Yes, I know...

... that I suck at updating my blog.

Not much really happened after that nice win I had, in fact it all went to hell for the most part. I probably dropped about $500 or more in the last couple of weeks in fact. Got close a few times but just never quite winning the key hands. Sure, it happens, but when it comes in big bunches it can really test a guy.

In fact, I almost quit this past Saturday. I got in enough to earn my Iron Man points on FTP and about had enough of the beats. The sequence of events that caused these thoughts happened in about five minutes. First, I lost AA to K2h on the true bubble of the $44 turbo on Stars. I then took a viscious beat of some kind in another hand, and all the while I lost three hands as a favorite in a 90-man knockout SNG I was plaing to go from 2nd with 16 left to out 13th. I'm not ashamed to tell you that it hurt. Coupled with how things had gone the previous couple weeks and I was ready to hit the XBox.

As it turns out I collected my thoughts and continued my schedule, which was to play thru the 5pm slot of games I normally try. Among those was a $26 90-man turbo knockout that I had entered. As it ends up I chopped it for a win with a guy that was having a some internet issues (yeah, I'm a nice guy) and took about $536 from it. That reallllllly helped.

After dinner and a walk I played some more in the evening. I had a few decent games and made the money in a few, a couple on Cake and a couple others here and there. Around 1am I only had a single game left (the $22 turbo MTT on UB, which I min-cashed) so I elected to sign up for a $26 turbo Rush MTT to play along side of it. Rush is fast-paced so I liked the idea of keeping active while playing the other game. I ended up winning it for a slick $923.40! Not a bad cash for a game I joined at the spur-of-the-moment. See, you just never know.

The best thing about it was I decided to record my screen using Camtasia just before it started so I caught the entire MTT in a video. I'm going to let Tim at Pokerology cut it up to post on the site just for shits and giggles (and to learn from, I'm sure there is a few spots I can get something out of). It was more intended to follow the play in the $22 game but as it ends up its the $26 afterthought that made it a show. I'm looking forward to seeing it (and hearing it, probably rated 'R' for language).

Got one more play night tomorrow then we'll wrap up August. As of now I'm up a little over $600 for the month (thanks to this weekend) and here is hoping I might add to that total tonight at the home game and/or on FTP tomorrow. Go me.

Found A Big Win, Yay!

This weekend I played a bunch and Sunday afternoon I finally hit a big score by chopping a $44 Rush Turbo MTT. I really like these Rush tournaments but because of how fast they can be I don't like to have more than one going at a time. Still, I ended up chopping as the chip leader for a shade over $1157.

Here is the final hand that was played in that game. I just wanted to bring this up for a little discussion:

FullTiltPoker Game #22933094581: $40 + $4 Rush Tournament (176978857), Table 9 - 5,000/10,000 Ante 1,000 - No Limit Hold'em - 16:32:44 ET - 2010/08/08

Seat 2: gohockey12 (192,738)
Seat 5: Timitriff (69,164)
Seat 7: Rycky4Poker (83,098)
gohockey12 antes 1,000
Timitriff antes 1,000
Rycky4Poker antes 1,000
Timitriff posts the small blind of 5,000
Rycky4Poker posts the big blind of 10,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Rycky4Poker [As Qd]
Rycky4Poker: anyones game
gohockey12 raises to 40,000
Timitriff raises to 68,164, and is all in
Rycky4Poker has 15 seconds left to act
Rycky4Poker raises to 82,098, and is all in
gohockey12 folds
Rycky4Poker shows [As Qd]
Timitriff shows [Ac Ts]
Uncalled bet of 13,934 returned to Rycky4Poker
*** FLOP *** [5s 8d Jc]
*** TURN *** [5s 8d Jc] [Kh]
*** RIVER *** [5s 8d Jc Kh] [Th]
Rycky4Poker shows a straight, Ace high
Timitriff shows a pair of Tens
Rycky4Poker wins the pot (179,328) with a straight, Ace high
*** SUMMARY ***
Duration 37s
Total pot 179,328 | Rake 0
Board: [5s 8d Jc Kh Th]
Seat 2: gohockey12 (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Timitriff (small blind) showed [Ac Ts] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 7: Rycky4Poker (big blind) showed [As Qd] and won (179,328) with a straight, Ace high

========================

I cross-posted this at www.pokerology.com as well.

1. The chip-leader had been fairly active throughout the final table as he has had a considerable edge for some time. He was raising often but only shown reasonable hands when called, including A9 that fell to my AJ reshove earlier. Usually he went 3x but notice here he made it 4x.

2. Considering stack sizes I considered the 4x bet a shove. When the SB elected to shove in as well I had a bit of a problem. At first glance AQo seems plenty strong enough but I wasn't quite sure ICM-wise. Two factors that made me call were these. First, the fact that I did have the SB covered did help, plus while he had been fairly tight I felt I did have his range beat. Second, since the CL had been opening often I figured his range was pretty wide... maybe not as wide as it should be but still enough that AQo is ahead enough to go.

3. The fact that the chip leader actually folded here tells us a couple things: Some people just don't understand odds/are bad at math and that you ALWAYS have fold equity. Even in a spot like this, where all indications were telling me that this guy had an idea of what he was doing, you just NEVER know.

Sure, he likely would have lost the hand but if he was gonna play he should have shoved. With effective stacks at 9BBs I see no reason to 4x/fold 3-handed with over half the chips in play. As it ends up he likely did save himself some cash since we chopped, but if I had knocked him down under 10BBs I might have been much less inclined to do it, despite my headache and general lack of sleep. I was still in the moment and playing sharp so there is argument that I should have taken my chances after seeing this.... but something told me to take the safe route when the deal page came up, LOL.

I checked the hand at holdemresources and if this guy was playing "perfectly" we would be shoving 60% of his hands. Considering that I could have overcalled decently wide myself (66+ A9s+ ATo+ KJs+). Even thinking he was wide I know its likely not 60%... but still enough that AQo easily plays here. I'd have folded 66-88, A9s, ATo, and the KX hands though... maybe even ATs and AJo.

I wish he had called though. :)

Let's Play A Hand

I haven't done this in a while, so lets play! I'll cross post this on Pokerology also and use the replayer for the hand.

Full Tilt Poker Game #22520112225: $24 + $2 Rush Tournament (173904071), Table 21 - 30/60 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:10:48 ET - 2010/07/22
Seat 1: Michael Craig (8,380)
Seat 2: Hero (3,010)
Seat 3: Junior Augusto (5,200)
Seat 4: TourneRunr (5,750)
Seat 5: ballajr (3,680)
Seat 6: muligatani (1,560)
Seat 7: fengschu (4,990)
Seat 8: jba1986 (3,370)
Seat 9: pokerehdingys (2,420)
Hero posts the small blind of 30
Junior Augusto posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [9d 9c]
TourneRunr folds
ballajr folds
muligatani has 8 seconds left to act
muligatani folds
fengschu folds
jba1986 raises to 210
pokerehdingys folds
Michael Craig folds
Hero has 15 seconds left to act
Hero raises to 600
Junior Augusto folds
jba1986 has 15 seconds left to act
jba1986 raises to 3,370, and is all in
Hero has 15 seconds left to act
Hero folds
Uncalled bet of 2,770 returned to jba1986
jba1986 mucks
jba1986 wins the pot (1,260)

OK, as you see I ended up making a very rare 3-bet/fold move in this Rush MTT. This is how I feel about how it went down.

First, the villain pot-raises from the hijack to 210. Since its a Rush game, I have no read on the raise size. Often its a strong hand but not an absolute monster like AA. Sometimes players just hit the pot button every time they raise. We don't know.

I have 99 in the SB and elect to reraise to 600. To be honest, I'm just now noticing that I actually bet a little less than I usually would OOP... I would have thought I'd go 650-700 here normally. Regardless, I'm always reraising 99 against a hijack raise as a standard move and 600 is likely enough to get the message across.

Ah, but now he shoves all-in! Ooops. Now what? As you saw, I elected to fold since I felt 99 wouldn't win often enough against a 4-bet/shove range. I would need to win about 40% of the time here given the pot odds presented (pot was 3670, 2410 to call if I see it right) and unless this guy has 88 or AJ in his shove range, I don't have it. I don't think he does often enough at all, so I fold.

What's the problem you ask? I'm wondering if I just turned my hand into a bluff. If I'm going to be 3-bet folding in this spot do my cards really matter that much? I don't think so. I could have taken a hand outside of my reraising/calling range with a little flexability like T9o and done the same thing.

So what could I have done better here? Well, it seems I didn't plan ahead enough. Granted, its a Rush MTT and it wasn't the only game I was playing at the time, but I do look at stacks sizes. I should have seen that by reraising here I was leaving him a great spot to reshove on me as a re-resteal. Now this guy might not be able to pull that off but the spot is still going to give me fits (obviously).

This leaves me to believe that due to the stack sizes involved here, reraise/fold is just not smart here. That leaves 4 other options: fold, shove, call, or 3-bet/call a shove. We are just too strong to fold, that's out. Shove, while perhaps Nash-friendly and/or coupled with fold equity a potentially viable play, seems really spewy this deep... you tell me. So that leaves call and 3-bet/call.

Calling is reasonable to me. Generally I'll be playing fit or fold with my 99 like I would have with 33, either I hit a set or I'm done with the hand. The odds are there to set-mine so that's not an issue. I think this is the best option unless I decide that 99 is too strong to fold to that 3-bet, which leads us to that last option. Is 99 strong enough to go all the way here?

I'm thinking a stock 4-bet/shove range might be something like TT+/AK, but I gotta wonder if other hands just don't show up enough here to make 99 a call. Are guys really coming over the top of me with 66? AJ? KQs? Are they actually tighter (JJ+) or a combination of this? How wide does he think I am here? That would change his range also. I could be going 77+/AJ+ here... what would he go with against that type of range? Is 99 or AQ in there? If so, I still think I'm behind... but is bullshit in his range enough to change that?

If we had 1500 here I'd shove easily and just take my chances. Being this deep changes things. What do you think?

Bye July

I see I've been doing real well updating the blog.

The past two weeks haven't been the best but I feel I'm still playing well. Every time I check a spot in hindsight I can very rarely find anything I could have done differently. I'm happy to see that I still don't let all the coolers and the bad beats affect the way I go about my business.

I've been close to a few things lately. I've made the final of the $22 turbo on Full Tilt twice in the last couple days. I almost won a small turbo MTT on UB yesterday and I've been picking up some other deeper runs along the way. I just haven't won that key hand to get into the big money in a few weeks. I'll keep trying.

Outside of that, not much happened. Oh, I did pick up a 7-9 split bowling on Friday... that was very cool. :)