Sunday, August 28, 2011

Stayin' In On Saturday

I know that the games are usually going to be the best on Friday and Saturday night but I rarely get the opportunity to play poker during these times because I'm usually out and about with the peeps. This Saturday, however, I had no choice but to stay at home and play poker if I wanted any chance of retaining SNE for one last month. As it just so happened, most of my friends were out of town anyways so I didn't feel as though I was missing out on anything. I also got my fix of drinking and socializing on Friday, so that helped.

This month has been pretty lame, as I was saying in my last post...before my session today I was up a fairly meaninless/valnurable $700. Obviously breaking even is always going to be profitable with SNE rakeback but without any milestone bonuses in August a $4k month is definitely something of a disappointment. Fortunately, I was rewarded for putting in the hours today both in terms of VPP's earned and money won and hopefully I can continue my uptick over the next few days.

I ended up putting in more volume than I planned today...I was hoping to earn 4k VPP's but cranked out 5.5K. I have no problem putting in the hours when I'm losing but today was very unusual because I was a pretty big winner in both of my sessions today yet still wanted to keep grinding. The games just looked too good to pass on I guess...also in the back of my mind I know that whatever extra hours I put in now means less work in the coming days. Hopefully I can log some solid hours tomorrow as well so I can avoid the variance of playing the CAP tables on the last day of the month (because in all likelyhood it will come to that)!

My two sessions today felt very opposite to one another despite booking 4-figure scores in both parts. In the first session, I felt very comfortable and the most in control that I've felt all month. There were almost no good 400nl/600nl tables running so I was playing nearly 100% 200nl and the session was very pure...for the most part hands always held when I was ahead and I didn't suck out when I was behind. I got my money in good more than bad and came out ahead about $1k.

The second session was much different. The games were looking much more juicy and there were way more higher mid-stakes tables running so I decided to embrace the variance a little bit and found myself running about 30% of my tables at 400nl/600nl. The action was pretty crazy and after some key holds and favourable setups I booked a session to the tune of $2.2k, bringing my daily total over $3k.

This is how my month looks so far:



It's been pretty wild and I'm still a bit below EV but at least I have a bit of a cushion at the moment in terms of profit. Who knows how long that will last but if I can keep the momentum going over the next few days I can definitely salvage the month. I'm currently sitting on 30.5K VPP's so I have a heavy workload ahead of me and anything can happen!

I figured I'd post a somewhat interesting hand from my session today that got me thinking after the fact. I think that I played it really well/somewhat standardly for the most part but made a pretty clear mistake on the river. Here's the hand:

CO= A reg that I wasn't too familiar with, saw him at some 6max tables but no reads
BB= huge calling station whale


No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (6 handed)
Button ($393.70)
SB ($648)
BB ($709.65)
UTG ($626.70)
Hero (MP) ($600)
CO ($600)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 7, 7
1 fold, Hero bets $12, CO calls $12, 2 folds, BB calls $6

Flop: ($39) 7, Q, 8 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $30, CO calls $30, BB calls $30

Turn: ($129) A (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $90, CO calls $90, BB calls $90

River: ($399) 8 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO bets $198, 1 fold, Hero calls $198

Total pot: $795

Results:
Hero had 7, 7 (full house, sevens over eights).
CO had Q, A (two pair, Aces and Queens).
Outcome: Hero won $792

The flop and turn are obviously standard-need to bet for value and protection from draws. By the river, the fish could certainly have a wide range of junk that he's hanging on with from anything from ace rag to a busted flush draw...I'm almost never going to be behind him at this point.

I'm much more concerned about the range of the regular. In the moment (as I was flying through my 24 tables and didn't really pause to think too hard about the spot) I remember thinking that he probably has AQ but may also have 88,QQ or a busted flush/combo draw (something like 9Tcc or JTcc). I think that most people will bet here and hope to get called by AQ because that's about all that will call you (and that will even fold some of the time since the call is basically to chop) but I was and still am very happy for my decision to check. By checking, obviously you're inducing a bluff from a busted draw (though it's much less likely that this will happen from a capable reg while the calling station is still in the pot) but you're also inducing a bet from AQ to get the hero off of the exact same hand. I also snap-checked, which may or may not have factored into his decision to bet since I was trying to rep AQ myself this way. Anyways, I'm not happy with my decision to call his river bet and after thinking about it I think that it's a pretty clear shove. As I said, at the time I thought that he might have 88/QQ/AA and also wasn't sure if he'd call a check-shove with AQ anyways (he had about $200 behind and $400 in) so I just called. After thinking about it, I think that most players are going to be raising that draw-heavy flop with a set almost always (even with the fish in the pot) and even though he may in fact have a hand that beats us a small percentage of the time when he slowplays a set, I think that it is usually going to be profitable to ship the last $200 and hope that he thinks that he's priced in to call with AQ to chop it up. Nits gunna nit I guess.

All right, well I think that I'm going to try and satty into the million tomorrow since I'll be playing a bunch anyways. Hopefully I can book another solid session tomorrow, we'll see what's in store either way!

gl at the tables!

No comments:

Post a Comment