foxwoodsfiend.com

I got 5th place out of over 300 in the 10k High Rollers WCOOP event this morning. Total profit was about 168k. Most people say that you’re never happy in a tournament unless you win: fuck that. I’m extremely happy. Obviously being 4 spots away from winning 600k leaves you thinking “what if…?” but at the same time, I had 8 big blinds about 4 hours into the tournament, I won with underpairs all in vs overpairs twice and was generally a card rack. I did pretty aggressively chip up around the money and final table bubble and think I played very well, but let’s be honest: I caught a ton of cards and any time you get 5th out of 300+ players you don’t have a right to complain.

I haven’t been blogging much because I haven’t been doing much in the way of poker: I went on vacation to Turkey and Israel, then between an annual get-together at Martha’s Vineyard with my closest college friends, a high school friend’s wedding in Virginia, finding a sublet in NYC and moving in, it’s been a hectic last month and a half.

Somebody said “You only post brags anymore” which I don’t think is fair: I don’t post at all anymore. But yeah, I think given my infrequency of posting, it’s probably better to post brags then beats: ostensibly some of you want to know when I”m doing well, but I’m not going to break my posting silence just to bitch and moan. That would just be self-absorbed and immature.

With that said, here’ s the quiet beat that came into play as I busted out yesterday. With 5 players left, players were talking about chopping up the prize pool. I said no, not until the blinds go higher (subtext: BECAUSE I THINK I AM SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE!). Then, with the break approaching I was starting to reconsider as the blinds were going to get a bit out of hand. So just as I’m going to type “hey, let’s talk chop during the break,” I spill some water onto my laptop. The only noticeable effect of this is that my “Enter” button doesn’t work so I can’t chat!

Well between that and worrying the computer will short-circuit mid-tournament with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, I decide that I should download Stars onto my other computer during the break. While this is happening I look for my RSA Token on my keychain (for those who don’t know: an RSA token is a piece of hardware that generates random passwords that you have to enter in addition to your regular password so that nobody can hack your account without the device). I can’t find my keychain. Now I’m really panicking: how did I lose my keys in my apartment? And if I don’t find it and my computer fritzes out, I won’t be able to access my Stars account!

So it’s 5 a.m., I’m pumped up full of coffee and adrenaline, I have a few minutes to find my keys, and I’m just turning my studio upside down. I wake up my girlfriend who’s bleary-eyed, confused, and asks what’s up. I’m too stressed and panicked to even take a deep breath and let her know, so instead I pretty much just start crazily uttering things like “I NEED TO FIND MY KEYS!!!!!!!” and “WHERE THE FUCK COULD MY KEYS BE?!?” and continue running around the apartment, basically scaring the shit out of her. Finally the tourney starts back up, I still haven’t found my keys, and I still can’t chat to suggest a chop. A chop probably would have been 300k minimum for me. I’d probably have taken it. Instead 5 hands later, I bust out.

So, cliff’s notes:

Brag: 170k in one day (which I believe is the most I’ve won in one day of my own money, but not sure)
Beat: Still can’t find my keys, so can’t log into FTP or Stars and can’t leave the house until I hear back from my super. Inability to chat probably cost me 100 grand
Variance: Everything in tournaments is variance LDO

And oh, yeah: I’d like to thank Ansky. I wouldn’t have even known about the tournament if the night before he didn’t mention it as his reason for not being able to make it to the movies. Glad I played

Last night in Vegas. I haven’t been playing much poker, mainly just working out/sweating friends to learn PLO/going out for nice dinners, etc. I was on a heater though: probably like 80k in 2k hands. And then this happened:

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Basically, one reg who was at the table was extremely drunk and the only other player at the table I recognized was Molswi. I then proceeded to make the nuts constantly, and pretty much stacked someone every time. Luckychewy and some friends of his were at our house to play basketball, and they ended up just sweating me since it was such an insane session. Every time I got the nuts they were more astounded than the time before, and the hilarity just increased as I kept stacking people. Here are some of the better hands:

Hand #1
Poker Stars $10000.00 No Limit Hold’em - 4 players - View hand 805451
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $29796.45
BTN: $29743.00
SB: $10123.45
Hero (BB): $20141.75

Pre Flop: ($150.00) Hero is BB with K K
1 fold, BTN raises to $325, 1 fold, Hero raises to $1125, BTN calls $800

Flop: ($2300.00) 4 Q 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $1400.00, BTN calls $1400

Turn: ($5100.00) A (2 players)
Hero bets $3200.00, BTN calls $3200

River: ($11500.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $7800.00, BTN calls $7800

Final Pot: $27100.00
BTN mucks Q K
Hero shows K K
Hero wins $27148.00
(Rake: $-48.00)

Hand #2
Poker Stars $10000.00 No Limit Hold’em - 5 players - View hand 805452
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $37782.45
SB: $10546.45
BB: $48588.00
Hero (UTG): $25505.75
CO: $17173.00

Pre Flop: ($150.00) Hero is UTG with Q Q
Hero raises to $325, CO raises to $1024, 3 folds, Hero raises to $3025, CO calls $2001

Flop: ($6200.00) 6 J 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $2736.00, Hero raises to $5472, CO raises to $14148, Hero calls $8676

Turn: ($34496.00) A (2 players)

River: ($34496.00) A (2 players)

Final Pot: $34496.00
Hero shows Q Q
CO mucks 9 J
Hero wins $34569.00
(Rake: $-73.00)

Hand #3
Poker Stars $10000.00 No Limit Hold’em - 5 players - View hand 805453
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $36332.45
CO: $24975.00
BTN: $31932.00
Hero (SB): $50483.25
BB: $22177.05

Pre Flop: ($150.00) Hero is SB with A A
2 folds, BTN raises to $325, Hero calls $275, BB raises to $2625, 1 fold, Hero raises to $4950, BB calls $2325

Flop: ($10225.00) T Q 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $5100.00, BB raises to $17200, Hero raises to $29300, BB calls $27.05 all in

Turn: ($44679.10) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($44679.10) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $44679.10
Hero shows A A
BB mucks 7 7
Hero wins $32654.15
(Rake: $-23.00)

Hand #4
Poker Stars $10000.00 No Limit Hold’em - 3 players - View hand 805454
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $43054.95
BB: $26448.00
Hero (BTN): $72533.30

Pre Flop: ($150.00) Hero is BTN with T J
Hero raises to $325, 1 fold, BB raises to $1025, Hero calls $700

Flop: ($2100.00) T J J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1400.00, BB calls $1400

Turn: ($4900.00) 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3800.00, BB raises to $7900, Hero calls $4100

River: ($20700.00) 5 (2 players)
BB bets $16123.00, Hero calls $16123

Final Pot: $52946.00
BB shows A Q
Hero shows T J
Hero wins $52970.00
(Rake: $-24.00)

View all 4 hands

The KK vs KQ hand was interesting because I sized my bets such that I wouldn’t be all-in on the river. Sometimes you just have to do that for metagame: because I’ll be bluffing on that ace a lot, I don’t want to bet so big on these boards with this action such that my range is polarized and I can get called down super light once that ace hits. Although I can’t play for stacks, I can protect my bluffing range for future hands

Unfortunately, I got creamed for 45k at 40/80 that night also, so I (”only”) cleared about 60k on the night, but I’ll take it. Just wanted to show you guys a sick 50/100 graph. Also, here’s the blooper: BB had been 3betting 75% and button had successfully 4-bet bluffed him 3 straight times, so to say that it’s highly likely nobody had anything would be understating the case for my rebluff. When BB jammed, I was getting 2:1 and almost called since he was pretty drunk (normally a great player, but he was definitely going off). Then I decided I’d been owned enough in the hand as is and cut my losses

Poker Stars $10000.00 No Limit Hold’em - 5 players - View hand 805459
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $27894.45
CO: $10098.45
BTN: $32597.00
Hero (SB): $31365.75
BB: $23892.50

Pre Flop: ($150.00) Hero is SB with *NOT A GOOD HAND* 2 folds, BTN raises to $325, Hero raises to $1125, BB raises to $2867, BTN raises to $4925, Hero raises to $6983, BB raises to $23892.50, 2 folds

Final Pot: $18891.00
BB wins $18941.00
(Rake: $-50.00)

Now Vegas is over: I’m in SF for a couple weeks before going back to NYC. Just back to coaching and grinding, same old same old

I landed in Vegas two nights ago. Krantz, Flawless, and Whitelime weren’t in town and I didn’t have our rental car two days ago, so I was bored out of my mind. I went to the Bellagio and played some 50-100 Badeucey because there were no NL games running. Badeucey, for those of you who don’t know, is a triple-draw split-pot game where half the pot goes to the best 2-7 hand and the other half goes to the best badugi hand. It was pretty fascinating and while I normally think I’m a fish in these kinds of games, in this case I saw a lot of poor play that made me think that the 3 regs playing weren’t particularly good. It’s always fun to play a new game and I may spend some time this summer trying to figure out these mix games.

Anyway, I looked around empty Bellagio poker room and decided to go play a $1,000 NL tournament. I would normally never bother with this, but again, there was nothing else to do. At dinner break the first day I picked up some food at Bellagio and planned on eating dinner while playing some 4-handed 25/50 NL with the 5k I had on me. My first hand I 3bet a UTG open from the BB and got a fold. The next hand I picked up AK, 3bet a UTG, and just when I thought I had the perfect table image to get paid off, I instead ran into QQ, ran it twice, and lost both. The next day I cashed and got eliminated very late in the day, so for my 2 days of sitting around on my ass I profited $2300, which didn’t even cover my losses from that 2-handed dinner session. Fun stuff.

Sitting around a casino, having to time your trips to the bathroom based on what position you’re in, sitting by smelly poker players. It’s all pretty brutal. I really can’t believe some people play live tournaments for a living. Given that once you’re in the money, for no real reason, you can’t even put your headphones in and have to listen to some random hyperfriendly but douchey frat boy tell all of the meme-iest poker jokes, the tournament experience just becomes more unbearable. So, given that I know all this and hate tournaments, I obviously registered for the $5,000 NL shoot-out today and busted.

Fortunately, I played some 25/50 NL at Bellagio and ran pretty well. After going to Lotus of Siam for dinner, I had a severe food coma and wanted to go home at the end of the dealer’s shift. The dealer then hooked me up with 77 on a 578 rainbow, which I played a 20k pot with and won, and then the next hand I opened with [CARDS OMITTED] UTG, got one call, and Peachy Keen called in the big. He donked three times on 5692Q flush draw board and I raised him from 3200 to 9k on the river with 11 behind. He tanked and folded, but either way I was on a little heater.

Lotus of Siam, by the way, is one of the true treasures of Las Vegas. It’s a mom-and-pop Thai restaurant with inexpensive food. The food is arguably the best Thai food in the entire world (or at least outside of Thailand) and it’s just pretty awesome that you can go get this insanely good meal at some random little restaurant in a small strip mall off the strip. They say that it’s the small spots that you find off the strip without all the glitz and glamor that really make Vegas a special place. I would say that that’s wrong and that the fine restaurants in casinos are more of a draw, but it’s definitely true that if you’re ever in Vegas you should check out Lotus of Siam

Enough railbirds have told me they miss my blog that, being a man of the people, I decided to stop being lazy and update ya’ll on what I’ve been up to. So here are some random developments in my life

-I’ve re-signed with DeucesCracked. I’m going to be making 48 videos over the next two years: making videos is a pain which is why I only made 8 last year, but DC made me a great offer and now I’m fully on board. 16 of the 48 videos will be DearFoxwoodsFiend vids, and the rest will be a mix of 6-max and HU across various different stakes

-I’ve been doing a ton of coaching. I have something like 20 1-on-1 students and I’d say I average working with maybe 7 students a week. It’s really draining combined with all the group coaching I’ve been doing

-As for group coaching, it’s been a mixed experiment: I’ve worked with 5 groups. One of them, a guy decided group coaching wasn’t for him after just 1 session. The other 3 have done 5 lessons with me already and we’re still going strong. In another, half the group switched over to 1-on-1 coaching because they decided they wanted more individualized attention and then the group disbanded. My third group I started off with just 3 players and one of them dropped out. And my final group is relatively new and we’ve done 3 sessions together.

My take on group coaching is that I started off without a clear plan of how to keep everyone engaged and without a real program: we just did a lot of sweat sessions. I think the initial groups broke down because I wasn’t putting in enough effort. But my more recent groups have been very productive and I’m starting to get the hang of handling so many students. And let me tell you something: it is A LOT of work. Gameplanning for 4 different groups while answering any HH questions that any of my group students and 1-on-1 students send me feels like a (VERY EASY) full-time job. I’ve got another couple of groups I’m about to form and I think I may have to reduce the 1-on-1 workload because I’m worried I’m just spread too thin

-As for poker, it’s been going really well. I’m up roughly 120k in only 50k hands and a lot of that has been at low stakes. My EV bb/100 is 9.5 and, if it weren’t for one 40/80 session where I inexplicably just tilted off 50k after making one wrong thin call, I’d be crushing (of course, you can’t cherry pick your stats: they reflect how you play and, at the moment, I’m still having trouble adjusting to losing: I lost so rarely back when I played pre-law school and then I took 6 months off of thinking like a poker player that I find losing to be way more frustrating than ever before)

-I’m learning PLO! I spent a week getting a primer on how to play PLO from Flawless_Victory: let me tell ya: I’m insanely lucky to be great friends with the guy. I feel like in one week he basically gave me a shortcut to understanding the game that saved me months of work. It’s so fun learning a new game: I’m grinding 5/10 up to 25/50 (if the game’s good). Not only are there always games running, but the feeling of being a noob again and having to challenge myself with a new form of poker is invigorating: these days, when I show up to work and start playing poker I actually enjoy it. It’s a feeling I haven’t had in a long time

-Finally, and this one pains me to say, I’ve become somewhat of a bumhunter. Now, that’s not to say I’m not playing the very good players: I’m just not playing them whenever they sit in against me like I used to. I’ve played HU with Observer84, KPederson, Halozination, takechip, and (on a few occasions) I Win Flips. Not exactly a soft lineup. But I’ve sat out against quite a few good players. My reasoning is twofold:

a) I hate variance. It sucks, because I also hate game selecting, but I’ve decided that looking back at it, even though I made a lot of money playing tough opponents heads-up, from a life EV perspective the times I lost a lot made much of my playing not a good idea. HU fucks with your head: losing streaks sap your confidence, and you start questioning your play. The stress, worry, and general pissed-off feeling I get after losing 6 or 7 buy-ins just isn’t worth it. I’m sure this will change as I start playing more HU and getting back into the swing of things (I’ve only played 22,000 hands of HU NLHE this year), but for now I’m game selecting

b) Relatedly, since the competition is so tough, it just always seems like I have something better to do. Back when I wasn’t studying PLO or coaching that much, the only way I could make money was by playing whoever would play me. Now, I just have better options than multitabling vs. LarsLuzak or someone equally good and getting into a high-variance pissing contest. When am I going to learn PLO if I quit my sessions every time somebody sits in to play 50/100 NLHE? Those guys will all be there later, they’re not going anywhere, and I don’t feel the rush to play them. Additionally, while coaching is very good money and it’s irrational to link the coaching to my play, if I coach for 6 hours, make 5 or 6k (with some 1-on-1 mixed in with my groups), and then play somebody and drop 20k, I just feel like shit. Coaching’s hard work and it’s hard for me to not think I did it all for nothing, even though that’s obviously not the case

I still play regs HU if I have no other games going or aren’t coaching and I”m not burnt out from playing already, but that’s more and more rarely the case. Plus, when you add in all the work I’m putting into RapGenius.com, my time’s just spread too thin and the HU matches are the first to go. With that said, in the spirit of intellectual honesty, I’m sure that in a month or two I’ll be taking on all comers once again as it is irritating sitting out a lot and saying “I’ll play you some other time, but not right now” over and over. In fact, I’ve tentatively scheduled a 50/100 match vs Observer84 tomorrow just because I feel like challenging myself

All said though, my return to poker has been awesome: I’ve been bringing in the kind of money from coaching I had wanted to, I got a great deal from DC, and I’m up money in poker while discovering a new game. Life is good

From earlier today. Once I 3bet this hand, I don’t think it can possibly play out any differently. While maybe some players wouldn’t play this hand this way and try turning their hand into a bluffcatcher on the river, I think that this is pretty obviously the right river line

Full Tilt Poker $25/$50 No Limit Hold’em - 2 players - View hand 565969
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: $11842.25
Hero (BB): $7070.50

Pre Flop: ($75.00) Hero is BB with 6 6
BTN/SB raises to $150, Hero raises to $550, BTN/SB raises to $1200, Hero calls $650

Flop: ($2400.00) 9 3 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets $1050, Hero calls $1050

Turn: ($4500.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: ($4500.00) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $4820.50 all in, BTN/SB requests TIME, BTN/SB calls $4820.50

Final Pot: $14141.00
BTN/SB mucks A Q
Hero shows 6 6 (a full house, Threes full of Sixes)
Hero wins $14140.50
(Rake: $0.50)

Anyway, here’s all my hands from my main laptop last month. I played some on another computer and was up ~20k on there.

Group coaching’s been going well: I’m going to finish up my 2nd week before blogging my thoughts on it. It’s definitely been interesting

Life is good: I’m running hot at 25/50 and 10/20 with a bit of PLO mixed in. I’m up roughly 100k in 8k hands and am swoll on FTP. I’m trying to figure out whether to keep the money on FTP so I can play 50/100 or spread it out across Stars and UB so I can get more games. Tough decisions. I played tcorbin at 25/50 yesterday and lost about 25k. I played somewhat poorly but for the most part I feel like my timing was unlucky in some spots and I didn’t make too many hands, so I’m not really stressing it. He’s definitely a lot better than I expected him to be, but I’ll be playing him again soon

For now, I’m in NYC to celebrate my birthday with my college friends so I’m not going to be at the tables for the next few days

Another big day at 10/20. 6,000 hands and 35k so far. And just to prove that this isn’t luck at all and that my results are perfect indicators of my skill, here are a couple of hands that did not involve any luck whatsoever

Full Tilt Poker $10/$20 No Limit Hold’em $3 Ante - 6 players - View hand 546476
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $4102.00
CO: $5604.00
BTN: $6094.00
SB: $4522.50
BB: $4464.00
Hero (UTG): $6561.50

Pre Flop: ($48.00) Hero is UTG with K A
Hero raises to $80, 3 folds, SB calls $70, BB raises to $340, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $800, 1 fold, BB raises to $1420, Hero raises to $6558.50 all in, BB calls $3041 all in

Flop: ($9020.00) A 5 3

Turn: ($9020.00) 7

River: ($9020.00) 7

Final Pot: $9020.00
BB shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Sevens)
Hero shows K A (two pair, Aces and Sevens)
Hero wins $9017.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Full Tilt Poker $10/$20 No Limit Hold’em $3 Ante - 6 players - View hand 546478
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $3842.00
MP: $4700.00
CO: $4017.00
BTN: $4561.50
SB: $3635.50
Hero (BB): $10059.00

Pre Flop: ($48.00) Hero is BB with 9 8
1 fold, MP raises to $65, 1 fold, BTN calls $65, 1 fold, Hero calls $45

Flop: ($223.00) T 7 6 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $150, BTN folds, Hero raises to $620, MP calls $470

Turn: ($1463.00) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $1120, MP calls $1120

River: ($3703.00) A (2 players)
Hero bets $8251 all in, MP calls $2892 all in

Final Pot: $9487.00
MP mucks K T
Hero shows 9 8 (a straight, Ten high)
Hero wins $9484.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Full Tilt Poker $10/$20 No Limit Hold’em - 2 players - View hand 546480
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN/SB): $7067.00
BB: $4089.00

Pre Flop: ($30.00) Hero is BTN/SB with K 7
Hero raises to $40, BB raises to $160, Hero calls $120

Flop: ($320.00) A 5 4 (2 players)
BB bets $260, Hero raises to $610, BB raises to $1180, Hero raises to $6907 all in, BB calls $2749 all in

Turn: ($8178.00) 9 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($8178.00) T (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $8178.00
Hero shows K 7 (a flush, Ace high)
BB shows 5 4 (two pair, Fives and Fours)
Hero wins $8177.50
(Rake: $0.50)

That last one looks bad, but the amount of action this guy was giving I actually raised the flop to induce a 3bet so I could jam over the top. Instead he happened to have two pair: who’d have thought people actually make hands in HU?

Back when I was playing nosebleeds and 50/100 was my regular game, I would get bored at 25/50. 10/20 was way too small to concern me and, I’m ashamed to admit, my ego probably wouldn’t let me play so low. Now that I’m grinding my online roll, I’m realizing what a huge mistake I made: 10/20 NL is AWESOME. The competition is worse (not terrible, the games are definitely tough but there’s a big difference between 10/20 and 25/50) and the stakes are so small that it’s impossible to tilt or worry about how I’m doing; I never stress about decisions, I don’t check HEM during sessions ever, and I’m just playing poker without worrying about anything else. Of course, I’m also running well: 24k in 3300 hands so far. But by far the best thing about 10/20: there are always games. It’s like I was getting bored of poker because I could never get any action and the swings would affect my mood and the whole time the answer was right there; a constant supply of games to play that I could make a good amount of money playing. While I’m still looking to get enough money online to play 25/50 on every site, I like to think I’ve learned my lesson; from now on, I’ll play 10/20 whenever I feel like playing poker. It’s been a while since I’ve had this kind of enthusiasm about poker…

Recently, Krantz and I have been discussing the idea of doing group coaching; he’s had a fair amount of success with it and some other DC coaches have experimented with the concept, and everybody seems to like it. I’ve been coaching a lot lately and I’ve come to realize that a lot of the points I make or concepts I discuss keep coming up with each of my students. It seems that most winning regs have similar playing styles and leaks and that I cover the same ground over and over; so it seems that the benefits of coaching are scalable. People can learn by discussing poker even if they’re not the ones actually playing; given that there are a lot of people out there who may not be able to afford $650/hour for my coaching, I figure if I could provide coaching to 3 or 4 people at a time, charge them all a more affordable rate, and still ensure that they’re all benefiting from the coaching as much as if they had individualized sessions, then it would be a win/win scenario for everybody involved.

So, I’m going to start offering group coaching. The program would have the following features:
1) You and 3 other poker players would form a group that I work with for 2 hours every week. In between meetings, we would all have a group Skype chat open; any time I or a member of your group is grinding (or waiting for action) and you want to pick that person’s brain, you can feel free
2) The sessions would vary week-to-week, but the goal would be to have a program of study to make sure that people are constantly working on new aspects of their game. One week we would do a group sweat session where one of us plays and I give feedback and moderate a discussion of the play. Another week we would look at a recorded session that somebody played earlier on and breakdown the person’s play. Another week we would all bring hand histories we wanted to discuss to the meeting and I would moderate a real-time Dear FoxwoodsFiend-style hand history analysis. Eventually we’ll have classes on 3-betting and 4-betting, how to play in 3bet pots, and other common problems in poker that people may feel uncomfortable with

I think that, even though I’m charging less, the instruction per student will be even better than through individualized coaching; even if we’re not discussing how you play every session, every concept discussed and new trick learned is something you can incorporate into your game. And being able to learn from multiple fellow poker players and discussing issues you may not have thought of that your fellow students bring up can only help your poker game. I really do think learning poker will be a lot easier in a group setting and I’m very excited to start working on this. If you’re interested, email me at foxwoodsfiend@gmail.com, or PM me on 2plus2 or DeucesCracked (FoxwoodsFiend). And in case my 5 months off for law school have led you to forget how sick I am at poker, here’s some graphs of my results the last two years (keep in mind I exercised practically no game control and played way more world-class opponents than fish over the last year):

My stats last year:

My graph since January 2008:

Since last I posted, it’s been a bit quiet on the poker front: I’ve been doing pretty well at 10/20 HU over a very small sample size: some player whose name I recognized 4-tabled me and I took about 14k off of him; I was playing very good poker and running pretty well. This morning I saw a short-stack specialist I’ve played against in the past and played some 100/200 vs him; it didn’t go well, i lost 3 shortstacks (4k each), and was getting ready to call it a day when I got a new opponent at 10/20. I played, won 7k, and he left. That’s the cliff’s notes, but who cares about 10/20 results right? Instead, I’m going to show you a hand that I think illustrates very nicely the idea of working through an opponent’s range and perception of your range and how they relate to the board texture.

Full Tilt Poker $10/$20 No Limit Hold’em - 2 players - View hand 536784
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN/SB): $11048.00
BB: $2080.00

Pre Flop: ($30.00) Hero is BTN/SB with 9 9
Hero raises to $40, BB raises to $140, Hero raises to $380, BB calls $240

Flop: ($760.00) K 7 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $320, BB calls $320

Turn: ($1400.00) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($1400.00) K (2 players)
BB bets $1380 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $1380

Final Pot: $4160.00
Hero shows 9 9 (two pair, Kings and Nines)
BB shows 8 T (two pair, Kings and Sevens)
Hero wins $4159.50
(Rake: $0.50)

Now this is not an easy river call; my opponent is likely jamming every better hand for value and there are a lot of combinations of full house and flushes he could have, so I had to think to myself what my hand looked like to him and what his range was. My range here was very wide: I’d been 4betting a lot because my opponent had a 32% 3-bet percentage and did not often 5-bet bluff. Because of this, I would 4bet him very wide for value with hands that are very playable postflop that make good top-pairs such as JQ and TJ as well as pocket pairs that I thought dominated a lot of his mid-suited connectors such as 88 and 99.

Now, as a result of my wide 4-betting range, I thought that he would bluff the turn a lot of the time and when I just call, my hand sure looks like it’s got some showdown value. A hand like 99 or AJo (which I would definitely call the turn with against this opponent). So I wasn’t quite sure what level villain was on; would he try bluffing me off a marginal made hand? The river made his value range significantly wider; while it made combinations of Kx less likely by putting another K up, it also made the backdoor flush so now any hearts he may have would be jamming: yes, it’s a double paired board but that second K actually reduces the combos of Kx I can have, so if he has a flush he should jam because I may call with a hand like 99 and very rarely have him beat (especially if he assumes, which he should, that I would jam a 7 but may call with a rag K on the turn since the 7 is less likely to be drawing dead vs his value bet/call range than a hand like KJ would).

So the river seemed to make him more likely to bluff because he could rep a flush as well as a full house, but it also increased the chance he had a better hand than mine. So I had to start thinking about what his range was. His 3bet percentage was 33.3 and his fold to 4-bet was only 30.8, so that means he had 60.2% of the top 33.3% of hands in his range for continuing against a 4-bet; that means about 20% of hands. But since he jams most of his big hands, we can discount those. Now it so happens that he 3bet/called with suited connectors on a few occasions and I hadn’t seen him 3bet random Ax hands, so his 20% of hands range was more skewed towards middling cards and suited Ax than just Ax. This is important because it vastly increases his bluffing cards; if he had A9 (non-spades and non-hearts) he probably wouldn’t lead the turn because he’s got showdown value and few outs if called whereas people semibluff more when they have outs. So the drawy nature of the board combined with the fact he could have TONS of draws that he’s leading with made me think he was bluffing.

When the river made the flush, I figured he could easily have me beat, but I didn’t think he would play spades any different from hearts; he would probably go for the check/raise on the flop and then double barrel me. Since there are more combos of spades than hearts (there are 3 hearts out and only 2 spades), I figured that even if I gave him a 7 or K for a full house from time to time all those spades combos would neutralize his hearts combos. And since if he can have a 7 it would have to be a suited connector and he would thus be able to have hands like 45, 58, 9T, 8T, etc., there were just too many combinations of possible bluffs for me to fold getting better than 2:1. So, I called and won. Yea!

EDIT: One last point; in analyzing this hand, I misread the hand history and thought I had checked the flop. This confused me because I remember at the time thinking that I could rule out a K because he’d have check/raised the flop with it (I’d seen him c/r JQ on Jxx after calling a 4bet so assumed he would do the same with a K), so at the time I played the hand I (obviously) realized I’d bet the flop but when analyzing it I just had a brainfart. I think everything in my original post is still true except for the part “I probably have a hand with some showdown value but not enough to bet the flop.” Thanks to Andy for catching that