Welcome

Hello all, welcome to my online poker blog.

I've been playing on and off for a decade after being introduced by a friend.

I played regularly for a few years during the poker boom and had a decent record at the micros, particularly Rush and Zoom No Limit Hold'em games (here's one of my graphs).

Around 2012 I began a new career which involved immersing myself completely in study in my spare time, so I had little to no time for poker. However recently this burden has eased and so I have been gradually dipping back in.

I'm an amateur player who still hopes to some day beat the rake.





Wednesday 18 May 2011

Early Days but... (plus analysis of a hand)

The big blind has been better the last couple of sessions. I'm just being very very careful when I'm voluntarily calling out of position in pots. In multi-way pots I'm pretty much sticking to pocket pairs (which can obv flop nut type hands). The very best broad-ways also make my calling range in these spots since they will get value from dominated hands, but that's it. When I get a meaningful sample I'll say more about this. Another thing I'm doing is 3-betting loose sb openers a ton more. I'd often call IP and see flops in the past but I think 3-betting is just as good. Give them this much hell and they'll start giving you the walk - which is a beautiful situation. Much more on big blind play to come.

A hand I played (and messed up IMO):
http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $0.25(BB) Replayer Game#30550196940

AGOULOU ($46.63)
JohnDoe42 ($25.70)
63Viktor ($8.79)
thazar ($34.72)
pagezoso ($46.81)
Hero ($25.22)
zyclop ($61.94)
SPBbob ($20.55)
faxe93 ($23.32)

AGOULOU posts (SB) $0.10
JohnDoe42 posts (BB) $0.25

Dealt to Hero Jd Qd
fold, fold, fold,
Hero raises to $0.75
zyclop calls $0.75
fold, fold, fold, fold,
FLOP ($1.85) Tc Kc 9d
Hero bets $1.25
zyclop raises to $3.25
Hero raises to $7.50
zyclop calls $4.25
TURN ($16.85) Tc Kc 9d 3c
Hero bets $7.75
zyclop raises to $53.69 (AI)
Hero calls $9.22 (AI)
RIVER ($50.79) Tc Kc 9d 3c 5d
Hero shows Jd Qd
(Pre 63%, Flop 63.4%, Turn 0.0%)

zyclop shows 6c 7c
(Pre 37%, Flop 36.6%, Turn 100.0%)

zyclop wins $48.26

Not much to talk about until the turn when the flush comes in. At the time I felt that I should bet for value since I thought that there were more combos of sets in his range than flushes (and I was calling an all-in since I'd put so much money in and I have seen people just do that with hands they'd call with i.e sets). Seeing what hand he has though makes me wonder about this hand. Thoughts anyone?
Basically I'm in a situation where if he's got a flush I have zero equity and if he has a set I'm a favourite but not a certainty. So should I play it more passively? Give him a chance to bluff? I have to pop out right now but I'm going to run this through pokerazor EV software when I get a free hour and try and find out the best line in this situation as I think it will be very instructional.

EDIT: OK I just loaded the information into pokerazor and quickly ran a couple of scenarios. If my initial assumption was that his range includes sets then bet calling (an equivalent action to shoving since I have a pot sized bet left) is slightly +EV. It is only slightly positive expectation due to the nature of the hands I'm up against, as I discussed earlier. If he has more combinations of flush draws in his range then it becomes close to indifferent. How many combos? Well with six combos of TT and 99 we actually need him to have ten combos of flush draw in his range for the effective all-in bet to become a loser - and this is a stretch. However, what if my feeling at the time was wrong and he always shoves 99 and TT on the flop? Well - obv now shoving is very -EV and check folding is the best line unless he will bluff random garbage with a decent frequency (unlikely after calling a flop 3-bet IMO). In my experience in these nitty games while players don't generally fold sets they can play the weaker ones quite passively versus aggression (the fear of the over-set). Without further experience with this opponent I'm only speculating but I think that my shove is OK. At least most of the money went in with the nuts.
GL

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