Analysis « Meteoric Poker

Archive for the ‘Analysis’ Category

So Maybe That’s Why

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Always good when Yegor explains something to me – small moment of feeling stupid followed by lightbulbs popping off all over the place.

It’s looking like multiway pots are a problem for me, and possibly something more – while all that was percolating around my head (it takes a while) I was browsing 2p2 and hit this thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69/micro-stakes-pl-nl/top-pair-but-no-reads-easy-fold-863394

The thread was about this hand;

SB: $18.60
BB: $25.35
UTG: $46.45
MP: $70.36
Hero (CO): $20.00
BTN: $25.00btw, MP is a solid player, 1st hand from BTN

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is CO with A J
1 fold, MP raises to $1, Hero calls $1, BTN calls $1, 2 folds

Flop: ($3.35) A 5 6 (3 players)
MP bets $2.00, Hero calls $2, BTN raises to $8.50, MP folds, Hero???

Immediately all the advice was to fold, and I was thinking wtf, fold big top pair with really good kicker? Then someone explained;

You are out of position and even best case scenario he has ~33% equity or so(naked fd). If he has flush+straight draw he’s actually ahead.

Yes you could be ahead but plenty of scarecards and it’s going to get expensive to find out.

You call, turn is blank, he bets, you what? You call, turn is another blank. He bets, you what? Pay off his set or 2 pair hoping to bust his bluff?

You call, turn is spade, he bluffs you with his OESD.

You call, turn is 9, he bets. You do what?

By calling you put yourself in icky spot and 3betting is just horrible. Unless there’s reason to believe he’s playing back at you probably best to just fold and save yourself headaches. There’s almost no good turn cards for you. 2 pair out in case he has 2 pair but thats about it. Could also be worst card in deck for you if he has set…(trips aren’t much of outs as if you were behind unlikely to help)

which made sense – if it had been me I’d have called (or even shoved maybe!). So I can’t even spot an easy fold

Posted in Analysis | 3 Comments »

Back To Old Ways

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Returning to 6max seems to be all deja vu. I seem to have returned to my mysterious redline inversion;

I’ve googled around for reasons but it seems to be a rare thing. Possibilities are either I bluff too much or I’m too much of a calling station. From that last hand I posted it could be that I’m allowing my opponents to draw out on me too often, although I’m usually aware of pot odds and try to protect my hand against the obvious FDs & connected boards. OTOH from these two hands I could quite likely be a calling station when I have marginal hands;

showdown hand 1
$0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem
[url=http://weaktight.com/ftp/]FullTiltPoker[/url]
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG ($5.51)
Hero ($6.82)
CO ($5.05)
BTN ($3.80)
SB ($3.09)
BB ($5.26)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 K J
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.15, CO calls $0.15, 1 fold, SB calls $0.13, 1 fold

Flop: 5 Q J ($0.50, 3 players)
SB bets $0.50, Hero raises to $1.45, CO folds, SB calls $0.95

Turn: 6 ($3.40, 2 players)
SB bets $0.50, Hero calls $0.50

River: 9 ($4.40, 2 players)
SB goes all-in $0.99, Hero calls $0.99

Final Pot: $6.38
SB shows a pair of Queens
Q 8
Hero shows
K J

SB wins $5.96 (net +$2.87)

Hero lost $3.09
CO lost $0.15

showdown hand 2
$0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem
[url=http://weaktight.com/ftp/]FullTiltPoker[/url]
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG ($4.05)
UTG+1 ($3.19)
CO ($3.28)
Hero ($5.20)
SB ($9.09)
BB ($3.63)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is BTN A 4
2 folds, CO calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.15, 2 folds, CO calls $0.10

Flop: 3 2 4 ($0.37, 2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $0.37, CO calls $0.37

Turn: Q ($1.11, 2 players)
CO bets $1.11, Hero calls $1.11

River: 3 ($3.33, 2 players)
CO goes all-in $1.65, Hero calls $1.65

Final Pot: $6.63
Hero shows
A 4
CO shows two pair, Queens and Threes
Q J

CO wins $6.19 (net +$2.91)

Hero lost $3.28

I looked through nonshowdown hands, and it’s almost all flop cbets, with a few like this;

non-showdown hand 1
$0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem
[url=http://weaktight.com/ftp/]FullTiltPoker[/url]
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG ($6.54)
UTG+1 ($0.38)
CO ($4.48)
Hero ($5.87)
SB ($9.82)
BB ($7.12)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is BTN K A
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.15, 1 fold, BB calls $0.10

Flop: J 6 Q ($0.32, 2 players)
BB bets $0.15, Hero raises to $0.45, BB folds

Final Pot: $0.92

Hero wins $0.88 (net +$0.28)

BB lost $0.30

non-showdown hand 2
$0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem
[url=http://weaktight.com/ftp/]FullTiltPoker[/url]
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG ($5.22)
UTG+1 ($3.45)
CO ($12.59)
Hero ($5.13)
SB ($9.24)
BB ($14.46)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is BTN A 10
UTG raises to $0.10, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.10, 2 folds

Flop: 9 9 7 ($0.27, 2 players)
UTG bets $0.14, Hero raises to $0.40, UTG folds

Final Pot: $0.81

Hero wins $0.78 (net +$0.28)

UTG lost $0.24

so I kinda suspect my non-showdown stuff where I’m catching obvious bluffs is actually good, and if I were to sort out my CS tendencies it would still remain a solid +ve (or at least breakeven) line (obviously reduced since I’ll be folding those pots I’m currently calling).

Plus fwiw here’s some stats;

Posted in 6max, Analysis | 4 Comments »

Fold or Call?

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Moments away from going busto now (<$100 left), so to stretch it out a bit longer I decided to play NL5 rush poker with the intention of working on my 6max ABC poker. The idea being to tighten up a bit (I’m too much SLAG and not enough TAG), fold to big raises more and see how a less bluffy/more valuebetting me might do.

So far so good, more or less. Had one bad beat where my KT 2pair hand went all-in against their T8 2pair, and of course an 8 rolled out on the river – however need to put in loads more hands so those beats merge into the noise.

Anyway, if I’m supposed to be playing totally ABC, then what’s the move on this hand. Assume no history or stats (it is rush poker after all);

$0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem

6 Players

Stacks:
UTG ($6.94)
UTG+1 ($7.17)
Hero ($5.75)
BTN ($6.92)
SB ($4.65)
BB ($5.79)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07, 6 players) Hero is CO 8 8
UTG raises to $0.10, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.10, 1 fold, SB calls $0.08, 1 fold

Flop: 9 4 7 ($0.35, 3 players)
SB bets $0.05, UTG calls $0.05, Hero calls $0.05

Turn: 2 ($0.50, 3 players)
SB bets $0.50, UTG folds, Hero ?

Posted in 6max, Analysis, Full Tilt, Hands, Rush Poker | 7 Comments »

Having a Heater is Bad for your Health

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

A couple of posts ago I said I wasn’t losing too badly, just losing out to rake since I couldn’t get past 50% ITM. Well I checked my stats a bit closer and turns out I am losing so far this month;

Most of it is shitty win one, lose one zigzagginess. None of it seems to bear any relation to whether my opponents were any good or not, even the fools who check every button won their fair share. One of them today made an awesome laydown though;

No Limit Holdem Tournament
2 Players

Stacks:
SB (1,640)
Hero (1,360)

Blinds: 10/20

Pre-Flop: (30, 2 players) Hero is BB A 6
SB raises to 60, Hero calls 40

Flop: 5 10 J (120, 2 players)
Hero bets 80, SB calls 80

Turn: K (280, 2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets 20, Hero calls 20

River: 9 (320, 2 players)
Hero goes all-in 1,200, SB folds

Final Pot: 1,520
SB shows
A Q

Hero wins 1,520 (net +160)

SB lost 160

Admittedly shoving that river seems remarkably spewy since there aren’t many hands that would call, and he was also extremely passive – but that passivity was so extreme that I was convinced he really really liked his hand (I know turn bet was small, but *any* turn bet after he called was big strength from this guy). He tanked for quite a while before folding. I dunno if I would have had that strength…

That game was annoying in the end because I had him pinned down to < 500 chips for ages and he kept on clinging on, winning some flips back to equal stacks and then my 66 lost to his AK.

Here's another hand that shocked me. Different player, this time someone who raised their buttons and you'd expect more regular lines. Maybe flat calling a 3bet pre with aces is a much better move that 4betting or shoving?

No Limit Holdem Tournament
2 Players

$10.00+$0.50

Stacks:
SB (1,150)
Hero (1,850)

Blinds: 10/20

Pre-Flop: (30, 2 players) Hero is BB 10 10
SB raises to 60, Hero raises to 180, SB calls 120

Flop: 4 8 9 (360, 2 players)
Hero bets 180, SB calls 180

Turn: 9 (720, 2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets 340, Hero calls 340

River: 6 (1,400, 2 players)
Hero bets 200, SB raises to 440, Hero calls 240

Final Pot: 2,280
SB shows two pair, Aces and Nines
A A
Hero shows
10 10

SB wins 2,280 (net +1,140)

Hero lost 1,140

Anyway, to the point of the title of this post – essentially I had two heaters this year, one at $10 games and the other at $30. The money from the $30s is blown away now, and my wins show I’m back to the point after the 4man $10s heater. It’s a pretty solid decline for the last 3 months. Those heaters raised my expectations, and it’s painful facing the reality that I’m not really winning at heads up.

I wish I knew where the holes are in my game. It was a lot more fun when I was winning…

Posted in Analysis, Bad Days, Hands | 10 Comments »

Remember I’m Still Learning

Friday, May 21st, 2010

I’ve not played as much poker as I’d have liked this week – the weather’s nice so playing tennis in the evenings, plus on Wednesday I’ve started a Spanish night class (learnt the numbers the other night, whoo!).

Despite the lack of play though I’ve been really piling on the learning & evaluation side of things though – that downswing might have been the best thing to happen to me as I’d stopped learning and assumed I’d got the ABC side of poker down pat and was either winning or losing (50/50!). Since I was previously winning it all seemed great, but now I think it was just lucky really (as I’m not a complete idiot it was luck biased towards winning, but obviously that’s very precarious still).

Moving back down to $10s to concentrate on how I was playing (rather than printing money) was feeling a bit pathetic, but then Yegor reminded me I was still learning, and wasn’t going to be rich tomorrow. So very true, I need to keep telling myself this until I’m ready to return. This was reinforced today when I found a three year old post on 2p2 saying exactly the same thing. Cwar was saying when 20 buy-ins isn’t enough – most of the reasons were to do with tilt & poor mental state, but the final one was;

-You are learning, no need to move up faster than your knowledge will allow you, going from the $10s to $220s quickly is not going to happen without you needing to learn and adjust. If you breeze through a couple limits fast I would recommend slowing down a bit just to see how you adjust to the better play at higher limits.

The same point twice really, but it rams it home nicely. Adding on top of that the fact that the learning I’m currently doing is really opening my eyes to a lot of new things means it all feels constructive, and I’m not wasting my time, even if I’m not moving up (despite the BR telling me to).

Posted in Analysis, Bankroll Management, HUSNG | 1 Comment »

Giving Up Gambling

Friday, May 14th, 2010

My downswing continued painfully, moving past the -$300 point. That’s a third of my bankroll in just under two weeks, so it was starting to look desperate.

I know what my problem is, and have really known it all along TBH. I run good, get confident, and then start to embrace the fun side of poker – the gambling!

So I chase draws, make big cock swinging hero calls, thin value bets when I have no value, and generally discard the fold button. All with the obvious consequences.

At the weekend I buckled down and started to squash these urges, and I managed to stall the downswing. It’s not turned round, but the latter half of this month has been breakeven which is better than before.

I’ve been reading 2p2 intensely, going over my HH, having other people go over my HHs, talking strat on AIM, and generally becoming an obsessive poker bore. It’s feeling good too.

After a long discussion last night with Yegor (ok, most of it was laughing about roseeker’s downfall) I decided to drop right down to $10 games and set a strong volume goal. I’ve currently 240 games at $10 with a ROI of 13%. I’m going to play another 260 to bring it to 500 games and see if I can nail my game down to a cold impassionate cyborg crushing of these $10 morons. No more hero calls

So far so good, although I’d forgotten how bizarre $10 games can be. For $20 and $30 games the players have become far more rational about their lines, and betsizing is at least in relation to the pot size. $10s it’s still kinda crazy. For example I had 72o in a limped pot. The flop had been checked back so it was a $40 pot on a TJQK board. Villain fires out a bet of $200. Somewhat obvious what to do.

I’m still squishing some gambool tendencies though – same villain 3bet me pre while I had KJo. Against him I felt a call would be ok, but something in me said that he was just going to jam the flop with his A rags if I did. So I 4bet, which KJo isn’t really good enough for, and he shoved. So I thought ‘whatever’ and called to see that he did indeed have A6o. Here was the difficulty of $10 – he had no idea that a 4bet looks really strong and he was supposed to fold A6o. But that’s what we all say in these positions – ‘how could he shove with that!’. Ultimately these are mistakes which make us money. Anyway, neither of us improved, I went down to $900 and then had to fight another 10 minutes in order to finally win.

Posted in Analysis, Bankroll Management, PokerStars, TwoPlusTwo | 6 Comments »

Videoing Sessions

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Yegor said he’d review some of my games if I videoed them – he reckons it’s easier to go through compared to a text HH or a replayer. And he’s right! After recording a few sessions I went back over them and it was really easy to see what was happening, way more than the HEM replayer.

It was so easy to review them that I’m tempted to record games by default. The only thing that makes me hesitate is that while recording it makes Windows a bit glitchy occasionally. I’m already plagued with disconnect problems, so dunno if I want to add more crappiness to it.

I started out recording using the trial version of camtasia, and that was pretty good once I figured out how to set the frame rate & compression. At £200 for a license though it’s too expensive to buy (I’m not installing any warez – too much trouble with malware).

So then I tried UltraVNC screen recorder which is free, and it worked perfectly. Slightly more glitchy than camtasia, although I’d upped the framerate which was probably the cause. Here’s the result. I tried uploading it to YouTube and it came out really fuzzy which is a shame as the camtasia ones worked quite well, but I’m not bothered by that.

Posted in Analysis, Poker | Comments Off

Archive for the ‘Analysis’ Category

Pages

HUSNG blogs

Poker Blogroll

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Cellsino Poker

40% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Everleaf Gaming

Rake: contributed

Statistics: Monthly

300% up to $500

Signup Bonus

Minted Poker

40% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Everleaf Gaming

Rake: contributed

Statistics: Monthly

$250-$2,500

Signup Bonus

Cake Poker

33% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Cake Poker

Rake: dealt

Statistics: Daily

110% up to $600

Signup Bonus

Americas Cardroom

27% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Winning Poker

Rake: dealt

Statistics: Monthly

100% up to $1,000

Signup Bonus

True Poker

27% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Winning Poker

Rake: contributed

Statistics: Monthly

100% up to $1,000

Signup Bonus

Fortune Poker

30% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Boss Media

Rake: contributed

Statistics: Monthly

200% up to €1,000

Signup Bonus

Poker Heaven

30% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Boss Media

Rake: contributed

Statistics: Daily

200% up to €1000

Signup Bonus

Paradise Poker

30% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: Boss Media

Rake: contributed

Statistics: Daily

200% up to €1,000

Signup Bonus

PKR

30% Rakeback

Featured Offer

Network: PKR Network

Rake: contributed

Statistics: Monthly

100% up to $800

Signup Bonus

Red Star Poker