Worst(Best) Player Ever

So yesterday I had the unique pleasure of playing with the worst player ever. I mean a guy who would call large bets with any two cards, would call down with 9-high, and would make obvious small bluffs.

I wish I could say that I cleaned him out, but I didn't. I had an average night, which is fine. I'm shooting for being up 2 buy-ins a session overall, and so far I've been doing so. I made one real donkey call the whole night and I lost some making small adjustments (I was working on finding an optimal strat against this guy). I wasn't really getting any great starting hands (I think JJ was my highest pair) or suckouts. I just simply grinded it out. Not the most fun way, but it beats working. Which I have today.

Oy.

How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down?

So I go into some poker today, courtesy of Bob Dylan. Last month I bought tickets to see Bob Dylan near the Casino Del Sol in Tucson and tonight was the show. I've never listened to much Bob Dylan, but the show as pretty good. His set had a blues/rockabilly feel to it and I sure enjoyed it.

I got to the casino at 5PM and since I had two hours to kill, I played some poker. The biggest game they had going on was 2-20 spread limit, so I jumped into that. Spread limit works like this: at any time, you bet or raise anywhere between 2 and 20 dollars. So it plays a bit like a PL Game.

I played well and tripled my buy-in. There's one hand I wanted to share with you guys because I really liked my turn and river play.

There's a couple of limpers and I see TT on the button. I thought about raising, but there were a few tricky players, so I decided to limp and play it post-flop. My post-flop game is becoming really good and I actually feel better playing post-flop than preflop now, though my pre-flop game isn't bad. Usually I would raise TT in that spot almost 95% of the time, but my feel for the table just said that it felt right to limp here.

Anyways, the flop came K72. It's checked to me and I decide to check back as the SB likes make some daring moves and I want to see the turn before I make any real decisions. The turn is an off suit 9. It's checked around to be and I bet $6 into a $10 pot. The tricky small-blind makes it $16. I thought about this for a few seconds and I decided that my hand was good and I reraised the full amount, $20 more. He called that and my $20 bet on a river K. My Tens were good and I took down a nice pot. What liked about the hand was my turn thinking. I ran through my (limited) history with the player, analyzed his play and betting patterns, and made a good decision. One of the hard things to do is to get value out of mediocre hands. To do so requires some good decision making and fearlessness.

It's stuff like that that makes me like my post-flop play a lot. I'm starting to play the marginal situations really well. Say what you will about my pre-flop play with TT, but you've gotta like my turn and river play.

Weekend Wrap-up

So I didn't play on Friday. I was feeling tired and out of it and after hanging around the house for a bit, I decided to not go. After the losing session I had the night before, I felt that I should play my next session with my A-game.

On Saturday, I got a good night's sleep, which is rare (even though I don't have anything to do every day until at least 3:30, I still get up early. It can be nice, but it's annoying when I'm only at 5 hours of sleep). I went off-roading and checked out a national park. I have some pictures (and the correct spelling of the park), so I'll post those later. One of them has to do with poker in an odd sort of way.

So I got home, got some dinner and I ended up watching the WPT. It was the Shooting Stars tournament from this year and Ted Forrest was at the table. He was masterful. When people call NL an art, you need to watch Ted play to know what they mean. It got me pumped up to play. It also helped that I was flipping though NL Holdem: Theory and Practice earlier, so my mind was in the game.

So I get to card club and I had a pretty good session. I'll admit that I got lucky a few times, but I really played well. I had AK twice and I played them both perfectly, moving in with the first one preflop and calling down with the 2nd one. My style worked well and I played the hands well. I manipulated my opponents and the pots. There was one hand I could have played for a much bigger pot, but I didn't expect the guy to check top set against my (hidden straight). I got some value on the river that brought a 3rd club, but I could have won a lot more.

So I'm +6 buyins for the night, which makes me +4 for the week. It's about what I want to average, especially since I don't play that long (my average session is around 5 hours). There's talk of having the club open for more days beyond Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I'm not sure about it because I would like to play more, but having this limit on my play is a nice little bit of artificial balance in my week.

Well, last night didn't go to well. Dropped two buy-ins in an hour and a half and left. The first one I donkied away a bit, but the last one I just got a major suckout. I flopped top set in a large pot and misplayed the turn, though it wasn't a mistake. I didn't realize the pot was as big as it was (I thought that it was 30% smaller) and should have pushed the turn instead of betting 2/3 of my stack. What ended up beating me was a gutshot, so my original bet was a good one from a mathematical point of view, but there were a few other draws out there as well.

I wasn't angry at all as I was bound to get unlucky. I just reached my limit for the session and said good night. The same players will be their tomorrow, so it's not like I'm missing anything by not reloading again. I also learned that the biggest fish in the game (though the guy who beat my is my new #2, and not just because he beat me) is a big casino winner. I didn't learn an exact amount, but I'm guessing at least $50,000 and more likely $100,000+. She is just the kind of player you want in the game (super-loose passive calling station supremo) so it's nice to know that she isn't going anywhere for a while. So she is going to be my sugar mama.

Bleh

Ever have a night of bleh poker? Where everything doesn't go right, but it doesn't go wrong either? That was my night.

It started off interesting. I got pulled over. My 2nd time ever. The street I was driving down is really dark and I ran a stop sign. Just plain forgot about it. Didn't register at all. So I see the lights flash and I pull over. Not really sweatin', just being cool and collected. I guess I figured I was due to get a ticket as for the first time I was pulled over, I got out of it. Anyways, he gives me the standard spiel, I deny any knowledge of wrong doing and give him the appropriate paperwork. He asks where I was going, I tell him the truth. He goes and pulls up my file, sees that I have a clean driving record and lets me off with a warning. I'm thinking "Sweet. Got away with another one." Coincidentally, the first one was for running a stop sign I missed as well.

As for the poker, nothing much really happened. I would some pots, lose some pots. I think I had 4 pairs all night: 44, 77, 88, JJ. Half of them won. The JJ I got rivered (but I didn't really invest that much) and the 44 I didn't play. The 77 was an interesting hand.

There's a few limpers, I limp in late position and the button makes bad raise. The kind that's not really a pot sweetener nor does it drive people out. It just makes the pot unmanageable. There's two callers and I go for it. The flop is KT3. It's checked to the button and she goes "ok, I'll give out a free card." The turn is a 6 and it's checked around again. The river is a 2 and it's still checked around. The button makes a smallish bet and one of the limpers calls. Now I was sure I had the button beat. Her hand was just really consistent with a missed hand as always bet if she had at least a piece by the turn. Now the limper I had to think about. I was getting about 6-1 and his range didn't include a K in this spot and I concluded that there was a fairly good chance I was ahead. The odds looked good, so I made the call. The button had AJ, the caller had a worse Ace, and my third pair took it down.

It was small stuff like that which kept my afloat. In the end, I found myslef up exactly one buy-in and I decided to call it quits. The table looked worse (the juicy fish that I really wanted to double up through left) and it just didn't seem worth it. It was 3AM, I was getting tired and it was the right move.

So overall a good three days. Now it's time to relax until I have work on Tuesday. Good luck at the tables!

Short Night

Well that was over quickly. I bought in for a bit more this time, 80% of the max buy-in.

I won my first big pot with third pair. I had 97s in the BB. There was a raise and a few callers so I called as well. The flop came 9T2 and I checked. It was checked all around. The turn was a T, making a two flush. I made a smallish bet to keep the pot small OOP. I had calls in 2 places. The river was a rainbow Ace. I decide to check, the one guy I was worried about checked and the 2nd caller made a large bet. I thought about it and I knew he didn't have the T and I was only worried about the Ace. His bet was weird and didn't make sense. He couldn't rule me out from having a T and I would have expected a smaller bet with an Ace. I decided to call, the other guy folded, and my pair was good. So I had some momentum going with me.

I then took out AK and 76p with AA. The AK reraised all-in (60% of the buy-in), I called and the 67o overcalled. He even said what he had before the flop. It came K64, I pushed and he called (I had him covered by a bit). It went brick, brick and I won the pot. I'm running hot with Aces, they haven't been cracked at this club.

The next big hand was with KJh in the BB. There were a few limpers. I was the biggest stack at the table with another guy not far behind. I checked my option and I saw a flop of Th2hAd. I bet out and was min-raised by the other large stack. I call and see a black Q on the turn. I check raise, he moves in and I insta-call. He shows QT (lol) and the river pairs...the 2. We're moved to another table as we were fairly short handed. I get my stack up some more and I realize that I have well over half the money at the table. I play another round and call it quits.

Art (the guy I talked about before) was at this table and was trying to talk me into tilt. Man did he try. I nearly broke up laughing, but I just kept my cool and joked around with him, trying to keep it friendly. It's funny, he's trying to tilt me, but I've clearly set him on perma-tilt.

I think my total session lasted a bit less than three hours and I was getting close to breaking the room. Not a bad night.

Weekly Cash Game, Pt. 1

It looks like this is going to be a Thursday-Saturday (Friday-Sunday on updates) blog as those are the days that the local cash games are held and I don't really do that much online.

I wish I had some interesting hands to post, but I don't. Probably the biggest hand was when I turned the nut straight, made a big check-raise against the button, got called in two places and the river completed both the flush and the higher straight. BB goes all-in and I fold. Nothing terribly exciting. The rest of it was just me grinding it out and making smart bets. I pretty much played close to theoretically optimal NL poker. Even with that one big hand, this was still my best night so far. I ended being up 3 buy-ins.

So to keep this interesting, I'll start talking about the players and my strategy against them. Today I'll talk about my good "buddy" Art. If you've ever played with the asshole at the table, this is your guy. He's cocky, swears, berates other people's play, and is easy to tilt. So that what I do. It's also nice that he thinks I'm pretty bad. Last week, he asked me if I learned poker on ESPN. I said yeah, I watched it a lot. Then yesterday when I sat down, the first thing out his mouth is "easy money!" And then I tilt him in the easiest manner: I be myself. It really annoys him when I talk. And I do it constantly. Make a little breach of etiquette here, a little breach there and he gets worked up. And when he tilts, he becomes a loose-aggressive calling station. He'll make poor raises preflop, try to bluff you out and will call down decent bets when it's clear he's beaten. He re-bought 4 times since when I sat down. And I would just make small talk to the other players, crack a few jokes. Comment on the hands after they were done with donkey stuff like "hey, it's poker" or "Aren't we supposed to be having fun here?". I just try to be a bubbly air-head and it really gets to this guy.

As far as poker strategy, I play my big hands big, my small hands small, and I set some traps against him. Flopping a monster against him is a great time to check. This is the type of guys who never believes you and wants to bluff you out. I love it.

Two Days, Long Nights

The last two days I've gotten up at 10AM after going to bed between 3-5AM. It tires me out, but I am just not a late sleeper. The reason is poker (of course). I don't get to the local card club until around 10PM (they open at 7:30) because of either work or I'm just doing something else. Last night I watched Rounders with my dad. He hasn't seen it before, which I thought was a situation that had to be rectified.

To recap the Friday night action: I lost my winnings from Thursday. They, however, were both standard days as I won and lost little more than a full buy-in each time. The hand I went busto with was AQ vs. AK where I just couldn't get away from the AQ. I flopped an Ace and I ended up getting more than 2-1 on my call. Against the villain, his range was big enough that I think that I am ahead 80% of the time there, so I don't feel bad. It's just how the cards run. He could have just as easily had AJ-2.

Saturday was another pretty standard day but now my game is running at close to top speed. I wish I could say I made some crazy bluffs, but I didn't Well, I made one bluff on a double paired board against Aces, but it didn't work. It was close, though. The board read Q227 with two hearts and I raised a turn bet with a heart draw. He asked me if I had a Q and I said "yup". The river paired the Q and I made a decent-sized bet. He thought, nearly folded, and called. It was good for the image.

Besides that, I just played well. It was hard to bluff this table, so I just used my poker abilities to play marginal situations well. This guys were like open books. An older gentleman kept on doing the classic tell of looking at his chips when he had a hand. It made playing 2nd pair or top pair weak kicker really easy. It also let me make some big value bets. I raised AK preflop against a few limpers from the BB and he called. I checked an 8 high flop and he checked back. The K hit the turn and I just knew that he had a weak K from his body language. So I put a decent bet and he called. The river bricked and I put another decent bet in and was called with K6.

I was also able to value-bet AK high on the river against AJ high. That's always fun. It really was a standard night of laying with the lambs. People must have also thought I was out of my mind. I ended up drinking 3 Vaults (Drinks like a Soda. Kicks like an Energy Drink) and I was bouncing off the walls. I was fidgety and I wouldn't shut up. I just had a great table image. I was being real friendly so some of the players were annoyed, but I think most of them had me pegged as a fish. One guy thought I learned poker from watching ESPN. Since I will be playing with the same rotation of guys here, I'm glad I'm making a good first impression.

So I ended up 2.5 times my buy-in for the record.

Well, the next game isn't until Thursday, so I have nothing to do. Maybe I'll go back to sleep.

It's (a)Live!

Well, last night (technically this morning) was my introduction to the Arizona Card Club scene. It sounds like they are trying start up cardrooms like in CA so this was nicer than a homegame, but not by much. They had trained dealers and nice tables and custom chips, but the space itself could use some work. The room is open three nights a week: Thursday-Sunday. There is talk of adding more days, but it depends on the profitability of the place.

Here's how it works: There is a $10 Annual Fee, $5 at the door each time, and $1 on the button. That's it for fees. When it's five or less it's 50c on the button. It's not a bad deal and the low table rake helps for the NL games as less rake=more chips in your hand=more money you can win. When I got there, they were spreading a 1/2 NL game on 2 tables with a $100 max buy-in. Not too bad. What makes it great is that the players are horrible. And I mean horrible. I honestly can't recall a better NL game that wasn't a $10 buy-in home game. Now, I'll get down to the hands.

QQ: I doubled up against A8 on a T55 flop.

AA(1): This one I liked my play a lot: Well, not my play, but how I sold the hand. The kid I was playing against was the bigstack at the time and he was calling decent preflop raises fairly light (I had lost a small pot with TT against his 86). How it went down was I made a decent sized raise to $16 and him and this other guy called. He bet $10 on a 374 flop. I had around $40 left, so I moved all-in. Other guy folded and he went into the tank. I was a bit worried about 56, but him betting that wasn't consistent with his previous play (he liked to slowplay). As he thought, I was sure I was ahead, so I hollywooded him. He had the hoody and sunglasses and I pegged him on the kind of player who's read enough to know the "strong means weak" tell. So I started him down, trying to look as intimidating as I could. I sold the bluff. I knew my read was spot on because his body language started to change once I started staring. He called and I won.

AJ: This hand was a heart-breaker. It's one of those hands where you know the right this to do and you still do the wrong thing. There was a straddle from this loose and crazy player and I elected to call in position to keep the pot size down (he was apt to raise with a lot of cards, so I didn't want to raise as a pot control measure). The blinds saw the flop and with no raise it came down QT8. The straddle bet small and I called with my double gut-shot as did both of the blinds. The turn was a blank and another light bet. I didn't think my fold equity was very high, so I decided to just call, as did the blinds. The river was a 9 and the SB went all-in. He had me covered, with $140 left in my stack and $50 in the pot. The other two guys folded and my immeadiate reaction was "he's got KJ". I tried to probe for information, offering him $5 to see any card. He wasn't that good of a player, but he wasn't the kind to make a crazy bluff. When I asked if he had the K, he looked surprised that I would ask and did a check-back. That through me off and I made the call. He turned over KJ and stacked me. It was a pretty amateur mistake by me and I still am not sure why I called. I felt like Daniel Negreanu: I made the read, reasoned it out, and still made the wrong decision. Though this hand did save me further down the line when I folded KcJs on a JcTc9c flop to his open push.

AA(2): So I re-bought for $100 and my next BB I pick up AA with a ton of limpers. I decide to make it $30 to go as I expected someone to call and I was offering fairly poor implied odds. So two people call. And I'm OOP. With a pot bigger than my stack. The flop comes QJx, all clubs. I decide to check as if I bet, I wasn't folding, so this lets me think about the hand the most with min-risk. The first caller checks, and the 2nd guy goes all-in. I don't have the Ac and I think about it for a minute. I didn't think he had the flush, so I was mostly worried about a pair with a club or two-pair. The clock is called on me, I hem and haw, and I decide to call, getting 2.5-1 on my money. The other guy folds and he shows my the best hand ever: KJ. All red. The turn is a club, making me feel a bit better as there were less ways to lose (I was still a bit frazzled from the AJ hand). The river was a blank, and I'm back in the game!

Nothing much really happened for the rest of the night. The players were pretty bad (loose-calling stations), but I had a hard time hitting hands. I would just miss and miss. I think I made two draws the entire night. At the end, we played four handed with the absolute worst player I have ever played with. She was calling station extreme. I just couldn't get anything going as she was call with any two and hit, leaving my hands in the dust. 62o: good. J6o: good. K8o on a JQx flop against my K9: good with the 8 on the turn.

So it was a grinder night for me. I made one good bluff with 67 (I got the two guys off overpairs). It's worth talking about, so I'll break it down as making two players fold overpairs is pretty crazy in this game.

So I have 67o on the CO 6-handed. The guy next to me limps and the button raises it to $12. We all had pretty big stacks at this point, so the limper and I called. The important point here was that this was the raiser's last hand. He was the big winner and had a little under $1K (he was actually hitting hands against super-loose-calling-station-women and getting paid off nicely). He had mentioned that this was his first winning night as the two times he had been there, he lost $200 each time. So this all played into the hand. The glop came 582, two clubs. It goes check, I check, and he bets $10. The other guy calls and I think that this is a super-weak bet and I raise to $40. Now I had been playing pretty "tight" the whole night, never getting out of line. The last time I made a big bet, I had a set of threes. He thinks about it and calls and the other guy folds. The turn is a red J and fire out $80. He makes a speech about how it was his last hand and how he thought I had clubs, but was letting me take the pot. I say that I didn't have clubs, and take down the pot. He claimed to have TT while the other guy said he had 99 (my outs!).

So that was my card club experience. I hadn't played live NL in a long time, but I think I'm working out the kinks well. I was able to see some of the leaks that had opened and they should be plugged up fairly quick. I'm reading NL Holdem: Theory and Practice again to brush up on some more of the theory. If I play again tonight, I'll give a write-up tomorrow.

A Little Live Tourney Action

Since I am now living in AZ, my local card options are a bit limited. The closest casino/cardroom is in Tucson, 1.5 hours away. It's not that bad, but I can't go everyday. I manage to make the trip every few weeks. Well, today my dad wanted to play the 10AM (really 11AM) tournament there, so we both wake up early and go. It's $10+5 with $5 rebuys. The juice seems steep, but you end up spending $35 on average, so $30+5 isn't that bad for live play. 90 people play, top 10 pay.

It was also interesting rebuy setup. There were no addons, but you start with 1K in chips, and you can rebuy for 1K more at the start. What made it different is that during the 2nd level, you can rebuy for a total of 4K (2K+2K double rebuy) and during the last level, it's 6K. So you are never really behind at the last rebuy level as you can catch up fairly quickly. The blinds started at 25/50 and doubled every 15 minutes. So for the first few levels, you had a decent stack. I rebought twice: once to get the initial 1K and once after I decided to gamble with 45 in a multi-way pot at the 2nd level for 2K chips. There were only a few minutes left until the next level, so I figured I could wait and get an extra 1K for my $5. I didn't need it as I tripled up with AK vs. A9 and 53 and then I trapped two A-high players at the 100/200 levels with KK. I finished the rebuy period with 16300 with the next level being 200/400. So I had some room to maneuver.

Over the next few levels, I built my way up to 36K when I flopped quads with AA against TT and took down a few small pots when the blinds started to catch up. By the 1K/2K level, everyone was going in when I was the big blind and I made crying calls getting over 3-1 with every hand. I lost a lot of them as I just wasn't winning them. By the time it got to be 2K/4K, I was able to steal some blinds and get back to the 30K range. Lo' and behold, my dad comes to my table! And he plays better than I expected him to. He made some pushes with K2o and A7o when he was short stacked. He played aggressive to keep afloat. Before I knew it, we were down to the last two tables.

I had just lost a coinflip with KQ vs. 66 and I was down to 15K with the blinds at 5K/10K. In the CO, I pushed with my favorite hand, 55. Of course both blinds called and I had a sinking feeling (the SB was playing tight enough that I was hoping to get it HU). Presto held it's part for me and gave me a nice 5 on the flop. The BB moved all-in with a pair of Aces (there was one on the board) and I tripled up nicely. Of course, players started moving in when I was the BB (I think I had more all-in confrontations after the rebuy than anyone else by a good margin) and of course I would call the 5K more or then wouldn't even have enough for the BB. And I would keep losing. My random hands have to win some of the time.

With 12 players left, I found my self with 50K in chips UTG with the blinds at 20K 40K. I looked down at A2o. I hesitated because I hate pushing UTG with that hand when I have no fold equity, but I knew it was the right thing to do, so I did it. The BB called the 10K more and I was off against 97o. Luckily I won that hand and crippled the BB. Of course, we lost two people the next hand, so off to the final table I went! But not before a much needed break.

We redraw for seats (we were staying at my table) and I drew the same seat. I laughed and showed people before stretching my legs. My odds for staying at the same seat for the entire tourney was 1/90, so I guess I was feeling lucky. It also nice that my dad also made the final table. When we got back, we tried to get a deal for $200 a pop (the blinds were getting crazy and I felt like doing some else than folding and flipping). These two guys decided against it and off we went! I was actually sitting third in chips, but the blinds were so high that it didn't really matter. Two guys had 10K left in chips, so I was forced to play the waiting game. A few guys busted out, and a deal was offered again. The same two guys declined and off we went (again). My dad finished in 6th for $155 and the 5th place guy busted out. At that point, I was chip leader with 340K, but with the blinds at 80K/160K, I really pushed for a deal and finally got it. We just split it up equally and I walked away with $392.

Not bad and the competition was pretty bad. It ended up being pretty basic monkey poker (post-flop, what is that?), but my experience helped carry the day because even though the decisions were binary (push/fold), I was able to make the best decisions. I was able to pick on the smaller stacks and try to pick up pots preflop-flop against tight players. I was only all-in once after the rebuy the entire tourney, which is a pretty good result.

There is a very, VERY soft NL game in town, but it's only on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, so I've got to wait it out. Luckily, I'm in the game, so I have the hard part done.

On an aside, I'm going to see Transformers tomorrow, and I can't wait! I am super psyched for the movie.