Party Reload: 'Unstoppable!'

I played the reload on Party Poker today, which took me about 4 hours (to play 1000 raked hands). The bonus was 20% up to 100$, with a 10x clearing rate, which is pretty good, considering how poor the play usually is on Party. And today, poor it really was.

I have so many hand histories where people simply give me their money. They bluff the river when I've been betting the whole way but they miss their draw, they fall right into my traps, or they call my pot sized bets with top pair and no kicker when I have top two pairs.

I did make a few mistakes here and there, worth maybe 100$ overall (even though some were due to good plays on my opponent's part. I can recall notably one good defensive bet by one opponent). But for the rest, my play was aggressive, my bluffs worked almost everytime, and I had a lot of good hands. I got quads twice in 1500 hands, which is pretty good, and unfortunately, my opponents never had a hand to pay me off. Well, that, or they folded the nut fullhouse because they simply knew I had to have quads. Not.

Kugr (you might remember him from the Niagara episode. He's the guy who took one for the team) was kind enough to follow me around and play at all my tables. We really destroyed those tables. I can recall one table where we had over 6 buy-ins combined, which is pretty good at a 6-handed table. Strange enough, in his kindness, he got position on me on almost every table, and called a lot of my preflop raises in position. The bastard. His cards were mostly cold against me, but he still ended the day up somewhere around 400$. I'm pretty sure someone will call collusion on us now, even though he was the one I wanted to bust the most!

I was up 800$ after 800 raked hands, but then I played AQ vs Q8 after a 4x preflop raise, and the flop came Q8x. The guy played it good and got paid off. I ended up only about 740$ before the bonus, so 840$ total. This is my best one-day rush in cash games so far, with my previous best rush standing at +566$ plus a 100$ bonus. And yes, that means Kugr and I took our tables for almost 12 buy-ins.

Look at the pretty picture. I think I deserved it.

Deuces: Redemption

I obviously kept playing, even after that stupid beat. I played deuces again, and flopped a set again. I got all my money in again, and I was up against kings again. The flop was T42 again, and the river was a T again. Fortunately, this time the turn was a 9, and I took down a 200$ pot to break even for the night. Vindication, baby!

I was ready to leave when I got another nice little hand. I got Aces on my big blind, and the small blind raised to 6$. It was pretty obvious he had a good hand, so I re-raise him, and we ended up all-in. The flop comes with two aces on it, giving me Four of a Kind. The turn is a king, and the river is a brick. The guy flips over Kings for kings full of aces. Wow, talk about strong hands.

This was at a badbeat table, and the JackPot was around 70 000$. Unfortunately, you need to lose with quads to qualify, not a measly kings full of aces, otherwise I'd be about 12 000$ richer. Oh well, another day maybe. At least I'm up for the day now!

Stupid game...

After that bad streak I had earlier this month, I had to analyze my game to take it back to what it was earlier this year. I compared a few different sessions, looking back to how I played my hands in May, and I realized that I played incredibly great back then (Hellmuth must think about himself that way all the time).

Basically, my losing streaks and my winning streaks had the same stats. The difference was that I won 12BB/100 hands in my first streak, and I only won 0.15BB/100 hands in my second one.

After further examination, I realized that the only thing that changed was the amount I'd bet. All my bets were slightly bigger back then, which commited my opponents much more, allowed my bluffs to work more often, and got me to stack a lot more people. It also influences your image because people see you betting big and get scared. I spotted a few more specific mistakes I was making, and now I'm back on track.

I've been playing great for the last few sessions, being up over 50$/hour every time... until tonight. I was playing a solid game, and I was up roughly 40$ after a little more than one hour, when this hand happened.

That would have taken this session from 'okay' to 'great', but I guess that variance decided to be a bitch.

With that said, if you look at the hand history a little longer, you'll realize a few interesting facts. First, the guy, after re-buyin to 100$, decided to open raise for 6$. From the few hands I played with him, that seemed to indicate that he had a real hand. I put him on a big pair with 90% certainty. I usually don't like calling with deuces, but here it was pretty clear.

I also knew that the table was passive, and if someone raised behind me, it would be a really good hand, so they would end up all-in and I wouldn't regret anything. With these elements in place, I made the call. I got what happens roughly once out of 8.5 attempts: I actually hit my set.

I was actually glad when he checked to me. That meant that he had what I thought, a big pocket pair. With a hand like AK, he would have bet to take me out of the hand. I figured that if I was right, a bet in the neighborhood of 2/3 of the pot would get raised, then I could push all-in. My plan worked to perfection, as he raised big enough that I doubt he'd fold to my re-raise.

The way the beat happened, with running tens, is just sick, but I was only a 86% (6:1) favorite in that hand. It's a tough beat, but it's not a 21:1 favorite.

Anyway, I can't let that affect me though. I'll keep playing my game, and let the money fall where it belongs!

Insight of the day

I recently watched a video of Howard 'The Professor' Lederer giving one of his famous poker seminars, and one key point he made really got to me. I can't quote him very accurately, but it goes something like this:

"Say you are a good poker player, and out of the thousand things you could do correctly, you do 900 right. Obviously you still have 100 things to learn, but you're doing much better than the average. Now, say you're playing someone who does only 300 things correctly. Obviousy, you have an advantage over him, and he has a lot to learn from you.

However... in the 300 things he does correctly, and the 100 things you do incorrectly, there will be some overlap. You will rarely be better than someone in every aspect of his game. You can learn from him, even if he is a losing player. It takes time to realize and admit this, but even a complete beginner could do some things better than you do. Just ignoring him and insulting him because your stats are better is a sure way to lose eventually. Once he has learned everything he could from you, he'll do way more than 900 things correctly."

Most of his audience probably missed this quote, but I find it to be one of the most insightful things I have ever heard.

*sigh*

I played my last four SnGs today, and my play was pretty awesome. I still did not get a single money finish though, which puts me at 0/17. Pretty sick run, considering even a donkey has at least 20%. Obviously my limited Project bankroll can't survive such a run, so this one is over too.

I admit that my play was probably really crappy in the last four SnGs after I lost 9 in a row, but today I think I played great. Here are some more hand histories, which includes most hands where I did get involved in the last four SnGs. There are a few moves I'm not quite sure about, but this looks pretty good to me overall.

1- Huge all-in against a lucky calling station. Note that even though he had a good hand this time, he was a 1.33:1 underdog, and got only 1.25:1 on his call. Tiny edge for me, but still an edge.
2- Maybe a mistake. I would think I'd be up against AT a lot more often than A6 in this spot though.
3- Tough call. I almost laid it down, but it turned out to be a good call.
4- Nothing to see here. Can you fold your straight there?
5- 73s? You gotta be kidding me.
6- No brainer move a few hands later, still can't win even when I'm ahead.
7- Good draw. I'm really surprised that the guy did not re-raise with such a strong hand though. He played it well this time, but it looks like a scared player to me.
8- Big laydown. Maybe a bit scared, but I couldn't see myself being ahead unless he had AKs.
9- Decent move, bad timing. The first limper raised or limped every hand, so there was no reason to think my hand wasn't good.

Comments are always welcome, even more so in times of doubts. Is there any move that is obviously wrong in there?

Meanwhile, drop me a call for a beer.

Sick run (and some logic)

I hate when that happens. Another project, another kick in the nuts. I'm not out yet, but today I got one of the sickest run I ever had. I played a total of 13 SnGs, and got a grand total of 0 money finish. Yep, you read that right: not even once, not even out of sheer luck. I even got quads twice in the first one, and busted two guys with them. But then the blinds kept climbing and people wouldn't go out. In my last run of 100 SnGs on party (10+1), I finished 52 times in the money. I'm 4/21 so far in this one, and I don't think my play has gotten so crappy that I wouldn't even get the 30% of an average player.

Enough whining though, here's a little something I want to write about:
I ran into Aces at least 9 times in these 13 SnGs, and I didn't get them a single time.
While I was indeed playing slightly more aggressive than the average guy, this does seem odd to me. Let's look at this with a bit of formality.

Assuming that :
A) when someone has Aces, there will be an all-in confrontation;
B) all-in confrontations are one on one;
C) our player is an average player;
D) playing against random opponents;
Hypothesis: One should get Aces at least as often as he runs into them.

Let's proceed with a counter-example:
Our player runs into them more often than he gets them (the opposite of our hypothesis);
If our player runs into them more often than he gets them, it implies that someone runs into Aces less often than he gets them (using assumption A & B);
This implies that our player runs into them more often than everyone else (Using B & D);
Since our player is included in the mix of random players (using C),
and not everyone can run into aces less often than he gets them (using A & B);
this is false.
Thus, our hypothesis must be true.

So, basically, what this means is that the game more or less owes me 9 Aces, and I need to double up or bust someone with every single one of them. I guess I don't feel too bad about my losses now.

Disclaimer: Yeah, that was mostly intellectual masturbation, but it's simply a bizarre way I have to cool down a bit after this bad streak. If only my play was as solid as my theorical background, I'd be a bazillionaire by now. But it's not the case. I heard it's called 'choking'. Ever heard that word before?

Playtime is over

I know I said I'd start the Project last time, but I'm also very good at procrastinating, and that's pretty much what I did. I ended up starting it today, and while I made a few mistakes, I got pretty good results anyway. I played only 8 SnGs, which took me less than 2 hours.
I got:
- Two first places (100$)
- Two second places (60$)
- Two fourth places (0$ but bragging rights)
- And two random worthless finishes (Good hands cracked early)
For a quick profit of 144$. Way to start the Project!

I did start the last one on a rush too, but hopefully this one won't take the bad turn the last one did.

Tomorrow I should be able to play about 20 more SnGs, and I'll try to clear it this week-end. Stay tuned!