I'm moving this blog to here if anyone still happens to read the drivel I spew. I may update here from time to time though. Please visit and bookmark the link above. Hope to read your comments there! Good luck onthe felt and may the good cards hot your hand!
Recently I played a "home game" on Poker Stars that consisted of 6 members from Deuces Cracked playing some micro limit hold em.
The bonus to playing against 5 other really tough opponent's was that it was recorded and used in one of the many great series that DC has every season. This game will be part of Passing The Torch, run by PygmyHero who is coaching Adrienne'sRevenge and helping her ascend to higher levels.
The other great thing about this video is DC's awesome technology of the hole card cam, where all our cards will be seen during the entire video. This enables PygmyHero, and his special guest (another coach from DC) to critique all of the players during this session, which will greatly benefit all of us and show us the weak spots to work on in our game. and They are the only poker training site out there with this feature and it is truly cutting edge. So this will be further proof of how much of a donk I really am. I ran pretty good after making some horrendous errors which I'm sure will be pointed out. I hope all my fellow BGLL members get something out of it besides knowing what a fish I can be.
Talk to you all soon....
Lately I've been having some frustration with my favorite kind of fish.. the loose passive player who NEVER. RAISES. EVER. How does one combat the emotions that come with playing this type of player? I know most of the time I'll amass a nice stack from him but here's a hand I played recently that may sum it up a bit.
Here's the stats for both villains and a bit of a read... ( and sorry, Adri the converter has a 4 color deck... and the spades are yellow, ugh!)
SB is 48/0/0.3 over a smallish sample (75 hands) and has cold called JJ to my EP open, x/c on a Q high flop and call down UI, chases draws and didn't raise a rivered nut flush 3 way;
The BB is 32/20/4.7 after 50 hands and his favorite move is a x/r on the turn and is a bit more aggressive on the later streets. He's won at showdown 5 out of 15 tries so far and seems to rely on fold equity.
Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 89451
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.4 SB) Hero is CO with A
8
1 fold, Hero raises, 1 fold, SB calls, BB calls
Flop: (6 SB) A
T 9 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB calls
Turn: (4.5 BB) T
(3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB raises, Hero calls, SB calls
River: (10.5 BB) 8 (3 players)
SB checks, BB bets, Hero calls, SB calls
Final Pot: 13.5 BB
Hero shows A 8 (two pair, Aces and Tens)
SB shows T
A (a full house, Tens full of Aces)
BB shows K 6 (a pair of Tens)
SB wins 12.9 BB
(Rake: $0.30)
First does anyone see a weak spot in my line? Did I over play this on the turn? Do we ever slow down our betting against him? The BB's x/r doesn't really scare that much given the read. According to stove I'm not too bad.
The real question is what is the SB thinking? Why not put in a raise somewhere? Does anyone have a good understanding on what goes through the mind of this type of player? I understand the rationale of "I don't want to lose any customers" but what gives?
Good luck on the felt and may the good cards hit your hand...
The last few sessions have been pretty bad for me and I'm to blame for it. Today I felt like a total spew monkey. I'm value betting really thin in some river spots with nut no pair type hands where it's clear the villain isn't folding with 3rd pair. Consistently.
I'm not focusing at all and I can feel the tilt rising in me. At least I'm recognizing that and quitting well before disaster strikes so I have that as a consolation. Going to do some review in Hold Em Manager and start to fix this crap now. And maybe run a little bit tonight as punishment!
Well, it's been quite a while for me but feel I must post more now since I've let my fellow Bi Gro Land Lubbers at Deuces Cracked know of this pathetic little thing I call a blog.
I'm feeling a lot more comfortable in my new shoes, aka playing 6-max limit poker. I still don't get a ton of hands in but I'm working on it more every day. This will be a short post to get the juices flowing again so bear with me, dear reader. Here's a hand I got really lucky on because I feel i played the turn about as shitty as possible, imo. I had no reads at all, as this was like the 10th hand, and I was on the phone with Mrs. whodat (or should she be Mrs. Rootbeer 2000 now?). You decide.
Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 47550
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
Pre Flop: (1.4 SB) Hero is BB with 7 5
UTG calls, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero checks
Flop: (5 SB) 7 6 5 (5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO checks, BTN bets, SB folds, Hero raises, UTG calls, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, Hero calls, UTG calls, CO calls
Turn: (8.5 BB) J (4 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero calls, UTG calls, CO raises, BTN calls, Hero calls, UTG calls
River: (16.5 BB) 7 (4 players)
Hero bets, UTG calls, CO raises, BTN 3-bets, Hero caps!, UTG calls, CO calls, BTN calls
Let me know how badly I played this, please. I can take it. Good luck on the felt and may the good cards hit your hand.
Hey, I never ask anyone to do anything in this blog but I'm asking you now to help out here. If you scroll down on the right you'll see a widget I added from Barack Obama's voteforchange.org. Rumor has it that Mr. President elect plays a mean game of poker. I'm asking you to take a few minutes of your time and help support the cause for getting online poker's status changed.
It seems silly to me that the NFL has a carve out to keep Fantasy Football legal (which is actually gambling), as well as Interstate Lotteries ( which is serious gambling if you look at the odds of winning), and Horse Racing (um, you guessed it....gambling) but online poker is made out to be the big bad wolf on the internet.
There is more skill involved in poker than randomly picking some numbers on a lottery sheet, or guessing which quarterback is going to light it up this week. So out of all the gambling games mentioned above we have exemptions for the ones that a monkey could do and your odds of winning would be the same.
Now let's say the monkey was playing $1/$2 No Limit Texas Hold Em with $200 and had Ac,Kc pre-flop and is up against a player who plays 40% of his hands. He bets $10 and the monkey calls. He's already a 66% favorite against the other guy's range of hands. (Examples below, courtesy of Poker Stove)
Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
765,399,888 games 1.562 secs 490,012,732 games/sec
Board:
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 66.445% 64.70% 01.74% 495236094 13336967.50 { AcKc }
Hand 1: 33.555% 31.81% 01.74% 243489859 13336967.50 { 44+, A2s+, K2s+, Q4s+, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 87s, A3o+, K7o+, Q8o+, J8o+, T9o }
Let's take it further. Suppose the flop comes up Ah 5c 8c and the monkey is faced with an all in bet from the opponent. Should he fold? If he does he is making a critical mistake since he is now a 91% favorite in the hand.
Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
372,240 games 0.046 secs 8,092,173 games/sec
Board: Ah 5c 8c
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 91.213% 90.59% 00.62% 337208 2325.00 { AcKc }
Hand 1: 08.787% 08.16% 00.62% 30382 2325.00 { 44+, A2s+, K2s+, Q4s+, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 87s, A3o+, K7o+, Q8o+, J8o+, T9o }
The point of this is to let you non-poker playing readers know you can calculate your odds of winning a poker hand in any situation by reading your cards and seeing what kind of odds the pot is offering you. If the price is wrong you fold. If it is right you must play the hand because, if you've done your homework on the game, mathematically you'll win in the long run by making sound decisions.
Poker is the only game on the UIGEA list where this is possible.
Here's something for you all to try.
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile - nope, but I've had alligator
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho OMG yes. This is awesome!
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle - not that I know of but I'm dying to.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - not a whole one
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee Absolutely!
100. Snake
If you're a reader here you'll remember my moment of genius in this post. I really need to watch wtf I'm doing when opening up tables at Bodog because it happened once more without even knowing it.
It could've been disastrous but maybe these guys aren't that good? Or I'm just on the better side of variance. I played about 50 hands before I realized I wasn't on a play table and managed to win 10 Big Bets at a $5/$10 Heads Up cash table.
Maybe watching all those Death Donkey HU videos at Deuces Cracked is paying off because I never felt out of control during the (short by choice) match. Or, more than likely, since I didn't know I was playing for real cash I just focused on the opponent's style and how to expoit it? At any rate I think I'll pause for now.
Good luck on the felt and may the good cards hit your hand.
11-5-08
I love
the autumnal season
with the leaves
changing their hue,
and how
the political landscape
has gone from
red to blue.
I participated in a unique challenge that was posted in a thread here and it was really interesting to say the least.
The rules are: (copied from the post)
1) You must play at one table 100 continuous hands.
2) You must see the flop 100%.
3) You must attempt at least one pre-flop raise (PFR), if possible. We're going for 100% PFR on PT stats, so open raising and calling a 3B is fine. If it is capped to you, your PFR may not be 100%.
4) You can only buy in for 50 Big Bets.
(Stakes $.02/$.04. - 50 Big Bets = $2.00 buy in)
I played this at a Limit Hold 'Em, $.02/.04 Full Ring Table (9 handed) at Poker Stars . The reason being is this challenge is something I didn't feel comfortable with. I don't play loose at all pre-flop and this would get expensive if I tried it against players at my normal stakes. Once people adjust to your style their opening range will widen because you look like a spew monkey to them.
I tried this twice and had two totally different results. The first attempt had me busto in 28 hands (I won a $5.00 prize for this as the player to bust the quickest).
I felt frustrated raising hands like 62 off-suit and/or having to call a player's 3-bet after I open raised in early position. I knew I had little value and didn't like throwing away 3 small bets pre-flop and check folding flop after flop, or donking with a small pair and folding to raises on later streets. It wore on me pretty quickly.
The next attempt was better as I started hitting flops and running good. The table also got shorter after a few people commented on how stupid my style was and left.
Overall I got more comfortable with this sort of retarded style of playing. It clearly is a losing proposition in the long run and I don't advocate anyone consistently playing like this. But for a short stretch it opens your eyes to the value of post-flop play. That's where the most money is won in this game. Making a small mistake pre-flop is OK if you don't compound it on later streets. You must be able to hand read and know how your opponents will react to you play.
I posted the stats of this challenge below from Poker Tracker. You'll notice in the second row that my pre-flop raise (PFR) number is below 100%. In a couple of hands the play was folded around to the Small Blind who folded instead of having to call another raise from me, the idiot, in the Big Blind.
Stats :
Session 1
Hands played - 28
VPIP - 100%
Pre-Flop Raise - 100%
$ Won ($2.00)
BB/100 - (178.57)
Session 2
Hands Played - 100
VPIP - 99%
Pre-Flop Raise - 100%
$ Won - $1.53
BB/100 - +38.25
If anyone else is inspired to try this please let me know how your results turned out and what you learned from it. I'd be interested to hear.
Good luck on the felt and may the good cards hit your hand..
