I’ve had a bit of time in the evenings to play some poker, and figured cash games was probably best. I decided to drop down to 5NL since I’d taken a bit of a beating at 10NL last time (ah, I didn’t blog about that ), and my BR had dropped back down to $50.

5NL didn’t go too well. Part of the problem was that the games are deep, and max buy-in was $10 – I might as well be playing 10NL! Of course I ended up in a hand over my head and actually busted a whole buy-in;

• Way too deep
  $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem
  5 players

  Stacks:
  UTG ($1.95)
  CO ($10.27)
  BTN ($11.97)
  SB ($14.71)
  Hero (BB) ($13.37)

  Pre-flop: ($0.07, 5 players) Hero is BB 8 Q
  UTG calls $0.05, 2 folds, SB calls $0.03, Hero checks

  Flop: T 3 Q ($0.15, 3 players)
  SB bets $0.15, Hero raises to $0.45, UTG folds, SB raises to $2, Hero calls $1.55

  Turn: T ($4.15, 2 players)
  SB bets $3.25, Hero calls $3.25

  River: 5 ($10.65, 2 players)
  SB goes all-in $9.41, Hero goes all-in $8.07

  Final Pot: $26.79
  Hero shows: 8 Q
  SB shows: 8 T

  SB wins $26.83 ( won +$12.12 )
  Hero lost -$13.37
  UTG lost -$0.05

I thought I was looking at someone who was betting on hitting a flush, but really he was in a win-win situation. Two pair on the flop *and* a flush draw – how else was he going to play the hand

So my 5NL game came out like;

The real shock came when I tried to open a fourth table and was told I didn’t have enough for the buy-in! My bankroll had dropped to just under $40, and then it really hit home that I was playing deep and might as well been in 10NL.

So I swapped to 2NL, and crushed a few people to recover half of the loss;

That was last night. Tonight I carried on four tabling 2NL, and got a quick hit early on but then struggled to make headway. I’ve decided to change my game slightly by being a bit more nitty. My showdown/non-showdown chart is still redline +ve and blue line -ve, which is a definite sign that while my aggression is successful, I’m letting too many bluffs go to showdown (I definitely have a calling station problem too).
Anyway, here’s tonights all-in performance chart, and again it looks like I’ve been lucky;

Yet really that hand wasn’t that bad. The all-in calculation kicked in because someone pushed the dregs of their stack preflop, and then the hand went on to a big pot.

• -Ev according to PokerTracker
  $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Holdem
  6 players

  Stacks:
  UTG ($2.35)
  Hero (UTG+1) ($3.88)
  CO ($0.12)
  BTN ($4.32)
  SB ($2.09)
  BB ($1.72)

  Pre-flop: ($0.03, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 K 9
  UTG calls $0.02, Hero raises to $0.06, CO goes all-in $0.12, BTN calls $0.12, 1 fold, BB calls $0.10, UTG calls $0.10, Hero calls $0.06

  Flop: 8 6 9 ($0.61, 5 players)
  BB checks, UTG bets $0.26, Hero calls $0.26, 1 fold, BB folds

  Turn: 3 ($1.13, 3 players)
  UTG checks, Hero bets $1, UTG calls $1

  River: Q ($3.13, 3 players)
  UTG checks, Hero bets $1, UTG folds

  Final Pot: $3.13
  Hero shows: K 9
  CO shows: J J

  Hero wins $3.37 ( won +$0.99 )
  CO wins $0.61 ( won +$0.49 )
  BTN lost -$0.12
  BB lost -$0.12
  UTG lost -$1.38

Ultimately I won all but $0.12 of that hand due to an awesome bluff (kind of awesome, I figured he was either a failed draw or the scare of the hearts flush would be enough to make him fold). So it looks like I won an extra $1.80 through luck, but I don’t think that was really the case (unless you think I was really lucky that the UTG folded of course). Btw, if you think that river bet size is odd, it’s just that it covered the UTG’s stack – he only had just under a dollar left…