 of my 3 tables that I played gave me a profit and my cards ran very goot! I played a big draw very fast and got lucky on the river. That’s poker at its finest and if every night played like last night, I’d be a wealthy man in a very short period of time! Here’s to running goot!!

Well, my night started abismally and thought I was in for a bad run. The third hand of the night I'm dealt AA on the button. I've got the nutz and the best possible position, I'm ready to rock this pot. 3 players limp ahead of me and I hit the pot button and make it $0.55 to go. Both the blinds fold and the original limper calls and the other two limpers fold. The flop comes a semi-safe 6-8-6. I figure that I'm good and that a CB should take this one down. The villain checks and bet out a luring 1/2 pot bet. He takes forever and finally calls, I'm hoping that he has AK or something. The turn is another blank, he checks and bet out another 1/2 to 2/3 of the pot. He pulls the same ruitine and eventually calls. The river is a Jack, and he checks again. Now, the intelligent side of me was saying to check this and go to the showdown, but the gambler in me said, "He may just call another bet, swing it out there and see if he'll bite." Sure enough I did and sure enough I get min raised which effectively commits my stack that was close to 100 BBs when we started this hand. The idiot turns over 6-2o and says, "Sry man!" I puke and reload hoping to clean his clock. Well, he takes the money and runs after I take a small pot from him on a CB.

Anyway, enough of the bad beat story. My night started off down one buyin. I caught AA 2 more times in the night that helped catch me up because there was no fluke hand to suck out on me after that. QQ made a big winner for me and my favorite hand came through for me once again. (I'll keep the favorite hand a secret for now. A magician doesn't reveal his tricks.) I did flop the nuts with it and stacked an opponent. Most of my tables were LP and I was able to run over them pretty consistently. In fact, I did a little scouting based on a LPP player that was sitting at my table. I found her at 3 other tables and proceeded to sit down at 2 more of them. When I had doubled up on one of my tables I pulled some money off the table and moved over to another table that she was sitting at. Every table that she was at was around 18 VP$IP and 3 PFR%. I used position and aggression to make my buyin back and eventually ended the night up $6.10 over 350 or so hands.

When I review my PT records, mostly I notice that big losses happen because of one hand played badly and then to a smaller degree to calling too many pfr's throughout the night. I don't even think that I call too many pfr's but the few that I do call really add up. I really don't see how some players can keep playing when they are calling another player's raises. Having the initiative is such a powerful weapon. I think one of the biggest improvements to my game will be the recent adjustment of laying down AJo and AQo to pfr's. I haven't won many big pots with those hands, but I have sure lost some big pots with them.

The bankroll stands at $63.10 and I am right on the brink of getting another $5 bonus from FTP.

I should be playing tonight and hopefully the BR will be over $75 come morning.

4-27-06 I got home yesterday to an empty house so I sat down to play some cards. I only played one table since I was very tired from staying up to win my home game the night before. My cards ran very good and since I was only playing one table I found every opportunity to take advantage of my opponents weaknesses.
1st session: 1 hr 45 min and won $8.80 over 99 hands 25.38 BB/100 Hands.

I got off right after my wife came home and watched a movie with her. When she fell asleep on the couch I decided to play some more despite telling myself that I wouldn't play any that night due to only having gotten less than 4 hours of sleep. Note: Discipline broken!

I immediately ran up to a profit of $8 or so playing very squeaky tight as I had done earlier in the day. Then I had some luck box sit down and suck out against me w/ his short stack 2x with all the money going in pf. He only had $2 or so when we started so I was happy to call his all in reraises w/ my AKs and AKo. He had 10-8s in the same suit as my AKs one time and flopped trip 10s and the other I had him dominated and he hit the miracle on me. This sent me into monkey tilt and I lost my whole profit along w/ $19 more and a ton of sleep because I kept refusing to get up and take my losing pill.
2nd session: 4 hr 45 min for a loss of ($19.25)

I finally went to bed around 2 am again and was up bright and early with my son at 7am.

4-28-07 The wife had a class today so I got the yard mowed and my hair cut, then sat down to make some of my money back. My friend called/pulled up right as I was getting loaded up and we 2 tabled at $10/NL. I got hit in the face w/ the deck and quickly jumped up $15. I held onto this over the hour or so that I played.
Morning session: 1 hr for a win of +$13.80 and 66 BB/100 Hands over 104 hands.

Oh yeah, I played 4 $2+.25 SNGs this morning and won one and finished OOTM on the other 3 for an absolute zero on profit/loss.

And just for kicks and because my buddy was here we decided to try our hand at HORSE and HA. I bought in for the minimums and good thing that I did. I immediately lost my $4 buyin at $10/HA, I mean within 10 min. it was gone. I did get all my money in pf against a maniac in a dominating position and he of course hit his worse kicker to suck out on me.

HORSE went slightly better, I played at least an hour on it and only lost $3 over both the tables that I was playing. This game seemed very beatable and looked to have a few sharks on it who were preying on the weak fishes. I played so tight that they would have a hard time getting my money, but a lot of folks were missing what game we were playing at the time. One guy blew up a RAZZ pot w/ 2 pair on 4th street and took it all the way down to the river. One of my goals when I get this bankroll built will be to learn all of those games well enough to be competitive at them and play HORSE more often.

Mixed game session: 1 hr 30 min, loss of ($7)

With a deposit bonus from FTP my bankroll stands at $57 even.

PT stats on $10NL are 23.74/9.44/3.81 My W$SD% is 52.34% and I'm +$8.85 over 2700 hands. 1.64 BB/100 Hands. Not what I was hoping to have at this point, but at least I'm in the positive. I'm gonna try to remain more disciplined and force myself to get up sooner when I am losing.

We had our bi-weekly home game last night and I was fortunate enough to win it. Actually, I split the 1st and 2nd place money w/ a visitor and took the 1st place tournament of champion’s points. We split due to the late hour of the night. (I have a very slow structure, which allows the better players to utilize their skills more.) We have a point scale based on where you finish in a given week and we add these up over 10 games and drop your lowest score. A player is allocated chips in the TOC based on how many points he has accumulated versus the rest of the field. We pull $5 per head out every week and put this into a TOC fund that basically creates a freeroll that we play at the end of our 10 game session. This really works well for rewarding consistency and creates a new dynamic in the game.

With the win I was able to leap frog 2 players ahead of me and move into 5th place. You may think that 5th place isn’t all that great, but considering that I had a horrible start on the opening two games and the overall strength of the field at my game, moving into 5th is a great place to be. This was game 5 of 10. Two weeks ago I placed 2nd to move into 7th place and this week I really closed the gap on the top of the board as the points leader went out in 6th place out of the 10 we had playing.

I didn’t get very many great starting hands last night, but I was able to hit some flops and keep my stack to the north side of where I started. I only want to post one hand that I think will be a great hand for anyone trying to learn the little things that help to put a poor player around the corner to becoming a good player.

We are 4 handed and I’m in the BB
Blinds 600-1200 w/ a 200 ante

UTG limps (40k in chips)
Button limps (20k in chips)
SB completes (25k in chips) Qd-9d
Hero checks (15k in chips) Qh-3h

Flop comes 10h-9h-3s
SB leads for 2k
Hero pushes all in for 13.5k total
UTG folds
Button folds

This is the learning part that I would like to point out: With a pair and a flush draw against one pair higher than my bottom pair I’m usually >52% favored to win this hand. With the SB having me dominated with his middle pair and equal Queen kicker I am only now around 44% to win this hand. If the opponent’s high card were any card other than a queen I would once again become the favorite in this hand. This includes changing the Queen to an Ace or King. So, late in a tournament with a short stack such as I had, this one pair plus a flush draw situation presents a great opportunity to double up or pick up some chips as the favorite.

I obviously caught the heart on the river to double up and eventually win the tournament.

Hopefully, next week, I’ll be able to give you another good report on the home game that I play on my game’s off-week. It’s a tough one too.

I should be back online most of Saturday getting my FTP bankroll built from the $12 gift that tworags.com gave me for reviewing some local cardrooms. This is a great site and those guys are doing a great job!