Hands: 690
Amount Won: $376.00
BB/100: 47
Not to state the obvious, but I had an awesome session tonight. Four tabled NL50 for 2-2.5 hours. Wish I could have played longer but the 8am wake ups are breaking my balls. Lost a 200bb pot when my KK ran into AA- put a smile on my face. Played well tonight but I had a hot hand, too. Ive been thinking about poker non-stop lately and Ive been practicing extensive study. I can feel myself improving and a lot of it is a reflection of my group. In particular, Noel and Alex have been great assets to my play- respect their opinions, they know their stuff. I'm a big believer in not being results oriented. I cant help being happy right now b/c of the results, but what it comes down to is playing your "A" game each session while controlling your emotions. Poker is not just a game, it is business. I enjoy poker as a game but I also view it as a long-term investment. One cannot control results. From a results oriented perspective, a player will have great sessions ($$$) and terrible sessions (-$). As players, we have no control over the cards but we do have control over ourselves. If one plays anything less than their A game, it is simply a bad investment. Goal setting is huge. Many people make long term, lofty goals such as: make $1000 this month. That is not a productive goal. Short term goals must be set to achieve long term goals. When you drive to your local food mart, you know how to get there. Hypothetically speaking, you turn right at Church Rd, make a left onto Kings Hwy, travel that road for two miles and the food mart will be on your right. Each turn is equivalent to a short term goal which ultimately helps you achieve your long term goal. Sorry for the rant, thats the sports psychology they jam into our heads speaking there. Ive bored you enough, now for some interesting hands.
Hand 1: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1258840
Villain (15/6.5/.78 over 504 hands) is a good, solid regular whom I respect. We've been involved in several big pots with each other over the past month or so. She only 3 bets her strongest hands, but will call with some marginal face card hands out of the blinds against a raise from any position. Preflop play is standard, she also knows I'm ultra aggro on the button. The flop has terrible texture. I find that boards consisting of more than on middle card (Q-8) are terrible flops to cbet. In this case QJ with a club draw= terrible, terrible texture. I opt to take a free card in position b/c of the texture and the fact that this flop hits her range quite well. The turn brings a good card for me. She leads into me and I decide to raise bc she could be leading here after interpreting the flop check as weakness. I figure I have 16 outs to improve to the best hand by the river in the case that my TPTK is not best. River blanks, and I bet the river bc I feel she will call my light knowing that my turn raise could have been an FD semi-bluff and after no club she could check/call the river to hopefully induce a bluff from a missed FD. In retrospect, this is a thin value bet AT BEST. When called, I think I rarely show the best hand here based on her range.
Hand 2: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1258845
Villain 65/5/.6 over 83 hands. Crazy a-hole could be leading into me with anything here, as he was frequently calling my raises OOP and was probably getting a bit tired of my antics. I decide to call the flop over a raise to control the pot size due to my ambition to bluff one of the many scare cards that could peel off on future streets. The turn actually helps my hand. I now believe I have the best hand and want to show it down w/o generating a huge pot. I also feel a raise on the turn would scare away any hand I'm already ahead of. I decide to check behind on the river b/c I couldn't see him calling me with a worse hand, and in the case that I am check raised I'd have to give up the hand, imo.
I had other good hands but these were my most marginal hands of the night. Looking forward to some discussion. Thanks in advance.
Grind and Shine
4 comments:
Great mind frame, I like the way you are approaching the game. Dont give all the credit to running hot. One of my favorite poker sayings is "skill creates luck." I usually say this to donks after they tell me how lucky I got. Keep doing what your doing and the resluts will follow.
Hand 1: You know what you did wrong. I like the raise of her weak turn bet as well as the check on the flop. I like the idea of 8-Q being bad cbet boards something to think about. River is where you made the mistake. When she calls your raise on the turn I would put this nit on at least Q10 or J10 if not 2p, that being the case you cant bet the river and just be happy to show t down cheap with the chance to win.
Hand 2: I think you can bet this river as well as call a C/R. Look at the hand from my last post where I am check raised on an insane board. These are the spots we wait for against fish. When you decided you are best and he doesnt have the flush on the turn stick to your read. Value bet this river knowing he doesnt have a flush and you have the nut.
Hand 2: I think the check is good looking at what the villain had. Looks like he was tired of getting pushed out by c-bets, so he potted flop and turn with a very marginal holding. If he did that, he might very well c/r with something weird and make you fold the best hand. Also, I don't know the history, but with his AF and stats he might just be the guy who sees a lot of flops then jams when he has monsters.
hand 2: I think this is the more interesting of the the 2 hands. Consider it a value bet to charge him again on the river. You didn't think he had it on the turn, why not tax him again on a harmless card (even though it's an A).
Can villain call a large river bet here without a Q, though?
Post a Comment